Ch. 202 Keeper of Records

Chapter 202: Keeper of Records

Nathaniel spent the morning in the archive with the Castellan.

Mary had warned them that the old records were incomplete.

Nathaniel had answered that his memory was incomplete too, so they would have something in common.

I found them beneath the eastern stair, with three boxes open and a fourth waiting on the floor.

The Castellan held a page near the window.

Nathaniel read over his shoulder.

“Did you find the petition?” I asked.

“Several,” the Castellan said. “None bearing a name Nathaniel recognizes.”

“I may recognize the circumstances,” Nathaniel said.

He took the page and read it again.

I stayed long enough to carry the fourth box onto the table.

Then Mary arrived with another two.

“You could have told me there were more,” I said.

“I thought you were helping.”

“I was.”

“Then I judged correctly.”

The records described crossings through Greykeep.

Some had allowed a visitor to enter the castle under the authority of an office.

Others had permitted a person to leave one god’s keeping for another.

Nathaniel read the second kind more slowly.

“This is what I came to witness,” he said.

“Which one?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

He touched a line on the page.

“But the person was meant to speak at the threshold. The witness had to hear the choice from them.”

“What if the person changed their mind?”

“Then I should have heard that too.”

He looked toward the sealed passage.

“I waited outside while someone told me they had withdrawn the petition.”

The Castellan set down his page.

“Could you have been prevented from hearing them?”

“Yes.”

“Could they have crossed another way?”

“Perhaps.”

Neither answer improved Nathaniel’s expression.

Mary placed a clean sheet beside the records.

“Write down what you remember before you read more.”

He looked at her.

“You think the pages will change my memory?”

“I think they might supply details you cannot honestly claim to remember.”

Nathaniel took the pen.

“I see why people warned Liora about you.”

“She was told I write everything down.”

“I heard you ask someone how many boxes there were before you agreed to open them.”

“That sounds like me.”

Outside, Perrin was measuring the shelter beside the western gate.

Eleanor had built the first posts the previous day. Aldren was fitting a brace between them while Perrin checked whether the roof would cover someone standing outside the gate as well as the guards within it.

“You’ve put the post in the wrong place,” Aldren told him.

“I measured from the wall.”

“You should have measured from the gate.”

Perrin looked at the gap.

“If I move it, the roof will be crooked.”

“If you leave it, a person waiting in the rain will be wet.”

Perrin picked up his tools.

Aldren held the post while he moved its marker.

I had come to ask whether they needed help. By the time I reached them, they had found enough for three people to do.

Nara brought warm drinks to the workers.

She passed one to Aldren, who was balancing the brace.

“Could you put it there?” he asked.

She looked at the ground.

“It will be cold before I finish this.”

Nara rested her palm near the cup.

A little warmth remained in it.

Aldren noticed.

“I wasn’t asking you to do that.”

“I know.”

He took a drink.

“Thank you.”

Nara gave Perrin his cup without touching it.

He looked disappointed until she said, “You’re still holding yours.”

“That seems fair.”

Aurelia watched from the road.

“Do you think she’ll stay?” I asked.

“Nara?”

“Yes.”

“She hasn’t decided.”

“She’s helping already.”

“So are you. Neither of you should have to make every decision at once.”

I looked back at the shelter.

The western gate had been built to keep people out when it needed to. Now Aldren was making sure someone could wait beside it without standing in the rain.

It seemed a good use for a roof.

The children were with Helena when I returned.

Garrick had learned to say “boat” clearly.

He used the word for his wooden boat, the washing basin, and a spoon laid across two blocks.

Helena corrected him each time.

He continued.

Carol took his actual boat and placed it on the floor.

“Boat,” she said.

Garrick hurried over.

I stopped in the doorway.

“When did she start saying that?”

“This morning.”

Evelyn, seated beside them, gave me a look.

“She said it three times before you came in.”

“I missed it?”

“You were with Nathaniel.”

Carol looked up.

“Boat,” she told me.

“I agree.”

She pushed it toward Garrick without touching it.

The boat slid across the floor.

Garrick caught it before it struck the wall.

This time Evelyn did not ask whether Carol had meant to use power. Our daughter was watching the boat all the way.

“Can you bring it back?” Evelyn asked.

Carol held out her hand.

The boat moved.

Then Garrick decided he wanted it where it was and grabbed it.

The working broke.

Carol frowned at him.

“He gets to hold his own toy,” Evelyn said.

Carol considered this.

Then she picked up a block and moved that instead.

It scraped along the floor toward my boot.

“An acceptable solution,” I told her.

Helena glanced at me.

“Until she decides your boot belongs somewhere else.”

I stepped farther into the room.

After the children slept, Evelyn showed Aurelia the marks she had made in their books.

“Two new words for Carol,” she said. “One for Garrick, unless the spoon counts as a boat.”

“It doesn’t,” I said.

“Our son disagrees.”

Aurelia read the pages.

“Did they tire after using power?”

“Carol wanted her midday sleep earlier. Garrick slept at his usual time.”

“We’ll tell Nessa.”

Evelyn nodded.

I looked from one book to the other.

“They’re learning quickly.”

“They are,” Aurelia said.

“How much of it is the power?”

“I cannot separate it from everything else yet.”

That was still her answer.

I appreciated that she had not changed it merely because I wanted one.

Our own lesson took place in the lower chamber.

Caldris had removed the hanging rings.

In their place stood two chairs, one near the door and one at the far wall.

“Please tell me I can sit,” I said.

“Not yet,” Maelin replied.

She asked me to hold a small shield between the chairs while Thesra moved through the passage beyond the room.

I could feel Thesra’s call whenever she passed the open door.

On her third circuit, someone else called.

A woman.

Unfamiliar.

I looked toward the western road.

The shield bent.

Evelyn touched its edge and kept it from folding.

“Stay with me,” she said.

“I heard someone.”

“So did I.”

Maelin raised her head.

“Another arrival.”

We did not go to the gate immediately.

Aurelia asked us to lower the shield first.

Then she waited while I drew back the strength I was still holding there.

By the time we reached the courtyard, the unfamiliar call had stopped.

Eliza had seen the traveler from the wall.

“One person,” she told us. “Walking. No pack that I can see.”

“Do you recognize her?” Thesra asked Maelin.

“Not from here.”

Nathaniel came out of the archive with ink on his fingers.

He looked west.

“I do.”

The woman reached the shelter before its roof was finished.

Eliza spoke to her through the gate.

“What business brings you here?”

“I need to speak with Nathaniel.”

“He’s here.”

The woman looked relieved.

Then she saw him standing beside us.

“My name is Ivara,” she said. “I kept the petitions for the Hall of Accord.”

Nathaniel went very still.

“Did you send someone to Greykeep?” he asked.

“No.”

She looked at Aurelia.

“I sent one to you. Years ago.”

Aurelia’s face changed.

“I never received it.”

“I know that now.”

Ivara consented to be examined before entering.

She had carried no passage with her.

She had, however, walked without food since the previous morning.

Beatrice took one look at her and brought bread before Mary asked any questions.

Ivara ate half of it.

Then she laid a folded paper on the table.

“I copied this before the original disappeared.”

Mary held out her hand.

Ivara passed it over.

The page recorded a petition from a woman who wished to leave Othellos’s keeping.

Her name had been struck through so thoroughly that I could not read it.

Below it stood the name of the witness assigned to hear her choice.

Nathaniel.

“You kept this?” he asked Ivara.

“I was told to destroy it.”

“And you didn’t.”

“I thought she might ask for proof one day.”

“What happened to her?”

“I was told she withdrew her petition.”

Nathaniel sat down.

“That is what they told me.”

Ivara looked at the bread in her hand.

“I believed it at the time.”

Mary examined the ink across the petitioner’s name.

“Can it be recovered?”

“Perhaps,” Ivara said. “I remember how the original was entered. There may be another copy in the Hall.”

“Why come now?” Aurelia asked.

Ivara looked at her.

“Because I heard that Nathaniel had left. And because the notice against your healers used language I used to put into records.”

She set down the bread.

“I wanted to know whether I could stop helping them say it.”

Maelin joined us when Mary brought out the older petitions.

She and Ivara knew each other.

Neither pretended otherwise.

They spoke privately at the end of the table while Nathaniel studied the copied page.

I stood beside Evelyn.

“How many more people know something they were told to forget?” I asked.

“Enough that we should keep asking,” she said.

I thought of the empty space beneath the crossed-out name.

Someone had wanted to leave.

Nathaniel had waited to hear her.

Both had been told there was nothing left to do.

Ivara was given a room for the night.

Eliza made sure she knew the way back to the western gate.

“You can leave whenever you wish,” she told her.

Ivara nodded.

“I may need to, if there are records I can reach.”

“Speak to us before you decide to go back,” Eliza said. “We’ll know where you went.”

Mary added Ivara’s account to the page begun that morning.

Nathaniel read it before he signed his name beneath his own statement.

“You left out that I’m angry,” he said.

“I recorded what you said and what you remember.”

“I’m saying it now.”

Mary took up her pen.

The chapel was crowded again that evening.

Liora had stayed longer than she intended to show Ilyen another way of securing a bandage. Nara kept the wash water warm. Two guards waited near the door to have their hands checked after the day’s work.

Evelyn stepped outside when she saw me.

“Another god?”

“Ivara. She kept records at the Hall of Accord.”

“Is she staying?”

“Tonight.”

Evelyn looked back into the chapel.

“We’ll need more than the building on Mary’s plan if people keep arriving.”

“She has left room to add to it.”

“I was thinking of beds.”

I followed her gaze toward the guards waiting by the door.

“Mary will want a number.”

“I’ll give her one when I know it.”

“She may be disappointed.”

“She can come and count with me.”

We walked to the dry rise after supper.

The stakes for the new road were visible in the last light. Farther back, I could see the place Mary and the Castellan had marked for the larger chapel.

“We need to ask the families about the revised plan,” I said.

“Tomorrow.”

“And Eleanor needs to see whether the ground is sound.”

“She said she would.”

Evelyn slipped her hand into mine.

For a while, we stood without planning anything else.

Then a faint call touched the edge of my attention.

I knew Thesra’s voice now.

She was on the ridge.

I let her know I had heard.

I remained where I was.

“She’s testing you,” Evelyn said.

“Yes.”

“Is she satisfied?”

“I expect she’ll tell me tomorrow.”

When we returned, the western shelter stood under a newly fitted roof.

Aldren was putting away his tools.

Perrin had left a cup on one of the posts.

“It’s cold,” he said when Nara came to collect it.

“I know.”

“You didn’t warm it.”

“You stopped holding it.”

Perrin thought about that.

Aldren laughed.

Inside the castle, Carol called for her boat. Garrick answered first.

I went up the stair with Evelyn.

There were records to read in the morning, a road to build, and more people asking whether Greykeep had room for them.

Tonight, our children wanted us.

I could hear them from exactly where I was.