Rowan went out early, carrying his notebook and looking for breakfast.
The town had begun its day in portions. Smoke rose above some roofs; others remained quiet behind their shutters. A man carried bread through a side entrance without opening the front of the building. Rowan smelled it after he had passed, but the door closed before he decided whether to turn back.
Farther along, light showed through an open shopfront. The window held lamps, small frames and several objects whose uses were less apparent. Beneath one stood a wooden label: Bring the whole working when possible. Smaller writing on the doorpost added: Yes, even the broken part.
Inside, a man sat at a bench with his sleeves pushed back and his hair tied loosely at the nape of his neck. He had both hands around a lamp and was watching it closely enough that Rowan waited at the threshold.
“If you’ve brought something that fell apart,” the man said, “put it on the clear end.”
“I haven’t.”
He looked up, studying Rowan for a moment. “Cresting Pass?”
“Yes.”
“Rowan, isn’t it?”
Rowan nodded. “Soren.”
Soren smiled. “Come in. I need another moment with this.”
The shop smelled of warm resin and wood shavings. Shelves behind the counter held finished pieces, wrapped orders and little jars. Unfinished work occupied boards that could be lifted away together. Soren had cleared a space around the lamp while leaving the rest in various stages of being used.
“Are you passing through?” he asked.
“New posting. I arrived yesterday.”
“With Thane, then. He’s been expecting someone.”
“So he told me.”
Soren moved a loose sheet away from the end of the bench, making room for Rowan’s notebook. “What brought you out this early?”
“Breakfast. I thought you might know somewhere open.”
“You’ll be disappointed in the stock here. But I know where we can go when I’ve finished.”
The lamp’s glow slipped downward as he spoke. He steadied it with one hand.
“What’s wrong with it?” Rowan asked.
“The light won’t stay where it’s put.”
Soren tilted the lamp. The small golden glow rose halfway inside it, trembled, and sank again. Within the ordinary wood-and-glass casing, a fine conjured frame held the light clear of both. One part had drawn inward, scarcely visible until he turned it toward the window.
“Someone strengthened this edge,” he said, touching it with a narrow tool. “The rest still moves. This piece doesn’t.”
“Do you have to remake it?”
“I could. She likes this one.”
He drew a jar closer and lifted resin onto the tool. Warmth appeared around his fingers, brightening without becoming flame. The glow rose clear of the damaged frame while he eased the tightened portion apart. Rowan watched the fine curve return toward the shape of the others. Soren held it there, withdrew his hands, and waited. Finally, he turned the lamp upside down.
The glow remained where it belonged.
“Could you feel where it had tightened?” Rowan asked.
“Yes. It wouldn’t give with the rest.” Soren set the lamp upright. “How would you find it?”
“I’d follow the joining. With moonlight, if it answered.”
Soren turned the lamp so he could see the repaired edge. “This part?”
“Probably. I’d need to try.”
“I’d like to see that sometime. Not on this one until I’ve made certain of it.”
Rowan nodded. Soren wrote in a small book beside the bench, tied a label to the lamp’s handle, and moved it onto a shelf of waiting repairs.
“That can stay lit while we’re out.”
“You haven’t eaten?”
“I meant to finish it first.” He glanced toward a covered board at the far end of the bench. “The rest of my morning was going to be that. It can wait.”
He washed his hands at a basin behind the counter. Ink remained along two fingers after the resin had come away. Rowan looked more closely at the shelves while he dried them. Several pieces stood in rows, alike until he noticed differences in their fittings. Beside them were objects waiting for repair, each with a name tied to it.
“Is this what you were bringing through Cresting Pass?”
“Some of it. These mostly stay here. The larger pieces take me farther.”
“I remember the wrapped load.”
“The light frame?”
“I remember the doorway.”
Soren laughed. “So do I. I measured the frame carefully and the doorway not at all.”
He took a key from beneath the counter and checked the repaired lamp once more before locking the shop. Outside, he turned toward the crossing.
“Did you come by the maintained pass?”
“Beside the river. Thane wanted an account of the approach.”
“I’ve walked a little of that ground. Not enough to wish I’d walked the rest.” Soren glanced at his boots. “How long did it take?”
“Ten days.”
He looked back at Rowan. “Then we had better find you more than bread.”
The place he took him to was opening when they reached it. A woman lifted the front shutter and asked them to carry a bench outside. Soren took one end and Rowan the other. By the time they sat beneath the window, there was bread and a pot of something hot available.
They ate eggs with onions, warm bread and soft cheese. For the first few minutes Rowan gave the meal his attention. Soren seemed content to let him. Across the street, two people were carrying rolled cloth into a cart. One climbed onto the bed to shift it farther forward while the other held the loose end clear of the wheel.
“Does your larger work go out like that?” Rowan asked.
“When it will. I went with the frame you saw at the Pass. It lit a covered yard, so they could move loads without carrying lamps among them.” Soren tore a piece of bread. “I stayed until I’d changed two fittings I’d been pleased with before I got there.”
Rowan smiled. “What was wrong with them?”
“They worked very well on my bench.”
“I’ve written directions like that.”
“Then you understand why I travel.”
Soren reached for his cup. Rowan could remember more of the load now: the care with which it had been carried, Soren walking beside it through the yard, watching each turn.
“Will you go back to check it?”
“Later in the season. I have another piece to take that way when it’s ready. I close the shop, finish what I’ve promised, tell people when I’ll be back. They still leave things for me.” He watched the cart roll toward the crossing. “I like going. By the time the pieces are fitted, I’m usually ready to come home.”
“I don’t usually know when I’ll be back.”
“To the station?”
“To any particular place. By the time a posting ends, there’s usually another one.”
Soren divided the last of the cheese and pushed half toward him. “Would they let you stay?”
“I could ask. I haven’t found a place I wanted to ask for.”
“Then it’s worth seeing this one.”
“That’s what Vessa thought.”
“Sensible of her.” Soren reached for the bread as the woman came out to take their empty pot. He asked her for another, then looked back at Rowan. “What do you do when you aren’t walking somebody’s route?”
Rowan considered the question. Much of his free time at the Pass had been spent going out again, with less to carry and no account expected at the end. He had watched rain arrive across a ridge, followed a stream toward ground he knew he would have to leave before dark.
“Walk somewhere else, often.”
“That took some thought.”
“I was trying to make it sound different.”
Soren laughed. “It can be the same path. I take the river way when I want to get out of the shop. No deliveries. Nobody waiting for me.”
“How far?”
“Until I want to come back.”
Rowan smiled as the woman brought another pot. Soren moved their cups closer, and for a while they watched the street over them. The cart had cleared the crossing. A man followed with a basket against one hip, stopping to shift it before climbing the far side. Rowan noticed a place where the paving had lifted; Soren greeted the basket carrier as he passed their bench. The man answered without stopping.
“Where have you been since you arrived?” Soren asked.
“Thane’s room. The lodging. And a tree I want to draw.”
“Which tree?”
Rowan described the seat and the lane rising opposite it. Soren knew the place before he finished.
“I come through there on my way to the river,” he said. “It’s a good place to sit.”
“It was yesterday. I went back after I’d put my things away.”
“Have you drawn it?”
“Started it.” Rowan touched the notebook beside him. “I drew most days on the way down, but those were for the report. I want another look at this one before I finish.”
“Why that lane?”
“I wanted to stay there a while.”
Soren nodded. Rowan took another piece of bread and watched someone turn into the lane beside the breakfast room. He had seen it from the other end yesterday. This morning it seemed shorter.
“What else have you planned?” Soren asked.
“Very little. Thane wants three days with my report. Until then, I’m meant to find my way around.”
“I could show you a few places.” Soren glanced along the street. “I meant to spend the morning with the frame in my shop, but I’d rather be out for a while.”
“You needn’t put your day aside.”
“I know. I’d like to.”
Rowan considered him, then nodded. “I’d like to find whoever handles injuries. Before I need to bring them someone.”
“Irma, usually. Depending on what happened and where you are.”
“I know the name.”
“Then we’ll go there first.”
At the counter, Soren told the woman her lamp would be ready the following afternoon. She asked whether the repair would cost more than a new one.
“No.”
“Would you tell me if it did?”
“Yes.”
She nodded and turned to the next customer. Outside, Rowan asked whether much of the repair shelf held other people’s work.
“Most of it,” Soren said. “Some was made very well. Some has been repaired rather too often.”
“How do you decide when to stop?”
“I tell them what remains to work with. They decide whether they want to keep it.” He glanced toward the breakfast room. “That lamp belonged to her mother. She’d rather have it repaired.”
They turned into a narrower street, where Irma’s door stood open. A clear table occupied the room beneath the window. Folded cloth lay on a shelf beside bowls, jars and a kettle. Irma was sorting bandages, laying each finished length beside the others.
“I’ve brought someone to meet you,” Soren said.
Rowan introduced himself. Irma set down the cloth and offered her hand. She was broad through the shoulders, and her gaze moved briefly over him before returning to his face.
“Thane’s new arrival?”
“Yes. I wanted to know where to bring someone injured, or how to reach you if they can’t be moved.”
She showed him the side entrance, where there was more room to bring someone through, then told him where word should go if she was elsewhere. Rowan took out his notebook and wrote the directions.
“If you can’t bring them, send someone who can tell me what happened,” Irma said. “How many people, whether they can be moved, and what’s already been done.”
“And if you’re occupied?”
“Send word anyway. I’ll tell you who can come.”
“Vessa gave me names. Olan and Del, among others.”
“Then she gave you a beginning.” Irma folded another length of bandage. “You won’t be short of healers in the Glenn. Finding out which one you need may take longer.”
“Would you send someone elsewhere?”
“Often. Sometimes they come here because I’m near, and sometimes because they know me. Neither tells me I’m the best person to help them.” She set the bandage beside the others. “But if you’ve someone injured and don’t know who to ask for, send to me.”
Rowan closed the notebook. He thanked her, and she returned to the cloth. In the street, he looked back toward the broader road and added the turn beneath her directions. He could place the door against the river now.
“Thane mentioned Corren,” he said. “Do you know where he lives?”
“I do. We’ll pass the end of his lane.”
They walked toward the crossing. Soren showed him the turn and pointed out the way to Corren’s house. Rowan noted the bend beyond the first few doors.
“You know him?” Soren asked.
“He walked me through an anchor repair years ago. Then made me explain it back to him.”
“That sounds like Corren.”
“I didn’t know he’d settled here.”
“He’s been here a while.”
Rowan marked the lane in the notebook. Soren was pointing out the way around the market carts, and he followed him into a courtyard he would not have found from the street.
They stopped to speak to people. One asked about a piece waiting in the shop; another wanted Soren to look at something later in the week. He agreed to the visit and wrote it in the little book he carried. Farther on, they found needles and thread strong enough for Rowan’s pack strap.
While the shopkeeper searched a drawer, Rowan opened his notebook on the counter. He had marked the tear beside yesterday’s drawing. Soren caught sight of the page.
“May I look?”
Rowan handed it over. Soren turned the book toward the light and studied it while the needles were laid out. Rowan chose one, then asked for enough thread to restitch the strap rather than patch the split again.
“You’ve put the water in,” Soren said.
“It catches the light under the slab. I wanted that against the dark beneath the tree.”
“I usually walk over it.”
Soren bent closer. “You’ve made me want to sit down there.” Rowan smiled and left him the page while the shopkeeper measured out the thread.
Soren glanced at him. “Will you finish it today?”
“I’d like to.”
“Show me when you have.”
Rowan took the book back. “I will.”
They returned to the shop as the street filled with people going about their day. Soren unlocked the door and went first to the repaired lamp. He tilted it, watched the light, then set it down.
“Still holding.”
Rowan put the needle and thread safely into his pocket while Soren lifted the cloth from the larger board. A broad, shallow frame lay beneath it, its fine conjured pieces folded close together.
“That’s the next one?”
“A different arrangement. It folds smaller than the last.” Soren drew a hand above it. Warm light spread as the frame lifted and opened. Before it reached its full height, one side drew inward, gathering the light into a bright edge. He lowered it again.
“It does that often enough to be a problem.”
Rowan moved nearer. He could see the pieces meeting, but little of how they carried together.
“Does it happen when you move it too?”
“Sometimes. I need to find out whether I’m dealing with the same fault.” Soren covered it. “After I’ve cleared the other end of the bench. There’s very little point making it smaller for travel if I can’t open it in a room.”
Rowan looked toward the crowded end and smiled. “I’d like to see it when it works.”
“So would I.”
He picked up his notebook. Soren glanced toward the window, where sunlight had reached the doorpost.
“You’ll still have light for the drawing.”
“Yes.”
“Bring it in tomorrow. We can go straight to breakfast.”
“Unless you’re working.”
“I’ll stop.” Soren moved the repaired lamp farther from the edge of the shelf. “I’ve promised that back tomorrow afternoon. I can work on the frame after breakfast.”
Rowan nodded. “I’ll come by.”
Outside, he turned toward the narrow lane they had used on their return. At its end he recognized the garden wall beside the running water. The tree stood a little farther on.
He sat at the shaded end of the seat and opened the notebook. Beneath Irma’s directions he wrote her name again, this time leaving room around it. Broad shoulders. Bandages folded to the same length. Looks at the person before asking what brought them.
He added Olan and Del below her name, leaving space beside each.
On another page he put Soren beside the shop’s sign, then sketched the lamp’s repaired curve beneath it. He stopped before adding the rest. The man had given him a morning; there would be time to learn more than that.
He returned to the lane drawing. The sun had reached the upper paving. He caught its pale edge, then deepened the shade beneath the seat, waiting when someone crossed his view. When he held the book away, the lane opened beyond the tree as he had wanted it to.
He slipped a clean sheet over the drawing and closed the book. Tomorrow he would take it to Soren.