Wren had rowed the witness’s chair across the Sallow water herself, because nobody else in the Hold could be trusted to keep it level, and because her shoulder had been aching since the spring and she had decided it could ache in the boat as well as anywhere else.
The Sallow Ford was the only place in the valley where the river ran slow enough to be crossed without a bridge. It had a flat ferry-deck of grey planking, a landing of wet stone at either bank, and a single rope strung from post to post across the brown water, as thick as a man’s arm and black with years of hands. The rope had been slack all season. The ferry had not carried a passenger since the Hold’s Ferryman had gone quiet, two summers gone, to free a seat for the grave-tender, and the rope had lain across the river like a sleeping thing, sagging in the middle, its ends tied off on old iron rings.
Now the deck was full. The Chamber stood on it in a line, the way the Roll had asked: Tallow at the front with the minute-book held against his chest, Tobin on the rail with his feet dangling, Brannoc at the stern with the gate-key on its cord round his neck, Korrin at the bow with the Hard Hands behind him, looking at the far bank as if it owed them money. Pell had come across on the second trip with a basket…
