Ch. 180 A Light Left Burning

Chapter 180: A Light Left Burning

The first message from Mary arrived on the fifth day.

They had reached the villages safely.

The road was worse than Tessa remembered in two places and better in one.

Fen had found the quarry accounts.

Eliza had found somewhere dry for the guards to sleep.

Hanne had found fault with the way Mary hung her cloak near the fire.

At the bottom of the page, Mary had added:

The boots are excellent. You may tell Tessa I said so if she becomes unbearable.

I passed the letter to Evelyn.

She read it twice.

Then folded it carefully and smiled.

The meetings had begun in Hanne’s village.

There were more questions than signatures.

I thought that sounded promising.

One household wanted to know whether joining Greykeep would mean losing the right to keep goats on a strip of common land.

Another wanted a school.

The miller wanted to know who would pay if a patrol damaged his wheel.

Mary had written down the questions before trying to answer them.

She expected to remain several more days.

Nobody had asked her to leave.

Nobody had agreed to join yet.

I set the letter beside the map.

For the first time since their departure, I stopped measuring the distance north quite so often.

Aurelia changed my lesson that afternoon.

No stones.

No basin.

She placed a small lamp on the table and lit it.

Then she sat opposite me.

“Hold your attention on the flame.”

“For how long?”

“Until you can tell me what else you notice.”

I watched it.

The wick bent slightly.

A thread of smoke rose, then disappeared.

Beyond the door, someone moved a bucket.

“I hear water.”

“What else?”

“Footsteps.”

“What else?”

“The draft beneath the door.”

She nodded.

“Keep the flame.”

It was harder than it sounded.

The moment I listened closely to the passage, the flame became something I was merely looking at.

When I returned to it, the rest of the room seemed to fade.

Aurelia let me struggle.

After a while, she spoke.

“You are accustomed to reaching toward one thing and pushing the others aside.”

“That has usually been useful.”

“Yes. Now you need to learn another way.”

I looked at her.

She pointed toward the lamp.

I sighed and tried again.

Evelyn joined us near the end.

She stood quietly beside the wall while I named the things I could hear.

A cart in the yard.

The hinge of the outer door.

Aurelia’s sleeve brushing the table.

Then my wife said my name.

I turned at once.

The flame guttered.

Aurelia smiled faintly.

“That will require practice.”

“Surely I’m allowed to answer my wife.”

“You are. I would prefer you did so without abandoning everything else.”

Evelyn came to sit beside me.

“I would also prefer that.”

They appeared to be forming an alliance.

I had suspected this for some time.

The lesson left me strangely tired.

Not emptied.

More as though I had spent an hour reading very small writing.

Aurelia extinguished the lamp.

“Enough for today.”

“What is it meant to teach?”

“How to remain here while noticing something beyond here.”

I looked toward the passage.

“Like hearing prayers?”

“Eventually, perhaps. Today, a bucket was sufficient.”

“And if I hear something I should answer?”

“First, understand what you have heard.”

She said it carefully.

I thought of the wayhouse.

Caroline’s voice.

The step I had taken before deciding to move.

Aurelia saw the memory reach me.

“Yes,” she said. “That matters too.”

The new table arrived for the western room the next morning.

It had belonged to an office downstairs and possessed four reliable legs.

I considered that an excellent beginning.

Evelyn brought paper and a box of charcoal.

I brought two books.

The room remained cold, but the windows had been cleaned and the worst drafts stopped.

We sat there after lunch while the children slept.

For a while, my wife drew the town.

I read three paragraphs without remembering them.

Then I put the book down.

“You’re listening,” she said.

“I think the lesson has followed me.”

“What do you hear?”

“A wagon. Someone calling for a dog.”

“And?”

“You.”

She smiled without looking up.

“Good.”

The dog appeared below the window shortly afterward.

It was carrying something that probably belonged to the person calling it.

Evelyn began another drawing.

This one took very little time.

When she showed me, I laughed.

The dog looked pleased.

The pursuing man did not.

“Will that go in the children’s books?”

“No. I think I’ll keep it for myself.”

She placed it beneath the town sketch.

I liked that answer.

Later that day, a woman came to the infirmary with her husband.

I saw them in the lower hall.

He walked slowly.

One arm rested around her shoulders.

Ilyen met them at the door and led them inside.

It was an ordinary arrival.

Greykeep had many.

I would probably have forgotten the exact moment if I had not heard my name.

Quietly.

Not from the woman.

Not from anyone in the hall.

Please, King Uriah.

I stopped.

Evelyn had been walking beside me.

She turned.

“What?”

I looked toward the infirmary.

The couple had disappeared inside.

“Did you hear someone?”

“Who?”

“My name.”

She listened.

So did I.

There were voices behind the infirmary door.

A boy running somewhere above us.

The scrape of a chair.

Nothing more.

My wife touched my wrist.

“What did it sound like?”

I told her.

She did not tell me I had imagined it.

She also did not tell me what it meant.

“Let’s find Aurelia.”

Our teacher listened without interrupting.

Then she asked where I had been standing.

Who had been nearby.

Whether I had been using power.

Whether the words had seemed to come from a particular direction.

I answered as carefully as I could.

“No direction?”

“Not that I could tell.”

“And you recognized the voice?”

“No.”

Aurelia sat back.

“Then we should ask.”

“The couple?”

“Perhaps one of them spoke softly enough that you heard without noticing. Perhaps something else happened.”

I wanted her to sound more certain.

She did not.

That was probably why I trusted her.

Ilyen let us speak to the woman after her husband had settled.

Her name was Sella.

She looked alarmed when she saw me.

I immediately regretted entering with quite so many questions in my face.

“Your husband is being cared for,” Evelyn said.

Sella nodded.

“I know. They’ve been kind.”

“I wanted to ask about when you arrived,” I said.

She waited.

“Did you call to me?”

Her face changed.

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“I saw you across the hall.”

“Did you speak?”

She looked toward the bed.

“Only in my head.”

The room seemed to become very still.

Sella continued, unaware of what her answer had done.

“He didn’t want to come. He thought we’d be sent away.”

“Why?”

“We haven’t been here long.”

Evelyn moved a chair closer for her.

I remained standing.

For a moment, I could not think of anything except the words I had heard.

Then I looked at the man in the bed.

He was watching us nervously.

I made myself return to the room.

“You don’t need to know us to ask for care,” I said.

Sella nodded.

Her husband closed his eyes.

We left them with Ilyen.

In the passage, I stopped beside the wall.

Evelyn stayed close.

Aurelia stood in front of me.

“Does this mean—”

“It means you heard her.”

“That isn’t much of an answer.”

“It is the answer we have.”

I swallowed.

Our teacher’s expression softened.

“Uriah, one moment does not tell us everything about what is changing.”

“But something is.”

“Yes.”

I looked down at my hands.

No light.

No new mark.

Nothing to show that the distance between another person’s fear and my own thoughts had altered.

“Will it happen again?”

“It may.”

“Can I stop it?”

“We can learn how you receive it. How much you attend to. How you return to yourself afterward.”

I stared at her.

“You expected this.”

“I thought it possible. That is why we began the listening lessons.”

Evelyn took my hand.

I held it tightly.

Aurelia waited until I looked up.

“You are here. You know where you are. You have not lost anything by hearing someone.”

I tried to believe that as simply as she had said it.

We returned to the training room.

Aurelia lit the lamp.

I nearly laughed.

After everything in the infirmary, it seemed too ordinary.

Then she asked me to name what I noticed.

The flame.

My wife’s hand.

The table beneath my other palm.

Footsteps beyond the door.

My own breathing.

The words I had heard remained in my memory.

They did not speak again.

After a while, my shoulders lowered.

Aurelia nodded.

“We will leave it there.”

“No more?”

“No more today.”

I asked about the man before supper.

Ilyen told me he was resting.

She would know more in the morning.

I began asking whether she needed anything.

Then stopped.

She noticed.

“If I need you, I’ll send for you.”

I nodded.

Outside, Evelyn waited beside the stair.

“You can care about him without standing in the doorway all night.”

“I know.”

“You looked as though you might.”

“I was considering a chair.”

She slipped her arm through mine.

“Come and eat.”

The children were awake when we went upstairs.

Garrick had discovered that walking while holding a block was considerably harder than walking without one.

He persisted.

Carol sat beside the low table with her cloth book.

When she saw Evelyn, she raised both arms.

My wife lifted her.

I sat on the rug.

Our son considered the distance.

Then came toward me with six determined steps and a block clutched against his chest.

He fell into my lap.

I caught him.

He immediately tried to place the block inside my collar.

For a while, I listened.

His breathing.

Carol’s pleased little sounds as Evelyn opened the cloth door.

The fire.

Aurelia approaching along the passage.

Nothing else.

When she entered, she looked at me.

I nodded.

She sat beside the children without asking me to explain.

Garrick offered her the block.

She accepted it.

Then he demanded it back.

I laughed.

The sound surprised me.

That night, Evelyn lay facing me.

“Are you frightened?”

“Yes.”

She touched my cheek.

“So am I.”

“I haven’t decided.”

“I know.”

“About ascending.”

“I know what you mean.”

I looked toward the nursery door.

“Does this make the decision for me?”

My wife waited a moment.

Then said, “We’ll ask Aurelia what choices you still have. We’ll ask until we understand.”

I covered her hand with mine.

Outside, wind moved along the shutters.

Inside, someone small sighed in sleep.

I listened until I knew which child it was.

Then I closed my eyes.