The stable yard behind the lodging had one post in the middle of it. It was grey wood, as thick as a man’s thigh, and it had been there long enough for the horses to wear a smooth dip in the ground around its foot.
Calen had tied the cord to the post at first light.
It was braided iron, four strands wound tight, with a knot at the top that he had pulled until his own knuckles hurt. He had tied it the same way at the Keep. The knot did not change. Only the girl did.
A knot was a promise that somebody had made with their hands. Unbind did not fight the promise. It read the promise the way a clerk reads a seal, and it found the thin place where the promise had been pulled too hard.
Nell had asked him on the first morning why a seal was any different from a knot. He had told her that a seal was a name. A name could be read by anyone who knew how to look at it.
It was Day eighty-one. The straw smelled of horse and rain, and the sky over the stable roof was still pale.
