Ch. 196 Saintess

Chapter 196 Saintess

The paper from the high court had entered through a window.

Perrin found the mark on the outer sill.

A thin scrape.

Another on the stone below it.

He leaned out while Eliza held the back of his coat.

“Could someone have climbed up?” I asked.

“Someone did.”

“The observation room is three floors above the yard.”

Perrin looked down.

“Yes.”

Eliza drew him back inside.

“That explains the paper.”

“It also explains why the wards felt nothing,” the Castellan said.

Mary examined the scrape.

“Do we know who did it?”

“No,” Eliza replied.

She looked toward the western road.

“But someone was willing to come close.”

Melody wanted to set a watch on every window facing west.

Eliza asked her to count the people that would require.

Melody did.

Then she looked at Mary’s new duty list.

“I dislike your numbers.”

“They’re the people we have,” Mary said.

“I know.”

They settled on patrols that changed their routes and times. Eleanor would fit simple catches to the observation room windows. Perrin offered to test whether anyone could reach the sill again.

Eliza refused to let him test it by climbing.

“I would use a rope.”

“You would still be outside a third-floor window.”

“Only briefly.”

“No.”

He took the measurements instead.

At breakfast, Evelyn brought two letters to the table.

One came from Bellcross. The other from a family living beyond the southern road.

Both asked for Aurelia’s help.

“Their healers have done what they can,” Evelyn said. “They want us to visit.”

Aurelia took the letters.

“Can we?”

“The road to Bellcross is clear,” Melody said. “The southern track needs a bridge inspected before anyone takes a cart.”

Evelyn nodded.

“I can go to Bellcross today.”

“I will go with you,” Aurelia said.

I looked at the second letter.

“And this family?”

“First, we ask what they need,” Evelyn replied. “A letter takes longer to travel than a person. Their situation may have changed.”

She had already written a reply.

Mary read it over while Garrick attempted to take her pen.

Evelyn and Aurelia returned from Bellcross near dusk.

I met them in the courtyard.

“How did it go?”

“The patient is better,” Evelyn said. “Her name is Lysa.”

Aurelia looked tired.

“What happened?”

“She had a wound that had closed badly,” Evelyn said. “We opened and cleaned it. Aurelia helped with the pain and the healing afterward.”

“Will she recover?”

“She should.”

They began toward the keep.

“What did the family ask of you?” I said.

“To come again if we can,” Aurelia replied.

She glanced at Evelyn.

“And whether there is somewhere nearby they could learn to care for wounds themselves.”

After supper, Evelyn spread a map across our bed.

I moved Carol’s wooden blocks before she could lay the corner flat.

“This is a worrying place to find a map,” I said.

“I wanted somewhere I could finish a sentence.”

“Were you successful?”

“Until now.”

I sat beside her.

She marked Bellcross.

Then the southern road.

Then three villages whose names I knew from Mary’s lists.

“There are healers in each place,” she said. “They have different training and different supplies. Some send people to Greykeep when a journey might do more harm than waiting.”

“You want to visit them?”

“I want to ask what would help them care for people where they are.”

She drew a small circle around the keep.

“The chapel could help with that.”

The next morning, we met Aurelia there.

The basin stood beneath the windows, with the little crack still visible along its side. Fresh water had been set beside it.

Evelyn told her about the letters and the visit.

“I would like to teach here,” she said. “With Ilyen. We can invite the village healers to share what they know.”

Aurelia ran her fingers along the rim of the basin.

“And the people who come seeking me?”

“They can come too. We’ll tell them what help is available and ask what they want.”

“You have thought about this.”

“Since Bellcross.”

“That was yesterday.”

“I thought quickly.”

Aurelia smiled.

Mary joined us before we had finished.

She listened to Evelyn’s proposal, then asked how many beds the chapel could hold.

“Four, if we move the benches,” Evelyn said.

“How many people can wash their hands here at once?”

“We would need another water stand.”

“Who cleans the linens?”

“We need to ask Beatrice who can take on the work and what supplies it requires.”

Mary wrote that down.

Aurelia looked between them.

“I thought you were discussing a place of worship.”

“We are,” Evelyn said. “People will come here to pray. Some will arrive hungry or ill. We should know how to receive them.”

Ilyen came to inspect the chapel that afternoon.

She opened cupboards.

Counted windows.

Asked where the water would go after it had been used.

Evelyn followed her with a page of notes.

“We could teach in the hall when the chapel is full,” she said.

“Then we should begin with a small group and find out how much room they need.”

“How small?”

“Six healers.”

“From six villages?”

“From the places that can send someone now. We can visit the others.”

Ilyen stopped beside the basin.

“Will Aurelia and Thesra be present?”

“Sometimes,” Evelyn said. “They have their own work.”

Aurelia, who had been carrying folded cloth through the door, looked grateful.

News of the lessons traveled faster than our invitations.

By the third day, two people had arrived without waiting for a reply.

One wanted Evelyn to examine his father’s hand.

The other asked whether the new church would require every village to build a shrine.

Evelyn looked at Aurelia.

“No,” Aurelia said.

The visitor seemed startled.

“We have an old meeting house,” she explained. “Some people pray there already. Others do not.”

“Then keep using it as you choose.”

“But how will we belong to your church?”

Aurelia considered.

“What do you hope belonging will give you?”

“A place to ask for help,” the woman said.

“You have one.”

She looked down at the floor for a moment, then nodded.

The word church made some people uneasy.

It made others hopeful.

Mary suggested we write down what the chapel would do before anyone began making promises on its behalf.

Evelyn agreed.

They spent an evening at our table while I kept the twins from examining their ink. Carol had developed a strong interest in the shape of Mary’s letters. Garrick preferred the stopper on the ink bottle.

We moved both out of reach.

“The chapel can hold gatherings,” Evelyn said.

Mary wrote it down.

“It can offer instruction and care.”

“Within the supplies and skills available,” Ilyen added.

Aurelia leaned over the page.

“And anyone may decline my help.”

Mary added that too.

One question took longer.

“Who speaks for Aurelia when she is away?” Mary asked.

“No one,” Aurelia said.

Evelyn looked up.

“We can tell people what you’ve taught us.”

“Yes. Say whose words they are. Let people ask whether I still believe them.”

“That may slow things down,” Mary said.

“It should, sometimes.”

Mary put down her pen.

“I can write that.”

She did.

Later, she read the page back to us. Aurelia corrected a sentence that made her sound more certain than she felt. Evelyn corrected one that gave her more authority than she had asked for.

When they finished, I thought it sounded like people I knew.

Thesra read the account the following morning.

She stood beside the chapel door while Evelyn arranged the benches.

“In other places, someone with your healing gift might be named Aurelia’s saintess,” she said.

Evelyn nearly dropped a bench cushion.

“On the strength of three pages?”

“I said might.”

“I have barely begun.”

“I know.”

Thesra helped her set the cushion down.

“What would the title mean?” Evelyn asked.

“That depends on what Aurelia and her church make of it.”

Aurelia had heard them from across the room.

“It would have to mean something Evelyn wants to carry,” she said.

Evelyn looked at the rows of benches still to arrange.

“For now, I’d like to carry these.”

Thesra took the other end.

While Evelyn worked in the chapel, Eliza took me to a field below the eastern wall.

The village volunteers had arrived for their first afternoon of training.

Some had served on watches before. Others had never stood in a group holding more than farming tools.

Eliza gave them wooden poles and asked them to form two lines.

They formed three.

Melody walked among them, adjusting spaces.

“Leave enough room to move,” she told one man. “You’re standing on her foot.”

He apologized.

The woman pulled her foot free.

We practiced moving people along a marked route toward the shelter beneath the wall. Nobody needed to fight to learn where the path narrowed.

By the end, the volunteers could reach the gate together without losing anyone behind them.

A boy from Rill’s End remained after the others had gone.

“I thought you would teach us to use spears,” he told Eliza.

“I will teach some of you.”

“When?”

“When I know you can hear an order over a bell and stop when someone falls.”

“I can do that.”

“Good. Come back next week.”

He looked disappointed.

Melody stepped beside him.

“I want to know who can run messages to Rill’s End,” she said. “You came from there?”

“Yes.”

“Show me the route on the map.”

He followed her at once.

Eliza watched them go.

“He’ll be back,” she said.

Mary and the Castellan began their city plan with the drains.

I learned this when I went looking for Mary and found her standing beside an open channel with her skirts pinned well clear of the water.

The Castellan held a measuring rod.

“You promised me a plan to expand the city,” I said.

“This is part of it,” Mary replied.

She pointed downstream.

“If more people live on the lower slope, where does their water go?”

“Into the channel.”

“And when the channel is full?”

I looked at the houses nearest it.

“Oh.”

The Castellan moved the rod to another point.

“We can deepen this section. The old city had a second course beneath the road.”

“Can we use it?”

“After we learn why it was closed.”

Mary wrote that down.

They made me walk the whole proposed boundary.

It took the better part of an afternoon.

We passed a broad area suitable for new houses. We passed ground too wet for foundations and a stone rise Eleanor thought might support a storehouse. Mary marked every well and every path people already used.

At the edge of a field, a farmer came out to meet us.

“Is the castle taking this land?”

“No,” Mary said.

“Then why are you measuring it?”

“Because we need to know whose land we would affect before we propose a road.”

He folded his arms.

“My family uses this path.”

Mary marked the path.

“What would make the road useful to you?”

He came closer to the map.

By evening, the plan had acquired two changes and several names.

The farmer had shown us a dry route the old surveys missed. A woman who kept animals near the stream told us where spring floods spread. The Castellan remembered the remains of a culvert only after she described a hollow sound beneath the ground.

I was beginning to suspect the castle remembered more when people asked it the right questions.

Mary rolled the map.

“Tomorrow we speak with the millers.”

“About roads?”

“About water.”

“And after that?”

“People who live where we may build.”

“How long before we have a plan?”

“We have one. We are finding out whether it works.”

That night, the distant voice returned.

I was carrying Garrick from the nursery to our room. He had fallen asleep against my chest, one hand caught in my collar.

Someone called from beyond Greykeep.

Then another.

I stopped at the turn in the passage.

Their need reached me without words. I could feel how easy it would be to listen farther. Somewhere within me, power moved toward the opening.

Garrick sighed in his sleep.

I felt the weight of him in my arms.

The stone beneath my boots.

Evelyn opening our door ahead of me.

“Uriah?”

“Two voices,” I said.

“Can you leave them where they are?”

I waited.

“Yes.”

We put our son down.

Then Evelyn went to find Aurelia.

A few minutes later, we sat with her, Maelin, Thesra, and Caldris in the small room beyond the nursery. I described what I had heard.

“Did either call you by name?” Caldris asked.

“No.”

“Did you know where they were?”

“Only that they were far away.”

Maelin watched my hands.

“Your power began moving?”

“Yes.”

“Could you stop it?”

“I did.”

Thesra looked at Aurelia.

“He is nearing the place we discussed.”

I looked between them.

“The threshold?”

Aurelia nodded.

I had expected the word to bring a rush of fear.

Instead I thought about the voices.

“They needed help,” I said.

“They may have,” Aurelia replied.

“I left them.”

“You carried Garrick home. We can send word through the ordinary routes to learn whether help is needed.”

“That takes time.”

“Yes.”

“What if there isn’t time?”

“Then there may be a day when you choose to reach. Tonight, you did not know enough to find them.”

I looked at the nursery door.

“I don’t want to learn that too late.”

“Then tomorrow we practice finding out what you can hear without promising to answer every call.”

The morning lesson took place in the western observation room.

The wooden platform still stood in the center, empty. The new window catches had been fitted. Eliza checked them before she let us begin.

Caldris stood beside me.

Maelin and Thesra placed themselves at opposite ends of the room. Aurelia remained near the door. Evelyn took my hand.

“Find my voice,” Thesra said.

I did.

“Now feel the room.”

Rain touched the windows.

Someone moved a chair below us.

From the yard came the sound of the volunteers practicing their route to the gate.

I held all of it.

Maelin called softly.

My attention reached toward her, then stopped at the boundary we had set.

There was more beyond it.

I could feel the far road.

The little houses scattered along it.

For one breath, the distance seemed ready to fold.

I wanted to follow.

My hands warmed.

“Where are you?” Evelyn asked.

“In the observation room.”

“With?”

“You.”

I kept my feet still.

Aurelia’s power rested near mine. She had offered help, and I could decide whether to take it.

I let the distant road remain distant.

The warmth eased.

When I opened my eyes, Evelyn was watching me.

“Did I go anywhere?” I asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

Thesra looked thoughtful.

Maelin came closer.

“What did you choose?” she asked.

“To stay.”

“And what else?”

I considered.

“To hear without going.”

She nodded.

“That is closer than you were yesterday.”

Aurelia reached for the back of one of the chairs.

I noticed that she, too, was breathing carefully.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You looked worried.”

“I was.”

“Still?”

“Some.”

I pulled out the chair for her.

She sat and took my hand.

At midday, the first six healers arrived for Evelyn’s lesson.

They brought a mixture of things: clean cloth, dried herbs, a basket of instruments, and one small book so full of notes that its owner carried it tied shut.

Evelyn welcomed them at the chapel door.

Ilyen asked what each knew and what each hoped to learn. Aurelia filled the basin with fresh water.

No one knelt.

They made room for one another on the benches.

I stood at the back for a while, listening to Evelyn explain how to tell when a wound needed more help than a village healer could safely give.

A woman asked a question.

Evelyn answered, then asked what the woman had seen in her own practice.

Soon they were all speaking.

When I left the chapel, Mary was in the yard with the Castellan and the farmer from the field.

Eleanor had joined them.

They were arguing about the width of a road.

“Wide enough for two carts,” Eleanor said.

“Then you take more planting ground,” the farmer replied.

“Unless we turn it here,” Mary said.

She moved a stone on the map.

The Castellan looked toward the old culvert.

“That would require a new crossing.”

“I can build one,” Eleanor said.

“We should first see the ground,” Mary replied.

Eleanor took up her measuring cord.

They went to see it.

The bell rang while they were gone.

Once from the western post.

Then from the southern.

Eliza came into the yard at a run.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Visitors on the road. Three riders.”

“From the high court?”

“We’ll know when they stop.”

I looked toward the gate.

Around me, people moved to the places they had practiced reaching. A runner went straight to the keep. Nobody left the gate unguarded.

I felt the urge to reach beyond the wall and learn everything about the riders before they arrived.

Instead, I walked to stand beside Eliza.

The road was still a road.

The riders would have to come along it.

We waited where they could see us.