Against The World

Chapter 103: A Place to Stand

Veyr’s reply began by expressing concern for my family.

By the second paragraph, I disliked it.

By the fourth, Evelyn had taken it from me.

She read to the end.

Then passed it to Garrick.

“Well?” I asked.

“They’ve suspended Sennath from his court duties,” she said. “His secretary is being questioned.”

“And the rest?”

“They would prefer that we call this an unauthorized inquiry.”

Garrick looked up from the page.

“That may be what it was.”

I turned toward him.

“Unauthorized by the crown,” he added.

I sat back.

Outside the council room, someone dropped a tray.

The crash made me flinch.

That annoyed me more than the letter had.

The crown of Veyr denied commissioning the surveillance.

It recognized that the questions concerning our children had gone beyond any reasonable inquiry into trade.

It requested copies of the original documents for its investigators.

Those were sensible things.

They occupied less than half the letter.

The rest concerned the unfortunate effect this affair might have on relations between neighboring courts.

Mary waited with a pen.

“What do you want to send?”

“The records they’ve asked for.”

“And?”

“A request for their findings. Including who instructed the secretary and who received Holt’s first report.”

She nodded.

Evelyn touched the final paragraph.

“And tell them we expect their officers to preserve the household accounts.”

Garrick folded the letter.

“Good.”

I looked at him.

He met my eyes.

“You want the person responsible. Give the people looking for him every reason to keep looking.”

After council, Eliza remained behind.

She had brought a drawing of the gate court.

I had begun to recognize that look on her face.

“What is it?”

“We’re practicing a withdrawal tomorrow.”

“From the gate?”

“From the receiving court to the inner passage.”

I leaned forward.

“With whom?”

“The duty guards. Porters. Clerks. Anyone likely to be there when an opening goes wrong.”

“And us?”

“If you and Her Majesty can spare the time.”

I looked at the route marked on the paper.

It ran past the usual waiting area, through a narrow side door, and into the stone passage behind the stores.

I knew every part of it.

I had never imagined moving frightened people through it quickly.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Follow the instructions the first time.”

I looked up.

Eliza did not smile.

After a moment, I nodded.

Evelyn agreed before I finished explaining.

Then she asked whether we could bring Helena and her father.

“The children?”

“Will stay upstairs with Ilyen and the nurse.”

I nodded.

My wife studied my face.

“You were about to suggest we practice while carrying them.”

“I was thinking about it.”

“So was I.”

She reached for a folded blanket.

“We have plenty of these.”

She rolled it, tucked the ends, and placed it in my arms.

It weighed almost nothing.

I looked down.

“This one is unusually cooperative.”

“Enjoy it.”

The exercise went badly.

That was what Eliza called it afterward.

During it, she used shorter words.

A porter turned the wrong way.

Two clerks tried to carry the same document chest.

A guard held a door open that another guard had been told to close.

I stopped to help with the chest.

That put me directly in the path of the people coming behind us.

Evelyn caught my sleeve.

“Move.”

“I can—”

“Uriah.”

I moved.

At the side door, Helena had to turn sideways with her bundled blanket because a stack of empty baskets narrowed the entrance.

Garrick shifted them.

A basket fell.

Someone stepped into it.

We reached the inner passage with everyone present and several opinions about how the others had behaved.

Eliza let the silence grow.

Then she asked, “If there had been an arrow in that court, where would it have gone?”

Nobody answered immediately.

I looked back toward the doorway.

I could see exactly where I had been standing.

We tried again.

The baskets were moved.

The chest remained where it was.

One guard gave instructions. The others repeated them only where people could not hear.

This time, I carried my blanket through the door without attempting to reorganize the kingdom on the way.

Evelyn went ahead of me.

Her mother followed.

Garrick came last among our little group, keeping enough space that he did not crowd the person in front.

We reached the passage.

Eliza checked the court.

Then came through herself.

“Better.”

Melody, who had been watching from the wall, leaned into the doorway.

“Your child appears to have lost a foot.”

I looked down.

One end of the blanket had come loose.

Evelyn took it from me.

“Fortunately, he’s made of linen.”

The guards continued after we left.

There were people who needed to practice taking charge.

Others needed to practice yielding it.

I suspected I belonged in both groups.

Alistair walked beside me toward the training hall.

“You looked unhappy.”

“I was thinking about the first attempt.”

“That’s useful.”

“I could have put a shield across the court.”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t that have helped?”

“It might.”

He opened the hall door.

“And if you weren’t there?”

I looked inside.

A wooden frame stood in the middle of the floor.

Beside it were a stool, several padded balls, and a basket.

Alistair followed my gaze.

“Her Majesty has been preparing.”

Evelyn wanted to practice holding a doorway.

Not the whole court.

Not a dome over a building.

A space wide enough for a person to pass through.

We had managed it in Aurelia’s dream garden.

Awake, it was harder.

My wife stood at one side of the frame.

I stood at the other.

The first working stretched between us like a sheet being pulled unevenly from both ends.

“Less on your side,” she said.

I eased it.

The ward sagged.

“Perhaps not that much.”

Alistair watched.

He had learned to wait until we said we were ready.

That morning, readiness took some time.

When it finally held, he tossed a padded ball.

The ward caught it.

I smiled.

He tossed another toward the far edge.

It struck the frame.

Evelyn’s light flickered.

We lost the whole thing.

She closed her eyes.

“Again.”

By the end of the lesson, we could hold it through three gentle throws.

We could not yet open it reliably while someone pressed against it.

We certainly could not leave it unattended.

But I knew where Evelyn’s part of the working began.

I could feel when she needed me to ease back.

Once, she adjusted before I asked.

That was the moment I remembered.

Afterward, we sat on the bench with water and damp hair.

My wife rested her head against the wall.

“I thought I’d be better at it by now.”

“You were better than yesterday.”

“So were you.”

“I prefer hearing that part.”

She smiled.

Then took my hand.

For a while, we rested without discussing shields.

Ordinary work continued.

Pellan received one of the regular porter positions.

Sef chose a place with the receiving clerks after Mary discovered that his handwriting was better than that of the man who had interviewed him.

Davin ruined a metal fitting in the workshop.

Then repaired the tool that had slipped.

Tilda kept both objects on the bench while explaining why one mistake did not excuse another and one useful idea deserved pursuing.

I understood about half of it.

Davin understood enough to stay late.

I sent him home before supper.

He looked disappointed.

“Bring the drawing back tomorrow,” I told him.

That helped.

In the infirmary, Brother Cael began teaching the apprentices twice a week.

The first lesson concerned asking patients questions.

I had expected this to be straightforward.

Then he asked one apprentice to describe a pain without using the word pain.

She frowned.

The others became very interested.

By the time I left, they were arguing over whether an ache could feel heavy.

Arwen passed me in the doorway.

Her duck followed her.

“Does she belong in here?” I asked.

“No.”

The duck continued past us.

Arwen sighed.

“Her understanding of that remains limited.”

She went to retrieve her.

From the classroom, Cael asked everyone to begin again.

The following afternoon, I found Helena sitting beside the nursery window.

Carol slept against her shoulder.

Garrick lay awake in his cradle, watching the little wooden fox.

I sat nearby.

For a while, we listened to his soft noises.

Then Helena said, “Evelyn told me about the letter.”

“From Veyr?”

“Yes.”

I looked at her.

She kept one hand spread across Carol’s back.

“Garrick has been reading the same reports you have.”

“I know.”

“He doesn’t sleep particularly well afterward.”

That surprised me less than I wished.

“He hasn’t said.”

“No.”

She looked down at her granddaughter.

“When Evelyn was small, I used to lie awake after she had been ill. Long after the fever passed.”

“What helped?”

“Sometimes I went to look at her.”

I glanced toward my son.

“And sometimes?”

“I woke her father and made him listen.”

Helena smiled faintly.

“You are allowed to do that too.”

That night, Aurelia moved our lesson into a different part of the dream.

The garden remained behind us.

Ahead lay a terrace bordered by low stone.

Beyond it, clouds moved beneath a wide sky.

I stopped at the edge.

“How high are we?”

“As high as the lesson requires.”

“That sounds evasive.”

“It is.”

Evelyn laughed.

Aurelia stood between us.

“Tonight, I want you to practice choosing where the force goes.”

She raised one hand.

A slow gust crossed the terrace.

I blocked it.

Air curled around my shield and struck Evelyn’s skirt.

She looked at me.

I winced.

Aurelia nodded toward the moving fabric.

“There.”

We tried redirecting the gust.

I curved the ward.

The air slid along it, struck the low wall, and rose.

Aurelia increased the pressure a little.

I felt the shape begin to flatten.

My first instinct was to push harder.

Instead, I changed the angle.

The strain eased.

“Oh,” I said.

Evelyn was watching closely.

“Can you do that with mine?”

“With you holding it?”

She nodded.

We tried.

Her gold spread into a shallow curve.

I steadied one edge.

The gust struck.

For a moment, the light brightened so sharply that I thought it would break.

Then the air passed over us.

My wife’s hair lifted.

The ward remained.

She began to smile.

Aurelia lowered her hand.

“Good. Rest.”

We sat on the terrace steps.

I looked out at the clouds.

“Could you do this over a city?”

“Some forms of it.”

“Over Greykeep?”

“Yes.”

The answer made me turn toward her.

Aurelia watched the sky.

“Before the attack, I helped strengthen the defenses. Others maintained them after I ascended.”

I thought of the ruined walls.

The chapel.

The people running through the lower passages.

She saw where my thoughts had gone.

“There were many people defending Greykeep, Uriah. Remember them when you look at what failed.”

I looked down at my hands.

“I wasn’t blaming them.”

“I know.”

Evelyn leaned against me.

Aurelia remained beside us until I could look at the clouds again.

Then she asked whether we wanted one more attempt.

We did.

The practical use came two mornings later.

It was not an attack.

A cart arrived from the foundry carrying window frames.

One of the ropes loosened while the porters were unloading.

A frame tipped.

The man beneath it stepped backward into the cart wheel.

I was crossing the yard with Evelyn when I heard the shout.

I caught the falling weight.

Too abruptly.

The frame swung.

My wife’s gold flashed beside the porter’s face, just wide enough to turn the projecting corner away from him.

The man ducked.

I lowered the frame onto the cart.

For a moment, everyone stood still.

Then the foreman began speaking with considerable force about ropes.

I looked at Evelyn.

She looked at her hands.

The light had already gone.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

The porter straightened.

He touched his cheek.

Then looked at her.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

She nodded.

Her fingers were trembling when she took my arm.

We went inside for tea.

Later, when she had recovered, Evelyn asked whether I had seen what happened.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t make the whole shield.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“I saw the corner.”

I waited.

“And I knew where I wanted it to go.”

She turned her cup slowly on its saucer.

There was wonder in her face.

A little fear too.

I recognized both.

“You did it.”

“With you holding the frame.”

“Yes.”

She smiled at me.

“With you holding the frame,” she repeated.

That evening, a new message came from Veyr.

Sennath’s secretary had admitted authorizing the second commission.

He claimed he had acted on a spoken instruction from his lord.

Sennath denied giving it.

The crown had ordered both men to remain available for questioning.

Mary read the final paragraph aloud.

Then looked up.

“They’re asking whether Dace will identify the secretary’s correspondence before one of their appointed witnesses.”

Eliza nodded.

“We can arrange that in Stoneford.”

I looked toward Evelyn.

She sat beside me, our son asleep in her arms.

“Let them come,” she said.

“We’ll set the conditions,” Garrick added.

Mary began writing.

There was still no final answer.

But there were fewer places for the people responsible to hide.

After the meeting, Evelyn asked me to carry Garrick upstairs.

He woke halfway along the corridor.

For several steps, he studied my face.

Then he smiled.

I stopped.

Evelyn nearly walked into me.

“What?”

I looked at her.

Then back at him.

“Again,” I whispered.

He made a small sound.

His mouth opened into another smile.

My wife caught my sleeve.

“I saw.”

For a moment, we stood in the passage, two adults undone by someone who could not yet hold his own head steady for long.

A guard at the far end tactfully looked toward a window.

I touched my forehead lightly to my son’s.

“Hello.”

This time, when he answered, I laughed.

We carried him the rest of the way together.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!