Ch. 177 The Weight of a Promise

Chapter 177: The Weight of a Promise

Aurelia gave us the basin.

She also gave us six cups, a length of cord, and a feather.

I looked at the arrangement.

“What is the feather for?”

“You’ll discover that.”

Evelyn took off her outer layer and folded it over the bench.

I watched her.

“You seem unusually willing.”

“I have dry shoes upstairs.”

The lesson began simply.

Water from the basin into the cups.

Six equal portions.

No spilling.

I could have done it with my eyes closed.

Aurelia asked me to.

Then she moved the cups.

When I opened my eyes, five were full.

The sixth hovered upside down above my head.

My wife was holding it there.

“Why?”

“You didn’t ask where they were,” she said.

“I could feel where they were.”

“Apparently not all of them.”

Aurelia retrieved the cup before Evelyn could become more educational.

The real difficulty came afterward.

We had to keep the water moving between us while each held a separate working.

Evelyn guided the feather through a series of loops in the cord.

I held the six cups at different heights.

Aurelia stood between us, occasionally diverting a stream or pressing against one cup.

At first, I answered every disturbance with more strength.

That kept the cups aloft.

It also made the water strike their sides hard enough to splash.

“Less,” Aurelia said.

I reduced the force.

One cup sank.

“Not everywhere.”

I gritted my teeth.

The feather drifted past my nose.

My wife, who was concentrating fiercely, did not smile.

I appreciated the effort.

By the end, I could feel the difference.

Holding something steady did not require making every part equally rigid.

One cup could move without taking the others with it.

Aurelia pressed down.

I let that cup descend a little.

The water followed.

The remaining five stayed where they belonged.

“There,” she said.

Then she withdrew her pressure.

I recovered the unused strength slowly.

No rush beneath my ribs.

No sudden dizziness.

Only warmth settling where I could bear it.

Evelyn lowered the feather onto the bench.

We looked at one another.

For once, both of us were dry.

The southern ward took the rest of the morning.

It had the same old provision for admitting an office seal, though its construction differed enough that the Castellan spent a long time comparing the two.

This time, I held only the part of the supply Aurelia asked me to hold.

Evelyn separated the lines.

The pin came free.

Nothing shook.

Afterward, the Castellan closed the chamber and tested the wall from both sides.

“An office seal alone will no longer grant entry here.”

“And the other walls?” I asked.

“Examination continues.”

I nodded.

Two places made safer.

More to understand.

I could live with that answer better than I had a week earlier.

Mary found us washing our hands.

“There is a visitor from the northern villages.”

“Tessa?”

“No. A wool merchant named Hanne sent him.”

I dried my fingers.

“Another list?”

“Yes.”

Evelyn smiled.

“Salt?”

“Among other things.”

Mary waited until I looked at her.

“He also brought a petition.”

The visitor was Hanne’s grandson.

His name was Edric.

He had a narrow face, weathered hands, and a coat that had been carefully brushed before someone decided it was as presentable as it would become.

He stood when we entered.

I asked him to sit.

He waited until Evelyn had chosen a chair.

Then sat on the very edge of his.

Mary offered tea.

He accepted as though refusing might damage the negotiations.

I remembered being young in rooms where everyone else appeared to understand the rules.

“Did the salt arrive safely?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And the saw?”

“My uncle says it’s the first straight cut he’s made in three winters.”

That helped.

Edric moved farther onto the chair.

The petition bore names from four villages.

Some written by their owners.

Others marked beneath lines explaining who had witnessed them.

They asked for the old road to be restored.

They offered labour.

Timber.

Stone from a quarry beside the eastern stream.

None of that surprised me.

The final paragraph did.

In return, we ask to be received under the protection of Greykeep, with the same standing as those already within its lands.

I read it again.

Evelyn held out her hand.

I passed it to her.

“Who rules there now?” she asked.

Edric rubbed his thumb against the cup.

“That depends on who is collecting.”

Mary’s pen paused.

He explained.

A lord in the lower valley claimed road dues.

A second family claimed grazing payments on the ridge.

The villages settled most disputes themselves.

When a household needed protection, they sent for neighbours.

“Do either of those lords maintain the road?” I asked.

“No.”

“Send guards?”

“When collecting.”

I looked at the petition.

“Does your grandmother speak for all four villages?”

“No,” Edric said quickly. “That’s why they signed. And why they want someone to come.”

We did not answer immediately.

I could see that he had hoped we would.

But a kingdom was a considerable thing to promise over a cup of tea.

Evelyn leaned forward.

“Do people understand this would mean more than repairing a bridge?”

“They’ve argued about little else.”

“What concerns them?”

He looked surprised.

Then his shoulders lowered.

Taxes.

Young people being taken for military service.

Judges who would not know the land.

Whether the river mill would remain theirs.

Whether their children could attend Greykeep’s school if a family moved.

Whether people could leave again.

Mary filled most of a page.

Then turned it over.

“The bridge survey is still planned,” I told him.

Edric looked up.

“That won’t depend on accepting this petition.”

“Then you would repair it anyway?”

“We’ve agreed to find out what repair would require. I haven’t promised the bridge itself.”

He nodded slowly.

“And the salt?”

“You paid for the salt.”

“Yes, but—”

“We would like to keep trading with you.”

For a moment, he simply held the cup.

Then he drank.

It had probably gone cold.

We invited him to stay while the council considered the petition.

He asked whether that would take long.

“Long enough for you to eat,” Evelyn said.

“And perhaps sleep,” Mary added.

Apparently she had noticed the same thing I had.

He thanked us.

At the door, he stopped.

“My grandmother told me to ask whether Aurelia liked the cake.”

“I believe she sent the cake to your grandmother,” I said.

“Yes. Grandmother made another.”

He looked mildly exhausted by the matter.

“She sent that one here.”

I glanced at Evelyn.

Our teacher had established a northern trade route of her own.

The council met after midday.

Beatrice wanted to know the likely cost of patrols and winter supplies.

Eliza wanted routes, numbers, and somewhere guards could stay without occupying family homes.

Eleanor wanted the quarry examined before anyone promised its stone.

Garrick asked about the existing dues.

Mary had already sent for the relevant maps.

The oldest showed the four villages within Greykeep’s former reach.

The newer ones disagreed with one another.

I stared at the faded boundary.

“They were ours once.”

Across the table, Aurelia looked at me.

I heard what I had said.

“The land,” I amended.

She did not rebuke me.

That made me consider it longer.

“Do you remember governing them?” Evelyn asked her.

“Two of the villages existed when I was queen. The others came later.”

“Did they pay dues?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“Road maintenance. Granary reserves. Men to keep the crossing open.”

Aurelia touched the old map.

“Those duties did not survive simply because someone kept drawing the boundary.”

I thought of the cancelled bridge accounts.

The broken road.

Hanne counting needles beneath her roof.

We had inherited a great many claims.

We were still discovering the work attached to them.

We agreed to send a small delegation when the weather allowed.

Mary would go with Eliza and someone who could examine the accounts.

Eleanor’s spring survey would include the approaches from the far side.

Before that, we would send a plain explanation of Greykeep’s laws, its ordinary dues, and what its protection required of those receiving it.

The villages could gather their questions.

Their objections too.

Edric would carry the answer.

When Mary read it aloud, I added one sentence.

The signatures on this petition will be treated as a request to begin these discussions.

She looked up.

“So nobody mistakes it for an oath?”

“Yes.”

She wrote it beneath the rest.

After the council, I remained beside the maps.

Aurelia stayed too.

“Did I sound like him?” I asked.

She did not pretend to misunderstand.

“Othellos?”

I nodded.

“No.”

“I looked at an old boundary and thought of what belonged to me.”

“You noticed.”

“After you looked at me.”

“That is one useful reason to have other people in a room.”

I ran a finger along the road.

It had seemed simple when the problem was a missing bridge.

Now I could see patrols, hearings, supplies, arguments over pasture, and children arriving at a school that already needed more benches.

“I want to help them.”

“Then let them tell you what help they are asking for.”

I looked at her.

“Is it like that? When people call to you?”

“Sometimes.”

“And when they ask you to decide everything?”

“It can be tempting.”

I had not expected her to say that.

Aurelia folded her hands.

“You hear fear. You may know something they do not. You may be able to act before anyone else can. It is easy to become impatient with the time another person needs.”

“Othellos.”

“Me,” she said.

I went quiet.

She looked toward the door.

“I was a queen before I was a goddess. I did not cease having faults because I gained power.”

“Does that go into the lessons?”

“Yes.”

“Along with the basin?”

“Especially when you become convinced the basin ought to obey because you are tired.”

I laughed.

Then studied the petition again.

“I thought becoming stronger would make some things simpler.”

“It will make some things possible.”

“That sounds like a carefully chosen answer.”

“It is.”

She gathered the older maps for Mary.

I helped her carry them.

Edric met Aurelia over supper.

He stood so abruptly that his chair scraped across the floor.

She asked after Hanne’s knees.

That settled his dignity more effectively than anything I had tried.

He told her about the mill.

The new saw blade.

A neighbour’s daughter who wanted to know whether the school took children who could already read.

“Yes,” Evelyn said.

“She says she’d want difficult books.”

“Then Abigail will probably like her.”

Edric smiled.

Aurelia asked whether he would take a letter north.

He looked toward the covered cake.

“Does it involve another one of those?”

“Only thanks, this time.”

“Good. The mule has opinions.”

Upstairs, the children were playing on the rug.

Garrick walked from his grandfather to the low table.

Five uncertain steps.

Then he sat down heavily and looked offended by the floor.

Carol watched him.

She held the edge of Evelyn’s chair.

Let go.

For a breath, she stood unsupported.

Everyone noticed.

Nobody spoke.

Then she lowered herself and crawled toward the wooden horse.

My wife glanced at me.

I smiled.

We had become a room full of people attempting not to encourage someone too loudly.

Later, I found Evelyn adding the moment to Carol’s book.

“Nothing happened,” I said softly.

“She stood.”

“For a little while.”

“Yes.”

I sat beside her.

On the opposite page, she had drawn our daughter’s hand holding the cloth door.

I thought about the petition.

Four villages asking to consider a future with us.

Carol deciding whether the horse was worth reaching on her feet.

My own uncertain lessons beneath the western stair.

Evelyn finished the sentence and sanded the ink.

“Are you still thinking about the council?”

“A little.”

“Come here.”

I leaned against her.

She rested her cheek against my hair.

We stayed that way until our son called from the nursery, having apparently discovered that his horse could fall out of the cradle again.

This time, I took the horse out of reach.

Then I picked him up.