Sect Year 2 · eleventh month · day 11 · the Qingliu fork post-house, the kitchen at breakfast
Breakfast was eaten at one long table under a hearth as wide as a cart bed, and the cook had stopped asking the carriers to eat in turns. They came in as they woke and held their bowls out in both hands. The cook filled each one from the pot without looking up and went back to her ladle.
The millet was thick and heavily salted, with a few dried beans stirred through it. Tian Mao had counted the beans out of his own bowl the night before, and he was counting them again now, under his breath, with his spoon in his fist.
Lin sat at the end of the table nearest the door, his back to the wall. He had slept badly and woken early, and the bowl in front of him had stopped steaming before he picked up the spoon. He took the spoon in his right hand. The left lay on the wood beside the bowl, closed about halfway, and he let it lie there.
Pei came in last, her hair still wet from the trough in the yard. She didn’t take a bowl. She sat down across from him, put her elbows on the table and looked at him over her knuckles, which was how she looked at a page she hadn’t yet decided to trust.
