Sect Year 2 · eleventh month · day 14 · the Qingliu fork post-house, the yard and the carter’s cart
Lin finished the letter on the fourteenth day of the eleventh month, at the board table under the back-room window. Meanwhile, the ridge was still grey and the river below the fork had not yet caught the light. It had taken him ten days to write something that would fit on the second sheet, and the sheet was not large.
The left hand had done most of the work. It shook at the start of every line and found the stroke on the second try, and by the last page it moved more slowly and more surely, the way a man walks a road he has walked before in the dark.
He read the letter through once before he sealed it. Then he read it again under his breath, the way Su would read it when it reached her, checking each line against what she already had.
Su. The count is thirty-one on Pei’s roll. Twenty-six came up with the Wastes road, and five came up the south road while I was in the valley. They are written on the wax in the order they reached the stove. Three more have asked to come up from the lower villages. I have not got their names yet, and I will not send a number I can’t put a name to.
