“Tell them before he does,” said Joss.
She was sitting up on her cot with a heel of the Keep’s bread in her hands. The fever had gone out of her face in the night, and she ate like someone who had been starved for a week. She did not look at the bread while she talked. She looked at Calen.
“Tell who?” asked Calen.
“The Board. Sarne. The clerk with the wax.” She tore off a piece and chewed it slowly.
“Whoever reads my file. Tell them what I did before he stands up and reads it for me in his nice voice.”
Calen sat down on the next cot. The morning light came through the window that did not shut. Outside, someone was splitting kindling in the yard, one blow at a time.
“Why?” he asked.
Joss swallowed. “Because I am tired of being counted,” she said. “That is all. I am tired of a man reading my name out of a book, and getting the sum wrong, and me having to sit there and nod.”
