Who the Allies Protect

That evening, Rishi and Maeril followed a Watchful Order attendant past one of Rivenbeam’s smaller yards. Rishi had asked to visit Erik after learning that the healers had sent him home.

Sawdust, damp timber, iron fittings, and boiled onions scented the air. Their guide waited at a turning while Maeril caught up on her staff, then led them down a narrow passage beside the yard. Rishi shortened his steps as the pull beneath his ribs sharpened.

The attendant stopped at a house with light showing beneath its door and knocked.

Erik’s wife opened it. Sella was human, broad-shouldered and dark-haired, with flour on one sleeve and a tiredness around her eyes that did not weaken them. Her gaze passed from Rishi’s bandaged side to Maeril’s staff. “He said you might come.”

Rishi nodded his thanks to the attendant, who turned back toward the yard. “How is he?”

“Trying to stand whenever I turn my back.”

Erik’s voice came from inside. “I can hear you, Sella.”

“I am being polite.”

“That was polite?”

“For us.” She stepped aside. “Come in before the stew gets proud.”

Coats, rope, oilskins, and a child’s patched cloak hung beside the door. Clean tools occupied a row of pegs above ordered boots. A basket of kindling waited beside the stove. Three unstrung bows hung high enough to keep them from curious hands.

At the center stood a broad table, scarred and scrubbed: a place for eating, mending, measuring, arguing, and whatever else the day required.

Erik sat at the table with his injured leg on a stool. He put a hand on the chair to rise.

Rishi reached him first and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Stay where you are. How is the breathing?”

“Easier than yesterday.”

Rishi took his wrist and felt for the pulse. Erik let him, watching his face while Sella set bowls before their guests without asking whether they would stay.

Rishi released his wrist. The stew held barley, greens, root vegetables, and meat cooked until it yielded. Bread, butter, apples, and something pickled filled the rest of the table without wasting space.

A boy of perhaps twelve watched them from the far side. He had Erik’s dark, unsparing eyes, a faint orcish set to his jaw, and small lower tusks just beginning to show. Charcoal marked his fingers. Beside his bowl lay a half-carved wooden fitting.

“You are the monk who flew,” the boy said.

Sella closed her eyes. “Orren.”

“He is.”

Rishi sat. “Yes.”

“Can you do it now?”

“No.”

“Because you are tired?”

“Because people were dying.”

Orren considered that and nodded.

A wooden click sounded beside the hearth.

Rishi turned. A girl sat in a low wheeled chair padded with blankets and lambskin. She looked perhaps eight, though her body was small and her limbs drawn inward by an old tightness. Fine dark hair framed a face supported by a shaped cushion. One curled hand rested on a cloth roll. A wooden disk tied to her wrist had struck the chair’s arm.

Sella’s whole face opened when she looked at her. “Yes, Linna. They came.”

Linna worked her hand against the disk.

One tap.

“You want to sit with us?” Sella asked.

Another tap.

Orren stood before anyone asked. He fitted a narrow board across supports beside Linna’s chair and placed a bowl on it at an angle. His movements were practiced, neither hurried nor precious.

Sella said, “Linna, this is Maeril, and this is Rishi.”

The girl studied each of them.

Maeril inclined her head. “Good evening.”

Linna blinked once and looked at Maeril’s horns.

“That may mean hello,” Sella said. “Or that she likes the horns.”

“A woman of taste.” Maeril touched the bark-textured curve of one horn. “They looked more respectable before the ditch.”

Linna’s mouth opened without sound, and her eyes brightened.

The room answered as though she had laughed aloud. Sella’s shoulders eased. Orren grinned. Even pain released its hold around Erik’s eyes.

They moved the meal closer to the hearth rather than leave Linna apart from it. Sella cooled her stew with broth, tested it on her wrist, and fed her in patient measures: spoon, swallow, breath, cloth. Orren watched without seeming to and passed whatever his mother needed before she asked.

Erik tried to lift his cup with the arm that hurt less. Sella moved it closer before the motion pulled at the wound across his chest.

“Thank you,” she said on his behalf.

He grunted.

Maeril took in the chair’s angle, the cushions, the cloths within reach, and the wooden disks marked for yes, no, more, finished, pain, and tired. “Good system.”

Sella looked at her. “It had to be.”

“Many things have to be. People still do them badly.”

Sella nodded and returned to Linna.

They ate. Warm food narrowed the world for a little while.

Orren broke the quiet. “Father said the beast hit you even though it could not see you.”

“It listened to the ground,” Rishi said.

The boy’s attention sharpened. “Then you should not step where the ground tells the truth.”

“Where does it lie?”

“Deep water. Sometimes thick moss. Stone does not lie, but it tells too much. Loose boards are the worst.”

Erik looked at his son. “You guess.”

“I measure. Sometimes the world refuses to be correct.”

Maeril pointed her spoon at him. “Keep that sentence. It will serve you.”

Linna tapped.

Orren frowned at her. “I am not proud.”

Another tap.

“You make the face,” Orren said.

Linna’s eyes shone.

Sella caught Rishi looking. “She understands more than people think.”

“I see that.”

Linna’s attention had moved to the red cord at his wrist. Rishi rose and crouched beside the chair, keeping enough distance that she could refuse him. “May I?”

She blinked once. Sella nodded.

Rishi rested his hand on the chair’s arm. Linna worked toward it. The movement took time. Her fingers trembled and shifted until one knuckle touched the cord.

He did not help before she reached it.

Only then did he turn his wrist so that the braid rested beneath her fingers. “It is a vow. To remember pain is not the only teacher.”

The disk tapped once.

Sella’s voice was quiet. “She says yes.”

Rishi nodded. “Yes.”

Maeril looked into her bowl. “He gives grim little sermons. You become accustomed to them.”

Linna laughed without sound.

After dinner, Sella and Maeril argued over the herb shelf. Sella accepted two changes and called the third witch nonsense. Maeril agreed that this was fair.

Orren brought Erik the half-carved fitting.

Erik ran a thumb along a split beside the knot and handed it back. “Too close.”

“I thought the curve would hold.”

“Your hope lied.”

“The wood lied.”

“You asked it badly.”

Linna’s evening care began beneath the conversation. Sella warmed a cloth by the stove. Orren fetched oils and folded linen. Erik put both hands on the table to rise.

“Chair,” Sella said.

“I can help.”

“You can help by keeping your chest closed.”

“It is closed.”

“It was smoking yesterday.”

Erik remained seated.

“May I help you move her?” Rishi asked Sella.

Sella glanced at his bandaged side before she answered. “You know how?”

“Yes.”

“She is not a sack.”

“No.”

Sella showed him where to place his hands and when to wait. Maeril drew the padded bench close to the chair. Rishi adjusted his footing, leaving the heavier part of the lift to Sella so he would not pull against his wounded side.

When Linna’s eyes widened, Rishi stopped. Sella murmured to her until she was ready. Together they settled her on the bench.

Orren held the cushion while Sella eased warmth into one thin calf. Erik watched from his chair with his hands closed on nothing.

Rishi knew the shape of that wound: hands made for use with no permission to use them.

Sella looked toward Erik. “Talk to her.”

Erik leaned forward. “Your brother made a bad fitting.”

“It was experimental,” Orren said.

Linna tapped.

Erik almost smiled. “A bad experiment.”

Another tap.

Orren lifted both hands. “Betrayed in my own home.”

Rishi supported Linna’s hand while the room laughed. Her fingers tightened once against his.

Sella drew a blanket over Linna’s legs. “Better?”

One tap.

She kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Good.”

Rishi stepped back. Erik met his eyes.

“You are a good father,” Rishi said.

The room stilled. Orren looked down. Sella kept one hand on the blanket.

Erik’s expression closed around the praise. “No.”

Rishi waited.

“I am here,” Erik said.

“Yes.”

Maeril turned briskly toward the shelf. “Your yarrow is plotting against the household.”

Sella laughed. Orren asked how herbs plotted, and Maeril supplied an answer far more serious than the question deserved.

Erik wiped a hand across his eyes as if clearing smoke. Rishi looked elsewhere.

Later, Erik insisted on walking them to the door.

He leaned too heavily against its frame. Outside, timber creaked in the yard. Lamps burned beyond the rooftops.

“You are staying,” Erik said.

Rishi followed his gaze toward the city. “Yes.”

“For the beast?”

“For what made it.”

Erik glanced back through the open door. Orren’s shadow crossed the hearth. Sella bent over Linna to adjust a blanket.

Rishi bowed his head. “Thank you for supper. Sit after we leave.”

Sella called from the hearth, “Now would be the right time.”

Erik closed his eyes.

From beside the hearth came one wooden tap.

“She says goodbye,” Sella said.

“Goodbye, Linna,” Rishi answered.

Maeril lifted two fingers. “Guard the stew from pride.”

Another tap.

The door closed on warmth and quiet voices.

Rishi and Maeril stood together in the dark yard.

“We came for old allies,” Rishi said.

“And found new ones?”

He looked back at the light beneath the door. “We found who the allies were protecting.”

Maeril slipped her hand into his. “I always knew you had a soft spot for family life. Should we consider it?”

Rishi laughed and shook his head. “It was a good supper, Maeril.”

“Was it the stew you were smiling at?”

He squeezed her hand and started with her down the passage toward the street.

“Very good stew.”