Ch. 221 The Names Beneath the Charter

Chapter 221: The Names Beneath the Charter

Mary put three versions of the charter on the council table.

“They are the same,” she said before anyone could ask. “The spacing is different.”

Maelin picked up the first.

“Why?”

“Because I expect you to add more words.”

“We agreed on the words yesterday.”

Mary looked at her.

Maelin put down the page.

“I expect us to add more words,” she said.

Aurelia sat with the gods on one side of the table.

Evelyn, Eliza, Melody, and I sat among the people who would have to live with whatever they signed.

The Castellan remained near the door.

There was no special chair for anyone.

That had been Evelyn’s condition when we chose the room.

Ivara read the charter aloud.

It said a god could join the new pantheon freely and leave it freely.

No member could bind another to service through a summons, an office, or a debt they had not knowingly accepted.

A person asking a god for help could refuse the help offered.

A person harmed by a god could bring a complaint and have it recorded, heard, and answered.

Isel interrupted at that line.

“Answered by whom?”

“The members,” Ivara said.

“All of them?”

“Those who did not take part in the matter.”

“And if they took part by allowing it?”

Mary reached for her pen.

“That is why I left room beneath the paragraph.”

Maelin leaned back.

“I thought you meant the margins.”

“I did.”

We waited while Isel and Ivara found words that would allow a mortal complainant to ask for witnesses outside the pantheon.

Mary wrote them in.

Then she crossed out a sentence elsewhere to keep the page from growing longer.

Maelin watched.

“You were right,” she said.

Mary did not look up.

“I know.”

The next part concerned Greykeep.

Gods who lived here would follow its laws concerning the people, roads, buildings, and wards.

Helping to sustain the wards required a separate agreement with the Castellan. It could be withdrawn without surrendering one’s home.

No god could use Greykeep’s gates to make a claim over its residents.

Eliza raised a hand.

“Add visitors.”

Mary looked at her.

“Residents and visitors?”

“Yes.”

“Agreed,” Aurelia said.

Nathaniel studied the line.

“And someone passing along the road who never enters?”

“We can’t govern every crossing beyond the walls,” I said.

“We can say none of us will pursue a person from our gates merely because they refused us,” Nathaniel replied.

That took more discussion.

It stayed in the charter.

Miren had asked to be present.

She listened from a chair near the fire.

When Ivara reached the section on healing, she looked toward Aurelia.

“Read that again.”

Ivara did.

Help would be offered with the person’s knowledge and consent whenever they could answer. A god or healer would stop when asked, unless stopping at once would cause immediate harm that the person could not understand.

“That last part gives someone a great deal of room,” Miren said.

“It must,” Evelyn replied. “There are times a patient is unconscious or confused.”

“I know. I want the person making the decision to be answerable afterward.”

Liora nodded from beside her.

Mary added a requirement to record why the work had continued.

Aurelia read it twice.

“That is fair.”

We stopped for lunch.

Beatrice sent bread and soup, along with a warning that the table holding the charter must be cleared before she would bring the bowls in.

I gathered the pages.

Aurelia caught one before it slipped to the floor.

“You look tired,” she said.

“I’m learning how many ways a promise can be misunderstood.”

“You have had practice.”

“I would have preferred some of it to be less memorable.”

She held the page by its edges.

“Will you sign?”

“As king. I’m not one of the gods.”

“Not yet.”

“No.”

I could still feel the weather beyond the northern ridge.

I let it remain there.

After lunch, we settled the question of names.

Maelin wanted the charter to identify every god who joined at its founding.

Mary wanted a separate list.

“If someone leaves, I won’t rewrite the principles to remove their name,” she said.

“If someone joins, they should be able to sign,” Maelin replied.

“They will. On the list.”

Ivara placed the two pages side by side.

“The charter states what the pantheon promises. The register states who has made that promise.”

Maelin considered it.

“That will also make departure visible.”

“Yes,” Mary said. “It should be.”

No one argued after that.

We had been calling ourselves the new pantheon for weeks.

A letter needed a name.

“The Greykeep Pantheon,” Bren suggested.

“Some of us may live elsewhere,” Sel said.

“The Free Pantheon,” Dorian offered.

Eliza looked at him.

“That sounds like a promise we would have to prove every day.”

“We should,” he said.

“Yes. But a name won’t do the proving.”

Miren turned one of Mary’s blank pages over.

“What did Adela ask for?” she said.

“A way out,” Nathaniel answered quietly.

Miren nodded.

“Leave a way in and a way out. Whatever you call yourselves.”

We did not choose a grander name.

The first line read: The Accord of Greykeep, agreed by the gods named in the accompanying register.

Mary said we could revisit the name when we had earned a better one.

Aurelia signed first.

Her hand remained steady.

Maelin followed.

Then Thesra and Caldris.

The others took their turns: Nathaniel, Nara, Ivara, Veyra, Sel, Dorian, Miren, Bren, and Isel.

Each read the final copy before signing.

Isel checked that the line about complaints had survived the last round of changes.

Miren checked the part about stopping a healing working.

Bren checked the right to withdraw help from the wards.

None of them was asked to explain the choice.

They signed.

Ivara left space below their names for those who might join later.

Evelyn and I signed as witnesses for Greykeep.

Eliza signed for the guard.

Mary signed as keeper of the record.

Then the Castellan approached the table.

“Do you wish to sign?” I asked.

“I am responsible for the wards described here.”

“That sounds like a reason.”

“It is also a responsibility I have not chosen to leave.”

Mary moved the page toward him.

He took the pen between metal fingers.

His signature was small and remarkably neat.

Perrin, watching from the door, looked offended.

“Mine never looks like that.”

“You press too hard,” the Castellan told him.

“I know.”

The letters took the rest of the afternoon.

Mary wrote a plain account of what had been agreed. Ivara checked the copy of the charter attached to each one.

They sent letters to every kingdom for which they had a reliable address.

Concordia was on the list.

So were the neighboring courts, the southern kingdoms, and the halls where gods were known to gather.

Each letter named the founding members and invited a reply.

None asked a ruler to recognize the pantheon before reading its terms.

None asked a god to join.

“They should know where we stand,” Aurelia said. “What they do with that knowledge belongs to them.”

Mary placed one letter apart from the others.

“Othellos,” I said.

“Yes.”

Ivara had addressed it to his court.

I read the opening.

It gave notice of the Accord, listed its founding members, and enclosed the same charter the kingdoms would receive.

“Will he call it a rebellion?” I asked.

“Probably,” Maelin said.

“He may claim he never received it,” Ivara added.

“Then how do we send it?”

“Through three routes,” Mary said. “One by the ordinary court post. One through a hall whose records Ivara can inspect. One carried by a god who has agreed to witness delivery.”

Nathaniel lifted his head.

“I can do it.”

Eliza immediately shook hers.

“I’ll go with someone.”

“I am offering to carry a letter, not to enter his court.”

“Then we should be able to agree on a safe place to deliver it.”

They took the map to the far end of the table.

I wanted to ask whether sending the letters would make Othellos come sooner.

I already knew no one could answer.

Instead, I asked Ivara, “When do we tell everyone in Greykeep?”

“Tonight,” Mary said.

She had the public copy ready.

“We’ll post it in the hall and the market. Anyone who wants to ask about a line can come tomorrow.”

“Come to whom?”

“Me, to begin with.”

“You already have a line at your door.”

“It will become longer.”

Isel smiled.

Mary did not.

She had made space in her schedule.

Before supper, I carried one copy to the market.

The stalls were closing.

Halen’s notice about weights still hung beside the storehouse door. A farmer stopped to read the new page as I fastened it beneath the covered board.

“What is this?” he asked.

“An agreement among the gods living here.”

He read the first few lines.

“Does it change who I can pray to?”

“No.”

“Does it change what I owe?”

“No.”

“Then why tell me?”

“Because it says what they owe you.”

He read farther.

I left him there with the page.

At the castle, I found Garrick Valewood making the larger boat in a room well away from the twins.

He had shaped the hull and begun smoothing the bow.

I ran a finger along it.

“One more time,” I said.

He looked up.

“Four.”

“I learned from you.”

“You learned to count badly. That was the fifth.”

Helena came in carrying a length of cloth she wanted to use for its sail.

“You’ve both forgotten who will receive it,” she said.

“Our grandson,” we answered together.

“And who will try to take it first?”

“Carol,” I said.

Helena nodded.

“Then I’m making two sails.”

At supper, Mary read the first part of the charter aloud.

She did not require anyone to stay and listen.

People did.

A few asked questions.

One guard wanted to know whether Dorian’s help with the beacons would end if he left the pantheon.

“It would end when his separate agreement with the Castellan ends,” Mary said. “He can leave one without leaving the other.”

A woman from the lower yard asked whether a complaint about a god had to be made in the chapel.

“No,” Evelyn replied. “Mary will receive it. So will I. You may also bring it to Eliza.”

The woman nodded.

Then asked whether she could bring a friend.

“Yes,” all three said.

When the hall emptied, Aurelia remained beside the public copy.

Miren joined her.

“You’re thinking about the letters,” Miren said.

“Yes.”

“I thought I would feel lighter once I signed.”

“Do you?”

“A little. Also more visible.”

Aurelia folded her arms against the chill from the hall doors.

“You can still change your mind.”

“I know.”

Miren touched the corner of the charter.

“That is why I signed.”

The messengers left the next morning.

Eliza watched the first rider take the western road. Nathaniel and a guard rode south with the letter for Othellos’s court. A second copy went by the post before noon.

Mary marked each departure in her book.

“Now we wait?” I asked.

“Now we keep doing everything we promised while we wait.”

“That sounds less restful.”

“It usually is.”

Below us, Eleanor’s crew worked along the road bank.

Farther uphill, Bren and the Castellan had set out the first stones for the well.

Beyond the northern ridge, snow was falling.

I could feel it.

I looked at the people moving through Greykeep’s yard, then let my attention return to the road.

The letters were on their way.

Their answers would come to this place.