For the first hour after supper on the third evening, Daro Kesh’s plan of disguise and intermediaries sounded like the only sensible course. Seyun sat at the kitchen table while the birch stove ticked softly in the corner. He drew a detailed map of Ash Reed Sect’s outer terrace courtyard from eleven years of daily memory.
He marked the stone registration desk inside the timber gatehouse, the slatted bamboo drying racks of the outer herb garden where he had raked stone silt every autumn. The raised auction platform where the heavy clay jars of reed ash were graded by terrace.
“If Mother Renn or an outside broker bids at the public stalls, you must skip the first-terrace white ash despite its fine grain,” Seyun instructed. He tapped the charcoal sketch. “The first-terrace vents run too hot and carry sulfur that irritates scarred lungs. The prime healing ash comes from the third terrace, harvested on the twelfth day of the settled mud cycle when the grey stone silt settles clean.”
“And how much silver will four pounds of third-terrace twelve-day ash cost if we send a broker to buy it quietly across three separate stalls?” Mina asked, pouring the hospice’s pooled coin pouch onto the table and counting the clipped silver pieces and copper cash.
