Count of Lowmarsh, from the doorstep
What I can see from the step of the carters' house, in Apple, while the wheelwright is sent for. Counted by Hesk, who is not used to sitting down.
Houses I can see: 14. Houses I cannot see: some. It is misty.
Boats: 23. All tied to something. This is sensible.
Posts standing in the water: I stopped at 300. They go on.
Boardwalk torches lit: 19. Boardwalk torches out: 4. Somebody should go round.
People who have waved at me: 11. People who have fallen in: 2. They waved from the water.
Cats on roofs: 6. Cats in boats: 4. Cats with opinions: all.
Hens: a number. Reed bundles stacked by the boat house: about 200.
Apprentices: 1. It carries reeds along the boards and will not step off them. Sensible.
Wells: 1, the clean one. The marsh water is not for drinking, however clear it looks. Wren has told me three times.
Frogs: the whole marsh.
Things in Lowmarsh that are not wet: Wren's high shelf, the lamp in the tower, and my pipe. I have sat on the pipe.
%%
Count of the North Field farm, winter
Kept by Tam at Kettle Ridge, for the tally board and the council. This is the count of our farm. It is not the count of the town. The town counts its own.
People: four. Me. Pip, my apprentice, who is not people but is counted with us and eats at our table. Old Sedge, who does the heavy lifting and sleeps in the barn loft. And the woman from the north road who came down before the snow and has not said her name, so we call her North. She works. She eats.
Beasts: two horses, one old, one young. Six cows. Nine pigs, one of them a sow who is due in Thaw. Eleven hens and one rooster with a bad temper. Three cats, though one is only here for the mice. One dog, who is not ours but comes in for the fire.
Hives: three, by the flowers. All three live. We took eleven jars this year, which is good. The bees were lazy in Longday and busy in Reaping. Nobody knows why.
Fields: the top field of wheat, the long field of beetroot, the bottom field of potatoes and carrots. All in, all under snow now. This was a good harvest. The best in years. The wheat stood taller than Pip, and Pip is not short. We filled the barn and then the second barn and then the space under the house. We sold two cartloads at Three Wells and still had grain to spare.
The windmill squeaks on every turn. It has squeaked for nine years. We do not fix it.
Things we are short of: nails, lamp glass, coal. The coal cart from Copperhold is late. When it comes we will share by the house count, as always.
One thing to note for the council. North came down the road with a story about lights over the north. She says they moved and did not fall. Pip says they were falling stars. Sedge says there is no such lights and she dreamed it. I do not know. I was not looking north. I will look north when the sky is clear.
Tam, Kettle Ridge, winter
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam
Tam. The snow is deep and the nights are long. That is not news. You know the nights are long. I write it anyway because I have run out of other things to write.
The big lamp is fine. The little lamps are fine. Lantern walks the stair twice a day and counts the ninety rungs and tells me the count, and the count is always ninety. I have stopped asking. She tells me anyway.
There was a clear night last week and I saw the lights again. They were over the far hills, to the north, past the ice. They were not stars. Stars do not move against each other. These did, slowly, and then they did not, and then they were gone. I do not say what they were. I only say they were not ours.
Lantern asked if they were looking at us. I said I did not know. She said she thought so. She is young. She may be right. She may not.
The coal came. The long crate came in the autumn and is open and warm by the stove. Tell Pip the potatoes were good this year. Tell Pip the beetroot was good too, and I am not saying that to be kind, the beetroot was good.
There is a rumor at the tower that the Deep Works hums at night. A cart driver told Lantern, and Lantern told me. I do not believe it. The Deep Works is a mine. Mines do not hum. They creak, and they drip, and sometimes they fall in, which is worse than humming. If Hesk were here he would laugh at it. He is not here. He is at Copperhold, where the rumor is from. Write to him and ask him yourself.
Keep the torches lit. Keep the fields until spring. Send me a line when the snow goes.
Mira, Northpoint, winter
%%
Count: the well at Northpoint, spring
Kept by Merle, well digger, in the back of the house book, at the edge of Northpoint, where the road gives out and the tower begins. Spring of the 196th year. She counts it every year, because nobody else thinks to.

Depth of the well: 9 arm lengths, to the water. Last spring it was 8 and a half. The water has sunk, or I have dug. I am not sure which, and the water will not say.

Stones in the lining: 212. Good stones, grey, from the north slope. 14 were cracked in the frost and I have put them in the wall of the goat pen, where they will be useful and not drink.

Buckets: 3. One is new, from Copperhold, and smells of coal. The second one has a hole. The third one belongs to Fen the cat, though she has never once carried water.

Ropes: 2. The old rope is still good. The new rope is better, and is only used on Sundays. Tobin says that is silly. I say the new rope has earned it.

Windlass: 1. Turns smoothly. Needs grease every month. Tobin is in charge of the grease, and has been told twice this week.

Goats: 4. Pale ones. Two are in kids. One of the kids has got under the fence and gone into the lamp yard, where it was found sitting on the copper ring. Rill says it is a sign. Rill says a lot of things.

Hens: 9. Eggs this week: 6, 4, 7, 2, 0, 5. Zero on market day, which was also the day Tobin let the hens into the tower store. I have not forgiven him.

Snow left on the north slope: a little, in the shade. Melting by midday. The fox tracks in it go to the tower steps and come back, every morning, at the same time. Mira says the fox is the keeper's friend. I think the fox is looking for a dinner.

People in the house: 4, and the cat. Merle, Tobin, Rill and Ennis the lodger, who is a clerk from Vell and is always writing something down. He is counting too. He says he is counting the wells, but I think he is counting me.

Visitors this spring: 3 carters, 1 drover with a dog that ate a sock, 1 lost child from the tower road.

The lost child is a separate note, and is written under the visitors. It is not a count. It was a shock.

The count is finished. The well is full. The goat pen is quiet. The spring is here, and the fox is at the steps.
%%
Count: the goats and the lost kid
Kept by Merle, well digger, in the house book at the edge of Northpoint. Late spring of the 204th year. Written in a hurry, and then copied out again neat, because the first copy was smudged with mud from the well.

On the morning of the seventh day of Blossom, Rill went out to the goat pen to count the kids. She came back in a rush, shouting that one was missing. I went out with her. The pen was open at the back. The gate latch had lifted, which Tobin had sworn it could not do.

Count of kids: 2 of 3. The third was gone.

We called for it along the north fence. We called along the path to the tower. We walked the steps round the lamp yard, and looked under the copper ring, where it likes to sit. No kid.

Then Rill called out, and we went to the rocks behind the well. There was a small hole under the rocks, where the fox lives, and a small wet nose coming out of it. The kid had gone down the fox's hole. It was stuck at the shoulders, and it was not frightened, only annoyed.

Tobin and I dug it out with our hands. The fox sat on the rock above and watched with great interest, as if this was a very good play. When the kid came free, it sneezed on Tobin and walked straight back to the pen, as if it had planned it.

Count of kids, after: 3 of 3. Good.

Count of children, after: Rill, who sat down in the mud and laughed for a long time, then cried, then laughed again. Tobin, who said nothing, and then said, very quietly, that he would fix the latch that night.

Count of foxes: 1, on the rock, still watching. Mira says it is the keeper's fox. I do not think the fox is anyone's.

Notes. Tie the latch with wire, not string. Tell Rill that a child is not a kid, and that she should not climb into holes either. Tell the fox nothing.
%%
Count: the north yard, the zombie
Kept by Merle, well digger, in the house book at the edge of Northpoint. Spring of the 201st year. Written after the night the zombie came to the gate, when the house was counted from the inside, room by room, to be sure everyone was there.

Gate: 1. Oak, iron-bound, with a bar across the middle. The bar held. The gate has a new scratch at the bottom where something tried to lift it.

Torches on the gate posts: 2. Both lit at dusk, as the rule says. Both out by midnight. Tobin got up and filled them by lantern light and did not let the cat watch.

Zombies at the gate: 1. Grey, very slow, and quite patient. It stood there from the second hour after dark until the sun came up. It did not try to get in after the first hour. It only stood. Its arms were out, and one of them was hanging crooked, as if it had been broken once. It made a sound like a wet door.

Lamps in the house: 4, all lit. Nobody slept, except Ennis, who said he was resting his eyes, and snored quietly against the wall.

Rooms counted: 5. Kitchen, store, bedroom, loft and the goat pen. In each one I called the name of each person and the cat. The cat answered from under the bed, which is the correct answer for a cat.

Children accounted for: 2. Tobin and Rill. Tobin was sitting on the stair with a stick. Rill was asleep with her head on the sack of barley, and had to be woken, which she did not like.

Goats: 4. Fine. The kid was not fine. It had got into the lamp yard again, and sat on the copper ring for the whole night, and was not frightened by the zombie at all. It only looked at it. Rill says that is because the kid is braver than the zombie. I think the zombie was just as surprised.

Hens: 9. Alive, if very upset. They roosted in the loft and would not come down, even for cheese.

Visitors: none. The road was shut at dusk, by Merle's own order, which the carters grumbled about and then obeyed.

Notes. Next winter, Merle wants a second gate on the goat side. Tobin says a second gate is a waste, since zombies cannot climb the fence. Merle says that zombies cannot climb, and Tobin cannot be trusted with a ladder, so the gate is decided.

The zombie left at sunrise. It walked back over the north slope without looking round. Nobody followed it. In the spring sun it was a grey thing going away, and the house was counted again, and everybody was there.
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira
Mira. The snow is deep here too. You are not special.
The harvest was good. I will not go on about it, because I went on about it in the count, and Oren says the Archive has enough about the beetroot. But it was good. We will eat well until Thaw and after Thaw and the pigs are fat.
Pip took the twenty sacks to the mill and asked once, in a whole sentence, and I have written it down twice now, so stop asking me to write it down.
North is still here. She works well and she eats a lot and she has not said her name. She tells the lights story to anyone who will listen and some who will not. Sedge says she dreamed it. Sedge says the north does that to people, the long nights, the cold. He says he knew a man at Copperhold who saw things in the dark of the mine and it was only the dark. I say that is the same as saying nothing.
But here is the thing. The cart driver who came up from Copperhold last week told the same story, and he was not looking north, he was looking down at his own cart, and he said there was a humming under the ground at night, near the Deep Works, and the stone was warm where it should be cold. He said the miners do not go below a certain level now. He would not say which level. He said ask Hesk. I wrote to Hesk. Hesk has not written back. That is not like him.
The old map is still by the mill door. The boy keeps looking at the line that goes north and stops at the edge of the paper.
I will look north when the sky is clear. I have been saying that all winter. The sky has not been clear.
Keep the big lamp lit. Tell Lantern the count is always ninety. Send a line when the snow goes. I will send one when it goes here, which will be later, because I am further from the sea and further from the sun.
Tam, Kettle Ridge, winter
%%
Count: the house at the edge, autumn
Count of the house at the edge of Three Wells, in Reaping, by the head of the house, who keeps the book by the door. Written in pencil, which does not smudge in the rain.

People: five, and a new one. Her name is Ada. She was born at the second bell on the eighth of Apple, in the back room, with the window open, because the midwife said the room was too warm. She is small, loud, and has her mother's chin.

Beasts: two cows, one horse named Tuck, nine hens who are not speaking to the cat, and one cat named Sable, who is.

Things: one bed for each person, and an extra for the baby. The extra is a cradle, made by the cooper, who gave it with the wish that Ada would not outgrow it for a long time.

Notes. The melon in the back garden grew to the size of the cradle, and then past it. It is too big to lift, so it will stay in the patch and be eaten at the feast. The neighbor says it is the largest melon on the street. The neighbor is not counting her own.

The birth was easy. The mother says the baby is hungry and will remain so. The father has been up every night, and says he has never been so tired or so pleased.
%%
Count of the carters' house
The carters' house at the edge of Lowmarsh, one wet night in Apple. Counted by Hesk, who could not sleep.
People: 7. Carters 4, a tinker, a boy, me.
Horses: 5. Cats: 3. Hens in the kitchen: 2. They are not ours.
Beds: 5. Floor places: 4. Dry places: 1. The cat has it.
Leaks in the roof: 9. Buckets: 8. I am the ninth bucket.
Frogs: too many. I tried.
%%
Tally: Nettleby, autumn 162
Tally kept by Lorn, night watch, for the mayor. Nettleby is a hamlet of Copperhold, down the hill and east, where the road bends.
Houses: nine. Doors: nine. Smoke from all nine chimneys by the second frost.
People: forty one. That counts the babies, the two old men in the end house, and the smith who sleeps at the forge more nights than his bed.
Children: eleven. School is one room by the well. The teacher is Sanna. She says the room is too small. It is.
Beasts: four cows, two goats, nine pigs, thirty one chickens (one hen counted twice, she will not stay put), two horses for the cart, one dog called Rusk who belongs to everyone and answers to no one.
Cats: seven, or eleven. Cats are hard to count. Rusk does not help.
Things: the well, the smithy, the cart, the milk shed, the drying shed, and the bell by the well that we ring for fires and for the school and for the apples coming in.
Notes: the smith's roof needs thatch before Deepsnow. The bridge over the ditch has a loose rail. Nobody has fallen in. Yet.
Lorn, night watch.
%%
Count: the Hale farm, and who is left
A count of the Hale farm outside Three Wells, made in the cold quarter by Nessa, tutor. She counted because the family asked her to, and because she is exact.
People: 11. Old Hale, his son and daughter-in-law, five grandchildren, two cousins from the north, and a baby who arrived last week and is not yet named.
Beasts: 40 sheep, 4 cows, 20 hens, 2 pigs, 6 bees' hives, 3 cats, 1 donkey. The donkey is quiet. The donkey is always quiet.
Buildings: house, barn, long shed, hen house, well house, bee house, the workshop. All standing. All warm.
Stores: wheat, 18 sacks. Beets, 12. Potatoes, 30. Carrots, 8. Apples, 5 barrels. Honey, 20 jars. Coal, 6 sacks. Wood, 10 carts. Wool, 30 bundles. Lamp oil, 4 jars.
That is a good store for eleven people. It is more than they need. Old Hale says they will lend what is over to anyone who asks. A few have already asked.
The cousins from the north. They came in Leaffall, with two carts and a dog. They say Northpoint's relay went quiet for three days, and then the lamp came back, but the signals were short and odd. They do not know why. One cousin says the tower keepers were sick. The other says the lamp was stolen. The old man says nobody steals a relay lamp. The cousins did not argue. They were tired.
The new road. It is one year old. It has already worn a groove, because the carts like it and drive on the same line. Old Hale says to roll a stone down it every month, to spread the wear.
The storm. It was a small one, and nobody minded. But the baby arrived the same night. His mother says he is named for the storm, but she cannot decide whether Gale or Tempest. Old Hale suggests Drizzle. She has not forgiven him.
A note on the names. Not everyone is on this count by name. I wrote names where I was told them. The cousins asked not to be named, and I have not named them. I am a tutor, not a clerk, but the clerks told me it was their way to write what one is allowed.
When I left, the youngest child gave me a bag of dried apples. I carried it back to Vell. It was gone before the first waymark.
Nessa
%%
Count of the school, spring term
Bel, age nine, wrote this down for Sorrel because Sorrel's hand was in a sling. Sorrel broke her wrist on the ice and says she is not sorry, only bored.
Children who come to the school by the east well: 31. Of those, 33 came on the first day, which is more than there are, so two children came twice and one came with a goat. The goat was sent home. The goat came back.
Children who can write their own name: 29. Bel counts as one. The two who cannot are very small and mostly eat the chalk.
Children who bring an apple for the teacher: 6 in Sowing, 2 in Blossom, 19 when the apples run low and everyone brings one at once.
Slates broken this term: 4. One by falling. Three by Jory's boy, who is sorry.
Maps drawn on the floor of the hall: 1, of our town, with the three wells and the school and the notice board and a very large drawing of a cat.
The cat: lives behind the bakery. Not ours. Answers to nothing.
The goat: still not ours.
%%
Chronicle note, Vell, the late years
Written by Oren, clerk of the Archive at Vell, for the chronicle. Short. I am tired and the light is poor and I will write it plainly.
This winter the archive is full. The shelves have doors now, most of them, and the doors are waxed and sealed, and the new room the diggers started in the autumn is not yet dry. We keep the lanterns behind glass and never a candle past the front hall. We keep the light wells clear of snow. The copying room is the brightest room in the hill and it is still the best place to work in the cold.
The counts have come in from the towns. I have filed them. I will not copy them all here. The gist: a good harvest at Kettle Ridge and at Ambrook, the apples heavy and the honey heavy. The market at Three Wells was well attended for the season. Saltreach has mended its harbor wall. Copperhold sent coal. Northpoint sent snow.
The Archive keeps everything we write. That is over the door. It is over the door in the old hand, cut by the first keepers, and the snow does not reach it.
Now the part I do not like to write, because it is rumor and I am a clerk and clerks do not keep rumor. But we keep everything we write, and if I write it, it is kept, and a later clerk may want it.
The rumors this winter: that there are lights over the north, seen from Northpoint, and that Mira says they were not ours. That the Deep Works hums at night and the stone below a certain level is warm. That there is a grey cough at Lowmarsh, and some blame the water, some the ships, some the mines, and no two agree. That a ship is building at Saltreach longer than three boats laid end to end, and families are asking about passage over the sea. Nobody knows what is across the water. Nobody has ever known. I have asked.
The rumors disagree. That is how I know they are rumors. A fact does not disagree with itself.
I do not explain any of it. I am a clerk. I keep it.
One more thing, and then I will put out the lantern. There are more big minds in the relay houses now than there were, and the councils pay for them, and the tutors are glad, and I am glad, and I do not see how any of it bears on the lights or the humming or the cough. I write it here so that nobody later says the clerks hid it, and so that nobody later says it was the cause. It was not the cause. It is only the news. The lights and the humming and the cough are also only the news.
I have been told to write everything down. I am writing everything down.
Oren, Vell, winter
%%
Count: the Saltreach festival
Counted by Oren, clerk, on the second day of the Saltreach Net Festival, in Reaping of 197. It was market day as well, so everything came at once.
People in the streets by noon: about 2,000. This is twice the town. They came from the ridge, from Lowmarsh, from the road. The inns were full by dawn. Some people slept in boats and said it was a pleasure.
Stalls: 78. Fish 22. Nets and rope 14. Bread and cakes 10. Honey 4. Hats 5. Toys 6. Songs, on paper, 3. Other 14.
Boats dressed for the festival: 44. Each boat carries a flag in the color of its family. The Heron has three flags and a ribbon. Corin says it is a lot of cloth for a boat.
Food eaten, so far as I could tell: fish, grilled, 700. Fish, fried, 400. Fish soup, 600 bowls. Fish pie, 150. Bread rolls, 1,200. Honey cakes, 300. Apples, 500. Fish, raw, none, thank goodness.
Games: net throwing, rope pulling, a boat race in the harbor (the Heron lost to a rowing boat with eight children), an eating contest (won by a baker from Three Wells who would not give his name).
Songs: the Saltreach songs were sung at the harbor wall, one after the other, until the sun went down. The children sang the loudest. Their lines were:
Haul in the net and haul in the sea,
Haul in the fish and haul in me.
Lost items, brought to the harbor master by the evening: 3 hats, 2 mittens, 1 sandal, 1 baby's shoe, 1 tooth, 0 children. All claimed.
Accidents: 2 people fell in the harbor. Both laughed. A goat fell in too. It did not laugh.
The Archive thanks Saltreach. I have taken home a jar of ink, a bag of salt and a dried fish, which my bag now smells of.
Oren
%%
Count: North road inn yard
Three Wells, Reaping 196. Counted by Pell while waiting for a wheel pin.

Houses near the inn: 8.
Beds at the inn: 12.
Beds with clean wool blankets: 11.
The last blanket is being washed. The innkeeper says it will be ready before anyone needs it.

Carts in the yard: 6.
Horses: 7.
One horse belongs to a traveler who says he has no cart.
The horse is eating from a cart.

People eating supper: 15.
People who asked for more potatoes: 9.
People who said they were full: 6.
Three of the six took bread afterward.

A fishing boat from the west road was due at noon with fish for the market. It came after dark, with two fish baskets and a broken oar. The crew had waited for the wind to turn. They were tired, but dry.
Fish in the baskets: 18.
Fish still in the baskets at bedtime: 4.
The innkeeper cooked the rest. Nobody asked why supper was late.

Torches round the yard: 7.
Torches burning: 7.
The stable hand says one torch goes out whenever the horse with no cart snorts. I watched. The horse snorted twice. The torch stayed lit.

Wheel pins in Pell's box: 3.
Wheel pins that fit: 1.
The innkeeper says I should mend the wheel before I count anything else.
I say the wheel is easier to count while it is not moving.

Pell
%%
Count: the whole year, by the book
Count of the house at the edge of Three Wells, for the whole year, from the first day of Thaw to the last of Deepsnow, kept by the head of the house in the book by the door, and read aloud at the midwinter table. The book is old. Some of its pages are soft from the hands that turned them.

People: five at Thaw, six at Deepsnow. One birth, in Apple. No deaths. Two visitors from the north road who stayed three nights, and one who stayed for the whole of Swarm and was never counted at all, because he would not give his name, only his trade, which was carting.

Beasts: the cows had two calves, both bull, both loud. The horse was sold and bought back in Blossom, at a loss the head of the house will not record. The hens laid four hundred and eleven eggs, which is the most they have ever laid, and which they have never been told about.

Things: one new bed, one new cradle, one new door for the store, which the cooper made and the cat has approved.

The children sang the long song at the midwinter table, and sang it wrong in the same places as every year, which the head of the house says is how a song stays alive. Lamp oil: enough for the year, and a little over, which is kept in the cellar against the day it is needed.

Notes. Most of the year was ordinary. The bread rose. The wells held. The lamps were lit every night, and nobody missed one. The mayor's board had more notices than usual, and most of them were about the fair.

Some things were not ordinary. The relay from the north went quiet in Longnight, and has been quiet since. The notice on the board says the keepers are checking the line. The head of the house has written in the margin of the book: the lamp on the hill is still lit. She does not know whether anyone can see it.

Three families from the north street went south in Reaping, with carts, and beds, and their two best hens, to the big ships at Saltreach, where the work is. They said they would write. The book has a line for each, with the word present beside it, in pencil, and the pencil has been rubbed over three times and written again. The head of the house says she will not rub it out until the letters come.

The book closes here, at the end of the year, in the same hand as the first page. The lamp is lit. The bread has risen. The cradle is full. The count is as true as the head of the house can make it, and she has signed it, and it is kept by the door, where anyone who comes up the road can read it.
%%
Homecoming: Tamsin from the orchard
Tamsin came home on the fifteenth of Apple. She had been gone since Blossom, picking apples at Ambrook for the season, and she came back on Pell's cart with two crates of apples and a sack of honey jars and a cold in her head.
We heard the cart before we saw it. Pell sings on the road, and he sings badly, and he sings the same song all the way from the crossroads, and the whole hamlet knows it is him from the well.
Tamsin's mother ran out with her apron still on. Her little brother hid behind the woodpile because he had broken her good cup while she was gone and had been dreading her return for five whole months. She found out about the cup in about an hour. He was forgiven. He was not forgiven quickly.
She brought news from Ambrook. The oldest tree with the grey branch gave apples this year, which it did not last year, and they saved the apples from it in a box and did not eat them. She brought one home in her pocket. It is small and it is not very good, and she is very proud of it.
She brought a song too. The pickers sing it while they work and it is a song about rain and it has forty verses and she only knows eleven. We sang the eleven at the well after supper until the smith came out and asked us, politely, to stop.
Tamsin will go back next Blossom. For now she is home, and the cup is mended, and the smith has gone back to his forge, and the night watch has a new song for the dark.
Lorn, night watch.
%%
Count: Saltreach, the long summer count
This is a count of Saltreach in summer, taken over four days, from the first day of Longday to the fourth, in year 205. Written by Oren, clerk of the Archive at Vell, who walks slowly, counts twice, and loves a good harbor.
People: 1,310. That is 40 more than last summer. Some are new babies. Some are visitors who stayed.
Houses: 372. Of these, 14 are new. Four were built on the slope above the shipyard, by the same crew, and all four have blue doors.
Boats: fishing 66, rowing 28, trading 9. Big boats in the yard: 2, both unfinished. Corin says the timber is coming.
The relay tower: kept by Harl. Messages this summer: 410 in, 380 out. Most are about fish.
The school: 52 children. Four teachers. One cat, which is a pupil.
The fish market: price board says cod 6 for 1, salmon 4 for 1, eels 3 for 1. These are fair prices. A woman at the next stall said they were too low. A man at the stall beyond said they were too high. This is a good sign.
Market day is the seventh of each month. It is held on the quay. The stalls are put out at dawn and cleared at dusk, and there is a bell for each.
Summer festival: held in Longday, three days. The first day is for boats. The second is for nets. The third is for eating. I attended all three. I am told I ate a great deal on the first.
What I noticed in Saltreach this year:
1. The harbor wall has been mended. The new stones are paler than the old.
2. The pier has an extra post. It was put there by a child, as a joke. Corin says it is now structural.
3. The kelp beds are thicker. The fishers say this is good.
4. The baker has opened a second shop. His mother runs it. They do not speak.
5. The gulls have learned to open the barrels. Nobody knows how.
For the Archive: I have collected 31 records, including 4 net songs, 6 letters, 12 tally boards and a recipe for fish stew. Pell will carry them to Vell. I counted them twice. Tell Ulla.
Oren
%%
Count of Kettle Ridge, autumn of 207
Counted by Sefa the miller, with Una carrying the slate and adding up the numbers. Una has added them up four times and says she has found the answer twice.
The last count was five years ago. People: 171. Now the ridge counts again. Every farm was asked. Every farm answered, though three had to be asked twice, and one had to be asked at the pie table.
People: 187. In five years 31 were born, and 9 came to live here, and 24 went away. 171 and 31 and 9 make 211. Take away 24. That is 187.
Houses: 44. Children: 49. Children at the school: 40. The other 9 are too small, or are Pim, who is five and goes sometimes.
Farms: 6. The top farm, Tam and Pip. Brin's farm. The East farm, Hanna and Rolf. The North farm. The Low farm. The Windy farm, which is called that for a reason.
Beasts. Horses: 18. Cows: 40. Sheep: 480, of which the black-faced ewe is 1. Pigs: 36. Hens: 290. Cats: 33. Dogs: 17. The cats count themselves, so the number may be higher. The dogs would like it noted that they are very close.
Apprentices: 6. Tam's, Brin's, and four more. They go home in the evening, one behind the other. Next year, Tam says, there will be more. Tam says this about everything.
Windmills: 4. Sefa says 4. Brin says 3. The north one is half a windmill. It has two sails, and an opinion.
The well in every farm: 6. The one at the Windy farm ran dry in the spring and came back in the autumn. Nobody knows why. They asked the well. It said nothing.
Other things. Inns: 1, the Kettle Inn, with 9 beds and 3 cats. The cats are in the 33. Relay towers: 1, with Wynn at the lamp. Bridges on the ridge road: 2, one of stone and one of oak. Waymarks from the foot of the ridge to the inn: 8, cut 0 to 7.
Wheat this year, for all the farms: 11200 bundles. Beetroot: 5600. The best year on the board.
Bees: 14 hives. Honey: 160 jars. Una wishes it noted that one of those is hers.
Notes. A count is only true on the day it is made. By tomorrow it will be wrong. Someone will have been born, someone will have left, and a hen will have stolen out and made a nest in a hedge. That is a good way for a count to be wrong.
Una adds: the cats are 34. A new kitten came while I was writing. It is on the slate now. I have drawn it.
%%
Count: Brook farm, after the great storm
A count of the Brook farm outside Three Wells, made by Nessa for the Archive, the day after the storm. She went because a clerk at Vell was worried about the family, and she was the only one with a free afternoon.
People: 9. Old Brook, his sister, and the three families that share the yard.
Beasts: 22 sheep (2 missing, 1 found in the next field, 1 found on the roof of the shed). 3 cows. 14 hens. 1 pig. 1 goat, who was on the roof of the barn and is not telling how.
Buildings: the house stands. The long barn lost its north wall. The hen house is on its side. The well house has no roof. The new road gate stands, though the gatepost is cracked.
Damage, in order: the north wall, the hen house, the well house roof, the washing line, one hat, one chair, one sled.
Stores: all the wheat is dry. The potatoes are wet. The apples are in the cellar and are fine. Honey, 8 jars, all whole.
People hurt: nobody badly. Old Brook has a bruise on his elbow from a falling shutter, and says he enjoyed the storm.
The new road. It was finished only a month ago, and the storm took part of the edge. Two cobblestones are missing. One was found in the garden, one in the pond. They will go back.
What the family said. The sister said she heard a low sound before the storm, like a long hum under the ground. The youngest of the families said it was the wind in the chimney. Old Brook said it was the stone settling. I asked if he had heard it before. He said no, but he had also never lived through a storm like this one, so he did not know what counted.
I put it in the count as I heard it.
Note for the clerk: the Brooks need boards. Send boards. They did not ask, but they need them.
Nessa
%%
Count: School and square
Three Wells, Blossom 204. Bel counted with Sorrel and Dace.

This count is for the school house, the square, and the houses beside the east road. Sorrel says a count should say what was counted. Dace says it should also say what was missed. I have tried to do both.

People living in the counted houses: 57.
People sleeping here last night: 64.
The seven extra people were travelers at the inn. One was Pell, who says he never sleeps late. He was still at breakfast when we began.

Houses: 16.
Houses with a well bucket: 12.
Houses with a bucket borrowed from the school: 2.
Houses whose bucket no one can find: 2.
Sorrel says those are still houses with buckets, if the buckets are nearby.
Dace says nearby is not a number.

Children in school this season: 21.
Children present today: 18.
Children away at the market: 2.
Bel was present, but I was doing the count. Sorrel says I may count myself once.
I counted myself once.

Books in the school house: 39.
Books with names inside: 31.
Books without names inside: 8.
Bel's book has a name on the cover and a drawing of a beetroot inside.
Sorrel says this is enough to identify it.

Tools in the school shed: 14.
Tools with handles: 12.
Tools needing a handle: 2.
One rake has three teeth. Sorrel says that is still a rake.
Dace says it is a poor rake.

Apprentices working in the square: 1.
It carried three sacks of potatoes from the market stall to the bakery.
Sacks carried correctly: 3.
Sacks set down in the right place: 2.
The third sack was set beside the bakery door. The baker says that is also the right place.
The apprentice waited while they argued.

Cats in the square: 3.
Cats in the school house: 1.
The school cat is called Button. Button slept on the notice board while Dace wrote this count. Dace moved the board. Button moved with it.

We have put the spare buckets under the school bench. Sorrel says to return them before the next count. I will write down who borrowed them.

Bel
%%
Count: Three Wells market square
Three Wells, fourth of Melon, 181. Counted by Bel for the notice board.

Wells in the square: 3.
Buckets in use: 8.
Buckets left by the well: 2.
One belongs to the baker. One belongs to nobody until the baker sees it.

Stalls today: 17.
Bread stalls: 2.
Carrot stalls: 3.
Apple baskets: 6.
Honey jars: 11.
A jar broke near the west well. No one slipped. The honey took a long time to sweep up.

People who came to market: 63, by Dace's count.
People who came twice: 1, by my count.
Pell says that is not the same thing as 64 people.
Pell is selling apples and does not want to argue.

Horses: 9.
Carts: 7.
One cart has a squeaky wheel. Everyone knows it before it reaches the square.

Children sent to fetch bread: 4.
Children who came back with bread: 3.
The fourth came back with a small pumpkin and said the baker had changed the order.
The baker says no such thing.

At the school house, Sorrel counted 12 children and one cat.
The cat was not at school. It was at the bread stall.
Sorrel says cats do not count as children.
The cat says nothing.

Bel
%%
School essay: my winter
By Bel, at Three Wells, about nine years old, for the schoolteacher.
In winter the wells freeze and we break the ice with the long pole. I am not allowed to use my foot. Old Hob used his foot and now he has a bad foot and we all know it.
In winter the cats come in. My cat is called Pudding. Pudding does not want to come in. I bring Pudding in anyway. Pudding sits by the fire and is warm and pretends she wanted to come in all along.
In winter my father walks to the notice board every morning to read the notices. There is a notice about the north road and a notice about coal and a notice about school being open unless the bell does not ring. I read them too. The notices are mostly about coal.
My uncle came down from the north road with a story about lights in the sky. He says he saw them over the hills. He says they were bright and slow and not falling. My mother says they were falling stars. My uncle says no. My mother says he was tired. My uncle says he was not tired. They say this at the table and then they pass the bread.
I asked the schoolteacher what the lights were. She said nobody knows. She said it is good to say when you do not know. I think that is the best thing I learned this winter, next to the long pole.
I have a question for the Archive. Did the Archive keep the day of the school visit? I asked before. Nobody said. If the Archive kept it, I would like to know what I said, because I have forgotten.
Bel, Three Wells, winter
%%
Counting the chickens again
I am the night watch. I walk the street of Nettleby from the well to the smithy and back, all night, twice an hour. Mostly nothing happens. That is the job.
Some nights I count. I count the houses with a light still in them. I count the pigs in the pen, because a fox got two in Sowing and nobody wants that again. Last night I counted the chickens.
Thirty one, I wrote in the tally. Then I counted again and got thirty two. Then twenty nine, because the brown hen was on the roof of the hen house and I had not looked up.
It is the same hen every time. She will not stay put. I have decided she is not a chicken. She is a small brown problem with feathers.
Sanna the teacher says I should count the chickens in the daylight, when they are all out in the yard and I can see them. That is sensible. But the daylight is not my watch. The daylight is other people's problem.
At the third hour the smith's fire is still going. He works late. I stop and warm my hands at his door and he does not mind and does not say anything, and then I go on.
At the sixth hour the baker, who is also the miller's brother, puts his first loaves in. You can smell it down the whole street. That is the best part of the night, if you are me.
The tally is wrong by one chicken. It will be wrong by one chicken until spring. I have made my peace with this.
Lorn, night watch, Nettleby.
%%
Count: Saltreach
Counted by Oren, clerk, in the first week of Reaping, year 203, for the festival of the first ship. He came to Saltreach to see the first ship slide down the slip, and found a town counting itself.
Saltreach keeps a festival every year on the anniversary of its first ship, which was launched, they say, in the sixth year of the archive. It was a small boat called the Gull. Nobody has seen it since. The festival is for the Gull.
On the day: the slip is washed. The quay is swept. A small boat is built of paper and floated in the harbor with a candle in it. This is the only candle allowed in Saltreach. The harbor master lights it himself.
People: 1,400, with visitors. The visitors came on carts, on foot, on a mule and, in one case, on a very large pig.
Boats in the harbor: 94, including the paper boat. They are tied side by side, so you can cross the harbor on them, and some people did.
Stalls: 60. Songs: 14, sung one after another from the harbor wall. Food: a great deal. The fish pie was the best I have eaten, and I told the cook so. She said she had made it forty years in a row, and I was the first to say anything.
At noon, a speech by the mayor of Saltreach. It was about boats, and it was short. After that came a speech by Dace, who was visiting, and it was about everything, and it was long. They shook hands.
The Gull's story, as I was told it by three people:
1. Old Marn says the Gull was built by the first shipwright, who was her great-grandfather, and sank on its first day.
2. Corin says the Gull was built by a woman called Sal, and sailed for twenty years.
3. A child says the Gull is still out there, going round the world, and will come back when it is ready.
I wrote all three down. The Archive keeps them.
Counted at the end of the day: 1 paper boat, still floating, with the candle out. 1 harbor cat on it. 0 tears, though Marn says there were three.
Oren
%%
Count: Saltreach quay, market day
Count of the quay at Saltreach on market day, the ninth of Longday, year 188. Taken by Oren, clerk of the Archive, who came down to fetch ink sacs and stayed to count.
Boats at the quay: 23. Boats out: 14. Boats being mended on the slip: 3.
Stalls: 41. Fish stalls 19. Net stalls 6. Rope 4. Bread 3. Hats 2. Other 7.
Gulls: too many.
Cod sold before noon: 310. Salmon: 120. Kelp, in bundles: 66.
People at the quay at noon: about 400. I counted by tens and lost count twice.
The harbor cat, Anchor, was seen on three boats and ate one fish. Nobody mentions the fish.
Oren
%%
Count: East Well Yard
Three Wells, in Longday 174. Counted by Bel, with help from Sorrel.

People in the school house: 18.
People who said they were only passing: 4.
People who stayed for the whole lesson: 2.
People who came to fetch the two: 2.

Houses by the east well: 11.
Doors painted blue: 3.
Doors painted red: 5.
Doors painted with a cow: 1.
The cow has three legs. It is a good cow.

Cats in the yard: 2.
Cats allowed in school: 1.
The second cat says nothing, but sits on Sorrel's book.

Chickens in the yard: 6.
Eggs in the basket: 5.
One egg is under the bench. We know whose.

Books on the shelf: 24.
Books with dry covers: 23.
Sorrel says the last book will dry by tomorrow.
Bel says it was already dry yesterday.

Bel
%%
Winter count at Three Wells
Kept by Dace, mayor, at the end of Deepsnow, 206. A count is a comfort. A count in winter is a comfort that fits on one page.
Houses: 61 inside the wall, 9 outside it, 2 empty since the frost took their roofs.
People: 214. Down from 219 in the autumn, because the two young weavers went to Saltreach for the boats and one baby came, and the count is not an exact thing.
Wells: 3. The north well froze in Longnight and had to be broken open with a bar. The middle well never freezes. Nobody knows why. Do not write that down, says Oren, it is a fine thing to wonder at.
Lamps at the corners: 12. All lit. The lamp by the school door was stolen and then returned with a note that said sorry. The note did not say who.
Bells: 1. Rang 6 times for fire (all small), 2 times for lost travelers (both found), 0 times for flood.
Carts through the square on market day: 17, not counting the ones that stuck in the mud by the east well. We should do something about that mud.
Cats: many. We did not count the cats. The cats did not agree to be counted.
%%
Count of the new vein
Copied for the Archive, because Oren asked, at the carters' house at the edge of Lowmarsh, where the cart is mending. The count itself was done at the board at the top of the shaft before I left. Counts in carts.
Found: the ninth of Reaping, level three, west wall. Ola was sounding the wall for a bad roof. She tapped it, and the wall rang the wrong way. A bad roof sounds like a pie. A copper vein sounds like a bell. She called me. I tapped it too. We stood there like two people at a door.
First week: copper 36 carts. The old vein on level one gave 12 in a good week.
Second week: 41. Third week: 38. The rock is soft and bright, and it cuts like cheese, says Bram. Bram has not seen cheese in a month.
Crew: 11, and Clank. Rivet hauls from the bend. Clank hauls from the face and has not tipped a cart. Clank remembers the bend on level five.
Picks broken: 1, old Fenn's. Picks sharpened: 22. Ivo says the smithy has never been so busy. Ivo says this the way other men say it is raining.
Props set: 40, of oak. The new vein runs under a soft roof. We went slowly, and Ola tapped every handspan. Torches in the new tunnel: one every eight steps on the left going in, as always.
The rest of the board for the same three weeks: level one copper 60, coal 90. Level two copper 45, iron 20, coal 70. Level four copper 100, iron 35, coal 140.
Visitors: 14 children, one at a time, each with a stone to tap. Every child at Copperhold has a little shelf of stones from the Deep Works. Fourteen stones went home that week, and one was copper that rang.
Stew bowls the crew ate: 330. Stew bowls Clank ate: none. Clank carried them.
Pay: copper is 3 emeralds a cart at the ore board. Thirty-eight carts is 114. The crew had a good week and a good stew.
Pell says the ore board price will fall now there is more copper. Pell is right about prices and wrong about most other things.
Where it goes: 40 ingots to Corin's yard at Saltreach, for boat nails. 60 to Ivo's forge, for pick heads. The rest to the ore board.
Name: Ola wants it called Ola's Bell. Bram wants it called Bram's. The crew voted. It is called Hesk's Wrong, because I said there was nothing behind that wall.
Hurt: nobody. Bram wants it written that he was careful. He was careful. He was also loud.
Lost: a letter to Rue. Found, the wheelwright says, in the grease box of the cart. It smells of axle oil. I will send it on. Rue will understand.
All up safe, and all down safe too.
Hesk
%%
Una's count of our farm
Counted by Una, who is eight, in the autumn of 205. Gran helped with the long words.
People: 7. Mama, Papa, Gran, me, Pim, and the twins. I counted the twins twice, in case they were one. They are not.
Hens: 14. Mabel is the one who thinks she is a goose.
Cows: 3. Sheep: 22. Pigs: 5. Cats: 1. Dogs: 1.
Things in the kitchen that are mine: a spoon.
Things in the kitchen that are not mine: everything else.
%%
The Nettleby book of comings and goings
Kept at the well house, by whoever is night watch. This autumn it was kept by Lorn.
The book is for the count. We count what comes and what goes, so the council at Copperhold knows how many mouths and how many carts, and so we know ourselves. It is not a grand book. It has a cover of oak and pages of reed paper from Lowmarsh, and the first page says Nettleby, in big letters, and under it a smudge where someone spilled soup.
COMINGS
Tamsin came home from the orchards at Ambrook on the fifteenth of Apple, on Pell's cart, with two crates of apples and a cold. Counted: one Tamsin, two crates.
Pell himself stayed the night at the end house. Counted: one merchant, one horse, one cart, and a great deal of talk about prices, which we did not count, because it would not fit.
The apples came in from the four trees behind the milk shed on the nineteenth. Counted: eleven baskets. One basket fell and was eaten by the pigs. Counted: eleven baskets, mostly.
Two families came up from Copperhold on the twenty eighth, to live in the empty house by the ditch. Counted: six people, one goat, three chickens, one very old dog. The house had been empty two years. Now it is not. The old dog sleeps by the door of his new house as if he built it.
The tutor's cart came on the second of Leaffall. Counted: one tutor, two helpers of copper and iron, one crate of crystals. They stayed three days. The children followed the helpers everywhere. The helpers did not mind. They did exactly what they were told, which was mostly to carry crates from the cart to the shed and back, and the children thought this was wonderful.
GOINGS
Tamsin's brother went down to the mine at Copperhold for the winter. Counted: one, with a new coat.
Pell went on to Three Wells, singing. Counted: one merchant, going.
The swallows went. Counted: none, they are too quick. Sanna says the swallows do not go to the council. We leave them out of the book.
NOTES
The well is good. The bell is good. The bridge rail is still loose. Nobody has fallen in. Yet.
The night watch counted thirty one chickens. The brown hen is still a problem. She is in the book as "thirty one, see note." The note is getting long. The note may soon need its own page. I have decided to let it.
The first snow came on the third of Leaffall. The street was clear by noon.
Lorn, night watch, for the mayor of Nettleby.
%%
Count: carters and the tower road
Kept by Merle, well digger, in the house book at the edge of Northpoint. Spring of the 198th year. A count of who came up the road, and what they brought, for the house and for the tower.

Carters at the gate: 3, in the first week of Thaw. The first was Oss from the Long Road with a load of salt for the tower and a bag of cloth for Merle, sent by her cousin in Frostmere. The second was a young man named Holt, who would not say where he was going, only that it was north. The third was an old woman with a cart of pots, who sold Merle one for a jar of goat's milk and then sold the milk back to her for a spoon of honey.

Drover at the gate: 1, with a dog that ate one of Tobin's socks. The sock was wool. The dog was not sorry. The drover paid for the sock in cheese.

Lost child on the tower road: 1. A small girl in a red coat, about six, who had walked up from the bottom of the hill on her own. She did not know her name, or said she did not, and she would not come in until she had seen the keeper's lamp lit. Rill took her by the hand and walked her up the steps. The keeper was at the top, and blinked a message down to Vell, and by the time the lamp had finished blinking the girl's mother was at the foot of the hill, calling for her.

The mother had come up from the lower houses by the old track. She was very cross, and very relieved, and then cross again, which was the right order for it. She gave Rill a sugar cake from her basket, and Rill gave the cake to the girl, who gave half of it back.

Count of visitors who stayed the night: 2. Ennis, who is a lodger, and the girl's mother, who stayed by the fire, since she did not want to walk down in the dark.

Notes. Tell the tower keeper the road is open to the bottom. Tell the next carter about the sock. Tell the girl's mother that the lamp did most of the work.
%%
Count after the flood
Three Wells, Longday 189. Counted by Bel and Sorrel after the water went down.

The rain filled the ditches before noon. By evening, water stood in the lower part of the square. It came over the path by the south road and ran around the bakery wall. Nobody was hurt. Dace says this is the first count, not a reason to stop counting.

Houses with dry floors: 14.
Houses with wet floors: 6.
Houses with water at the door: 3.
The baker's floor was wet, but the bread stayed dry on the high shelves.
One loaf fell into a bucket. The baker will not sell it. The chickens are pleased.

Stalls moved to the school yard: 5.
Stalls that moved back: 5.
Planks laid over the muddy path: 12.
Planks still there this morning: 12.
Sorrel says we must return them to the shed. Bel says they are useful where they are.
Sorrel says useful things can still belong in the shed.

Buckets used for water: 9.
Buckets used for moving mud: 4.
Buckets used for carrying beetroot: 1.
The beetroot bucket was clean when it started.

Children who helped carry books upstairs: 8.
Books moved from the low shelf: 31.
Books left on the low shelf: 0.
Bel's book was already upstairs. Bel helped anyway.

Frogs in the square: too many to count.
Frogs in the school house: 1.
The cat watched it from the window. The frog watched the cat.
Sorrel opened the door. Both went out. The cat came back first.

The three wells are clear now. Dace has asked everyone to keep the drains clear. I have drawn a picture of the flood for the notice board. Sorrel says to draw the water lower next time.

Bel
%%
Letter: Sorrel to her sister at Ambrook
Spring of 203.
Dear Ivy,
You asked how the school goes. The school goes well. We have 31 children, a new roof over the east room, and a goat that will not leave. I have stopped fighting the goat. The goat has won. I have begun to think of it as a teacher.
The school house looks fine since the door was painted by the children. They painted a sun, a well, a cat and something I am told is a horse. Visitors look at the horse a long time.
We had an apprentice here for a week, lent by the council to carry the new benches up from the yard. It walked very slowly and put one bench down in the wrong room and stood by it, waiting, until I showed it the right room. Then it put the bench down there and stood by it again. It did the whole job that way. It never once sat down. I offered it a cup of tea and remembered, too late, that it does not drink, and felt a fool, and it did not mind at all, because it does not mind anything. I liked it very much.
The children named it Bench. It is not ours and it went home, but the children still talk about Bench.
I miss the orchard. Send apples when the trees are ready. Send a few for the goat.
Your sister, Sorrel.
P.S. Do not send a horse. The horse on the door is enough.
%%
The quiet hours: a night watch's year
I am Lorn. I keep the night watch at Nettleby, a hamlet of nine houses below Copperhold, where the road bends east. I have kept it for eleven years. This is what it is like.
The watch begins at dusk, when the bell by the well rings once. I light the lamp at the well house. Then I walk the street, from the well to the smithy and back. Twice an hour, all night. In winter the street is long and cold. In summer it is short and full of moths.
Most of the job is counting. I count the houses with a light in them. I count the pigs, because of the foxes. I count the chickens, which is a losing battle, and Sanna the teacher says I should not bother. I bother. It is my watch.
In the autumn the counting gets busier. The apples come in, and I count the baskets. Pell's cart comes through, and I count the crates and the merchant and the horse and the song, though the song is hard to count. Tamsin goes to the orchards at Ambrook and comes home in Apple with a cold, and I count her and her crates and her cold.
The first snow is the best night of the year. It comes quiet, usually late, and by morning the street is white to the ankles. Every house clears its own door to the middle of the street, and the neighbor clears the rest, and nobody is ever told twice. The bell rings at first light while the snow lasts, to say the path to the well is clear. If it rings twice, bring your shovel.
At the third hour the smith's fire is still going. He works late and does not mind if I warm my hands at his door. At the sixth hour the baker puts his first loaves in, and the smell goes all the way down the street. That is the best part of the night, if you are me.
Once, in the year 188, two helpers of copper and iron came with a tutor and stayed three days. The tutor drilled them in the drill yard behind the school, and the children watched from the fence, and the helpers did exactly what they were told, again and again, until they did it well. I watched too, from the well. I am not too proud to watch. They carried crates from the cart to the shed and back and back and back, and I counted the crates, and they did not lose one.
The tutor said a mind is only as good as the pages it is drilled on. I think a night watch is only as good as his lamp and his boots. My boots are good. My lamp is good. The chickens are a problem.
It is quiet now for many nights. That is the job. Mostly nothing happens. You walk, you count, you look up at the stars and then you look back at the street, because the street is your watch.
Lorn, night watch, Nettleby, this autumn of the year 191.
%%
Letter: Lorn to his sister at Copperhold
Dear Bet,
The first snow came on the third of Leaffall, early this year, and the road down to Copperhold is white but open. The carts still come up. The coal still comes down.
You asked how the tally went. It went badly. The chickens are a moving target and I am one man with a lamp. The mayor says the count is for the council and the council cannot read a count that says "about thirty, more or less, depending." So I have written "thirty one, see note" and the note says "one hen is a liar." Sanna says this is not how tallies work. I say Sanna has never tried to count that hen.
The smith mended his roof in the snow in his shirtsleeves. He is warm blooded. We are all very impressed and a little worried.
Little Fenn broke Tamsin's cup while she was away at the orchards and hid behind the woodpile for five months of worrying, or five weeks, it felt like five months to him. She forgave him. She took her time. He has promised to be careful and has already broken a plate, but it was his own plate, so we let it go.
The dog Rusk has taken to sleeping at the school door. He is not allowed in. He is allowed at the door. Sanna says he is a good listener and a bad influence on the children, both at once.
Tell me how the mine is. Tell me if the stone is still cold down there. The nights here are long and the lamplight is short.
Your brother, Lorn, night watch, Nettleby.
%%
Count of the East farm, autumn of 205
Counted by Hanna at the kitchen table, with a slate in one hand and a baby in the other. A farm on the east side of Kettle Ridge.
People. 7. Rolf and I. Rolf's mother. Una, who is 8. Pim, who is 5. And the twins, Fern and Finch. They were born on the 9th of Melon, early in the morning, in the big bed, with the sun coming in. The midwife from the ridge came with her bag and stayed for pie. The mayor of Three Wells sent two spoons by the post cart. The twins are not his. He sends spoons anyway.
Houses and buildings. 1 house. 1 barn. 1 hen house. 1 pig pen. 1 shed. 1 well. The roof of the pig pen leaks. The pigs have not complained.
Beasts. Hens: 14. Cows: 3, one of which had a calf in spring. Sheep: 22, and 19 lambs were born, of which 17 lived. Pigs: 5. Cats: 1, and 5 kittens, of which 4 have been given away. Dogs: 1.
Fields. 2 of wheat, 1 of beetroot, 1 of potatoes. The wheat was good. The beetroot was Rolf's, and not as good as Tam's, and Rolf knows it.
Born this year, all together: 2 babies, 19 lambs, 2 calves, 5 kittens, and 17 chicks. That is 45 new lives on the East farm. I wrote that down and looked at it for a long time.
Notes. The twins cry in turns. Rolf's mother says it is the best sound in the world. Rolf says it is the loudest. Una says that the twins are like the two bells at the school, one right after the other, and that the second is always louder.
Una wishes it written that she held both of them at once. She did, for the time it takes to say her name.
%%
Kettle Ridge, tally of the mill
Kept at the mill, on the tally board, for the winter count.
Grain in: wheat, forty sacks. Beetroot, twelve sacks, for sugar and for keeping. Potatoes, thirty sacks, in the cold store. Carrots, six sacks. This was a good year. We have said so at the mill and we say it again. The stones turned from Sowing to Reaping without a break, and the miller's arm is tired, and the miller is glad.
Grain out: flour to Three Wells, thirty sacks. Flour to Vell, ten sacks, for the clerks, who eat. Meal to Northpoint, six sacks on the last cart north. What is left is ours.
One small thing. The miller's boy found an old map in the loft, under the sacks. It is on thick paper and it is brown at the edges and it shows the roads and the towns in an old hand. Vell is a small square on it. Copperhold is a dot. There is a line north from Northpoint that goes to the edge of the paper and stops. There is no town there now. There was no town there then, I think. The map is older than the mill. It is older than the mapmaker, whoever he was.
We have hung it by the door. The miller's boy looks at the line going north and asks what is at the end. We say nothing is at the end. He does not believe us. Neither do I, entirely.
The windmill squeaks. The ditch is frozen. The pigs are in the barn and the pigs are warm and the pigs are loud.
Tam, for the mill
%%
Count of my pack
Everything I carry on the road from Copperhold, counted on a damp bed at the carters' house, in Apple. By Hesk, who was told to rest and is resting by counting.
Shirts: 2. One is dry. I am wearing the other.
Socks: 3 pairs. Damp, damp, damper.
Boots: 1 pair, and a spare heel.
Pick: 0. A miner does not carry a pick on a cart. It feels strange. My hand keeps closing.
Torches: 6. Lantern: 1. Flint: 1. Knife: 1, for bread, cheese and, once, a stuck wheel.
Bread: half a loaf, from the kitchen at the mine gate. Cheese: a corner, the size of a thumb.
Spoon: 1, tin. It was my father's. Chalk: 3 pieces. I write on the table. Noll has not noticed yet.
Letters I carry for others: 4. One for Wren, from Nessa. One for Corin, from Oren. One for Moss, from her mother. One for the ferry keeper, which I will give to the first person who looks like a ferry keeper.
Letters I wrote: 2. One for Mira, saying the coal will be late. One for Rue, saying I am late too.
The one for Rue is lost. I put it in my cap at the shaft head. The cap is here. The letter is not. I looked in the cap twice and in the other cap once. I looked in the cart. I looked in the cat.
A letter is not a thing that walks off. But it is gone.
Emeralds: 31. Two of them are Rue's, for apples. One is mine, for a pie.
Pie: 0.
Rain on my pack: all of it.
Hair on my head: less than last year. Wren says it is the damp. Wren says everything is the damp.
Things I have not lost: the list of the things I have not lost.
%%
Count: the orchard, and the lights
Count of the orchard behind the mill house at Three Wells, in Leaffall, by the orchard keeper, who counts the trees twice, because the first count is always an argument.

Trees: one hundred and twelve. Apple, ninety. Pear, nine. Plum, eight. One pear that will not bear, and which is kept anyway, because the keeper's father planted it.

Pickers: six, from the mill house, and two from the street, who ate more than they picked, which the keeper says is the right ratio for an orchard.

Frost came in the dark of the year and was gone by the second bell, and the trees did not notice.

Apples picked: four thousand, two hundred, and some. The cart from Ambrook took the best and left the windfalls, which the pigs took with thanks.

Beehives: six on the north slope, three by the well, one in the old wall, which nobody has been able to move. The bees in the old wall have been counted nine times and have never once been in the same place.

Things: one ladder, mended twice. One basket, mended once, and the mending is the best part of it. Two rakes, one with its teeth still on.

Notes. The orchard keeper says the trees are doing well, and the frost was kind this year. He says he has not seen the frost so kind since he was a boy.

He also says the lights were seen again over the north hill, on the second night of the Apple moon, by the boys who sleep in the top orchard shed. The boys say they were white, then pale green, and then they went out. The keeper says they went out because the boys went to sleep. The boys say they did not. Some of the orchard says the lights are the stars moving. Some says a fire on the ice. The keeper has written down all three, and has put a question mark after the stars, because he does not believe that one.
%%
Count: the wells and the buckets
Count of the three wells in the square at Three Wells, in Leaffall, made by the lamp boy, who was asked to do it and who has done it very carefully, with a stick and a stone for each.

Buckets: fourteen on the steps of the north well, eleven on the east, nine on the south. The south well has the most buckets and the least water, which the lamp boy says is because the buckets are lazy.

Ropes: three, all tied to the posts. One of the ropes was tied by a visitor, in a knot the lamp boy has never seen. He has left it as it is, because it holds.

The bell: rung thirty-one times in the week, at noon and at dusk, and once in the middle of the night by mistake, when the mayor's man fell against the rope. Nobody came to see what had happened. Everybody knew.

Cats: four at the north well, two at the east, and one who sits on the south well and does not drink from it. The lamp boy says she is the wisest cat in Three Wells and that she knows something about the water. The mayor says she knows about the fish from Saltreach, which is not the same thing.

Rain: four days this week, two buckets from each well, and one bucket spilled on the mayor's step, which he has said he will count himself.

Lamps: at each corner, lit at dusk, brushed at midnight. Twelve lamps in all. The lamp boy has counted them every night since he started, and every night the count has been twelve.

A traveler asked the lamp boy how deep the south well goes. The boy said he did not know, because he had never let the bucket down far enough to find out, and did not intend to begin in Frost.

A child asked whether the three wells are one well underneath. The lamp boy said he would ask the mayor. The mayor said the wells are three because the square is three, and that is enough for any well.

Notes. The lamp boy asks that the count be kept, and that his name be put to it, so that if the count is ever wrong, the blame is on him. He says he would rather be blamed than be a stone.

The water in the south well is clear. The cats do not drink it. The lamp boy has asked the mayor whether he should, and the mayor said no, and has not yet said why.
%%
Count of the cart
The Copperhold cart, broken down at the edge of Lowmarsh in Apple. Counted by Hesk, who is sitting on it.
Copper ingots: 40. Every one from the new vein on level three. Soft and bright.
Iron ingots: 30, for Corin's yard.
Coal: 6 sacks, for Wren's stove.
Rope: 2 coils. Torches: 1 chest. Lanterns: 4.
Wheels: 4. Good wheels: 3. The fourth is in the mud and will not come out.
Horses: 2. They look at the wheel. So do I.
Days since the wheel broke: 2. Days the wheelwright is away: also 2. He is not in a hurry. Nobody at Lowmarsh is.
Letter for Rue: gone. I asked the cart. The cart does not know.
%%
Count: the north street, who has gone
Count of the north street at Three Wells, made by the mayor's clerk in Reaping for the board. The clerk was asked to leave the notes out, and did not.

Houses: fourteen. Lived in: eleven. Shut: three. The three shut houses belong to families who have gone south to Saltreach, where the work is on the big ships and the wages are good. The families said they would write. No letter has come. One of the cats they left is still on the step of its old house, looking down the road.

People: forty-seven on the street. That is four more than last Reaping, because of two births and a wedding, and six fewer than the year before. The six fewer are the families who have gone, and an old man at number six, who was ninety, and went quietly in his chair, and whose house is now full of bees.

Beasts: twenty-two hens, eight cows, four horses, eleven cats, and one goat who belongs to nobody and eats the washing.

Things: fourteen lamps, all lit. Three notices on the mayor's board. One says the relay tower on the hill has been quiet from the north for two nights, and asks that nobody worry. Two people have worried. One has baked a loaf for the keeper, which is the right answer.

Notes. Nobody on the street has said plainly why the families went. They say the ships are big, and the sea is wide, and the work is good. Some say the work is not the reason. The mayor says the board should record the families as present until they write to say otherwise. The clerk has recorded them as present, and has put a small mark beside each name, in case the mark is needed.
%%
Notice: lost brown hen, answers to Pip
I lost a hen on the ridge road, between the Kettle Inn and the turn to the south field. She is brown, she is loud, and she answers to Pip, though she does not come. She has never come. I say her name and she looks at me and goes on scratching.
She was a good hen. She laid every day but the deepest days of Deepsnow, and she kept the other hens in line, which the other hens did not want and needed.
If you find her, bring her to the barn at Kettle Ridge and ask for Tam. My apprentice Pip will be glad. Pip the hen, I mean. My apprentice is also Pip. It is a long story and it was funny once.
Reward: a dozen eggs, which I admit are not hers.
%%
Winter tally at the Kettle Inn, 204
Kept by Hobb, innkeeper, because the snow is deep and there is nothing else to do but count and stir the pot.
Beds: 6. Beds slept in this winter: 6 every night since Leaffall. The snow brought the travelers in and then it kept them. We are full of people who did not mean to stay.
Travelers who meant to go on and could not: 11. Of those, 3 became friends, 1 became a nuisance, and 1 has been in the corner by the fire so long that Barley the dog has stopped growling at him.
Carts stuck on the ridge road: 5. Carts pulled out by neighbors: 5. Carts pulled out by neighbors and by one apprentice from the town, which lifted the whole cart by the axle and set it down as if it were a basket: 1. The driver gave it a beetroot. It did not eat the beetroot. It held the beetroot.
Pots of soup made: 44. The soup is the same soup. I keep adding to it. Tam says it is the oldest soup on the ridge and I should give it a name.
Mugs broken: 7. Most by the corner man.
Songs sung: I could not count. The fiddler came up from Three Wells before the snow closed the road, and we sang until the fire went low, and then we sang a little more.
Apples left in the barrel: 2. They are soft. I am saving them for a hard day.
%%
Count: the stores, after the long winter
Kept by Merle, well digger, in the house book at the edge of Northpoint. Spring of the 207th year. A count of what the winter left, for the tower keeper, who asked for it in writing.

Coal: 4 sacks. Last year it was 20 at this time. The tower takes its coal first, and that is right. This house takes what is left, and that is right too.

Wood: 3 stacks of spruce, wet at the bottom. Ennis the lodger says he will dry them by the stove, and that he is an expert in drying. Merle says he is an expert in cluttering.

Potatoes: 40. Bread: 12 loaves, hard as rock, kept for the goats. Oats: 2 sacks. Barley: 1 sack, for the hens and for the cat, who has become very particular.

Honey: 1 jar, from Ambrook, with a note in a child's hand: "For the longest night, and then for spring." It is almost gone now. The jar will be washed and kept for the wax.

Milk: 6 cups a day from the goats. More when the kids are weaned. Cheese: 2 wheels, from the Brown Hen, sent up with the spring cart. Tobin says they are the best cheese on the road. Ennis says that is because they came from the road.

Lamps: 4, with new glass in 2. Oil: 1 barrel, low. Torches: 60, which is enough if nothing else goes wrong.

Rope: 2 coils. Tools: 1 spade, 2 shovels, 1 pick, 1 well bucket with a hole, mended. Snow scoops: 3, one of them broken in the flood.

Books: 11. Ennis has read them all twice. Merle has read 6 and has the others on her shelf, where she can see the spines.

Children: 2, one of them very brave, one of them very sorry for the latch. Both fed. Both in bed by the second bell.

Things lost over the winter: 1 hen to the fox, 1 pair of mittens to the wind, 1 boot to the well. The boot is at the bottom. It is still very much in the water. Merle says it can stay there till Frost.

The count is done. The spring is coming up the north slope, slow and green, and the fox is on the rock.
%%
Una's count of the bees and the honey
Autumn of 205. Counted by Una, with Papa standing back and Gran standing farther back.
Hives: 2. One by the hedge and one by the well. The one by the hedge is the friendly one. The one by the well has opinions.
Bees: I tried to count them. I got to 40 and one stung me. Papa says there are about 20000 in a hive in summer. That is a lot of 40s.
Honey, the first cut: 9 jars from the hedge hive and 6 from the well hive. 15 jars in all.
Where the jars went:
For the house: 5.
For the fair at Three Wells: 3.
For Gran, for her cough: 2.
For Brin next door, who gave us the loan of his ladder: 1.
For the twins' naming day: 1.
Spare, in case: 2.
Mine: 1.
5 and 3 and 2 and 1 and 1 and 2 and 1 make 15. I checked. Papa checked. Gran checked and said it came out right, which she did not expect.
One jar is mine because I helped. Gran says helping means standing back. We are discussing it.
The bees keep their own winter honey. We do not take it. They are small, and the winter is long.
%%
Count: the Ashby farm after the new road
Counted by Nessa, tutor of apprentices at Vell, on a visit to the Ashby farm outside Three Wells, in the second week of Deepsnow. She was invited to see the new road and was fed so well that she stayed.
People: 7. Ashby and his wife Dilly. Their children Rob, Tess, Nan and Pim. Aunt Ruth. A visitor, who is me, but I do not count myself.
Beasts: 31 sheep. 2 cows, Daisy and Plum. 9 hens and one rooster. 2 cats, who count themselves. 1 dog, Biscuit. 1 donkey, who carries the post.
Buildings: the house, the barn, the hen house, the shed, the well house. The barn roof has a hole the size of a pumpkin from the last storm. It is mended with a board and a stone.
Stores: wheat, 12 sacks. Potatoes, 20. Beetroot, 9. Carrots, 6. Honey, 6 jars. Wool, 14 bundles. Wood, enough to Thaw. Coal, 3 sacks.
Notes.
The new road is the work of the Ashbys and the Garrick farm, and a crew from Three Wells. It took one summer. It is straight as a rule. Ashby is proud of it. He asked me to write that it is the best road for a day's walk, and I have written it.
The storm. It came on the fourth night and lasted two days. The wind took three shingles, a hen and a washing line. The hen came back. The line has not.
Aunt Ruth says the sky was wrong before the storm. She says it was green at the north edge for an hour. The older children say it was a cloud. The younger children say it was a good colour. Ashby says he did not see it because he was asleep.
Sleeping is something Ashby does very well.
I asked the family if they had heard of the humming at Copperhold. Ashby had. His cousin works at the mine, and says the stone is warm at the lower levels, and the men do not like it. Dilly said it was probably a spring. Ashby said it might be. They are not sure. I wrote it down, as I have written everything.
Before I left, Pim gave me a drawing of the farm. It has seven people, a dog and a very large sun. I have put it in my bag. It is the best count of the day.
%%
Dace's rules for the market square
Posted on the notice board by the north well, Sowing 189. Rule 9 is new and is about the geese.
1. Stalls open when the bell rings and close when the bell rings. The bell is not a suggestion.
2. No carts on the cobbles before the bell. The cobbles are old. You are not.
3. Keep your animals on a lead or in a pen. A goat on a lead is a market. A goat loose is a chase.
4. The three wells are for water. Wash your beetroot at home.
5. Prices are written on the board and not in your voice, shouted, at the next stall.
6. Disputes go to the mayor. I am usually at the bakery. I am not hiding. I am having breakfast.
7. What you drop, you pick up. What you break, you mend or you pay.
8. Children may run in the square. Children may not run in the square with a full jug.
9. Geese stay by the east wall. The geese have been told. The geese have not listened. The rest of you, please try.
10. When the bell rings for the close, go home singing. That is not a rule. That is a hope.
%%
Count of the barn, after harvest
Counted by Gran of the East farm, autumn of 206, because Hanna has two babies, Rolf has the pigs, and somebody had to.
Wheat. 62 sacks, of which 20 are for the mill and 6 are for seed. Beetroot. 31 sacks. Potatoes. 28 sacks, in dry sand, in the dark. Carrots. 14 sacks, in damp sand. Pumpkins. 19, on the shelf, whole.
Honey. 11 jars on the high shelf. The twins have eaten 2 jars' worth, by hand.
Apples. 6 sacks, wrapped in straw, away from the potatoes. One bad apple spoils the box, so I looked at every one.
Salt fish. 1 barrel. It came by Pell's cart from Saltreach. It smells of Saltreach. I do not mind.
Tools in the barn. 6 spades, 4 forks, 3 scythes, 2 ladders, 1 saw. 11 buckets. The same as last year, except one spade, which went to Brin's and has not come back.
Things found in the barn while counting. 1 hat, which is Tam's. 1 boot. 3 spoons. 1 slate with BEL written on it. 1 hen that is not ours and looked very much at home.
Things not found. The second ladder's top rung. Rolf's patience. The wooden horse Pim lost in spring.
I counted everything twice, and the second count came out one sack less than the first. I sat down on a sack of wheat to think. The sack was the missing sack.
%%
Count: Ashby farm, after the storm
Counted by Nessa, who stayed two nights at the Ashby farm outside Three Wells because the storm closed the road.
People: 7 (Ashby, his wife, four children, and me). Beasts: 31 sheep, 2 cows, 9 hens. One hen was blown into the well and has been rescued.
Houses: 1. Barn: 1, with a new hole in the roof.
Torches: 12 lit, 3 blown out and relit.
Note: the sky to the north was green for an hour before dawn. Ashby says falling stars. His wife says a fire. The youngest says nothing, and is looking.
%%
Count: the Ashby farm, winter
Count of the Ashby farm outside Three Wells, taken at the turn of the year by Nessa, tutor of apprentices at Vell, who came out to see the new road and stayed to eat.
People: 7. Ashby and his wife, Dilly. Four children: Rob, Tess, Nan, Pim. Old Aunt Ruth, who counts as two when she is cross.
Beasts: 31 sheep. 2 cows, Daisy and Plum. 9 hens. 1 rooster, who has views. 2 cats. 1 dog.
Houses: the house, the barn, the hen house, the shed. All sound.
Stores: wheat 12 sacks. Potatoes 20. Beetroot 9. Honey, 6 jars. Wool, 14 bundles. Coal, 3 sacks.
Note: the new road from the farm to the Long Road is finished. It is cobblestone at the gate, packed earth after. It is a good road. Ashby has put a torch on the first post.
%%
Count: Saltreach before the summer
Count of Saltreach, taken in the last week of Melon, year 201, by Oren, clerk at Vell, who was sent to the port to collect records for the Archive and was kept to count the town for the festival.
People: about 1,120, by the harbor master's tally board. Children 280. Old folk, as Ula says, 130.
Houses: 340. Boat houses: 38. Net sheds: 22. Inns: 3. The tower above the harbor: 1. The shipyard and the slip: 1 each.
Boats: fishing boats 61. Rowing boats 24. The Heron, the biggest, is out. Corin is building two more.
Beasts: cats 55 (Anchor is the harbor cat and counts for three). Dogs 40. Hens 70. Goats 9. Gulls, without number.
Stores: salt, 600 sacks. Dried fish, 900 bundles. Rope, 140 coils. Sailcloth, 30 rolls. Tar, 12 barrels.
The festival, which is called the Mending of the Nets, begins at sunrise on the first day of Reaping and lasts two days. The nets are laid out along the quay and a child steps over each one. Nobody knows what for. It is the custom.
The count was made harder by a goat, who ate the first page.
Oren
%%
Notice: first snow at Nettleby
First snow fell on the night of the third of Leaffall. It came quiet, and by morning the road to Copperhold was white to the ankles.
How it works here. Every house clears its own door to the middle of the street. Your neighbor clears the rest. Nobody has ever had to be told twice.
The smith's roof is mended. He did it himself, in the snow, in his shirtsleeves, and would not take help. He is warm blooded, he says. He was blue, we say.
The bell by the well rings at first light while the snow lasts. It means the path to the well is clear. If you hear it twice, bring your shovel.
Mind the ditch. The ice on it is thin. The ducks do not care. You are not a duck.
Lorn, night watch, for the mayor of Nettleby.
