Against The World

Chapter 143: What the Children Asked

Abigail’s request reached me beneath an estimate for roof tiles.

I nearly signed it without reading.

Mary put one finger on the page.

“That one requires an answer.”

“They all seem to.”

“An answer longer than your name.”

I looked more closely.

Abigail wanted to bring the older children to see the construction golems.

Below that, in smaller writing, she had asked whether the Castellan might speak about the old castle.

Below that, in smaller writing still, she had asked whether I would come.

“She ran out of room.”

“She expected you to stop reading.”

I looked up.

Mary’s expression suggested that Abigail had not been unreasonable.

The Castellan was waiting in the map room.

Three sheets lay before him.

I recognized the copied marks from the Hall of Accord. Once, there had been five.

Now there were three.

Evelyn joined us with her hair still damp from washing and sat beside me.

“Anything certain?” she asked.

“One office has a traceable succession,” he said. “The other two appear under place names I have not yet matched to surviving settlements.”

He placed a bronze finger beside a line of writing.

“The office may have moved. This record concerns the appointment of its holder, not the location of the restraint.”

“So finding the person would be a beginning.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Mary opened her book.

We agreed on inquiries to Sabine and Nerys, with copies of the names and marks. The Castellan would continue comparing the older maps.

I looked at the three sheets again.

“Does their silence tell us anything?”

“Only that we have found no recent record of renewal.”

It was an answer I had come to appreciate.

Not especially comforting.

Useful nonetheless.

Evelyn touched my wrist beneath the table.

“We can ask Aurelia what she remembers when she comes.”

I nodded.

Then the Castellan gathered the copies.

“Was there another matter?”

“Yes,” I said. “How do you feel about children?”

He looked at me.

“I have encountered yours.”

“Older ones.”

“That may permit a more detailed conversation.”

Eleanor approved the visit on the condition that the children remained behind a rope.

Abigail approved the rope on the condition that it was somewhere they could actually see.

They reached agreement before I arrived.

I suspected neither had needed me.

The second construction golem stood beside a stack of dressed stone. Its broad hands rested at its sides, and sunlight caught the fresh edges of its joints.

The children gathered in a crooked line.

Several had brought slates.

One had brought bread.

Abigail took the bread away.

“You can finish it afterward.”

“It helps me think.”

“Then you should be extremely thoughtful by now.”

The Castellan stepped forward.

Every slate stopped moving.

I had become accustomed to his body.

The children had not.

A boy near the front raised his hand.

“Are you that one’s father?”

The Castellan considered the construction golem.

“I made it.”

“So yes?”

“Not quite.”

The boy looked unconvinced.

Eleanor folded her arms.

“Ask him whether it tidies up after itself. That usually settles it.”

They watched the golem lift a stone lintel.

It did so without haste, turning only after Eleanor had checked that the path was clear.

A mason guided the far end into place.

The children leaned forward together.

The rope held.

I was grateful to whoever had chosen it.

“Why does it need him?” a girl asked, pointing to the mason.

“Because he knows where the stone belongs,” Eleanor said.

“Can’t you tell it?”

“I can tell it the measurements. He can see whether the bed is right.”

The mason scraped away a little mortar.

Eleanor gave the next instruction.

The lintel descended.

There was no crash.

No cloud of dust.

Only a heavy stone settling where several people needed it to be.

One of the children looked faintly disappointed.

Then the mason checked the level and grinned.

“That’ll do.”

The girl wrote something down.

I hoped it was that.

Afterward, they were allowed to approach the Castellan in small groups.

He showed them how his fingers bent.

A child asked whether he slept.

Another asked whether he could taste soup.

A third wanted to know whether the castle hurt when someone broke a window.

“Not as an injury hurts you,” he said.

“Does it annoy you?”

“Yes.”

That answer received considerable sympathy.

Abigail stood beside me.

“I wondered whether this would be too much.”

“For him?”

“For everyone.”

The Castellan was now explaining that he could not simply make a hundred more bodies by tomorrow.

A boy suggested making them smaller.

Another suggested making them share legs.

Eleanor closed her eyes.

I smiled.

“They seem to be managing.”

The old castle questions began beneath the covered walk.

What had stood where the kitchens were?

Had there always been a garden?

Were the towers taller?

Had kings really worn crowns at breakfast?

The Castellan answered some.

For others, he paused.

“I do not remember.”

The first time, the children waited for him to continue.

The second time, a girl frowned.

“But you were here.”

“Yes.”

“Then where did it go?”

His golden eyes remained on her.

“Some of what I knew was damaged. There are things I may recover. There are things I may not.”

The girl looked down at her slate.

“My grandfather forgets the end of stories.”

Abigail shifted slightly.

The Castellan inclined his head.

“That must be frustrating for him.”

“He gets angry when we guess.”

“Then perhaps he would rather tell you the part he remembers.”

She thought about that.

Then rubbed out something she had written.

Aurelia arrived while the children were eating their recovered bread.

I saw her at the far end of the walk, one hand brushing the leaves of a climbing plant.

She had come looking for us.

For a moment, I watched her without calling out.

The sunlight reached through the leaves and lay across her sleeve.

No dream walls.

No fading hearth.

Just a woman walking toward the noise of a school visit.

Evelyn, who had finished at the infirmary, saw her at the same moment.

She smiled.

Aurelia smiled back.

Then one of the children turned.

The conversation stopped in pieces.

First the nearest bench.

Then the next.

A boy stood so suddenly that he dropped his bread.

Abigail looked toward me.

I went to meet Aurelia.

“You appear to have interrupted history.”

“Have I?”

“They’ve been asking about the castle.”

Her gaze moved over the slates and the small, solemn faces.

“I see.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I know.”

She took my arm.

“Is there somewhere to sit?”

We found a bench.

Nobody seemed certain what to do with their hands.

Aurelia looked at the boy whose bread had fallen.

“I think you may need another piece.”

He stared at her.

Abigail supplied one.

That helped.

A little.

“Would you like to ask me something?” Aurelia said.

A forest of hands appeared.

Then half of them vanished again.

She pointed to a girl beside the pillar.

“Did you really live here?”

“Yes.”

“Before it was broken?”

“Yes.”

“Was it nicer?”

Aurelia looked across the courtyard.

At the new lintel.

The rope.

The mason cleaning his tools.

“It was different.”

The girl considered that insufficient.

Aurelia’s mouth curved.

“The winter hall had a dreadful draught beneath the eastern door. I stuffed it with rolled cloth until someone finally repaired the threshold.”

The girl began writing at once.

Beside me, Evelyn pressed her lips together.

I knew that expression.

She was going to paint something later.

They asked about clothes.

And horses.

And whether she had ever been punished.

“Frequently,” Aurelia said.

That answer caused more excitement than her arrival.

“For what?”

“Once, for letting a pony into a room where a pony did not belong.”

“What room?”

“A dining room.”

“Why?”

“It was raining.”

Abigail lowered her face.

Evelyn turned away.

I stayed admirably composed until Aurelia added that the pony had eaten part of a visiting official’s hat.

Then I failed too.

“Were you queen then?” a boy asked.

“No.”

He seemed relieved.

“Did you stop doing things like that when you were?”

Aurelia glanced at me.

“I learned to consider the size of the doorway.”

The questions changed slowly.

A girl wanted to know whether Aurelia had been frightened when Greykeep fell.

Abigail drew breath.

Aurelia lifted her hand slightly.

“Yes,” she said.

The girl held her slate against her chest.

“Even you?”

“Yes.”

Nobody spoke for a moment.

A hammer sounded beyond the courtyard.

Then the girl asked, “Did someone stay with you?”

Aurelia’s hand rested very still on the bench.

I felt Evelyn move closer.

“There were people who tried,” Aurelia said. “Some paid dearly for it.”

The girl nodded.

She did not ask for their names.

Aurelia looked at Abigail.

“That is as much as I would like to tell today.”

“Of course.”

There was no awkward scramble to fill the silence.

Abigail gave the children a moment.

Then she asked who still needed to collect a slate.

The courtyard began moving again.

One child lingered.

The same boy who had dropped his bread.

He waited until most of the others had gone before approaching Aurelia.

“My mother says prayers for my sister.”

Aurelia leaned forward.

“Is she ill?”

“Her legs hurt. Sometimes she can’t come down the stairs.”

Evelyn crouched beside him.

“Has anyone from the infirmary seen her?”

He shook his head.

“Mother works at the washing yard. She says she’ll take her when there’s time.”

“What is your sister’s name?”

“Mina.”

Evelyn asked where they lived.

Abigail wrote it down.

Then my wife said, “I’ll speak with Ilyen. We can arrange for someone to come.”

The boy looked back at Aurelia.

“Will she still hear Mother?”

“Yes,” Aurelia said.

He seemed to need a moment to hold both answers.

Then he nodded and ran after the others.

We remained beneath the covered walk.

Evelyn sat beside Aurelia.

“I used to think becoming stronger would mean I could simply answer more of those myself.”

“You will answer more,” Aurelia said.

“With help.”

“Yes.”

My wife looked at the address Abigail had left with her.

“I still want you to be able to come here without every visit becoming a queue of people who need something.”

“I know.”

“I don’t resent him asking.”

“Neither do I.”

Aurelia laid a hand over hers.

“You gave him somewhere to go next. That matters.”

I sat on Evelyn’s other side.

“And now his mother doesn’t have to find a morning she hasn’t got.”

My wife let out a small breath.

“I should make sure someone actually goes.”

“After you eat,” I said.

She looked at me.

I held out the bread Abigail had pressed into my hand.

Apparently it helped people think.

That afternoon, Ilyen arranged the visit.

Evelyn went with her.

I stayed for the council matters Mary had permitted to accumulate, which included timber, grain storage, and a disagreement over whether the new covered market needed another entrance.

By the time my wife returned, the light had begun to soften.

“Well?”

“She needs care,” Evelyn said. “More than one visit.”

She removed her cloak.

“Ilyen thinks we can help. Her mother has agreed to bring her here, and we’ve arranged someone to stay with the younger children.”

“Did you heal her?”

“Some of the pain.”

She looked down at her hands.

“Enough that she slept while we spoke.”

I reached for her.

She came willingly.

We stood that way until Carol objected from the adjoining room.

Abigail sent the children’s accounts the following morning.

Mary brought them over breakfast.

She had marked three passages.

One described the golem.

One explained that the Castellan remembered things but could also forget them.

The last concerned Aurelia.

I read it twice.

Then passed it to Evelyn.

She said she was frightened. She also put a pony in a dining room. She said we could ask more another day.

Evelyn smiled.

“May we show her?”

“Abigail asked the children,” Mary said. “That one said yes.”

We left the page beside Aurelia’s chair.

When she came later, she found it there.

She read it standing up.

Then sat down and read it again.

After a while, she looked toward me.

“The pony was very small.”

“I’ll tell Abigail.”

“No,” she said.

Her fingers rested on the page.

“Leave it as she remembers.”

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