Sect Year 5 · first month · day 28 · the Registry lodging, Sarn quay
The grey light came off the water before the bell. It found its way in through the one window of the lodging room and lay across the quilt in a flat sheet, then across the boards and the foot of the bed. Lin lay still and let it reach him.
For a while he didn’t know which quay he was on. He knew the smell, salt and tar and the wet bite of old rope, and he knew that the bed was too short for him, as every bed on the packets had been too short. Then his right hand found the cord by the pillow, and the rest of the room came back to him all at once.
The bell-rope hung by the door on its iron hook, tarred hemp with a knot at the end for a guest to pull. He hadn’t gone to it in the night. He had reached for it without knowing, and his fingers had closed on the rope where it ran up the wall beside the bed. The rope was cold. When he tightened his grip it hummed, a low thread of sound that went up through the bones of his wrist and into the joint of his elbow.
