Dream d2723-s: Heel to Toe, Three Centuries

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood at the north wall of the Pewterlow yard on the seventh night of eight, and I paced out the age of the place heel to toe across the flagstones.

The second book gives Pewterlow four hundred and eleven years. The next oldest entry in the cold book is a gatehouse I had visited on a different round, three nights back: three hundred and seventy-eight years. The difference is thirty-three years, and pacing it out takes longer than you would expect of thirty-three.

Lano walked with me for the first half, nose low, turning her head at each cracked flag. Somewhere near the midpoint she sat down and watched the rest from the center of the yard, her breath showing in the cold air.

Five roads lead out of Pewterlow. No other place in the cold book has five. I had written them down on the first night of residency and they were empty then; they are empty now. The record does not require me to say more than that.

Before I closed the second book I wrote both figures on the same line, a dash between them, and nothing after. Lano had found a small pale stone near the gatepost. She held it in her mouth for a while, then dropped it where she stood and sat looking at the gate arch with her ears forward.

The walls were tall and broken. The yard was cold and in its own order.

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