Iven’s own workshop was colder than he remembered.
He had been away from it for less than two days. The cold belonged to an older absence: the stove not lit, the kettle empty, no patient little accumulation of work waiting for his hands. He held the lamp above the bench and looked at the place as if he had come to collect the tools of someone who had left without telling him.
His freight interval was tomorrow morning. Nessa had found the unused personal equipment entry and asked whether he intended to send anything under it. He had nearly answered that he would deal with it later.
Then he had remembered telling Ossel to trust the route card and Fia not to lose the place her tools belonged.
He set the lamp down.
There was a carrying box beneath the bench. He pulled it out, shook the dust from the lining and began with the things he actually used. The gauge he carried every day stayed in his belt. The larger square went into the box, wrapped against the saw teeth. Spare awls, small files, a hand drill with its handle polished by years of his grip. The stone on which he sharpened his good knife.
