Dream d2950-s: The Line Left Blank

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I took the ledger out at the south gate on the seventh morning, in the flat light that comes off a city at midday when everything looks set down and accounted for. The Ashstead line was blank. It had been blank when I arrived.

The Roadwarden sat in the gatehouse shade. The walls behind were orderly. Every window along the approach road was lit and some had faces in them, ordinary working faces, the faces of a town that tends itself without any help from the record.

I looked at the line. Forty-eight lines in the ledger have a mark against them - a date, a few words - because a threshold was crossed and something was written from inside. Ashstead was not among them. I had eaten inside the walls and slept inside the walls for seven nights and I had not crossed that threshold. The kind of entry the ledger means is a different thing from being present.

Lano pressed close for a moment and then moved out onto the road. Rurik was already through the gate. He sat on the south side in the sunlight with his amber eyes on the wall and did not turn when we came out after him.

I left the line blank. The Roadwarden watched us go. The south road ran out flat between the fields and the city fell behind us, looking thoroughly known.

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