Ch. 216 The Weight of a Sack

Chapter 216: The Weight of a Sack

Isel found the problem with Greykeep’s market weights before the morning bell had finished ringing.

I knew because Mary came to breakfast carrying three stones in a cloth bag.

She set it on the table.

Garrick reached for it.

Mary moved it beyond his grasp without looking.

“What is wrong with them?” I asked.

“Two are marked with the same measure.”

“Are they the same weight?”

“No.”

Garrick considered the distance to the bag.

Carol considered Mary.

“Can this wait until after breakfast?” Evelyn asked.

“It can,” Mary said.

She sat down and opened her book.

It appeared that waiting had a particular meaning to her.

After breakfast, we went to the storehouse.

Isel had set the weights on a long bench. Beside them stood a sack of oats, a scale, and three small piles of grain.

Eliza had come too.

“We bought that sack for the watch,” she said.

“Is it short?” I asked.

“Yes,” Isel said. “And no.”

I looked at her.

“That is an inconvenient answer.”

“It was sold using the weight the merchant brought. It matches his record. It does not match either of the weights Greykeep has been using.”

Mary folded her arms.

“How many measures do we have?”

“Three,” Isel said. “So far.”

Eliza looked at the sack.

“How much food is missing?”

“That depends on which measure the person who filled it thought they were using.”

The merchant was still in the lower yard.

His name was Halen. He sold oats, dried beans, and lamp oil along the southern road.

When Eliza asked him to come to the storehouse, he looked at the guards behind her.

“You could have sent a child,” he said.

“I did send a guard,” Eliza replied.

“That was the part I noticed.”

She held the door for him.

Inside, Isel showed him the weights.

Halen picked up his own and placed it beside Mary’s.

“They have the same mark.”

“They do,” Isel said.

“Mine came from the trade office in Concordia.”

“Do you have its certificate?”

“In the wagon.”

“Then we can compare that too.”

He looked at me.

“Am I being accused of something?”

“No,” I said. “We’re trying to find out what happened.”

Halen brought the certificate.

Isel read it twice.

Then asked Perrin for a balance with an arm long enough to hang both weights at once.

He fetched one from the workshop.

Halen’s weight proved accurate to its certificate.

One of Greykeep’s matched it.

The other, older weight did not.

Mary stared at the old one.

“We’ve had that for years.”

“Yes,” Isel said.

“We bought grain with it last month.”

“Yes.”

Eliza put a hand over her eyes.

I looked at Isel.

“Which way is the mistake?”

“The old weight is heavier. When a seller filled a sack to match it, Greykeep received more grain than the seller intended. When Greykeep sold by the same weight, the buyer received more.”

“That sounds fair,” I said.

“Only if everyone uses the same stone and knows what it means.”

Halen nodded.

“I used mine.”

Mary took out the last month’s accounts.

We sat at the storehouse bench while she found every purchase and sale recorded under the old measure.

There were fewer than I feared.

Enough to matter.

“We’ll settle the difference with Halen for today’s sack,” I said.

Halen shook his head.

“I haven’t been cheated. You paid for what I brought.”

“I know. The watch still needs the amount Eliza ordered. Would you sell us the rest?”

“If you write down which weight we’re using.”

Mary had already begun.

He watched her pen.

“Then yes.”

The older records were less simple.

Some sellers had used their own weights.

Some had used ours.

A few had traded by the basket, which Isel informed me was a fourth problem.

I stood.

“There must be something I can do that doesn’t involve another column.”

“There is,” Mary said. “Find Beatrice.”

I found her in the kitchens.

She listened, then sent two workers to count what remained of the oats and beans.

“Will we be short?” I asked.

“Not today.”

“And later?”

“That depends on the count.”

I had hoped for more comfort.

Beatrice handed me a basket.

“Take this to the watch while you’re going that way.”

It contained breakfast.

That, at least, was a problem I could solve.

The western watch had changed shifts.

The two guards who had been on the wall through the night came down as I arrived.

One took bread from the basket.

The other pointed toward the road.

“A survey cart came through before dawn. They said Aldren was expecting them.”

“Was he?”

“Yes. I checked.”

“Good.”

“They stopped at the bend to measure the ditch.”

I thought of Eliza’s request for a lantern where the road narrowed.

“They’ll find enough work there.”

The guard nodded.

“Someone lost a wheel last autumn.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“No. They spent an hour arguing about whose fault it was.”

“That sounds fortunate.”

“It sounded very loud.”

I followed the road down to the bend.

Aldren stood beside the cart with Eleanor, Perrin, and two surveyors. They had stretched a cord across the ditch.

The rise where the new houses would stand lay behind them.

“Is this for the watch lantern?” I asked.

“For the lantern and the drain,” Aldren said. “If we only build a post, the water will still carry half the road into the ditch.”

Eleanor handed one surveyor a stake.

“Put this where the bank begins.”

He did.

She looked at it.

“Farther back.”

He moved it.

“Farther.”

“How far?”

“Until I stop asking.”

Perrin pretended not to smile.

The work had to be done before the weather turned.

Veyra had warned us that the next cold spell would bring hard rain first. The old road could endure water. The fresh cut beside it might not.

“We can lift the outer stones,” I said.

Eleanor turned to me.

“After the survey.”

“I wasn’t offering to do it this moment.”

“You were looking at them.”

Aurelia had made the same observation about the bronze chamber in the eastern wall.

I put my hands behind my back.

Aldren laughed.

Veyra found me there.

“The western clouds will reach us by evening,” she said.

“How much rain?”

“Enough to make Eleanor pleased she looked at the ditch today.”

“That sounds like a great deal.”

“It may be.”

She watched the surveyors for a moment.

“Caldris is waiting in the training chamber.”

“I was told we had no lesson until tomorrow.”

“You do not. He wants your opinion of the practice door.”

“That usually becomes a lesson.”

“Yes,” Veyra said.

She did not appear sorry.

Perrin’s practice door stood within its wooden frame in the lower chamber.

It could fold inward, outward, or partway across an opening.

Caldris had hung a bell on either side.

Thesra stood beside him with her arms folded.

“I was asked for my opinion,” I said.

“You will give it after you try it,” Caldris replied.

“I thought so.”

He asked me to hold the door open while Thesra called through one bell.

The first call came gently.

I let it pass.

The second carried a demand beneath my name.

I closed my working around the opening.

The bell on my side remained still.

“Which one did you hear?” Thesra asked.

“Both.”

“Which one did you admit?”

“The first.”

Caldris nodded.

“Now keep the door where it is while the wind presses against it.”

Veyra added a little pressure.

Then more.

Cold gathered against the frame.

I held it without pushing back across the room.

That part had become easier.

The difficult part was leaving the bells alone. Every time the far bell moved, I wanted to reach toward it and learn what had rung it.

“Your attention is following again,” Caldris said.

“I haven’t opened the door.”

“I know.”

I drew my attention back.

The wind settled against the wood.

“Better,” Thesra said.

Veyra stopped.

A fine line of frost marked the lower edge of the frame.

Perrin came forward to inspect it.

“You’ve found another place I need to seal.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’d rather learn it here.”

When the lesson ended, I returned the strength slowly.

Caldris waited until my hands were steady before touching the frame.

“You are closer,” he said.

“To managing a door?”

“To knowing exactly how much of yourself is in one.”

I looked at the frost.

“And the rest?”

“You brought it home.”

Thesra gave the little bell a tap.

“That is worth remembering when someone calls from beyond it.”

I did remember.

Not perfectly.

More often than I had a month ago.

By the afternoon, Beatrice had finished counting the stores.

We had enough grain for the current watch roster and the builders through the next delivery.

There would be less room for mistakes than Mary had expected.

Eliza went through the roster again.

“We can move six trainees to shorter shifts,” she said. “They’ll still learn the signals. They can eat with the rest of the crews.”

“Will that slow their training?” I asked.

“A little.”

“Do it.”

She closed the roster.

“You didn’t ask whether I needed more people.”

“I assumed you would tell me.”

“I will. When I do.”

I believed her.

Isel spent the rest of the day with Mary, making a plain notice for the market.

It showed the agreed weight beside the mark merchants could inspect. Anyone who had traded under the old measure could bring a record and have the difference checked.

“You may have a line at your door,” I told Mary.

“I already have a line at my door.”

“It may become longer.”

“Then people will have to let one another pass.”

Isel read the notice once more.

“You’re going to put your name on it?”

“Mine and Uriah’s,” Mary said.

I looked up.

“Am I?”

“You agreed to settle the records.”

“I did.”

Mary passed me the pen.

That evening, Halen returned for the balance of his payment.

He read the notice before taking it.

“My mother used to say a town’s measure tells you what it thinks of strangers,” he said.

“What would she say of ours?” I asked.

“She would tell you to stop using the old stone.”

“We are.”

“Then she might trade here.”

He tucked the payment away.

At the door, he turned back.

“I come through again before winter. If you finish that drain, I’ll tell the other wagons.”

“That sounds fair.”

“Use the new weight when I return.”

I promised we would.

At supper, Mary told Beatrice about the notice.

Beatrice listened and said she would need more oats.

I told her Halen would return before winter.

“That isn’t the same as having them,” she said.

“No.”

“I’ll ask the nearby farms.”

“Thank you.”

She looked at me.

“I was going to.”

Garrick chose that moment to drop a piece of bread beneath the table.

The Castellan bent to retrieve it.

Our son offered him another piece in exchange.

“I do not eat,” the Castellan reminded him.

Garrick held the bread higher.

The Castellan accepted it.

After the children had gone to bed, Evelyn found the old market weight on a shelf in Mary’s room.

Mary had kept it apart from the others.

“You haven’t thrown it away,” Evelyn said.

“It will help settle the earlier trades.”

“And after?”

“I haven’t decided.”

I turned the stone in my hands.

It had been worn smooth by years of use.

Nobody had set out to deceive anyone with it.

That had not made it accurate.

Mary took it back and placed it beside the records.

Outside, rain began to touch the window.

I thought of the ditch, the new well, and the houses still marked only by stakes.

Tomorrow, there would be plenty to do.

For once, Mary did not need to tell me.