Sect Year 3 · eighth month · day 22, morning and the walk up toward evening · the stream path below the guest court
Tang Hengzhi had gone up to the Elders’ hall before dawn. He took the tin case of seals, the two guards who carried it in turns. The guest court’s best horse, because the Elders would sit at midday and the Registrar wanted his writ read before anyone at the sect had eaten. Jiang came out of the guest court at first light with one guard and a mule, to walk the bearer up to the gate by the upper road. The mist lay on the stream path below the court like wet wool.
She walked beside him now, as the Registrar had told her to do since the spring. She kept one step ahead of the mule and one step to his left, with the black book shut under her arm. The guard walked behind them with a hand on the mule’s bridle. The path ran beside the stream, and pines leaned over the water from the north bank. The stones at the edge were slick with spray from a fall somewhere above, so that the whole valley smelled of cold rock and wet needles.
