Against The World

Chapter 70: Beyond the Orchard Wall

The first argument of the morning concerned a cushion.

It was a perfectly reasonable cushion.

Green. Soft. Recently delivered.

Evelyn regarded it as though it had insulted her family.

“Who put that in my chair?”

“I did,” I said.

“Why?”

“You said your back ached yesterday.”

“So you found the largest cushion in Greykeep?”

“It was available.”

She sat down experimentally.

The cushion moved her so far forward that she could barely reach the table without leaning over her breakfast.

We considered the result.

“I may have overestimated.”

“You have furnished me out of the chair.”

I removed it.

She caught my hand before I could retreat.

“Thank you for remembering.”

Then she kissed my knuckles and asked for the smaller one from our sitting room.

That, I could manage.

The summer reports had begun arriving in bundles.

Haymaking had started in the lower valley. The Bellcross beans were recovering unevenly, but most replanted rows had taken. The foundry had completed its first order of brackets and was now arguing with Aldren about measurements.

These were encouraging developments.

Less encouraging was the request from Willowbrook.

Their mill wheel had stopped.

At first, I thought this meant another repair.

Then Mary spread the map across the council table.

Willowbrook served four farming communities along the western tributary. With its mill idle, carts were traveling farther to have grain ground, and the mills receiving them were already preparing for harvest.

“We can send a millwright,” I said.

“They’ve asked for one,” Mary replied. “And whether the Crown intends to honor the old mill agreement.”

Evelyn looked up.

“What agreement?”

Mary placed a copy beside the map.

The mill itself belonged to the local families.

The waterworks did not.

The old Crown had built and maintained the channel that fed the wheel, along with a gate station near the road.

In exchange, Willowbrook had kept reserve milling time available for public grain stores.

I read the final clause.

“The Crown paid for that time.”

“Yes.”

“Even when it didn’t use it?”

“That was how the mill could afford to keep it available.”

I looked at the map again.

The arrangement had been sensible.

Then the kingdom had disappeared and left half of it behind.

“What has failed?” Eleanor asked.

Mary consulted the letter.

“The miller says the wheel is sound. The water level in the feeding channel has dropped.”

“Broken sluice?”

“Possibly.”

“Then we need someone who understands the whole watercourse.”

Aldren was already reaching for the map.

We planned the visit for two days later.

Evelyn intended to come.

I intended to ask whether she should.

Fortunately, I noticed the expression on her face before the words left my mouth.

“What are the roads like?” she asked.

“Dry,” Alistair said. “The western lane has been checked as far as the orchard turn.”

“And the journey?”

“A few hours with a stop.”

She looked at me.

“I would like to see the agreement being discussed. It affects more than a broken wheel.”

“I know.”

“And I have spoken to Ilyen about the trip.”

I nodded.

Evelyn waited.

“What?”

“You were preparing a speech.”

“I have abandoned it.”

“A wise revision.”

We chose a carriage with better suspension, arranged a midday rest, and left the longer inspection of the upper watercourse to Aldren’s party.

It was an ordinary set of travel decisions.

I found it required a remarkable amount of discipline to treat it that way.

Willowbrook smelled of apples, warm dust, and still water.

The orchards were full of small green fruit. Beneath them, sheep rested in scattered patches of shade.

The mill stood beyond a low stone bridge.

Its wheel hung motionless above a shallow pool.

A woman in rolled sleeves waited by the door with two men and a boy whose boots were white with flour.

“I’m Catrin Vale,” she said. “The miller.”

She noticed Alistair’s glance at the quiet wheel.

“Yes. It looks worse when people stand and stare at it.”

“I’ve had that said about building sites,” I told her.

That earned a brief smile.

She led us inside.

The machinery was clean.

Belts hung properly. Tools stood on a rack. Nothing suggested neglect.

Catrin rested a hand on one of the great wooden beams.

“My father kept this running through three bad winters. I’ve replaced teeth, dressed stones, and rebuilt the grain hoist. I can mend what I can reach.”

She pointed upstream.

“The old control is another matter.”

Aldren asked her to show him.

Eleanor followed.

I went with them while Evelyn remained at the mill table with Mary and the local household representatives.

As we left, I heard my wife ask, “How have you been sharing the cost until now?”

Catrin pulled out a chair.

That conversation, I suspected, would take longer than ours.

The sluice house stood beneath a willow whose roots had begun moving the path.

One corner of its roof had fallen in years ago.

Inside, a bronze spindle rose from a stone housing.

Aldren examined it.

Then the water channel.

Then the spindle again.

“Can you move this?” he asked me.

“Probably.”

“How gently?”

“That depends on how attached you are to it.”

Eleanor crouched beside the housing.

“Don’t move anything yet.”

I folded my arms and waited.

There was a narrow service opening beneath a crust of silt. Once cleared, it revealed the lower mechanism.

A broken pin lay at the bottom.

The spindle had turned.

The gate below had not.

Catrin’s assistant, who had accompanied us, let out a long breath.

“So we were opening nothing.”

“Turning nothing,” Aldren corrected absently.

Eleanor looked at him.

He amended it.

“Yes.”

The repair itself was small.

Reaching the repair without releasing the wrong amount of water was not.

We walked the channel first. Catrin’s assistant showed us the overflow meadow, the old banks, and the cottages lower down.

By then, I knew better than to assume that moving water away from one problem ended the problem.

We returned with a plan.

And a great deal of mud on Aldren’s boots.

While the workers prepared a temporary stop above the sluice, I went back to the mill.

Evelyn sat beside the open door, where the breeze reached her.

There was a cup at her elbow and an untouched plate of apple slices on the table.

I glanced at the plate.

“You don’t want those?”

“I did.”

“I see.”

She pushed them toward me.

Mary was reviewing figures with an older farmer.

Catrin stood opposite Evelyn with both hands braced on the table.

“We aren’t asking you to own the mill.”

“I understand,” Evelyn said.

“My grandfather signed because he wanted the channel maintained. Not because he wanted a royal clerk choosing who could grind a sack of oats.”

“Then the new agreement should say precisely that.”

Catrin looked at Mary.

Mary wrote it down.

Evelyn turned the draft around.

“The Crown repairs and maintains the main water control. Your association operates the mill. We pay for the reserve hours we request, and ordinary customers keep access under posted charges.”

“And if the Crown sends too much grain at once?”

“We wait our turn beyond the reserved hours.”

Catrin studied her.

“Kings don’t generally enjoy waiting.”

“My husband has considerable practice.”

I bit into an apple slice.

It seemed the safest contribution.

After lunch, Evelyn and I walked into the orchard while the others finished reviewing the figures.

A bench stood beneath an old tree, its seat polished by years of use.

She sat with a relieved sigh.

“Tired?”

“A little. Mostly warm.”

I loosened the fastening at my collar and sat beside her.

Beyond the wall, the mill yard was quiet.

For once, there was no hammering.

“I like her,” Evelyn said.

“Catrin?”

“She knows what she wants.”

“She knows what she doesn’t want even more clearly.”

“That helps.”

I watched a pair of sheep nose through fallen leaves.

Evelyn rested her hand against her stomach.

Then smiled.

“One of them?”

“Yes.”

I moved my hand closer.

She took it and placed it where hers had been.

We waited.

Nothing.

A sheep bleated.

Evelyn began to laugh.

“I’m sorry.”

“You have no control over their manners.”

“Apparently neither do you.”

I left my hand there a little longer.

Then I leaned back and looked into the branches.

“They’ll climb these.”

“Our children?”

“If we bring them here.”

“You’ve already decided?”

“There are trees.”

“A compelling argument.”

I imagined a small figure balancing on the orchard wall.

Another waiting below, either offering encouragement or preparing to tell on the first.

Evelyn watched my face.

“What are they doing now?”

“Something we’ve told them not to.”

“Then the resemblance is already strong.”

I turned toward her.

She kissed me before I could defend myself.

The sluice repair took most of the afternoon.

Tilda would have to cast a proper replacement pin after Eleanor returned with the measurements. For the present, a fitted temporary piece would let the mechanism work under close supervision.

I held the spindle steady while the workers aligned the lower gate.

It was not impressive work to watch.

My arm began to ache anyway.

Aldren checked the markers along the channel.

Catrin waited beside the mill wheel.

When everything was ready, we opened the sluice a little.

Water moved through the narrow race.

Slowly at first.

Then with purpose.

The wheel shifted.

Stopped.

Shifted again.

Catrin laid a hand against a beam and listened.

A third of a turn.

Half.

The wheel began to move steadily.

Inside the mill, timber creaked and the machinery answered.

The boy with flour on his boots ran to the doorway.

“It’s turning!”

Catrin laughed.

“I can hear it.”

I looked across the yard.

Evelyn stood beside Mary, one hand resting beneath the curve of her stomach.

She smiled at me over the boy’s head.

We stayed while Catrin tested an ordinary sack of grain.

She inspected the meal, adjusted the stones, and tested again.

Only then did she nod.

“All right.”

It was the first time the mill had sounded alive since we arrived.

Before we left, Catrin showed us the gate station.

It stood beyond the orchard wall, half-hidden beneath ivy.

I recognized the shape immediately.

The stone arch was intact.

The inner metalwork was not.

Someone had removed sections of its housing long ago, leaving pale scars where fittings should have been.

“People took what they could use,” Catrin said. “My father remembered a piece becoming a stove plate.”

I stepped closer.

The Crown mark warmed against my palm.

A faint line of light appeared along one side of the arch.

Then faded.

“Castellan?”

His voice answered through the mark.

“Willowbrook station remains incomplete.”

“How incomplete?”

“The local control assembly is missing. The receiving circuit cannot be tested in its present state.”

I looked at Eleanor.

She was examining the empty housing.

“Patterns?” she asked.

“Partial records survive.”

“Materials?”

“Bronze, iron, insulating ceramic, and three pieces requiring Crown attunement.”

Aldren came closer.

For the first time that day, he looked delighted.

“We may be able to make those.”

“Some of those,” Eleanor said.

“Yes. Some.”

I rested my hand against the cold arch.

Stoneford had seemed impossibly close after we opened its gate.

Valewood had become a place Helena could visit between breakfast and supper.

Here was another doorway waiting for hands, metal, and patience.

Catrin looked between us.

“Would it carry grain?”

“Small loads,” I said. “With limits. The road would still carry most of it.”

She nodded.

Then asked the question she had clearly been holding.

“People?”

“Yes.”

“My sister lives near Westmere.”

I turned toward her.

“She hasn’t seen my youngest.”

Eleanor stood.

“We’ll take measurements before we leave.”

The journey home was quieter.

Evelyn rested against my shoulder for part of it, waking when the carriage slowed near the bridge.

“Are we back?”

“Nearly.”

“Did I sleep?”

“A little.”

She sat up and smoothed her hair.

Then frowned at me.

“You’ve held that position the whole time.”

“It was comfortable.”

“My head was on your arm.”

“Your head is comfortable.”

She did not believe me.

My shoulder, when I moved it, made a strong argument on her behalf.

She kissed my cheek.

“Next time, wake me.”

“Next time, take a pillow.”

“I married one.”

I looked at her.

She smiled out of the window.

Three evenings later, the foundry received the Willowbrook measurements.

The proper sluice pin came first.

The gate components would take longer.

Eleanor and Tilda laid out a sequence of trial pieces, beginning with the ordinary housing before attempting anything that needed my magic.

For once, we had a newly discovered project that could begin in a room we had already repaired.

I found that deeply satisfying.

Evelyn seemed amused by how often I mentioned it.

That night, she asked me to read to her while she rested.

I chose one of the storybooks Helena had sent from Valewood.

It concerned a fox, a stolen bell, and a miller with poor judgment.

“This seems unkind to Catrin,” I said.

“Catrin would have caught the fox on the first page.”

I began.

Halfway through, Evelyn took my wrist.

I stopped reading.

“Here.”

She placed my hand low against her stomach.

We waited.

I had become familiar with waiting.

Then something pressed faintly beneath my palm.

A small, unmistakable tap.

I went completely still.

Evelyn watched my face.

“That?”

I nodded.

The word would not come.

Another movement.

Gone almost before I could believe it.

I looked down at my hand.

Then at her.

She was smiling through tears.

“Hello,” I whispered.

This time, I had felt the answer.

I set the book aside and leaned close, my forehead resting against hers.

For a long while, neither of us spoke.

Outside, the evening bell rang over Greykeep.

I kept my hand where it was.

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