Chapter 365 - 365: The Cover

The well cover was lying in the grass like someone had gotten tired of it.

Not pried.

Lifted and set aside, nails still in the wood, the dirt around the rim smoothed by hands that had not been in a hurry.

Jorn was on the bench.

He had done what he was told.

That was the problem.

"I didn't stand," he said, as soon as the horse came into the yard.

His voice had too many edges for one man.

"I didn't go to the trees. I didn't say her name. I sat here and held that damned toy until my fingers went numb, and then the cover moved by itself. I watched it. I thought if I watched it, it would be ashamed and stop."

Rigel dropped off the horse and did not go to the rim yet.

The packet in his coat had gone still, which was worse than the slamming.

"Where is she."

Jorn laughed once, helpless.

"If I knew that I wouldn't be asking you to look first. She called me from the hole. Not 'Jorn.' The name she used when we were new in the house and she still thought I'd live long enough to be embarrassed by it. I didn't answer. So she started answering me instead. She's down there talking like she's on the other side of a door, waiting for me to stop being stubborn."

A woman's voice rose from the well, mild, a little hoarse from calling.

"Jorn. The lamp's gone out. If you leave the cover off the damp will get into the flour again. You hate that."

Jorn's hands shook on his knees.

"That's her. That's exactly her. She used to say the flour thing when she wanted me to come in without making it a fight."

Rigel walked to the rim.

The water, if there was water, was too far down to see.

The smell was not well-water.

Flour after rain.

Sweet film.

"If you know the lamp is out," he said toward the hole, "say what you want from me. Not from him."

A pause, like someone deciding whether manners were useful.

"The scrap," the voice said.

Still hers.

Almost.

"You woke it and then you ran around hanging it on other people like a bell. Put it in the water. We'll send the boy back before the post house. We'll even leave this man on his bench. He did so well. It's cruel to keep testing him."

Jorn shut his eyes.

"Don't. If you put anything in there I will hear her thank you, and I will stand up. I can feel it already. The standing is the part I won't come back from."

Rigel crouched, coat closed over the packet.

"You hear me, whatever you are. I don't buy the same horse twice. You offered the boy at the crack. You offered the Count in the hall. Now you're offering a watchman and a wife I never met. Next you'll offer me weather."

The well made a small sound.

Not quite a laugh.

"Then take the cover and nail it. Leave him. Ride after the craftsman. She talks too much to a pony and the letter likes company. You split again. You always split. It makes the roads easier."

From the post road, distant, a shout.

Erna.

Not a scream.

Anger with a plan still in it.

Rigel stood.

"Jorn. Look at me. Not the hole."

It took the man a second.

He managed it.

"If I nail this, she keeps talking. You will hear her tonight and tomorrow. If you go down, I am not coming after you. I need you on this bench more than I need you brave. Do you understand that as yourself, or as the part that's tired of sitting."

Jorn swallowed.

"As myself. I think. The tired part wants the lamp. The rest of me wants you to stop asking questions that make the sitting harder."

"Good."

Rigel dragged the cover back onto the rim.

The nails were bent, useless.

He put his boot on the wood and shoved a fence stone onto the edge, then another.

Not pretty.

Heavy.

The voice under the wood did not rise.

It went quiet in a way that felt like a smile being put away for later.

Jorn let out a breath that shook him.

"If she starts on the flour again I will put my hands under my legs. That's all I've got."

"That's enough for an hour."

Rigel was already back on the horse.

The packet woke as he turned toward the road, pulling forward now, single-minded, as if the well had lost the argument and the rider had not.

He found Erna half a mile on, pony lathered, blocking the track with the stubbornness she used on estimates.

A gelding stood beyond her.

Empty saddle.

Reins down.

No boy.

Erna pointed into the scrub with her chin, talking fast because stopping would let the wrong thought in.

"He was on it. I saw his back, I saw the size, I even shouted like an idiot for him to halt on Count Blade's order, and he did halt. That was the mistake. He halted and looked at me like a child who's been caught, and then his mouth opened and a second thing asked whether my tool bag still had the clasp you undid. I didn't answer. I should have grabbed him then. I kicked the pony forward instead and he was already off the far side, on his feet, running like he weighs nothing. The horse stayed. Horses have limits. That didn't."

Rigel looked at the empty saddle, then at the broken brush.

"Did he look back."

"Once. And he had the nerve to apologize. Said he didn't want to scare me, he only needed the road. Then he called me by my name, the one I didn't give him at the castle. After that I stopped pretending it was a lost kid on an errand."

The packet beat twice, short.

Not toward the brush.

Toward the capital road, the long one, the one that eventually bent toward Gousel land if a rider did not sleep.

Erna saw his face change.

"Don't you leave me on this track with a polite horse and a story. I already did the hole. I already did the bag. If that thing is walking on two legs toward your house, you can say so in a full sentence like a person."

Rigel wiped his mouth.

The bleed had started again, thinner.

"It doesn't need to reach the house to use the stitch. It needs someone at the house who already stops when she's told. That's the road. The boy is just the part we can still see."

Erna stared at him for a second, then cursed in a way that had nothing to do with gold coins.

"Then what are we doing on this road."

"Making sure the visible part doesn't also take a gate."

He caught the gelding's reins and turned both animals.

"We go back. Cynthia has the body that wanted to be caught. Mesterica can ride. If the lining in Blade still knows the post schedule, we use it. If it lies, we use the fact that it likes to lie about distances."

They were moving before she finished swearing.

Behind them the empty stretch of scrub stayed empty.

No child-shape.

Only the gelding's dropped sweat in the dust, and far under it, if a person was stupid enough to listen, a well-cover stone settling as something tested the weight from below, patient now that the maker had chosen speed over the hole.