Ch. 179 Beyond the Gate

Chapter 179: Beyond the Gate

Caldris left after breakfast.

He took our answer, Aurelia’s separate letter, and the white staff Eliza had kept overnight.

The staff had proved to carry a modest ward against weather and a means of confirming its bearer’s office.

Nothing that explained his confidence.

I watched from the lower steps as he fastened the letters inside his coat.

“Will you deliver both?” I asked.

“I gave my word.”

“Yes.”

He looked at me.

Then, more quietly, said, “Both.”

I stepped aside.

He walked down the road without turning.

For the next two days, nothing happened.

No voice from the sky.

No sudden failure of the wards.

No army appeared beyond the fields.

A drain froze near the kitchens.

A child at the school lost a tooth and required several people to admire the space.

Perrin’s new foot held in wet sand and failed in gravel.

I signed a payment for winter fodder.

By the afternoon of the second day, I had begun finding reasons to walk past the gate.

Evelyn caught me doing it.

“Again?”

“I was going to the stables.”

“You passed them.”

I looked back.

So I had.

She took my arm and turned us toward the lower garden.

There was little to see.

Bare branches.

Dark paths.

The pale stakes marking where new work would begin in spring.

“I keep expecting an answer,” I said.

“So do I.”

“What do we do until it comes?”

My wife looked at me.

“The things we already meant to do.”

She said it gently.

I watched a gardener lift a broken pot into a barrow.

“And if it comes while we’re doing them?”

“Then Mary will find us.”

That was almost certainly true.

Mary found us before we reached the stairs.

The northern delegation could leave in three days.

Tessa had sent word of a stretch of better weather on the lower road.

Eliza would accompany Mary.

A clerk named Fen would go to examine the villages’ accounts, and two guards would join them.

Eleanor’s full survey remained a task for spring, but she had prepared questions about the bridge approaches and the quarry.

“Do you still want us to go?” Mary asked.

I looked at Evelyn.

She nodded.

“Yes.”

Mary closed her book.

“Good. I’ve packed.”

I had imagined that preparing a delegation involved maps and letters.

It also involved boots.

Mary disliked the pair Tessa had recommended.

“They fit,” she said.

Tessa, newly arrived from Northwatch, stood beside the bench.

“That is an advantage.”

“They are heavy.”

“So is mud.”

Mary looked at Eliza.

Eliza was examining a saddle strap and declined to become involved.

I made the mistake of smiling.

Mary handed me a bundle of papers.

“You can carry these upstairs.”

The meeting before their departure lasted longer than expected.

We spoke about grain dues.

Grazing rights.

How disputes would be heard if the villages chose to join Greykeep.

Then Fen asked which law applied to the quarry.

Nobody answered at once.

Eleanor leaned over the map.

“Who owns it?”

“The petition says the eastern village uses it,” Mary replied.

“That isn’t quite ownership.”

“Which is why he’s coming.”

Fen was a quiet man with ink along one finger and the patience to wait while people discovered why his questions mattered.

I was beginning to appreciate him.

Near the end, Eliza set down her cup.

“There is something we need to settle before we leave.”

I looked up.

“If someone threatens the villages while we’re there, what authority do we have?”

The room became still.

Not frightened.

Attentive.

“Protect yourselves,” I said. “And people in immediate danger.”

“Beyond that?”

I considered the map.

The households had asked to discuss joining us.

We had not yet accepted responsibility for every dispute on the ridge.

Nor had they agreed to let us settle those disputes for them.

“If there’s time to send word, send it.”

“And if there isn’t?”

“Use your judgment.”

Eliza held my gaze.

Then nodded.

I trusted her.

Saying so felt heavier when it meant she might have to act beyond my sight.

Aurelia found me in the training chamber that evening.

I had not begun a working.

There were three stones on the table.

I was arranging them with my hands.

“Mary’s journey?”

I nodded.

“She’s capable.”

“That doesn’t make the road shorter.”

“No.”

Aurelia took the chair opposite mine.

For a while, she watched me move a stone.

Then she said, “You have several people whose safety you want to hold in your hands.”

“Yes.”

“How many hands do you have?”

I looked at her.

“Is that the lesson?”

“Part of it.”

She asked me to raise one stone.

Then another.

The third remained on the table.

“Hold those while I move this one.”

I did.

She pushed the third stone toward the edge.

My attention went to it immediately.

The suspended stones dipped.

She stopped.

“Again.”

This time, I kept the two aloft.

The third reached the edge.

I caught it with another thread of power.

Aurelia looked at me.

“I had it.”

“It was falling.”

“Into my hand.”

Her palm waited beneath the table.

I let out a breath.

“That seems rather pointed.”

“It needs to be.”

We repeated it until I could watch her move the stone without interfering.

Then Evelyn joined us.

Our teacher gave her the third stone.

That was harder in a different way.

I knew my wife could hold it.

I had seen her perform work far more delicate.

Still, when Aurelia disturbed the working between us, I reached toward everything.

Evelyn felt me do it.

“Uriah.”

“I know.”

“Then let go of mine.”

I did.

Her stone steadied.

Mine rose.

For a moment, the three hung between us without either of us trying to carry the whole arrangement.

Aurelia nodded.

Afterward, Evelyn remained beside the table.

“You do that outside lessons too.”

“I had gathered.”

“I don’t only mean with me.”

I rubbed the back of my neck.

She placed the stone in my palm.

“Eliza has spent years learning how to bring people home. Mary has already found errors in papers the rest of us thought were complete. You chose them for a reason.”

“I know they’re good at what they do.”

“Then give them room to do it.”

I looked down at the stone.

There was no magic left in it.

It was still difficult to put down.

The delegation left beneath a clear sky.

Mary wore the heavy boots.

I did not mention them.

She checked the document case one last time while Tessa adjusted a strap on a pack animal.

Eliza spoke to the guards.

Fen was counting something inside a small purse.

Aurelia had come to say goodbye.

She gave Tessa a letter for Hanne and no cake.

Tessa inspected the envelope.

“Traveling light.”

“For once,” Aurelia said.

Mary approached Evelyn first.

They embraced.

Then she turned to me.

“The accounts for the next five days are on your desk.”

“Five?”

“There are notes for longer if the weather turns.”

“Of course there are.”

“And the miller’s payment is waiting on a corrected weight.”

“I remember.”

She studied my face.

Then smiled.

“I expect you do.”

I hugged her.

For a moment, she held tightly.

Then stepped back and took the reins.

We watched them leave through the gate.

This time, I stayed until the last pack animal had passed.

Then I went to my desk.

The corrected weight arrived before noon.

The miller was owed less than he had claimed and more than Beatrice had expected.

Neither appeared delighted.

I signed the payment.

Afterward, I worked through the first stack Mary had left.

By the third document, I understood why she had written so many notes.

By the sixth, I missed her.

Evelyn brought lunch.

She found me holding two nearly identical sheets.

“One is the copy,” she said.

“I had reached that conclusion.”

“You’ve signed both.”

I looked.

Then put down the pen.

The children had lunch with us.

Garrick could now move from the chair to my knee if I sat close enough.

He insisted on demonstrating.

Carol preferred to remain on the rug and examine the fastening of Evelyn’s shoe.

For a while, my wife let her.

Then Carol untied it.

Evelyn looked down.

I watched her expression.

“She has learned something.”

“Yes.”

“Should we write it in the book?”

“You may write it while I tie this again.”

Our daughter waited until the bow was finished.

Then reached for it.

I began to suspect she had found a new occupation.

That afternoon, the Castellan brought news from the ward examination.

The remaining passages built to recognize the First Witness had been found and closed.

There were still damaged sections.

Old repairs.

Places where the surviving inscriptions required study.

But the same office seal could no longer open a path through the castle’s outer defenses.

I rested my hands on the desk.

“Thank you.”

He inclined his head.

“Aurelia has assisted considerably.”

“I’ll thank her too.”

He did not leave.

I looked up.

“Something else?”

“The western observation room can be opened.”

I followed him upstairs.

Higher than the nursery.

Past a narrow landing and a door I had assumed belonged to another storeroom.

The hinges complained.

Cold air entered the passage.

Inside stood a circular room with windows facing the western fields.

A long bench curved beneath them.

Dust covered the floor.

There was a cracked table and a wooden cupboard whose doors had warped apart.

I walked to the glass.

Below, the town spread around the castle.

Chimneys smoked.

Carts moved along the cleared roads.

Beyond them, snow lay in the folds of the fields.

“You repaired this?”

“The shutter mechanisms. The roof remained sound.”

“What was it used for?”

“Watching the roads.”

I stood there for a while.

The road north became a pale thread beyond the last houses.

Then disappeared behind a rise.

I could not see Mary.

Or Eliza.

No window would change that.

But I could see a wagon approaching with winter fodder.

Two people repairing a fence.

A child running beside a woman carrying a basket.

The town was busy.

Much of what kept it alive happened without waiting for me to watch.

I turned from the window.

“Could we put a table here?”

“There is a table.”

“One that intends to remain standing.”

The Castellan examined the cracked leg.

“That can be arranged.”

Evelyn came up before supper.

I had brought two chairs and a blanket.

She looked around.

“A discovery?”

“A room.”

“I can see that.”

“A quiet room.”

She smiled.

Then walked to the windows.

The setting sun had found a narrow space beneath the clouds.

Light lay across the snow.

For several minutes, we watched it without speaking.

Then my wife drew the blanket around both our shoulders.

“Mary would tell you this needs cleaning.”

“Mary is several days from telling me anything.”

“Enjoy it while you can.”

I put my arm around her.

Downstairs, Aurelia was with the children.

The guards knew where we were.

The ward examination would continue tomorrow.

There were papers waiting on my desk and a lesson I would probably find difficult before breakfast.

I thought of the northern road.

Then of Eliza’s steady face when I told her to use her judgment.

Evelyn leaned against me.

“Still worrying?”

“Yes.”

She nodded.

“So am I.”

We stayed until the light left the fields.

Then we folded the blanket, took the lamp, and went downstairs together.