Sect Year 4 · twelfth month · day 16 · Azure Stream Sect, the outer gate. The record room at dawn on day 17
The last of the lane was steep and running with water. Lin climbed it with his hood up and the horse’s ears laid flat against the rain, which had found the gap at his collar and stayed there. The lamp above the Outer Court gate was the one he had seen from the river a hundred times, and someone had trimmed it that afternoon. That was because the flame stood straight and the glass had been wiped.
He got down at the foot of the gate steps and led the horse the rest of the way. The flags were slick. Water lay in the hollows that years of sandals had worn into the stone, and the boards of the outer gate were black with wet. He looked at the boards without meaning to. They were painted green, a dull green that someone had bought cheap and put on twice, and at the hinge side the paint had lifted in curls and showed the grey wood underneath. He couldn’t have said why he noticed it.
Gao Wen was sweeping. He worked a split-bamboo broom across the flags in short strokes, his bad leg braced behind him, the way he had swept for as long as Lin had known him. He didn’t look up when the horse’s hooves came over the stones. The broom came round Lin’s boots…
