On day 1142, the woman on the roof cut the survey line before Iven could catch it.
Its weighted end fell past the eaves, struck the cistern lid and vanished into the spill channel. The other end whipped through the fingers of the young surveyor holding it. He swore and stepped back from the house.
“That’s the third one,” he said.
“Then stop putting them over my roof.”
The woman had a sickle in one hand and a basket of wet laundry in the other. She set the basket down on the ridge tiles and began spreading shirts across the warm stone, taking care not to look at the surveyor again.
Iven stood in the narrow lane between two houses, a folding gauge in his right hand. The morning had begun with a straightforward job: measure the ground between the well-house and the proposed signal post so Neri’s team could draw a safe access route. The line would have crossed four yards and touched the edge of this roof. He had asked the first three households. The fourth had answered with a blade.
The surveyor retrieved the wet cord. “We have permission from the meeting.”
“You have permission from people who don’t sleep here,” the woman said.
