Teal watercolour serpent dragon design

The bridge at Kessel Ford has a new officer and he has no patience for paperwork. Yesterday he stopped the ferry at the midline and demanded the papers of every passenger, then of the water itself. I laughed, and he did not. I write this from the reed house on the east bank, where I am waiting for a stamp they have promised for a month.

You will not believe me, so I will tell you plainly. Before dawn the river rises in a long teal swell and the serpent comes up under the piers. Its mane is the colour of weir foam, green at the crest and blue where it thins. Its whiskers are longer than oars. Its claws hook the old iron supports, and the grey scales along its back catch the lamplight like fish on the market slab. Nobody on the ferry looks at it for longer than a breath. That is the custom here.

Last night I looked. It turned its head toward me, slowly, the way a cat turns from an open door, and one whisker drifted across the lamp-lit rail and caught on my sleeve. When I unhooked it, it did not break. I have folded it inside this letter. Send it back with your answer, and tell me whether the clerk in the city still counts such things as goods.

Yours in the wet and the waiting, Ilse