Tessaly Mott counted her road in three ways, because a road that was counted in only one way could be argued with.
She counted it in miles, which were what the carters used and what the Coldharbour turnpikes charged for. She counted it in leagues, which were what the Lessary Road was measured in on the old Chancery maps, and which were always a little longer than anybody remembered. And she counted it in clauses, which were the only measure that had ever kept her alive.
From the toll-house at Lantern Ford to the river gate was four leagues of marsh road and two of causeway, and she had walked the last of it in the dark twice that week, with her cough bringing up the cold from her chest and her ledger-bags heavy on the mare’s saddle. She had decided, on the first night, that a factor who had come a long way to see a grain cargo through the gate ought to sleep beside the grain. The Hold had been generous with its lodging. It had not been generous with its trust, and she did not expect it to be. The grain was at the Ford under its tarpaulins, and so she was at the Ford too, in the cold stone toll-house that Lessary had built for collecting tolls on a road no one used any more.
