Ch. 118 The Road to the Spring

Chapter 118: The Road to the Spring

The wagon across the spring road had no horses.

That answered one question before we reached it.

Nobody had stopped there by accident.

Six men stood beside the wheels. Four carried spears. One had a crossbow hanging at his hip, pointed toward the ground.

The last wore a green coat and held a folded paper.

Eliza stopped our party beyond reach of the spears.

Belda remained behind us with the other inspector and two local masons.

I looked at the wagon.

Then at the man with the paper.

“We’re here to inspect the channel.”

“The road is closed.”

“Why?”

“Estate order.”

He held out the paper.

Eliza took it.

Read it.

Then passed it to me.

The order concerned unauthorized entry, interference with waterworks, and damage to private land.

It had been signed that morning.

I looked up at the clear water running in a narrow ditch beside the road.

“How long has the road been unsafe?”

The man hesitated.

“I didn’t say unsafe.”

“No,” I said. “You didn’t.”

We sent for the watch commander.

Until he arrived, we waited.

It was an unpleasant wait.

Behind us, people gathered with empty casks and pails.

An old woman sat on a low stone and rested her bucket beside her feet.

One of the estate men looked at her.

Then away.

A young carter pushed through the gathering.

“My mother’s waiting on this.”

“The road is closed,” the man in green repeated.

“For water too?”

“For everyone.”

The carter stared at him.

Then looked at me.

I had been recognized.

That did not make his bucket any fuller.

“How much water have you got at home?” I asked.

“Half a pot.”

I looked toward the spring.

I could hear it beyond the bend.

The watch commander arrived with four constables and Councillor Teren.

She had brought the council’s inspection order.

The man in green read it.

Then read his own again.

“This is estate land.”

“The council has ordered access to the public waterworks,” Teren said.

“Lord Carven disputes that description.”

“He may dispute it at the council house. Move the wagon.”

The man folded the papers carefully.

“I cannot.”

“Will not?” she asked.

His jaw tightened.

“I have my instructions.”

The watch commander stepped forward.

“Then stand aside while we move it.”

The crossbowman’s hand shifted toward his weapon.

Eliza saw.

“Leave it.”

Her voice cut across the road.

He froze.

For one breath, everything seemed balanced on the movement of his fingers.

Then he took his hand away.

I approached the wagon.

“Anyone beneath it?” I asked.

Nobody answered.

I looked myself.

Empty.

The wheels had been chained.

I lifted the whole thing just clear of the ground.

One of the estate men stumbled backward.

The wagon remained level.

No broken axle.

No splintered timber.

I moved it into the broad verge beside the road and lowered it slowly.

The chains settled with a little clink.

Belda watched.

“Useful.”

I stepped away.

The watch commander pointed his men forward.

Two remained beside the wagon.

The others accompanied us uphill.

Behind us, the carter took hold of his empty handcart.

“Can we come?”

Teren looked at the estate men.

Then at him.

“Yes.”

The spring emerged beneath a shelf of pale rock.

Someone had built a stone basin around it generations earlier.

From there, water flowed into three channels.

One led toward the upper farms.

One supplied the filling place beside the road.

The third disappeared beneath an iron cover.

Belda knelt beside it.

“Lower village?”

One of the local masons nodded.

His name was Orren.

He had worked with Jerrit’s uncle.

“That’s the old line.”

Belda examined the cover.

Then the fresh mortar around it.

“How recently was this opened?”

Orren frowned.

“Not while I was here.”

The estate man who had followed us said nothing.

Teren looked at him.

“Do you know?”

“No.”

His answer came too quickly.

Belda stood.

“We’ll need that cover lifted.”

It was heavier than it looked.

I raised it while Belda and the younger inspector guided the corners away from the stone.

Beneath it lay a shallow chamber.

Three sluices.

Two old.

One new.

The new board had been fitted across the lower village’s channel.

Water pressed against it.

A narrow opening at the bottom allowed a thin stream through.

Belda looked down for a long time.

Then she turned toward Orren.

“Was this here before the storm?”

“No.”

“After the first repairs?”

“I never saw it.”

The watch commander called one of his constables closer.

Teren took out her notebook.

I looked at the board.

Fresh wood.

Sound fittings.

Someone had found time and materials for this.

“There may be a reason,” the estate man said.

We all turned toward him.

He swallowed.

“To protect the damaged cistern.”

Belda looked back into the chamber.

“There may.”

I could feel my anger waiting for her to finish.

She pointed downhill.

“If the lower wall is unsound, sending the full flow could make it worse.”

The man’s shoulders eased.

Too soon.

“But whoever fitted this should have recorded it,” she continued. “And the people repairing the cistern should have been told.”

Teren faced him.

“Who ordered the work?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then you will come with the captain and help us find someone who does.”

We did not pull the board out.

Belda sent the younger inspector downhill with Orren.

They would check the channel and arrange a temporary discharge clear of the damaged wall.

While they worked, the public filling basin remained open.

Casks rolled into place.

Pails passed from hand to hand.

The carter filled his first.

Then helped the old woman lift hers.

I stood beside the basin for a while.

The water was clear.

Cold.

Enough flowed past to make the waiting below seem even worse.

Teren watched the line.

“I should have come here sooner.”

I looked at her.

“Yes.”

She nodded once.

Then went to speak with the people waiting.

The inspector returned after midday.

The old channel was blocked in two places with storm debris.

The open section above the cistern was sound.

They had marked a route to divert the first dirty flow away from the storage basin.

Belda listened.

Asked three questions.

Then nodded.

“We can begin.”

The sluice had swollen tight in its guides.

I could have torn it free.

Instead, I held the pressure back from the board while the masons loosened it.

Water gathered against my working.

It pressed steadily, without anger or intention.

That made no difference to the weight.

Belda looked at my hand.

“Can you hold that while we reset the stop?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough if you don’t decide to rebuild the mountain.”

She glanced at me.

Then snorted.

“Eleanor’s been teaching you.”

They raised the board a little.

Fixed a new stop.

Checked the lower opening.

Belda stepped away.

“Slowly.”

I eased my hold.

Water entered the channel.

At first, it rushed.

I caught the movement and reduced it.

A narrower flow passed beneath the board.

Belda crouched beside the stone.

“Hold there.”

I held.

Downhill, someone called.

Then another voice answered farther away.

The first water had reached the open channel.

Brown with disturbed sediment.

I remembered Aurelia’s garden.

The mud rising when I had pulled too sharply.

This time, I waited.

Let the flow settle.

Let the people downstream tell us what they saw.

By late afternoon, water ran past the lower village again.

It did not yet fill the main cistern.

That would require work we could not finish in a day.

But the temporary channel fed a covered collection trough, where Bera and the local workers could manage what was drawn and used.

The first containers were set aside while the line cleared.

Nobody was permitted to rush simply because the water had arrived.

Belda enforced this with an expression that required very little support from the watch.

I sat on a stone beside the road.

My shoulders ached.

My hands felt oddly empty.

Melody offered me bread.

“Eat before a goddess has to tell you.”

I accepted it.

“Does everyone know about that?”

“Everyone who needs to.”

“That seems broad.”

She sat beside me.

Below us, the carter returned with another empty cask.

This time, he did not have to climb to the spring.

The explanation for the sluice arrived before evening.

It came from a carpenter employed by the estate.

He brought a copy of his work order.

The board had been fitted six weeks earlier.

The stated purpose was to reduce flow while repairs proceeded below.

No repair crew had been assigned afterward.

The same order directed more water toward the estate’s storage tanks.

Teren read it in the yard outside Bera’s rooms.

Then asked the carpenter whether he would repeat his account before the council.

He looked toward the road.

“Will Carven be there?”

“Yes.”

The carpenter rubbed his palms against his trousers.

Then nodded.

“I fitted what they paid me to fit.”

“You can tell them that.”

Carven came to the council house with fewer attendants than before.

I did not attend the whole session.

The seven needed to board while the harbor was calm.

Lio had been cleared to travel.

Tessa wanted to make certain her daughter’s address had been copied correctly into the payment agreement.

Dorran needed decisions about the remaining passenger places.

For once, I had no difficulty choosing where to be.

I stood at the foot of the gangplank while Annet came down the quay with her children.

Fara stopped beside me.

She looked toward the ship.

Then back up the road.

“Now?”

“Now.”

Eliza stood halfway up the gangplank.

She held out her hand.

Fara took it.

Dain followed with the family’s bundle.

Then Merris.

Olan.

Tessa.

The clerk’s copy of her agreement was folded inside her coat.

I counted them aboard.

Not because they had become a number again.

Because I wanted the list to match the people in front of me.

Seven.

Dorran met my eyes from the deck.

I nodded.

His shoulders eased.

Behind him, Annet sat beneath a stretched canvas with Lio beside her.

Fara remained standing at the rail.

She watched until the gangplank had been lifted for the night.

Only then did she sit down.

Teren found me aboard after supper.

The council had suspended Carven from his seat while the confinement orders and diversion of water were investigated.

The estate’s waterworks were under temporary council supervision.

His stores would be inventoried.

Claims for unpaid wages and wrongfully collected charges would be heard separately.

“He remains at his house under watch,” she said.

“Will he stay there?”

“The harbor captain has his written order. The road patrols have copies.”

I nodded.

She looked tired.

“You are leaving?”

“As soon as we agree how the repair party can work safely.”

“They’ll have access. Local workers will be paid from the emergency fund. We’ve appointed two village representatives to oversee the supplies.”

“Put it in writing for Belda.”

“I have.”

She handed me the paper.

I read it beneath the deck lamp.

Then passed it to Eliza.

Later, I walked ashore one last time.

The lower village was quieter.

People had taken their water home.

Tools lay stacked beside the cistern beneath a borrowed canvas.

Belda stood with Orren, arguing gently about the best place to store stone.

She saw me.

“We’ll send measurements with the next vessel.”

“Do you have enough people?”

“For the first work. We’ll need more lining material.”

“It’ll come.”

She nodded.

Then held out Jerrit’s plumb weight.

“Give him that.”

“Don’t you need it?”

“I brought my own. Tell him his drawing was close.”

I took the little weight.

The cord was damp.

Below the unfinished wall, water moved through the temporary channel.

I listened for a while.

Then went back to the ship.

In the cabin, I opened the letter I was writing to Evelyn.

There was more to add.

The spring.

The council.

The seven aboard.

I wrote those things first.

Then, beneath them:

We are preparing to come home.

I stopped.

Read it.

For days, home had felt like a place beyond whatever I still needed to finish.

Now Dorran was checking the weather.

Tamsin was arranging the order of departure.

Eliza had begun counting people and supplies for the return.

I added one more line.

I have remembered my promise.

Then I folded the letter and went on deck.

Above the dark roofs of Veylan, the stars had begun to appear.