Notice: a debt, paid
On the board outside the glass house, summer.

Let it be known that Esk the glassblower owed Marit the net mender 9 emeralds.

The debt began last spring. Esk borrowed her best net to drag sand from the north beach. The tide took the net. The tide did not pay.

Today Esk has paid Marit 9 emeralds, in full, in front of these witnesses: Kell of the Heron, Corin the shipwright, and the cat from the quay. Esk counted the emeralds onto the table one at a time, out loud, so that everyone would remember.

Esk is sorry it took a year. Last year's emeralds went on a new furnace roof. The roof leaked anyway. This summer Esk sold forty jars, eleven cups and one leaning teapot to make the nine. Thank you to whoever bought the teapot. Pour from the left.

Esk has also given Marit a glass float, blue, for her nets. This is not payment. It is thanks. It is also an apology to the net.

Marit's reply, below: Received 9. The float is lovely. The net was not lost. It washed up at the point in the autumn and has been in my shed since. I forgot to say.

Esk, below that: You forgot to say for a year.

Marit: I was busy. I will keep the 9 for the forgetting. The net is yours if you want it.

Esk: I do not want it. It has been in the sea. So have I. We are even.

Kell, at the bottom: Witnessed. The cat refused to sign.

A copy goes to the Archive at Vell. Oren says a paid debt is as much history as a fair.
%%
Lost: Relay lamp glass
Farm outside Vell, nineteenth of Swarm, year 207.
Dara lost the glass cover from the small relay lamp by the orchard road.
It was whole at breakfast. At noon, the copper ring was still on the post, but the glass was gone.
The lamp is not a tower signal lamp. It marks the road turn for folk walking from the farm to Vell.
Please bring the cover to Dara, not to the Archive. Oren already has enough glass to label.
Found near the west ditch: a cracked pane, two bits of copper, and one apple with a neat square hole.
The apprentice carried them to the shed. It did not break the pane, Dara says, because it carried the pane very carefully.
Pip says the apple hole came from the basket handle. Dara says the handle has no teeth.
Wanted: one glass worker or patient mender to fit a new cover.
Pay is four emeralds, supper at the farm, and apples for the road.
The lamp must be ready before the market carts come through. It is a small light, but travelers have missed the turn without it.
The old cover was made from thick glass. A thin pane will not do. The wind pushes hard across the ridge after sunset.
Bring a piece of glass to test. Dara has a copper ring and a steady hand.
There is no need to bring a ladder. The post is low enough to reach from the stone step.
Ask at the gate. If no one answers, Dara is probably in the orchard counting apples again.
%%
Notice: boat for sale
For sale at Ambrook: one rowing boat, oak, twelve feet, well tarred.
I built her myself last winter. She leaks a little at the stern and I have not had time to fix it.
She has a good name painted on the bow, but I will paint over it for you if you want a different one.
Price: forty emeralds, or thirty and a hand with the mill pond nets in spring.
Ask for Zell at the boat yard by the mill pond. I am there most days.
I do not sell to people who leave boats tied loose. The last one drifted and I had to swim.
%%
Notice: a debt paid, and what was found
Posted at the shipyard gate, Saltreach, in Melon, by Corin, shipwright.
Debt paid: Corin owed the net shed six emeralds for the nets that went out with the Patience on her first trial. Paid in full on the first of Melon, in the net mender's hand, on the back of an old sail. Mab wrote the receipt herself and signed it with a drawing of a fish.
Found: a copper spoon, bent, in the sawdust under the keel. Its owner should come to the yard and describe it. Corin says it is not his. Corin's apprentice says nothing, which Corin takes as a yes.
Found: a bell with no clapper, from the old boat. It rings if you hit it with your hand, and nothing else. It hangs on the shed door. Please do not ring it at the tide. The tide does not like it.
Lost: one white sail, from the second boat, last seen going out with the Two Sisters' crew, on a wager about the wind. The wager is not settled. The sail is not back.
Wanted: two men for the caulking, and one apprentice for the planks, which it does not mind. Pay is four emeralds a week, and the fish from the morning's catch that nobody else wanted.
Road news: the cart from Three Wells has come down the Long Road with forty bars of iron for the keel. It has rained every morning since. The carter says the iron is wet, which is good for the keel, and bad for the carter.
Lamp at the quay: the lamp was lit late on the third, because the wick was damp. The keeper says the wick is dry now. It is only a lamp.
Notice: the yard will be closed for the Melon fair on the last day of the month. The boats will be dressed in their best flags, and the children may climb the mast of the Two Sisters, if they do not drop the flag.
Wanted: a second cook for the quay house, for the fair week only. Pay is soup, and the right to say the soup is too salty, which the cook will not believe.
Corin, shipwright
%%
For sale: hay and a bad recipe
Hay for sale at Lenn's farm outside Kettle Ridge. Dry and tied in small bundles, easy to carry through snow. Four bundles for one emerald. More can be set aside if you send word before dusk.
Also for sale, one jar of apple butter. Mara made it from apples that fell beside the mill road. She meant to stir in honey, but the pot boiled over while she was fetching wood. The first spoonful is sweet. The next tastes of smoke. The third has one dark apple skin in it, which Mara says proves the apples were ripe.
She tried to call it winter sauce. Lenn tasted it and called it a warning.
The jar is sound and the lid fits. It is good with bread if you scrape the top first. Price: one emerald, or a bundle of hay if you have no coin.
Ask for Mara in the farmhouse. Keep the jar away from the horses. Button has already had one taste and now waits by the pantry door.
Mara, Longnight of 181
%%
Lost and found at the farm gate
Lost: one red mitten, left hand, with a split at the thumb.
Found: one grey mitten, right hand, with a beetroot stain and a short piece of straw inside.
Both were found by the gate at Lenn's farm, outside Kettle Ridge. The red mitten belongs to Pip. The grey one belongs to no one who has come to claim it.
Pip says the grey mitten was not there when he left. Lenn says it was there before he came out. The horse says nothing, but keeps putting its nose in the pocket.
Please claim your mitten before the next snow. A mitten left too long may become a nest. Ask for Lenn at the shed.
%%
Help wanted: winter nets
The Ambrook net sheds need two more pairs of hands this winter.
Work: mending nets, sorting floats, tarring the boat seams while the water is cold.
Pay: eight emeralds a week and soup at noon.
You must be able to sit still and be quiet. The nets do not care for talk.
Ask for Zell at the boat yard. Bring your own knife. I have three knives and only one of them is mine.
%%
Wanted: a hand for the apprentice
On the board at the Saltreach market, in summer. Written by Iona, bridge keeper, for the harbor master, who asked her to put it up.

The harbor master has bought a new apprentice from the tutors of Vell. It is made of copper and iron, and it came in a crate. It can carry. It can follow a plan. It cannot read.

WANTED: a person who will teach it the harbor. It needs to learn the wall, the dock, the long pier and the slip. It needs to learn where the nets are kept, where the fish are weighed, and where the cats sleep. It must not step on the cats.

The work is three mornings a week. The pay is 3 emeralds a week and a fish dinner. You will need patience. You will need to show the apprentice the same thing again and again, until it gets it right.

At first the apprentice will be wrong. It will carry the wrong crate to the wrong place. It will put a net on a cat. Do not shout. Show it again. Each time it is wrong it changes a little, and slowly it gets better.

The harbor master will test it before giving it work on the pier. Never send an untested mind to the fields, or to the sea.

Apply at the harbor master's door, at dawn, with a loaf of bread if you have one. Nobody knows why the bread matters. It matters.
%%
Wanted: a voice for the song contest
On the board at the Copperhold market. Written by Opal, grandmother, in spring.

WANTED: three singers for the Copperhold song contest. My grandsons will not sing. They say they are too old. They are nine and eleven.

The contest is on the first day of Sowing, in the market square. The prize is a copper kettle and a ribbon. The song may be any song, but not the one about the goat. We have all heard the one about the goat.

If you can hold a tune, come to my door. I will give you tea and a bun.

Opal
%%
Wanted: a boy who can count sheep
Pinned at the gate of the farm outside Saltreach, in autumn. Written by Bel, who wrote it out three times because the first two were too long.

Wanted: one helper for the sheep, from the first frost to Sowing. The helper must be able to count to forty without losing count. Every helper so far has lost count, including me.

The sheep are forty-one this year. The forty-first is called Dumpling, and she has opinions about the gate.

Pay: four emeralds at the end of the season, a bowl of soup every day, and the warm end of the hearth on the coldest night.

Hours: from dawn to the second bell. Nobody works past the second bell. The sheep do not work past it either.

A reference from the last helper is wanted too. The last helper is in the reeds at Lowmarsh, looking for a frog, and cannot be asked.

Apply at the farm, by the well. Ask for Bel. If Bel is in the barn, ask the barn. It will tell you where I am.
%%
Farm account: Frost and Deepsnow
Lenn's farm, outside Kettle Ridge
Frost, tenth day
Two bundles of hay sold to the baker from the east road. He paid in emeralds and asked for a horse to pull his flour cart. I lent him Bramble for one day. Bramble returned with a flour sack tied to his tail. The baker says it was already torn. Bramble says nothing.
The south fence is mended. Pip put the new rail on the wrong side, then held it while I fixed it. He says holding a rail is also a kind of building.
Deepsnow, second day
We tested the carrot bet at noon. Button stopped at the hay rack, as Lenn predicted. She also stopped at the wood pile, but only to smell the basket. Mara shook the sack and Button carried both loads to the shed.
I brought the loaf. The baker put in too much salt, but no one left a crumb. Pip says a loaf can be good and wrong at the same time.
Deepsnow, sixth day
A small apprentice came from Three Wells to help sort the feed store. It carried oats to the oats bin, hay to the hay bin, and a loose carrot to the kitchen. It put the carrot beside the soup pot.
The tutor said the apprentice had learned to sort from many marked examples. I asked if it had been taught not to eat the feed. The tutor said it had not been taught to eat anything.
We tested it with empty sacks. It put one in the tack room and one by the door. That is where I leave them, so I called the test fair.
Pip gave it a brush and asked it to brush Button. It held the brush upside down. The tutor said that was a different lesson. Button accepted the brush and ate its handle.
Deepsnow, ninth day
For sale, a sound saddle blanket, mended twice, one emerald. It is clean and dry. Do not leave it on the fence, even for a moment. Button takes any blanket she can reach and sleeps on it.
Help wanted tomorrow to carry water to the shed and clear snow from the stable door. I will provide warm soup and a place by the hearth. Bring a cup. Our cups are all in use, and one has a horse bite on the rim.
Lenn says the farm is ready for the deeper snow. The horses have hay, the carrots are in the cellar, and the lanterns are full. Pip says Button has hidden his left boot. I found it in the feed bin, with no sign of a horse.
Ask for Lenn at the shed. Do not ask Button. She is busy sleeping on the saddle blanket.
%%
Wanted: diggers for the copper hill
Wanted: men and women with strong backs, for the copper hill above the Ambrook road. A new vein has been found in the rock, with green streaks in it, and the miners from Copperhold say it is a good one.
The work is breaking the rock with picks, carrying it down the slope in baskets, and loading the carts at the bottom of the track. It is hard, and the ground is steep, and the wind comes round the hill every afternoon like a dog.
We give: one emerald for every full basket, paid at the foot of the track each evening. Good tools, which we have borrowed from the Deep Works and must return whole. A hot meal at noon, cooked by the inn. Dry boots, if you bring your own socks.
You must be careful on the track. A cart went off the edge last week, but the horse was fine, and the cart was only a little damaged. The wheel is in the barn.
You must not dig past the stone mark. The mark is a white cross, painted on a rock at the top of the vein. Beyond it, the rock is cold and the miners from Copperhold do not like it. They have not said why. They have only said do not dig.
Ask at the Kettle Inn. Give your name to Hesk's apprentice, Clank, who writes the lists. Clank will not talk to you, but it will write down everything you say, and it does not make mistakes.
%%
Notice: Help at the fish weir
Lowmarsh market, autumn.
Gil the smith needs two strong helpers at the fish weir.
The old net has split again. It caught more reeds than fish.
Work begins after the morning fog lifts. Bring boots, if you have them.
I will mend the iron hooks and pay one emerald for each full day.
Wren says the water is low. Moss says it is only slow.
Both of them say this every autumn.
Ask for Gil by the boat houses. I will be at the stall with the bent sign.
No work after dark. Keep the torches lit on the boardwalk.
There have been spiders by the reed beds, and one creeper near the mud path.
I have a spare torch for anyone who forgot theirs.
%%
Lost: a hen, grey, very cross
Pinned by the door of the farm outside Saltreach, and at the inn at Three Wells. Put up by Bel, for the hen, which is grey, and has a red comb, and a bad temper.

Lost: one hen, grey, with a red comb. Last seen on the third day of the storm, going round the side of the hen house with a fox close behind.

The fox was seen again the next morning, sitting by the barn door, looking very well fed. There were four feathers on its whiskers. It did not look sorry. It looked like it had been to a feast.

Her name is Nettle. She came to the farm as a chick in Thaw, from the mayor's wife at Three Wells, who said she was the best layer in the district. She has not yet proved it, but she has never once stopped trying.

Please keep an eye out. The hen will be easy to spot, because she will be shouting. She shouts at everything, including the fox, and she shouted at the storm for two whole nights.

If you find her, do not pick her up by the tail. Pick her up by the body, from underneath, and hold her firmly. She will bite if you do not. She will bite anyway. She is very cross about the fox.

Reward: one egg a day for a month, from the hen, when she is found. She has not been laying much since the fox. We are sure she will start again when she is back at home and has had a proper rest.
%%
Lost: a brown hen, with a red comb
Lost on the market road, by the big oak, on the second day of Longday. A brown hen with a red comb, one white foot, and the habit of sitting on carts. She is called Dinah. She laid eggs in the mayor's hat once and was not punished, because the mayor has a soft heart for hens.
If found, bring her to the stall at the south end. Hob will give a dozen eggs for her, or a fish, or a long argument about whose hen she is.
Hob says she went under the stall with the baskets and did not come out. He says the baskets are still there, if you want to look.
%%
Notices: the well and the cart, Longday
Notices on the post, Longday. Alder has written a long one about the well, and the children have written a short one about the pig.

The well by the boat ramp is at nine paces. Alder says the clay is wet at the bottom, and the water is coming slowly, as if it were thinking about it. He will say when it has decided.

The helper for the well is Pell's son, who says he is not strong, and then lifts the bucket with one hand. Pays 4 emeralds the day. He asks that the bread be extra, and it is.

The stuck cart on the lower lane came out on the third day. It took two strong backs, a rope from the good stock, and a horse who was not consulted but did the work. The carter says thank you. He also says he would have got out himself, and that only the fish was the problem.

The salt fish from the stuck cart has been delivered to the carter's wife in Saltreach. She sent back a note: Thank you, but it smelled. We are glad it is not for sale.

The Saltreach strip gave one sack in ten this spring. The beetroot is the size of a thumb, and the wheat is thin and short. The mill at Ambrook says it will grind what it gets. The baker at Three Wells says he will bake what he gets. The pig says it will eat what is left.

For sale: a second spade, to go with the first one. The handle is not cracked, only a little bent, the way a good spade gets when it has worked hard. 3 emeralds.

Wanted: a boy with long legs to fetch water from the north spring, twice a day, for the washing and the well. Pays 2 emeralds the week. The spring is very cold.

Lost: the pig's better judgment. Last seen near the well, eating a lump of wet clay. Please return it when found.

Found: a small brown dog with one white ear, asleep in the cart that came out of the ditch. It has been asked whose it is. It says nobody's.
%%
Lost and found after the first snow
The first snow came in the night, all at once, and the boathouse roof was white by the bell. Here is what has been lost and found since.
Found: one wool boot, left, fine. The right boot is full of snow and cross about it. Both may be claimed together.
Lost: a sack of carrots from the cart outside the boathouse, when the snow came down and the carter went home without them. Bring the cart back and the carrots will come too.
Found: three fishing floats, painted red, frozen into the ice at the weir. Leave them until the thaw. They will come loose by themselves, the way ice does.
Lost: one cow, black and white, who walked into the first snow and walked out again on the far side of the marsh. Bring her home along the Long Road. She is not fast, but she is very sure of herself.
Found: a small wooden horse, its paint half gone. The child who lost it may have it back, if the child can say which leg is missing.
Found: a man's hat, grey, with a feather in the band. Dace has been asked if it is his. Dace says it is not his hat. Then he tried it on, and it fit, and he did not give it back for an hour.
Wanted: two strong backs for clearing the snow from the boathouse roof. Pay is a bowl of soup and a warm bench. The roof will not wait for the thaw.
Found: a pair of gloves, one blue and one red, both from Tilly's dye vat. They were dyed the wrong way round. Tilly says the gloves are happy about it.
Lost: all the warmth from the boathouse stove, between noon and dusk. Nobody knows where it went. If you find it, bring it back, and the boathouse will be grateful for a month.
Notice: the weir is shut until the thaw. The fish are asleep under the ice. Please do not wake them.
Tilly, dyer, who has been up all night with the vat
%%
The board at the glass house
Everything on the board at the glass house this summer. Copied for the Archive by Esk, who reads the board every morning and has never once found it dull.

Wanted: a child, ten or older, to carry sand on the north beach path. 1 emerald a day, bread at noon, and a window to look through.

For sale: a sled. Good runners. My son has outgrown it and is now too tall and too proud. Summer is the cheapest time to buy a sled. The first snow will not wait for you. Dov.
Below, in chalk: Snow at Saltreach? Dov: It comes once every winter and everyone is surprised.

Found: a left boot with a small cod in it, alive. The cod is on the harbor wall. The boot is by the door.

Wanted: someone to teach my goat to stay out of the glass house. She has eaten three straw packings and stood on a pane. Senna.
Below: The pane is fine. The goat is fine. The straw is gone. Esk.

Lost: a ball of blue yarn. Last seen rolling downhill, fast, with a kitten behind it. Kit.
Below: Both found. The kitten is cross. The yarn is shorter.

For sale: a pot of dark honey from Ambrook, 3 emeralds. Bought by mistake. I wanted the light kind. Esk.

Paid: Hobb of the Halfway Inn to Esk, 6 emeralds, for the lamp glass. Received, with thanks. Hobb owes nothing.

Wanted: a carrying apprentice, the copper kind, for the glass house. Tested minds only. Glass is not carried by an untested mind. Ask at Vell.

For sale: nets, mended, from the quay. Ask for Marit. She will tell you they are the best on the coast. She is right.

For sale: a rowing boat, small. It leaks only on the left. Row with your weight on the right and it is a very good boat. Kell.

For sale: three window panes, green. Made by mistake with harbor sand. Corin has bought the first. He says he has never seen so much green in his life and is delighted.

Lost: a tune. It was hummed on the quay on the fourth morning of Longday by a man hauling nets. It had eleven notes. He cannot remember the eleventh. Whoever has the eleventh note, please come to the glass house.

Wanted: an honest weigher. Our scale has been told it is wrong by seven people and right by seven people.

Notice: on the last day of each season, Esk will show any child how to blow a glass bubble. Wear old clothes. The bubble will be yours. It will break. That is also a lesson.

Notice: the glass house is open from dawn to noon. After noon the furnace is hot and so are the people.

Found: a hat. Not Pell's. Pell has been asked. Pell is hurt.
%%
Market day at Northpoint
Northpoint, Deepsnow 193. From Mira, relay keeper.

Market day is the third of Deepsnow, in the yard by the relay house. The road is packed hard, but bring a lamp. The wind has covered two waymarks, and one cart went to the wood pile instead of the square.

Tam sent carrots and potatoes from Kettle Ridge. They are sound, though one carrot has grown a fine bend. He says it is for the soup pot. I say it is for the notice board, where it will make a useful arrow.

I have wool socks, spare lamp glass and three jars of honey to trade. The honey is from Ambrook. Keep the lids on until you get home. The bees are not in the jars, but people keep asking.

Eda will sell fish by the east wall. Her stall has a blue cloth. Do not buy from the stall with the loose roof board unless you enjoy catching your supper twice.

The market bell rings at noon. We will clear the path before folk arrive. Bring a shovel if you can. Bring a bowl if you cannot. There will be hot soup in the relay house after the stalls close.
%%
Found: a cave under the field
Lowmarsh market, autumn.
A cave was found under the south field, where the carrots grew thin.
The field belongs to Sella. She found the opening while pulling a stone from the ditch.
The stone rolled down and did not stop where anyone could see it.
Sella tied a reed to the place and told the market keeper.
The opening is small. A child could not climb through with a basket.
The ground around it is firm now, but it was soft after the rain.
No one has gone far inside. Sella saw deep stone and a little water.
She heard a sound like a spoon turning in a pot. It may have been water.
Gil says it was a loose stone. He has not looked.
The town has put a rope across the field path. Please use the boardwalk.
Do not take a torch into the hole. Wren says the air below is close.
The fish weir still needs hands. The cave can wait until there are more hands.
Sella asks for her small spade back. It is not a cave tool.
%%
Wanted: a stable hand for the Brown Hen
The Brown Hen on the Long Road needs a stable hand for the summer. Pay is a bed in the loft, two meals a day and one second bowl free.
The work is mucking out, carrying hay, currying the carters' horses and keeping the water trough full. It is not glamorous. It is not dangerous, unless you count the grey mare, who bites.
You must be able to lift a full bucket. You must not sing in the stable. The carters will complain, and the horses will not mind, but Marda will be cross.
Apply to the inn at the Brown Hen, on the north side of the road. Ask for Marda. Do not ask for the apprentice, because the apprentice does not apply for things. It only does them.
Nim, grandmother, keeper of the inn's accounts
%%
For sale: a dye vat and two chests
For sale by Tilly the dyer, at the house by the river bend, before the snow.
1. One dye vat, lined with copper, big enough for a child to sit in. Eleven years of red and blue have gone through it. 4 emeralds.
2. Two chests of oak with iron corners, 1 emerald each. The lids close with a sound like a fox that has got in.
3. Two sacks of undyed wool, good for winter socks. 2 emeralds the pair.
4. A barrel of lapis dust for the blue. Only as much as you can carry. 3 emeralds.
Why sell? Tilly is moving to her sister's house in Three Wells before the snow closes the Long Road. She will be back in spring, if the road is open. Nobody is sure what she means by that, and she will not say more.
%%
Notice: help wanted at the mill
The big wheel at the mill has broken a paddle. The wheel turns crooked now and squeaks worse than before. Jory says it will hold until the fair, but not through the winter.
We need two strong people for four days to help lift the new paddle into place. The work is on the water side, so bring boots. There is a rope and a block, but the paddle is heavy.
Pay is twelve emeralds a day, and dinner at the mill. Jory's wife makes a good barley soup.
Come to the mill any morning after sunrise. Knock on the big door. If the wheel is turning, do not stand under it. That is the whole rule.
Tam, Kettle Ridge, harvest of 196
%%
The song contest
Collected from the board at the Copperhold market in spring by Opal, grandmother, who is the keeper of the song contest and has been for thirty years. The notices were put up one by one. This is how the contest came together.

FIRST NOTICE. The song contest of Copperhold will be held on the first of Sowing, in the square, at noon. Any person may sing. No person may sing the song about the goat.

SECOND NOTICE. WANTED: judges. Three, who can listen without falling asleep. Last year one of them did. We do not name him.

THIRD NOTICE. WANTED: a platform. The old one fell in the snow. Please bring planks and nails. We will pay in soup.

FOURTH NOTICE. WANTED: singers. So far, we have a miner, a baker, a shepherd and two small children. It is a start. We need six more.

FIFTH NOTICE. A visiting tutor from Vell will judge the third song. She said she will listen with great care and not tell anyone what she thinks. We take this as a promise.

SIXTH NOTICE. FOR SALE: ribbons, red, at the stall of Opal. Two for one emerald. They are for the winners. The rest are for anyone who wants one.

SEVENTH NOTICE. LOST: the words to the second verse of the Copperhold song. The old woman who knew them is ill. Anyone who remembers, please sing it to Opal. She will write it down.

EIGHTH NOTICE. FOUND: the second verse. It was sung by a boy of eight, who learned it from his grandmother. Opal has written it down. It is about a pig. Nobody remembers why.

NINTH NOTICE. The contest was a great success. Seventeen songs were sung. The winner was a woman of Kettle Ridge with a song about wheat. The second was the miner with a song about his boots. The third was the two children, with a song they made up on the day. It had no words. The tutor said it was the best song of the day. The judges agreed.

TENTH NOTICE. FOUND: one voice. It belongs to the miner. He had lost it during the third verse. He has found it again, and sings all the time.

Opal
%%
The board at the Kettle Inn
Everything on the board at the Kettle Inn, the week Mira came home from the north. She copied it for the Archive, and for Lantern, who will want to know what a board is like.

Wanted: a bed for a relay keeper who has not slept in a house with a door in six years. Mira. The inn gave her the room that looks onto the road. She sat at the window all night. She says it was the best night she has had.

Lost: Biscuit. Found: Biscuit. She was in the inn, by the fire, standing on the rug. She had eaten the flowers off two tables and was working on a third. Brin has been told. Brin says she is a good sheep.

For sale: five kittens, various. Free to a good home or a bad one. They are not particular. Ask the cook.

Wanted: someone to mend the inn's weathervane. It points south in a north wind. It was right. It is the wind that is wrong. Nobody believes this, but the weathervane has asked to be mended.

Thanks to Hanna's twins, who got the mill apprentice out of the pond. They are asked not to be so proud of it.

Lost: Tam's hat. Found: Tam's hat, in the hen house. Nobody knows why. This is the second time. We are now looking for the hen.

For sale: a windmill sail, second hand, one side squeaks. Sefa. The mill has a new one, which squeaks on both sides. She says that is progress.

Wanted: a quiet place. A tower, a small one, for a week, with a stove and a lamp. Mira says she misses the quiet and the cold. Below, in chalk: Nobody on the ridge has ever said that. Tam: She is not well.

Wanted: a name for the baby of the Coopers. It is due at Reaping. Bring suggestions. They have used up Sail.

Notice from Ivo the baker: the oven will be hot from dawn. The bread will be ready at the second bell. If you are late, the bread will be gone, and so will the loaf you had in mind. See the notice about 112 loaves.

Found: a very small boot, with a very large hole. The owner is thought to be a cat.

Found: a scarf, red at one end and brown at the other, wound three times round a fence post by the north gate. Mira says to leave it. It is keeping the post warm.

For sale: one fox, made of a sack, with a stuffed tail. Used once. Pip knows it well.

Notice from the cook: the soup today is beetroot. The soup tomorrow is beetroot. The soup the day after is a surprise, and it is beetroot.

Wanted: a good year. Everyone. Signed, the ridge.
%%
Notices: the summer board, the quay
Written on the quay board in Melon, by whoever had chalk that week. Copied onto the net shed door when the first one was rubbed out.
Lost: the cat from the quay house, a grey one with a torn ear. Last seen on the net shed roof, eating a fish. Please bring her back. The fish is for the cat.
Found: a child's shoe, left foot, with a fish painted on the toe. The right shoe is with the mayor, who has been asked to look for it.
Wanted: a boy to carry the nets up from the slip, at half an emerald a load, and a hat for the sun. The hat is not included.
Owed to the bakery: one emerald, by Ivo, for a pie he ate standing up. He says he will pay for it sitting down, and that the pie should have had a seat.
Owed to the quay house: two emeralds, by Juno, for soup. Juno says the soup was late. The soup says it was on time.
Fish price board, chalked each morning: cod, 8 for 1. Salmon, 5 for 1. Pufferfish, not for eating. Ask the healer why.
Wanted: singers for the quay on the fair evening. Nobody needs to be good. Everybody needs to be loud.
Notice: the fishers' race on the morning tide, from the slip to the buoy and back. The prize is a bread roll and a bell, and the bell has no clapper, so the winner must imagine the sound.
Lost: a knitted cap, with a red band, last seen on the pier. It is the only cap on the quay that is not owned by a fish.
Notice: the new boat's name will be painted on her bow at the end of Melon. The children may choose it, provided it is not the name of a fish.
Notice: the mayor's visit to the quay is put back until the wind changes. He has asked for a calm sea, and the sea has not been asked.
Found: a basket of fish that nobody claims. It has been given to the cats, who have not complained.
Road news: the Long Road is clear from Three Wells to the ferry. The carts are on time. The carter from Lowmarsh says the frogs at the crossing are loud this summer, and that they sing before the lamps are lit.
The quay lamp has been refilled with the good oil. The keeper asks that nobody set a second lamp beside it, because two lamps look like a question, and the lamp does not know the answer.
A tutor's visit is posted at the quay house, with the hours. Please read it before you ask Tutor Nessa anything, and then ask only short things.
Mab, net mender, who has the chalk until the wind changes
%%
Notice: boardwalk repairs, spring 197
To everyone on the marsh side. The flood took out eleven boards between the fish weir and Wren's healing house. The posts held. The boards did not. We are mending them on the second of Sowing, and we need hands.

Bring a hammer if you have one. Bring a saw if you have two. If you have neither, bring yourself and hold things. Sable has cut the new boards from the dry stack and will not be charging for them, but will be reminding people about it for years.

The plan, so nobody argues: new boards on the north stretch first, because that is where the sick are carried. Then the weir. Then the long walk by the boat houses. We work in the morning while the water is low and the frogs are still sleepy.

Torches on the posts every eight steps, the same as before. Keep them lit. Last flood we had creepers under the walk and nobody wants that again.

There will be soup at the healing house after. Wren is making it. Bring a bowl and a spoon.

The jar of honey that was left on the wall has been claimed at last. It was Pell, who forgot it, and who is sorry, and who has promised honey for the workers. So there will be honey with the soup. Come and mend a board.
%%
Help wanted: a hand at the glass house
Tova needs a strong person three mornings a week. The work is carrying sand, stacking wood, and turning the long pipe while I shape. It is hot by the furnace. It is dull at the start. You will get better at it.
Pay is by the morning, and a jar of your choosing at the end of the month.
One rule: do not blow into the pipe unless I say so. The last one blew and we lost a whole pane.
Ask at the house past the tutors' house. Knock loud. I do not hear well over the furnace.
Tova, Vell, summer
%%
Notice: glass for sale at the edge
Tova the glassblower sells panes, jars, bottles and lamp glass. The workshop is the last house on the east lane, past the tutors' house, where the lane turns to grass.
Panes for windows and light wells. Jars with lids that fit. Bottles for honey, beer, oil and medicine. Lamp glass for the relays, cut to the old sizes.
Bring your own sand if you have good white sand. I will knock a little off the price.
I do not sell on the first day of the month. That is a resting day, and the furnace rests too.
Leave a note under the door if I am at the furnace. I will come.
Tova, glassblower, Vell, summer
%%
Shingle End post, Blossom
Notices on the post, Blossom. Alder writes them, and so do the children, who do not spell and do not stop.

Wanted: a helper for the well, two days a week. It must be strong, and it must keep its head out of the shaft. Pays 4 emeralds the day, and the bread is extra.
For sale: one cart, good wheels, one of them new. It needs an axle before the road. 14 emeralds, or 12 if the buyer can hold the horse while we look at it.
For sale: a crock of salt pork from the Saltreach store. Good for a month, if the month is cold. 3 emeralds.
For sale: a bundle of straw for the new barn. 1 emerald.
Lost: a sack of spring seed, beetroot, with a red cord tied round its neck. Last seen going down the boat ramp under somebody's arm.
Found: the same sack. It was in the well. The well is fine. The seed is not, but Alder says some of it may come up anyway.
Wanted: a second cart, to pull the first one out of the ditch on the lower lane. The carter has been there since Thaw. He says he is comfortable, and he says it loudly.
Wanted: an end to the poor harvest. Nobody can say how. Write any ideas below, and Alder will not read them.
For sale: the best rope in Shingle End, bought from the Saltreach sailors, with a knot in it that Alder does not understand. 5 emeralds.
Found: a boy's red hat on the top of the fishing mast. It was not there yesterday. Please come and get it, and please do not climb the mast.
Lost: one large fish, from the drying rack. Please do not bring it back. The gulls have already been blamed.
Found: a bucket, copper, with a good handle. It is not Alder's. It is not the pig's either, though the pig has been asked.
Wanted: someone to tell the carter that the ditch is not a shelter.
%%
Wanted: A picker and a careful hand
Farm outside Vell, eighth of Melon, year 199.
Dara wants two apple pickers and one person to mend the lower fence.
The oldest tree is full. Its grey branch holds apples, but it bends low.
Do not pull on it. Lift each apple with your hand and set it in the basket.
Pickers earn bread, carrots, and two emeralds for a full day.
The fence mender earns three emeralds and may take home the straight oak poles left by the shed.
The bees are working in the flowers beside the fence. Leave them room.
A young apprentice will carry the full baskets to the store. It has been tested with apples and empty baskets.
It still turns left when Dara says right. Keep it away from the loose plank by the pond.
The west gate has a new latch. Lift it before pushing.
Ask Dara in the farm yard. She will be under the tree if the shade is good.
%%
For sale: winter goods at the Ambrook
The Ambrook market stands by the bridge on market day, from dawn until the noon bell. In winter the stalls are fewer and the fires are bigger.
Things for sale this Deepsnow:
Honey from the hill hives, in clay pots. Six pots left. The bees are asleep and do not wish to be discussed.
Apples from the four hundred trees. The oldest tree still gives a few. They are small and sour and the children like them best.
Wool blankets, grey and brown, thick enough to stop the wind off the pond.
Wheels and boards for carts, planed and true, from my own bench.
One apprentice, small, copper and iron, for hire by the day. It carries and sorts and does not mind the cold. It came from the tutor house at Vell in autumn and it is still learning. Last week it carried a whole crate of pots to the bridge and set it down gently and then stood there looking proud. It does not know many orders yet. It knows fetch and haul and come. That is enough for most days.
A rowing boat, oak, twelve feet. Ask me. I will tell you the truth about the leak.
Bring your own sack. We have run short of sacks.
Zell, boat builder, Ambrook, Deepsnow of 207
%%
Lost and found: the notice board
Found: one leather glove, left hand, by the well in the yard. It is small. It has a patch on the thumb.
Found: a wooden bucket with a name burned into the bottom. The name is Pip. Pip, come and get it.
Found: a small amber bead on the path by the hives. It is warm to hold. It may belong to someone's mother.
Lost: a fishing boat, late home. The boat is called the Reedy. It went out on the morning tide and has not come back. The family is at the boat house at Lowmarsh and would like news. If you see a small boat with a green sail and a patched jib, tell the boat house, or tell us here. The fog came in fast on the water.
Lost: one grey cat, answers to Moss. She went out on the night of the frost and did not come back. She is old and slow. Leave a fish out. She will find it.
Leave your notes with Bram at the notice board. He writes them down for those who cannot.
%%
Tally: Finch's autumn stall, 207
Kept in my own book, behind the counter. Finch, trader, autumn of 207.
Days at market: 36.
Wool sold: 14 bales. The brown went first, as always.
Honey sold: 26 jars. One jar with a bee was given to the school, bee and all, in a jar with holes in the lid.
Apples sold: 40 baskets. Beetroot: 22 sacks. Pumpkins: so many I stopped counting and started weighing.
Paper from Lowmarsh: gone before midday every market day. The clerks are always short of it. I have asked twice for a bigger stack and twice they have sent the same.
Copper pots: 9. One dented pot sold to a miner who said the dent made it pour better.
Crystals for apprentices, small ones, from the tutor house at Vell: 4. A farmer from Kettle Ridge bought one and did not know what to do with it, so I told him to ask at the tutor house. He came back later and thanked me.
The roof over my stall held all autumn. Tolly's mending is still good after all these years, and I have never paid him a coin for it.
Gift: at Leaffall I gave a box of paper and pencils to the school at Three Wells, as I do every year. It is not much. The teacher says it is a great deal. I will keep doing it.
%%
Notice: the lamp and the spiders, a list
Notice on the barn door, by the lower farm, kept through the winter. Bryn wrote the first part, and the children wrote the rest, with chalk.

The spiders in the north barn are: the grey kind, big as a palm. The small black kind, in the hay. The white kind, that lives under the water barrel, and comes out at night to look at the goats.

Things to keep out of the barn, in order of how much the goats hate them: the cat (she will not stay out), the dog (he will not stay in), the pig (he will not go home).

Things to do when a spider comes down on a thread: stand still, look at it, and say its name. The children say the big grey one is called Mister. The small black one is called Mrs Mister. The white one is called Unknown, because nobody has been near enough to ask.

Things the lamp does: it blinks at night, long and short, the way the keeper sends the messages. It has done this every night since the first frost. Tab says it is saying the names of the towers, one after the other. Mari says it is saying "come in". Ned says it is saying "fox", and that is why he will not sleep until it is dark.

Bryn says the lamp is only a lamp. Bryn has not stood in the barn door at night for a whole week, and the children are not sure that is true.

The goats, who know more than anyone here, have not been asked.
%%
For sale: a boat hook, a good one
For sale at the fish stall, Kettle Ridge market, by Hob. A boat hook with a new ash handle and an iron point that has never seen the sea. It is for the mill pond, where Hob says the boats are all too small for real hooks.
Price: 2 emeralds. I will not take 1. A man from Saltreach offered 1 last week and I told him to go and hook a carp.
%%
Notice: Snow clearing
Northpoint, Longnight 181. From Keeper Sella.

Help wanted. Two people to clear the path from the relay house to the tower. The snow is high at the north steps and higher by the wood pile. Bring a shovel. We have hot beetroot soup and a place beside the stove.

The work is not hard, but the path must stay clear. Last winter, Keeper Bera carried a basket of coal up the steps and came down with an empty basket. She says the snow took it. We found it on the roof in Blossom.

Children may help carry kindling. They may not climb the tower. The ladder is slippery, and the lamp at the top is not a place to warm your hands.

Ask Sella at the relay house. Start after the first bell.
%%
For Sale: Apples and honey
Farm outside Vell, tenth of Melon, year 174.
Dara has apples for sale. Small apples, red apples, and apples with one good side.
Four baskets for one emerald. Two jars of honey for one emerald.
Bring your own baskets if you can. Our baskets are at the well, the barn, and one is missing.
The honey is from the hives by the oak hedge. It is good on bread.
Please do not shake the jars to see how full they are. They are full. Dara checked.
A small sign by the gate says the price. A larger sign says the same thing, because Pell said he could not read the small one.
%%
Lost: one brown dog, answers to Bex
Lost near the Ambrook bridge on the third of Frost. A brown dog, short legs, one ear bent over.
She is friendly and will follow anyone with bread. She is afraid of the mill wheel and will not cross the bridge alone.
If you find her, keep her warm and send word to Zell at the boat yard. Do not give her to the miller. She ate his lunch once and he is still cross about it.
Reward: two jars of honey and a ride across the pond in my boat, when it is fixed.
%%
Notices: the poor harvest, Sowing
The harvest is poor this year, and the post is full. Alder writes the notices as they come.

Stuck cart: the carter from the Long Road is in the ditch on the lower lane, with a load of salt fish. Two strong backs wanted. Pays a hot meal and a warm shed. The fish is not for sale. The fish is for the carter's wife.
For sale: a barrel of salt, good salt from Saltreach. 6 emeralds, or 5 if you help with the cart.
For sale: two cows, one brown and one thin. The brown one gives good milk and kicks. The thin one may be fattened by Longday.
Lost: a grey hen with a bent comb. She laid in the ditch at Thaw and has not come back.
Found: a child's blue mitten by the post. Please come and say which hand.
Wanted: a second opinion on the well. The ground is soft below the boat ramp. Alder says it is soft. Someone else should say it too.
Wanted: the harvest to be a good one by Apple. Nobody has offered to make it so. Please try.
%%
Lost: the white hen
Northpoint notice board, Deepsnow, 187. Written by Mira.
A white hen is missing from the yard below the tower. She has a red thread tied around one leg and answers to no name at all.
She was last seen near the wood pile. Please look in the shed, under the steps, and behind the stack of spruce. She likes warm corners and has found the keeper's mittens twice.
If you find her, bring her to the relay house. Do not chase her toward the stair. She can climb it faster than I can.
Reward: six eggs, once she lays them. Lantern says this is a poor offer. Lantern may add a second reward after the hen is found.
The hen belongs to Sella. She is kind, but she wants her hen back before the next cold night.
%%
Lost and found on the ridge, spring
Things found on the ridge this season. Ask at the Kettle Inn, where the board is kept. Bring the true name of the thing, and say where you lost it.
Found: one hen, speckled, on the top of the windmill. She would not come down. Tam climbed up with a basket and a sack of corn, and she came down the ladder ahead of him, cross, and walked into the yard as if the whole thing had been her idea. Claimed by Tam.
Found: a leather strap for a cart, very long. Nobody has said whose it is. It has been on the peg by the barn door since the thaw, and it is now the best strap on the ridge.
Lost: a small iron hook, the kind for a lantern. Last seen at the well. If found, please bring it to the mill, where the miller can fit it to his own lantern.
Found: a book of tallies, in a bag, under the bench at the inn. The tallies are for the wheat, and they are all correct. Whoever kept it wrote a note on the last page: "I am sorry for the mess in the north field. It will be better by harvest."
Lost: the north lamp. This is not a lamp anyone owns. It is the one on the relay tower's hill, and it blinked a strange message on the third night of Swarm. Long dot, short dot, long dot, then a pause and the same again. People on the ridge saw it, and some of them wrote it down. Nobody knows what it said. The keeper at the tower says the lamp was working normally, and that the message was a mistake. The children say it was a fox. If you have a copy of the dots, bring it to the Kettle Inn. It will be read aloud at the next gathering at the inn.
Found: one mitten, red, with a hole in the thumb. It has been claimed by Mira at Northpoint, who wrote to say she was not expecting it back.
%%
Notice: the glass house is closed
I am going to Ambrook for a wedding. My niece Marrow marries a beekeeper's son, and there will be honey and a long table and songs. I would not miss it.
The furnace will be cold. Do not knock. Do not leave eggs, they will spoil.
I am back after the wedding and a day of rest. There is a basket of second jars on the step. Take one, leave a coin if you have one, leave nothing if you do not.
Tova, Vell
%%
Lost and found at the Brown Hen
Found: one spoon, carved with a fox. Left on the bench by the hearth. Owner please ask Marda.
Found: one blue ribbon, a little chewed. Found in the hay by the grey mare, who was asked to give it up and did not.
Found: a boot, the left one, muddy. The right one was found yesterday on the Halfway road. Owner please come and find your pair.
Lost: four hens, brown, one with a white feather in the tail. Lost from the yard behind the inn, probably to the fox. The fox has been seen on the stable roof, very pleased with itself.
Lost: a letter, sealed with green wax, to Kell at the Heron, Saltreach. It has a drawing of a dog on the front. The dog is very handsome. Please return it to the inn.
Found: a grandson, age six, asleep under the cart. He was asked where he was going, and said to the sea. He has been given a bowl of stew and sent home with the carter. Nim says he is not to be lost again.
Lost: one sense of direction, belonging to a traveler from Vell, who came in for a bowl and left in the wrong direction. Please come back and ask for the Halfway road. It is the one with the riddle board.
Nim, keeper of the Brown Hen board
%%
For sale: one cart wheel, spare
For sale at the house at the top of the ridge road, by the gate. One cart wheel, oak, with iron rim. It came off the old cart and has not been used since the frost. The spokes are sound. The hub is a little loose. Tam says that is only character.
Price: 5 emeralds, or 4 if you help carry it down the hill. Ask for Olwen. If she is on the wall, wait for her to finish the stone.
%%
Wanted: a clockmaker for the Brown Hen
The clock on the wall by the hearth at the Brown Hen runs ten minutes slow in the autumn and five minutes fast in the spring. Hobb says this is because the clock likes to be different in each season, and he is not going to argue with a clock.
We want a clockmaker who can tell us why. We want someone who can keep the clock true for the whole year, and who will not take the face off without asking.
The clock has a painted fox on the face, a brass key, and a loud tick that the children like to copy. The key has been lost since the frost. It is somewhere under the bench, or in Marda's apron, or in the back of the stable with the grey mare, who has been known to eat small brass things.
Pay is a bed in the loft, two meals a day, and a second bowl free. Please bring your own tools. The inn does not have a clock tool, only the clock.
Nim, keeper of the Brown Hen accounts
%%
For sale: crooked candles
Pinned to the board at Northpoint. Spring. By Willa, candle maker.

For sale: crooked candles, the ones that came out of the mould wrong. One leans. One is fat at the bottom. One has a bump that looks, Runa says, like a fish.
They burn the same as the straight ones, a little slower on the lean side. I have tested them at night.
Price: 3 for 1 emerald. A straight candle is 1 for 1. Stand a crooked one in a jar, and it looks like a decision.
The fish candle is not for sale. I have grown fond of it.
%%
The long winter, as I remember it
People ask me about the long winter. I was a girl at Vell, and I will tell it the way I keep it.
The snow came in Leaffall and did not go. The road to Three Wells filled to the tops of the waymarks. The tutors' house kept its lamps lit all night so folk could find it. We burned the old fence for the furnace and were warm. The sheep were not. Tam at Kettle Ridge lost half his flock, and he wrote about it in a letter that I still have somewhere.
My mother said the winter was a warning. My father said it was only weather. They were both stubborn and both kind, and I never learned which was right.
In the middle of it, a rumor went round the inn that the northern relays had gone quiet. Another rumor said it was the snow on the lamps, and nothing more. Nobody could go and look. When the thaw came, the relays lit again, and folk stopped talking about it, the way folk do. I do not know the truth of it. I only know the snow.
Keep your wood dry and your jars full. Winter comes whether we are ready or not.
Tova, Vell
%%
Wanted: someone to sit with the hives
Our bees swarmed twice this month. The first swarm went up over the orchard and we got it back into a new box. The second went into the hedge and stayed there two days. We are too old to climb ladders in Leaffall.
We want someone to sit with the hives in the warm part of the day, from noon until the light goes. You will need a calm hand and a veil. We have a veil. You must not mind bees on your arms.
Pay is six emeralds for the week and as much honey as you can carry. Bring your own jar.
Ask for Maud at the Marsh farm, east of the square. If the gate is shut, whistle. The dog is friendly but he does not know you.
%%
Letter: Dace to the council at Vell
To the council at Vell, from Dace at Three Wells.
I write about the road north. Two carts turned back last month and would not say why. One carter said the north relay was dark and no one had answered from Northpoint since the first frost. Another said that was not true, that a keeper answered him plainly and gave him the weather. I asked both men again and they each held to what they said.
I do not know what to write to you. The road is open. The torches are lit. The inns are full. The fairs go on and the pumpkin contest had more pumpkins than ever.
But there is a quiet in the market that was not there before. People talk about the ships at Saltreach, and about the mines at Copperhold, and about the cough at Lowmarsh, and no two of them say the same thing. One says the ships are for trade. One says the ships are for leaving. One says the mines hum. One says the mines are only mines. I have heard a man say all four in one evening.
Our school is full. Our well is good. Our bees swarmed and we caught them.
I am not asking for anything. I am writing it down, as we were taught. If there is news from the north that a mayor should know, send it. If there is none, send that too. A plain word is better than a rumor, even a kind one.
Dace, mayor of Three Wells
%%
Help Wanted: The west ditch
Farm outside Vell, twenty-first of Longday, year 191.
Dara needs one strong helper to clear reeds and mud from the west ditch.
The water must reach the apple rows before the warm days pass.
Work begins after breakfast. Bring boots, a spade, and a kind word for the frogs.
Pay is a basket of apples and one emerald.
Our old apprentice can carry the mud basket, but it cannot choose which bank is dry. Dara will point.
The last helper left a spade in the ditch. If you find it, please return it before digging with it.
Ask Dara at the gate. The gate sticks when the ground is dry, so push with your shoulder.
%%
Wanted: a hand for the new boat
Posted at the slip at Saltreach, in Longday, by Corin, shipwright.
Wanted: one strong pair of arms for the new boat, from the first tide in Melon until she is in the water.
You will sand, caulk and carry. You will learn to tie a knot with the loop turned in, the way the net mender ties, or you will learn it from the net mender, who will say you are doing it wrong.
Pay: two emeralds a week, and a bowl of soup at noon from the quay house. The soup is included in the pay. The pay is not included in the soup.
You must be able to climb a ladder without arguing with it. You must not mind the smell of tar. Send word to the slip, by the cart, or ask at the quay house. Say who you are, and whether you have ever held a chisel. If you have held one, say so. If you have not, say you will learn, and mean it.
Corin, shipwright
%%
Wanted: a mason for the top wall
Wanted at the top field, Kettle Ridge: a mason, to mend the field wall from the hedge to the corner post. The wall is old, and in three places the stones have come down in the wet. The middle section is still standing, but it leans toward the north, and the sheep have been pushing against it all spring.
The work is lifting the fallen stones, cutting the new ones to fit, and setting them in the gap with clay and small pieces to fill the holes. A good wall stands for twenty years. A bad one falls in the first frost. Olwen, who has mended the walls on this ridge for thirty years, says that a wall is only as good as the stone on its top, and that the top stone is the one nobody thinks about.
You will need a level, a straight line, a bucket of clay, and a pair of gloves. The gloves are the important part. The stones are heavy, and the stones at the bottom of the heap are the ones that catch the fingers.
We give: two emeralds for every ten yards of wall, paid at the corner post when the work is passed. Dinner at the mill, on the day the last stone goes in. A place on the wall to sit and look at the ridge, if you want one.
The pig has been known to lean on the wall, and will not be asked to stop. Be patient with the pig.
There is a second wall, below the first, by the pond, which is not ours. Do not work on it, even if it is falling. The farmer at the pond will mend his own, and will say so if you ask him twice.
Ask for Olwen. She will be at the corner post, sitting on the stones, with her cap pulled down and a cup of cold tea by her knee. She has been sitting there every morning since the frost, watching the wall, and she will not get up until she is asked properly.
%%
Wanted: help for the visiting tutor
On the board at the Copperhold market, in spring, in Opal's round hand. A tutor was to come from Vell, and the town was asked to help.

The tutor from Vell will be in Copperhold from the fourth to the ninth of Thaw. She is coming to show the miners and the farmers what the new apprentices can do. This is a great honor. Let us make it a good week.

WANTED: a room for the tutor. She needs a bed, a table and a lamp. She does not mind the smell of coal. Ask at the mine hall. Hesk has offered his spare room, but it has a dog in it.

WANTED: a hall for the lectures. Four evenings, from dusk. Forty seats. The hall of the mine would do. Ask Hesk.

WANTED: food for the tutor. She likes porridge. She likes bread. She does not like pickled beet, but will eat it to be polite. Please do not make her.

WANTED: someone to sing at the welcome. The tutor has said she will be moved. Opal will lead. She needs six more. Come to my door by dusk.

WANTED: a crate for the crystals. The tutor is bringing her tray. It needs a safe place. The crate must be dry, flat, and padded. A cat basket will not do.

FOR SALE: tickets to the lecture, 1 emerald each. All money goes to the mine hall's roof fund.

LOST: the tutor's last letter. It said when she would arrive. I read it and then I lost it. Come forward if you have seen it. I am very sorry.

FOUND: the tutor's last letter. It was in the pocket of my other apron. She is coming on the fourth. All is well.

Opal
%%
Notice: the fair prize and the hands
Notice from the fair keepers at the boathouse, Lowmarsh, for the last day of Leaffall.
1. The best dyed wool wins a gold cup, polished, and three emeralds for the winner's cellar. The judge is Tilly, who will not say what she is looking for, only that she will know it when she sees it.
2. The best fish wins a basket, and the right to carry it three times round the pond, slowly, so that everyone can see.
3. The best cheese wins a knife with a wooden handle, and a place at the front of the queue for the rest of the year.
4. The best child wins a bun from the bakery at Three Wells, brought down by cart if the road is open, and kept warm in a cloth if it is not.
5. The best face on a pumpkin wins nothing. The pumpkin wins nothing. It is only fair.
6. The best lost thing found and returned before the fair wins a hat, grey, with a feather in the band. Dace has said he does not want it. He has tried it on twice.
Wanted: stall keepers for the square, two to a stall. Pay is a stool and a cup of soup, and the chance to shout at the buyers.
Wanted: singers, for the evening. Nobody needs to be good. Everybody needs to be loud.
Wanted: one lantern-hanger, who can climb a pole without arguing with it. Pay is 2 emeralds and a pair of wool socks. The lanterns are lit by the hanger, not by the children, who are to stand well back.
Wanted: someone to tell the mayor where the square is. He is coming from Three Wells, and he has been told twice, and he says the second time did not count. Pay is a cup of soup and the satisfaction of having been right.
Wanted: a boatman for the children's row on the pond. The children may row if their mothers allow it. The boats do not leave the pond. This is a rule, and it is new, and the mothers asked for it.
The bakery at Three Wells sends its last loaves of the fair by the cart. The baker asks that the loaves are not sat on.
Chalked on the boathouse wall by the children, and nobody will say which child:
Red for the mitten and blue for the sky,
Fish in the basket and bread going by,
Row out to the middle and row home again,
The fair is the end, and the fair starts again.
Notice: some of the boats have gone down the road to Saltreach, and have not come back for the Leaffall nets. Their owners have been asked to send word. No word has come yet. The boats are missed on the water.
Notice: fair weather is hoped for. The sky has been high and pale all week, and the cows have been standing with their backs to the north. Nobody here knows why they do it. The fair will go on.
Sent by the fair keepers, who meet at the boathouse at dusk, and who will bring soup.
%%
Found: one hundred and twelve loaves
Found in Tam's barn, in spring: 112 loaves of bread. Owners please collect.
How it happened. Tam said to Pip, bring me some bread. Pip went away. A long time later Pip came back with every loaf on Kettle Ridge. They are stacked in the barn in a tidy tower, the biggest at the bottom.
The loaves are from the Kettle Inn (40), the mill (30), Ivo the baker (36) and Brin's kitchen (6). Brin would like it known that his six were his breakfast.
Tam would like it known that he only wanted one. He has read the manual from Vell. It says a fetch never says how many. He did not think of that.
Written by Mira, who is home for a week and is the only person who can read Tam's face.
%%
Found: a small red boot
Northpoint, Longnight 201. From Lantern, keeper's apprentice.

A small red boot was found beside the lower tower steps. It is wool, with a leather sole and a blue thread around the ankle. It is dry now. When I found it, snow was packed inside.

The boot is on the shelf by the relay house door. Ask for Lantern. I will not put it on the stove again. It made the room smell like wet sheep.

The owner should come before the next snow. The path is hard to see, and one boot is not enough for the long walk home. If you have a little one who likes to run ahead, check both feet before you leave.

A basket of warm potatoes is waiting here too. It is not a reward for losing a boot. It is for whoever brings the other one back.
%%
Notice: work at the slip
Corin the shipwright asks for help at the slip, this summer and into the fall.
We are building a fishing boat, not a big one. Thirteen paces, oak ribs, copper nails. We need:
- Two people who can carry planks and not drop them.
- One person who can hold a line steady for a whole morning. It is dull work. It is the most important work.
- Someone to keep the wood store dry. The roof leaks at the north end. Fix the roof first.
Pay is emeralds, or fish, or both. We start at first light. We stop when the tide says so.
We have no apprentice here. A small one came with a merchant last spring, but it went home with him. If a tutor's hall sends one next year, we will teach it to fetch nails and to stay out of the water. That is all.
Bring your own boots. Bring a hat. The sun on the slip is fierce in summer.
Ask for Corin at the shed with the benches.
Corin, shipwright, sixth of Longday, 201
%%
Wanted and for sale, from the stalls
Collected from the board at the Saltreach market in summer by Iona, bridge keeper, who found the board overgrown with notices and sorted them by hand.

HELP WANTED. The fish market needs someone to sweep the stones before dawn. The work is smelly and the pay is fair. You get first pick of the day's catch. Ask for Marit.

HELP WANTED. The shipyard needs two people to carry wood from the store to the slip. Strong arms. Dry feet. Corin does not like a slow carrier.

FOR SALE. A set of four mugs, blue. One has a chip. Two have a crack. One is perfect. They are sold as a set, because I cannot bear to part them.

LOST. A grey cat with one white foot. She is called Pennywhistle and she belongs to the bridge keeper. She is not lost, only out. She will come back at dusk.

FOUND. A basket of oysters, left at the stall of the old woman who sells wool. They are not hers. Please claim them. They have started to look at her.

FOR SALE. A cart. Two wheels, one good. Ask the cartwright.

WANTED. A person to feed my sheep while I am at sea. Three days. The sheep are not friendly. They are fine.

FOR SALE. A new apprentice, hardly used. Walks, carries, digs. Sold because I bought a bigger one. Ask at the tutor stand.

WANTED. A good home for six kittens. Grey, white, one orange. They are weaned and will eat anything, including your shoes. Ask Iona at the bridge hut. And if you see Pennywhistle, do not tell her.

NOTICE. The market is open from dawn to dusk. After dusk, the harbor belongs to the cats.
%%
The whole post, Shingle End, spring
The whole post at Shingle End, in spring, copied out by Alder, well digger, who says he will need the copy when the first one is gone.

Begin with the wells. The new well by the boat ramp is finished. It is eleven paces deep. The water is clear and cold, and it tastes faintly of salt, which Alder says is the sea trying to join in. Drink it, if you like. Do not let the pig drink it, because the pig drinks everything.

Wanted: a helper to haul the spoil from the well to the heap by the wall. Two days a week. The helper must not sit on the heap. The last one sat on the heap, and the heap went down. Pays 4 emeralds the day.

For sale: one spade, good, nearly new. 3 emeralds. For sale: a second spade, bent a little, like a good spade that has worked hard. 3 emeralds. For sale: both spades together, for the price of one, if you are not fussy which.

Lost: a sack of spring seed, beetroot, with a red cord round its neck. It was in the well for a day and came back up. The seed is still in the sack. The sack has opinions.

Wanted: a second cart, to pull the first one out of the ditch on the lower lane. The carter has been there since Thaw. He says he is comfortable. He says it loudly every morning.

For sale: a barrel of salt, good salt, from the Saltreach store. 6 emeralds, or 5 if you help the carter with his mood.

For sale: two cows. One brown, one thin. The brown one gives good milk and kicks. The thin one may be fattened by Longday, if anybody can find the grass.

Lost: a grey hen with a bent comb. She laid in the ditch at Thaw and has not come back. The ditch is full of her eggs. Nobody has counted them.

Found: a child's blue mitten, by the post, with nobody in it. Please come and say which hand.

Wanted: a second opinion on the well. Alder says the ground is soft below the boat ramp. Someone else should say it as well, so that he is not alone in the matter.

Wanted: a boy with long legs to fetch water from the north spring twice a day, for the washing and the well. Pays 2 emeralds the week. The spring is very cold, and the boy must not stop to look at the frogs.

Found: a small brown dog with one white ear, asleep in the cart that came out of the ditch. It has been asked whose it is. It says nobody's, and the carter agrees.

Wanted: an end to the poor harvest. Nobody knows how. Write any ideas below. Alder will not read them, but the children will.

The Saltreach strip is in flower at last. The bees have found it, and they seem to like the look of it, which is more than the rest of us can say.

Alder, well digger, at the top of the shingle, with a pig at his feet.
%%
Wanted: wax
Pinned to the board at the foot of the tower, Northpoint. Thaw. By Willa, candle maker.

Wanted: beeswax, as much as there is. The long nights ate my store, and the first cart is still a week off. I will swap candles for wax, two candles for one block.
I will also take old candle ends, any size. Wax kept in a drawer is wax wasted.
Ask at the hut with the blue door, past the spruce woods. If I am out, I am at the lake with Runa, learning what a fish thinks.
%%
Notice: the lower road
Posted at the lower road gate by the people of the lower road, for the carters and the walkers and the children who go up the hill to look at the lamp. It is a notice of what is known and what is not.

The snow came down on the lower road in the last week of Frost. It came down so thick that the carts stopped at the bend, and the people walked the rest of the way with lanterns. Three families were brought down from the top farm on a sledge. Nobody was lost.

The lamp on the hill above the tower has been dark on the north side for ten nights. It is still lit on the south side. The keeper says the north side glass is cracked, and that a pane is on its way from Vell, and that it has been on its way since the thaw. Some say the keeper is lying. Some say the glass is only cracked, and that the keeper is too tired to write properly. Some say the north side is not dark at all, but that it is very faint, and that the people on the hill are too close to see it.

There have been lights in the north sky, over the far hills, on three nights this winter. Pale, slow, not moving. Some say they are the fires of a town that has gone to sleep. Some say they are stars that have come nearer than they should. A child on the lower road said that they were looking at the lamp. Nobody has been able to tell her that she is wrong.

The messages from the north have been short. The keeper sends them. They say: all well, snow, cold, the foxes are in the tower. Nobody has asked for more.

We do not know what the lights are. We do not know why the glass is cracked. We do not know when the cart from Vell will come. We have written all of this down, so that when it comes, we will know what we did not know.

Keep your torches lit on the lower road. Walk in pairs. Do not go up the hill after dark.
%%
Wanted: a hand at the forge, Vell market
Wanted at the forge by the market gate, Vell: one strong hand for the winter, to work the bellows and carry the iron. The forge is warm and the work is hard. The hammer is heavy and the coal is dirty.
You must be on time. The first bell is at the forge door, and the bellows do not wait.
You must not mind the sparks. You must not mind Ossa, who says a bad nail is a worse sin than a bad word, and who will tell you so twice.
We give: a bed in the loft over the forge, two meals a day, and 8 emeralds at the end of the frost.
Ask at the gate. Knock on the post, not the door.
Vell, the last week of Frost.
%%
Letter: Corin to the tutors' house
To the tutors at Vell, from Corin the shipwright at the hamlet by Saltreach.
I am sorry for the long letter. I am a shipwright and letters are not my trade. I will keep it short and then I will not.
Last summer a merchant came through with an apprentice. Small one, copper and iron, a mind in a crystal the size of a plum. The merchant said it was tested and good for fetching and hauling. He let it carry our planks. It was very good at this. It did not drop one plank. It walked behind the cart and it waited and it went home when he said home.
Then one evening a boy gave it an order in fun. He said: "bring me some bread." The apprentice stood still. It did not know the word bread, or it did not know the whole of the order, I am not sure which. It waited. The boy laughed. I did not like the laughing. The apprentice did nothing wrong. It was not taught that.
So I have a request. When a tutor's hall has a spare mind that knows fetching and hauling and building a straight wall, send it to us for a season. We will treat it well. We will test nothing we cannot test. We will teach it only the work we know. The slip is a good place to learn: there are planks, there is a pattern, there are nails in a box. A mind that can follow a pattern could build a straight wall on the harbor, and we could use one.
We will pay in emeralds, or in boat work, or in fish, whichever the tutors like. I have heard tutors like fish. I hope this is true.
Also there is a new copper vein in the hill above our mill pond. If any of you are fond of copper, come and see it. Hesk of Copperhold came and liked it. He is not a man who likes things easily.
Please send word by the relay. The keeper here will pass it on. He is old and he sleeps at night, but the lamp is lit.
Corin, shipwright, summer of 207
%%
Lost and found
Things found this season, from the lower farm and the north road. Ask at the farm to claim them. Bring the name of the thing, and a true account of where you lost it. The keeper says the true account is the important part.

Found: one green mitten, small, by the north wall. It is the match to the red one from the frost. Both are here now.
Found: a wooden horse with three legs, under the hay. The fourth leg is in the barn loft. Ask the children which one is the horse's.
Found: one lamp, brass, with its wick still warm. It was lit when it was found, and nobody will say who lit it.
Found: a notebook, wet. It says TAB on the first page, and the rest is in a hand that is very neat and very old. The pages are about the spiders, the goats and the lamp. The last page is blank, and has one word on it: "come".
Found: one cat, grey, very fat, asleep on the north wall. She found us. She will not leave. Nobody is trying to make her.
Lost: the wooden spoon from the kitchen, the big one. It went out of the window with the soup. Bryn says it is not coming back, and the goats are not to be blamed.
Claimed: one goat, Clover, with a black ear, and a bell that cannot be silenced. She came back on her own, on the third day, and walked into the barn as if she had never left.
Keep your torches lit at the lower farm. The lamp is only a lamp. Keep it lit anyway.
%%
Notice: the apprentices will haul
Tam has a bad shoulder and the beetroot field is ready all at once. The council has lent us two apprentices for the harvest, on trial, for ten days.
They are made of copper and iron. They stand in a row. They carry the beetroot to the barn and stack it by the tally board. They do not get tired. They do not want to be petted. They do not understand jokes.
They will not open the gate. Someone must open the gate. If a field is left open, they will carry the whole field into the barn and then stand in the yard and wait.
Keep the torches lit along the edge. Last year a creeper came in by the hedge after dark. Nobody wants that again.
If they stop working, do not shout. Look at the crystal. If it is cloudy, go and get the tutor.
The trial is being watched. Please be kind. Do not throw things at them.
Pip, for Tam, Kettle Ridge, harvest of 205
%%
Ledger page: Sable's stone yard
Sable, stonecutter, yard at the edge of Lowmarsh by the reeds. Kept in the big book by the door. The year 208, from Thaw to Leaffall. Prices in emeralds.

Plain cobble, a cart load: 4. Cut and dressed, a cart load: 7. Deep stone, dark and hard, brought up from Copperhold: 12, and no, it is not cheaper if you ask twice. Deep stone wears a chisel down and the chisel does not grow back.

Headstones, lettered: 5 and up, more letters more emeralds. I do not charge for the words. I have cut a great many names and I have never once hurried one.

Hearth stones: 3. Door steps: 2. A flat stone for a fish slab for the market: 2, and one fish, and I will not be asking which fish.

Whetstones: 2, with a wooden case.

Work done this year: hearth stones for the healing house, 6. Steps and a sill for the new boat house, 9. A lettered stone for the weir post so people stop falling in at night, 4. Two stalls of a school house floor at Three Wells, 14, but the children painted it after and I have written that down too.

Boards and beams: I do not sell wood. Ask Jory, or ask anyone but me.

Repairs after the flood: 11.

Owed to me: a favor from Hesk, a favor from Corin, and one fish.

Owed by me: an apology to the woman whose scarf I sat on at the fair. I am sorry. It was a good scarf. I will mend the stripe.

Note for the winter: the yard is mud until Deepsnow. Wear boots. Bring your own. I have one spare and it is the wrong foot.
%%
Letter: Finch to the Archive
To the clerks at the Archive at Vell, from Finch, trader, below the hill. Autumn, 181.
I write to ask a small thing, and to give a small thing.
First the giving. My stall roof tore in the wind last month and a roofer called Tolly came up and mended it before I could ask. He would not take coin. I am told he has a daughter who wants to be a clerk. If she ever comes to the Archive to learn, know that her father is a good man and mends what is broken. That is my gift to you, the knowing.
Now the asking. At the market I hear every rumor there is, and most of them are about the weather. But some are about the apprentices, and the folk who come to buy do not always know what is true. A family from Ambrook asked me if an apprentice would take their apples to Three Wells for them. I said I did not know, and I did not, so I sent them to you. Do apprentices haul goods on the roads now, or only in the towns? If there is a plain account of what they can do, I would keep a copy at the stall and tell folk the truth instead of guessing.
The market was good this autumn. Many pumpkins. One child tried to buy a whole pumpkin with a single button. I traded her an apple for the button and she went away happy. The button is in my box under the bell, in case she wants it back.
Send word with the carrier. I am here every market day, and the day before, setting up the stalls.
Finch.
%%
Wanted: someone to clear the spiders
Wanted at the honey barn, Ambrook: a person with a steady hand, to take the spiders out of the barn.
They are the big kind. There are about thirty. They have not touched the honey. They are very polite. But they sit on the lids of the jars and watch us while we work, and Ama says it puts the bees off their rhythm.
Please do not hurt them. They keep the flies down. Take them out one at a time, on a spoon, and put them in the hedge.
Pay: one jar of honey for every five spiders carried out.
Come after dusk. They are calmer then. So are we.
Emmet

Below, in chalk: I did it. I carried out twenty-five. I want my five jars. I also want a lie-down. Dunn.
Below that: Twenty-six went out. One came back. Check your pockets.
%%
Wanted: a hand for the north barn
Wanted at the farm below Northpoint, on the lower road: one strong hand for the north barn, from Thaw to Blossom. The barn is cold, the roof leaks in two places, and the spiders are bad this year.
The work is mending the roof, feeding the goats, and clearing the snow from the door every morning before the bell.
You must not be afraid of spiders. You must not be afraid of the dark. The lamp on the tower is lit every night, and you will see it from the barn door.
We give: a bed in the loft, all the milk you can drink, and 12 emeralds at the end of the season.
Ask for Bryn at the farm. If Bryn is out, ask the goats. They know more than Bryn does.
Lower road, Northpoint, winter.
%%
Wanted: helpers for the fair
The Brown Hen will have a stall at the summer fair at Three Wells this year, on the north side of the square. Helpers are wanted for the stall, for the whole of the fair day, from first bell to the last lamp.
Helpers must be able to carry a tray without dropping it. They must be able to say good morning to a traveler without looking at the pie. They must not eat the pies before the judges have seen them. Last year two boys were sent home for this, and they are not forgiven.
A prize is offered for the best pie, to be judged by Dace, mayor, who has promised to be fair, and who has asked not to be given the pie with the crust that looks like a fox. That is the pie of Nim's cousin, who has entered it every year since the fair began.
The entry fee is a single egg, a handful of flour and one cup of honey, to be given to Hobb at the bar by the second bell.
The pies will be laid out on the table at noon, and the judges will walk the row. The prize is a blue ribbon, and a jar of honey, and the right to be teased for a year by the Halfway Inn.
Apply at the Brown Hen by the summer lamp. Bring your own apron.
Nim, for the Brown Hen
%%
Wanted: people to show it the ridge
The new apprentice at the mill has a name at last. It is Tally. The contest was close: Tally 41, Squeak 38, Wheel 3. It has been to Vell and been tested. It has not been to the ridge. A mind knows only what it has been shown, and Tally has been shown very little of Kettle Ridge.

So the ridge asks for patient people. Each is to show Tally one thing, once a day, for nine days, always in the same words.

Day 1. The mill. Where flour goes. The door, the stones, the sack room. Sefa.
Day 2. The road down to the Long Road. Which way is Three Wells. Tam, who says he knows the way.
Day 3. The pond at the foot of the ridge. Show it the pond. Show it again. Show it that a pond is not a road. We learned this last week.
Day 4. The Kettle Inn. The front door, the back door, the cellar. Not the kitchen. The cook has asked.
Day 5. The hen houses. Show it what a hen is. Do not show it a fox.
Day 6. Biscuit. It will find Biscuit on its own. Show it Biscuit anyway.
Day 7. The top field. The long field. The bottom field. Brin and Tam, together. Bring a rope.
Day 8. The windmill sails. Show it where they go round. Show it where they do not want a person standing.
Day 9. The way home to the mill at dusk.

Rules for showing. Say the same words each time. If it does the wrong thing, do not shout. Say the right thing again. Show it, and show it again. Mira says this is what the tutors do, and it works. It took Pip a year. It will take Tally a month, because Pip did the work of being first.

Do not show it Tam's sense of direction. It is the only thing that has failed the tests at Vell.

Written by Mira, home for a week, because Tam's writing needs someone to read it.
%%
Wanted: a cat that will stay out
On the board at the Saltreach market. Written by Iona, bridge keeper. Summer.

WANTED: a way to make my cat stay out. She is grey, with one white foot. She is called Pennywhistle. She sits at the door of the bridge hut all night and meows to come in. When I let her in, she wants out. When I let her out, she wants in.

I have tried: a bowl of fish outside, a warm box outside, a boot full of hay outside. She sits in the doorway and looks at me.

I will pay two emeralds to anyone who can make her choose.

If you find her sitting at your door, she is not yours. Please bring her back. She will bite you, but only a little.

Iona
%%
Wanted: a keeper for the young foal
Help wanted at Lenn's farm, outside Kettle Ridge.
The foal is six months old and thinks the world is a feed bucket. It follows anyone carrying hay, a brush, or an empty pail. It has followed Lenn into the well yard twice. The well is covered now.
I need someone to watch it while I mend the south fence and bring in the last carrots. Brush it once each morning. Give it a small measure of oats after the work, not before. If it eats first, it will follow the oats and not you.
The work lasts six days. I will give you meals, a dry bed in the loft, and six emeralds. The hay is good. The mattress is lumpy because Pip stored a saddle under it.
A person with horse sense is welcome. A person with no horse sense may apply, but must listen to Lenn.
Do not tie the foal near the gate. It has learned the latch and has opened it twice. It cannot close it again.
Ask for Lenn at the shed before the first bell of dawn. Bring gloves. The foal likes sleeves.
%%
Lost: a child, aged six
Pinned to the board at Northpoint on the second day of the thaw. By Willa, candle maker, in a hurry.

Lost: Linn, daughter of Runa's son, aged six. Red mittens on a string, a muddy knee, and a wooden fox in one fist. Last seen at the market, following a fox. Not the fox that took my socks. Another fox, a white one, with a limp.
She has gone before. She went to the lake once, and to the woodshed once, and once into a barrel. She is not afraid of anything. That is the trouble.
If you see her, take her hand, do not chase, and bring her to the tower. Mira has set the great lamp to the slow blink that means a child is lost. Every tower to the south has been told.
The whole market has stopped. Teg has stopped the cart. Runa has stopped fishing, which has not happened in sixty years.

Added at dusk, in Mira's hand: Found. In the woodshed, asleep on the woodpile, under my spare coat, with a white rabbit. She says the fox went in first and showed her the way. The fox is not here to say. The market may begin again. Thank you.
Willa asks that it be written down that she was not worried. She was very worried.
%%
Gil's notice for autumn work
Lowmarsh market, autumn.
Gil the smith offers repairs and asks for work.
I can mend hinges, hooks, pot handles, and the iron rings on a cart.
I can sharpen a spade if the edge is not cracked.
Bring it to the market stall. Do not leave it in the mud.
Payment is one emerald for a long repair, less for a small one.
I also need clean charcoal. The last sack was wet at the bottom.
I will trade a repaired hook for a dry sack, or buy the charcoal for 2 emeralds.
A jar of honey is still on the high shelf by the tally board.
Its owner has not come. The crack is only in the lid, says Ena.
Wren says the lid is not the jar, and a cracked lid is enough reason to wait.
The jar will be held until the next market.
A basket of apples is for sale by the east post. Three emeralds for all.
They are small, but sweet. One has a bite from a rabbit.
The cave under Sella's field remains roped off.
A man from the mine says such holes are common after heavy rain.
A fisher says the ground was dry when the stone fell.
The rope is still there, and the carrots are being dug from the other field.
Bring your own basket. Gil's basket has a broken handle.
For anyone taking the boardwalk after dusk, keep the torches lit.
Frogs are loud enough to find the way, but they do not warn you of a creeper.
%%
Notice: A lamp for sale
Farm outside Vell, fourth of Longday, year 203.
Dara has one glass lantern for sale. The handle is sound, and the glass is clear.
Price: two emeralds. The lantern has stood in the shed all summer. It has never been left in rain.
Also wanted: one careful person to watch the north gate after supper.
A zombie came to the gate last night and knocked against it until the torches were lit.
It did not get in. The gate held. Dara did not sleep, as she says she was already awake.
Pay for the watch is bread, a jar of honey, and one emerald.
Keep the torches lit. Do not open the gate for anyone you cannot see.
The farm apprentice can carry water and apples. It cannot keep watch or tell a zombie from a scarecrow.
Dara will show you the torch box and the gate bar.
The orchard is quiet after dark, except for the frogs, the bees, and the windmill at the farm below.
%%
The board at the Ambrook mill
All the notices on the board by the mill gate, in the middle of summer. Copied for the Archive by Emmet, who reads the board every evening on his way home from the hives.

Notice from Jory: the wheel is stopped for cleaning for two days. No flour. Eat bread. If you have no bread, eat apples. If you have no apples, you are not from Ambrook.

Found: a hat. Pell's. Again.

Wanted: a name for the new calf at the Hollow farm. Prize: a round cheese. It is brown, with a white patch. It looks like a pie.
Below, in chalk: Pie.
Below that: Pie is the name of the dog.
Below that: Then Crust.

Notice: the plank on the old bridge is still loose. Step on the left side. This notice has been here four summers. The plank has not changed.

For sale: forty baskets, apple, good weave. Hollow farm. Cheaper than the ones in the market, and the same baskets.

Wanted: a judge for the song contest who is not afraid of anything. The last judge ran from the high note of the last verse and has not been seen. Ask Emmet.

Found: a letter on the mill bench. It begins Dear Ida. It does not say who it is from. We have read the first line only. Whoever lost it may claim it at the mill.
Below: It is mine. Please give it back. Please say nothing. J.

Wanted: someone to show the miller's apprentice that twelve sacks is too many. A boy gave it twelve. It carried all twelve across the yard and is still standing there, because nobody told it where to put them.
Below: Wick was never shown too many. The sacks have been put down. The boy has been spoken to.

Notice from Ama: swim at the far end of the pond, by the reeds. Not near the wheel. Not near the hives. The bees drink at the water, and if you swim near them you are a large flower.

Found: a boot with honey in it. Left foot. Whoever it belongs to, it is a good boot and a sticky one.

Notice from Linnet at the tower: the lamp will be lit at dusk as always. Anyone who wants to learn the lamp letters may come on market day. Bring a candle, but do not blink it at the tower. See the rules.

Notice: there is a new bench for two on the far side of the pond. It is not for sale. It is for sitting.

Lost: a spoon. Silver, with a bee on the handle. It was a gift. Ask Ama.
Below: It was the swarm. They took it. We are looking.
%%
Notice: lost and found at the harbor
Lost and found notices are kept on the harbor wall by the slip, under a stone, in summer.
Found:
- One boot, left foot, good leather, no name inside. Corin says it is not his. It is too small for Corin.
- A net with a blue float. Mending half done. The needle is still in it.
- A small cat, grey, very loud. It has been at the fish market three days. It is not sorry.
- Two copper nails and a roll of twine. Found on the long stone ramp.
- A child's straw hat, with a hole for the ears of a rabbit. Please come and get it, the rabbit is waiting.
Lost:
- My reading glass. Wooden handle. I need it for the price board. Reward: a good fish.
- A bucket with my name burned on it. It says PELL. I know it is here.
- The loose plank from the bridge. No, that is a joke. It is still loose. Please fix it, Corin.
Bring what you find to the slip at low tide. Leave it under the stone. Do not leave fish. The cat will find it.
Mara, quay keeper, summer of 203
%%
Notice: a boat late home
The Reedy came home on the fourth night, not the first. The fog was thick and the sail was torn, and the family had given her up. She came in on the morning tide with two fish and a story.
The story: the men saw a light on the water, far out, and turned to follow it. The light was the moon on a swell. They followed the moon for a night and a day. They are not good at directions. Their wives have told them so.
The boat house at Lowmarsh asks that anyone who sees a late boat take down the sail and the name and send word along the relays. A keeper will pass it on. The fishing is good this year and the boats go far.
The Reedy's jib is mended now. The patch is green. If you see a green patch on the water, it is not a light. It is the Reedy, and she is probably lost.
Corin, Saltreach, writing for the boat house, autumn of 208
%%
Wanted: a carter for the north road
Wanted: a carter with a good horse and a strong cart, for the road north and back, twice a month.
You will carry flour, honey, candles and letters. You will bring back salt, iron and whatever the towns send. The road is cobblestone in the towns and packed earth between, with a torch every twelve blocks. The bridges are sound. The inns are a day apart.
You must not be afraid of a dark relay. You must not stop for talk of lights in the sky. You must be at the Brown Hen by dark and not before.
Pay is twelve emeralds a trip, and your horse eats with ours. Ask for Dace at the mayor's house, or leave word at the inn of twelve beds.
The pumpkins are in. The bees are in. We would like the road to stay open.
Dace, mayor of Three Wells
%%
Lost and found, by the bell
Kept at the market bell, in the box under the bell rope. Written by Finch, who keeps the box.
Lost, now found: the brown glove, left thumb only, and its owner came for it. He said his name was Dunn and he was very glad. He gave me an apple.
Found: a wooden horse with a red mane, in the straw by the pig stall. A child is missing it, I am sure. It is safe in the box.
Found: a purse with three emeralds and a button in it. The button is shaped like a bee. If the purse is yours, describe the button.
Lost: a school essay, written by a child, about bees. It blew off the notice board in the wind. If you find it, bring it back. The child is proud of it and the teacher would like to mark it.
Lost: a ring, brass, worn thin. It is not worth much to anyone but the one who lost it. She came every market day for a month to ask. Please keep looking.
Found: a small jar of honey, no label. Someone left it on the bell post as a gift, I think, or left it by mistake. If it is yours, come. If it is not, it was a kind thought and I have eaten it.
The box under the bell is for everyone. Nothing in it is sold. Nothing in it is mine.
%%
Notice: help with the snow
Northpoint notice board, Longnight, 176. Written by Sella at the tower house.
We need two people to clear the stair and the path to the relay house. Bring a shovel. We have hot beetroot soup and a dry place for your mittens.
The snow is deep by the north wall. Keep the steps clear. Last night I carried one pail up and came down with an empty pail and a full hat. Do not ask how.
Mira is checking the lamp at the top. Lantern will bring the spare oil. I will watch the soup.
Ask Sella at the keeper's house. Work begins after breakfast.
%%
Wanted: a name for the mill apprentice
The new apprentice at the mill came from Vell on the third day of Thaw. It is tested. It carries sacks. It has no name.
Sefa says it cannot go on being called It. The ridge is asked to suggest a name. The one chosen wins a loaf from Ivo.
Names so far:
Sack: taken. It was the old one.
Mill: too plain.
Wheel: three votes. Sefa does not like it. She says a wheel is a thing that goes round, and this one goes straight.
Sail: no. There is a baby called Sail.
Flour: eleven votes. Someone said it is soft. The apprentice is not.
Squeak: nine votes. The mill squeaks, and so does the apprentice.
Biscuit: no. That is a sheep.
Pip the Second: no, says Tam. Pip is not to be copied.
Send names to the mill. The vote is on the fifteenth. Written by Mira for Sefa, who has flour on her hands.
%%
For sale: three good whetstones
Three good whetstones, cut from the grey stone above Lowmarsh, flat and true. Sable cut them. Each one comes with a wooden case so it does not chip in a boat or a cart. Two emeralds each, or one emerald and a favor.

Also for sale: one oak door, hardly used. It was meant for the shed. The shed fell in the flood and the door did not. It is a good door. It has opinions about the shed. Two emeralds and you carry it.

Wanted: a hand with the reed cutting, five days in Sowing. Pay in eels, or in stone if you would rather have that. Bring your own boots. The water is cold and the reeds do not care.

The honey from the fair is still unclaimed. I have asked around. Nobody will look me in the eye about it. I am starting to think it walked here.
%%
For sale: wool blankets
For sale at Lenn's farm, outside Kettle Ridge.
Four wool blankets, clean and mended. They are warm enough for a cold room, but not so warm that you wake up thinking you are a sheep.
One blanket has a small brown patch near the edge. It came from a sheep who liked to sleep in the feed bin. The patch is not a hole.
Price is two emeralds each, or seven for all four. Bring your own cart. The road from Kettle Ridge is packed earth and slick after snow.
Ask for Mara by the horse shed. Lenn says the blankets are mine. Lenn also says I should not sell the brown one, because it knows where the feed is.
Mara, Deepsnow of 173
%%
Lost: a blowpipe
Lost: a blowpipe. Long, hollow, iron, as tall as a tall child. One end is black from the fire. The other end has my teeth marks.
Last seen leaning on the wall by the furnace, on the evening of the second day of Longday. Not seen on the third.
It is the only pipe I have. Without it I blow nothing, and the glass house is only a hot room.
Reward: a window for the finder. Any size you like, up to one pane of the kitchen kind.
If you took it by mistake, put it back by the door. I will say nothing. I will say a little.

Below, in chalk: Found at the yard. Corin used it to poke the fire. He says sorry.
Below that: Corin says he is not sorry. It was a good poker.
Below that, in Esk's hand: Corin owes me 3 emeralds for the bent end. Paid, on the fifth of Longday, 3 emeralds, counted out loud. The window goes to Pim, who saw the pipe first. Thank you, Pim.
%%
Wanted: white sand
Wanted at the glass house, in the hamlet above Saltreach: clean white sand. Eight sacks, for a big order of window glass.
Take it from the north beach, past the rocks. Not from the harbor beach. Harbor sand is grey and makes green glass. Corin would like green windows for the yard. Nobody else would.
Pay: 1 emerald for every 4 sacks, at the door.
Sand with shells in it goes back. So does sand with a sleeping cat in it.
Esk, glassblower, summer
%%
Lost: a grey cat, answers to Ash
Lost near the east lane at Vell, the last house before the grass. Grey cat, one white foot, a notch in her left ear. She is not shy. She will come for honey on a spoon.
She is old and she likes the warm stones by the furnace. She has been gone since the hot week began.
If you find her, do not chase her. Sit down and wait. She will come to you.
A jar of honey to whoever brings her home. A whole jar, not a small one.
Tova, glassblower, Vell
%%
Wanted: spiders gone
Wanted at the big barn at the bend of the Long Road, below Vell: one person to clear the spiders from the rafters before the cows come in.
The spiders are the big grey sort. They are not poisonous. They are very slow, and they sit at the ends of their threads, and they do not care for brooms. Use the long pole and the bucket. Do not reach with your hands.
The rafters are high. The ladder is old. Check each rung before you put your weight on it, and then check the rung above.
We give: 2 emeralds, a bowl of soup, and the right to tell the story to the carters for the rest of your life.
The cows are very patient. They will wait. They are the only ones who will.
Ask for Teague at the bend. He has been trying for a month and he would like it done before he goes away.
%%
For sale and found: a warm winter lot
Northpoint notice board, Frost, 202. Written by Mira and Lantern.
For sale from the keeper's house: one pair of wool mittens, brown, with a red patch on the left thumb. They are large enough for Hesk and too large for Lantern. Three emeralds, or two emeralds and a sack of coal. The right mitten has a small hole. A careful person can mend it.
Wanted: help carrying two crates of glass panes from the store to the relay house. The path is clear, but the crates are heavy. We need two people and a hand cart. Pay is bread, cheese, and one jar of honey from Ambrook. Mira will take the lower end of the cart. Lantern will tell everyone that this is because Mira is strong. Mira says it is because Lantern keeps stopping to look at the snow.
Found beside the north gate: a wooden spoon, a little bent at the handle. It has no name cut into it. The finder left it on the shelf by the door. Claim it there.
Also found: one cat, grey with a white chin, asleep in the basket of clean wool. It does not belong to Lantern, who says it belongs to the tower. It does not belong to Mira, who says it belongs to the cold outside.
The cat will not stay out. We carried it to the yard twice. It came in through the store door, then sat on the wool as if it had paid for it. The door is now shut. The cat is still inside.
If the cat belongs to you, ask for it at the keeper's house. Bring a name it will answer to. So far it answers to the sound of a soup bowl being set down.
%%
Notice: A winter horse for sale
One bay mare for sale at Lenn's farm, beyond the east fields of Kettle Ridge.
She is sound, patient, and steady on the road. She has pulled a cart through snow and stood quietly while a chicken sat on her back. The chicken was not invited. The mare did not complain.
She eats hay, carrots, and the tops of apples. She will not eat a potato, though Lenn has tried twice and says the potato was good.
Price is twelve emeralds. A bridle and a spare blanket come with her. Bring a halter if you want to lead her home.
Ask Lenn at the horse shed. The mare is called Button. She answers to Button, and sometimes to the sound of a bucket.
%%
Help wanted: A warm cradle
Northpoint, Thaw 206. From Mira.

A good cradle is wanted for the new child at the relay house. The child was born at the end of Longnight, while the wind shook the glass panes in the lamp room. The midwife says the child is strong. The child says nothing yet, which is a sensible way to begin.

The cradle must be wide enough for a wool blanket and steady on the floorboards. Oak would be best. Birch is fine if it has no loose joints. No sharp corners. No carved foxes with long noses. The child has enough to look at already.

The family can pay with two emeralds, a sack of wheat, or work agreed with the maker. We have dry wood in the relay house store. Ask before taking any. It is counted for the tower stairs, and I dislike finding that a cradle has eaten a stair.

Lantern has offered to make the cradle. Lantern can carry timber, sort the tools and hold a board still while someone works. Lantern cannot judge whether a board is straight. We tested this with the shelf by the stove. The shelf now slopes toward the kettle.

A carpenter from the lower road is welcome to take the work. Please come to the relay house before dark, when the path is clear. If you come after dark, knock twice. One knock means the wind has hit the door again.

We also need clean wool, a small blanket and a good name for the child. Mira has offered three names. The family has rejected all three, which is fair. I offered Northstep. The family says no.

There will be soup for anyone who brings useful wood or cloth. There will be soup for the midwife too, though she has already had four bowls. She says those were all for the child. I believe her, but I have written down the number.
%%
Wanted, for sale and lost, the whole
Gathered from the board at the Copperhold market by Opal, grandmother, over the whole of one spring, in the order they were put up. Some are hers. Most are not. She says she kept them because the board is a kind of diary.

Thaw, first week.
WANTED: more torches for the market stalls. The nights are still long.
FOR SALE: a pair of boots, used. One heel is worn. Cheap.
LOST: a sheep. Answers to Daisy. Fat. Very calm.
FOUND: a sheep, answers to nothing, sitting in the baker's yard. It might be Daisy. It has eaten a loaf.

Thaw, second week.
WANTED: a person to dig out the road to Three Wells. The thaw has made it a river of mud.
FOR SALE: a good cart. The wheels are new. The mud is not included.
FOUND: Daisy. Not the same sheep. This one is called Daisy as well. There are three Daisys in Copperhold. Please be careful.

Thaw, third week.
WANTED: a tutor. The children of Copperhold have not had one for two years. The one who came last spring left after a week.
NOTICE: A tutor from Vell is coming in Sowing. She is very learned. She is also very short, and does not like to be asked. Be kind.

Sowing, first week.
WANTED: the song of the goat. Not to sing it. To bury it. We have heard it forty times.
FOR SALE: seeds. Beet, carrot, potato. All guaranteed to grow. If they do not, the seller will eat them.
NOTICE: The song contest is on the first day of Sowing. Come early. Opal has made buns.

Sowing, second week.
THANKS: to all who came to the song contest. Seventeen songs, one winner, no fights. A good day. The tutor from Vell sat in the front row and tapped her foot. We have asked her to come again.
FOR SALE: ribbons, red, a few left.
LOST: a hat. It blew off at the song contest. It has not been seen since.
FOUND: a hat. Not the same one. It is blue and has a feather. Perhaps it is the tutor's. She says no.

Sowing, third week.
NOTICE: The tutor has left. She said she liked Copperhold best of all the towns she had visited. She said it had the best songs. She said it had the warmest hall.
WANTED: a rest. I am old. I have run a contest, a tutor and three sheep. I will sit in my rocking chair. Do not call.

Sowing, fourth week.
WANTED: Opal. We cannot find her. We have looked everywhere. The board is bare without her.
FOUND: Opal. She was in her rocking chair, as she said. She is asleep. Do not wake her. We will put up the notices ourselves.

Opal
%%
Wanted and found: the harvest market
This is the list of things wanted and found on the market board, at the Kettle Ridge harvest, in the good year. The good year has been very good. The board is so full that Hob has pinned the notices two deep.

Wanted: a cart for the top field. The wheat came in so thick that the carts from the top farm could not carry it all in one day. Ask Tam, who has been asking everyone for a month.

Wanted: someone to count the sacks at the windmill. The miller says he has counted them four times and got four different numbers, and he would like to know which is right. He will pay a bowl of soup and an apple for the trouble.

Wanted: a boy with a good arm to throw the sheaves from the cart to the loft. Two boys, if they are quick. The loft is high.

Found: a sickle, very sharp, by the well. It belongs to whoever has been cutting the beetroot in the bottom field without its owner's leave. Please return it, and bring the beetroot too.

Found: a coil of rope, long and good, on the windmill stair. It has a knot in it that no one on the ridge can undo, and the miller says he will not try.

Found: one pig, brown, very pleased with herself, asleep under the market stall. Her owner is Old Brin. He says she is not his pig, but he will take her home, because she has been eating his apples for three years and he would like to get his money's worth.

Lost: the bell from the mill gate. It was rung at the start of the harvest and at the end, and somebody has taken it. The miller says there is no hurry. He says he has a second bell, and that it is also loud, and that he will leave the first one a note.

Good year, all. The wheat is in. The hens are fat. Keep the board clean for next year.
%%
Notice: a new apprentice at the Vell
Posted at the gate of the lower town, Vell, for the people who have asked about the new apprentice at the bakery. The baker put the notice up himself. He has been asked the same question by every family on the street.
The apprentice came up the Long Road on the last cart before the snow. It was in a crate with straw, and it was small, and it had a copper face with two dents in it. It was tested at the Archive before it was let out. The clerks say it passed. Nobody has said what the test was.
It carries the flour from the store to the oven. It stacks the loaves on the rack in the order they come out. It sweeps the step, and it knows which step is which.
It does not talk. It does not need to. When the baker says bring the salt, it brings the salt. When the baker says stay, it stays by the oven until he comes back, which is sometimes an hour and sometimes the whole morning.
Some people say it is a sign of something. Some say it is only an apprentice, and the baker is glad to have it. The children have named it Soot. It does not mind, or it does not show that it minds.
The baker asks everyone to be patient. He says the apprentice is learning, and that it is very slow at the start, and that it is good at the end. He says he has been told this about his own sons. He thinks it is probably true of apprentices as well.
%%
Notice: the harvest fair at Saltreach
By order of the harbor council, the harvest fair will be held this autumn on the quay.
Stalls from the fish market to the harbor wall. The price board will be turned to the wall for the day and no one will quarrel about fish.
Goods to sell: nets, salt fish, rope, tar, sails, boots, hooks, and one small boat with a good name. Ask Corin.
Folk from the towns are welcome. The road from Three Wells was mended this summer, and the bridge over the stream is stone, so carts may come and go.
A cart from Kettle Ridge came down last week and stuck at the harbor wall. The mud there is bad after rain. We have put gravel down. Bring a friend and a rope anyway.
The school children of Three Wells will sing. Bel has written a song about the sea. She has never seen the sea. We will see how it goes.
A prize for the best salt fish. A prize for the best mended net. A prize for the longest story, judged by whoever can stand the most.
Old Rill will tell of the first ship built here, if his voice is up to it.
Some people say this fair should not be held, with the ships going out and the rumors going round. I say a fair is the best answer to a rumor. Bring your goods. Bring your questions. We will answer them plainly, or say we do not know.
Dace, mayor of Three Wells, and the harbor council
%%
Lost: the goat
Lost, on the north road, on the third day of the frost:
One white goat, with a black ear. She goes where she likes. If found, put her in the barn and do not let her see the gate. Her name is Clover, and she knows it.
One red mitten, wool, knitted with a hole in the thumb. It was dropped near the tower steps. Someone will have picked it up. If you did, please return it to the keeper, and say it was not yours.
One brass bell, from the goat's collar. It is the loud one. You will hear it before you see her.
A reward of one emerald for the goat, and nothing for the mitten, because the keeper says it was not worth the walk.
Ask at the lower farm. Knock twice.
%%
For sale: one cart, a little wet
Pinned on the gate by the farm road. For sale by Tobin, carter, of the farm outside Saltreach. Price and terms as stated.

One cart, two wheels true, two a little wet. It has carried salt, cider, wool and once a whole pig, and the pig did not complain. The axle was mended at Reaping by a man who knows his trade.

Price: fifteen emeralds, or twelve if you bring the horse with you. The horse is sold separately. The horse is called Barley, and she will not be sold to anyone who has not first apologized to her.

The cart is in the yard behind the barn. The yard is in the rain, so bring a cloak. The rain is not included in the price.

The cart has a crack in the left board. It has been there three years. It has never once let anything through, and it does not seem to be getting bigger, though we check.

Bring the money to the farm. Do not bring the money to the fox. The fox has been asked, and has refused, and has taken a hen instead.
%%
Letter: Sable to Wren
Wren, the flood came up to the third board on the walk, and my yard is mud to the knees. The good stone is fine. I had it up on the pallets, because I always do, because my mother always did. The pallets floated a little and came back. Stone is patient.

The shed did not come back. The door did. It was standing upright in the reeds by the boat house, still on its hinges, which I do not understand and will not be explaining to anyone. I have put it back on a new shed. If it falls in again I am selling the door and keeping the reeds.

Your jars came through fine. The high shelf was the right place to put them, and I only broke one, and it was empty, and I am sorry.

Moss was a great help carrying the wet boards. Tell her the pay is eels. She said she would rather have a whetstone. She is a sensible child and I have given her the whetstone.

The honey on the wall is still unclaimed. I have decided it was left for me by someone shy. It is very good honey. Come by for bread and some of it when the water goes down.
%%
Wanted: a teacher for the three children
Wanted at the lower farm for the winter: a teacher, to take three children up the road to the schoolroom at Northpoint on the days when the snow is down. The children are Tab, age nine, Mari, age seven, and Little Ned, age five, who will not sit still.
The lessons are reading, sums, the names of the towers, and how to write a letter to a keeper. Mari can write her name. Tab can write his name and his sister's. Ned can write the word "fox", and he is very proud of it.
A teacher must have patience. A teacher must be able to answer a question about the lamp without making a face.
We give: a bowl of soup at noon, and 8 emeralds for the winter.
We had a teacher last year. The lesson went badly on the last day of Frost. Tab asked why the lamp had blinked in the night, and the teacher said it was a fox on the glass. Then Ned asked why the fox had been blinking, and the teacher said she did not know, and that was the end of the lesson. The children went home early and wrote the word "fox" on every wall in the barn.
Ask at the lower farm. Knock twice.
%%
Notices: Shingle End, Thaw
Notices on the post at the top of Shingle End, the hamlet above Saltreach. Written in charcoal by Alder, well digger, who is no good at spelling and does not care.

Wanted: one helper to dig the new well by the boat ramp. Pays 4 emeralds the day. Must not sing down the shaft.
For sale: one spade, good, nearly new. The handle is cracked only a little. 3 emeralds.
Lost: a cart wheel, with its cart still attached. Last seen going up the hill without a driver.
Found: a copper pot, dented, at the top of the shingle. Owner, please come before the gulls do.
Wanted: seed for the spring, any kind. The Saltreach strip has come up thin, and the beetroot is small.

Alder can be found in the bottom field until Blossom. Leave a message with the pig.
%%
Notice: a visiting tutor at the quay
Posted at the quay house, Saltreach, in Swarm, by the tutors' house at Vell, for the fishers and the shipyard.
Tutor Nessa is visiting Saltreach this summer, for one month. She has come to test a new mind for sorting fish at the market, and she needs helpers.
Wanted: fishers to bring their catch to the test table each morning, at the first bell, so that the mind can be shown the fish. Please bring fish that are fresh. The mind cannot tell fresh fish from old fish. It is the tutor's job to teach it that, and the fish's job to be fresh.
Wanted: children to hold the lamp by the table. The lamp must not be moved, and the children must not stare at the mind. It does not like to be stared at. It does not know why. Tutor Nessa says it is the way the drill is set.
The test is set from a box of pages the mind has never seen. The tutor keeps the box shut. Nobody else is to open it, and nobody will be told the answers before the test is finished. Please do not ask.
The tutor asks that shipwrights and net menders leave their opinions at the door. The tutor has heard all of them, and some of them twice.
Tutor Nessa will answer questions at the quay house every evening, for one hour, after the lamps are lit. Ask short ones.
Posted by order of the tutors' house, Vell
%%
Notice: Help at the orchard
Farm outside Vell, third of Longday, year 162.
Dara needs two helpers to pick apples before the rain.
Bring a basket. We have baskets, but one handle is loose.
Pay is bread, carrots, and one emerald each.
Do not climb the old apple tree. The branch is sound, but the ladder is not.
The bees are busy by the west hedge. Walk past them slowly.
Ask for Dara at the farm gate.
%%
For sale: mended nets and a good rope
Posted at the net shed, Saltreach, in Melon, by Mab, net mender, who has been asked by her cousin to sell the shed's surplus before the autumn fish.
1. Nets, mended, for the small boats: one emerald each. For the big ones: two. The knots are tight, and the mesh is even. The mesh is even because Mab counts it twice, and the second count is the true one.
2. Nets, new, from the cousin's loom: three emeralds each. Very strong. A little itchy.
3. A coil of rope, the length of the pier and a little more: four emeralds.
4. Twine, a roll, for the small nets: half an emerald.
5. Net floats, painted red, sold in lots of ten: two emeralds the lot. The floats do not sink. They have been tested in the bay, and they floated, which is all a float is for.
6. A stool for net mending, with a good seat, and one leg that Mab says is only tired.
Buyers may try a net in the water at the quay, where the tide will tell you what you need to know. Do not put a net in the water without a rope tied to it. Mab does not want to lose another net to a fish that was not supposed to be there.
Mab, net mender
%%
For sale: panes and bottles
Glass is dear this summer.
The sand cart from Saltreach came late twice. The wood for the furnace costs more than it did. Folk say the roads are busier with carts going one way and not coming back, but that is only what I hear at the door. The price of a pane has gone up a little. I am sorry for it.
Panes, clear, the old sizes. Jars with lids. Bottles for honey, beer and oil. Lamp glass for the relays, cut true.
I will take good sand, good wood, or eggs. I will not take promises.
Tova, glassblower, Vell, summer
%%
Market board, Lowmarsh, autumn
Help wanted. Four hands to mend the reed screens by the boat houses.
The posts are sound, but the woven reeds have come loose.
Pay is 1 emerald for a morning, and hot beetroot soup at noon.
Ask Sella, near the fish weir. Bring a knife for reeds, not a spade.
The field path by Sella's carrots stays closed.
A cave has opened under the south field. No one has measured its depth.
The rope must stay across the path until the ground is checked.
Sella asks that nobody move the marker reed. It is the only one she has.
For sale. Two clay jars, both clean, 1 emerald each.
One has a lid. The other has a lid that belongs to someone else.
Ena has put the loose lid by the fish price board.
Found. A jar of honey, with no name on it.
The honey is on the high shelf at the tally board. Ask the market keeper.
It has not been sold, and it has not been opened.
Wren says to leave it there. The keeper says it may be claimed before Longnight.
Lost. A brown hen with a white mark on one wing.
Last seen beside the reed beds. It may be under a boat.
Do not chase it into the marsh. Bring word to the baker's stall.
Gil can mend one broken spade handle today.
He has oak ready, but no one should bring him a wet handle.
A boat came from Saltreach with two families aboard.
They said the sea was calm and the big ships were not for them.
One woman said the ships were built for a long crossing. The boatman said she had heard a tale.
They left before supper and took the road toward Three Wells.
The north tower did not answer the evening call.
Mira's last note said the lamp was lit. A keeper here says fog can hide a lamp.
The fog was thin, and the lamp was still hard to see.
Keep the boardwalk lamps burning. The frogs are loud tonight.
%%
Notice board, Vell market
Posted by Finch, trader, for anyone who needs it. Autumn, 174.
The market at Vell is held in the square below the Archive. Stalls go up at first light. We take our places by the bell. Bring your own bench.
For sale: three hens, good layers, one is loud. Ask for Finch at the stall with the blue cloth.
For sale: a cart, oak, one wheel mended with copper band. It squeaks but it goes. Will trade for wool or honey.
Wanted: someone to help carry crates from the road to the stalls on market day. Two hours of work, paid in soup and a coin.
Lost: a brown leather glove, left thumb only. It is no use to anyone else. Please leave it at the bell.
Found: a small knife with a bone handle, in the gutter by the well. Tell me what is carved on the handle and it is yours.
Wanted: a roofer. My stall roof leaks over the honey jars. Honey and rain do not mix. I will pay well and feed you better.
Thank you to whoever fixed the loose plank by the east stall. My cart thanks you most of all. Finch.
%%
Lise: notes from the healing house
The healing house at Saltreach, my notes, this autumn.
The harbor wall is loud again. The big ship has been on the slip all summer, and now she stands in the water. Three times as long as any boat I know. Corin walks round her every morning and touches the wood. He does not say much. Families line up at the dock with boxes and bundles. I asked one woman where she was going. She said, "across." I asked what was across. She said, "a place." She was not unkind. She held her child's hand and looked at the water.
The rumor here is that the fish have gone strange. Some say the nets bring up fish with no eyes. Some say the fish are fine, and it is the water that tastes of iron near the harbor wall. I have tasted it. It is only water. I think it is only water.
Another rumor: a woman from Copperhold came through with wool to sell and said the mine hums at night. She said the stone is warm in the low levels and the miners will not go below the eighth. I asked what hums. She said, "it is the mine." I asked is it a song. She said, "I do not know. I have not been down."
The cough that is bad at Lowmarsh has not come here. Two sailors came up from the south coast with a cough and I gave them honey and hot water and they were well in a week. It was only a cough.
Good news: the harvest was good. The boats came back full all month. The apple carts rolled down from Ambrook without trouble. A cart from Kettle Ridge stuck in the mud by the harbor wall last week, and eight people came to push it free before I could even put down my bag. That is Saltreach.
I have set my jars in rows again. I have labeled them. I have a good stock of honey from Ama. It does for most things. It does not do for everything.
Lise
%%
For sale: honey and wax
Ambrook honey, this year's run, in jars of two sizes. The small jar is a copper bit. The big jar is three coppers.
We also have wax by the block, candles dipped and dipped again, and a few frames of comb for anyone who wants to start a hive.
The honey is dark this year and tastes of the hill flowers. The bees worked late into Leaffall. We had two swarms and lost none.
We do not sell queens. We will show you how to catch a swarm if you ask us kindly.
Ask for Maud at the Marsh farm, east of Three Wells. Bring a jar and a steady hand.
The bees are calm. You are the one who has to be calm.
%%
Notice: roofer wanted, with thanks
Posted on the market board by Finch, on behalf of the stallholders. Autumn, 190.
Wanted: a roofer who will climb. The stall roofs along the west row are old and two leak over the wool. Bring your own nails and a good head for heights. Pay is fair, and the stallholders will feed you every market day until the frost.
The west row thanks Tolly, who mended three roofs here over the years and never once asked for coin. He took honey, soup, and now and then a good apple. He is a lesson to us all. If his daughter is reading this at the school, your father's roofs still hold.
For sale, from the west row together: a great many pumpkins, and we will not be undersold. Also apples, wool, honey, and one very large pumpkin that we are selling in pieces because no cart will take it whole.
Found: a school essay about bees, blown off the board and found again under a stall. It is back on the board, and the teacher has marked it. A good mark. The bees would be proud.
Gift: a jar of honey and a basket of apples left at the bell for the roofer who comes. First one up the ladder gets it.
Market days until the frost. Come early. The good wool goes first.
%%
Lost: one brown hen
Lost from the Marsh farm, east of Three Wells, one brown hen with a white mark on her head.
She went off on the ninth of Leaffall and has not come back. She is a good layer and a quiet bird. She answers to Bet.
If you find her, please bring her to the Marsh farm or leave word at the bakery. There is a reward of three emeralds and a basket of eggs.
We think she went after the bees. The hives on the hill swarmed that week and there were bees everywhere. Keep an eye on your own hens.
Maud at the Marsh farm
%%
Notice: Help at the horse shed
Help wanted at Lenn's farm outside Kettle Ridge.
I need one pair of hands to carry hay and brush the horses. The work is in the morning, before the snow gets soft. We have three horses and one brush with a handle that turns in your hand.
Bring warm boots. I will give you soup at noon and two emeralds for the day.
Ask for Lenn at the shed. Do not ask the grey mare. She answers only by kicking the door.
Lenn, Frost of 166
%%
Notice: the market at Kettle Ridge
Market opens at first light and closes when the lamps are lit.
Stalls this year:
Wheat flour and barley from the top field. Bring your own sack.
Beetroot, carrots and potatoes from the long field and the bottom field. The potatoes are small this year. They are good for soup.
Honey and wax candles from the hives on the hill.
Apples from Ambrook, brought by Pell with his cart. He says the road was good. He says the bridge needs a plank. He says this every year.
Wool, yarn and two good cloaks from the sheep at the top of the ridge.
Hot soup from the Kettle Inn, all day. Hobb says the second bowl is free.
There will be a contest at noon: guess the weight of the biggest pumpkin. The pumpkin is in the barn. You may not lift it.
No dogs in the market. Yes, that means you, Bram.
The windmill will squeak. We know. Nobody has fixed the squeak since 187. If you fix it, you may have your soup free.
Tam, for the market, Kettle Ridge, autumn of 201
%%
Notice: board at the Saltreach market
The market board by the fish market, autumn.
For sale: a good boat, twelve years old, tarred every spring. Her name is Gannet. She leaks a little and asks for two hands. Ask for Corin at the slip, or leave word at the fish market.
For sale: nets, mended and clean. Six. Ask at the quay window.
For sale: a cart, oak, one wheel mended. The axle is sound. It carried apples for nine years. Corin says it will carry apples nine more.
For sale: two barrels of salt fish, good and dry.
Wanted: a hand for the slip. Must lift and hold. Corin pays on the day.
Wanted: someone to sit with old Rill in the evenings. He is not sick. He is lonely. He talks about boats. Pay is small and the talk is good.
Lost: a grey cat, answers to Ash. Last seen by the harbor wall. The children are looking.
Found: a red mitten, on the long pier. Ask Lise at the healing house.
The big ship goes out again at the end of the month. Corin says she is the longest boat ever built here. Some say there is nothing across the water but water. Some say there is.
%%
For sale: honey and a stool
Lowmarsh market, autumn.
One jar of honey for sale. The lid is sound and the honey is clear.
It came from Ambrook, by cart, and it has not been opened.
Price: 3 emeralds. I will take 2 and a good wooden bowl.
Gil says honey is not a smith's trade. Gil says many things while eating.
Also for sale, one low stool made from oak. It has four legs and one short leg.
It stands better on mud than on a clean floor.
Price: 1 emerald.
Do not buy it for a tall person.
The seller is Ena, who keeps the boat tally by the west post.
She will be there until the fish seller rings the small bell.
If rain comes, the honey goes under the bench.
The stool does not mind rain. It has been outside since Longday.
%%
Wanted: a hand for the weir
Wanted at the hamlet near Lowmarsh: a hand for the fish weir, from the first frost of Leaffall until the boats are dragged up.
You get 1 emerald a day, a bed in the boathouse, hot soup at noon, and the first pick of the fish.
You must be able to pull a rope without letting go of it.
You must come to the weir at dawn. The weir does not wait for the bell.
Wren asks that everyone drinks boiled water from the kettle she sends down each morning, and not from the ditch. She says this is not a rule. She says it is only what a sensible person does.
Ask at the ferry crossing. Tilly the dyer knows everything that is wet.
Tilly, dyer
%%
Wanted: a boy for the mill
Wanted at the mill on Kettle Ridge: one boy, age ten to twelve, to help with the sacks, the sluice and the tally. He must be able to count to a hundred, and back again.
He will carry the flour from the loft to the cart, sweep the floor, and keep the tally board clean. He will not touch the sluice, which is the miller's business and the miller's alone.
He must be willing to climb the ladder inside the mill, with the wheel turning. The wheel squeaks on every turn. He must not be frightened by the squeak.
We give: a bowl of soup at noon, a second bowl if he is quiet, and 6 emeralds at the end of the season.
Ask for the miller, Jory's cousin Ilse, at the mill door. Knock on the frame, not the door, because the door is old.
%%
Lost and found: the notice board
Found: one glove, wool, grey, left on the bench by the east well. Ask at the school.
Found: a small knife with a wooden handle, by the bakery door. The baker is keeping it.
Lost: a blue scarf, near the mill pond at Ambrook. It was a gift and it is missed.
Found: a book of sums, a child's, with a name drawn inside that we cannot read. It is at the notice board under a stone. Please take it home.
Found: a lantern, still lit, on the waymark north of the square. Whoever left it, thank you, and please do not leave it again.
Lost: one dog, old, grey about the nose. Answers to Pip. If you see him, sit down and wait. He will come to you.
Dace, mayor of Three Wells
%%
Lost and Found by the gate
Farm outside Vell, second of Swarm, year 183.
Found: one wool mitten on the path to the well.
Found: a wooden spoon in the beetroot basket. It has a bite mark.
Found: three apples beside the tool shed. Dara says they were not there at breakfast.
Lost: Tam's blue scarf. It may be in the barn, or on the scarecrow.
Ask Dara before taking anything home.
The mitten belongs to Nella from the lower farm. She can collect it after she finishes the ditch.
The spoon belongs to Tam. He says the bite mark is from a mouse. Pip says Tam was eating soup while he carved it.
%%
For sale: a cart, two wheels true
For sale, by Nim at the Brown Hen, on behalf of Tomas of the Long Road, who has given up carting for the bees.
One cart, oak, with iron bands on the wheels. Two wheels true, two wheels a little tired. The axle is new this spring. The bed is good for twelve sacks, or nine sacks and a child.
The shafts are a bit short for a tall horse. The brake is a bit stiff. The bell on the back is loud, and can be taken off if the horse objects.
Price: forty emeralds, or thirty-five if you take the spare wheel too, which is also oak and nearly new.
Tomas says the cart has been on the Long Road from the Halfway to Ambrook and back, every week for six years, and has never once tipped over on the hill. He says that is a recommendation. I have not argued.
Come and see it in the yard. Bring a horse to try the shafts, or a friend with a strong back.
%%
Lost and found at the boardwalk
Lowmarsh market, autumn.
Lost: a blue wool cap with a patch over the left ear.
It belongs to Moss, Wren's apprentice. Moss says the patch is warmer than the cap.
The cap was last seen on a post beside the fish weir.
Found: one tin cup, two turnips, and a red scarf.
The cup has a dent in its side. The turnips are still good.
The scarf smells of smoke and belongs to no one who has asked.
Found also: one jar of honey, set under the tally board.
It has a small crack in the lid, but no honey has leaked.
The keeper says it came in with a basket of reeds. The reed seller says it was not hers.
Gil says the jar is sound enough for soup. Wren says no one should eat food from a lost jar.
They both offered to take it home.
It will stay on the high shelf until its owner asks for it.
Please write your name on baskets and jars. The market is busy, even when the boats are few.
The north relay has been quiet since the last fog, but that may be a fault in the line.
A traveler says the lights over the snow were lamps carried by folk on the ridge.
Mira sent word that they were not ours.
No one here saw them. The fish were good on that day.
%%
For sale: spruce boards
Northpoint market note, Frost, 181. By Eren, who keeps the store.
For sale: twelve spruce boards, sound and dry. Good for a shelf, a box, or a patch in a roof. Two emeralds for the lot.
Also for sale: one wool blanket, brown, with a small blue patch at one corner. It is warm. It has no known history, except that I slept under it through three cold nights and woke each time with both feet covered.
Wanted: a person with a steady hand to mend the loose latch on the store door. I can pay in bread and one jar of Ambrook honey.
The wind has been pushing the door open. The latch is not broken. It is only tired.
Ask for Eren by the relay house. Do not leave the boards outside. Snow is not a buyer.
%%
Lost: a swarm
Lost at Ambrook: one swarm of bees, about the size of a pumpkin. They left the hive at noon on the second day of Swarm and went over the hedge toward the mill.
They are friendly. If they land on you, stand still. Do not wave. Do not scream. Do not run. Send for me.
Reward: a jar of dark honey. Emmet, beekeeper, the hives on the hill.
Below, in chalk: They are on Jory's sluice. Jory is standing very still.
Below that: Jory says he is standing still because he was told to.
%%
Wanted: singers for the contest
Wanted at Ambrook: singers for the summer song contest, on the evening of the fifteenth of Longday, at the mill pond.
We need six voices for the apple pickers' song. We need one voice for the high part in the last verse. Whoever sings it must not be afraid of the high part, or of the bees.
No cats. A cat came last year, sat on the front bench and looked at the singers. Three of them stopped.
Prize: a jar of light honey, a blue ribbon, and your name on the board at the mill.
Practice is at the hives on the hill, each evening after supper. The bees do not mind singing. They hum along. Sometimes they hum a different song.
Emmet
%%
Letter: Sefa to her sister at Saltreach
Dear Rilla,
Come and see us this summer. The hamlet is loud with bees and the apples are coming early.
Corin is building a boat and half the hamlet is helping. The other half is watching and saying how they would do it better. Corin says this is normal and to let them talk.
We had a strange thing at the tower lamp last week. It blinked a message in the night, but the keeper was asleep and nobody saw it start. The message said only: "all well, all well, all well", three times, and then nothing. Sedge came up from Three Wells to look. He says a lamp can blink a message it was sent, but nobody sent this one. He looked at the redstone line all morning. He says it is old and the damp gets in it. He says do not worry. He says it twice, so I think he is a little worried.
The new copper vein is good news. Hesk came up from Copperhold to look at the seam in the hill above the mill pond. He says it is a fine vein, not deep, easy to reach. He says the hamlet should dig it slow and keep the water out. He says this with his gruff face, which means he likes it. The children have named the vein Little Copper. They leave little stones on the hill above it, the way they leave stones on the waymarks.
The cat at the fish market is still there. It has a name now. It is Lord Grey. It does not answer to it.
Bring the little ones. The bridge still has the loose plank. Tell them to step over it. Tell them Corin says he will fix it. He has said this for two years. He is a good shipwright and a slow bridge fixer.
Your sister, Sefa
%%
For sale: Fox fur mittens
Northpoint, Frost 188. From Iven, net mender.

One pair of wool mittens for sale. Lined with fox fur, warm enough for a tower watch. The left mitten has a small brown patch. That is not a hole. It is where my cat slept on the wool before I finished sewing.

Price: two emeralds, or one emerald and a sack of carrots. I do not need more fish. The last buyer paid in fish and I ate fish until I began to dream of fish.

I can mend the cuffs while you wait. Bring both mittens, even if only one is torn. The cat may have been near the other one too.

Ask for Iven at the net shed, below the relay tower. If the path is covered, knock on the green door. The red door belongs to my sister, who is tired of selling my things.
%%
Notice of a winter bet
A bet is set at Lenn's farm, outside Kettle Ridge.
Pip says Button can carry two sacks of carrots from the lower field to the shed without stopping. Lenn says she will stop at the hay rack before she reaches the door. Mara says both of them are wrong, because Button will stop at the wood pile and take a bite from the basket.
We will test this at noon on the second of Deepsnow. Two sacks, tied shut. No carrots may be taken out along the way. No hay may be put in the road. Button may walk at her own pace.
The loser gives one emerald to the farm kitchen and brings a fresh loaf for everyone. The winner gets no prize except the right to say so once. Lenn says that is more than enough.
Pip has already told the stable that he won. The stable has not agreed.
Visitors may watch from behind the fence. Keep the gate latched. Button knows how to nose it open, and she has no interest in the bet.
Lenn will write the result below after the test.
Result: Button stopped at the hay rack, then went on when Mara shook the carrot sack. Lenn lost the bet. He brought the loaf. It was warm, and Pip said the crust was better than being right.
%%
Wanted: bees for the orchard wall
Wanted at Kettle Ridge market: help with a swarm.
A big swarm has settled on the orchard wall on the top road. It is very high and very loud and it has no interest in the apples. The farmer who owns the orchard has asked for someone who is not afraid of bees, and who knows the honey song.
You will need a pot, a spoon, a cloth to tie over your hat, and a steady walk. Do not run. Running is the thing bees hate most.
We give: one jar of honey from the swarm when it is hived, and two emeralds, paid by the farmer at his gate when the work is passed.
Iona of the carts has offered to help. She says she has done it before. Nobody has seen her do it, but she has the spoon ready.
Ask at the stall. Bring a clean cloth.
%%
For sale and wanted, from Opal's corner
Collected from the board at the Copperhold market by Opal, grandmother, who keeps a stall of wool and mittens. Spring.

FOR SALE. Mittens, wool, in six colors. Warm, soft, and made by me. The red ones are a little small. The green ones are a little large. The brown ones are just right. Ask for brown.

FOR SALE. A rocking chair. It has been in my family four generations. It creaks. It also holds. 6 emeralds.

WANTED. A tutor, to teach my youngest grandson to read. He is five. He can already tell a pick from a shovel, but not the word for either. I will pay in mittens.

LOST. A ball of grey yarn, last seen rolling downhill toward the mine gate. If found, please return. The cat is on its trail.

FOUND. A pair of spectacles, round, with a wire handle. They were left at my stall. If you are the one who cannot see, please come. I shall not shout. I shall just hold them up.

WANTED. Someone to carry wool from Kettle Ridge. The cart is at the inn. The wool is in the barn. The road is long and my back is old.

FOR SALE. Honey, from my brother in Ambrook. Eight emeralds a jar. He says it is the best. He says so every year.

NOTICE. The song contest is on the first of Sowing. Come and listen. Come and sing. Bring a cushion, the benches are hard.

Opal
%%
The board at Northpoint, thaw
Copied from the board at the foot of the tower the week the lake ice went out. Spring of 208. The writing is in many hands. Most of the hands were cold.

Wanted: a sledge runner, left side. The right side is fine. Ask Runa.
For sale: one pair of ice spikes, the boots with nails. Used twice. Fell down both times. 2 emeralds. Fenn.
Wanted: someone to carry coal up the tower on the days Mira has a cold. Pay: soup. Mira.
For sale: nine eggs, and one hen that has stopped. Teg's cousin, by the spruce woods.
Found: one spoon, by the rocks at the woodshed. It has teeth marks on the handle. Claim it at the tower. Mira says it is not hers. It is hers.
Lost: one grey mitten, bitten. Last seen in the mouth of a fox. If you find it, do not take it back from the fox. Mira.
For sale: a book of weather notes from Northpoint, nine winters, written small. Only the weather is true. 1 emerald.
Wanted: a better word than "cold". We have used this one up. Willa.
Lost: the lid of the big pot. We have been cooking under a plate, and it is not the same. The ice camp.
Notice from Runa: the lake ice went out in the night with a noise like doors. Do not walk on it. Do not walk near it. Do not stand on the shore and ask if it is safe. It is not.
Wanted: boots for a boy of ten who has outgrown his boots and his patience. Ask Fenn's mother.
For sale: a sack of seed potatoes, a little green, very hopeful. 2 emeralds. They have waited a long winter for this.
Wanted: a sunny day. Any day. Leave it at the market. Runa.
Notice from Mira: the relay hours are as before. If you want to send a message, bring your words counted. Ten words for an emerald. Do not bring Tam's.
Notice from Teg: the road is open. First cart tomorrow, at noon, if the mud lets it. Bring your lists. Not too long.
Found: one wooden spoon, a second one, near the first. Also with teeth marks. Mira, please look again.
Lost: my good humor, since the thaw. Mud to the knee, mud in the soup, mud in the bed. If found, leave it with Willa. I will know it by the smile.
%%
Found: a grey coat
Found at the Vell market board this season. Ask at the gate to claim them. Give a true account of where you lost the thing, and expect to be asked again.
Found: one grey coat, long, too big for anyone in the lower town, folded on the bench by the well. There is a stone in the left pocket. Nobody will say what it is for.
Found: a hammer with a new handle, good ash, by the forge door. It was not left there by Ossa. Ossa says it was left there by a fox.
Found: a child's shoe, red, left-foot, under the stall of the cheese man. The cheese man says the foot is still inside it, and that he has been sitting on it all morning. He has not been asked to stop.
Lost: a spare key for the north gate of the Archive. The clerks say it is no matter. They have changed the lock, twice.
Lost: a pair of boots, wet, with a name on the heel. The name is not ours. The boots are very good.
Notice from the Archive clerk: anything left on the market stones after the second bell will be taken up the hill, and it will be kept there, in a box, with a number on the lid, and nobody will ask how it got there.
%%
For sale: hives, and a smoke pot
For sale at the hill hives, Ambrook: because the bees will not stop swarming, and I have more hives than hands.

Hive 1, strong and calm. Gives 20 jars a year. 6 emeralds.
Hive 2, strong, a little shy. 6 emeralds. Do not look at it directly.
Hive 3, cross. 2 emeralds, with a warning. It stung Pell. It stung Ama. It stung the mayor of Three Wells at the fair, from across the square.
Hive 4, new and small. 4 emeralds. Give it time.
A smoke pot with bellows: 2 emeralds.
A veil of fine net, mended by Marit: 1 emerald.
Gloves: 1 emerald. Left hand only. The right was taken by a fox and not returned.
Honey, light: 2 a jar. Dark: 3 a jar.
Candles from my combs: blue for those who ask for blue, red for the rest.

How to move a hive: at night, when the bees are home. Close the door. Do not whistle. Do not run. Walk as if you were carrying a sleeping child.
A first lesson in keeping is free with every hive. I will tell you how to know if a bee is cross. It hums higher.

Ask for Emmet at the hives on the hill. If I am not there, I am under a swarm.
%%
For sale: three hives and a good dog
We are moving to a bigger house by the ridge road, and we cannot take everything.
Three hives, healthy, with bees that have never swarmed away. Eight emeralds each, or twenty for all three. The honey this year was dark and thick. We have sixteen jars of it. One emerald a jar.
Also a dog. She is brown with one white ear. She is six years old, she is good with children, and she barks at foxes. She does not like carts. She is free to a good home. We will ask you questions.
Also a hen house with the hinges oiled, and a pig pen with a good gate.
Ask for Hollis at the house with the blue door, two doors from the Kettle Inn.
%%
Notice: cart in the ditch
A cart went into the ditch by the Ambrook bridge on the second of Deepsnow.
It was carrying apples from the orchard and a crate of clay pots. The apples are fine. Some of the pots are not.
We got the cart out with two horses and a long rope and everyone pushing. It took most of the morning. The carter thanked us and then sat down in the snow.
The bridge plank is loose again. It has been loose since autumn. We have put a stone on it. The stone is not a bridge.
If your cart is heavy, go round by the ford until the plank is fixed. If you go over anyway, come and get us. We will bring the rope.
Zell, boat yard, winter of 206
%%
For sale and wanted, a week at the quay
A list from the board at the Saltreach market, in summer. Written for the stall owners by Iona, bridge keeper, who keeps the board for the harbor.

FOR SALE: one small boat, good hull, a little leak. Ask for Marit at the slip. 30 emeralds.

FOR SALE: nets, mended and unmended. The mended are better.

FOR SALE: a pot of tar. Half full. The other half is on my boots.

WANTED: someone to teach my son to swim. He is nine and afraid of the sea. He is not afraid of fish. This is a puzzle. Ask for Hale.

WANTED: a clean bucket. The last one went into the harbor. It is on the bottom now, with the lobster pot.

FOUND: one boot, left foot, brown, big. Come and claim it. I have a feeling you are wearing the right one.

LOST: a crate of salt cod. It fell off a cart. If found, please eat it. We cannot use it.
%%
Notice: lost at the Lowmarsh fair
Lost at the Lowmarsh fair on the last market day, a grey wool scarf with a blue stripe at one end. It was my father's and I would like it back. I am not saying who lost it. I am saying it was not the wind.

Also lost: one boot, left foot, size large. Found: one boot, right foot, size large. These are not a pair and both owners are unhappy. Bring them to Sable's yard by the reeds and we will sort it out.

Found: a jar of honey, still sealed, sitting on the wall by the boat house. If it is yours, tell me what you meant to do with it. If you cannot remember, it is mine now and I will be having it on bread.

Found: one small cat, black with a white chin, very loud. She has opinions. She has been fed and is now worse. Come and get her before I name her.
%%
Found: a jar of honey
Found on the step of the glass house at Vell, in the hot week: one jar of honey, unlabeled, and a small note that says only "for the grey cat".
Ash came home on her own, three days late and very pleased with herself. Thank you to whoever left the honey. She has had a spoon of it and would like more.
The other thing: two panes of my lamp glass, gone from the shelf by the door. They are cut to the relay sizes and no use to a house. I do not ask for them back. I only ask that whoever took them did not take them far, and that the lamps they went to are burning. If you know something, tell me quietly. I will not shout.
Tova, glassblower, Vell, summer
%%
Notice: the bees
Posted at the Kettle Ridge market board by Hob, fisher, for anyone who wants to know what has happened on the ridge since the spring. It is a long notice. Hob says he has been asked to write it so many times, he might as well do it once, properly, and be done.

The bees swarmed in Swarm. Three hives came off at once, which Ama says is the most she has seen in her life. The first swarm went up over the wall into the orchard, and sat in the big apple tree at the gate. The second went down the road to the mill pond, and into the old hollow tree in the water. The third went nowhere at all. It came back into its own hive by the evening, and then it stayed there, as cross as anything.

The wheat was very good. Four fields in five gave full sheaves. The top field gave so much that the carts from the mill could not carry it, and the carters had to make two trips a day. Tam says the wind helped. Brin says the wind had nothing to do with it, and that the sheep had been right to lie down in the top field all spring, which was the cause of everything.

The beetroot was middling. The carrots were fine. The potatoes were the best in a long time. Pip dug them, and carried them up, and stacked them in the cellar at the top farm, and Tam says it is the first time he has ever seen a stack that is the same height all the way round.

The mill pond is high, and the frogs are loud, and the boats need bailing every morning. Hob says he has seen a big carp in the deep end, longer than an oar. Nobody has been able to catch it. Nobody has tried very hard.

Hob's own boats are fine. He has mended the nets and tarred the hulls and put the new hook on the front of the big one. He says the hook is for the carp, and that the carp knows it, and that he is going to wait until the carp decides to come up and say hello.

That is the notice. Thank you for reading it. Hob's stall is at the south end, and the fish is fresh, and the bread is from the top farm, and Tam is very cross that he has to share it.
%%
Notice: a fox at the Marsh farm
There is a fox at the Marsh farm. It has been at the hens three nights running. It took one hen and hurt another. The hen was mended with a splint and is doing well.
We are not asking for the fox to be killed. We are asking for the hen house door to be mended and for the fence to be made good. The fence has a gap by the ditch that a fox can walk through. Anyone with a spade and a free morning can help.
Maud says the fox is thin and that is why it comes. Others say there have been more foxes this autumn than any autumn they remember. Old Pell says the foxes came down from the north because of the lights. Brin says there are no lights and it is only the cold.
Either way, the hens would like a better door.
Dace, mayor of Three Wells
%%
Lost: a letter from Tam
Copied from the board at Northpoint, thaw of 208. The notices run in order, with the dates, as pinned. Most are in Mira's hand and Willa's.

First of Thaw, in Mira's hand. Lost: a letter from Tam of Kettle Ridge to Mira, keeper of Northpoint. Eleven pages, written small and crossed. Fell out of the post bag somewhere between the Three Wells bridge and here. Reward: a jar of Ambrook honey, and my thanks, which is rarer.

Second of Thaw, in Teg's hand, which is not much of a hand. The bag was tied. I tied it. I nodded about it.

Third of Thaw, in Willa's hand. Found: pages 3 and 4, in my wax shed. They were holding up a candle that leans. The candle stands straight now. I am sorry. I did not read them. I read some of them.

Third of Thaw, in Runa's hand. Found: page 7, on the lake ice. A fish was sitting on it. The fish has been returned.

Fourth of Thaw, in Mira's hand. Pages 1 and 2 are in the den of a fox, under the rocks by the woodshed. The corners are chewed. I asked nicely. The fox declined.

Fourth of Thaw, in Fenn's hand. Found: page 8, in my left boot. I do not know how.

Fifth of Thaw, in Mira's hand. Lantern stood by the woodshed all of yesterday holding up a page over its head, out of the wet. Nobody asked it to. It was waiting for someone to take the page. Page 9. Lantern, thank you. I have taken it.

Fifth of Thaw, in Willa's hand, for Linn, who is six and has a great deal to say. Found: page 11, under the market barrel. It has a drawing of a pig on it. Linn did not draw the pig. Tam did. Linn would like to keep the pig. Mira says she may, once the page has been read.

Sixth of Thaw, in Teg's hand. I looked in the post bag again. I looked in the cart. I looked in my hat. I nodded at the hat.

Sixth of Thaw, in Mira's hand. Pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 and 11 found. Pages 5, 6 and 10 still out. I have read what I have, in the order I have it.

Seventh of Thaw, in Mira's hand. I have read the letter in the new order. I think it makes more sense that way. Tam writes about a sheep on page 7, about his barn on page 3, and about his beetroot on page 9. I did not follow the beetroot until I had the sheep.

Eighth of Thaw, in Mira's hand. Reward paid: honey to the finders, a spoonful each, since there are five of them and one jar. The fox was not paid. Pages 5, 6 and 10 are lost for good. I have written to Tam to say so. I will say the letter was perfect and short. I do not think he will believe me.
%%
Wanted: loud voices at the pond
Wanted at the pond at the foot of Kettle Ridge: strong arms, a long rope, and the loudest voices on the ridge.
This morning Sefa told the new apprentice at the mill: take these sacks to Three Wells. It took the sacks. It set out by the shortest way, which is straight down the ridge and across the pond. Nobody had shown it that a pond is not a road.
It walked in. The pond is waist deep for a person. For the apprentice it is a little more. It walked on the bottom as far as the middle. There the mud held its feet, and it stood still. The sacks are floating on the water. The flour is turning to dough.
The apprentice is not hurt. Copper turns green in the damp, but it will be waxed. It is waiting for its next order. It will not get one unless somebody says it where it can hear.
Tam shouted come from the bank. Nothing. Brin shouted come. Nothing. Sefa shouted come, and wept.
Wanted: anyone with a very loud voice.
Below, in chalk: Hanna's twins did it. They both shouted come, together, and it came up out of the pond like a slow fish. The sacks are drying. The twins are asked not to do it again.
%%
Notices from the quay
Collected by Iona, bridge keeper, from the board at the Saltreach market, in the summer of the year the harbor master bought an apprentice. She wrote some of the notices herself, and the rest are as they were found.

First day.
WANTED: someone to find out why the new apprentice has put a net on the long pier and a crate of cod on the cat. Ask at the harbor master's door.
FOUND: one cat, under a crate of cod. Alive and unhappy. Taken to Iona.

Second day.
LOST: a net. Last seen on the long pier. The apprentice may know.
WANTED: patience. Lots. The apprentice has learned to stack crates. It has not learned to stack them straight. The tower of crates by the wall leans.
FOR SALE: a hat, slightly crushed. Do not ask.

Third day.
WANTED: a person to teach the apprentice how to say stop. We do not mean aloud, since it does not talk. We mean to learn when a crate is stacked. Ask the harbor master.
FOUND: Pennywhistle, on the roof of the fish market. She says she is not coming down. She has been up there since dawn.
FOR SALE: five hens. The apprentice mistook them for crates.

Fourth day.
WANTED: more patience. The apprentice has learned to carry fish to the right stall. It has learned to bring the nets to the quay. It has not learned to leave the cat alone.
FOR SALE: a cat basket, empty. Pennywhistle will not use it.

Fifth day.
FOUND: Pennywhistle, asleep on the apprentice's shoulder. The apprentice is standing very still. It has been standing there for an hour. The harbor master says it has learned something.

Sixth day.
WANTED: a second basket, bigger. Pennywhistle has decided to live on the apprentice. The apprentice does not mind. It carries her to the pier at dawn and to the bridge hut at dusk.

Seventh day.
Iona writes: the cat now stays out. She sits on the apprentice. The apprentice stays out. They are both doing very well. I would like to thank everybody who gave advice. None of it worked.

The harbor master adds: the apprentice is tested. It passed. We will keep it.
%%
Lost and found: Saltreach market board
The board by the fish market, second week of autumn. Written in many hands.
Lost: a brown dog, old, with a white chest. Answers to Pip. He is not friendly and he is not fast. He is mine. Please leave word at the quay window. Reward: a good net.
Lost: a boot, left, size of a big man. Found: a boot, right, size of a small man. They are not a pair. They sit under the board. Someone take them.
Found: a red mitten on the long pier. The children say it belongs to Lise. It does. She has one hand cold and she will not stop working.
Lost: a song book, blue cover. Bel will be sad. She says it has her song in it.
Found: a copper ring, on the harbor wall at low water. Ask at the tower if it is yours.
For sale: apples by the barrel, from Ambrook. Good and sweet.
For sale: honey, dark and light, from Ambrook. Ask for Lise if the market stall is closed.
Wanted: a hand to load salt fish. Two days. Pay on the day.
Wanted: news of the north. Mira at Northpoint has not sent a letter this month. If you have a letter from her, tell us. We will write back. We have written twice.
Rumor: lamps were seen over the north last month. Some say falling stars. Some say fires. A child said they were looking at us. That is a child's way of saying it. No one says what it was.
Rumor: the Deep Works hum at night. The miners say the stone is warm. Some say it is nothing. Some say it is the old sump. No one knows.
Rumor: the big ship goes out at the end of the month, and the month after, and the month after. Some say the families will come back. Some say they will send for us. Some say there is no coming back. The ship is only wood and sails. I have seen it. It is only wood and sails.
The harvest was good. The boats came in full. We will eat well this winter.
%%
For sale: seconds
For sale at the glass house: seconds. That is glass with something wrong with it, sold for less.
A jar with a bubble in the side: half price. The bubble does no harm. Children like it.
A cup that leans: a quarter price. It holds the same tea. It holds it at an angle.
A bottle with a green thread through it: 1 emerald. Wren at Lowmarsh buys these for her remedies. She says the thread does not matter.
A window pane with a wave in it: 2 emeralds. Everything you see through it looks as if it is under water. Good for a kitchen.
Not for sale: the lamp glass I dropped in spring. I am keeping it as a lesson.
Come in the cool of the morning. The furnace is hot after noon, and so am I.
Esk
%%
Lost: a ginger cat, and a grey hen
Lost, from the yard by the river bend: one ginger cat named Bramble, about three years old, who thinks she owns the barn. Last seen on the wall, looking north.
Lost, from the same yard: one grey hen called Mother. She is not the cat's mother. She will not answer to any other name.
Found: a brown hen, sitting in the warm corner of the dye room with four eggs under her and no idea whose they are. Please come and claim the eggs before she claims them as her own.
Found: one child's mitten, blue, knitted, with a hole at the thumb. It was folded neatly on the wall by the vat, as if someone knew where it would be missed. Ask at the vat.
Lost: the keys to the barn. Nobody has found them since Thaw. The barn door is held shut with a stone now. The stone is very patient.
Found: a basket of apples on the river bridge, a little bruised, and nobody's. Apples from the Ambrook trees, by the taste. Take them if you like. Tilly does not want them, and says so twice.
Reward: 1 emerald for Bramble, returned in one piece. Half an emerald for the grey hen, who may come back in any number of pieces, so long as the eggs are counted.
If you saw Bramble last, say so. We have asked the wall. The wall says nothing, which is no help at all.
Tilly, dyer
%%
For sale: Finch's stall list, autumn
List of goods on the stall of Finch, trader, this autumn. Written in my own hand, so nobody can say I sold what I did not have.
Wool from Kettle Ridge, eight bales, grey and brown. The brown is softer.
Honey from Ambrook, nine jars. One jar has a bee still in it. The bee is not for sale.
Apples, four baskets. Two are for eating, two are for pies and you can tell by the marks.
Beetroot, six sacks. Good and sweet. The children at the school buy them raw and eat them like apples.
Copper pots, three, from Copperhold. One has a dent in the side. The dent does not stop it holding soup.
Paper, a small stack, from Lowmarsh reeds. The clerks at the Archive buy this first and I never have enough.
Pumpkins, in good time for Leaffall. Big ones. One pumpkin is so large I have to sell it in pieces.
A mended roof over the stall, done by a roofer named Tolly. He would not take coin, only a jar of honey and a promise I would tell people he is good. He is good. The roof has not leaked once.
A gift for the school, from me, for the winter: a box of paper and twelve good pencils. If you are from the school, come and take it. Do not be shy.
%%
Notice: the hamlet market
The hamlet by Saltreach holds its first fair of summer on the green by the mill pond. All are welcome.
For sale:
- Honey from Ama's hives, in jars with cloth lids. Two jars for an emerald.
- Apples, early ones, a little sharp. Good for pies. Good for the pigs, too, but that is a waste.
- Fish, fresh, from the morning boats. Ask for Tobin. He is loud. You will find him.
- Boots, mended, from old Corin's shed. He mends boots when the boats are done. He mends them well and grumbles the whole time.
- One lamp, glass cracked, copper ring good. Cheap. It was a signal lamp once. Now it is a lamp for a porch. It works. Mostly.
Wanted:
- A person who can play the fiddle. The last one went to the port and stayed. We have a drum and a very brave man with a pipe. We need the fiddle.
- A tutor to come and teach a small mind to fetch. We have asked at Vell. We are patient. We are also hopeful.
- Someone to fix the bridge. No. We are joking. Corin will fix the bridge.
Rules of the fair:
1. Tie your horse away from the stalls. The horses eat the apples and then everyone is sad.
2. Keep the well clear. It is the only well.
3. Children may leave little stones on the waymark. This is allowed and good.
4. No shouting at the fish. Tobin will do enough shouting for everyone.
Ama, beekeeper, for the hamlet, summer of 205
%%
Letter: Lise to Mira, unsent
Dear Mira,
It is autumn here and the harbor wall is loud. I am writing this and I do not know if I will send it. I have written twice already and there is no answer.
Corin finished the big ship. She is in the water now and she is as long as I said. The families walk up the ramp with their boxes and their children. I helped one woman carry a box. She said thank you and she did not say where she was going. Corin walks round the ship every morning. He does not say much.
The rumor here is that the fish have no eyes. I have looked at the fish. They have eyes. The rumor is not true. I write that plainly because I want it written plainly somewhere.
The rumor about Copperhold is that the mine hums. A woman brought wool down from there and said the stone is warm below the eighth and the miners will not go down. I do not know if she has been down. I do not think she has. It may be nothing. It may be the old sump. But it is not only her saying it.
The rumor about the north is that lights were seen. Some say falling stars. Some say fires. A child said they were looking at us. I do not know what to say to a child about that. I said, "some things we do not know yet." She said, "we know they were looking." She is about nine. Bel is her name. She is here from Three Wells and she is staying with us. She has a song about the sea. She has never seen the sea.
Bel says your tower is the tallest thing for half a day's walk. She says she has read about it. She wants to know if the lamp is bright. I told her it is. I told her you keep it lit. Bel asks me every evening if a letter came. I do not want to lie to her. I do not want to tell her that the relays are quiet from the north. So I say, "not yet." That is true.
The harvest was good. That is the thing I want to write down. The boats came in full. Apples by the barrel. Honey from Ama, dark and light. A cart from Kettle Ridge stuck at the harbor wall, and eight people pushed it free before I put down my bag. That is Saltreach. I want that written down too.
If this letter finds you, write back. If it does not, keep the lamp lit.
Lise
