Sect Year 4 · third month · day 12 · the Wide Sea, the sixth night
The sky turned the colour of old pewter in the middle of the afternoon. Lin noticed it because the light went out of the water all at once. The long swell that had lifted the Carried Hour easily for six days began to come at her from the side instead. The boatmaster came aft along the rail with her coat open and her cap gone, shouting for all hands. Her crew ran past him to the sheets. Somebody dropped a bucket on the planks and did not stop to pick it up.
Lin buttoned the tide-book deeper into his coat, under the wool and against his ribs. There, the oilcloth would keep out the wet. Jiang’s copy of the writ lay beside it, stiff at the edges. He pressed one hand flat over both of them for a moment, then went to the rail. There, the sea was getting up.
“Tie on,” the boatmaster called without looking round. “The line’s in the locker. Use the long one.”
He found it on a peg by the hatch, a length of tarred rope that smelled of tar and salt. He passed it twice round his waist and once round the iron support post. He drew the knot the way the deck-hand had shown him on the first day, with a half-hitch under the standing part. His fingers were slow with cold. The left hand would not…
