It was Midsummer just like that, it sort of crept on us because we were so busy! Baby twins take so much time, and we were building more rooms on our house for Pahiz and Baran and Bachche to live in, and a room for Rhinla and Lesla to live…

After the Ishey and the neighbours showed the Síthi men that they weren’t welcome in our house, they didn’t come to our part of town any more. Sometimes a few of them followed me at a distance when I went to work, but they never got close. On the Day…

The Ishey royalty came in at some point but I don’t remember when, so let’s just go with the royalty we’ve got. When I came back to work I got up the courage to tell Master Mernath that I’d like to learn from a smith who wasn’t a weaponsmith, and…

In the morning I told Ashti what the neighbours had said but she said it was nonsense. “They were born on the Feast of Timoine, we’ll name them on the day of Anshen!” So I went into town with Lady Rava’s purse. First to the Apple, where the landlord was…

Having new babies in the house is exhausting! Only the babies got enough sleep. Ashti and I didn’t, and not even Arni who did all the shopping and most of the other work we didn’t get round to. Thank the gods for the neighbours who were in at all hours…

With all the things Maile had told us to get for winter, and what people gave us, we had a really good winter! Now winter is always warm here, but Halla’s hens kept laying almost until the Feast of Naigha and she thought that was unusual, too. And then the…

Dear Ma, First I didn’t dare write because there were still people around who wanted to catch me, and then I was too busy to even think of writing, but now I have news that I must write to you: you are a grandmother! Twice over! Because my and Ashti’s…

The day after the Feast we all went back to work again. If I’d really wanted to see the wrestling I could perhaps have got a couple of hours off for it, but Master Mernath had told us that the first week after the Feast of Mizran was when the…

Suddenly it was nearly the Feast of Mizran. We’d been in Rhinla and Jeran’s workshop, and Rhinla had been in our house, several times a week, and the drawings on Ashti’s skin were almost finished! It only needed a bit of shadow here and there. Rhinla had had a new…

We haven’t actually played out any lessons from Master Mernath yet so I can’t write about those, but some have definitely taken place. It was still warm. We still lived mostly outside. Ashti went to the Guild school to read books in the library, like the book the size of…