Dream d2017-s: Frost on the Gate-Latch

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the road brought us to Marrowfold at the grey edge of morning, when the mist still sat low over the rooftops and the frost had not yet let go of the fence-tops. We smelled the village before we saw the gate proper - woodsmoke, and the particular mineral cold of well-kept stone.

Rurik walked ahead of us on the road. He stopped at the threshold post and sat, his amber eyes moving across the gate-latch, the worn ground before the entrance, the way the hinges had been re-hung at some point and hung true. He did not cross. He marked it the way he always marks a new place - weight, stillness, a long look at the corners.

"It reads orderly," the Builder said, not as praise exactly, more as the start of a question. She was watching the eaves of the nearest hall, the way the timber-ends were cut and fitted. "Somebody here has an opinion about joints."

The Weather Reader had her instrument out already, the small brass barometer she taps three times before she trusts it. She checked the reading and wrote it in her own book with a short pencil. "Pressure's held steady since the fork. Whatever this place carries, it doesn't spill out onto the road."

Lano had moved up beside Rurik. She stood just behind his shoulder, nose working, ears half-lifted. A sound from somewhere inside the commons - a bucket handle, or a door - and her ears came all the way up, then settled. Not alarm. Recognition of an ordinary morning.

I opened my own book to a clean page and wrote the date and the name: Marrowfold. Then the impressions in the order they arrived: woodsmoke. Stone. Gate-latch with new iron. A commons lamp still burning past dawn, either still lit from the night or lit early for the grey. Someone here keeps hours.

We crossed the threshold. Rurik followed, once we were through.

The inn was on the eastern side of the commons, a low building with a good roof and a board outside that had been recently repainted. The keeper took us in without ceremony, which felt like a good sign. She showed us the stable-room for road-weariness and the common table for the morning meal.

"Four days?" she said.

"To read the place properly," I said.

She nodded as though this happened regularly, which told me something too.

Lano found a spot near the hearth and curled into it. Rurik stood at the door to the yard and looked out at the commons coming slowly into its morning. The reading would begin tomorrow. Tonight, first light, and the gate-latch still cold in my hand.