Chapter 331: Good News at the Gate

Julian had discovered a difficulty with having four younger siblings.

He possessed only two hands.

Carol held the left.

Garrick held the right.

Seraphina had taken possession of his sleeve.

Ignatius followed with both arms wrapped around a wooden horse, unwilling to surrender it merely because everyone else had decided to travel.

Their destination was the other side of the family room.

It had taken some time.

“You can let go,” Julian told Carol. “I’m not leaving.”

She considered him.

“Together.”

“Yes. Together.”

Seraphina pulled his sleeve.

Garrick pulled in the opposite direction.

Julian looked toward Garrick Valewood.

“How do you make them agree?”

“I generally consult their grandmother.”

Helena looked up from beside Lisbeth.

“Their grandmother is having tea.”

“There are biscuits over here,” Mirelle said.

Agreement became immediate.

Io caught Ignatius before the horse could become an obstacle. Evelyn moved the cups out of reach. Adriana spread a cloth over the low table.

I supplied the biscuits.

Julian supplied four wooden plates and an explanation that nobody was permitted to improve the food with magic.

Seraphina looked at hers.

A little warmth gathered above it.

“Especially that,” he said.

Io gently touched her daughter’s hand.

The warmth faded.

Ignatius offered Seraphina his horse.

She accepted it and gave him half her biscuit.

Garrick immediately wanted the horse.

Carol wanted the half biscuit.

Julian took a long breath.

“We can take turns.”

Lisbeth watched him begin the negotiations.

“He may be ready for your council,” she told me.

“Our council is less demanding.”

Mary entered with a bundle of papers.

“It is not.”

The four children had become increasingly difficult to separate during visits between the cities. If Io brought Seraphina and Ignatius through the gate, Carol and Garrick appeared to believe the visit should continue indefinitely. When we went to Concordia, the argument occurred in reverse.

They played together.

Fell asleep in untidy groups.

Copied one another with consequences that kept the adults attentive.

And Julian had somehow become the person they all expected to explain how the world worked.

He took that responsibility seriously.

We made certain he did not take it alone.

“Steward Vale has arrived,” Mary said.

I looked up.

“From Westmere?”

“Unless you appointed another while I was sleeping.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“Good. He has brought accommodation figures.”

That sounded promising enough to surrender my biscuit.

Carol took it before I stood.

Edric Vale waited outside the council chamber with mud on his boots and a ledger beneath one arm.

He had once brought us reports about patrols.

Now he brought reports about roof repairs, grain purchases, and arguments between people who believed a boundary stone had moved itself.

Stewardship had given him several grey hairs.

It had also given him the habit of arriving with answers.

“Your Majesty.”

I clasped his arm.

“It’s good to see you.”

“I would have come sooner, but I wanted to bring something more useful than concern.”

He placed the ledger on the table.

Evelyn joined us as Mary opened it. Lexander came through from Concordia shortly afterward, still fastening his coat.

Edric waited until everyone had a chair.

“Westmere Hold can take six hundred people immediately.”

Mary stopped turning pages.

“Immediately?”

“The rooms are ready. Another six hundred places should be available within a week, after the remaining water fittings and heating are inspected.”

I looked at the ledger.

Names of buildings.

Room counts.

Cooking capacity.

Fuel.

The council’s approval, with objections recorded and answered in the margins.

“You have already discussed this with Westmere,” Evelyn said.

“At length.”

His expression suggested length had been measured painfully.

“Some households have offered rooms. Others would rather help supply the larger buildings. We have kept those arrangements separate so nobody promises a bed they do not actually possess.”

Lexander leaned forward.

“You would take people from Concordia too?”

“That is why I asked for you to attend.”

He unfolded another sheet.

“Three hundred from each city for the first movement, if that suits the families who wish to come. After that, we review the numbers together.”

Mary read the supply figures again.

“You will need additional bedding.”

“Yes.”

“And healers.”

“Yes.”

“Your second kitchen will need a larger oven.”

“The mason agrees with you. He has written the estimate on the last page.”

Mary turned to it.

I watched her expression change.

“You brought the estimate.”

“And the measurements.”

She looked at me.

I disliked the comparison being made.

Evelyn hid her smile behind her hand.

We approved the support Westmere needed. The Castellan would coordinate gate times so the departures did not collide with incoming relief. Io and Evelyn would identify patients who could travel safely and arrange continuing care.

Families would be offered the choice together.

Nobody would discover that accepting breakfast had committed them to moving somewhere else.

Edric nodded at every condition.

“I remember what Westmere needed when we first began putting it back in order,” he said. “People gave us time to become useful again.”

He touched the ledger.

“We are useful now.”

For a moment, I remembered handing him the steward’s seal.

It had seemed too small for the responsibility.

He had grown into the work anyway.

“Yes,” I said. “You are.”

The first good news had not finished becoming a plan when the second arrived.

A rider reached the outer gate ahead of a column on the northern road.

He carried the colors of Orenshal beneath his coat.

Eliza examined his credentials herself.

Then she sent for me.

“King Edric,” she said.

Steward Vale, still beside the table, looked up.

Mary pointed at him without looking away from her notes.

“You remain here.”

“Gladly,” he said.

I found Celestine in the receiving hall with Helena and Queen Alisande.

She was helping a mother find the correct name on a list.

When she saw my face, her hand tightened around the page.

I understood what she expected.

“He is alive,” I said before she could ask.

The paper slipped from her fingers.

“Edric?”

“He is coming up the northern road.”

Celestine stared at me.

Helena took her hand.

“Come.”

We sent for the children and Lord Havar.

Celestine walked quickly until we reached the courtyard.

Then she began to run.

King Edric of Orenshal entered beneath Greykeep’s gate on a horse that looked almost as tired as he did.

His cloak was burned along one side. A strip of linen crossed his forehead. He had lost the ornamental piece from one shoulder of his armor, leaving bright fastening holes in the dark metal.

He saw his wife.

For a moment, he forgot how to dismount.

A soldier caught the reins while he nearly fell out of the saddle.

Celestine reached him before he straightened.

Neither spoke at first.

She put both hands against his face.

He held her wrists as though afraid she might disappear.

Then she struck his chest once with the side of her fist.

“You took too long.”

“I know.”

She embraced him.

He closed his eyes.

Linette reached them first. Maris and Elowen came behind her, and Tomas pushed between all three sisters because waiting had become intolerable.

The king sank to one knee.

His children crowded around him.

Tomas had brought the oversized sword he had carried when they first arrived.

It clattered onto the stones.

Nobody reminded him to pick it up.

Lord Havar stood beside Helena with one hand over his mouth.

Behind the king, the soldiers stopped in uneven ranks.

Some watched the reunion.

Some looked toward the receiving hall with an expression I had begun to recognize.

Searching.

Eliza quietly sent runners for the Orenshal refugee lists.

Within minutes, the king was no longer the only person being embraced in the courtyard.

One soldier dropped his helmet when a little girl called for him.

Another sat on the ground with an elderly woman holding his head against her shoulder.

Not everyone found someone.

But enough did that nobody could mistake the sound carrying beneath the arch.

People were crying because someone had come back.

There were two hundred thirty-seven soldiers in King Edric’s column.

Twenty-eight required treatment before anything else.

The remainder required food, sleep, replacement boots, or all three.

They had escorted civilians between surviving settlements, fought their way around a blocked road, and continued north after receiving reliable word that Celestine and the children had reached Havenreach.

The king gave us the account after Mirelle examined his forehead.

Celestine remained beside him.

He did not release her hand.

“The capital?” I asked.

His expression tightened.

“The districts I left were burning. We brought out everyone we could reach. There may be others holding beyond the eastern wall, but I will not give you certainty I do not have.”

Mary recorded that carefully.

Then Edric looked toward Thor.

He had heard about the quarry.

About the convoy.

About gods who had begun meeting Surtr’s soldiers on the roads instead of waiting for the survivors afterward.

“My people want to fight,” he said.

“After they recover,” Evelyn replied.

“Yes.”

“And those who decide they have fought enough?” Lexander asked.

Edric looked through the open doorway toward the courtyard.

A soldier was still holding the little girl.

“They have earned the right to tell me so.”

Celestine’s fingers tightened around his.

He looked back at us.

“The ones who came with me have asked for another chance to face Surtr’s forces. They know his field officers. His marching signals. Some of the tricks he uses before an attack.”

He unfastened his sword belt with his free hand.

Celestine finally released him so he could lay it on the table.

The scabbard was scraped almost white along one edge.

“And I offer my sword as well.”

Thor studied him.

“Can you take an order from someone who doesn’t call you Majesty?”

He glanced at his wife.

Celestine raised an eyebrow.

“I have some experience.”

Thor smiled.

Then became serious again.

“If you join a strike team, your title will not change its command.”

“Understood.”

“If the order is to protect wagons, you protect wagons. Even if someone you hate rides past.”

His jaw tightened.

He took a moment before answering.

“Understood.”

I pushed the sword back toward him.

“Keep it. Eliza will speak with your officers. Thor will assess where your experience fits.”

He reached for the belt.

Celestine put her hand over it first.

“Tomorrow.”

Edric looked at her.

“Tonight,” she said, “you are coming upstairs with your children.”

The king bowed his head.

“Tonight,” he agreed.

More people reached Havenreach over the following two days.

Farmers from scattered villages.

A wagonload of injured quarry workers.

Three families who had remained together so long on the road that the receiving clerk stopped trying to separate their supplies into individual households.

And more gods.

One introduced herself as Ossa, with a domain over linen and its making. She examined the infirmary’s dwindling stores and asked where she could wash her hands.

Mirelle took her straight to the bandage room.

The next three went to the lower yard.

Istren was a god of archery. His bow had a plain wooden grip worn smooth by use, and he asked more questions about our scouts than our enemies.

Merova’s domain concerned fighting withdrawals.

She carried a shield scarred so deeply that I could see three layers of repaired metal along its rim.

“I can make a retreat hold together,” she told Thor. “I cannot make people follow a plan they have never practiced.”

Thor immediately asked her to stay for the afternoon drills.

Rauth, a god of close combat, arrived with one arm supporting an injured mortal soldier.

He delivered the man to the healers before telling us his name.

“I heard you were striking back,” he said when he returned.

“We are,” I answered.

“Then I would like to help.”

By evening, the map table had gained enough names to support more than one moving force.

We could finally begin building the rotations Thor had asked for.

She directed the field organization. Baldr took responsibility for drilling the second team, with Merova helping him practice withdrawals and the recovery of wounded people.

Istren worked with Eliza’s scouts.

Rauth joined the close assault training alongside Bruni, who was delighted to meet someone willing to hold the other end of a practice beam.

Ordel taught the incoming officers what he had found beneath the bridge on Derenne’s road.

King Edric listened with a pencil in his hand.

His soldiers would serve in formed sections under their experienced officers, attached to the teams whose tasks suited them. We needed scouts, escorts, reserves, and people who could hold ground after the gods moved on.

We also needed them alive afterward.

Veyra attended with her arm still supported. Tovan had been allowed to stand through part of the briefing, which he treated as a substantial victory.

Neither returned to combat merely because more volunteers had arrived.

Their places in the later rotations remained waiting for them.

Lexander and I reviewed how much strength each city would retain. We would not both leave on every mission. Thor and Baldr would not deploy together merely out of habit now that either could lead a properly supported team.

The new arrivals changed what we could attempt.

They also gave us people to call home before exhaustion made the decision for us.

When the briefing ended, King Edric remained beside the map.

Steward Vale approached with his accommodation ledger.

They regarded each other for a moment.

“Edric,” the king said.

“Edric,” the steward replied.

Mary closed her eyes.

“I will be using your surnames or offices in every record.”

The king smiled for the first time during the meeting.

“A wise precaution.”

The message from Orselle arrived while the first families were preparing to leave for Westmere.

Bren’s handwriting filled the top half.

Tamsin had added figures beneath it.

Mary read the page.

Then read it again.

I put down the supply request in my hand.

“What happened?”

She looked up.

“Princess Renna’s sister reached the coast.”

I stood.

“Alive?”

“Alive. In Orselle. She helped evacuate nine hundred and sixteen people.”

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then Mary handed me the message.

“Go. I will arrange the receiving hall.”

Renna was working at the missing-person boards.

Again.

Her younger brother sat nearby with the baker’s cat draped across his knees.

The cat appeared to have recovered from the journey more thoroughly than anyone else.

Renna saw the paper.

Her face became still.

“Your sister is in Orselle,” I said. “She is safe.”

Her brother stood so quickly the cat objected.

Renna did not move.

“You are certain?”

“The gate keepers have confirmed her identity. She sent a message for you.”

I gave her the page.

Beneath the passenger figures, Tamsin had copied a single sentence.

Tell Renna she may stop looking south now. I came the long way.

Renna covered her mouth.

Then laughed into her hand.

It became a sob halfway through.

Her brother pressed against her side.

“Mother,” she managed.

“We are sending word to Concordia now.”

Orselle’s harbor council authorized the evacuation crossings that afternoon.

The arrivals would come in groups, with time between them for the keepers to check the gate and for our receiving teams to clear the floor.

The refugees were already ashore.

For once, no enemy waited at the edge of the message.

They had food on the quay, dry places to sit, and enough safety to move carefully.

I remembered that harbor.

The shouting gulls.

The little grey stone Evelyn had brought home.

The discussions about cargo schedules and a warehouse roof.

We had built a route for ordinary trade.

Now it was bringing people to their families.

Renna’s mother arrived from Concordia before the first crossing.

She embraced her younger children and would not release them until the gate keeper asked us to move behind the marked line.

Helena stood beside her.

Lisbeth brought a cup nobody drank.

The gate brightened.

The first group came through carrying bundles wrapped against salt water.

A sailor supported an elderly man.

Two children shared a pair of shoes, one carried on the other’s back.

Then Renna’s older sister stepped onto the receiving floor.

Her hair had been cut unevenly above her shoulders. One sleeve was patched with sailcloth. She held a passenger list so tightly that the paper had softened at the edges.

She saw her mother.

The list fell.

Renna crossed the space at a run.

This time, nobody asked anyone to wait behind a line.

The princess caught her younger sister and brother together. Their mother put her arms around all three.

For several breaths, the receiving hall belonged to them.

Then someone behind the next group called a name.

Another person answered.

The room filled with the same sound we had heard in the courtyard when Edric arrived.

Recognition.

Later, once she could speak without stopping, Renna’s sister told us about the coast.

Fishing crews had ferried people out to larger vessels that could not approach the shallows. Merchant captains had unloaded cargo to make room. She had helped keep the lists, negotiated for supplies, and stayed until the last group she could reach was aboard.

“Nine hundred and sixteen,” Mary said.

The princess nodded.

“The captains did the hard part.”

“So did you,” Renna said.

Her sister looked at her.

Then accepted the cup Lisbeth had replaced with a warm one.

“I would like to sit down.”

Helena drew out a chair.

“That can be arranged.”

Westmere’s first departures began the next morning.

Steward Vale stood beside the gate with two representatives from his council and a list of the people expected at each receiving house.

Three hundred would travel from Havenreach in scheduled groups.

Three hundred from Concordia would follow through the agreed connections.

There were places for them.

Actual places.

Beds that had been counted. Fires that had been lit. People waiting to show them where the water was.

A woman asked whether she could come back to Havenreach if her missing son arrived here.

“Yes,” Edric told her. “And we will send word as soon as your name appears on the family notices.”

She nodded and took her granddaughter’s hand.

The next family carried a cage containing two chickens.

Carol noticed them from the quieter side passage where we had brought the children to say goodbye to a family Julian knew from his lessons.

“Chickens.”

“Yes,” Julian said.

“Ours?”

“No.”

Seraphina leaned around him to inspect them.

Ignatius offered one the wooden horse.

The chicken declined.

Garrick Valewood stood behind Julian, helping him keep track of four small bodies with different opinions about where they ought to be.

“How many?” Julian asked.

Carol pointed at the cage.

“Two.”

“Children,” he clarified.

Garrick held up a hand.

Seraphina copied him.

Ignatius raised the horse.

“Four,” Julian said, counting them himself.

“You forgot you,” my daughter told him.

He paused.

Garrick Valewood rested a hand on his shoulder.

“She has a point.”

Julian looked at the four faces turned toward him.

Then smiled.

“Five.”

That evening, the great hall was loud enough that Mary abandoned any attempt to deliver reports during supper.

King Edric sat with Celestine and their children.

Tomas leaned against him even while eating.

Renna’s family occupied the next table. Her older sister had fallen asleep in a chair earlier and awakened furious that nobody had called her to help.

Helena told her she could help finish the bread.

She did.

Steward Vale remained for the meal before returning to Westmere. Lexander thanked him over a cup that had gone cold while they discussed the next day’s crossings.

The new gods ate among the soldiers and builders.

Istren listened to an Orenshal scout describe a wooded ridge. Merova argued cheerfully with Baldr about the best way to practice a retreat without encouraging Bruni to carry everyone.

“Faster,” Bruni said.

“For you,” Baldr replied.

Bruni considered this.

“Still faster.”

At the family table, Julian sat on a bench with the four children distributed around him. Mirelle and Garrick Valewood took turns rescuing his supper from their interest.

Evelyn leaned against my shoulder.

Adriana sat beside her, watching her younger brother laugh when Ignatius tried to feed the wooden horse.

Elara had joined us from her rooms in Greykeep. She sat beside Ilyen and spoke with Ossa about cloth soft enough for the recovering patients.

Work on the sleepers continued.

So did the search for records of Lethan’s sister.

Neither required us to pretend every hour must end in fear.

Mary finally sat down.

“The first Westmere groups have arrived safely,” she told us. “All nine hundred and sixteen from Orselle are accounted for. The last gate inspection is complete.”

I waited.

She looked at me.

“What?”

“The rest.”

“There is no rest.”

“No urgent message?”

“Not at present.”

Across the hall, Celestine laughed at something her husband said.

Renna’s brother had fallen asleep against his older sister. Their mother watched them as though she intended to remember the sight for the rest of her life.

I looked back at Mary.

She closed her book.

“You may eat while it is warm.”

Evelyn put a spoon into my hand.

Adriana passed the bread.

For once, I did as I was told without an argument.