Ch. 217 The Road in the Rain

Chapter 217: The Road in the Rain

Rain woke me before the children did.

It struck the window in uneven bursts.

For a while, I lay beside Evelyn and listened to the gutter fill.

“Veyra was right,” I said.

“She usually is.”

“I was hoping she’d be wrong about the amount.”

Evelyn opened her eyes.

From the nursery came a small thump.

Then Garrick called for us.

She pulled the blanket higher.

“Your son.”

“He was mine yesterday.”

“He remains yours.”

I got up before she could offer further evidence.

At breakfast, Eliza sent word that the western road had softened.

The survey stakes were still in place.

The ditch was carrying water.

One section of its bank had begun to slip.

“Close the road?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Eliza said. “The watch has moved the lantern and warned the carts coming in. Eleanor is looking at it.”

Mary marked the time.

The Castellan stood beside the window, watching rain cross the yard.

“I can feel the ground moving near the bend,” he said.

“How much?”

“Less than the width of my hand since dawn.”

That sounded small until I imagined it continuing all day.

Eleanor met us below the gate with Aldren and Perrin.

All three wore wet cloaks.

Perrin’s hair had escaped his hood and lay against his forehead.

“The bank is holding for now,” Eleanor said.

Aldren pointed downhill.

“Water from the rise has found the old cart track. It’s entering the ditch behind the place we measured.”

“Can we turn it?” I asked.

“With a channel.”

“How long?”

“Longer if you keep asking.”

I took a spade from the pile beside her.

She looked at me.

“Good answer.”

We worked upstream of the bend.

Aldren set the line.

Perrin cut the turf.

I carried it clear while two builders opened the shallow channel behind us.

The rain soaked through my collar.

Bren arrived carrying the empty bucket he had brought to breakfast the day before.

“You might want a full one,” I told him.

“I came to see where the water goes.”

He crouched beside the new cut.

“Keep it farther from the well ground.”

“The well ground is uphill,” Aldren said.

“Water can enter a seam downhill from where you draw it.”

Eleanor straightened.

“How much farther?”

Bren showed her.

She moved the line without complaint.

Mary, standing under an oilcloth with the map, made a sound of distress.

“Another bend?”

“Only on your drawing,” Eleanor said. “The water won’t mind.”

The western beacon sounded.

One note.

A pause.

Two.

“Cart on the road,” Eliza said.

She had joined us without my noticing.

“It should be waiting at the watch post.”

A second signal came from below.

The cart was moving.

Eliza swore and started down the slope.

Melody went with her.

I followed.

At the bend, a team of two horses stood in the rain.

The cart behind them had turned slightly toward the ditch.

Its right wheel rested against a stretch of ground that had begun to fall away.

The driver held the reins tight.

A boy sat beside her, gripping the board beneath his knees.

“We told her to wait,” one guard said.

“The horse startled,” the woman called back. “I didn’t mean to bring it forward.”

The younger horse stamped.

The wheel shifted.

Eliza raised a hand.

“Everyone hold where you are.”

The woman stopped speaking.

The horses remained restless.

I could feel the wet bank giving beneath the wheel.

Slowly.

A little more with each movement.

“I can lift the cart,” I said.

“Can you hold it without moving the horses?” Eliza asked.

“Yes.”

“Then hold it.”

I found the weight beneath the axle.

The working settled around it.

The bank slipped another inch.

The cart did not follow.

The boy looked at me.

I tried to smile.

It was difficult while keeping the axle still.

Eleanor came down with two lengths of timber.

“Can you raise it a finger’s breadth?” she asked.

I did.

She and Aldren set the first timber beneath the axle.

Perrin brought the second.

Eliza approached the horses from the dry side of the road.

“May I take the reins?” she asked the driver.

The woman nodded and passed them down.

Melody climbed beside the boy.

“Come with me.”

“I can stay.”

“You could,” she said. “I’d prefer you came.”

He took her hand.

When they were clear, Eliza led the horses forward.

I eased the cart’s weight onto the timber.

The wheel rolled across it.

Then the whole cart stood on firmer ground.

I waited until the horses stopped.

Then I drew my working back.

Strength returned through my arms.

The rain seemed louder.

The driver climbed down.

“I thought the road was open.”

“It was,” Eliza said. “The watch called for you to wait while we checked it.”

“I heard.”

She looked toward the ditch.

“I thought I could get through before it worsened.”

Eliza’s expression softened a little.

“Now you know how quickly it can.”

The woman nodded.

No one made her say more while her hands were shaking.

A guard brought the horses under the shelter of the post.

Melody took the boy up with them.

The cart carried lamp oil and a small load of cloth.

Both had been covered well.

Perrin inspected the right wheel.

“It’s sound.”

“You sound disappointed,” I said.

“I’m relieved. I’d still like to know who made it.”

Eleanor took the spade from my hand.

“You’re finished here.”

“I can dig.”

“You can. You just held a loaded cart above a failing bank.”

“I brought the strength back.”

“I saw.”

She pointed toward the watch post.

“Go and sit where Eliza can find you.”

I went.

There were times when explaining my stamina to Eleanor cost more effort than obeying her.

Inside the post, the boy sat with a blanket around his shoulders.

Miren knelt nearby.

She had brought hot tea from the castle.

“Do you want me to stay?” she asked him.

He nodded.

“Do you want quiet?”

He looked at his mother, who sat across from him.

“No. Tell me when they move the cart.”

“I will.”

Miren made no working.

She sat with him while he drank.

When his cup was empty, he asked if the road would take the horses too.

“No,” I said. “They’re on firm ground now.”

He considered my answer.

Then looked at Eliza.

She nodded.

Only then did he settle farther into the blanket.

By afternoon, the rain had eased.

Eleanor’s crew opened the new channel and laid the first stones along its edge.

Bren checked where the water reached the lower field.

The Castellan watched the ground beneath the road.

Eliza closed the bend to carts until the bank could be shored.

The driver stayed at Greykeep for the night.

She had not planned to.

Beatrice found room for her and her son, then informed Mary that the guest list had passed the number she wanted to cook for with no warning.

Mary wrote that down.

“I don’t need it recorded,” Beatrice said.

“I need to remember to find you help.”

“Oh.”

Beatrice thought.

“Then record that.”

I went back to the bend before supper.

Veyra stood there looking at the clouds.

“Are you checking whether you were right?” I asked.

“I know how much rain fell.”

“Then what are you checking?”

“What you did when you held the cart.”

I looked toward the timbers beneath the road.

“I lifted it.”

“You held its weight. You also kept the water beneath the wheel from rising into the space Eleanor needed.”

“I didn’t notice that.”

“You noticed she needed the space.”

I remembered the shape of the working.

There had been a narrow, steady place around the axle.

Beyond it, rain and mud had moved as they pleased.

“I wasn’t trying to stop the rain,” I said.

“No.”

Veyra smiled.

“That matters.”

“Does it mean I’m closer?” I asked.

She knew what I meant.

“Yes.”

I looked at my hands.

They were scraped and muddy.

“Caldris said that yesterday.”

“He was right.”

“Everyone seems eager to tell me I’m near something nobody can describe.”

“That sounds frustrating.”

“It is.”

Veyra stood beside me while a drop fell from the watch lantern onto the road.

“Today, you chose where to put your strength and when to release it,” she said. “You protected four people without trying to command the whole storm. I can describe that.”

I watched water run through the new channel.

“That helps.”

The twins were playing on the nursery rug when I returned.

Garrick had arranged blocks around his boat.

Carol reached into the space between them.

“Boat,” she said.

“It’s mine,” Garrick told her.

She moved one block aside.

He moved it back.

Evelyn sat nearby, mending a sleeve.

“They’ve been discussing this for some time.”

“Who is winning?”

“The boat is still there.”

I sat with them.

Carol offered me the block.

I placed it outside Garrick’s little circle.

He studied the change.

Then moved the boat beside it.

Carol took the space he had left and put her cloth book there.

They seemed satisfied.

I made no attempt to understand the terms of their agreement.

At supper, the driver and her son joined us.

The boy wanted to know whether the Castellan was made entirely of metal.

“No,” the Castellan said.

“What’s inside?”

“That is a long answer.”

“Can you give a short one?”

The Castellan thought.

“More than metal.”

The boy looked at his mother.

“That wasn’t much of an answer.”

“It was the short one,” she said.

Across the table, Garrick Valewood laughed.

The boy turned toward him, and soon they were discussing the cart wheel.

Perrin joined in.

By the time Beatrice brought bread, the boy had forgotten to be afraid of the road.

That night, Mary left the revised map on our table.

The channel was drawn in blue.

The well site remained where Bren had chosen it.

Beside the western bend she had written: Repair bank before first frost. Keep watch post staffed until then.

Evelyn read it over my shoulder.

“That sounds like a great deal of work.”

“It is.”

“Will you try to help with all of it?”

“I was going to ask Eleanor what she needs tomorrow.”

“That wasn’t quite my question.”

I put the map down.

“Some of it,” I said.

She kissed my cheek.

“Good.”

Before bed, I opened the children’s books.

I had meant to write about the road.

Instead, I found Garrick’s page still waiting for an account of the way he had arranged his blocks around the boat.

I wrote that he had allowed his sister to sit beside it after a long discussion.

Evelyn leaned over my shoulder.

“Is that what happened?”

“I think so.”

“You have omitted that Carol took his best block.”

“It’s his book.”

“She has one too.”

I added the block.

Then I wrote in Carol’s book that she had returned it before bed.

My wife read both pages.

“That,” she said, “is fair.”

Outside, the last of the rain passed over Greykeep.

The road would need work in the morning.

For now, the horses and their people were warm, the water had somewhere to go, and both children were asleep.