The fifth morning brought the end of her confinement to the dry nook.
At the sounding of the dawn low-slack, when the water in the lower hypostyles had pulled back to its lowest mark, Qiao Ming stood before the hearth, cinching his leather cross-harness tight across his chest. His eight-sided lead line-weight hung at his right hip. His sixty-fathom knotted horsehair line was coiled neatly over his left shoulder. And his Folded brass star-compass was secured within its oiled breast pouch.
Beside the low table, Yan Zhiqiu stood fully dressed for her first expedition into the House.
She wore her mended indigo courier tunic, washed clean of salt-crust and void-ozone, its torn sleeves neatly hemmed with strong linen thread. Around her waist, her newly greased leather belt held her water-flask, her wooden case of soapstone pencils, and a leather metal tube containing twelve sheets of waterproof thick parchment. Under her right arm, pressed firmly against her ribs, she carried the Broken Slate, wrapped in a square of dry yak wool.
Her left arm was free of the sling, bandaged firmly with clean boiled linen that allowed her fingers full mobility.
Most importantly, her feet were fully bare.
She stood upon the soapstone flags of the entry hall, her pale toes curling slightly against the stone, her stance straight and balanced. Her heart was beating with a rapid, expectant flutter. Not the wild terror of a hunted fugitive. But the sharp, electric excitement of a scroll-keeper about to unseal a royal…
