Sect Year 1 · fourth month · night of day 2 · the sixth life: Ashaw, his fourteenth year
The captain put two men on the yamen gate and two on the school wall. In the early afternoon he sent for Adeyn to tell him where the bowl-men had gone. He didn’t sit down to say it. He stood in the guard-house doorway with a cup of cold tea in one hand and his thumb hooked through his belt. His face had the look of a man who had been awake since the first bell.
“Gone to ground,” he said. “The wine-houses by the river. My men went down at noon and came back with cups.”
“Cups?”
“Every house on that water has a cup on every table, and every man at every table has his mouth shut. Two of mine drank, to be sociable. They said it was watered wine, and they were pleased with themselves.” The captain drank his cold tea and grimaced. “Nobody sold them anything. Nobody asked them anything.”
“They’re not drinking,” Adeyn said. “They’re watching who comes through the door.”
“That’s what I said.” The captain looked at the bandage. “How is the hand?”
“Still on.”
