Chapter 184: The King's Judgment

Saturday was the first rest-day of the month, and on the first rest-day of every month for nineteen years my father has gone fishing.

He's missed it once. The day my sister Mirelle was born. He says he's never been forgiven by the fish.

I'd half expected him to miss it again. Gold in the walls. A handprint on Eleanor's plate. A house of two hundred and eleven people that had been asked on Friday whether it was all right and had answered, mostly, no, not really, but thank you for asking. A thief somewhere in it whom Eleanor had taught, lying awake.

But at five on Saturday morning, when I came down the back stair, my father was in the little kitchen in his old coat, with the rods over his shoulder and the bait tin under his arm, eating bread standing up.

"You're going," I said.

"Of course I'm going." He looked at me. "So are you. Get your coat."

"Is that—" I stopped. "Is it wise? Today?"

"It's the first rest-day," said my father. "The table holds. It's held through two wars and a wedding and Seraphina's cradle full of wasps. It's not going to stop holding because someone hid a purse behind a plate." He put the last of the bread in his mouth. "And there are things I want to say that I can only say in the boat."

* * *

I should explain the fishing table, for anyone who doesn't know.

It's a boat. A leaky, flat-bottomed, much-mended rowing boat on Greymere, the lake an hour's ride above the castle, in a fold of the hills where the water is so still in the early morning that you can see the clouds in it more clearly than the sky. My father sits in the stern. King Lexander of Concordia sits in the bow, with his eye patch and his bad shoulder. Thor sits in the middle on the left, on a bench that never creaked until Loki loosened it, and now does. Loki sits in the middle on the right.

And I sit wherever there's room, which is usually on the bottom boards with my feet in the water from the third plank from the bow, which leaks every hundred strokes and has done since before I was born.

What's said in the boat is never repeated. That's the only rule. I was sworn in a long time ago. I've kept it.

So I won't write down most of what was said on Saturday. I'll write down what I saw. And the one thing my father said I could repeat, because he said he'd say it again himself that night, to the whole house.

* * *

Lexander was already at the lake when we came over the last rise, sitting on the end of the little jetty in the dawn with his rod across his knees and two black ravens on the jetty post beside him, both of them looking at the water with the expression of birds who know there will be fish and have opinions about how many.

Thor was in the boat already, bailing. She'd come up the night before and slept in the boathouse, the way she does, wrapped in a horse blanket with her hammer under her head, which she isn't supposed to do. Her red-gold braid was crackling faintly in the cold.

Loki came last. He walked up from the Greymere arch on the lake shore, the one Eleanor sealed years ago, with his hands in his pockets and his long coat flapping, and stopped at the end of the jetty and looked at the boat, and at Thor in it, and at Lexander, and at my father.

For a moment he didn't get in.

"Middle right," said Thor, without looking up from her bailing. "Same as always. It's dry for once. Don't loosen anything."

Loki looked at her for a long moment. Then he got in, and sat down on the middle bench on the right, carefully, as though it might not be there.

It was there. It always is.

* * *

Fenrir came down out of the trees as we pushed off.

He does, most months. He doesn't fish; he doesn't get in the boat, because he's the size of a small horse and the boat would sink. He lies on the shore in the long grass and watches, the way a great gray wolf watches anything, as though it might at any moment turn out to be dinner. And at the end of the morning he eats the catch. All of it. Every month. Even when there isn't any.

"He looks well," said Lexander, glancing back at the shore.

"He's been at Greykeep all week," said Loki. "He likes the inner court. He says the cobbles are warm by the kitchen wall in the afternoons." He paused. "He says there's a small person in the house who keeps trying to stand up by holding on to things, and falls over, and laughs. He's been watching him."

My father smiled for the first time that morning.

"That's my grandson," he said.

"I know," said Loki. "So does Fenrir. He says he'd like to be there when it happens. The standing up properly." He shrugged. "He's never seen anyone learn to walk. Nobody let him near the cubs, when he was young."

* * *

We fished.

I'll say that much. We rowed out to the middle of Greymere where the water's deepest and the clouds lie on it like spilled milk, and we put the lines over, and for a long time nobody said anything at all. The third plank leaked. I bailed. Thor's braid crackled. One of Lexander's ravens flew out and sat on the stern beside my father and looked at him sideways, and my father looked back, and neither of them said anything either.

And then they talked.

I won't put it down. I swore. But I'll say that my father told them everything, from the drawer that wouldn't shut to the handprint on the plate. And that Thor said something about what she'd like to do to whoever left a purse of Kethran gold in Eleanor Stonehand's wall that I won't write down even if I were allowed to, because Mary reads this. And that Loki told them what he'd told us in the south solar, about the step and the door and the face you most want to see.

And that Lexander listened to all of it with his one eye half closed and his rod perfectly still, and said nothing, for a very long time.

And then he said one thing.

* * *

I can't write it. I'll tell you what it did instead.

It made my father go very still in the stern, with his line slack in the water. It made Thor stop bailing. It made Loki turn around on his bench and look at Lexander with a face I'd never seen him wear: not clever, not amused, not anything. Just afraid.

And it made me think, for the first time since Thursday morning, not about the gold, and not about the plate, and not about who.

About the note.

For the little ones.

* * *

I'd read it as kindness. Everyone had. A gift for somebody's children. Cruel, because it was bought, and it was meant to buy; but kind, on its face. That was how the first asking always worked. The flour on the step. The doctor for the fever. For your roads.

But a gift for the little ones is also a message.

It says: we know there are little ones.

It says: we know where.

* * *

Nobody caught anything. We sat out there on the still water until the sun was well up over the hills and the clouds had gone off the lake, and nobody caught a single fish, and nobody minded.

When we rowed back, Fenrir was waiting on the shore. He stood up out of the long grass, enormous and gray, and looked at the empty bottom of the boat, and then at my father, with an expression I can only describe as patient.

"Nothing," said my father. "I'm sorry."

Fenrir looked at him a moment longer. Then he lay down again on the shore, deliberately, with his great head on his paws, and closed his eyes, as though to say he'd eat it anyway.

He always does.

* * *

Before we left the boat, my father said one more thing. And this one he said I could put down.

He was sitting in the stern with the oars shipped and his hands on his knees. Lexander in the bow. Thor and Loki on their benches. Me on the bottom boards with my feet wet.

"When we find them," he said, "whoever it is. Here's what happens."

Nobody spoke.

"They keep their place in the house," said my father. "They keep their wage. They keep their room and their bed and their seat at the table in the servants' hall. Nobody takes anything from them. Not their name, not their work, not their good opinion. If they want to give the gold back, I'll send it back for them, with a note in my own hand, so nobody in Kethra thinks they kept it. If they don't want to, I'll send it back anyway." He looked around the boat. "And if someone's frightening them, if someone's said anything, or written anything, or left anything on a step for their little ones, wherever their little ones are, then that's mine. Not theirs. Mine. I'll go and stand in front of whatever door it is myself."

He looked at Loki.

"And you'll be in the room," he said. "Like you asked."

Loki nodded. He didn't say anything.

"That's my judgment," said my father. "I'm going to say it to the house tonight. All of it. In the great hall, at supper. So whoever it is hears it from me, and doesn't have to wonder what I'll do." He picked up the oars again. "You can write that one down, Garrick. I'd like it written."

* * *

Thor stood up in the boat.

She's not supposed to. The boat rocks. Lexander says so every month, and every month Thor stands up anyway, usually to shout at a fish. This time she stood up with the boat rocking under her and her braid crackling and looked at Loki.

"Hey," she said.

Loki looked up.

"Last night," said Thor. "You came through that arch with a speech." She'd heard. Of course she'd heard; Loki tells Thor everything, eventually, usually by accident. "I want you to know something. If anyone ever does ask. If anyone in the whole of the north ever says your name like that, about this or anything else." She held up her hand, open, and the lightning in it was so faint you could only see it because the morning was still gray at the edges. "I'll be standing next to you. Before they finish the sentence."

Loki looked at her hand.

"Nobody asked," he said.

"I know," said Thor. "I'm telling you anyway. So you'll have it."

She sat down. The boat stopped rocking. Lexander, in the bow, sighed, very quietly, and said nothing at all about people who stand up in boats.

* * *

The mothers' table was in the south solar, the way it always is on the first rest-day. My mother and Adriana and Io, with the pot of tea that Helena isn't allowed to make and the conversation Mary isn't allowed to write down.

I wasn't there. I'm never there. But Seraphina told me that evening, sitting on the edge of our bed with our son asleep across her knees, that Eleanor had been there too. For the first time.

"Io asked her," said Seraphina. "At the bottom of the stair, this morning. Eleanor was going past with a roll of plans and a face like a closed door, and my mother stopped her and said, Eleanor, come and have tea with us. You can say no. And Eleanor stood on the stair for a long time and then said yes." She stroked our son's hair. "Nobody's ever asked her before. She's always been working."

"What did she say? At the table?"

"I can't tell you that," said Seraphina. "Mothers' table." She was quiet a moment. "But I can tell you that she had a piece of paper. And she wrote names on it. Not many. Seven, my mother thinks. Everyone she's ever taught who's been inside Greykeep this month. And then she folded it up, very small, and put it in her pocket, and wouldn't let anyone read it. Not even my mother."

"Seven."

"She said she's going to ask them herself," said Seraphina. "One a day. Starting tomorrow. Not did you. Just are you." She looked down at our son. "She said she'd rather find out from their faces than from a ward."

* * *

The great hall at supper was full.

My father had asked for that. Everyone. Not just the family. The guards, the stable lads, the kitchen girls, the laundry women, the dairy, the garden men, the masons from Orselle still finishing the south solar chimney, the new early lad from the lower town, Teague and Ambrose Pelham up from the orchard with honey on their sleeves. Two hundred and eleven, and the family, and Thor and Loki and Lexander and Io staying over, and Fenrir lying across the doorway at the end because there was nowhere else he'd fit, with his chin on his paws.

My father stood up at the head of the high table when the plates had been cleared. He didn't bang a cup or ask for quiet. He just stood. And the hall went quiet on its own, the way it does.

* * *

"On Thursday," said my father, "we found Kethran gold in the lower hall. A purse of it. Hidden in a wall. With a note that said for the little ones."

Nobody moved. I watched the faces. Two hundred and eleven of them. I saw Nettie, the kitchen girl, go white, and Agathe beside her put a hand on her arm. I saw Hob put down his cup. I saw the masons from Orselle look at each other.

"It came in with someone in this house," said my father. "Someone we know. I don't know who. I'm not going to find out by searching anyone's room or turning out anyone's pockets. I've said that, and Garrick's said it, and I'm saying it again. Nobody here is going to be looked at sideways."

He paused.

"But I want whoever it is to hear something from me. Tonight. So you don't have to lie awake wondering."

* * *

He said it. All of it. What he'd said in the boat. You keep your place, your wage, your room, your seat at the table. Nobody takes anything from you. The gold goes back, with a note in my hand. And if someone's frightening you, about your little ones or anyone else's, that's mine. I'll go and stand in front of that door myself.

"You haven't done anything wrong," said my father. "Not yet. A gift left on a step isn't a crime. Taking it in out of the cold isn't a crime. Hiding it because you're ashamed isn't a crime. I'd have hidden it too, I think, if I'd been frightened enough." He looked down the length of the hall. "The only thing that would make it wrong is if they come back with the second asking, and you're so frightened by then that you say yes, because you think there's no one to tell."

He was quiet a moment.

"There's someone to tell," he said. "There's two hundred and eleven of us. And a king, and a queen, and a goddess with a hammer she isn't supposed to sleep on, and a wolf across the door. Come and tell any of us. Tonight. Tomorrow. Next month. Whenever you can. And we'll be glad."

* * *

He sat down.

Nobody said anything for a long time.

Then, at the far end of the hall by the door, Fenrir lifted his great head off his paws and looked down the hall at my father with his yellow eyes. And then he put his head back down. Slowly. Deliberately. The way he'd lain down on the lake shore that morning in front of an empty boat.

As though to say: I'll wait.

* * *

The hall emptied slowly. People went out in twos and threes, not talking much, and I watched them go and wondered which of them was carrying it.

Our son didn't wonder about anything. He'd been asleep on Seraphina's shoulder for most of my father's speech, and he woke up at the end of it, the way babies do, at exactly the wrong moment, with every bit of the day's sleep turned into wanting to be somewhere else. Seraphina put him down on the floor by the high table to let him crawl it out of himself.

He went straight down the length of the great hall. Under the long tables, between the benches, past the loom with Saba's river-colored cloth on it, very fast and very determined, the way he goes toward anything he's decided he wants.

He wanted Fenrir.

The great gray wolf was still lying across the doorway at the end of the hall with his chin on his paws. He watched our son come all the way down the hall toward him with his yellow eyes half open, and didn't move.

Our son arrived. He sat back on his heels and looked at Fenrir's face, which was bigger than he was. Then he reached out with both hands, took two fistfuls of the thick gray fur at Fenrir's neck, and pulled himself up.

He stood. Wobbling. Holding on with both fists, his legs braced wide, his face very serious, looking straight into one enormous yellow eye from about six inches away.

Fenrir didn't breathe. I mean that. I watched his great gray side, and it didn't move. He held perfectly still, the way you hold still when a butterfly lands on your hand, while a boy who wasn't yet one and a half stood up against him and swayed and didn't fall.

Then our son let go with one hand, very slowly, and put it flat on Fenrir's nose. The way he does. As though checking he was still there.

And sat down hard on his bottom, and laughed.

Fenrir breathed out. It ruffled our son's hair. He laughed again.

"Not yet," said Loki, very softly, beside me. He'd come to stand there without my noticing. "He wants to be there when it's properly. The first step. He told me." Loki watched his son and mine. "He's very patient. Nobody was ever patient with him."

* * *

Nobody came that night.

I sat up in my nook on the east wall until two, in case. Seraphina sat with me until one with Corvin's coin in her hand, and it lay flat the whole time. My father sat in the little kitchen by the stove with a lamp turned low, with the door to the back stair open, so anybody who came down it would see the light.

Nobody came.

But at a little after two, as I was getting up to go to bed, I looked down from the east wall into the inner court, and saw a light moving across it. A lamp, carried low. Someone walking from the south range toward the lower hall, very slowly, the way you walk when you're not sure you're going to get there.

They stopped halfway. In the middle of the court, under the stars. And stood there, for a long time, with the lamp held low.

And then they turned around, and went back the way they'd come.

I couldn't see who it was. It was too far, and too dark, and my left eye is still no use to me. I only saw the lamp.

But I knew, watching it go back across the court, that whoever was carrying it had heard my father. Every word.

And that it hadn't been enough. Not yet.

* * *

From Mary's book, Saturday. The first part of the page is blank, with a single line drawn across it, because Mary doesn't write down the fishing table or the mothers' table and never has:

(The table.)

Supper in the great hall. Everyone. Uriah stood up and told the house about the gold.

He said: You keep your place, your wage, your room, your seat at the table. The gold goes back with a note in my hand. If someone's frightening you about your little ones, that's mine. I'll stand in front of that door myself.

He said: You haven't done anything wrong. Not yet. There's someone to tell. Two hundred and eleven of us.

Fenrir lifted his head and put it down again.

Nobody came.

Garrick saw a lamp cross the inner court at two in the morning, toward the lower hall. It stopped halfway, and went back.

And under that, in a hand that slopes sharply to the right as though written fast, with every letter closed and squared off like a soldier's:

Lexander of Concordia, at Greykeep, the first rest-day. I'd like it noted that nothing said in the boat is written here, and that I'm grateful. That nobody caught a fish, and Fenrir ate it anyway. That I've had one eye for a very long time and seen a great deal with it, and that I have never once seen a king stand up in his own hall and tell a frightened thief that he'd have hidden the gold too. And that I'd like to be in the room as well, when it comes. If I may.