Sect Year 4 · twelfth month · day 16 · the Qingliu river pier, then the valley road
The Grey Heron came up the Qingliu reach on the first grey light. The river took her from the sea the way it always did, all at once. The swell went flat under her keel, the water turned from green to brown. The smell of the valley came out across the reach to meet her: wet stone and woodsmoke, and the sweet rot of the reed-beds on the far bank. Lin stood at the bow and breathed it in until his chest ached with it.
The pier-master came down the planks to meet the lines. He was a short man in a leather apron, with a Registry wax-tablet under one arm and a pencil behind his ear. He checked Lin’s papers against the seal on the packet before he would let him onto the gangway. He read the papers twice, looking up each time at Lin’s face as though to match it to the ink.
“Tathra,” he said at last. “Nobody goes to Tathra in winter.”
“The packet goes on the first day of the year.”
“Does it.” He turned the paper over, as if the back might say something different. “Then you’ll be on this quay on the first day, sitting on your bag.”
