Chapter 59: The Count

The clerk wrote the name carefully.

Rinna.

He spelled it back once to be certain.

Hadrun listened without opening his eyes.

“Yes.”

The clerk looked at Lexander.

Lexander nodded, and the man added a second line beneath the first.

Daughter. Liked the river.

It was not the sort of thing that usually went into a register.

Nobody suggested removing it.

“Where was home?” Lexander asked.

Hadrun’s breathing slowed.

For a while, Lexander thought he had drifted back toward sleep.

Then the giant said, “North. Past the white falls. The river runs black in spring.”

“A village?”

“Steading. Eleven families.”

“How long since you were taken?”

Hadrun’s brow creased.

The answer was not there.

Lexander had seen that expression in the receiving halls. People who could describe every board of a kitchen they had left would lose the season they had left it in.

“It doesn’t matter yet,” he said.

“It matters.”

“Then we’ll find it another way.”

Hadrun opened his eyes.

They went to the wooden cart again.

“They took the little ones first.”

The clerk’s pen stopped.

“To the wagons,” Hadrun went on. “Said small hands fit where ours don’t. Said if we worked well, we’d see them at the end of the season.”

Lexander waited.

“There was no end of the season.”

Outside the shelter, Bruni had stopped pretending to sleep.

Lexander could see his shadow against the canvas, motionless.

“Did they say where the children were going?”

“No.”

A pause.

“East. Always east.”

Lexander thought of the wagons in Atreyu’s report.

Guarded.

Loads the scouts could not identify.

He kept that thought behind his face.

“Thank you,” he said.

Hadrun looked at him strangely.

“For what?”

“For telling us.”

The giant seemed to consider whether this was a trick.

Then his hand moved across the blanket until one finger rested beside the little wooden dragon.

Not touching it.

Just near.

“She would have taken this,” he said. “Without asking.”

Lexander smiled despite himself.

“So would mine.”

Mara had spent the night with the captured guards.

She did not look as though she had slept.

She also did not look as though she wanted to discuss it.

The study table held the guards’ belongings in neat rows: knives, purses, a set of dice with one face shaved slightly flat, a pair of good boots that did not fit the man who had been wearing them.

And a ledger.

It was small. Water-stained. Bound in oiled leather.

Mara set it in front of Lexander.

“The operator carried it inside his shirt.”

“He talked?”

“He talked a great deal. Very little of it was useful until Loki explained what he believed the wheel would have done to his own arm.”

Lexander glanced toward the trickster.

Loki was examining the shaved die.

“I described it accurately,” he said. “I simply chose a slow pace.”

Thor, sitting on the windowsill because every chair had been claimed, nodded approvingly.

“Very slow. I nearly fell asleep.”

“That was the effect I wanted on you.”

Lexander opened the ledger.

The writing was cramped and orderly.

Dates.

Places abbreviated to a few letters.

Columns of figures.

He turned a page.

Then another.

It took him a moment to understand what was being counted.

Iron. Timber. Rope.

Then lines that used the same columns for people.

Laborers, adult.

Laborers, injured.

Laborers, lost.

He kept reading.

Halfway down the fourth page, a line had been entered beneath the others, its figure circled twice.

Small, giant-born. 4. To the Kiln.

Lexander did not realize he had stopped breathing until Mara spoke.

“We found it too.”

“The Kiln?”

“The operator says it’s a name, not a description. He’s never been there. Receipts go there. Wagons go there. Workers who are good with fine fittings go there.”

“Where is it?”

“He doesn’t know.”

Loki set the die down.

“Or he knows a direction and has decided it’s the last thing he owns.”

Mara did not disagree.

Lexander looked at the circled number again.

Four.

He had learned to distrust how numbers could make suffering look tidy.

This one did not look tidy.

It looked like four children who had been reduced to a column because someone needed to know how much space to leave in a wagon.

“Hadrun’s daughter,” Thor said quietly.

“Possibly.”

“Possibly is better than nothing.”

“Possibly is also how you break a man twice.”

Thor looked at him.

After a moment, she nodded.

“Then we don’t tell him until we know.”

“We tell him there’s a lead,” Lexander said. “Not a name.”

Mara turned the ledger toward herself and marked the page.

“My people have the receiving dates. If we match them against the wagons we already know about, we may find the road.”

“Do it.”

She was already standing.

Uriah’s two specialists had covered half the courtyard outside the city wall in canvas and chalk.

The iron fittings sat in the middle of it like something dredged up from the bottom of a well.

Uriah crouched beside the one Lexander had broken.

He did not touch it.

Lexander joined him.

His bandaged hand ached in the cold.

“Well?”

“It’s two things,” Uriah said.

One of the specialists, a narrow-shouldered woman with ink stains on both wrists, pointed to the dull runes that ran along the shaft.

“These are old. Binding marks. A promise pressed into metal so the metal remembers it. Dwarven, or taken from dwarven work by someone who didn’t understand all of it.”

“And the rest?”

She moved her finger to the catches.

The angles were exact.

Every line straight.

Every joint fitted so cleanly that the iron looked less forged than decided.

Lexander had seen that kind of precision before.

In reports.

In the description of a throne room where even the pillars felt as though they had been instructed how to stand.

“Othellos,” he said.

Uriah’s jaw tightened.

“Or someone trained in his workshops.”

“Surtr’s convoy. Othellos’s hands.”

“Yes.”

They looked at each other.

They had suspected an alliance.

Suspecting a thing in council was not the same as kneeling beside iron that had been made to hold a man’s body against his will.

“They’re sharing craft,” Lexander said.

“They’re sharing something,” Uriah answered. “Whether they share intentions is a different question.”

The specialist cleared her throat.

“There’s one more detail.”

She lifted a corner of the canvas.

Beneath it lay the collar taken from Hadrun’s neck.

Inside the band, where it would have rested against skin, a line of tiny marks had been cut.

Not runes.

Tally strokes.

Dozens of them.

“He did that?” Lexander asked.

“With a fingernail, I think,” the specialist said. “Or the edge of a tooth. One for each day, probably. Until he stopped.”

Lexander counted without meaning to.

Then made himself stop.

Uriah stood.

For a moment, the air around him grew cold enough that the chalk lines frosted at their edges.

He noticed and let it go.

“I’ll take the fittings to Greykeep,” he said. “If they were made in Othellos’s workshops, someone who escaped those workshops may know where they were sent.”

“The gods who came over to you?”

“Some of them worked there. Not willingly.”

“Ask about a place called the Kiln.”

Uriah turned.

Lexander told him about the ledger.

When he finished, his friend was quiet for a long time.

“Four,” Uriah said at last.

The same number had sat on a courier’s list of questions a few weeks earlier.

Neither of them said that aloud.

Neither needed to.

Thor insisted on training anyway.

“You have one hand,” she said.

“I have two hands. One of them is temporarily offended.”

“Then you have one and a half hands, and enemies don’t wait for the other half.”

They stood in the practice yard while the morning shadow pulled back from the stones.

Lexander held a wooden spear in his left hand and the shaft loosely in his bandaged right.

Thor came at him slowly.

He turned the first strike aside.

She tapped his ankle with her foot.

“Feet.”

“I know.”

“You knew yesterday. Today you forgot.”

He reset.

She came again.

He moved the spear, stepped, and felt his weight settle where it should.

Thor nodded.

Then she hit him in the shoulder.

“That was a good step.”

“Then why—”

“Because you were proud of it.”

Across the yard, Bruni sat on an overturned water trough that creaked whenever he breathed.

He was not watching the lesson.

He was looking toward the field shelter beyond the wall.

Thor followed Lexander’s glance.

She lowered her practice hammer.

“He hasn’t gone inside the city since we came back.”

“He said Hadrun shouldn’t wake alone.”

“Hadrun is awake.”

“Then perhaps it’s Bruni who shouldn’t be alone.”

Thor considered that.

Then she walked over to the trough.

Lexander did not follow.

He heard only part of the conversation.

Thor asking something.

Bruni answering in a word.

Thor sitting down beside him, which made the trough complain loudly enough that two guards turned to look.

Neither giant nor goddess moved.

After a while, Bruni said something longer.

Thor put her hand on his arm.

It looked very small there.

Lexander picked up his fallen spear and practiced the step again by himself.

Feet.

Then the strike.

Then not being proud of it.

Io was waiting in the nursery when he came in at midday.

So was a report.

He recognized Mara’s handwriting on the outside.

Io did not hand it to him immediately.

“Eat first.”

“Is it urgent?”

“Mara said it would still be true after soup.”

He sat.

Seraphina climbed onto his knee before the bowl arrived.

She examined his bandage with professional seriousness.

“Better?”

“Getting better.”

She touched it with one finger.

Very lightly.

Then looked up at him to see if that had been permitted.

“Gentle,” he said. “Like that. That’s right.”

Ignatius was on the carpet with Fulla, attempting to fit a wooden block into a cup that was obviously too small.

He tried several angles.

He tried pressing harder.

A faint warmth gathered around his fingers.

Fulla said nothing.

Lexander said nothing.

Io watched.

Ignatius looked at the block.

Then at the cup.

Then, deliberately, he put the block down and picked up a smaller one.

It fit.

He held it up triumphantly.

Fulla clapped.

Io let out a breath that turned into a laugh.

“Did you see that?”

“I saw it.”

“He stopped.”

“He found another way.”

Seraphina, not to be outdone, slid from Lexander’s lap, walked unsteadily to the toy basket, and returned with a block of her own.

She placed it in Lexander’s hand.

“Papa fix.”

He looked at it.

There was nothing wrong with it.

“Thank you,” he said gravely.

She nodded, satisfied, and wandered off.

Io sat beside him.

“Big man,” Seraphina said from across the room. “Has dragon?”

“He has the dragon,” Lexander told her. “He’s keeping it safe.”

“Good.”

She paused.

“Give back?”

“When he’s better.”

She seemed to find this a reasonable lending arrangement.

Io broke the seal on the report only after the soup bowl was empty.

She read it first.

Then passed it over.

Mara had matched the receiving dates.

Three of the wagons named in the ledger had passed a toll bridge on the eastern road. The toll keeper had been paid not to record them.

He had recorded them anyway.

On the back of a feed bill, in case anyone ever asked.

Someone had finally asked.

The wagons had turned south after the bridge.

Toward old mining country.

Toward a valley that had been abandoned when its seams ran dry, two generations ago.

There had once been smelting furnaces there.

A long brick chimney.

Locals had called it the Kiln.

Lexander read the last line.

Then he set the paper down carefully, as though it might spill.

Io watched him.

“You want to go now.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to?”

He looked at the children.

Ignatius had begun stacking the blocks into a tower that leaned dramatically to one side.

Seraphina was considering whether to help or destroy it.

“No,” Lexander said. “Not now.”

Io’s shoulders eased a little.

“Because?”

“Because if I go now, I go with what I want instead of what I know. We don’t know how many guards. We don’t know if there are wheels. We don’t know if the children are there, or were, or will be.”

“And you would be very angry.”

“And I would be very angry.”

She took his good hand.

“Thank you for saying it first.”

“Thor would have said it if I hadn’t.”

“Thor would have said it while hitting you.”

“She did hit me. This morning.”

“For what?”

“Pride.”

Io considered this.

“I should take lessons.”

The ravens came to the windowsill that afternoon while Lexander was writing to Uriah.

They usually arrived when there was food.

There was no food.

He looked at them.

They looked at him.

One shifted from foot to foot.

The other pecked thoughtfully at the window latch.

Loki, lounging in the opposite chair with a book he had not turned a page of in twenty minutes, glanced over.

“They’re bored.”

“They’re ravens.”

“Ravens are almost always bored. It’s how they become clever. Nothing else entertains them.”

Lexander set the pen down.

“The valley is three days’ ride.”

“Less for a bird.”

“I know.”

“You’re wondering how far you can see through them.”

“I’m wondering how far I can go without being sick on the council table.”

Loki closed the book.

“You lost the yard yesterday when it tilted.”

“Briefly.”

“And you were standing on a hill a quarter mile away.”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t try to see three days away. Send them, and let them come back.”

Lexander frowned.

“What good does that do?”

Loki leaned forward.

“You saw through the bird while it flew. What do you think it does with what it sees when you’re not looking?”

Lexander opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

He thought of the moment on the road, the raven on the fence post. The impression that had brushed his mind. A pale road. His own head from above.

Not a window.

A memory.

“They remember,” he said slowly.

“That’s the old story,” Loki said. “One thinks. One remembers. Whether these two have read the story is another question.”

Lexander looked at the birds.

The nearer one tilted its head.

He opened the window.

They did not fly.

They hopped inside, onto the desk, and one immediately stole the pen.

Loki laughed.

“Excellent start.”

Lexander retrieved the pen.

The raven retrieved it back.

He let it keep it.

Then he did what he had done on the ridge.

He did not order them.

He pictured the eastern road.

The toll bridge.

The turn south.

A valley with a long brick chimney.

He held the picture as clearly as he could.

Then a second one, gentler.

Small figures.

Giant-born.

Children who would be too tall for their age and too young for their size.

The raven with the pen dropped it.

Both birds went very still.

Then they were gone through the window, black against the gray afternoon, flying east.

Loki watched them go.

“If they come back with a sausage, I won’t be surprised.”

“Nor will I.”

But Lexander stayed at the window until he could no longer see them.

Hadrun walked for the first time that evening.

Lisbeth disapproved.

Bruni had already helped him to his feet by the time she arrived, so her disapproval had to be delivered retroactively.

“He has two cracked ribs.”

“Yes,” Bruni said.

“And a damaged throat.”

“Yes.”

“And you thought walking was a good idea?”

Bruni looked at Hadrun.

Hadrun looked at the open shelter flap and the evening sky beyond it.

“He wanted to see outside,” Bruni said.

Lisbeth opened her mouth.

Then closed it.

She sighed.

“Ten steps. Then sitting. Then I examine both of you, because I can see you’ve been carrying something heavy, and I don’t believe it was only firewood.”

Bruni appeared mildly alarmed.

Lexander, arriving with Io, found the two giants standing just outside the shelter.

The fields beyond Concordia’s wall were silver in the last light.

Hadrun stood with one hand braced against Bruni’s shoulder.

He was taller.

Thinner.

His shadow stretched almost to the city wall.

He looked at the sky for a long time.

“I forgot,” he said.

Io stepped closer.

“Forgot what?”

“How big it is.”

Nobody spoke.

The wind moved the grass.

Somewhere in the city, the evening bells began.

Hadrun flinched at the first stroke.

Then he listened.

By the third, his shoulders had come down.

“Bells?”

“Bells,” Lexander said. “They mean evening. That’s all. Nothing else.”

Hadrun nodded slowly.

Then he turned his head, carefully, and looked at Lexander.

“You found something.”

It was not a question.

Lexander glanced at Io.

She gave the smallest nod.

“We found a place,” Lexander said. “Wagons went there. Some of them may have carried children.”

Hadrun’s hand tightened on Bruni’s shoulder.

Bruni did not move.

“Rinna?”

“We don’t know.”

“But you will look.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When we know enough not to make it worse.”

Hadrun stared at him.

Lexander had expected anger.

He would have understood it.

He had been prepared to stand still and let it land.

Instead, after a long silence, the giant lowered his eyes.

“The wheel man,” he said. “He went fast. Always fast. Turn, and turn, and turn. Because fast was easier than looking.”

His voice cracked.

“You are slow.”

“I’m trying to be.”

Hadrun nodded.

“Good.”

Lisbeth said, “That’s ten steps standing still, which I’ll count generously. Sit.”

Both giants sat.

The ground shook slightly.

Io laughed under her breath.

That night Lexander dreamed of a river.

Not the river at Concordia.

A darker one, cold with snowmelt, cutting through a valley where eleven houses stood with their doors open and nobody inside.

He woke before dawn.

Io was asleep.

Through the window, the sky was beginning to gray.

He rose without waking her and went to the nursery.

The Castellan had lit the corridor before he reached it.

He no longer remarked on this.

The children were asleep.

Seraphina lay sideways across her cot, one foot through the rail.

Ignatius slept on his back with both arms flung over his head, as though he had surrendered to something in a dream.

Lexander stood between them.

He thought of a ledger column.

Small, giant-born. 4.

He thought of a man who had cut lines inside his own collar, one for each day, until he could not remember why he was counting.

He thought of eleven open doors.

Something tapped the window.

He turned.

One raven sat on the outside ledge, feathers ruffled by a long flight.

It held nothing in its beak.

Not a sausage.

Not a pen.

Lexander crossed the room quietly and opened the window.

The bird stepped onto his wrist.

Its claws found the gap in the bandage.

He did not flinch.

He did not try to see.

He only waited.

The raven turned its head and looked at him with one bright eye.

Then the memory came, unasked.

A long brick chimney against a cold sky.

Smoke rising from it, thin and steady.

A yard enclosed by a wall.

And in the yard, moving between the buildings under the watch of men with whips, four small figures, too tall for their age, carrying baskets of stone.

One of them had stopped beside a channel of runoff water.

She was crouched over it.

Trailing one hand in the current.

As if she had found the only river left in the world.

The image faded.

Lexander stood very still.

The raven hopped from his wrist to the windowsill and began, with great care, to preen.

Behind him, Seraphina sighed in her sleep and pulled her foot back through the rail.

Lexander closed the window.

Then he went to wake Thor.