Ch. 169 What We Could Carry

Chapter 169: What We Could Carry

The first real winter storm reached Greykeep during supper.

Wind struck the shutters.

Somewhere below us, a door slammed hard enough to make the cups tremble.

Carol looked toward the sound.

Then struck her spoon against the table.

Apparently she had understood it as an invitation.

Garrick joined her.

Evelyn removed both spoons.

The protest was immediate.

Across the table, Aurelia continued buttering her bread.

“I had forgotten how much government takes place at supper.”

By morning, the lower yard was white.

The stable roofs wore thick caps of snow, and the path to the gate had disappeared beneath a smooth drift.

I stood at our window with Garrick against my shoulder.

He pressed his hand to the glass.

“Snow,” I told him.

He breathed against it.

A little cloud appeared.

That interested him considerably more.

Behind us, Evelyn was attempting to put Carol’s arm into a sleeve.

Our daughter had discovered that withdrawing it at the correct moment made dressing last longer.

“I think she knows,” my wife said.

“She certainly looks pleased.”

“Come and be useful.”

I exchanged one child for the other.

Carol immediately put her arm through the sleeve.

Evelyn stared at her.

I thought it best not to speak.

Mary brought the morning reports to the breakfast room.

Most were reassuring.

The stores were dry.

The roofs held.

A cart had slipped beside the east warehouse, but the driver had escaped with bruises and an opinion about whoever had failed to spread grit.

Then Mary placed a shorter note beside my plate.

Stoneford.

A village on the northern road had lost the roof of its meeting house.

Nobody had been inside.

Unfortunately, the building also held much of the village’s winter grain.

“How much is exposed?” Evelyn asked.

“They don’t know yet. The messenger left while they were moving it.”

I looked toward the window.

Snow continued to fall.

“How far from the gate?”

“Half a day in good weather.”

Today did not appear interested in good weather.

We met in the lower hall.

Eliza had already sent word to the gate guards.

Beatrice brought a list of empty sacks.

Eleanor arrived with Perrin carrying a roll of drawings nobody had asked for.

He put them down when he saw our faces.

“What do they need?” Eleanor asked.

“Cover,” I said. “Somewhere dry to move the grain.”

“And hands,” Beatrice added.

The Castellan stood beside the table, his golden eyes resting on the note.

“I can release one construction frame.”

Eleanor looked at him.

“For the journey?”

“For work at the village.”

There was a brief silence.

We had used the frames in yards.

Along prepared paths.

Inside buildings whose floors we had examined first.

The village lay beyond all of that.

“Can it travel through the gate?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Can it reach the village?”

The Castellan turned toward Eleanor.

She folded her arms.

“Depends on the road.”

“Then we take it as far as it can go.”

“And if it becomes stuck across the only track?”

That spoiled a rather satisfying answer.

Eliza leaned over the map.

“People go first. The frame follows if the road allows.”

Eleanor nodded.

“I’ll go with it.”

Perrin opened his mouth.

She looked at him.

He shut it.

Then tried again.

“I know the lifting harness.”

“You do.”

“And the spare joints.”

“Yes.”

“I can carry things even if it never gets farther than Stoneford.”

Eleanor considered him.

“Get your winter boots.”

He left before she could add anything.

Evelyn found me fastening my cloak.

“You’ve decided.”

“I can help with the roof.”

“Yes.”

She reached for the fastening I had managed to catch in the wool.

“Are you coming?”

“Ilyen has two people arriving from the outer farms. One has been ill for several days. I’ll stay here until we know more.”

I nodded.

It would have been easy to ask her to come simply because I wanted her beside me.

Instead, I let her straighten the clasp.

“How long?”

“By evening, if we can.”

“And if you can’t?”

“I’ll send word.”

She rested her palms against my chest.

Then kissed me.

“Keep your hands warm.”

I glanced at the gloves tucked into my belt.

“I remember.”

“You remembered last time too.”

Aurelia joined us at the gate.

She wore the same travelling cloak she had taken north.

“I thought you might be going,” I said.

“So did I.”

There was no need to reach for her.

No careful preparation.

She stood beside Melody while the guards checked the sledges, discussing whether the wind would improve.

Behind them, the construction frame stepped into the yard.

Its broad feet pressed deep marks into the snow.

Perrin walked beside it, carrying a bundle almost as large as his chest.

Eleanor removed half of it.

He looked disappointed.

“You’ll appreciate me later,” she said.

Stoneford had less snow and more ice.

That was not an improvement.

The village guide met us beside the gate with two small horses and a face reddened by the wind.

His name was Bren.

He had been awake since the roof fell.

“How many hurt?” Aurelia asked.

“One wrist. A cut hand. Nobody under it.”

“And the grain?”

“Some’s in houses. Some in the smithy. We’ve covered what we can.”

He looked past us.

The frame stood beside Eleanor.

Bren stopped speaking.

Perrin smiled.

Eleanor did not.

“Tell me about your bridges,” she said.

We left the frame at the second crossing.

The little bridge would take people and lightly loaded sledges.

Eleanor watched the stream beneath it.

Then shook her head.

Perrin looked from the bridge to the machine.

“We could—”

“We could spend the daylight repairing a bridge,” she said. “Or reach the grain.”

He looked down.

Then began unfastening the tools from the frame’s carrying rack.

I helped him.

The machine remained beneath a stand of bare trees with two guards.

For the rest of the journey, we pulled.

By the time we reached the village, I understood the value of a creature willing to haul things without discussing it.

The horses leaned into their traces.

The sledges followed.

I added a little force where the runners caught, easing them over buried stones.

Nothing grand.

Just enough that the men beside me could keep their feet.

Bren looked back once.

Then again.

“Can you keep doing that?”

“For a while.”

“Good.”

He turned forward and called to the horses.

I found that I liked him.

The meeting house had lost one side of its roof.

A long beam lay across the doorway.

Snow had blown through the opening and gathered on sacks piled against the far wall.

People moved in and out through a narrow gap.

An older woman stood beneath the remaining eaves, directing them.

She saw Bren first.

Then our sledges.

“Dry cloth?”

“Yes.”

“Rope?”

“Yes.”

“Then bring it here.”

Bren glanced at me.

I took the rope.

Introductions could wait.

Eleanor circled the building.

Once.

Then came back to the doorway.

“Everyone out.”

The older woman turned.

“We’ve nearly reached the back.”

“The wall is moving.”

For a moment, nobody obeyed.

Then a little dust fell from above the window.

Melody went inside.

She emerged with a man carrying a sack and another man arguing that he could manage one more.

“Excellent,” she told him. “You can manage it when the roof stops trying to kill you.”

He looked up.

That ended the argument.

We braced the wall first.

Eleanor chose the timber.

I held it while the men set wedges.

Perrin worked beside her without needing every instruction repeated.

When one brace settled badly, he saw it before I did.

“Left side,” he called.

I shifted my hold.

The timber eased into place.

Eleanor checked it.

Then checked the next.

Only after that did she let us move the fallen beam.

I could have lifted it alone.

Getting it through the doorway without pulling more of the roof down required six people telling me things I needed to hear.

By the time it lay outside, sweat had cooled beneath my collar.

The older woman handed me a cup.

“Drink.”

“What is it?”

“Hot.”

That seemed sufficient.

Aurelia had taken over a corner of the smithy.

The man with the injured wrist sat beside the forge.

She examined him while the smith argued with his daughter about whether the grain sacks could come any nearer the sparks.

They could not.

Aurelia looked up as I passed.

“How is the building?”

“Standing.”

“Good.”

“How is the wrist?”

“Angry.”

The patient nodded.

“Very.”

She smiled and returned her attention to him.

For a moment, warmth shone between her fingers.

Then she reached for a strip of cloth and showed his daughter how to support the arm.

The girl watched closely.

We did not save all the grain.

Some had been soaked before anyone reached it.

Some lay beneath broken tiles and dirty snow.

Beatrice had sent instructions for keeping the damaged sacks separate.

The older woman, whose name was Venn, had already done so.

By midafternoon, the sound grain stood in three houses, the smithy’s storeroom, and a stable whose occupants were deeply displeased about being moved.

We stretched heavy cloth over the remaining roof opening.

Eleanor called it enough to keep the weather out until proper repairs could be made.

She would not call it a roof.

Venn appeared willing to accept the distinction.

Then she began counting sacks.

Bren stood beside her.

Neither spoke for a while.

I watched Venn count again.

“How short?” I asked.

She told me.

Enough to matter.

Not enough to abandon the village.

They had been careful before the storm.

Now careful would not be sufficient.

“We can send grain from Stoneford,” I said.

Bren looked at me.

“Until the next market?”

“Enough to replace what was spoiled. Mary will work out the amount with you.”

Venn rubbed her cold hands together.

“We can repay after harvest.”

“We’ll settle that when we know what the harvest brings.”

She studied my face.

Then nodded once.

Behind us, someone called for another length of rope.

The work resumed.

We reached the abandoned frame near dusk.

It stood exactly where we had left it.

Snow rested on its shoulders.

Perrin stopped beside it.

For a moment, I thought he might apologize to the machine.

Instead, he looked at Eleanor.

“It needs a way to carry its weight over softer ground.”

“It does.”

“And smaller loads for roads like this.”

“Yes.”

He glanced toward the bridge.

“I thought bringing it would solve more.”

Eleanor took the tool bundle from him.

“It solved nothing today.”

His face fell.

Then she added, “You helped brace a wall, moved grain, and noticed a slipping support before anyone was hurt. Keep those things separate.”

Perrin was quiet after that.

But when we reached the gate, he was asking about feet.

Broader ones.

Eleanor listened.

Evelyn met us in the lower hall.

She took one look at my cloak and sent for towels.

“Did you get under the roof?”

“Parts of it.”

“Uriah.”

“Everyone is safe.”

That let her breathe.

I told her the rest while she helped me out of the wet wool.

The grain.

The bracing.

The machine waiting beside the bridge.

She listened without interrupting.

Then said, “The farm patients are settled. One will stay with us a few days.”

“Did you eat?”

“Yes.”

I looked at her.

“With your mother,” she added.

There were few stronger assurances.

The children were still awake.

Garrick stood against his grandfather’s knee.

Carol sat beside a basket, pulling out folded cloth with steady determination.

I lowered myself onto the rug.

My son turned.

For a moment, he watched me.

Then he let go.

One step.

Another.

His arms reached forward.

I held out my hands.

He took a third step and fell against my chest.

I caught him.

Behind me, Evelyn made a small, pleased sound.

“There,” she whispered.

I pressed my cheek to his hair.

He smelled of clean linen and supper.

For most of the day, I had been cold.

Now, sitting on the nursery floor with my son gripping my collar, I finally noticed that I wasn’t.