Sect Year 3 · eighth month · night of day 24 · the thirtieth life: a river county beyond the Wide Sea, his eleventh year
The steward had left his horse above the reeds and come down the bank on foot, leading it by the bridle as far as the wet ground allowed. He wouldn’t be seen to ride through the drowned. He stopped at the foot of the lantern-house steps and looked at the mats laid out along the water’s edge.
Then he looked at the slate in Imrin’s hands. The grey cloth was still tied over the lower half of his face against the smell of the bank, and the ledger under his arm stayed open at the full stretch of his arm, as old men hold a page when their eyes have begun to fail them and they have not yet said so.
“You are the boy with the chalk,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Read me the count.”
“It is not finished, sir. Nineteen so far, and the lanterns are still coming along the bank.”
The steward looked past him, along the top of the bank. Far off, a line of lights was coming down from the mill road one after another, slowly, as the drowned were carried. “Then I will wait,” Fen said. “I have not ridden out here to hear half a count.” He sat down on the lantern-house step with the book across his knees and the grey cloth pulled down under his chin…
