Chapter 4: Honey

"She spent two years in Greyhaven's record house," Joss said. "She told our clerks she was reading about marks and mates."

"That's not a crime."

"Pages went missing from the old shelves. The council asked her to leave quietly, and she did."

I watched the drivers dragging the oxen out of the water.

"Why tell me?"

"Because my letter to the keeper is about her, and I'd rather you heard it from me than from the Hall."

He put his wet hat on.

"I can't say more. It's sealed."

"You said you'd ask and not be asked why."

"And I've used up the one question," he said, and he went to see to his mare.

I did not tell Nessa until we were rolling again.

She turned it over for a mile and said only, "Pages. What kind of woman steals pages?"

"One who wanted to read them twice."

That night we camped at a high inn with a stone yard.

Clara came across it carrying a tin cup with steam coming off it.

"You didn't eat much," she said. "It's honey and thyme. It's what I drank when I was ill in Greyhaven."

"Thank you."

I took the cup, because refusing it in front of the stew line would have made a scene.

I do not make those anymore.

She sat down beside me on the mounting block.

She had a way of folding her hands that made her look younger than twenty-eight.

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