Spring notes from the edge of Vell
The lane in spring.
The mud is going. Under the mud is the old road, the cobbles the first people laid. They are still there. The gravel the council sent sits on top like a hat that does not fit.
The apple tree by the fence has blossom. The bees from Orla's hives are working it. Orla says the blossom is early this year. Orla says many things are early this year. Orla is usually right.
The well in the yard is full to the third ring. Good water. Cold.
The children have made a game of the puddles. They jump from stone to stone and the one who falls in loses. Bel wins. Bel always wins.
The cat has had kittens in the hay. Four. One is grey and does not move much. We are keeping that one.
The old gate needs a new hinge. I have written it on the board in the barn, under the seed list, so I will not forget. I will forget.
Dara
%%
Petition: a gate on the long pier
To Mayor Lenn and the council of Saltreach, from the family of Rafe the rope maker. Written by Ula, healer. Longday, 203.

On market day Pim, Rafe's youngest, aged four, was at her mother's elbow when the noon bell rang. When the bell had stopped, she was not.

Forty people looked under every stall and in every barrel. One man looked in the harbor, and nobody will say so aloud. Then Marit, who mends nets on the quay, saw a small boot hanging over the side of the Lucky Net, at the far end of the long pier.

Pim had walked all of it alone. It is two hundred paces and has no rail. She was asleep in the bow with a cod in her fist. She says the cod wanted to go home. The cod had been dead since breakfast. Nobody told her.

She was not hurt. I looked. She was only cross to be woken.

We ask for a low gate at the landward end of the long pier, with the latch set high. A gate a child cannot open and a grandmother can.

Corin will build it from old slip boards. We will pay for the hinges.

Rafe, rope. Wynn, his wife. Marit, nets. Ula, healer. Pim, who signs with a fish.
%%
Petition: a second stove for the copying
To the keepers of the Archive at Vell, from the clerks of the copying room, in the deep of winter. Written out fair by Oren.
We ask for a second stove in the copying room.
We do not ask for warmth for ourselves. A clerk with cold fingers can still write, if slowly. We ask because the ink thickens in the cold, and a thick line is a bad line. The twelfth page of the Reaping ledger came out so pale that Oren had to copy it twice, and wept a little, and then copied it a third time.
The room has eight long tables. The one stove is near the first table. The eighth table is so far away that its ink freezes by the second hour. Clerks at the eighth table have taken to blowing on the pen. It does not help, and it is bad for the page.
A second stove at the far end would cost about twelve emeralds, and a cart of coal each month. We have counted. The coal is less than the paper we waste.
We promise to keep the stoves far from the shelves, and behind glass, as the rule says. No candle past the front hall. We will not forget.
Signed: Oren, Dell, Marrow, Tilly, Brenna, Hobb, Ketch, and Pim the junior clerk, who asks that it be written down that he is not the one who spilled the ink.
%%
Petition: a room for the sick
To Mayor Lenn and the council of Saltreach, from Ula, healer, and the people who have signed below. Melon, 206.

I have been healer at Saltreach for nineteen years. I am writing to ask for a room.

At present I work on an upturned crate by the price board. When it rains I work under a net, held up by two children. This is bad for the sick and worse for the children.

My house is up the hill. A man with a hook in his thumb will not climb a hill gladly. A man with a hook in his thumb and a fish in his other hand will not climb it at all. So he waits, and the thumb swells, and I am sent for.

Here is what came to the crate this summer, from Swarm to Melon.
Fish hooks, in thumbs and other places: 31
Sun sickness: 14
Burns, from the smoke house: 12
Splinters longer than a finger: 9
Falls on the wet floor: 6
Bee stings, from Pell's honey cart: 4
Children who ran off and came back crying: 3
Pufferfish: 1

The pufferfish was eaten by a cook from the Long Road. He lived. I call that luck, not skill. He says he did not read the price board. The board is very large.

I ask for the old net store behind the price board. Last summer the council mended its roof, and it is now the driest roof in the market. It has a door that shuts, and a window that faces the harbor, which is good light for looking at a wound.

I would need:
1. A bed, and a second bed for a bad day.
2. A table, a bench, and a shelf for my jars.
3. A barrel of clean water, filled each morning from the well.
4. A lantern for the night. No candle.
5. A bell rope outside the door, so that anyone may ring twice when someone is hurt.

I will bring the herbs and the jars myself. Corin will make the beds if he may have the old oar blades. Bram says he will carry the water, since he is going that way anyway.

In return the room will be open from dawn until the last boat is in. A child with a bad knee may come for nothing, and so may a sailor with a good one.

I have asked kindly. If the council says no, I will go on working on the crate. But I will set it up outside the mayor's door. Mayor Lenn has had a cough since Sowing. He will be my first patient.

Ula, healer. Corin, shipwright. Marit, nets. Bram, cod. Senna, salmon. Rafe, rope, and Wynn. Old Sal. Gil, whose cow is sorry. Harl of the relay tower. Cass, aged twelve. Mott, who sells the cod nobody buys, and who has promised to buy one himself.
%%
Farm tally, Longday 181
Farm outside Lowmarsh, kept by Eda and her sons.

Wheat cut: 14 sheaves. Last summer: 31.
Beetroot pulled: 9 baskets. Last summer: 22.
Carrots pulled: 7 baskets. Last summer: 18.
Potatoes: 11 baskets, small but sound.
Pumpkins: 3. One was eaten by a pig before it was ripe.
Apples: none. We do not have apple trees.

It was a poor harvest. The spring was slow, and the well ran dry before the wheat headed. We carried water from the boat houses when we could. The fields nearest the reeds did better than the high rows. The beetroot was small, but it made good soup.

The pig has been moved to a stronger pen. The broken rail was mended with oak. It has tried the new rail twice and seems to respect it.

We have saved seed for next year. Eda will plant fewer rows of wheat and more potatoes. The spare seed is in a clay jar on the shelf.

The tally board at the boat house says Eda owes two baskets of fish for the water cart. She says the cart owes her one wheel. We will settle this at market.
%%
Petition: Reedham Fish Weir
Summer, 184.
To the council at Lowmarsh.
We ask for new oak slats for the fish weir at Reedham. Three have split, and one is held in place by a spoon. The spoon belongs to Mara's kitchen. She would like it back before her next soup.
The weir catches fish without blocking the slow water. We clean it each Melon and mend it after heavy rain. The fishers will bring the oak from the town store and set it in place. We ask the council to pay for the boards.
Last spring, we caught enough fish for the fair supper. This spring we caught one boot, two reeds, and a fish small enough to fit in a cup. We returned the boot. Nobody claimed it.
Signed, Mara, keeper of the weir.
Alda, fish seller.
Joss, boat house keeper.
Wren, healer.
Moss, who borrowed the spoon and denies it.
%%
Petition: The Reedham Fair Prize
Summer, 193.
To the council at Lowmarsh.
We ask for three emeralds to buy a prize for the Reedham fair. The prize will go to the best basket of apples, honey, or carrots. Each entry must have been grown or gathered nearby. We will set the baskets on the dry boards beside the fish weir.
Last year the prize was a blue glass jar. The winner was Talla, whose honey was very good. Her jar now holds buttons, and she says it is still the best prize she ever won.
This year the children have asked for a red wool scarf. It will be useful on the cold boardwalk, and it will not break if dropped. We ask the council to buy the wool and let Wren's sister sew it.
Please keep the prize fair. The judges may taste the honey, but they must not eat the whole jar. The judges last year say they were only checking it twice.
Signed, Wren.
Talla, beekeeper.
Mara, keeper of the fish weir.
Alda of Reedham.
Pell, merchant, who offers to buy the wool at a fair price.
%%
Petition: please keep the foxes
To the Northpoint meeting, and to anyone at the council in Vell who is thinking of sending hunters north. Deepsnow.

We have heard that the council wants to thin out the foxes because of the hens. We who keep hens ask it not to.

Foxes take eggs. We know. Piper lost six last week. A fox took Nim's Longnight loaf from the window sill, and the sill was on the second floor. Foxes take socks, mittens and one boot. We know all that.

But foxes keep the rabbits out of the potatoes. They keep Northpoint company in the long dark. They walk the school path every morning and show where the ice is thick, and the children walk behind them. Mira says that the foxes have never once been wrong about the ice.

We will build a hen house with a good lock. We ask only that the foxes be left to be foxes.

Names:
Piper, egg seller, who has lost the most.
Dell, schoolteacher.
Nim, innkeeper, who lost the loaf.
Runa, age nine.
Mira, keeper.
Eleven families from the ice camp, who signed in one line to save paper.
%%
Petition: a bell for the sled path
To the council of Vell, from the people of the north path, in the winter of 206.
We ask for a bell at the top of the hill, by the lamp.
In the snow the sled men cannot see the lamp from the foot of the path. They cannot see the tower, and they cannot see the gate. Last winter a sled went off the edge by the old oak, and the horse was lost, and the sled was broken, and the post was wet through.
A bell can be heard in the snow when a lamp cannot be seen. Ring it at dusk, and at dawn, and when a sled is near. The sled men will know the sound from the bell at Three Wells, which they have heard every year of their lives.
The bell costs twelve emeralds in bronze. The mason at the north road will hang it, and will not charge for the rope, because he says his mother is from the north.
We will ring it ourselves.
Signed by:
Hedd, boy, who will ring it, and who has already practised.
Carys, baker, who needs the sleds to come in time for the bread.
Mira, keeper, who will hear it from the tower, and who would like to hear something other than the wind.
Brann, cook, who says the bell should be big enough to wake the snow.
%%
Petition: a helper for the keeper
To the council at Vell, Longnight.

We ask the council to send a helper to the keeper of Northpoint tower for the winter.

On the eighth of Longnight, at midnight, the Northpoint lamp began to blink a pattern nobody could read. It went on until dawn. The people at the ice camp watched all night. Some said it was a warning of snow. Some said it was a game. The children said it was a message from the stars, and asked for a reply.

In the morning Piper climbed the tower with a basket of eggs. She found Mira asleep at the desk with her head on the lever. Each time Mira breathed, the lamp blinked. Mira had been awake for two nights, because the winter is long and the north line ends in one keeper.

Mira says she is fine. She says it often. She says the foxes keep her company. Foxes do not climb ninety rungs.

We ask for someone to take the lamp round, to climb the ladder when the ice is thick, and to sit at the desk while she sleeps. We will give them a bed, a stove and all the eggs they can eat.

Names:
Piper, egg seller, who found her.
Dell, schoolteacher.
Nim, innkeeper.
Runa, age nine, who says to tell Mira she is very brave.
Forty-one others from Northpoint and the ice camp.

The council answered by lamp. Vell to Northpoint: the tutors have a helper almost ready. It will come on the last cart before the snow next autumn. Until then, two sacks of wool socks, and a rule: Mira sleeps from midnight to dawn on every clear night, and the neighbors watch the lamp.
Northpoint to Vell: seen. Mira says she did not need a rule. Mira says thank you for the socks.
%%
Petition: the lamp at the market corner
To the council at Vell, from the folk of the west row. The ninth of Longnight, 189th year.
We ask for one lamp at the corner where the west row meets the market. One lamp. Not two. We are reasonable people.
The corner is dark from Leaffall to Thaw. The stalls close at dusk and the path home goes round the corner and past the wall. The wall is old and the stones stick out and people catch their coats on it. Last winter old Tobin caught his coat and sat down hard and swore in three ways and then laughed. This winter the baker's boy caught his coat and did not laugh. He is small and it was late and he came home crying and his mother came to us in the morning.
We are not asking for the wall to be mended. We like the wall. The stones stick out and the cats sit on them. We ask only for a lamp on a post, with a glass round it, and someone to fill it. The lamp keeper says he will fill one more lamp for four emeralds a month. We have counted and we can pay it. The market folk will put in a copper each at the end of the month and the rest from the stall rent.
The council has been kind to us before. The well at the corner was your gift and we have not forgotten it.
Signed:
Oren, clerk, who writes this for the row.
Nissa, who sells wool.
Bram, who sells fish and says the corner is dark for fish too.
the baker, who will pay the first month.
old Tobin, who will sit under the lamp and watch it for you.
and eleven more.
%%
The road in Frost
The winter the road was built, the snow came early and stayed.

Hesk's miners dug the ditch. They dug it in the cold and cursed it in the cold. Edda's millers brought the cobbles from the fallen wall by the tool store, and Rill and the apprentice carried them up the hill, four at a time, all day, until the light went.

The apprentice did not stop. It did not know to stop. Rill had to say "stay" and it stayed, with a cobble in each hand, and the snow settled on its copper shoulders and made them white.

People came out to watch it carry. Children followed it up and down and put their mittens on its warm back, because the mind in its chest gives off a little heat, and everyone agreed the children were warmer than the cobbles.

Betta the baker brought out bread and hot honey water at midday. Gunn brought more bread. Nobody asked Gunn to and nobody stopped him.

On the last day they laid the last stone at the kitchen door, and Ferr chalked on the count board: ROAD DONE. It stayed there until Swarm. Then somebody rubbed it out to write the coal count, and Edda was cross about it for a month.

The wheel squeaked all winter. The road was good. The miners came down the road in the snow and did not slip.
%%
Petition: a lamp at the dye stalls
To the council of Vell.

In winter the market opens at dawn, and dawn is late. The dyers' row has no lamp. We cannot tell blue from green by the light of one candle, and a customer who buys green wool in the dark finds it blue at home.

We ask for one post lamp at the end of the row, lit by the market keeper each morning.

Cass, dyer, and the rest of the row: Brin, Oda, Tolly, Hester
%%
Petition: mend the market roof
To Mayor Lenn and the council of Saltreach, from the sellers under the fish market roof. Melon, 204.

The storm on the ninth of Longday took six boards off the north end. It has rained there twice since. The council was busy launching the Good Catch. We are glad the Good Catch floats. We would like the market to float less.

We ask:
1. Six boards and a pot of tar for the north end.
2. A day of Corin's yard to lay them. He says he will take the nails and nothing else.
3. That nobody climbs up to wave at the boats. We know who. He is eleven, and he waves very well.

Wet scales make the floor like glass. Since the storm I have set two wrists, both sellers, both from the north end. A wrist takes forty days to mend. A roof takes one. Please start with the roof.

Ula, healer. Marit, nets. Bram, cod. Senna, salmon. Rafe, rope. Old Sal, who has seen worse roofs, and so has everyone.
%%
Petition: a fair day for the fishers
To Dace, mayor of Three Wells, and to the council at Ambrook, jointly. From the folk of Mudge End, a hamlet near Ambrook, summer of 201.
Dear Dace, dear council.
You will say we are a small hamlet. We are. We have twelve houses, a boat shed, a reed hut that is not a house, a bakery that is also a bench, and the best eels on the river. Nobody visits us. Nobody buys the eels.
So we have a plan, and it is this. We would like a fair day at Mudge End, on the first fine day of Melon, with a stall for every house. The fishers of the pond would come, and the fishers of the river, and the folk of Ambrook with their apples and honey. We would have a boat race on the mill pond, from the landing to the sluice and back. We would have a contest for the smallest fish, because we have been told that is funnier.
What we ask. That the council put our fair on the notice board at Three Wells and at the inn on the Long Road. That a day's notice be given on the relay, so that people can come. And that the council send one person to judge the smallest fish. We suggest Dace. We will not mind if it is not Dace.
Why. Because a village that no one visits is a village that forgets itself. We would like to be remembered. We would also like to sell our eels.
A note on what happened last year. Our boat, the Little Gull, was late home, and three households stood at the landing till dawn. Nobody was hurt. The boat came back with a very large pike that was angry, and a fisherman who was angrier. The pike has been put in the pond again, with our apologies. We tell this story because it shows how much we have to give, if people would only come.
We enclose a jar of our honey. Mudge End has the best bees in the hamlets, and we know it, and we want the council to know.
Signed: Old Mab, Fenn and Fenn's wife Rue, Sedge, Hale, Mally, Pip the baker, Orrin the eel man, young Tam, Brann, Wend and the whole of Mudge End, twelve houses, forty-one marks. The pike did not sign. The pike is not available.
%%
Petition: that the bridge plank
To the keeper of the bridge at Ambrook, and the council. From the lane of Appledown, a hamlet by the orchard.
There is a plank on the bridge that has been loose since the spring. It is the fourth from the east end. Everyone knows it. The children jump on it for fun. Last week a cart went over it and the wheel stuck, and the horse looked at us as if it were our fault, which in a way it was.
We have written to the council twice. Twice we were told that someone would see to it. Nobody has.
This summer we ask again, more politely. We will bring the wood. We will bring the nails. We ask only that a person from the council come and say, "Yes, that plank, mend it," so that no one can say we did it without leave.
For Ambrook the bridge is an old friend. It has held for a hundred years. It would be a shame to lose it over one plank.
We attach a jar of honey, because honey was how the last mayor was persuaded about the well, and we believe in what works.
Signed: Maud, Eli, Wend, Ross, Hetty, Corin the cooper, and sixteen more who live along the lane. The horse did not sign.
%%
Council Petition: The Dry Path
Summer, 207.
To the council at Lowmarsh.
We ask for a raised path from Reedham to the south boardwalk, with oak boards over the wet ground and stone at the two muddy turns. The path is used by fishers, children, healers, and carts carrying jars to Wren's house. After rain, the mud takes hold of shoes and does not let go. Joss lost one boot there. He found it three days later beside a frog that had made a home in it.
We will carry the boards from the town store. The fishers will set the posts. The children will gather the loose reeds, if someone keeps them from making a fort in the work pile. Moss says the fort was sound and would have lasted all summer.
We also ask for a small covered bench at the path bend. People wait there when the boats are out or when Wren is tending a patient. It need not be fine. A roof of oak and a seat wide enough for three will keep the rain off. Last Sowing, Mara sat on an overturned basket and tipped the fish into the ditch. She says the ditch was hungry.
The fair prize will be chosen at the new bench this summer. We ask the council to give one emerald for a wool blanket, to be won by the best basket of honey. The judges will taste one spoon each. Wren will keep the spoon.
Signed, Wren, healer at Reedham.
Moss, apprentice, who can carry the small boards.
Joss, keeper of the boat house.
Mara, keeper of the fish weir.
Talla, beekeeper.
Alda, fish seller.
Pell, merchant on the Long Road.
We will mend the path each Blossom and after heavy rain. We ask only that the council sends the boards before the fair. The last prize was a jar, and the winner brought it back full of frogs. This was not part of the contest, but the frogs were admired.
%%
A summer at Eda's farm
Eda's farm stands beyond the east boardwalk, where the mud gives way to firm ground. The house has a low door, a clay floor, and a roof that needs new reeds. Eda says the roof has needed new reeds since before her youngest son was born. Her youngest son says this is not his fault.

There are three fields. Wheat grows in the high field. Beetroot and carrots grow in the middle rows. Potatoes grow nearest the ditch, where the earth stays cool. Eda keeps a pig in a pen by the barn and four chickens in a hen house. One chicken lays an egg in the tool basket. Eda has moved the tool basket three times. The chicken finds it every time.

We came to help weed on the sixth of Longday. The sun was warm, and the mud was cool under our boots. We worked in pairs. I pulled weeds from the beetroot. Moss carried them to the compost heap. A frog jumped from my hand into Moss's sleeve. Moss stood very still until it jumped out again.

Eda's well had run dry earlier in the summer. She lowered the bucket and heard it strike the bottom. She did not like the sound. The family carried water from the boat houses while the council sent two people to check the spring. They found sand packed in the narrow channel. After clearing it, they waited a day. Water returned, first a little, then enough to fill the bucket.

Eda painted a mark on the wall beside the well. The water should stay above the mark. She checks it each morning. Her sons say she checks it at night too. Eda says they should be asleep at night, and they say the same about her.

Last year's harvest was poor. The wheat heads were short, and the beetroot stayed small. Eda shared potatoes with the families on the boardwalk. This summer the plants are greener. She has planted more potatoes and fewer wheat rows. The first carrots are long enough to pull. Eda gave me one for supper, but I carried it home in my hand and bit it before I reached the bridge.

The council brought timber for a water trough beside the field path. Rusk built a lid, and Eda made a hook to hold it open. The hook is made from copper wire. The lid keeps leaves out. It does not keep frogs out if someone leaves it open.

We filled the trough from the boat house well. Moss carried the first jug. The second jug was carried by Eda's son, who spilled some on his boots and blamed the path. The path was dry.

At noon we ate bread, potatoes, and honey. The honey came from a jar sent by a beekeeper near Ambrook. Eda's youngest son put his bread in the trough by mistake. The bread floated for a moment. We fished it out with a clean spoon, and he ate it.

Eda says next year she will plant a narrow row of beans beside the barn. I asked if beans need much water. She said they need less than a boy who has found a new water trough. Her son asked for another drink. Eda filled his cup. The trough is working well.
%%
Petition: a rail or a ramp
To the council at Vell, from the market folk of the east row. Written on the fifteenth of Longnight, in the 176th year of the archive.
We ask for one of two things. A rail set into the east steps, or a ramp of packed earth beside them. Either is good. We are not proud.
The reason is the cart. The market sits at the top of the steps and the steps are old and the frost lifts the stones. Every Longnight a cart sticks on the turn by the fish stall. This winter it was Pell's cart, three times in one month. The first time we pushed it. The second time we pushed it and a horse helped. The third time Pell sat down on the cobbles and said he would sell the cart and carry the wool on his back. He did not mean it. Pell never means it.
We are not asking for the steps to be made new. We like the steps. The old folk sit on them in Swarm and shell peas. We ask only for the one turn to be eased, or a rail to hold the wheel.
The cost: we have counted. A rail set in stone is forty emeralds, says the mason. A ramp is twenty, but the ramp takes the pea corner. We leave the choice to you. We only ask that it is done before Sowing, before the carts come up heavy with seed.
Signed by the market folk:
Oren, clerk, who keeps the row's letters and has pushed the cart himself.
Pell, merchant, who has pushed the cart and paid for the horse.
Bram, who sells fish and does not push carts but has opinions.
Nissa, who sells wool and will lend a hand.
Old Tobin, who sits on the steps and watches.
and fourteen more who were there.
%%
Note on the Lowmarsh well
The farm well beyond the east boardwalk ran dry in the second week of Longday. I checked it at dawn and again after the noon bell. The bucket came up with dust on its bottom both times.

The farmer, Eda, has three fields near the reeds. The top field holds wheat. The lower rows hold beetroot and carrots. She carried water from the boat house well for the young plants, but that is a long walk with two full buckets. We took turns. Moss carried one bucket and brought back an empty one with a frog in it.

We cleared leaves from the farm well and checked the stones around its mouth. The stones are sound. Eda says the water has fallen before, but never this far. She will ask the council to look at the spring after harvest.

For now, the family draws water at the boat houses. They keep a jug in the shade for passersby. Eda says the jug is not a public bath for frogs. The frogs have not agreed.

Wren
%%
Letter: Wren to Lowmarsh
Summer, 176.
To the council at Lowmarsh.
Please give Reedham two lanterns for the boardwalk by the healing house path. The water rose after rain, and the old torches went out. Moss carried a jar of honey to my shed and came back with mud to the knees. The jar was safe. Moss says this was the important part.
We can keep the lanterns clean and fill them with oil. We ask for two, not three. One at the bend and one by the boat house will guide people home.
The path is used by fishers, children, and anyone bringing me a sick frog. The frogs do not need a lantern, but their carriers do.
Signed, Wren.
Moss, apprentice.
Alda of Reedham.
Pell, who says he is only passing.
%%
Petition: the lamp over the front hall
To the council of Vell, from the people who come up the hill to the Archive on dark evenings. In winter. Drafted by Oren and read at the meeting on the ninth of Longnight.
The lamp over the door of the front hall is too dim. In summer this does not matter. In winter the sun sets early, and anyone leaving the Archive at the end of the day walks down the hill by the light of that one lamp, which is old and has a cracked glass.
Last month a girl from the school lost her way, and walked into the herb garden, and was found by the gardener sitting in the sage. She was not hurt. She said it was quite comfortable. But the gardener says that sage does not like being sat on.
We ask the council for a new lamp, with clear glass, set higher on the arch. We also ask for two more torches along the hill path, one at each turn, and for the old ones to be trimmed.
We know the rule. No candle past the front hall. This is the front hall. A candle in a lamp with glass is not a candle in the air, and the glass will keep the wind off it.
We know that the council has many matters. The roads need mending, and the tower at Three Wells has a loose rung. But the Archive is a place people visit, and a visitor who falls in the herb garden does not speak well of us.
This petition is signed by sixty-three people. Among them: Oren, who wrote it. Dell, who held the lantern. The girl who sat in the sage, in a hand still wobbling, and a note: "I was fine."
The council voted yes, with one voice against. The one voice said the sage should be moved. It was not moved.
%%
Journal: a winter at the weir
I keep a journal because the days run together out here. This is the winter of the 193rd year, in Lowmarsh, at the boat house by the weir. My name is Quill. I am a carter, but in Frost there is no carting, so I fish and I mend nets and I write things down.
The marsh in winter is not empty. It is quiet but it is not empty. The water under the ice is dark and slow. The reeds stand up stiff and brown and they knock together. The frogs are down in the mud and they will come up in Thaw, loud as ever. The foxes come out at dusk and walk the frozen path like they own it, which they do. The boat men say a fox on the path means a hard frost. I say a fox on the path means a fox on the path.
The boat house has a stove and a stool and a tally on the wall. The tally says how many fish came in each day. In winter the numbers are small.
A new thing this winter. The council at Vell sent us an apprentice. It is copper and iron and it walks and it carries. It has a small mind in a crystal and it came with a card of orders. The card says: farm, store, fetch, come, stay, build, haul, home. I read it twice.
The first day I said: bring me the net. It went to the shed and came back with a bucket. I said it again. It stood still.
Then I remembered what the tutor's note said. Say one order, in the words on the card. So I said: fetch net. And it went and got the net. Just like that. So the trouble was me, not the mind.
The second day I said: come. It came. I said: stay. It stayed by the door all morning and would not move for the wind. The boat men laughed. I said: home and it went to its corner by the stove, which is where it sleeps, if a thing like that sleeps. I do not know if it sleeps. It is still at night, anyway.
The third day I said: haul the boxes to the pier. It hauled one box and then came back and stood by me and waited. I think it did not understand the other boxes. I said it again, one box at a time, and it hauled them all, slow and careful, one at a time. It never dropped one. The tutor told me: never send an untested mind to the fields. I am not sending it to the fields. I am sending it to the pier, which is easier.
At night I keep the stove up and the lantern lit and I write. The lamp on the hill past the weir blinks its steady blink. All is well, it says, if I have it right. I like to think it is telling me that. Rill says it is telling the tower that, and the tower is the one that cares. Either way I sleep better for it.
The marsh is not a bad place to spend a winter. The eels are good. The cards are bad. The apprentice is learning. So am I.
%%
Petition: a warm hen house
To the Northpoint meeting, Longnight.

We ask the meeting for a warm hen house, with a stove, before the deep cold.

Why. In Frost the hens laid twenty eggs a day. In Longnight they lay three. Hens do not like the dark and they do not like cold feet. Piper's hens are all sulking, and so is Piper.

What it costs. One stove from Copperhold, nine emeralds. One load of wood a week. Piper will pay for the wood in eggs.

Who it helps. The school bakes on feast days. The inn makes pancakes. Mira makes bread. Nobody can do any of that with three eggs.

Names:
Piper, egg seller.
Dell, schoolteacher.
Nim, innkeeper.
Runa, age nine, who loves the hens.
Mira, keeper. She signed after the second paragraph.
Sock, the fox. Did not sign. Was found sitting on the petition.
%%
Petition: the roof of the old woman's
To the council of Three Wells, from the households on the Edge Road, autumn of 181.
We ask that the council send two builders and a ladder to mend the roof of old Sorrel's house, at the end of the road.
Why. The rain this autumn has come through in three places. Sorrel sleeps with a pot on her bed and a bowl at her feet. She says it is fine, because the sound is like music. We think this is a polite way of saying she is cold.
What we have done. We have mended what we could. Nell's father went up with a ladder and a hammer and came down faster than he went up. The ladder is not safe. Bel offered to hold it, and was told to go home.
What we ask. That the council pay for slates, or for oak boards, whichever is cheaper. We will do the work if someone shows us how. Tam from Kettle Ridge is passing through, and he says he knows a bit. We would like to ask him, with the council's leave.
A small word about Sorrel. She taught half of us to read. She keeps a jar of honey on the table for anyone who calls. Last winter she gave Bel's cat a saucer of milk every day, though it is not her cat.
Signed: Nell's father, Bel, the Marrows, Hen, Oss, Greta, Ned, and eleven others from the Edge Road. Sorrel does not know about this. Please do not tell her.
%%
Letter: Edda to her sister in Ambrook
Dear Sanna,

A good harvest here. The best barley in nine years. We filled the grain store and had to open the old loft above the forge, the one with the owl in it. The owl moved out in Swarm and did not help. The barley is in.

The miners ate four hundred loaves this month. I counted. Gunn baked them all and did not sleep for two days and now will not stop talking about it.

We have a new apprentice at the mill. Copper arms, iron legs, a mind in a crystal you can see through a little door in its chest. It carries four sacks at a time. The first week it dropped one on my foot. I said a word. It did not learn the word. It learned to hold the sack lower.

There is a girl, Rill, who walks with it and says the words to it. She is good. She talks to it all day as if it were going to answer. It never answers. She says that is fine, some folk are quiet.

How is the honey this year? Send a jar. The miners pay well for honey and we have none since Betta's jar broke.

Your sister,
Edda

P.S. The road is still mud. Tell your council we are not the only ones who need a road.
%%
Letter: Dara to the council, second time
To the council of Vell.
I wrote before about the lane. I am writing again. I am not cross. I am only writing again.
The gravel came. Thank you for the gravel. The gravel is very good. The cart goes up the lane now without the axle groaning. My son Tam says the road is better than the road in town. I told him not to say that where the mayor can hear.
But the lamps did not come. The lamps are the thing I asked for first.
It is spring now. The nights are shorter, I know. But the children still walk home in the dark from the school house. My girl Bel is nine. She is not afraid of the dark. She is afraid of nothing, she says. But I am afraid of the dark for her, and I am the one who has to sit by the window.
A lamp at the corner would do. One lamp. We will keep it lit.
Dara, of the lane
%%
Petition: the matter of the late boat
To Dace, mayor of Three Wells, and the council. From the households of Reedend, a hamlet near Ambrook, summer of 188.
We are a small place and do not write often. We write now because of the boat.
On the third of Melon, our fishing boat, the Grey Heron, did not come home at dusk. It came home at dawn, with two men very tired and a great many fish. They had been caught by a squall at the far end of the pond and had no light.
We ask the council for a lantern at the far shore, kept lit from dusk to dawn in summer, as the towers keep theirs. We know a lantern is not a tower. A small lamp will do.
We also ask the council to settle a quarrel. Orrin and Mab disagree about whose turn it was to light the lamp, and they have not spoken since. We would like the council to say whose turn it was, and that will be the end of it.
Our reasons are plain. A boat that is late is a worry to everyone who has a person in it. We would like to worry less. Mab says she would like to worry less about Orrin, but she has not said so to Orrin.
We enclose a jar of honey. It is from our own hives. It is not a bribe. It is a gift, and the jar is very fine.
Signed: Orrin, Mab, Sedge, Pell the younger, Tansy, Hob, Ivy, Brann, Cobb, and fourteen others of Reedend who put their marks below.
%%
Petition: Bel and the mended roof
To the mayor of Three Wells, from Bel, with a note from her mother.
Dear Dace. The roof is mended. I wanted to tell you, and to say thank you, and to ask for one thing more.
The roof was mended by the council's builders, who came on the second dry day. There were three of them and a ladder. I held the ladder. It was the best day of my life, except the day with the pie.
The hole was above my bed. For eleven nights I slept with a pot on my pillow. It rang when the rain came in. I will miss it a little.
The thing I ask. Mother says I may ask. The builders left a heap of old slates behind the house. May I keep them? I want to make a path in the garden. My cat will like it. It will get her feet wet less.
The Marrows next door have said they will help. Mr Marrow says he will carry the slates. We have not talked about the fence. We have talked about slates.
The fence is still there. I think it is all right.
Signed: Bel, her mother, her father, and Mr Marrow, who says he is a witness, which he is.
%%
Petition: the bread of the Archive
To Dace the mayor and the council of Vell, in the winter. By Oren, on behalf of the clerks, with all the care a clerk can give to a matter of food.
Last month the kitchen of the Archive began to make its own bread, from a starter given by a friend in Ambrook. The starter is a jar of flour and water that lives on the shelf by the stove. It bubbles. It smells. It is, they say, alive.
The first loaf was a stone. The second was a stone with a hole in it. The third loaf rose so high that it pushed the lid off the oven, and the clerks found it in the morning leaning out like a sleeper. The fourth loaf was good. The fifth was bitter. The starter went into a second jar and the second jar was left on a shelf in the deep halls by mistake. It has not been seen since.
We write to ask the council to do three things.
First, to send a baker from the town to teach the kitchen. A baker who has done this for years, and who can tell a good rise from a bad one. We will pay in copied pages, which the bakers of Three Wells have long wanted.
Second, to say plainly that the starter should not be kept in the Archive. Not in the halls, not in the copying room, not in the deep halls. A jar that grows is not a thing that wants to sit on a shelf with the oldest record in an oak box.
Third, to forgive Pim, the junior clerk, who is said to have eaten the fifth loaf alone out of kindness. He is not well. He will be better soon.
Signed by the clerks of the Archive: Oren, Dell, Marrow, Tilly, Brenna, Hobb, Ketch, Pim, and the cook, Mother Alder, who says the starter is hers and the bread is not. The cat of the copying room has signed too, in flour.
%%
Letter: Quill to the mill at Kettle
Dear folk at the mill,
This is the carter. I am snowed in at Lowmarsh and I am writing this by the fire at the boat house, so forgive the wobbles.
I came down the marsh road on the second of Frost with a cart of apples for the market. The road was ice and I went slow. I got here. The apples got here. Some of the apples are now sauce but most are fine and I sold them.
Now the snow is up to the cart's axle and the marsh has gone quiet. The frogs have stopped. The water is slow and grey. The reeds are stiff with ice and they rattle when the wind goes through them. It is a good sound, but I would rather hear a cart.
I cannot come up the ridge until the road clears. So your flour and your tally board must wait, and so must the barley I owe the Kettle Inn. Tell Tam I am sorry about the barley. Tell him the fault is the sky's.
One thing to report. Last night the little lamp on the hill past the weir blinked a strange message. It went long, short, long, short, then a long gap, then the same again, four times over. I do not read the lamp. Nobody here reads the lamp. The keeper at the tower will know what it meant. I only say it was not the usual steady blink that says all is well.
Also, my left boot has a hole. That is not news for the mill. I just wanted to put it somewhere.
Send word by the next cart that comes down. I will be here, warm, eating fish and losing at cards with the boat men.
Yours in the snow,
Quill the carter
%%
Letter: Rill to a friend in Kettle Ridge
Dear Pip,

You asked what it is like to work with an apprentice. Here is the truth.

It is like working with a very strong person who has never seen a road. You have to show it the road. Then you have to show it the road again. Then you go to bed and get up and show it the road again. Then one morning it walks the road by itself and you feel like a fool for all the times you showed it.

Mine is called nothing. Apprentices do not have names. But I call mine Cobble, because of the road, and it does not answer to it, but it comes when I say come, so it is the same thing.

It is warm. That is the thing nobody tells you. The mind in its chest gives off heat, and in winter you can stand by it like a stove. The children know this. They are always by it. Edda says if she had known it would draw children she would have got one years ago.

Tell your Tam I heard about his top field. Tell him a good harvest is a good harvest even if the ditch floods. Tell him our barley beat his wheat. He will say it is not the same thing. It is not. I said it anyway.

Is your Pip learning the orders? Nessa's book says the only meanings are farm, store, fetch, come, stay, build, haul, home. I have not used build. I am saving it.

Your friend,
Rill

P.S. The wheel still squeaks. We have decided to keep it.
%%
Petition: Bel asks about the fence
To Dace, mayor of Three Wells. From Bel, age nine, of the house at the edge of town, with help from my mother, who says I may write it myself if I spell nothing wrong. I have tried.
Dear Dace,
We have a fence. The Marrow family next door has a fence. It is the same fence. Both of us say it is ours.
My father says it is on our side. Mr Marrow says it is on his. They have both been out with a measuring rope. The rope says two different things, depending on who holds it.
What I ask. Could you come and look at the fence and say whose it is? Or could you say that it belongs to both, and both must mend it? I think that is best.
Why. Because they have not talked for eleven days. They look over it and say nothing. The Marrows have a dog, and the dog is sad.
Names below: Bel, my mother, my father. Mr Marrow, who says he will sign after you decide. The dog, who has no pen.
%%
Petition: let the market cats stay
To Mayor Lenn and the council of Saltreach, from the fish sellers, the net menders and the healer. Longday, 204.

In Sowing the council made a rule: no animals in the fish market after the second bell. We know why. Gil's cow walked in at dawn and ate a whole bundle of dried kelp, and for three days went about looking green. It was a fair rule for a cow.

But the rule says animals. So the cats were put out too. There are nine of them. We ask that they come back.

Here is what has happened since.

1. The fish heads pile up behind the stalls. The cats used to take them. Now the quay smells like the bottom of a barrel.
2. The children are sad. Cass says the market is like a house where somebody has gone away.
3. On the sixth of Longday a creeper came down the harbor road at dusk. Everyone knows a creeper will not go near a cat. The quay had no cat. The creeper blew a hole in the harbor wall the size of a cart. Nobody was hurt. We lost Marit's best stool, a coil of rope, and the good name of the night watch.

We ask:
One. That "animals" in the rule mean cows, pigs and horses.
Two. That the cats may sit on the quay, the stalls and the long pier, but not on the scales.
Three. That a bowl of fish heads be set by the price board each day. We will fill it.

The cats are Bait, Hook, Sinker, Mud, Stern, Little Stern, Old Grey, Nell, and a ginger one that nobody owns and that comes to any name.

Ula, healer. I have treated eleven cat scratches this summer, and every one was deserved. I still ask that the cats stay.
Marit, nets. Rafe, rope. Bram, cod. Senna, salmon. Old Sal, who was here before the rule and before the council.

Answered on the second of Melon. The council has read this petition. It was sat on by four cats while it did so, and the clerk has noted it. The rule now says: no cows, pigs or horses in the fish market after the second bell. The cats may stay. The bowl will stand by the price board. Not on the scales. Lenn, mayor.
%%
Report: the keeper's lamp at Lowmarsh
To the clerk at the Archive at Vell, from Sedge, keeper of the tower on the hill above Lowmarsh. This is for the relay log. Sent by cart with Quill, who counts his words, so I will count mine.
In the third week of Deepsnow, on a still night, the lamp on the hill past the weir blinked a strange message. Not my tower. The little lamp, one lamp and one keeper, on the hill between us and the marsh path.
The pattern was this: long, short, long, short, then a long gap, then the same, four times over. Then nothing for an hour. Then once more, and no more all night.
I know that pattern. It is not one of ours. It is not the all well. It is not the call for help. I have the book of patterns by my desk and I went through it twice by lantern light. It fits nothing in the book.
I went down the hill in the morning to ask the keeper. The keeper is a young one, name of Fen, and Fen swears the lamp did it alone, that the wind shook the shutter and the lens caught the light, and that Fen was asleep in the relay house and woke to it and did not send it.
Fen may be right. The glass on that lamp is old and one pane is cracked and rattles. But a rattle does not blink four times and stop and blink again. A rattle rattles.
So I write it down. That is what we do. I do not say it was a message. I do not say it was not. I say the glass is cracked and should be mended, and Fen should have a second lantern and a warmer coat, and if anyone on the hill past the weir sends a message in the night, the keeper there should write it down too.
Send a pane of glass when a cart goes. Send it with Quill. He is slow in snow but he gets there.
Sedge, keeper, Lowmarsh tower.
%%
Petition: mend the Lowmarsh boardwalk
To the council at Lowmarsh, from the folk who cart and trade on the marsh market.
We ask for boards. The boardwalk by the fish weir has three rotten planks and one that is mostly a hole. In Frost the water under it freezes and the hole fills with ice. Old Rill went in up to her waist last market day. She is fine. She is not friends with the hole.
We also ask for one more torch post by the boat houses. It is dark there by the fourth bell of the afternoon.
We would help. We have carts, we have hands, and Quill the carter will haul the oak from the ridge for the price of a meal.
Signed: Quill the carter, Rill the fisher, and nine others who walk it every day.
%%
Petition: A Bridge at Reedham
To the council at Lowmarsh.
We ask for a small oak bridge at Reedham, over the ditch by the reed beds. The boardwalk ends there. Children carry fish baskets across on the posts, and last week Belis dropped a whole basket. The frogs ate well.
Please use oak from the town store. We will carry it and mend the path. Wren says the bridge needs a rail on both sides.
We do not ask for stone. Oak will do.
Signed, Wren, healer.
Pell, passing through.
Mara, keeper of the fish weir.
Joss, Reedham.
%%
Petition: poles for the north road
To the council at Vell, and to Mayor Dace of Three Wells. Deepsnow.

We, who live at Northpoint and on the north road, ask for two things before next winter.

First. Tall poles beside every waymark north of the Halfway Inn, so the marks show above the snow. Dunn the waymark keeper says setting poles is his work, and he is ready. But the poles must come from somewhere, and the somewhere is Vell. He asked in autumn. He was sent a letter that said soon.

Second. A snow cart on the north road once a week, with two horses and a plank on the front to push the snow. We will feed the horses. We will feed the driver. We will feed the horses again.

Why. Last winter Pell's cart was stuck eleven times between Three Wells and Northpoint. He counted. By the eleventh he had stopped counting and begun naming the drifts. One is called Dunn's Aunt. We do not ask why.

Also the coal for the north line comes by this road. The eggs come by this road. The school's primers came two weeks late, and the class had to share one.

Names:
Pell, merchant. Eleven times.
Dunn, waymark keeper.
Piper, egg seller. Her eggs froze in the cart.
Dell, schoolteacher.
Mira, keeper. No coal for four days in Frost.
Nim, innkeeper.
%%
Relay note: the cart on the ridge road
From the keeper at Vell to the relay tower above Kettle Ridge. The twenty-second of Longnight, 184th year.
Tam, is the road passable up to your top field? We have a cart coming with archive paper and it has to reach the tutor house before Thaw. The driver is old and the horse is older. If the ridge road is ice, tell me and we will send it round by Three Wells, which is longer but flat.
Also. Your sister's tower sent us a message this morning. Mira says the snow at Northpoint is up to the second rung of the ladder and the foxes have learned to sit by the lamp for warmth. She says the lamp is warm and the foxes are not fools. She asks if we can send more lamp glass. I have put four panes in the cart.
One more thing. My apprentice tried to help with the loading. I said: haul the paper to the cart. It hauled the cart to the paper. We stood in the yard and looked at it for a while. Then I said: bring the cart here, and it brought the cart here, and the paper is still in the yard. I am learning to say things in the right order. Nessa says I am a slow learner and she is not wrong.
Write back when the road is clear. Oren.
%%
Petition: that the dye water go
To the council of Vell, from the dyers of the market, in the deep of winter.

We are the dyers. We stand at the east end of the market, by the stair. We make blue from woad, red from madder, yellow from weld, and a green that Brin says is a secret and the rest of us say is just blue and yellow.

We wish to say something about our water.

Each day we wash the wool in tubs, and each day the water goes down the market stair. In summer, this is a small matter. In winter, it freezes. By midmorning the market stair is a slide, and it is blue.

Last week, three people sat down on it. One was the baker. One was a child, who was delighted. One was the old clerk from the Archive, with a basket of fresh ink, which was now on his coat. He took it well. He said it was a good color. He was kind. Others have not been so kind.

Brin has put out sand. The sand blows away. Oda has put out ash. The ash goes gray, and then the stair is gray and slippery.

So we ask for two things.

First, a gutter along the east wall of the market, of cobblestone, to carry our water to the drain behind the tool store. We will dig it ourselves, if the council will give us the stone.

Second, until the gutter is made, a rope along the stair, for people to hold. We can supply the rope. Hob owes us a favor.

We did not wish to trouble the council. But a stair should be for walking.

Cass, dyer, with the blue hands.

Under this, the names of the dyers and their neighbors who use the stair: Brin, Oda, Tolly, Hester, Wick, Merrow, Ash, Perrin, Dunn, Nell, Sorrel, Pike, Orrin the clerk, and three children who asked to be put down, in their own letters, which are not given here.
%%
Minutes: Copperhold council, winter
Minutes of the council of Copperhold, held in the mine hall, the ninth of Frost, year 203.

Present: Hesk, for the miners. Edda, for the millers. Gunn, for the bakers. Ferr, who keeps the count board. Old Marrow, who keeps the peace, mostly.
Also present: Clank, Hesk's apprentice, who stood by the door and was asked to sit and sat.

1. The road. The petition from the millers was read aloud. Edda read it twice. The second time she read it better.
The council agrees there should be a road of cobblestone from the mill to the kitchen. The council has agreed this before. The council agrees it again. Ferr will count the stone in the fallen wall and write it down. If the stone is enough, the road begins in Thaw. Hesk says the miners will dig the ditch. Edda says she has heard that before. Hesk says it is true this time. Edda says she has heard that before too.

2. The apprentice. Clank has been at the mine four months. It sorts ore at the sorting shed and has not once put copper in the iron bin. Hesk says this is more than some people manage. Clank was asked to show the council what it can do. Hesk said "fetch coal". Clank fetched coal. The council clapped. Clank put the coal down and stood by the door again.

3. The humming. Old Marrow says the Deep Works hum at night. Ferr says it is the pumps. Old Marrow says the pumps do not hum, they thump, and he knows the difference, he is old. The council notes that the pumps will be looked at. This item took some time.

4. There being no more business, the council ate Gunn's bread and went home in the snow.

Written by Ferr, who keeps the count board.
%%
Bel's letter about the big beetroot
Dear Archive at Vell,

I went with my aunt to the farm outside Lowmarsh. The path was wet, even though there had been no rain for three days. Aunt says the marsh keeps water like a bowl keeps soup.

We pulled weeds between the beetroot rows. I pulled one beetroot by mistake. It was very small. Aunt said it had been thinking about growing, but I had interrupted it.

The farmer gave us a carrot for our work. I put it in my basket with the beetroot. On the way home, the carrot fell out. A frog sat on it. I did not take it back until the frog had gone.

There is a well beside the farm house. The farmer lowered a bucket, but it came up dry. He tried again. It was still dry. He said the well had not done that in all his years. Aunt gave him water from our jug, and he gave the jug back with honey on the rim.

I think the well needs a drink.

Bel
%%
Petition: the long winter and the snow
To the council of Vell, from the people of Northpoint, in the autumn of 207.
We ask that the snow path to the foot of the hill be cut before the first frost, and kept open all winter.
Last winter the path was cut in the spring. In the snow, we were three months with no bread from the south, no post, and no word of the Kettle Ridge fire. We were not hungry. Carys made the flour go a long way. But the keeper could not send the weather, and the boats at Saltreach did not know what the sky was doing, and this was not a good thing.
We ask for three things. Cut the path with the shovels from Kettle Ridge. Keep a lamp at the top of the hill, so the sled men can see the way. Send the post on the first sled of the year, and not the last.
We know the winter is long. We know the council has many towers. We know we are the last tower on the line. That is why we ask. Nobody else is at the end of the path.
Signed by:
Carys, baker, for the bread.
Mira, keeper, for the lamp and the weather.
Hedd, boy, who will shovel, if you send the shovels.
Lantern, apprentice, who can hold a lamp for six hours without tiring, and who is counted here as a shovel too.
Brann, cook, who says the bread will be ready when the sled arrives, and not one moment before.
%%
Petition: that the fence be settled
To Dace, mayor of Three Wells, and the council. From the house of Hale and the house of Marrow, at the edge of town, jointly, which is the point.
We write together, for the first time in a year.
There is a fence between our houses. It runs from the road to the old pear tree. Hale says it was built by his grandfather. Marrow says it was built by his. Both are dead, and neither can be asked.
For some years we have argued. We argued about the post at the north end. We argued about the gate. In the end we argued about the pear tree, whose pears fall on one side and are eaten on the other.
The arguing is tiring. Our children play on both sides, and do not see why we mind. Bel, who is nine, said it is a fence, and fences are for sheep.
So we ask the council to settle it. Not to say who is right. To say what is fair. We propose: the fence belongs to both. We each mend our half. The pears are shared.
Dace, if you can come on a day when it is not raining, we will have tea. We will not talk about the fence until you do.
Signed: Hale and his wife Tove. Marrow and his wife Wend. Bel, a witness. The pear tree, which has its own opinion.
%%
Petition: a winter place for the wool
To the council of Vell, from Cass the dyer and all who sell wool and cloth in the market. Winter.

Every winter, the cold takes the wool sellers by the throat. We stand in the open market from dawn, with our fingers stiff and our wool wet. We sell very little, for people hurry past with their heads down.

The market hall by the east side is a fine building. It has a roof of oak and a floor of stone. It is empty from the first frost to the last, except for the bell ringers' practice, which happens on one evening in the week.

We ask to use the hall for the cold months, from the first of Frost to the last of Deepsnow, three days in each ten.

Here is what the council will gain.

One. We will pay a fee, which we have agreed among ourselves: two emeralds for each stall each month. Eleven stalls, twenty-two emeralds, nine months. The hall's roof needs mending, and this will pay for it.

Two. The wool will not be rained on. Wet wool is hard to dye and harder to sell.

Three. The ringers can ring on the other days, and they say they would like more people to listen.

Four. People will come to the hall for warmth. Once they are inside, they will buy things. The baker has already said she would like a stall at the door. The cheesemaker says the same. There is talk of a hot pie stand. We do not wish to start a war over this, but we will say that pies are welcome.

Five. A child may stand in a dry place while a parent shops.

Here is what we promise. We will sweep. We will carry out our own wool ends. We will not dye in the hall, for the smell and the blue floor, and we will keep our own vats in the yard behind. We will not light a fire in it, only lamps behind glass.

We know some will say the hall is for the town. We say the hall is the town's. The wool sellers are the town, and so are the pie sellers, and so are the cold.

If the answer is no, we ask only that the council tell us why, so that next winter we can ask better.

Cass, dyer.

Names: Brin, Oda, Tolly, Hester, Wick, Merrow, Ash, Perrin, Dunn, Nell, Pike. Each has made a mark or written a name beneath. Pike made a drawing of a sheep. It is accepted.
%%
Petition: millers of Copperhold
To the mine hall and the council of Copperhold, from the millers and bakers of the town.

We ask for one thing: a road of cobblestone from the mill to the shaft head kitchen, about three hundred steps, so the flour sacks go on a cart and not on our backs.

Why we ask:
Every morning four of us carry sacks up the hill. The path turns to mud in Frost and stays mud until Thaw. Last winter Betta slipped on the ice below the count board and broke a jar of honey and her wrist. The honey was worse. Do not tell her I wrote that in a petition.

The miners eat bread. The miners work hard. We are proud to feed them. We would rather feed them than carry to them.

We have counted the stone. The old wall by the tool store is fallen and nobody uses it. Its cobbles would do for half the road. The other half we will bring ourselves from the sorting shed's spoil, which is free stone and already out of the ground.

We ask for: the road.

We do not ask for: wages, carts, or a new mill wheel. The wheel is fine. The wheel squeaks. We like it.

Signed:
Edda, miller
Betta, baker
Gunn, baker
Hild, who carries the sacks when the cart is broken
Old Marrow, who carried them before us and has opinions
%%
Notice: apprentice wanted, mill work
Wanted at the mill below Copperhold: one apprentice, for the grain store and the road.

The mill has a new apprentice, a big one, all copper and iron, who carries four sacks at a time and does not complain about the stairs. But it does not know the work yet. It stood in the grain store all morning waiting for an order. Edda says it is willing. Edda says it is like a new boy, only heavier.

So we want a person to walk with it. Somebody who knows the road and the store and which sacks are barley and which are wheat. Apprentices do not talk. You will have to talk enough for both of you.

What the work is:
Walk the road with the apprentice. Show it the mill, then the store, then the kitchen at the mine gate. Say the same words every time. Edda will teach you the words. The words are short.
Keep the tally of sacks on the board by the door. Every sack in, every sack out.
At night, cover the grain store window and see the apprentice to its stand.

What we give:
6 emeralds every ten days, a bed in the mill loft, and bread. Much bread. You will be sick of bread. We are.
We will teach you the road and the words. You do not need to know about minds. Edda knows about minds. Edda knows about most things and will tell you.

Ask at the mill for Edda. If Edda is not there, ask for the apprentice. It is very easy to find.
%%
Petition: the wedding bread
To the mayor of Kettle Ridge, and to the council of the north, from the house at the foot of the Northpoint tower, in the spring of 203.
We ask for leave to bake the wedding bread on the high ground by the tower, instead of at the Kettle Ridge mill.
Ilse and Karl will be married at the midsummer fire. Ilse is from Northpoint, and her father keeps the lamp at the next tower south. Karl is from Kettle Ridge, and his mother will not stop talking about the bread.
The bread must be baked on the day, in the stone oven, and carried to the fire by the path. Our oven is the only one within a day's walk that has a bell. We will ring it when the bread is done, so everyone will know.
We will pay for the flour. We will pay for the fire wood. We will not charge for the bell.
Please say yes. Ilse has asked us three times, and Karl has asked twice, and his mother has asked every day.
Signed by:
Carys, baker.
Ilse, bride, who is very nervous, and who asks that the bread be round.
Karl, groom, who is not nervous, and who says he will eat the first loaf.
Mira, keeper, who would like to be asked for a warm coat, once and for all.
Old Brann, cook, who says yes before anyone else has finished.
%%
Petition: for a dry week and a ladder
To the council at Three Wells, from the house at the edge, Leaffall.
The roof on the north side of our house is open to the sky. It was mended in spring, by Hale, and the mending came off in the first big wind. We ask for help.
First. A ladder. Ours is too short, and the neighbor's is too long, and so we have none.
Second. A dry week. We know the council cannot arrange the weather, but it may arrange itself. A builder who comes in a dry week is worth three in a wet one.
Third. Slates. Twenty will do. They are cheap, and the quarry at Copperhold has plenty. We can pay in eggs, bread, honey, or work.
We would also like it known that there has been a quarrel over the fence, and that the quarrel has not helped. Hale will not lend the ladder, because of the fence. We will not ask him, because of the fence. The roof is, as you see, the real victim.
Bel, who is nine, says we should lend each other everything and think about the fence later. We have decided she is right.
Signed: the household at the edge, the household next door, Bel. A cat has also put a paw on the page. We let it.
%%
Petition: a day for the bees
To the council at Ambrook, from the hamlet of Hivehill. Longday, the 207th year of the archive.
We ask the council to name one day in Swarm as a day of the bees. On that day no one will cut, mow or burn near the orchard, and the hives will be left in peace.
Why. In Swarm the hives are full and the bees are moving. A cloud of them left a hive near our hamlet last year and settled in the one tree on the hill that was being cut. Eleven bees were lost. Nobody counted the people, but there was a great deal of running.
It is a kindness to the bees, and also to us. A swarm that is left alone will settle and be found. A swarm that is frightened goes where it likes, and that is usually the kitchen.
Our proposal. On the day of the bees, children may visit the hives with a keeper. A short talk will be given. At noon there will be bread with honey on the green. The honey is free. The bread is not, and we apologise for it.
We have thought about the cost. It is one day a year. The apple harvest is worth more than a hundred such days.
Signed: Ama's niece, Ross, Idris, Pell, Tove, Hesper, Mally, the three Brights, and twenty-two others. At the bottom, in a small hand, the youngest of them has written: "please".
%%
Petition: shade for the fish stalls
To Mayor Lenn of Saltreach. Longday, 202.

The sun sits on the fish stalls from breakfast to supper. The fish do not like it. The sellers like it less. I have treated four of them for dizziness and one for a nose that is still peeling.

We ask for a sail over the stalls, on four posts. Corin has one too thin for a boat and too good for the fire.

Ula, healer. Bram, cod. Senna, salmon. Cass, aged eight, who says the fish look hot.
%%
Note: the apprentice at the east row
Filed by Oren. The seventeenth of Longnight, 176th year.
A note for the tutors, so that they know. Not a complaint. The tutor Nessa asked me to write it down as it happened.
A small apprentice came to the east row with an order card. The card said: bring me some bread. The little mind read it and went off down the hill. It came back with a loaf in each hand and a third loaf under its arm and a fourth in its mouth. Nobody had told it how much bread. Four loaves. We asked it why four and it stood very still and hummed, and then it walked off again.
The baker laughed until she had to sit on the flour sack. We did not send it back. The bread was good and we ate it at the fish stall with the last of the honey.
The lesson, says Nessa, is not the mind's fault. The lesson is that an order should say how much. She has written it in the new manual. Bring me some bread means one loaf. Bring me bread for the row means four. She says a mind will do exactly what you say and no more and no less, so you had better say it right.
We have kept the card. The baker has pinned it by her oven. It says bring me some bread and under it she has written four, in her hand.
Oren.
%%
Petition: for the wedding of Tilly
To the mayor and the council of Vell, in the second week of Deepsnow. Written by Oren, clerk, with the names of the people below.
We, the people of the Archive and of the town below it, ask the council for the use of the market hall on the nineteenth of Deepsnow. The clerk Tilly and the stonecutter Hobb are to be married. They have asked for a small wedding. We are afraid it will not be small.
The hall holds two hundred. We expect two hundred and sixty. The town will bring chairs. The clerks will bring benches. Those who cannot sit will stand along the wall, as they do at the Founding Day reading.
We ask also that the stoves be lit the night before, so the hall is warm. We ask that the north door be shut, since the wind comes through it and has been known to lift a bride's veil.
We have a cake. We say this plainly, because of what happened to the last cake.
The last cake was made by Brenna, from a recipe in the old book of festival food. It said "two measures of salt". Brenna read it as "two spoons" and used a measure of two hands. The cake was salty. A guest ate it in good faith and had to lie down. This cake has been made by the baker at Three Wells, who is known to be steady, and who has promised to taste it before it is carried up the hill.
We ask this of the council in good hope.
Oren, and forty-one names below, in many hands. The last name is a paw print. It is the cat of the copying room.
%%
Petition: forgive the school play
To the council at Vell, Deepsnow.

We, the families of the Northpoint school, ask the council to forgive the school play, and to let it be given again.

The play is called The Keeper and the Fox. Dell, the teacher, wrote it. In the last scene the keeper climbs the tower and lights the lamp, and sends "all well" to the whole line. Dell asked Mira if the children could light the real lamp once, for the end. Mira said yes, if she stood by the lever.

At the last rehearsal, Mira went down for a cup of tea. Runa, who is nine and plays the keeper, had the pattern for all well written on her sleeve. She had washed her sleeve. The pattern had run. She sent what was left of it.

What went down the line was this: Northpoint to all towers, send pie.

The keepers on the line are bound to pass on every message exactly as it came. They did. By morning Vell had sent two pies. Three Wells sent four. Kettle Ridge sent three. Ambrook sent eleven, being apple country. The pies came up the north road on carts over three days. Pell brought the last two himself, and said nothing, and ate one.

Northpoint ate pie for a week. Nobody was hurt. Nobody was hungry. Piper lost no eggs.

We ask the council not to fine the school. We ask that the play be given again at Longnight, with Mira at the lever. Runa has promised to wash her sleeve less.

Names:
Dell, schoolteacher, who wrote the play.
Runa, age nine. She is sorry.
Piper, egg seller. Eggs were not used. She wants it known.
Nim, innkeeper, who cooked the last pie into a stew.
Mira, keeper. She signed and then she laughed for some time.
The families of all fourteen children in the school.

The council answered by lamp. Vell to Northpoint: no fine. Messages are messages. The council would like to come to the play, and bring a pie. Keep eleven of yours for us.
%%
A letter to the mayor of Three Wells
From Oren at Vell. The third of Frost, 181st year.
Dace, a small matter and a large one.
The small one. The market at Vell asks after your notice board. They say yours is better than ours and they would like the name of the carpenter who made it. Ours leans. The west post is loose and when the wind is up the whole board turns a little, so that the notices face the wall. Nobody has read a notice in the west row since Apple. If your carpenter has a spare week, send him up.
The large one. We have a petition from the market folk about the east steps. They want a rail or a ramp. They have counted the emeralds and they have pushed Pell's cart three times this winter and they are very tired of it. I have put it before the council. The council says the mason is busy until Sowing. So it may be a rail in Sowing, which is better than nothing and worse than a rail in Thaw.
Tell Bel that her letter came. She asked how many records the archive keeps. I told her we have not counted them all and I am not sure we ever will. She wrote back and said we should count them on a rainy day. She is right. I will start on the first rainy day.
Give my regards to the school. Tell the children the door they painted is still the best door in the archive, and I pass it every morning.
Oren.
%%
Petition: word for a boat that is late
To the council of Vell, from Cass the dyer, winter.

My sister's husband fishes out of Saltreach on a boat called the Plover. Two weeks ago the Plover was a day late home. Nobody at Vell knew. My sister knew, and she sat at her window for two nights. The relay tower at Saltreach had word of the boat by the second noon, and nobody thought to tell her.

We ask this. When a fishing boat is more than a day late, the harbor tower should send one note to the home town of each person aboard. Ten words are enough. "Plover late. Weather. All hope." It costs one emerald.

We know the towers are busy. We know Haste is for fire and flood. But a woman at a window is a small kind of flood, and we think a note would do much good.

The Plover came home the next morning, with a broken oar and a great many fish. My sister says she will never forgive it for the two nights. She has made the fisher a blue scarf, in spite of herself.

Names below, all of us with a person on the water:
Cass, dyer. Brin, dyer. Hester, who sells eggs. Old Tolly, whose son is at Saltreach. Wick, the cooper. Marit's mother. Oda, the widow. Perrin, who has a brother in the shipyard.
%%
Petition: a lamp for the lane
To the council of Vell, from the houses at the edge of town, past the last well and up the lane toward the hill.
We ask for four lamps and one torch post on the lane. We ask for a sign where the lane meets the road.
The lane is short but it is dark. The hill cuts off the light early. In winter we cannot see our own gate.
In Thaw the lane turns to mud. Cart wheels sink to the axle. We ask for gravel on the worst part, by Dara's fence.
We are not asking for cobblestone. Gravel will do.
We have ten houses and one barn. We have children who walk to school and back. We have a cow that gets out.
We will keep the lamps lit ourselves if the council sets them. We will pay for the oil.
Signed: Dara, farmer. Orla, who keeps bees. Fen, who mends boots. The ten houses of the lane.
%%
Petition: for a second stove
To the council of the relay houses, at Vell, from the people of the house at the foot of the Northpoint tower, in the summer of 201.
We ask for a second stove.
The first stove is good. We do not complain of it. It heats the kitchen, the relay room and the keeper's bed, and it heats them all at once. When the keeper's bed is warm, the kitchen is too hot. When the kitchen is warm, the relay room is cold. The keeper cannot sleep, and the relay cannot send, and the bread does not rise.
Our bread is baked here for the whole tower. We ask for a second stove so that the bread can rise in one room and the keeper can sleep in another.
We have counted the cost. A new stove, in iron, with a chimney, costs forty emeralds. The stone will come from the quarry at the north road. The masons will be paid by the council, as usual. We will do the rest ourselves.
We have asked before. The last note came back in the winter of 199, and said that Northpoint was new and would be considered in the spring. It is now the summer of 201. We are still considering it, and so is the snow.
Signed by:
Carys, baker, who makes the bread.
Mira, keeper, who sends the lamp, and who would like to sleep.
Lantern, apprentice, who holds the coal and says nothing, and who is included by request.
Hedd, boy, who carries the water. He can write his name. He has asked us to write it big.
Brann, the tower's old cook, who wants the new stove placed by the window, so he can watch the snow.
%%
Petition for a new water trough
To the council at Lowmarsh,

We ask for a covered trough at the farm outside Lowmarsh, where the east boardwalk meets the field path. The well there ran dry in Longday, and the farm had to carry water from the boat houses. The walk is long with a full bucket. It is longer when a person must carry two.

The trough can be filled from the boat house well. A lid will keep leaves and frogs out. Eda will keep the lid clean. She says a frog may sit on top, but it must not live in the water.

The farm had a poor harvest last summer. The wheat was thin, and the beetroot stayed small. Eda still shared potatoes with two families on the boardwalk. A nearer water place will help the fields and the people who work them.

We ask the council for timber, nails, and one day of work from the road crew. Eda and her sons will dig the footing. Wren will bring a jug for the workers. Moss has offered to carry it, but Wren says Moss must carry only one jug at a time.

Names under this petition:
Eda, farmer
Rusk, boat house keeper
Wren, healer
Moss, apprentice
Nell, fisher
Tomas, basket maker
%%
Petition: let Hob pay in emeralds
To the council of Vell, winter.

Hob the rope maker owes the market fund forty emeralds. He borrowed them three years ago to buy a loom for twisting hemp. The loom works. The ropes are good. We have all used them.

The fund says the debt is due at midwinter, in full. Hob has thirty-one emeralds. He has also, he says, nine hundred paces of rope in his shed.

The council has offered to take the debt in rope. We say this is kind, but there is a problem. The council does not need nine hundred paces of rope. It needs forty emeralds for the school roof. The rope would sit in the cellar and be eaten by mice.

So we propose a plan. Hob will pay the thirty-one emeralds now. The market stallholders will each buy a length of his rope, at the fair price, which is more than fair, for the rope is excellent. That will bring in the other nine. The fund is paid in full, in emeralds, on the day it asked. Hob keeps his loom.

I have counted it twice. I counted it a third time with Oda, who is better at sums than I am, and she agrees.

We ask the council to accept this, and to let the debt be marked paid in the book.

Cass, dyer. I will buy the first length. It is for tying wool, but also for hanging a wet cat's blanket, if you must know.

Signed: Oda, Brin, Hester, Wick the cooper, Tolly, Merrow the baker, Ash, Sorrel's father, Perrin, Dunn, and twelve others whose names are on the second page.
%%
A petition from the farms: mend
To the council of Vell and to the keepers of the roads.
We are the farms on the south side, between Vell and Ambrook. Twelve families. We grow wheat and beetroot and keep bees. Some of us keep a few sheep. We are not a town. We are a road with farms on it.
We ask that the road to Ambrook be mended before the harvest.
Why: the road is packed earth with a cobblestone edge, as roads should be. But the edge has gone in three places and the earth has gone in more. When it rains, the water stands in the middle. The carts go round the water and the carts cut the edge, and the edge goes, and then the water has more room. It gets worse every year.
Why now: last year the harvest was poor. The rain came in Reaping and stayed. The wheat went flat in the fields and what stood, we could not get to the mill dry. Half our grain went to the mill and half went to the birds and the wet. We are not asking for pity. We are asking for the road, because a good road is how a poor harvest gets sold at a fair price, and a bad road is how it rots in the barn. This year we want the road mended before Reaping, so that when the wheat is good we can get it to Jory's mill at Ambrook and to the market at Three Wells without losing a sack to the ruts.
What we can give: labour. Eight carts. Twelve strong backs, sixteen counting the children who are tall enough to lift a stone. We will cart the cobbles from the quarry ourselves. We will dig the ditches either side. We ask the council for the stone, the gravel, and one person who knows how a road should be laid, because we do not.
The waymarks on this road are old. The stone pillars are three blocks high with a torch on top, and most of the torches are gone and two of the pillars have fallen. We ask for new torches on the waymarks, one every twelve blocks as the road law says. We will keep them lit.
The new road from the crossroads will pass our fields. We have heard the talk and we are glad of it. A new road is a good thing and we will not stand in its way. But the old road is the road our carts use every day, and it will still be our road when the new one is laid. Mend the old one first.
We are not asking for cobblestone all the way. Packed earth with a good cobblestone edge will do, and a bridge where the stream crosses, stone if the council can, oak if it must. The stream bridge has a loose plank and everyone knows which plank and everyone steps over it, and one day a cart will not.
Signed, and each of us has put our mark or our name:
Dara, of the lane, wheat and beetroot
Orla, bees
Fen, boots and a few sheep
Hollis, who built the bakery again
Ida, who is still cross about it
Tam, wheat
Pip, who works with Tam and signs with a P
Mother Sedge, who is old and remembers the road when it was new
and nine more names, and the marks of the children, who asked to sign and were allowed.
%%
Song: the mill wheel turns
The mill wheel turns, the mill wheel squeaks,
the miller's hands are full of flour.
The apprentice walks and never speaks,
it carries sacks for half an hour.

Down the road and up the road,
barley, wheat, and barley again.
Old Marrow says it is a heavy load.
The apprentice does not mind the rain.

The baker bakes and the baker sings,
the miners eat and the miners dig.
The mill wheel turns and the mill wheel rings,
and the apprentice is always big.

Down the road and up the road,
one more sack and then we stop.
The snow comes down and the wind is cold,
and the bread is warm on top.

(It never stops. It does not know to stop. You have to say stop.)
%%
Petition: a lamp at the mill pond
To the council at Ambrook, from the people of Pondside, the hamlet below the mill.
We ask for one lamp on a post at the end of our landing, where the boats come in.
Why we ask. Pondside has eleven boats. Most go out on the mill pond and the river below it for eels and carp. Last Longday, Fen did not come home until after dark. We stood on the landing with our hands cold and no light to call him by. He found us by the smell of Orrin's supper, he says. We do not think this is a safe way to find a landing.
What we offer. We will dig the hole and set the post. We will carry the oil. The lamp will be lit by whoever lives nearest. At present that is old Bree, who says she does not mind.
What it costs. One lamp, one post and a jar of oil each month. We enclose a jar of our honey as a gift to the council, and the beekeeper says the council may also keep the jar.
Signed: Fen, Orrin, Bree, Tamsin, Hale, Marren, Odd, Pia, and the eleven boats, who cannot write but wish it known.
%%
Petition: a school for the tower
To the mayor of Three Wells and the school council, from the families of the north tower, in the spring of 208.
We ask for a school at Northpoint, or a teacher who will come up the line in the warm months and stay a season.
There are six children at the foot of the tower. Four of them are old enough to read, and none of them can. Their parents keep the lamp, cook the bread and carry the post, and there is no one else to teach them the letters. The keeper has taught Hedd his name. Hedd has taught his sister, and she has taught the dog to sit.
We are asking for little. A room with a window. A slate for each child. Chalk, and a book of plain words. A teacher who can count the snow days in the spring, and who knows the difference between a sum and a sheep.
We will pay in bread. We will pay in the sled road, which we will cut, and in the lamp, which we will keep. We will pay in the weather, which we will send to every school on the line.
Signed by:
Carys, baker, for her boy, who is seven and can say his letters in a loud voice.
Mira, keeper, for her own letters, which were never finished.
Hedd, who asks for a book with pictures of foxes.
Lantern, apprentice, who asks for nothing, but holds the slate for the others, and does so very well.
%%
Notice: market day at Lowmarsh
Market day at Lowmarsh is the first clear day after the ice goes, and this year it will be the sixth of Thaw, if the water is low and the boards are mended.
What you will find:
Fish, fresh from the weir. Rill has eels and pike and one very large carp that she is proud of.
Reeds and reed mats. Good for floors, good for roofs, fair for hats.
Smoked eels. Bring your own cloth to wrap them.
Jars from Wren's healing house: cough syrup, fever tea, and a salve for hands that have been in cold water too long. Wren says do not eat the salve. Someone always asks.
Oak and birch from the ridge, hauled by Quill the carter, if the road is open. Quill says it will be open. Quill says a lot of things.
Honey from Ambrook, apples from Ambrook, and a bee keeper who will talk about bees for as long as you let him.
Repairs: nets mended at the quay, boots mended by old Rill's son, pots mended by anyone with a steady hand and a hot fire.
The market starts at the second bell and stops when the light goes. There will be torches on the boardwalk and a lantern at each corner. Bring a lantern if you come by the marsh path. The path is a path. It is not a promise.
The tally board at the boat houses will be open all day. Boat men, bring your tallies. We are behind on fish and ahead on eels.
There is a new apprentice at the boat house. It carries the fish boxes from the pier to the stalls and back. It is learning. If it brings you a box of eels when you asked for a mat, be patient and say the order again slowly. It is not being rude. It is being new.
No carts on the boardwalk past the third post. We mean it this year. Last year the boardwalk had a cart on it and then the boardwalk had a hole in it.
%%
Tutor's drill note: the mill apprentice
Note from Nessa, tutor at Vell, on the apprentice at the mill below Copperhold.
I went to see it in the winter of 204. Edda showed me the road, which is good, and the apprentice, which is better.

The apprentice is a small mind in a good body, four seasons old. It knows its orders and nothing else. Edda and Rill drilled it on the road with sacks. Every time it put a sack in the wrong store they moved it to the right store and said the word again. That is the whole drill. Show it, then show it again.

It now sorts wheat from barley better than Gunn, who has done it thirty years. Gunn does not mind. Gunn says a man should know his limits.

The drill I set it, unseen by anyone at the mill:
"bring me some barley" and it fetched barley. Good.
"haul the sacks to the kitchen" and it carried them up the road, all of them, and came back. Good.
"fetch me a loaf" and it stood still. It does not know bread as an order. Fetch takes an item. Bread is not barley. I told Edda to drill it. She said she would rather it carried sacks than loaves. Fair.

Its mind is tested on the same unseen drill as every mind in the contest this year. I will write the result when I have it.

Never send an untested mind to the fields. I say this in every note and I will say it again.
Nessa.
%%
Petition: that the Vell school be given
To the council of Vell, and to the tutors of the tutor house, in the month of Longnight. Written by Oren, clerk, at the request of the children and of the schoolteacher, Brae.
We, the children of the school at Vell, ask for leave to put on a play at midwinter. We have the story. We have the stage, which is the front of the hall, with the big book on one side to be the king. We have the costumes, which are mostly sheets.
The play is about the first keepers digging the first room in the hill. Everyone knows the story. The keepers dug and it rained. They wrote their names on one page and the page got wet. They wrote "We will keep everything we write." Then they sat in the hole and waited for it to stop.
In our play there are eleven keepers, one rain, and a mole. The mole is not in the story but the youngest wanted one and we said yes.
We ask the council for these things:
One. The use of the hall for one evening, on the twenty-eighth of Longnight.
Two. A cart of firewood, so that the hall is warm. Ten children cannot act if they are shaking.
Three. Permission for the rain to be a bucket of water poured through a sieve on to a sheet. We have tested this. Only one child was wet. He did not mind.
Four. Ten emeralds for paint, and a lamp to light the stage. We promise to keep the lamp behind glass, as the rule says.
Five. That the tutors at the tutor house come to watch. We would like Nessa to see how we do the part where the keepers write their names. She has taught us how to hold the pen.
We have practiced for three weeks. We know our lines. The mole has one line, which is "Oh." We think it is the best line in the play.
Signed by forty children and the schoolteacher, Brae. Oren has put his name too, since he was asked, and since he has promised to bring the bread.
