Sect Year 5 · second month · day 19 · the Point road, Ninth Knot Point
The Registry packet had come in on the morning tide. Lin heard the landing bell from the Loom’s upper room, where Su sat over the record with the lamp still lit, and she sent him down the Point road before the bell had finished.
“Count the boxes,” she said. “Bring the copy up. Sign for nothing you haven’t read.”
“I never sign for anything.”
“You will be asked.” She turned a page without looking at what was on it. “Count with your right hand. The runners’ numbers are never the same twice.”
The road ran down through the net-yards on the slope, past houses on stilts with their shutters barred against the wind. Over every door hung a Loom cord, grey or brown, each with a tag knotted into its end. To the eye they were only knots. To Lin they were a faint weight at the edge of hearing, like rain on a roof two streets away, and he let them be. He had learned that much on the Point. A cord pulled at a man who listened for it. He didn’t have to listen.
