Ch. 215 The Ground Beneath the Road

Chapter 215: The Ground Beneath the Road

Bren came to breakfast carrying a bucket.

It was empty.

Mary looked at it before she looked at him.

“I thought we agreed you would rest.”

“I did,” he said. “All night.”

“That was one night.”

“Yes.”

He set the bucket beside his chair.

“I would like to see the ground you have chosen for the new well. I won’t dig it today.”

Mary considered him.

“Will you tell Eleanor that?”

“I will tell her whatever she asks.”

“That may take all morning,” I said.

Bren took a piece of bread.

“I’ve been warned.”

Eleanor met us on the dry rise above the western road.

Aldren had already set out stakes for the first houses. Perrin walked between them with a board under his arm, checking the distances against Mary’s map.

The chapel site lay farther uphill.

From where we stood, I could see the castle, the lower fields, and the road by which Miren and the others had arrived.

Eleanor noticed Bren’s bucket.

“You didn’t need to bring that.”

“I know.”

“Is it for measuring?”

“No. I thought someone might ask me to fetch water.”

She looked at him for a moment.

“Someone will.”

Bren smiled.

The Castellan had marked a likely place for the well.

Bren walked past it.

He stopped near a patch of grass at the edge of the rise and pressed his palm to the ground.

Aldren followed him.

“That slope drains toward the road,” Aldren said.

“It does on the surface.”

“And below?”

Bren closed his eyes.

I felt a small working pass through the soil.

It did not seize the water or bring it upward.

It listened.

“There is a seam here,” he said. “Deep enough to remain cool through summer. But the stone above it is fractured.”

“Can we dig through it?” Eleanor asked.

“Yes. I’d want someone to inspect the sides as we go.”

The Castellan came to stand beside her.

“I can.”

They spent the next hour finding a route for the well that would leave room for a lining, a shelter, and a path wide enough for two people carrying buckets.

Perrin moved three stakes.

Then moved two of them back.

Mary watched with increasing concern.

“That was going to be a street.”

“It still can be,” Aldren said. “It will bend.”

“Streets shouldn’t bend merely because a god puts a hand on the ground.”

Bren opened his eyes.

“You can dig at the original place. You’ll need a deeper shaft and more stone.”

Mary looked from him to the slope.

“How much more?”

Eleanor gave her a figure.

Mary picked up the stakes herself.

By midday, Bren had sat down.

He protested that he was only thinking.

Evelyn gave him water and told him he could think from the shade.

I helped Aldren carry the displaced stakes to the new line.

“One of the merchants asked about this road,” he said.

“What did they want?”

“To know whether it will join the southern trade route once the new houses are built.”

“Does it?”

“If Mary decides we can afford a proper bridge.”

He nodded toward the map tucked beneath his arm.

“There’s a route through to Concordia.”

I had heard the city mentioned before, usually by travelers who disagreed about how long it took to get there.

“Is it a good road?” I asked.

“In places. The merchants say Concordia is worth reaching.”

“Did they agree on the distance?”

“No.”

“An appropriately named city,” I said.

Aldren looked at me.

“Why?”

“Apparently everyone agrees it’s there.”

He laughed and nearly dropped the stakes.

When we returned to the castle, I found Miren in the lower training room with Aurelia.

A narrow bed had been brought in.

No one lay in it.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Talking,” Aurelia said.

Miren gave her a look.

“Arguing.”

“Also that.”

Evelyn stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded.

That usually meant the argument concerned healing.

Miren touched the bedframe.

“When I helped someone sleep at court, I was expected to keep them asleep until they were fit to stand before Othellos. Sometimes that meant they rested. Sometimes it meant they missed the chance to say they wanted to leave.”

I looked at her.

“I didn’t know a working like that could last so long.”

“It required tending,” Miren said. “Someone had to choose to continue it.”

Aurelia’s voice was quiet.

“What do you want to do here?”

“Learn how to stop sooner.”

Evelyn uncrossed her arms.

“We can practice asking a patient what they want before they sleep.”

“I know how to ask.”

“Then we can practice accepting the answer.”

Miren lowered her gaze to the empty bed.

For a moment, I thought she might leave.

Instead, she pulled out the chair beside it and sat.

“All right.”

Aurelia took the other chair.

I moved toward the door.

Miren looked up.

“You can stay.”

“I came to tell Aurelia about the well.”

“She can hear about it afterward.”

That was reasonable.

I was beginning to understand why Evelyn had folded her arms.

We took turns playing a patient.

When Evelyn lay down, Miren asked whether she wanted help sleeping.

“No.”

Miren kept her hands in her lap.

“Would you tell me why?”

“I need to return to the chapel in an hour.”

“Then I’ll let you rest without a working.”

“Good.”

It seemed simple.

Then I took Evelyn’s place.

Miren asked the same question.

I said yes.

She raised a hand.

Aurelia interrupted.

“How long?”

Miren looked at me.

“How long do you want to sleep?”

“I don’t. I said yes because you asked me.”

“Then I should have asked what you needed.”

“A cup of tea, probably.”

Evelyn sat up.

“You had one an hour ago.”

“I didn’t say I needed it urgently.”

Miren tried again.

This time she asked whether I wanted to sleep, whether I wanted her help doing it, and when I wanted her to stop.

I answered each question.

Her working came gently.

A slight warmth behind my eyes.

I could have let it carry me.

Instead, I lifted my hand.

She withdrew at once.

The room returned to its ordinary shape.

Aurelia watched Miren.

“How was that?”

Miren looked surprised.

“He stopped me.”

“You listened,” Aurelia said.

Miren rubbed her thumb against the edge of her chair.

“I used to.”

“I know.”

Afterward, Aurelia and I walked to the nursery.

“You said you knew,” I told her.

“Miren once came to me because a woman in the court had been ill for weeks. She asked whether sleep was still helping her.”

“What did you tell her?”

“To ask the woman.”

“Did she?”

“Yes.”

Aurelia stopped before the nursery door.

“That was years ago. I cannot tell Miren that the choices she made afterward do not matter. I can remember the choice she made then.”

Inside, Garrick shouted with delight.

A wooden block struck the floor.

Aurelia reached for the latch.

“She needs room to make it again,” she said.

Carol had built a tower with Helena.

Garrick had knocked it down.

The delight had been his.

Carol stood beside the ruins with an expression I recognized.

“Mine,” she told him.

Garrick offered her a block.

She declined to take it.

Helena looked at me.

“Your children require a judge.”

“I thought you were in charge.”

“I am asking the king to hear an appeal.”

Aurelia sat on the floor between them.

“May I have one block?”

Carol considered.

She gave Aurelia the smallest.

Garrick gave her two more.

Soon the three of them were building separate towers.

This satisfied everyone until Garrick noticed Carol’s was taller.

At supper, Mary brought the revised city map.

She waited until the children had finished eating before spreading it across the end of the table.

I appreciated that.

Carol had already attempted to measure a road on one of Mary’s drawings with her spoon.

“The well is here,” Mary said. “The first houses can face this lane. Aldren thinks we should leave the ground across from them open until we know how many people will use the road.”

“And the chapel?” Evelyn asked.

“Where it was. Ilyen and Liora approved the space for the treatment rooms.”

“Did they approve the room for teaching?”

“They each want it larger.”

My wife smiled.

“That sounds like them.”

Mary pointed to the lower road.

“Eliza wants a watch post here.”

“I want a roof and a lantern,” Eliza said. “Mary calls it a post because then she can put it on a map.”

“If it goes on the map, someone will remember to build it.”

Isel joined us while Mary was describing the market square.

She stood at the edge of the table.

“You intend to let merchants use that space?”

“Yes,” Mary said.

“How will you check their measures?”

“We have weights in the storehouse.”

“May I see them tomorrow?”

Mary lifted her pen.

“You may.”

Isel paused.

“I mean to offer help. I’m aware it may sound otherwise.”

“It sounds like a useful question,” Mary said. “The last market day left us with three different measures for a sack of oats.”

“That shouldn’t happen.”

“No,” Mary agreed. “It shouldn’t.”

She wrote Isel’s name beside the square.

Isel watched her do it.

No summons.

No assignment she could not refuse.

Only a place to meet in the morning.

Late that night, Evelyn found me standing beside the bedroom window.

The lantern at the western gate was a small point below us.

“What are you listening for?” she asked.

“Nothing in particular.”

She came to stand beside me.

There was no call from the high court.

No pressure against the wards.

Only a breeze finding the loose edge of the window frame.

I set my hand against it.

The wind settled.

Evelyn glanced at me.

“You didn’t need to do that.”

“I know.”

“Bring it back, then.”

I let the small working return.

It came easily.

That still pleased me.

“Bren found the well,” I said.

“I heard.”

“Isel wants to inspect our market weights. Miren spent an hour learning to stop when someone asks her.”

Evelyn rested her head against my shoulder.

“It sounds like they’re finding things to do.”

“I hope they know they can take their time.”

“Tell them again tomorrow.”

I looked toward the gate.

Miren had said some of them had waited years for a place to go.

I could understand wanting to fill every hour once you arrived.

“I will.”

Behind us, a small voice came from the nursery.

“Papa?”

I turned.

Carol stood in the doorway holding the cloth book by one corner.

Evelyn went to her.

Our daughter held it out.

“House,” she said.

“Yes,” my wife answered. “Let’s find the house.”

I followed them inside.