Sect Year 6 · fourth month · night of day 7 · the sixty-first life: the gatehouse, his sixty-first year
The merchant came up the raised stone road as the mist was thinning, with two mules and a boy to lead them and a coat of dark wool that had been brushed that morning. He was a broad man with a careful voice. He stopped at the boards and took off his hat, and Idun saw at once that the hat had been chosen for the occasion.
“One crossing,” the merchant said. He held up a purse so that the coins inside shifted with a soft sound. “Paid on the step. You’ll find it is more than the bar is worth.”
“The bar isn’t worth anything,” Idun said. “That’s why it can’t be bought.”
“Everything can be bought.”
“Not the ones who are ready.” Idun kept his hands on his knees. “Your heel is still on the other side of the water. Coin doesn’t pull it across.”
The merchant’s jaw worked. He weighed the purse in his palm, as if it were a thing he might still take back, and then he set it on the step. He drew a second thing from inside his coat. It was a folded paper sealed in red wax.
