Ch. 117 The Price Already Paid

Chapter 117: The Price Already Paid

Lord Carven arrived after everyone else had been seated.

Nobody stood until one of his own men pulled out a chair.

Then two councillors began to rise, thought better of it, and settled awkwardly back into place.

Carven noticed.

He was a narrow man with carefully brushed silver hair and a coat too warm for the afternoon. He removed his gloves finger by finger while looking around the room.

His gaze stopped on me.

“King Uriah.”

“Lord Carven.”

“I had expected the courtesy of a visit.”

“I went to the holding house.”

“So I understand.”

He laid his gloves on the table.

Councillor Teren rang a little brass bell.

The room quieted.

Behind us, people filled the benches. Dain sat near the aisle with his injured leg stretched carefully beneath the seat.

Annet had remained with the children.

I had told her she did not need to bring them here.

She had thanked me so quickly that I wished I had said it sooner.

The island council had seven members.

Carven occupied one of the places.

Teren began by asking him to withdraw from decisions concerning his own estate.

He objected.

A younger councillor beside the window opened a book and read the relevant passage.

Apparently someone had anticipated precisely this sort of afternoon.

Carven listened with his mouth pressed flat.

Then moved to the chair beside his steward.

Rusk did not look pleased to have company.

The clerk placed the estate accounts on the table.

Beside them lay the receipts Dain had carried through the holding-house door.

The little slips looked very small against the bound ledger.

Teren turned toward Dain.

“Would you tell us what you paid?”

He did.

Slowly at first.

Then with more certainty as the clerk laid out the dates.

Grain.

Water.

Two days’ wages credited against a delivery.

A payment made by Annet before the first attempted sailing.

The estate ledger acknowledged the purchases.

It acknowledged almost none of the payments.

Rusk leaned forward.

“The receipts would ordinarily have been reconciled at the end of the accounting period.”

“When was that?” Teren asked.

“The last day of the month.”

“And when were these people detained?”

He did not answer.

The clerk supplied the date.

Eight days afterward.

A woman on the rear bench made a sharp sound.

The watch commander turned toward her.

She quieted.

Carven looked at his steward.

“Clearly there has been a delay.”

Dain’s hand closed around the edge of his chair.

“My sister’s boy slept on the floor.”

Rusk spread his hands.

“The room contained bedding.”

“Two pallets,” Dain said. “For seven.”

The steward looked toward the council.

“Temporary accommodation cannot be expected to—”

“Were they free to leave it?” Teren asked.

“They were awaiting settlement.”

“Were they free to leave?”

Rusk glanced at Carven.

“No.”

The clerk wrote it down.

I watched the pen move.

Then Carven spoke.

“The estate advanced essential supplies during an emergency. If every household departs without meeting its obligations, there will be nothing left to provide for those who remain.”

He looked toward the benches as he said it.

Some people lowered their eyes.

Others watched him steadily.

It was a reasonable concern laid carefully over something ugly.

I had heard that done before.

Teren asked the clerk to finish the calculation.

He worked in silence.

Then checked it again with the younger councillor.

The result passed along the table.

One councillor frowned.

Another put on spectacles.

Finally, Teren read it aloud.

The receipts covered the family’s recorded purchases.

With the wages properly credited, the estate owed them a small balance.

Dain stared at her.

“What?”

She repeated it.

He looked down at his hands.

For several moments, he seemed unable to find anything to do with them.

Carven turned toward Rusk.

The steward’s face had become very pale.

“There may be other charges.”

“Produce them,” Teren said.

“I would need access to—”

“You have the ledger you used to detain them.”

He fell silent.

That settled one account.

It did not settle the other three.

Merris had made a payment the estate clerk remembered but had failed to enter.

Olan’s account included a charge copied twice.

Tessa still owed money.

The amount was modest.

She stood when her name was called, smoothing the front of her skirt.

“I said I would pay it.”

Carven looked toward her.

“And yet you attempted to leave.”

“My daughter has work for me on the mainland.”

“Which puts you beyond the estate’s reach.”

Tessa swallowed.

Then she said, “It would put wages in my hand.”

I looked at Carven.

He had stopped seeing her the moment she stood.

I could tell.

He was already arranging the next argument.

“I’ll pay it,” someone said from the benches.

Tessa turned sharply.

“No.”

The speaker was an older man with a fisherman’s cap in his lap.

He began to protest.

She shook her head.

“I owe it. I can pay it. I need to be allowed to work somewhere that pays me.”

The room grew quiet.

Teren leaned toward the clerk.

They spoke briefly.

Then she looked at Tessa.

“Will you leave an address for correspondence?”

“Yes.”

“And agree to a payment schedule based on the verified amount?”

“Yes.”

Carven began, “The estate has not agreed—”

“The council will hear your objection,” Teren said. “It will not return this woman to a locked room while doing so.”

Eliza, standing beside the door, shifted her weight.

That was all.

Carven noticed anyway.

The emergency resolution was brought out next.

I had expected something long.

It occupied less than a page.

The council had authorized the purchase and distribution of supplies, repairs to public water storage, and temporary arrangements for recovering reasonable costs.

There was nothing about confinement.

Nothing about preventing departure.

Nothing that placed children under an estate’s labor authority.

One councillor rubbed his forehead.

“We expected the households to contribute.”

Teren looked at him.

“We should have written what that meant.”

Carven’s chair scraped.

“You cannot administer an emergency without discretion.”

“No,” she said. “But you can ask where the discretion has taken people.”

Her gaze moved toward the open doors.

Beyond them, the harbor lay bright beneath the afternoon sun.

When Teren asked whether I wished to speak, I stood.

The room watched me.

I had prepared several things on the walk up.

Most of them no longer seemed necessary.

“The seven are under our protection while they arrange their departure,” I said. “They will not be taken back to the holding house.”

Carven’s expression hardened.

“You are a guest on this island.”

“Yes.”

“Then you should remember whose authority governs it.”

I looked around the council table.

“I am waiting to see it exercised.”

Nobody moved.

I continued.

“There are supplies aboard our ships. There are people ready to inspect the cisterns. We came prepared to help. But any repair agreement must name who will have access to the water afterward.”

The younger councillor nodded slowly.

Carven did not.

I sat.

Teren rang the bell again.

This time, the council began making decisions.

By the end of the hearing, the departure certificates had been suspended.

Private confinement under the emergency resolution was prohibited explicitly.

The watch would inspect the other estate buildings used to hold laborers and bring any occupants before the council’s appointed officers.

Two clerks would review the disputed accounts.

One would be chosen by the lower village.

Rusk was required to remain available for questioning.

So was the guard who had struck Dain and raised his baton in the yard.

Carven’s authority to administer the lower village’s emergency supplies was suspended while the accounts were examined.

He objected to every part.

The objections were recorded.

The decisions remained.

Outside, Dain stood beneath the council-house steps.

He had the receipts back.

He had asked for them.

The clerk had made copies.

I stopped beside him.

“How is your leg?”

“Sore.”

“Bera will want to see it again.”

“I know.”

He looked down at the little bundle of paper.

Then up at me.

“They owed us.”

“Yes.”

“My sister kept saying we must have forgotten something.”

I did not answer immediately.

Across the square, a cart driver was arguing with someone about where to unload water barrels.

Dain watched them for a moment.

Then tucked the receipts inside his coat.

“I should tell her.”

“I’ll walk with you.”

Annet listened from beside her son’s bed.

When Dain told her the result, she asked him to repeat it.

Then she sat down.

Fara stood near the window.

“Can we go on the ship?”

“Yes,” her mother said.

She looked at me.

“Can we?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“As soon as Bera says Lio can travel and Captain Dorran is ready.”

Fara went to the corner where their clothes had been folded.

She began packing.

Her mother watched her.

Then put a hand over her mouth.

I left Dain beside her and stepped outside.

Eliza found me in the little yard behind Bera’s rooms.

“The watch has opened another building.”

I straightened.

“How many?”

“Eleven people. Adults. Mostly men.”

“Were they locked in?”

“At night. The captain is taking their statements.”

I looked toward the hill.

“How many buildings are there?”

“He’s finding out.”

There was more.

I could see it in her face.

“Carven has sent riders to his upper estate.”

“For what?”

“We don’t know.”

I nodded.

“Keep our people together. Nobody inspects the spring road alone.”

“Already arranged.”

She paused.

“And you?”

I looked at her.

“Will do the same.”

“Thank you.”

It sounded less like courtesy than relief.

I slept aboard Dorran’s ship that night.

The cabin seemed smaller after a day on land.

I sat on the narrow berth and unfastened my coat.

Neri’s letter remained inside it.

I had not yet delivered it.

The thought struck harder than it should have.

All day, I had been moving from one urgent thing to another.

A child’s aunt still waited somewhere on the island with a drawing beside a cup.

I placed the letter on the table where I would see it in the morning.

Then I lay down.

The ship creaked.

Water moved against the hull.

There were no little sounds from the adjoining room.

No Evelyn turning beside me.

I reached across the empty berth before remembering where I was.

Aurelia came in a dream of the garden room.

Only she was there.

I stood near the table for a moment.

“Can you reach Evelyn?”

“She has her own sleep tonight.”

I nodded.

Aurelia drew out a chair.

I sat.

For a while, I told her about the hearing.

Not because she could change the decisions.

Because I wanted to say it to someone who knew my wife, my children, the room I wished I were in.

When I finished, Aurelia asked, “Did you eat?”

I looked at her.

She waited.

“Some bread.”

“Then when you wake, begin there.”

I laughed once, tiredly.

“You sound like Helena.”

“I expect we would agree on several things.”

She rested her hand over mine.

I closed my eyes.

For a little while, I let myself miss home.

In the morning, I ate before leaving the ship.

Melody watched this with suspicion.

“Who spoke to you?”

“Aurelia.”

“Good. I was preparing something considerably less gentle.”

We went to find Neri’s aunt with Bera’s directions.

Her name was Ressa.

She lived beside a narrow lane above the lower village, in a house with three windows and a tree whose leaves shifted in the morning wind.

I recognized it before we reached the door.

The drawing had been accurate.

Ressa answered with flour on one sleeve.

I introduced myself.

Then took out the letter.

Her face changed at Neri’s name.

She invited us inside.

The drawing stood on a shelf.

Beside a blue cup.

I looked at both while Ressa read.

She smiled.

Then cried a little.

Then laughed at something near the end.

I waited with my hands around the cup of water she had given me.

Melody sat beside the door.

When Ressa finished, she pressed the letter flat on the table.

“Is Evin truly better?”

“Yes.”

“And Rona?”

“Worried about you.”

Ressa nodded.

“That sounds like her.”

She read the page again.

Then went to fetch paper.

“I’ll be quick.”

“Take your time,” I said.

So she did.

Eleanor’s two inspectors met us at the lower cistern before midday.

They had spent the morning with local masons.

The damaged wall was worse than Jerrit’s drawing suggested in one place.

Better in another.

The older inspector, a dwarf named Belda, showed me the broken lining.

“We can work with this.”

“How long?”

“To make it sound? Weeks. To stop losing so much through this section? Less.”

“And filling it?”

She pointed uphill.

“That depends on the old channel.”

I followed her gesture.

Beyond the roofs, the spring road climbed between stone walls.

A wagon stood across it.

Men in Carven’s green waited beside the wheels.

Belda handed me Jerrit’s plumb weight.

“We’ll need to get up there first.”

I closed my hand around the cord.

Then looked toward Eliza.

She was already watching the road.