Chapter 10: The Photograph

The heir house stood inside the hall wall, a narrow stone building with a slate roof.

Jude had lived there for four years, and last night the Council had locked it.

The tall rider took out a ring of keys and opened the door without asking permission.

"I never got them back to the quartermaster," he said.

"Funny how that works."

Jude went in alone.

The house was cold and smelled of dust.

Everything stood where Marina had left it, her cup upside down on the rack and her second-best coat on its hook.

He climbed to the bedroom and stood looking at the bed they had slept in.

Then he looked at the trunk at its foot.

It was an old cedar chest, bound in brass, and it had been locked since the day she moved in.

She had told him it held her mother's things.

He had never asked to open it.

He did not ask now.

He took a poker from the grate and forced the hasp.

The lid came up on a smell of cedar and old paper.

On top lay a folded woollen shawl, faded and stitched with blue thread.

Beneath it, a stack of postcards, all from the same hand, all signed with one letter.

The letter was C.

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