The walk from the Guildhall to the northern grave ward took them through the quiet orchards along the river terrace. The apple trees had dropped their fruit, their gnarled branches black against the pale lavender sky of dusk. A light ground mist was rising from the reed beds. It curled around the stone boundary markers that separated the city lands from the cemetery grounds.
The old stone chapel of the grave ward had been thoroughly transformed. The ruined roof had been replaced with clean timber roof beams of seasoned pine. The dark, narrow arrow slits had been enlarged into broad, glazed windows that looked out over the river. Inside, where thirty skeletal frames had once waited in silent rows for the chime of an iron bell, forty children and young apprentices were seated at desks, learning how to transcribe old cemetery registers and verify burial deeds.
Mirelle Voss stood on the flat stone slab porch, her ash-wood cane resting against the door post, a woolen shawl of deep charcoal gray pinned around her shoulders with a simple silver buckle. At sixty-eight, her hair was fully white, swept back from her high, lined forehead and pinned into a neat knot at the crown of her head. Her skin was weathered by thirty years of river damp. But her dark eyes were bright, calm, and untroubled.
