Trewin had begun leaving things on the bench.
It had started with the drawknife, which had gone back on its nails wedged and honed and had come down off them four days later with a note tied to it that said ANOTHER. Since then there had been a bill-hook, a pair of shears belonging to the chandler, and a chisel so far gone that mending it was an insult to the man who had ground it last. Trewin never came up the stair. He put the thing on the bottom step in the morning and it was gone by evening, and nobody in the yard had ever once discussed it.
On the Saturday, the twenty-ninth, it was a scythe blade with a curl in it, and Aurel had it in the vice at six o’clock with the light going long and yellow across the yard, and the hen in the…
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