Chapter 78: What I Said to Him

"No," I said.

Roderic didn't move. He didn't look at me. He just closed his eyes, for a moment, up there on the cold bench with the blanket around his shoulders, the way you close them when you've been braced for a blow and it lands exactly where you thought it would.

"All right," he said. Very quietly. "All right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."

"Rod. I haven't finished."

He opened his eyes.

"I won't shut it on her," I said. "Not like that. Not in the dark, without telling her, with her asleep at the top of the tower. I've never done it and I'm not going to start tonight. If I did, she'd wake up at three in the morning with a draft through the middle of her and no idea why, and she'd come down a hundred and forty steps in her nightgown to find out. You know she would."

"Yes."

"But I can ask her."

Roderic stared at me.

"That's the other thing about doors," I said. "You can knock on them. Even that one." I put my cup down on the stone. "I can go into the middle and knock on her side and say, Carol, there's something I'm holding that isn't mine to give you yet. May I shut my door until it is? And she'll say yes or no. And if she says yes, it isn't a draft anymore. It's just a door. One she knows about. One she said I could close."

"She'd say yes?"

"I don't know," I said. "That's why it's asking."

* * *

Roderic looked at me for a long time.

And then he did something I wasn't expecting. He put his face in his hands, the way Bram Halloran had on the end of the harbor wall, and his shoulders shook, once, twice. Not crying. Something more like the thing that happens to a rope when you finally let go of the end.

"I thought you'd be angry," he said through his fingers.

"Why would I be angry?"

"Because I came up here and didn't tell you. Because I've been sitting across the table from Carol for two nights, eating Helena's toast, knowing something and not saying it. Because you're her twin, and she's your..." He took his hands away from his face. "I thought you'd tell me I should have come straight to you. The first night. That I should have broken it the moment I knew it was about her."

"Would that have been right?"

"I don't know. I thought you'd think so."

"Rod," I said. "Listen to me. I'm going to say this once, properly, and then I'm going to be very annoying about something else, so you'd better hear it now."

He looked at me.

"You were asked to carry something by somebody who's never had anyone to carry anything for her. You said yes, but you told her the truth about how far you could carry it. You carried it as far as you said you would. Further. And when you couldn't go any further, you didn't drop it, and you didn't hand it to somebody behind her back. You came and stood at a door and asked, without asking, whether there was anywhere safe to put it down." I picked my cup back up, because my hands wanted something to hold too. "That's not breaking a promise. That's the best way of keeping one I've ever seen."

Roderic didn't say anything.

"Father would have done exactly the same," I said. "I think he'd have done it worse. He'd have carried it until it broke his back, because that's what he does. You came up the stair on the third night." I looked at him. "That's better than Father. I'm going to tell him so. He'll be delighted."

And Roderic laughed. A real one. Short and wet and surprised, with his breath going up white in front of him.

* * *

"Now the annoying part," I said.

"Go on."

"You haven't told me anything," I said. "And you're not going to. Not tonight. Not up here."

"But you just said..."

"I said I'd ask Carol for the door. I didn't say I'd be the one you tell." I stood up and folded the blanket over my arm. "What did you promise her? Iselle. The exact words."

Roderic's face changed.

"If I can't, I'll tell you first," he said slowly. "Before I tell anyone else. To your face. I won't go behind you."

"Then that's where you're going," I said. "Not to me. To her."

"It's one in the morning."

"She didn't say in daylight. She said to your face." I held out my hand to pull him up. "And you've been on this wall in the cold for an hour with a face like a dropped pie. If she's anything like you, she isn't asleep either."

Roderic looked at my hand.

Then he took it.

* * *

I went into the middle first. Before we went down the east stair.

It's hard to explain what that's like to anybody who hasn't got one. Roderic was right, in a way, when he was nine; it is a bit like a kitchen. A warm room with two doors in it, where Carol and I have always been able to meet without walking anywhere. Most of the time, both doors stand open and neither of us thinks about it, the way you don't think about your own heartbeat.

That night, Carol's side was dim and warm and slow. Asleep. Not deeply; she never sleeps deeply in winter. More the way a cat sleeps by a fire, with one ear still turned toward the room.

I didn't wake her. I just went and stood by her door, in the middle, and knocked. Three times. The way my family does.

She stirred.

Garrick? Thick with sleep. What time is it?

Late. I'm sorry. Everything's all right. Nobody's hurt. I said that first, because it's always the first thing either of us wants to know. I need to ask you something.

Mm.

There's something I'm about to be holding, I said. It isn't mine. It belongs to somebody who hasn't said I can give it to you yet. May I shut my door? Just until they say. Probably until breakfast.

There was a long, sleepy pause.

I felt her turn over, at the top of the tower. I felt her think about it, in the slow, warm, honest way she thinks about everything, even half asleep. I felt her decide.

Is it someone who needs it shut?

Yes.

Then yes. A yawn, all the way through the middle. Shut it. And bring me whatever's behind it at breakfast. And Garrick?

Yes?

Thank you for knocking.

And she went back to sleep.

So I shut my door.

It was the strangest thing I've ever done. Gently, the way you'd close a door on a sleeping child, so the latch wouldn't click. And there was a draft, for a moment, all through me, like a house with a window open somewhere. And then the draft stopped. Because she knew about it. Because she'd said yes. And a door somebody knows about isn't a broken window. It's just a door.

I stood in the sitting room in the dark and felt the shape of it. Closed. Not cold. Just mine, for a while.

Then I went and found my boots.

* * *

The lower hall at half past one in the morning is the quietest place in Greykeep. One high lamp burning at each end. The six arches dim and silver. The plates on them very faintly warm, the way they've been since every gate got its keeper.

The Castellan was there. It's always there.

"Garrick Grey," it said. "Roderic Grey." A pause. "Outward? At this hour?"

"Concordia," I said. "May we?"

The Castellan was quiet for a moment longer than usual. I don't know what it sees, when it looks at us. Mary says it sees everything that goes through a door, including the things people carry that they haven't put down. I think it saw Roderic's face. I think it saw mine.

"Yes," it said. "You may." And then, as we stepped toward the Concordia arch, so softly I almost didn't hear: "The lady at the top of the east range has had her lamp lit for three nights."

* * *

She had.

We came up the east range stairs, all of them, Roderic first, me three steps behind. There was light under her door. When Roderic knocked, three times, she opened it before the third knock had finished, as if she'd been standing just on the other side with her hand on the latch.

She was dressed. Her coat on, and the blue scarf. Her right hand was open.

She looked at Roderic. Then past him, at me, on the stair. And I saw her understand, all at once, the whole of it, before anyone said a word.

"You couldn't," she said to Roderic.

"I couldn't," said Roderic. "I'm sorry. I said I'd tell you first. To your face." He swallowed. "This is me telling you first. He doesn't know anything. I didn't tell him. He worked out it was you, and he worked out it was near Carol, and that's all. He made me come here before I said a word."

Iselle looked at him for a long time.

"Two nights longer than I thought you'd manage," she said.

Roderic went red.

"I didn't mean that unkindly," said Iselle. She put her open hand on his arm, very briefly. "I meant it the other way. I thought you'd come on the first night. I was ready for it on the first night. I'd have understood." She looked down. "You carried it for me for three days. Nobody has ever carried anything for me for three days."

Then she looked up at me.

"I was coming," she said. "In the morning. I'd got my coat on to come. I thought of the way, Garrick. Tonight. About an hour ago." She stepped back from the door. "Come in. Both of you. I'll show you the page."

* * *

She showed it to me the way she'd shown it to Roderic. Holding it up at the edges. Not letting either of us touch it.

I didn't touch it. I didn't need to. I could feel it from the doorway. The cold that came off it was the same cold I'd felt in the Orselle fold. The long, patient leaning. A door with somebody standing on the other side of it, listening.

I read every line. It is time, little sister.Where is she tonight?She sings slower when the mill is slow.She would come all that way to hold it open. Alone. For you.I can wait.

Then I looked at Iselle.

"What's the way?" I said.

She folded the page up small again and put it back in the drawer under the gray horse. And shut the drawer. And turned around.

"The promise was to me," she said. "Carol's promise. In the little kitchen. She said if he goes to Saba's river, I'll go with Uriah and hold it open. She said it to me. For me." Iselle's hand closed, and she opened it again on purpose. "So it's mine. And if it's mine, I can ask her to keep it differently."

Roderic was staring at her.

"I'm going to ask her," said Iselle, "not to go to the river because he's let it go low. Not because somebody tells her it's low. Not because she hears my mother's singing has slowed. Not for any reason at all, except one." She looked at me. "Only if I ask her. Me. With my own mouth, standing in front of her. Not on a page. Not in a letter. Not because of anything he does."

"And you won't ask," I said.

"I won't ask," said Iselle. "Not while he's waiting there for her." She lifted her chin. "He's spent nine years teaching me how to answer. He forgot that I can also not ask. That's mine too. Rysa taught me. It's in the rules. Permission. You can give it, and you can keep it."

I looked at her, standing in her coat in the middle of her small room at the top of the east range, with her open hand and her chin up.

"That's very good," I said.

"I know," said Iselle. "I hate it." And then, when Roderic laughed, startled, she smiled. Just a little. "Faelan told me. He says it about carrots."

* * *

"And your father," she said. "I want him to know. Tonight. All of it. Will you tell him for me?"

"You don't want to tell him yourself?"

"I'll tell him myself in the morning. At breakfast. In front of Carol, so she hears it from me and not from anybody else." She looked at the dark window. "But I don't want him to wake up and hear it at the table like news. He promised me somewhere to go, someone to tell, before I answer him. I want him to have the night with it. So he can think." Her mouth moved. "He thinks better in the night. Mary says so."

"He does."

"Then tell him," said Iselle. "Everything that's on the page. The river. The singing. What he wants with Carol." She took a breath. "And tell him I never wrote a word. Not one. Not the truth and not a lie."

"I'll tell him."

"And tell him..." She stopped. Looked at Roderic. Then back at me. "Tell him his son sat outside my door for three hours, and in a chair all night, and carried it for three days, and then came and told me first. To my face. Like he said he would." Her voice wobbled, very slightly. "I want somebody to tell Uriah that. Properly. Not just me."

"I was going to anyway," I said. "I'd already decided. But I'll say you asked."

* * *

Roderic stayed. In the chair by the tall east window. She asked him to; he asked whether she was sure; she said yes. I left them there and went down the east range stairs alone and back through the big gate to the lower hall.

The Castellan said, "Garrick Grey. Yes. You may." And then: "Your father is in the little kitchen."

Of course he was.

* * *

He was sitting at the scrubbed table in his socks, with Mary's black book open in front of him and his reading glasses on the end of his nose, and Kip's blue lamp burning in the window, and a cup of cold tea at his elbow that he'd forgotten to drink. It was nearly three. He looked up when I came in, and took his glasses off, and looked at my face.

"Sit down," he said. "Tell me."

So I did.

All of it. From the knock at midnight and the goat on the roof to Iselle's chin going up in the middle of her room. The page. Every line on it. The river going low and the mill going slow and the singing. Where is she tonight.She would come all that way. Alone. What he wanted, and why. Iselle not writing a word. The three days. The way Iselle had thought of. Not asking.

My father didn't say anything while I talked. He didn't interrupt once. He just listened, with his hands folded on Mary's book, and his face very still.

When I'd finished, he got up and went to the window and stood looking out at the garden. At the pear tree, black against the dark, and the herb beds, and the blue lamp's light on the frost.

He stood there for a long time. I watched his lips move.

He was counting. I knew it. Edric's thousand.

Then he came back and sat down.

"First," he said. "Roderic."

"He came up the stair on the third night," I said. "Iselle asked me to tell you that. So did I. He carried it for three days and then told her first, to her face, before he told anyone. And he didn't tell me anything at all. He just asked whether I could shut my door."

My father was quiet.

"I'd have carried it until it broke my back," he said at last.

"I told him that."

"Did you." He almost smiled. "What did he say?"

"He laughed."

"Good." My father picked up his cold tea and looked at it and put it down again. "Good. I'll tell him myself tomorrow. And I'll tell Adriana, and she'll cry, and he'll go red to the ears." He looked at me. "And your door. You asked her?"

"I asked her. She said yes. She said to bring her what's behind it at breakfast."

"Then you will." He nodded slowly. "And Iselle will tell her the rest. With her own mouth. That's right. That's exactly right."

* * *

"And the page," I said. "What do we do about the page?"

My father looked at the blue lamp in the window for a long time.

"He's asked her where Carol is every night," he said. "And she hasn't answered him. Not one word."

"Yes."

"He'll keep asking."

"She says he can wait in the drawer."

"He can." My father turned his cup around on the table. "But I don't think we should let him wait too long. A man who's asking and getting nothing will start asking somewhere else. The river. Saba. Some other door." He looked at me. "I'd rather he kept asking her. Where we can see it. Where we know every word."

I didn't understand, for a moment.

Then I did.

"You want her to answer," I said slowly.

"I want somebody to answer," said my father. "Every night. Very carefully. Something he'll believe. And nothing that's true." He put his glasses back on, and turned a page in Mary's book, and picked up the pen. "And I know exactly who writes the best things nobody should believe in all the world."

"Loki."

"Loki." He wrote something in the margin. "But only if Iselle says yes. It's her page. It's her hand. It's her name at the bottom of whatever goes back. If she says no, it stays in the drawer, and we find another way."

"And if she says yes?"

My father looked up at me over his glasses.

"Then he'll get his answer every night," he said. "And he'll never once know where Carol is."

* * *

Iselle came through the Concordia gate at six, with Roderic. The Castellan said "Iselle, daughter of Saba. Yes. You may," the way it always does, and then, for the first time, "Welcome home." She stopped in the middle of the lower hall and stood very still for a moment. Then she came up the back stair to the little kitchen.

Carol was already there. She'd come down early, a hundred and forty steps, in Ignatius's old green coat, and she was sitting on the end of the bench with her chin on her knees and her hands around a cup, waiting. She looked at me when I came in. Then at the middle. At my side of it. At the door.

I opened it.

Gently. The way I'd shut it.

Carol let her breath out. The warmth came back through all of me like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

Then Iselle stood in front of her, in her coat and her blue scarf, with her right hand open, and said, "My name is Iselle. Daughter of Saba, who weaves. I need to tell you something. And then I need to ask you to keep a promise differently. You can say no."

And she told her.

Carol listened to all of it with her chin on her knees. When Iselle got to the part about the river going low, Carol's hands went white around her cup. When she got to the part about Carol coming all that way alone, the frost started on the window behind her, very faintly, ferns of it. Then Iselle got to the part about asking, and the frost stopped.

"Only if you ask me," said Carol slowly. "Not because of the river. Not because of anything he does."

"Only if I ask," said Iselle. "With my own mouth. Standing in front of you."

Carol looked at her for a long moment. Then she put her cup down, and held out her hand, palm up. May I?

Iselle put her open hand in it.

"Yes," said Carol. "I'll come when you ask. Not when he does." She closed her fingers, gently. "That's yours to keep."

Helena, at the stove, without turning around, put a sixth piece of toast on the rack.

* * *

Mary wrote it that morning. She'd come down at half past six with her book under her arm and stood in the doorway long enough to hear the end.

Roderic carried a thing for three days and told her first, to her face, as he said he would. Uriah says: better than him.

Garrick asked Carol for his door. She said yes. He gave it back at breakfast.

Iselle has not answered the page. Not one word.

Carol's promise is kept differently now. She will go to the river only when Iselle asks her with her own mouth. Not when he does.

And under that, in my father's hand:

Send for Loki. Ask Iselle first.