Ren began in the yard, before the shop opened.
Late spring had warmed the soil through. The beds behind the shop lay in their second year. He took a slate from the gate post. He meant to count rows, nothing more.
He read the first bed row by row. A row was a line of plants in the soil. He marked each row on the slate and moved on. Three beds held feverleaf, the fever leaf. Fourteen rows of feverleaf stood in those three beds. He read those fourteen rows one by one. One bed held the salve herbs, apart from them. He counted that bed apart, in its own rows.
Where a row ran thick, he passed at a walk. Where a row ran thin, he knelt down. He counted the shoots in the thin places. He counted them a finger's width at a time. Some thin places held a fair hand of shoots. Some held only a few, spaced wide. He wrote the thin places on the slate by row. He wrote no guess beside them.
The first feverleaf bed ran strong near the wall. Its rows were dark with leaf already. The second bed ran strong in its upper half. Its lower rows thinned toward the wet patch. There he counted seven shoots in a hand's length. The next hand's length held only five. He marked that row twice on the slate.
The third bed was the youngest of the three. Its plants were smaller all along the rows. Small was not the same as failing, here. The leaves were clean, and the stems held firm. He counted its thin corner shoot by shoot. Four shoots rose where the soil had washed thin. He noted the corner for a later handful of soil. A note for soil is work, not worry.
The salve bed took the longest to read. Its herbs grew low and close together. Their leaves hid each other from a quick eye. He parted them gently, row by row, by hand. Under the cover, the rows were fuller than they looked. One row at the bed's edge ran sparse and pale. He counted its shoots twice to be sure. The second count matched the first one. He marked the row and moved his knees on.
A count of growth is not a promise. Leaf on a living plant is not leaf in a jar. Weather could still take its share. Hands could still miss their days. The slate said what the ground held that morning. It said nothing about the autumn.
He wiped the slate clean at the gate. The rows stayed in his head by their places. The yard work of the year had its first true shape. It was a shape made of rows, not of hope.
The winter list had four names left on it. The tenth name came first that morning.
Kōsuke came from the cooper's yard. A cooper makes barrels and tubs. Pale wood dust clung to Kōsuke's sleeves. He set his hands flat on the counter. He asked for his course in his turn.
Ren went to the shelf's front section. The oldest jars now came from the second summer month. He took one jar from that month. He read its label aloud at the counter. The name was on it, and the drying week. The shop's mark was on it too.
Kōsuke counted out the board's price. Three hundred, the jar, as for everyone. He heard the course terms without hurry. One jar was one course, three days long. A dose came morning and evening. The cup was taken hot each time.
He wrapped the jar in a strip of sacking. The sacking smelled faintly of new wood. He carried it out under one arm. Behind him, the list had one name less.
Ren wrote the service in the day book. He wrote the month the jar came from. Second summer month, one jar, to the tenth name. The page kept the order the street had set. No name moved up the page for any reason.
The eleventh name came before the midday rice.
O-Haru kept the paper stall by the lane's turn. Paper for letters was her trade. Paper for wrapping was her trade too. A smear of paste shone on her thumb. She had closed her stall to come in her turn.
Ren took her jar from the same month's section. The second summer month gave the jar again. He read the label the same plain way. Name, drying week, and mark, all present. Nothing left the shelf unread in this shop.
O-Haru paid the board's price on the counter. She folded her hands around the jar first. Then she said the course back to him herself. Three days, morning and evening, the cup hot. She had listened well at the counter's edge. She had no need to hear it twice.
She bore the jar home inside her apron's fold. Her stall would open again after the rice hour. The list now held two names only. Gen would come in his turn, and then Misao. Their turn was not this morning. The book left them in their places, unwritten ahead.
The street took its share between the list's names.
A carter's wife came in with a tight chest of worry. Her husband's fever had held two nights. She had left him with broth and a wet cloth. The cloth was her whole medicine until now. Ren took a jar from the second summer month. She paid, heard the course, and went quickly. The jar went home against her side, under her shawl. Her step on the lane was faster than her step in.
Later a young porter came from the river stairs. His sister had the fever at their lodging. He counted his coins twice before he spoke. The price was the price for him as well. A second jar left the second summer month. It left with the course said slowly, once. He repeated the last part and got it right. Then he asked one question about the hot cup. Could it be warmed again if it cooled? It could, he was told, if it was covered. He nodded as if a weight had moved. Small questions carry whole houses on them, sometimes.
No third street jar left the shelf that day. No hand reached for the first autumn month that day. Its jars stood whole behind their slip, unopened. The day's work had not called for them.
The day book would hold the day's true shape. Two street jars from the second summer month. No street jar from the first autumn month. List jars apart, street jars apart, each in line.
The ninth month of the standing order fell in those days.
Ren made the sachets in the shop's quiet hour. Twelve sachets of the wound powder. Each sachet got its label as it was tied. No label was left for later memory.
He carried the bundle up the hill at midday. Heat lay thin and bright on the road. Osamu, the office clerk, met him at the yard gate. The inspection was held in the gatehouse shade. A low bench served as the table there.
Osamu laid the sachets out in two lines. He read every label in a level voice. Twelve sachets passed the reading of their labels. Then he took every second sachet, by his own choosing. Six sachets went onto the small scales. The six passed the weighing at the office scales. Their weights matched the office standard. The rest went back into the bundle untouched.
Osamu brought the month's money to the bench in stacks. One thousand, four hundred and forty, counted before it moved. Ren counted the stacks a second time. Both counts came to the same sum. The money went into the strongbox for the hill's lines. The counter's coin never entered that page.
Osamu laid the inspection paper beside the bundle. The paper carried a second hand under his own. It was the bench preparator's countersign, a name only. Serizawa was a name on papers in this shop's year. The man himself never came down the hill. His countersign said the bench had read the month. That was all it said, and all it needed.
At the gatehouse, Osamu ruled the month's line shut. Twelve sachets had gone up the hill. Twelve of twelve had been accepted. The ninth month was done, in paper and coin. Ren walked down with the box held steady. The lane smelled of warm dust and cut grass. Halfway down, the street's noise rose to meet him. A cart was arguing its way around the well. Children were shouting over a dropped basket of greens. The hill's quiet stayed behind him at the gate. The box knocked once, softly, against his side. Its count was written, and the count was his to carry.
That night, the day book closed on the day in its plain hand.
The ninth month is written delivered, and accepted in full: twelve sachets of twelve. In: one thousand, four hundred and forty. The box holds nine thousand, four hundred and fifty.
The winter list: the tenth name served, Kōsuke, of the cooper's yard. The eleventh name served, O-Haru, of the paper stall. Both jars from the second summer month, in their order. Two names stand: Gen, and then Misao.
The street took two jars today. Both came from the second summer month. No jar came from the first autumn month.
The shelf stands at forty-two. The second summer month: ten. The first autumn month: sixteen. The second autumn month: sixteen.
The yard beds were counted in rows. Fourteen rows of feverleaf, read one by one. Three beds held the feverleaf. The salve bed was counted apart, in its own rows. The shoots were counted where the rows run thin. A growth count, written as growth, and as nothing more.
He shut the book on a list grown short. Outside, the lane lamps came on in the dusk. Behind the shop, fourteen feverleaf rows took the evening cool. They would be cut when their time came. The book had not promised that they would.