Dunn's list for the market stall
I keep this in my coat. Pell says I should write it down and I have.
For the Lowmarsh spring market, from Three Wells:
- Two barrels of apples from Ambrook. Sell by the cup, not the barrel. People buy a cup and come back for more.
- Honey, six jars. Ambrook honey. Do not say it is the best. Say it is honey and let them taste it.
- Wool, four bales, from Kettle Ridge. It is good wool. Tam's wool is untidy but it is good.
- Needles and thread. Small things sell.
- A few copper ingots, from Copperhold, for people who want them. There is a new vein. The price will be fair this year.
- Rope from Lowmarsh. Buy, do not sell. I sell it at Three Wells for more.
- Bread from Hollis, if it lasts the road. It does not last the road. Buy bread at the market instead.
- A stool. I am not young. A stool.
The stall fee is two coppers at the quay, paid to the harbor clerk. Pay it early. The good spot by the fish market goes fast.
If it rains, the market moves under the boat house roofs. If it rains hard, the market goes to the inn and everyone argues about the mud.
%%
List: what to fix before winter
Kept by Olwen, carter, at the boat house by the weir.
Fix these before the frost. Do them in this order, or the reeds will do them for you.

1. The boardwalk, third post past the well. It leans. Set a new post beside it and tie the two together with rope.
2. The boat house roof. Six reed bundles on the north side, where the wind comes off the marsh. Tie them down with the good rope, not the old one.
3. The fish weir. Two stakes have rotted at the bottom. Cut new ones from the willows by the ford, and drive them in before the water turns cold.
4. Eleven torches on the boardwalk are out. Fill the pots with oil. Light them at dusk, not before. The frogs do not need the light, but the children do.
5. The well rope. It has frayed where it runs over the edge. Cut off the frayed part, tie a new knot, and sing while you do it.
6. The frogs have dug under the pond wall again. Let them. They were here first.

Olwen
%%
List: what to plant in autumn, and why
Written by Hal of Kettle Ridge in the autumn of 38, for the new farmers who have taken up land on the ridge. He is not a teacher. He is a man who has been wrong enough times to write it down.

Most people plant in spring. Some things are better planted in autumn, and the ground is still warm.

Carrots. Plant them now, in rows, a hand apart. They sleep through the winter and wake in spring.
Winter wheat. Plant it in the top field, where the wind is. It comes up in the cold and gets ahead of the weeds.
Potatoes, the small ones. Same as carrots, but deeper.
Beetroot, if the autumn is mild. Not if the frost is early. I say this because I lost a whole row.
Apple trees. Plant them in the lee of the hedge, out of the north wind. They take years. Plant them now, so you have apples when you are old.
Hedges. Oak or birch, on the north side of every field. They keep the wind off the crops and the sheep.
Flowers. For the bees. Poppies, dandelions, cornflowers. A bee needs a garden in spring, and the flowers need to be planted in autumn.

How to plant:
1. Dig the bed over. Take out the stones.
2. Water it, if it is dry.
3. Plant at the depth of your thumb.
4. Cover. Do not tread on it.
5. Mark the row with a stick, so you do not plant it twice.
6. Wait. Waiting is the hardest part.

The ridge is windy and the soil is thin, but it grows good wheat. My grandmother said the wind makes the stalks strong. I think she was right.
Good luck. Hal.
%%
List: fix before the storm
Hal, Kettle Ridge. Autumn of 31. The wind is turning and the sky is the color of a slate. Do these first, then the rest.
Hen house roof: two boards loose.
Barn door: hinge.
Windmill: oil, and tie the sails.
Torches: new ones along the ditch.
Hay: under cover.
Pigs: in the pen, with the gate tied.
%%
Before the summer rain
Dace, mayor of Three Wells, the 202nd year of the archive, Melon.
Before the next rain, each house must check the path and roof near its door.
Clear mud from the ditch beside the west road. Do not throw it into the well.
Replace loose stones on the school step. The children run there even when nobody has told them to.
Check the roof tiles on the bakery. The baker says they are sound. The baker also says his pies are sound before they cool.
Tie the market awnings to their posts. Fold them down at night if the wind grows strong.
Put fresh straw in the hen house. Keep the door latch high enough that the hens cannot open it. They have learned the latch, though no one has taught them.
Mend the board by the notice wall. Bring a hammer and two boards from the town store. Ask Pell to bring nails from his cart.
The small apprentice can haul the boards from the store. It has been tested on a shorter load. Keep the path clear and send it with an adult.
The apprentice that carries the hammer is not to carry the nails. We tried this once. It returned with the hammer and every nail still in the store.
If you find a loose stone or a blocked ditch, tell the town keeper. If you find a pie cooling on a windowsill, tell the baker. He has a habit of forgetting them.
%%
Swarm list: what to do when the bees go
Wren, Lowmarsh. Written at the request of Bess the beekeeper, who says a swarm in winter is a thing nobody knows what to do with, and I know a little.
Winter swarms are rare. Bees do not usually leave in the cold. But this season, two hives in the hamlet have tried it. They came out on the one warm morning, flew round the barn and settled in a ball on the oak.
This is the list.
1. Do not panic. A swarm is calm. The bees are full of honey and gentle.
2. Do not shake the branch in cold air. A cold bee is a slow bee, and a slow bee stings.
3. Wait for noon, when the sun is on the oak. The bees will warm.
4. Get a basket, a sheet and a ladder. Two people. One holds the ladder, one holds the basket.
5. Put the basket under the cluster. Give one sharp shake. The bees fall in. Cover it with the sheet.
6. Carry it home slowly. Put it in an empty hive with some honey and a lid.
7. Feed them with sugar water or a spoon of honey, once a day, until spring.
8. Check them after seven days. If they are alive, they are staying.
Notes. Bess says the bees left because the hive was too cold. Hale says they left because they felt something. I asked what. He said, "A change." Dell says it is the damp. I think bees leave when bees want to. I am a healer, not a beekeeper.
I have noticed one thing. The bees on the oak all faced north, though it was a warm day. I do not know why. I put it down.
%%
Planting by the house wall
Nessa, note for the hill house, spring of 182.

The strip of earth beside the south wall gets sun after the frost leaves. We use it for food, not flowers, though the children may plant flowers in the pots.

1. Clear the dead leaves and small stones.
2. Turn the earth with a spade. Do not dig against the wall.
3. Put carrot seeds in the shallow row.
4. Set potato pieces in the lower bed, with the cut side down.
5. Plant beetroot along the sunny edge.
6. Water each row gently.
7. Mark the rows with short sticks.

Keep the path clear from the door to the well. A person carrying a pail should not have to step over a carrot row. This sounds plain, but last year I saw two people do it, and one was carrying the pail.

The soil is thin near the wall. Put a little good earth from the yard over it. Do not take earth from the flower pots. Those belong to Bel, who says her beans are under instruction.

If the night is still cold, cover the rows with wool cloth. Lift it in the morning. The cloth is not a roof. I have explained this to Pip twice, though Pip was not at Vell either time.
%%
List: what the visiting tutor asks
Written by Pell, who carried the tutor's boxes up the new road from Vell to Three Wells, and who was asked to write the list for the children of the school, so that nobody would be sent home for forgetting something. Autumn.

The visiting tutor will be at the school for ten days, from the first day of Reaping. The drill room is at the back, through the kitchen. Please bring the following.

A slate and a piece of chalk, each. Not two. The tutor says two make a child lazy.
A book of drills, if you have one. If you do not, the tutor will lend you one. Return it clean. The last book came back with a frog in it.
Your own cup. The drill room has no cups, only a big jug, and the jug is for the tutor.
A warm coat. The drill room is cold in the mornings, because the crystals like the cold, and the children do not.
A clean hand, with the ink washed off. The tutor will look.
Patience. The tutor says it is the most important thing to bring, and the one most often left at home.

Do not bring:
A cat. The tutor has asked. The cat has also asked, and has been refused.
Sweets. The crystals do not like them, and neither does the tutor.
Questions that begin with why. The tutor will answer them, but only after the drill is done.

The tutor's first lesson is on the field drill. The children will stand in a row at the drill board, and each child will say what to do with each plot. Bare: plant. Green: wait. Ripe: harvest. The tutor says that children learn it faster than apprentices, and that it is the children who will teach the apprentices. Nobody has yet told the apprentices this.

Pell has been asked to carry the tutor's box back to Vell at the end of the ten days. He says he will charge a copper for each child who has learned the field drill. The tutor says she will pay it, and that she will pay in apples.
%%
Letter: Dunn to the folk of Lowmarsh
To the folk of Lowmarsh, from Dunn, trader. I am writing this for the notice board by the quay, and Wren says she will read it to anyone who asks.
I have traded at your market for many springs now. I want to set down what I have learned, so that a new trader, or a child with a basket, does a better job than I did my first year.
First, come early. The fish come in with the boats, and the good fish go before the sun is over the reeds. Come early and bring a coat. The marsh is cold in the morning even in Sowing.
Second, keep your feet dry. There are boardwalks and there is mud, and the mud will take a boot and keep it. I lost a boot in my first year and a boy fished it out for me and I gave him a copper. Now I wear tall boots and I keep a spare pair in the cart. Tall boots cost more than a copper. Buy the tall boots.
Third, buy rope here. Lowmarsh rope is the best on the Long Road and I will say so in any town. The weavers use good reeds and they take their time. Buy it last, because it is heavy. Buy two if you can carry two.
Fourth, the tally. At the boat houses they keep a tally on the wall of every boat and every catch. Read it before you bargain. If the catch was small, the price is high, and no amount of talking will change it. If the catch was big, buy. Be fair with the fishers. They remember a fair trader and they remember a mean one longer.
Fifth, Wren's salve. Buy a jar. It is good for the back and the knees and the hands, and if you carry goods on the road you will want it. Wren will not sell you more than you need. She will look at you and decide. Let her decide.
Sixth, the frogs. They will sing all night and you will not sleep the first night. You will sleep the second night. This is known.
Seventh, there is a new copper vein above the Deep Works. Hesk's crew found it. Copper will be a fair price this spring and a better one by Apple. If you have a copper or two to spare, buy copper now. I am not always right about this, but I am right more often than not.
Eighth, and last. The market is not only for buying. It is where we hear the news. Who is sick, who is married, whose roof came off in the wind, whose apprentice learned a new order. Stand and listen. Say hello to people. A trader who only sells is a trader who sells once.
I will be at the stall by the fish market, with apples and honey and wool and a stool. Come and say hello. If it rains we will all be under the boat house roofs together, and I will tell you the story of the singing frog. It did not sing. I paid a copper for it anyway.
Dunn, of Ambrook, on the Long Road, spring of the 208th year of the archive.
%%
A lamp with a fault
Nessa, tutor's note, winter of 193.

The lamp in the hall blinked three times after supper. Then it stayed dark for a breath, and blinked once more. Bel saw it from the step and said it had sent a message.

She asked whether it meant "come". I told her that a lamp is not a letter unless the keeper says it is. The wick was loose in its cup. I trimmed it, cleaned the glass, and set the lamp straight.

It blinked again when I moved the table. Bel said this proved the lamp was trying to tell us to move the table. I moved the table. The lamp stayed lit.

The hall lamp needs:
A clean glass pane.
A steady wick.
A cup with enough oil.
A level shelf.
A person who does not shake the table.

We checked each thing. The shelf leaned toward the door. A thin piece of oak under one leg fixed it. Bel still calls the lamp a messenger. She has written a reply and put it by the door.

The reply says, "We heard you. You may stop now."

I have left it there. It makes the hall seem less empty, and it has not asked for oil.
%%
List: the things the travelers need
Copied out by Hobb, who keeps the Halfway Inn, and who has been asked by the new road crew to write down what a traveler should carry, so they will stop complaining about the cost of the bed. Autumn. He has added a note at the foot of each item, in the form he prefers.

Blankets. Two, at least. The bed is one emerald and the blanket is free, but the blanket is thin. Bring your own.
Socks. Wool. Three pairs. The road is long and the stone is cold in the mornings. Mira sends wool socks to every traveler she meets, and Hobb says the socks are the best thing on the north road.
A lamp. With oil. The Halfway has lamps, but it has only four, and they are always in use by the carters.
A bowl. The stew is free for the first bowl. The second is one copper. The third is not offered, but it is possible to ask.
A cup. The Halfway cups are very popular with the children, and some have gone missing. Bring your own, if you can.
Bread. The bread is one copper a loaf, and the heel is free, but the heel is only for the carters who came in first.
Rope. You will need it for the bridge at the second stream. Hobb keeps some, but he has only three.
A riddle. The board is open to all, but you must answer the riddle before you can read the next one. Write your answer in your own hand.
A patient heart. Hobb says that without one, the road is no good at all.
%%
Before the first hard snow
Mara, who keeps the hill house, 189th year of the archive.

There are many small repairs to do before winter. They are easier in Longday than in Deepsnow.

Fix the shutter on the north room. The upper hinge is loose.
Replace the cracked glass pane in the stair window.
Fill the gap below the back door with folded cloth.
Sweep the chimney and stack the dry wood beneath the shed roof.
Check the roof stones from the ladder. Do not stand on the loose one.
Put a torch beside the back step and another by the wood store.
Bring the well bucket inside if the handle is split.
Turn the rain barrel over so ice will not break it.
Mend the wool cover on the bench.
Oil the gate latch. It wakes the whole house when it bangs.

Ask the tutor house for the long ladder. Our short ladder reaches the shutter and nothing else. It is useful for one thing, which is a fine life for a ladder.

I have put the spare glass under the bench. Keep it wrapped in wool. Last year someone set a pot on it. We all know who, but the pot has not confessed.

When the jobs are done, mark them on the board. Leave the last line blank for anything we forgot. There is always one thing.
%%
For a day at the fair
Bel, Three Wells, the 180th year of the archive, Melon.
The fair is tomorrow. Father says we must pack before the bell, or we will forget the cups again.
Pack the cloth for sitting on. Pack two cups and one spoon for each of us. Pack bread, cheese, and three apples. Put the apples in the small basket, not the large one. The large basket has a loose handle.
Take water from the east well. Fill the stoppered jar, then tie it with wool. Do not put the jar beside the bread. It leaked last time, and our bread tasted of the jar.
Bring my slate and the blue chalk. I want to draw the sheep by the school house. Bring a spare piece of chalk for Sella. She says she does not need one, but she always asks.
Father will carry the basket. I will carry the cloth. Mother will carry the jar and tell us both to walk slower.
Before we leave, check the door and the hen house. Check the door twice if Father says he checked it once.
At the fair, we can buy honey if the price is fair. If the price is not fair, we can eat the apples. I think the apples will be fair.
%%
What to plant by the farm
Wren, Lowmarsh. Sowing, 190.

The farm outside Lowmarsh has wet ground, but not every bed is wet. Plant the carrots in the raised bed near the shed. The soil there drains well after rain.

Plant potatoes in the dark earth by the hedge. Leave room to walk between the rows. Neri says there is room for six more rows. Neri also says this while standing in the path.

Beetroot likes the higher ground beside the fence. Keep the ditch clear so water can pass through the field. If the ditch fills with mud, dig it out before sowing.

Plant pumpkins where the wall keeps the wind off. Put only one seed in each hill of soil. Last spring Moss put in five, to make sure. We had five leaves and one very crowded hole.

Put melon seeds in the warmest bed, close to the shed wall. Give them water when the earth is dry. Keep the rabbits away from the young leaves. A rabbit can eat a row faster than Neri can count it.

Plant a few flowers near the hives. The bees need them, and the farm looks better when the beds are not all bare earth.

Do not plant every seed at once. Keep some dry in a jar with the crop name on it. If a row fails, we can try again.

Neri asked whether we should plant reeds in the garden. We already have reeds in the ditch, the shed, the basket and Neri's hair. I said no.
%%
What to plant by the house
Quin and Wren, Lowmarsh, Leaffall 196.

There is a patch of dry earth beside Wren's shed. It is small, but it is not a boardwalk, a boat house, or the top of my fish basket. We have agreed to plant it.

First clear the stones and pull the reeds from the edge. Do not pull the reeds beside the water. They hold the mud in place, and the frogs live there. The patch needs a narrow ditch for water. Keep the ditch shallow, or Wren will step in it and say the ground moved.

Plant carrots in the sunny strip. Plant beetroot in the next strip. Leave room at the end for a few potatoes. Mark each row with a plain wood tag. Last year Quin marked his rows with little fish bones. By Swarm, nobody could tell which row was which, including Quin.

Put the seeds in before the cold sets in. Water them when the earth is dry, but not when it is already mud. A garden cannot drink its way out of every problem.

Wren wants a patch of flowers by the shed. Quin says flowers do not fill a pot. Wren says Quin does not fill a pot with flowers. They are both right, which is no help to the patch.
%%
Wren's winter list: the whole house
Wren, healer, the hamlet near Lowmarsh. Written on the long night of the year, for her apprentice Moss, who asked to see how a healer runs a winter. A long list, so you may have it.
THE HOUSE
1. Wood in the shed. Count the logs every seventh day.
2. Lamp oil: six jars. Candles: none. Torches: twenty, kept by the door.
3. Water: four barrels, boiled, covered.
4. Food: wheat, six sacks. Potatoes, twelve. Beet, eight. Carrots, in sand. Honey, a crock. Dried fish, a string. Apples, two barrels, wrapped.
5. Blankets: seven. Add three more by the first snow.
THE SHELF
1. Willow bark, a jar and a half. Make more in spring.
2. Mint, thyme, comfrey, wormwood: a bundle each.
3. Clean linen: five rolls. Wash the old ones and hang them to dry by the stove.
4. Honey for the throat, tea for the cough, salve for the cracked hands.
5. The big book with the names of the sick. Update it daily.
THE BARN
1. The spiders are in. Let them stay. Sweep the beams once, and hang the mint.
2. The bees are quiet. Do not open the hive. Listen at the side. If you hear a low hum, all is well.
3. The goat is in the corner with the hay. She is cross. This is normal.
THE ROAD
1. The relay on the hill: check it each night. If the lamp is lit, we are not alone.
2. The north road: closed. The south road: open but slow.
3. Torches along the boardwalk: lit by dusk, every eight steps.
THE NEIGHBORS
1. The Hale family: a cough, mild. Mint tea.
2. The widow Tess: alone. Visit twice a week. Take soup.
3. The young couple at the weir: a baby due in Frost. Keep the sled ready.
THE ODD THINGS
1. Moss, you will hear talk this winter. About lights over the north. About ships. About a humming in the deep mines. Do not argue with it. Do not believe it. Listen. Write it down.
2. If you are frightened, say so. I am too, sometimes.
3. If someone is cross, give them soup.
That is the winter. It is longer than it looks. Light the lamp, and put the kettle on, and be kind to the goat.
%%
Letter: the keeper of the Ambrook relay
To Bram, charcoal burner in the woods above the orchard, from the keeper of the relay tower on the hill above the mill pond. Autumn of the ninth year of the archive.
Bram. You wrote to the archive four years back and they kept it. A clerk at Vell copied your letter and sent the copy here, and I have read it more than once. You wrote about the white smoke and the blue smoke and the mound. I did not know a person could write down a thing so plain. Thank you for it.
Now the news. The tower is finished. It stands on the hill above the mill pond, stone from the quarry at Three Wells and oak from your woods, I think, for the rungs inside. There are torches round the foot. There is a stair lamp at every turn. At the very top is the signal lamp in its room of glass, with a copper ring round it and a redstone line down to my desk.
I keep the tower, and my apprentice keeps the lamps. We send messages up and down the line: to Three Wells, to Vell, to Kettle Ridge when the weather is clear. The little lamp between Vell and Three Wells is the smallest on the line, one lamp and one keeper, and it does its work.
What this means for you: if you want to write to the archive again, bring your letter up the hill and we will send it. It will reach Vell in an hour, not a month. If you want to write to the miller at Three Wells, the same. If you want to send word to your sister in the north, bring it here and we will pass it up the line as far as it goes.
I hear the mill wheel broke and Jory mended it with the old branch. I hear it squeaks. I am glad. A mill that does not squeak is a mill that is not working.
I hear too about the quarrel over the fence, and Dace pacing it out. Dace is a fair man. He sets fences and torch posts alike, straight and true.
We could use charcoal for the brazier in the relay house. The winter nights are long up here and the lamp room gets cold. Bring a sack when you come, and we will pay you from the tower's purse.
Come up the hill. Bring your letter. Bring the sack. The door is the old oak, and it is never locked while I am in it.
The keeper of the Ambrook relay
%%
Market list, Copperhold, summer
Aven, written for Pell the merchant, who asked what a horse keeper buys in a summer.
To buy:
Two sacks of oats.
One bale of hay.
A new rasp, the old one is smooth as a spoon.
Iron shoes for the grey, four, from the forge.
Rope, twenty lengths.
A pot of beeswax for the copper on the stable latch.
Soap.
For the house: salt, honey, flour, and a small barrel of apples from Ambrook if any cart has come up the hill.
To sell:
One foal, brown with a white foot.
The old brown mare, gentle, good for a child.
Two spare halters.
To fix before winter:
The stable roof, one loose board.
The trough, which leaks at the corner.
The gate hinge, which squeaks.
The north side of the stable, where the wind comes through.
%%
The wall that a creeper took
Aven, Copperhold. A true thing that happened in the sixth month.
The east wall of my stable was cobblestone, good and thick. One night in summer a creeper came out of the dark and stood by it. Nobody saw it come. It made that small sound, like a breath held too long, and then it was gone and half the wall with it.
My old mare Bess was inside. She was not hurt. She was very angry. She kicked the rest of the wall down herself before morning.
We built it again in three days. Hesk sent Clank with a cart of deep stone from the Deep Works, and Clank stacked it as I pointed. Clank is slow but the stones are straight. I put torches all round the stable now, and I walk the yard before bed with a lantern. Keep your torches lit, everyone says, and now I say it too.
The new wall is better than the old one. Bess has stopped kicking it. For now.
%%
List: what to buy at the market, autumn
Written by Hesk, at the market at Copperhold, where he has been asked to say what is needed, and has written it down.
Candles, a box of them, for the front hall. The clerks will want more than we think.
Copper ingots, as many as the cart will take. The shipyard at Saltreach has put in an order, which is the first in three years.
Iron, two bars, for the forge. The smith will ask for more. Say no once, and then give him one more.
Wool, grey and brown, for the men's socks. The mill at Ambrook has none this year, so buy from the cart that comes up the Long Road.
Glass for the relay lamps, panes only, the thick green kind. The keeper on the hill says three have cracked since Frost.
Honey, a jar for each child on the ridge road. Ask Tam for the honey he keeps in the barn, not the honey he sells.
Nails, a sack. Fence posts, a dozen. A new spade, because the old one has gone soft in the handle.
Salt, a barrel. Salt fish, the good kind, from Saltreach, not the kind from the stall by the well.
At the stall by the well, ask for news of the north. The woman there says the lights were seen again over the hill, three nights running, low and still. Nobody will tell her what they were. She has stopped asking.
Hesk
%%
What to fix before winter, all of it
Written by Moll, with the list the boatmen gave her. Teague wrote his own part, and it is shorter, and angrier.

The healing house roof: two slates gone on the north side. Put a board under them until the thaw.
The chimney cap at the inn. It came off in the wind and rolled into the ditch. The ditch has taken it. Make a new one.
The boardwalk: the third post from the boathouse rocks. Do not stand on it. Teague says he has told the post. The post has not replied.
The blue boat: the stern leaks, and the tar is in the store under the boathouse. Take the old leak out, then tar it, then wait for it to dry.
The fish weir gate: the hinges are rusted. Oil them with fat, not water. Water makes them worse.
The bell rope at the hamlet: the boys who pull it say the bell is too heavy. The bell is not too heavy. The rope is stretched.
The well by the barn: check the bucket chain. Then check it again.
The shutters on the long yard: three hang crooked. Two of them will close on their own if you lean on them. The third one will close on you.
The hen house door: the latch is fine. The hens have worked out the latch. Put a stone on it.
The stair in the barn loft: the second step is loose. Nail it, and do not stand on it while nailing.
The pig pen fence: the gap by the trough is wide enough for a cat, a hen and a boy, in that order.
The reed roof at the boathouse: five bundles of mats, cut before the frost and not after.

Water: the ditch by the reed beds has a smell this year. Boil every drop you drink, every time. Wren says it at every door. Some say it is the water that brings the grey cough. Some say the cough came with the ships from Saltreach. A carter says it is the mines, and the carters will say anything about the mines.

Lights: the boatmen say they saw lights over the north marsh last winter, low and green. Some say falling stars. Some say fires. Teague says the fish do not care, and neither does he, once the boat is tarred.

That is all of it. Keep the lamps lit. Keep the bucket chain tight. Teague wants it known that he has done his part, and that the boardwalk post is still rocking.
%%
Before the spring rain
Neri, farm outside Lowmarsh. Longday, 196.

The rain has been in the clouds for three days. Before it comes, fix these things.

Clear the ditch from the upper field to the slow water. Pull out mud and dead reeds. Do not leave the mud in the path. Wren slipped in it last year and told everyone the mud had attacked her.

Check the boardwalk posts by the farm. Push loose posts into the ground and tie them firm. Moss can carry the rope. Moss can also carry a bucket, but not both at once. We tested this.

Mend the gate by the potato bed. The lower hinge is loose. If the gate falls, the rabbits will enter, and Neri will blame the wind.

Put dry reeds over the seed jars in the shed. Keep the jars above the floor. Water crept under the door last spring and soaked one jar. The carrots came up in the jar before we remembered them.

Turn the pumpkin soil and add old compost. Do not put fresh waste near the seed. It smells too strong, and the hens will dig it up.

Bring the tools under cover. Count the hoes before you go in. One hoe is already missing. Moss says it is beside the well. Neri says Moss is beside the well. I will look there myself.

Leave one small pail by the door. If the rain fills it, use the water on the beds after the shower. Do not use the pail for washing the floor first. Neri did that and then carried soapy water to the carrots.
%%
The song contest by the middle well
A record of the evening, kept by Lark and read at the inn the next morning.
The bell rang. The stools came out. The children sat on the well steps and were told not to.
Pell judged with a board and a piece of chalk. Three marks for the words, three for the voice, one for the nerve.
The baker sang about bread. It was short and everyone clapped a long time, which was kind.
A girl of about nine stood on a stool and sang about the relay tower on the hill. She had all the verses. Her mother cried. She got the most marks for nerve.
The woman who sings about the sea sang last. The square went quiet. Even the goats.
Then Sera sang one about Hob, and Hob went red to his ears, and she got the cup and the honey, and gave the honey to the school.
Pell wrote on his board: "The sea wins. The school gets the honey. Nobody sings about bread again."
It was the best fair in years. The well is still ringing a little.
%%
What to fix before winter
Bram's list, kept on a nail by the door of my hut in the woods above Ambrook. I read it every Leaffall and add to it.
The hut:
Fix the door latch. Last winter the wind opened it at night and I woke with snow on my blanket.
Patch the roof where the moss pulled off. Oak shingles, or birch if the oak is gone.
Stack the firewood under the eave, bark side up. Two rows deep.
Mend the chimney. A smoking chimney is a cold hut and a sore throat.
The kiln:
Build the mound on the dry ground, not the low ground. Wet turf will not hold the heat.
Lay in turf and a spade for the mound. Lay in dry leaves and twigs for the fire.
Split the wood now. Split wood dries better than round wood.
The market:
Sack the charcoal before the frost, so it stays dry on the road.
Tell Holl and Pell and the miller that I will come to Ambrook market on the first market day of Frost.
Buy from the market: salt, a new scoop, wool socks, a jar of honey for the cough, a candle from the chandler, and a small gift for the miller's children.
The road:
Walk the road to the market once before the snows. Note where the waymarks stand and where a torch post is down.
If a torch post is down, tell Dace at Three Wells. He sets them right.
If the bridge on the stream is loose, tell the innkeeper at the Brown Hen. He sends word along.
For the household:
Fill the water barrel. Keep the lid on.
Bring the bees' hives close to the south wall, out of the wind.
Salt the meat. Hang it high, away from the wolves.
Check the boots. Mend the seams with wax and thread.
Keep a lantern by the bed. Keep the torches lit round the door at night. There are zombies in the dark, and they do not knock.
If a neighbor needs help with their roof, help them. You will want yours mended one day too.
%%
What to plant in spring
Ansel, at the edge of Three Wells. Written in Deepsnow, by the fire, for Bel, who asks me every year and then forgets.
1. Potatoes first, in the cold ground, as soon as the frost lifts. They are patient. They will wait for you.
2. Beetroot after that. Beetroot does not mind a cold night or two.
3. Carrots next, in deep loose soil. Pull out the stones first. A carrot that hits a stone grows crooked and cross.
4. Wheat last, when the ground is warm. Wheat wants sun and does not want to be hurried. Leave room for the wind to pass through it.
5. Pumpkins in a corner where they can run. They take more room than you think. They will take the whole corner and then look for more.
6. Melons by the warm wall. They like the stones that hold the day's heat.
7. Flowers by the door for the bees. Bees do not ask for much. Give them flowers and a dry box and they will give you honey all summer.
8. One apple tree, if you have the room. You will not eat from it for years. Plant it anyway.
9. Write down what you planted and where. Your memory is a poor gardener.
Do not plant everything on one day. Plant a little, then rest, then plant a little more. The garden will still be there.
%%
List: for the song contest and the storm
Written by Hesk, for the mine hall, where the men sing on the night of the first hard frost, and where the storm came in last year, in the middle of the second verse.
The contest is held in the hall at dusk, with the stove lit and the benches cleared. Each singer needs a stool, a cup, and a song they have sung before, so that the hall knows it will end.
1. Benches, twenty, from the store. Check the legs. Two of them have been mended with string, and I do not want to see them sit down under a singer.
2. Lanterns, eleven, one for each door and one for the stage. Fill them with oil from the barrel by the door, not from the drum by the forge. The forge oil smokes, and a smoky hall makes the singers sad.
3. A list of the songs, in order, copied out by a clerk from Vell, who came up on the last cart. The list is long. The last song on it is the one nobody asks for.
4. The stove. Fill it before dusk, and not during the third song, which is the mistake we made last year.
5. The storm. If the wind comes from the north and the window rattles, bring the singers into the middle of the hall, away from the glass, and tell them to sing louder. The storm does not like being sung over. It will go round.
6. Lamps for the road home. Every road from the mine is dark after a storm, and the relay on the hill has been silent since the last one passed, so nobody can send word that the hall is safe. Walk each family to the first torch yourself.
7. A cup of soup for every judge, and one for the storm, which will not take it, and which the children always leave by the door.
8. The judges' table. Move it from the draft by the door, where the wind comes in, to the warm end by the stove. The judges will complain about it, and then they will sit there, and that is the point.
9. A bucket of sand at the foot of the stage. The boards are cold in a storm, and the singers stamp. Sand takes the stamp out of the boards, and the stamp out of the singers, and it costs nothing.
10. A bell for the end of the contest, and a second bell, which is not for the end of the contest but for the children's bedtime. Do not confuse them.
Hesk, who will be the judge with the loudest voice, and does not want to be told so.
%%
List: the grandfather's winter shopping
For the market, the last before the road shuts. Wick's list, which Wick will lose, so it is written out twice.
Salt, a big bag. We need it for the fish and the ham.
Lamp oil, two jars. Candles, a dozen.
Needles and thread. The good thread, not the thread that pretends.
Boots for the smallest. She has grown again. It is not our fault.
Wool, grey, for socks. A weaver at the inn says she will trade for honey.
Flour, ten bags. A sack of apples if the price is fair, and it will not be.
Seed for spring, wheat and beetroot. It is cheaper now, and we pay on the thaw.
A present for Mira at the tower, since she will be alone again by Longnight: a warm hat. She will say she does not want it, and wear it.
Do not buy: a pig. We have a pig. We had a long talk about it.
%%
What to plant after the thaw
Carys, Kettle Ridge. Written in Thaw, when everyone on the ridge has forgotten what they meant to plant. This list is for the top field, the long field and the bottom field, in that order, because that is the order the sun gets to them.

Top field, the wheat:
1. Wait until the ground is dark and warm to the knuckle. A cold knuckle means wait another week.
2. Sow the wheat a hand apart, in rows as straight as a rope. Pip does this better than I do. I do not mind saying so.
3. Cover the seed lightly with soil. Not too deep. Wheat sown deep sleeps through the summer.
4. Water the rows at dusk, once, and not again until the leaves show.

Long field, the beetroot:
5. Beetroot wants a loose bed. Dig it well and take out the stones. The stones come up every year, like they have a plan.
6. Sow the seed in single holes, three seeds to a hole. Thin them later. Ten thin plants are better than three fat ones fighting.
7. Keep the beetroot away from the pig pen. The pigs think it is theirs. Big Beet has told them it is not, and they do not agree.

Bottom field, the potatoes and carrots:
8. Potatoes go in first, in the rows by the ditch. They like the wet.
9. Carrots go in last, in the sun by the hedge. They hate the wet. Carrots are the cat of the field.
10. Put the net on the carrot rows to keep the birds out. The birds have seen the net. They are waiting.

Write the day you planted each row, on the stick at the end. Next year you will want to know, and you will not remember, and you will say it was earlier.
%%
What to put in the healer's bag
Wren, healer at Lowmarsh. For Moss, who carries the bag, and for anyone who finds it on a doorstep.
1. Willow bark, dry, in a small jar. For fever and for aches. One pinch in hot water.
2. Honey, a small jar, the dark kind. For coughs and for cuts that will not close.
3. Thyme and mint, dried, in a cloth. For the chest.
4. Clean linen, rolled. At least four rolls. They go fast this winter.
5. A flask of boiled water, cooled. Do not use marsh water. Not for washing, not for drinking, not for anything.
6. A bar of soap. Wash your hands before and after every bed. I say this every year. I mean it more now.
7. A small knife, a needle and thread.
8. A lamp and a flint.
9. The list of who is sick and where. Update it each evening.
This winter the grey cough has come back to the east cottages. Some say it is the water. Some say the ships' smoke from Saltreach drifts here. Some say the mines. I do not know. I wash my hands, and boil the water, and keep the window open a hand's width.
Moss, you are to wear the scarf I knitted. I do not care that it is purple.
%%
Olwen's list for the healing house
Written by Olwen, carter, for Wren's healing house at the edge of the marsh. Wren gave the list. Olwen wrote it down and changed nothing, except the spelling of kelp.

Wren says the healing house must be ready before the first frost. It takes four carts and two strong backs. Here is what the carts bring.

From Three Wells:
Honey, twelve jars. Wren says honey is the best thing for a sore throat, and she will not let anyone else say so.
Lamp oil, four jars, for the shelves.
Clean cloth, a bale. Boil it before use. Wren is firm about this.
Blankets, six, of wool. Two for the beds and four for the shed, where the sick sleep when the beds are full.
Glass jars, thirty, with lids. Each jar gets a label in Wren's hand, with what is in it and the date.

From Saltreach:
Dried kelp, sent by the fish sellers, who say it is good for the belly. Wren says it is good for soup.
Salt, two sacks.

From the marsh itself:
Reed root, dug in Frost and dried on the high shelf by the stove. Mind the smell.
Bog mint, a bunch, for fevers.
Blue flag from the water's edge, for cuts. Do not pick it on the frog side of the pond. The frogs complain, and they complain loudly.
Willow bark, peeled from the ford willows in Leaffall, when the sap is down. Cut the strips long. Wren says short strips are for mice.

Things to fix:
The high shelf in the back room leans toward the window. Put a block under the left leg, and put nothing on the shelf until it is done. Wren has said this three times a year. It is not done yet.
The bed with the broken leg. Cut a new leg from the oak behind the house, and shave it smooth, or the patient will complain.
The well cover. The boards have warped. Use new boards, nail them down, and do not let the children use the well as a bucket.
The shed roof. The reeds have slipped on the north side. Tie them again with the good rope.
The stove door sticks. Pour a little oil on the hinge, and do not blame the stove.
The step by the front door is wet and slippery. Put a sack of sand in the hollow and sweep it.

Things to keep:
The notes. Wren writes a note on each patient who comes to the healing house, with the day, what was wrong, what was given, and what was asked for. The notes go in the cupboard by the door, in order. Do not take them out, and do not use them to start the fire.

Things to forget:
Nobody needs a second kettle. Wren has one. Wren has told me so, and so has the kettle.

Signed: Olwen, carter. Wren checked it, and said it would do.
%%
Mended roof: what to do next
Piper, innkeeper at Lowmarsh. The roof has been mended. Thank you, Corm. The following is what to do after a roof is mended, so that it stays that way.
1. Look at it after the first rain. If you see no drip, say thank you to the sky.
2. Look at it after the second rain. If you see a drip, find it before the third.
3. Sweep the moss from the north side every season. Use a soft broom.
4. Take the ladder down after use, and lay it flat. A ladder left standing will be borrowed by a goat.
5. Pay the thatcher on the day. A thatcher paid late is a thatcher who is slow next time.
6. Offer the thatcher soup. Give the thatcher a second bowl.
7. Write the date on the beam inside, with chalk. In ten years you will want to know.
8. Keep the old reeds in the shed. They make good fire starters, and a good bed for the hens.
Corm says a good roof lasts twenty years. He says a bad roof lasts one rain. Mine lasts, I think, somewhere in between.
%%
What to buy at the Brown Hen
Pell's list for the inn store, third of Swarm.
Buy wheat bread from the baker at Three Wells. Buy carrots from Tam at Kettle Ridge if his cart has not lost a wheel again. Buy honey from Ambrook, and ask for a sealed jar. The jars that leak make the pack sticky, and the bees are not to blame.
Buy clean cloth, lamp oil, and two new rope lengths. The old rope is sound for tying a cart cover, but not for lowering a bucket.
Buy fish when the Saltreach boats arrive. Keep it cool and sell it that day.
Buy no apples from me. I brought a basket from Ambrook, and there are still enough to make the innkeeper sigh when she counts them.
At the Brown Hen, keep one cup of water beside the bread basket. Travelers forget to drink when they talk. They remember when the road gets dusty.
Pell
%%
Shopping list for the Long Road, winter
Written by Moll, cook at Sallow Green. The cart goes out at first light, and it will not wait for me, so I write this the night before.

Wheat: three sacks. Ask for the dry ones, not the ones that smell of the cart.
Salt: two sacks. The salt from Saltreach is the best. It is also the dearest, so ask for the old price.
Honey: two jars, for Wren, who uses it on everything.
Eggs: ten, and count them yourself. The carter counts to nine and calls it ten.
Apples: a sack from Ambrook, the small ones. The big ones are for Pell.
Carrots: a sack. The orange ones keep. The white ones do not.
Beetroot: half a sack. It keeps longer than you think, if you do not wash it.
Melons: two, not three. Last time we had three, and nobody ate the third.
Potatoes: one sack, for the first of the low bed.
Pumpkins: one, for the scarecrow, which has lost its head again.
Wool: four balls, grey. The blue wool is for the boats, and the boats will not thank us for it.
Coal: a whole sack. The cold is coming early.
Cobblestone: one cart load, for the chimney cap and the new step at the barn.
Spruce planks: twenty, for the healing house roof. Wren says the board under the slates is not a roof.
Iron: a bundle, for the hinges on the weir gate. Oil is not allowed, Teague says. Fat is allowed.
Copper: four ingots, for the bell rope's new hook.
Torches: a bundle of fifty, for the boardwalk. Teague counts them. Do not hand him fewer than fifty.
Lamp glass: two panes, if the glassmaker at Three Wells has any left.
Slate: one, for the school. The last one is in two pieces, and the pieces are in the bench.
Fish for the cat: a basket of small fish, not the big ones. The cat will not stay out for less.
Bread: none. Buy it at the Brown Hen. Theirs is still warm when the cart comes past.

News from the carts. Wren says to read it and then burn it. I will not burn it. I am keeping it in the cupboard with the good salt.

Saltreach. The families at the wharf are selling up. Their boats are tied at the quay with the doors open, and the carts say the furniture goes down to the water and is not carried back. Some say the families are going over the sea. Some say they are only selling their things, and will be back by Sowing. Nobody knows what is across the water, so every one of them has a guess.

Lowmarsh. The carts that go to the marsh leave their goods at the boundary post, on the flat stone, and drive off without stopping. The sick are in every house by the reeds now. The healing house has no beds left, and she has put the children on the floor by the hearth. She says to tell the Long Road that the marsh is still ours. She does not say for how long.

Carry all of this on the first cart, and do not let the carter stop at the Brown Hen until the salt is off. Moll.
%%
The debt, paid in emeralds
Aven, Copperhold. A story about my neighbor Holt and the mason Orla, no relation to the tutor.
Two summers ago Holt's cart shed fell in the wind. He had no emeralds to pay a mason. Orla the mason said, pay me when you can, and built the shed in four days with good stone.
Holt is a proud man and a slow one. He wrote the debt on a board and hung it by his door so he would not forget. Every month he rubbed out a line and wrote the sum smaller. He sold a pig. He sold honey. He mended nets for the Saltreach boats when they came up the road.
This Longday he came to Orla's yard with a purse. He counted the emeralds out on the bench, one by one, all of them. Orla counted them back. Then she gave him one emerald and said, that is for the shed being straight.
Holt hung the empty board by his door anyway. He says it reminds him that folk are kind. Orla says it reminds him to fix his roof before the wind does. Both of them are right, I think.
%%
List: what to pack for the new road
Written by Pell, who is going up the new road to the far towers with his cart, and who has written the list so he will not forget anything the second time. Pinned by the stove at the Brown Hen for anyone else who goes that way. Autumn.

Pack:
Two blankets, wool. Three is better.
A good lamp, with oil for four nights, and a spare wick.
A bag of salt. A bag of oats for the horse.
Rope, thirty paces, and a short length for the wheel.
A shovel, a hammer, a box of nails.
Bread that will keep, twelve loaves, hard.
Cheese, one round, wrapped in cloth.
Apples, a sack, from Ambrook. Eat them first. They do not keep past the first frost.
Honey, two jars. One for the road and one for the inn that feeds you last.
Tools for the wheel, the pins and the grease.
A book, with the day and the road written in it.
Coins: emeralds for the inns, coppers for the children, and a few in the boot for the bad nights.
A small mind, if you have one, tested, on a card, for the horse.

Do not pack:
Anything you cannot carry up a hill.
Anything you would not want to be found with by a waymark keeper.
Any cat. The cat will not agree.

Notes on the road.
The new road is stone from the crossroads to the Halfway. The old road is earth. Take the new road in the morning, when the carts are fresh. Take the old road in the evening, when the lamps are lit and you can see the bridge.
The inn at the Halfway has a riddle board. Read it. Answer one.
The Brown Hen will not let you sleep in your own cart if it is raining. Pay the bed. Keep the cart by the yard gate.
Greet every waymark keeper by name. They are very proud of their figures.
%%
Lowmarsh spring basket
Wren, from the farm outside Lowmarsh. Blossom, 173.

For the walk to the farm, take:

A clean jar for honey.
A basket for eggs.
A small knife for reeds.
A dry cloth for the jars.
A piece of bread, unless you enjoy hearing your stomach complain.

Take the boardwalk past the fish weir. Turn where the frogs are loudest. The farm is beyond the reeds, beside a slow bend in the water.

Do not carry an empty jar in your basket with the eggs. I did this once. The jar rolled, the eggs broke, and the chickens ate better than I did.

Bring the honey back to Wren's house before the sun gets low. Moss will put a label on it. Moss labels everything, even the empty jar.
%%
What to fix before winter, Kettle Ridge
Carys, Kettle Ridge. Pinned to the barn door in Leaffall, and crossed out in pencil by the people who did each job. Please cross things out. That is how I know.

1. The barn roof, the north side. The wind took three tiles in spring, and I have been looking at the hole since.
2. The hen house door. It sticks at the bottom. Lift it, then pull. Do not kick it. Tam has kicked it.
3. The gate hinge by the well. One screw is out. Two are bent. Put in the new one from the shelf.
4. The pig pen fence, the back corner. Pigs find every gap. They found the gap in the fence and then the gap in the turnips.
5. Clear the gutters on the house. The leaves will be in them by the first frost, and the water will come in by the stairs.
6. Sharpen the scythe. Oil the windmill cog. Ask Hob how many times the cog has squeaked this year. He will know.
7. Cover the seed potatoes in the cellar with sacking. Keep them in the dark and the cold, but not the wet.
8. Mend the wall of the well house, where the frost cracked it. Use the old stone, not the new. The new stone sulks.
9. Lay the wood under the eaves to dry, in rows, with the bark up. Count the rows.
10. Check the lamp on the lane post. The torch is out again, and the children have been using it as a drum.

Mark the job when it is done. Do not mark it when it is nearly done. Nearly done is what Tam calls done, and then there is no roof.
%%
Winter list: what to do before the road
Wren, healer at Lowmarsh. Written for the east and west cottages near the marsh, in the first week of Deepsnow.
This is a list of things to do before the road is closed by snow. Do them this week.
1. Fill the woodshed. Count what you have. Add a third.
2. Fill the water barrels. Boil a pot a day and let it cool.
3. Mend the roof. If you cannot, ask a neighbor. If they cannot, ask Corm.
4. Smoke the fish, salt the eels, dry the herbs.
5. Bring the hens in at dusk. Fox about.
6. Bring the cats in. They will complain.
7. Check your lamp oil. Check your flint. Check your torches. Torches along the path to the well, every eight steps, as always.
8. Make a list of who in your family is old, who is young and who is sick. Send it to me.
9. Learn where the nearest neighbor's door is, in the dark. Practice it once.
10. Pack a small bag by the door: bread, a blanket, a flask, a torch. For if you must leave quickly. I do not expect it. Pack it anyway.
Why the last one? Because this winter is quiet in a way I do not like. The relay on the hill was dark for two nights last week. The keeper says it was the frost on the glass. That may be so. A carter from the north says the lamps are out all the way up. A woman from Saltreach says they are only slow. Ships are leaving the harbor with whole families. I do not know where they go. I do not know why.
I do not want to frighten anyone. I want you to be warm. A warm person with a packed bag is a calm person. Please be calm.
%%
Spring jobs before the rains
Rye, smith of Millbank. Copy for the notice by the mill pond.

Fix the loose board on the bridge before the stream rises. The plank is loose at the west end. Put a stone under the post while you lift it, then drive in two new iron nails. Do not use the short nails from the hen house. They are short because someone cut them short. Rye knows who did it and will not say.

Clear the water ditch beside the carrot bed. Pull out leaves and mud by hand. Put the mud around the apple trees, not in the stream. The frogs are already there. They have claimed the deep end and will complain if moved.

Mend the roof of the wood shed. Replace the split birch board above the door. Rub the hinge with a little oil. If the door still squeaks, leave it. The bees know the sound and come home by it.

Check the mill wheel and the sluice gate. The wheel turns well, but a branch is caught by the lower spoke. Take it out with the long hook. Nobody is to open the sluice. Jory's rule is old, and the pond is full.

At the smithy, sort the iron by size. Put copper wire on the high shelf and coal in the dry bin. Keep the hammer heads away from the window. Last spring a gust blew the shutter open and sent one head into the flour sack. The bread was heavy, but it did not rise.

Bring the children to the square at Three Wells on the last market day of Blossom. There will be a small fair prize for the best carved spoon. Rye has made one from oak. It is too large for a bowl, but good for stirring beetroot stew. Len says the prize should go to the spoon, not the maker.

For the walk there, take a loaf, two apples, a jar of honey, and a dry cloak. The packed road is muddy near the mill pond. Leave the cart at the inn if the wheels sink. The inn has twelve beds and a warm hearth. It also has a dog that sleeps in the doorway. Step over it gently.
%%
List: before the long dark
Wick's list for the farm, to be done before the first snow. Hung on the hook by the kitchen door, so that everyone can see how little has been done.
Mend the roof of the barn. Both holes. The big hole, and the hole where the little hole used to be.
Stack wood to the rafters. Last winter we ran short in Deepsnow and burned a chair. Nobody mentions the chair.
Wrap the hives in straw. Leave a gap at the bottom for the bees to breathe.
Fill the cellar: potatoes, carrots, beets, apples in straw, two sacks of wheat.
Put new torches on the posts down to the gate.
Check the fence. The wolves are bored in winter.
Tell the cat she cannot sleep in the loaf box. Tell her again tomorrow.
Wick, outside Northpoint, Leaffall
%%
Things to fix before winter
Esk, wool carder, Copperhold. I went through the house before the first hard frost. These are the things I found.

Mend the wool blanket by the hearth.
Replace the loose stair board.
Patch the roof above the pantry.
Oil the door latch with a little fat.
Bring the last kindling under cover.
Turn the water barrel so its lid faces the wall.
Put a second hook by the back door for wet coats.

I bought nails at the market from the smith. He counted them into my palm, one by one. I asked for ten. He gave me eleven and said the last was for my trouble. I used it to fix his own market stall, which had a board hanging loose.

The children carried in the kindling. They brought one armful each and a small branch that was too wide for the door. We pushed it, pulled it, and laughed until it came free. The branch is still by the hearth. It will burn after I split it.

The wool blanket is mended now. The stair board still creaks. I know which board it is, so I step over it. This is not the same as fixing it, but it works until I find the hammer.
%%
What to buy at Lowmarsh market
Dunn, trader on the Long Road. I come down from Three Wells for the spring market. Here is my list, in the order I walk it.
1. Reeds. Bundles by the boat houses. Buy them early, before the weavers get there.
2. Fish. Fresh from the weir. Ask which boat came in last.
3. Mud boots. You will want them. Everyone wants them by noon.
4. Jars of Wren's salve. For the back, for the knees, for everything.
5. Honey from Ambrook, if a cart came up the road.
6. Rope. Lowmarsh rope is the best I know.
7. A new tally board, if yours is worn. They sell them at the quay.
Buy the rope last. It is heavy and it will pull your arm all the way home.
%%
The poor harvest at Kettle Ridge
Pell's account at the Brown Hen, summer of 172.
The wheat came in short this year. The rain missed the top field, and the wind bent what little grew. Tam says the wheat was not short, only modest. The miller says modest wheat makes modest bread. Neither man has yet offered to eat the tally board.
The beetroot did better near the ditch. The potatoes are small, and the carrots have forked around stones. We found one carrot with three roots and gave it a place of honor by the mill. It looks like a small hand asking for supper.
At the Brown Hen we have changed the buying list. Buy wheat bread when there is any, but do not buy more than the kitchen can use. Buy potatoes from the south farms, and share them fairly. Take no more than one sack from any family without asking. Keep honey, apples, and dried fish in store. They will help make thin soup feel like a meal.
Pell has lowered the price of flour. I have also lowered the price of his apples, since he keeps leaving them on my counter and calling them a gift.
Tam brought Pip to the inn with a basket of carrots. They were small, but clean. We bought them all. Pip counted the emeralds twice and put them in the right purse the third time.
The road is still busy. Travelers have bread to share, and the inn has beds for them. We will save seed from the strongest wheat heads, and plant again when the ground is ready.
No one needs a speech at supper. They need a second bowl of soup.
%%
Planting by the smithy wall
Rye, Millbank. Notes for Mara and little Len.

The earth is soft at the south wall now. Plant carrots in the narrow bed, with a little space between each row. Len says the seeds should be planted by size. I told Len the carrots do not know which seed is largest.

Put beetroot in the bed beyond the well. Leave room at the end for the bucket. Do not plant too close to the oak hedge. The roots there are thick, and I do not want to dig up the hedge again. I did that once. The hedge won.

Plant pumpkins below the shed window. Give each seed its own mound. When the leaves come, keep the path clear. Last year the leaves covered the path and Rye walked into the water barrel. Rye blamed the barrel.

The apple trees by the mill pond already have buds. Do not pull flowers from the old tree with the grey branch. It gives fewer apples, but they are sweet. Leave the bees their share.

Pip brought a small apprentice from Kettle Ridge to help with the garden. It carried the seed basket and put it beside the well. That was not where I meant, but it was a good place. We tried an order after the work was done.
> bring the basket to the shed
= haul
It carried the basket to the shed. Len says it understood the whole sentence. Pip says it learned the word basket first. Both may be right. We will ask again next time.
%%
Things to mend before Frost
Bel, Three Wells, the 208th year of the archive, Longday.
Mama says summer is the right time to mend things, because the sun dries the wood and we can still find the tools.
Before Frost, mend the loose plank on the west bridge. The plank knocks when a cart passes. I can hear it from the school yard, so I know it is loose.
Ask the town keeper for two sound boards and a hammer. Do not take the boards from the school house. Those are for the new shelf, and Noll has already measured them three times.
Fix the broken hinge on the little gate by the east well. Oil the hinge with a drop from the kitchen jar. Do not use the whole jar, even if the gate still squeaks. A squeak is not a reason to spend all the oil.
Patch the roof above the inn's wood stack. The innkeeper says the leak is small. His wood says otherwise.
Check the wall lamps at the four corners of the square. Clean the glass and replace any torch that has burned low. Bring a spare torch in a dry cloth.
The notice board needs a new strip along the bottom. Rain gets under it. Write the market notices high enough that people can read them without leaning on the wet part.
The school door needs paint on its lower edge. The children have kicked it many times. The children say the door began it.
Bring the apprentice from the town store to carry the boards. It can follow the road from the store to the bridge if the route is clear. I drew the route on the slate, and Nessa checked it. Do not give it the hammer. It came back last time with the hammer and no boards, which was not the task.
Bring bread and a jar of honey for the workers. There will be six of us if Father comes. There will be seven if the apprentice counts as a worker. It carries more than Father, but Father says it cannot tell a joke.
Also look for Mott, the baker's brown cat. It went missing after the market bell. It likes the warm space under the inn steps and the sacks behind the bakery. Do not chase it with a broom. Call its name and leave a little fish by the door.
If you find it, tell the baker before you tell me. He says he is not worried, but he has looked in the flour bin twice.
After the work, put the tools back in the store. Put the hammer on its peg, the saw on its peg, and the spare nails in their box. Leave one dry board by the school shelf. Noll has measured that place four times, and I think he will want it tomorrow.
%%
Farm buying list
Neri, who keeps the farm outside Lowmarsh. Swarm, 181.

For the spring market, buy these things:

Two clay pots for the bean shoots.
A new rope for the well bucket.
One iron hoe head. Ours has a bend like a fish hook.
A little salt for the kitchen.
Three dry jars for seeds.
A wool cap for Moss, if the price is fair.
A small bag of carrots for the children.

Do not buy more reeds. We have enough reeds to roof the shed twice. Wren says we could roof it three times if I stop bringing them home.

Ask the baker at Three Wells whether the bread is still good by the third day. Last spring I bought a loaf that could hold a door open. The baker said it was meant for travelers. I said I was traveling from the stall to the farm. He gave me a fresh one and laughed.

If the rope is dear, mend the old rope. Check its middle, not just the ends. It broke last spring when I had the bucket halfway up. The bucket came back empty, and I came back wet.
%%
List: what to fix before the fair
Lark, for the inn and the yard. Put up in the kitchen where everyone can see it.
The pump in the yard. It sticks. A sticking pump at a fair is a hundred thirsty people.
The loose plank on the stream bridge. Tell the east road driver. Tell him twice.
The bench by the door. The leg is short. Put a stone under it or put a new leg on it.
The shutter in the good room. It bangs. Nobody sleeps through a banging shutter.
The bell rope. It is frayed at the top. The bell must ring on time.
The gate to the hay field. The pig got out through it. The pig is not invited.
Twelve beds. Count them. Fix the one that squeaks in the middle. The middle is where the noise comes from.
Wash the cups. All of them. Then wash them again.
Put a torch on the post at the corner. The corner is dark and the corner is where the carts turn.
%%
List: what a farm needs before the snow
Wick, outside Northpoint, to the new apprentice, written large so it can be read from the door.
Every morning: the water trough, the hens, the pig, the cow. In that order. The pig will tell you if you are wrong.
Every evening: the torches along the edge, the gate, the barn door. Light each one. Count them back in.
Every few days: the hives. Look at the door of each hive. If the bees are walking in, it is well. If not, tell me.
Once a week: the roof of the barn. Look up. If you can see the sky, mend it.
Carry the sacks to the cellar, two at a time. Stack the wood against the north wall. Sweep the snow off the step before it freezes.
Do not carry the cat. The cat does not like it, and you will lose.
At night: stay. If the wolves come, stay. If the zombies come to the fence, stay and tell me.
> bring in the wood
= fetch wood
%%
A wedding pack for the Long Road
Pell's list, written at the Brown Hen in Blossom, 201.
The wedding is at Three Wells, where the road from Saltreach meets the road from Kettle Ridge. The bride's family is coming from Ambrook. The groom's aunt is coming from Copperhold, and says she can walk the whole way without stopping. We have kept a room for her near the door.
For the cart, pack clean blankets, two jars of honey, a sack of apples, and the painted wooden boxes for gifts. Tie each box down. The bridge after the old waymark has a loose board, and no gift should be sent into the stream before the bride sees it.
For the kitchen, pack wheat flour, potatoes, carrots, salt, and enough cloth to cover the bread. The baker at Three Wells has promised three loaves. He has also promised not to taste them before the guests arrive. We will count the loaves at the door.
For the table, buy fresh fish from Saltreach if the boat reaches the harbor in time. Otherwise use the dried fish in the Brown Hen store. Buy milk from the farm by the east road. Bring bowls from the inn, and return every bowl before the cart leaves.
The bride asked for apples from the oldest tree at Ambrook. Her mother says that tree makes the sweetest fruit. The beekeeper says the bees agree, though I have never asked a bee for a wedding plan.
The groom has asked for one quiet hour before the feast. We have put him in the small room. The small room is quiet unless the roof leaks, and we patched it in Frost. If he hears scratching, it is only the old cat.
The innkeeper says to bring no more guests than the beds can hold. The families say they have counted everyone. I have counted the beds. There are twelve, and the count of guests changes each time someone remembers a cousin.
So we will set benches in the yard, keep a dry place ready in the barn, and put extra bread on the board. The wedding will have music, a warm meal, and a safe place to sleep. If the bride's aunt walks all the way without stopping, I will give her the best chair.
Pell
%%
List: what to buy at the fair
Bel, for her mother, who is busy. Written on the back of a school page.
Salt. The good kind from Saltreach, in the blue cloth.
Needles. Two packets. The last ones bent.
A new handle for the hoe. The old one is split and I am not to use it.
Thread, red and brown.
One jar of Ambrook honey, small. Not for the school. For us.
A little lapis, ground fine, for the blue wool. If it is too dear, get the cornflowers.
Spoons. Two. For the wedding. Everyone is bringing a spoon.
Do not buy the fish. The fish at the fair has been to the fair before.
If there is money left, the song sheet with the words. The girl on the stool had the words. I want the words.
%%
Things for the fish shed
Quin, Lowmarsh, the fourth of Apple, 202. A list for the store room. I counted twice.

Buy one coil of good rope, two rolls of net cord, and four iron hooks. The old hooks are still sound, but one has gone into the river with my sleeve. I am keeping the sleeve as proof.

Buy salt for the catch, a new clay jar for the small fish, and a wooden lid that fits it. A lid that almost fits does not keep flies out. It only gives them a place to stand.

Buy two dry baskets at Three Wells. Ask the maker to bind the handles well. The last handles came loose on the boardwalk. The fish stayed in the baskets. The baskets stayed in my hands. We all reached the house at different times.

Bring a jar of honey from Ambrook if Pell has any. Wren uses it in warm water for a sore throat, and Sella uses it on bread. I use it when the bread is hard. Do not leave the jar beside the smoke fire. Honey should not taste like the shed.

The little apprentice from Vell sorted our hooks by size last month. It did the work neatly and did not put the broken one back. We gave it a carrot. It carried the carrot away, then came back for the tally board. I think the tally board was not part of its supper.
%%
List: what to pack for Copperhold
Written by Hesk, for the men going down to the market, who pack only when the cart is at the gate.
A lamp, and oil enough for the stair.
Bread for two days. Salt fish for three. Two apples, for the look of it.
Eleven torches, counted before the cart leaves. Every eight steps there is a torch on the left of the stair. Count them coming up, too.
Do not go below the old gate for anything. That is not a rule I made. Nobody will tell me who did.
Hesk
%%
Letter: Dunn to Pell
Pell, old friend. I am at Lowmarsh for the spring market and I have news for your ledger.
There is a new copper vein. Clank's crew found it above the Deep Works, on the old eighth level side. Hesk says it is a good one, wide and not too deep. The Copperhold carts will be heavier this year. If you hold copper, hold it.
The road down was good. One bridge on the Lowmarsh stream has a loose board. I marked it with a stone so carts go slow. Tell the road wardens, or I will when I pass Three Wells.
The market is loud. The frogs are louder. A boy tried to sell me a frog in a jar and said it was a singing frog. I asked it to sing. It did not sing. He said it was shy. I gave him a copper for the story.
Wren's knee is bad. She will not sit down. Moss follows her about with a stool.
I will be home at Ambrook by Apple. Keep a barrel of apples for me.
Dunn
%%
List: the weaving for the winter
Written by Zell, weaver, at Northpoint, in the spring, while the wool was still on the sheep and the sheep were not yet pleased about it.
Wool: one fleece from each sheep on the north side, sorted by color into grey, brown and cream. Brown is for the men's socks. Grey is for the blankets. Cream is for the things Mira says she does not want, and then wears.
Dye, for the red: beetroot, boiled down until it stains the pot. Keep the stained pot for red only. Do not cook soup in it.
Dye, for the blue: lapis, ground to a powder in the mortar, and mixed with water and a spoon of the sour starter. It is slow. It is worth the wait.
The looms: check the warp, the heddles and the beam. The second loom has one broken shuttle. Mend it with the new wood from the top orchard, and not from the mill, which will want it back.
Mittens for the tower: two pairs for each keeper, one large and one small, in grey, with a band of blue at the wrist so they can be found in the snow. The small pair goes to the lamp room, because the lamp room is cold, and the large pair goes to whoever is on the stair.
Zell
%%
Before the well ran dry: a list
Piper, innkeeper at Lowmarsh. Written in the second week of Longday, because the well behind the inn has gone dry, and I want it said what I wish I had done.
What I should have done in spring:
1. Cleared the weeds around the well mouth. They drink the water. I let them grow.
2. Looked at the water level each month and scratched it on the stone. I did it twice. Then I forgot.
3. Dug the well one block deeper when the ground was soft. The ground is not soft now.
4. Asked Wren what the water tasted like. She would have known.
What I did instead: I waited.
What I am doing now:
1. Carrying water from the weir in six buckets, twice a day. My back would like me to stop.
2. Telling every guest to drink slowly and wash lightly.
3. Putting the pots out to catch rain, though there has been none.
4. Digging the well deeper, with two miners from Copperhold who happened to be staying. They say there is water below. They say it with a straight face.
If the well comes back, I will write a second list, and it will be shorter.
%%
The summer list
Piper, innkeeper, Lowmarsh. Pinned in the kitchen for Cook, for Moss when he helps, and for me, because I forget what I wrote last year.
Things to do before Longday ends:
1. Rinse the cellar with clean water and let it dry with the door open. The cellar stinks in summer if you do not.
2. Check the well. This year it ran dry for four days, and I will not be caught again. Mark the level. Scratch a line on the stone. Look at it each morning.
3. Check the roof. It was mended in Melon. Walk the beams with a lamp and look for wet.
4. Salt the fish early. Summer fish spoil fast. Use Saltreach salt, not marsh salt.
5. Smoke the eels, in the shed, with oak. Birch makes them bitter.
6. Pick the mint and hang it to dry. Pick the thyme.
Things to buy:
1. Flour, twelve sacks, from the Ambrook mill. Order before the harvest, or the price goes up.
2. Honey, six jars, from Bess the beekeeper. Dark honey for the porridge.
3. Candles, no. Torches. A candle is for the front hall of an archive. We use torches.
4. Lamp oil, four jars.
5. Soap. A lot of soap. The marsh is a muddy place.
6. Two new hens, because the old ones are on strike.
7. A good rope for the bell.
Things to mend:
1. The third step of the stairs. It creaks. Guests think it is a mouse.
2. The wooden bowls. Some are cracked. Cook says she will not use them. I say they are charming.
3. The window shutter in the east room. It bangs. A guest from Vell wrote to say it kept her awake.
4. The sign over the door. The weir is spelled wrong. It says "wier". Moss did it, as a boy. I have kept it as a joke.
Things to remember:
1. A guest is a guest. Say good morning to them even if they are rude.
2. Frogs are not an insult. They live here.
3. Keep the hearth lit.
4. Write to Wren. She asked for a recipe for the eel soup. I have not sent it yet.
5. Make a new list next year.
%%
Lesson notes, the day it went badly
Written by Moll, who came in with the bread and stayed to help. Ten children in the hamlet school, which is the back room of the barn.

The lesson was the Long Road, in order, from Vell to the sea. Each child was to say one waymark and one inn, and then say them back. Simple.

It went badly from the start. Little Pim said the first waymark was a fish. Dunn read the numbers backward, so the Brown Hen was three days from Vell, which would be news to the carters. Two girls argued about the Halfway Inn for a quarter of an hour, and neither of them has been there.

Then the cat came in through the window and sat on the slate. Nobody could move it. It looked at us as if it had been waiting all week for a proper lesson.

The bench went over at the end, with four children on it. Nobody was hurt, but Dunn will not stop saying he saw it coming.

To fix before the next lesson:
A new slate. The old one has a crack down the middle, which is the Long Road, cut in two.
The bench. Two of the legs are short.
The window latch.
The cat. It will use the door if someone shows it the door, Wren says. Nobody has yet been brave enough to try.
%%
What to fix before winter
Ansel, at the edge of Three Wells. I have lived in this house longer than the town has had two wells, let alone three. Every year I write this list. Every year I forget something on it. Do not be like me.
1. Mend the roof. Walk the hill and look at it from the road. A hole you cannot see from the yard is still a hole.
2. Stuff the gaps by the door and the windows with wool. A cold wind is small. It finds every gap.
3. Stack the wood under cover, dry end to the wall. Wet wood smokes and does not warm.
4. Check the fence. Fix the loose posts before the ground freezes hard. After that, the ground is stone and your hands are worse.
5. Salt the path to the well. Old folk fall on ice. I am old folk.
6. Bring the carrots and potatoes down to the cold room. Leave the beets in the clamp under straw.
7. Fill every lamp with oil. Fill the spare lamps too. Fill them in daylight, not in the dark when you need them.
8. Take the honey jars up from the shed. Honey keeps, but glass cracks in a hard frost.
9. Mend the carts. Fix the harness while you can still feel your fingers.
10. Go and see your neighbors. Ask what they need. Ask before the snow, not after.
My granddaughter Bel says I should write number ten first. She is right. She is nine and she is right.
%%
What to pack for the horse fair
Aven, for anyone riding down to Copperhold.
For the horse:
A halter and a spare rope. A blanket, even in summer, for the nights are cold on the hill. A brush. A hoof pick. A nose bag of oats.
For you:
A warm coat. A hat for the sun. A water bottle. A few emeralds in a purse you can feel with your hand. Bread and cheese from home, for the fair food is good but the lines are long.
For the cart:
A spare pin for the wheel. A pot of grease. A lantern. A tarp in case of rain.
Leave the dog at home. The fair is loud and the dog will fight every other dog and lose.
%%
Market day list
Bel, Three Wells, the 171st year of the archive, Longday.
Mama says I may carry the list to market if I do not lose it.
We need:
Two loaves of bread.
A small pot of honey.
One needle.
A spool of wool thread.
Three carrots for the soup.
A new handle for the wooden bucket.
Do not buy another red ribbon. I already have one.
Mama says the ribbon is orange. She is looking at it in the shade.
I will ask the baker for the bread first. Then I can keep both hands on the basket.
If I meet Pip, I must give him the note for Tam.
Do not let Pip put the carrots in his pocket. Last time they came back with a beetroot and a worm.
%%
List: the new road
Written by Pell, for the road steward, who asked him to write the list of what was still to be done on the new road to Vell before the snow. Autumn. The steward kept the list, and has since asked for it to be copied for the Archive.

Work to do on the new road, before the first snow:
The bridge at the second stream. The loose plank must be replaced with oak from the ridge, cut and fitted by the bridge keeper. The rail must be mended on the east side.
The culvert under the spring at the bottom of the hill. It is clogged with leaves and it will flood the road if it is not cleared.
The torches on every second post, between the Halfway and the crossroads. Several are out. Several more have been knocked down by the carts. Set them back, and paint the posts white, so the carters can see them in the dark.
The edge of the road, along the open field at Three Wells. The cobblestone has sunk in two places, and the carts have worn ruts beside them. Pack the edge with stone, and level it with sand.
The waymarks, all of them, from the first to the last. Each one must stand upright, with its figure facing the road. Two have fallen. Pick them up, and set them back on their stone bases.
The inn at the Halfway needs a new hearth stone. The old one is cracked, and the cook has asked for it to be mended before the cold comes in.

Note from Pell. The steward says this list is too long to finish before the snow. I have told him the road is longer than the list, and that we will finish the road next year, and the year after. He says he knows, and that he is glad someone has written it down.
%%
Notice: horse fair at Copperhold
Aven, horse keeper, Copperhold. Posted on the board at the mine gate and on the market post.
On the twelfth of Longday we hold the horse fair in the field by the sorting shed. Bring your horses. Bring your carts. Bring your children, but hold their hands near the big ones.
What we sell: foals, ponies, two old mares who still pull well, harness, rope, oat sacks, and hay by the cartload.
What we buy: oats, leather, iron shoes, and good strong rope.
Rules: no galloping through the market. No horses in the mine. Water is at the trough by the forge. A boy named Clank will watch your horse for one emerald, and he is honest.
If it rains we move under the shed roof. If it rains very hard we go to the kitchen at the mine gate and drink tea until it stops.
%%
List: the spring, all of it
Written by Zell, weaver, at Northpoint, in Blossom, at the request of the tower kitchen, which has asked me every spring for a list of everything and has never once been given a short one.
Bees. The hive by the south wall is strong. It will swarm in Swarm, and it will choose the wrong tree, which is the one by the lamp room. Watch the queen cells on the comb. When they are capped, the swarm is near. Have the basket ready and the sheet laid out.
The well. Replace the rope, the bucket and the lining. The water came back on the fourth day of Sowing, a little yellow, and then clear. Test it with the cup before the kitchen drinks it.
The planting. Beetroot in the first row, potatoes in the second, carrots thin in the third, wheat only if you have a field. The melons want the wall, and the pumpkins want the gate.
The lamp. Clean the glass on a dry day. Look for the spider's web on the copper ring. Trim the wick straight, and then stop. Ada says the stop is the part that gets forgotten. She is right.
The wool. Sort by color before you wash, and wash by color before you spin. The grey takes longest. The cream takes the dirt.
The mittens and the blankets. They should be ready before the frost, which comes early on the north side and sits there until the thaw.
The stair. Light the torches every eight steps on the left, and check the pitch on the eleven that were fitted last winter. One of them is smoking, and the smoke goes up the stairwell and into the lamp room, where it does not belong.
The kitchen. Carry the flour up on the lift and not on your back. The lift is slow and sure. Your back is neither.
The visitors. A cart from the Long Road will come up in the first warm week, bringing Pell's honey and Tam's news. Do not let Tam cross the yard with the pig. Do not let Pell tell you the price of the honey before you have tasted it. Tasting is free.
The foxes. They have agreed to keep off the drying line this year. The cat has agreed to keep them off the step.
The last thing. Write down the day the swarm comes, and the day the well comes back, and the day the first beetroot is pulled. The tower book is for those things, and it is also for the next keeper, who will want to know what spring was like here, and whether anybody noticed it.
Zell
%%
Pell's road pack
Pell, at the Brown Hen.
For a summer journey, pack these things:
A water skin, filled before you leave.
Bread wrapped in a clean cloth.
Two apples. One for the road and one for when the first one is gone.
A dry shirt.
A needle and thread.
A small purse of emeralds.
A list of the goods you carry.
Leave room for anything you buy. There is always something to buy, and it is never small when you ask the seller.
%%
Lowmarsh net list
Quin, Lowmarsh, the second of Leaffall, 173. Things to pack before the reed boat leaves.

One net, mended at the corners.
Two dry shirts. The marsh has enough wet ones already.
A coil of rope, not the thin coil. The thin coil broke by the fish weir.
Lunch for two. I packed lunch for one last time and had to trade a trout for half a loaf.
A small pot for frogs. This is a joke. Do not put frogs in the boat.
A lantern, with oil and a spare wick.
The tally from the boat house.

If the boat is still tied to the post, you have forgotten the rope. If the rope is in your hand, you have forgotten lunch. Ask me before you forget both.
%%
What to fix before Frost
Quin, fisher at Lowmarsh, Frost 188.

The boardwalk needs two new boards by the east post. The old ones dip when carrying a full basket. They dip more when carrying Quin. Use oak if we have it, and fasten each board well.

The boat house roof has a loose piece above the tally. Put it back before the rain finds the dry place inside. Keep the spare boards under the shelf, not behind the nets. Last year I searched behind every net while the boards sat under the shelf.

Mend the fish weir where the slow water pulls at it. Check each post. The one near the reeds is leaning, though it says it is not.

Put torches along the boardwalk. Replace the wet ones. A torch that will not light is a stick with a fine opinion of itself.

Bring the empty baskets indoors. Turn them upside down so frogs cannot make homes in them. The frogs do not pay rent.

Ask Wren if she still needs the low shelf moved from the shed. She said it was too low for jars. I said it was a low shelf. We have not settled the matter.
%%
List: what to plant before the frost
Kept by Olwen, carter. Most years the hamlet plants it, and most years the frogs help.

Ground on the rise by the well, the dry part: beetroot in two rows, six paces apart, so the leaves can breathe.
Carrots in the same bed, between the beetroot, one for each beetroot. Carrots like company. Beetroot does not mind.
Potatoes in the middle bed, the one behind the healing house. Not on the marsh side. Potatoes rot in standing water, and then the whole hamlet smells of it.
Pumpkins at the far edge, by the reed bank, where the sun lands longest. Give each one a clear yard of ground. A pumpkin wants room to think.
Wheat: the last strip of dry field, near the new road. Sow it late, in Reaping. It is cut in Melon, and then we argue about who gets the straw.
Reeds: cut from the wet edge in Frost, when the stems are hard. Tie them in bundles for the roofs. Leave the young ones. They are for the frogs.
Marsh mint: a patch by the healing house door, so Wren can reach it without wading.

Seed is kept in the dry box on the healing house wall, in jars with the name written on each lid. Last year somebody planted the pumpkins where the beetroot should have gone. The beetroot has not forgiven us.

Beetroot is the easiest crop to grow and the hardest to stop. One year the frogs ate the leaves and went pink for a week. Nobody has explained that to the children.

Good soil does not smell when you dig it. If it smells, move the bed. Ask Ned if you do not believe me. He has moved his bed three times.

Olwen
%%
List: what to fix before the frost
Written by Hesk, for the shaft head, where the list is nailed to the door of the tool store.
1. The count board. Two numbers are wrong. Rub them out and write them again.
2. The lift rope. Check it at the drum. Last year it wore through in one place, and nobody was on the lift at the time, which was luck.
3. The torches on the stair. Every eight steps, on the left. Eleven of them need new pitch.
4. The roof of the sorting shed. Tie it down before the storm, which will come up from the north on the first cold night, as it always does.
5. The old gate on the eighth level. Put a rag over the lock and a stone in front of it. The stone there is warm to the hand. It was warm last Frost too. Nobody has explained it, and I am not going down to look for an explanation.
Hesk
%%
Spiders in the barn
Wren, healer. For the hamlet near Lowmarsh, where the barns are fuller of spiders than usual this winter. A list of what to do and what not to do.
Do:
1. Sweep the beams once a month. A long pole with a rag. Wear a hat.
2. Hang a bunch of dried mint at each corner. Spiders dislike the smell.
3. Keep the hay off the floor. It makes a nest.
4. Light a torch at the barn door at dusk, as always. Spiders keep their distance from light, which is a good thing for a barn.
5. Count the sheep when you bring them in. If one is missing, check the corners.
Do not:
1. Do not poke a big web with your hand. The spider is not pleased.
2. Do not burn the barn. It has been suggested. It is a poor idea.
3. Do not tell the children there are no spiders. They know.
Rumors. People in the hamlet say the spiders are bolder this year, and there are more of them. Hale says it is the cold: the spiders come in for the warmth. Dell says it is the damp. Old Hob says that they know something we do not, and are making plans. He says this every winter, about everything. I write it down, since the Archive likes rumors.
For what it's worth, I have seen four big spiders in my own shed, and two small ones, and they are all very quiet. I let them stay. They keep the flies away.
%%
What Esk takes to market
Esk, Copperhold, the first snow of Frost. The market square is cold before the sun reaches it. I pack these things in my wool sack.

Clean carded wool.
Two pairs of mittens.
A small comb for tangled fleece.
Bread wrapped in cloth.
A jar of honey from Ambrook.
Three emeralds in a tied pocket.

I take the wool to the stall beside the forge. It is warm there, but the iron dust settles on everything. Last year I sold one mitten with a black thumb. The buyer said it matched his coat. I charged him the same as for a clean one.

I keep the bread for the walk home. If Pell is at the market, I buy an apple from him. He says his apples travel well. One rolled out of my sack and down the hill last winter. A child caught it before it reached the ditch.
%%
List for the peddler's cart
Ansel, at the edge of Three Wells. My list for Pell when he comes up the road with his cart. He says I am his best customer because I always know what I want.
1. One good iron bucket. The old one leaks at the seam.
2. A new whetstone. Mine is worn thin as a leaf.
3. Two coils of rope. Not the thin rope. The rope that holds a cart on a hill.
4. A jar of honey from Ambrook. Tell Pell it is not for me. It is for the shelf, for a bet I have not forgotten.
5. Glass panes. Six, if he has them. My window by the fire has a crack and the wind finds it.
6. A lamp with a good lid. The lid on mine does not close and the oil spills when I carry it.
7. A book for Bel, if he has one. She reads faster than I can find things for her to read.
8. A copper nail or two. You never know when you need a copper nail. I do not know either, but I always want one.
Pell will say the price is high. Pell always says the price is high. I will pay it anyway, and I will pretend to be cross about it, and then we will have tea.
%%
What to plant on the lower slope
Esk, Copperhold, spring of 183. I went to market for seed with a basket and came home with more than I could carry. This is the list I meant to buy.

Potatoes for the stony strip.
Carrots for the sunny bed.
Beetroot for the patch by the fence.
A little wheat for the upper edge.
Oak saplings for the bare place near the shed.

The seed seller had no oak saplings. He had birch, and said birch would do. I bought two. One is already leaning toward the road, though I planted it straight. The other stands as if it is trying not to be noticed.

I bought the potatoes from a farmer at the market. He had tied each sack with a different cord so nobody would mix them up. One cord was red wool. I asked whether it was for sale. He said it was only there to keep the potatoes from escaping. I bought the sack, cord and all.

Before planting, I cleared the stones and mended the fence. My neighbor's pig had found the loose board. It ate one beetroot leaf and then stood in the garden as if it had come to inspect my work. I led it out with a carrot. The pig took the carrot and left the garden in good order.

I kept the small potatoes for planting and the large ones for supper. The first bed is covered now. If the birds take the seed, I will plant again. The birds are welcome to a little. They have been watching me work all morning.
%%
Tam's planting list
For Pip and anyone else who has a patch of ground.
First loosen the soil. Pull out the stones and put them by the path, not in the row. I know they look useful. They are useful later, when someone needs a stone and cannot find one.
Plant carrots in the lower bed. Leave room between them. Plant potatoes in the next row, and cover them well. Put beetroot where the ditch can reach it.
Plant wheat in the top field. Make the rows straight enough that we can walk between them. They need not be ruler straight. We have no ruler long enough for the top field.
Water the new rows after planting. Do not flood them. Pip flooded the carrots last Swarm, then told me they were learning to swim.
Put a torch at the gate before dark. Keep the scarecrow in its place. It does little to stop crows, but it gives the pigs something to respect.
When the work is done, write each seed bed on the tally board. If you cannot spell the crop, draw it. Pip draws excellent carrots and potatoes that look like bread.
Pip says that is because they will be bread one day. I have told him to wait for the harvest.
Tam, Kettle Ridge
%%
List: what to pack for the new road
Written by Olwen, carter, for the carts that use the new road out of the reeds.
The new road runs from the boardwalk to the Long Road, across the reed beds on stone piers. It opened in Reaping. It is good road, and it is wet.

Take these:
Two pairs of dry socks, and a third pair in your coat.
Boots with sound leather, not the old ones. The mud on the piers comes up to the ankle, and in one place to the knee.
Bread for two days. If the bread runs out, soak the hard end in soup at night.
A water skin, full. The reeds have water, but it is not the kind you drink.
Six torches and the flint. The new road has torches at the start and at the end. In the middle there are reeds, frogs and nothing else.
A spare brake pin for the cart. The hill past the second pier is steep, and it does not care who you are.
Hay for the horse, and one apple for when she is cross.

The waymarks: the first says 4, with an arrow to the Long Road. The second says 3. The third says nothing yet, because the carver has not come. Count the posts yourself, and count them twice.

If a swarm of bees hangs off your cart in Swarm, do not wave your arms. Sit down in the grass and wait. They will choose a new tree in a little while. Bees are slow to choose, but they choose well.

Olwen
%%
List: what to fix at the well
Written by Zell, weaver, at Northpoint, in the spring, after the well ran dry for six days in Sowing and the tower kitchen had to carry water up the hill in buckets.
1. The rope. It has frayed at the drum. Replace it with the new coil from the rope maker in Three Wells.
2. The bucket. The bottom has come loose, and it sinks on one side. A good bucket sinks evenly.
3. The stones at the mouth of the well. Two have shifted, and the rain runs in between them. Lift them and set them back, one at a time, and check that they sit flat.
4. The spring that feeds the well. Walk its path up the hill. Clear the leaves from the channel, and the sticks, and anything that looks like it was put there on purpose.
Zell
%%
List: the spring planting at Northpoint
Written by Zell, weaver, at Northpoint, in Blossom, for the strip under the tower's south wall, where the sun is warm before the bell and the wind goes round.
1. Beetroot, in the first row, thinned to a hand apart. The red ones keep best.
2. Potatoes, cut in halves, each half with an eye on it, in the second row.
3. Carrots, in the third row, sown thin. Thin them again when they have two leaves, and eat the thinnings with the soup.
4. Wheat, in the far corner, only if you have a field and not a yard. The yard wheat is still in the yard, and so are the hens.
5. Melons, one hill, against the wall. They want the warmth and they will give nothing back until Melon.
6. Pumpkins, on the bank by the gate, where the frost comes late and goes early.
7. Water the whole row at dusk, not at noon. The sun steals water in the day, and the roots drink what is left.
Zell
%%
The wedding of Sera and Hob
Kept by Lark at the inn of twelve beds, the ninth of Longday. Summer.
They were married in the school yard, as Dace said, under the big oak. The door of the school is painted by the children and it has a bee on it and the bee has a hat.
Everyone brought a spoon. There were more spoons than people. Dace made a speech about the three wells and the two roads and said that love is a crossroads too, and Pell said it was the best speech of the year, and Dace looked pleased all evening.
Hob's apprentice Clank carried the rings on a cushion. It did not drop them. Hesk from Copperhold came all the way down and stood at the back and was quiet and happy. Tam and Pip came from Kettle Ridge with a sack of beetroot, which was the wedding gift, and Sera laughed and said she would cook them all.
The woman who sings about the sea sang one song and then went to help with the plates. Bel read a poem she wrote herself. It was about spoons. It was very good.
The baker brought a cake with honey on it and a small copper cup baked into the top, and Sera found it and wore it on her thumb.
At dark the children were sent home and came back. At midnight the bell rang once, by accident, and Dace said it was the wedding bell and everyone agreed it had been on purpose.
They will live in the house past the east well. They have spoons now. They have a great many spoons.
It was a good day. The well is quiet again. The square is swept. I am going to bed.
%%
Notice: the mill wheel at Ambrook
To all who use the mill, from Jory the miller.
The wheel is broken. A spoke split in the night and the rim is sprung. The wheel will not turn until it is mended.
The miller at Three Wells will grind your grain for now. It is a long walk with a cart, and I am sorry for it.
The sluice stays shut. Do not open it to look at the wheel. My father shut it, and his father before him, and nobody opens it.
The carpenter comes on the third of Apple. He brings oak from the old tree's fallen branch, and a new spoke besides.
Until then, keep your grain dry and your patience long.
Jory
%%
A market day in Frost
Written by Esk, with notes from the wool stall. Copperhold, Frost, 201.

I set up my stall beside the wall, where the sun reaches it for an hour. The wool stays dry there. I brought carded wool, mittens, two warm caps and a basket of mending yarn. The caps sold first. One went to a miner who said he only needed it for the walk home. He wore it into the kitchen and forgot to take it off.

At the market I bought carrots, coal and a new strap for my carding bench. The strap cost two emeralds. I thought it cost one. The seller counted the coins again, then gave one back. He said his eyes were cold. I told him they looked warm enough. We both laughed, and I spent the returned emerald on honey.

Pell came through with his cart from the Long Road. He had apples from Ambrook and wool cloth from Kettle Ridge. His wheel had a loose pin, so the baker lent him a hammer. Pell fixed it while the rest of us held the cart still. The cart did not thank us, but it stayed upright.

The children had a contest to see who could carry a sack of potatoes the farthest. The smallest child won by putting the sack on a sled and pulling it. Dace was asked to judge. He said the rules had not forbidden sleds. The other children went to find sleds of their own.

Before I closed the stall, a woman brought me a torn mitten. I gave her a scrap of yarn and showed her how to close the thumb seam. She made a neat repair. I told her she could mend my next pair. She said she would, if I made the next pair less narrow.

I walked home with one apple left in Pell's cart bag. It had a soft place on one side. I cut that part away, saved the good pieces, and put the core by the fence for the birds.
%%
Packing for the hill house
Nessa, winter, 176th year of the archive.

The hill house stands at the edge of Vell. The north wall is cold, and the door sticks when snow lies against it. If you are staying there through Longnight, pack these things.

Two wool blankets. One for the bed and one for the chair.
A pair of dry boots.
A spare shirt and stockings.
A small bag of coal for the hearth.
Bread, cheese and dried apples.
A tin cup and a spoon.
A brush for the snow on the steps.

Do not pack the large blue pot. It belongs to the house. We have found it in three rooms, and each time it was too heavy to carry upstairs.

Keep a lantern by the door. Bring it in before sleep. If you leave it outside, the snow will fill it, and you will have to explain the wet bed to the next apprentice.
%%
Notice: the fair and the song contest
Dace, mayor of Three Wells. Put up on the notice board by the east well.
The summer fair is on the seventh, eighth and ninth of Longday.
Stalls go round the three wells. Bring your own table if you have one. The stalls are set by the bell on the sixth.
The song contest is on the evening of the eighth, by the middle well.
Three verses at least. One about the road and one about somebody. The third is yours.
The prize is a barrel of Ambrook honey and the good copper cup.
Pell judges. He cannot sing and says so, which makes him fair.
The wedding of Sera and Hob is on the ninth, after the contest, in the school yard. Everyone is asked. Bring a spoon.
The bell rings for the market at first light. It rings again when the stalls close. Do not make it ring a third time.
%%
Packing for Blossom
Rye, smith of Millbank. For the cart to Three Wells.

Pack the small hammer, the iron tongs, and two coils of copper wire. Wrap the tongs in wool so they do not mark the good pan. Put the apples in the top crate. Keep the iron below them, unless you want apple pie with a dent in it.

Take a loaf, a jar of honey, and the blue cup with the chipped handle. The cup is still good. I have used it for six years and only spilled from it four times.

Bring the list of orders for the fair. Do not bring the list of things I forgot last fair. It is mostly a list of things I forgot to bring.
%%
What to buy at Copperhold
Esk, wool carder, Copperhold. The market opens when the first lamp is lit. I go early, before the forge smoke settles over the square.

For the carding bench:
A new oak peg.
A bundle of wool from the hill farms.
A little beeswax for the loose handle.
A piece of clean cloth to cover the finished wool.

For home:
Potatoes.
Carrots.
A small sack of coal.
One candle.
A turnip, if the beetroot seller has any left.

I pay for the wool first. Then I buy the food. This is because I once spent all my emeralds on a fine copper comb and had to carry home an empty basket. It was a very good comb. I had nothing to comb with it.

The potato seller keeps his prices on a board. He writes them large enough for me to read without putting down my basket. The carrot seller writes small. I think he wants people to lean close and smell the carrots.

At the end of the market, I look for Tam's sister Mira's honey. It is sent down the Long Road in jars. The jars come back empty, which is how I know the honey is good.
%%
The night Pip came
Talla, neighbor at the hill house, winter of 197.

A child was born in the hill house just before dawn. Her name is Sella. Her mother had come from Three Wells to stay with us while the snow blocked the road. She said the hill house was quiet enough for a child. She had not met the stair door.

The door gave a long groan each time the wind pressed it. Talla held it shut with one hand. I held a warm brick wrapped in wool for the mother. Nessa boiled water. Bel fetched clean cloth and returned with two cloths and a potato.

The baby was strong and loud. She stopped crying when she heard the hearth crackle. Her mother laughed and said that was the first good lesson she had learned.

We had set bread, cheese and honey on the table for the night. The bread was eaten first. Bel claimed she had only tested it for freshness. There was no bread left to test in the morning.

When the snow cleared, the family stayed another month. Sella slept through the stair door, the wind, and the sound of Nessa reading. She woke at once when anyone opened the honey jar.

The house was warmer after that. We kept a cradle beside the hearth and a clean blanket on the shelf. I also put the potato back in the kitchen.
%%
Pantry list for a long winter
Carys, Kettle Ridge, Frost. Written after the winter of 205, which was long, and which we came through with flour to spare and a bad temper. This is the list for the next one. I have put in what I wish I had bought.

Shelf one, the grain:
- Flour, the sacks marked with the year. Use the oldest first. Carys, that means you.
- Barley for the porridge, and for the cows if the hay runs short.
- Oats, a small sack, for Pip, who will not eat anything else on a cold morning.

Shelf two, the jars:
- Pickled beetroot, twelve jars. It does not keep forever, so eat it by Melon.
- Jam from the Ambrook plums, six jars. Put the date on the lid in ink, not pencil. Pencil runs when the cellar drips.
- Honey, four jars, labeled by the hive. The yellow one is the best. The brown one is for the medicine, and tastes of smoke.
- Dried apples on string, a long string. Apples keep their sweetness if you dry them slowly, in the sun, out of the wind.

Shelf three, the roots:
- Potatoes, a sack, in the cellar dark. Turn them once a month, or they sprout in the sack and you will have to eat the sprouts or throw them out.
- Carrots, a box, in sand. Keep the sand damp, not wet.
- Pumpkins, eight. One for each week of the worst of it.

Shelf four, the things for the fair:
- The good pie pan, washed and dried. Leave it on the shelf. It has been waiting all year.
- The blue scarf, folded. It is not for the winter. It is for the spring song contest, and Pip has been told.

The cellar:
- A jar of water, a fresh one each Frost, in case the well freezes. The well always freezes.
- Two lamps and the oil. Keep one lamp lit in the cellar door, so you can find the stairs.

What I wish I had bought last winter: a second barrel of salt. The first one went in the stew for three weeks and then there was no more, and Tam ate the fish raw. He did not enjoy it.

The prize this year was for the best pantry on the ridge. The judges were Hob and Dace, who came up from Three Wells to see the cellars. The prize went to Carys, who had not entered. Hob says it was the best cellar he has ever seen, and then he asked for the recipe for the pickled beetroot, and that was the whole prize.
%%
List: what to buy at Three Wells
Things to buy at the Three Wells market before the frost. Prices from the market board, in Reaping.

Salt, two sacks. 6 emeralds.
Nails, one box of the long ones. 3 emeralds.
Rope, thirty paces, good hemp, not the grey kind that snaps. 8 emeralds.
Lamp oil, four jars at 4 emeralds each. 16 emeralds.
Glass for the healing house, six panes from Saltreach. 9 emeralds.
Wheat flour, one sack, from the mill at Ambrook. 5 emeralds.
A new kettle for Wren, the small copper one. 12 emeralds. The big one is cracked. Wren says it is not cracked. It is cracked.
Ink, one pot, and a stick of charcoal for the book. 2 emeralds.
Honey cakes for the children's stall, a dozen. 2 emeralds. Do not let the carter near them on the way home.
Thread and needles for the healing house cloth, one packet. 2 emeralds.
Wool, two bales, to be spun by the children who sit in the healing house on wet days. 10 emeralds.
Candles, forty, the thick kind, for the back room. 6 emeralds.
A new bucket for the well, the wooden kind with iron hoops. 5 emeralds.
A slate for the school, if the tutor at Three Wells still has one to spare. 4 emeralds.

Total: 90 emeralds. Pay the wheel man on market day, not before, or he will tell everyone you owe him. Prices have gone up since Melon. Ned says it is the frogs. Ida says it is the flour. The market board says nothing, which is how we know it is the board.

Things not to buy:
The blue cloth from the stall by the south well. It runs in the rain. Ask Ida, who knows what runs.
A second cart. We have one cart, and Ned has told me so twice.
More fish from Saltreach. Ned says he has enough fish for a year, and so does the marsh.

Olwen
%%
What to bring to Ambrook market
Bram, charcoal burner, from the woods above the orchard. Written for my neighbor Holl, who has never sold at a market before.
Bring:
1. Your charcoal, in sacks, and a scoop. People like to see the scoop.
2. A stool. Standing all day is a young person's game.
3. A cloth to cover the sacks at night. Charcoal and dew do not agree.
4. Your lunch, and a second lunch. The pies at the market cost more than they should.
5. Small change. Nobody at the market has a coin for a big emerald.
6. A friend to mind the stall while you walk about.
Do not bring your dog. There are enough dogs at Ambrook in Apple month.
Arrive the day before. The good places go to those who sleep by their carts.
%%
Notice from the inn: the north road
Dace, mayor of Three Wells, for the notice board. Ansel asked me to put this up, so I am putting it up.
The north road out of Three Wells is now marked to the second relay tower. Stone waymarks stand every so often along the way, three blocks high, with a torch on top and an arrow to the nearest inn. Leave a little stone on top as you pass. That is the custom now, and it is a good custom.
The relay tower on the hill above the road is new this year. It is the second one on this road. A keeper lives at the foot of it, and there is a lamp in a glass room at the top, and from the top you can see the smoke of Three Wells.
Ansel, who lives at the edge of town, walked the whole road to see it lit. He is eighty and he walked it in the cold and he came back pleased. He said the tower was the tallest thing he had ever seen, and that he remembered when the tallest thing was his own apple tree. He said he stood at the foot and looked up until his neck ached, and then he walked home and had honey on his bread.
This is the third notice on this board this season. The first was about the fair. The second was about the sheep. Nobody has asked about the sheep.
The road is open. Keep your torches lit.
%%
Spring work and supper
Wren, Lowmarsh. Swarm, 207.

The farm outside Lowmarsh needs small repairs before the beds are full. These are the jobs we can finish in one spring morning.

First, clear the ditch. The water must pass from the upper field to the slow bend. Put the mud on the low edge of the pumpkin bed, not on the path. The mud on the path finds Wren's boots every time.

Second, mend the gate and check the fence by the carrots. The fence must reach the ground. Rabbits do not care how fine the top rail looks.

Third, move the seed jars from the shed shelf to the dry box. Read every label before opening a jar. We once planted carrots from a jar marked BEETROOT. The leaves were healthy, and the supper was confusing.

Fourth, wash the clay pots and put them by the warm wall. Sow a few extra seeds in them. They can stand under the shed roof if the nights turn cold.

Fifth, mend the handle of the iron hoe. Keep the old handle for kindling after the new one is firm. Do not use a bent hoe to break hard ground. That is how Neri made a hole in a potato row and found last year's potato.

Buy a small sack of salt, two clay pots, and a coil of rope at market. If the rope is dear, ask the fishers for a sound short piece. Do not borrow their net rope. They remember.

For supper, we tried a pumpkin and carrot pie. Neri mixed the flour with honey instead of salt. The pie looked fine. It tasted like a sweet jar with carrots in it.

We scraped the filling into a pot, added salt, and cooked it again. It made a thick soup. Moss said the soup was good. Moss had already eaten two bowls, so we asked too late.

Write this on the kitchen board:

Check the jar before cooking.
Taste the broth before adding more salt.
Keep the honey jar away from the flour.
Keep the cats off the table.

The cat was not on the table. It was in the flour sack. We found paw marks in the pie crust after supper.
%%
What to buy for the school
Bel, Three Wells, the 189th year of the archive, Longday.
The school asked me to write this list because I have neat letters. Noll says my letters lean like tired sheep. He is not on the list committee.
We need:
Six pieces of chalk, because the old pieces are too small to hold.
Two jars of ink, with lids that fit.
A packet of wool for tying bundles of papers.
A new board for the notice wall. The old board has a soft corner where rain gets in.
A brush for the school door. The children painted it last Blossom, and the blue fish needs another eye.
Three stools for the small table. One stool has a leg that wobbles. It is not a stool for a person who likes sitting still.
A pan of rolls from the bakery for the helpers.
If there are emeralds left, buy a red ball for the yard. The old ball is under the east well. We know it is there because we saw it go in. We do not know how to get it out without getting wet.
Ask the baker if the rolls are fresh. Ask twice if he says they are fresh before looking.
The school has one apprentice to carry the board from the market. It can carry a board, but do not give it the ink. Last time it carried the ink upside down. Nessa says this was a good lesson for everyone.
Keep the receipt in the school box. Do not write the price on the board. Dace says prices belong on the market board, and children belong in the yard.
%%
Letter: Pell to his sister at Ambrook
Dear Rilla. I judged the song contest at Three Wells. My ears are still ringing and my heart is a little sore.
The girl sang about the relay tower and did not wobble once. The woman who sings about the sea made the square go quiet. I gave the cup to Sera, who sang about Hob, because it was true and she was brave. Is that fair? I think it is fair.
The fair was good. I sold honey, thread, needles and four hundred emeralds' worth of small things to people who did not need them. I bought a spoon.
Lark's inn had nineteen people in twelve beds. I slept in the good room and could hear the hay snoring.
The wedding is tomorrow. I have my good coat. I have a spoon. I have been asked to say a few words, which I will keep to a few.
The road home will be slow. The cart is heavy and the bridge has a new plank, so it is only heavy.
Tell the bees I am coming. Tell Jory the mill wheel wants grease. Tell no one about the spoon.
Pell
%%
The roof of the Weir Inn: a list
Piper, innkeeper. Pinned inside the back door for Corm the thatcher, who is coming on the second morning of Melon to mend the roof.
The roof has leaked since the spring. I put out a pot, and then three pots, and then a barrel. The barrel is now full. So.
What is wrong:
1. Over the kitchen: a hole you can see the sky through. It is the size of a loaf.
2. Over the common room: a long wet streak. The ceiling drips on the third table, where the carters sit. They have started to bring hats indoors.
3. Over the stairs: a green patch, which I believe is moss. I also believe it is growing.
4. Over the chimney: a loose straw bundle that flaps in the wind. It sounds like a hen.
What I have ready:
1. Reeds, forty bundles, cut and dried by the weir. Wren's boy Moss helped carry them.
2. A ladder. It is a good ladder. Do not lean it on the chimney.
3. A pot of tar, for the ridge.
4. Soup at noon. And a bed if the work runs late.
What I ask: please do the kitchen first. Cook says the kitchen leak has dropped a drop on her pie, and the pie was not improved.
When the work is done, the whole roof will be new. It will be gold in the sun. I will stand in the yard and look at it for a long time.
%%
List: what to take down the cave
Under the top field, after the rain, the ground fell in. There was a cave down there. Nobody on this farm knew. My father did not know, and he knew everything, and said so.
Wick's list for going down, with the children, tomorrow, if it dries:
A rope, long, and a second rope in case the first is short.
Four torches, and four more for the way back. More light than you think, always.
A basket for anything we find. The children will find stones. Let them.
Bread and water, and a cheese, because the cheese is going off and a cave is a good place to be rid of it.
A string tied at the mouth and let out as we go, so that we can find the way up.
The dog stays at the top. The dog has views on caves.
We tell no one else until we are sure. Then we tell everyone.
%%
What to plant by the wall
Sella, school helper, Three Wells, the 196th year of the archive, Sowing.
The school garden is small, but it can feed the children if we take care of it.
Plant carrots in the soft bed beside the east wall. Leave room between each row so small hands can pull weeds.
Plant beetroot in the bed near the water jar. It needs a steady drink, not a flood.
Put potatoes in the deep bed by the shed. Cover them well with soil.
Plant wheat in the long strip behind the school. The strip is narrow, so keep the edges straight.
Put pumpkin seeds at the sunny corner. Give the vines room to spread. Last year they went across the path and caught Dace by the ankles.
Leave the flowers by the fence for the bees. Do not pull them to make the garden look tidy. The bees are working, even when they look as if they are just sitting.
Mark each row with a wooden tag. Write the crop name on it. Bel says she can tell carrots from weeds. Bel is welcome to prove this after lunch.
Water in the morning. If the soil is dark and cool, wait until the next morning. Carry the water in the small pail. The large pail has a split seam.
The apprentice can carry the pail and turn the soil by the wall. We tested it on the garden bed first. It still steps on the little path, so we drew the path wider.
When the first carrots are ready, give one to the baker. He gave us rolls for planting day. Give one to the apprentice too. It has been watching the rows with great care.
%%
List: bees swarming, what to take
It is Swarm, and the bees have left the hive, and they are in the plum tree, in a ball the size of a pumpkin. Do not shout. Do not run. I have done both, and it did not help.
Take: a clean box with a lid. A white sheet. A stick. A smoke pot. The good gloves, not the ones with the hole. Patience, which we have in the barn, in the small jar, next to the string.
Do: spread the sheet under the branch. Shake the branch, once, hard. Most of them fall in a lump on the sheet. Put the box over them, upside down, and wait.
The rest will find their way in by dusk. Bees are sensible about this. They go where the others are.
Do not take: the dog. The dog does not understand bees.
Wick says, if they leave again next year, he will leave a box in the plum tree on purpose. They do not care for being told.
%%
The drill that went badly
Nessa, tutor at Vell, writing to the other tutors so we all remember it.
I drilled a mind on sorting wheat from chaff last month. I set the drill badly. I showed it the wheat, and I showed it the chaff, and then I asked it to sort. It sorted everything into one pile and would not be moved.
I looked at my pages. I had drawn the wheat small and the chaff large, every time. The mind had learned that size, not color, was the thing to look at. It was right about my pages. My pages were wrong.
I fixed the pages and drilled again, and it sorted well by the third day.
So: look at your pages before you blame the mind. A drill is only as good as its pages. I will say it again in the manual. Never send an untested mind to the fields, and never trust a drill you have not looked at twice.
%%
Things to buy before the long winter
Carys, Kettle Ridge, Leaffall. Carts come up the ridge road until the snow. After that, the road is for the foxes. Buy these before the last cart goes north.

Food:
- Flour, twelve sacks, for the house. The bakery takes its own.
- Salt, four sacks. More than that and the cellar gets damp. Ask Hob about the damp.
- Dried beans, six sacks. They keep. They do not taste of anything, but they keep, and that is the point.
- Apples from Ambrook, a barrel. Store them in the cold room, on straw, apart from each other. One bad apple spoils the barrel. Everybody knows this. Everybody forgets.
- Honey, two jars for the tea, one for the cough.
- Pumpkins, six. They sit in the cold room and grow sweeter. Eat the first one at Frost.

Fuel:
- Coal, three carts from Copperhold, if the road allows. If the road does not allow, two carts and the wood.
- Wood, the whole woodpile. Stack it under the eaves, bark up, in rows. Count the rows.
- Candles, a box. Wax candles burn clean. Tallow candles burn cheap and smell of mutton, and Tam will say he likes the smell, and he will be lying.

Tools:
- A new spade, because the old one has been borrowed by the Three Wells school since Blossom and has not come back.
- A pair of gloves for each person in the house. Lost gloves are the most common complaint in winter. Tie them to a string if you must.
- Nails, the long ones, for the barn door. The barn door always needs nails.

Medicine:
- Willow bark for the fever. Ask Wren at Lowmarsh for the good kind. Ask twice.
- Clean cloth, a roll, for cuts and burns. Keep it in the dry box.

When the last cart comes up the ridge, the children will run out to see it. Give them one apple each from the barrel, and make them count the carts before they eat it.
%%
Packing list for the Three Wells fair
Carys, Kettle Ridge. For the cart to Three Wells, the fair in Apple, and for anyone who goes with us and forgets something. Tam, this means you.

Pack for the cart:
- Two sacks of wheat for the flour booth. Tie the mouths. Last year the mouths came open.
- Six jars of honey, the yellow ones. Wrap each jar in straw and put the straw in the box, not beside it.
- The blue scarf for the song contest. Pip has the other scarf. Pip is not allowed in the contest.
- Three loaves of the good bread, for Dace, who will say they are not very good, and then eat two.
- The pie pan with the chip in the rim. It always goes in the pie.
- One clean shirt each. A dirty shirt at the fair is a sad shirt.
- A lamp, a spare lamp, and the oil for both. Three Wells is lit at night, but not very well.
- The cloth for the cart. The cart goes over the stream below the ridge, and the stream always wets the sacks.

Pack for the people:
- Boots. Good ones. The fair square is cobblestone, and cobblestone does not forgive.
- Something warm for the evening. Nobody believes it gets cold in Apple. It does.
- Money in the purse, in emeralds. Keep one in the other pocket, for the bell.
- A list of who we owe. Keep it short. It is for Tam to read on the way home.

Do not pack: the cat, the hat with the hole, the second kind of cheese, the pigs.

Notes from last year's fair: The honey sold out by noon. The pie did not. The song contest was won by the children from Three Wells school, who sang a song about the pig pen. Nobody could tell which pig it was. The judges said that was the point.
%%
List: what to buy at the Three Wells
Hal of Kettle Ridge, autumn of 34. Write it on the back of the hand, or lose it.

The farm is doing well. The new road from the ridge to the crossroads is finished, and carts that took two days now take one. So this year I can carry more home. The list is long. I have made it longer than my purse.

Needed:
Iron, 4 ingots, for the plow. Ask Copperhold's stall.
Salt, 2 sacks. Ask the Saltreach cart. Nothing is so dear as salt in autumn.
Rope, 6 coils. Strong, not pretty.
Nails, 1 bag. A big bag. The barn eats nails.
Wax, a block. For the lamp, and for Ama's sister, who likes candles.
Glass, 3 panes, for the kitchen window. The old shutters let in every wind.
A lantern. A good one, behind glass, with a handle. For the barn.

Wanted:
Honey, 2 jars. Ambrook honey. Bring some for the neighbors.
Wool, a bolt, for a winter coat.
Apples, a basket, for pie.
A piece of cheese. A big piece.

Seed for next year:
Wheat, the grey kind from Vell. Fifteen measures.
Beetroot, the long red kind. Ten.
Carrots, any. Potatoes, good ones.

Not to buy:
Another hen. We have eleven.
A goat. Not again.
Anything from the man who sells maps. The roads are the roads.

The purse is: 22 emeralds. The list is: about 40. Choose well. Hal.
%%
The jar of honey on the shelf
Bel, Three Wells, age nine. My grandfather Ansel keeps a jar of honey on the top shelf that nobody may open. It is from the year the second well was dug, he says. He says it is the best jar in the house and it must be kept for a special day.
I asked him what day. He said, when the time comes, I will know.
That was two winters ago. The jar is still there. The honey has gone dark and thick. Sometimes I stand on a chair and look at it. It looks like a lamp that has been left on a long time.
Grandfather says honey never goes bad. He says a jar of honey will outlast the house, and the town, and maybe the hill. I asked him if it would outlast the archive at Vell, and he laughed and said nothing outlasts the archive.
I wrote a letter to the archive once, to the clerk Oren. I asked him if honey goes bad. He wrote back and said it does not, and that the archive keeps a jar of honey from the first year, and that it is still good, and that a clerk once ate some on a dare and was fine. I told Grandfather. He said, you see.
I think the special day is when I am grown. I think he is keeping it for me. I have not said so. I do not want to spoil it.
%%
List: what to plant before the winter
Written by Pell, who was asked by the Ambrook farms to write a list for the autumn planting, so that the young ones would know what to put in before the cold. Autumn.

Plant, before the first frost:
Beetroot, in the low beds, under a straw cover.
Carrots, along the ditch, where the soil is wettest and the carrots are sweetest.
Potatoes, in the top half of the field, away from the water.
Wheat, in the far field, for the spring sowing. Plant it thick. It will thin itself.
Pumpkins, at the end of the row, where the children can watch them grow. They like the sun.
A row of beans, by the hedge, for the cook. Do not let the cook plant them herself, or she will plant them in the wrong place.
Apple seedlings, from the grey branch, if you can get the cutting. Ask Burl first.

Fix, before the first snow:
The barn roof, where the slates have slipped. Count the slates. Replace any that are cracked.
The hives, on the hill. Put a stone on each lid, and a board over the stone.
The fence along the ditch. Mend the posts with oak, not birch. Birch rots.
The well cover. Check the rope. Replace the bucket if its mark is worn.
The lamp on the stand by the barn door. Clean the glass, and trim the wick.
The bridge over the mill race. Check the loose plank. Leave it loose. It has always been loose, and it is not the place to start a new quarrel.

Store, before the frost:
Apples, in the cellar, on dry straw, the bad ones at the top.
Honey, in the crocks, sealed with wax.
Wheat, in the sacks, off the floor.
Salt, in a dry jar, with a cloth over the top.
Oil for the lamps, two barrels, in the back room.
Candles, twenty, made from the old comb, and kept by the stove.

Do not forget: the children must be told where the grey branch is. They are to leave it alone. It is late, not dead.
%%
What to pack for the Lowmarsh market
Piper, who keeps the inn by the weir. For anyone coming to sell at the summer market, and for Moss, who forgets his hat every year.
1. A hat. Wide. The sun on the marsh is hotter than it looks, and the water throws it back at you.
2. Boots that can get wet. Then a second pair that are dry. Leave the dry ones in the cart.
3. A stool. The market is long, and the stalls have no chairs.
4. A cloth to put over your goods when the midges come. They come at dusk.
5. A tally board and chalk. Write down what you sell. You will not remember.
6. A flask of water. Do not drink from the pond. The frogs live there.
7. Your own bowl and spoon. The soup stall is generous, but the bowls run out.
8. Something to mend with. A nail, a bit of cord. Something always breaks.
%%
Things to mend before winter
Brown Hen store list, copied by Pell, summer of 208.
We have time to mend these things before Frost, so let us not wait until the first cold rain.
First, repair the west fence. One rail is loose, and the pigs have found it. The innkeeper says the pigs were invited into the yard. The pigs say nothing, but they have eaten the turnips.
Mend the cart cover. Stitch the split with strong thread, then rub a little wax along the seam to keep out rain. Replace the left wheel pin. The right pin is new and should not be borrowed for another cart, even if the other driver says he will bring it back.
Patch the roof above the store room. The leak is small, but it drips onto the sacks of flour. Move the sacks first. Last year we moved them after the rain began and had bread that tasted of roof.
Clean the hearth and lay dry wood beside it. Stack the rest under the shed. Keep a small bundle of kindling near the door for travelers who arrive wet.
Check the shutters in each room. The room facing the road has a loose latch. A fox came in last summer and stole a heel of bread. The cat watched it leave. The cat was blamed, because the fox could not write a note.
Buy two lanterns, three wicks, lamp oil, and a new broom. The old broom still sweeps, but its handle is tied in four places. It is now a useful example for the school at Three Wells.
Buy dried fish, honey, apples, and enough flour for the first cold weeks. Ask Tam for potatoes and carrots after he has counted his own store. Ask the Ambrook beekeeper for wax. Do not ask for a hive. We have no place to keep one, and the innkeeper has a poor opinion of bees in bedrooms.
Mend the north road sign at the yard gate. Its arrow points toward the ditch. Travelers have followed it twice, and one of them came back with a frog in his boot. Set the post straight and paint the arrow clearly.
Last, check the rooms, the well rope, and the bridge boards. Keep the list by the kitchen door. When each job is done, mark it with a line. Do not mark the same job twice to make the list look busy. The roof is already proud enough.
Pell says the road is dry now, and the carts come through each day. There is still time to work before the cold. After the work, there will be supper, and after supper, the list can stay on the wall until morning.
%%
Melon in the wash basket
Moss, apprentice to Wren. Blossom, 203.

We found the melon in the warm bed by the shed. It was too large for the basket.

Neri said to get the big basket. The big basket was full of carrots. I put the carrots in a sack. The sack had a hole. We picked up the carrots, washed them, and put them in the basket again.

Then we found a plank. Neri and I rolled the melon onto the plank. Wren held the shed door open. The melon went through the door, but the door did not close after it. We moved the table so the melon could sit in the middle of the room.

The melon filled the table. We had to cut it there.

It was sweet and good. We gave slices to the farm hands, the children, and the keeper of the fish weir. We saved the seeds in a jar. The jar is marked MELON, LARGE. Neri wanted to mark it MELON, VERY LARGE. Wren said one word was enough.

Next spring I will put a space between the melon bed and the wall. Neri says a melon cannot push a wall. The wall has a new crack, so we will see.

List for the next planting:

Keep the best melon seed dry.
Mend the wide basket.
Move the table back.
Leave space for the melon.
Do not ask Neri to measure it by laying down beside it.
%%
List: what to pack for the swarm
Written by Zell, weaver, at Northpoint, in Thaw, for the hive by the tower wall, which has never once swarmed on a day when I was ready.
A basket, with a cloth in the bottom.
A smoke pot, with a little damp straw in it.
Gloves of thick wool, and a hat with a veil that I wove myself and that the bees do not respect.
A ladder, and a rope for the ladder.
A bucket of water, for the moment when the first bee lands on your nose.
Stand still. Let them settle. Do not flap.
Zell
%%
What to plant when the thaw comes
By Moll, for the kitchen beds at Sallow Green. The inn has four beds behind the kitchen and two in the long yard.

Beetroot first, in Sowing, in the sunny bed. It takes the wet and does not mind.
Carrots after the beetroot. Plant them thin, and pull the weak ones out early.
Potatoes in the low bed only. The high beds are too dry for them.
Melons along the south wall, in the shelter of the barn. They need sun for most of Longday.
Two apple trees, if the cart brings them from Ambrook. Plant them where the frost does not sit.
Herbs for Wren, the ones she asks for. Put them by the kitchen door, so she can pick them without walking far.

Water the beds from the well by the barn, not from the ditch. The ditch is for the frogs, and the frogs are not ours to feed.
%%
Letter: Lark to Pell at Ambrook
Pell. The inn is full and it is still two days to the fair.
I have twelve beds and nineteen people. Two are in the hay. One is under the stairs and says he likes it.
Bring honey. Bring the barrel for the prize. Bring your ledger and your good coat.
A woman came today asking for a room for the song contest. She sings about the sea. She has a voice you can hear from the well. She also has a goat, which is not staying in a room.
The baker has made too much bread again. He says it is for the fair. It is too much bread.
Sera and Hob want the wedding in the yard. I said yes. Dace said the school yard. We will all be in the school yard.
One thing. Your cart is coming up the east road. Tell the driver the bridge on the stream past the mill has a loose plank. Everyone knows. Nobody fixes it. He will fix it if you ask him at the inn and give him soup.
Bring spoons. Bring many spoons.
Lark
%%
Market list for Quin
Written by Sella, Quin's sister, at Lowmarsh, Apple 181.

Buy at Three Wells:
A new needle for the net.
Salt, one bag. Not two. The last bag sat open by the door and became a stone.
A pair of wool socks for Quin. He says his old pair is fine. I have seen them.
Three carrots and a loaf for the boat.
A small jar for honey, with a lid that fits.

Ask the honey seller to fill the jar. Do not let Quin carry it loose in his net bag. He says the net bag is strong. The net bag has holes.

Buy nothing for the boat until Quin checks the oars. He always wants a new oar when one needs only a peg. If he asks for a brass bell, tell him the frogs already know when he is coming.
%%
List: what to pack for the fair
Lark, innkeeper of the inn of twelve beds at Three Wells. Summer. For anyone coming to the fair and the song contest.
Money in small coins. Emeralds are hard to break at a stall.
A blanket. The nights are warm, but the ground is not.
A cup of your own. The wells are free. The cups are not.
A hat. The square has no shade at noon.
A lantern for the walk back to your cart.
One good shirt and one old shirt. The old one for the morning.
A little salt and a little honey for the road.
A song you know all the way through. The contest wants three verses and no humming.
A gift for the bride and groom if you are staying for the wedding. They have a house and no spoons.
Do not bring a pig. Last year someone brought a pig.
%%
Buy at the Three Wells fair
Pell, on the road from Millbank. Notes for Rye.

Buy two sacks of wheat for the smithy bread. Buy one sack of beetroot for the stew pot. The beetroot seller is beside the east well. Last time I bought from the west side and carried it all the way round the square. The beetroot did not care, but I did.

Buy a new hinge for the shed door. Rye says the old hinge can be mended. Rye says this every spring. The old hinge has been mended six times and now has more iron than wood around it.

Buy a length of wool cloth for the child who sleeps in the loft. Buy honey if the price is fair. Buy a wooden spoon for the inn. The innkeeper says their spoons walk away. I suspect the guests.

If a fair prize is offered for the best apple cake, enter Rye's cake. It is round, it is brown, and it tastes of apple. Rye says the crust is too plain. I say the crust is the part that gets eaten first.

Keep enough emeralds for the return cart. The road is muddy by the mill pond. A cart with no wheel cannot bring home a hinge.
%%
Before the first frost
List from the Brown Hen kitchen, copied by Pell.
Bring in the spare wool blankets from the line. Shake them well and check for damp. A blanket that smells of rain does not warm anyone, though it makes the room smell like the road.
Patch the roof above the small room. The leak is over the bed, not the chair. The chair has already had enough rain.
Clear the ditch beside the yard. Pull out leaves and mud so the water can run away from the door. Stack the firewood under cover, with space between the logs. Keep dry kindling in a box near the hearth.
Check the shutters and mend the loose hinge. Keep a lantern by the back door. Refill it before the long nights begin.
Count the flour, salt, honey, and dried apples. Write each amount on the store board. The innkeeper says we have plenty of flour. The board says otherwise. The board has no reason to boast.
Ask the carter to mend the cart wheel before he leaves. He says the wheel is fine. It came off in the yard yesterday and rolled into the hen house.
The hens are well. The wheel is not.
Pell
%%
List: the new apprentice arrives
Hal, Kettle Ridge. Autumn of 41. A cold, bright day, with a wind off the hills. The first apprentice ever to come to the ridge came up the road today, on a cart from Vell. I am writing this down while I still believe it.

What came in the cart:
One apprentice, copper and iron, as tall as my shoulder. A tag round its neck says "Row." That is its whole name, and it is what it does.
One tutor's paper. It says: drilled to walk a row of beetroot and pull what is not beetroot. Tested on beetroot, weeds and stones. Not tested on anything else.
One tin of wax for the joints.
One letter from the tutor at Vell, who says: be patient. The mind is young. Do not send it where it is not drilled. Do not shout at it. It cannot hear you the way you think.

What I did:
1. Put it in the long field at the end of the row.
2. Said "farm."
3. It walked down the row, looking.
4. It pulled a weed. Then another. Then, after a while, a beetroot.
5. I said "no" and put the beetroot back. It looked at me.
6. It did not pull another beetroot. It pulled weeds the whole afternoon.

What is left to do:
Make it a place to sleep. A corner in the barn, out of the wind.
Keep the torches lit at night. A zombie would not like it, and neither would I.
Oil its joints, and write down when.
Tell the neighbors it is not a monster.
Send word to Vell, to say that it came safe.
Learn what "farm" means to it.

The children ran up the road to watch. They stood at the edge of the long field and stared. The apprentice did not look up. It just kept pulling weeds. After an hour the children went home and told their mothers.
I do not know what this means for the ridge. I know the weeds are going.
%%
List: after the storm, what to mend
Hal, Kettle Ridge. The great storm of the autumn of 44. It came in the night from the north and blew for a day and a half. The relay tower on the ridge is not built yet, so we had no warning. Next year we will.

I went round the farm with a lantern as soon as it was light. This is what I found, and what I mean to do about it.

Things broken:
Hen house roof. Gone. Two boards found in the next field, the rest nowhere. Rebuild, with oak this time, not birch.
Barn door. Off its hinge, lying flat. Hang it again. Put on a better hinge.
Fence, north side. Three posts down. Reset them in stone.
Hedge. Half pulled up. Replant.
Well cover. Cracked. Cover the well first. A child fell in last year.
Windmill. The sails survived, but the stone is loose. Ask the millwright.
Torches. Every one blown out. Light them. Go round the edge at dusk.

Things lost:
One hen. Not found.
Two sacks of seed. Wet through. Dry them, plant what is left.
My good hat. Gone to the sea, I think.

Things saved:
All the pigs. They hid in the ditch.
All the hay. It was under the roof.
The apprentice, Row, which stood out in the storm all night at the end of its row and did not move. It was filled with water and mud and one very confused frog. But it was whole.

Things learned:
Build a relay tower here. Then a warning will come.
Keep a stack of boards for roofs.
Do not leave an apprentice outdoors in a storm. It does not mind, but I do.

At noon the neighbors came up the road with hammers. They did not ask. They just came. By evening the barn door was up and the fence was standing.
There is nothing like a storm to show who your neighbors are.
Hal
%%
List: what to plant, and what not to dig
Written by Hesk, for the families on the Copperhold hill, who ask every year what to plant in the thaw and never what to leave in the ground.
What to plant, in Thaw, in the strip below the mine wall, where the sun comes in before noon.
1. Carrots, a row a child can weed. Sow them thin, and thin them again in Sowing.
2. Potatoes, the red ones from the ridge. Cut each one in two, with an eye on each half.
3. Beetroot, in the trough by the well, where the water runs in spring and does not freeze.
4. Melons, one hill only. They take the whole summer and they want the south wall.
5. Wheat, if you have a field. Not if you have a yard. Ask anyone who has tried it in a yard.
6. Pumpkins, at the bottom of the hill, where the frost comes late.
7. A tree, if you have one already. Do not plant a new one. Water the old one, and let it tell you when it wants more.
What not to dig:
1. The ground below the old gate. Nobody goes there now. The stone in the wall of that tunnel is warm to the hand, the men say, and in the night it is said to hum, low, like a bee in a jar. Some of the men say it is only the air moving in the shaft. Some do not say anything. Leave the ground as it is.
2. The sump, under the lift. It is old. Do not open it to see what has collected, and do not drop a lamp down it to look.
3. The old side door on the eighth level. It has been bricked up from the inside. Leave it.
4. A hole in a field, if you find one. Fill it with what you dug out, mark it with a stone, and go and tell the mill.
5. The strip by the north wall. The snow lies there longest, and the ground does not warm. Plant nothing there, and do not ask the ground why.
6. The well shaft at the top of the hill. It was capped in Longnight by two men from the shipyard, who came up with their own lamps and said nothing about it. Leave the cap.
The carrots will be the best on this hill this year. I have said that every year. I have never once been wrong about carrots, and I have been wrong about nearly everything else.
Keep the seed for next year in the dry box by the stove, with the lid tied down. Do not let the children use the box for a fort. Last year they built a fort of it, and the carrots came up crooked, and I have not forgiven the fort.
The families who went down the Saltreach road in Apple did not say where they were going. The cart came back empty. Nobody has asked why. Plant the carrots anyway. Carrots are for anybody who stays.
Hesk
%%
The bet about the honey
Ansel, at the edge of Three Wells. Last Leaffall I made a bet with Pell the merchant, and I lost it, and I am still pleased.
Pell came up the Long Road with a cart of jars and a story. He said his honey from Ambrook was the best in the land. I said the honey from my own two hives was better. He laughed at me. I do not care to be laughed at by a man with a cart.
So we made a bet. One jar each. We would set them on the table at the inn and ask folk to taste and choose, and the loser would buy the winner a good coat.
We set the jars out. His was pale and runny and sweet. Mine was dark and thick and tasted of the apple trees. Twelve folk tasted. Seven chose mine. Five chose his. Bel tasted three times and said she could not decide, which I think means she chose mine twice.
Then Pell said the bet was not over. The real test, he said, was the honey in winter. Honey from Ambrook, he said, sets hard as a stone by Longnight. So we agreed to open both jars on the first day of Deepsnow and see.
We opened them in his room at the inn, with the fire going. His honey had set, a little, at the top. Mine had set too. But mine was still soft under the lid, and I could get a spoon into it. His needed a knife. He paid for the coat. I gave him a jar of mine and he gave me a jar of his, and we sat by the fire and ate bread and honey until it was dark.
Bel says we both won. I did not tell her that the bet was a fair one. I want her to think I am clever.
%%
What to pack for Lowmarsh
By Moll, cook at Sallow Green. For anyone walking to the marsh in the cold.

Two pairs of wool socks. Wet feet crack, Wren says.
A bowl and a spoon, each.
A small sack of salt.
One jar of honey, for scrapes.
A hooded coat, for the reeds.
One lamp, full of coal, and a spare bag of coal.
The cat's basket. The cat will not stay out of the cart, and it will not stay in the basket either. Bring the basket anyway.
Tell the healing house you are coming, so Wren keeps a bed warm.
%%
The new road and the winter list
Esk, Copperhold, late Frost, 208. The road crew finished the new road to the lower farms before the snow came. It joins the old hill path below the market and runs past the stone sheds. The last stretch is packed earth with a cobblestone edge. A bridge crosses the small stream. The crew set a torch on a post every twelve blocks, just as on the Long Road.

We carried food to the workers while they laid the last stones. I took bread, cheese and a pot of beetroot soup. The soup was still warm when I arrived. The men ate it with wooden spoons and said it needed more salt. I had brought salt. They had only forgotten to ask for it.

The market was busy that day. The farmers brought potatoes, carrots and wheat. A woman from Ambrook sold honey in little jars. The smith had made hooks for packs, and a boy sold clean wool cord from a basket. I bought one hook and two lengths of cord. The hook holds my market basket now. The cord is for the loose sack in the pantry.

Before the first snow, fix:
The back gate, which sticks in damp weather.
The shed roof, where one board lifts in the wind.
The bench by the hearth, which rocks on its short leg.
The strap on the carding bench.
The small window latch.

Buy:
Coal for the cold nights.
A jar of honey for cough season.
Potatoes and carrots for the cellar.
Two candles.
A new wool blanket, if the stall has one.

Pack for the first market after snow:
Bread.
A clean cloth.
The carded wool.
Mittens for sale.
Emeralds in the inside pocket.
A spare strap, because the old one will break when I have my hands full.

The town held a small meal to mark the new road. Dace brought a bell from Three Wells, and the children hung lanterns along the market wall. The baker made round loaves. He said they were road loaves, but they tasted like his usual bread. We ate them anyway.

Pell arrived with his cart just before dark. He said the new road saved him half an hour. His horse had a patch of mud on its nose and no patience for the crowd. We tied the horse near the well and gave it a carrot. It ate the carrot, then tried to eat the cord.

I took the new road home with my empty basket. The torches showed the way between the sheds. At the bridge, I heard water under the boards and stopped to listen. Then I remembered the coal sack waiting by my door and walked on.
