Ch. 55 Concordia Gets A Castellan

Chapter 55: Concordia Gets A Castellan

The formal visit was arranged while the gate foundations were still being prepared.

Uriah and Evelyn came to Concordia with a small party, leaving Greykeep in trusted hands.

Thor met them at the outer gate and brought them through streets already filling with delegates for the union assembly.

Lexander waited in the courtyard.

When Uriah dismounted, both men had the brief, uncomfortable look of people trying to decide how much ceremony was expected.

Thor solved it.

“Lexander, Uriah. You both dislike paperwork and have dangerous children. Start there.”

Io sighed.

Evelyn smiled.

Lexander held out his hand.

“Welcome to Concordia.”

Uriah took it.

“Thank you. Your roads are better than Thor described.”

“I described them as roads.”

“You said they were where the palace kept its potholes.”

Loki turned toward her.

“You’ve become a diplomat.”

Evelyn approached Io.

For a moment, they stood with all the formal words available to them.

Then Io said, “Your letter arrived on a very difficult morning.”

Evelyn’s expression softened.

“I’m glad it arrived.”

Io embraced her.

The ceremony became considerably easier after that.

They held the important meeting before supper.

Greykeep and Concordia would stand as allies.

They would warn each other of threats, refuse assistance to those pursuing the other’s people, and answer requests for protection, healing, and defense.

Neither would claim command over the other.

Neither would quietly turn away when the agreement became inconvenient.

The wording took work.

The intention did not.

When the documents were finally ready, Uriah looked across the table.

“If Surtr comes here, send for us.”

Lexander nodded.

“If someone comes to Greykeep to drag your people back into obedience, send for us.”

There was no cheering.

Mary checked the copies.

Atreyu checked the provisions for messengers and military coordination.

Io and Evelyn signed.

Then both kings did.

Thor watched the ink dry with a satisfaction greater than she had felt over several successful battles.

Later, Uriah found Lexander on a balcony overlooking the new districts.

“You’ve built a great deal.”

“So have you.”

“Mostly I’ve learned how much more there is to build.”

Lexander laughed.

“Yes. That sounds familiar.”

Below them, a wagon had become wedged at a corner. Three people offered advice. None was the driver.

For a while, the two men watched.

“I used to think,” Uriah said, “that if I became strong enough, I’d stop feeling as though I was one mistake away from failing everyone.”

Lexander looked at him.

“Did it work?”

“No.”

“Unfortunate. I was hoping you’d have encouraging news.”

Uriah rested his forearms on the rail.

“The twins can do something new, and everyone else looks amazed. I start wondering whether their room is still safe.”

Lexander’s smile faded.

He understood that too well.

“My daughter set a spoon alight because breakfast displeased her.”

“Was she right?”

“It was an entirely respectable breakfast.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

Lexander laughed again.

This time, the tension left with it.

They talked until someone came looking for them.

About training.

About making decisions while tired.

About people they trusted to tell them when they were being fools.

By the time they returned inside, neither was calling the other Your Majesty.

Io and Evelyn had gone to the nursery.

Lisbeth intended to remain for the first few minutes.

She stayed for an hour.

Fulla brought tea.

Evelyn accepted Ignatius when Io offered him, settling him against her with practiced ease.

“He’s watching your hands,” Io said.

A faint warmth rested around Evelyn’s fingers.

She let it fade.

“He doesn’t need a lesson tonight.”

Io looked at her, grateful.

Seraphina lay against her mother’s shoulder, awake and unusually content.

“What do you do,” Io asked quietly, “when you can’t stop thinking about everything that might happen?”

Evelyn considered.

“Sometimes I ask Uriah to take a watch that doesn’t need taking.”

Io smiled a little.

“Does he understand?”

“Yes. Sometimes he asks the same of me.”

Outside the window, Aurethar shifted.

Ignatius turned toward the sound.

Evelyn glanced at the dragon’s shadow.

“Though your watch has certain advantages.”

“He steals the afternoon sun.”

“I suppose no arrangement is perfect.”

They laughed.

Then they talked about things that had nothing to do with gods.

Food the children would accept.

Clothes altered and outgrown.

Whether a queen could spend an entire morning somewhere without being found.

Io eventually admitted she had begun looking forward to Evelyn’s letters before the courier was even due.

“Good,” Evelyn said. “Then I won’t pretend mine are all diplomatic correspondence.”

“Please don’t.”

The work that followed filled the remaining weeks before the assembly.

Greykeep’s craftsmen and Concordia’s builders prepared the paired gate foundations.

Stone had to be laid correctly. Copper channels had to be fitted. Power had to be supplied without draining the people lending it.

The gatehouse rose in a guarded court with room for wagons, healers, and anyone who might one day arrive frightened and in a hurry.

Its doors could be barred normally.

Its passage could be closed magically from either end.

Both mattered.

The wards came in sections.

First the family rooms.

Then the surrounding corridors.

Then the nearest service passages.

Io worked with Fulla and Greykeep’s visiting specialists, fitting her own protections into a larger design. The children remained protected without becoming sources of power for the system.

When the first section was ready, Loki spent an afternoon trying to confuse it.

He succeeded twice.

The faults were corrected.

He looked pleased enough to become unbearable.

Thor threatened to assign him the remaining corridors.

He became much quieter.

Concordia’s Castellan began in a room beneath the palace.

Not beneath the throne.

Beneath a working stair, close to the channels it would first learn to tend.

Greykeep’s Castellan had helped prepare the core and the framework for its duties. Uriah’s people had helped fashion its body. Concordia’s own craftsmen fitted the final pieces.

Lexander and Io gave it authority together.

Its reach was small.

Its obligations were not.

Protect the people within its care.

Report damage and danger.

Respect the privacy of those it served.

Assist the living officers of the household.

Learn the city before presuming to govern its workings.

A pale light appeared behind the new figure’s eyes.

Lexander felt Io grip his hand.

The head turned slowly.

“Location?”

“Concordia,” Io answered.

A pause.

“Duties received.”

Thor leaned forward.

“Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Volume reduction would improve communication at this distance.”

Loki bent over.

For a moment, Lexander thought something was wrong.

Then he realized the man was laughing too hard to remain upright.

Thor stared at the new Castellan.

“Oh, you’ll fit in.”

It took three days before the Castellan could walk reliably from its chamber to the service corridor.

It took four before it reported a leak no one had noticed.

On the fifth, it asked for better maps.

Lexander approved the request immediately.

The human steward remained suspicious until the new arrival identified an error in a fuel delivery that had cost the household money for six weeks.

After that, their relationship improved.

The city wards remained unfinished.

Most streets were still beyond the Castellan’s reach.

But each morning there was another inspection, another section of work, another place where danger would have to pass more than one tired person before reaching the family rooms.

Io began sleeping longer.

Lexander noticed.

He did not mention it until she did.

The first opening of the transit gate drew a crowd well beyond the people permitted inside the court.

Atreyu had anticipated that.

So had Mary at the other end.

The stone arch stood empty until both sides acknowledged the attempt.

Then light moved along the copper.

The air within the arch darkened.

Cleared.

Greykeep appeared.

Not a painted likeness.

A courtyard.

People moving.

A banner lifting in a wind that did not touch Concordia.

Lexander stared.

Beside him, Io breathed out.

On the other side stood Uriah and Evelyn.

The two kings looked at one another across a distance that had become a few steps.

Uriah raised his hand.

“Your side is open?”

Lexander smiled.

“I can see you.”

“I thought I should confirm.”

“An encouraging beginning.”

They tested closure before allowing anyone through.

Concordia closed its end.

The image vanished.

Greykeep closed theirs.

Concordia could not reopen it.

Only when both agreed did the courtyard return.

Atreyu nodded.

Mary made a note.

Thor folded her arms.

“Can we use the very expensive doorway now?”

The first person through was a messenger carrying the formal confirmation that the trials had succeeded.

The second carried a basket from Greykeep’s kitchens.

That received greater enthusiasm.

Then Uriah and Evelyn crossed carrying their twins.

Io went to meet her friend carrying Seraphina, while Lisbeth held Ignatius.

Lexander clasped Uriah’s hand.

“Welcome back.”

“Much better journey.”

“Fewer potholes.”

“Thor will be disappointed.”

Behind them, the gate remained steady.

The children soon became the best of friends.

Blocks were shared. Carol showed Seraphina the turnip-carrying king.

Garrick showed Ignatius Spoon and his boat.

They ate together that evening.

The table was too crowded.

Lisbeth moved the flowers to make room for another dish. Fulla argued mildly with the steward about chairs. Thor described the gate tests as though she had personally endured every moment of them under protest.

Bruni asked whether the arch was large enough for him.

Uriah looked at Lexander.

Lexander looked at the doorway.

“We should measure.”

Bruni nodded solemnly.

“Good plan.”

Evelyn sat beside Io.

Their conversation had already moved past the prepared topics and into the comfortable disorder of friends catching up.

At the other end of the table, Uriah listened while Lexander described the approaching union assembly.

“I can attend without needing to take half the household onto the road,” Uriah said.

“You’ll regret offering when you hear the speeches.”

“Mary prepares me for hardship.”

“I heard that,” Mary said.

“I know.”

Lexander laughed.

Later, when the dishes had been cleared, both kings found themselves on the carpet with the children while Io and Evelyn occupied the chairs.

Ignatius crawled toward Uriah’s boot.

Seraphina watched from Lexander’s lap, considering whether this required intervention.

Uriah moved the boot out of reach.

Ignatius followed.

“He’s persistent.”

“He has several unfortunate examples.”

Across the room, Io laughed at something Evelyn said.

Lexander looked up.

He had heard his wife laugh often.

This was easier.

Unmeasured.

Uriah followed his gaze.

For a moment, neither man spoke.

Then Lexander said, “You should come for supper again.”

Uriah glanced toward the court where the gate stood beyond the windows.

“I believe that can be arranged.”

In the corridor, Concordia’s new Castellan paused beside the night guard.

The wards rested quietly in the walls.

Beyond them, two cities kept watch over their sleeping streets.

And when the evening ended, goodbye no longer meant days of road between them.