Ch. 200 Nathaniel and Nara

Chapter 200: Nathaniel and Nara

Thesra called from beyond the western wall the next morning.

I felt her reach the edge of my attention while I was fastening Garrick’s coat.

He took advantage of my distraction and pulled one arm free.

“She said she might go farther away,” Evelyn observed.

“She did.”

“Did she say how far?”

“No.”

Carol came to the door carrying my training stone.

I looked at her hand.

“I put that on the shelf.”

“She watched you,” Evelyn said.

“That used to be enough to keep it safe.”

Our daughter held the stone out to me. It rose a little from her palm before I took it.

Evelyn saw.

So did Carol.

She smiled as if she had shown us where she found it.

We brought the children to Aurelia before I answered Thesra.

She was in the adjoining room with Helena, sorting small clothes into a basket.

Carol offered her the stone.

Aurelia held her hand beneath it. The stone hung between their fingers for a breath, then dropped into her palm.

“Was that Carol?” I asked.

“Mostly.”

“How much is mostly?”

“I gave it somewhere to land.”

Garrick leaned out of my arms toward his sister. When Aurelia returned the stone to me, the wooden boat beside him slid across the floor and struck my boot.

He laughed.

Helena looked from one child to the other.

“They watched you do it,” she told me.

“I wasn’t lifting the boat.”

“You lift things every day.”

She took Garrick from me.

“Go and answer Thesra. We can keep an eye on their toys.”

Thesra was standing on the old road when Evelyn and I reached the lower gate.

She had intended to call from the ridge. Instead, she had stopped halfway back.

“Why?” I asked.

She pointed west.

“Two people are coming.”

I looked past her. The road was empty to my eyes.

“People?”

“Gods.”

My attention went toward the distance before I chose it.

Thesra touched my sleeve.

“You can wait until they arrive.”

I stopped.

“Do you know them?”

“One. The other has changed enough that I’m uncertain.”

Eliza joined us at the gate. She had already sent a pair of guards along the wall, where they could watch the road.

“What are they carrying?” she asked.

“Packs,” Thesra said. “No escort.”

“That isn’t all I meant.”

“I know.”

The first figure appeared where the road rose between the fields.

A tall man walked beside a shorter woman. They wore plain traveling cloaks and carried their own packs.

Neither hurried when they saw the guards.

The man stopped well outside the gate and raised a hand.

“I am Nathaniel,” he called. “This is Nara.”

Thesra stood beside Eliza.

“Nathaniel tended the crossings,” she said quietly.

“Roads?” I asked.

“Places where travelers passed from one keeping to another.”

“What does that mean for our gate?”

“That depends on what he asks of it.”

Eliza heard her.

“Then he can ask before he comes closer.”

She called to them.

“What business brings you to Greykeep?”

Nara answered.

“We are seeking shelter.”

Eliza kept the gate closed while they spoke.

Nathan had left the high court four days earlier. Nara had followed him after Othellos’s office ordered her to withdraw her care from a town that had accepted one of Aurelia’s healers.

“What care?” Evelyn asked.

“Warmth,” Nara said. “I keep hearths through the cold months.”

She sounded tired.

“The people there have kept their own fires for generations,” she added. “I was told my absence would teach them whose blessing they had lost.”

“And did you go?” Aurelia asked.

She had come down the road behind us without my hearing her approach.

Nara looked at her.

“No.”

Serren glanced toward her, then back to Eliza.

“We can answer your questions outside. We will not pass your gate without leave.”

“That is where we’ll begin,” Eliza said.

Maelin, Caldris, and the Castellan joined us.

The Castellan examined the wards while Maelin spoke with Nathaniel about the roads he had crossed. She asked him whether anyone had followed, and whether he had carried a summons that might still lead back to Greykeep.

Nathaniel set his pack on the ground.

“Only my own name.”

“That has been used as a key before,” the Castellan said.

“Yes,” Nathaniel replied. “I know.”

He held out his hands.

With his permission, Aurelia and the Castellan examined the working around him. Nara waited beside him, arms folded against the wind.

When they finished, the Castellan looked at Eliza.

“I find no passage attached to either traveler.”

Aurelia nodded.

“I find no claim on them that would cross with them.”

Eliza opened the gate far enough for two people to enter.

“Come in.”

Beatrice found them food.

They ate in the small room beside the kitchen while Mary asked their names, where they had traveled, and whom they wanted contacted.

“I have no one to contact,” Nathaniel said.

Nara gave the name of the town she had left.

“They will worry if I vanish.”

Mary wrote it down.

“We can send word that you arrived safely. What would you like it to say?”

Nara looked at her.

“Can I decide after I’ve slept?”

“Yes.”

Nathaniel paused over his bread.

“I had expected you to ask us to swear something.”

“We may ask for promises before you take on work here,” Mary said. “You’ve only just arrived.”

He considered that.

Then he ate the rest of his bread.

By afternoon, news of their arrival had reached the lower yard.

Melody asked who had told anyone.

“People saw them come through the gate,” Eliza said.

“People have excellent eyesight when I’d prefer them to be occupied.”

“They’re occupied. They’re asking me whether the two new gods need beds.”

“Do they?”

“Yes.”

“Then they’ve asked a useful question.”

Nathaniel and Nara were given rooms near Caldris’s. Thesra offered to show them the way.

Nathaniel stopped when he saw the stair.

“I know this place.”

“The castle?” I asked.

“No. The shape of the threshold.”

The Castellan turned toward him.

“When?”

“Long ago. I was asked to witness a crossing here. The person I came to meet never arrived.”

The Castellan’s golden eyes narrowed.

“I do not retain that record.”

“Neither do I,” Nathaniel said. “That troubles me.”

We discussed it after they had gone upstairs.

“I want to see whether he remembers the eastern passage,” the Castellan said.

“We severed it,” Evelyn replied.

“Yes. His memory might tell us why it was built.”

Maelin shook her head.

“He has been walking for four days. Let him rest.”

The Castellan inclined his head.

“We can ask tomorrow.”

Mary made a note.

I watched her write.

“Is there a page for everyone who arrives?”

“Several.”

“What page am I on?”

“You have your own book.”

That seemed excessive.

I did not ask to see it.

In the nursery, Carol was standing without holding the cradle.

That had ceased to surprise me.

What surprised me was that she was watching the cloth door open and close without touching it.

The page lay flat on the floor.

Its little fabric flap rose.

Fell.

Rose again.

Garrick sat beside her, carefully placing wooden blocks in a line. Whenever Carol raised the door, the nearest block tipped toward it.

Evelyn sat on the floor with them.

“How long?” I asked.

“Since Helena brought them in.”

“Does she know she’s moving it?”

“I think so.”

Evelyn placed a finger on the door. Carol looked at her and let it fall.

“Again?” Evelyn asked.

The flap rose beneath her finger.

Aurelia, standing behind me, drew a slow breath.

We asked Carol to put the door down.

She did.

Garrick knocked over his row of blocks and began again.

Evelyn watched our daughter.

“Can she understand that she should stop?”

“She understood you,” Aurelia said.

“That isn’t the same as understanding why.”

“No.”

Carol crawled into Evelyn’s lap and pressed the book against her knee. She wanted the story.

My wife opened it.

I took Garrick and helped him rebuild his row, though he objected to where I placed the third block.

I moved it.

He approved.

Neither child seemed aware that we were studying every movement of their hands.

I wanted to keep it that way.

Later, Aurelia told us what she had noticed.

“They’re learning the shapes of workings by watching us.”

“We expected that eventually,” I said.

“Yes. Their bodies are changing quickly too.”

Evelyn looked up.

“How quickly?”

“I don’t know yet.”

That answer frightened me more than a number would have.

Aurelia drew a chair close.

“We can ask Nessa to examine them. She knows their ordinary growth better than I do.”

“And if this isn’t ordinary?”

“Then we learn what care they need.”

Evelyn rested her hand over the children’s books.

“They are still little.”

“Yes,” Aurelia said.

“Even if they can lift a stone.”

“Yes.”

Nessa visited the next morning.

Garrick greeted her by hiding his face against my shoulder. He had objected to his last examination.

“I remember too,” Nessa told him.

She measured both children. She watched Carol walk and Garrick rise from the floor. She asked Evelyn about their sleep, their appetites, and how often they seemed tired after using power.

“They’ve begun waking earlier,” Evelyn said.

“Both?”

“Usually Garrick first. Carol follows.”

Nessa felt Garrick’s wrist.

“He’s growing. So is she. More quickly than they were a month ago.”

“Is it hurting them?” I asked.

“I find no sign of it. I want to look again soon.”

“How soon?”

“Next week.”

Carol took Nessa’s measuring cord and tried to put it around her own foot.

Nessa let her.