Chapter 381: The Days We Would Keep

Mary brought the calendar to breakfast.

This was sufficiently unusual that I set down my cup before she reached the table.

“What happened?”

“Time passed.”

“I had noticed.”

“Not consistently.”

She laid the calendar between the bread and a bowl of pears. Several dates had been marked in different hands. Supply departures stood beside council meetings, healer appointments, and the expected return of Eleanor’s last engineering party from Stonewake.

Near the edge of the page, in a smaller, tidier hand, was Julian’s name.

I looked up.

“How soon?”

“Nine days,” Mirelle said.

She had been sitting beside Adriana, quietly peeling a pear. The knife stopped moving for a moment.

“His birthday is in nine days.”

Across the table, Cassia glanced toward the empty chair Julian usually occupied. He had gone to the workshop with Garrick Valewood before breakfast, following a discovery concerning the waterwheel that apparently could not wait.

“We were going to speak to you,” she said.

Adriana nodded.

“He hasn’t said much about it.”

“Does he want it kept quiet?” I asked.

“I don’t think he knows what he wants,” Mirelle replied.

Mary moved the bowl of pears before it could tip onto the calendar.

“And there are several more birthdays approaching. If we leave them all until nine days beforehand, someone will eventually ask a kitchen to perform a miracle.”

Helena leaned forward.

“Adriana’s first after Julian.”

“Less than a month and a half away,” Adriana said.

I turned toward her.

She smiled at my expression.

“You may look pleased. It isn’t a threat.”

“I’m considering the amount of preparation I have left.”

“Enough, if you begin.”

Evelyn rested her chin on one hand.

“Mine comes after hers.”

“Then Mirelle’s a few months later,” Helena added. “After that comes Garrick’s, and then mine.”

Mary wrote the sequence in the margin: Julian, Adriana, Evelyn, Mirelle, Garrick Valewood, Helena.

I looked along the table at the people whose names she had written.

For months, we had been counting days by how far a messenger could ride, how long a food store would last, and whether the wounded could survive another stage of a journey.

Here were six reasons to count differently.

“We should make plans,” I said.

“We are making plans,” Mary replied. “Try to keep up.”

Julian arrived ten minutes later with sawdust on one sleeve and his grandfather beside him.

The calendar disappeared beneath a supply report with a speed that would have impressed Eliza.

Julian noticed.

He looked at Mary, then at the suspiciously rearranged breakfast table.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Cassia said.

He gave her a look of profound disbelief.

Lysandra, seated beside her, took a sip of tea.

“That was unconvincing.”

“I know.”

Garrick Valewood pulled out Julian’s chair.

“Eat first, lad. Secrets rarely improve on an empty stomach.”

Julian sat, but his eyes returned to the papers.

I decided pretending was unlikely to help.

“We were talking about your birthday.”

His hand stopped above the bread.

“Oh.”

“Would you like to talk about it now or later?” Mirelle asked.

He thought for a moment.

“Later.”

“Later, then.”

She passed him the pears.

Nobody insisted on making him smile.

After a little while, he began explaining the waterwheel.

Apparently the axle had been rubbing against the frame. His grandfather had helped him widen the opening, and it now turned with half as much water.

Garrick Grey listened with great attention.

Carol asked whether that meant fewer wet shoes.

“Probably,” Julian said.

She seemed disappointed.

Breakfast continued.

I found him in the workshop that afternoon.

He was smoothing a small wooden piece with sandpaper while Garrick Valewood repaired the handle of a carpenter’s square.

The room smelled of shavings and warm timber. Through the open window came the sounds of the courtyard, distant enough to feel unimportant.

“Your mother said I might find you here.”

Julian glanced up.

“Is it about the birthday?”

“If you’d like.”

He set the wooden piece down.

His grandfather reached for another tool but did not leave.

Julian noticed that too. His shoulders eased a little.

“I remember the last one,” he said.

I sat on a stool opposite him.

“What do you remember?”

“The cakes were too small.”

It was not the answer I expected.

He looked embarrassed.

“There were lots of them. Little ones, with sugar on top. I wanted a large cake, but someone said the smaller ones were more suitable.”

Garrick Valewood paused over his work.

“Suitable for whom?”

“I don’t know.”

Julian rubbed his thumb against the edge of the sandpaper.

“Father took three and put them together on my plate. He said that would have to do until someone found a sensible cake.”

I smiled.

“So you had a large one after all.”

“Not really. They kept falling apart.”

For a moment, he smiled too.

Then he looked down.

“There were people I had to thank. And people who wanted Mother to speak to them. Father kept being called away.”

“What would you like this time?”

“I don’t know.”

His grandfather placed the repaired square on the bench.

“Start with what you don’t want.”

Julian answered immediately.

“A receiving line.”

“Done,” I said.

“And I don’t want to wear something I can’t move in.”

“Also done.”

He glanced between us, perhaps expecting a complication.

“Could Tobin come?”

“We can ask his family.”

“And Tarin and Oren?”

“Yes.”

He began naming others: Mila, Lenna, the two boys helping with the waterwheel, his sisters, his mother. The four younger children, naturally, though he wanted someone else to make certain they did not climb anything dangerous while he was opening presents.

“I believe their parents can manage that,” I said.

Garrick Valewood raised an eyebrow at me.

“For one afternoon,” I amended.

Julian’s smile returned.

Then he grew quiet again.

“Will Mother be sad?”

“Probably, sometimes,” I said. “She’ll also be glad it’s your birthday.”

He watched my face carefully.

“Both?”

“Both.”

His grandfather reached across the bench and laid a hand over his.

“Let her tell you which she feels. You don’t have to arrange the day around a guess.”

Julian sat still beneath the broad, work-worn hand.

“All right,” he said.

Mirelle listened to his wishes that evening.

I stayed only because Julian asked me to, and Garrick Valewood took the chair nearest the window. Adriana and Cassia sat with their mother.

No receiving line. Comfortable clothes. Friends. Family.

And a sensible cake.

Cassia covered her mouth when he explained that part.

“I remember those cakes.”

“You said they were good.”

“They were good. There wasn’t enough of each one.”

Adriana nodded with the gravity of someone confirming important evidence.

Mirelle took Julian’s hand.

“We can have a large cake.”

He looked at her.

“You don’t have to make it like before.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

There was a pause.

Then she added, “I would like to keep one thing, if you want it.”

“What?”

“The little breakfast we used to have before everyone else arrived.”

Julian’s expression changed.

I watched recognition move through him before he answered.

“With the warm bread?”

“And honey.”

“Father always said we were spoiling supper.”

“It was breakfast. He was being ridiculous.”

Cassia laughed softly.

Julian leaned against his mother. She put an arm around him, and for a while nobody spoke about cakes, clothes, or anything that needed arranging.

Later, when I rose to leave, he caught my sleeve.

“Can Grandfather come to the breakfast too?”

Mirelle answered before I could.

“Of course.”

Garrick Valewood looked toward the window for a moment, clearing his throat.

“I’ll wash the sawdust off first.”

The four younger children learned about the birthday the next morning.

This transformed a manageable family occasion into a problem involving ribbon.

Carol believed everything should have ribbon on it.

Ignatius wanted to make Julian something that moved.

Seraphina proposed a picture large enough to cover his bedroom door.

Garrick wanted to know whether a birthday meant Julian would immediately grow taller.

Rysa, who had made the mistake of sitting nearby, was drawn into the discussion.

“Birthdays mark the passing of a year,” she explained. “They don’t make all the growing happen on one day.”

Garrick considered that disappointing.

“Then why do we measure?”

“To see what has changed.”

Carol looked toward the measuring board.

“Everything changes too much.”

Rysa’s expression softened.

“Some things change quickly. Some take longer.”

“Will Julian still help us?”

“He can answer that himself,” Evelyn said.

Julian had just entered with his book tucked beneath one arm.

Carol went to him immediately.

He listened, then nodded.

“I’ll still help. But you have to let me finish what I’m doing sometimes.”

She thought about it before agreeing.

Ignatius pulled her away to discuss the moving gift, apparently deciding that serious work should begin at once.

Julian looked toward the retreating group.

“Should I be worried?”

“Only if they ask Bruni to carry it,” I said.

Cassia and Lysandra took responsibility for helping with the children’s gifts.

They regretted volunteering almost immediately.

I found them in the small activity room surrounded by paper, wood scraps, ribbon, and four conflicting explanations of what they were making.

“No fire,” Cassia said firmly.

Seraphina looked offended.

“I wasn’t going to burn it.”

“No warming the glue either. We’ll wait.”

Lysandra was helping Ignatius fit a wooden wheel onto a peg. Garrick Valewood had supplied pieces that could be assembled without anyone needing a sharp blade.

Carol was tying ribbon around a box so thoroughly that opening it might eventually require a military engineer.

Garrick Grey was drawing people across the lid.

“Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to the largest figure.

“Julian.”

“And that one?”

“Grandfather.”

The figures were holding hands.

I did not ask about the scale.

Across the table, Lysandra tested the wheel. It turned twice, wobbled, and fell off.

Ignatius sighed.

“It’s supposed to stay.”

“Yes,” she said. “That is the difficulty.”

Cassia reached over with a small wooden cap.

“Try this.”

Lysandra fitted it onto the peg and tried again.

The wheel remained in place.

Ignatius cheered.

Cassia and Lysandra exchanged a small, satisfied smile before returning to their respective disasters.

Later, I heard them discussing a gift of their own for Julian.

Lysandra suggested a map case for his drawings. Cassia knew exactly how wide it needed to be, because she had watched him roll the same papers into his coat often enough to complain about it.

They went to speak with a leatherworker that afternoon.

For once, nobody had to persuade them to take a walk together.

That evening, I returned to the calendar.

Adriana found me studying it beside our sitting-room fire.

“You look as though you’re planning a siege.”

“I have been told the sequence matters.”

She sat beside me and looked at the names.

“Julian first. Then me.”

“Less than six weeks.”

“Yes.”

“And Evelyn after you.”

“Correct.”

“Mirelle a few months after that. Then Garrick. Then Helena.”

Adriana rested her head against my shoulder.

“You’ve mastered it.”

“I’d prefer to keep them all from becoming council meetings.”

“That would be an excellent beginning.”

Evelyn came in carrying a folded blanket and draped it over Adriana’s knees before sitting on her other side.

“Which one are you planning?”

“Apparently all of them.”

“Ambitious.”

“What would you like?” I asked Adriana.

She did not answer immediately.

Her fingers moved over the edge of the blanket.

“I’d like to be here.”

“You are here.”

“I know. But last year I thought I knew where I would be for every birthday after it.”

The fire shifted in the grate.

Then she looked up.

“I’d like an afternoon with all of us. Somewhere I can sit comfortably when I need to. Good food. Music that doesn’t require anyone to make a speech before it starts.”

“That sounds possible.”

“And I’d like you to ask me again closer to the day. I may discover I want something entirely different to eat.”

Evelyn smiled.

“That also sounds possible.”

“And yours?” I asked her.

She leaned forward to see the calendar.

“After Adriana’s, you mean?”

“I have learned the order.”

“For mine, I’d like a day when nobody tells me they’re perfectly well while visibly bleeding.”

I opened my mouth.

She held up a finger.

“That’s my first request.”

Adriana laughed against my shoulder.

Mirelle objected when she learned we had begun looking several months ahead.

Not strongly.

Just enough to satisfy what I suspected was a lifelong expectation that mothers should discourage fuss over themselves.

“We have plenty of time for mine.”

“Which is why we can avoid rushing,” Helena said.

The two women were sitting with Lisbeth beneath the arbor. A small pile of mending lay between them, most of it belonging to people who would never know which queen had repaired a cuff.

Lisbeth drew a needle through a hem.

“She means to make you admit you want something.”

“I want many things,” Mirelle replied.

“One we can manage with cake would be helpful,” I said.

She looked at the garden for a while.

“Perhaps something outside, if the weather allows when the time comes. A meal. Flowers on the table.”

“That’s a start.”

“And I would rather not have everyone standing when I enter.”

Helena nodded firmly.

“We can arrange that.”

I looked at her.

“Yours comes after Garrick’s.”

“Yes.”

“Any requests?”

“He is not to give me a household repair and call it a present.”

Lisbeth burst out laughing.

“Has he done that?”

“A shelf,” Helena said. “A very good shelf. But it was still the shelf I’d asked him to put up weeks earlier.”

From the path behind us, Garrick Valewood said, “It had carved edges.”

“That does not change the chronology.”

He came to stand beside her chair, resting a hand lightly on her shoulder.

“I remember.”

“And your birthday?” I asked him. “Before Helena’s, after Mirelle’s.”

“A meal with everyone would suit me.”

Helena looked up at him.

“And no repairing chairs while the meal is being served.”

He hesitated.

I realized she had specified it for a reason.

The world did not stop while we planned.

Two patrol reports arrived from Orselle. Stonewake requested additional iron fittings for its damaged lower gate. Avarn began training with one of the reserve teams, learning their signals and formation changes before he would be considered for a field assignment.

Thor watched the exercise beside him instead of asking him to prove how quickly he could defeat someone in the yard.

At the hospice, a second laborer’s band came free. Five remained under treatment.

The council met. The kitchens worked. New houses gained roofs.

And somewhere among all of it, someone began setting aside flour for Julian’s cake.

I noticed that more than I expected to.

There was nothing extraordinary about a bowl covered with cloth on a kitchen shelf.

But it meant we intended to be here in a few days, with a boy and his friends and something sweet to cut into uneven pieces.

I stood looking at it until the cook asked whether I was searching for lunch.

“Not exactly.”

“Then move your elbow. That’s where the trays go.”

I moved my elbow.

Garrick Valewood showed me Julian’s gift late the following afternoon.

He had hidden it beneath a cloth in the corner of the workshop: a compact wooden chest with a fitted tray, carefully divided spaces, and a lid that opened smoothly on newly oiled hinges.

“For his tools?” I asked.

“Some. Drawing things here. Small pieces underneath. Enough room for whatever project he decides is important next.”

The lid had a simple carved border.

Inside it, Garrick had left a smooth space where Julian could mark his name himself.

“Why not carve it for him?”

“He knows how. It’ll be his chest.”

I ran my hand over the finished edge.

“He’ll love it.”

Garrick looked down at the tray.

“I hope so.”

There was an uncertainty in his voice I rarely heard when he spoke about his work.

“He calls you Grandfather,” I said quietly. “You don’t need to earn it again every morning.”

He glanced at me.

Then his mouth curved in a small smile.

“Neither do you need to bring half a kingdom home every time you leave.”

“That seems unrelated.”

“Does it?”

I looked back at the chest.

“Fine. We can both be difficult.”

He laughed and covered the gift again.

Julian found me before bed that night.

He stood in the doorway of the sitting room with a folded list in his hands.

“I added someone.”

“To the birthday?”

He nodded.

“Who?”

“Ressa. And Oswin. That’s two people.”

“I think we can accommodate two.”

“And if Eamon can’t sit in the garden for very long, could we bring a chair with a place for his leg?”

“We can.”

“Nessa might need one too.”

“I’ll ask the healers what would help.”

He handed me the list, then lingered.

“What else?” I asked.

“Could we leave an empty space near Mother?”

My eyes moved from the paper to his face.

He hurried to explain.

“Not an empty chair. I don’t think I’d like that. Just somewhere she can put Father’s little portrait if she wants.”

I nodded slowly.

“We’ll ask her.”

“Is that strange?”

“No.”

He considered the answer, then looked relieved.

“I don’t want the whole day to be sad.”

“It won’t have to be.”

“But I don’t want to act as though he wasn’t at the others.”

I set the list aside and held out my hand.

He came closer.

“We can remember him,” I said. “And still have your friends, and your grandfather, and a large, structurally reliable cake.”

Julian laughed at that.

“Grandfather should inspect it.”

“He’ll ask about the supports.”

“And the foundations.”

“Helena will stop him before he produces a square.”

Julian leaned against me carefully, mindful of the bruises that were finally fading.

I put an arm around him.

For a few minutes, we said nothing.

Then he stepped back and picked up the list again to check one name.

“I think I’m looking forward to it,” he said.

I smiled.

“Good.”

After he left, I returned to the calendar and marked the coming days.

Julian first.

Adriana in less than a month and a half, then Evelyn. Mirelle a few months later. Garrick Valewood after her, and Helena after him.

There would be patrols, repairs, and difficult messages between those dates. I knew that. We all did.

I left room beside each name anyway.