Chapter 332: The Names They Wanted Kept

The first complaint from Westmere concerned breakfast.

Steward Edric Vale included it beneath the accommodation report, where Mary would certainly find it.

Everyone had received a bed.

The kitchens were functioning.

No family had been separated during the crossings.

However, the porridge at the northern receiving house was too thick.

“That is the complaint?” I asked.

Mary looked over the page.

“There are four.”

“About porridge?”

“Three about porridge. One about a door that sticks.”

Evelyn held out her hand for the letter.

She read it while I waited.

Then she smiled.

“They are beginning to believe they can complain.”

That changed the report considerably.

At the bottom, Edric had added a note in smaller handwriting.

The children have found the yard. We moved the survey stakes before anyone was impaled. Please tell Eleanor that chalk lines have survived less well.

Eleanor read that part twice.

“They should use paint.”

“The children?” I asked.

She gave me a look.

I returned to the accommodation figures.

The lower yard had become crowded for a different reason.

King Edric of Orenshal stood beside Baldr with his sword sheathed and a wooden practice blade in his hand.

His soldiers faced a line of padded shields.

Merova walked behind them.

“Again.”

The line moved backward.

One soldier stepped too quickly.

Another turned to check behind him and opened a gap.

Merova put the end of her staff through it.

“Dead.”

The soldier sighed.

“Again.”

Thor watched from beside the steps.

“They are good,” she said as I joined her.

“She has killed six of them.”

“In practice. That is the inexpensive place to do it.”

Across the yard, Istren instructed the scouts to describe what they could actually see from their assigned positions.

One reported twelve enemies behind a low wall.

“You can see four,” the archery god said.

“There are twelve.”

“You saw twelve go behind it. You can see four now.”

The scout considered that.

Then corrected his report.

Ordel had built a model crossing from spare timber. Bruni was forbidden to test it until the soldiers had practiced getting a wagon across.

He found this disappointing.

Rauth stood opposite him holding a padded beam.

“We could practice here.”

Bruni brightened.

Eleanor appeared before either moved.

“Away from the new wall.”

They moved.

“Farther.”

They moved again.

She watched until satisfied.

I began to suspect that the most powerful defensive position in Havenreach was wherever Eleanor happened to be standing.

King Edric’s section completed the withdrawal without opening another gap.

Merova nodded.

“Better.”

The king wiped his face with his sleeve.

“May we attack something now?”

“After you learn to stop attacking it.”

He glanced toward Thor.

She offered no rescue.

Veyra sat beneath the awning with her injured arm supported, watching the shield work. Tovan stood beside her until Evelyn appeared in the doorway.

Then he sat.

My wife had developed an impressive range of command without ever raising her voice.

Julian brought the children to watch the final part of the drill.

Helena came with him.

So did Io, because Seraphina had recently decided that a loud noise was an invitation to contribute.

All four children stood behind the boundary rail.

For nearly half a minute.

Then Garrick wanted to sit on it, Carol wanted to know why nobody was winning, Ignatius dropped his wooden horse, and Seraphina announced that Bruni was big.

Bruni heard her.

He waved.

The padded beam struck Rauth’s shoulder.

“Still practicing,” Rauth reminded him.

“Sorry.”

Julian retrieved the horse.

“They are learning how to bring everyone back,” he told Carol.

She watched the soldiers retreat behind their shields.

“Going wrong way.”

“Sometimes that is the right way.”

King Edric heard him as the drill ended.

He stopped beside the rail.

“That is apparently today’s lesson.”

Tomas joined us moments later, carrying a cup for his father.

He had left the oversized sword upstairs.

The king accepted the drink and sat on the low wall beside him.

Tomas remained close enough that their shoulders touched.

Nobody called Edric back to the field immediately.

Julian watched them for a moment.

Then turned when Garrick Valewood called his name from the arch.

“Your tutor is looking for you.”

Julian looked down at the four children.

“They’ll want to come.”

“Your tutor anticipated that.”

“How?”

Garrick held up a basket of wooden counting pieces.

Helena frowned.

“Are those large enough that nobody can swallow them?”

Her husband opened the basket.

They were large enough that I could not have swallowed them.

Helena approved.

The request from the southern road reached us that afternoon.

A mill settlement had been cut off from its nearest garrison. Surtr’s soldiers occupied the road above it and were collecting wagons to carry away the stored flour.

The millers had hidden their families in the lower buildings.

They could remain concealed for a while.

They could not remain concealed after the soldiers began searching every storehouse.

Eliza brought the scout’s report to the map room.

Baldr read it first.

Thor stood beside him.

“Your team,” she said.

He looked up.

“With Uriah?”

“Yes.”

I nodded.

King Edric would bring a section of his recovered soldiers. Merova would organize the withdrawal. Istren and the scouts would cover the high ground.

The support wagons would remain outside the occupied road, with healers and a clear route home.

Thor would hold the ready force in Havenreach.

Lexander remained in Concordia.

We would not strip either city to save a mill.

We also would not dismiss the people inside it because their homes occupied a small mark on a map.

Ordel studied the watercourse.

“Stone bridge here. Millrace beneath the eastern building. Do not break either unless you have accounted for everyone below.”

I examined the narrow passage between the storehouses.

“Can we get wagons through that?”

“Empty ones,” Eliza said. “The scout measured it.”

“Loaded?”

“Slowly.”

Baldr moved a marker.

“Then we make them time.”

Before we left, I found Adriana in the receiving hall with her mother.

They were checking the names of families who wished to join the next Westmere group.

Silver brightened around Adriana’s eyes when she saw my armor.

“When?”

“Now.”

“Who leads?”

“Baldr.”

She nodded.

“Listen to him.”

“I intend to.”

Mirelle continued writing.

“Intentions are a promising beginning.”

Adriana kissed me before I could defend myself.

Then she rested her forehead against mine.

“Come back tired and annoyed that someone else gave the orders.”

“That seems achievable.”

“Good.”

Evelyn met me near the courtyard steps.

She checked the fastening beneath my shoulder, though the ice forming over my armor would make the leather strap less important.

I let her.

“There is news about Lethan,” she said.

I looked at her.

“Good?”

“We think so. Mary has found a record that may concern Annet.”

“From the ferry?”

“An old petition copied into Westmere’s district archive. Elara is helping her read the hospice references.”

“Tell me when I return.”

“I will.”

She finished with the strap.

Then took my hand for one more moment before letting go.

By the time we reached the ridge above the mill, the light had begun to fade.

Smoke rose from a cooking fire beside the captured wagons.

The mill wheel still turned.

Water struck the paddles with an ordinary, steady sound that seemed badly out of place beneath armed guards.

Istren crouched behind a fallen trunk.

“Four at the road. Three beside the wagons. Two went into the western storehouse. I cannot see them now.”

Baldr nodded.

“The families?”

“A woman showed a white cloth at the lower window. Then withdrew it.”

King Edric lay beside him, watching the road through a gap in the branches.

Suddenly, he became very still.

An officer emerged from behind the wagons.

He wore a dark red sash over a blackened breastplate.

“I know him,” Edric said.

Nobody asked from where immediately.

The king answered anyway.

“He commanded the men who fired Orenshal’s western granaries.”

His hand closed around the hilt of his sword.

Baldr looked at him.

“Can you hold the mill passage?”

Edric kept watching the officer.

For one breath, I wondered whether he had heard.

Then he drew his hand away from the sword.

“Yes.”

Baldr gave the signal.

I took the road.

Wind came down between the wagons, hard enough to drive the nearest guards back from the storehouse doors. Their alarm horn sounded once before Istren’s arrow split its mouth against the stone wall.

Baldr reached the mill steps with Merova beside him.

King Edric’s soldiers moved through the passage in pairs.

The first door opened from inside.

A child appeared.

Then another.

Then a woman carrying an elderly man with his arms around her neck.

“This way,” Edric called.

His men took the weight from her without stopping the line.

I met the first rush beside the flour wagons.

My hammer struck the stones ahead of the soldiers.

Ice spread across the road in a low ridge, stopping short of the bridge and the millrace. Three men stumbled against it. The others turned toward the open ground, where they could no longer reach the families without passing me.

The officer in the red sash saw the change.

He shouted an order.

Two soldiers ran for the mill wheel carrying clay vessels.

“Fire!” I called.

Istren’s first arrow struck the strap of one man’s bag.

The vessel fell onto the dry road.

The second man reached the water channel.

I sent a narrow bolt into the iron railing beside him.

He recoiled.

His vessel shattered against the outer wall, spilling burning liquid across bare stone.

Wind pressed the flames away from the wooden doors.

Behind me, a wagon began moving.

Slowly.

Too slowly for my liking.

Exactly as Eliza had warned.

Merova walked backward beside it, her shield turned toward the road. The soldiers around her moved with a steadiness I had watched them struggle to find that morning.

One step.

Another.

A man stumbled beneath the weight of a child.

The line closed around him until he recovered.

Nobody opened a gap.

The officer in the red sash turned his horse toward the upper road.

King Edric saw him.

So did I.

For a moment, the king shifted his weight.

Then someone cried out behind him.

A small boy stood frozen in the mill doorway, holding a sack that had split from top to bottom.

Flour covered his boots.

Edric turned away from the horse.

He lifted the boy, abandoned the ruined sack, and carried him toward the wagon.

The officer escaped beyond the bend.

“Last building clear!” Baldr called.

I wanted to pursue.

The thought came sharply enough that frost climbed my wrists.

“Uriah. Back.”

Baldr’s voice.

I took one final look at the upper road.

Then withdrew.

We reached the waiting healers with the families, three rescued wagons, and two soldiers who needed help walking.

The millers had brought what they could carry.

We had saved some flour.

Far more remained behind.

Nobody in the wagons asked us to turn around for it.

King Edric sat beside a healer while she cleaned a cut along his forearm.

The boy from the doorway slept against his uninjured side.

His mother had gone to help settle the other children.

“He escaped,” Edric said when I approached.

“Yes.”

“I could have reached him.”

I sat on the wagon’s tailboard.

“Perhaps.”

The king looked down at the child.

White flour marked the boy’s hair.

“I wanted to.”

“So did I.”

Baldr joined us with the last report from Istren.

No pursuit had crossed the ridge.

Our route remained clear.

Edric looked up at him.

“Was that the correct decision?”

Baldr glanced at the sleeping boy.

“You were ordered to hold the passage. Everyone in it reached us.”

The king let out a slow breath.

The healer tied his bandage.

Then she told both of us to get off the tailboard because she needed it for someone with an injured ankle.

We obeyed.

The family room was still lit when we returned to Greykeep.

Celestine rose when her husband entered.

She looked at the bandage first.

Then his face.

“Well?”

He took her hand.

“We brought them out.”

She leaned against him.

Tomas approached more slowly this time, as though considering whether he was too old to embrace his father in front of other people.

Edric solved the question by drawing him close.

Across the room, Julian sat with his schoolbook open.

Carol and Seraphina slept on a padded bench beside Helena. Ignatius had settled against Io. Garrick occupied Julian’s lap with the firm confidence of someone who had found an excellent chair.

“Did you get your work finished?” I asked Julian.

He showed me the page.

Careful letters.

Several corrections.

A small smear of something sticky.

“That part was Carol.”

“The handwriting?”

“The honey.”

Garrick Valewood took my son while Julian closed the book.

“You can go to bed now,” he told him.

Julian looked toward the other children.

“They’re asleep.”

“We noticed.”

“I didn’t want to move him.”

Garrick settled his grandson against his shoulder.

“Next time, ask me.”

Julian nodded.

Then leaned against the older man for a moment before saying good night.

Mary waited in the adjoining sitting room with Evelyn and Elara.

There was a copy of an old petition on the table.

The original remained in Westmere’s archive. A clerk had found it among requests concerning military pensions and unpaid compensation along the old trade roads.

Most of the writing concerned money.

One paragraph concerned a missing man.

Lethan.

His sister Annet had petitioned for news after the river battle.

The army had recorded him as transferred into the care of the House of Sealed Mercy.

After that, the answers stopped.

“She asked more than once,” Mary said.

Copies of three replies had been attached to the petition.

None gave her permission to visit.

Elara rested her hands in her lap.

“I recognize the office that issued these.”

“The Custodian?” I asked.

“His clerks. A request could remain under consideration for as long as the court wished.”

The last reply was dated eleven years after the first.

I read that twice.

Evelyn watched me.

“We have not shown Lethan yet.”

“Is he awake?”

“Yes. But I want to ask whether he wants the answer tonight.”

“There is more,” Mary said.

She turned over the copy.

A later hand had added a note.

Annet’s daughter had renewed the request after her mother’s death.

Below it appeared the name of the ferry house and the place where an answer should be sent.

The record did not tell us whether anyone lived there now.

It did tell us Annet had lived long enough to have a daughter who knew her brother’s name.

Evelyn folded the copy carefully.

“That is something we can tell him truthfully.”

I remained above the preserved passage while Evelyn went down with Maelin.

Elara accompanied them as far as the outer waiting area. She brought a chair for herself and another for Ilyen.

She had begun insisting that people doing patient work should be permitted to sit.

Nobody had found a convincing argument against it.

Adriana joined me beneath the courtyard lamps.

“Tired?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Annoyed that someone else gave the orders?”

“Briefly.”

She took my hand.

“Then you did as requested.”

I smiled.

Below us, water moved through the restored channels.

The apple tree’s blue leaves stirred in the night air.

When Evelyn returned, she carried the copy against her chest.

“He wanted to hear it,” she said.

“All of it?”

“All that we know.”

She sat between us on the low wall.

“He remembered his sister sewing a red patch onto her husband’s coat. He asked whether the petition mentioned him.”

“Did it?”

“Only her daughter’s name.”

I waited.

Evelyn looked down at the page.

“Then he wrote something.”

She showed us the small note Maelin had made.

She kept asking.

Three words.

I looked toward the dark entrance of the passage.

For more than a century, Lethan had known the river, the failed warning, the ice, and the silence afterward.

Now he knew someone outside had continued saying his name.

“What did he ask us to do?” Adriana said.

“Keep the copy where he can see it when he is awake. Sivren is arranging a holder beyond the clear section.”

“And the ferry?”

“Keep looking.”

I put my arm around Evelyn.

Tomorrow, Mary would send another inquiry.

Steward Vale would see to the sticking door.

Thor would read Baldr’s report and decide what the second team needed to practice next.

Tonight, behind the frost, Lethan had asked for the light to remain on a little longer.

He wanted to read his sister’s words again.