Moon phases with script on a forearm

The moon was whole again on Tuesday, the way you liked it, and I stood on the north wall with the cold coming up through my boots and counted the nights as you taught me. Five since the ferry stopped running below Harrow Keep. Five since Captain Dacre had the old chapel stripped for pikes and the bell rope cut up for bowstrings. The men have stopped joking about the fog. Nobody sings on the wall anymore.

Dacre still has the motto cut over the gatehouse, the one his grandfather chiselled when the keep was new. If you want peace, prepare for war. I used to think it a fine thing to read on a Sunday. Now I read it every time I climb the stair, and I cannot decide whether it is a promise or a warning. I suspect the mason could not decide either.

Yesterday a rider came up the valley road alone with a white cloth tied to his lance. Dacre sent me down to the postern, which I think was his way of saying I was the least likely man in the garrison to do something foolish. The rider wanted water and a day's truce to bury his brother. We gave him both. He drank like a man who had forgotten what a cup was for, and when he left he looked back once at the walls, the way a man looks at a house he will not be allowed to enter.

Last night the moon was thinning on its left edge. By the time you read this it will be a paring, then nothing, then a silver line again. It is the only honest thing in this valley, a moon that shows exactly as much of itself as it is willing to show. Come home before the dark part comes round. Bring the good salt.

Yours, Tomas