Ch. 170 The Woman at the Gate

Chapter 170: The Woman at the Gate

The replacement grain left for Stoneford three days after the storm.

Bren came with the wagons.

He brought the final count, a letter from Venn, and my gloves.

I looked at them.

“Where?”

“Smithy.”

Evelyn held out her hand.

Bren gave them to her.

I felt this had become an arrangement between people who did not sufficiently appreciate me.

The village had kept the damaged grain separate.

Eleanor had sent two carpenters to examine what could be repaired before the next snowfall.

The construction frame had returned to the workshop, where Perrin was making small wooden feet and testing them in a tray of wet sand.

When I passed, one of them fell over.

He stared at it.

Then wrote something down.

I left him to it.

Some disappointments appeared to be useful.

The woman arrived shortly before noon.

She came on foot.

No horse.

No carriage.

The gate guards saw her walking up the cleared road with a dark cloak gathered around her shoulders.

She waited while a cart passed.

Then asked to see Aurelia.

That alone would not have brought Eliza to my room.

The next part did.

“She says her name is Thesra.”

My pen stopped.

Beside the window, Evelyn turned.

“Where is she now?”

“The outer guardroom.”

“Has Aurelia been told?”

“I sent someone to find her.”

I stood.

Aurelia reached the passage before we did.

She had been in the infirmary.

One sleeve was still folded back.

For a moment, she looked at Eliza as though waiting for the name to become something else.

Then she lowered her sleeve.

“What did she ask?”

“To speak with you.”

“Anything more?”

“In private.”

Evelyn came to stand beside her.

Aurelia’s gaze moved between us.

“No,” she said.

Eliza waited.

“The south sitting room. Uriah and Evelyn will remain.”

“Mary?” I asked.

Aurelia thought.

“Yes.”

Then she touched the fastening at her wrist.

It was an ordinary button.

Her fingers rested there for a moment before she let go.

I went down with Eliza.

Thesra stood beside the guardroom hearth.

She looked neither grand nor especially strange.

Dark hair streaked with grey.

A narrow face.

A plain gown beneath a travelling cloak that had no snow upon its hem.

Her hands were bare.

When we entered, she turned.

“Uriah Grey.”

“Yes.”

“I am Thesra.”

“I was told.”

She studied me.

There was something searching in her expression.

I wondered how much she expected to find of Aurelia’s son in my face.

Then I decided I did not care.

“She will see you,” I said.

Thesra’s shoulders eased.

“With us present.”

The relief stopped.

After a moment, she nodded.

We took the ordinary stairs.

A kitchen boy passed us carrying a basket of onions.

Two women stood aside with folded linen.

From the long room came the uneven sound of children reading aloud.

Thesra slowed.

I looked back.

She was watching the open schoolroom door.

“Is something wrong?”

“No.”

We continued.

At the upper landing, she asked, “Does she live here?”

“Yes.”

“In the castle?”

I stopped outside the sitting room.

“She has a room down the corridor.”

Thesra looked toward it.

I opened the door.

Aurelia stood beside the window.

Evelyn sat near her.

Mary had chosen the small table, with a clean page laid before her.

The portrait hung on the opposite wall.

Aurelia with our children in her arms.

Thesra saw that first.

Her gaze remained on it long enough that Aurelia spoke.

“You asked to see me.”

Thesra turned.

“Yes.”

Nobody moved toward anyone else.

I closed the door and took the chair beside Evelyn.

Aurelia sat.

After a moment, Thesra did too.

“I heard that you had left the house,” Thesra said.

“You mean the room.”

Her mouth tightened.

“Yes.”

“When did you hear?”

“Before your message reached me.”

Aurelia watched her.

“And Brother Oren? Did you hear him?”

Thesra lowered her eyes.

Mary’s pen moved.

“Yes.”

“The others?”

“Some.”

“Why didn’t you answer?”

“I did not know what I could say.”

Aurelia leaned back.

“Then we have that in common.”

Thesra looked toward Mary.

“Must this be written?”

“Yes,” Aurelia said.

“There are things—”

“Yes.”

The second answer was quieter.

It stopped her more effectively.

Mary waited with her pen above the page.

Aurelia rested both hands on her knees.

“You will be able to read what she writes.”

Thesra swallowed.

Then nodded.

“The metal bore your mark,” I said.

“I know.”

“Did someone use it without your knowledge?”

“No.”

I had expected an explanation.

A distinction.

Something narrow enough to fit between the evidence and the act.

The answer left very little room.

Aurelia’s face did not change.

“Did you design the fastening beneath the couch?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know it prevented the return?”

Thesra looked at her.

“I made it to prevent the return.”

Mary wrote that down.

I watched the ink darken the page.

Evelyn spoke next.

“Why?”

Thesra’s hands moved against each other.

“She would not rest.”

Aurelia closed her eyes.

Only briefly.

“She was reaching through everything we placed around her,” Thesra continued. “She heard people. She answered them. Every attempt weakened—”

“Weakened what?” I asked.

“The confinement.”

Aurelia opened her eyes again.

“You came to me afterward.”

“Yes.”

“You sat beside me.”

Thesra’s voice became small.

“Yes.”

“You told me you could help me sleep.”

“I could.”

“And you did.”

Thesra bowed her head.

For a while, the only sound was Mary’s pen.

I remembered the stone couch.

The shape upon it.

The voices wearing our memories.

Aurelia spoke before I could.

“Were you there when they closed the door?”

“No.”

“Did you know they would?”

“Yes.”

“And when they built the wall?”

Thesra looked up sharply.

“The wall?”

Aurelia studied her.

There was no satisfaction in finding something she might not have known.

“Someone tried to release me. They sealed the entrance afterward.”

“I was not told that.”

“Did you ask?”

Thesra did not answer.

Aurelia turned toward Mary.

“The copy of Aveth’s account.”

Mary took it from the folder beside her.

She had brought several papers.

I had not noticed until then.

Aurelia held out her hand.

Mary gave her the pages.

She passed them across the space between the chairs.

“Read it.”

Thesra looked at the first line.

Then the next.

As she read, one hand rose toward her mouth.

She stopped it halfway.

Nobody helped her through the silence.

“She thought she had broken the means of returning what was yours,” Thesra said at last.

“She broke the handle,” Aurelia replied. “The fastening you made stopped it moving.”

Thesra stared at the account.

“She tried three times.”

“Yes.”

“I never knew.”

Aurelia leaned forward.

“I did not know either.”

That was the first moment Thesra began to cry.

There was no great display.

A few tears.

She wiped them away with the heel of her hand and kept looking at the pages.

I found that I had no idea what to do with her grief.

So I did nothing.

After a while, she said, “I thought it would be kinder.”

Aurelia’s expression changed.

Not much.

Enough.

“Which part?”

“Sleep. Dreams. Somewhere you could stop fighting.”

“You gave me my son.”

Thesra looked at her.

“In the orchard,” Aurelia said. “In the house. At the door. You let me think that if I stayed quietly enough, I might reach him.”

“The house drew from what you longed for.”

“You built it.”

“Yes.”

“You knew what I longed for.”

Thesra put the pages down.

“Yes.”

Evelyn’s hand found mine.

I had been gripping the arm of my chair.

Across the room, Aurelia remained very still.

“I am not going to explain to you why that hurt,” she said.

Thesra shook her head.

“I know.”

“No. You know what you intended. You have now heard some of what happened.”

Mary stopped writing long enough to turn the page.

Aurelia waited.

Then continued.

“If you came for forgiveness, I cannot give it to you today.”

“I came because I should have come before.”

“Yes,” Aurelia said. “You should.”

The admission did not make the room easier.

It did give us somewhere to begin.

Mary asked who had received the design.

Thesra named an office.

Then two people.

One name appeared in our recovered papers.

Mary drew a small mark beside it.

She asked where copies had been kept.

Thesra answered.

Sometimes quickly.

Sometimes after a long pause.

When she could not remember, Mary wrote that too.

I watched a woman who had helped build Aurelia’s prison describe the work in the same room where our daughter had once fallen asleep against Aurelia’s shoulder.

I was glad of the portrait.

I was also glad that Thesra could see it.

“How many other houses used this fastening?” Evelyn asked.

Thesra looked at her.

“The restraint beneath the couch was made for Aurelia.”

“And the part that prevented sleepers waking when they wished?”

A pause.

“That was an older working.”

My wife’s fingers tightened around mine.

“Where?”

“I would have to look.”

“Then look,” Aurelia said.

Thesra nodded.

“I will.”

Aurelia glanced toward Mary.

“Write down which records she needs.”

Mary already was.

We stopped when Aurelia asked us to.

Thesra looked as though she had more to say.

For a moment, I thought she might try.

Then she gathered her hands in her lap.

“May I return?”

Aurelia considered the question.

“With the records.”

“Yes.”

“And an answer for the people who have been calling you.”

Thesra lowered her head.

“I will speak to Oren.”

“Speak to him truthfully.”

“I will.”

Mary read back the account before Thesra left.

There were two corrections.

Neither changed what she had admitted.

Thesra signed beneath them.

I walked her down to the gate.

The schoolroom was quieter now.

Someone was sweeping.

Thesra glanced through the door again.

At the lower stairs, she stopped.

“The children in the painting.”

“My children.”

“She looks—”

I waited.

Thesra looked back up the corridor.

Then shook her head.

Outside, the air had sharpened toward evening.

She drew her cloak close.

“Thank you for bringing me to her.”

“She chose to see you.”

“Yes.”

This time, she seemed to understand the distinction without my needing to explain it.

When I returned, Aurelia was still in the sitting room.

Mary had taken the papers away.

Evelyn sat beside our teacher with their hands loosely joined.

I stopped at the door.

Aurelia looked up.

“Has she gone?”

“Yes.”

I sat on her other side.

For several breaths, none of us spoke.

Then she said, “I used to be glad when she came.”

Evelyn turned toward her.

“Before the convocation?”

“And afterward.”

Aurelia looked down at her hands.

“I kept remembering the woman who had sat with me when my son died.”

I felt something ache beneath my ribs.

“She was that woman too,” Evelyn said quietly.

Aurelia nodded.

Then she began to cry.

We stayed until the lamps needed lighting.

There were no useful questions left for the day.

Eventually, Aurelia washed her face.

Evelyn went to find supper.

I opened the shutters a little wider before closing them for the night.

The lower garden lay beneath a thin crust of snow.

Beyond the pears, the stake marking Aveth’s tree still stood.

Aurelia came beside me.

“Will you tell me when they bring the cutting?”

“Of course.”

“I would like to be there.”

I nodded.

Then she touched my arm.

“And Uriah?”

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow, I would still like to go to the school.”

I looked at her.

“Abigail will be pleased.”

“She asked me to bring a story.”

“Have you chosen one?”

“Not yet.”

From the passage came Evelyn’s voice, asking whether either of us intended to eat before the soup cooled.

Aurelia took one last look at the garden.

Then she went to open the door.