Gate-dusk makes everyone faster. Carts want in. Geese want out. A torch is lit too early and looks embarrassed.

You still have Hew’s letter, warm from the day, and the kitchen sack. Dame Keld’s marked string is on your wrist. Wool-grades live in your fingers. The mill’s wrong note has been waiting since dawn.

Time pressure is a tool. It can make you wise or make you a chicken with a list.

The hall is filling: benches, a clerk, whoever holds the table tonight—Steward Aldith or Lady Greyfen the landholder, or both—tenants with hats that have had a long day. Court on market-eve is not glamorous. It is how a town decides not to fight at dawn over a puddle.

You could go in and speak. You could also run the errands the dusk still allows: keep, mill, the town between them.

Your legs know Greyfen better than they did at dawn. That is a kind of map.