Sect Year 3 · eleventh month · day 11 · the Span and the toll-house, Ammel Gorge
Steam was still coming off the rough brown horse when Su took the folded sheet from the courier’s oilcloth at the edge of the tribe’s ring of tents. He would give it to no one but the woman with the record, and he had said so twice.
The harbor post at Tarn Mouth had held the sheet back from the packet’s bag for a rider going up the Hesk road, and this was the rider. She read it standing, her back to the wind. Then she read it aloud, because Lin was beside her, and because she had never once read anything from the sect silently.
“‘The gate hinge is fixed,’” she read. “‘Gao Wen fixed it wrong. He says the wrong way is the one that lasts. The outer court is swept. Tell Su the ford women have been asking for her. Tell Lin the band is still on the bucket.’” She lowered the sheet. “That’s all. She didn’t sign it with her name. Only a tick.”
“A tick means she is still holding on,” Lin said.
“She told me that in the first year.” Su opened the record on her arm and wrote the note into it, word for word. Her hand was steady. Lin watched the ink go down in its neat rows until the small tick sat at the bottom of the page like a full stop.
