Ch. 182 The Questions They Brought Home

Chapter 182: The Questions They Brought Home

Mary returned in the rain.

It began as snow before dawn.

By midday, it had changed its mind.

Water ran from the roofs, crossed the yard in shallow streams, and found every place our boots had begun to fail.

I was in the lower hall when the gate opened.

Eliza entered first.

Tessa followed with her staff beneath one arm.

Then Mary came through wearing the heavy boots and an expression of deep satisfaction.

I went to meet her.

“You were right about the boots.”

She looked at Tessa.

“I said he might tell you.”

Tessa smiled.

Mary frowned at me.

They were wet.

Tired.

Carrying more papers than they had taken.

Beatrice sent them toward the kitchens before we could begin asking questions.

Mary tried to object.

Eliza took the document case from her.

“You can have it back after soup.”

“I know where it has been.”

“So do I.”

Mary looked at me for assistance.

I had learned something from the construction frame.

There were times when declining to interfere was a form of wisdom.

“Soup,” I said.

She went.

We met that evening in the smaller council room.

Mary had changed her clothes.

The papers lay in three ordered stacks.

Fen sat beside them with a clean copy of the quarry agreement.

Eliza leaned back in her chair, one arm resting on the table.

Tessa had found cheese somewhere.

She cut it while Mary began.

“Three villages want to continue.”

“And the fourth?” Evelyn asked.

“Wants the winter to pass before deciding.”

“Because of the road?”

“Because they don’t agree among themselves.”

Mary opened the first book.

“Some households believe joining Greykeep will end the lower lord’s claims. Others believe it will bring his soldiers.”

“Does he have soldiers?” I asked.

“Six men who collect for him. Whether that makes them soldiers depends on whom you ask.”

Eliza reached for the cheese.

“They have swords.”

Tessa moved the plate closer to her.

The collector had returned.

He brought a second list of dues.

He did not bring the document Fen had requested.

Instead, he claimed the right had been granted to his lord’s grandfather by a ruler whose name did not appear in any account they could find.

“Did he collect anything?” I asked.

“Not while we were there,” Eliza said.

“And after you left?”

“We asked the villages to record every demand and payment. We also left instructions for sending word through Northwatch.”

Mary turned a page.

“He called that interference.”

“It was,” Evelyn said.

“Yes.”

My wife looked at Eliza.

“Did he threaten anyone?”

“He suggested that the road might become unsafe.”

That silenced the room.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“That if someone deliberately made it unsafe, Greykeep would want to know who had done it.”

Eliza’s tone remained mild.

I suspected the original exchange had contained less mildness.

“Was he satisfied?”

“No.”

“Were you?”

“Yes.”

Tessa offered me cheese.

I took some.

Fen explained the quarry.

Seven households owned shares.

Five were willing to sell stone for the bridge approaches if the survey proved the stone suitable.

One wished to keep all her share for repairing a barn.

The last owner lived somewhere beyond the eastern stream and had not attended any meeting.

“So we don’t have the quarry,” I said.

“We have an offer from most of its owners,” Fen corrected.

“And a barn.”

“Yes.”

Mary drew another paper from the second stack.

“The miller would also like the patrol route moved away from his wheel.”

“We don’t have a patrol route yet.”

“He believes early discussion prevents later inconvenience.”

I looked at Evelyn.

“I think I respect him.”

“Wait until you meet.”

We talked until the candles burned low.

The three villages would each choose representatives to visit Greykeep before any final agreement.

They would see the stores.

The school.

The infirmary.

They would speak to people who had arrived from other lands and decided to remain.

They would also bring their own account of what Greykeep owed them if it accepted their petition.

Mary had insisted on that part.

“Some thought they were only meant to tell us what they could provide,” she said.

Aurelia sat beside the old map.

“And you corrected them.”

“Yes.”

“What did they say?”

Mary’s ears shifted slightly.

“They made a longer list.”

The road came first.

Then protection from unlawful collection.

A fair hearing for disputes.

Help carrying grain in a bad winter.

Access to healers without surrendering their village remedies or dismissing the women who already provided care.

A place for children who wished to study beyond what local families could teach.

The right to keep their own meeting days.

The right to refuse soldiers lodging inside their homes.

I looked at Eliza.

She nodded.

“I would refuse that too.”

Mary placed the list before me.

At the bottom, Hanne had added a line in her own hand.

Do not promise what you will resent doing.

Aurelia read over my shoulder.

“That sounds familiar.”

“You knew her?” I asked.

“Not her, no.”

She smiled.

“I recognize the advice.”

The children were awake when Mary came upstairs.

She had brought two small bundles from the northern villages.

One held knitted socks.

The other held a wooden sheep whose four legs differed noticeably in length.

Garrick took the sheep.

It stood for half a breath.

Then fell.

He laughed.

Mary sat on the rug and showed him how to set it upright again.

Carol inspected the socks.

Then placed one over her hand.

Evelyn looked at me.

“We may have found their proper purpose.”

Mary told us about the journey while the children played.

Hanne’s roof leaked above the back step.

Fen had been challenged to prove he could count sacks without writing them down.

He had succeeded.

Then lost count when someone asked him a question.

Eliza had slept beside a wall that rattled whenever the mill turned.

Tessa had been right about the weather on every day except one.

“She says that day was the sky’s fault,” Mary added.

From the rug, Tessa called, “It was.”

She had followed us upstairs without anyone formally inviting her.

Helena handed her the other sock.

When the children tired, Mary grew quiet.

“There was one more thing.”

I looked at her.

“On the second night, Hanne asked whether you could hear people.”

My hands went still.

“Why?”

“She had heard about Aurelia. About prayers being answered again.”

Aurelia sat near the hearth with Carol in her lap.

Mary continued.

“I told her that questions about your power belonged to you.”

“Thank you.”

“She said that was sensible.”

I waited.

Mary’s expression suggested Hanne had not stopped there.

“Then she asked whether being sensible meant I didn’t know.”

“What did you say?”

“That your power is changing and that we are still learning what it means.”

Evelyn sat beside me.

“That was enough?”

“For Hanne? No.”

Despite myself, I smiled.

“What else did she ask?”

“Whether people ought to call to you. Whether it would hurt. Whether they should call Aurelia instead. Whether ordinary messages would still be read if they didn’t pray.”

Aurelia lowered her eyes.

Carol had caught one of the ribbons at her wrist.

Our teacher loosened it carefully.

“What did you tell them?” she asked.

“That ordinary messages remain ordinary messages,” Mary said. “And that no one had been instructed to call to Uriah.”

“Good.”

The question followed me into the next morning’s lesson.

Aurelia lit the lamp.

Evelyn stood near the window.

I sat with both hands on the table.

“Hanne knows,” I said.

“A village knows that people may call to you,” Aurelia replied. “That is different.”

“It won’t remain different.”

“No.”

“What happens when more people try?”

“We learn whether you hear them.”

“And if I do?”

Aurelia looked at the flame.

“You decide what you are able to receive.”

I watched the wick.

“What if someone needs help?”

“Then need does not give them possession of you.”

The words were firm.

I looked up.

Aurelia’s expression had changed.

For a moment, I could see the cost of everything she had been teaching me.

Not only what Othellos had done.

What she had done to herself before anyone built the restraints.

Evelyn crossed the room and rested her hand beside mine.

Aurelia drew a slow breath.

“You may listen,” she said. “You may answer. You may ask others to act. You may decide you cannot.”

“How?”

“Begin by remembering that hearing is not the same as promising.”

She asked Evelyn to call.

I felt the familiar thread between us.

Warm.

Directed.

I kept my attention on the lamp.

Then Aurelia called too.

Her presence was different.

Wider.

A quiet pressure at the edge of thought.

I could feel both.

My first instinct was to turn toward the stronger one.

Instead, I said Evelyn’s name.

Her thread brightened.

Aurelia’s remained where it was.

“Now release mine,” our teacher said.

I did.

The pressure faded.

No pain.

No sense that I had cast her away.

Only a choice completed.

“Again,” Aurelia said.

This time, they called together.

I listened.

Not to the words.

To the direction.

Evelyn was across the room.

Aurelia stood beside the lamp.

Yet the calls did not come from those places.

They came through recognition.

My wife knew me.

Aurelia knew what part of me she intended to reach.

I answered neither.

The two threads waited.

Then Evelyn lowered hers.

Aurelia did the same.

I remained myself.

That was the whole exercise.

It left me more tired than lifting timber.

Afterward, Evelyn went to the infirmary.

Aurelia stayed.

I drank water and watched the lamp.

“Did Othellos hear everyone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does he answer?”

“When it serves the order he wishes to preserve.”

I thought of Caldris’s letter.

Our children offered for examination.

A future arranged because uncertainty displeased him.

“What would he say if people called to me?”

“That you lack the judgment to answer.”

“And if I didn’t?”

“That you lack the discipline to bear the responsibility.”

Aurelia extinguished the lamp.

“He is skilled at making every choice prove his conclusion.”

I found work in the lower town that afternoon.

The east warehouse platform had new supports.

Eleanor asked me to hold one beam while it was fitted.

I lifted it.

Noticed the workers beneath it.

The rope on the far end.

The remaining strength in the working.

When she called for it to come down, I lowered it the width of two fingers.

Then stopped.

“More,” she said.

I lowered it again.

The joint settled.

Nobody was crushed.

The warehouse owner still complained about the cost.

An ordinary success.

On the way back, I passed Sella near the infirmary yard.

Her husband walked beside her with a stick.

Slowly.

He stopped twice before they reached the bench.

Neither saw me at first.

Then Sella turned.

She looked uncertain.

I crossed the yard.

“How is he?”

“Tired,” she said.

Her husband lowered himself onto the bench.

“But outside,” he added.

I smiled.

“That seems useful.”

“It is.”

Sella glanced toward the infirmary door.

“Did you hear me that day?”

“Yes.”

She looked embarrassed.

“I haven’t tried again.”

“That’s all right.”

“Should I?”

I had spent the morning learning an answer.

“If you need me, you can send a message. If you choose to call, I may not hear. And hearing won’t always mean I can come.”

She nodded slowly.

“That sounds fair.”

Her husband leaned on his stick.

“It sounds like every other person.”

A small laugh escaped me.

“Yes.”

Sella smiled too.

The tension left her shoulders.

That evening, the first villagers’ visit was placed on the calendar.

Not tomorrow.

Not even the following week.

Travel would depend on weather, available animals, and whether the fourth representative could leave her household during lambing.

Beatrice read the note.

“Lambing will not occur for some time.”

“She is preparing,” Mary said.

“For lambing?”

“For refusing to be hurried.”

Aurelia, passing behind them, said, “Hanne chose her, didn’t she?”

Mary looked up.

“Yes.”

“That will be an interesting visit.”

In the nursery, the wooden sheep had fallen beneath the chest.

Garrick lay on his stomach, reaching for it.

I moved the chest slightly.

He retrieved the toy.

Then pushed it toward me.

I set it upright.

It fell.

He laughed exactly as he had with Mary.

Carol walked three steps from Evelyn to Aurelia.

She dropped into our teacher’s arms and immediately reached for the ribbon at her wrist.

Aurelia caught her hand.

“You have your own ribbons.”

Carol disagreed.

Evelyn sat beside me after the children were asleep.

Mary’s list lay folded on the table.

Roads.

Protection.

Healers.

Schools.

Promises we had not yet made.

“Do you think we can do it?” I asked.

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

“No.”

I turned toward her.

My wife rested her head against my shoulder.

“I think we can do some of it. Then find out what the next part requires.”

That was less comforting than certainty.

It was also an answer I believed.

Somewhere beyond the room, someone called my name.

Faintly.

No words followed.

I stiffened.

Evelyn felt it.

“What?”

“A call.”

“Do you know who?”

“No.”

“Where?”

I listened for another moment.

Nothing.

No direction.

No urgency I could understand.

Only the trace of someone reaching.

I placed both feet on the floor.

Felt Evelyn beside me.

Heard the children breathing through the open nursery door.

“I can’t answer what I haven’t understood,” I said.

The trace faded.

Evelyn took my hand.

We remained there for a while.

I did not chase the call.

I did not pretend it had never happened.

In the morning, I would tell Aurelia.

We would practice again.

For tonight, our son turned in his sleep.

Our daughter made a small sound and settled.

Downstairs, Mary was probably finding somewhere safe for the northern papers.

The castle held around us.

I listened to what was near enough to know.

Then I let the rest wait.