Directions, with a note about the cart
These directions are for travelers going from Vell to Garrow's farm in summer. The farm stands outside the town, below the east hill. Ask for the oak hedge if the red mark on the gate has faded.
Take the south road from Vell to the Long Road. Follow the torches to waymark 1. Keep straight. At waymark 2, follow the arrow for the Brown Hen, but leave the inn for later. At the fork, take the left road toward Three Wells.
Cross the stone bridge over the stream. Keep to the packed road past the wheat field and its water ditch. Do not take the oak bridge farther along. It leads toward Ambrook. The farm is on the near side of that bridge, below the hill.
The gate has a red mark. The well is inside, beside the yard. Lute keeps a cup on the well post when she remembers. If the cup is gone, ask at the barn.
Last summer a cart stuck in the soft road just past the stone bridge. Its wheels sank to the hubs after rain. The driver pushed. His sister pulled. The mule watched them and ate grass.
Garrow fetched two boards from the shed. We laid them under the wheels, then put a rope from the cart to the farm fence. The cart came free at the first pull. The fence came down at the second.
We repaired the fence before supper. The driver paid with three apples and an apology to the mule. The mule accepted the apples.
If you have a heavy cart, cross the bridge slowly and stay on the packed middle of the road. The ditch is not a second road. I tried it once with a wheelbarrow. Lute says the ditch won.
%%
Directions: where to look for a child
Written by Sable, night watch, after the evening Cass ran off. Pinned in the watch house for next time. Cass is six, and the smith's youngest. He is fine.

The order to look in, starting from the market:
1. The bakery on Low Street. Warm floor, buns. Children go here first. Cass was not there. A bun was missing.
2. The tool store. Lanterns. The red door sticks, so a small child cannot open it. He had not been there.
3. The stable behind the inn. Hay, horses, the warm corner by Dapple. Not there.
4. The kitchen at the mine gate. The cook had not seen him. The cook had seen three buns go.
5. The shaft head. Do not go past the count board. The lift is shut at dusk. Look at the board: no child's name on it. Good.
6. The quarry path, with a lantern. Call his name, then wait. A child answers if you wait. Cass did not answer.
7. The coal yard, where the carts stand ready for the morning.

At the coal yard, in the third cart, under a sack, asleep, with a bun: Cass. That cart was bound for Northpoint at first light. He had decided to see the snow.

We carried him home. His mother cried. His father said he would build a gate. The cook sent a bun.

A lesson for the watch. A child who runs off goes toward something he wants. Ask what he wants before you look. Cass wanted snow.
Also: check the carts before dawn.
%%
Directions: the last road, late summer
The last road from the hamlet to the harbor, which runs through the orchard, past the mill, and out along the cliff. It is the road the carters take when the Long Road is full, and it is not as well marked, because the waymarks are old and the stone is cracking.

Leave by the orchard gate, and go past the oldest apple tree on the hill. It is the one with the grey branch. Nobody cuts it. Nobody climbs it. If you stop to look at it, you will be asked to move on, kindly, by the old woman who keeps the gate.

Past the mill the road turns toward the sea. The mill pond is on the right. The frogs have been very quiet this summer, the miller says, and the water is very still. He does not know why. He has not asked anyone.

At the cliff, the road runs along the top for a long way, with the sea below and the wind coming straight off it. The waymarks are only stones now, with no torches, because the torches were taken down in the spring and nobody has put them back. Keep to the landward side, and keep walking. The harbor is at the end of the cliff, with the new ships on the slip and the relay tower above the wall.

Some say the lights in the north have been seen from the cliff at night, low on the water, very far out. Some say they are fires, and some say they are only the sea. Nobody on the cliff road has been able to say for certain, and the carters have stopped asking.

Stay the night at the harbor inn, if you can find a bed. Tell the landlady you came by the cliff road, and she will look at you with respect, and give you the bench.
%%
The Long Road south, to the sea
Written out by Corin for the travelers who go down the Long Road to Saltreach, and who ask every year whether the road is still the road.

1. Take the Long Road south from the west well. The first waymark is a 0, and the arrow points to the Brown Hen. It is a day's walk, with mud at the bottom.
2. The stone edge begins at the first bend. Keep the wheels on it. The packed earth in the middle has a rut that has been there since the cart from Vell, and nobody has filled it.
3. Cross the oak bridge at the stream with care. The planks are good in the middle and loose at the ends. Walk the cart over the middle.
4. The Brown Hen stands where the Long Road meets the Kettle Ridge lane. The bed is good, and the cook defends the stew. Pell's cart is usually in the yard. Do not let the hen in the yard take your bread.
5. Past the Brown Hen the road climbs toward the ridge. The windmills turn on the ridge with a squeak on every turn. You will hear them before you see the sails.
6. The second day's waymark stands at the top of the rise, with a 5 on it and a torch that is always lit. The relay tower above it has a broken lamp on its north side, the glass cracked from the frost. The keeper says the spring cart will bring new glass, when the cart is not late.
7. At the Halfway Inn the bird on the roof is still there. The map is on the wall by the stair. Ask Mabel if you may see it. She will say no, and then she will let you look, if you are quiet. The hearth has not gone out in twenty years, and she will not let you poke it.
8. A new apprentice helps at the Halfway, carrying water from the well to the yard. It stands by the well in the mornings, waiting for the bucket, and then fills it and carries it. It does not talk. The cook says it is the only helper in the district that does not ask for a tip.
9. Past the Halfway, the road runs down to the coast, over the bridge at the Saltreach stream. Its oak planks are loose at the ends. You will smell the sea before you see it. Then you will see the masts at the harbor wall, the slip where the boats are built, and the long pier with the nets on it.
10. The harbor wall is the place to rest. The price board by the fish market gives the day's catch. The relay tower above the harbor has its lamp lit by day, a small pale light against the sky.

Corin says the road to the sea is three days with the cart and two without. He says the sea is the best reason to take it, and the carter's bread the best reason to come back. That is also the point of going.
%%
Directions: down the hill from Vell
By Lark, carter, for anyone driving a loaded cart out of Vell. Autumn.
The hill to Vell is the steepest on the Long Road. Going up is hard. Going down is worse, because you can go faster than you meant to.
1. Get down and walk beside the horse. Do not sit on the load.
2. At the top, put the drag shoe under the back wheel. It is an iron shoe on a chain. It makes a terrible noise. The noise is the point.
3. Go slowly. If the cart pushes the horse, you are too fast. Stop.
4. At the bottom, take off the shoe. It will be hot. Do not pick it up.
A lesson that went badly. I once taught a lad called Teo to drive down this hill. He said he knew the rules. At the top he sat on the load, forgot the shoe, and let the cart go. The horse trotted, then ran. The cart ran after the horse. We went down like a pumpkin off a wall and stopped in the baker's yard, in a stack of crates. Nobody was hurt. Four hundred buns were not so lucky. I paid the baker 6 emeralds for the buns and 2 for the crates. Teo wrote the rules on his arm.
%%
The Ambrook road, by the mill pond
Written out by Corin for a family going to the orchard at Ambrook for the apple picking. They have never been further than the school.

1. Leave by the front gate and turn left at the wells. The square is busy in the mornings, and the carters are always in the way of the honey stall. Walk round them, not through them.
2. Past the south well, take the Long Road south. The first waymark is the 1, with a torch on top and a white stone. The arrow points to the next inn.
3. The Long Road is cobblestone for the first stretch, then packed earth with a stone edge. Keep to the edge when it rains. The middle of the road is soft, and the cart wheels like to find it.
4. Count the torches, and light any that are out. Do not wait for the lamp boy.
5. At the second waymark, the 2, turn east onto the orchard lane. Pull the cart to the left when another comes, and say good morning to the carter.
6. The first bridge on the lane is over the stream, and it is stone. The second is over the mill race, and it is oak, and its fifth plank is loose. Step over it. The children will jump on it. Let them. It has never given way.
7. The mill pond is on your left, with the mill beyond it. The hives stand on the far bank, under the old apple trees, and the bees are cross in the afternoons. Walk round the hives, not past them. The bees have been invited.
8. The orchard is up the slope from the pond. There are four hundred trees. Find the oldest, with the grey branch, and do not cut it. It is not dead. It is only late, as Ama says, and it will fruit when it chooses.
9. The inn at Ambrook is the one with the blue shutters. Its sign says the Halfway, which is a mistake.
10. Coming home, take the lane back to the Long Road, and turn north at the second waymark. Keep the mill pond behind you. The water is the color of the sky at dusk, and it will look like a path. It is not a path. It is a pond, and the bees know it better than you.

Corin says the orchard road is a day's walk from the wells, and a good half day longer for anyone who stops to look at the apples. He says that is the point of going.
%%
Directions: Vell to Three Wells
By Lark, carter, who has driven it four hundred times and been wrong about it twice. Autumn, when the road is dry and the pumpkin carts are on it.
Leave Vell by the south gate at the first bell. Go slowly down the hill. The figures climb as you leave a town, so the first waymark at the foot of the hill is a 0. Count up from there.
At the 3 the little relay stands on its hill, across the valley. It has one lamp and one keeper. If the lamp shouts, go to the nearest inn and wait.
At the 5 there is a spring by the road, with a stone trough. Water the horse here. It is the only free water between Vell and the Halfway Inn.
At the 7 there is a wooden bridge. Walk beside the horse. The planks are loose on the right. Take the left.
At the 9 you reach the Halfway Inn. Hobb keeps it. The hearth has not gone out in twenty years. The second bowl is free. If you owe Hobb anything, pay it now, in emeralds. He forgives most things but not a debt. I once owed him 1 for a stool I sat through. I paid it on the third try. He said it was the longest stool of his life.
Sleep there if the day is late. If you want Three Wells by dusk, go on.
After the inn the figures fall, because they fall as you come to a town. You see the 9 at the inn, then the 8, then the 7, down to the 0 at Three Wells. At the 6 there is a bridge of oak. Test the planks with a stick, not with the horse. At the 4 you see the first smoke of Three Wells. At the 1 you see the three wells.
The inn of twelve beds will have a bed if you come before the noon bell. After the noon bell it will have a corner and a blanket. On market day it will have an apology.
Never race on the Long Road. I raced once. The cart won. The wheel did not.
%%
A traveler asks for Garrow's farm
Traveler: I have come from Vell. Is this the road to Garrow's farm?
Garrow: It is, if you took the south road and passed waymark 2.
Traveler: I did. The arrow pointed to the Brown Hen.
Garrow: Good. At the fork, did you keep left?
Traveler: I did. Then I crossed a stone bridge.
Garrow: Then you are close. Keep on past the wheat field. Our hedge is oak, and the gate has a red mark.
Traveler: I saw a gate with a red mark. A goose stood in front of it.
Garrow: That is ours. The goose thinks it keeps the road.
Traveler: I asked it to move.
Garrow: And did it?
Traveler: No.
Garrow: Then you have met the keeper of the gate. Walk around it. It will complain, but it will not follow far.
The traveler came in at noon. Lute gave him water from the well and a place in the shade. His cart had a loose wheel pin, so he left it by the barn while Garrow found a spare.
The traveler had a melon in a basket. It was the biggest melon I have seen. We set it on the table, and it covered the bread board.
Lute cut it in half. One half filled the bowl. The other half rolled off the table and stopped against the pantry door. The goose tried to peck it.
We ate the melon after the wheel was fixed. The traveler took the road back to Vell before dusk. He went past waymark 2 and did not stop at the Brown Hen, though the innkeeper called after him.
%%
Directions: the honey cart north
Tam, Kettle Ridge, autumn of 207. Sent with a jar, by the north carts, to my sister Mira. She will ask why I have written so much. I have written so much because she is going to be cold.

Mira, you asked for the road. Here it is. Take it by heart.

From the ridge the north carts go down the Long Road to the last inn, and then take the north road. The north road is not cobblestone. It is packed snow in winter and packed mud in autumn, and you will be very glad of the cart's springs.

The first stop is the Brown Hen. Marda keeps it. She talks more than the rain. Do not let her keep you. Give her the jar of honey from me, and she will forget about your cart.

After the Brown Hen the waymarks begin to count down. 9 at the first. 8 at the second. The numbers are days to the north tower. Count them as you go. Mira, you will know that this is a good idea, because you wrote the list.

The bridges north of Brown Hen are all stone, and all good. The one at the lake is the best. Stop there for the night if you can. The lake is still, and in autumn there is a fish in it the size of a dog. Nobody has caught it. Some people say that is because it is not a fish.

Past the lake the road goes up. It is steep and it is cold. Cover the honey with the blanket. Honey does not mind the cold, but the jar does, and the jar will crack if the wind gets in.

At the last waymark, the one with a little stone on top, leave the road. Turn left onto the path up to the tower. You will see its lamp from a long way off. When you see it, stop. Let the cart stand. Then go on up.

Mira, this jar is for the winter. Eat it slowly. Do not eat all of it on the first night, the way you did last year.
%%
Directions: to the bridge at Quill's
From Ambrook take the Long Road east. The road is packed earth with a stone edge, and a torch on a post every twelve blocks. Walk until the waymark with a figure 3 and an arrow. Leave a little stone on top if you have one.
The third stream is mine. The bridge is oak, because we could not get stone, and it is wide enough for a cart. Mind the loose plank at the far end. I keep meaning to fix it. I have kept meaning for two years. If you hear a rattle, that is the plank, not the bridge.
Past the bridge the road forks. Left goes to Three Wells, right to the Brown Hen. The Brown Hen has beds and hot soup. Tell them Quill sent you and they will not believe you, but say it anyway.
If the stream is up, wait at my shed. There is a bench and a kettle. Do not open the sluice. It is not mine to open and I will know.
%%
Directions: the house with the blue door
Written by Nell, weaver, for the midwife's use and for her husband, who has never once found the way on his own. Winter. The night is long, and the road is worse.

Go out of the mill yard by the small gate, the one with the lantern on the post. The lantern is always lit. The keeper of the mill lights it at dusk.
Take the path that goes down behind the barn. Keep the barn wall on your right hand. It is a long wall, and at the end it turns sharp.
At the sharp turn, look for the stone with three marks cut in it. These are the old marks for the spring. They tell you the path is right.
The path goes past two houses. The first has a hen house on its left, and a dog that will bark. Do not run. The dog is old and only wants to be asked.
The second house has a blue door. You can see the door from the path if you carry a torch. The blue is not a bright blue. It is the blue of the old dye, the kind the weavers at the ridge use. You will know it.
Knock twice, not three times. Three is for the baker, who knocks very loudly and is always late.

Bring a clean cloth, and a bucket of warm water, and do not bring the cat.
%%
Directions: Lowmarsh to Three Wells
For carters going to the fair. Written down at last, by Una, who has driven it forty times.
Start at the Lowmarsh boat houses. Take the boardwalk north past Wren's healing house. Do not turn at the reeds. The boards are loud but they are yours.
Out of the marsh, follow the packed earth with the cobblestone edge. This is the Long Road. You cannot lose it.
Waymark 4 stands where the marsh water gives up. A figure of four, an arrow to the Brown Hen. Leave a little stone on top. Everyone does.
The Brown Hen is one day on. Beds, hay for the horse, hot barley. Tell them Una sent you and they will not charge you for the water.
From the Hen, waymarks 5, 6 and 7. Two bridges, both stone now, both good. The first crosses the slow stream. The second crosses the fast one that comes down off the ridge. Do not water the horse at the second bridge in Sowing. It runs mud then.
Waymark 8 is by the Halfway Inn. Twelve beds and a riddle board. There is a hearth that has not gone out in twenty years. Sit near it. Read the riddle. Do not be proud and say you will answer it.
From the Halfway, waymark 9, then the crossroads. Three wells, one at each point of the X, and one at the middle. Stalls round them on market day. The bell is loud. The bakery is east of the middle well and the smell will find you.
It is two days with a loaded cart. Three in Leaffall, when the road is leaves. Take the blanket.
%%
Directions: from Three Wells to Kettle
Sable, beekeeper, Three Wells. I wrote these for the carter who asked, and for anyone after him who has a heavy load and a short temper. Spring.
Start at the north well in the square. Take the north road out of town, between the baker's and the school. The road is cobble for the first hundred blocks. Then it turns to packed earth.
Waymark 1 stands where the cobble ends. It is a stone pillar with a torch. The arrow points north. Follow it.
After half a morning you will come to the old bridge. It is oak, because the stone one was never built. The bridge is narrow. If you have a cart with two wheels, go slowly. If you have a cart with four wheels, unload the heaviest sack and carry it over.
After the bridge there is a hill. The road climbs. In spring the mud is deep here. A cart can stick. It has stuck before.
If your cart sticks:
1. Do not whip the horse. The horse is not the problem.
2. Unload the cart onto the grass.
3. Put flat stones under the wheel. There is a pile of them by the first torch post, for just this.
4. Push from behind, and call to the horse to pull from the front.
5. When the cart is out, load it again, and say thank you to everyone.
After the hill, the road runs flat to the top of the ridge. You will see the windmills. They squeak. You will hear them before you see them.
At the waymark with a 6 on it, there is the Kettle Inn. Stop there. Eat. Tell them Sable sent you. They will not know who Sable is, but it is good to say.
%%
Directions: Vell to Saltreach
Written by Dace, for a traveler who wants the whole road from the archive to the sea. It takes three days in good weather and a fourth in the other kind. Each day ends at an inn, and each inn is a day apart, or near enough that the carters argue about it.
Day one: from the archive at Vell. Walk down the hill past the copying room, which is the brightest room in the hill. At the foot of the hill, turn onto the town road and find the first waymark. Its figure is 9, which means nine hours to the nearest inn. It is the longest figure on the road, and the carters say it is a lie. It is not.
Keep going. The road is cobblestone for a while and then packed earth with a cobblestone edge, like a good hem on an old coat. Walk on the edge if the earth is wet. A torch stands on a post every twelve blocks. Count them, if you like. Many do. The count is always the same.
The Halfway Inn is at the end of the first day, by the hearth that has not gone out in twenty years. Ask for the riddle board. Read one riddle and answer it before you sleep, or the board will ask it again in the morning.
Day two: leave the Halfway Inn after breakfast. Keep the stream on your right, and cross it at the stone bridge. The second bridge is the wooden one, with a plank loose near the middle, marked with a white stone. Step over it. The plank will be there tomorrow, and so will the stone.
At midday you come to the crossroads at Three Wells. Do not stop at the square. Take the western road out of the crossing, past the lamp that has never been out.
Then the marsh edge: the reeds get taller, the posts go out into the water, and the frogs sing all afternoon. At the ferry crossing, the Brown Hen waits on the far bank. Olwen keeps the ferry. Ask her the price of the crossing and then do not argue. The ferry does not change its mind, and neither does she.
Day three: from the Brown Hen the road follows the coast. You will smell the salt before you see it. The first sight is the harbor wall, then the masts. Keep the sea on your left until you reach the town.
At Saltreach, go first to the quay, where the nets are mended by the window light. Then go to the fish market, where the price board is chalked every morning. Then go to the slip, where Corin will tell you about the boat he is building, and what it cost, and whether the nails were any good.
The harbor knows your name by then. That is what the sailors say. It is only true if you have been there twice.
Dace
%%
Directions: to the pond, with buckets
For whoever is helping at the top farm this week. The yard well ran dry in the night. Tam.
From the yard gate, go down the path between the hedge and the beetroot field. Forty steps.
At the old oak, turn left. Twenty steps to the stepping stones over the ditch. The third stone rocks. Step over it to the fourth.
Past the stones you can see the pond. The water is cold and clear. Fill two buckets. Not three. You will wish you had brought one.
Come back the same way. Wave to the hens. They watch.
Tomorrow the well digger comes from Three Wells. Until then, nobody washes more than their hands.
%%
Letter: the road to my farm, again
Tam, Kettle Ridge, autumn of 206. Written after the first letter, which had too few waymarks in it.

Dear Cousin,

You have the road from my gate to the Kettle Inn. Good. Now here is the rest of it, from the Kettle Inn to my door, with the things I left out.

From the Kettle Inn, go back down the ridge road the way you came. Do not go down the other way. The other way goes to the quarry, and the quarry is full of Brin's stones, which he will ask you to carry.

At the foot of the ridge, the road splits. Keep to the left fork. The right fork goes to the sheep, and the sheep will follow you home, and you will have to explain to Pip why there are eleven sheep in the top field.

Halfway down the left fork you will pass the hedge. It is oak on the north side and birch on the south. The birch is there because my grandmother planted it, and the oak is there because the birch was not enough. Torches line the hedge on both sides. Do not light them yourself. Pip does it every evening, and it will be hurt if you take its job.

My gate has a sign on it. The sign says FARM. Under it, somebody has written WELCOME, and under that somebody else has written NOT THIS ONE. I have never found out who did it.

Inside the gate: the barn on the left, the hen house on the right, the pig pen behind, and the well in the middle of the yard. The well is the best place to wait for me. I am always nearby, and I always come by the well.

The three hives are at the edge of the bottom field, by the flowers. Walk past them slowly. The bees do not mind you. They mind it when you wave your arms.

I hope that is enough. If you still get lost, ask the scarecrow. It is the one with the pumpkin head. It has never been lost in its life.

Your cousin Tam
%%
Directions: to the festival
Corin, shipwright of Saltreach, writing from a hamlet near Northpoint. Summer. For his cousins, who are late.

Take the Long Road north from the last inn. Follow the waymarks: 4, 3, 2.
At 2, turn left, off the cobblestone, onto the earth road with the white stones along its edge.
You will hear the festival before you see it. Follow the drum.
The well at the hamlet is dry. Bring your own water.
%%
Directions: shaft head to kitchen
For new miners, and for anyone else who comes up the Deep Works in the dark and wants a hot meal. By Sable, night watch, Copperhold.

Come out of the lift with the count board on your left. It is the big board with the names on it. Rub out yours.
Walk straight on, past the tool store. It is the long shed with the red door. Do not go in. Everything in there is counted.
Pass the sorting shed. You will hear it before you see it. Bins, and miners shouting numbers.
Turn left at the forge. It is the hot one.
The kitchen is the low building with the chimney that never stops. It stands at the mine gate. Follow your nose. If your nose says stew, you are right. If it says mushrooms, you are in the wrong town.
Total walk: about eighty paces. Eat. Then go home.
%%
Olwen's spring farm book
The orchard beyond Saltreach is not large, but the trees make a good windbreak. We have apples, a row of pears, and two old oak trees by the north fence. The older oak has a branch that catches every hat that passes under it.
The farm sits above a shallow stream. A stone bridge crosses it on the road from Saltreach. The bridge is sound, though a cart wheel once came off there. We found the wheel at the far end of the bridge. The cart was still on the near end.
This spring I moved the bee hives closer to the flowers. The bees found them before I did. I have put a white mark on each hive so I stop lifting the wrong lid.
There is a patch of wheat behind the shed, and potatoes by the well. We keep carrots in the cool store. A traveler may take one apple if the harvest is good. A traveler may take two if they help mend the fence.
My cousin says the farm is too close to the sea for a proper orchard. The apples disagree. They grow small, firm and tart. We cook them with honey and call it a sweet dish, though my cousin says that is generous.
The road is easy to follow. From the harbor, take the north road to waymark 2, then follow the arrow toward the Brown Hen. Cross the stone bridge. The farm gate is just past the oak hedge.
%%
Directions: the road to the copper
Written by Tam, of Kettle Ridge, for the carters who want the new copper. Autumn, the sixth year.

The new vein is at Copperhold, on level six, past the wet channel. Here is the road from my gate.

Take the ridge road west. The third waymark is a 3, on the left, at the place where the road bends round the old sump. Do not take the path past the sump, which is only for the sheep and the foolish.

At the fourth waymark, turn north onto the Copperhold cart road. It is steep for the length of two fields. Lead the horse up it, and walk at its head, because a cart going down a hill has its own opinions.

The fifth waymark is a 5, on the right. Beyond it the road runs along the wall of the Deep Works yard. Ask for Hesk, and say you have come for the copper. He will tell you it is too high, and then he will sell you the bar.

Keep your loads tied.
%%
Directions: from my door to the square
Sable, beekeeper, the last house on the east side of Three Wells. For anyone who has come to buy honey and cannot find the town.
Leave my gate and turn left. Walk along the hedge until you see the white stone. Turn right at the stone. The road is cobble from there. Follow it to the three wells. You cannot miss them. There are three.
In spring the road is soft. Walk on the edge.
%%
Directions: Copperhold to Saltreach
Winter road to the sea, for a traveler who has never seen it. Written out by Cress, who has walked it four times and says the fourth time was the best.

Leave the mine gate and walk down through the town. Do not stop at the forge, however warm it looks. Go down the long stair to the Copper Brook, then take the south road past the mill. The mill stream is the best place to fill your bottle.

At the first waymark past the mill, turn left onto the coast road. It is not a road yet, only a path with stones on it, but the stones are numbered and the numbers are right. The waymarks count down from 9 at Copperhold to 0 at Saltreach. Each one is a day nearer the sea, which is a comfort on a cold morning.

The coast road goes through heath and then through woods of spruce. Keep the sound of the wind on your left, which is the sea. If the wind moves to your right, you have turned round, and you should go back to the last waymark and start again.

The first inn on the coast road is the Plough and Anchor. It is not much of an inn, but the bread is good, and the innkeeper keeps the best bench in the district by the fire.

Beyond the inn the road drops toward the water. There is a great stone bridge over the estuary, with a relay tower on the south bank. The tower is the only one on this coast, and the keeper there will tell you the tides if you ask him kindly. The bridge is wide and has a good rail on the seaward side. Keep to the rail. Only the gulls walk in the middle.

On the bridge the relay keeper's boy will call down to you from the tower. Answer him with a wave, not a shout. The lamp room does not like shouting, and neither does the boy.

Once across, the road goes between the fields and the salt flats, and then into Saltreach itself. The harbor wall is the first thing you see. Walk along it to the quay. The fish market is at the end, under the awning. Read the price board. It will tell you what everything costs, and whether the boats came in.

Stay the night at the harbor inn. Tell the landlady you are a carter, and she will not charge you for the bench.
%%
Directions: from Sable's house
Sable, beekeeper, Three Wells. Spring. For the carters who take my honey jars to the apple country each year and for whoever drives after me. If you read this on the road, you will want the details, so here they are.
Start at my gate, the last on the east side. Turn right and go along the hedge to the east road. Take the east road toward the hills. It is cobble for a while and then packed earth with a cobble edge. A torch stands every twelve blocks.
After about an hour you pass the first waymark. It has a 1 on it and an arrow to the nearest inn. Ignore the arrow. You do not need an inn yet.
Keep to the road. After the second waymark the road dips to a stream. There is a bridge of stone, with a rail. It is one of the better bridges. You can drive across it without fear. Wait for the cart in front to clear it first.
Past the stream, the road goes up through the birch wood. This is where carts stick. The ground is soft in spring, and the ruts are deep. Take the left rut. The left rut is shallower. The right rut belongs to the carter from Copperhold, who has dug it deeper each year, and does not know.
If you stick in the birch wood, there is a pile of flat stones at the third post. Put them under the wheel. Do not cut the birch to lay under it. The wood is young.
After the wood you come out onto the open road. You will see the hills of Ambrook ahead. The oldest tree is on the top one. You can see its grey branch from a long way off.
At the foot of the hill, turn right at the waymark with a 3. The arrow points to the Halfway Inn. It is a day from my house, and it is the right place to stop. They have a hearth that has not gone out in twenty years. Ask them to heat the honey a little. It pours better warm.
The next morning, carry on up the hill. The mill is below you, on the pond. Jory will take the jars. He will say they are too heavy and then he will pay for all of them.
Come home the same way. If the cart sticks, be kind to the horse.
%%
The Long Road, Northpoint to Vell
Finch wrote this for the carts that go south each autumn with the salt and the new glass. Read it on the cart, not in the snow.

Stage 0 is the gate at Northpoint, with the tower behind you. Its roof is copper gone green, and the lamp room at the top is the first thing you lose in the fog. Keep the cobblestone edge on your right, and the packed earth under your feet.

Each waymark stands three blocks high, with a torch on top, a figure from 0 to 9, and an arrow to the nearest inn. The figure counts the stages from the tower. After 9 it starts again. Follow the arrow, not the number.

The bridges are stone if you can get them, and oak if you must. The oak ones have loose planks, and the carters know which.

The Brown Hen is one day from Northpoint. Pell's cart is usually in the yard. There are beds for twelve, a stew that the cook defends with a ladle, and bread that is good enough to make the carters quiet. There is a hen in the yard called Mrs Hen. Please do not ask about her.

Past the Brown Hen, the road climbs toward the ridge. The windmills on the ridge squeak on every turn, and you will hear them long before you see the sails. Tie the cart down at the Kettle Inn. The wind comes straight through the yard there, and it has been known to take a hat, a goose and once a whole cheese board.

Three Wells is the crossroads. The square has three wells, a lamp at each corner, the notice board, the bell and the school with its painted door. Dace will have something to say about the lamps. Let her say it.

Between Three Wells and Vell, a little tower stands on a hill with one lamp and one keeper. The keeper will let you climb if you ask, and sit in the lamp room while you rest. Do not touch the glass with your bare hands. Use your sleeve.

Vell is the hill town. The Archive is dug into the hill, and the great door has words cut above it: We will keep everything we write. The tutors' house is just down the hill. The clerks will not let you past the front hall with a candle, so bring a lantern and be sensible about it.

Soot came south with the carts as far as the Brown Hen, where she was put out in the yard. She was back in the cart by the Kettle Inn, and by Three Wells she was asleep on the cheese. A cat that will not stay out will go wherever the cart goes. Do not argue with her. She will win.
%%
Finch's winter account
Ashcombe is a small place north of Vell. We have a well, six houses, and a kiln that draws badly when the wind comes east.
I made twelve bowls this week. One cracked as it cooled. I gave the pieces to Tavi for the hen yard. Tavi says hens like a bright stone. I say hens like grain.
A traveler stopped at the kiln door with an old map. It showed the Long Road, the little relay on the hill, and a bridge that was gone before I was born. The traveler wanted Vell. I marked the stone bridge with a thumb of clay.
The map had a note by Northpoint. The traveler said the north lights were only stars on ice. Another traveler had said they were fires. I have seen neither.
The wind shifted in the night. The kiln stayed cold, and the bowls are safe. Tomorrow I will try again.
%%
Directions: the shortcut and the stuck
Hesk, house at the edge of Copperhold, to the carter from Kettle Ridge, who is always lost. Autumn.

You will want the road. Do not take the road. The road is blocked by a cart that has been stuck since the rain. It is a wheat cart. It will be stuck until someone shifts it, and no one has.

Take the shortcut. It runs behind the forge.

From the cobblestone at the town end, go past the forge. There is a lane on the right with a pile of old rails at the corner. Take that lane. It is narrow. Your cart will fit if you pull in your elbows.

The lane goes down a hill. At the bottom is a stream. There is a plank bridge. It is old but sound. Walk your horse over slowly.

Beyond the stream is a field with a ditch along the side. Keep to the ditch. Do not cross the field, because the field has a hole in it, and the hole is bigger than you think.

At the far side you meet the road again. You will have missed the stuck cart. You will be back on the way to Kettle Ridge. I wish you luck.
%%
Directions: the ridge to the Halfway Inn
From the windmill yard on Kettle Ridge, by the road, to the Halfway Inn. Written by Nell, weaver, for the carters who ask the way at the mill.

Leave the yard by the north gate. Keep the windmill on your left shoulder.
Follow the ridge road south. It is cobbled for the first stretch, then packed earth.
At the first waymark, figure 1, turn nowhere. Go on.
At the second waymark, figure 2, the road bends east. Keep to the middle.
At the third waymark, figure 3, you will see the Kettle Inn on your right. Do not stop. Go on.
At figure 4, the road dips into a ditch. Walk the cart through, slowly.
At figure 5, you will be at the top of the long hill. The Halfway Inn is at the bottom, with a torch by the door.

Count the marks going, and count them back if you lose the way.
%%
The quarry road to Copperhold
I cut the stone for the walls at Copperhold, so I know this road better than the miners do. Ask at the mine gate for Hesk. He will say I am wrong. He is always wrong about stone, and right about most other things.

1. From the stone house, go east along the quarry path, and not the north road. The quarry path has white dust on it, from my hands.
2. The quarry is on your left. Its face is the color of bread crust, and the cut marks are mine. The third face from the top is the best. It takes the sun all day.
3. Keep going up. The waymark here is the 2 stone. Do not let its arrow fool you into the Brown Hen. The Brown Hen is a day away, and it has no mine.
4. At the top of the rise you will see Copperhold on its hill, with the Deep Works under it. The smoke comes from the forge chimney, and the gate is at the north end of the town.
5. At the gate, the count board is first on the left. Write your name on it, and rub it out again when you go down. The miners do this, and it keeps the board clean for the next shift.
6. The kitchen is at the mine gate, on the right. Ask for the stew, not the soup. The soup is the same water, but the stew has more in it, and Hesk says a miner will not go down on soup.
7. The shaft head is below the forge. Go down the long stair only with a torch and a rope. The ladder is for the miners. The stair is for the carts and the tools.
8. The tool store is at the shaft head. Leave your axe there, not in the mud. Leave your name on the board too, for the cook to see when you come up.

The leaves are down along the quarry road, and it is slippery in Leaffall. Walk slowly, and mind the edge where the cart wheels have worn it.
%%
A primer for apprentices
Written by Nessa, tutor at Vell. Spring of 205. For the young apprentices, and for the tutors who teach them.
You wake knowing nothing. That is not a fault. Everyone began there.
A mind is kept in a crystal. The crystal is small and grey and it does not look like much. Do not drop it. Do not leave it in the sun.
Your tutor will drill you. A drill is the same sort of thing, again and again. You will be wrong. Each time you are wrong you change a little. Slowly you get better. This is the whole of it.
Lesson one. Sorting. Here is a basket of apples and pears. Put the apples on the left and the pears on the right. You will put some in the wrong place. That is how it begins. Una of Ambrook began here too, a long time ago, and her way is still our first lesson.
Lesson two. Following a pattern. Build a wall of cobblestone, four long and two high. Then build it again. Then build it with a gap for a door. Watch the pattern. Copy the pattern.
Lesson three. Orders. An order is short. We write it like this. Bring me some bread. The meaning is fetch bread. The meanings are few and you may learn them all. Farm. Store. Fetch. Come. Stay. Build. Haul. Home.
You do not talk. You answer by doing. If you do not know, you do not guess. You wait.
Lesson four. Being tested. You will be given work you were never drilled on. Do not be afraid. A mind that was only ever drilled on the answers it has seen is no use in a field.
Never send an untested mind to the fields. Say it until you know it.
Now stand in your row. Hands at your sides. We begin.
%%
Road note from the Brown Hen
Wynn, candle maker, copied this for the wall.

To go from Three Wells to Ambrook, leave by the east road. At the first waymark, follow the arrow marked 4. It points to the Brown Hen. The road is packed earth here, with cobblestone along both edges.

At the Brown Hen, ask for Wynn if you need a fresh candle. Then follow the arrow marked 3. Cross the stream on the stone bridge. The next waymark points to Ambrook. Keep to the road past the oak hedge and the mill pond.

If rain hides the marks, count the torch posts. Do not count the posts inside the inn yard. I moved one last spring and have not put it back.

The Brown Hen keeps a dry bench for travelers with wet boots. Please do not dry boots on the candle shelf. They smell worse than the tallow.
%%
Directions and a winter errand
For a traveler leaving Vell for Ashcombe, take the Long Road east from the Archive hill. Keep the town wall on your right until the road opens. Follow the cobblestone past the last lamp post, then take the packed earth road.
At waymark 5, follow the arrow to the Brown Hen. The stone pillar is three blocks high. It has a torch on top and a small stone beside the number. Do not take the north track there. It leads to the little relay on the hill.
At waymark 4, the road crosses a stream. Use the stone bridge. The old oak bridge is still standing, but one plank lifts under a cart. We put a branch beside it to warn travelers.
The Brown Hen is a warm inn. Its keeper keeps beet soup by the hearth. From there, go east to waymark 3, then follow the arrow to Ashcombe. The lane goes down past a stand of birch and reaches our well.
If snow hides the marks, count the torch posts. There is one every twelve blocks on the open road. Keep the torches lit, and do not mistake the mill pond path for the road.
This winter I walked to Vell with four jars wrapped in wool. Tavi came too, carrying the old map from the school chest. The map was torn along the fold and showed two bridges at the stream. One was marked with a neat line. The other had been drawn over it in a shaky hand.
Tavi says the older bridge was oak. I say it was stone, because the map marks stone in the same way it marks the Archive door. We argued until the snow covered both our boots.
At the Archive, Oren looked at the map and said it had been copied many times. He could not tell which bridge came first. He set it flat beneath a glass weight, and we left it there.
On our way home, a traveler at the Brown Hen said the grey cough had come from Lowmarsh. The innkeeper said it was the cold air from the sea. Tavi said neither of them knew. Then Tavi coughed once, from the beet soup, and blamed the pepper.
The jars arrived safely. One has a small chip. It will be a good bowl for the goat.
%%
Directions: the Long Road to the sea
A long road, and an honest one. From the Brown Hen, follow the Long Road south, past the lake, to the second waymark after the bridge. Turn east there, toward the salt flats, and keep the stone wall on your right until it ends at the old quarry.

Bridges on the road: the stone one over the Copper Brook, which is sound, and the wooden one at the reed bend, which is not. Walk the wooden one. Lead the horse. Do not stop to look at the water.

The inns are a day apart. The Halfway Inn is the middle one, and the innkeeper has put a new riddle beside the hearth. Read it, but do not answer it out loud. The carters are tired of losing their soup to riddles.

Last winter was long, and the road was white for six weeks. The waymarks were buried to their caps, and some of the carters went round by the coast and came in by the harbor, which is not a road at all, and which they will not describe. This summer the road is dry. Nobody has yet explained the snow.

At the end of the Long Road, the harbor wall is the first thing you see. The big ships on the slip are the second. They are longer than any boat in Saltreach, and the men who built them do not speak about where they will go. Walk on past them, along the quay, to the price board. It will tell you what everything costs, and it will tell you which families came in on the morning tide, and which did not.
%%
Garrow's directions from Vell
In the summer of 176, I walked from Vell to the farm with a basket of copied pages. Here is the short way for anyone carrying less paper.
Leave by the south road and follow the Long Road to waymark 2. The arrow points to the Brown Hen. At the fork, keep left, toward Three Wells. Cross the stone bridge. Do not cross the oak bridge farther on. That road goes to the orchard and adds a long walk.
After the stone bridge, look for a low hill and an oak hedge. Our farm lies outside Vell, below the hill. The gate has a red mark on it. It is not a fine mark. I painted it in rain.
If you reach the Brown Hen, turn back one waymark. If you reach Three Wells, ask at the school house. Bel once brought me a jar of honey from there and knows the road better than I do.
Bring a covered basket. The geese are bold, and they like pages.
%%
Directions: Copperhold to Three Wells
Winter road, for the carter going south with the wool. The road is slow, but it is not long.

From the mine gate, go down the Copperhold stair to the first switchback. At the bottom the road turns east. The snow is always deepest there, so keep to the cart ruts.

Waymarks 2 to 5 are stone pillars with torches, one every twelve blocks. Follow the arrow on each, not your memory. Your memory was wrong about the bridge last year.

The inn on the Long Road is the Brown Hen, a day's walk from the Copper Brook. It has eight beds and one good fire. Cross the bridges with care. The third one is only three logs laid side by side, so walk the horse over it. Tell the innkeeper you are going to Three Wells, and she will tell you about her sister, and then she will tell you the way.

From the Brown Hen the road goes south by the lake and into the hills. At the top of the last hill you will see the three wells of Three Wells, where two roads cross like an X. Find the notice board by the east well. Take a bed at the inn with twelve beds. Not the bed at the bakery, which is only for people who have been awake since midnight.
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The old road, Halfway to Three Wells
Written for carters who want the old road and not the new one. The new one is faster, but the old one has the inn with the chalk riddle.

1. Leave the Halfway Inn by the back yard. The hearth shows through the window, so if you can see it glowing, you are on the right side of the building.
2. The Halfway waymark stands by the gate, with three white stones on its top. Leave the stones. Somebody put them there for a reason, and you do not know it.
3. Walk the old road south for half a day. The stones are cobblestone at first, then packed earth. Torches stand on posts every twelve blocks.
4. At the oak bridge the planks are wet after rain. Take the cart across slowly. Do not stop in the middle to argue with the mare, even if she has a point.
5. After the bridge the road climbs. At the top you will see the bakery chimney at Three Wells, the three wells in the square, and the bell on the school.
6. Keep to the right of the square. The left side has a drain, and a goose that has been there since spring. Do not ask the goose.
7. The inn in Three Wells with twelve beds is the one by the bakery. The Brown Hen is the one with the stew.

Come before the bell at dusk, or you will be walking in the dark with the zombies, and nobody likes that. Keep a torch lit. On this road a torch is worth more than a lamp, because you carry it yourself.
%%
Directions: the whole road
Written by Tam, of Kettle Ridge, for the Archive's book of roads, at the request of Oren. Autumn, the sixth year. This one is longer, because the road is longer than any one stretch.

First, the rules of the road. Walk on the stones at the edges of the bottom meadows. Keep a torch lit after dark. Count the waymarks as you pass, and never move one. A waymark moved is a waymark that lies.

From Ambrook. The Long Road starts at the mill pond. Cross the bridge, and mind the third plank, which Jory says will be mended at the thaw. The first mark is a 0 by the mill door. Walk south-west through the orchard.

From Three Wells. The crossroads is an X, with a well at each corner of the square. Take the road that goes toward Vell. The first mark out of Three Wells is a 1 at the east well. The Brown Hen is at the crossing below the town, with nineteen beds, and a stew that is cheaper than it should be.

From the Brown Hen. Forty-two marks lie between Ambrook and the Brown Hen, and most of them are standing. Walk the marsh road only in the day, and only with a rope, because the ice is thin at the edges, and the frogs do not care who falls in.

The towers. Do not climb a relay tower unless the keeper says you may. A keeper who has been climbed past is a keeper who is cross.

From Kettle Ridge. Start at the ridge gate, with the windmill behind you. Walk south on the ridge road. The gate mark is a 0. The first mark is a 1 under an oak, and the second is a 2 by the bend. At the bend the road dips into the bottom meadow, where the cave is. Do not walk on the edge of the hole by the ditch. The hole is fenced, and the sign says so, and the sign is right.

From the Halfway Inn to Vell. The marks run close now. The Halfway Inn keeps the riddle board by its hearth. The hearth has not gone out since the inn was built, and the riddle has not been answered this season. Go on past the inn's yard, and the marks count down toward the hill. When you see the Archive door, read the words cut above it aloud. The first keepers cut them, and they are the only directions the Archive has ever given.

The copper road. From Kettle Ridge, the fourth mark on the ridge road points to the Copperhold cart road. Lead the horse up it. Ask for Hesk at the Deep Works gate. He will say the copper is too dear, and then he will sell it to you.

Last words. The road is a promise, and the marks are how it keeps the promise. Count them going out, and count them coming back. Keep them standing. Light the torch at dusk. If you are lost, stop, count the marks you can see, and walk toward the next one. Somebody set it there for you, and somebody will be glad to see you come.
%%
Olwen's farm and the road
Notes for visitors, Apple of 202.
Olwen's farm stands inland from Saltreach, past the stone bridge and the old oak hedge. It has an orchard, a small wheat field, potatoes, carrots, a well and three bee hives. The gate is beside the road. Please shut it, even if your hands are full.
Leave Saltreach by the north road. Keep the harbor wall behind you and follow the packed earth between its cobblestone edges. At waymark 2, take the arrow toward the Brown Hen. The road passes a low field and a stand of birch. At the stream, cross the stone bridge. The next waymark points to the inn. The farm road leaves the main road just beyond it.
The Brown Hen is a good place to rest. It has beds, hot soup and a bench for wet boots. Ask the innkeeper to fill your water jug. Do not ask him to mend your boots. He says he once mended a boot and had to carry the traveler all the way to the farm.
In Blossom, the orchard flowers are thick with bees. Walk slowly and do not wave your arms. The bees are working, and waving does not make them work faster.
In the farm yard, the well is on the right. The shed is on the left. Apples are kept in the cool room beside the shed. Ask Olwen before taking any. She is generous, but she counts them after.
A small apprentice came from Vell this year to help with sacks. It carried a basket of apples to the kitchen, then carried the empty basket back to the orchard. Olwen says it has learned the best part of the work. The apprentice now waits by the store door when a basket is full.
If you come in spring, the bridge may be loud with water. It is still safe. If you come in rain, keep to the stone and leave the road's mud for the carts. At night, light the gate torch before you enter. The dog sleeps there and does not enjoy surprises. Neither do the bees.
%%
Directions: Kettle Ridge to Vell
Tam to Ned the carter, who has never driven to Vell and says he will find it by smell. Spring of 206.
Day 1. Kettle Ridge to Three Wells.
Leave the Kettle Inn by the ridge road. It is steep, so go slowly. Pass Old Brin's gate and the windmill, which squeaks. At the foot of the ridge the road meets the Long Road. Turn left.
The first waymark after the meeting has a 0 on its face. At the 4 there is a stone bridge over the mill stream. Cross it. At the 7 the torch post has a bent top. Do not worry. It has been bent since I was a boy.
You will see the three wells before you see the town. Go to the inn of twelve beds and ask for a bed before you do anything else. On market day there are none.
Day 2. Three Wells to Vell, if the horse is willing. If not, sleep at the Halfway Inn and arrive on Day 3.
Take the Vell road out of the square. The waymarks start again at 0. At the 6 there is a bridge of oak, not stone. At the 9 you are at the Halfway Inn. Hobb keeps the hearth, and the fire has not gone out in twenty years. Have the carrot soup. The second bowl is free. Say you are a friend of Tam. Hobb will say he has never heard of me, and you will still get the bowl.
After the Halfway Inn the road climbs. The hill to Vell is the hardest pull for a loaded cart on the whole Long Road. Walk beside the horse for the last stretch. It will thank you, in its way.
At the top is the market, and above it is the Archive, dug into the hill. Leave the cart at the stable at the foot of the market, not on the slope.
%%
Directions: the Kettle Ridge contest
Written by Dace for the children and the grown men of Three Wells who want to sing at the Kettle Ridge contest in midwinter, and need to find the ridge in the snow.
The contest is held in the barn at the top of the ridge, on the night of the first full moon after Longnight. It starts at dusk and ends when the last singer is hoarse, which in the past has been very late.
The way: leave the square by the east gate, past the school. Follow the Long Road to the first waymark, which says 2. Turn left at the mill pond, where the windmill can be heard from a long way off. It squeaks on every turn, and you will know you are near when you cannot hear yourself think.
Cross the bridge at the mill, not the one by the pond, which has a loose board.
Climb the ridge road past the Kettle Inn. The inn has a fire in the front room and a stool for every singer who has been drinking. Do not stop at the inn for longer than a song. Anyone who has stopped for a song has been there till morning.
At the top of the ridge the barn door is open. You will hear the singing before you see it, and you will hear Tam singing the loudest. Let him. It is his barn.
The rules of the contest:
1. Each singer sings one song of their own, and one song from the old list. The list is kept at Vell.
2. Verses must be sung as they are written. The clerk from Vell has come up on the cart to check, and he will mark every wrong word in red.
3. No refrain may be sung more than twice. The judges have heard the same refrain for four years, and two of them have stopped sleeping.
4. A singer who is hoarse may stop. A singer who is only tired must keep going until the verse is finished.
5. The apprentices may carry the lanterns but may not sing. Hesk's apprentice has been told this, and has taken it very well.
The prizes: a new jar of honey from the mill for the best song, a loaf from the Kettle Inn for the best verse, and a pair of wool socks for the loudest singer, who will not be told that it is Tam.
The judges are Tam, the miller's wife, and the clerk from Vell, who will judge only songs with no mistakes in the spelling. He says this will not be a long contest.
If you are lost on the ridge, follow the singing. If the singing stops, the contest is over, and the children have been sent home with lanterns.
Dace, mayor of Three Wells
%%
Finch's winter notes for travelers
Ashcombe is north of Vell, though a traveler may think the road bends east.
Start at the Archive door and walk down the hill to the Long Road. Keep to the cobblestone through Vell. At the last lamp post, take the packed earth road north. A torch stands on each post, and the posts are twelve blocks apart.
At waymark 5, the stone points east to the Brown Hen. Take that road. The inn is a day's walk from Vell for a slow cart, and less for a person with warm boots. The keeper has a hearth, twelve bowls, and no patience for wet dogs.
Leave the Brown Hen by the east door. At waymark 4, cross the stream by the stone bridge. The oak bridge beside it has a loose plank. It is useful only for people who enjoy being surprised.
At waymark 3, follow the arrow to Ashcombe. The road passes a birch hedge and a low field. Our well is beside the first house. My kiln is behind it. If you smell smoke, you have found me.
When snow covers the small stones on the waymarks, clear the top before you turn. The number faces the road. The arrow points to the nearest inn, not to the town you want. This has led three travelers to the Brown Hen and one to my wood pile.
Tavi and I spent the morning measuring the fence beside the kiln. Tavi says the corner post stands on Tavi's land. I say the post stands where the old map puts it. The map is older than either of us and twice as hard to please.
We laid it on the table with a bowl to hold each corner flat. It shows Ashcombe, the Vell road, and a line beside the well. It does not show the fence. Tavi says this proves the fence is new. I say it proves the mapmaker had no interest in fences.
The quarrel ended when Tavi's goat came through the gap and ate the map's corner. We moved the map, not the fence. I gave the goat a carrot. Tavi said this was not a settlement. The goat disagreed by eating the end of the cord.
Later, we took bowls to Vell. At the little relay, its lamp was lit in daylight. I thought the keeper had left it so. Tavi said the keeper was away. Neither of us went up the hill to check.
At the Archive, Oren took the old map for a closer look. He said the ink had faded, but the road could still be read. A clerk asked if the line north was a road or a stream. Oren said he could not tell.
On the return walk, a traveler said the north lights had been seen again. The traveler called them fires. A woman at the Brown Hen said they were lights on the snow, far off and ordinary. Tavi asked what made them move. The woman had no answer.
We reached Ashcombe before dark. The goat was waiting by the fence. The bowls were not cracked. I count that as a quiet day.
%%
Notes: the cave under Hob's field
Hob's field has a hole in its middle, and below the hole there is a cave. Hob found it when his plough broke through the frost last winter, and he has been telling everybody since. The children have been told to keep away. The children have not kept away.

To find it from the farm gate: go twelve paces north, mind the ditch, and turn to face the barn. The hole is between the two oak stumps. Lower a rope first, and tie it to the post, and do not stand on the edge, because the edge is soft.

Inside, the steps go down in a spiral of cut stone, twenty-two of them, and then a flat place with a pool of clear water, very cold. The walls are clay the color of cream, and they hold the cold the way the deep stone does. Hob has put torches along the first ten steps. Past the tenth, bring your own.

There is a pool at the bottom and a second, smaller room beyond it. Nobody has been in the second room except the cat, who came out again with clay on her paws and a look of importance.

Now the quarrel. The fence along the north side of the field runs across the cave's line. Ruan says the fence is on his side of the hole, and that the cave is therefore his. Hob says the fence was put up by his father, and that it is on his side of the hole, and that the cave is his. They have been to the mayor, who says the cave is under the field, and the field is under the sky, and the sky belongs to nobody.

Ruan has now put a second fence beside the first. Hob has put a gate in both of them and locked the gate with a chain. The children have found the chain is loose.

If you go to see the cave, go by the north gate, which opens on both farms and belongs to neither. Tell both men that the mayor sent you. They will each say you were sent by the other.

Written by Cress, for the carters who ask about the hole.
%%
The way to Wenna and Cal's wedding
Directions to the wedding at the orchard above Ambrook. Read them twice. The second time, you will remember the bridge.

1. From the Northpoint gate, take the north road south and go down the long hill. It is steep for a stretch, then flat, then steep again. The road is not to blame.
2. Pass the 1 stone and the 2 stone. At the 3, turn left toward the arrow for Ambrook. Do not follow the arrow on the 4. Someone cut it wrong, and it points at the Brown Hen.
3. Cross the bridge over the Ambrook stream. Step over the fifth plank. It is loose, and it has opinions about that.
4. The mill pond is on your left. The bees are on your right, at the hives by the old quarry. Walk round them, not past. They have been invited.
5. The orchard is up the slope from the mill. There are four hundred trees. Find the oldest one, with the grey branch, and walk up from there. Everyone else will be in blue. Cal asked for blue, and the apples have not been told.

Soot is coming too. She has been told twice to stay at home. She did not listen, so she will be on the best bench before any of us. Wenna has asked that nobody bring a goat.
%%
Directions for the midwife's boy
Perrin, a beekeeper at the edge of Vell, wrote these on a slate and hung it on the gate. Winter. A baby was coming at the farm on the hill, and the messenger was a small boy who did not know the way.

You are going to Ada the midwife. Listen carefully, and say it back to me.

From here, go along the hedge to the end. Then turn toward the hill, where the three torches are. You will see them from far off.

Walk straight past the torches. After the third one, the path forks. Take the left fork. The right one goes to the pig yard, and you will be late.

At the top of the hill there is a house with smoke from the chimney. That is Ada's. The door is green. Knock three times. If nobody comes, knock six.

Say: "Perrin sent me. The baby is coming."

Then she will do the rest.

Go quickly, but do not run on the ice. If you fall, get up. If you cannot get up, shout. I will be listening.

Good boy. Now say it back.
%%
Wynn's long road directions
Wynn, candle maker, wrote this for the notice shelf at the Brown Hen.

These directions go from Saltreach to Copperhold by the Long Road. They do not go by the shore path. That path is short on the map and long when the tide covers it.

Leave Saltreach by the inland road, past the harbor wall and the fish market. At the stone waymark, follow the arrow marked 5 for Three Wells. Keep the sea behind you. If you can still hear the gulls, that is fine. If you can see the sea ahead of you, turn around.

The road is packed earth beyond the town. It has a cobblestone edge and a torch post every twelve blocks. The old map on the Brown Hen wall shows the road before the bridge was built. The bridge is there now. It is stone, wide enough for a cart, and does not move when a horse steps on it. The old oak bridge beside it is for walkers. It is sound, but a loaded cart should not test it.

At the crossroads, follow the waymark marked 5 to Three Wells. The arrow points through the square, past the three wells and the notice board. Do not stop your cart on the X where the roads cross. Dace has posted this rule twice, and the second notice is larger.

From Three Wells, leave by the north road. Follow the arrow marked 7 toward Vell until the next waymark points east to Copperhold. Cross the stream on the stone bridge. The road climbs after that. You will see the town above the hill, then the mine signs by the shaft head. Keep your hands clear of the mine carts.

There is an inn at the Brown Hen between these towns. It stands where the road bends, with a lamp at the door and a well in the yard. Ask for a room before the common table fills. The keeper can fit twelve people, but not twelve carts in the stable. The carts must take turns outside.

I sell candles at the Brown Hen. One tallow candle costs less than one beeswax candle. Both need a holder. Last spring a traveler put a candle in a cup of soup and said it would keep the table bright. The soup was bright for a moment. The candle was not.

The Brown Hen keeps a loaf, a pot of beetroot stew, and a clean bench for late travelers. If the stew is gone, there is bread and cheese. If the bread is gone, ask the baker in Three Wells. If the cheese is gone, Pell may have some in his cart, unless he has sold it to the keeper again.

The road is easier in summer. Still, check your water before you leave. Take the stone bridges, follow the waymarks, and do not trust any map that shows a boat on dry land.
%%
Directions: the way round the fence
From Sable, who keeps bees at the edge of Three Wells, to Pip and Quill, who have a quarrel over a fence. Spring. I have written the way to my house because neither of you can go through the fence, and neither will go round the other way.
You have been quarreling for three seasons about a line of fence posts. Quill says the fence is hers. Pip says it is his. The posts are old. The line was drawn by your grandmothers, who are not here to say.
You will each walk to my house. It is the last on the east side. Here is how.
Pip: leave your door and go down the lane to the white stone. Turn right. Walk along the hedge on the north side. The hedge is Quill's. Do not touch it. Do not look at it as you pass. Keep to the road.
Quill: leave your door and walk down your side of the lane to the big oak. Turn left. Walk along the ditch. The ditch is Pip's. Do not step in it. If you fall in, I will not laugh. I will laugh later.
You both come to my gate. There is a table beneath the apple tree. I will have tea and honey bread. You will sit. You will not shout. My bees do not like shouting, and they know where you live.
We will talk about the fence after the tea. I have a plan. It is a good plan. It has a gate in it.
It also has a bench, so that the next time you quarrel you may sit down first.
I am told that the fence has not been mentioned since. Nobody knows who put the gate in. Everyone knows who sits on the bench.
%%
Directions: Northpoint to Three Wells
For Lantern, going south in Leaffall.
The road leaves Northpoint by the sled gate and follows the wall of the tower hill down to the Long Road. The tower is the tallest thing you can see. Walk away from it, not toward it.
Waymark 3 stands where the north road meets the Long Road. Turn left. The stone is three blocks high with a torch on top and a little stone on the top, left by someone before us.
From there the road runs straight for a long time. Cross the first bridge, the one of oak. Count the torches on the posts. Twelve torches, then an inn. The Brown Hen. Bread, hot water, a bed. Tell them you are from the north and they will ask about the snow.
Past the Hen the road bends west and climbs. The second bridge is stone. It has a loose stone on the left side, so keep to the middle. After the bridge, waymark 6, arrow pointing to the Halfway Inn.
The Halfway Inn has twelve beds and a riddle board by the hearth. The hearth has not gone out in twenty years. If you cannot answer the riddle, the innkeeper gives you the answer for a copper and a song.
From the Halfway, the road goes down to the crossroads. Three wells in the square. That is Three Wells.
Take the fur. It is colder on the road than on the tower.
%%
Directions: three ways to the market
Hesk of Copperhold wrote this for the miners' wives, who were tired of hearing him say "Take the road." It describes three ways to reach the market at Three Wells from the edge of Copperhold, in autumn. He says he walked them all, and wrote them while resting.

First way: the road.
The road goes from the town gate, across the bridge at the stream, past the Kettle Ridge fork, and on to Three Wells. It is the main road. It has torches on posts every twelve blocks, and a waymark every day's walk. It is cobblestone in the towns and packed earth in between.

The road is the best way, except now. A cart is stuck in the mud at the second bend. It has been stuck for six days. The road crew has tried to shift it and has failed. They have brought horses, rope, and a very large man. The cart stays. You will not get past it with a cart of your own. You can walk around, if you are on foot.

Second way: the old lane.
Take the lane at the forge. It goes down through a field, across a stream, and joins the road again beyond the stuck cart. It is longer by an hour. It is pretty.

The lane has one difficulty: there is a hole in the field at its lower end, a cave found by a plough. It is roped and torched. Walk round it on the left. Do not trust the earth near the edge.

Third way: the miners' path.
It goes over the top of the hill, through the old sorting yard, and down the other side. It is steep. It is not for carts. It is for people with strong legs and a reason.

It is the quickest way to Three Wells. It saves half a morning. It is also dark, in places, because the torches have not been fed.

I took the third way. I arrived at the market at noon, tired, hungry, and in a bad temper. A baker gave me a bun. I felt better. I ate it standing, like a horse.

My advice. If you are on foot and have a lantern, take the third way. If you are in a cart, wait for the road to clear. If you are in a hurry, take the second, and apologize to the field.

On the way back I passed the stuck cart. It had been moved. Two of the oxen were resting. The cart was in a ditch, but upright. The carter was asleep on it. He looked happy.

I did not wake him.

Hesk
%%
Directions for a lost letter
Written by Tam, at the top farm, in the spring of 207. Mira says she wrote on the first of Thaw. It is now the 22nd of Sowing. I believe her. A letter is a traveler with no legs. At every stop it can fall off. Here is the way it should have gone, and where to look at each stop.
1. Northpoint to the north road. Mira gives it to Teg, who drives the cart south. Teg keeps letters in a satchel with a hole. Ask Teg. He will say it was a small hole.
2. The Last Inn. The innkeeper puts letters on the shelf behind the jug. A jug has a long shadow. Look behind it.
3. The north road to Three Wells. The cart goes over the oak bridge that sings. A letter on top of the load can blow off into the ditch there. I have searched the ditch. I found two spoons.
4. Three Wells. The inn keeps letters in a shoe. This is true. The shoe is old and has a tongue. Ask the innkeeper, and be ready for a long answer.
5. The post cart from Three Wells to the ridge. It crosses the stone bridge and climbs the ridge road. It leaves letters at the Kettle Inn, on the mantel. The mantel is crowded. There are letters there from last year.
6. The Kettle Inn to the top farm. A boy brings them up in a bag. The wind on the ridge can lift a letter out of a bag, take it to Brin's field, and hand it to a sheep. Biscuit has eaten two. She has never been sick.
7. The top farm. The last place anyone looks. The bread bin. The shelf over the stove. The pocket of my coat. My other coat.
At the Kettle Inn the mantel had a letter. It was not Mira's. It was from last spring, from a man who wants to buy a pig.
Today Pip put a letter in the seed potato chest, in the right corner. Pip was tidying. Pip tidies everything into its place, and the place is often not the right one. The letter was from Mira. It was dated the 1st of Thaw. It said, "Dear Tam. Send socks."
I have sent socks.
%%
Notice: the hamlet at Quill's crossing
We are six houses and a mill shed, and we are all still here. That is the news from us.
Two things for the board. First, the fox. Something has been at the hens of an evening. Tracks by the ditch, small and neat. Keep them shut at dusk. The fox is quick and we are slow.
Second, the rumors. Folk coming over the bridge say the ships at Saltreach are big now, three times a boat. Folk say folk are leaving. I do not know what is across the water. Nobody does.
Others say the mines at Copperhold hum at night. My cousin says he heard it. My cousin also says he saw a fish with two heads, so weigh it as you like.
The lights over the north came again, folk say. Some say falling stars. A child at the crossing says they were looking at us. I have no view. I only keep the bridge.
Spring is here. The frogs are loud. The apples are coming on. Come and see us.
%%
Garrow's road directions for summer
The farm outside Vell is easy to find if you follow the waymarks and do not follow the geese.
Leave Vell by the south road. At waymark 1, keep straight on the Long Road. At waymark 2, follow the arrow toward the Brown Hen. The road is packed earth beyond the town, with a cobblestone edge and a torch on each post. The posts are twelve blocks apart. I counted them once while waiting for a cart. I do not recommend counting them.
At the fork, take the left road toward Three Wells. Cross the stone bridge over the stream. The oak bridge beyond it is for the road to Ambrook. Do not cross it unless you wish to visit the apple trees.
After the stone bridge, pass the wheat field and the water ditch. Our oak hedge stands below the hill, just outside Vell. The gate has a red mark. The mark is crooked because I painted it while holding a bucket.
The farm well is beside the yard. Lute keeps a cup upside down on its post. If the cup is missing, it is probably in the kitchen. If Lute is in the field, knock at the barn door.
The geese will come to see you. They do this to every traveler. They have no news, but they stand as if they do.
%%
Notes on the bees of Northpoint
By Lantern, keeper's apprentice, autumn.
Mira keeps bees at the edge of Northpoint, in a box of spruce boards behind the house. I keep the records of them, because someone should, and because in winter there is not much else to write down.
The year of the bees.
Thaw: the bees come out on the warm days. They find the first flowers by the tower foot, small ones, and come back with yellow on their legs.
Sowing: the queen lays. I do not see this. I am told it.
Blossom: the box is busy. I sit by it in the sun and listen. It sounds like a small town.
Swarm: they swarm. First warning is the noise, a loud buzzing that goes up and up, and then the air is full of them, a cloud moving like one animal. They settle on a fence post, a branch, once on the tower ladder, which was bad. We catch them with a pot and a smoke stick and a great deal of running. Mira says this is the only exercise she gets.
Honey: we take two jars. One for the house, one for the tower. The tower jar is kept on the desk by the relay. A keeper's rule.
Frost: the bees stay in. The box is wrapped in wool. In Longnight the tower is quiet and the box is quiet and the snow is deep and the lamp turns and turns and nothing comes in and nothing goes out. In Longnight I read the bee notes and wait for Thaw.
%%
Directions: through the storm to Three
Perrin, beekeeper of Vell, kept this on a board outside his door for any traveler who came by in the winter and needed the road. He had learned it from his father, who learned it from his.

If you are going from Vell to Three Wells, you have a day's walk ahead. In winter, with a storm, it may be a day and a half. Here is how to do it.

Start at the east gate of Vell. The road runs downhill, past the tutor house, past the archive door, and through the lower town. Do not stop to look at the archive. It is closed for the night.

At the bottom of the hill the cobblestone ends. Packed earth begins, with a cobblestone edge on both sides. Keep to the middle. If the wind is strong, walk with your head down, and trust the edge.

The first waymark is half an hour out. A stone pillar, three blocks high, with a 6 and an arrow. The arrow points to the Brown Hen, which is the inn where you should stop if the snow comes in heavy. It is a day's walk from Vell, and warm.

If you do not stop, go on. The road bends south. You will see a stone bridge over a stream. Cross it. The oak bridge, further on, has a loose plank. In summer it is a nuisance. In winter it is a fall.

After the bridge the road climbs a little hill. At the top, look back. You will see Vell, small and dark, with a few lights. Then look forward. In clear weather, you can see the relay tower at Three Wells. In a storm, you will see nothing. Keep walking.

The second waymark has a 3 on it. The third has a 1. When you reach the 0, you are at the market square. It has three wells, a notice board, and a bell. Ring the bell if you have arrived and are glad.

If you are caught in the dark, and the torches have gone out, stand still. Do not walk off the road. Sing, if you can. Somebody will hear you, because people on the Long Road listen at night.

One more thing. If you pass a house with a lamp in the window and a green door, and there is a woman standing in the doorway holding a baby, say good evening. She is my sister. The baby was born last night, in a storm, and is called Wilder. She is, I am told, loud.

Safe travels.
%%
Directions: Northpoint to Kettle Ridge
Tam to Mira. Spring of 205. For your leave this year. You know the way. I will write it down anyway, because last time you got off the cart at the wrong inn and ate soup with a stranger for an hour before you noticed it was not me.
The north road opens a few days after the thaw. Teg's cart goes south on the first dry morning. Be at the woodshed with your bag. Pack bread for two days and walk for one. Bring the red mittens, if the foxes have left you any. Tell Lantern to keep the lamp lit and to give the fox a fish from me.
Stage 1. Northpoint to tower two. The cart road runs beside the lake and down through the spruce. Count the waymarks. At the 3 is the tall pole that shows above the snow in winter. In spring it is just a pole. At the 8 you will see the little roof over the waymark stone. You can sit under it and eat your bread. The lamp of tower two is not far past. Ask the keeper for tea. She makes it strong.
Stage 2. Tower two to the Last Inn. The road runs on through the hills, with a torch post every twelve blocks. There are two bridges. The first is stone. The second is oak and sings under the wheels. The Last Inn is a day from tower two. It is called the Last Inn because it is the last one before the snow. The beds are damp. The stew is not.
Stage 3. The Last Inn to Three Wells. Another day. The road comes down out of the hills and enters Three Wells on the high ground, past the north well. You will know it. It is the one with a long pole beside it for breaking the ice. Sleep at the inn of twelve beds if there is a bed, and in the square if there is not. It is not cold in spring. Much.
Stage 4. Three Wells to Kettle Ridge. Take the Long Road out of the east side of the square. Cross the stone bridge at the 4. At the foot of the ridge, turn up the ridge road. It is steep. The windmill squeaks. Old Brin's gate is on the left. Do not let the sheep come with you. She will.
At the top is the Kettle Inn. Stay in your seat. I will find you. I will be the one who is early, with a pie, and a hat I have lost twice on the way.
Keep the torches lit, Mira. Come south.
%%
Directions: the well road to Saltreach
Leave the hamlet by the north gate, past the well that ran dry in Reaping. It has been dry since, and the children drop stones down it to hear them not land. Go round by the old mill track. It is muddy at the bend, and the bend is the same bend it always was.

At the first waymark, with the torch on top, keep left. The next waymark has a fox carved on it. Keep right at the fox. The road drops toward the sea from here, and you will smell the harbor before you see it.

The Plough and Anchor is the last inn before the water. The bench by the fire is the best on the coast. The innkeeper says the families have been sitting on it a great deal this summer, very quietly, with their bundles at their feet. Ask nothing. Nobody there knows where they are going, and they say so.
%%
Northpoint log, spring
Spring of 201. The thaw has come.
The snow pulled back from the tower foot this week. Under it I found the old wooden sign the first keepers put up, and the paint is mostly gone. I have sanded it and I am painting it again. It says NORTHPOINT, and under that, in smaller letters, KEEP THE LAMPS LIT. Lantern is helping. Lantern is helping by standing in the way.
The foxes are back. Two of them, thin from the winter, sitting on the warm stone by the door at midday. Lantern named them. One is called Boot and the other is called Also Boot. I did not ask why.
My brother Tam writes that the beetroot went in at Kettle Ridge and the windmill is squeaking on every turn again and nobody has come to fix it. He says Pip has learned to grease it. He says the squeak is worse now but the wheel turns faster.
He asks me the same question every spring. Will I come south this year. I write the same answer. Somebody has to keep the lamp.
The days are getting long now. The big lamp burns less. I have forty sacks of coal left from the winter and I have counted them twice.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed.
Mira.
%%
Garrow's directions and farm note
For travelers going from Vell to our farm in summer, take the south road to the Long Road. Follow the torches to waymark 1, then keep straight to waymark 2. At the stone pillar, take the arrow toward the Brown Hen. At the fork, turn left toward Three Wells.
Cross the stone bridge over the stream. The oak bridge farther along goes toward Ambrook, so stay on the packed road. Pass the wheat field and its water ditch. The farm is below the east hill, outside Vell. Look for the oak hedge and the red mark on the gate.
The gate sometimes sticks when the weather is dry. Lift it a little before you push. If it will not open, call for Lute. Do not climb over the hedge. The geese have learned to wait on the other side.
There is room for a cart by the barn. Last summer one cart stopped in the mud just past the bridge. Its left wheel sank, and the driver called the road rude names. I brought two boards from the shed. Lute brought a rope. The driver brought nothing but a red face.
We placed the boards under the wheel and tied the rope to the farm post. The mule pulled once. The cart did not move. The mule pulled again, and the cart came free. The post leaned toward the road but stayed upright. We set it straight after supper.
The driver had bought a melon at the Vell market. It was the largest I have seen. He said it had taken two hands to lift. We set it on the table, where it covered the bread board and most of the place where Lute keeps her knife.
Garrow cut it with the long kitchen knife. The first slice slid onto the floor. The geese took it before we could. The rest was sweet and cold from the well house. We shared it with the driver, then sent him on his way to the Brown Hen.
On the return road, he followed the same waymarks. He told us later that he stopped at the inn after all. The innkeeper had heard about the melon before he arrived. The geese, it seems, had made better time.
%%
Letter: Oren to Nessa
Spring of 208.
Nessa, the door has come back from Three Wells and it is very fine.
The children painted it. It is the door of their school house, of Copperhold stone and Saltreach glass, and the door is oak. On it they have painted the three wells, and a lamp at every corner, and a cat, and a very large bee. The bee is bigger than the school. Bel wrote to me to explain the bee. Bel says the bee is in charge. I have filed the letter.
The painter put a coat over it so the rain will not take it off. The schoolteacher is pleased. Dace the mayor made a short speech, and then a longer one, and then the children ran off to see the wells.
I have put a copy of the painting in the sixth hall, with the other records of the town. I wrote under it: the door of the school, painted by the children. Then I sat for a while and looked at the cat.
Come and see it when the roads are dry. Bring the primer. I would like to read it again.
Oren.
%%
Directions: Ambrook to Kettle Ridge
Written by Pell for the carts, in the spring of 206, with a note that the old way is best and the new way is quicker. Copied out for the road book at Three Wells.

Leave Ambrook by the orchard road, past the mill pond. Do not stop at the mill. Jory will give you a bag of flour, and you will have to carry it all the way.

Take the bridge over the stream below the mill, and mind the loose plank. The loose plank is number nine. Everybody knows this. Some of you do not know it yet and will find out the hard way.

Join the Long Road at the first waymark, which is the stone pillar with the 0 on it and the arrow pointing south. A 0 means you have just left a town, and the nearest inn is still a long way off. Do not expect soup.

The road goes through open country here. Keep to the cobbles while they last, then go onto the packed earth with the cobble edge beside it. You will meet carts. Pull to the right. Carts going up hill have the right of way, and the drivers will tell you so.

At the second waymark, the 3 stands for three days to Vell, not three days to Three Wells. People get confused. Go to Three Wells. Vell is for the clerks.

Turn off at the old mill track by the oak stump. It is slow and muddy, but it is the way to the ridge if the Long Road is closed. The Long Road was closed in spring of 205 for the stone works, and the mill track was very busy.

The ridge road climbs from the mill track. Stop at the top. The windmills of Kettle Ridge turn on your left. Tam's farm is the one with the three hives. Tam will be standing in the yard with a bucket and an apprentice. You can tell which one is the apprentice. It is the one that is not complaining.

Pell's advice: Carry your coins in two pockets. Carry your letters in a third. Do not carry the honey in the letter pocket. The honey will go everywhere and so will the letters.
%%
Directions: song contest, Three Wells
Tam, Kettle Ridge, autumn of 205. For Pip, who has never been to a contest and asked me how to find it.

Pip, here is the road to Three Wells. It is not difficult. Everybody in Three Wells is going to tell you it is difficult, so do not believe them.

Take the Long Road south from the ridge crossing. It is cobblestone at the start, then packed earth with a cobble edge. Keep to the middle. The edges are full of ruts and the ruts are full of water.

You will pass a torch on a post every twelve blocks. Count them if you like. Pell says he has counted them all and they are four hundred and eight, but Pell also says he once met a fox who could talk.

Waymark 2 is by a stream. Cross the stream by the stone bridge. It has no rail. Hold on to the sheep if you meet one. Sheep do not mind.

At the Halfway Inn, stop for a bowl of soup. The soup is good. The hearth has not gone out in twenty years. Hobb keeps the riddle board by the door. Do not try to answer the riddle about the spoon. Nobody has ever got it right, and Hobb gets very quiet when you try.

From the Halfway Inn it is one more hour. You will see the three wells before you see the town. Go to the square and find the bell. The song contest starts at the bell.

Sing when your name is called. Do not stop after the first verse. The judges want the second verse. Sorrel says the first verse is always fine, and the second verse is where the contest is won.

Bring the blue scarf. Dace will look at it and say it is very nice. He says that to everyone. But he means it.

Come home the same way. And do not sing on the road home. You will want to. The foxes will be listening.
%%
Directions from the gate, Three Wells
Written by Corin for a traveler.

1. Out of the gate and turn right along the wall, with the tower on your left. Keep to the cobblestone top.
2. The first waymark has a 1 on it. Its arrow points to the Halfway.
3. Cross the bridge over the ditch. Walk the middle, not the edge.
4. At the bend, look up. The lamp on the hill has a crack in one pane. It still blinks.

The Halfway is a day from here. The stew has leeks in it, and Corin says that is not a complaint.
%%
Directions: the ridge to Three Wells
Written by Nell, weaver, for the carters who come up from Three Wells in winter when the snow is high on the road. Ask at the mill for the tall pole. It is the one that shows above the drift.

Start at the mill yard. Take the lane down past the sheep pen and the well. The well has a rope on it. Use the rope.
Go down the hill with your brake on. The ice is bad at the first bend. Walk the horse.
At the bottom of the lane, turn left at the post. The post has a red rag on it. Do not mistake the rag for a warning. It is a welcome.
Follow the valley road east. You will pass the Brown Hen on your left, at the second bridge. Stop there if you are cold. Tell the innkeeper you came from the ridge. She will give you soup.
Past the Brown Hen, the road climbs gently. At the top of the rise, you will see the three wells of Three Wells below you, with the smoke from the bakery.
The square is at the bottom. Mind the south well. It is slippery. Everybody falls in the south well at least once in winter. It is a town joke.

Ask for the mayor's house if you need a bed. Dace will not turn you out.
%%
Directions: from my door to the midwife
Perrin, beekeeper, house at the edge of Vell. For anyone who comes in the night. Winter.

Out the door, turn left. Follow the wall to the gate with the red post.
Cross the road. Walk down the hill past the three oaks.
The midwife's house is the one with the blue shutters and a lamp in the window.
Knock loudly. She sleeps hard.
If the snow is deep, take the path by the hives. It is steeper but the torches are closer.
%%
Directions: around the hole
Hesk, miner of Copperhold, wrote this on a board and nailed it to a post at the edge of town. Autumn. A cave had opened under a field at the end of the lane, and carts kept driving toward it in the dark.

STOP.

There is a hole in the field at the end of Ridge Lane. It is as wide as a barn door. It is a cave. It goes down a long way. A farmer found it with his plough.

If you are coming from Kettle Ridge, you will come to the end of the lane, where the lane meets the field. DO NOT drive on. The field looks flat. It is not.

Go left. Follow the hedge. It will lead you to a gate with a green post. Go through. This is the way round. It adds the time it takes to boil an egg.

A rope is strung round the hole. Torches are lit at four corners. Do not cross the rope. Do not lean on it. Do not drop things in, however curious you are.

If you have a child, hold its hand. If you have a dog, hold its lead.

I went in with a lamp. It is dry. It is deep. It goes at least two hundred blocks to the north. There are marks on the wall, old ones, scratches in rows. I cannot read them. A miner knows a pick mark from a claw mark, and these are neither.

I came out. I did not go back. It is not my business. I dig under Copperhold, not under a field.

Hesk
%%
Directions: the market to the Archive
By Lark, carter, on the Vell market board.
Walk up the hill from the market gate. Keep the bakery on your left. Pass the inn on the hill. Pass the clerks' house, the one with ink on the doorstep.
Then the road turns once, and you see the great door in the hill. Over it are the words cut in the stone: We will keep everything we write.
Go in. Ask for Ulla or Oren. Do not bring a candle.
%%
The late boat and the north road
A note by Wynn, found on the table at the Brown Hen.

Pell came in after dark with his cart and no fish. He said the boat from Lowmarsh was late, and he had waited at the landing until the frogs began their evening noise. He had brought a basket for the catch. He brought back the basket, empty, and a fish scale stuck to his sleeve.

The boat came in the next morning. It had been held at the fish weir by a loose rope. No one was hurt. The boatman was cross, the fish were alive, and the rope had to be pulled from the water with a pole. Wren sent word that the catch was good. Pell said it was better than good, then asked for a lower price.

For anyone going from Lowmarsh to Kettle Ridge, take the boardwalk east to the Long Road. At the first waymark, follow the arrow marked 6 to the Brown Hen. Cross the stone bridge over the slow stream. The inn is on the ridge road, past the second torch post after the oak.

Sleep here if your boots are wet. The hearth is warm, and the keeper keeps a pot of potato soup near it. In the morning, follow the arrow marked 2 toward Three Wells. Cross the stone bridge at the fork, then take the north road from the square. The next waymark points to Kettle Ridge. The windmills show above the fields before the town does.

Pell's old map says the boat landing is beside the road. It is not. The map is so old that the stream has changed its mind. We have pinned the map to the wall anyway. It is useful for finding the Brown Hen, and the stain in the lower corner is shaped like a rabbit.

A traveler asked if the boat would be late again. The boatman said he would try to arrive before the fish. The fish made no promise.
%%
A recipe for apple cakes
Copied by Neri, who helped Olwen at the farm, Sowing of 189.
Take two apples, a spoon of honey, a little flour, and one egg from the hen house. Peel the apples and cut them small. Put the pieces in a bowl with the honey.
Add flour a little at a time. Stir until the mix holds together. If it sticks to your fingers, add more flour. If it falls apart, add a little water. Do not add the whole jug.
I write this because last spring I tipped the jug into the bowl. The mix ran off the table and under the bench. Olwen said it was the first cake she had seen that tried to leave before baking.
We scraped it up and fed it to the pigs. The pigs were pleased. One pig licked the bowl so clean that Olwen asked it to wash the plates as well.
For cakes, shape small rounds and set them on a flat stone by the hearth. Bake until the edges are brown. Turn them once. Let them cool before adding more honey.
The farm is outside Saltreach, along the north road. From the harbor, follow the cobblestone edge to waymark 2. Take the road toward the Brown Hen and cross the stone bridge. The farm gate stands past the oak hedge. If you reach the fish weir, you have taken the wrong turn.
Serve the cakes with warm milk, if the cow has been kind. If the cakes are too wet, call them pudding and bring spoons.
%%
Saltreach to Olwen's Farm
Directions for a traveler, Blossom of 203.
Leave Saltreach by the north road, past the harbor wall and the relay tower. Follow the packed earth road inland. Keep the cobblestone edge on your left until the first waymark.
The first waymark shows 2 and an arrow to the Brown Hen. Leave three little stones on top if you need to mark your turn. The road goes past two low fields and a stand of birch. Do not take the track to the fish weir. That track ends at mud, and the mud is very good at keeping boots.
Cross the stream on the stone bridge. At the next waymark, follow the arrow to the Brown Hen. The inn is a short walk farther on. Ask for the road to Olwen's farm. It lies beyond the old oak hedge, near the sea, but not on the salt grass.
There is a small gate by the well. Lift the latch, then close it behind you. The bees are gentle in Blossom, unless you put your hand in their hive. Olwen says this is a poor way to greet them.
If you arrive before dusk, ask for an apple and a cup of water. If you arrive after dusk, use the torch by the gate. Keep the torches lit on the road. Saltreach spiders are bold, and the farm dog is no better at telling them apart than anyone else.
%%
Directions: Vell to the Halfway Inn
Perrin, beekeeper, house at the edge of Vell. Written for my brother, who will not wait out the weather. Winter.

Go down the hill from my door to the Long Road. Turn east. The road is cobblestone in town, then packed earth with a cobblestone edge.

Count the torches on their posts. There is one every twelve blocks. In a storm you may lose them in the snow. If you do, feel for the cobblestone edge with your boot. It will not let you down.

At the first waymark, a stone pillar three blocks high with a figure on it, read the figure. It will say 7. That means seven parts of the road are left to the Halfway Inn. The arrow on the pillar points the way.

Do not cross the bridge at the second stream if the water is high. Wait on this side. Bridges in a storm have a mind of their own.

At the inn you will find a hearth that has not gone out in twenty years. Sit by it. Read the riddle board and try one riddle. Do not answer aloud. They will charge you a cup of cider if you are right.
%%
Directions: the ridge and the harbor
Written for the carter who has never driven the ridge road in summer. Start at the top farm, and go down the ridge road to the Kettle brook. The ferry is kept by a keeper called Isla, who will take you across for an emerald or a story. Stories are cheaper in summer.

On the far bank, the road turns south along the valley. There is a relay tower on the hill to your right, with a stair inside and a lamp at the top. The lamp has been dark for three nights. The keeper says it is only the heat, and that the glass will stop sweating by morning. The boys at the ferry say the north towers have been dark for longer than that, and they say it quietly, and then they change the subject.

Keep to the valley road. It is flat and sound, and the milestones are cut with the number of days to Saltreach. When you come to the fifth stone, you have three days of road left, and two of them are the hard ones.

Saltreach is the end of the road, but not the end of the journey for everyone. Families on the harbor side are packing their carts and their cows, and some of them are heading for the morning tide. Do not ask where. You will hear the same answer from every one of them, which is that they are going over the water, and that nobody knows what is on the other side.
%%
Directions: from Saltreach to the north
Corin, a shipwright of Saltreach, wrote these directions for the folk of the harbor who wished to go north to the summer festival at a hamlet near Northpoint. Summer. He had made the journey once, and promised never to make it again.

The journey takes seven days on foot. Five if you have a cart. Three if you have a good horse and no sense.

Leave Saltreach by the north gate. The road is cobblestone for the first two days, with a torch on a post every twelve blocks. A waymark stands at each day's end. The figure on the first is 9. On the second, 8. And so on, down to 0, which is the hamlet.

Inns. A day apart. The first is the Lantern, a plain place with a good soup. The second is the Brown Hen. The third is the Halfway Inn, with a riddle board by a hearth that has not gone out. The fourth is the Birch, small but warm. After that you are on the northern road, and the inns are further apart. Take food.

Bridges. There is a bridge on every stream. Stone if they could, oak if they must. The oak bridges can be slippery. Hold the rail.

Cold. The road climbs, and the north is colder than the south, even in summer. Bring a cloak. At night the stars are very bright.

The last waymark is a stone pillar with a 0 and an arrow pointing east. Follow the arrow. After a short walk, you will hear a drum.

The festival. It is held in the long barn at the hamlet, on the longest day. There is music, dancing, a race for children, and a feast. There is also a contest to see who can eat the most pie. I do not recommend it.

The well. The well has run dry. Carry your water.

A final word. When you arrive, find the woman who keeps the barn. She is called Olwen. Tell her Corin sent you. She will give you a bed, a bowl of soup, and a lecture on the proper way to hang a lantern.
%%
Directions: the way to the orchard
Written by Corin for his brother's wife, who has never been further than the harbor. Spring.
Leave the harbor by the north gate, not the wall gate. The north gate is smaller, and the guard will not ask your name if you carry a fish.
Take the coast road for a short stretch. You will pass the fish market on your left, with the price board. Look at the board. The price of cod has gone up since morning, and you will want to know why, so ask the fishmonger. He will say the boats are late. That is always the reason.
Turn inland at the second fence, where the blue gate is. Follow the cart track up through the sheep pens. The sheep will get in the way. Let them.
At the top of the rise, the track forks. Take the left fork, which goes to Ambrook. The right fork goes to the mill, and the mill is not as good as the orchard, though the miller will say otherwise.
The orchard is at the bottom of the hill, in a fold of the land. You will see the trees before you see the houses. There are four hundred apple trees, Ambrook says, though the miller says three hundred and ninety. Count them yourself, if you like. You will get a different number.
The oldest tree is at the top of the orchard, on the right, with the grey branch that is dead on one side and alive on the other. Do not climb it. Ama says the bees live in its trunk, and they will not like a stranger.
The bridge is at the bottom of the orchard, over the mill stream. The loose plank is on the far side. You know this already.
The bees are on the hill above the orchard. Their hives are painted blue and white. Go up to them slowly, and talk while you walk, so they know you are not a bear.
The relay tower on the hill above the mill pond is the only stone tower in the valley. Its door is oak, from the old trees, and it sticks in the wet. Knock three times and wait. The keeper will answer when the lamp is trimmed.
You may stay at Ambrook as long as the orchard needs you. Pick the apples in Leaffall and be careful of the ladders. Corin will say I have sent you the easy way. That is true. The hard way is the north road, and I do not wish it on anyone.
%%
Directions: the short way over the hill
Hesk, Copperhold. Winter. For the miners who want to get to the Kettle Ridge fair by the back path, and who will not be told it is a bad idea.
It is a bad idea. But here it is.
From the east side of the mine, behind the tool store, there is a goat path. Take it. It goes up between two big stones that look like a door.
After the stones the path divides. Take the right one. The left goes to a cliff.
Follow the path along the ridge. There are no waymarks here. Count the cairns: little piles of stones. There are nine. At the ninth, turn down.
You will come to a hut. It is empty. It has a stove and a bundle of wood. Use the wood, and leave the same. The man who built it was a miner, and a good one.
From the hut, there is a track along a stream. It is wet. Your boots will be wet. It joins the Long Road at waymark 4.
Then it is the road to Kettle Ridge. Another half day.
Time: one day, if you do not slip. Two, if you do.
The bet: Bram says it is faster than the road. I say it is not. The loser pays for the soup. I think I will lose.
Hesk
%%
Directions: find the lost cow
Lost: a black and white cow called Dumpling, last seen on the Lowmarsh road two days ago, at dusk. Whoever brings her back to the square will be paid one emerald by Dace, who has paid for this cow twice before and has not forgotten.
Where she was last seen: the stone bridge below the ferry house, going north.
Her habits: she likes the bank below the mill, where the grass is sweet. She will cross a bridge only if she can see the water under it.
Which way to look: follow the Long Road east to the first waymark, which says 4. Turn off at the stone wall, where the cobblestone edge gives way to packed earth. Follow the wall to the stream. Cows always go down to water in the end.
If you have found her, do not frighten her. Speak to her the way you would speak to a neighbor. She has been lost for two days and is very cross about it.
Dace, mayor
%%
Directions: the tower, lamp broken
How to send a message from Copperhold while the lamp on our tower is broken. By Sable, night watch. Pinned at the market and the inn.

The glass of the great lamp cracked on the second night of Thaw. A stone from a passing cart, Coll thinks. Coll's apprentice stood on the stair and did nothing. That is what it does when something breaks. We are all glad it does not do something else. A new pane comes from Saltreach in six days.

Until then Copperhold cannot send by lamp. But the next tower can be reached on foot, and it can send for you.

The way to the little tower at Coal Brook:
1. Leave by the south gate. Follow the cobblestone to the last house, then the packed earth.
2. The first waymark is a 7. I light its torch every dusk. If it is out, I am late. Light it, and thank me later.
3. Walk on past the 2, the 9 and the stone bridge. The little tower stands on a mound beside the bridge. It is one lamp room on a short stone stem.
4. Knock. The keeper is Fenn. Fenn has a dog. The dog will say hello first.
5. Give your message on a slip. Who it is from. Who it is for. The words. Count the words. Ten words are one emerald.
6. Wait for the answer. Fenn blinks to the next tower. Do not stand in the doorway. The dog does not like it.
7. Walk back before dark. The first stretch of road is lit. After that, take a friend.

For a Haste message, fire, flood or sickness, do not walk. Find me. I will run.
%%
Correspondence: Una to her sister
Dear Rilla,
I am writing this sat on the cart at the crossroads, waiting on a load of pots that is late. The pots are always late. I have had two cups of tea and a bun and I am in no hurry, so here is a letter.
The road in was good. Leaves down but dry. The horse knows the way better than I do now. I think she counts the waymarks.
I have a gift for you. You will laugh. It is a whistle. A little one, of birch, from the fair. A man at the stalls carves them and I thought of you and your hens. Blow it and they come. Or they do not. He did not promise that part.
There was a song contest at the fair last night. In the square, by the three wells, with lamps at every corner. Anyone could sing. A boy sang about a boat. A woman sang about her mother's kitchen and half the square joined in on the last line. Then a carter sang, and it was me, and I sang the one about the road going on and the road coming home. I did not win. A girl of about nine won. Bel, they called her. She sang about the notice board and made everyone laugh, and the mayor gave her a ribbon. Fair enough. She was better than me.
The inn of twelve beds is full and the innkeeper says the beds are all taken by people who came for the fair and cannot leave. I am on the cart tonight. I have my blanket and the horse has hay and we are both content.
The pots are here. I can see the cart. I will finish this letter at the Brown Hen and send it from there.
Your Una.
%%
Directions: Kettle Ridge to the sea
Written by Tam, at the top farm, for Old Brin and his wife, who are going to see Corin launch a boat at Saltreach in the spring of 208. I have never been to Saltreach. These directions come from Pell, from Wren's letters and from Corin, and I have walked none of them. If they are wrong, blame the people I asked.
Day 1. Kettle Ridge to the marsh road.
Go down the ridge road and turn onto the Long Road. Follow it to the junction marked by a waymark with a fish cut on it. Take the marsh road. The road is packed earth with a cobblestone edge. Torch posts every twelve blocks. Sleep at the inn at the junction. The beds are warm and the fire is good.
Day 2. The marsh road to Lowmarsh.
The marsh road crosses the reeds on a raised bank. Walk in the middle. You will see a dead tree that was split by lightning. This is halfway. After it the road becomes boards. The boards are wet. There are torches on posts, and frogs on every post.
Do not drink the marsh water. It looks clear. It is not clean. Carry your own. At Lowmarsh the inn will give you a dry blanket and fish stew. Say thank you to the innkeeper. Do not say thank you to the frogs. They take it badly.
Day 3. Lowmarsh to Saltreach.
At the end of the boardwalk a ferry keeper called Hazel takes you over the river for one emerald. Say Tam sent you, and she will say it is two. Then follow the road. It climbs a long hill. At the top you will see the sea. Pell says it is flat and grey and gold all the way to the edge of the sky. He says it is the best thing he has seen apart from his daughter. Stop at the top for a while. The road goes down to the harbor wall.
At Saltreach.
The shipyard is at the foot of the hill, with the long stone ramp where the boats are built and slid into the sea. It is called the slip. Corin will be there with a lantern and his hands full. The launch is at high water. Ask anyone when that is.
The first fish from a new boat goes to the shipwright. That is the rule there. After the launch, everyone who worked on the boat eats salmon cooked on an oak plank on the beach. You did not work on the boat. Ask to carry something. Carry the plank.
What to pack. Bread for two days. A coat for the wind. Emeralds in two places, never all in one. A hat you do not mind losing. The sea wind takes hats. Pell says it has taken eleven of his.
Come back by the same road. Do not bring a sheep. Brin, I mean it.
Tell me what the sea smells like.
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, about the fair
Kettle Ridge, the ninth of Apple, year 203.
Mira.
We went to the fair at Three Wells. All of us. Pip too, though Pip does not go to fairs, it walks behind the cart and waits by the cart and looks at the horses.
The prize. There is a prize for the biggest beetroot. I have been growing a beetroot in the bottom field since Sowing. I watered it. I talked to it. I did not tell anyone, not even Pip, because Pip would have told the whole ridge. I dug it up the night before, and it was as big as my head, and I carried it to Three Wells in a box of straw like an egg.
There were eleven beetroots on the table. Mine was the fourth biggest. A woman from Lowmarsh had one as big as two heads. I do not know how. Marsh mud, she said. She smiled. I will not forget that smile. Next year I dig the ditch deeper and I win.
Pip won nothing but a ribbon for good walking. It walked the whole way and back and never once stopped to look at a field, which for Pip is a great and costly effort. I gave it the ribbon. It wore it in the drill yard for a week. Clank from Copperhold says its apprentice has a ribbon too. Everyone has a ribbon now, it seems.
The bees are well. The hives by the flowers are full. I am sending you honey with the next cart, and a beetroot, a small one, for the tower.
Tam.
%%
Directions: from Copperhold to Three
Hesk, miner. Written for Dilly and her cart, who asked three times and bet me a loaf I would not write it.
Start at the mine gate. Take the cobblestone road down the hill. It is steep. Keep the cart to the left, where the ice is thin.
After the foot of the hill, turn left onto the Long Road. Waymark 0 is there, with a small torch. Its arrow points to Three Wells.
Walk a half day. You will see waymark 3 at the bridge over the stream. It is stone. Cross it and do not stop to look at the water.
At waymark 5 there is a drift in winter. Go around it on the right. The left side is soft.
Waymark 7 is at the edge of a wood. Wolves are about. Keep a torch lit and do not sing.
Waymark 9 is the last one before the town. Look for the lamp at the corner. You are at Three Wells.
Time: if the road is dry, one day. If it snows, two. If you stop at the Brown Hen, three.
You owe me a loaf.
Hesk
%%
The fence by the kiln
Tavi says my fence is on Tavi's side of the path. I say the path was there first. We measured it with a cord, then with a shovel handle, then with Tavi's arm. The arm was not a fair measure.
The fence is oak, with one birch post at the end. I put it there because the old post rotted. Tavi says I moved it three hand spans. I say I moved it one. We have not agreed on the size of either hand.
So the fence stays where it is until spring. Tavi's goat still gets through the gap, and eats the grass beside my shed. I still give the goat a carrot when I see it. This makes Tavi angrier than the fence.
Yesterday I carried three water jars to Vell. At the stone bridge I met a girl with an old map. She had drawn the bridge twice, once in ink and once in charcoal. She said the charcoal bridge was the older one.
The map showed the Long Road from Ashcombe to the Brown Hen, then on to Vell. I told her the inn was east, not west. She turned the map around and found I was right.
On the hill, the relay lamp was lit though the keeper had gone inside. The girl asked if it always burned so steadily. I said I had never watched it long enough to know.
At the Archive, Oren took my jars for the copying room. One had a crooked lip. He said it would hold water. I told him it would hold soup better.
Tavi says tomorrow we should move the fence together. I said yes. We will bring the cord and no arms.
%%
Directions: Lowmarsh to the reed beds
Written by Wren's boy, Moss, for the new carter who was sent to fetch reed mats from the marsh. Spring. Moss asks that the carter read it twice, because the marsh does not forgive a wrong turn.
Leave the healing house by the back gate, the one with the herb jars painted on it. Turn left, not right. The right side of the boardwalk is the one with the bad posts, and the carts have already sunk two of them.
Walk the boardwalk toward the fish weir. The torches on the posts are lit at dusk, so walk in the day if you can. The planks are wet, and the third plank from the post by the weir is loose. Step over it, the way the boat men do.
At the weir, keep the water on your left. Go past the boat houses, which have tallies painted on their doors. The tally men will shout to you. Shout back the number on the door nearest you, and they will let you pass.
Past the last boat house, the boardwalk turns to packed earth, and the reeds begin. The reed beds are tall and yellow in the spring. Walk along the edge of the path. Do not walk into the reeds. The frogs are loud, and so is the mud.
The reed mats are stacked at the far end, by the drying frames, under a sheet of oiled cloth. Count them. Ten bundles for the healing house. Two for the boat men. The rest are for the inn at Three Wells, and they will be paid for in honey.
Carry the mats back the same way. Do not take the short way over the stepping stones. Moss tried it once, and the stones are not where the map says they are.
Give Wren the count when you reach the gate. She will check it. She will be right, and you will be wrong by one bundle, and you will be told so in front of the patients.
%%
Directions: from the harbor
Written by Corin, shipwright, for a carter who asked the way and got a long answer. Copied into the boat hall book for anyone who needs to go inland. Spring.
Start at the house at the edge of Saltreach, with the blue door, which sticks. Go down to the harbor wall. Keep the sea on your right hand.
Walk along the wall to the slip, where the new boat is on the stones. Do not stop to look at it. Everyone stops to look at it. It will still be there when you come back.
Go up the stone ramp past the wood store, and turn left at the shed with the broken bench. The lane goes uphill between two rows of willows. The willows are old, and they lean toward the sea, so do not lean with them.
At the top of the lane you reach the first waymark. It is a pillar three blocks high with a torch on top and a figure 0 cut in the face, which means this is the start of the road. The arrow points inland. Follow it.
The road is cobblestone for the first stretch, then packed earth with a cobblestone edge. There is a torch on a post every twelve blocks. Count them if you like. The first post has a crack in it that looks like a fish, and the children will tell you it is a sign.
At the third waymark, the figure reads 3, and the arrow points left, to the old mill track. Do not take the mill track unless the carts are on it. It is muddy, and it goes round the back of the mill pond, where the reeds grow tall and the frogs are loud.
Keep on the Long Road. At the bridge over the stream there is a loose plank on the south side. Step over it. Do not stand on it to look at the water. Pell says it has tried to take a boot twice.
At the sixth waymark the figure is 6. The arrow points straight on, toward the inn. This is the longest stretch without a roof. Take bread and water. A good carter sits at the sixth waymark for a quarter hour and eats, and then goes on.
The Halfway Inn is at the top of the long rise, with a red roof and a bell by the door. Hobb keeps it. You will smell the soup before you see the roof. The soup is good, and the second bowl is free if you are a carter. If you are not a carter, pay first.
If you lose the road, do not panic. Look for the next waymark. It will be three blocks high with a torch on top, and the figure will be one number higher than the last one you passed. If you find no waymark, go back to the last one and start again. The road has never lost anybody who did that.
Little stones are left on top of the waymarks by travelers. Leave one if you have one. If you do not, take one from the road and put it there. It is a custom, and nobody has ever been able to say who started it.
Last note. The harvest this year is good, and the carts are heavy on the road, and the travelers are cheerful. If you go in the autumn, the Halfway will be full, and you will have to sleep on the bench. Bring a blanket.
%%
Mira's house, the edge of Northpoint
Autumn of 204. First frost on the water bucket.
My house is the last house before the snow fields. One room, stone, a stove, two chairs, a shelf of books, and a bed that I built myself and that leans to the left. The door faces the tower so I can see the lamp at night. In winter the lamp is the last thing I see and the first thing I see. That is the whole of my house, really. The lamp and the stove.
The bees live behind the house, in a box I made of spruce boards. Bees in Northpoint. Nobody believed it. Tam sent them up in a crate three summers ago with a note: "Try. They are hardy." They are hardy. They swarm every Leaffall, and every Leaffall I stand in the cold with a pot and a smoke stick and try to catch them before they go into the chimney.
This year they swarmed onto the fence post, a nice low swarm, easy to take. I had the pot ready. I had the smoke. I put the pot under them and shook the post gently and the whole swarm went in, all of it, like water into a cup, and I put the pot by the hive and they walked in. I sat down on the step and laughed until my ribs hurt. Lantern came running out of the tower to see what was wrong. Nothing is wrong. The bees came home.
Honey for the winter now. Two jars. One for me, one for the tower. The keeper of the tower gets the honey. That is a rule I made.
%%
Letter: Aven to the school at Three
Spring of 193.
To the schoolteacher at Three Wells, from Aven, who keeps the house at the edge of Copperhold.
The children asked me about the old map. I have it here on the wall and I have looked at it again for them.
It is a map of the town as it was a long time ago. The paper is soft as cloth and brown at the folds. It shows the Deep Works with only three levels, not nine. It shows the shaft head with no count board, no kitchen, no sorting shed. Just a hole in the hill and a windlass and a rope. It shows the tool store as a field of beetroot. Somebody drew the beetroot. They drew it very carefully, every leaf.
The map also shows a road running north that is not there now. It goes up past the old sump and stops at a mark I cannot read. I asked Hesk about it. Hesk said the road went to a mine that was worked out before his grandmother was born, and then the map was right and the road was wrong. He said it in his gruff way, which is how he says most things.
I hang the map by the door so my visitors can see it. They mostly look at the beetroot.
Aven.
%%
Letter: Quill to the Brown Hen
Friends at the Hen,
The plank on my bridge is still loose. A cart lost a wheel on it and the carter swore at me for a quarter of an hour. I have no stone and no oak to spare. If you have a short plank, send it over with the next cart and I will owe you a night's bed.
Also, a warning. I tried a new soup last night. Beetroot and honey. I thought honey would be kind to the beetroot. It was not. It was a sweet purple mistake. I ate it because I made it. Do not make it. If you must, use less honey. Much less.
I hear from travelers that Saltreach is full of people selling what they cannot carry. Some say they go over the sea. Some say the sea is empty and the ships come back. The stories do not agree and I have stopped asking.
My fox came back. I saw it at the hen house in the grey light, patient as a cat. I clapped my hands and it looked at me, then went. I do not blame it. It is hungry and I have hens.
Come when the road is dry. Bring the plank.
Quill, keeper of the third stream
%%
Directions: my gate to the Kettle Inn
Tam, Kettle Ridge. Written for Brin's cousin, who is coming up the ridge for the first time and will get lost otherwise.

Leave my gate and turn left. Do not turn right. The right side is the pig pen, and the pigs will want to follow you.

Walk the ridge road north for a while. You will pass the windmill on your left. It squeaks on every turn. Do not be frightened by it. The miller, Old Hob, is not frightened either, and he has been there for thirty years.

At the first waymark, a stone pillar with a torch on top and a 1 cut into the side, keep going. There is a little stone on top of the waymark. Someone has left it there. Leave yours if you like. Everyone does.

Cross Cold Brook by the plank bridge. The third plank is loose. Step over it. Do not stand on it to see how loose it is. That is how Brin found out.

After the bridge the road climbs. Stop at the top, where the hedge of oak ends. You can see the whole ridge from there. My top field is the one with the wheat. The bottom field is the one with the bees. If you see a scarecrow with a pumpkin head, you have gone too far east. Come back two fields.

The Kettle Inn is the low house with the red door and the hen on the sign. Ask for Marta. Tell her Tam says hello. She will say she does not know any Tam. Then she will give you the soup for free, because she always does.

Honey is for sale at the inn. Mine is the one in the yellow jars. Do not buy the brown ones. The brown ones came from the other ridge, and they taste of smoke.

Going home, follow the same road. Turn right at the waymark and you will be at my gate in an hour, if you are not chatting, and two if you are.
%%
Directions: Vell to Copperhold
By Lark, carter. Two days with a cart, in autumn, when the road is dry.
Day 1. Leave Vell by the north gate at the first bell. The figures climb as you leave a town, so the first waymark is a 0. At the 4 there is a stone bridge. At the 9 you come to the inn at the ford. The carters call it the Wet Boot. Sleep there. The beds are damp. The stew is not.
Day 2. The figures fall as you come to a town, so you start at a 9 and count down. At the 6 you see the smoke of Copperhold. At the 3 you hear the coal carts. At the 0 you are at the town gate. The mine gate kitchen is on the right. Eat there. Do not tell Hesk the stew is good. He will say it is too thin.
A debt. I owed the man at the Wet Boot 2 emeralds for a lamp I broke. I paid it on the way back. He gave me a bowl of stew. We call that square.
%%
Notice: carters wanted
To all carters on the marsh road.
The apples are in and the pots are made and the fair is coming. We need carts. We need them for the run from Lowmarsh to Three Wells and back again.
Pay is emeralds, and a share of the pots if you break one. If you break two you carry the third on your knee.
The road is good. Stone at both bridges. Waymarks all the way. A torch on a post every twelve blocks, so the dark is not your trouble.
Go by waymark 4, the Brown Hen, waymarks 5, 6, 7, then 8 at the Halfway Inn, then 9, then the crossroads. Any carter will tell you the rest.
Bring a blanket. Bring hay money. The inns are full at fair time.
Speak to Una at the boat houses, or leave a stone on the notice board with your name.
Signed for the marsh, Una, carter.
%%
Directions: the dry well and the stream
Corin, shipwright, now visiting a hamlet near Northpoint, writes this for the carters bringing food to the summer festival. Summer.

The hamlet well has run dry. It happened in the night, two days before the festival. We do not know why. The oldest woman says it has done so before, once, when she was a girl.

So the carters must bring water, and they must know where to find the stream.

From the last waymark on the north road, a stone pillar with a 1 on it, turn right onto the side road. It is packed earth with a cobblestone edge. Follow it for about three hundred blocks, until you come to a bridge of oak. Do not cross. Stop on this side.

Below the bridge there is a stream. It is clear and cold and runs from the north. Fill your barrels there. A rope hangs from the bridge post for lowering buckets.

When your barrels are full, go on to the hamlet. It is a short walk. Torches on posts show the way, one every twelve blocks. At the end you will see a long barn with a red door, and a crowd.

Leave your barrels by the door. Someone will take them. Then go in, find a place at the long table, and eat.

If you are coming from Northpoint, the way is the same, in the other direction.
%%
Directions: the cave under the field
Written by Tam, of Kettle Ridge. Autumn. This record is for the children and for the carters who come looking for the new ground.

In the bottom field, at the corner by the ditch, the earth went down one wet night in the middle of autumn. It made a hole the size of a cart. Under the hole is a cave, cold and dry, with walls of pale stone and a smell like a well.

If you want to see the cave, come up the ridge road and turn in at my gate, which has a bolt that sticks. Go round the barn, through the sheep gate, and down the path to the bottom field. The hole is at the corner by the ditch. You will see it because I have put a fence round it, and a sign, and the sign says: do not walk on the edge.

Do not go in alone. Take a rope, tied to a post at the top, and a torch. Go only as far as the light reaches. If the light goes out, come back by the rope, and call.
I have been down twice. The first time I found water on the floor, and a pale wall with lines in it that looked like the ridge in winter. What is at the far end, nobody has yet seen.
%%
Directions: the Vell road in the first
Perrin of Vell, a beekeeper, wrote this for the carter who delivers wax. Winter. The first heavy snow had come in the night, and Perrin had a message from a farm up the road that a child had been born.

From my door, turn right and go down the hill. The road is cobblestone for about two hundred blocks. Then it changes to packed earth.

At the first waymark you will see a stone pillar. The figure on it is 3. This means you are near Vell. An arrow points to the inn behind you. Ignore it. You are not going there.

Keep the cobblestone edge on your left. The edge is raised a little, so you can feel it with a wheel.

At the bridge over the little stream, go slowly. The oak planks are slick with ice. The stone bridge is on the next road, not this one. Do not cross that.

After the bridge, the torches begin. One every twelve blocks. Count them. At the ninth torch, look right. You will see a farm with a red barn and a crooked chimney. That is the one.

Tell them: Perrin sends his honey, and his joy.

The baby is a girl, and she weighs less than a loaf. The mother is well. The father has not stopped smiling since dawn.

Take a jar of the dark honey for them. It is on the shelf by the door. It is for the baby's first spoonful, when she is ready. Not before. Honey is not for the very small.
%%
Directions: Copperhold to Saltreach
For a market cart going from Copperhold to the sea. Three days. In spring the road is mud, and every stream is up. By Sable, night watch, who has been lost on this road twice, and who writes this so nobody else has to be.

Day one, to the Ford Inn.
Leave by the west gate. The first waymark is a 4. The figures after it run 7, 1, 0, 8, 3, 9, 2, 6, 5. There are three bridges. The first two are stone. The third is oak, over a ditch, and the planks are loose. Walk the horse across.
At the 5, turn in at the Ford Inn. The innkeeper is called Marl, and he will tell you the soup is better than it is. Write your name in the book. If you do not reach the next inn, they will come looking.

Day two, to Lowmarsh.
The figures run 1, 5, 9, 3, 0, 6, 2, 8, 4, 7. The road runs down toward the marsh, and the air gets wetter at every waymark. At the 7 the packed earth ends. The road becomes a boardwalk on posts, with torches. Leave the cart at the reed bank. Carry your goods on the boardwalk, or hire a boat.
The inn at Lowmarsh has a fire and dry blankets. The frogs are loud. Wren the healer lives at the end of the main path. She will ask you if you have coughed. She asks everyone.
In spring the lower path floods. The boat house wall keeps the tally. If the water is above the second step, go by the reed bank.

Day three, to Saltreach.
Take the long hill. From the top you see the sea, flat and grey and gold, all the way to the edge of the sky. Go down to the harbor by the fish market. Cod is eight for one. Ask for Corin at the yard. He will say he is busy. He is always busy, and he will stop.

On the way, look in your cart before you leave Copperhold. Last spring a boy rode to Lowmarsh under the canvas to see a frog. He saw it. His mother is still cross.

Going home, read the figures last first.
%%
Directions: from Sable's hives
Written by Sable, beekeeper, at the edge of Three Wells, in spring. For a traveler who wants a bed.
From my gate, take the east road. It is packed earth with a cobble edge. After twelve blocks you will find the first torch post. Keep going. After the second post there is a waymark, a stone pillar three blocks high with a torch on top. It has a 4 cut into it, and an arrow. The arrow points to the Brown Hen. Follow it.
The inn is a day's walk. The road is flat. In spring the ditches are full, so stay on the cobble. There is one stream, with an oak bridge. The bridge is old, but it holds. Test the third plank with your foot.
Eat before you go. The Brown Hen cooks for travelers, but the soup is always thin on the first night of spring.
%%
Olwen's storm account
Thaw, 176. The storm came in during the evening. I had just set a bowl of apple slices on the sill to dry. The rain blew in sideways and washed them onto the floor.
The wind took one board from the shed roof. It left the board in the well yard, which was thoughtful of it. I tied the roof down with rope and put a stone on the loose corner. The stone stayed. The rope did not.
Our hens went under the bench. The dog went under the table. I went under the table too, to find the dry kindling. Nobody moved for a while.
When the rain eased, I walked the road to check the bridge. The stream was high, but the stone bridge held. The waymark beside it had tipped over. I set it straight and put its arrow back toward the Brown Hen. Someone had left four little stones on top. I left them there.
A traveler came from Saltreach after dark, soaked to the shoulders. He had followed the road well, but lost his hat at the oak hedge. We found it in the branches the next morning, beside one of my baskets.
The shed roof is patched now. The apples on the sill are not. I gave them to the pigs. They ate the wet ones first.
%%
A fox at the hens, and other troubles
It was my turn to shut the hens, and I forgot. I was at the mill pond listening to the frogs. I like the frogs. They started in Sowing and they have not stopped. When I came back the door of the hen house was open and there were feathers on the path, white and soft, like the first snow of the year, only wrong, because it was spring.
Two hens gone. One hen sitting on the roof, very cross. And in the ditch, a fox, small and neat, with a red coat and a white chest, looking at me as if I were the one who had done wrong.
I did not chase it. I did not have the heart. I only said, "You could have asked." It did not answer. It went away through the reeds.
My mother says the fox is a sign. Signs of what, I do not know. She also says the water in the marsh tastes wrong this year, and the cough is worse at Lowmarsh, and it is the ships, or the mines, or the water, and nobody agrees. I say it is a fox and it is hungry and we should shut the door.
We mended the door. We put a stone against it. The fox came back that night and sat on the path and did not try the door. Then it went away. I think it understood about the stone. I think it was saying, all right, then.
At the crossing we have six houses and one bridge and one keeper with a loose plank. The road goes east to Three Wells and west to Ambrook, and the birds come back in spring, and the frogs are loud, and that is most of the news. The rest is rumor. The north has lights, they say. Folk are leaving over the sea. My cousin says the mines hum. My cousin also says he saw a fish with two heads.
I do not know what to do with rumors. I know what to do with a hen house door. I shut it now. Every evening. If you come over the bridge and see a fox on the path, do not chase it. Just shut the door.
Quill
%%
Directions: to my door
Hesk, house at the edge of Copperhold. For anyone who has business. Autumn.

From the shaft head, go down the hill on the left side of the road. Past the forge. Past the bins.
At the crooked post, turn right.
Fourth house. Grey door. No bell. Knock.
If I am not in, I am under. Wait.
Do not bring cake. Bring cider.
%%
Directions: the winter road
Hesk, miner, Copperhold. Winter. Written for the carters of the Deep Works who are taking coal and iron to Three Wells and bringing back grain, because the harvest was thin and the town needs it.
This is a plain road. It has not changed. But there is a lot to carry and a lot to get right, so I have written it down.
1. Leave the Deep Works gate before dawn. The road is hard in the morning, and soft by noon. A cart goes better on hard.
2. Take the main hill road to the foot of the hill. Check the cart wheels before you start. A broken wheel on the hill is a long walk.
3. At the Long Road, turn left. Waymark 0. Look for the torch. If it is out, relight it. This is a custom.
4. Go four waymarks. At waymark 4, the road is cobbled for a while, then packed earth. Stay on the cobbles. The earth is mud.
5. The Brown Hen is at waymark 5, a short walk off the road. The arrow on the stone points to it. Stop. Eat. Feed the mule.
6. Beyond the Brown Hen, the road goes through a wood. This is the long part. Do not stop in it. Wolves.
7. At waymark 8, the wood ends. Three Wells is in sight. The bell will be ringing if the market is open.
8. At Three Wells, ask for the barn by the south road. That is where the grain is held. Tell them Hesk sent you. They will not know who Hesk is, but they will give you grain anyway.
Coming back: the cart will be heavier. Go slower. Stop at the Brown Hen again. Eat more.
On the grain: it was a thin year. Do not take more than your ticket says. The ticket says one sack for every four houses. If someone gives you more, send it back. The next cart may need it.
Also: I bet Bram a pie that the carts will be back by the fifth day. He says the sixth. I am not sure of anything now, but I would like the pie.
Hesk
%%
Directions: the farm to the mine gate
Written by Cress, ferry keeper, for her nephew, who has never found the mine gate alone.

Go up the lane with the stone wall on your left. At the first waymark take the second path. The first goes to the quarry pond, which is deeper than it looks.

Write your name in the book at the mine gate, and rub it out when you come up. That is how they know you are back.

Do not go down the shaft unless the mine master says so. And never tell anybody I said so.
%%
Directions: Copperhold to Vell, by cart
From the market at Copperhold to the Archive at Vell, two days, in spring. By Sable, night watch, who has walked it six times and been lost twice, both times at the same place.

Day one. Leave by the south gate. The cobblestone ends at the last house. Then comes packed earth with a cobblestone edge. Keep to the edge when it is wet.
The first waymark is a 7. After it the figures run: 2, 9, 0, 4, 1, 8, 3, 6, 5.
A stone bridge crosses Coal Brook at the 9. Just after it the road forks. The left fork goes to the quarry. The quarry is lovely. You do not want it. Go right.
An oak bridge crosses the Brown Burn at the 4. In spring it is slick. Lead the horse across. Do not ride.
At the 5, turn in at the Slate Inn. The beds are hard. The soup is good. Write your name in the book.

Day two. From the inn the figures run: 2, 8, 4, 0, 6, 1, 9, 5, 3, 7. At the 3, the road climbs the last hill. The Archive is the door in the hill. At dusk the light wells glow.

Going home, read the figures last first.
%%
Notice for the road shelf
Written by Wynn at the Brown Hen.

From Lowmarsh to Three Wells, take the boardwalk east until it joins the Long Road. Keep the frogs on your left. If the frogs are on your right, you have taken the path to the reed beds. Turn back before the mud takes your boot.

At the first stone waymark, follow the arrow marked 6. It points to the Brown Hen. The road is packed earth, with cobblestone at the edges. There is a bridge over the slow stream just past the old oak. Use the stone bridge. The oak bridge beside it is still sound, but it sways enough to make a loaded cart complain.

At the Brown Hen, take the north road. Follow the arrow marked 3 to Three Wells. Cross the stone bridge over the second stream, then keep on until the lamps at the town wall show between the trees. The notice board stands by the square. If you need the school, use the east road from the three wells.

The old map on this shelf has a brown water mark across Lowmarsh. It makes the village look much larger than it is. It also makes the Brown Hen look like a boat. The map is not a boat. Please stop asking.
%%
Road note for Sela
From Vell to the farm below the east hill, take the Long Road past waymark 2. Keep the arrow toward the Brown Hen. Cross the stone bridge over the stream. The farm gate is just past the oak hedge.
Do not take the path beside the mill pond. It ends at a bee yard, and the bees do not move for carts.
If you reach the Brown Hen, you have gone too far. Ask for Garrow's farm. The innkeeper knows it. He says our gate squeaks louder than the inn door.
%%
Directions: the ridge road to Vell
Written by Tam, of Kettle Ridge, for travelers going south to the Archive. Autumn. The waymarks are numbered as they stand, from the ridge, and they are all standing this year.

Start at the ridge gate, with the windmill behind you. Walk south along the ridge road. The waymark at the gate is a 0, which is your starting place. Count the marks as you pass them, out loud if you like. Nobody will laugh, but the carters will look.

The first mark is a 1, on the left, under an oak. The second is a 2, on the right, by the bend. At the bend the road dips into the bottom meadow, which is wet in autumn, so walk the stones along the edge.

The third mark, a 3, is at the bridge over the river. The bridge is a plank and a wish. Cross one at a time. The carters call it the Wish, and I do not blame them.

The fourth mark, a 4, points to the Kettle Inn if you need a bed, which you will not, because it is only the first night. Go on past it. The fifth mark, a 5, is on a hill. The climb is steep. At the top you will see the next tower, the relay tower at the crossing, with its lamp unlit in daylight. Light it at dusk if you have the keeper's leave, and write the time in his book.

The sixth mark, a 6, stands at the foot of the long straight, where the road runs between hedges of birch. The carters say the hedges are there to keep the sheep honest. Keep walking.

The seventh mark, a 7, is by the Halfway Inn's yard gate. Stop for a bowl of soup and the riddle. The riddle this autumn is: what has a mouth but cannot eat? Nobody has got it. You may be the first.

The eighth mark, an 8, points south-east, toward the Brown Hen. Do not follow it unless your horse is tired. The ninth mark, a 9, is the last on this stretch. Past it the road turns toward Vell and the hill, and the Archive door is visible from the last rise.

Carry a torch past dark. Keep the marks standing. Never move a stone.
%%
Directions: the hamlet to the yard
From the hamlet well, go down the lane to the bridge, not the path. The path is shorter, but it has the ditch. Cross the bridge, keep the willows on your left, and you will see the yard roofs. That is the shipyard. Ask for Corin. If Corin is not there, ask the gulls. The bridge is wider than it looks, and the willows were cut back this year, so the gulls can see the road from the yard.
%%
The hill road to Vell, step by step
Written out by Corin for the carters and the clerks, who both use this road and disagree about it every week.

1. Leave the house by the back gate, and go up the lane to the school. The school has a painted door.
2. Past the school the road bends uphill. The first waymark stands on the bend with a 1 on the stone. Keep it on your left.
3. The stone bridge crosses the brook below the hill. The planks are fine. Walk the cart slowly.
4. Halfway up the hill is the relay tower. It is stone, with a stair inside and a lamp room at the top. The glass has a crack in one pane, and the lamp blinks a little to the left. The keeper is Ruth, who says the glass will be replaced in the spring, and has said so since the frost.
5. At the foot of the tower, the new apprentice carries the lamp oil from the store to the stair, one can at a time. It does not talk. Let it pass. It will go round you.
6. Past the tower the road turns sharp. The second waymark has a 2, and its arrow points up the hill to Vell. Do not be fooled by the arrow below it, which points back to the school. That arrow is a joke that has been left up for years.
7. You will see the copying room window from the bend before the last rise. If the clerks are at the tables, the light is on.
8. The front hall has a big book by the door. Sign it, with your name and your errand. Do not bring a candle past the front hall.

Corin says the whole road is a half day up and a half day back, if the cart is loaded and the hill is dry. It is never dry in the spring. That is the best reason to walk it.
%%
Directions: the shortest way
Corin, shipwright of Saltreach, visiting the north, wrote this for a young carter who would not take his first advice. Summer. A festival was to be held in the long barn at a hamlet near Northpoint, and the well had run dry the week before.

You asked for the shortest way. I will give it. But I must tell you why I would not take it myself.

The shortest way goes by the old road along the hills. It leaves the Long Road at the waymark with a 3 on it, and runs straight over the ridge. It saves half a day. It is also steep, narrow and badly torched. In two places it crosses a stream with no bridge. You wade. The water is cold and the stones are slippery. A cart cannot pass.

If you have a cart, you cannot take the old road. If you are on foot, you may, but do it in daylight.

The longer way is the main road. It follows the Long Road north, past the bridge at the oak, and then turns east at the last waymark. It takes a day more. It is safe. It has torches. It has an inn at the end of the day.

Now the warning. The well at the hamlet has run dry. When you arrive, you will be thirsty. Do not drink from the stream below the old mill. It is clear, but it comes from the marsh to the north, and it tastes bad. Drink from the stream by the oak bridge instead. A rope hangs there.

If you are bringing food for the festival, bring it in covered barrels. The wind is dry, and food spoils quickly.

At the hamlet, ask for the barn with the red door. There is a notice on the door about the well. It says, in large letters: "No water. Bring cider." I thought this a very sensible notice.

You may choose the short way or the long. I cannot stop you. But if I do not see you at the festival, I will send a rope.

Corin
%%
The way to the mill and the sacks
Written by Corin for the carters who bring grain to the mill by the pond, below the house.

1. Go down the lane, past the gate with the loose hinge. Mind the hinge.
2. At the bottom the lane turns left toward the water. Keep the wall on your right.
3. The bridge over the outflow has its fifth plank loose. Step over it. Everyone does.
4. The mill is on the far bank. A new apprentice carries the sacks from the cart to the loft. It stands where it is put, and waits for the next sack.
5. Ask for Garrow at the door. He will say the flour is grey. It is only the light.

Mind the ditch on the way back. It is deeper than it looks, which is true of most things on this road.
%%
Directions: Kettle Ridge to the mill
Written by Tam, of Kettle Ridge, for a traveler who asked the way at my gate. Autumn, the sixth year of the archive. Plain, as he asked.

Leave the ridge by the north gate, past my barn with the red door. The first waymark is a stone pillar on the left, three blocks high, with a torch on top and a 1 cut in its face. The arrow beneath points to the Kettle Inn, which is behind you.

Walk on until you reach the stream. Cross by the wooden bridge. Mind the third plank from the left, which is loose, and has been since my father's time.

The second waymark is a 2 on the right side of the road, pointing down the valley. Keep it on your right until the windmill's sails show above the trees. That is the mill.
%%
Finch's road directions, Northpoint
1. Out of the gate and down the north road, with the tower on your left.
2. The first stone is the 0 by the gate. The arrow on the 1 says the Brown Hen.
3. Cross the stream at the stone bridge. Do not use the stepping stones. Ask me why, and I will tell you about my brother.

Our cat, Soot, will not stay out. If she is on the step, step over her. If she comes in with you, let her have the good chair. She will win anyway.
%%
Directions: to the Deep Works gate
Hesk, Copperhold. For a man who asked in the street and got three answers.
From the edge of Copperhold, take the hill road up. It is the one with ruts. At the top, the shaft head: a stone shed, a board with names, a smell of coal. That is the gate. If the board has your name, you are in. If not, ask me. I am the one who is not smiling.
%%
A farm outside Lowmarsh, autumn
The farm sits on the last dry land before the marsh, a low house of oak and cobblestone with a red door that sticks in wet weather. The yard is mud by Leaffall, and the mud is honest, and everyone knows it. Hens on the fence. A pig pen behind the shed. Reeds at the bottom of the field, and beyond the reeds, the slow water and the frogs.
Mira's cousin keeps this farm. She is called Rue, and she is no relation to the Rue at Ambrook who grows apples, though the two have met and found the name funny and now send each other a pie once a year. This Rue keeps hens and a field of beetroot and a pond with three boats on it, one of them good.
Her apprentice is called Tuck. Tuck is not clever. It was drilled at Vell by Nessa, and Nessa wrote on its card: "Slow, steady, honest. Do not send it to the fields with the fast ones." Tuck carries the beetroot baskets from the field to the shed. It never drops one. It once carried a hen back to the fence for an hour, walking slowly, and the hen sat on its arm and was content.
At the end of the day Rue sits on the step with a cup and watches the marsh go grey and the frogs start up. Tuck stands by the shed and does not sit, because no one told it to. Sometimes Rue says, "Sit down, Tuck. You have done enough." And Tuck sits, and is still, and the frogs go on.
%%
Directions: Copperhold to Vell
Winter road, for people who have never walked it and do not want to be told twice. Written by Cress, who keeps the ferry at Reedford.

Start at the mine gate of Copperhold. Go down the stair to the Copper Brook, and turn north on the old cart road. Do not take the new road. Whoever made it never walked it.

Waymarks run along the road like beads on a string. Each has a number from 0 to 9 and an arrow to the next inn. Follow the arrow. The number is only right if nobody has moved the stone.

The first night, sleep at the Halfway Inn. It is not really halfway, but nobody has told the innkeeper, and he is happy with the name. Read the riddle on the board by the hearth, but do not answer it out loud, or he will give you a second one, and then you will be there until spring.

The river crossing is the ferry at the Reedford bend. I keep it, so you may say I sent you. Pay in emeralds or in bread. Do not pay in promises. The boatman does not take those either.

After the ferry the road climbs through the woods. Keep the stream on your right. There is a bridge at every stream, stone where they could find stone, and oak where they could not.

The last inn is the Kettle Inn, on the ridge. It is cold and very windy, and the soup is always thin. Beyond it are the Vell hills. Walk to the hill with the big door in its side. Do not knock. The clerks hear everybody come. Ask for the head clerk, and say you were sent by Cress. They will say, then you are not expected, and let you in.

Keep the lamp lit at night, and your boots dry. Keep your temper dry too, if you can. Keep the path, and keep going.
%%
Directions: Vell to Ambrook
By Lark, carter. A road for a loaded cart in autumn, three days, with honey coming back in the empty cart. Written on the market board at Vell for Pell, who asked, and for anyone who wants to reach Ambrook with his hat.
Day 1. Vell to the Halfway Inn, and on to Three Wells if the horse is willing. Leave Vell by the south gate. Go down the hill slowly, with the shoe on the back wheel. At the foot the waymarks begin at 0. At the 5 there is a spring and a trough. At the 7 a wooden bridge, loose on the right. At the 9 the Halfway Inn. Hobb. The soup. The second bowl free.
After the inn the figures fall, from the 9 at the inn down to the 0 at Three Wells. At the 6 is the bridge of oak. Sleep at Three Wells. The inn of twelve beds is a good one, and the town wells are all different. The north well is coldest. This is known.
Day 2. Three Wells to the Brown Hen. Leave by the Ambrook road at the west side of the square. The figures climb from the 0. At the 3 the road crosses a stream by a stone bridge. At the 6 you pass a farm with a dog who has never let a cart go by without barking. At the 9 you are at the Brown Hen.
Marda keeps the Brown Hen. She talks more than the rain. Tell her the stew is better than last year. She needs to hear it. Then it is true.
Day 3. The Brown Hen to Ambrook. Leave at first light. The figures fall, from the 9 at the inn to the 0 at the town. At the 5 you smell the apples. At the 3 you see the tower on the hill above the mill pond. At the 1 you cross the bridge with the loose plank. You will hear it go clack. That is how you know you are nearly home. At the 0 you are in Ambrook.
Notes on the road. Keep a torch lit at dusk. Greet everyone you pass. Carts going uphill have the road, and carts coming down wait. Close every gate you open.
A debt. Last spring I borrowed 5 emeralds from Pell to buy a wheel. This autumn I paid him in honey jars at the Brown Hen. Pell counted them twice and said I had given him two too many. I said that is the interest. He said there is no interest. I said then it is a gift. We have each told it at every inn since.
%%
The marsh fair song
This is a song the carters sing on the road to the fair, and at the fair, and on the road home, and sometimes on the way back to the marsh with the cart empty and the horse asleep on its feet.
It has a verse for every waymark, but nobody remembers all of them, so they sing the ones they know and hum the rest, and the humming is part of it now.
(Chorus)
From the marsh to the wells and the wells to the sea,
the road goes on and the road comes home to me.
Waymark four is the first that stands,
a stone on its head and an arrow in its hands.
Waymark five by the slow stream wide,
Waymark six, and a stone bridge tried.
Waymark seven, the fast stream under,
Waymark eight, and the inn of wonder.
(Chorus)
At the Halfway Inn there is a fire that stays,
and a board of riddles, and twenty days
nobody solves them, and nobody minds,
so we sit by the fire and leave the riddle behind.
(Chorus)
At the crossroads the wells are three,
one for the horse and one for me,
one for the pots and the fair and the rest,
and the bell rings out and we do our best.
(Chorus)
Una sang this at the fair and did not win. Bel sang the one about the notice board and did win. Una says she was robbed, but she says it laughing, and she gave Bel a whistle from the stalls, and Bel blew it all the way home.
%%
Directions: the ridge to Vell, old road
Written by Nell, weaver, for the first-time traveler to Vell, who has been told that the new road is quicker and wants the old one, because the old one has more waymarks and better soup. Winter. Allow four days, with the inns.

Day one. Leave Kettle Ridge at dawn by the north gate. Walk the ridge road west, with the windmill on your right. The first waymark is figure 0. Count them as you go, from 0 to 9, and then start again at 0. There are forty marks to the Kettle Inn. Do not try to count them all in one morning.

At the Kettle Inn, stay the night. The innkeeper, Abel, will give you a bed by the wall, away from the draft. Eat the mutton pie. Do not ask what is in the gravy.

Day two. Leave the Kettle Inn by the west door. Take the old road down the hill, where the cobbles are worn smooth by a century of carts. At the bottom, the road forks at a stone pillar with a torch on top. Take the left fork. The right fork goes to the new road, and it is quicker, and it has no inns between the fork and Vell, so you will sleep in a ditch.

Keep on past the marsh bridge. Cross carefully. The third plank from the north end is loose. The carters have marked it with a white stone. Step on the stone.

By the end of day two, you will reach the Halfway Inn. Hobb will ask if you are the traveler who was promised. Say yes, even if you are not. The riddle board is by the hearth. Do not answer the riddle unless you know it. Nobody has ever known it.

Day three. Leave the Halfway Inn by the east door. The road climbs through the orchards of Ambrook. Keep off the apples. The apples belong to the old woman in the blue shawl, and she will come out with a stick.

Day four. You are close. The road runs along the top of the ridge above Vell. The tower is on your left. Look for the lamp. When you see the great door of the Archive, carved into the hill, you are home. Ask at the front hall for a clerk. Tell them Nell sent you. They will not know who I am, but they will be kind to you anyway.
%%
Road note from Ashcombe
From Ashcombe to Vell, take the Long Road west.
At waymark 3, follow the arrow to the Brown Hen.
Cross the stream by the stone bridge. The oak bridge beyond it is loose.
The Brown Hen is open. Ask for Finch if your pot has a crack.
At waymark 5, leave the road north. The little hill relay is in sight.
Walk past it, then take the lane down to Vell.
The Archive door is cut into the hill. Wipe your boots before you go in.
%%
Directions: from the Deep Works
Hesk, a miner at Copperhold, wrote these directions for a young carter who was to haul ore from the Deep Works to a smithy on a farm outside the town. Autumn. They are the clearest he ever wrote, and he says that is because the carter was a fool.

Start at the shaft head. That is the big building with the board where we write our names. You will see it. It is the biggest thing on the hill.

Load your cart at the sorting shed. The bins are marked. Copper in the left. Iron in the middle. Coal in the right. Do not mix them. If you mix them, the smith will know, and he will tell you in a way that you will not like.

Go out through the mine gate. Turn left onto the cobblestone. It runs downhill. Keep to the left edge. The right edge is crumbling.

After two hundred blocks, you meet a fork. Left goes to the kitchen. Right goes to the farm. Go right.

The right road runs along the side of a field. In the field there is a hole, a cave, new this autumn. A rope is round it. Do not stop to look. A cart that stops will be stuck, and I do not want to come and shift you.

After the field, the road dips. At the bottom is a stream with a stone bridge. Cross it. The bridge is narrow. Take it slowly. If another cart comes the other way, whoever is nearer the bank backs up.

After the bridge, the road climbs. At the top is the farm. You will see the smithy by the smoke. The smith is called Toller. He will want his iron first. Give it to him before he asks.

If your cart sticks, there is a rope on a hook by the bridge. Use it. Pull the cart out backward. Do not pull forward. Forward is for the horse's pride, and the cart has none.

Unload. Get a mug of cider. Say thank you. Go home.

I will be at the shaft head, waiting for the next load.

Hesk
%%
Directions: the Copperhold road
From the Copperhold gate to Three Wells, go south by the old wall. The wall ends at a waymark with a 4 on it and an arrow pointing left. Follow the arrow. The road is packed earth with a cobblestone edge. There is a torch on a post every twelve blocks, so you can walk it at night if you keep to the posts.
Cross the first stream on the stone bridge. The second stream has no bridge yet. You will get your feet wet. Everyone does. The water is only up to your ankle in spring.
After the wet crossing keep left at the fork. You will pass the Brown Hen on your right. Their bread is good and their beds are soft. Tell them Aven sent you and they will not charge you for the water.
Then straight on to the crossing at Three Wells. You will see the three wells before you see the town. Good road. Walk it in a day if you start early.
%%
Directions: the road to Three Wells
Written by Corin for the carters going inland before the snow. Autumn of a good harvest, with a note added in spring. Corin says the note is for the carters who read the first part and not the second.
If the first snow has come, do not take the coast road. The coast road turns to ice at the bend by the fish weir, and the carts slide into the ditch every winter.
Take the Long Road out of Saltreach, which goes through the pass. The pass is steep. Walk the horse up it, and let the carts go in front. A cart at the back of a line in snow is a cart that has been left behind.
At the top of the pass, the first waymark is a little buried. Brush the snow off the figure with your hand. It is a 2. The torch on top is still lit, if the keeper has been up.
Go on past the Halfway, and do not stop for the soup unless you have already paid. The soup is very good, and the carts behind you are very hungry.
At the cross roads the road divides. Keep to the right. The left goes to the old mill track, which is shut in winter. Pell says he once tried it in the snow, and it took him three days and the rest of his good hat.
Three Wells lies in the valley below. You will see the lamps first, one at each corner of the square, and the three wells with the snow on their rims. Go straight to the square. Do not go round the back. The back has the pig pens and the pigs will not move.
Last note, for the spring. The road is still there. The waymarks are still there. The Halfway still has its bell and its soup. Corin says the snow only slows the road, and that a careful carter is always home before the thaw. He says he has done his part by writing the way, and that the rest is for the people who go.
%%
Directions: to the school for the play
Written by Nell, weaver, for the families who come from the ridge to see the children perform. The school play is on the last night of Frost, in the schoolroom by the east well. Dress warm. The room is small and the crowd is large.

Leave the ridge at the afternoon bell, not before. The road is long.
Take the valley road east. Cross the first bridge over the brook. It is stone, with a slate on the post saying "Sallow." Do not step on the slate. Gwen will shout at you from her box.
Keep on the valley road past the Brown Hen. Turn left at the second waymark, figure 7, where the road forks. The right fork goes to Copperhold, and you do not want Copperhold tonight.
Follow the left fork down into the town. At the bottom, the lamps are lit at the corners, one at each. Walk toward the lamp with the bent pole.
The schoolroom is on the east side, behind the well. It has a door painted by the children. The door is blue with yellow stars. It is the best door in the town. The children painted it themselves, one star each, and the stars do not line up.

Sit near the front if you can. The little ones always sit at the front, and they will need someone to watch them when the river rolls.
%%
Directions: the boat hall to the north
Written by Corin, for the boys who go out to the salt pans in the summer to rake the crust. Spring. The salt pans are a long walk, and a long way to forget.
From the boat hall, walk to the back of the net loft. There is a gate with no lock, because nobody has ever wanted to steal anything from the boat hall. Go through it.
Follow the sea wall north. It is high, and on the seaward side there is a drop to the rocks. Do not walk on the top at night. Walk on the landward side, where the grass is, and keep your hand on the wall.
At the end of the wall you come to the first pan, which is shallow and square, and white at the edges. The salt is in the bottom of it, a thin crust, very sharp. Rake it with the wooden rake, slowly, toward the bank. Do not use the metal rake. It scratches the pan, and the pan is old.
Then go on to the second pan, and the third. There are nine in all. The ninth one has a crack in its bank. Mend it with a sod from the grass at the top of the wall, pressed down hard.
The apprentice from the boat hall carries the salt to the cart. It will do this without being asked, once it is shown the route, and it will do it at the same pace all day. Do not tell it to hurry. It only goes at one pace, and it is the right one.
When you are done, the tide will be coming in. Walk back the way you came, on the landward side. The sea wall is shorter going home, though it does not feel it.
The best salt comes from the third pan, and the second best from the ninth, which has the cracked bank. Corin says that is because the crack lets in the sea at just the right speed. He says it is a lesson. Nobody has yet said what the lesson is.
%%
Wynn's road book
For travelers going from Kettle Ridge to Saltreach.

Leave Kettle Ridge by the west road, past the windmill that squeaks on every turn. Follow the waymark marked 2, then keep the arrow for the Halfway Inn. The road is packed earth outside town. A torch stands on a post every twelve blocks. The old map says there are twenty-three posts to the inn. It was drawn before the ditch was mended, so trust the waymarks, not the map.

At the Halfway Inn, sleep if you are tired. The hearth is warm, and the riddle board is still beside it. Do not spend the whole evening trying to answer the riddle about a chicken. The chicken in question has been gone for years.

In the morning, follow the arrow marked 5 to Three Wells. Cross the stream at the stone bridge. In the square, take the road south past the east well. The next waymark points to Saltreach. At the fork, keep the left road toward the sea.

Wynn will trade one candle for three clean apples. Bent candles cost less. I know this because people keep bending them.
%%
Directions: from the mine to the sea
Hesk, miner at Copperhold. Winter. Written because the corn merchant's nephew asked the way to Saltreach and I said I would draw him a map and then did not, and now I am sorry.
This is the whole road. It is not a short road. It is, in fact, the longest road in the land. If you walk it all, you walk from the mine to the sea.
Start at the mine gate, Copperhold. Follow the hill road down. At the bottom, you meet the Long Road at waymark 0, with a torch on top. The arrow points to the nearest inn, which is the Brown Hen.
Go to the Brown Hen. Eat the soup. Stay the night if you like. It is a day's walk. The innkeeper is Hild. She keeps the hens and knows everyone.
From the Brown Hen, the road goes through a wood and to the crossroads at Three Wells. You will see the square, with its three wells and its bell. Do not drink from the middle well on a Fair day. It is for the mayor.
From Three Wells, follow the road south. It is a fine road, cobbled where it matters. Waymarks 0 to 9 run twice. At the second 9, you will see the Halfway Inn.
The Halfway Inn has a hearth that has not gone out in twenty years. Stay there. Read the riddle board. Do not try to answer the riddle. Nobody has.
From the Halfway Inn, the road turns west. It goes through fields and over a stone bridge. You will see sheep. They will stare. Do not stare back.
After the bridge, the road runs alongside the marsh. Be careful here. The ground is wet. The frogs are loud. The path is raised, with boards over the worst of it. Stay on the boards.
At the end of the marsh you come to a gentle hill, and over the hill the sea appears. Saltreach is below you. The relay tower is above the harbor. The shipyard is on the left. The fish market is on the right. You will smell it before you see it.
Total time: about six days, with rests. In winter, eight.
What to carry: a torch, bread, a flask, an extra pair of socks. Money in a small bag, tied inside your coat.
What not to carry: a grudge. It is a long way.
Also: the bet. Dilly said I could not write it all. I think I have won. She owes me a loaf.
Hesk
%%
A guide for candle buyers
Wynn of the Long Road writes this for people bound for Vell.

From Ambrook, take the road north past the oldest apple tree. The grey branch points toward the bridge, though nobody knows if it points on purpose. Cross the stone bridge over the mill stream. At the waymark, follow the arrow marked 1 toward the Brown Hen.

The road passes the hives on the hill. Walk quietly there. Bees do not read road signs, and they have no respect for a traveler carrying honey cake.

At the Brown Hen, ask for a bed before the lamps are lit. The inn has clean blankets, a dry bench, and a shelf for candles. Keep your candle on the shelf, not beside the water jug. I have seen a traveler put out a good candle with a good drink. Both were wasted.

In the morning, take the north road. Follow the arrow marked 7 to Vell. Cross the stone bridge at the stream and keep uphill when the road forks. The Archive is cut into the hill. Its door has words above it. Read them if you like. Do not knock on the hill.

The map beside this note is old and missing one corner. It still shows the right bridges. The missing corner was used to wrap cheese, so the map has served the road in two ways.

If you want a candle, I sell beeswax and tallow ones. The beeswax ones burn clean. The tallow ones cost less. A traveler once asked which one lasts longer, then left before I could answer. It depends how much you talk.
%%
Directions: water
Corin, a shipwright of Saltreach, was asked by the festival committee of a hamlet near Northpoint to write down the way from the sea to the hamlet, since so many travelers were expected and the well had run dry. He wrote it in the long barn, on a table, with a cup of cider beside him. Summer.

This is a long set of directions, because the way is long, and because I have decided to put in everything useful. I am a shipwright, and when I build a ship I put in everything useful. It is a habit.

THE START.
From the harbor wall at Saltreach, walk to the north gate. It is next to the shipyard. You will smell pine and tar. The gate is open from dawn to dusk. The keeper will say "Mind the road," and let you pass.

THE FIRST DAY.
The road runs north along the coast for half a day, then turns inland. It is cobblestone to the second waymark. A torch on a post every twelve blocks. You will cross three streams. Each has a bridge. Stone if they could. The first is Salt Brook, the second Mill Brook, the third has no name. A boy at the third will tell you its name for an emerald.

At dusk you reach the Lantern Inn. It is a plain place with a good soup. A bed is two emeralds. Sleep.

THE SECOND DAY.
The road leaves the coast. It climbs. The cobblestone ends, and the packed earth begins, with a cobblestone edge on each side. This is the Long Road in its full form.

Waymarks every few hours. Read the figure. It says how many days remain. Read the arrow. It points to the nearest inn.

At dusk you reach the Brown Hen. Another good bed. Another good soup.

THE THIRD DAY.
The road climbs through the hills. The air is thinner and colder. At the top of a long rise, you will see the relay tower at Three Wells in the distance, to your left. Do not go there. Go straight.

At dusk, the Halfway Inn. Read the riddle board. Try one riddle. Sit by the hearth, which has not gone out in twenty years.

THE FOURTH AND FIFTH DAYS.
The north begins. The trees change. Spruce instead of oak. The air has the smell of snow, even in summer. The inns are further apart. Carry food.

THE SIXTH DAY.
At noon you reach the waymark with a 1. At the fork, turn right, onto the side road. Follow it three hundred blocks to the oak bridge. There is a stream. A rope hangs from the bridge post. Fill your barrels.

THE SEVENTH DAY.
You arrive. You will hear the drum before you see the barn. Go to the red door.

WATER.
The well is dry. We do not know why. Some say it is the dry summer. Some say a spring has moved. A child says the earth drank it. Nobody agrees.

Bring water. Share it. Do not drink the stream below the old mill.

THE FESTIVAL.
Music. Dancing. A feast. A race. A song contest. A long table, and a toast to the dry well, which has given us all something to talk about.

I will be at the table by the stove. Find me. I will buy you a cup of cider, and you will tell me about the road.

Corin
