Ch. 199 The Distance Between Voices

Chapter 199: The Distance Between Voices

The morning after my birthday, I found Aurelia’s stone in Garrick’s cradle.

He held it against his chest.

I looked at him.

“How did you get that?”

He smiled.

The stone had been on the shelf above our bed when I went to sleep. It was too high for either child to reach.

Evelyn came in behind me.

“Is that yours?”

“Yes.”

“Did you leave it with him?”

“No.”

She examined the shelf, then our son.

“He can’t have climbed.”

“Please don’t give him the idea.”

I took the stone. Garrick protested until I gave him his wooden boat.

We found the answer beneath the shelf.

Carol had pulled my book down in the night. The stone had been resting on top of it. Helena had picked up both and put the stone in Garrick’s cradle while settling him.

My daughter turned a page of the book and looked up at me.

“You might have told us,” I said.

She turned another.

Aurelia met us in the training chamber after breakfast.

Caldris had brought three lengths of cord. Maelin had brought a bell. Thesra carried nothing.

“That worries me more,” I told her.

“It should,” she said.

Aurelia took the stone from my hand and placed it on the floor.

“Yesterday you heard someone who needed help. Today we’ll work on what happened before you knew where she was.”

“I thought we were practicing calls.”

“We are.”

Caldris tied one cord to each of three rings hanging from a wooden frame. He moved the rings to different heights.

“You needn’t stand there,” he said to Evelyn.

“I know.”

She stayed beside me.

Maelin called first.

Her voice reached me without sound, as it had the day before.

I let it touch the edge of my attention.

“Here,” I said.

Caldris called from the other side of the chamber.

I found him too.

Then Thesra reached toward me.

Her call was faint.

I listened harder.

Immediately, Maelin’s voice became louder, though she had done nothing.

“Stop,” Aurelia said.

I withdrew.

“What happened?”

“You drew all three closer to hear the one you could barely make out.”

I looked at Thesra.

“Could you tell?”

“Yes.”

“Would you have been able to follow me?”

“If you had continued.”

I rubbed my hands together.

The woman by the river had not followed me. She had only asked for help.

I had pulled toward her all the same.

We tried again.

This time, I named each call without reaching for its source.

Maelin.

Caldris.

Thesra.

I could tell them apart until Caldris moved into the passage and closed the door.

His call thinned.

My attention went after it.

The stone lifted from the floor.

I had not meant to touch it.

It struck the underside of the wooden frame and fell.

Aurelia caught it before it reached anyone’s foot.

“What did the stone do?” she asked.

“Rose.”

“I noticed. Why?”

“I was trying to keep hold of something nearby.”

“You chose the stone?”

“No.”

“That is why we’re practicing.”

She put it back on the floor.

By the time we stopped, I could hear a call from beyond the door and leave the stone where it lay.

I could not do it every time.

Aurelia appeared content to end there.

Thesra lowered herself onto the bench.

“What if someone is truly in danger?” I asked her.

“Then you may have to decide before you know everything.”

“I know that.”

“You want a rule that will make the decision for you.”

I looked away.

She waited.

“I want to know when waiting becomes leaving someone alone.”

“I cannot tell you that from a training room,” she said.

Caldris opened the door.

“What we can do,” he said, “is make sure you still know where the door is when you decide.”

A rider reached the western gate before midday.

It was Ressa.

This time, a second woman rode with her. A pair of packs hung from the saddle behind them.

Eliza brought them to the chapel.

“This is Liora,” Ressa said. “The healer I told you about.”

Liora was older than I had expected, with strong hands and a face reddened by the wind. She looked around the chapel before setting down her packs.

“How many people are learning here?” she asked Evelyn.

“Six at present. Others have come for a day or two.”

“And how many intend to return to their villages?”

“All of them.”

Liora nodded.

“That’s what Ressa said.”

Ressa folded her arms.

“I also said you could ask your questions yourself.”

“You did.”

Evelyn gave her the lesson notes.

Liora read standing up.

At one point she turned back three pages to compare two instructions about fever.

“You teach them to send for help if the wound changes after they’ve cleaned it.”

“Yes,” Evelyn said.

“What if there is no one to send for?”

“Then they need to know what they can safely do until someone reaches them.”

Liora tapped the page.

“Put that here.”

Evelyn found a pen.

Ilyen looked over her shoulder.

“We should say how to keep water clean as well,” she said.

Liora nodded.

For the next half hour, the three of them discussed a sentence none of them considered finished.

Ressa sat beside me.

“She stayed awake half the night deciding whether to come.”

“Because of the notice?”

“Because people in Southmere might believe it.”

Liora closed the notes at last.

“The clerk said I might lose the right to practice.”

“I heard,” Evelyn said.

“He didn’t know who would take it from me.”

“No.”

“I’ve cared for people there for nineteen years. Before there was a notice. Before anyone asked me whose name I used.”

Aurelia stood near the washing basket, listening.

Liora turned to her.

“I want to learn what you can teach me. I don’t want a title that makes my neighbors think I answer to a court they’ve never seen.”

“You needn’t take one,” Aurelia said.

“Will you say that if they ask you?”

“Yes.”

“Will you write it?”

Mary, who had come in behind Ressa, opened her book.

“I can write it now.”

Liora gave her a long look.

“People warned me about you.”

“Were they specific?” Mary asked.

“They said you wrote everything down.”

“That is accurate.”

Liora stayed for the afternoon lesson.

Afterward she unpacked a roll of needles, clean linen, and a small jar of salve. She had brought enough to teach her own method of closing a cut.

Evelyn watched carefully.

“So you pass the thread through here,” she said.

“Only when the skin will hold it.”

Ilyen moved closer.

Ressa watched for a while, then went to help Beatrice in the kitchen.

Aurelia held the lamp while Liora demonstrated.

I stood in the doorway, thinking of the high court’s notice.

It had brought a healer to Greykeep who could teach us something.

I was pleased by that.

I did not imagine Othellos would be.

Mary found me later beside the old dry rise.

The land markers were still in place.

Aldren and Perrin had added a line of stakes where the first drain would run. Eleanor stood farther down, studying the exposed mouth of the culvert.

“Liora would like a copy of Aurelia’s answer,” Mary said.

“Give her one.”

“I have. She wants enough to take back to Southmere.”

“How many is enough?”

“She asked me that.”

“And?”

“I told her I would find out.”

I looked at her.

“That sounds unlike you.”

“There are more villages on her route than Ressa knew of last week. I won’t guess how many copies can travel safely in two saddlebags.”

She shut her book.

“Walk with me.”

At the culvert, Eleanor had pushed a measuring rod into the dark opening.

Aldren held the other end.

Perrin was writing the measurements down.

“The lower stones are sound,” Eleanor said. “The upper edge needs work.”

“Can it be opened before the houses go up?” Mary asked.

“It ought to be.”

“Can we put the road over it?”

“Yes, once I’ve seen where it emerges.”

The Castellan stood beside a second opening near the wall.

“It passes beneath the old road and ends beyond the planting ground.”

“You knew that?” I asked.

“I knew where it was intended to end.”

Aldren pulled out the rod.

“There’s dirt in the middle. We’ll have to clear it.”

Perrin looked at the marks on his page.

“If it carried water once, there must be a way in from above.”

Eleanor took the page from him.

“There is. Under the road.”

I looked toward the road.

“Please tell me we need to open a small part of it.”

“We won’t know until we find the cover,” she said.

The cover turned out to be smaller than I feared.

It was also directly beneath a cart track.

Eliza came to look at the proposed work before anyone lifted a stone.

“How long will the road be closed?”

“Part of a day,” Eleanor said. “Longer if the channel beneath has fallen in.”

Eliza studied the routes on her map.

“We can send carts around the mill.”

“The miller agreed to the new road,” Mary said. “He hasn’t agreed to every cart going through his yard tomorrow.”

“I’ll ask him.”

She went.

I watched her follow the lower path.

“Everyone is asking someone,” I said.

Mary looked at me.

“That is usually how a city begins.”

The next morning, the miller agreed to the detour on condition that no wagon crossed the narrow bridge carrying more than it should.

He gave Eliza a list of what counted as too much.

She gave the list to the watch.

Eleanor opened the road.

Aldren climbed down first, with a lamp tied securely at his waist. He sent up three stones, a broken length of wood, and a complaint about whoever had used the channel to dispose of a pot.

Perrin received the pot.

“Could we use it to show where the blockage was?”

“No,” Aldren called. “You can use a drawing.”

Perrin set the pot aside and made one.

I helped lift the stones away from the opening.

When Aldren came up, he was muddy to his shoulders.

“The channel’s open beyond the bend,” he said. “Water will pass if we clear what’s fallen at this end.”

The Castellan looked into the opening.

“I can check the flow once it is clear.”

“Then I’ll clear it,” Aldren said.

He took the lamp and climbed down again.

During the work, the western bell rang.

One note.

A pause.

Two more.

Eliza had arranged a drill for the new watch volunteers. I knew that because she had told us at breakfast.

My hands still tightened around the stone I was carrying.

The Castellan looked toward the post.

“Correct sequence.”

A second bell answered from the lower gate.

“That one too,” he said.

Then the southern bell sounded late.

Eleanor straightened.

“I repaired that fitting.”

“You did,” the Castellan said.

He listened.

“Today the delay came from the guard.”

Aldren’s voice rose from the culvert.

“Is anything actually happening?”

“Training,” I called.

“Then you might warn a man standing inside a drain.”

“Eliza said there would be a drill.”

“Did you tell the drain?”

I had not.

At supper, Eliza reported that the young guard had waited for the western bell to finish before ringing his own.

“He thought the messages might become confused.”

“Will he do it again?” Mary asked.

“No. He understands why the pauses are there.”

Aldren, newly washed but still finding mud beneath his fingernails, looked at him.

“You could explain it to everyone working below a road tomorrow.”

“There is no drill tomorrow,” Eliza said.

“An excellent beginning.”

Perrin passed him more bread.

Across the table, Liora discussed the chapel notes with Ilyen.

Ressa had chosen to remain another night.

There were enough conversations that I could listen to one without hearing the others.

I was grateful for it.

After supper, Maelin came to the nursery.

She waited at the open door until Evelyn invited her in.

Carol was arranging blocks on the floor. Garrick watched her, holding one against his chest.

Maelin sat near them.

Carol offered her a block.

“Thank you.”

She set it beside the others.

For a while, she said nothing.

Then she looked at Aurelia, who was folding the cloth book.

“The court will answer the letter.”

“Yes,” Aurelia said.

“I used to write replies of that kind.”

Mary, seated by the window, lifted her head.

“What should we expect?”

“A demand that you name who has authority here. Perhaps a date by which to do it.”

“And if we refuse?” I asked.

“They will name someone for you.”

Aurelia closed the book.

“We know whom Othellos would choose.”

Maelin nodded.

“Is that what you would have done?” I asked her.

“When I served him? I might have written that the matter required another review. It would have sounded patient.”

“And then?”

“People would have waited. A healer might have stopped teaching while she waited. Someone needing her would still have been ill.”

Liora’s voice carried faintly from the adjoining room. She was asking Ilyen where to find another length of clean thread.

Maelin heard her.

“I am sorry,” she said to Aurelia.

Aurelia set the book aside and came to sit beside her.

“I know.”

Maelin looked at her.

“You have already forgiven me.”

“Yes.”

“That has not made me certain what to do with the years I spent there.”

“No,” Aurelia said. “You still have to decide that.”

Carol put another block in Maelin’s hand.

Maelin held it until our daughter indicated where it belonged.

When the children were asleep, I went with Aurelia to the western observation room.

She had asked me to show her what I could hear from there.

The round wooden platform remained in the center. Nobody had used it since we offered Othellos a meeting before witnesses.

I stood beside it.

The western post.

The lower gate.

Voices in the yard.

Beyond them lay the river road.

I could find it now without reaching far.

“What do you hear?” Aurelia asked.

“Nothing calling for me.”

“Good.”

I glanced at her.

“You sound relieved.”

“I am.”

I listened once more.

There were people on the road. I could tell that much. I could not tell what they said.

I let the distance remain.

“Did you hear every person who needed you?” I asked.

“When I first changed?”

“Yes.”

“I thought I did.”

“What changed?”

“I learned that hearing a need did not tell me what help would serve it.”

I thought of the horse in the rising river.

The rope Eliza had brought.

“And when there was no one else to send?”

“Sometimes I went.”

“Sometimes?”

“Sometimes I could not reach them. Sometimes I did not know they were there.”

She stood beside me at the window.

“I did not become able to save everyone, Uriah.”

I had known that.

Hearing her say it made the room feel larger.

Below us, Evelyn crossed the court with Liora.

They stopped beside a guard whose arm was bound in a clean strip of cloth. He showed them how far he could bend it.

Liora demonstrated something with her own elbow.

Evelyn tried it.

The guard followed.

Aurelia watched them too.

“They don’t need you standing beside them,” I said.

“Not for that.”

“Does it trouble you?”

“No.”

She looked at me.

“It took me time to learn that answer.”

I thought of Maelin in the nursery, uncertain what forgiveness allowed her to do next.

Then of Liora, asking for something she could take home in a saddlebag.

Aurelia’s name could go farther than she could.

The people carrying it would still have to choose what to do when they arrived.

On the way back, we passed the training chamber.

The door was open.

Caldris had left the three rings hanging from their frame.

My stone rested beneath them.

I went in and picked it up.

Aurelia stayed in the doorway.

“Another attempt tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Thesra may call from farther away.”

“I assumed she would.”

“She might not tell you first.”

“I assumed that too.”

Aurelia smiled.

I put the stone in my pocket.

This time, I meant to keep it where I could find it.