Ch. 185 Those Who Came Anyway

Chapter 185: Those Who Came Anyway

The representatives from the northern villages arrived twelve days early.

Rain had followed them down the road.

So had a broken cart wheel, two arguments about directions, and one elderly goat they claimed had not been invited.

The goat stood beneath the gate arch and refused to continue.

Hanne held its rope.

“This is not mine,” she said.

The goat looked at her.

Hanne looked at me.

Neither appeared willing to explain more.

There were five representatives.

Hanne had come for Millcross.

A broad-shouldered quarryman named Jorren represented Stonebank.

Lysa, a healer with silver threaded through her dark hair, had been chosen by Rill’s End.

The other two were younger.

Tomas Reed kept Millcross’s accounts.

Sera Vale spoke for several families who lived between the villages and belonged entirely to none of them.

Mary introduced everyone twice.

The goat remained unnamed.

Melody eventually led it toward the stables using half an apple and several accusations.

“We expected you after lambing,” I said.

“So did we,” Hanne replied.

We stood in the smaller hall while servants carried wet cloaks away.

Jorren kept his pack.

Lysa kept hers too.

Neither had decided whether Greykeep was a place where belongings returned after leaving one’s sight.

“The collector came back,” Tomas said.

Mary stopped arranging papers.

“What did he do?”

“Nothing we can prove.”

“That has become a popular kind of nothing,” Hanne said.

Two carts had been stopped on the southern road.

The drivers were asked whose protection they traveled under.

When they answered that the road belonged to no lord, the men inspecting their loads had laughed.

Nothing was taken.

No threat was spoken.

The carts were released before dark.

The following morning, someone found a dead fox tied to the marker stone outside Millcross.

“Could be boys,” Hanne said. “Could be a warning. Could be a fox with very strange ambitions.”

“And you came here,” I said.

“We came to see whether your promises become clearer when examined closely.”

I glanced at Evelyn.

My wife’s expression remained calm.

“Then examine them.”

They began with the kitchens.

I had expected the council chamber.

Hanne said anyone could arrange chairs and speak kindly for an hour.

She wanted to know who ate when supplies ran low.

Beatrice answered her.

“Children first. Then anyone ill. Then workers on winter duty. Everyone else receives the same reduction.”

“Royal table?”

“The same flour.”

“What about meat?”

“If His Majesty wants more meat, he knows where the hunting parties leave from.”

Hanne looked at me.

“That true?”

“I have been told so with considerable firmness.”

Beatrice did not smile.

Hanne did.

Jorren inspected the granary roof.

He asked who had built it.

Eleanor named the workers.

He asked how much they had been paid.

Mary produced the account.

Jorren read slowly.

Then returned the page.

“No unpaid village labor?”

“Not unless they volunteered,” Mary said.

“And if the king calls for it?”

“I ask,” I replied.

“What if they refuse?”

“Then I discover whether the work can be done another way.”

Jorren studied me.

“That answer becomes more expensive when the wall is falling.”

“Yes.”

He looked toward the repaired roof.

“At least you know.”

Lysa spent most of the afternoon in the infirmary.

She asked Ilyen about fever bark.

Then about birthing rooms.

Then what happened when a patient refused a treatment.

Ilyen’s first answer took several minutes.

Her second took longer.

By the third, the two women had forgotten the rest of us.

Evelyn joined them beside a cabinet of dried herbs.

Lysa removed three wrapped bundles from her pack.

Soon all three of them were discussing which root settled the stomach without dulling the senses.

I waited near the door.

Nobody needed me.

This was becoming a familiar feature of competent work.

The school impressed Tomas.

The students did not.

One asked whether his village possessed books.

Another asked whether everyone in the north slept in the same house.

A third asked if he knew the goat.

Abigail ended the questions.

Tomas answered the last one anyway.

“No.”

The goat had acquired a following.

It stood outside the school window eating a broom.

Melody was attempting to negotiate its release.

Sera Vale asked the hardest question in the yard.

“If the villages join Greykeep and another lord sends soldiers, who fights?”

Eliza answered.

“Greykeep’s guard.”

“Only them?”

“No. Anyone may volunteer for local defense. We would train those who do.”

“May?”

“Yes.”

Sera watched three guards practice with blunted spears.

“What if there aren’t enough?”

Eliza rested both hands on her belt.

“Then I ask for more volunteers. I do not drag people from their homes and expect fear to teach them formation.”

“And if they still refuse?”

“Then they have refused.”

Sera turned to me.

“You agree?”

“Yes.”

“Even if you lose the village?”

I looked toward the wall.

“I do not want villages that belong to me because I threatened them more effectively than someone else.”

Hanne heard that answer from several paces away.

She said nothing.

That worried me more than one of her questions.

We returned to the smaller hall before supper.

Mary had placed copies of the proposed terms on the table.

Not a finished agreement.

A list of what the villages had asked for and what Greykeep believed it could provide.

Road maintenance.

Protection.

Access to hearings.

Winter grain loans, recorded and repaid according to harvest rather than fixed dates.

School places.

Healers by request.

No soldiers housed in private homes without consent.

Local meeting days preserved.

Jorren tapped the last line.

“Who settles disagreements between village custom and Greykeep law?”

“We do,” Mary said.

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the beginning of one.”

The discussion lasted until the supper bell.

They wanted local hearings before someone who knew the families involved.

Mary wanted written appeals.

Tomas wanted to know who would keep the writing when Millcross had no secure archive.

The Castellan offered Greykeep’s.

Hanne objected that a record kept only by the king could become whatever the king wished it to be.

Mary agreed.

That surprised her.

“We can keep copies in both places,” Mary said. “One here. One sealed locally. Differences become visible.”

Hanne leaned back.

“That might work.”

Mary made no sign of triumph.

Her tail moved once behind her chair.

The bronze fitting sounded.

One low note.

Every person from the north looked toward the wall.

I felt the call a moment later.

Not Othellos.

This presence waited differently.

It did not place my name inside me.

It touched the boundary Aurelia and I had formed and remained there.

A request.

Nothing more.

Aurelia rose.

“She has come.”

Hanne looked between us.

“Who?”

“We don’t know,” I said.

“That happens often here?”

“Recently.”

I did not want the representatives drawn into a divine meeting they had not agreed to witness.

Hanne objected when I explained.

“We traveled four days to learn what happens inside your walls.”

“This is not part of the village agreement.”

“It may become part of what threatens it.”

Sera nodded.

Jorren did not, but he remained seated.

Lysa looked toward Aurelia.

“Is this dangerous?”

“Possibly.”

“That was honest.”

“I have had practice.”

We moved the representatives to the adjoining chamber, where they could leave without crossing the observation room.

Eliza stationed guards along the passage.

The goat was secured in the stable.

This required more people than the divine visitor.

The wooden platform remained empty when we entered.

Rain had stopped.

Late sunlight showed through the western windows.

Mary took her place with the original account from the night before.

Evelyn stood beside me.

Aurelia faced the platform.

“Do you recognize the call?” I asked.

“Not clearly.”

“That sounds unhelpful.”

“It is still the truth.”

I reached toward the waiting presence.

The bronze fitting sounded again.

“I hear you,” I said.

Light appeared above the platform.

Not white.

A soft gray, like the sky before morning.

It gathered into the shape of a woman wearing a traveling cloak fastened with a plain wooden pin.

Her hair was bound at the nape of her neck.

Dust marked the hem of her cloak, though she possessed no body to carry it.

She looked first at me.

Then at Aurelia.

Her face changed.

“Aurelia.”

Our teacher’s hands tightened at her sides.

“Maelin.”

The goddess bowed her head.

Not deeply.

Not as a subject.

As someone arriving at another person’s door.

“My name is Maelin,” she said. “I keep thresholds, roads, and the obligations of a guest.”

Melody looked toward the wooden platform.

“That explains the dramatic entrance.”

Maelin’s mouth moved slightly.

“I have been accused of worse.”

Her gaze returned to Aurelia.

“I witnessed your terms.”

“Why?” Aurelia asked.

“Because Othellos opened the high court as though Uriah’s attendance were already owed.”

Mary’s pen moved.

“Was it owed?” she asked.

“No.”

The answer was immediate.

Maelin looked toward her.

“A summons must name its authority, purpose, and consequence. A guest must know where the road ends before agreeing to travel it.”

“Othellos did none of those things,” Mary said.

“He has grown unused to being asked.”

I understood why she had spoken into his court.

“You weren’t defending me,” I said.

“No.”

Maelin faced me without apology.

“I was defending the threshold.”

That answer pleased me more than devotion would have.

Aurelia remained very still.

“Where were you when they confined me?”

Maelin looked at her.

The room became quiet.

“At the first convocation, I argued that you should be heard.”

“And afterward?”

“I accepted Othellos’s judgment that the matter had been lawfully settled.”

“It had not.”

“No.”

“Did you ask?”

Maelin’s image wavered.

“Not soon enough.”

Aurelia’s face showed no anger.

That made the distance between them feel greater.

“I will not ask forgiveness during my first visit,” Maelin said.

“Good.”

“I came to tell you what Othellos intends.”

Eliza stepped closer.

Maelin noticed.

“He will not accept your meeting as offered. He considers Greykeep compromised by Aurelia’s power and Uriah’s claim.”

“My claim to what?” I asked.

“To decide what enters you.”

I almost laughed.

Nobody else did.

“He intends to send three members of the high court,” Maelin continued. “They will call themselves examiners.”

Aurelia’s expression hardened.

“Which three?”

“He has not named them.”

“What will they examine?” Evelyn asked.

“You. Your children. The bond between Uriah and Aurelia. The source of his changing power.”

“No,” I said.

Maelin looked at me.

“Then say so when they come.”

“They are not coming.”

“Othellos believes refusal will prove concealment.”

“He seems able to make every answer prove what he wanted.”

“Yes.”

Maelin glanced toward Aurelia.

“That is why I spoke.”

Aurelia stepped closer to the platform.

“Will you testify that the summons was improper?”

“Yes.”

“Before the high court?”

“Yes.”

“Even if Othellos removes you from it?”

Maelin’s gaze lowered for a moment.

“When I first became keeper of thresholds, I thought my purpose was to prevent strangers from entering where they did not belong.”

She touched the wooden pin at her throat.

“It took me too long to understand that I must also keep doors from being locked upon those who wish to leave.”

Aurelia looked at her for a long time.

Then nodded once.

Not forgiveness.

Recognition.

It was enough to continue.

“Can Othellos send the examiners through divine passage?” the Castellan asked.

“Not if your wards reject them.”

“Can they appear as you have?”

“If invited.”

“They are not,” I said.

Maelin looked toward the floor beyond the platform.

“No. They are not.”

Mary wrote the words.

“Will you carry our answer?”

“I will witness it. I will not serve as Othellos’s messenger.”

Another distinction.

Another boundary.

I was beginning to like her.

The meeting ended when Maelin withdrew.

Her image thinned into gray light.

Before it vanished, she looked at Aurelia.

“I am glad you survived.”

Aurelia’s mouth tightened.

“Survival was not what they intended.”

“No.”

Maelin lowered her head.

Then she was gone.

The bronze fitting remained silent.

Aurelia turned toward the windows.

Nobody approached her.

We had learned that much.

The northern representatives waited in the adjoining chamber.

They had heard most of the conversation through the open door.

Hanne sat with her hands folded over her staff.

Jorren looked as though he preferred problems made of stone.

Lysa studied Aurelia when we entered.

At last, Sera spoke.

“If we join Greykeep, does that become ours too?”

I could have softened the answer.

I did not.

“Some of it.”

“And the king of gods wants your children?”

“He wants the right to examine them.”

“That was not what I asked.”

“No.”

I looked at Evelyn.

Then back at her.

“He wants authority over what they might become.”

Hanne tapped her staff against the floor.

“The lower lord wants grain.”

Nobody spoke.

“Othellos wants children,” she continued. “Both arrive with old reasons explaining why refusal is improper.”

Aurelia looked at her.

“That is a severe comparison.”

“Is it inaccurate?”

“No.”

Hanne stood.

“Then write the part where Greykeep does not surrender people to either of them.”

Mary opened her book.

“It is already there.”

“Write it again.”

Mary did.

At supper, the representatives ate with us.

Jorren finally let a servant take his pack.

Lysa and Ilyen continued their argument about fever bark.

Tomas asked Mary how many shelves an archive required.

Sera sat near Eliza and wanted to know how long guard training took.

Hanne held Carol while Evelyn ate.

Our daughter found the wooden fastening on her collar and spent several minutes attempting to remove it.

“You’ve made an alliance,” I said.

Hanne protected the fastening with one hand.

“She is negotiating badly.”

Carol pulled harder.

“She is young.”

“That is when people form habits.”

The goat escaped the stable before dessert.

Melody blamed the latch.

The stable boy blamed the goat.

The goat entered the hall and went directly to Hanne.

She stared at it.

“You said it wasn’t yours,” I reminded her.

“It isn’t.”

The goat settled beside her chair.

Nobody believed her.

By the end of supper, Carol had fed it bread.

A relationship had been established without terms, witnesses, or written copies.

Mary declined to record it.

Before bed, I found Aurelia in the observation room.

The platform had been swept clean.

She stood at its edge.

“Do you trust Maelin?” I asked.

“No.”

“That was quick.”

“I believe what she said today.”

“But not what she may do tomorrow.”

Aurelia looked at the place where the goddess had appeared.

“She chose the rule over me once.”

“And today?”

“Today, the rule led her somewhere better.”

I stood beside her.

“That seems like progress.”

“It may be.”

Below us, lanterns moved in the yard.

The northern representatives had been given rooms near the smaller hall.

Hanne’s goat had been tied outside hers.

It had already eaten part of the rope.

“Will the villages still want Greykeep?” I asked.

Aurelia glanced toward the northern windows.

“You told them the truth.”

“That does not answer the question.”

“No.”

She rested her hand against my shoulder.

“But they came because someone frightened them away from you.”

I thought of Hanne demanding that Mary write our refusal again.

“Perhaps they are tired of being frightened.”

“Perhaps.”

A sound came from the corridor.

Small feet.

Unsteady.

Evelyn appeared around the door carrying Garrick while Carol walked beside her, one hand gripping her mother’s skirt.

“She refused to sleep,” my wife said.

Carol released the cloth.

Took one step.

Then another.

She reached Aurelia and raised both arms.

Our teacher lifted her.

The great questions of gods and kings remained unanswered.

Carol rested her head beneath Aurelia’s chin.

For that night, it was enough that every person inside Greykeep had come through a door of their own choosing.

And that none of us intended to surrender the key.