Chapter 159

I do not remember the wall stair, or the yard. I remember Nana’s floury hand round my wrist, and the back stair to the east chamber, which has fourteen treads, and that I counted them and lost count at nine.

Issen was at the door. She put out her arm across it, not to stop me, only so that I would stop for one breath and hear her.

“He’s weak,” she said. “The fever broke at noon. He came up an hour ago and went down again and came up. He’s clear. He knows where he is.” She looked at my face. “Sit where he can see you without turning. He’ll try to turn. Don’t let him.”

Then she took her arm down and went out past me with Nana, and I heard the two of them go down the stairs together, and the kitchen door shut at the bottom.

***

The room smelled of Issen’s willow-bark and clean linen and, under those, of him.

He was propped on three pillows. Somebody had shaved him badly, and left a nick on his jaw beside the old scar. His face had gone down to the bo