Against The World

Chapter 77: Someone to Take the Keys

Helena brought no basket.

That was how I knew the visit was serious.

Garrick carried a leather case instead, and when they entered the small council room, neither of them looked toward the nursery.

Evelyn watched them take their seats.

“What have you decided?”

Her father paused.

“We haven’t said anything yet.”

“You came together. Mother has no sewing. You brought the case you use when someone is about to dislike a proposal.”

I looked at the case.

Garrick set it on the table.

“It is a perfectly ordinary case.”

“Yes,” Helena said. “And we have a perfectly ordinary proposal.”

She turned toward us.

“When the babies arrive, we intend to help with the administration.”

I opened my mouth.

Helena lifted one finger.

“Actual work, Uriah. We are offering to take responsibility for some of it.”

I closed my mouth again.

Beside me, Evelyn slowly leaned back.

Garrick had brought a list.

Helena had brought another.

Neither was especially long.

That made them more persuasive.

“I can take the routine supply agreements, estate correspondence, and the first review of district accounts,” Garrick said. “Within whatever authority you and the council establish.”

Helena placed her page beside his.

“I can work with Mary on petitions, relief allocations, and the household arrangements that keep finding their way onto Evelyn’s desk.”

“What about Valewood?” Evelyn asked.

“Our officers already manage most ordinary business,” Garrick replied. “We will settle the remaining arrangements before the birth. The gate makes it possible to be here without abandoning home.”

“And when you want to see the children?” I asked.

Helena looked at me.

“Then I shall walk upstairs.”

It sounded so reasonable that I found myself smiling.

Evelyn was studying the lists.

“You would need to begin before they arrive.”

“Yes,” her father said. “That is why we came today.”

She looked up.

For a moment, the queen’s careful expression gave way to something younger.

“You’ve thought about this.”

Helena reached across the table.

“We have been watching you both think about everyone else.”

Evelyn took her hand.

I looked down at Garrick’s list again.

Winter fuel contracts.

Routine repair authorizations.

Monthly district returns.

I could imagine each one arriving while I held a sleeping child.

For the first time, I could also imagine someone else answering it.

Mary joined us after lunch.

By then, the proposal had become specific enough for her to begin finding the difficult parts.

“Who signs?”

“For approved expenditure within the agreed amount, Father can,” Evelyn said. “The treasury clerk confirms the balance first.”

“And relief decisions outside the existing provisions?”

“Bring those to me or Uriah,” she replied. “But Mother can authorize ordinary support under the rules we already have.”

Helena nodded.

“I would rather know what I can settle than be handed twenty petitions I’m expected merely to carry upstairs.”

Mary wrote that down.

Garrick tapped his page.

“Contracts involving Valewood should go through someone else.”

I glanced at him.

“We buy from your estate.”

“Precisely.”

Mary nodded again.

By the end, we had divided the work without creating a second royal court in the room next door.

The district representatives would continue their duties. Eliza retained command of the defenses. Eleanor kept authority over the building crews. Mary kept the records and could require any delegated decision to be reviewed if it exceeded its limits.

Helena and Garrick would take on defined responsibilities, report regularly, and help keep ordinary matters moving while Evelyn recovered and we learned to care for two children.

Evelyn read the draft.

Then handed it to me.

“What do you think?”

I looked at her parents.

“I think I may get to know my children before they learn to write petitions.”

Garrick smiled.

“That is the intention.”

The Westmere question appeared halfway through the first stack of district correspondence.

It had been waiting there for some time.

Not forgotten.

Postponed by things that shouted more loudly.

Garrick held up three letters.

“These all concern the same repair.”

I recognized the subject.

A retaining wall near Westmere’s lower market.

“The local council approved it,” Mary said. “The captain secured the site. The treasury clerk requested confirmation of who could authorize the final payment.”

“And nobody has answered that clearly,” Garrick said.

I took the letters.

Captain Edric Vale’s name appeared on all three.

Once as the officer responsible for safety.

Once as the person arranging labor.

Once asking, with admirable restraint, whether somebody could please tell him which part of the decision belonged to him.

Evelyn read over my shoulder.

“We need to appoint a steward.”

“Yes,” I said.

The word carried an unpleasant echo.

Harwick had made certain of that.

But leaving an office empty did not stop its work from existing. It only scattered the work among people who lacked the authority to finish it.

I looked again at Edric’s signature.

“He may already be doing most of the job.”

Mary folded her hands.

“Then we should ask whether he wants the rest.”

Edric arrived two days later.

He brought the retaining-wall file.

That made me like him more before he had even sat down.

“If this concerns the wall,” he said, “the mason’s estimate is still valid, but only until the next stone delivery.”

“It concerns rather more than the wall.”

His expression changed.

I gestured toward the chair.

Evelyn sat beside me. Mary had the draft responsibilities in front of her. Garrick joined us to help examine the practical work the office would require.

Edric looked around the table.

Then sat carefully.

“We need a steward for Westmere,” I said.

He glanced at Mary.

Then back at me.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“We would like to consider you.”

For a moment, he seemed not to understand.

Then his eyes dropped to the file in his hands.

“I’m a soldier.”

“You’re also arranging repairs, settling supply problems, and working with the local council.”

“Because somebody has to.”

“That is part of why we asked.”

He let out a breath through his nose.

“I don’t know every tax rule.”

“Neither do I,” I said.

Mary looked at me.

“I am improving,” I added.

Edric’s mouth moved slightly.

It was not quite a smile.

We spoke for most of the morning.

Edric knew which wells had been repaired.

He knew which quarter of the town still depended on temporary roofs.

He knew the names of two clerks who kept the food accounts accurately and one who needed help rather than dismissal.

When Garrick asked about market revenue, Edric opened the file and produced figures.

When Evelyn asked which decision he regretted, he took longer.

“I kept a road closed three days beyond what the engineers required.”

“Why?” she asked.

“I wanted more guards available before reopening it.”

“And the result?”

“Carters lost time. One baker lost a delivery. The council objected.”

“What did you do?”

“Opened the road. Paid for the spoiled delivery from the watch’s discretionary allowance.”

He looked at me.

“I was thinking like a captain.”

Evelyn nodded slowly.

“Would you make the same decision now?”

“Not without asking the people who had to live with it.”

That answer mattered more to me than the figures.

He had made a mistake.

He could name it without being forced.

There was one difficulty we did not leave until the end.

“You cannot command the garrison and hold the stewardship indefinitely,” I said.

Edric nodded at once.

“I would have said the same.”

“Do you have someone you trust to take command?”

“My lieutenant. I would recommend her for examination by Captain Eliza and Sir Alistair.”

“A recommendation,” Mary said. “The appointment remains separate.”

“Yes.”

Garrick turned the proposed authority toward him.

“The steward administers the district. The council retains its part in budgets and local decisions. Courts remain independent. Accounts go to Greykeep, and residents keep their right to petition beyond your office.”

Edric read.

He took his time.

At the section concerning personal property and public stores, he stopped.

“Harwick kept the keys himself.”

I remembered the flooded passages.

The servants trapped below.

“Yes.”

“I want the stores clerk to retain custody of the grain keys. Access recorded. Two people for the sealed reserves.”

Mary reached for her pen.

Edric looked up.

“If I need grain moved, I should give an order that can be read afterward.”

I watched Mary add the provision.

The office was beginning to look like something a decent man could occupy without having to trust himself blindly.

Before he left, I asked the question Mary had suggested.

“Do you want it?”

Edric sat back.

For the first time that morning, he looked tired.

“I want Westmere to stop waiting for permission to mend itself.”

“That isn’t quite an answer.”

“No.”

He looked toward the window.

Below us, workers were unloading timber in the service court.

“I know the watch,” he said. “I know what a good patrol looks like. I know when a guard is frightened or covering a mistake.”

“And this?”

“I would have to learn.”

Evelyn leaned forward.

“You would have help.”

He looked at the papers again.

Then nodded.

“If the council will work with me, and if you believe I can do it, I would accept.”

“We’ll speak with them,” I said.

He rose.

At the door, he paused.

“And the wall?”

Garrick took the file.

“We can settle that before you go.”

Edric’s relief was immediate.

Apparently the offer of a stewardship had not improved the retaining wall.

We heard from Westmere’s representatives four days later.

They did not agree about everything.

That was reassuring.

One merchant wanted someone with more experience in trade.

A quarter representative worried that townspeople would continue seeing Edric as the man who commanded armed guards.

Others spoke of him keeping the council informed, refusing privileges for his soldiers, and remaining in the market after the official inspections ended to hear complaints.

Evelyn asked the merchant whom she would prefer.

The woman named a candidate.

We sent for his account of his experience too.

He was capable.

He also wished to retain control of a trading concern that would regularly bid for district contracts.

When asked whether he would step away from those decisions and interests, he withdrew his name.

By the end of the consultations, the council supported Edric’s appointment with regular open meetings and a review after his first year.

Mary placed their statement beside our draft.

I read both.

Then passed them to Evelyn.

She finished and looked at me.

“Yes,” she said.

I nodded.

“Yes.”

The appointment took place in Westmere.

Evelyn chose to attend through the gate, with a room arranged nearby where she could rest afterward.

We held the ceremony in the council chamber.

The windows were open.

People stood along the walls, including several who had every reason to distrust a royal steward.

Thomas was among them.

I remembered him with keys in his hands, trying to save his family.

Now he stood beside his wife.

Edric wore a plain coat.

His sword remained with the guard at the door.

I read the commission aloud.

Captain Edric Vale would become Steward of Westmere upon completion of the military handover. He would serve under the Crown’s charter, with the duties and limits we had agreed.

Then he spoke his oath.

No grand promises to make Westmere prosperous forever.

He promised to keep its accounts honestly.

To hear its people.

To use the authority entrusted to him for their protection and the town’s good.

When he finished, I gave him the seal.

It was smaller than I had imagined such a thing should be.

He turned it once in his hand.

Then looked toward the council table.

“Shall we begin with the winter repairs?”

A woman near the window laughed.

The room eased.

On our way out, Thomas approached him.

I stopped a little farther down the corridor.

“The south service passage,” Thomas said. “There’s still a door that sticks when the weather turns wet.”

Edric reached for his notebook.

“Which end?”

“Near the old linen stores.”

“Show the works clerk. I’ll have it put on the inspection list.”

Thomas nodded.

He did not lower his eyes.

I went on without interrupting.

Back at Greykeep, Helena had already held her first petition session with Mary.

Garrick had reviewed the fuel deliveries.

Neither appeared to have damaged the kingdom.

One disputed invoice had been returned for correction.

Two routine requests had been approved.

A third waited for Evelyn because it required a decision outside the existing provisions.

My wife examined the short summary in our sitting room.

“This is all?”

“This is what needs you,” Helena said.

Evelyn read it again.

I saw the moment she understood how much had been done without becoming another burden she had to supervise line by line.

She put the paper down.

“Thank you.”

Her mother kissed her forehead.

Then ruined her own solemnity by asking whether either baby was moving.

That night, I found Garrick alone in the nursery.

He had come to say good night before returning to Valewood.

One hand rested on the edge of his grandson’s cradle.

“You’ve taken on a great deal,” I said.

“So have you.”

“I don’t mean the kingdom.”

He looked at me.

“I know.”

For a while, we stood beside the two empty beds.

“Will you still have time to come upstairs?” I asked.

He smiled.

“Uriah, that is why I am taking the work downstairs.”

I looked away briefly.

When I could answer, I said, “We’re lucky to have you.”

He squeezed my shoulder.

Then went to find Helena.

Evelyn was already in bed when I returned.

The lamp cast a soft pool of light over the blankets.

I lay beside her, and she guided my hand to where one of the twins was pressing firmly against her.

“Busy evening?” I whispered.

“For them.”

“And you?”

She looked toward the small stack of papers on the desk.

It was much smaller than usual.

“I think I might sleep.”

I kissed her temple.

Downstairs, Westmere’s completed commission waited to be filed. Her parents’ first decisions had been entered in the records. Tomorrow’s ordinary business already had people preparing to receive it.

Evelyn settled against me.

For once, I did not try to remember what still needed answering.

I stayed where I had promised to be.

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