On the afternoon of Day 112, with five days leftover on her seven-day Quarter lock, Kezra Venn climbed the rear stone stairs of the Northern Berm carrying her ordinary land-mapper’s field pad, a stick of black carbon graphite, and a small brass sighting ruler. Her legs were steady once more, the post-exchange dizziness having subsided under Paxa’s regime of salted broths, warm compresses, and enforced rest.
Atop the broad, thirty-foot granite crest, the wind blew clean and cold from the north. He carried the scent of high-sky frost. The castle wall was eight paces wide along its walking surface, paved with heavy cut flat stone slabs and protected on the northern edge by a three-foot stone breastwork that the ancient survey corps had cut to divert spring floodwaters.
Sitting on a low cedar camp stool near the central flag-mast was watchwoman Cressa. Her wounded left forearm and shoulder were locked still in Paxa’s snug canvas sling, bound firmly across her chest. But her right hand held a four-foot ash pointing rod. Her dark eyes were bright, fierce. Then she entirely focused on the four young growers standing before her in heavy wool smocks. Tomic, Vane, a seventeen-year-old girl named Lyra, and Martin’s grandson Elan.
