Sect Year 2 · seventh month · day 2 · the Qingliu fork post-house
The post-house at the Qingliu fork had one long room. A cooking fire burned at one end of it, and along the other wall ran a row of wooden pigeonholes, each stuffed with paper that had come up the road and was waiting for someone to carry it on. The room smelled of wet horse and lamp oil, and of the ink the keeper spilled every morning and wiped up with his sleeve.
It had rained all night on the tiles. Lin had lain awake through most of it and listened to the water run off the roof edges into a barrel by the door, one drop and then the next, until he couldn’t tell whether he was hearing the rain or only remembering it.
The keeper was a narrow man with ink on both cuffs. He flicked a bone counter along the edge of his ledger as he talked, as if every word had to be paid for in beads. “A carter came through yesterday,” he said. “Wouldn’t let me weigh his packet. Held it over his head and dared me to weigh it. It went on with the morning rider for the Azure Stream road.” The counter clicked. “There’s nothing else for you.”
