Sect Year 5 · fourth month · night of day 1 · the forty-seventh life: Hallam Ford, her thirty-first year
Oram Dray came back on the fifth day, as he had said he would. He came up the long room with his table under one arm and his case under the other, and he set the table down by the ward door without looking at the beds. The tanners’ row woman in the third bed was asleep. Her breath had slowed to a long rasp, like a saw drawn through soft wood, and the sisters had stopped turning her at every bell because she no longer seemed to feel it.
She had woken once that morning, when the bread came up. Nesa had heard her come up out of sleep the way a swimmer comes up through cold water, all at once. “My girl,” the woman had said. “She’s at the dye-works on the Ford lane. Tell her the surgeon came.”
“I’ll tell her what happened,” Nesa had said.
“That’s what I said.”
“Then I’ll tell her you asked for the surgeon,” said Nesa, “and that you held on until the bell.”
The woman’s mouth had moved in something that was nearly a smile. “That’s a better one than mine,” she said, and she had gone back under before Nesa could answer. The note had not sounded at all.
