Jora’s last consultation day began with a walk she had almost left out of her report.
The ward table had given her thirteen pages of objections, four corrected maps and a list of people whose invitations she had not yet answered. She could have spent day 1079 arranging those pages into a document that looked finished. Instead she put the unfinished document in her bag and went with Nava to the warm terraces above the lower return.
Nava carried a water measure. Tera Koss carried her own breakfast and a short staff polished by years of walking beside laden animals. Tavin joined them at the steps, his shoulder moving more freely than when Jora had arrived. He brought no map of a boat that no longer existed.
“You’re coming to inspect a vegetable bed?” Tera asked him.
“I’m coming to learn where the next flour sacks can wait without getting wet.”
“Better reason than most people have for visiting us.”
The path rose between stone retaining walls. On one side the canyon opened, pale in the morning, its separate working noises arriving at different times: a warning bell, a hammer in a sheltered yard, the low call of someone turning a team below. The river looked narrow from here. Jora knew how deceptive that was after fifty-nine days of learning roads by the weight they allowed a wagon to carry.
