Lune spent three days in the shed, because measuring was what Lune did instead of waiting, and there was nothing else in the shed to do.
On the first morning Lune measured the floor. It was packed earth over a footing of loose stones, and the stones were not quarry stones. They were older and rougher and had been dressed on one face only, and when Lune pressed a thumb into the gap between two of them the gap was exactly the width of the rod’s iron binding, which suggested that somebody had once used the rod’s own kind of measure to fit them. Lune wrote the footing in the rod-book. Then, because the book had a column for names, and the footing was the only thing in the shed that had been made by a hand that was not Lune’s, Lune wrote the warden-captain’s name against it, and then, because it was a fair thing to do, wrote the name of the old culvert too.
Through the weft, faint as a bell heard across water, Lune could feel Ysra on the stake counting the causeway’s stones. One, two, three, the count came up the marsh in the Watch’s flat and patient voice, and it was the only steady thing Lune had heard since the gate. Lune counted with her, under the breath, and lost the number at the same place Ysra did, which was the place where the reeds were thickest and the paces stopped meaning anything.
