Sect Year 2 · eighth month · day 14 · the Three Willows post relay, the Qingliu road
The Three Willows post stood where the road forked around a stone trough. Three willows had been planted on the south side to mark the crossing, and they had grown tall enough to shade the trough and not much else. The post-keeper’s wife sold cold millet in clay bowls to anyone who came in off the road with dust on them, and she didn’t ask where they had come from. Her stable had a roof that leaned toward the east, as if it were listening for something down the road.
The rider came in at midday on a grey horse that had been ridden hard. He wore a warden’s patched coat with a green cord knotted at one wrist. He didn’t get down until he had looked over the carriers in the yard, one by one, and then he looked at Lin for longer than he needed to.
“Lin Cang?”
“Yes.”
“Then this is yours.” He held out a packet bound in oiled cloth. “Plain wax. Thumbprint. She said you’d know the thumb.”
Lin took it. The wax was dark and whole, with a print pressed into it, a short wide thumb with a scar across the knuckle. He had seen that thumb in wax once before. He put the packet inside his coat, against the jade slip, and for a while he only held it there through the cloth.
