Against The World

Chapter 81: Down the Hall

On the sixth morning, I put honey in my tea twice.

Then I forgot to drink it.

Evelyn watched me from the chair beside the window.

“Would you like some tea with that?”

I looked into the cup.

“I’m not sure there’s room.”

Carol slept in her arms. Garrick was asleep in his cradle.

Both at once.

We had learned not to speak too confidently about that arrangement.

I set the honey down very carefully.

From the cradle came a small grunt.

We stopped moving.

Our son sighed and settled.

Evelyn looked at me.

I looked at her.

Neither of us laughed until we were certain we could do it quietly.

Later that morning, my wife asked to go into the sitting room.

It was not a long journey.

I still moved a stool, a basket, and a chair before she stood.

She watched the preparations.

“Are we expecting cavalry?”

“The basket was in the way.”

“The chair wasn’t.”

“It might have become ambitious.”

She shook her head and took my arm.

We went slowly.

At the doorway, she paused, then continued to the chair beside the hearth.

When she sat, her expression changed.

Not dramatically.

Enough that I noticed.

“What?”

“I wanted to be somewhere else.”

I looked around the room.

We had eaten here, argued here, read terrible contract language here.

For the last several days, it might as well have been another country.

Nessa brought Carol in while Helena followed with Garrick.

Evelyn leaned back and watched the room fill.

“There,” she said.

I sat beside her.

The journey had taken less than a minute.

She looked pleased with it for the rest of the morning.

Alistair visited after lunch.

He stood in the doorway wearing a clean coat and holding nothing.

This distinguished him from nearly everyone else.

“No gift?” I asked.

“I thought you might have enough things.”

Evelyn smiled immediately.

“Come in.”

He greeted her first.

Asked how she was feeling.

Listened to the answer.

Then he looked toward the children.

Garrick was awake in Helena’s arms, examining the ceiling with limited approval.

Carol slept against my chest.

Alistair came closer.

For a while, he simply looked.

I remembered him in the training yard, placing my feet where they ought to have been and knocking my practice sword aside with infuriating ease.

Now his hands remained carefully behind his back.

“Would you like to hold her?”

He glanced at me.

“If you’re certain.”

I nearly laughed.

There were few people in the kingdom to whom I would have entrusted more.

I asked him to sit and passed Carol into his arms.

He supported her without needing instruction.

I noticed.

“Have you done this before?”

“A few times.”

Something in his voice made me leave the question there.

Carol stirred.

One hand opened against his coat.

Alistair lowered his head.

“Well met, little one.”

Evelyn reached for my hand.

I held it while our daughter fell asleep again.

He stayed only a short while.

At the door, I asked about the training yard.

“The recruits are progressing.”

“And my training?”

“It will still be there.”

“I could come down tomorrow.”

“You could.”

He looked at my untouched cup.

Then at the spoon I had been searching for while holding it.

“Sleep first.”

I followed his gaze.

“Oh.”

He smiled.

“An instruction even a king may survive.”

The first matter that genuinely required my decision arrived that afternoon.

Garrick brought it himself.

He waited until Evelyn and the children were settled, then joined me at the sitting-room table.

“Nothing is burning,” he said.

“An excellent beginning.”

He unfolded a map of the northern road.

A freight wagon carrying purchased winter supplies had lost an axle near Firbank. The shelter keepers had taken in the driver and passengers, and Merrow had arranged help for the load.

Nobody was stranded.

But the carter had been hired by a merchant, the grain belonged to two settlements, and the spare wagon nearest at hand belonged to the Crown.

“The ordinary hire rules don’t cover the distance,” Garrick explained. “I can authorize a short local use. This would exceed it.”

I studied the map.

“Can the merchant pay?”

“Yes. He’s willing. The question is whether the wagon can be spared from its assigned work.”

“What work?”

“Roofing materials for the western cottages.”

I glanced toward the window.

The sky was low and grey.

“How much delay?”

“A day if the replacement axle reaches Firbank on schedule. Longer if it doesn’t.”

A few weeks earlier, I might have gone to see the axle myself.

Now I asked where Eleanor was.

She arrived with a drawing and an opinion.

“We can move the roofing timber this afternoon.”

“With what?” Garrick asked.

“The two civic units finishing the yard clearance. It’s a short route.”

“And the clearance?”

“Can wait until tomorrow without getting wet.”

I looked from the map to the drawing.

“Then lend the wagon. Charge the agreed hire. Keep the roofing on schedule.”

Garrick nodded.

Eleanor gathered her papers.

At the doorway, she glanced toward Carol, who had begun making little waking sounds in her mother’s arms.

“Everything sound here?”

Evelyn smiled.

“So we’re told.”

“Good.”

She departed.

Garrick remained long enough for me to sign the order.

Then he folded it and stood.

“That was all.”

I looked at the empty table.

It had taken less than a quarter of an hour.

He had brought me a decision with the facts needed to make it.

Afterward, he had taken the work away.

I was beginning to understand how a kingdom might continue growing without occupying every room in our lives.

That evening, Evelyn asked what had happened with the wagon.

I told her.

She listened while settling Garrick more comfortably against her.

“And the roof timber?”

“Moved before the afternoon rain.”

“Good.”

There was a pause.

Then she looked at me.

“You needn’t avoid telling me things.”

“I wasn’t trying to.”

“You’ve begun explaining the kingdom in the voice people use when they think I’m about to fall asleep.”

I considered denying it.

Unfortunately, I knew the voice she meant.

“What would you prefer?”

“The interesting parts. Ask whether I want the rest.”

I nodded.

She adjusted the blanket.

“I may say no.”

“I can endure it.”

“And tomorrow I may want to know everything about the cart.”

“Then I shall acquire an unreasonable knowledge of the cart.”

She laughed softly.

Carol began to fuss in the cradle beside me.

I picked her up.

When I sat again, Evelyn leaned toward me until our shoulders touched.

We stayed that way while I told her Eleanor’s exact opinion of the broken axle.

The workshop sent a gift on the eighth day.

It arrived in Perrin’s hands, accompanied by Brin and a note from Tilda.

The note said:

For the parents. Not for the babies.

I read it twice.

Then opened the box.

Inside stood a small wooden scene.

Two trees.

A house.

A turning wheel beside a stream made from polished blue stone.

Perrin wound the mechanism beneath it.

The wheel began to turn.

A little wooden fox emerged from behind the house, crossed a bridge, and disappeared beneath one tree.

From the other side, a bird rose slowly above the branches.

Evelyn watched with open delight.

I looked at Perrin.

“You made this?”

“The moving parts. Neri carved the stone. Oswin helped with the spindle. Della and Brin did the painting.”

Brin pointed toward the blue stream.

“Three attempts.”

Perrin looked offended.

“The first worked.”

“The first flooded the house.”

“It was paint.”

Evelyn laughed.

I watched the wheel turn.

There was no magic in it.

Only patient hands.

We placed it on the high shelf where we could see it from our chairs.

The fox made another journey across the bridge.

Carol slept through the entire demonstration.

Perrin seemed relieved.

After they left, I found a second note beneath the packing cloth.

The next lamps are finished. We can handle their fitting. Come when you’re ready.

I showed it to Evelyn.

She read it, then looked at the little house.

“You miss them.”

“A little.”

“That’s allowed.”

“I don’t want to miss this.”

I gestured toward the children, then her, inadequately including the whole room.

“You can visit a workshop and come home,” she said.

“I know.”

She studied my face.

“Do you?”

I sat beside her.

For several days, I had been reluctant to leave even when the children slept and she had help.

Every room beyond this one seemed to contain the possibility of something happening here without me.

Evelyn took my hand.

“Ask Mother to stay. Go down for half an hour. Then tell me what they’re making.”

“And if you need me?”

“We know where the workshop is.”

I smiled.

“Yes.”

“It’s where my husband used to live.”

I kissed her cheek.

That particular accusation deserved a proper answer.

I went the following afternoon.

The foundry sounded larger than I remembered.

Hammers.

Voices.

The scrape of something heavy across a bench.

Tilda saw me first.

“You look terrible.”

“Thank you.”

“Congratulations.”

“That order could use work.”

She grinned and pointed toward the adjoining room.

The learners were testing the second batch of lamps.

Aldren had drawn a list of sites on the slate.

Laundry landing.

Infirmary passage.

Gate keeper’s desk.

Westmere stairs.

I stopped at the last one.

“Edric?”

“He paid from the district repairs allocation,” Brin said. “For the service stair near the linen stores.”

I remembered Thomas asking him about the sticking door.

“The door too?”

“His letter says it’s been rehung,” Perrin replied.

I looked at the lamp waiting on the bench.

An ordinary order.

Made here.

Going somewhere it was needed.

I picked up the housing and examined the fitting.

Nobody waited for me to improve it.

After a moment, I set it down.

“Looks good.”

Tilda nodded.

“We thought so.”

On my way back, I passed the lower courtyard.

The Crown wagon was returning from Firbank.

Its wheels were muddy. The driver was arguing cheerfully with a stores clerk about whether the hired journey had included waiting for an axle.

I stopped long enough to hear that the supplies had reached both settlements.

Then I continued upstairs.

The half hour had become slightly more.

I sent a runner ahead rather than trusting my feet to explain it afterward.

When I entered, Helena sat beside the fire with Carol.

Evelyn looked up from a book.

“Useful visit?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

I washed my hands, took our daughter from her grandmother, and sat down.

For the next little while, I described the new lamp fittings, Tilda’s greeting, and the order from Westmere.

Evelyn listened.

She asked two questions.

Then yawned halfway through the second answer.

“Enough carts and lamps,” she said.

I stopped.

She smiled.

“Thank you.”

The days did not become orderly.

They became more familiar.

We still forgot things.

Meals cooled.

One child woke as the other settled.

A clean garment lasted an absurdly short time.

But I began to know which drawer Evelyn meant before she pointed.

She began handing me a child without watching every inch of the transfer.

Sometimes we could catch each other’s eye across the room and understand whether the other wanted help, water, or simply somebody to appreciate how unreasonable our son was being.

On the tenth evening, she asked me to brush her hair.

The children had been fed and settled in their cradles.

Helena was nearby in the sitting room, taking her own quiet rest.

I sat behind Evelyn and worked carefully through the loose strands.

For once, neither of us held anything that might cry.

She closed her eyes.

“That feels good.”

I slowed.

Outside, a little sleet struck the window.

Inside, the nursery lamp made a warm patch on the floor.

“I’ve missed you,” she said.

My hand paused.

“I’ve been here.”

“I know.”

She reached back and touched my knee.

“I don’t mean that.”

I understood after a moment.

We had been together almost constantly.

We had also been measuring our days in other people’s needs.

I set the brush aside and kissed the back of her head.

Then she turned carefully toward me.

I kissed her properly.

No hurry.

No joke to make it easier.

When we drew apart, she smiled.

“There you are.”

I rested my forehead against hers.

“Here I am.”

Later, I carried Carol to the window while Evelyn held Garrick.

The sleet had become a light dusting of snow on the outer ledge.

It would probably be gone by morning.

I showed it to our daughter anyway.

“That’s snow.”

She examined a fold of my shirt.

“Not that. Outside.”

Evelyn laughed from her chair.

“She may prefer the shirt.”

“It has considerably less to recommend it.”

I turned back toward the room.

My wife sat in the lamplight with our son asleep against her.

On the high shelf, the little wooden fox waited beside its bridge.

I brought Carol over and sat beside them.

For a while, we listened to the weather.

Then Evelyn looked at our daughter.

“Do you think she’ll remember any of this?”

“No.”

“That seems unfair.”

I glanced toward the blue book on the desk.

“We can tell her.”

“And Garrick?”

“Him too.”

She leaned against my shoulder.

The children slept.

Outside, the snow kept falling, quietly enough that neither of them minded.

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