Ch. 115 The Empty places

Chapter 115: The Empty Places

Dorran returned with twenty-three passengers.

He had room for thirty.

I learned both numbers before I saw the ship.

Tamsin’s runner found us in the lower garden, where Evelyn was holding Garrick beneath the shade of the pear trees.

“Everyone aboard is safe,” the young man said.

I thanked him for beginning there.

Then he handed me the note.

Arwen had returned.

So had her apprentice.

The sick were being brought ashore.

Twenty-three passengers.

Seven places unused.

Evelyn watched my face as I read.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know yet.”

She passed Garrick to Helena, who sat beside her with Carol.

“I’ll come.”

Arwen descended the gangplank carrying her own bag.

Nessa waited at the bottom.

The two women looked at each other.

“Well?” Nessa asked.

“The sea is badly arranged.”

“I’ve heard.”

“And your apprentice argues.”

“Did she argue correctly?”

“Twice.”

The young woman behind Arwen tried not to smile.

Nessa took the heavier bag from her.

“Good.”

Only after that did Arwen look at me.

“We need somewhere quiet.”

“There’s a room ready.”

“And tea.”

“Yes.”

She glanced toward the people waiting on deck.

“After them.”

We spent the next hour helping people disembark.

There were families.

Two men traveling together.

An elderly woman who refused a chair until she realized accepting it would make everyone stop asking.

A boy came down carrying a covered basket.

Something inside moved.

I looked at Arwen.

She looked at me.

“Not mine.”

It was a rabbit.

The boy had been prepared to argue for it.

Beatrice, who had come to inspect the supplies remaining aboard, asked whether he had brought food for it.

He opened a little sack.

She nodded.

“Keep it out of the grain.”

The argument ended before it began.

Dorran joined us in the harbor office after the last passenger reached the lodging house.

He placed two papers on the table.

The first bore the harbor clerk’s seal.

The second had been signed by the estate steward.

I read the first.

Then the second.

Evelyn sat beside me.

Mary began copying the names.

“Seven people refused permission to board,” Dorran said.

“Because of debts?”

“Claimed obligations. That was the phrase.”

“Were they arrested?”

“Taken off the quay.”

I looked up.

“By whom?”

“Estate men. Four of them.”

Arwen set down her cup.

“Two of those refused were children.”

They had arrived together.

A mother.

Her two children.

Her brother.

Three neighbors.

Dorran had already entered their names on the passenger list when the estate men appeared.

The mother had receipts.

The steward’s man would not examine them.

“He said the matter had to be settled at the estate office,” Dorran told us.

“Did you offer to take them there?” Evelyn asked.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He said I had no standing to interfere.”

The captain rubbed a hand over his face.

“I asked for the order in writing. That bought some time.”

“How much?”

“Enough for Arwen to fetch the healer she’d been working with. Enough for witnesses to gather.”

“Did anyone resist?”

“The brother did.”

Dorran looked at me.

“He tried to stay beside his sister. They struck him.”

The room went quiet.

Arwen had examined the man before they took him away.

A split lip.

A bruised cheek.

He had been able to walk.

She had insisted on writing down his name and the names of the people collecting him.

“One gave his,” she said. “The others discovered urgent work elsewhere.”

“Where were the seven taken?”

“The estate holding house above the grain yard.”

“Did you see them enter?”

“The local healer followed. She returned to tell us.”

I looked at the papers again.

Seven names.

Two small marks beside the children’s ages.

Dorran leaned forward.

“I could have started a fight on the quay.”

I met his eyes.

“Yes.”

“There were twenty-three people already aboard. Some had relatives standing beside those men.”

He stopped.

I put the papers down.

“You brought them here safely.”

His jaw tightened.

“I left seven.”

“I know.”

There was nothing I could say that would make the empty places smaller.

The island council had received our request.

That was the next piece of news.

Dorran had delivered it himself before departure.

A council officer had accepted the papers and promised they would be considered at the next sitting.

“When?” Mary asked.

“Six days from then.”

Arwen’s mouth hardened.

“The children had already been taken.”

“Did the officer know?”

“Yes.”

“Did he do anything?”

“He gave us a receipt.”

I leaned back.

Outside the office, a cart rattled over the quay stones.

Evelyn read the names once more.

Then she looked at Tamsin.

“How quickly can a vessel be ready?”

Everyone turned toward her.

My wife did not look away.

“We’ve asked. We’ve sent supplies. We’ve given them the opportunity to explain whose authority this is.”

Mary rested her pen.

Evelyn touched the paper.

“Now we know where those people are.”

I looked at her.

She met my eyes.

“We should go.”

Tamsin answered before I could.

“Dorran’s ship needs water, provisions, and a crew willing to turn around.”

The captain sat straighter.

“I’ll ask them.”

“A second vessel?” Eliza said from beside the door.

Tamsin nodded slowly.

“For supplies and room on the return. I know who to speak with.”

I turned toward Mary.

“Send word to Greykeep. A council meeting this afternoon.”

Then I looked back at Dorran.

“We’ll begin with the seven.”

We did not decide the rest in the harbor office.

The sea lay between us and Veylan.

So did a great deal we still did not know.

At Greykeep, Eliza laid out the practical questions.

The harbor approaches.

The estate road.

The number of guards.

Where the people released from the holding house could go.

How to leave if the island council refused to act.

I answered what I could.

Tamsin answered more.

Arwen supplied a drawing of the grain yard made by her apprentice.

The young woman had marked the holding house, the public road, and the healer’s rooms.

Eliza studied it.

“Who knows we have this?”

“The people who watched her draw it,” Arwen said. “She sat in the street.”

That helped.

We were not planning to slip into a place nobody knew about.

We were preparing to ask for seven named people at a known door.

This time, I intended to be there for the answer.

Eleanor would send two people to inspect the cisterns.

Only once they could work freely.

Beatrice arranged food and ordinary repair materials.

Cael prepared medical supplies.

Mary drafted a letter to the island council informing them of our arrival and requiring an immediate meeting concerning the detention of the seven.

Garrick read it.

Then passed it back.

“Remove this sentence.”

I looked at the line.

It described what I thought of Lord Carven’s conduct.

Garrick met my eyes.

“They’ll understand that when they see you.”

Mary removed it.

The rest remained.

After council, Evelyn and I went upstairs.

Neither of us spoke until we reached our rooms.

Then she closed the door.

“I want to come.”

I nodded.

“I know.”

“The repairs need someone who can speak for us. So do the families. This concerns more than what you can make the guards stop doing.”

“Yes.”

She watched me.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

For a while, I looked toward the nursery door.

“I don’t want both of us away from them.”

Evelyn’s expression changed.

She sat beside me.

“Neither do I.”

There it was.

No easy answer waiting behind the argument.

Only our children in the next room, and other people’s children on an island.

We talked for a long time.

About the crossing.

About how long we might be gone.

About the possibility that neither of us would be able to return quickly if something changed.

Evelyn wanted to go because she could help.

I wanted her there because she would help me think.

Both were true.

So was the sound of Garrick waking in the nursery.

My wife rose first.

She brought him back and sat beside me while he settled against her.

After a while, she said, “I’ll stay.”

I turned toward her.

“This time,” she added.

I nodded.

“Greykeep still needs decisions. The families already here need somewhere to begin. And you need to know you can send people home to us.”

I rested my hand against our son’s back.

“Thank you.”

She looked down at Garrick.

“I’m not pleased about it.”

“I know.”

Then she looked at me.

“You will listen to Eliza.”

“Yes.”

“And Tamsin at sea.”

“Yes.”

“And if you discover you can’t finish everything in one visit, you will come back anyway.”

That promise took longer.

I made it.

Aurelia met us in the courtyard that night.

She listened while we explained.

The seven.

The holding house.

The voyage.

Then she stood.

“Show me the shield you use while walking.”

I obeyed.

She examined it without touching.

Evelyn moved behind me, and we crossed toward the arch as we had practiced.

Our teacher walked beside us.

“Again.”

We returned.

“Now let her leave your protection without dropping the whole working.”

I opened a gap.

Too wide.

Aurelia shook her head.

I narrowed it.

Evelyn stepped through.

The rest held.

“Again.”

There was no playfulness in the lesson.

But there was no panic either.

We worked until the movement became familiar.

Until I could open the shield for someone I was protecting and close it again without rebuilding everything around them.

Then Aurelia asked me to sit.

“You are stronger than when you first came here,” she said.

I looked at my hands.

“I still feel as though there should be more I can do.”

“There will be.”

“How much more?”

“I cannot give you the end of your life before you have lived it.”

I smiled faintly.

She took my hand.

“For this journey, use what you know. Let the others do what they know.”

Beside me, Evelyn leaned forward.

“And bring him back with enough sense left to admit when he needed help.”

Aurelia looked at her.

“I’m afraid that part remains your work.”

My wife laughed.

I was grateful to hear it.

The crew agreed to sail.

Dorran told us the following morning.

A second captain agreed to carry supplies and returning passengers, with Tamsin responsible for coordinating the two ships.

Eliza chose a small guard party.

Melody insisted on being among them.

“I know,” I said, before she could begin explaining.

She stopped.

Then narrowed her eyes.

“You’ve become inconveniently reasonable.”

“Only for the morning.”

“That’s reassuring.”

By evening, the loading lists were ready.

Mary made three copies of the seven names.

One for me.

One for Eliza.

One to remain in Greykeep.

Before handing mine over, she read each name aloud.

I repeated them.

I did not want to arrive thinking only of a number.

Jerrit found me while I was checking my coat.

He stood in the doorway with his daughter beside him.

Neri held a folded paper.

“For my aunt,” she said.

I accepted it.

Then Jerrit handed me something heavier.

A mason’s plumb weight on a length of cord.

“The wall above the lower stair leans,” he said. “I told Eleanor’s people. They should check it before taking anyone beneath it.”

“I’ll make sure.”

He nodded.

For a moment, he looked as though there was more.

Then he said, “Come back.”

Neri moved closer to him.

I put her letter inside my coat.

“I intend to.”

We left two mornings later.

I rose before the household bells.

Evelyn was already awake.

We dressed quietly.

Then stood together in the nursery.

Carol slept with one hand open beside her head.

Garrick stirred when I touched the edge of his cradle.

I bent and kissed him.

Then our daughter.

I wanted them to wake.

I wanted them to keep sleeping.

Neither desire seemed especially fair.

Behind me, Evelyn took a slow breath.

I turned and held her.

For a while, she gripped the back of my coat.

Then she drew away far enough to look at me.

“You have the letters?”

“Yes.”

“The names?”

“Yes.”

She pressed her palm against my chest.

“Then go and ask for them.”

At Orselle, the tide had begun to turn.

The two ships waited beyond the busy edge of the quay.

Tamsin stood by the gangplank.

Eliza had already checked the party.

Melody took one look at my face and, for once, said nothing.

Evelyn had come through the gate to see us off.

She kissed me beside the mooring post.

Then stepped back.

I went aboard.

The ropes came in.

Slowly, the quay began to move away.

My wife stood beside Mary until I could no longer distinguish their faces.

I kept watching anyway.

Only when the ship turned toward the harbor mouth did I take the folded list from my coat.

Seven names.

I read the first one.

Then the next.