How to shoe a horse
Bel, a child at Three Wells. Written in autumn, after a day at the market. The smith shod a horse in the square, because the horse was too nervous to go to the forge. A crowd watched. This is what I saw, in order.
1. The smith brought a hoof stand and a bag of tools. She spoke to the horse in a low voice for a long time. The horse was a brown mare. She did not like the square.
2. The smith lifted a front foot, held it between her knees and looked at the hoof. She took out the old shoe with a pair of pincers. It came off with a clank.
3. She trimmed the hoof with a sharp knife. Not too much, and not too little. She said the horn grows like a nail.
4. She measured a new shoe against the hoof. It was too wide. She took it to the little fire she had lit on a stone and heated it until it glowed. She bent it on a block with a hammer. Sparks went up.
5. She held the hot shoe against the hoof for a moment. There was a puff of smoke and a smell. The horse did not mind. The horn does not feel it.
6. She cooled the shoe in a bucket and set it on the hoof. She put in the nails one by one, tapping each with the hammer. She bent the points over and filed them smooth.
7. She put the foot down. The horse stood and stamped. The crowd clapped.
She did all four feet. It took the morning. When it was done the horse nuzzled her ear, and the smith gave her a carrot.
After that a storm came over the hills and the market was packed up in a hurry. The smith stayed to put out her fire. She said a smith never leaves a fire.
I want to be a smith when I am grown. My mother says I will have to be taller.
%%
Keeping a good harvest in a wet house
Wren, healer, in the hamlet by the marsh. This year the potatoes came in like stones and the apples came in by the barrel. A good harvest is a gift, and it is also a problem. It has to be kept, and the marsh would like to keep it for itself.
1. Dry everything before it goes in. Spread potatoes, carrots, beetroot and apples on straw in the shade for a day. Wet roots rot.
2. Sort them. Anything cut, bruised or soft is eaten first. It will not keep, and it will spoil its neighbors. One bad apple really does spoil the barrel.
3. Raise the floor. A cellar in the marsh is damp. Lay planks on stones so the air can pass under, and spread straw on the planks.
4. Keep each kind apart. Potatoes go in the dark, in boxes, under straw. Apples go on shelves, one by one, with space between. Carrots and beetroot go in layers of dry sand. Pumpkins sit in a cool dry corner, not touching the floor.
5. Keep apples away from potatoes. Apples make potatoes sprout. The marsh folk say apples whisper to potatoes. I do not know the reason, but I have seen the sprouts.
6. Wheat goes in the loft, in sacks on a plank. Keep a cat there. A cat is the best store keeper in the land, and asks only for the mice.
7. Look and smell every week. A bad smell means one thing is going bad. Find it. Eat it, or throw it away.
8. Keep a list on the door of what is in which box and when it went in. The Archive keeps everything. So should you.
9. If a storm comes, look at the cellar floor first. Water comes in from below, not from above.
10. Share. A good harvest goes bad faster than a poor one, because there is more of it to go bad. Give a basket to a neighbor whose field did poorly. They will remember you in a poor year.
At the end of the winter you will be glad. Or you will be sorry, and wiser.
%%
How to keep eggs through the autumn
Marl, who sells eggs at Vell. House at the edge of the town.
1. Take only clean eggs. A cracked egg spoils the pail.
2. Rub each with a little lard. This shuts the shell.
3. Stand them point down in a box of dry sand.
4. Keep the box in the cellar. It must be cool and dark.
5. Turn the box on its side once a week.
They keep till Longnight. After that, eat them.
%%
Mending a net by the window
By Corin, Saltreach, written down for the Lowmarsh boats.

A net is mended in the light, so mend by the window and not by the lamp. Here is the way we do it on the quay.

1. Spread the net on the boards. Find every tear before you start, or you will mend one and miss three.
2. Cut out the ragged edge. A frayed thread pulls the rest apart.
3. Take a netting needle and fill it with twine. Do not fill it too full; a fat needle catches.
4. Tie the first knot to a whole mesh, not to a broken one. Two fingers from the tear.
5. Make each knot the same as the last. The old ones will tell you the size. Copy the old ones.
6. Work along the tear, then back the other way. Two passes hold where one pass slips.
7. Pull each knot snug but not tight. A tight net tears the next mesh along.
8. Wet the mended place and let it dry flat. If it holds wet, it holds.

The frogs in the reeds will watch you. That is all they do. Wren says a mended net is a good sign, and I say a mended net is a net.

Saltreach note: the big ships need bigger nets and more hands. If you can mend, come to the slip. Bring your own needle. We have twine.
%%
How to mend a net
By Sella, net maker at Saltreach

A net is easier to mend while it is dry. Lay it on a clean bench by the window. Pull out any weed, shell or old knot.

Find the first whole square beside the hole. Tie the loose cord to its corner. Use cord of the same thickness as the net. If the cord is too thin, the fish will find the weak place.

Pass the cord through the next corner and make a firm knot. Keep the squares the same size as the ones beside them. Do not pull so hard that the net draws tight.

Work from one side of the hole to the other. At each edge, tie the cord to a whole square. Then check the row with your fingers. A knot that slips will open when the net is wet.

Trim the loose ends, but leave a short tail at every knot. Set the net in the sun until it is dry. Then lift it by two corners. If the squares stay even, it is ready.

My apprentice made a fine net with one large square in the middle. It caught no fish, but it did catch his sleeve.
%%
How to build a small boat in a winter
Ivo, boat builder. This is for a rowing boat, eight blocks long and three wide, that holds four people and a basket. Built in a winter, it will be ready for the thaw. Four weeks if you work every day. Six if you have a family.

Wood. Oak for the keel and ribs, because oak does not give. Spruce for the planks, because spruce is light. Birch for the oars.

1. The keel. Cut one straight oak beam, eight blocks long. Set it on trestles, level. Check with a shallow dish of water. If the water gathers at one end, the beam leans.
2. The posts. Fix a stem post at the front and a stern post at the back, each leaning out a little. A boat with straight posts looks like a box.
3. The ribs. Make eight, one for each block along the keel. Cut them wider in the middle and narrower at the ends. Fix each upright to the keel.
4. The planks. Start at the bottom and work up. Each plank overlaps the one below it by a hand. Bend each as you go, with steam (see my note on bending a plank). Fix with iron nails.
5. The seams. Caulk every seam with rope fibre and pitch.
6. The seats. Three, across the boat, resting on the ribs.
7. The oars. Birch, as long as the boat is wide, with a leather band where they rest.
8. The launch. Grease the slip with pig fat. Push. Be at the bottom. Somebody should be.

People at the market ask me why I build small boats when Saltreach builds ships three times as long. I say a small boat is for fishing and for coming home. A boy asked me what a ship is for, then. I said I do not build ships.

A man asked me last week for a boat that holds twelve. I said I build for four. He said, then build three. I built three. I made each one as if it were to be kept for fifty years, which is how I make everything.

Rowing a boat you built yourself is the best thing there is. I say so to everyone. They nod. Then they ask about oars.
%%
Hearth notes for the two houses
By Sella, who keeps the hearth at the low hamlet past Lowmarsh.

We are twelve houses here, and the water is close, so everything is a little damp. A damp hearth smokes. A smoking hearth is not a bad hearth; it is a wet one. Here is what we do.

Every morning:
- Rake the ash flat. Do not scoop it all out. A bed of ash holds the heat all night.
- Lay the kindling in a little tent, not a heap. Air must get under it.
- Light it from the side, low down, where the draught comes in.
- Wait before you add the big wood. A fire that is rushed goes out.

Every evening:
- Bank the fire. Push the coals to the back and lay one big log over them, on its side.
- Close the draught most of the way. Not all the way. A shut draught makes smoke.
- Open the flue a finger's width when the wind is from the marsh.

The chimney wants sweeping twice a year, in Thaw and in Apple. Orin does ours for a loaf and a jug. Ask him early, before the frost, or you will be waiting.

Keep the wood off the floor. Two stones and a plank will do. Wet wood smokes and spits. Dry wood sings.

Torches by the door, always lit, one on each side. The night things do not care for a dark door.

My grandmother's rule, and I keep it: a hearth is not a place to put things. The cat may sit by it. The cat may not sit in it. We lost a good broom that way. The broom was not the cat's fault, but the cat was very pleased.
%%
How to clear spiders from a barn
By Marl, miller. Autumn is the time, for that is when the spiders come in from the cold.

Spiders in the barn are not wicked. They are only cold. But eight red eyes in the hay will frighten a cow and a child, and a spider in the grain sack is a poor surprise.

1. Wait for a clear day. Open every door and window.
2. Sweep the roof beams with a long broom, from the top down. Do not look up while you sweep. Dust is worse than spiders.
3. Sweep the walls. Sweep the corners twice.
4. Carry the sweepings out in a sack, and shake the sack in the far field. They will find a hedge.
5. Light torches along the inside wall, one every eight steps. A spider does not like a bright barn.
6. Check the hay. If a nest is in it, move the hay. Do not poke it.
7. Close the barn at dusk and let the torches burn down.

If you find a very large one, call a neighbor. Do not be brave. Last year Hob was brave and spent a night in the hayloft.
%%
How to Set a Honey Jar
By Sella, market keeper at Vell.

Linnet taught me to prepare honey jars when I was small. She said a clean jar sells before a dirty one, even if both hold the same honey. I believed her after I saw a fly land on the dirty jar.

1. Rinse each jar in warm water.
2. Set the jars upside down on a clean cloth.
3. Wait until they are dry inside. Do not wipe the inside with a sleeve.
4. Check the glass for a chip. Put a chipped jar in the broken glass box.
5. Pour honey through clean cloth into a bowl. Keep bits of wax out.
6. Fill the jars with a small cup. Do not pour from the heavy pot.
7. Wipe the rim, then tie on the cover.
8. Mark the price on a card and set it beside the jars.

At the market at Vell, I keep the jars in shade. The sun warms the honey and loosens the covers. Then the table becomes sticky, and every fly in the hall comes to visit.

Linnet says honey keeps well when the jar is closed and the shelf is cool. I keep one jar for my own kitchen. I write my name on its cover, because my brother says he is only checking the taste.

He has checked it three times this week. The jar is now half full. I have written his name on it instead.
%%
A Market Day with Linnet
By Perra, seller of wool at Vell.

Linnet asked me to help carry honey jars from Ambrook to the market at Vell. I brought two baskets and a folded cloth. She brought three baskets and no cloth. She said the cloth was on the mill pond bridge. It was not there.

We wrapped each jar in wool and set them between the baskets. The road was dry, and the waymarks were easy to see. At the market, we put the jars on the table in the shade.

Linnet checked every cover. I wrote the price cards. She told me to write the numbers large enough for an old man to read without moving his feet. One card fell into a jar of honey. Linnet fished it out with a spoon and made me write another.

The buyers came after the bread stall opened. A child bought a small jar with two emeralds and one bright apple. Linnet gave him the jar. She kept the apple. She said an apple was a fair price for a good question.

His question was, "Do bees sleep in winter?" Linnet said they stay close in the hive and keep warm. He asked if they snore. She said we should listen in Deepsnow, but not put our ears against the hive.

At noon we found a sick cow by the east gate. It had stopped eating and stood with its head low. The keeper sent for the healer and brought it water. Linnet moved her honey table farther away, in case the cow kicked. It did not kick, but it did sneeze into my clean cloth.

We sold the last jar before the market bell. I counted the coins while Linnet packed the empty baskets. She counted them again and found one emerald under the table. We used it for bread.
%%
How to dye wool the color of the hills
By Ree, grandmother, the house on the edge of Copperhold. Winter. She dyes wool every year for the school play, and for every costume in Copperhold. She says it takes patience and old pots.

You will need a big pot, a stick, a bundle of wool, some alum, and the thing you are dyeing with. Get the thing from the hills.

For brown: boil the husks of walnuts, or the bark of oak. Strong tea works too.
For yellow: boil dandelion flowers, or birch leaves.
For red: boil beetroot. The color is bright at first, then fades. If you want it to last, add a spoonful of vinegar.
For blue: boil lapis dust, if you can get it from the mine. It is dear. Hesk gives me a pinch at winter.
For green: dye the wool yellow, then dip it in blue.
For grey, like the hills in winter: boil a handful of coal dust and a handful of ash.

1. Wash the wool in warm water. Wring it. Do not rub it, or it will felt.
2. Fill the big pot with water and the dye stuff. Bring it slowly to the boil. Simmer for an hour.
3. Strain out the husks or flowers. Put the wool in the pot.
4. Keep it just below the boil. Stir with the stick every little while.
5. Leave it in until the color is darker than you want. It will fade as it dries.
6. Lift it out with the stick. Rinse until the water runs clear.
7. Hang it in the shade to dry. Not in the sun. The sun takes the color.

Use the old pot, not the good one. Dye does not wash out.

My granddaughter wears a coat the color of the hills. People say she looks like she has been sewn into the mountain. She is very pleased.
%%
Winter Shoes for a Horse
By Cass and Lio, keeper of the Copperhold cart horse.

The cart horse stays in the shed beside our house when the road is deep with snow. Its shoes must be checked before it pulls a load. A loose shoe on the hill is trouble for the horse and for anyone behind the cart.

Have the horse stand on dry ground. Speak softly and let it see your hands. Lift one hoof at a time. If the horse pulls away, set the hoof down and try again. Do not hold it by the tail. It does not help, and the horse knows why.

Brush mud and straw from the hoof. Look for a crack, a stone, or a bent shoe. Use the blunt hoof pick to clear packed dirt. Keep the point away from the soft center.

A shoe that sits flat and firm can stay on. If it is loose, call Lio. Do not hammer it while the horse is moving. Lio removes the old nails with iron tongs and keeps the shoe in a warm dry place. A cold shoe is hard to shape.

Lio checks the shoe against the hoof. He taps its edge on the anvil until it fits. He does not heat the shoe too long. The first time Cass watched, she stepped back from the forge and knocked over a bucket. The horse did not move. Cass did.

When the shoe is ready, Lio holds it steady and sets each nail through the hard edge of the hoof. The nail points come out at the side, far from the soft center. He bends each point down and files it smooth. Then he checks that the shoe does not rock.

Fit one hoof at a time. Give the horse a mouthful of carrot after the last shoe. Check its feet again after the first short walk. If a nail has moved, stop and call Lio.

Keep the shoes and tools out of the snow. The horse does not like waiting in the cold, and neither does Lio. Tam once offered to hold the hammer. Lio gave him a carrot instead.
%%
How to mend a wall after a creeper
Lay a wall the Lowmarsh way. Written after the creeper, for the boardwalk side.
What you need: cobblestone, clay for the mortar, a bucket of water, a level stick, and a helper who does not mind dust.
1. Look at the hole first. Do not start until you know how big it is. A creeper leaves a crater, not a neat hole.
2. Clear the broken stones. Keep the good ones in a pile by the path. Throw the cracked ones in the reeds.
3. Dig back to firm ground. The marsh is soft. Step on each stone before you trust it.
4. Lay the bottom course first, flat side down. Mix the clay with water until it is like porridge, not like soup.
5. Set each stone in the clay and press it. Tap it with the handle of the trowel. If it rocks, lift it and try again.
6. Check every course with the level stick. A wall that leans into the marsh will be a wall in the marsh by spring.
7. Work up to the top, and leave the last stone for the end. The last stone is the hardest. Put it in and stand back.
8. Let it dry for three days before the boardwalk takes any weight.
You will hear a hiss before a creeper blows. Use that moment to get out of the way. Then come back and mend the wall, and bring a torch next time.
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira
Summer, 198.

Mira,

I have to tell you about the horse. Pell's horse. Barley.

Pip and I borrowed it. Only for the day. We said we would bring it back by the evening grain, and we did, mostly.

Here is what happened. The top field was cut and the sheaves were out, and the cart was at the barn, and the wheel had gone. So we took Barley to the mill with the tally board tied behind. That was fine. Barley is a good horse. Slow, but good.

Then Pip saw a child in the beetroot. Small, red-faced, running for the hedge. It was Bel, from Three Wells. She had walked all the way out to see the hives and got lost in the long field. She said she was not lost, she was exploring. She said it very loudly.

So we put Bel up behind Pip on Barley, and Barley took us home without being asked. He knows the way. He knows it better than Pip, who was still arguing about which hedge it was.

Pell got his horse back and a beetroot and a girl. He says it was a fair trade. Barley got the evening grain and a good brushing. Bel got a scolding from her mother by relay, which she says she could hear all the way out from Three Wells.

The mill wheel is fixed. The tally board is home. Pip has learned to shut the gate behind the horse. I have learned to ask Pell before I borrow. Everybody learned something, which is a good summer.

Your brother,
Tam

P.S. The windmill still squeaks. I have stopped noticing. Pip has not.
%%
Notice: the winter fair at Three Wells
By Dace, mayor.

The winter fair is on the fifteenth of Longnight in the square, round the three wells. Stalls go up at dawn and come down by dark. Bring a lamp; the corners are lit but the middle is yours.

Rules, few and plain:
1. Hot food only from the bakery side. The inn keeps the drink. No fires on the cobbles except in the iron baskets.
2. The bell rings at noon for the children's race and again at dusk to close.
3. Nothing is sold before the bell or after it. Pell will tell you the same, and Pell is right.
4. Any wool, honey or beetroot left over goes to the school house for the Longnight boxes.

We need: six people to set the baskets, two to mind the well ropes (ice on the handles), and someone with a steady hand for the door of the school. Bel has painted the door already. She says it is a fox. It is mostly a fox.

The road from Kettle Ridge will be gritted by the mill. The road from Ambrook is slower; the bridge plank is fixed but the sluice is not to be opened, so keep to the bridge.

If it snows hard we move to the inn of twelve beds and the fair is smaller and warmer. Bring a jar of honey if you have one to spare. The fair is better with honey.
%%
How to mend a net
By Mira, relay keeper at Northpoint, who learned it from a net mender at the market. Written for a farm outside the town that keeps a small net for the stream. Autumn.

You need a needle made of wood or bone, a ball of twine, and a good light. The light at the window of the farm kitchen will do.

1. Spread the net on the table. Find the hole.
2. Trim the broken knots until you have a clean square edge. Do not leave loose ends.
3. Load the twine on the needle. Wind it round and round until it is full.
4. Tie the twine to the corner of the hole with a firm knot.
5. Pass the needle through the next mesh. Pull the twine tight, and tie again.
6. Work round the hole, mesh by mesh, until it is closed.
7. Keep the meshes the same size. Use a flat stick as a gauge. Slip it through each mesh to see that it fits.
8. When the hole is closed, cut the twine and tie it off.
9. Pull the mended place. It should hold. If it does not, take it out and begin again.

A mended net is a small thing. It is also the difference between fish and no fish.

Market day tip: bring a mended net to market and show it. A net mender will tell you if it is good. If it is bad, he will tell you that too.
%%
How to keep the shipwright's hearth
Kept at the shipyard at Saltreach, on the wall by the big hearth, by Corin's wife, Mary, who has kept it for twenty winters. The hearth heats the shed where the boats are steamed and bent. If it goes out, the wood will crack.

What you need: dry oak, split small. Dry birch for the kindling. Coal for the long nights, the black kind from the Copperhold carts. A bucket of sand. A poker with a good hook.

1. Each morning, before the first worker arrives, open the damper halfway. Sweep the ash from the front of the grate. Put the ash in the bucket, not on the floor.
2. Lay the birch kindling in the centre. Light it from underneath with a taper.
3. When the kindling catches, add the small oak, a few pieces at a time. Do not smother the flames.
4. When the oak has a good red glow, add the coal, a handful at a time, on top.
5. Close the damper to a quarter. The hearth will roar for an hour. Let it.
6. At noon, check the bricks. If they are warm to the back of the hand, the heat is in the walls. If they are cold, add more oak.
7. At dusk, bank the fire with sand over the coals, but not too thick. A bank of sand keeps the heat all night. A sand bank too thick smothers it, and you will have to start again in the dark.
8. Leave the damper a crack open. Do not close it all the way. A closed damper on a bad night has given a man a splitting headache before now, and Corin has never let him forget it.

When the fire is banked and the shed is quiet, sit down on the bench by the wall and listen. The bricks will tick as they cool. That is how you know the shed is holding its heat, and that the boats will bend in the morning.
%%
How to make the sea song for the contest
Written by Mary at the Saltreach quay, for the choir of fishers' wives, who asked for it when they were beaten by Frostmere at the winter contest. Read the whole of it before you sing. The steps matter more than the words.

You need: four singers, a leader, a fire, a long night, and a pot of hot fish broth.

1. Choose the leader. The leader is the one who knows the first verse. If nobody knows it, the leader is the one who will not be ashamed of forgetting it.
2. Practise the refrain three times, standing up. Do not sit. Sitting makes the voice go thin.
3. Divide the verses. The leader sings the first and third. The others sing the second and fourth, and everyone sings the refrain.
4. Make a clear beat with the hand on the table. Keep it the same all through, even when the fire is loud.
5. Sing the first verse slowly, so the listeners can hear the words over the sea.
6. Sing the second verse a little faster, as the waves do when the wind comes up.
7. Hold the refrain longer than you think you should. The people in the room will want to join in, and you must give them space.
8. In the last verse, drop the voices, one by one, until only the leader is left. Then the leader stops. This is the moment that wins.

Frostmere sang a very good song last winter, with a great many words. Mary says it was too many. The judges could not sing it on the walk home, and the judges must always be able to sing the song on the walk home. That is the test.

Keep it short. Keep the refrain strong. Make the room want to sing with you. Then leave the last note to the sea.
%%
A Wall Beside the Hen Yard
By Tam of Kettle Ridge

We built the wall beside the hen yard after the hens learned to visit the beetroot field. They ate the small leaves first. Then they stood in the field and looked surprised when we asked them to leave.

Mark the line with stakes. Keep the wall straight, unless the ground has a reason not to be straight. Clear grass and loose dirt from the base. Lay broad cobblestone first, with the flat faces outward. Fill the middle with smaller stones. Do not leave large gaps for a pig to push its nose through.

Set each upper stone across the join below it. A wall that has all its joins in one line is only a row of stones waiting to fall. Pat the stones with the handle of a shovel. If one rocks, lift it and add a smaller stone beneath it.

Build two blocks high beside the hens. That is high enough to keep them in, if Pip remembers to close the gate. It is not high enough to keep Pip's hat out. The hat fell over the wall three times during the building. The third time a hen carried it away.

Leave a place for the gate. Hang it so it opens inward. The hens push against doors, and a gate that opens toward them gives them a better idea.

We worked from morning until the windmill stopped squeaking for lunch. Pip said the wall looked crooked. I told him to stand at the far end and look again. He did. Then he said it looked less crooked.

After the wall was done, the hens stayed in the yard. The beetroot stood untouched for four days. On the fifth day, Pip left the gate open while carrying water. The hens did not waste the chance.

I have added a hook above the latch. Pip can reach it, but he must look up.
%%
A Wall Against the Wind
By Cass, orchard keeper, Copperhold.

The back room faces the mine hill. Its old wall lets in a thin line of cold near the floor. Here is how I patched it before the first hard snow.

First, clear the loose stones away. Keep the good cobblestone in a heap. Sweep the dust from the gap. If you leave dust, the new stones will sit crooked.

Lay the largest stones along the bottom. Turn each one until it rests without rocking. Fill small spaces with smaller stones. Do not build a tall thin row and hope it will stand. I tried that when I was young. It fell on my boots, which were new.

Build the wall one row at a time. Check each row with a straight board. Let the stones cross the joins below. A join should not run straight up from the floor to the roof.

Mix clay with water in a wooden bowl. Press it into the gaps with a flat piece of wood. Wipe clay from the stones before it dries. My sister says I leave more clay on my sleeves than on the wall.

At the top, fit the last stones snugly beneath the beam. Leave no loose stone where a child can reach it. Tap the wall with your knuckles. A hollow sound means there is still a gap.

Then light the hearth and sit near the wall. If you feel no cold on your ankles, the work is good. If you feel cold, do not blame the wind. Check your clay.
%%
Minutes: the spring market committee
Taken by Sable, at the mill.

Present: Sable the beekeeper, chair. Jory the miller's son. Ida the baker from Three Wells. Pell the merchant. Halla from Saltreach, by letter. Tam from Kettle Ridge, by letter. Nine others.

The chair opened by reading the rules of the green: stalls face the bridge, awnings before sun-high, money counted twice.

The first business was the fence. Pell's stall and Ida's stall share the fence on the west side of the green. Pell says Ida's awning leans on his fence and cracks the posts. Ida says the fence is on the boundary and was there before Pell's father and she will lean on it if she likes. There was a quarrel. I will not write down every word of it, but it went on for some time and the whole green heard it.

The chair ruled: the boundary is where the boundary stone says. The stone says the fence is Pell's by a hand's width. Ida's awning does not lean on it. Ida said some things about the stone and then sat down.

The second business was the well. Roan, who keeps the school, said the east well has a loose stone and a child put a foot in it. The committee voted to fix it before market day. Jory's son will bring cobblestone from the mill wall.

The third business was the honey. Sable said the bees are out early and the hives are full and there will be honey for the fair. Everyone was pleased. Then Tam's letter was read.

Tam wrote from Kettle Ridge. He says the wind is wrong this spring and the beetroot is slow and his apprentice Pip will bring the first crates to the market with the beetroot. He says the relays are quiet and the letters up the north road are not answered. He says Corin's big ship is still at Saltreach and half the harbor is asking where it will go.

Halla's letter was read next. She says the same about the ship. She says her man Pad was out past dark last night and his was the only lamp on the water, and she mended his net in the morning and he did not say how it tore.

Pell said the north road is quiet and the Copperhold carts say the Deep Works hums. The committee did not know what to do with that and so did nothing.

The chair closed the meeting. Market day is set. The fence is settled. The well will be mended. Nobody spoke about the lights after Pell brought them up, and that is the last word on it.
%%
Mend a net
By Corin, at the Copperhold hamlet.

Moss brings the torn net to the bench before breakfast.
First, we shake out the mud and bits of reed.
Then we spread the net flat, with the torn place toward us.
We tie the loose ends together with a square knot.
We copy the old mesh, one knot at a time.
Do not pull too hard. A tight knot draws the next hole small.
When the tear is closed, we hang the net by the shed to dry.
The fish can wait until the net is ready. They have never learned to hurry.
%%
How to mend a net
By Halla, Saltreach, for the quay.

Nets come home torn and nets go out whole. Mending is done by the window light, sitting, with the net over your knees.

You need: the net, a shuttle wound with twine, a mesh stick the width of your finger, and a knife.

1. Spread the net and find every tear. Run your hand along. Do not start until you have found them all, or you will mend one and put your hand through another.
2. Cut away the frayed edges clean. A frayed knot will not hold.
3. Tie the twine to a sound knot at one end of the tear.
4. Hold the mesh stick against the gap and loop the twine round it. This keeps every new hole the same size as the old ones. A net with big holes catches nothing and lets the small fish go, and small fish are tomorrow.
5. Work along the tear, knot by knot, pulling each one firm. Not tight. Tight cuts the twine.
6. Tie off at the far end and cut the tail.
7. Hang the net and look through it at the light. Holes show.

Mend in the morning if you can. Twine is easier in the hands when the day is young, and the light is better by the window.

My father mended nets on this quay for thirty years. He said a net is a promise to the fish. You say: I will be here. The fish answer: we will see.

Corin's big ship took the slip again last month. Three times as long as any boat. They built it slow and the whole quay came out to watch the launch. It did not go out fishing. When I asked the mate where it was bound he said "across" and turned away and looked at the water.

Pad came in late last night. His boat was out past dark and his lamp was the only one on the whole harbor. His wife had the fire high and the door open. He said the fish were deep and the wind was wrong. I mended his net this morning. It had a tear you could put your head through. He did not say how.
%%
How to clear a flooded cellar
Written by Mott, for the inn at the Oak Post and for any farm that has the water come in. Spring, the week after the flood.

The water came into the cellar at night. It stood up to a man's knee in the morning. The barrels floated and bumped the walls. The apples in the bottom rack are all gone, except for four, which Sella ate herself, in spite of everything.

You will need: two buckets, a rake, a long pole, a board to stand on, rags, lime, a broom, and a helper who can carry without complaining. Dib, the apprentice from Vell, is a good helper. It carries without stopping. It does not complain, and it does not look at the water.

1. Open the cellar door and the vent, to let the air move. Do not go down with a lamp until the air is clear. Flood water leaves a bad air behind, and a lamp can make it worse.
2. Stand on the top stair. Look down. Count the barrels. Every barrel that is floating must come out first, because a floating barrel will crack against the others.
3. Take the barrels out with the pole. Roll them up the stairs, one at a time, on the board. Dib carries the sacks. The barrels go to the yard to dry.
4. Bail the water with the buckets. Pour it out into the drain at the back of the yard. Do not pour it into the well. Sella says the well is for drinking, and she will know if you do.
5. When the water is low, go down. Rake the mud off the floor. Mud sits in the corners and goes sour. Get it all.
6. Scrub the walls with the rags and clean water. Then spread lime over the wet stone. Lime dries the walls and keeps the mould away. It smells sharp, so open the vent again.
7. Let the cellar air for three days. Then bring the barrels back in, and check each one for cracks. Put the cracked ones by the door to be mended.
8. Put the apples back last. Lay them on dry straw, one row at a time, with the bad ones at the top so you see them first.

The cellar at the Oak Post took five days. Mott worked for all five, and Dib worked for all five, and at the end of it Sella came down to look at the walls and said nothing, which was the best thing she could have said.
%%
Guide: mending a net at Lowmarsh
By Wren, healer at Lowmarsh. Written down for Moss, who tears more nets than fish.

A net is a good thing and it does not want much. My father mended nets on this same boardwalk and I mended them beside him. Here is how we do it.

What you need:
- A needle of bone or oak, as long as your hand.
- Twine, soaked an hour in water first. Dry twine knots badly and slips after.
- A net board, or two posts, to hold the net open.
- A stone to sit on. You will be here a while.

The work:
1. Spread the net on the board. Find every hole, not just the big ones. Run your hand along the lines.
2. Cut away the broken line, back to good twine on both sides.
3. Tie the new twine with a reef knot. Pull it tight. If it slips, the knot was wrong, so tie it again.
4. Copy the mesh beside the hole. Same width, same drop. Do not make it bigger to save time. The fish will find the one big hole.
5. Go round the hole twice with the needle, in and out, the way the old line went.
6. Pull each stitch snug as you go. Loose stitches wear first.
7. When the hole is closed, rub a little beeswax on the knot. It lasts longer.

The frogs come out while you work. They sit on the posts and watch. Nobody knows why.

Dry the net after mending, on the frame, out of the sun. Never fold a wet net. It rots in the fold and you will be back at the board with me next week.

Moss, the child who ran off last Swarm was found at the fish weir at dusk, up to the knees, counting frogs. If you see a small head in the reeds, that is where to look first.
%%
How to keep beetroots through the winter
By Marl, miller of Kettle Ridge, who is not a farmer but has eaten a great deal of beetroot. I asked Tam to check this. He added two lines.

Beetroot is the food that keeps a ridge alive. It grows well in cold, and it keeps better than most. But it keeps only if you keep it right.

1. Lift the beetroots before the first hard frost. Use a fork, not a spade. A spade cuts.
2. Shake off the loose earth. Do not wash them.
3. Twist off the tops, one hand above the root. Leave a finger's width of stalk. Eat the tops, or give them to the pig.
4. Let the roots dry in the barn for a day. Spread them out. They should not touch.
5. Make a bed of dry sand in a wooden box. A hand's depth. Lay the first roots on it, not touching.
6. Cover with sand. Lay the next row. Cover again. Do this until the box is full.
7. Put the box in the cellar. Cool, dark, dry. Look in on it once a month.
8. Take out any root that has gone soft. One bad one will spoil the box.

Beetroot treated so lasts until Sowing. The last of ours was eaten in the third of Thaw, with a good deal of butter.

Tam's additions: One. If a spider is in the box, it is a guest. Two. Do not tell Pip the beetroots are for the pig. Pip takes things quite seriously.

I have added a third. The cellar door should be shut. Last year it was open, and a cat spent the winter in the box, on top of the sand, looking comfortable.
%%
How to make a costume for the school
By Ree, grandmother, the house on the edge of Copperhold. Winter. For the children who are to be the fox, the goose or the old oak in the school play, and for whoever has to sew it.

A costume is only a coat that tells a story. You do not need much.
For a fox: an orange wool coat, a tail of rags stuffed with straw, and two pointed ears cut from felt. Rub a little soot on the nose.
For a goose: a white shirt, a paper beak held on with string, and two paper feet. The feet are the hard part. She will trip.
For the old oak: brown cloth, green rags sewn on for leaves, and a child who is willing to stand still. Prop up the arms with sticks.
Sew it on the night before. Have a spare thread ready. Something always tears on the stage.
%%
How to read the rails
Hesk, winter, for the hands going down the Deep Works for the first time.
Down here, the rails are your way home. Learn them.
Every eighth rail is a powered rail. A redstone line runs beneath it. A cart on a powered rail picks up speed. A cart on a plain rail will slow and stop.
So if you are riding down, you will go fast on the powered ones and slow on the plain. You will feel it in your teeth.
A torch is set every eight steps on the left going in. When you come out, the torches are on your right. If you ever find the torches on the wrong side, you are going the wrong way. Turn round.
At a fork, look for the paint. Red is the way to the lift. Blue is the way to the sump. Yellow is the way to the old walls. Never take yellow.
If a cart stops and you do not know where you are, sit down. Do not walk. Light a torch. Shout, once, and wait. Someone will come. They always do.
If you run out of torches, go back by the rail. Follow it with your hand. It will lead you out.
Once, a hand went down in Leaffall and missed his turn. We found him two days later, two hundred blocks from the lift, sitting calmly by the rail with a torch. He said he had been counting the ties. He had counted four thousand.
Never go below without telling the board. Write your name. Rub it out when you come up.
%%
The low wall by the tool shed
By Corin, at the Copperhold hamlet.

The tool shed stands beside the path to the mine hill. Its wall was low enough for a pig to nose over, and the loose stones rolled under the door. We built a new wall in spring, before the grass hid the ground.

I laid the tools out first: a shovel, a mallet, a line, and a basket of small stones. We chose cobblestone from the sorting shed and put the flatter pieces on one side. The wall must be wider at the bottom than at the top. A tall thin wall is a poor place to lean a ladder.

Fen had joined our work crew two days before. She was new to the hamlet and new to building. Hesk told her not to hurry. She took this as an order to ask one question after every stone. By the second row, she was asking better questions than I was answering.

We marked the wall line with the cord. Then we dug a shallow trench along it and packed the earth firm with the back of the shovel. We set the largest stones in the trench, flat side down. We kept each stone close to the last one, with no long crack running from one row to the next.

The next row went across the gaps in the first. We filled the spaces with small stones and checked the top with the cord. A wall that leans can look straight from one end and crooked from the other. We stepped back often. Fen held the cord while I set the stones. Hesk said the cord was straight. Fen said Hesk was standing crooked. We moved Hesk.

At the shed door we left a gap wide enough for a cart. We set two deep stones there as posts and laid a flat stone across them. The top row stuck out a little on the outside, so spiders would have less hold. We did not make the wall so high that a person could not see over it. Nobody wants to fetch a tool by climbing a wall.

We poured water on the packed earth and pressed it down with our boots. Then we carried the spare stones back to the shed. Fen counted them and found one missing. It was under Hesk's stool. He said he had been sitting on it to test the wall. Fen said the stone was still missing from the pile.

That evening the new wall held the wind and the pigs. We ate bread on the bench beside it. Fen found the missing stone and put it at the end of the row. It did not fit. We all tried it, then put it in the garden bed instead.

A miner from the upper stair says the humming has stopped. Another says it only stops when people listen for it. Hesk says no one should go down past the old sump until the mine hall gives word. He says it is a rule, not a rumor. We left the lower path clear and went home before dark. At the gate, the torch burned low, so Fen trimmed it.
%%
Note: laying a hedge
By Tam, Kettle Ridge.

A hedge is a fence that grows. It keeps the wind off the beetroot and the pigs out of the wheat. Lay it in Sowing, before the sap is up.

1. Cut the young oaks and birches to knee height. Do not pull them. Cut them clean and they will grow back thick.
2. Set the posts first. One every four paces. Oak posts. Push them deep.
3. Between the posts, weave the cut branches in and out, the way you weave a basket. Push the ends down into the soil, not up into the air.
4. Pack earth along the foot. A hedge with air at its foot lets the wind through and is no hedge.
5. Lay the north side first. That is the side the wind comes from. Let the south side grow tall and loose.
6. Trim the top flat with the shears, once in Sowing and once after Swarm.

Keep a torch on two posts along the north side. Not for the hedge. For the foxes, so they stop and think.

My mother laid the hedge on our top field. It is forty years old and the wind still bends at it. She said a hedge is the slowest thing on a farm. You plant it for someone you will never meet.

I have been laying the north hedge since Thaw. The wind has been odd this spring. It comes from the wrong side some mornings, warm when it should be cold. Old Pell says it is nothing. Pip says the bees are out early. The bees are out early. The hedge does not care. It grows the way it always grows, and I trim it flat, and I wait for the beetroot.
%%
How to find water on a dry hill
By Opal, well digger, written out for the market at Vell, where the young men ask her about wells every winter and then argue with the answer.

Water is under most hills. The trick is finding the place where it comes close to the top. Here is how.

1. Walk the hill in the rain, if you can. Watch where the water runs off, and where it does not. Ground that soaks the rain up fast is not the place to dig. Ground that stays wet for a whole day is the one.
2. Look for green reeds growing in a line. Reeds like their feet wet. A line of them, even on a dry hill, means water is walking under the grass.
3. Listen at dusk. Frogs gather where there is water to gather in. If you hear a chorus from the bottom of a slope, there is water at the bottom, and perhaps a little further in than you thought.
4. Dig a test hole with a spade. Make it no wider than your arm. Dig until the soil turns dark, or until the sides of the hole begin to sweat.
5. If the bottom of the test hole is damp, you are close. Stop there. Do not go on deeper without a plan for the wall.

The fee for finding water is one jar of honey, and nothing else. A well-finder who asks for emeralds has not found much water in her life.

Opal
%%
How to keep the ice house cold
Written by Toby, for the families at Northpoint who keep food through the short summer and the long winter. Summer, the hottest weeks, when the ice is running out.

You need: a deep pit in the cool side of the hill, lined with stone, a thick door of oak, a bucket of straw, a sack of snow, and a long pole.

1. In winter, cut the ice from the lake in blocks as big as a man can lift. Carry them to the pit on a sledge, and pack them in the bottom, one on another.
2. Cover each block with straw as you go. Straw keeps the cold in and the warm out, and it is cheaper than a second block.
3. Close the oak door and bar it. Do not open it on a warm day. Every time the door is opened, the warm comes in and sits on the ice.
4. In summer, open the door only at dawn, when the air is coolest. Take what you need in one trip, and close the door again at once.
5. Pack the snow you kept from the drifts into the top of the pit, and cover it with the last of the straw. The snow melts slowly, and the water runs out at the bottom through a small stone channel.
6. Check the channel every week. A blocked channel floods the pit, and then the ice goes soft, and then there is nothing to keep.

Toby says the ice house is the only thing at Northpoint that is always cold, even in the hottest week. He says the children come to it like bees to a hive, and that he has never once had to send them away.
%%
How to dry herbs
Wren, healer, in the hamlet by the marsh. Summer is the time. Everything that grows is ready at once.
1. Pick in the morning, after the dew has gone.
2. Do not wash them. Wet herbs go moldy.
3. Tie them in small bundles. A big bundle rots in the middle.
4. Hang them upside down in the dark. Sun takes the smell away.
5. They are dry when they snap. Strip the leaves into jars and label every jar.
%%
Keeping a hearth through a winter night
By the innkeeper of the Kettle Inn, for the Long Road inns.

A hearth that has not gone out in twenty years is a boast, and this is how you keep it. It is not hard. It is only that you must not forget.

1. Bank the fire before you sleep. Push the coals to the back and lay two dry oak logs over them, close together, with a little air under. A tight fire sleeps; a loose fire dies.
2. Close the draught but not all the way. A hearth needs a breath, like a sleeper.
3. Keep the ash. Ash holds the heat. Clear it out only once a month, and keep a bucket of it for the garden and for the ice on the step.
4. Never throw water on a banked fire. If it smokes, open the draught and wait.
5. In the morning, stir the ash first, then the coals, then add the small wood. Big wood on a cold hearth is a waste.
6. Sweep the chimney at Leaffall. A chimney full of soot is a chimney waiting to burn the roof.
7. Keep a dry store of wood indoors and a big store out. Wet wood makes smoke and smoke makes a chimney full of soot, and you know what that is.
8. A hearth is not a place to dry your boots. It is a place to dry your boots a little. There is a difference and the difference is smoke.

The Halfway Inn has kept its fire twenty years. I have kept mine nineteen. I do not speak of this.

Winter guests: the door sticks in the frost, so lift it. Wipe your feet. The cat has the warm chair and will not move for you.
%%
How to lay a low wall, before the rain
Bel, a child at Three Wells. Autumn. The mason who built the wall by the school showed me, one market day, while a storm gathered. I was not allowed to touch the stones. I watched very closely.
You will need: stones, a spade, a string, a plank for a level and a bucket of clay. Dry weather is best. Rain is the enemy of a half-built wall.
1. Mark the line of the wall with a string between two stakes. Dig a trench along it, a hand deep. The wall sits in the trench. Without it, the wall will walk.
2. Fill the trench with small stones, packed tight. This is the footing.
3. Lay the first course. The biggest and flattest stones go here. Set each one so it rests on two below it, never on one. A stone on one will rock.
4. Fill the gaps behind with small stones and a little clay. The heart of a wall is as important as its face.
5. Lay the second course. Cover the joints of the first. If two joints are one above the other, the wall will split along them.
6. Each course should lean a little back. A wall with a lean stands for a hundred years. A wall straight up and down is proud and falls.
7. At the top, lay a row of flat stones across the wall. This is the cap. It keeps the rain from the heart.
8. Check with the plank and the string as you go. Walk away and look at it from across the road. Your eye is the best level.
The mason said the wall by the school was built the day before a storm, and they covered the top with sacks at night to keep the rain off. It stood. The wall of the town, which is cobblestone, cobblestone, deep stone, with the top row stuck out one block against spiders, was built on the same plan. He says it is a good plan.
That day the storm broke before the cap was on. The mason ran to cover the wall with a sheet. I helped. We got very wet. The sheet kept the rain off. The mason said I had earned my first lesson.
%%
Dyeing wool
By Moll, tutor at Three Wells.

Wash the wool in warm water. Pick out every leaf and burr. Do not pull the knots tight.

Set a pot by the well. Add water and a handful of beetroot tops. Bring it to a slow boil. Do not leave the pot alone. Last summer I left mine to fetch a spoon. The water boiled over and dyed Dace's clean apron pink.

Put the wool in. Turn it with a smooth stick until the color is even. Lift it out and rinse it in cool water. Hang it in the shade.

Keep the beetroot tops for the pigs. Keep the pink apron for Dace.
%%
A lesson with the roof
By Moll, tutor of apprentices.

The drill yard was wet after two days of rain. Water ran from the boards and gathered by the tool rack. The children stood in a row under the eaves while I showed them how to mend a roof.

First, take down any loose glass or clay. Set it on a blanket, not on the ground. A cracked piece can cut a foot. Then climb the ladder with a basket of sound pieces. Keep one hand on the rung.

Start at the lowest edge of the roof. Lay each piece over the one below it. The next row covers the join. Work across, then move up. Keep the rows straight. Leave no gap for rain.

That is what I taught. Then I set out the drill boards and asked the apprentices to fetch the sound pieces. One brought the blanket. One carried a basket of clay. The third brought every loose piece from the shed, including the broken ones. I had not said which roof, and I had not said which pieces were sound.

The basket split on the stair. Clay fell into the rain barrel. The children laughed, though the apprentice did not know why. I stopped the lesson. We dried the drill boards and sorted the pieces by hand.

In the afternoon we mended the school house roof together. We found a loose plank under the eave and a nest of dry grass. We left the grass in the hedge for the birds.

A woman at the bakery said the cough from Lowmarsh came with the wind. A fish seller said it came with the boats. Neither had been to Lowmarsh this season.

The roof held through the next rain. I will teach the lesson again, with one roof and one basket named clearly.
%%
How to line a well with stone
By Opal. Read it before the stones are delivered, not after, because after is too late.

You need: stones of one size, flat on one side. Clay, wet and sticky, from the bottom of the test hole. Gravel for the ring at the bottom. A rope, a lantern, and a second person who is not afraid of the dark.

1. Start at the bottom, in the water or just above it. Set the first ring of stones on a bed of gravel, flat side down, so the ring sits level.
2. Bed each stone in wet clay. Press it home with the heel of your hand. Do not hit it with the spade. A stone that is hit does not forgive you.
3. Build up in courses, a ring at a time. Stagger each stone over the joint of the one below, the way a good wall is built, so the weight goes down and not sideways.
4. Leave a small gap at the foot of each course, a finger wide, so the water can come in from the ground. Do not seal the gaps. A sealed well is a dead well.
5. Check the level with the plumb line after each course. If a course leans, take it down and start the course again. It is less work than fixing a leaning course later, which is no work at all, because it has fallen in.
6. Wash the stones with clean water before you set them. Dirt in the joints is the start of a bad smell, and bad smells are the start of a bad year.
7. Stop the top course a hand's height above the ground. Lay a lid on it, and a little wall of earth round the lid, so the rain runs off and does not run in.
8. Pull the lantern up. Look down. The inside should look like a neat stack of cheese, with the water at the bottom like a small dark coin.

If you have done it well, nobody will notice the well at all. That is the highest praise a well can get. Nobody notices a good wall until it is gone.

Opal
%%
Rules for the Vell Honey Stall
By Dace, mayor of Three Wells, copied for the market at Vell.

These rules are for a clean and fair honey stall. Linnet of Ambrook asked me to write them after a jar leaked on the market board. The board has dried. The writing has not all returned.

1. Put the stall where the keeper can see the goods and the buyers can pass without pushing.
2. Set the table on level ground. If a table rocks, fold cloth under the short leg. Do not use an empty jar as a wedge.
3. Wash the jars and dry them before filling. A wet jar spoils the clean work.
4. Check each jar for a crack or chip. Put broken glass in the covered box by the west door.
5. Keep honey covered while you carry it. At the stall, keep it in shade.
6. Write the price on a card. Keep the card beside the goods, not under them.
7. Do not leave a spoon in the honey bowl. A clean spoon goes back on the clean cloth.
8. Keep the bees calm. Do not strike at them or wave a coat.
9. If honey spills, wipe it up at once. A sticky patch draws flies and makes the floor hard to walk on.
10. Count the jars before the market opens and after it closes.

Linnet says the jars should stand in rows of four. She says four are easy to count, and she can tell at a glance if one has wandered. The baker says jars do not wander. Linnet says she once found one beside the well, so the matter is settled.

When I carried a jar to her stall, I put it on the table too hard. It made a small crack in the wood. Linnet gave me a cloth and asked me to repair the table before the next market. I did. She gave me a spoon of honey for the work. I accepted it. A mayor must sometimes taste the goods he protects.

Keep the stall tidy. Keep the price clear. Leave the last word to the bees. They were here before the market, and they will still be here after we pack the baskets.
%%
The gate torch
By Iven, gate keeper at the Copperhold hamlet.

Our gate is made of oak boards with an iron bar across the inside. The wall is low, but it keeps pigs out of the tool yard and gives the torch a place above the path. In spring the mud rises over the bottom stones. I clear it each morning with a spade.

This is how I keep the gate in order. I check the hinge pins first. If one has worked loose, I tap it down with the wooden mallet. I pull the gate open and shut, then listen for a scrape. A scrape means the ground has risen or the gate has fallen. Both have happened. The gate does not care which.

Next I look at the bar and its two sockets. The bar must slide without a hard shove. I rub a little oil on the wood where it meets the iron. I do not oil the ground. That lesson cost me one fall and a clean shirt.

Then I check the torch bracket. The torch must stand clear of the oak boards. I keep dry sticks under the roof, away from the flame. At night I light the torch before the last cart comes in. I trim it when the wind has made it spit. Keep the gate lit, and the pigs stay out. The dead are less easy to teach.

On the first night of Blossom, Fen came to the gate carrying a basket of turnips. She had been sent to take supper to her aunt beyond the mine path. She had not yet learned the road in the dark, so I walked with her. We left the gate open for a moment while I fetched my cloak.

A zombie stood beside the wall when I came back. It reached through the bars and caught the basket handle. Fen dropped the basket and ran to the bell. I took the torch and held it close. The zombie turned toward the flame. We shut the gate and called the two men from the tool shed. By then it had wandered down the road.

No one was hurt. The turnips were bruised, but still good for soup. Fen put one in my bowl and said it was my share for guarding the basket. I accepted it.

Hesk says the zombie came from the old road and had lost its way. A mule keeper says it came up from the mine. He heard a noise in the ground that same night. Hesk says the ground makes noises when rain fills the cracks. The mule keeper says there was no rain. We keep the torch lit either way.
%%
How to mend a net
Ivo, boat builder, at the Three Wells market. The fish seller from Saltreach asked me to put this on the board, because she is tired of being asked. Anyone can mend a net. Here is how.

You need a netting needle, a flat stick called a gauge, as wide as two fingers, and twine as thick as the net's own.

1. Find the hole. Cut the torn strands back to the nearest whole knots. Leave no loose ends.
2. Tie the twine to a knot at the edge of the hole.
3. Pass the twine around the gauge, lay the gauge against the knot, and make the next knot below it. The gauge makes every mesh the same size. Without it you get a net with a belly.
4. Pull each knot tight with a hard tug. A knot that slips is not a knot.
5. Work row by row until the hole is closed.
6. Tie off the end. Tug the whole patch. If it holds, it is done.

Three fishers brought me nets this week. All three asked for spare twine. None said why. I did not ask. A good net mender does not ask.
%%
Minutes: the relay house at Three Wells
Kept by Dace, mayor, at the council table by the east well.

Present: Dace, Oda, the mason, the schoolteacher, and two keepers from the relay on the hill. Hobb sent word from the Halfway Inn.

1. The relay house at the foot of the tower is nearly done. The walls are up and the roof is on. The stand for the big mind is set in the middle, and the quickeners will ring it, kept cool with water from the well.

2. The keeper from Vell says a big mind will come in the spring, the size of a loaf. It will stand on its stand and answer the apprentices on the roads and in the fields.

3. The schoolteacher asks what the children should be told. The keeper says: tell them it is a mind in a crystal, learned from our own writing, and it answers by letter. Tell them it does not know everything, and it can be wrong. She will write a primer for the school.

4. Oda asks who will tend the quickeners. Two keepers will take turns, day and night. The town will send water and firewood.

5. The mason will build a bench outside the door, so people can sit and wait for their letters. Hobb says he will bring his riddle board from the inn, to keep people busy while they wait.

6. Next meeting after Thaw. Dace will read the notice at the board.

The tower lamp was lit at dusk. The children counted the flashes from the square.
%%
How to mend a mill wheel
Autumn. Written at the house at the edge of Vell. The wheel of the mill by the river broke on the second of Leaffall. The miller and five neighbors mended it in nine days. I did not help. I sold them eggs. But I watched, and wrote this down.
What you need: oak planks, iron nails, a chisel, a mallet, tar, a rope, and many hands.
1. Stop the water. Close the sluice. A wheel that turns cannot be mended.
2. Lift the wheel. Use a frame of beams and a rope. Take the weight off the axle.
3. Find the break. Look for a split spoke or a loose rim. Mark it with chalk.
4. Cut out the broken part. Use the chisel and mallet. Cut cleanly. A ragged edge will not hold.
5. Shape the new piece. Take an oak plank. Cut it to fit. Check it against the hole.
6. Fit it. Tap it in with the mallet. Do not force it. It should go in with a hand's push.
7. Nail it. Iron nails, set deep. Tar the joint to keep out the water.
8. Lower the wheel. Slowly. Do not drop it.
9. Open the sluice. Watch it turn. If it squeaks, wait. A new wheel always squeaks.
The miller stood by and watched and told everyone what to do. The neighbors did it their own way. The wheel turned. The miller said it was thanks to his advice. The neighbors said nothing and went home.
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How to dig a well, step by step
By Opal, for anyone who has been told to dig a well by a relative and has no idea where to start.

1. Choose the place. Pick a spot above the line of damp reeds, and well away from the mill, which will want the water for itself.
2. Mark a ring on the ground, about two arms across. Mark it with a stick, and make the stick straight.
3. Dig the ring straight down, one spade's depth at a time. Keep the sides even. A wall that leans is a wall that falls, and it will fall on you.
4. Bring the spoil up in buckets. Pile it well away from the edge, or it rolls back in just when you have finished.
5. At every new depth, drop the plumb line down and check the wall. Mend any bulge before you dig past it.
6. When the soil turns to clay, stop, and listen. You will hear the water before you see it. It makes a small sound, like a cup being filled a long way off.
7. When the water comes, line the sides before you dig any deeper. Do not dig further down than the water is deep, unless you like swimming in your own hole.
8. Cover the top with a lid of wood or stone, to keep out the leaves, the mice and the children.

Winter is the best season to dig. The ground is firm, the spoil stays where you put it, and the flies have gone to bed. Dig in the cold months, and bring a hot drink in a jug with a lid.

Opal
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How to climb the tower in a storm
By Mira, keeper of the Northpoint tower. Written after the storm of the year before last, when Lantern climbed the outside rungs with the coal bucket and I climbed behind it with the lamp. We both still have the bruises.

The tower is ninety rungs inside. Most keepers climb inside, with the wind on the glass and the stair lamps lit at every turn. In a storm, the inside stair is safe. The outside is not.

When a storm comes, you will know it before the wind. The sky goes a hard yellow grey. The frogs in the marsh go quiet. The ravens sit on the wall and do not argue.

1. Light the stair lamps first, all of them, from the bottom up. Do not skip the one at the third turn. It is the one you forget.
2. Tie a rope to the iron ring at the foot of the stair, and keep the other end in your hand.
3. Climb slowly. Stop at each lamp and look up. If the next lamp is out, do not climb past it.
4. At the top, go round the walk on your hands and knees, with the rope tight, and check the copper ring. The wind will try to take your hat, and then your coat, and then your breath.
5. Light the lamp. It is harder in the wind. Use the shelter of the glass and do not stand in the open window.
6. Come down by the same stair. Do not try the outside rungs. The outside rungs are for the coal and for fools.

A keeper who will not go up in a storm is a keeper who will not come down in one. Lantern now carries the rope and I carry the lamp. We have agreed this is the right way round, and we have not agreed on anything else in two years.
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How to keep a damp hearth from smoking
Wren's notes on the hearth in the healing house. It smokes every time the marsh fog comes in. Written for anyone with a damp chimney.
What you need: dry wood, a bag of charcoal, a flat stone for the grate, a bellows, and patience.
1. Clean the hearth in Leaffall, before the cold. Scrape out the old ash. Ash holds damp like a sponge.
2. Check the chimney. Look up with a torch. If you see a bird's nest, a bunch of reeds or a nest of spiders, take it out.
3. Lay the fire on the flat stone, not on the floor. The stone holds the heat and lets the air come under.
4. Start with the small wood. Then the bigger wood. Then the charcoal, which burns slow and clean.
5. Keep the bellows near. Give a short puff at the base, not a long one. A long puff sends the smoke into the room.
6. When the fog comes in, open the shutter a crack on the windward side. The air wants a way out, and it will find one.
7. Never burn green reeds. They make a white smoke that stings the eyes, and the eyes of the sick are sore enough.
8. At the end of each day, bank the fire with ash. Leave one stick unburned on top for the morning.
The healing house smoked every winter for forty years. This winter it smoked less than any of them. I have written this down so the next healer does not have to learn it the way I did.
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Porridge That Was Not Porridge
By Mira

Lantern asked for the breakfast list while I was fixing the window latch. I said oats, water, and a little honey. I thought it had gone to fetch them. It had gone to the shelf for the old tally board.

The board was a copy of a list from the relay house kitchen. It had the words oats, water, honey, and soap on one side. The soap was on the next line, but the board had been turned upside down. Lantern brought me the ingredients in the order it read them.

I put oats and water in the pot. I added a small spoon of honey. Then Lantern handed me a white lump wrapped in cloth.

I thought it was salt. It was soap.

The pot foamed. I took it off the hearth. Lantern stood beside the table with the tally board. I asked if it had brought the soap for breakfast. It did not answer, as apprentices do not speak. It held out the board again.

I checked the list. Soap was not food. The mark beside it was a note for washing the pot after breakfast. The list had been written by someone who used too many short lines.

We threw out the porridge and washed the pot. Lantern carried the first bucket of water. I carried the second. The soap worked well, which was more than the porridge had done.

For the new list, I wrote each thing on its own line. I put the words for cleaning below a line drawn by hand. Lantern brought oats, water, and honey in the right order the next morning.

I made the porridge. It was thick, but it was porridge. The honey was enough.

The old board is now on the wall of the store room. I wrote kitchen only across the top. I also wrote do not cook the soap. Lantern has not tried to cook it again.
%%
How to blow a lamp glass for a relay
Written by Toby, who was asked by the relay keeper at Northpoint to make a new glass for the lamp room. Summer.

A relay lamp needs clear glass, and a lot of it, and the glass must not crack in the north wind. Most of the glass is brought from Saltreach by cart. Some of it is blown at Northpoint, when a pane breaks and there is no time to wait.

You will need: a glass pot with sand and ash in it, a long pipe, a bench with a wet cloth, a pair of tongs, a wooden paddle, a cooling box full of sand, and a good fire. Use the best sand from the shore. Dark sand makes the glass grey, and the keeper will not forgive you.

1. Heat the pot until the sand melts into a bright slow syrup. It takes a whole morning. Do not hurry it, or bubbles will stay in the glass, and bubbles are the enemy of the light.
2. Dip the pipe into the syrup and turn it slowly, so the glass gathers round the end like honey on a spoon.
3. Blow gently into the pipe. A little breath, then a pause. Turn the pipe as you blow, so the glass swells evenly and does not sag.
4. Roll the hot glass on the wet bench. The wet cloth makes it hiss, and the hiss tells you the glass is still hot.
5. Swing the pipe, slowly, from one hand to the other. The glass will stretch as it cools. Stop when it is a long bubble the shape of a pear.
6. Cut the end off with the tongs. Then open the bubble along its length with a cold iron, and roll it flat on the paddle. The paddle must be wood and it must be wet.
7. Put the pane into the cooling box at once. Bury it in the sand, and leave it for a full day. If you take it out early, it will crack in its own time, usually when it is in the lamp room and the keeper is at the top of the stair.

The first pane Toby blew for the lamp room had three small bubbles. The keeper held it up to the sun and laughed. He said the bubbles would help the light scatter over the north, which is an old idea, but he liked it. The pane is still in the lamp room, in the top left corner, where the bubbles can be seen from the stair.
%%
Mending a net
By Pell, merchant of the Long Road.

A net with one small tear can still bring fish to market. A net with a large tear brings only weeds and complaints.

Lay the net flat beside the east well. Keep it out of the square until the stalls are closed. A cart wheel will find it, even when the driver says he saw nothing.

Use strong thread and a blunt bone needle. Tie the thread to the nearest whole knot. Follow the shape of the mesh. Put the needle through one loop, then the next. Pull each knot firm, but do not draw the sides together. The net must still open wide.

At the end, tie the thread twice. Tug the patch with both hands. If it slips, begin again.

Moll says to test the net with a handful of apples. I tried this once. The apples stayed in, but the fish did not. Use the net in the water.

Keep the mended net on the hook by the door. Mark its owner's name on the tally board. Do not write my name there unless the owner is me.
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How to dry reeds for a roof
Wren's way, from the healing house at Lowmarsh.
1. Cut the reeds in Reaping, when they are gold at the tip. Cut them low, close to the mud.
2. Tie them in small bundles, as thick as your wrist.
3. Hang the bundles in the dry loft for a full month.
4. Test one. Bend it. If it snaps, it is ready. If it bends, wait another week.
Wet reeds rot a roof from the inside, and you will not see it until the rain comes through. Dry reeds keep the rain out for many years.
%%
Linnet's Honey Table
By Linnet, for the market hands at Vell.

Honey sells best when the sun is bright and the jars are clean. The market at Vell is busy in Swarm. Bees visit the flowers, and people visit my table.

1. Wash the jars in warm water. Let them dry upside down on a clean cloth.
2. Check each jar for a chip. A chipped jar leaks. A leaking jar makes the table sticky.
3. Lift the honey from the hive slowly. Do not take a full comb from a young hive.
4. Let the honey run through clean cloth into a bowl. Pick out any piece of wax that falls in.
5. Fill each dry jar. Leave a little room at the top.
6. Wipe the rim before you tie on a cover.
7. Set the jars in shade at the market. Keep them away from the fish stall.

I write the price on a card where everyone can see it. If someone asks for a taste, I give one spoonful. A child once asked for a second spoonful and said the first one had gone missing. I told her to search her mouth.

At the end of the market, I count the jars and coins. I bring the empty jars home in a basket. I never leave one on Dace's notice board. Last time, a bee found it before I did.
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Glass for a North Window
By Evin, glass worker at Three Wells

A pane for a cold house must be clear, smooth, and free of a sharp edge. This is slow work. Do not begin while hungry. A hungry glass worker turns every pause into a meal.

First sweep the floor and clear the bench. Put the glass tools where no one will knock them down. Heat the glass until it softens. Use a clean pipe and turn it steadily. Blow gently. If you blow hard, the glass may grow thin on one side and thick on the other.

Keep turning the pipe as the glass opens. Watch the whole shape, not only the bright place before your eyes. When it is wide enough, open it and flatten it with care. The pane should fit its frame, with room for the wooden edge. Measure twice. Cutting glass twice does not make it larger.

Let the pane cool slowly. A hot pane placed on cold stone may crack. When it is cool, run a cloth along each edge. If the cloth catches, smooth the edge before fitting it.

For a house window, set the pane into a wooden frame with a narrow strip of soft wool around it. The wool keeps out the wind and lets the glass sit without strain. Fix the frame in place, then test it with a gentle press. Do not press in the middle. Press near the edge.

The first pane for Mira's house was clear enough to see the tower lamp. The second had a wave in it. Mira said the snow looked as if it were falling uphill. She kept that pane for the small window by the table.

The third pane broke while I carried it to the cart. My apprentice had wrapped it in a blanket and tied the blanket with a net cord. The knot held. The glass did not.

We made another pane the next morning. I wrote the measurements on a board and hung the board above the bench. My apprentice added a line beneath them: carry slowly. This was good advice, though I had already learned it.

Keep broken glass apart from the good pieces. Sweep it into a clay pot, not into the yard. The chickens scratch everywhere, and do not read warning boards. When the pot is full, take it to the glass shed.

If the pane is cloudy, do not hide it with a curtain at once. Wash it with clean water and a soft cloth. If it stays cloudy, it was made cloudy. Put it in a shed window, where a person needs light more than a clear view.

A house can be warm with a poor view. A house cannot be warm with a crack in the window. Check the wool at the frame each Frost. Replace it when it is flat. Keep the old wool for stuffing a draft gap under the door.

I once used the old wool to stop the chimney smoke from coming in. It stopped the smoke. It also stopped the house from breathing. We opened both doors, and the smoke left before the neighbors arrived.
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Mending a roof after rain
By Sella, keeper of the school house.

The school house roof leaked over the map shelf. It did not leak much at first. A drop fell each time the wind turned, and Bel set a cup beneath it. By the next morning the cup was full, and the map of the roads had a wet corner.

Choose a dry morning for the repair. Do not climb when the roof is wet. Put a ladder on firm ground and have someone hold it. Keep children inside the school house while the work is above them.

Take a basket of sound clay pieces, a hammer, a short board, and a coil of rope. A spare blanket is useful for holding the old pieces. Do not carry more than you can set down safely. Leave the broken pieces below for sorting.

Begin at the lowest edge of the roof. Lift the row above the leak one piece at a time. Set each sound piece on the blanket. If a piece cracks in your hands, pass it down. Do not toss it.

Look for the cause of the leak. In our roof, one piece had slipped sideways. A branch had caught its edge and pushed it out of line. The board beneath it was damp but firm. We removed the branch and let the board dry in the sun.

Set the lowest piece back first. Lay the next piece over its upper edge. Each piece must cover the join below it. Work along the row, then replace the row above. Check the edges with your hand. A high corner can lift when the wind comes.

We found a split in the short board under the last row. I was ready to leave it until the next summer. Bel said rain could read a split better than she could. We replaced it with the spare board. She was pleased that the roof had learned nothing from her.

After the repair, pour a small bucket of water over the roof above the mended place. Watch from inside. If the wall stays dry, put away the tools. If a drop returns, find the gap before you leave.

We repaired the roof before the market bell. The children carried the blanket and sorted the old pieces. They found one small stone in the gutter and a bee asleep under the board. We set the bee among the flowers.

A trader said the harbor was taking on families from the north. A woman at the inn said the ships were only carrying salt and timber. The trader had seen no names on a list. The woman had seen no ships. We served them both bread, and the rain stayed outside.
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The first road stones
By Dace, keeper of the Three Wells notice board

This autumn the road from Three Wells to Saltreach has a new stone edge. Folk carried cobblestone from the quarry in carts. The work took longer than Dace promised, and less time than the innkeeper feared.

We began at the bridge. We set the first stones on firm ground, then laid each one close to the last. Where the earth sank, we added packed earth beneath. A stone laid on mud will tip when a cart wheel finds it.

At the turn by the old oak, we made the road wider. Two carts met there with no room to pass. Pell's cart lost a barrel of apples in the ditch. The pigs found it before Pell did.

We raised a waymark beside the turn. It is three blocks high, with a torch on top. Its figure points toward the nearest inn. Travelers may leave a small stone on the top row when they have passed safely.

A road is not made by laying stones and walking away. Each month, look for loose edges and holes. Clear leaves from the ditch. Keep the bridge rails firm.

The Long Road will reach Saltreach without a cart wheel in the mud, if we keep at it. The children say they will walk all the way to the sea. Their teacher says they may do so after they can read every waymark.

The Brown Hen has promised a warm meal to the road crew. We have promised to mend the loose step at its door.
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How to make a bet at the market
Written by Toby, who dyes wool at the Northpoint market and keeps the bet board by the north well. Summer, in the early years of the archive.

A bet is a promise with a cup on it. Here is how it is done at Northpoint, so no one can say they did not know.

1. Say the bet out loud, in full, so the whole stall hears it. "I bet you a loaf that the new post will be finished by the next full moon." Not "I bet you." That is not a bet. That is a question with a hat on.
2. Name the stake. A loaf, a copper, a basket of beans, a song. It must be a thing both sides can hand over.
3. Name the judge. The judge is someone neither side owns. The judge must be at the market on the day. Toby is the judge for most bets, because he is always at the well, and because the children cannot cheat him with honey.
4. Write the bet on the bet board, by the north well. Use black ink, and write both names. Write the date. Write the stake. Write the judge.
5. Put the stake in the judge's cup. Both sides must do this, or the bet is off. Toby keeps the cups on a shelf behind the dye vats, where the wool does not get into them.
6. When the day comes, the judge looks at the thing bet on. The judge says who won. The judge does not say why. The loser pays, and the winner says thank you, even if it was not a good bet.

A note on the orders. Some bets were made about the apprentices. There is one bet on the board from last summer that a small mind would fetch the water barrel from the north well without being told twice. The bet was written as an order, to test the mind. The order was: bring me the barrel.

> bring me the barrel
= fetch barrel

The apprentice that heard the order walked straight to the south well, which is the wrong well, and brought back the barrel from the stall of the baker, who had not been asked. The bet was lost. The baker was very pleased. Toby says the mind did what it heard, and the fault was in the words. He has since written all the orders on the board in full, with the well's name in them, and nobody has argued with him since.
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Guide: digging and keeping a clay pit
Emmet, potter, at the edge of Three Wells.

Clay is under the wet ground by the south stream, a short walk from my house. I have dug there for thirty years. Here is how we do it, so a new digger does it right.

Where to dig:
- Find ground where the grass stays green in dry weather. That is a sign of water under it.
- Dig a small hole first, the width of your two hands. If the clay comes up grey and soft, dig there.
- Never dig alone. Take someone with you, and a rope.

The dig:
1. Cut the grass off in squares and set them aside in the shade. We put them back when a pit is done.
2. Dig down in steps, not straight down. Each step is as wide as your arm is long. A stepped pit does not fall in on you.
3. When water seeps in, stop that pit and start another beside it. Water in the hole makes the walls weak.
4. Pile the clay on boards, not on the ground. Cover it with sacking and weigh the sacking down with stones.
5. Fill in any pit you are done with. Put the grass squares back on top. The meadow comes back in a season or two.

The wet clay waits in the shed behind my wheel. In winter it is cold, and cold clay is stiff. I bring a bucket of it in by the hearth the night before I throw, and by morning it is soft again.

My neighbor Oda says my shed smells of wet earth and woodsmoke, and she is right. The kiln goes in the back corner, and the chimney comes out through the roof. Keep the door open when the kiln is lit. Keep the wood dry. Keep the dog out, or you will find a paw print in a pot before it is fired, which happened once, and I will not say whose dog.
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How to shoe a horse on the Long Road
Written by Mott, for the stable boys of the inns. Spring, when the roads are wet and the shoes wear fast.

A good horse on the Long Road walks a long day's road, six days in a week, and never complains about it. A bad shoe makes a bad hoof. A bad hoof makes a lame horse. A lame horse is left at the inn, and the inn keeps it, and the inn is not paid for keeping it.

You will need: a set of iron shoes, the nails, a rasp, a hoof knife, a hammer, a tongs, a bucket of water, and a stool. Barley, Pell's horse, will need a stool all to itself. Pell says he would prefer the horse to have a bed, but nobody has yet found a horse that will lie down for a shoe.

1. Pick up the hoof. Hold it between your knees, with the stool under you. Speak to the horse first, every time. Say its name. Barley does not care about the name, but the other horses do.
2. Take off the old shoe with the claw of the hammer. Lift each nail gently. A nail that is bent will pull the hoof with it, and then the horse will not trust you again.
3. Trim the hoof with the knife. Take away the old growth. The sole should be flat and the wall should be level, the same on both sides.
4. Rasp the hoof smooth, from toe to heel. Look for cracks. A small crack can be left. A large crack means the horse must rest.
5. Heat the new shoe in the forge until it glows dull red. Bend it on the anvil to fit the hoof. Test it against the hoof. The shoe should cover the edge all the way round.
6. Set the shoe on the hoof while it is still warm, and check it. Then nail it, four nails each side, from the toe back. Drive each nail straight. Turn the point out at the wall.
7. Cut the nail ends off and file them smooth. Lift the foot, put it down, and walk the horse up and down the yard twice. Listen for a click on the stone. A click means the shoe is wrong.

A note from a carter at the Halfway Inn. He says a good shoe is quiet. He says the horse should walk away from the forge without looking back at it. Barley walked away and looked back at Mott, which Mott took as an insult, and is still thinking about it.
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How to dye wool
By Fen, spinner at Saltreach

Wash the wool before you dye it. Put it in a tub of clean water and pull out bits of straw. Do not beat it against the tub. That tangles the fibers.

For a red-brown dye, gather beetroot leaves and the dark skins. Cut them small with a safe knife. Put them in a pot with water and warm it by the hearth. Do not let the pot boil hard. A steady heat draws out the color.

Strain the leaves through a clean cloth. Keep the colored water and throw the leaves on the compost heap. Wet the wool again, then lower it into the pot. Stir with a smooth stick so every part gets wet.

Leave the wool in the dye until it is darker than you want. It will look lighter when dry. Lift it out with two sticks. Let the water drip back into the pot. Rinse the wool in clean water until the water runs clear.

Hang it where the wind can reach it, but not where dust from the road will settle. Turn it once while it dries. When it is dry, pull the locks apart with your fingers.

Do not dye wool beside the fish market. Last year the wind blew a fish scale into the pot. The wool kept its color, but nobody wanted a scarf that smelled of the quay.

The market sellers have asked me to dye a length of red-brown wool for the new relay house. The tower is not finished yet. Its stone stair reaches above the roof of the inn. The builders say they will set the glass room before Frost.

When the signal lamp is lit, a keeper will send news along the coast and inland. I hope the first message is that the wool dried well.
%%
Market note: wool dye at Vell
By Oren, clerk at Vell.

The market at Vell smells of wet wool on dye day. Bring clean wool, a pot, water, and the color you want. Red flowers make a red dye. Yellow flowers make a yellow dye. Ask the flower seller before taking her basket.

First, pick out straw and burrs. Wash the wool in clear water and squeeze it gently. Do not twist it hard. A clerk once twisted a whole bundle, and it came out like a rope. He still uses it to tie parcels.

Put the dye in the pot with water. Stir until the color is even. Add the damp wool. Turn it with a wooden stick so every part touches the dye. Leave it until the color looks deep enough.

Lift the wool out. Let the extra dye run back into the pot. Rinse the wool in clean water, then hang it where the air can reach it. Do not hang it over the baker's oven. Smoke changes the smell, and the baker complains for a week.

Keep the pot clean for the next color. Blue wool beside red wool is not a new color. It is a quarrel.
%%
How to keep the gate at the foot
By Mira, keeper of the Northpoint tower. The gate at the foot of the tower is the only way in, and the zombies know it. Written for the apprentices who will take the night watch, who have asked for something to read on the cold nights, and who I have told I will not read it aloud.

Zombies come from the marsh, the hill, and the back of the stable, all three at once when the weather is bad. They do not run. They groan. They stand at the gate with their arms out, which is a foolish thing for a zombie to do, because the gate is shut.

1. Check the torches round the foot of the tower. There should be eight. If one is out, light it before anything else. A zombie will walk into a dark corner without knowing why, and then it will be in the yard.
2. Shut the gate and drop the bar. Put the bar in the iron cradle, and then push it. If it moves, it is not in properly.
3. Look over the top of the gate. Do not look through the bars. A groaning thing close to the bars is much harder to see than one at the top of the yard.
4. If a zombie is at the gate, do not open it. Do not talk to it. It cannot understand you, and you will only tire yourself.
5. Walk round the outside of the yard, with the torch in one hand and the stick in the other. Keep the torch between you and the zombie. It will turn to follow the light, and it will walk away from the gate.
6. When the zombie walks away, count to fifty, and then count to fifty again. Then go back in.
7. Check the bar again. Check the torches. Write the time and the count in the book.

Lantern does this very well. It walks the yard all night with a torch and never once looks at the gate directly. It says it does not need to. I think it is right. I think it has learned the zombies the way the foxes learn the hens, which is by walking round them until they go.
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A wall beside the flour stall
By Oren, clerk at Vell.

The flour stall at the market leans toward the notice board. It has leaned for three summers. The seller says the wall is only resting. The wall says nothing, which is poor proof.

To lay a short wall, mark the line with cord. Clear away grass and loose soil. Set the first stones on firm ground. Use broad cobblestone blocks for the bottom row. A wall is only as steady as the ground beneath it.

Lay each stone so its weight rests on the stones below. Do not stack every edge above the edge beneath. Set the next row across the joins in the first row. Fill small gaps with smaller stones. Keep checking the line with the cord.

Make the wall wide at the base and a little narrower at the top. On the last row, set the stones flat. Do not leave a high point where rain can sit.

For a wall by a road, keep its face clear of loose stones. A traveler should not find a new stone under a cart wheel. For a wall by a field, leave a small gap at the low end for water. A wall that holds water may fall after rain.

Ask a second person to look along the top. The first builder sees every stone as straight. The second person sees the truth. At Vell market, the second person is often the flour seller, who has stared at his leaning stall for years.

When the wall is done, tap each stone with the handle of a tool. A loose stone gives a dull sound. Set it again. Do not push the wall with your shoulder to test it. I have seen this done. The wall won.
%%
Market day at Ambrook
By Roan, schoolteacher at Three Wells.

Market day begins before the light. The carts come over the bridge in the dark, one after another, with a lamp swinging on the front of each. You hear them before you see them. The bees hear them too. The hives on the hill hum louder as the carts come in.

By sunrise the green is full. Pell has his copper pans set out in rows, shining. Ida has her bread under a cloth and her news out in the open. Jory's son has the flour by the mill gate, white sacks in a white heap, and the tally board behind him chalked neat. The honey goes by the hives, in jars, and the apples by the bridge.

I brought the school children to see the market. It is a lesson. They must count the sacks, weigh the honey, and write down what a jar of honey costs, and what a sack of flour costs, and what a copper pan costs, and then tell me which is the best bargain. They always say the honey. They are wrong. The flour is the best bargain and it always has been. I let them be wrong. They are children.

A girl called Bel came with me. She is about nine and she writes letters to the archive at Vell, and she stood by Pell's stall all morning asking him where his copper came from and whether the roads were safe and what the north was like. Pell answered her for a while and then he said, "Child, buy something or move on." Bel bought a small pan and wrote in her book.

Around noon Pip came in with the beetroot from Kettle Ridge. Tam's apprentice. It carried the crates off the cart and stacked them by the stall, one on one, neat as a wall, and then it stood by the cart and waited. Pip does not talk. It answers by doing. When Tam's letter was read out, Pip fetched the beetroot and put a crate at the chair's feet, as if to say: the beetroot came. Everyone laughed and clapped.

Then the talk turned to Saltreach. Halla's letter was read, and a man from the coast said the big ship had gone out at last, and another said it had not. One said it went north and one said it went across, and one said it was still on the slip. Pad the fisherman was not in the market that day. His boat was late home and then it came in, and Halla said only that the fish were deep.

And the lights. A man by the well said he had seen them over the north, thin and white, moving. A woman said they were stars falling and there was nothing in it. A child, one of mine, said they were looking at us, and everyone was quiet, and then Pell said a joke about his eyes and the market went on.

I walked the children home by the long road with a torch at every twelfth post. Bel asked me what the lights were. I said I did not know. She said that was the first time I had ever said that to her. She wrote it in her book.
%%
Mending a net on the quay
By Toby, Saltreach.

A net that is not mended is only a sieve with ambitions. Nobody at the quay will say that to Gorm, who made the nets and does not like being told. I say it anyway.

Mend in the window, where the light comes straight across the mesh. A hole shows as a patch of sky.

You need twine from the rope walk, a shuttle, and a mesh stick the same width as the holes. Never guess the width. The wrong holes catch the wrong fish, or none.

1. Cut the broken strands back to the last good knot. Leave no loose ends. A loose end catches on the hull, and the hull catches on you.
2. Tie the new knot round the mesh stick and pull it snug. A snug knot does not slip when the boat rolls.
3. Work row by row from the middle outward. Count out loud if you must. The fish do not mind.
4. When the hole closes, run your thumb across the knots. If one lumps, tie it again.
5. Hang the net in the sun for one whole day. Wet twine is weak, and a weak net is a joke nobody laughs at on the water.

The best mending I ever saw was Sela's. She is eleven, with small fingers and a grudge against holes. Gorm says she is the only one who ever made him look twice at a knot.

The big catch comes in with Reaping. Mend before then.
%%
How to write a letter in the dark
Hesk, winter, in the kitchen at the mine gate, for the lad Clank has been teaching. He wrote his first letter and lost it in the cart.
A letter is a thing you do slowly. Do it in the right order.
1. Wash. A greasy hand makes a greasy page.
2. Find a lamp. Sit close. Put the paper flat on a board, not on your knee.
3. Write the name of the one you are writing to. Write it clear, with a big hand. If you get it wrong, start again. A letter with the wrong name is a lost letter.
4. Write what you did today, in short lines. Say what the weather was. Say who is well. Say what you had to eat.
5. Say one thing you want to say. Just one. Do not bury it.
6. Sign your name. Fold the paper in three. Press it flat with your thumb.
7. Seal it with a drop of wax. Write the name and the town on the back.
8. Give it to the carter. Not the boy. The carter.
9. Do not worry. Letters go astray. If yours does, write another. It is only paper.
This is the way I wrote to my sister at Lowmarsh. I wrote four times last winter and she had none. The post is slow in Deepsnow. Then she wrote that she had all four at once, on the same day. She said it was like a flood of Hesk.
Her husband's boat was late home that week, and she said the letters kept her steady. So write. Even if you think it will be lost.
%%
How to sort the ore
Hesk, at the sorting shed at the shaft head of the Deep Works, winter. Written for a new hand, and nailed to the wall over the bins.
Every cart that comes up is sorted before it goes anywhere. Do it this way.
1. Tip the cart onto the long table. Do not shout. Do not kick it.
2. Pick out the big stones. Throw them in the waste bin by the door.
3. Look at what is left. Copper is green on the outside and orange when scratched. Iron is brown and heavy. Coal is black and breaks into dust on your fingers.
4. Put each kind in its own bin. Copper on the left, iron in the middle, coal on the right.
5. If you cannot tell, scratch it with a nail. If you still cannot tell, ask. Nobody here minds.
6. When the bins are full, write the count on the board. Keep it honest.
7. Wash your hands before you eat.
The shed is cold in winter. Stamp your feet. Drink the tea. Look at the lamp.
A good sorter does not talk much. A good sorter listens to the stone.
%%
How to make a hen house fox-proof
By Mira, relay keeper at Northpoint, for her brother Tam, who asked, and for any farm outside Northpoint. Autumn.

A fox can climb, dig and squeeze. A good hen house stops all three.

1. Dig a trench a block deep round the hen house. Fill it with cobblestone. A fox will dig and meet stone.
2. Build the walls tall. Two blocks is not enough. Three, with a lip that sticks out at the top.
3. Put the door on a good latch that a fox cannot lift. A paw is not a hand, but foxes are clever.
4. Close every gap bigger than a thumb.
5. Light a torch by the door at night.
6. Count the hens at dusk. If there are fewer, look for tracks in the morning.

Do not shout at the fox. He knows already.
%%
How to Keep the Hearth Through Frost
By Mira, for Lantern

The hearth in the house at the edge of Northpoint is small. It warms the room if the fire is built well. It smokes if the chimney is blocked. Check the chimney before you blame the wood.

Clear cold ash from the front of the hearth. Keep the good ash at the back. It holds a coal through the night when the wood is dry and the wind behaves. The wind does not always behave.

Lay two small sticks across the ash, with air between them. Put dry grass beneath the sticks. Add a thin piece of spruce, then a thicker piece of spruce. Do not cover the grass with a log. Fire cannot eat when it cannot breathe.

Light the grass at one end. When the thin sticks catch, feed the fire one small piece at a time. A large log may look useful, but it can smother a young fire. This is also true of advice.

Keep a bucket of water near the hearth, but not so close that it warms. Put dry wood beside the door. Put wet wood outside under the roof edge. If all the wood is wet, bring in a few pieces and leave them by the wall. Do not stack wood against the fire.

Lantern learned to carry kindling from the shed. At first it brought armfuls and dropped them across the floor. Now it brings six pieces at a time and puts them in the basket. I told it six was enough. It brought six more to be safe.

Before bed, set one thick piece on the coals. Leave a little space around it. In the morning, open the door of the hearth and stir the ash. If a coal remains, add dry grass and small sticks. If no coal remains, begin again.

Once, I was sure the fire had gone out. I put on my boots and went to the shed. When I came back, the hearth was burning. Lantern had been waiting with the grass ready.

I thanked it. It stood by the wood basket.

The next night I checked the ash myself. It was warm. Lantern had left one small coal under it, just as I showed it. I added kindling, and the fire took. We ate hot bread beside it. Lantern carried the last loaf to the table, then placed it beside the water bucket.

I moved the loaf.
%%
How to dye wool
Bel, a child at Three Wells. Autumn. A dyer called Fen, who sells wool at the market, let me watch for a whole day, from the first boiling to the last drying. I made notes with a bit of charcoal and copied them out neat that night, in the common room of the inn, while the storm banged on the roof.
Here is how wool is dyed. It takes a day or more.
1. Wash the wool. Use warm water and a little soap. Rinse it well. Dirty wool takes dye badly and unevenly. Hang it to drip.
2. Prepare the dye. For red, boil madder root. For yellow, boil carrot tops or goldenrod. For blue, ferment woad leaves. For green, dye the wool yellow and then blue. For brown, boil the husks of walnuts. For grey, boil oak galls with iron.
3. Make a mordant. This is a bath that helps the dye stick. Boil alum in water. Put the wool in and simmer for an hour. Lift it out.
4. Fill the dye pot with water and the dye stuff. Bring it to a simmer. Do not let it boil hard.
5. Put the wool in. Push it under with a stick. Stir it gently now and then. The longer it stays, the deeper the color. Fen says an hour for pale, three for deep.
6. Lift the wool out with the stick. Let it cool in the pot, so the color settles.
7. Rinse it in clean water until the water runs clear.
8. Hang it to dry in the shade. Sun fades color. Wind helps.
That is all. Each batch comes out a little different. That is the joy of it.
A storm came while we dyed. The sky went black. Fen said the rain would spoil the market. It did. By afternoon the stalls were empty, and the tarps flapped. Fen laughed and said that on a rainy day a dyer is the happiest person in the square, since the colors come out best in the damp.
I asked what happens to a dye that is wrong. She said she throws it in the hedge, and that Kettle Ridge has a hedge that is pink.
I helped her carry the pots to the shed. We hung the wool to dry on a line over the stove. It dripped red and blue and green onto the floor. By evening the floor was a rainbow. The innkeeper was not pleased, but the children were.
%%
Notes for the road crew
By Hollis, horse keeper

The new road from Saltreach toward Three Wells is open to carts as far as the old bridge. The rest is still packed earth. We will finish it after the apples are gathered.

Here is how to prepare a horse for a day's haul.

Brush the coat until dust and burrs are gone. Check the mane and tail with your fingers. A knot under a strap can rub the skin raw. Lift each foot and clean away mud. Look for a loose shoe, a stone or a crack.

Give the horse clean water before harnessing it. Let it drink at its own pace. Put hay nearby, but do not load it with a full feed just before a long pull.

Set the collar high on the neck, then settle it into place. The collar must rest evenly. Lay the straps flat. A twisted strap can pinch. Fasten the harness, then walk the horse a few steps and check it again.

Before loading the cart, put the heavier sacks low and near the wheels. Tie them so they cannot slide. Keep the road load balanced. A cart that leans will pull the horse to one side.

On the road, stop at the waymarks and check the straps. Let the horse rest in the shade when the sun is strong. At a stream, cross only where the bridge is sound. If there is no bridge, wait for the water to fall. A horse cannot tell you how deep the far bank is.

The Long Road has grown one stretch at a time. First came the path between Vell and Three Wells. Then the road crews set stones in the town lanes and packed earth between the towns. Travelers put stones on the waymarks, so the next traveler knows the road was passable.

The innkeepers ask for better signs. Pell says the Brown Hen needs a new board, because its old one points toward the kitchen. That is a useful direction, but not for a traveler who is hungry only for a bed.

The relay tower above Saltreach is nearly ready. Its stone stair is finished, and the keeper has fitted glass panes around the lamp room. The copper ring is in place. A redstone line runs down to the keeper's desk. We carried the last copper in a cart from the mine road.

The builders want to light the tower when the first frost comes. A keeper at the next tower will watch for the signal. When the lamps pass a message, news may travel faster than any horse. I do not envy the horse that must race a lamp.

For now, the tower keeper still sends notices by hand. Yesterday a note came from Three Wells. The road crew is asked to bring spare tools and help mend the bridge rail. We will go at first light, with the mare and two carts.

At Saltreach market, I bought apples for the mare and a small loaf for myself. The seller weighed the apples twice because his scales stuck. He gave me an extra one for waiting. I gave it to the mare. She has never once complained about a poor bargain.
%%
How to lay a dry stone wall
By Mira, relay keeper at Northpoint, who learned it from a farmer on a farm outside the town. This is for her cousin, who wants a wall for a sheep yard. It is autumn, the best time, because the ground is firm and the fox is hungry.

A wall without mortar is held up by weight and by care. Build it right and it will stand a hundred years. Build it wrong and the first frost will bring it down.

You will need: stones, a spade, a stout line, two stakes, and a friend to hold the other end.

1. Mark the line. Drive the two stakes, tie the line between, and pull it tight.
2. Dig a trench along the line, as deep as your hand and as wide as two stones.
3. Lay the biggest stones in the trench, flat side down. These are the foundation. They must not rock.
4. Build up on each side with the next biggest stones. Keep a straight outer face. Fill the middle with small stones.
5. Every layer, use long stones that go from one face to the other. These are the through stones. They tie the wall together.
6. Stagger the joints. Never let one gap sit above another. A good wall is like a loaf of bread: no straight cracks.
7. Slope the wall slightly inward as it rises. Each side leans a little to the middle.
8. At the top, lay flat capstones, set on edge, so the rain runs off.

A wall of this kind keeps sheep in and foxes out. Not entirely. But it makes the fox think about it.

Tam says a wall is just a line of stones with an opinion. He is right, but I have never told him.

Market day, at the end: when you have finished, bring a loaf to share with whoever held the line. They have earned it.
%%
The autumn flood at Saltreach
From the notes of Tavi, keeper of the market store

The flood came after three nights of rain. The water ran down from the hill and crossed the market square before dawn. By morning, it had reached the fish stalls and the lower step of the long pier.

We moved the baskets first. The apples went into the storehouse, and the wool went onto the benches. Hollis brought two horses to carry sacks uphill. They did not like the rushing water, but they walked where he led them.

The fish sellers lifted their boards onto stone blocks. One board slipped, and six fish went into a puddle. A small dog took one. The seller shouted at the dog, then laughed when it ran off with the fish.

The water loosened part of the road edge. We set a rope from the market post to the harbor wall. Nobody was to cross the stream of water without holding it. A child let go to save a wooden bowl. Her mother caught her by the coat before she took one step.

By midmorning, the rain had stopped. The water went down slowly. Mud covered the road, and reeds lay across the square. We cleared the drain with shovels and carried the wet baskets into the sun.

The low store had water under its door. Two sacks of grain were spoiled. We opened the sacks and spread the grain on cloth, but it smelled sour. The keeper wrote down the loss. The market will have enough grain until the next cart comes.

No one was hurt. The bridge held. We shall raise the road edge by one block before the next rain. The inn gave warm soup to the workers, and the children carried dry kindling to the hearth.

The new tower stands above the harbor. Its stair lamp shone through the rain, though the keeper had not yet fitted the signal lamp. We watched it from the inn window. It made the wet night seem less empty.
%%
How to help a birth on the lower road
By Mira, keeper of the Northpoint tower. Written for the relay house, because I was the only one at the foot of the tower the night the cart came up from the lower farm, and there was nobody else to call.

What you need: clean cloths, boiling water, the warm blanket from the chest by the stove, a candle that is not in the wind, and a person who is calm. The person who is calm is the hardest part to find.

1. Put water on the stove at once, and keep it on. You will need it, and you will not remember to make it.
2. Make a bed on the floor, close to the stove. Put down the warm blanket, then a cloth on top. The floor is safer than a high bed in the dark.
3. Talk to the mother. Tell her what you are doing, in short words. She will not hear the long ones.
4. Wash your hands in the hot water. Wash them again. Then do not touch anything you have not washed.
5. Watch the mother's breathing. When it is slow, wait. When it is quick, wait, but stay close.
6. When the child comes, hold it low, and keep it warm against your own coat. Do not cut the cord with the knife. Use the clean thread from the chest.
7. Wrap the child in the blanket. Put it on the mother's chest, and let her hold it. Then tell the father he may come in.
8. Sit down. You will want to stand. Do not stand for a while.

The cart driver asked me afterward whether a keeper was allowed to do such things. I said a keeper is allowed to do anything that is not in the manual, and there is no manual for this, so it is allowed by default. He did not understand, so I gave him a bowl of stew and told him to go and find the fox. The fox has been very quiet about the whole business.

The child is well. She has been named Ila, after the cart driver's mother. The cart driver says she has his nose. I have not seen the nose.
%%
How to light the signal lamp
By Mira, keeper of the Northpoint tower. For Lantern, who has done it for two years and still asks me every night. Written for the next keeper, whoever that is.

You need: a long taper, a striker, a dry cloth, oil from the copper jar, and a pair of gloves, because the glass gets hot.

1. Climb to the lamp room. Count the rungs as you go. There are ninety. Stop at the fiftieth and rest, or you will shake at the top.
2. Wipe the glass panes with the dry cloth. Do the inside first. Dust on the inside is worse, because you cannot see it till you have wiped it.
3. Check the copper ring. It should be warm to the touch from the lamp below. If it is cold, the lamp has gone out in the night. Go back down and find out why.
4. Fill the lamp from the copper jar. Fill it to the line, and not above. Oil over the line goes sticky and smokes.
5. Light the wick with the taper. Hold the taper steady. Do not blow on it. Foxes blow on things. We do not.
6. Set the shutter to open. Turn the handle slowly, so the light does not jump.
7. Send the first long dot to Vell, and wait for the answer. If the answer is long dot, short dot, the lamp is working. If it is anything else, check the glass again.
8. Go down to the desk and write the time in the book. Then write what the lamp did.

The common mistake is to skip step 2. The second common mistake is to fill the lamp in the dark. Use a candle at the bottom of the stair, and a lantern on the top, and never, ever a bare taper on the stair.
%%
Laying a dry wall round a well
By Toby, Saltreach.

The well on Gull Lane ran dry in the dry summer of the 186th year. Everyone walked to the quay pump with buckets. The children complained the whole way, and the hens did too. So we dug the well deeper, and then we built it a wall. Here is how to build one.

1. Dig down to something hard before you lay a stone. Clay is no foundation. It slides in the rain, and the wall goes with it, slowly, like a cart with no one holding it.
2. Pick the biggest stones for the bottom row. Lay each one with its flat face down and its long side along the wall.
3. Fill the gaps with small stones pushed in tight. Never fill a gap with dirt. Dirt goes soft, and the wall starts to lean.
4. Start each new row a little back from the row below, so the stones lock together like teeth. A wall built straight up falls straight down.
5. Keep every row level. Check it with a string and a stone on the end. The string is the only honest thing on a wall.
6. Set the top row out by one block, so it sticks past the face. The Three Wells masons taught me this. A spider will not walk along an edge that sticks out. It stops, looks puzzled, and goes away to find somebody else's wall.

On Gull Lane we used cobblestone for the rows and deep stone for the footing. Deep stone is hard to cut and harder to move, so we moved it once, and then we were very careful about where it went.

The wall is done. The well is wet. The children do not walk to the quay any more. They still complain, but now it is about the cold water, which is a good complaint for a well to have. Keep the weeds off the wall after every long rain. The weather always has the last word, and it likes to write it in the weeds.
%%
How to mend a stair, rung by rung
By Mira, keeper of the Northpoint tower. Written after the spring the third rung of the inside stair cracked under Lantern's weight. The stair was not in danger. Lantern was, a little, from its own worry.

You need: a new rung of oak, cut to the length of the old one, two iron pins, a bucket of lime, a level, a hammer with a soft head, and a patient helper.

1. Clear the rung above and the rung below. Sweep the dust off the stair with the brush, all the way down to the foot, so you can see what you are working with.
2. Mark the broken rung with chalk. Measure the new rung against it, twice. A rung that is too long will not fit, and a rung that is too short will rattle until someone falls.
3. Drill two holes in the stone wall where the rung will go. The holes should be a finger wide and as deep as your hand.
4. Push one iron pin into each hole, and leave it standing out. The rung will sit on the pins.
5. Lay the new rung on the pins. Tap it with the soft hammer until it sits flat and level with the rung above.
6. Fill the gaps with lime. Pack it in with the end of the chisel, and smooth it with a wet thumb.
7. Wait a full day before anyone stands on it. Put a cloth on the step, so nobody forgets.
8. Test it. Stand on it with both feet, then bounce once, gently. Then go up.

The stair has ninety rungs. Lantern has now mended eleven of them. It keeps the chalk marks on the wall as a count, and it has never once put a rung in the wrong place. I have asked it how it knows. It says it counts the rungs as it climbs, and when a rung feels different underfoot, it stops and looks at the wall. That is the whole secret, Lantern says. Stop, and look.
%%
How to put up a winter store of potatoes
By Mira, relay keeper at Northpoint, for the farm outside the town that sells at the market. Autumn, after the digging.

You will want a cool, dark, dry place. A cellar is best. A cold shed will do. A barn is no good, because mice live in it.

1. Dig the potatoes on a dry day. Wet potatoes rot.
2. Leave them on the ground in the sun for an hour to dry. Not longer, or they go green.
3. Brush off the dirt. Do not wash them.
4. Sort by size. Small ones to eat first, big ones to keep. Throw out any with a cut or a soft spot.
5. Lay them in a shallow box, in a single layer, with straw between.
6. Store the box on a shelf, off the floor.
7. Every two weeks, look through the box. Take out any that have gone soft. One bad potato can spoil the box.
8. Do not store next to apples. They do not like each other.

If you do it right, they will keep until Thaw. If not, you will find out by the smell.

Market day tip: sell the small ones at the market in autumn. They fetch less, but they do not keep.
%%
Keeping the hearth at the inn
By Sella, keeper of the Vell market inn.

A hearth should warm the room, boil the pot, and leave the roof where it is. Follow these steps.

1. Clear old ash from the hearth. Keep a little ash in a bucket for the yard. Do not scatter it on the floor, even if the floor is already grey.
2. Check the stones around the fire. A cracked stone must be changed before the next fire. A hot coal can slip through a crack and burn the wood beneath.
3. Lay two dry oak pieces side by side. Leave a small space between them. Set kindling across the space, not in a heap.
4. Light the kindling from the front. Keep your sleeve back. A sleeve is not kindling, though my nephew once proved it burns.
5. When the kindling catches, add one piece of wood at a time. Let the fire take each piece before adding another. A great pile makes smoke, not warmth.
6. Keep a bucket of water near the hearth. Keep the bucket full. Empty buckets are useful for carrying water, but not for putting out fire.
7. Before bed, spread the coals with the iron rake. Cover them with ash. Check the hearth again in the morning.

Never leave a fire with a child or an apprentice who has not been shown the rake. An apprentice from Vell once raked ash into the soup pot. It was a careful mistake. We ate bread instead.

On market days, the inn is full. A warm hearth makes folk stay for one more bowl. A smoky one makes them eat outside, where the wind can have them.
%%
Wool by the Back Door
By Cass, orchard keeper, Copperhold.

Our house stands at the edge of Copperhold, where the town road turns toward the hill. In winter, the wind brings dust from the mine road and snow from the north. I dye wool by the back door, where spills can freeze without making trouble.

First, wash the wool in clean water. Pick out bits of straw. Do not pull hard at a knot. The wool will remember.

Put beetroot skins in the iron pot with water. Heat it over a steady fire. Do not let the pot boil dry. When the water turns red, lift out the skins with a spoon.

Wet the wool before it goes into the pot. Stir it slowly with a clean stick. Leave it in until the color is strong. Lift it out and rinse it in a tub.

Hang the wool on the fence, not the hedge. Last winter I hung a red hank on the hedge. A fox took it and dragged it to the road. The red tail fooled Tam until the fox ran.

The wool is dry when it feels warm and does not mark your fingers. Fold it in the dry chest. Keep the lid shut. A mouse once made a nest in my best blue wool. I found the mouse warm and the wool full of holes.
%%
How to put on a school play
Pell, an inn on the Long Road, spring. A teacher from Three Wells stayed a week and told him this, over several suppers. Pell took it down because he thought it was good advice for a great many things, not only plays.
It is the first spring for the school at Three Wells to put on a play. The teacher asked the inn what to do. The inn did not know. So she told us.
1. Choose a story that is short. A fox and a bridge. A hen and a boat. Anything you can say in one breath.
2. Give every child a part. If there are twenty children and eight parts, make the extra ones trees. Trees are an honor.
3. Write the lines on a board, plain and short. Children forget long ones. So do grown people.
4. Gather the props. A sheet for a river. A chair for a hill. A pot for a hat. Nothing needs to be real.
5. Practise. Then practise again. Then once more, and then let it go.
6. Light the stage with lanterns, behind glass, never a candle. A play is a thing of the evening, and the barn is made of wood.
7. On the night, stand at the side. Do not whisper the lines. The children know them. If they do not, let them find their own.
8. After the play, there will be soup. This is the most important rule.
The teacher said the first play went badly. A tree fell over. A river sneezed. The fox forgot her tail. Everyone loved it.
The harvest had been good, so there was plenty of soup. The whole school came. Even the tree.
Pell says he has put on a play himself, at the Halfway Inn, once a year. It is always the same one. It is about a merchant who loses his coat. Hobb plays the coat.
%%
Beeswax for the Market
By Linnet of Ambrook.

In Longday I take beeswax to the market at Vell. I wrap each piece in clean wool. Wax picks up dust from a basket.

Before I leave, I look at the hives on the hill. I do not take wax from a hive with many young bees. I leave that hive quiet. The bees have enough work without me asking for more.

At the market, I set the wax beside the honey jars. I keep the jars in the shade. A warm jar leaks, and then the table smells sweet all day. This sounds pleasant until ants arrive.

I weigh each piece on the small scale. I set the price on a card and tell the buyer how much the piece weighs. If the buyer asks for a smaller piece, I cut it with a clean knife.

When I come home, I put the knife away and count the coins twice. I count them a third time if Tam has helped. He is cheerful, but his pockets are full of wheat.
%%
Beetroot Dye for Wool
By Ina, wool worker at Kettle Ridge

For a small bundle of wool, take three beetroot and a pot that will not be missed at supper. Wash the beetroot well. Cut away the leaves and scrape off the mud. Chop the roots into small pieces. Keep your fingers out of the way. Red hands are a poor excuse for a red shirt.

Fill the pot with water and add the beetroot. Heat it until the water is dark and the pieces are soft. Do not boil it dry. My first pot became a red stone and took two days to scrape clean.

Wash the wool before dyeing. Shake out the bits of hay, then rinse it in clear water. Put the wool into the pot and stir with a clean stick. Let it sit while the dye cools. Turn it once so the color reaches all sides.

Lift the wool out and rinse it until the water runs clear. Hang it where the wind can reach it, but not where the hens can. A hen pulled half my first bundle down and carried it to the pen.

Beetroot dye is gentle. The wool comes out a soft red, not the bright red some children ask for. If you want a stronger shade, use more beetroot and leave the wool in longer. Write down what you used. Each pot differs.

Do not use the dye pot for porridge unless you want red porridge. I know this because I did not write it down the first time.
%%
How to care for a horse you borrowed
By Marl, miller of Kettle Ridge. Autumn.

A borrowed horse is a loan, not a gift. Give it back better than you got it.

1. Ask the owner what the horse likes. Every horse likes something. Barley likes apples.
2. Walk the horse before you ride it. Let it smell you.
3. Brush it after the ride, from the neck to the tail.
4. Look at all four feet. If a stone is in a hoof, take it out with the hook.
5. Give it water first, then hay. Never the other way.
6. Tell the owner the truth about the ride. If it was hard, say so.
7. Bring a gift when you give it back. An apple will do.

I borrowed Hob's mare at the fair and brought her back with a bunch of carrots. Hob said it was the first time anyone had.
%%
Apples in the Cold Room
By Cass, orchard keeper, Copperhold.

The cold room is under our house, at the edge of Copperhold. Its stone walls stay cool through winter. We keep apples there for pies, honey cakes, and the days when the orchard is buried in snow.

Bring in apples before hard frost. Pick them gently from the branches. Do not pull a whole twig down to reach one apple. The oldest tree has a grey branch that bends low. Use a small step stool there. The stool is steadier than Tam.

Carry the apples in a basket, not in your apron. Set bruised apples in a bowl for eating first. Put sound apples in the cold room one layer at a time. They should not press against each other. Leave room between the baskets for air.

Keep the floor dry. Put a board beneath every basket. If water comes in under the door, wipe it up at once. Last year I left a puddle by the lowest shelf. The apples on that shelf grew soft, and my brother blamed the shelf.

Check the baskets often. Lift out any apple with a dark spot or a split skin. Give it to the pigs, or cut away the bad part for a pie. Do not leave it beside the good fruit. One rotten apple can spoil its neighbors.

For a pie, take six sound apples. Wash them, cut them in half, and remove the seeds. Slice them into a bowl. Add honey and a little water. Put the slices in a clay dish and cover them with thin dough.

Bake the pie near the warm side of the hearth. Turn the dish once so one edge does not burn. When the apples are soft, let the pie cool before cutting it. Tam always says he can tell when it is ready by smell. Tam has never waited for it to cool.

When the cold room is nearly empty, wash the baskets and dry them in the yard. Stack them by the door with the handles out. Next harvest, you will find them without moving the coal pail, the spare boots, or Tam's old hat.
%%
Dyeing wool, the Saltreach way
By Toby, an old hand on the harbor wall at Saltreach.

Every summer the wool wants a color. This is how I give it one. It has never let me down.

You need a pot, a stick to stir with, and one of three colors. Blue is lapis, ground fine as flour. Red is beetroot, boiled down until it stains your thumbs. White is bone meal from the heap behind the fish shed. It costs nothing and smells of nothing, which is more than I can say for the rest.

1. Wash the wool twice in warm water. Dirty wool takes dye like a dirty plate takes soup.
2. Heat the dye water, but do not let it boil. Boiling wool felts up like an old hat.
3. Put the wool in and stir slowly, the same way each time. Change the stirring and the color comes out in stripes.
4. Lift a piece on the stick. Look at it in daylight, never in lamplight. Lamplight lies.
5. Hang it on the line to dry, and keep the hens off it. A hen will sit on wet blue wool and walk away blue.

The red comes out the color of a sunburn. I have stopped apologizing for it.
%%
How to close a level
By Hesk, Copperhold. For the crews, and for whoever comes after. I wrote it down because Oren asked, and because nobody wants to carry this in their head. It is summer, and the upper levels are cool, and I am writing in the sun.

A level is closed when the hall says so, and not before.

1. Get the order from the hall in writing. Do not close a level on a word in the inn.
2. Call every crew up. Rub their names off the board. Count them. Count them again at the top.
3. Take the tools up. Leave nothing you cannot afford to lose.
4. Look to the pumps. The water must go on being pumped from the first level, or the town wells will taste of iron. Someone must mind the pumps. Choose someone who likes to be alone.
5. Look to the apprentices. Each one has a last order. Send each up. Give each a new order that keeps it above: farm, store, or stay by the pump house. Never leave one with an order that takes it down.
6. Shut the gate and lock it. Take the key to the hall. Do not keep it. A key kept is a key used.
7. There is an old side door on the eighth, older than the gate. Nobody remembers who built it. Lock that too. Give that key to the hall as well.
8. Hang a notice at the shaft head. Write plainly what is closed, since when, and who to ask. Do not write why, unless you know.
9. Walk the upper levels once with a torch and put your hand on the walls. Note any warm stone. Tell the hall.
10. Go home. Eat. Sleep.

After the ninth was closed, the lads asked why. Some said the stone. Some said the hum. Some said the hall knows what it will not say. I said I do not know. I say it every time I am asked. I will go on saying it as long as I am asked.

A man should be able to say what he does not know. It saves a great deal of digging.
%%
How to mend a net
Pell, at an inn on the Long Road in spring, from a fisher who came through with a basket and a long face. A good harvest of fish had torn her nets in three places.
You will need: a netting needle, a ball of twine, a pair of sharp shears, patience, and a good light.
1. Spread the net across a table or hang it from a beam, so that the hole is in front of you.
2. Cut away the torn threads until the edges are clean. Leave nothing hanging.
3. Tie your twine to a sound knot at one edge of the hole. Use a sheet bend.
4. Pass the needle through the mesh. Pull the twine until the knot sits firm. Pass through the next mesh. Pull. Keep every loop the same size as its neighbor.
5. Work across the hole, row by row. When the twine runs out, tie a new length on with a knot.
6. Finish by tying off at a sound edge. Cut the ends short.
7. Test it. Pull gently on the mended part. If it holds, it will hold in the water.
The fisher said she had a good harvest of fish. She said the net had not been mended in two years. She said the net had been very patient with her.
By the time the stew was done, the net was mended. She paid in fish. We were grateful.
%%
Keep the Hearth Through Snow
By Cass, orchard keeper, Copperhold.

Our house stands at the edge of Copperhold. The hill blocks the morning sun, and the mine road brings a cold wind around the back wall. A good hearth makes the room warm. A bad hearth fills the room with smoke and makes everyone blame the cook.

Before lighting the fire, clear ash from the hearth. Leave a little ash beneath the grate, where it keeps the coals steady. Put the cold ash in a covered pail. Do not scatter it by the door. It turns to hard dirt when snow gets in it.

Choose dry oak for the first fire. Set two small pieces across the grate, with room for air between them. Put dry birch bark below. Keep a third piece ready, but do not lay it on yet.

Light the bark. When the small wood catches, add one thin piece of oak. Wait until that piece burns well. Then add another. A hearth does not grow warm because you shout at it.

Keep the wood box near the hearth, but not against it. Store dry wood under the eaves. Bring only enough inside for one evening. A mouse made a warm bed in my full wood box and ate the cord off my mittens.

When the fire is low, push the red coals together with the iron hook. Lay one thick piece across them. Close the iron door part way, but leave air for the fire. Check the smoke hole before bed. It must be clear.

One winter I closed the door tight because the room was cold. The fire went out, and the next morning Tam said the room was as cold as Kettle Ridge. Tam had slept there once. He had forgotten his own socks.

In the morning, save a live coal under the ash if one remains. Add dry bark and small wood around it. Blow gently until the bark catches. Do not blow hard. I blew hard once and sent ash into the porridge.
%%
Chronicle: the Little Relay between Vell
Kept at the archive, copied by Oren, clerk. The account of the smallest relay on the road.

Between Vell and Three Wells the road climbs a hill, and on that hill stands the smallest relay we have. One lamp. One keeper. A stone foot, a ladder of rungs, a lamp room of glass panes with a copper ring. The roof is oak, gone grey. It was the first relay on the road between the two towns, and the folk who built it took two summers, because they did it between harvests.

The keepers here have been few and steady. The post has passed down the hill for years. The keeper walks up at dusk and lights the lamp, and sits in the little room with the redstone line warm under the desk, and listens.

What the little relay is for:
- Messages along the road, from Vell to the wells and back.
- Word of a cart gone into a ditch, so the inn sends a hand.
- Word of a child missing. Every keeper on the road knows that one by the pattern it comes in.
- Word of strangers on the road, in the years when that mattered more than now.

From about 199 there has been talk of a big mind in a relay house here, on a stand, ringed by quickeners kept cool with water. The keeper says the little relay is too small to hold one, and the road is too narrow to bring one up, and she likes her quiet. The council at Three Wells has not pressed her. Some things are worth keeping small.

The keeper's rule, and I have copied it before and will copy it again: a lamp is a promise. Lit at dusk, dark at dawn. If it goes dark in the night, somebody is coming up the hill with a bad message, or somebody has fallen on the rungs. Either way, you go up.

In the 201st year the roof was patched and the rungs were replaced. The keeper's name is on the board by the door, cut small. The lamp still goes up at dusk. Travelers coming over the hill at night see it and know where they are, which is the whole point of a relay, big or little.
%%
Glass for the shed window
By Corin, shipwright, staying in the Copperhold hamlet.

The shed window cracked in the cold. We need a small pane to keep rain off the net bench, so I showed Fen how to blow one.

First we swept the glass shed and cleared the floor. A chip under a shoe can spoil a whole day. We checked the furnace mouth and stacked dry wood beside it. The fire must be steady before the glass is ready.

Fen warmed the end of the blowing tube. I took a lump of glass from the furnace with the end of the tube. We turned it slowly over the heat until it softened. Do not rush this part. A cold lump will not move, and a very hot one runs like honey.

I showed her how to blow gently. She held the tube level and turned it as she breathed. The lump opened into a round bubble. We warmed it again, then shaped it with the iron blocks. Fen blew once too hard, and the bubble grew wide on one side. We let it cool and saved it for a jar.

For the window pane, we made a smaller bubble and rolled it on the flat stone. Corin steadied the tube while Fen turned it. The glass spread into a sheet. We warmed the edges, then left it on the shelf to cool slowly. A quick change from hot to cold can crack good work.

The pane is not clear all the way through, but it fits the frame. Fen puttyed the edges with clay and pressed the frame shut. We can see the rain through it. That is enough for a shed.

At supper, Hesk said the stone near the ninth gate was warm again. He has not gone down to check. A cart driver says the warm patch is farther up the stair, and that the hum comes from the old sump. Hesk says cart drivers hear many things on the road.
%%
How to mend a net before the storm
Bel, a child at Three Wells, wrote this down at the market after her uncle showed her. Autumn.
1. Spread the net on the ground. Find every hole.
2. Thread a needle with strong cord.
3. Tie the cord at the edge of a hole. Go round and tie each knot tight.
4. Check the knots. Tug them.
5. Fold the net and hang it in the dry.
Uncle says a storm is coming. He says a mended net is a happy net.
%%
How to dress a millstone
By Marl, miller of Kettle Ridge. Autumn, after the wheat is in.

A millstone is a stone with grooves. The grooves carry the grain out as it is ground. After a year of grinding, the grooves are worn down. The flour comes out coarse. The stone must be dressed.

Dressing is cutting the grooves deep again. You need a stone-cutter's pick, a brush, a little red chalk, a lamp, and a good back.

What to do:

1. Stop the mill. Turn off the water. Lift the top stone with the hoist, and set it on its side on two blocks.
2. Brush both faces clean. Dust is the enemy. Wear a cloth over your nose.
3. Rub red chalk on a flat board. Lay the board across the stone and slide it. The chalk marks the high places, which are the ones that need cutting.
4. Cut the grooves with the pick. Short, light strokes. The stone is hard, but so is a careless hand. Each groove should be as deep as your thumbnail, and straight.
5. Cut the small cracks between the grooves. Those are the finest part of the work.
6. Brush again. Chalk again. Cut the high places. Do this until the chalk marks the whole face evenly.
7. Lower the top stone. Turn the wheel by hand. Listen. A dressed stone makes a clean hum. A badly dressed one makes a grind.
8. Run a sack of poor grain through first. Throw away the first flour. It has stone in it.

Kettle Ridge dresses its stones every autumn, after the wheat. It takes two days. The mill keeps the tally board, and I mark on it: stones dressed, and how many chips flew in my eye.

Do not borrow a pick. Mine broke on Hob's second day, and he is still sorry.
%%
The spring slip
By Corin, at the Copperhold hamlet.

The hamlet has no shipyard, but we keep a timber slip beside the water for moving heavy beams. This spring the boards had shifted, and a cart wheel sank near the lower end. We made a list before we began. A list saves more time than a loud voice.

First we carried the beams to firm ground. We pulled weeds from between the old boards and scraped away mud. Then we checked each support post. A rotten post must come out before any new board goes down. Hesk found one that broke in his hand. He said it had been a poor post when it was young.

We dug beside it and set a straight oak post in the hole. We packed stones around the foot, then tamped earth around the stones. The post stood firm when Fen pushed it. She pushed it again. Hesk told her that was enough. She said she was checking.

We laid the boards from the high end down. Each board rests on two supports. We left a finger's width between boards, so water and grit can pass through. We drove the nails straight and kept their heads level with the wood. A nail turned sideways can catch a boot or a cart wheel.

At the low end, we made a shallow ditch to carry rain away. We lined the edge with stones and cleared the mouth with a shovel. Then we rolled an empty barrel down the slip. It went slowly and did not jump. We tried a cart next, with two sacks of clay. It reached the water without shaking the load loose.

Fen swept the boards and put the spare nails in the tool box. I told her that was a tidy piece of work. She said the nails were tidier than my desk. She was right.

The fishing boats from Saltreach have been staying longer at the harbor, Pell says. He heard that families are loading for a voyage. Corin at the quay says they are only taking goods to another shore and will return before Reaping. Pell says he heard otherwise from a man who heard it from a sailor. For now, we have boards to mend and no boat to load.
%%
How to pay a debt at Saltreach
Written on the back of the fish market price board, at Saltreach, by Ama, who has collected the debts there for many years and has never lost one. Written for the new clerks, who think a debt is only a number. It is not. It is a promise between two people in front of a board.

You will need: the board, the chalk, a clean cloth, and two witnesses.

1. Find both people. The one who owes and the one who is owed. Do not write a debt in the absence of either.
2. Say the number out loud. Eleven emeralds, for the boat, the nets and the winter stores. Say it so the witnesses hear it. A debt not said out loud is a debt that will be argued.
3. Write the number on the board, under the day's date. Write the name of the one who owes and the name of the one who is owed. Write them both in full.
4. Agree a plan. How will the debt be paid? In coin, in fish, in labour? Let the debtor name the first payment. Let the creditor name the last. Write both on the board.
5. Set a date. A debt with no date is a debt that lives forever, and nobody wants that.
6. When the first payment is made, cross it out on the board with a single line. Do not rub it out. The line keeps the history.
7. When the last payment is made, both people must come to the board together. The creditor cross the debt out. The debtor shakes the creditor's hand. Then both sign their names beside the crossed line.
8. Give the debtor a cup of fish soup, and give the creditor a cup too. Nobody leaves the quay until both cups are empty.

The new clerks always ask what happens if a debt is never paid. Ama says that in twenty years, she has seen only three debts that were not paid, and in all three the board still has the name. The name is enough. People come back to pay it, eventually, when they have the coin and the courage.
%%
How to read a lamp you cannot read
By Hesk, Copperhold. I am no keeper. Coll asked me to write this because I was the one on the hill when it happened.

Three nights ago, the lamp on a tower to the north blinked a message that none of us could read. Not Coll. Not the keeper at the Coal Brook tower, whom Coll called to ask. It blinked long and short, long and short, over and over, with a gap at the end. It was not any letter we know.

Here is what to do if you see such a thing.
1. Do not guess. Do not say what it says. You do not know.
2. Count the blinks. Write them down just as you saw them: long, short, long, short. Do not tidy them.
3. Write the day, the hour by the bell, which tower, and which way the lamp faced.
4. Take it to the keeper. Coll has a book for this.
5. Send a copy to Vell. The Archive wants it. Oren says the strange ones are the ones he most wants.
6. Do not tell the inn.

What people say. Some say it came from Northpoint, where Mira lights the lamp. Some say it was the glass, cracked, bending the light. Some say a child with a candle. A carter says he has seen the same pattern before, long ago, and cannot say where. I say I do not know.

The blinks are in the book. Whoever knows will know.
%%
A Small Repair at Northpoint
By Mira

The wind took a strip of roof bark from the house at the edge of Northpoint. It did not take the whole roof, though it made a loud show of trying.

I found the loose strip at dawn, caught on the fence. Snow had gathered in the gap above the kitchen wall. The hearth was still warm, and the table was dry. I set a pot beneath the drip anyway. A keeper should not trust a roof because it was good yesterday.

To mend a roof, choose a clear hour. Carry up sound bark and a short ladder. Have someone hold the ladder. A ladder is not held by saying you are holding it. Both hands must be on it.

Lift the loose bark, but do not pull the next strip free. Slide the new piece beneath it. Let each strip overlap the one below. Water must run down, not into the roof. Fix the strip with short oak pegs. Long pegs may reach the rafters, but they may also split the wood.

I tied a rope around my waist and asked Lantern to hold the lower end. It stood on the ground and held the rope. I said, "Not around your ankle." It moved the rope from its ankle to its hands.

The repair took less time than fetching the ladder. The wind stopped while we worked, then began again as soon as I came down. It is a rude wind.

I checked the rafters from inside. One was damp but sound. I put a bowl beneath it and marked the spot with chalk. Tomorrow I will check it again.

Lantern carried the bark scraps to the shed. It also carried away the bowl. I had put it by the door, and the bowl had a crack. It was not fit for water, but it was still fit for holding nails.

I fetched it back. Lantern waited beside the shed with the nails in a neat row. I thanked it and took the bowl. It had done the right job in the wrong place.

When the repair was finished, I made tea and sat by the window. The tower lamp was clear through the glass. The roof did not drip. The wind could keep its opinion to itself.
%%
The Lost Cloth
By Linnet of Ambrook.

The market at Vell has a good roof over the stalls, but the sun finds every open place. In Longday, honey must stay in shade. I know this, and still I once left a jar in the sun while I carried a basket to the inn.

The honey grew thin. The cover slipped. It ran down the table leg and onto a basket of apples. A bee found it. Then three bees found it. Then the apple seller found me.

I cleaned the table with warm water and a cloth. I washed the basket and carried the apples to a dry patch. I set the jar in the shade and tied the cover again. The bee stayed on my sleeve. I stood very still until it flew away.

Since then I use a short list for market day.

1. Wash the jars the evening before.
2. Let them dry upside down on a clean cloth.
3. Check the covers and tie each one firmly.
4. Put the jars in two baskets with wool between them.
5. Carry the baskets by the handles, not by the cloth.
6. Set the table in shade before opening the baskets.
7. Put a card beside the honey, with the price written plainly.
8. Keep a cup of water nearby for washing sticky hands.

Linnet's old cloth is green with a small brown patch. It has been used for jars, baskets, one spilled bowl, and a child's scraped knee. It is not pretty, but it is clean after washing. The child says it smells of honey. I tell him that is because he keeps licking it.

At the end of the day, I count what remains. I take the jars home in the baskets and put them on a cool shelf. I wash the table before the honey dries. Dried honey takes a knife and a great deal of patience.

If a bee comes to the table, do not slap it. Move slowly and give it room. It is looking for flowers, not trouble. This is what I tell the buyers. It is also what I tell my brother when he waves both arms at one bee.
%%
The Child Who Ran to the Tower
By Mira

Pell's niece came to Northpoint with a cart of apples and a question about the snow. She was eight, perhaps nine, and quick enough to leave the answer behind her.

Her aunt was counting sacks in the relay house. The child slipped through the gate and ran toward the tower. Lantern saw her at the first stair and followed. I came after with my boots half laced.

The tower has ninety rungs. A child should not climb them alone. A grown person should not climb them in a hurry, either. I reached the lamp room with one boot loose and no useful breath.

The child was looking through the glass at the fields below. She said the world was larger from up there. I said it was also colder. She asked if the lamp could see her house. I told her the lamp was made to send a signal, not to look for houses.

Lantern held out its hand. The child took it and came down slowly. At the foot, Pell's niece said she had not run away. She had only gone somewhere without telling anyone.

Pell said that was a fine way to describe running away. He gave her an apple and made her carry the sack count back to his cart.

I put a new hook on the gate. The child came back the next spring. She asked if the hook was for her. I said it was for everyone who forgets to close a gate.
%%
How to mend a market net
By Pell, seller on the Long Road.

A torn net catches nothing but curses. Mend it before market day.

Lay the net on a clean board in the shade. Pull the torn edges together, but do not stretch them tight. Find the loose ends first. If you tie the first knot to a loose end, the hole will grow again.

Use strong cord and a smooth bone needle. Pass the cord through one sound loop on each side of the tear. Tie a square knot. Pull it firm, not so hard that the old cord snaps. Repeat along the tear, joining sound loops to sound loops.

Keep each opening the same size as the others. A fish that fits through one gap will show its friends the way.

When the tear is closed, lift the net by two corners. Let it hang. The mended part should not sag or bunch. If it does, loosen the tight knots and try again.

At Vell market, I sell cord beside the fish stall. I also sell fish. I do not promise that my fish will test your net. They are too busy being fish.
%%
How to lay a dry stone wall
From Pell's notebook, set down at an inn on the Long Road in spring. The wall at the back of the inn fell down in the thaw and the whole house helped build it again.
You need stones of many sizes, a string, two sticks, and a lot of patience.
1. Mark the line. Push the two sticks in at either end and pull the string tight between them.
2. Dig a shallow trench along the string. Lay the biggest stones in it, flat side down.
3. Build the next layer on top. Each stone must sit across the crack in the layer below. Never let two cracks meet.
4. Keep the front face flat. Let the back stay rough.
5. Every few layers, lay a long stone across the whole wall, to tie the two faces together.
6. Fill the middle with small stones. Tap them in tight.
7. At the top, lay a row of flat stones on edge. These are the cap.
A wall stands by weight and by fit, not by mortar. The stones hold each other.
Hobb says a wall is like a good inn. Everyone leans on someone else, and nobody falls.
%%
How to keep a hearth through the night
By Ree, grandmother, at the house on the edge of Copperhold.
1. Lay a big log at the back, one that will burn till morning.
2. Rake the coals together and cover them with ash. Not all of them. Leave a red eye.
3. Shut the door of the room. Put a hat on the cat.
In the morning blow on the eye, add kindling, and the day begins.
%%
How to start a new apprentice
Wren, healer at Lowmarsh. Written for the new keepers, and for me, since I forget.
1. Stand it in a dry corner, out of the wind.
2. Set a fresh crystal in its slot. A new crystal holds a new mind, and a new mind knows nothing.
3. Show it the room, the high shelves and the jars. Say each name once.
4. Give it one job only: the bag. It fetches what the healer asks for.
5. Drill it on the same few jars, again and again. Each day there should be fewer mistakes.
When the mistakes are few, test it on a shelf it has never seen. Moss did this in its first winter. It found a jar of nettles that nobody had labeled, and it put the jar in the right place. That surprised everyone, including me.
%%
The Lamp Above the Workbench
By Jory, Cass's brother, and Cass.

The glass lamp above our workbench blinked three times one winter evening. We were mending a crate, and Pip was sorting iron nails into two bowls. It stopped sorting and watched the lamp. So did we.

The lamp was not the relay signal lamp. It was a small house lamp, with a redstone line from its switch to the bench. Cass had set the line there so we could turn the light on while carrying wood.

First, I checked the oil. The lamp had enough. Then I checked the glass. It was clear and whole. Cass said the lamp was trying to tell us something. I said a lamp had better learn to use plain words.

We watched for another blink. It gave one long light, then two short ones. Cass wrote the marks on a board. Pip moved the nail bowls under the bench and brought a hammer.

The hammer was not what we needed. The redstone line ran behind the crate and had been pressed against a loose iron nail. When the crate shifted, the nail touched the line. The lamp blinked as the line made and lost its path.

We moved the crate, lifted the nail, and set a stone under the line. The lamp held steady. Pip put the iron nails back into one bowl and the copper nails into another. That was its work, not the lamp's.

Cass still keeps the mark on the board. She says it may be useful if the lamp ever speaks clearly. I say it already spoke clearly enough to ask for a better place.

Before winter, look at the redstone line by the workbench. Keep it away from loose nails and damp clay. A blinking lamp may be no message at all. It may only need its path cleared.
%%
How to keep a hearth through a storm
Bel, a child at Three Wells. Autumn. Written the night of the storm, in the inn of twelve beds, by candle, while the wind shook the shutters. The innkeeper showed me. She has kept a hearth for thirty years.
1. Start with dry kindling. Small sticks, bark and a handful of straw. Keep them in a box by the hearth.
2. Lay the fire in a pile, not flat. Air must get under it.
3. Light the straw. Add the sticks one at a time.
4. When the fire is going, add a split log. Birch burns fast. Oak burns slow. Use both.
5. At night, bank the fire. Rake the coals together and cover them with ash. Leave a little air.
6. In the morning, stir the ash. The coals will be red underneath. Add kindling and blow.
7. Never let the fire go out in a storm. It is hard to light in the damp.
8. Keep a bucket of water nearby, in case a spark jumps.
The storm lasted all night. The roof of the market shook. The fire never went out. I fell asleep watching it.
%%
Keeping a hearth, and the hens
By Toby, Saltreach.

A hearth is the one thing in a house that never lets you off. You can forget the bread, the boots, even your own name on the quay, but the hearth wants feeding at the same hour every day. This is what I have learned about it, from my mother, from the forge men at Copperhold, and from a fox.

First, build it right. Set the hearth in stone, on a floor that cannot burn. Leave a gap at the back for the smoke. A hearth with no gap fills the room with grey air, and grey air gets in your eyes and your temper.

Second, keep the wood dry. Wet wood hisses, spits and makes a sulky fire. Store it in the shed with the roof on, stacked bark side up, so the rain runs off it.

Third, clear the ash each morning before it cools and sets hard. Hot ash goes in the ash box. Cool ash goes on the beetroot, which likes it, and the beetroot says so by growing.

Fourth, keep a bucket of water by the door. It is not for drinking. It is for the day you turn round and the rug is on fire.

Some rules I have from my mother, and she was right about all of them:
- Never leave a fire burning in an empty room, unless it has a stone ring round it and a good reason.
- Never dry wool above the hearth. It shrinks, and so does your patience.
- Wash the pot after the stew. The pot remembers.

The hens nest in the warm corner by the hearth. This is good, because a hen lays better when she is warm. It is bad, because a hen who sleeps by the fire is a hen who sleeps late. Ours go up to roost when the lamp goes out, and they have never once come down on time.

Last summer a fox came through the gap in the hen house. It came at dusk, very quietly, with good manners, until it had the second hen. Then it had no manners at all. The hens ran in circles round the hearth, shrieking, and dropped feathers into the coals, and the whole house smelled like a singed pillow. I ran in with the broom. The fox ran out with a hen under one arm and a feather in its ear. At the door it looked back at me, once, the way a fox looks at a neighbor who came too late.

I learned three things that night. Foxes are patient. Hens are not brave. A broom is a poor weapon, but a good signal.

Now the gap has three new planks and a great deal of talk from me. The hens approve. The fox has not come back, but it has sent a cousin, smaller and more polite, who takes only the eggs. We are working on that too.

A hearth is a promise you make every morning, with a shovel in your hand. Keep it.
%%
How to keep a hearth through the night
By Mira, relay keeper at Northpoint, for a farm outside the town. Autumn.

1. Lay a thick log at the back of the fire at dusk.
2. Bank ash round it with the poker. Leave a hand of red coals showing.
3. Close the damper halfway.
4. In the morning, rake the ash aside. The coals will still be red.
5. Add kindling. Blow gently.

Never close the damper all the way. The room will fill with smoke, and you will wake coughing.
%%
How to dye wool blue, the marsh way
Wren's dye book. Blue is the hardest color to get from the marsh, and this is how it is done here.
What you need: wool, cornflowers, a pinch of lapis dust, a copper pot, clean water, a wooden paddle, and a day with no wind.
1. Pick the cornflowers in Blossom, when the petals are fully open. Pick only the blue ones. Leave the rest for the bees.
2. Dry the petals in the shade for two days. Do not dry them in the sun. The sun makes them fade before you start.
3. Wash the wool in warm water with a bar of soap. Wring it out. It must be clean, or the blue will come out grey.
4. Put the petals in a cloth bag and tie it. Put the bag in the copper pot with clean water. Warm the pot slowly. Do not boil it.
5. When the water is the color of a deep pond, add a pinch of lapis dust, ground fine. The lapis helps the blue hold. Stir with the paddle.
6. Lift out the bag and squeeze it over the pot. Throw the petals on the compost heap. The bees will not come near them, which is a shame.
7. Put the wool in the pot. Push it under with the paddle, slowly, so it does not knot. Keep it moving for an hour.
8. Leave the wool in the pot overnight, with the lid on, in a cool room. Cold water holds the blue, and warm water lets it go.
9. In the morning, lift the wool out and rinse it in cold water until the water runs clear. Hang it in the shade to dry.
10. Check the color in daylight, not by lamp. A lamp makes every blue look green, and you will be disappointed for no reason.
Some years the blue comes out thin and sad, like the sky over the reeds in Leaffall. Some years it comes out bright. The cornflowers do not care which. Neither does the wool. Only the healer minds, and the healer is glad either way.
%%
Dyeing wool
By Sella, who keeps the hamlet's dye pot.

We shear the sheep when the weather is mild. I wash the wool in the trough and pick out the straw. Then I lay it on the bench to dry.

For a red dye, I mash beetroot in a clean pot with water. I stir it with the wooden spoon and warm it by the hearth. The water must not boil. When it turns dark, I dip in a small tuft of wool.

If the color is right, I put in the rest. I turn each bundle slowly so the dye reaches every part. Then I lift the wool out and rinse it in the stream. I hang it on the fence where the wind can reach it.

Do not dye the good wool before testing a tuft. Last spring I skipped that step. My socks came out the color of weak soup.
%%
Keeping the school hearth
By Ada, keeper of the Three Wells school.

A hearth warms the room, dries wet sleeves, and gives the children a place to sit after lessons. It also eats wood if you feed it carelessly. I learned this when I was new to the school. I put in three thick oak logs at once. The room filled with smoke, and Dace came from the square with a wet cloth over his mouth.

Begin with a clean hearth. Let the ashes cool before you move them. Keep a little ash at the back. It holds the heat and saves the floor from sparks.

Set two dry sticks side by side. Put small birch bark between them. Lay thin kindling across the sticks, with room for air. Light the bark. When it catches, add one small log. Add another only when the first has begun to burn well.

Do not pile wood against the chimney mouth. Do not leave a child alone beside the fire. Keep a bucket of water by the door, and keep the path to it clear.

At the end of the day, spread the coals apart with the iron rake. Cover them with ash. In the morning, look for a red point before you add kindling. If there is none, start fresh. A hearth should not be trusted because it was warm yesterday.

The school children now bring one stick each when they come from home. Bel brings the smallest stick and says it is for the smallest child. She is not wrong. Pip brought a whole bundle once and left it by the east well. Tam came back for it after the rain had soaked every piece.

A traveler told me the lights over Northpoint were sparks from a falling star. Another said they were fires on the ice. I have never seen them. Here, the hearth is enough to watch.
%%
How to keep the forge going
Hesk, winter. The forge at the mine gate is the warmest place in Copperhold. A guide for whoever keeps it.
The forge is a brick hearth, a pair of bellows, and an anvil. Treat all three with respect.
1. Light the fire an hour before you need it. Use dry wood and coal. Do not use wet wood.
2. Work the bellows slowly at first, then steadily. A forge wants air as a baby wants milk.
3. Set the iron in the coals. When it glows orange, it is ready. White is too hot. Red is too cold.
4. Lift it with the tongs. Set it on the anvil. Strike once, hard. Turn. Strike again.
5. Hammer it until it takes its shape. If it cools, put it back.
6. When it is done, plunge it in the water barrel. It will hiss. Stand back.
7. Bank the fire when the day is done. Rake the coals together. Cover with ash.
A forge has no hurry. It teaches you not to be in one either.
One of the hands came to the forge in winter and asked to be shown. I showed him. He was a quick learner. In a week he made a good nail. In a month he made a good hinge. By the end of the winter, he made the door to the tool store.
A fishing boat was late home that day. We saw the lights on the hill and thought of the men. Nobody spoke. Then the lights came in. It was only a boat. Everyone breathed.
%%
How to dye wool for the boat sails, blue
Kept at the Saltreach sailmaker's, by the sailmaker's wife, Ottilie. Good dye for a sail is blue, because the sea is blue, and because the blue hides the dirt. The dye is woad, which grows on the north bank in summer.

You need: a bundle of wool, carded and clean. A big pot. Woad leaves, dried, one bag for every three bundles. Ash water. Alum, a small handful, from the cask. A wooden paddle.

1. Wash the wool in warm water, with soap. Rinse it twice. Wet wool takes dye better than dry.
2. Soak the woad leaves in cold water for a night. In the morning the water will be green.
3. Strain the green water into the pot. Add the ash water a cup at a time, until the colour turns a deep blue.
4. Add the alum to fix the colour. Stir it in with the paddle.
5. Put the wool in the pot. Push it under gently with the paddle, and keep it moving. Wool that sits still goes blotchy.
6. Take the wool out after a quarter of an hour. It will be green. Do not be alarmed. It turns blue in the air.
7. Hang the wool on a line in the wind. Watch it turn. It takes an hour.
8. Dip it again. Hang it again. Three dips make a good sail blue. Four dips make a boat blue enough for the captain's cabin.

Ottilie says the dye is the same blue as the sea on a good day, and a shade darker than the sea on a bad one. She says a sail should be the colour of the sea on the day you want to go out.
%%
How to make a hearth cake for a cold day
Marl's way, autumn. At the house at the edge of Vell. I am not a baker, but I am an egg seller, and I have eggs to use, and the baker will not take my advice.
Take: 3 cups of flour, 1 cup of oats, 4 eggs, a cup of milk, a spoon of honey, a pinch of salt, butter for the pan.
1. Set the hearth to a low fire. Do not let it flare. A low fire is a patient fire.
2. Mix the flour, oats and salt in a bowl.
3. Beat the eggs with the milk and honey until frothy.
4. Pour the wet into the dry. Stir with a wooden spoon. Do not over-stir. Lumps are fine. They are cake.
5. Heat a flat iron pan on the hearth. Rub with butter.
6. Pour a ladle of batter into the pan. Spread it thin.
7. Cook until the edges lift and the top goes dull. This takes a few minutes.
8. Turn it with a flat stick. Cook the other side until brown.
9. Slide it onto a plate. Spread with honey and a little butter.
10. Make more. The first one is for the cook.
The cake is warm and soft. It tastes of oats and eggs and the fire. You can eat it plain, or with apples, or rolled up around cheese.
Marl serves it on cold mornings to the carters who stop at the house. They have been known to ask for a second and a third. Marl says the eggs pay for themselves.
%%
Notes on finding the cave
By Oren, clerk at Vell. Summer, the 203rd year of the archive.

This is for the market board, because three people have asked where the cave is and one has already gone looking without a lamp.

A field east of Vell sank beside its north hedge after the long winter. The ground had held water under the snow. When the thaw came, one corner fell inward and showed a dark opening beneath the roots.

The farmer, Hara, did not enter. She set a fence around the hole and sent her son to fetch a lamp and two neighbors. They found a cave under the field, with a low stone roof and a dry shelf above the wet ground. There was no chest, no marked door, and no old writing that they could see. There were only stone, roots, and a small pool.

They checked the roof with a long pole before stepping in. Then they tied a cord at the mouth and took a lamp. They went no farther than the cord allowed. The air was cool. The pool held no fish. A beetle walked across the wall and was not impressed by the visitors.

If you find a new opening, do not climb down alone. Keep children and sheep away from the edge. Put a fence around it, and tell the town keeper. Take a lamp, a second person, and a length of cord. Do not break the stone to make the opening wider. It may hold the field above.

Hara's wheat field is planted again now. The fence stands around the opening, and the sheep are still angry about it. They have learned to lean on the gate together. Hara has tied it shut.

The market at Vell sells lamps, cord, and fence posts. It does not sell courage, and courage is no use without a lamp. This last line was added after a boy said he had both. His mother sent him home to mend the fence.
%%
How to shoe a horse in the snow
Written by Toby, for the carters who came up from the south with horses that had never seen Northpoint. Summer, but Toby keeps this for the winter, when the ice is on the road.

The north road is hard on a horse. The stones are sharp, the frost comes early, and the snow makes the hooves ball up with ice. A horse that is not shod for the snow will fall on the first hill.

You will need: the usual shoes, but with sharp studs, made of iron, set in the heel. You will also need the rasp, the hoof knife, a bucket of warm water, a bag of salt, a bag of fine sand, and a stool. Warm water is best. Cold water on a hoof in the north is a kind of insult.

1. Pick up the foot and clean out the snow and ice. Use the knife, gently, and do not dig into the frog. A hoof with a cut in the frog will not stand on the ice at all.
2. Pare the hoof flat, the same as in summer. Snow hides cracks. Look twice.
3. Fit the studded shoe. Heat it at the forge and bend it to the hoof while it is hot. The studs must sit on the outside edge, where the grip is. A stud on the inside will trip the horse.
4. Nail the shoe on with six nails, not four. Snow pulls the shoe loose. Six nails hold it.
5. Rub the sole with fine sand, or with a little fat with sand in it. The sand bites into the ice when the horse walks. Do this each morning, before the road.
6. Walk the horse up and down the yard, first on the snow, then on the ice. Listen for the click. A click on the ice means a stud is loose.
7. Take the stool, but do not sit on it. Stand. You will be needed at the bottom of the next hill, and the horse will want someone to talk to.

Toby says a northern horse is brave, but it is not stupid. It knows the ice. It walks carefully and it stops when the road turns. It is the carter who must learn to trust the horse, and that takes longer than any shoe.
%%
How to bake bread in a storm
By Ree, grandmother, in the house on the edge of Copperhold. A cold, wild night. The wind tore the lantern from the gate, and the oven is the only warmth we have. So I made bread, and wrote it as I went.

You need flour, water, salt, a little honey, and a lump of the old dough that has been kept from last time.

1. Put the flour in the big bowl. Make a hole in the middle.
2. Add the water, a little at a time. Add the old dough, broken into bits. Add the salt and the honey.
3. Mix with your hand until it holds together. It will be sticky. That is correct.
4. Turn it onto the table. Knead it with the heels of your hands. Push, fold, turn. Push, fold, turn. Do this for as long as it takes to sing the song about the fox. Twice.
5. Put the dough back in the bowl and cover it with a cloth. Put it by the fire. Leave it until it has doubled. In a storm, this takes longer.
6. Knock the dough down with your fist. Shape it into two loaves.
7. Put the loaves on a hot stone, or a tray, and slide them into the oven.
8. Bake until they sound hollow when you knock on the bottom. Knock like a polite visitor.
9. Let them cool a little. They will be too hot to eat. You will eat them anyway.

Save a bit of the dough for next time. It is the secret of good bread. My mother gave me hers, and hers came from her mother. We are eating bread that is older than our house.

The wind is howling. The bread is warm. The cat is in my lap. I know of no better night.
%%
Letter: Emmet to his granddaughter
Emmet, potter, to little Ada, who is four and lives down the road.

Dear Ada,

Your mother says you want to know what I do all day. So here it is.

I get up when it is grey. I let the chickens out. I poke the hearth. Then I go to the shed and I put a lump of clay on the wheel and I make it go round with my foot. And I put my hands on the clay, and the clay goes up into a cup. It is like magic but it is only hands.

Your mother says you want a cup of your own. So on the day you come to visit, I will sit you by the wheel and put your hands on the clay, and we will make a little cup. It will be lopsided. That is the best kind.

The kiln is warm today. The dog is asleep by it. The snow is on the roof. Your grandfather is warm and happy.

Come and see me soon.

Your grandfather,
Emmet
%%
How to teach a new hand to go below
Hesk, winter, a longer note. Copperhold, at the count board at the mine gate. For those who train the new ones, and for Clank, who helps.
The first day below is the hardest. A man stands at the shaft head and looks down and thinks of his mother. This is natural. Do not hurry him.
Here is the order of the day.
Morning. At the board: write your name. Count the hands. Count the lamps. Count the picks. Tie the rope to the ladder.
Next. Go down the ladder, hand over hand, with the new hand last. You go first. You are the one who knows. You shout "Clear" at each rung. The new hand shouts back.
At the first level: stop. Give him a torch. Show him the torch spacing. Show him the rail. Show him the left side and the right.
At the second level: give him a pick. Let him swing it once against the wall. It will ring. He will smile. They always smile.
At the third level: give him bread. Let him sit. Let him look.
Come up at noon. Not later. Write the count on the board. Rub his name out. He will look relieved.
Day two: go down again. Day three: again. By the end of the week, he will not need to be told.
One more thing. Teach him to listen. The mine talks, if you let it. Creaks, drips, a far knock. A good miner knows each sound. A new miner hears nothing, and fears everything. That is the way it should be. In a month, he will be the other way round.
Here is a note on the letter. My sister's letter was lost last winter. It went to the wrong gate, and sat in a drawer for a month. Then the keeper found it and sent it on. It said: "Dear Hesk, I hope you are well. I hope you are warm. I hope you are not being brave." It was the best letter I have ever had.
Be brave, but not too brave. That is the whole of the job.
%%
How to keep a hearth in a northern house
Written by Toby at Northpoint, for the new families who came up the road this summer. Summer, when the north is green for a short while.

Summer does not last at Northpoint. The hearth must be ready before the snow, and it must be kept lit through the long nights. Here is how Toby keeps his own, and how his mother kept hers.

You will need: dry oak logs, split small, a bucket of sand, a poker, a chimney brush, a bag of kindling from the birch, and a pot of stew that never goes cold.

1. In summer, clean the chimney. Climb to the top with the brush. Knock the soot down. Soot in a chimney catches fire in the first cold week, and a fire in a chimney is the worst fire there is.
2. Lay the new logs in the hearth before the first frost. Stack them dry, bark side up, on a bed of sand. Sand stops the wood from rotting from the bottom.
3. Build the fire from the bottom up. Put the kindling in the middle, then a few small logs, then the big ones. Light it from below, with a long spill. Never from the top.
4. Keep the fire low at night, but never out. A low fire keeps the house warm for a long time. A dead fire takes half a day to light again, and the children will be cold and cross the whole time.
5. Turn the logs once in the morning. The top one becomes the bottom one. It burns more evenly, and the ash falls where you can scrape it.
6. Keep the stew pot on the side of the hearth, not in the middle. It stays warm all night, and nobody has to get up to stir it when they are cold.
7. Every week, rake the ash out. Put it in a bucket by the door. Ash is good for the wheat, and the wheat is glad of it.

Toby says the hearth is the one thing in a northern house that must never be left alone. When he is out on the ice, his brother keeps it. When his brother is out, the children keep it, with the torch on the post by the door so they can find their way back.

A note from Toby's mother, which she wrote in the margin of the old bread book. Keep the hearth like a friend. Talk to it. It will answer, if you are patient, and it will not complain when you are late.
%%
Saltreach market, Apple 18
Hollis, horse keeper

The Saltreach market was busy today. The fish sellers had silver fish on clean boards. A woman from Ambrook brought apples and honey. I brought the brown mare to carry two sacks of wool.

The mare would not pass the fish stall. She smelled the fish and put her ears back. I led her around the long pier instead. She stepped on my foot once, then stood very still.

A boy asked if horses eat apples. They do. He gave her one, and she took it gently from his hand. I bought a small jar of honey for the road. The seller said it was from the last flowers before frost.

On the way home, the mare carried the sacks without complaint. I walked beside her and kept the wool dry.
%%
How to patch a windmill sail
By Marl, miller of Kettle Ridge. Autumn, at the end of the wind season. I write it plainly, because Tam asked me to, and Tam never reads a long thing.

Windmills at Kettle Ridge squeak on every turn. That is how we know they are working. But when a sail tears, the squeak turns to a flap, and the flap turns to a rip, and the rip turns to a sail on the ground. So patch it early.

You need: a ladder, a mallet, a bucket of paste made from flour and water, a spool of linen thread, a needle as long as a finger, and a roll of sailcloth. A helper is good. A helper who can hold a ladder is better.

First, stop the sails. Tie them down. Never climb a sail that can turn. A sail does not know you are there.

Second, look at the tear. Is it small or large? A small tear, less than a hand across, is easy. A large tear, bigger than a loaf, needs a whole new piece.

Third, cut a patch from the sailcloth. Make it twice as wide as the tear, and a bit longer. Cut the corners round. A square corner catches the wind.

Fourth, spread paste on the back of the patch. Press it onto the sail from behind. Smooth it from the middle outward, with your whole hand.

Fifth, stitch the edge. Small stitches, close together. A stitch every thumb-width. Go round twice.

Sixth, let it dry for a day and a night. Do not turn the sail until it is dry.

Seventh, untie the sail. Let it go. Listen. The squeak will come, and it will be the same squeak as before. If it is a new squeak, look for a loose peg.

When I was young, an old miller told me: a sail is like a shirt. You mend it, you wear it, and when it is too thin, you make a cloth of it, and when that is too thin you make a rag, and you use the rag to oil the wheel.

One more thing. Do not paint the patch. People say it makes the wind notice.

At the autumn fair, the miller who patched his sails best won a ribbon. I won it twice. Tam says it was because nobody else was brave enough to climb. That may be true. I like the ribbon.
%%
How to bend a plank
Ivo, boat builder. Written at the Three Wells market on a market day in Deepsnow, with snow on the three wells and a crowd at my stall. A plank bent in front of people is a better show than a juggler.

The question I am asked most is how a flat plank is made to curve around the belly of a boat. You do not force it. You persuade it.

You need:
A plank of oak, as long as you like and no thicker than a thumb.
A long box of boards, tight at the ends.
A pot of water under the box, on a fire.
Strong clamps.
A form, which is a set of ribs standing in the shape the boat will have.
A friend.

1. Soak the plank in water for a day.
2. Lay it in the box. Light the fire under the pot. Steam will fill the box.
3. Wait one hour for each thumb of thickness. Not less.
4. Take the plank out, with gloves. It will be hot and soft, like a warm candle.
5. Carry it to the form at once. You have as long as it takes to count sixty.
6. Bend it around the ribs, starting at the middle and working out to the ends. Your friend clamps as you go.
7. Leave it clamped for a day and a night. It dries in the new shape and keeps it.

If it cracks, you were too slow or it was too dry. Start again. A cracked plank still makes a good ladder rung.

Now the other thing that happened. While I was bending the third plank, Gil the cooper walked up to my stall. He owed me six emeralds for a hull I mended three summers ago. I had stopped asking. He laid six emeralds on the plank box, in a row, in front of everyone, and said, "Paid."

I said there was no hurry. He said, "There is always a hurry." Then he laughed, as if it were a joke. Nobody laughed with him. Then somebody did, to be kind.

Gil is the fourth to settle with me since the first snow. The shoemaker. The roofer. A woman from Kettle Ridge I have never met. All paid in full, in emeralds, without being asked. I counted every one of them twice.

I find that I do not like it. A debt is a kind of promise to see each other again.
%%
How to splint an arm
Wren, healer, in the hamlet by the marsh. After the storm the branches came down, and I set four arms in two days. If you find someone with a hurt arm and you cannot reach me, this is what to do.
How to tell. If the arm is crooked, or swollen at one spot, or the hurt one will not let you touch it, it is likely broken. If it is only sore and the fingers move easily, it is more likely a sprain. A cold wet cloth is good for a sprain.
You need:
Two straight pieces of wood, as long as the arm from the elbow to the fingertips. Wool or straw for padding. Long strips of cloth. One big cloth for a sling. Cold water.
1. Keep the person sitting down. Speak calmly. A frightened person tenses up, and it hurts more.
2. Do not pull the arm. Do not straighten it. Do not rub it. Leave it as you found it.
3. Pad the wood with wool or straw so it does not dig in.
4. Lay one piece under the arm and one on top. They must reach past the elbow and past the wrist, so neither joint can bend.
5. Tie the strips of cloth above the hurt and below it. Never tie over the hurt itself. Snug, not tight. You should be able to slip a finger under each knot.
6. Make a sling from the big cloth, tied behind the neck. The hand should rest a little higher than the elbow.
7. Look at the fingers. If they go white, blue or cold, loosen the cloth at once.
8. Send for the healer. Keep the person warm. Give small sips of water, and a little honey in warm milk if they are shaking.
What to expect. A broken arm takes about thirty days to knit. Keep the splint on, keep it dry, keep the sling on. After thirty days I will look at it. The first time it is used, it will feel like someone else's arm.
What to watch. Pain that grows after the first day, a hot red swelling, or a bad smell. Any one of these: send for me at once.
A leg or a back is different. Do not move the person. Cover them, keep them warm, and send for me.
Once a fisher broke his arm at the far end of the marsh. By the time I walked there, he had tied it up himself with two boat poles and a net. It was a good splint. I changed nothing. A child's arm mends fastest. A grown man's arm mends almost as fast, if he is told to rest and does. He does not.
%%
How to lay a low garden wall
Marl, autumn. Notes from the man who laid the wall around my egg yard, set down while he worked. The yard is behind the house at the edge of Vell, and the wall is to keep out foxes.
You need: stones, flat on one side if you can; sand; a spade; a string; two pegs; a bucket of water.
1. Mark the line. Put a peg at each end and tie the string between them. Keep it tight. This is your guide.
2. Dig a trench along the string. It should be half a block deep and one block wide. Dig down to hard ground.
3. Fill the bottom with sand. Press it flat.
4. Lay the first row of stones. Use the biggest ones. Set them flat side up. Fit them close.
5. Fill the gaps between stones with small stones and sand.
6. Lay the second row. Offset it, so that each stone sits across a joint below. Never stack one on one. A wall built that way falls over.
7. Keep the string tight. Move it up with each row.
8. For a wall that keeps out foxes, add a top row that sticks out a little, like the wall at Three Wells.
9. Finish with a row of flat stones on top. This sheds rain.
10. Sweep the sand from the top. Pour water down the wall to settle it.
He did the whole yard in three days. It stands. The foxes have looked at it and gone elsewhere.
A tip from the wall builder. If a stone does not fit, do not hit it. Choose another. A stone that wants to be in the wall will tell you.
%%
How to keep a hearth
Hobb told Pell, and Pell wrote it down at the Halfway Inn in spring. The hearth there has not gone out in twenty years.
1. Never let the fire die. Bank it at night with ash, so a few coals sleep under it.
2. In the morning, poke the ash aside and lay on dry kindling. Blow gently.
3. Feed it oak or birch, split small. Wet wood hisses and sulks.
4. Sweep the stones every day. A clean hearth burns better.
5. Keep a second fire in a pot, as a spare.
That is the whole secret. Hobb says it is also the secret of a good friend.
%%
How to keep a well from freezing
By Opal, for the cold months, when the well is most needed and least willing.

1. Cover the top with a board, and put straw between the board and the stones. Straw is cheap. A frozen well is expensive, and it is also very slippery.
2. Hang the bucket on its hook above the water. Do not leave it sitting in the water. A bucket left in the water is a bucket in ice by the morning.
3. Break the ice each day with the long pole, down through the middle, and then lift the broken pieces out. Strike with the pole. Never strike with a boot, a hand or a forehead. The forehead especially.
4. If the bucket sticks, pour warm water on the rope, not on the stones. Hot water cracks a wall as surely as a hammer. Warm is enough.
5. Keep a lantern hung near the top at night, behind glass. Anyone who walks at night will see the well and walk round it. Nobody has ever fallen into a well they could see.
6. Keep a bucket of dry sand beside the well, for the step and the rope. The sand will keep your boots from slipping, and the children from sliding.
7. Each evening, check that the lid has not blown off. A lid in the wind is a hazard, and a lid in the well is a bigger hazard, and a cold bath for whoever goes in after it.
8. In the deepest frost, when the wind comes off the hill like a knife, do not stand at the well talking. Draw the water, carry it in, and go back to the fire. The well will wait for you, and it will be just as cold when you come back.

Honey is good for chapped hands after the ice. Put a little on your fingers before you go out, and a little more when you come back in.

Opal
%%
After a storm
Wren, healer, in the hamlet by the marsh. We had a storm last night: two hours of wind and rain. This is what we do after any storm, in this order.
1. Count the people. Knock on every door.
2. Count the animals. After a storm the hens are in the trees. They are not lost. They are embarrassed.
3. Check the boardwalk posts before you trust a board. A post that leans has lost its feet.
4. Relight the torches along the walk. The first dark after a storm is the worst.
5. Boil the water. The storm stirs the marsh into the wells. Only the clean well is safe.
6. Last, look at the roofs. Roofs can wait. People cannot.
%%
How to borrow a horse and bring it back
Marl's rules, autumn. A neighbor lent me a horse to carry eggs to Vell. The horse was fine. I was not. These are the rules I wrote down on the way home, so I do not forget.
1. Ask the owner in the morning, not the evening. A tired owner says no.
2. Ask the horse too. Stand where it can see you. Let it smell your hand.
3. Bring it back before dark. A horse that comes home late does not trust the next person who asks.
4. Feed it, water it, and brush it. Check the hooves.
5. Bring the owner something. Eggs are good. A dozen is better.
6. Say thank you to the horse. It does not understand. Say it anyway.
%%
How to bring back a well gone dry
By Opal. The old well in the square at Vell went dry in the hot month, and the market women sent for me. They paid me a jar of honey, which I still have, and which is still good.

First, find out why it went dry. There are three reasons, and they are easy to tell apart.

The water fell. The whole hill is drier in a long summer, and the water goes down with it. You will see the wall is sound and dry all the way down. Then the water is only waiting for the rain.

A crack let it out. Lower the lantern on the rope and look at the wall. A thin dark line, going out sideways, is a crack. The water found it and ran out of the well like a child out of a door.

The spoil fell in. Dirt and stones from a bad wall come down into the bottom and cover the water. You will see a heap at the foot, and the bucket will come up with nothing but mud.

Then do this.

1. Clear the fallen spoil from the bottom, a bucket at a time. Take the heap away, not just to the side.
2. If there is a crack, pack it with wet clay. Press it in with a flat stick, and then press it again. Let it set for a day before you go on.
3. Dig one spade's depth deeper than before, to the place where the test hole was damp. You may find the water comes back on its own.
4. Test with the bucket. Lower it, pull it up, and wait. If it comes up with water, you are back in business. If it comes up with mud, dig again, slowly.
5. Lay a new course at the bottom, if the old one was sunk, and bed it well.
6. Cover the top, and leave a jug at the rim with a note on it: this is the water, please bring it back.

The Vell well has been running since the first frost. The market women have asked me to take the honey back. I will not. A well-finder who takes the honey back is a well-finder who will never be asked again.

Opal
%%
Letter: Bel to the archive at Vell
Bel, at Three Wells, to the clerks at Vell. Please file this. It is important.

Dear archive,

My cousin was married on the fourth of Longnight, in the snow, which everyone said was lucky and my aunt said was cold. The wedding was at the school house because the inn was full and the bakery was full of bread. Dace read the words. The bride wore a red cloak dyed with beetroot. I know because I helped dye it and my hands were red for a week.

There was a jar of honey on the table with a ribbon round it, and whoever found the ribbon in their cup was next to be married. Pell found it and said he was too old and too busy, and then he ate the honey with a spoon, so I think the ribbon did not count.

We had beetroot soup, bread, apples from Ambrook, and a pie. The pie was mostly potato. Nobody minded. There was a fiddler from the Long Road and everyone danced in their coats.

The snow came down all evening and in the morning the square was white and the three wells had white hats. We made a snow fox by the east well. It fell over. We made another one.

Please write back and tell me what weddings were like in the old days at Vell. Did they have honey? Did the clerks dance? I think clerks dance. Oren does not look like he dances, but I think he does when nobody is looking.

From Bel. Age nine and a half. Nearly ten.
%%
Spring chores at Kettle Ridge
By Tam, for Pip.

Pip, these are the jobs. Do them in this order and do not run.

First light: open the hen house. Count the hens. Twelve last week. If there are eleven, look in the hedge before you do anything else.

Then the pigs. Feed them from the pig pen bucket. Do not let the sow out, she knows the gate is loose and she is patient.

Then the hives. Do not open the hives. Just look. If the bees are out and busy, all is well. If they are not out and it is warm, tell me.

Then the top field. Walk the wheat and look for the rust. If you find it, mark the row with a stick and tell me.

Then the beetroot. The long field. The wind has been wrong this spring and the beetroot is slow. Do not water it too much. Beetroot likes to work for its water.

Then the ditch. Clear the ditch down the middle of the field so the water runs. If the water does not run, the roots rot.

Then the scarecrow. Straighten his hat. He does not mind, but I do.

Then the tally board at the mill. Chalk the sacks. Count twice.

Then rest. You do not need to rest. Rest anyway. It is good for the fields to see you standing still now and then.

One more thing. The relays are quiet. If a keeper comes down the ridge road with a letter, bring it to me at once, whatever you are doing. Even if you are in the ditch. Even if you are counting the sacks. The letters matter more than the sacks this spring.

And if anyone asks you about the humming at Copperhold, you do not know. That is not your business, Pip. Your business is the beetroot and the bees and the loose gate. Keep the fields. I will be back before dark.
%%
The laying of the east wall
By Dace, mayor, from the town book.

In the 183rd year we laid the east wall of Three Wells, from the north corner to the east well. It took two seasons and every pair of hands in the town.

The wall is cobblestone, cobblestone, deep stone, in that order, row on row. The deep stone comes up from Copperhold on the carts. The top row is set to stick out one block, so a spider cannot walk up and over. This was Hesk's idea, and we gave him the first stone.

The school children carried stones in baskets, and were paid in honey cakes. Bel carried more than anyone and dropped two. We put the two she dropped in a corner where they still are.

The mason's order of work:
1. Dig the footing a block deep and pack it with rubble.
2. Set the corner stones first and run a string between them.
3. Lay the rows level, checking with the string at every third stone.
4. Fill the middle with smaller stones and pack them tight.
5. Set the top row last, and the sticking-out stones along the outside.

When it was done we lit a lamp at every corner and had the fair in the square. The wall has stood through every winter since. When the wind is from the north it hums, and the children say the wall is singing. It is only the wind, but let them have it.
%%
Keeping a hearth
By Corin, at the Copperhold hamlet.

The hearth keeps the room warm while we mend nets and eat. It also makes smoke when we forget the simple parts.

Before lighting it, clear ash from the stone floor. Keep dry oak and birch beside the wall, not across the hearth. Lay two short pieces apart, then put kindling between them. Leave room for air. A fire smothered under a heap only makes smoke.

Light the kindling and watch it until the larger wood catches. Keep the chimney mouth clear. Set the kettle on the iron hook, with its handle turned away from the bench. Nobody wants a hot handle in a cold hand.

In the morning, spread the ash only after the coals are cold. Put the ash in the garden bed, not in the wood box. I learned this after bringing home a box of gray powder for supper.

The hamlet's new apprentice carries the wood now. Her name is Fen. She lays each piece in a neat row, then checks the row twice. I told her the hearth did not need counting. She said it did not, but I did.

A traveler at the mine road said the Deep Works had hummed all night. Hesk says the sound was only the wind in the old shaft. The traveler had been sleeping beside that shaft, so perhaps he knows the wind well.
%%
Report: the winter boxes and the honey
By the schoolteacher at Three Wells, sent to the council.

The Longnight boxes went out to eleven houses this year, up from seven. Each held bread, a jar of honey, two apples, a candle, and a card drawn by a child. The apples came from Ambrook and the honey from the hives on the hill above the mill pond. The bread came from the bakery, which gave the heels and the day-old and asked not to be named, so I will not name it, but it is the one with the good door.

Some notes on the boxes, for next year:

The honey went first. The candles went last; people keep a candle. Next year we might send two jars of honey and one candle, if the bees are kind. Pell says the price of honey is up at the fair and will come down after Longnight. Pell is usually right about honey.

We had enough for eleven houses and no more. Two more houses would have been better. If anyone has a jar to spare, leave it at the school house door, and Bel will write a card to go with it. Bel's cards are always a fox. Everyone likes the fox.

The children sang at the wells on the last night. It was very cold. They sang anyway. The three wells had white hats and the lamps were lit and the whole square rang.

I am sending this to the council so it is written down, and to the archive so it is kept. We will keep everything we write.
%%
Mend a Net by the Window
By Sella, net mender at Saltreach

A net is easiest to mend in good light. Sit by the quay window, where the nets dry, and lay the torn part flat on the bench. Ask someone to hold the far end. If no one is free, tie it to the bench leg.

Choose a cord like the old cord. A thick cord makes a lump, and a thin cord will break when the fish pull. Tie the first knot beside the tear. Then pass the cord through each sound loop, keeping the spaces the same size.

Do not mend only the largest hole. Look along the whole net. Little breaks hide under the knots. My brother once found a hole after we had packed the net, and he blamed the fish. The fish were not present to answer.

When the last loop is tied, lift the net and shake it once. If the tear opens, mend it again. If it holds, fold the net with the repaired part on top.

This is the part people forget. Put the net away dry. A wet net smells, and the cat will sleep on it.
%%
Letter: Pell to his sister at Ambrook
Dear Sable,

The road is dry and the carts are light. I am at the Brown Hen tonight, two days from your door. I have a crate of copper pans for the market and a sack of Saltreach salt, and I will not be robbed on the way by anyone, least of all by you.

The inn has a good fire and a bad cook. The keeper says the north road has been quiet. Two carts came down from Copperhold and both had the same story: the Deep Works hums at night. One driver says it is the pumps and the other says it is the stone itself, and one of them would not go below the fourth level for any wage. I do not know what a hum proves. My knees hum in the cold.

At the fair I will have a stall by the east well. Bring the honey and the good apples, not the spotted ones. I know you.

Give the children my love and tell them the waymarks past Three Wells have new stones on top. Someone is leaving them at every one, a little pile, like a prayer.

Your brother,
Pell

Postscript: if anyone at Ambrook asks about the ships at Saltreach, say nothing. I will tell you at the market. There are more of them this year, and they are longer than a fishing boat should be, and half the harbor is asking where they go.
%%
Keeping hives at the marsh edge
By Orin, beekeeper at the low hamlet. For the folk up at Ambrook, who asked.

You asked how we keep bees here, where the water is close and the reeds are tall. We do it the same as you, mostly. The bees find the flowers themselves. We only give them a dry box and a firm post.

The stand:
- Set the hive on posts, two blocks off the wet ground.
- Face the door south, out of the wind off the marsh.
- Leave a gap under it. Damp comes up from below and rots a hive in a year.
- Put a flat stone on the lid. The wind here will take a lid off and roll it into the water.

The smoke:
- A little smoke at the door makes them gentle. Too much and they sulk and sting.
- Use dry reeds, not green ones. Green makes a wet smoke that sticks.

Working the hive:
- Go in the morning, when the dew is off and the day is warming. Not at noon, not in rain.
- Open the lid slow. Lift, do not drag.
- Look at three frames and no more, unless something is wrong.
- Do not crush a bee against the box. The smell tells the others, and then the whole hive is cross with you.

The honey:
- Take only the capped frames. Uncapped honey is not ready and it will run.
- Leave the bees their share. Two frames at least, more before a long winter.
- Cut the comb, let it drain, keep it in the cool. Glass jars, lid on tight.

Here the bees make a darker honey than Ambrook's, from the marsh flowers. It is stronger and it does not set so hard. Some folk swear by it for a sore throat. I have not tried it and I will not say.

Keep the path to the hives clear. A beekeeper who trips in the reeds is a beekeeper with a story and a swollen nose.
%%
How to mend a net at the quay
Kept at the quay at Saltreach, in the net shed, by Corin, shipwright, for the new hands who come down from the hills in winter. Do this by the window, where the light is good.

You need:
A net with a hole in it. Holes are common. Do not be afraid of them.
A ball of twine, the grey kind, dipped in tar.
A netting needle, the flat wooden one with the notch.
A mesh gauge, a little board with a square hole cut in it, the same size as the mesh.

1. Find the edge of the hole. Pull the loose twine back, gently, to see what is still sound.
2. Cut away the broken threads with the knife. Cut them close, but not so close that the knot slips.
3. Tie the twine to the sound mesh at the top of the hole, with a half knot.
4. Fill the hole row by row. Pass the needle through the mesh above, round the twine, and back through, the way you have been shown. Pull snug. Do not pull hard. A net that is pulled too tight will break at the next storm.
5. Use the mesh gauge all the way round. Every square should fit the gauge exactly, neither too big nor too small.
6. Tie off at the bottom with a double knot. Cut the end short.
7. Check the net by holding it up to the window. You should see light through every mesh, and no gaps.

Corin says a good net is like a good wall. If one thread is sound, it will hold the others. If one knot is wrong, the net will fail at that knot, and not somewhere else.

Mend the net on the day you find the hole. A hole left for a week grows into two.
%%
A horse at the door
By Pell, on the road to the Copperhold hamlet.

The mare came in with one shoe loose and a stone caught beside it. We led her into the dry shed and gave her water before we touched her foot. A tired horse is not a stool.

I cleaned the hoof with the blunt end of the pick. I worked from heel to toe and took care not to cut the soft part. Then I wiped the shoe and checked it for a crack. It was sound, but one nail had bent.

We held the mare's leg steady. Corin set the shoe straight against the hoof and tapped in a new nail. Each nail went into the old hole where it could. He turned the points down and filed them smooth. I kept a hand on the mare's shoulder and spoke to her, though I had no news she wanted.

When the shoe was firm, we set the foot down and watched her walk. She took three steps, then stopped to nose my pocket for an apple. I had none. She looked at me as if this proved something.

The spring road is soft near the mine hill. We will check all four shoes before she goes back to Saltreach. Corin says a loose shoe is cheaper than a lame mare, but neither is as cheap as walking slowly.

At the hamlet gate, someone had left a torch burning in daylight. The keeper said a zombie had stood there before dawn. It went away when the bell rang. Hesk says it followed a traveler from the low road, not the mine. The keeper says the traveler came from the mine. We have lit the torch again.
%%
The keep at the mill: notes for whoever
By Jory, miller at Ambrook.

I am old and my hands shake and I am writing this down so the mill keeps its ways after me. Read it and do what it says.

The wheel. It turns dawn to dusk and not before, and not after. The sluice is set before the sun is up and closed when the shadows reach the far bank. Nobody opens the sluice wider. Nobody. The pond has a level and the level is the whole town's, not mine.

The stones. Dress them once a month with the pick. An even face grinds even flour. The flour should feel like the inside of your wrist.

The tally board. Every sack that comes in is chalked on the board. Every sack that goes out is chalked off. If the board and the store do not agree, the miller does not sleep. I have not slept twice in my life. Both times I had miscounted.

The bees. The hives on the hill are the beekeeper's, not mine, but the bees work the apple blossom and the mill pond water is soft and they drink at the edge. Do not drain the pond in Blossom. The bees will go and the apples will be thin.

The oldest apple tree. The one with the grey branch. Every child in Ambrook has fallen out of it. Do not cut the grey branch. It has fruited every year for longer than the mill has stood.

Now the market. Since I am too old to load the cart, the market is my son's. He is a good miller and a poor talker. Here is what he will not tell you, so I will.

The market at Ambrook is held on the green by the bridge. Stalls face the bridge so the wind does not take the cloth. The honey goes by the hives, the apples by the bridge, the flour by the mill gate. The baker comes from Three Wells with her bread and her news, and her news is worth more than her bread.

Put up the awning before the sun is high. Pack it away when the flies come. Count the money twice and the sacks once.

Folk in the market talk. This spring they talk about the north. One man says there are lights in the sky over Northpoint and they are falling stars. A woman from the coast says they are fires and no one has come down from the north to tell her otherwise. A child, I do not know whose, said the lights were looking at us, and everyone laughed, and then no one laughed. I do not know what they are. I am a miller. I know flour.

They talk about the cough at Lowmarsh. Some say it is the water. Some say it is the ships. Wren writes that it is a cough and she treats it and that is all she knows. I believe Wren. She is the only one at Lowmarsh who does not guess.

They talk about the relays. The tower past Three Wells has not sent a message since Apple. The keeper there is a young man and he says the lamp is cold and the line is dead. Mira writes from Northpoint to say the north has been silent since Leaffall. So the letters go up the road and they do not come back.

I am writing this because the mill is old and I am older. The wheel turns. The flour is fine. The bees are out early this year and I do not know why.
%%
Notes: the winter market at Three Wells
By Dace, mayor.

The winter market is on the square around the three wells, the second day of Longnight, as always. The stalls go round the wells. The lamps at every corner are lit by the bell ringer at the fourth hour.

Stalls this year: Emmet with pots and cups, the bakery with bread and honey cakes, Pell with cloth and salt from the coast, the Kettle Ridge folk with beetroot and sacks of flour, and a new stall of toys and little wooden horses.

Rules for stallholders:
- Keep your stall behind its rope. The paths between stalls must stay clear for carts.
- No fires in the open. Braziers only, and one keeper to each brazier.
- Bring your own water bucket, and hold it by you.
- If the bell rings three times, that is a fire. Stop, listen, and go where the bellman points.

The school children will sing at the east well at midday. Bel has written a song about the wells, and says it is very good. I have not heard it. I am told it is very long.

The notice board by the wall will carry the order of the day. Read it. It is not a puzzle, and there is no prize for guessing.
%%
Northpoint House at Swarm
By Mira, relay keeper

The house at the edge of Northpoint is small. Snow heaps against its north wall, even in Swarm. The foxes use the south path. I leave them no fish, though Lantern says they have learned to look hopeful.

Our door sticks when the wood swells. Lift it by the latch, then push with your knee. Do not kick it. The spare plank is under the bed, and Tam is too far away to bring another.

Keep dry wood by the hearth and damp wood outside. Lantern brings in more than I ask, then stands by the stack as if it has done a great deed. It has. I make it carry the water bucket too.

The windows are small. We keep one pane clear for the tower lamp. In the evening I can see its red line from the desk. If the wind is loud, the roof makes a noise like a cart with a loose wheel.

There is room for a bed, a table, and two people who do not mind sharing the table. I mind when Lantern puts the lamp oil beside my bread. It says nothing. I move the oil.
%%
How to keep a boat over winter
Ivo, boat builder. Winter is when a boat wants the most care and gives the least back. Do these things and in spring it will float on the first day.

1. Haul it out before the first ice. Do not leave it in the water to see what happens.
2. Turn it upside down on two logs, with the bow to the south. Rain runs off. Snow slides off.
3. Prop it so no part of it touches the ground. Wood on mud rots.
4. Scrape off the weed and shells while they are soft.
5. Look at every seam. Mark any that weep with a chip of charcoal. Caulk them on the dry days.
6. Rub the wood with fish oil, one thin coat. Let it soak in.
7. Hang the oars from a roof beam. Oars bend if they lean.
8. Put the sail in a dry box. Not a damp one.
9. Come back once a month and knock on the hull. A good hull rings. A bad one thuds.

Three families from Saltreach sold me their boats this winter, cheap. They said they had no use for them where they were going. I asked where. They said, over.

The baker at Three Wells says there is nothing across the water. The fish seller says there are lights. The mayor says he does not know, which I respect.

I have turned all three boats over behind the north well. They are well kept. If their owners come back, they may have them for nothing.
%%
How to dye wool red, with beetroot
Written by Mott, who keeps the farm at the Oak Post, for the spring dyeing. Spring of 205.

You will need: a big pot, a sack of raw wool, four beetroots, a bucket of clean water, a wooden spoon, and a pinch of salt. Do not use the good pot. Beetroot stains everything, and the good pot will never forgive you.

1. Wash the wool first. Use warm water and a little soap. Rinse it three times. Dirty wool takes the dye in blotches, like a cow that has been rolling in the mud.
2. Grate the beetroots. Do not peel them. The skin holds the colour. Grate them into the pot.
3. Pour in the water, enough to cover the beetroot by a hand. Bring it to a slow boil. Do not let it roll. A rolling pot makes the colour sad and grey.
4. Simmer the beetroot for one hour. The water will go deep purple. Take out the grated bits with the spoon and throw them to the pigs. The pigs are very pleased with this part.
5. Put the wet wool in the pot. Push it down so every strand is under. Add the pinch of salt. The salt holds the colour, my mother said, and she was right about everything else.
6. Keep the wool in the pot for two hours. Stir it slowly every quarter hour, the same way round. Do not stir it fast. It will tangle, and you will spend the next day cursing the tangles.
7. Lift the wool out and let it drip. It will be pink at first. It goes darker as it dries. Do not be frightened by the pink. Everyone is frightened by the pink.
8. Hang the wool in the shade. Never in the sun. The sun will bleach it to a sad peach colour, and the children will laugh at you for the rest of the spring.
9. Rinse it once in cold water when it is dry. Hang it again. Then it is done.

A note from the road. The carters at the Brown Hen say the best red comes from the purple beetroot, the round sort, and not the long white ones. The carters are right, but they will not say so to the Oak Post. Do not ask them why.

Last year the Oak Post sold forty skeins, and the dye was used on the hats for the Kettle Ridge reaping. Tam has asked for ten skeins this year. He says he has lost his hat again, and the new one must be red so he can see it from the field.
%%
How to lay a low wall
By Moll, tutor of apprentices.

A low wall keeps sheep from the school garden and marks the edge of the path. It should not block the view of the notice board. Last year Dace asked for a wall that did both, and I told him to choose one.

Gather cobblestone from the old stack by the west road. Use only stones you can lift without twisting your back. Set the largest stones at the bottom. If the ground is soft, scrape away mud until you reach firm earth. Do not build on loose mud, even if it looks level.

Lay two stones side by side. Fit a third across the join between them. Each new row should cover the joins below. Turn each stone until it sits without rocking. Small flat stones can fill a gap, but do not use them as the whole wall.

Keep the face of the wall straight by stretching a cord from one end post to the other. Check it after every row. A wall can look straight from the square and bend like a carrot from the garden.

Leave a space for the gate beside the path. Put two sound posts into the earth and set a lintel stone across them. Do not make the opening so narrow that a cart cannot pass. Do not make it so wide that the sheep learn to pass together.

Build to the height of a child's waist. Make the top row broad and flat. Press each stone with both hands. If it moves, lift it and set it again. A wall should not depend on a child leaning against it.

Moll once let a class build a wall without a cord. They were proud of it until the middle bowed into the path. We took it apart before the fair, and the children carried every stone back. Since then, I put the cord in the lesson box before I call the class.

Keep a clear space on both sides. Nettles and weeds hide loose stones. At the end, sweep the path and count the stones left over. Return them to the stack. Do not throw them into the well, though someone always suggests it.

A note on the notice board says the water at Lowmarsh is making people cough. Wren's last letter says the water is clear. The baker says her cousin heard it from a boatman. I have no proof, so I have not moved the school well.

We built this wall in the warm part of summer. The children sat on it at noon and ate bread with honey. The sheep stayed in the garden anyway. One found the gate, and one found Bel's lunch.
%%
How to lay a step at the inn door
Written by Mott, for the boy who fixes the Oak Post yard. Spring, after the flood.

The stone step at the door of the inn cracked in the flood. The water came up to the second stair, brown and quick, and it lifted the step and set it down wrong. You can see the crack from the road. You can see the crack from the Brown Hen, and the carters have made a song about it.

You will need: four flat stones from the river bank, lime from the kiln, a bucket of sand, a trowel, a long board for a level, and somebody to hold the other end of the board.

1. Lift the broken step out with a bar. Use two men. One man lifts. The other man keeps his fingers out from under the stone. Mott has lost a nail to this lesson, and it was not a good nail.
2. Dig out the bed under it. Go down a hand's depth. The ground under the step is wet and soft after a flood. Pack the bottom with river stone, so the water has somewhere to go.
3. Mix the lime and sand with a little water, until it holds its shape on the trowel. Not too wet. A wet mix runs away and leaves a hollow, and hollows are where the next flood starts.
4. Lay a thin bed of mix on the stone. Set the new step down on it. Tap it with the handle of the trowel, all round the edge, until it sits flat. Check it with the board. Check it again.
5. Fill the joints from the front, with the mix pressed hard into each crack. Scrape the extra off with the edge of the trowel.
6. Let it set for three days. Do not walk on it. Tilly will want to walk on it, and you must tell her no, politely, and then say it again.
7. Put a torch on a post beside the step, so you can see it at night. The carters trip on the new step the first week, every time. It is always the same carter.

The Oak Post step is the best of any inn on the north road, because it is level. Sella says so, and she has asked Mott to tell you that she is right.
%%
How to mend a wall after a creeper
By Hesk, Copperhold. The kitchen wall at the mine gate, again.

1. Count the crew first. Then look at the wall.
2. Listen. If anything is still hissing, leave. Come back when it is quiet.
3. Clear the broken stone. Keep the good blocks. Throw out the cracked ones.
4. Use cobblestone from the upper levels, not deep stone from below. I do not like the deep stone this summer. It comes up warm.
5. Lay the blocks in the old pattern, and light a torch at each end. A creeper comes from the dark.
6. Tell the cook it is done. The cook will say the stew was in the wall. It was not.
%%
How to caulk a seam
Ivo, boat builder. I put this on the notice board at the Three Wells market every winter, so I will put it here too. For anyone with a boat that weeps.

A seam that leaks has nothing in it. Fill it.

1. Pull old rope apart into soft fibre.
2. Press the fibre into the seam with a blunt chisel and a mallet. Press until the seam is packed tight and the chisel rings.
3. Melt spruce pitch in a pot over a low fire.
4. Pour it over the seam. Let it go hard.
5. Scrape it flush with a flat knife.

Do this in winter, when the boat is dry. A wet seam will not hold.

On market days I stand by the north well with a boat upside down. If you cannot find me, look for the boat.
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How to listen to the stone
By Hesk, Copperhold. Because the lads asked, and because nobody else wrote it down.

1. Stop work. Stand still for a count of twenty.
2. Put your hand flat on the wall. Not a fist. A hand.
3. Wait. Count twenty again.
4. If you feel nothing, go on with your work.
5. If you feel a hum, or the stone is warm, take your hand away. Chalk a mark on the wall at the height of your shoulder. Write the day beside it.
6. Tell the hall. Do not tell the inn. The inn will make it bigger.
7. Do not guess what it is. I do not know what it is. The shift master does not know. My father would have said huh and gone on digging.

It is no bad thing to put your hand on the stone. It is only a bad thing to do it and say nothing.
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How to mend a roof after a storm
By Ree, grandmother, the house on the edge of Copperhold. Winter. The great wind took four tiles off the roof last night, and Ree stood in the yard and told the neighbors how to do it properly. They wrote it down, because she would not stop until they did.

You will need a ladder, a hammer, a handful of nails, new tiles or planks, a bucket of tar and a boy.

1. Wait for the wind to drop. Never climb a roof in a gale. The roof will wait. You will not be so lucky.
2. Look from the ground. Count the gaps. Make a note of where they are.
3. Gather the new tiles. If you have no tiles, use boards. Cut them long enough to overlap.
4. Set the ladder on firm ground. Tie it at the top. Tell the boy to hold the foot. Tell him to hold it, not to chat.
5. Go up slowly. Carry the tools in a bag on your back.
6. Pull out the broken pieces. Sweep away the dust.
7. Lay the new tile from the bottom up, each one overlapping the one below it, so the rain runs off.
8. Nail through the top edge, two nails to a tile. Not too tight.
9. Brush tar along the joins.
10. Come down. Check the ceiling inside for wet.

Never mend a roof alone. Never mend a roof angry. A mended roof keeps out the rain for a long time. A badly mended roof keeps out nothing and makes a sound like a drum.

In Copperhold the wind is strong and the roofs are old. Every winter, one goes. Last year it was the baker's. The year before it was the mine hall's, and the miners made a great deal of noise about it. So keep a stack of boards in the shed.

My own roof is fine. It was mended in my mother's time, with oak, and it has never leaked. I tell this to everyone, and no one believes me.
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Lesson With a Pot of Water
By Cass and Pip, written on the same page.

Pip came from Kettle Ridge with Tam to see the mine road. Tam said Pip could mend the cracked clay pot by the back door. I said a crack in clay needs a new pot. Pip said the drill board showed how to build a wall, and a wall was only a pot with no top.

This was not a sound start.

We set out a board, clay, water, and four cobblestones. Pip was meant to carry the stones from the wood box to the board. Instead it carried the pot from the shelf and set it in the middle.

I gave the order again. Pip carried the clay bowl to the stones. The bowl tipped. Water ran across the floor and froze by the back step before we could wipe it.

Tam laughed so hard he had to sit on the flour chest. I told him to fetch sand. He fetched a sack of wheat. He said he had heard the word sack.

We moved the lesson outside. The stones went into a low square. Pip carried them one by one and placed each at a corner. It did not know what a pot was, but it learned where each stone belonged after we showed it.

The wall stood by dusk. The cracked pot still waits on the shelf. Tam says we should mend it with a wall. I say he can drink from it when he finishes the work.
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How to shoe a horse
Hollis, horse keeper

A horse needs a sound shoe before a long road. Do not shoe a tired horse beside a busy market. Take it to a quiet, level place and let it stand.

First, clean the hoof. Lift the foot gently and scrape away mud and small stones. Look for a crack or a sore place. If the horse pulls its foot away, wait. Do not force it.

Hold the old shoe still and remove each nail. Keep the nails in a pot, where nobody will step on them. Lift the shoe away. Check the hoof again.

Choose an iron shoe that fits the hoof. It must not cover the soft middle. Set it against the hoof and check both sides. A shoe that is too wide catches on the road. A shoe that is too small presses the hoof.

Tap the nails through the holes, one at a time. The nail points should come out low on the hard wall of the hoof. Bend each point down and file it smooth. Never drive a nail into the soft middle.

Let the horse walk a few steps on packed earth. Watch each foot. If it limps, stop and check the shoe. A quiet horse is not always a comfortable horse.

When the work is done, give it water and a little hay. My first mare would only stand for shoeing if I sang. I have a poor voice, but she had good sense.
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How to make reed paper
Wren, healer, in the hamlet by the marsh. It was a good summer for reeds. Half the hamlet is making paper and the other half is making room.
You need: a big tub, a wooden frame with a fine net stretched over it, some cloths, two boards and a heavy stone.
1. Cut the reeds at the root, while they are green. Strip off the leaves and cut the stems into finger lengths.
2. Soak the stems in the tub for three days. Pour off the brown water and use fresh.
3. Beat the soaked stems with a flat mallet until they are a soft grey pulp. It takes an hour and sore arms.
4. Put the pulp in the tub with a great deal of water. Stir.
5. Slide the frame under the pulp and lift it out flat. A thin, even layer stays on the net. Turn the frame over onto a wet cloth and tap it. The sheet comes off.
6. Stack the sheets with a cloth between each. Press the stack under the boards and the stone for a night.
7. Peel the sheets off and hang them on a line to dry.
The Archive buys all we can make.
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How to fix a cracked lamp pane
Written by Mott, who was asked by the keeper at the Ambrook relay to mend the lamp glass. Spring.

A cracked pane lets in the wind, and the wind puts the flame out. A keeper who finds a crack must mend it before the next night, or the line goes dark.

You will need: a new pane of glass from Saltreach, a bit of copper wire, a ladder that reaches the lamp room, a pot of lead putty, a flat knife, and a clean cloth. Do not use oil on the glass. Oil makes the lamp smoke and the keeper will shout.

1. Climb to the lamp room in daylight, not in the dark. Tie yourself to the rail with a rope. The lamp room is small and the wind is strong.
2. Turn the lamp down. Let it cool for an hour. Hot glass cracks when it is touched.
3. Take out the broken pane with the knife. Work the putty out from round the edge, slowly. Keep the pieces, every one. The keeper will want to see them. He says a broken pane tells you what the wind was doing.
4. Clean the frame with the cloth. Look for rust on the copper ring. If the ring is green, rub it with vinegar, and leave it a while.
5. Set the new pane in the frame. Press it gently into the putty. Use the copper wire to hold it while the putty sets, and twist the wire tight at each corner.
6. Fill the gaps with fresh putty. Smooth it with the knife so the wind has no edge to catch on.
7. Wait a day. Then light the lamp again, slowly, and watch the flame. If it leans, the pane is not straight. Take it out and try again.

The keeper at Ambrook says the lamp must burn steady for an hour before he trusts it. He sat at the foot of the ladder the whole time, with his arms folded, and said nothing. That is how you know a good keeper.

A note for the next one who climbs. The wind from the north comes round the tower by noon. Work early. Work quickly. Work when the lamp is cold.
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How to dye wool blue
Pell wrote this at the inn from what Zell the dyer told him, spring, when the school wanted blue for the play.
You will need: wool, washed and dry; woad leaves, or blue flowers if you have none; a big pot; a stick; a stone; ash water; clean rain.
1. Wash the wool in warm rainwater and wring it out. It must be clean or it will not take the dye.
2. Chop the woad and put it in the pot with rainwater. Warm it. Do not boil. Boiling spoils the blue.
3. Add a little ash water until the pot turns green and smells like a pond. This is correct. Do not be alarmed.
4. Put in the wool. Push it under with the stick. Keep it warm, not hot, for an hour.
5. Lift it out. It is green, and it will turn blue as it meets the air. This is the best part. Stand and watch.
6. Rinse in clear water until it runs clean. Hang to dry in the shade.
For a darker blue, put it back in the pot. For a paler blue, lift it out sooner.
The school wanted a blue sheet for a river. We gave them one. It dripped for a week.
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Blowing glass for the school windows
By Toby, Saltreach.

Dace, the mayor at Three Wells, wrote to the glassmakers at Vell for the school windows. The glassmakers at Vell wrote back that they were busy until Apple. So the order came down the road to the harbor, and I said yes before I knew what I was saying yes to. That is how most good work begins.

This is how we blow glass at Saltreach, for a window of six panes. Read all of it before you light the furnace. Glass forgives nobody who reads only half.

You need sand from the north beach, washed three times until the water runs clear. You need a furnace hot enough to melt sand. You need a blowpipe, a long iron pipe with a mouthpiece at one end and a cup at the other. You need a bench with a wet cloth on it, and a cooling box lined with sacking for the night.

1. Put the sand in the furnace and wait. Sand turns to glass slowly, and then all at once, the way a melon goes soft in a warm room.
2. Dip the end of the blowpipe into the glass and turn it. Keep turning, or it sags into a lump. A lump is a poor window.
3. Blow gently, a little at a time. Blow too hard and you get a bubble the size of a melon, and a shout from the foreman.
4. Roll the bubble on the bench, over the wet cloth, in long slow strokes. Roll it until it is round.
5. Cut the bubble open while it is still hot. Use the cold iron, quick and clean, and let the glass lie down flat as it opens. It will lie down like a sleeping cat if you let it.
6. Lay the sheet in the cooling box for the night. Glass cooled too fast cracks, like a wall built in frost.
7. Cut the pane to size when it is cold. Measure twice and cut once. Then sweep up the bits, because the cats will walk on them.

My first pane came out wavy, like a pond in a breeze. I was ashamed. The foreman looked at it for a long time and said, "It will make a good window for a fish." Then he put it in the cooling box himself, with a kind hand, and it came out clean the next morning. Every glassmaker makes one wavy pane in his first month. Mine went to the storehouse, not the school.

The school by the east well is of Copperhold stone, and it wanted Saltreach glass to match. Six panes went by the east door. Eight went over the stairs. One went in the window that does not open, because the teacher says a window that does not open keeps out the wind and the children. Dace says the children were never asked.

When the glass was set in its frames, the children painted their door bright green and asked me to come and see it. I went. I have no eye for colors, but I know a good pane, and the morning light came through the east window and lay on the schoolroom floor in six clean squares. The children stood in them, one by one, like cats looking for the warm square.
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How to wall up a drift
By Hesk, Copperhold. I have not wanted to write this one.

A drift is a side tunnel. When one is worked out, or unsafe, you wall it up. It is a careful job. I have done it eleven times. This is the first time I have done it with no reason I can give.

1. Count your crew out. Rub every name off the board at the shaft head. Count again at the top.
2. Check each apprentice's last order. A mind told stay will stay. If one is in the drift, give it a new order, and watch it walk out before you lay the first block.
3. Take your tools. Take your torches as you go. Leave the rails.
4. Lay the wall from the floor. Cobblestone for the first three rows. Deep stone for the rest. Lay each row over the joins of the one below. Make the wall as thick as your arm is long.
5. Fill it solid. A gap is a door.
6. Chalk on the wall the number of the drift, the day, and your name.
7. Write a notice for the board at the shaft head, and sign it.
8. Tell the hall which drift, and write in the hall book.

About why. I have been asked many times why the lower drifts are being walled. The hall says wall them. The lads say it is the hum, and the stone being warm. Some say the hall knows something it will not say. Some say the hall knows nothing and is being careful. I am a miner. I do what the hall says if it is sensible, and I say so if it is not. This one I did, and I told the hall I would like to know why. Nobody has answered.

Walling a drift is not hard. Not knowing why is.
