Ch. 165 The Long Room

Chapter 165: The Long Room

Abigail came to council carrying a stool.

Mary watched her put it beside the table.

“Is that part of your report?”

“Yes.”

One leg was shorter than the others.

Abigail sat on it.

The stool rocked.

She stood again.

“I have thirty-one children in a room with places for twenty-four. Seven are using whatever we can borrow.”

I looked at the stool.

“Where did that come from?”

“The kitchen passage.”

Beatrice frowned.

“I wondered where it had gone.”

“May I keep it?”

“Please.”

Abigail folded her arms.

“That resolves one of my problems.”

The cold had changed the school.

Lessons once held beneath the covered walk now needed a roof, walls, and a fire.

The smaller children crowded around Abigail while the older ones tried to work near the windows.

Several adults had asked whether they might come after their work was done.

“Reading?” Evelyn asked.

“And figures.”

“How many?”

“Eleven who have asked me. Others who have asked whether anyone would notice them coming.”

Mary lowered her pen.

I looked at Abigail.

“Do we have a room?”

“The old weaving room.”

Beatrice shook her head.

“That holds linen.”

Abigail waited.

After a moment, Beatrice added, “It needn’t hold linen forever.”

We went to see it after council.

The room occupied most of the ground floor of a building beside the lower court.

Its windows were tall.

Its hearth was broad.

Its floor had disappeared beneath stacked bundles, two disassembled bedsteads, and a spinning wheel missing something essential.

Evelyn stood in the doorway.

“This could work.”

Beatrice looked at the bundles.

“Yes. Once we find somewhere for all this.”

I reached for the nearest stack.

She caught my sleeve.

“Those have been counted.”

“I wasn’t going to change their number.”

“You might change where I can find them.”

Apparently even lifting required paperwork.

Eleanor arrived with a measuring cord.

She examined the hearth.

The windows.

The crack above the door.

Then she looked at Abigail.

“Tables?”

“And benches.”

“For children or grown people?”

“Both.”

Eleanor nodded.

“Then we make some of each.”

I glanced at Evelyn.

She was smiling.

A room had become possible.

Now everyone had begun discussing the things that would make it useful.

I liked that stage of an argument.

It was usually the one in which I could carry something.

Outside, snow began falling.

Not the uncertain flakes we had watched from the castle windows before.

This snow settled.

It caught along the edges of roofs and softened the tracks across the courtyard.

By the time we returned upstairs, the children had noticed.

Garrick stood against the low chest, pointing at the window with his entire hand.

Carol had abandoned a wooden ring to crawl toward the light.

Evelyn picked her up.

I took our son.

We stood together while the world beyond the glass slowly changed color.

Aurelia appeared beside the hearth.

She looked at the four of us.

Then at the window.

“Oh,” she said.

She came closer.

Garrick reached for her.

She took him without looking away from the snow.

“Does it snow in your garden?” Evelyn asked.

“Sometimes. If I want it to.”

“Then this must be inconvenient.”

Aurelia smiled.

“Yes.”

She sounded delighted.

A flake struck the glass and clung there briefly.

Carol slapped her palm against the window.

It melted.

My daughter looked offended.

I understood.

The world had failed to wait while she examined it.

The snow stopped before midday.

Aurelia asked whether anyone wished to walk with her.

I looked at the reports on my desk.

Then at Evelyn.

My wife closed the top folder.

“An hour.”

Mary, who had come to collect it, considered us.

Then handed me a smaller packet.

“You can take these to Abigail on the way.”

I accepted it.

She had become very skilled at allowing me leisure without wasting a journey.

We left the twins with their grandparents.

They were much less interested in the cold once it touched their hands.

Aurelia wore her wool cloak and a pair of boots Helena had found for her.

She looked down at them as we crossed the court.

“What?” I asked.

“They’re a little stiff.”

“Will that trouble you?”

“Possibly.”

“You could—”

“I could.”

She continued walking.

I let the sentence end.

Evelyn slipped her hand through my arm.

For a while, our boots were the loudest things in the street.

People recognized Aurelia.

Some stopped what they were doing.

Others bowed.

A young man carrying a basket nearly collided with a wall while trying to do both.

She steadied the basket.

“Careful.”

He stared at her.

Then at the eggs.

“Yes.”

She returned the basket.

We walked on.

At the corner, an elderly woman touched the rose pinned to her coat.

“Is it true?”

Aurelia stopped.

“That you’re free?”

“Yes.”

The woman covered her mouth.

Aurelia waited.

At last, the woman reached out.

Our teacher took her hand.

Neither said anything for several moments.

Afterward, Aurelia remained quiet.

I watched her face.

“Was that difficult?”

“A little.”

“We can go back.”

She looked at the street ahead.

A baker was scraping snow from his threshold.

Two children argued over the ownership of a lump of ice.

“No,” she said. “I would like to keep walking.”

So we did.

At the weaving room, the first bundles had been moved.

Beatrice stood beside a clerk who was marking each one as it passed.

The Castellan carried two at a time.

One of the construction frames waited outside with a load too large to fit through the door.

Eleanor was explaining that this was not a reason to widen the door.

I looked at the frame.

“Did it suggest that?”

“No. Someone standing beside it did.”

A mason looked away.

Evelyn went inside to find Abigail.

Aurelia followed her.

I handed over Mary’s packet and waited to be assigned something harmless.

There were old marks on the doorpost.

Short cuts.

Names.

Numbers.

Aurelia noticed them while the last bedstead was carried out.

She brushed the dust away.

Abigail came to stand beside her.

“Do you know what they are?”

“Children’s heights.”

I leaned closer.

One line stood scarcely above my knee.

Another had been cut over a much older name.

Aurelia’s finger stopped near the top.

“This was not always a weaving room.”

“What was it?” Evelyn asked.

“A place where people left their children while they worked.”

Abigail looked around.

Aurelia smiled faintly.

“The room was louder then.”

“We may be able to restore that.”

Abigail showed us where the tables would stand.

The youngest children near the hearth.

The older ones where the light was better.

Evening lessons would use the same tables, with taller benches brought from the wall.

Aurelia listened.

Then asked, “Will the adults come through this door?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Abigail looked at her.

“One of them asked whether there was a back entrance.”

Aurelia’s expression softened.

“Will you give them one?”

“If they want it.”

She considered the question.

“But I’d rather they knew nobody here would laugh.”

Evelyn looked toward the marks on the doorpost.

“That may take more than telling them once.”

“Yes,” Abigail said. “I expect it will.”

We returned three evenings later for the first lesson.

The tables smelled of fresh wood.

The hearth smoked until someone opened the upper vent.

Then it drew properly, and the room began to warm.

There were lamps.

Slates.

A pot of tea.

The borrowed stool stood beside the door with its short leg repaired.

Beatrice had sent it back.

Abigail looked at me when I noticed.

“Apparently it was never meant to rock.”

“A disappointing loss of character.”

“It has gained usefulness.”

Mary, setting out paper nearby, nodded her approval.

The first adults arrived separately.

A cooper’s assistant.

Two women from the laundry.

A groom with an ink stain already on his thumb.

Rona came with a folded letter in her pocket.

I recognized it before she took it out.

From Veylan.

Her children were home with Jerrit.

She looked around the room, then chose a place near the end of a table.

Evelyn went to greet her.

I stayed by the hearth.

The groom noticed me and stopped in the doorway.

I realized, rather late, that having the king watch you learn your letters might not improve the evening.

I reached for my cloak.

Abigail intercepted me.

“If you’re leaving, take that empty box.”

I took it.

“And if you’re staying, you can help sharpen these.”

She held out a handful of chalk pencils.

I looked at the room.

Rona was speaking with Evelyn.

The groom had sat down.

Nobody appeared to need a speech.

I put my cloak back.

“Where’s the knife?”

Abigail pointed.

That settled my part in the lesson.

Aurelia came after the first exercise.

She stopped at the threshold and listened.

Nobody noticed her immediately.

Abigail was asking the learners to choose something they wanted to be able to write.

A name.

An address.

The quantity on a delivery.

Rona touched the letter in her pocket.

Then drew a slate toward her.

Aurelia sat beside the hearth.

I passed her a pencil.

She examined the blunt end.

“Am I helping?”

“If you know how.”

She took the knife.

“I was taught several useful things before becoming divine.”

“Good. I’ve been making them uneven.”

“Yes,” she said. “I can see that.”

We stayed until the tea had gone cold.

I did not watch Rona write.

I watched the pencil shavings gather beside my knee.

Once, someone swore after smearing a line.

Nobody scolded him.

Someone else laughed at their own attempt.

By the end, the room had become less careful.

People leaned across the tables.

Asked questions twice.

Admitted when they had lost their place.

When Rona rose, she held a scrap of paper separate from her letter.

Evelyn met her at the door.

“Will you come again?”

“Yes.”

The answer came quickly.

Then Rona smiled.

“Before I forget how I did it.”

After everyone left, Abigail collected the slates.

Mary counted the pencils.

I carried benches back to the wall.

Aurelia remained beside the hearth.

She had gone quiet in the middle of putting down the knife.

Evelyn noticed.

“Someone calling?”

“Yes.”

We waited.

Aurelia’s expression changed.

Her hand rested on the edge of the chair.

Then she said, very softly, “I hear you.”

The room seemed smaller.

She listened for a long time.

At last, she rose.

“Would you excuse me?”

“Of course,” Evelyn said.

Aurelia vanished.

She returned after we had finished stacking the benches.

Mary had gone ahead with Abigail.

I was sweeping the last shavings into the empty box.

Aurelia stood where her chair had been.

Evelyn crossed the room.

“What happened?”

“I reached one of Thesra’s houses.”

I put down the broom.

“Did she answer?”

Aurelia shook her head.

“A keeper did.”

“How?”

“He called to me. He had heard that I was free.”

Her gaze moved toward the window.

“He hasn’t heard Thesra for six years.”

“None of them have?” I asked.

“He knows only about his house. I asked him to be precise.”

I thought of Mary.

Aurelia continued.

“He has older records. He thinks there may be something concerning the mountain.”

“Will he send them?”

“Copies, if they can be made.”

Evelyn took her hand.

“Do you want to tell us the rest at home?”

Aurelia looked around the long room.

The new tables.

The slates laid ready for morning.

“Yes.”

I lifted the box.

Then remembered the broom.

For a moment, I could not work out how to carry both without dropping something.

Aurelia took the broom.

We walked back through the snow.

There would be questions in the morning.

Six years of silence did not explain what had happened on the mountain.

It gave us another place to look.

For now, Evelyn told Aurelia about Rona.

The scrap of paper.

The word she had chosen.

“What did she write?” I asked.

My wife smiled.

“Ressa.”

Her aunt’s name.

The first word of a letter she would eventually be able to finish herself.

Aurelia looked back toward the lower court.

A lamp still burned in the long room.

Abigail was preparing the children’s work for morning.

“Good,” Aurelia said.

Then she shifted the broom to her other hand and walked home with us.