Ch. 214 The Road to Greykeep

Chapter 214: A Road to Greykeep

The western beacon sounded while I was helping Garrick put on his shoes.

One note for travelers.

A pause.

Three more.

“Three?” Evelyn asked from the doorway.

“That is what Eliza’s new signal means.”

Our son pulled his foot free just as I had settled the shoe around it.

I looked at him.

He looked at the shoe.

The beacon sounded again.

“Let Helena finish,” Evelyn said.

I handed our son over.

He accepted his grandmother’s help with an ease I chose not to take personally.

Eliza met us in the lower yard.

“Three travelers on foot,” she said. “They came up the western road. The watch recognized divine power, but none of them touched the beacon or the outer wards.”

“Names?” Aurelia asked.

“They offered them. I told the watch to wait until they could give them to you directly.”

Mary appeared behind Eliza, already writing.

“Are they armed?”

“Walking staffs. Packs.”

“That was not quite my question.”

“No weapons visible.”

I looked toward the gate.

A little wind moved the flags above it.

The air had been still when I left the nursery.

We met the travelers outside the outer gate.

A woman stood in front.

She wore a brown cloak with a repaired hem and carried a canvas pack that had been mended even more often. Beside her waited a tall man with silver at his temples and a younger woman whose hands were red from the cold.

They looked tired.

The woman in front looked at Aurelia first.

Then at me.

“My name is Miren,” she said. “I tended sleep in the high court. This is Bren, who keeps wells, and Isel, who watches the measures by which grain is traded.”

Mary’s pen stopped.

“You were all at Othellos’s court?”

“Yes,” Miren said. “We left it.”

The younger woman, Isel, glanced up at the wall.

“We would like to stay.”

Aurelia stepped forward.

“You may come inside and speak with us.”

Miren did not move.

“Under whose protection?”

“Greykeep’s,” I said.

“And what must we promise for it?”

I thought of the other gods who had come here.

Some had asked the same question.

Others had been too weary to ask it until afterward.

“You’ll tell us whether anyone followed you,” I said. “You’ll follow the same rules for the wards as everyone else. You don’t owe me service.”

Miren studied my face.

“What if we leave?”

“Tell the gate watch so they don’t spend the evening looking for you.”

Behind me, Melody made a small approving sound.

Miren lowered her staff.

“Thank you.”

The Castellan met us inside the gate.

He asked each traveler to pause while he examined the wards around them.

Bren waited quietly.

Isel shifted her weight from foot to foot.

When Miren’s turn came, a bronze fitting beside the arch gave a faint sound.

Everyone stopped.

The Castellan’s golden eyes brightened.

“An office summons is attached to you.”

Miren closed her eyes.

“I thought I had let it fall.”

“It is very fine,” Aurelia said.

I felt it then.

Something at the edge of Miren’s power, drawn taut toward a place beyond the castle.

It reminded me of the thread beneath the snow at the wayhouse.

“Can you separate it?” I asked.

“Yes,” Miren said. “If he has left me enough of it to hold.”

We moved back out of the arch.

Evelyn came to Miren’s side.

“May I help you find the edge?”

Miren nodded.

My wife raised a small shield around the thread.

It touched her working.

I felt the contact.

Then Miren took hold of the part nearest herself.

There was no flash.

She loosened one narrow turn of power, then another.

A voice pressed against my hearing.

Not a word.

The expectation of an answer.

I kept my attention on the stones beneath my boots.

Miren released the last turn.

The bronze fitting went quiet.

She stood for a moment with one hand against the gatepost.

“Are you all right?” Evelyn asked.

“Yes.”

Then, after a breath, “I may need to sit.”

Beatrice found them food.

She did not ask whether gods preferred anything particular.

She brought bread, cheese, hot broth, and three cups of tea.

Bren finished his broth first.

Isel held her cup between both hands without drinking for a while.

We used the small council room because it had a fire and enough chairs. Mary sat at the table with Eliza. Aurelia remained beside Miren.

The Castellan reported that the summons had ended at the gate. He had found nothing attached to the other two.

“I will examine the road signals again tonight,” he said.

Eliza nodded.

“I’ll put another pair on the western watch.”

“Take them from the rested roster,” Melody said.

“I know.”

“You were going to take yourself.”

Eliza picked up her cup.

“I can do both.”

“You can’t,” Melody said.

Their argument continued quietly while Miren watched them.

At last, she smiled into her tea.

“You said you tended sleep,” Evelyn said.

Miren set down her cup.

“Rest for the ill. Sometimes a dream gentle enough to let someone remain asleep until morning.”

Aurelia looked at her.

“Did you know the old wayhouse beneath the ridge?”

“I knew what it had been made for.”

I felt my hands tighten.

Miren saw.

“I did not change it.”

“I wasn’t going to accuse you,” I said.

“I have been accused of less.”

Aurelia rested a hand on the table.

“We found the change. The invitation had been carried out to the road.”

Miren’s expression darkened.

“That should never have happened.”

“No,” Aurelia said.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Isel was the first to ask about the castle.

“Will we be kept together?”

“For tonight, if you want,” Mary said. “There are three rooms adjoining one another in the west guest passage.”

“And afterward?”

“We’ll ask you what you need. We’re short of rooms, but we’re planning more buildings.”

Bren looked into his empty bowl.

“I can help with the wells.”

“You may,” I said.

Mary looked at him over her book.

“Once you’ve rested. Eleanor is already surveying the new city ground, and she’ll want to know precisely what you can do.”

“I can tell her.”

“She will ask more questions than that.”

For the first time since the gate, Bren laughed.

When the others had gone to their rooms, Miren stayed.

She stood at the window, looking down toward the western road.

Aurelia remained with her.

I meant to give them privacy, but Miren turned before I reached the door.

“You wondered why we came now.”

“I wondered how many others might.”

“I don’t know.”

She looked back at the road.

“Some of us have wanted to leave for a very long time.”

I waited.

“We talked about it before Aurelia returned. Before anyone here knew Othellos’s name. But leaving his court meant going somewhere he could call us back from, or somewhere that would hand us over when he asked.”

“Were there no other sanctuaries?”

“Places to hide for a night. A season, sometimes. Nothing people could find twice and trust to remain.”

Miren turned to face us.

“Then Greykeep refused his summons. You put witnesses in a room and offered him terms. Others came here, and they were still here afterward.”

“He can still reach the edge of the wards,” I said.

“Yes. We saw that at the gate.”

“You don’t know whether we can keep him out forever.”

“No.”

She spoke plainly.

“We know you’re trying. We know Aurelia is free to live here. We know Maelin and Thesra came and were allowed to stay without giving you their power or their names to command. That is more than we had before.”

Aurelia’s eyes shone.

Miren’s voice softened.

“Greykeep finally gave us somewhere to go.”

Afterward, I walked with Aurelia through the lower passage.

“Did you know she wanted to leave?”

“I knew she was unhappy.”

“That isn’t the same.”

“No.”

Aurelia stopped beside a narrow window.

“I could see what Othellos did to people near him. I did not always know which of them were ready to speak against it.”

“And now?”

“Now they are finding their own way here.”

Outside, a guard crossed the yard with a covered lantern.

I watched him turn toward the gate.

“We’ll need more guest rooms.”

“Yes.”

“And food.”

“Yes.”

“And Eliza will tell me we need more guards.”

“She would be right.”

I sighed.

Aurelia smiled a little.

By afternoon, Mary had brought the question to the city plans.

She spread a map across the table beside the Castellan’s drawings for the larger chapel.

“This space was left open for workshops,” she said, pointing to a stretch above the road. “Eleanor hasn’t marked its boundaries yet.”

“Are you giving it to the gods?” I asked.

“I am asking whether people arriving here need somewhere to live that isn’t inside your castle.”

“They do.”

“Then the plans should allow for houses.”

The Castellan placed one metal finger on the map.

“And a public well. The rise is suitable, but the nearest existing source is too far for daily use.”

“Bren arrived at a convenient time,” I said.

“His arrival does not oblige him to build it,” Mary replied.

“I know.”

She wrote ask Bren after rest in the margin anyway.

Eliza came in carrying the watch roster.

She set it beside the map.

“Three more people can stay in the castle without changing the shifts. More than that, and we need to decide which buildings the night watch covers.”

“Mary is already making streets,” I said.

“I can see that.”

Eliza drew a line along the road with her finger.

“This approach needs light before it needs another tower. Dorian’s beacon helps the distant watch. Someone walking the last stretch still has to see where the ditch begins.”

The Castellan noted the place.

Melody leaned over Eliza’s shoulder.

“You could also stop putting the night watch on the people who spent the day training recruits.”

“I changed that this morning.”

“You changed two names.”

“I changed the two who complained.”

“The others complained to me.”

Mary took the roster from between them.

“Then we’ll change the others.”

Near supper, I found Evelyn in the chapel’s temporary treatment room.

Liora was showing Isel where clean linen was kept.

Isel had offered to help count supplies.

It seemed a natural occupation for someone who had spent centuries caring whether a sack of grain contained what its label promised.

“You don’t have to work today,” Evelyn told her.

“I know. I would like to do something with my hands.”

Liora gave her a stack of folded cloth.

“Then check these for worn seams. Put any that need mending in the basket.”

Isel nodded.

After a moment, she asked, “Do you ask permission before healing here?”

“Yes,” Liora said.

“Every time?”

“Every time the person can answer.”

Isel looked at her for a long moment.

Then she bent over the linen.

At supper, the twins wanted to know about the new guests.

Carol asked whether they had come through the gate.

“Yes,” I told her.

She considered this.

“Gate open?”

“For them. After we checked it was safe.”

Garrick held up his boat.

“Boat go?”

“Not through the gate tonight.”

He put it down and tried another approach.

“Grandfather boat?”

“Your grandfather is still making that one.”

Helena, seated across from us, looked at her husband.

“Is he?”

Garrick Valewood cleared his throat.

“I may have chosen the wood.”

“You told me you were repairing a shelf.”

“The shelf required very little wood.”

Evelyn covered her smile with her cup.

Miren joined us late.

Aurelia made space beside her.

Nobody asked her to describe the court again.

Beatrice brought another bowl of broth, and Bren came down a little later to ask for bread.

Isel remained upstairs.

“She’s asleep,” Miren said.

“That sounds like your doing,” I said.

“No. She was tired.”

The room went on around us.

Carol dropped her spoon.

Garrick called for his grandfather.

Eliza and Melody argued over which watch lanterns needed new glass.

Miren listened.

“You have a great deal to look after,” she said.

“We do.”

“And people still keep coming.”

I looked down the table, at the places we had made and the spaces between them.

“Yes,” I said.

“Will there be room?”

Mary raised her head before I could answer.

“There will be,” she said. “I’m drawing it now.”

Miren looked at the map beneath Mary’s elbow.

Then she reached for her bread.