Location:Seven Peaks — Thorne's room; the Hall; the Medicine Hall; the north gate yard
Date/Time:TC1858.03.20
Ink had frozen in the well overnight.
Thorne found it with the nib before he could see it. The pen went in and stopped a finger's depth down on something hard, and he worked it there until the skin of ice gave and the pen came up black. The room was dark except for the one candle. The stove had gone out in the night, and he hadn't got up to feed it, and the cold had come in off the window and settled over the desk and the book on it.
The book opened at the ribbon.
It was a narrow book, bound in board, the one he had kept since the riders started going out with sheets. Five columns. The name. The road. The day out. The day due. The day back. Most of the page was full in every column. Some lines had the last column filled in a different ink because he'd written it the day they came in, at whatever hour that was.
