Sect Year 2 · seventh month · day 6 · Tenwell, the inn yard
The runner came in before the sun was over the roof of the cattle shed. He was a lean young man on a lathered grey horse, mud to the thigh, with a leather satchel buckled across his chest. He asked the yard for the one who walked before he asked for anything else, and the stable boy pointed at Lin with a rake.
“Post for Lin Cang,” said the runner. He slid down stiff-legged and held out a packet sealed in plain wax. “From the fork. The keeper says it’s from home. He says he’s sent it on at his own expense. He expects a thank-you, and I’m not to say he asked for one.”
“Thank him for me,” said Lin.
“I’m not going back that way.” The runner looked at the grey horse, which was blowing and shaking its head. “Two days from the Azure Stream gate with it buttoned inside my coat. Don’t ask me to do it twice.”
Lin took the packet. The wax was whole. On the front, in a hand he knew better than his own, someone had written his name in small upright letters with no tricks in them. The hand did not lean forward or sprawl. It was straight and plain. It had kept the record every night since the road out of Azure Stream, and it had never once written down a thing it didn’t mean.
