Against The World

Chapter 144: The Road Beneath the Water

The rain began before breakfast.

By the time I reached the window, Garrick had discovered that striking the floor with a wooden ring produced a noise.

He repeated the experiment.

Carol watched.

Then struck the floor with her fish.

The result disappointed her.

Evelyn took one look at our daughter’s expression and moved the second wooden ring within reach.

“I thought we wanted less noise,” I said.

“We want fewer arguments.”

For several moments, the nursery sounded like a workshop.

My wife leaned against me.

Outside, water ran from the roof in silver threads.

“Do we have to go anywhere today?”

I thought about my desk.

“Eventually.”

“Then stand here a little longer.”

I did.

Nessa’s first letter arrived damp at the edges.

Mary had laid it flat beside the hearth before bringing it to council.

The keeper was sleeping.

That appeared to be Nessa’s principal achievement, and she had underlined it.

His name was Davren. He had been trying to manage nineteen patients with one elderly attendant, a leaking roof, and a niece who also cared for her own children.

He had been ill before the observance.

Then he had travelled.

Then he had returned to everyone who had needed him while he was gone.

Nessa had found him standing beside a bed with light trembling between his fingers.

She had put him in the bed instead.

Evelyn read that part twice.

“His blessing?”

“Still answers,” Mary said. “Weakly. Nessa won’t guess beyond that.”

Further down, the letter requested lamp oil, clean linen, and someone who could mend the chimney before it smoked out the little ward.

At the bottom, Nessa had added a separate line.

He asked what he owed us. I told him to remain asleep long enough for me to finish counting the blankets.

Beatrice reached for her book.

“How many?”

Mary turned the page.

Nessa had supplied the figure.

Naturally.

Cael came to discuss the next relief visit.

He brought a list of the healers who could travel, how long they could be spared, and who would cover their work here.

It was shorter than I had hoped.

Longer than it would have been months ago.

Evelyn ran a finger down the names.

“We should ask the other houses what they can offer too.”

“Some have very little,” Cael said.

“Some might have an attendant who can stay a week. Or a spare room. It needn’t all be healing.”

He considered that.

Then nodded.

We agreed to begin with the houses that had already written to us.

No promises on behalf of strangers.

No assumption that a healer’s willingness meant their family could afford their absence.

Beatrice asked about wages.

Mary asked who would keep track of the visits.

Cael, unwisely, admitted that he already had a notebook.

By the end of the meeting, it had become a considerably more important notebook.

The rain kept us indoors through most of the afternoon.

I found the Castellan in the map room with three books open and a sheet of thin paper laid over an old chart.

He was copying the line of a coast.

On another page, the same coast appeared broader.

Or perhaps the water was narrower.

I stood beside him.

“Which one is wrong?”

“Possibly neither.”

He moved the upper sheet.

A road ended at the shore.

On the older chart, it continued.

“The dates are far apart,” he said. “And these marks may indicate ground exposed at low water.”

I leaned closer.

At the end of the road stood a small square.

Beside it, in cramped writing, was one of the place names from the remaining attestations.

“Tern Reach.”

“Yes.”

“An island?”

“On this chart.”

“And on the other?”

“Unmarked.”

I looked toward the window.

Rain blurred the courtyard beyond it.

“Could the sea have taken it?”

“Yes.”

It was a simple answer.

I wished it had required more thought.

Evelyn joined us before the lamps were lit.

Mary came with the copied attestation.

We laid it beside the charts.

The place appeared in a witness’s title.

That was all.

No description of a chamber.

No directions.

Nothing to tell us whether a restraint still rested there, or had ever done so.

“We should send the charts to Orselle,” Evelyn said.

“Copies,” Mary replied.

“Yes. Copies.”

I pointed to the broken road.

“Linnet might know whether this has another name now.”

The Castellan inclined his head.

“And harbor records may describe the loss of the land.”

Mary began writing.

For once, the next step involved asking someone who understood the problem better than I did.

I was improving.

Slowly enough that nobody had become careless about leaving me unsupervised.

Aurelia came that evening.

We were sitting beside the nursery hearth, trying to persuade Garrick that sleep would not deprive him of anything important.

He disagreed.

Carol had already surrendered, one hand open beside her cheek.

Aurelia took my son and settled him against her shoulder.

He examined the clasp of her gown.

Then her hair.

Then, apparently satisfied that she was not concealing anything worth staying awake for, he rested his head.

I looked at Evelyn.

She looked at me.

Neither of us said what we were thinking.

Aurelia smiled.

“I can hear you being offended.”

We waited until both children were asleep before showing her the map.

Her expression changed when she saw the road.

Not sharply.

Her fingers simply stopped moving.

“You know it,” I said.

“I crossed it once.”

Evelyn drew a chair closer.

“What was there?”

“A house built above the tide. A landing on the seaward side. People used it when the weather kept their boats from the larger harbor.”

Aurelia studied the little square.

“There was a bell at the landward door. You rang it before attempting the crossing, and someone watched from the roof.”

“For the tide?”

“And for fog. The road was marked with posts, but some had fallen.”

“What brought you there?”

She looked up.

“A broken axle.”

I blinked.

“That seems unusually ordinary.”

“It was extremely inconvenient.”

Evelyn smiled.

Aurelia’s gaze returned to the chart.

“We had to leave the carriage and walk before the water rose. I remember being angry with the man who had assured us we could arrive before noon.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

She could remember the house.

The salt on the windows.

A woman pouring hot water into a basin for her feet.

A room where damp cloaks hung too close together.

She could not tell us whether anything remained.

“Was it connected to the gods?” Evelyn asked.

“There was a shrine. Most houses that took in travellers had one.”

“And the witness named here?”

Aurelia read the title.

Then read it again.

“I don’t remember him.”

I sat back.

The fire shifted in the grate.

“Could the restraint survive underwater?”

“Yes.”

“Even if the building fell?”

“Depending on what holds it.”

I disliked how much room that answer left.

Aurelia reached across the table and touched my hand.

“You haven’t found it yet, Uriah.”

“I know.”

“You’ve found a road I remember.”

I looked down at the narrow line.

Then nodded.

“All right.”

Orselle’s reply came two days later.

Linnet had drawn on the copy.

Quite firmly.

The old road had crossed a shallow reach north of the main trading route. The name had changed twice in records she knew, and the shoals around it had changed considerably more often.

There was still stone above the water.

Not enough, she wrote, to prove that it belonged to the house on our map.

Tamsin enclosed a second note.

Come and look at the charts with her. She says your copy has made the road look straighter than it was, and she is taking it personally.

I passed the note to Evelyn.

She smiled.

“We should go.”

The harbor smelled of wet rope and fish.

After days inside Greykeep, I found both unexpectedly welcome.

Tamsin met us at the gate with Linnet, who carried a rolled chart beneath her arm.

“Before you ask,” Tamsin said, “nobody is sailing there this afternoon.”

“I hadn’t asked.”

“You had the expression.”

Evelyn looked at me.

I decided not to seek support.

We walked to the harbor office, where Linnet spread her chart across a table and weighted the corners with whatever came to hand.

One weight was a chipped mug.

Another was a very good shell.

She noticed me looking at it.

“My father’s.”

“Does he know?”

“He will when he wants it.”

The place was farther from Orselle than the old chart had made it appear.

Or perhaps the chart had made everything appear conveniently close because the person drawing it had not expected to row.

Linnet showed us the modern channel.

Then the shoals.

Then the direction the tide ran around the remaining stones.

“You could approach by boat in settled weather,” she said. “But you’d want someone watching the water while you looked at the ruins.”

“Can the road still be walked?”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone to try.”

I nodded.

She glanced at me, perhaps checking whether I had understood the entire sentence.

“Magic might help,” I said.

“It might. Does it tell you which part of the bottom is old paving and which part is mud?”

“No.”

“Then bring a boat.”

Evelyn folded her hands on the table.

“We will.”

Dorran found us there.

He had returned from Veylan that morning and still looked as though he expected the floor to move.

There were letters for the families.

A report from Belda.

And a small packet wrapped in cloth.

“Bera’s,” he said, setting it down.

Inside lay a cup.

Plain blue glaze.

A little worn at the handle.

I looked up.

“For Neri’s aunt?”

“From her aunt. She said the girl would recognize it.”

Evelyn touched the cloth.

“Has the new water storage helped?”

Dorran nodded.

“Enough that people are arguing about other things again.”

“What things?”

“Roof tiles. Where to put a market stall. Somebody’s pigs.”

“That sounds encouraging.”

“It is, unless you own the pigs.”

We found Jerrit and his family near the lower building yard after returning home.

Rona opened the letters.

Neri unwrapped the cup.

For a moment, she only held it.

Then she pressed her thumb against a small flaw in the glaze.

“This is the one.”

Her mother looked over.

“Aunt Ressa said she still had it,” Neri told us.

Evin wanted to know whether there were sweets.

There were not.

He accepted this with less grace than his sister accepted the cup.

Jerrit asked about the cistern.

I gave him Belda’s report.

He read the first page standing up.

Then sat on a stack of timber to read the rest.

Neri remained beside her mother.

“She says we can come when we want,” she said quietly.

Rona put an arm around her.

“Yes.”

“Not now?”

“We said we would stay through winter.”

The girl nodded.

Then looked down at the cup again.

“I can keep this here.”

Her mother kissed the top of her head.

“You can.”

That night, I laid Linnet’s chart beside the older one.

The coast had changed.

The road had vanished beneath water.

Somewhere beyond the neat lines on the page, stones still stood where Aurelia had once warmed her feet after a miserable journey.

Evelyn came to stand beside me.

“Tamsin will let us know when there’s suitable weather.”

“Yes.”

“And we still don’t know what we’ll find.”

“I know.”

She rested her head against my shoulder.

For a while, we studied the charts together.

Then I rolled them up.

In the adjoining room, our son woke and called for us in the only manner he presently knew.

Evelyn sighed.

“Your turn.”

“I thought he preferred Aurelia.”

“She isn’t here.”

That was true.

Somewhere, she had an evening of her own.

I kissed my wife’s temple and went to fetch our son.

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