Sect Year 5 · fifth month · night of day 1 · the forty-ninth life: Orrel Lane, his fifty-second year
Pascoe had said the witness would look for a lit window from the road, so Garrow had the lamp lit and the wick trimmed high. It burned in the window over the yard with a steady yellow flame that threw his shadow against the far wall, a long bent shape with a blanket for a cloak. Rain ran down the outside of the glass and smeared the light. From the bed he could see the mouth of the lane where it met the shelf road, a grey gap in the wet. When he turned his head he could see the dark edge of the land where it fell away toward the river.
The chest was worse. He had expected that. It had worsened through the day in small steps, and every breath now had a catch at the bottom of it where the rattle began. He breathed carefully, the way the physician at the market had once told him to breathe when the cough first came, from the belly and not the throat. It helped a little. Not much. He didn’t mention it to anyone.
