Chapter 379: Someone to Laugh With

The journey home took five days.

We could have made it faster without the wounded. Since leaving them behind was not under consideration, we traveled at the pace the healers set and learned to appreciate stretches of road that did not shake a wagon apart.

At the repaired crossing, Eleanor inspected the bank while everyone else rested.

She found three things she wanted changed.

I was beginning to suspect that if she inspected a mountain, she would eventually produce a list.

Thor remained at Stonewake to finish the relief arrangements with Hadrin and Ordel. Veyra continued guarding the corridor until fresh troops could take over. Tareth stayed where the healers could attend his wing without requiring him to fly on it.

Lexander and I returned with Bruni, the wounded, and the people recovered from the abandoned enemy camps.

Aurethar traveled with us for part of the way, then flew ahead once he had rested enough to do so safely.

By the time Westmere’s walls came into view, I had stopped pretending that I was comfortable on a horse.

Lexander noticed when I dismounted slowly.

“Evelyn will ask.”

“She already has a report.”

“She’ll still ask.”

I looked at his bandaged arm.

“Io will ask too.”

“Yes,” he said. “But I’m planning to answer honestly.”

I decided that friendship had limits.

Caldris and Thesra met us at Westmere.

They had read the notes about the seven bound laborers and wanted to examine the wagon before it passed through another gate. We brought it into a sheltered yard, away from the noise of the returning column.

The seven remained close to it while the specialists worked.

A woman with gray in her hair asked whether she was permitted to sit on the low wall beside the wheel.

Thesra pulled a stool nearer instead.

“Here, for now. We won’t ask you to test it by hurting yourself.”

Caldris studied the marked fittings beneath the wagon bed. The orders we had recovered were useful, but they were not a complete account of what had been done to these people.

They needed time.

Steward Edric Vale arranged food, beds within reach of the wagon, and guards to keep curious onlookers away. Thesra stayed beside the group while Caldris compared the bands against his notes.

We did not make their treatment wait for the royal homecoming.

We also did not require them to become part of it.

By early afternoon, the healers had sent the first wounded through to Greykeep. Bruni followed when his own attendants were satisfied he could move comfortably.

Lexander checked his coat pocket.

“The duck?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Good. I’d hate to survive Fenrir and then have to explain that.”

The receiving court was full of people who had been told not to crowd the arriving wagons.

They obeyed in the fashion people usually obeyed such instructions: standing precisely at the edge of the space they had been asked to keep clear and leaning as far into it as possible.

Evelyn reached me first.

She put both hands against my face, looked into my eyes, and kissed me before saying a word about the bandages.

That was almost worse than being scolded immediately.

Adriana came beside her. I held her carefully, and she held me as though she had no intention of allowing a second departure.

“You’re late,” she said softly.

“The wounded needed another stop.”

“I know.”

Her hand tightened at my back.

“I can know and still have missed you.”

I rested my cheek against her hair.

“I missed you too.”

A few paces away, Io embraced Lexander while Seraphina and Ignatius tried to inspect him from opposite sides.

Then another familiar voice reached us.

“Give him room to confess.”

Lysandra stood beside Cassia at the edge of the court.

Lexander looked toward his sister.

“I have nothing to confess.”

She glanced at his torn sleeve and the bandage beneath it.

“An ambitious opening.”

Cassia laughed.

It was not the polite laugh she used when somebody was trying to be kind. It came easily, before she seemed to remember who might be listening.

I looked from her to Lysandra.

They were carrying a basket between them, one handle each. Cassia had a smudge of blue paint near her wrist. Lysandra had the same color on two fingers.

Something had changed while we were away.

For once, it appeared to be something good.

The children gave us very little opportunity to investigate.

Garrick and Carol reached me together, slowed only by Julian’s firm reminder that my ribs were sore.

“What happened to them?” Carol demanded.

“Someone objected to where I was standing.”

“Did you move?”

“Eventually.”

She considered this an unsatisfactory answer.

Garrick held up a drawing of Bruni beside a building.

“We fixed yours.”

“You did?”

“Grandfather says people need doors.”

Apparently my picture of the bakery had lacked one.

Lexander produced the wooden duck, and for a moment the rest of the courtyard ceased to matter to Ignatius and Seraphina.

They inspected the worn paint with grave attention.

“It had a journey,” Seraphina said.

“It did,” Lexander agreed.

“Did it help?”

He looked at the little toy in their hands.

“Yes.”

Ignatius seemed satisfied with that.

Behind them, Helena had reached Bruni and was already asking when he had last eaten. Lisbeth stood beside her with a list that I strongly suspected concerned food rather than casualties.

Bruni looked toward me.

I raised my eyebrows.

A promise kept.

Evelyn allowed me to wash before examining my injuries.

This was generosity on a scale I felt she did not fully appreciate.

Adriana sat beside the bed while the healer’s written report lay open on Evelyn’s knee. They compared its contents with my account and found several places where my choice of words had been unnecessarily optimistic.

“I said the cut was shallow.”

“It is,” Evelyn replied. “That doesn’t mean you should have spent the next day lifting stretchers.”

“Other people were lifting them too.”

Adriana looked at me.

I stopped helping my case.

When Evelyn finished, she rested her hand over the worst bruising and let warmth spread through the damaged tissue. The pain eased slowly, enough that I could breathe without anticipating it.

“Rest still matters,” she said.

“I remember.”

“Remembering and doing are separate achievements.”

Adriana smiled.

Then she took my hand and placed it against her stomach.

We waited.

The movement came sooner this time, small but unmistakable beneath my palm.

I looked up at her.

“Busy while I was gone.”

“Growing,” she said. “Apparently everyone in this family has decided to make a habit of it.”

I thought of the twins in the courtyard, taller again, and of Julian looking less like a boy trying to copy adults and more like himself.

“And Cassia?” I asked.

Adriana’s smile changed.

“What about her?”

“She seems happier.”

“She and Lysandra have been spending time together.”

“I noticed.”

Evelyn folded the healer’s report.

“Then try not to turn it into an inquiry. They have enough people asking what they’re doing.”

Naturally, I learned what they were doing before the afternoon was over.

Mary brought the urgent papers to a chair in the garden rather than allowing me to climb back into the council chamber.

Among them was a request for shelves, two long tables, and the use of a room above one of the courtyard storehouses.

Cassia and Lysandra had signed it together.

“Lessons?” I asked.

“Partly,” Mary said. “The afternoons Renna proposed for the older children. Lisbeth found teachers. Helena found people willing to watch the younger siblings. Cassia and Lysandra have been helping turn the room into somewhere people might actually want to spend time.”

I looked at the list.

“Paint?”

“Blue.”

“I gathered.”

“They’ve also asked for a cupboard that locks.”

“What are they locking away?”

“The good needles, the sharp tools, and a game with pieces small enough for toddlers to swallow.”

“Reasonable.”

Mary took the paper back.

“I’ve approved most of it. Garrick says he can repair the tables, provided they stop trying to carry furniture before he has checked the legs.”

I glanced toward the workshop.

A crash came through its open door.

Then Cassia said, very clearly, “That was already loose.”

Mary closed her eyes.

I found them standing beside a table that had settled onto one corner.

Garrick Valewood was crouched beneath it, examining the failed joint. Julian held a lamp. Lysandra was holding up the other end with both hands while Cassia tried to keep the detached leg from falling across his grandfather’s feet.

“Should I ask?” I said.

“No,” Cassia and Lysandra said together.

Garrick emerged from beneath the table.

“The peg’s split. Put it down gently.”

They obeyed.

Julian set aside the lamp and helped his grandfather clear the damaged joint.

Cassia looked at Lysandra.

“You said it would make the turn.”

“It did make the turn.”

“It lost a leg.”

“Afterward.”

Garrick made a sound suspiciously like laughter.

Lysandra noticed me looking at the blue paint on their hands.

“We were helping.”

“That has been my explanation for several recent injuries.”

“Yes,” Cassia said. “Adriana mentioned.”

I was beginning to understand the danger of this friendship.

Julian looked up from the table leg.

“They painted the cupboard doors while I was helping Grandfather. The second one is better.”

“Both are perfectly serviceable,” Lysandra said.

“The first one has a handprint.”

“A decorative handprint.”

Cassia lifted her paint-marked hand.

“Mine.”

She was grinning now.

I had seen her brave. I had seen her angry, determined, exhausted, and frightened for people she loved.

It struck me how long it had been since I had seen her simply enjoying being teased.

Their friendship had not begun with a grand conversation.

Lysandra told me that much the following day when I found her sorting clean cups outside the new room.

Inside, Cassia was listening to a girl explain that an afternoon away from her little brothers was useless if she spent it worrying about what they were doing.

“We asked the wrong question at first,” Lysandra said.

“What did you ask?”

“What they wanted to learn.”

“And what should you have asked?”

“What would let them come.”

She nodded toward the doorway.

“Some of them need their siblings nearby. Some need help with the chores they’re missing. One boy thought sitting down in daylight meant he was being lazy.”

I looked inside again.

Cassia had drawn a chair beside the girl’s instead of standing over her. They were discussing which room the younger children would use and whether the door between the two could remain open.

“How did you and Cassia end up organizing this together?” I asked.

Lysandra smiled.

“We both reached for the same end of a bench. Neither wanted to admit it was heavier than expected.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“She told me to stop pretending. I told her to take her own advice.”

“And that worked?”

“We put the bench down. It’s a promising foundation for most relationships.”

Inside, Cassia glanced toward us.

“If you’re telling him about the bench, tell him whose idea the stairs were.”

Lysandra called back without hesitation.

“An excellent idea. Poorly supported by architecture.”

Cassia shook her head, smiling, and returned to the girl.

The first afternoon was untidy.

Two of the younger children refused to stay in the adjoining room until their older sister sat where they could see her. A boy who had announced that he wanted nothing to do with lessons spent half an hour reading the instructions for a board game and correcting everyone else’s interpretation.

Someone spilled water across the newly painted cupboard.

Nothing terrible happened.

That seemed to surprise several people.

I sat near the window with my papers, under orders to remain there for at least an hour. Oswin arrived with copies of short accounts, maps, and stories that could be read without requiring anyone to discuss the places they had lost.

He also brought blank paper.

Julian accompanied him, carrying his own book.

For once, he was not responsible for the four younger children. Io and Evelyn had taken them to the garden with Rysa, who intended to turn their fascination with measuring into an examination they would willingly attend.

Garrick Valewood had insisted Julian use the free afternoon.

He joined two other boys at the window table, listening while one described a waterwheel his family used to maintain.

Cassia watched him for a moment.

Lysandra touched her elbow and offered her a cup.

“He looks occupied.”

“He’ll stay up drawing it later.”

“Then he’ll have something interesting to keep him awake.”

Cassia took the cup.

Across the room, the boy with the game instructions accused a teacher of moving a piece incorrectly.

The teacher admitted it.

Cassia and Lysandra exchanged a delighted glance.

Later, someone began humming while putting the cups away.

I did not know the tune.

Cassia did.

Her hand stopped halfway toward the tray. The expression left her face so quickly that I might have missed it if I had not been looking up from my papers.

Lysandra noticed immediately.

She did not ask a question across the room.

She took the tray from Cassia, set it down, and said, “Come help me with the window upstairs.”

Cassia followed her out.

I remained where I was.

A little later, when I left to return to the castle, I found them on the landing above the courtyard. The window was already open. Neither was doing anything to it.

Cassia sat on the broad sill. Lysandra leaned against the opposite wall.

“Sorry,” Cassia said when she saw me.

“For what?”

She looked down at her hands.

“That song. They used to play it in the palace.”

I stopped a few steps away.

“Would you like me to ask them to choose something else?”

“No.”

The answer came firmly enough that I believed it.

“It isn’t their fault I remember it.”

Lysandra pushed away from the wall.

“We’re taking a few minutes.”

“All right.”

Cassia looked toward the courtyard, where people were carrying empty baskets back toward the kitchens.

“I was laughing,” she said quietly. “Then I remembered Father trying to make Julian dance to it. Julian kept standing on his feet.”

Her mouth moved as if she might smile, but the expression broke before it formed.

I sat on the step below them.

No one spoke for a while.

Then Lysandra said, “You can tell me about him when you want.”

Cassia rubbed at one eye.

“Everyone says that.”

“I imagine they mean it.”

“They want the good stories. Or the brave ones.”

Lysandra considered her.

“You can tell me one in which he was annoying.”

Cassia looked up.

“Or unfair,” Lysandra added. “Or wrong about something. I won’t ask you to turn it into a lesson.”

After a moment, Cassia gave a small, uncertain laugh.

“He was impossible about muddy boots.”

“Then I expect there was conflict.”

“There was considerable conflict.”

I stayed long enough to hear how Roderic had once forbidden riding until Cassia cleaned the marks from three separate corridors.

Then I excused myself and left them talking.

Mirelle found me in the garden that evening.

“Cassia told me she had a difficult moment today.”

“She wasn’t alone.”

“I know.”

She sat beside me, watching Helena and Lisbeth argue cheerfully about where to put another bench.

Adriana was with them, offering opinions from a chair and refusing to surrender her cup when anyone suggested she might want help holding it.

“Cassia has been trying so hard to be useful,” Mirelle said. “Sometimes I wonder whether she thinks we’ll notice she’s grieving if she stops.”

“I think Lysandra notices either way.”

Mirelle smiled faintly.

“Yes. I believe she does.”

We watched as Helena rejected Lisbeth’s preferred position for the bench. A moment later, Lisbeth pointed out that Helena’s choice blocked the path.

They moved it together to a third place and both appeared satisfied.

Mirelle shook her head.

“I missed having arguments that ended with a bench.”

“You’re welcome to help Mary. Several of hers begin that way and become considerably more complicated.”

“I’m quite certain she would find work for me.”

“She already has. You’re only resting until she remembers where she left the list.”

Mirelle laughed.

It was a good evening for that sound.

The seven laborers came through from Westmere two days later.

Their wagon came with them.

Caldris and Thesra had resolved the immediate command tying them to it, but the deeper work of removing the bands would take longer. They could now step away without pain or compulsion, and that was enough to let them sleep in proper rooms while treatment continued.

One man walked around the wagon three times before going inside.

No one hurried him.

At the same time, Mary received the first message from Stonewake since our departure. Hadrin reported that one of the other seized bridges had been found abandoned and usable. The remaining crossing still required scouting.

The hold was sending skilled masons to help repair the supply road, and two neighboring settlements had agreed to shared watches.

Thor expected to return once the relief commanders had completed their handover.

Fenrir’s location remained unknown.

We took the good news without pretending the uncertainty had disappeared.

Then Mary handed me a second paper.

Cassia and Lysandra wanted to visit the families who had settled near Westmere’s western mill. They hoped to find out whether the afternoon gatherings should be repeated there, with local teachers rather than requiring everyone to travel to Greykeep.

They had already spoken with Edric Vale and arranged an escort for the road beyond the hold.

“Thorough,” I said.

“Cassia drew the route. Lysandra remembered to ask where they would eat.”

“An effective partnership.”

Mary nodded.

“And they’ve left themselves a free hour.”

“For what?”

“Apparently they intend to enjoy being outside.”

I signed the provision request.

“Radical.”

I found them in the stables the next morning, checking their horses while the escort finished saddling.

Cassia was explaining which stretch of the mill road became slippery after rain. Lysandra listened, then asked a question about the return path that made Cassia pause and inspect her sketch again.

They did not agree on everything.

I found that reassuring.

Julian arrived with Garrick Valewood and a wrapped bundle for Tobin’s household near Westmere.

“Grandfather repaired the latch,” he told Cassia. “Would you take it?”

“Of course.”

Lysandra accepted the bundle while Cassia secured her saddlebag.

Julian looked between them.

“Will you be back for supper?”

“If the road’s clear,” Cassia said. “If we’re delayed, we’ll send word through the hold.”

He nodded, satisfied.

Garrick rested a hand on his shoulder.

“We’ve our own work, lad.”

“The waterwheel drawing?”

“After breakfast.”

Julian followed him out, still talking.

Cassia watched them go, then turned back to Lysandra.

“Ready?”

“I was ready before you inspected the same strap three times.”

“It was twisted.”

“On the first inspection.”

Cassia swung into the saddle.

“I can still leave you here.”

“You’d have to carry the latch.”

“That is a compelling argument.”

They rode toward the gate with the escort following, arguing about whether the promised free hour should involve the river path or finding somewhere that sold decent pastries.

Cassia was smiling when she looked back to wave.

I watched them until the gate’s light took them out of sight.

Then I went to breakfast, where Lexander had just discovered that the repaired wooden duck now had a painted medal hanging from its neck.

“Distinguished service,” Julian explained from beside his grandfather.

Lexander looked at Io.

She was making no attempt to hide her amusement.

I sat between Evelyn and Adriana, accepted the cup someone pushed toward me, and listened while four children argued over the duck’s next assignment.