Nan Gillow’s Pawn Ticket

Merriel Dunstan checked House Via’s link at Brockwell Weir by the light of a rushlight stuck in a turnip. Each mark was sound. Each traveller’s light had been rightly spent. The gift was the full three and an eighth, no more, no less. The oil was a drop a span, which came to nearly nothing. And in the middle of the link sat one great grey band, a long run of identical hoods. No candle in the Lit Lands could have told her who paid whom.

Nan Gillow had walked over from Harrowby Sluice to wait for the signature. She sat on the weir-house step with a pawn ticket in her lap.

“Ostler at the Sluice says if the Wakeful pass a Via link with a rich band on it, he’ll lend me enough to fetch my shawl back,” she said. “Could you write that it was rich? Grey bands always are, he says.”

“I can write what I read.” Merriel dipped her pen. “Sound. Gift paid in full. Oil a drop a span. A band crossed, contents unreadable. That’s all the link says, and it’s all I say.”

“Then he’ll lend me nothing.”

“Then he’ll lend you nothing on my word. That isn’t the same as nothing on yours.”

Nan read the attestation twice. Then she folded the pawn ticket small and put it in her boot. She took the signed slip, the true one, and went back toward the Sluice to give it to Hesper Quill. The shawl could stay where it was another Book.