Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

The meeting-house boards creaked beneath Severin’s boots before gray light reached the shutters.

He had dressed before returning. His charcoal-black coat hid the missing fastening on his dark shirt. Mereford’s dust still marked the leather of his boots.

The room had not changed while he was gone. The sealed ale remained beneath the long table. The inkpot sat where the older woman had left it. He lifted the wooden bar from its iron rests and opened the door.

The older woman waited outside with the village book against her chest.

"Tressa has the last statements," she said. "The man who knows the north ditch best is waiting near the well."

"Tressa first."

The older woman fell into step beside him.

The recovery shelter smelled of boiled water, lamp smoke, and the sour sweat of men kept too long in bed. The driver lay behind the clean screen. His eyes were open, but he did not turn his head when Severin entered. Each breath came rough and steady.

The carrier sat propped against folded bedding on the other side of the room. A cup rested between both hands. His arms trembled from the effort of holding it, though his breathing no longer stopped.

The only unused stool had been pushed against the wall. A low lamp smoked near the driver’s bed, leaving the carrier’s side in gray shadow. There was nowhere ready for a 3rd patient.

Tressa stood between the 2 beds with a loose page in 1 hand.

"No one died," she said. "The driver and the carrier still cannot work. I pulled 2 others from paid turns before either was hurt."

"Which 2?"

"The man whose hand shook yesterday. The other tried to take another turn. I stopped him before he reached the dungeon gate."

The carrier looked down at his cup.

Severin faced Tressa. "The 2 loads."

She glanced at the loose page. "The woman says no one told her he had taken 2. The man says everyone on the road knew. Neither marked the loads beside his name."

"Who sent him back after 2 loads?"

"No one will say they did."

The carrier’s fingers tightened around the cup.

Tressa continued before Severin asked another question. "I heard them arguing while I was with the driver. The man said everyone knew the carrier was finished. I took that for an answer and went back to the bed. I should have looked at the board myself."

"Would the board have shown the 2 loads?"

"No." Her mouth tightened. "It had his name and what we owed him. Nothing beside it said what he had already carried."

Everyone had expected someone else to stop him. Tressa had been with a man struggling for breath behind the screen. The carrier had seen work waiting and said he could take more. By the time anyone checked him, he was on a litter.

The driver coughed once. Tressa turned at once and watched him through the next breath. When the sound did not return, she looked back at Severin.

"And the other 2?" Severin asked.

Tressa folded the loose page once along an old crease. "The shaking man came for a dungeon gate turn with 1 hand trembling. He could name dawn, midday, and dusk. He called midnight the 3rd turn and still said he was fit to watch the doors."

"He was removed before the turn."

"Yes. His cousin took it."

"And the other?"

"He had already finished 1 paid turn. He put his name beside another before the next pair arrived. I found it before he reached the dungeon gate."

"Was he hurt?"

"No." Tressa shook her head. "He was angry. Anger is not an injury."

The older woman opened the book to the turns from the day before. 1 name had been crossed out. Another stood beside it in darker ink. The page showed who had taken the watch, but not when the shaking man had last slept or when the other had finished his earlier turn.

"They were different mistakes," Tressa said. "The shaking man should never have been offered the turn. The other should not have been able to write himself into 2 paid places without someone seeing the earlier line."

"Who offered the shaking man?"

"His brother gave the name."

The older woman touched the crossed line. "I knew the name. I did not know when he had last slept."

"And the double turn?"

"He wrote it himself while the pair at the dungeon gate were changing. No one had a place to write his last work, so the new line looked clean."

The older woman tapped the page with her pen. "I can write what people tell me. I cannot follow every man through the village."

"You won’t," Severin said. "Put the last work beside every name."

"What can your 2 helpers do?" he asked.

"1 stays with each patient when I leave the room. They bring water, food, bedding, and clean cloth. They turn the driver and watch his breathing while he sleeps. They keep the carrier on his side if he vomits again."

"What can they not do?"

"All of that and everything else."

Tressa set the page on the small table beside the basin. 2 folded strips of clean cloth remained there. The lamp near the driver’s bed had burned low enough that the wick smoked.

"If 1 helper fetches water, 1 patient is alone," she said. "If I go outside to stop someone from taking another turn, both helpers stay at the beds. I cannot watch these 2 men, the road, every bucket, and every tired fool who wants another mark beside his name."

"How many more?"

"I need 2."

"Choose them. Same pay as the others."

Tressa looked toward the older woman. "The woman who sat with the carrier after midnight. She stayed where I put her. And the man who has no turn at the dungeon gate and is not moving Beast bodies today."

The older woman opened the village book. "I know both."

"5 Silver each day and a meal," Severin said. "While they care for patients, they do what Tressa tells them. None of them moves Beast bodies or takes a turn at the dungeon gate on the same day."

"If I take someone from a watch later, I want the replacement written first," Tressa said.

"Write the replacement first."

She nodded. "Good."

The older woman found the page where Tressa’s wage and the 2 existing helpers had been written. Her ink-stained finger stopped beneath the last line.

"The written wages were 14 Gold and 2 Silver before this morning," she said. "That does not include the food, medicine, cloth, lamp oil, rope, or the appraiser."

"Add the 2 helpers."

Her pen did not move. "What about me?"

Severin looked at her.

She met his gaze without lowering the book. "You told me gifts go into the book. I have carried it from the meeting house to the dungeon gate, copied the turns, written the meals, and listened to men argue over 4 Silver. I did not put myself on the page because no one named a price."

"8 Silver a day and a meal."

Her brows rose a fraction. "From today?"

"From the day you began keeping these wages and turns."

She calculated before touching the pen. "2 completed days make 1 Gold and 6 Silver."

"Write it."

The nib scratched across the page.

The 2 new helpers added 1 Gold each day between them. The older woman’s work added another 8 Silver. Severin had no coin, the buyers had not arrived, and the 15 Beast bodies grew worse beneath their patched cloth with every warm hour.

1 dead worker would cost him more.

His body would take more hands from the road. A missed bell could let a Beast reach the houses before anyone knew it had crossed the dungeon gate. If paid work kept ending in beds, Mereford would stop guarding his 90% long before it stopped wanting its own 10%.

"1 Gold and 8 Silver more each day," the older woman said. "And 1 Gold and 6 Silver behind it."

"Keep it in the book."

"Until the bodies sell."

"Until I have coin."

She wrote the debt without pretending it had been paid.

Severin picked up the loose page Tressa had set beside the basin. The worker’s name appeared once. Beside it sat his wage and nothing else.

"Beside every paid name," he said, "put the last load or turn. Then put the next time they may work."

The older woman frowned at the page. "The board is already crowded."

"Use the space beneath the well marks. Add another board when that is full."

"The carpenter will complain that charcoal is easier than carving."

"Then use charcoal until the work stops changing."

That answer fit her better. She drew 2 narrow spaces beside the carrier’s name and wrote Last work over the left space and Next turn over the right.

Tressa watched the words appear.

"Who decides the next turn?" the older woman asked.

"Tressa decides whether the person can work," Severin said. "You write the time. No one gets paid twice for the same hours because the same name appears on 2 lists."

The carrier shifted against the bedding. "I wasn’t trying to steal."

Severin looked at him. "You were trying to carry another load."

The man swallowed. "Yes."

"Then do not do it again."

Tressa took the cup from his hands before it slipped. "He will not."

The carrier gave her a tired look. "I can answer for myself."

"You can hold the cup when your arms stop shaking."

He looked away, but he did not reach for it again.

The older woman finished the new wage lines. "The clean cloth?"

"Keep it here," Tressa said. "The patched cloth over the Beast bodies stays there. I need more clean cloth before tomorrow night. Lamp oil before tonight."

"Write both without a price," Severin said. "Pay when someone brings them."

The older woman added the words.

Tressa moved to the driver’s bed and pressed the back of her fingers to his forehead. The driver blinked at her, then closed his eyes again.

Severin waited until she stepped away.

"When my order is the reason someone is hurt," he said, "say my order."

Tressa looked at him directly. "I was going to."

"Good."

"Then don’t ask me to call it something else later."

"I won’t."

She watched him for a moment longer, then gave a small nod.

Mereford already had enough people willing to nod while a man took 1 more load. Tressa would stop him, work to keep him alive if the stop came late, and tell Severin which order had put him in bed. That made her useful even when Severin left the village.

The older woman closed the book. "I will fetch the 2 new helpers and have the carpenter change the board."

"Bring the woman from the midnight bed before the man," Tressa said. "He eats first. I want him awake enough to hear me."

The older woman repeated the order once, then left.

Severin looked at the 2 patients. "How long before either works?"

"I don’t know," Tressa said. "The driver may sit in a cart before he can guide one. The carrier may stand tomorrow and still fall after 20 steps. I will tell you when either man can do more."

"Keep them alive," Severin said.

"Give me the cloth and oil."

"They are in the book."

"A line does not make cloth clean."

"No. It makes the debt mine."

Tressa looked toward the empty doorway. "Then make sure the buyer reads it before he names a price."

Severin almost smiled. "I will."

He left Tressa between the 2 beds.

Outside, Mereford had begun to move with the dawn. A woman carried covered bread toward the dungeon gate. The next watch pair crossed the road with the handbell between them. No one knelt.

The carpenter waited near the shelter with a narrow board and charcoal. The older woman read from the loose page while he divided the wood beside each paid name.

Last work. Next turn.

The carrier’s 2 loads went under Last work. No work went under Next turn until Tressa changed it.

The woman Tressa had chosen from the midnight bedside left the road and entered the recovery shelter. The man Tressa had chosen followed after finishing a bowl near the meeting house. Neither went toward the covered Beast bodies or the dungeon gate.

The older woman carried the new board toward the last fence, the 2 fresh spaces visible beside each paid name.

Severin turned north. By the time he reached the closed well, hammer blows carried from the last fence.

The man who had reported the higher water waited beside it. Another villager stood with him, older, narrow-shouldered, with mud dried along 1 boot. The charcoal lines inside the well remained untouched. Water still met the higher charcoal line. Rust-colored grit curled from the dark seam in the north stones.

The dry shaving rested against the uphill wall where Severin had left it.

"You know the north ditch?" Severin asked.

The narrow-shouldered man nodded. "Better than most."

"Show me where it runs."

They left the well without touching the stones.

The man led him past the last northern houses and through a field where the cut stalks reached Severin’s ankles. Beyond the final fence, the ground dipped in a shallow line choked with grass and old leaves.

"That’s the ditch," the man said. "When the upper stream runs high, the overflow comes down through here. It passes the north field, then spreads before it reaches the well road."

"Down from the north."

"Yes."

The grass in the shallow cut was wet.

Not evenly. Dark blades formed a narrow line that ran away from Mereford, back toward the northern rise. The ground beside it remained firm enough to hold the witness’s boot without sinking.

"How far did you follow this?" Severin asked.

"Past the last field. Not to the stream."

"Why not?"

The man’s gaze shifted toward the rise. "An Elf woman turned us back."

"What did she say?"

"No one crosses the broken stream."

Severin looked from the dark grass to the northern rise.

"Show me where she turned you back."

The man stepped into the shallow cut between the fields.

Severin followed.

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