The Short Clock

The book

The gate-brand on the ropemaker's yard has stuck shut. It is not stuck. Bren reads the strip on the post, facing out: stone, shut against all but the hand that pays the rope-tax, the harbor's. The tax is due at the turn of the year. The cheaper price is one tax. Bren names it out loud, and the ropemaker pays it into their palm.

Pell sits on the cart because the cliff stair has asked his knees a question. Brask stands at the mouth of the lane, watching the harbor road. Linn is at the bench with the price book, seventeen strips, and a guild letter about putting a Copper on the books. She has already written that Bren is eight, and that Brask says not till nine.

Sira does not mention his birthday, which is how he knows she has remembered it. She keeps the knife at the turn of the light, and he holds her hands until they are warm, which is his job. He writes Sixty-two at the top of a clean page, large, with a pen Omber has bound thicker for an aching hand. This is a warm, clear-eyed coming-of-age fantasy told in three dated parts. It is about a bill a child can read, a shop that still faces out, and a year that has come due on the harbor.

Read the opening

Back-cover copy

The ropemaker thinks his yard-gate knows him. Bren, eight, reads the strip on the post: it holds the gate for whoever has paid this year's rope-tax. The harbor clerk did not come round. The gate remembered.

Pell sits on the hemp cart and has Bren name the cheaper job out loud. One tax is less than unwinding a harbor brand. Brask, at the mouth of the lane, says that will do.

Linn has the afternoon strips spread on the bench, and a guild letter asking whether the shop will take a Copper on its books. She prices it. She writes underneath: Bren is eight. Brask says not till nine.

Sira keeps the knife when the light turns. Omber puts a thicker pen on the bench and tells him to write the list big. He writes Sixty-two at the top of the page, facing out, and leaves it open to the lamp.