Fear cuts deeper than swords quote on forearm

The pass closed on Tuesday and has not opened since, so you will forgive the state of this paper. I am writing on the back of the wine ledger, which Father would never have permitted. Eleven guests are sleeping under our roof, and the stable boy has taken to counting them aloud at supper, as though one might slip away in the night if he looked away.

The worst of them is a tall man in a grey coat who came in out of the drifts with frost in his moustache and asked for a room facing the road. He has not spoken above a murmur. Each evening he sits by the fire with a knife across his knees, cleaning it with the same unhurried strokes, and each evening the others find reasons to go up early. I had decided he was a killer and had begun composing what I would tell the magistrate, should the roads ever clear.

Last night I carried up his broth and found him dozing in the chair, the knife loose in his fingers, and beside him on the table a small wooden horse I had never seen before, its paint worn to bare grain along the back. He woke and saw me looking. "My sister carved it," he said. "I carry it for the weight. The knife is for kindling, nothing more." Then he ate his broth and thanked me, and I came down the stairs feeling that I had been the one holding the blade all along.

I have stopped counting the guests. Tell the boy he may stop too, and tell him to fetch more logs before the light goes. I will write again when the road is open, or when I have worked out what I am ashamed of, whichever comes first.

Your loving sister, Annie