Neri carried the last case downstairs herself.
It was not the heaviest. The heaviest had gone to the receiving yard the previous afternoon, where the freight clerk weighed it, charged her for the actual load and made her remove a loose tool that could damage the instruments beside it.
This case contained clothes, private papers and the small things she had chosen to carry when nobody was paying her to be useful.
At the foot of the stair, she stopped and looked up.
The rooms above held the table, the blue bowl and the box with its unequal drawer pulls. Their rent was paid through the next quarter. The landlord had the agreed instructions for airing, emergencies and forwarding letters. Nothing had to be sold in a hurry to prove that she was capable of leaving it.
Dessa’s home packet, posted after the convoy’s arrival and received in Caldrin on the thirty-third, lay copied in her case. The originals had gone into the letter box upstairs. Dessa and Jem were home, the retained Stonewake rooms were sound, and Lett had been paid for the checks. The window catch had been replaced at the correct size.
Neri had been disproportionately pleased by that last detail.
