Sect Year 2 · second month · day 21 · the capital, the market road by the Archive gate
Ruo had given Lin a letter for the post at the Archive gate, and he took it because it gave his hands something to hold while the Wheel stayed silent. The packet was thin and sealed in the copy hall’s plain wax, addressed in her small square hand to a clerk at Lanfeng whose name Lin did not know. It was the second letter she had sent north in as many weeks. She hadn’t said why she sent two, and he hadn’t asked.
The market road was already loud when he set out. Carts came in from the river with coal sacks roped to their sides, and the drivers swore at the mules and at each other in the same tone. A bean-cake seller had a fire bowl going at the corner, and its smoke hung low over the stalls, sweet and scorched. Lin kept his left hand in his sleeve against the cold. The arm was still stiff at the elbow, and when he bent the fingers they carried the faint ache of a hand that had written for too long without rest.
