Chapter 374: Another Place at the Table

The fiddle was still being tuned when I woke.

For a moment, with my back against the orchard tree and a folded cloak beneath my head, I wondered whether its owner had been working on the same string all night.

Then a melody emerged.

It was hesitant, interrupted by the occasional sour note, but several people near the cooking fires lifted their heads. One woman began humming. An old man joined her, stopped to cough, then stubbornly found his place again.

Beside the nearest wagon, Commander Ressa Dorn stood with a bowl in her hands.

She had not eaten from it.

“If you keep watching the porridge,” I told her, “it won't become something else.”

“I was counting.”

“Bowls?”

“People.”

“We counted them last night.”

“I know.”

She looked past me toward a little family seated beneath the wall. The father was cutting a piece of bread into smaller pieces, though there was another whole loaf beside him.

Ressa watched until Merova appeared and took the list from beneath her arm.

“You can have this back after breakfast.”

“I need to arrange—”

“I've arranged it.”

“The wounded—”

“Are leaving first. Two healers with them. Sabine knows the order.”

Ressa glanced at me.

I raised both hands.

“I'm afraid you're surrounded by competent people. There's nothing I can do.”

She finally took a mouthful.

Merova waited until she took another before walking away with the list.

We did not empty the orchard in one morning.

Those who could travel by wagon began leaving after breakfast. The people too exhausted for another march slept beneath the trees. Our scouts watched the approaches while fresh escorts came forward from the coast, bringing animals that had not spent the previous day climbing broken tracks.

The enemy tested the road behind us twice.

The first patrol withdrew when Sabine's archers showed themselves above a bend. The second stayed long enough for Aurethar to rise from behind the orchard wall.

After that, they watched from farther away.

We knew they were still there. Merova shifted the camp's outer posts after dark and sent the next wagons out by a different farm lane.

King Edric spent part of the afternoon writing beside the stretcher of the soldier we had lost.

When I sat beside him, he had finished the letter but had not folded it.

“He was a farrier before he joined us,” he said. “He intended to go back to it.”

“Did you know him well?”

“Well enough to know he disliked the way I held a horse's foot.”

Edric looked down at his hands.

“He corrected me three days ago.”

I sat with him until he folded the letter.

There was nothing useful I could add.

The following morning, he took charge of the next escort himself.

Four days after we reached the orchard, the last of Ressa's people came within sight of Orselle.

They saw the masts first.

A child called out that the trees ahead had ropes in them, and laughter moved through the column in a small, weary ripple.

Then the road bent, the harbor opened below us, and people stopped pretending that they did not need to lean on one another.

Councillor Maren had arranged water and food beyond the busiest streets. Rusk had cleared a way through the harbor traffic by arguing with everyone in reach, which appeared to be his preferred method of moving anything larger than a chair.

He greeted me with a list of difficulties.

“Three wagon axles cracked, two missing teams, and a merchant who insists his salted fish should have priority over your entire procession.”

“Did it?”

“No.”

“Then it sounds as though you managed.”

“He'll complain.”

“Have him write to Mary.”

Rusk gave me a look of profound respect.

“That seems excessive.”

Beyond him, one of the arriving children stared at the harbor.

“Is this where we get on a ship?” she asked her mother.

“No,” a guard told her gently. “You're going through the gate.”

The girl looked doubtful.

“Is it a big gate?”

“Big enough.”

“Does it float?”

I left him to explain.

The most seriously ill had already been sent ahead in earlier groups. Of the nine wounded from our escort, both men whose condition had worried the healers were now stable, though neither would be returning to duty soon. Evelyn had sent word that she was expecting them, along with an instruction that I was to come home before I decided to inspect another mountain.

There was no suggestion that the instruction was optional.

Ressa remained beside the gate until her final group had passed through.

Only then did she approach it herself.

“I've never used one,” she admitted.

“It feels stranger to think about than to do.”

“That isn't especially reassuring.”

“It's the best I've got.”

She adjusted the worn strap of her sword, looked once toward the road we had traveled, and stepped through beside me.

Mirelle was waiting.

She stood between Adriana and Cassia at the edge of the receiving court, with Julian slightly ahead of them. Helena and Lisbeth were helping attendants guide the arriving families toward the tables beneath the awnings.

Ressa saw her queen and stopped so abruptly that I nearly walked into her.

For a heartbeat, neither woman moved.

Then Ressa went to one knee.

“Your Majesty. I have brought—”

Mirelle crossed the distance before she could finish.

“No.”

It was not loud, but Ressa fell silent.

Mirelle caught her by both arms and pulled her upright.

“You have brought yourself.”

Ressa's face changed.

All the discipline that had held it still through hunger, pursuit, and the counting of people beneath orchard trees gave way at once.

Mirelle embraced her.

Adriana put a hand over her mouth. Cassia turned her face aside for a moment, then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around them both.

Ressa was saying something I could not understand.

Mirelle answered softly, again and again.

Behind them, the final refugees emerged from the gate into sunlight.

Someone recognized the queen.

Then someone else did.

A murmur passed through the court. People who had been following the attendants stopped. A few began to kneel, and Mirelle turned with Ressa still holding her sleeve.

“Please,” she said. “You've walked far enough. Sit down and eat.”

A woman laughed through her tears.

The sound broke whatever had been holding the others still.

They came toward her, slowly at first, carrying children and rolled blankets and all the questions they had been afraid to ask along the road.

Mirelle stayed among them.

Cassia took a toddler so his mother could sit. Adriana guided an elderly man toward a chair, ignoring my attempt to take over until she had made certain he was comfortable.

Then she came to me and pressed her face against my chest.

“You smell of horse.”

“I brought you several hundred people.”

“Yes. You may wash before bringing me anything else.”

Evelyn reached us a moment later, touched my cheek, and looked me over with the thoroughness of someone assessing damage to a valuable but frequently mishandled object.

“Anything I should know?”

“Tired. A few bruises. No new holes.”

“Good.”

She kissed me.

Adriana smiled against my shoulder.

For a little while, I let the court move around us.

Julian waited until Ressa had a cup of water before approaching her.

She set it down immediately.

“My prince.”

His eyes went to the cup.

“You can finish drinking.”

That made her laugh, though it was unsteady.

“You sound like your mother.”

“I've been told.”

She looked at him properly then, as if comparing the boy before her with one she had carried to the stables long ago.

“You've grown.”

“So has everyone else,” he said, with such feeling that I had to look away.

Garrick Valewood stood a few paces behind him. He did not interrupt when Ressa held out her hand.

Julian took it.

“I got your letter,” she said.

“I know. Uriah told us.”

“And I remember the pond.”

His expression brightened, then became serious again.

“You don't have to tell me today.”

Ressa glanced toward Garrick Valewood.

There was a question in the look, and perhaps an answer in the way he rested his hand on Julian's shoulder.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “If someone can find me a chair that isn't moving.”

“Grandfather has one in his workshop.”

“I have several,” Garrick said. “Most of them even behave themselves.”

Ressa looked down at Julian's hand in hers.

“Tomorrow, then.”

The four children found me after I had washed.

They arrived with Julian, who was carrying a stack of drawings and wearing the expression of a man escorting four ambassadors with incompatible demands.

Carol reached me first.

“I'm taller.”

“I can see that.”

“Rysa measured.”

“She measured all of us,” Ignatius said, trying to get around her.

Seraphina held up a sleeve.

“This used to be here.”

She pointed to a place near her wrist. The cuff now sat noticeably above it.

Garrick climbed onto the chair beside me and put his hand against mine, comparing our fingers.

“Still bigger,” he said, disappointed.

“I've had practice.”

Julian placed the drawings on the table.

“They made a picture for the people arriving. Then they each decided theirs should be on top.”

“I solved it,” Carol announced.

The papers had been sewn together along one side with an alarming amount of thread.

“A book,” I said.

Julian nodded.

“With supervision.”

The first page showed Greykeep with very large windows. The second appeared to be a bowl of something purple. The third contained six stick figures, a dragon, and a shape I could not identify.

“What's that?” I asked.

“A bed,” Ignatius said.

“Of course.”

“It's got blankets.”

“Very good blankets.”

Seraphina leaned against my knee. Halfway through explaining her drawing, she yawned so widely that the explanation disappeared.

The others continued talking for another minute before she fell asleep standing against me.

I lifted her carefully.

“They're growing even when they're tired,” Julian said quietly.

Io appeared in the doorway with Lexander behind her.

“They're especially tired because they're growing,” she replied. “And because somebody decided resting meant lying down long enough to count to twenty.”

Ignatius looked at the floor.

“It was a big twenty.”

Lexander took his sleeping daughter from me.

“We'll discuss the size of numbers after lunch.”

Garrick was still holding my hand. His grip loosened as he leaned against my side.

For all the changes in their faces, their height, and the astonishing speed with which they learned, he still fought sleep exactly as he always had.

Carol lasted longest.

She made Julian promise to show the book to the arriving children before allowing Evelyn to carry her away.

He promised solemnly.

Then he followed them, gathering a dropped ribbon and one abandoned shoe along the way.

The next morning, Mary found me before breakfast.

That was seldom a good sign.

Oswin Tal came with her, carrying two sheets of paper and wearing ink on the side of his thumb. He looked as though he had slept, which suggested Mary had begun enforcing rules on him as well.

“We've heard from the limestone workings,” she said.

I put down my cup.

“The healers reached them?”

“Yesterday. The message came back with the returning supply riders.”

Oswin laid a sketch on the table.

The abandoned workings lay against a pale ridge. The survivors had sheltered in old cutting sheds and shallow chambers above the quarry floor. A spring emerged beneath one of the lower walls.

“Two hundred and seventy-six civilians,” Mary said. “Twenty-three soldiers. Several children are very ill.”

“How many can travel?”

“The healers haven't finished assessing everyone. They've asked us to send more clean water containers before we send more wagons.”

I looked at the sketch again.

“The spring?”

“Cloudy after the last rain. They boiled what they could. Fuel has been scarce.”

Halwen joined us while I was still reading the report.

She did not need a council meeting to decide whether she would go.

“I'll need vessels that can be covered, clean cloth, and someone who knows where the old drains run.”

Oswin touched the edge of the sketch.

“I have a man who worked there.”

Mary glanced at him.

“You found him?”

“He was among the marsh arrivals. He came to ask whether we were recording trades as well as names.”

“Does he want to return?” I asked.

“I haven't asked him yet. He can explain the layout here if he doesn't.”

Halwen nodded.

“That will help either way.”

There was no army to break through at the workings, according to the latest scouts. There was a steep road, too few healthy hands, and water that had begun making frightened people sick.

We arranged the next journey around those facts.

Melody would escort Halwen and the additional healers. Kerran, now rested, would screen the road with scouts while fresh troops guarded the supply train. Merova would keep command of the remaining coastal movements until the last of her wounded and equipment were clear.

I reached for the map.

Mary put a plate in front of me.

“Your part begins with eating.”

“I'm beginning to suspect that's the kingdom's principal military doctrine.”

“It has produced encouraging results.”

By afternoon, the workshop had acquired more chairs than Garrick Valewood had intended.

Ressa sat beside the window with a blanket over her knees. Mirelle had brought Adriana and Cassia. Helena and Lisbeth arrived with tea, then stayed. Oswin came during the hour Mary had set aside for his work with Julian.

I found a place on an overturned crate.

Garrick looked at me, looked at the crate, and said nothing.

“This one behaves itself,” I told him.

“For now.”

Julian opened his book.

Ressa watched him dip his pen.

“Are you going to write down everything I say?”

“Only what you want me to.”

“Then you should know your father was entirely convinced the dog liked him.”

Mirelle closed her eyes.

“Oh, that dog.”

Adriana began laughing before Ressa had finished her first sentence.

It had belonged to a visiting nobleman. It had stolen a kitchen towel, escaped three servants, and ended up on the island in the middle of an ornamental pond.

Roderic had decided the situation required royal intervention.

“He said everyone else was frightening it,” Ressa told us. “Then he marched across the stepping stones in his good boots and picked it up.”

“The dog objected,” Mirelle said.

“The dog objected vigorously.”

Julian's pen hovered over the page.

“Did Father fall?”

“Not immediately. First he attempted to explain to the dog that he was helping.”

I could see where this was going.

“The explanation failed?”

“The dog shook itself,” Cassia said, remembering. “Father stepped back.”

Ressa held her hands a short distance apart.

“There was only so much stone available.”

Julian laughed.

It was a full, startled laugh, and the sound made Mirelle open her eyes.

Ressa described the splash, the dog swimming neatly to the bank, and the king rising from the pond with a water lily caught on his shoulder.

“Did he get angry?” Julian asked.

“He told me to arrest anyone who laughed.”

Julian looked up sharply.

“Then he laughed himself,” Ressa added. “Which complicated matters considerably.”

Oswin was smiling into his tea.

“I remember the expense claim for those boots.”

“Please don't tell me you brought it,” Mirelle said.

“Sadly, some treasures were beyond saving.”

Even Ressa laughed at that.

Julian wrote for a while, stopping to ask where everyone had been standing. Cassia corrected the season. Mirelle supplied the dog's name, then admitted she might be remembering a different badly behaved dog.

Oswin suggested leaving a space until they were certain.

The king on the page slowly became a man with wet boots, a foolishly brave plan, and a family who still knew the sound of his laughter.

When the others had gone, I remained by the workshop door while Julian showed Ressa the earlier pages.

Garrick Valewood was smoothing a chair rail at the bench, close enough to listen without making the boy feel watched.

Ressa paused over a drawing of the old palace garden.

“That's the west walk.”

“Mother helped me with it.”

“The wall was lower here.”

She pointed.

Julian made a note, then sat back.

“Do you think we'll go home?”

The scraper stopped moving in Garrick's hand.

Ressa looked toward me, but I let her answer.

“I hope so,” she said.

“What if it's different?”

“It will be.”

He looked down at the drawing.

She leaned forward.

“Some things will be broken. Some will have been changed by people trying to stay alive. There may be gardens where we never allowed gardens, and houses standing where there used to be empty ground.”

“Would we make them leave?”

“Would you want to?”

“No.”

“Then remember that.”

Garrick set down his tool and came to the table.

“We said we'd help you, if the day comes and it's what you want,” he told Julian. “That hasn't changed.”

I nodded.

“Lexander and I meant it. But you don't have to decide what sort of king to be this afternoon.”

Julian ran a fingertip along the edge of the page.

“What if I only know what sort I don't want to be?”

Ressa's gaze softened.

“That's enough to begin a conversation.”

He thought about that for a while.

Then he moved his book so she could see the next drawing.

It was the garden bed he and his grandfather were preparing at Greykeep.

That evening, we ate in one of the smaller halls.

Helena had invited Lisbeth. Mirelle had invited Ressa. Celestine came with Edric, and several of the other displaced queens and princesses joined us after helping settle the day's arrivals.

No one had arranged it as a council.

Consequently, more useful things were said over the bread than we sometimes managed over a map.

Queen Alisande knew of three experienced teachers among the recent arrivals. Ysabet offered to introduce them to the people already organizing lessons. Renna wanted the older children who had spent months caring for siblings to have time outside those responsibilities.

“Not just a place at the back of the little ones' lessons,” she said. “Something of their own.”

Lisbeth nodded.

“We can begin with an afternoon.”

Helena was already thinking about rooms.

Mirelle listened with Ressa beside her, occasionally touching the commander's sleeve as though assuring herself she was still there.

At the far end of the table, Julian helped Ignatius cut a piece of fruit. Carol and Seraphina were disagreeing over whether a dragon in their next picture should have green wings or gold ones.

Garrick proposed four wings.

Lexander considered the suggestion.

“Please don't ask Aurethar to demonstrate.”

“I wasn't going to,” Garrick said.

A pause followed.

“Yet.”

Adriana laughed, then suddenly put a hand against her stomach.

I turned toward her.

“All right?”

“Yes.”

She took my wrist and placed my hand where hers had been.

We waited.

Nothing happened.

Then, just as I began to move, something small pressed beneath my palm.

I went still.

Adriana watched my face.

“You felt it.”

“Yes.”

Evelyn leaned close. I moved my hand so hers could take its place, and for a few moments the three of us forgot the conversation around us.

Another small movement came.

Evelyn smiled so slowly that I felt something ache behind my ribs.

Mirelle noticed.

“What is it?”

Adriana looked at her mother.

“The baby.”

The table quieted in uneven stages.

Carol immediately wanted to know whether the baby was trying to come out. Io explained that moving did not mean arriving, which led Ignatius to ask whether it was practicing walking.

“Possibly practicing kicking your father,” Evelyn said.

“An important family tradition,” I agreed.

Mirelle's hand covered Adriana's for a moment.

Then Ressa, who had spent so long measuring life in dwindling portions and the distance to the next hiding place, began to cry very quietly.

Mirelle drew her closer without interrupting the children's questions.

We passed the bread. Someone refilled her cup.

There was still a place waiting for her when she was ready to eat.