Location: The Hessen fork — the Temple's old grain shed
Date: 3 Emberwane 9943 AZI, Temperday
Realm: Lower Realm
The camphor had got onto Amaya's tongue by noon, and nothing she did would get it off.
It came off the man on the step. He sat with his bad leg out straight in front of him and the other bent, a cloth open on his knee, and every time he shifted, the liniment on his thigh came up off the gray wool and into the cold, and she tasted it. Camphor, sharp enough to sting, and something green and bitter under it. She'd washed her mouth twice with her own tongue. It hadn't helped.
He'd unwrapped bread, a heel of cheese, and a pickled onion that he'd looked at and wrapped up again. He ate slowly. When he'd done half the bread, he broke a crust off the end and held it out low, on his flat palm, as you'd hold a thing out to a horse.
"Here," he said.
Amaya stayed where she was, on the lid of the water butt at the corner of the shed, with her tail round her feet.
