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“Morning, gentlemen.” She finished tying her ribbon and brushed her hands down her smock. “I see you’ve avoided the worst of the rain.”

“We waited it out,” I said, admiring the birch. Even this close, I could not read the words coiled around its slender trunk—there were so many of them.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” said Havelock, “what are the ribbons for?”

Amake nodded at the tree. “The ribbons are grievances.”

The birch was just tall enough to cast shade over me, and I reached out to its lower branches, trying to catch a ribbon.

“Leave them be, Major!” cried Amake. “Lest you get involved.”

“Involved?” I paused.

“It’s a poor thing, to involve yourself in another’s grievance.”

I withdrew my hand.

“This is the Judge?” asked Havelock.

“She is,” said Amake. “Isn’t she wonderful? She bears our grievances with so much grace. I think she might be my favourite in the forest.”

“She seems quite young,” said Havelock.

“From what I know, the tree that stood here before her was one of the last felled before the forest started growing words,” said Amake thoughtfully. “The Judge took root only a few years before I arrived. She is perhaps the most talkative tree in the forest.”

I crouched, and peered at her trunk. Her words looked as if they curled all the way around it, in one uninterrupted stream, and I tried to follow it, reading it aloud as I went. “… a charming flex a flutter a gentle rain to seep so warm a sky so bright to dry a gust unbowed the seasons unfold in leaves unfurl withdraw in bright in day a night so cool in winter to wait the spring drawing the days as wide as skies a chill to break branches prickling bristling to wait to joyous bloom summer bloom the bark curling heat coursing autumn reeling the sky wheeling gentle rushing the seeping soil a coil of roots around roots an entwinement deep seeping flush around up around up heaving soaking bloom reaching high a sky high a whole sky wide split wide sky high reaching sky split open wide high sky split wide sky high open sky wide open split high sky high a summer to bloom leaves bursting…”

“Extraordinary,” said Havelock.

“Bursting with words,” I said. “How many years must it have taken her to grow this?”

“Two decades,” said Amake.

“Two decades,” I repeated, stepping back. I had hardly read halfway up her trunk.

“She sounds young,” said Havelock. “Growing words for the joy of them.”

Together, we admired the Judge.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” said Havelock, after a moment, “what is your grievance?”

Amake’s face fell.

“We don’t expect answers of the Judge, when we tie our grievances to her. The Judge bears them, and in time, when enough seasons have passed, and enough weather has worn them, our ribbons turn to tatters and fall away. By that time, most grievances have been forgotten. This one, I hope to forget, in a few seasons.” She sighed. “I have an acquaintance who told me that they were glad for the Duke’s felling. That they hope the Duchess will pass soon too, and that Farleigh will be forgotten in the world.”

“Who would say such a thing?” I asked.

“Her name is Heather Fairweather. She and I do not get along.” Amake seemed then to remember who she was speaking to. “Not that I suspect her in any way of harming the Duke. No: Heather is keenly spirited, but she cares for Farleigh as much as I.” Blinking, she nodded to each of us and turned away. “And now I must go, and hope that the forgetting is quick. More rain will hasten it.”

When Amake was gone, I revealed to Havelock what I had seen earlier in the day—Heather kissing Mary in the doorway of Farleigh House, and its implication, in the light of Mary’s inheritance. “It could be a motive?”

Havelock was chuckling.

“What so amuses you?”

“You’re quite the sleuth, Sebastian. Watching people kiss from the shadows.”

“Oh, you are a devil.” I laughed.