Chapter 33: You Knew

"You knew," said Mei. He was standing in the bow. The willows of the east bend dripped round them, and the ferry turned slowly in the brown current, and the lamp burned on its pole in the noon sun between them, and he didn't look away. "Yes," said Fish. She had half wanted him to find some way round it, as he had for forty days: I read a line, It isn't mine to say, Not today. It would have been something to fight. He just said yes. "Since when?" "The twentieth of the third month. The third watch." His voice was steady. "Keeper Tan read it to me. You heard." "I heard Hong." She stood up. Her ankle hurt. She didn't care. "I heard the fifth of the fifth. I heard Wang. And I lay in that cabin and I thought it was my mother." "And you knew I…