The old doorpost came out in three pieces.
Rowan held the joining while the carpenter lowered the last of them to the floor. Beneath the rotted end, the binding ran into sound stone. The finer reach above it trembled against his fingers until he gave it room around the exposed edge.
Bren kept his palm against the stone below the window. “Still holding here.”
The carpenter had found the old cut beneath a hinge and stopped. Today the new post waited across trestles in the yard, prepared to take the same joining.
The household’s drying trays had been carried out, but tomorrow’s cutting would need the room.
It was Rowan’s third week in the Glenn. He and Bren were working beyond the lower households now; the mill’s harder return remained unexplained.
The carpenter brought the new post in with his companion. Rowan followed the joining into the prepared cut and kept it there while they set the wood. It should have needed only a light hold. He found himself opening his hand wider as the final fastening went in.
“That’s ours,” the carpenter said. “You can let it go.”
Rowan eased the thread away. The joining stayed in the new course, and Bren read it from the stone before the door was rehung. They watched the first opening together. Nothing drew out of its bed when the weight reached the hinges.
His wrist ached when he put his hand down.
The woman came back carrying two empty trays. She left them at the door while the carpenter adjusted the latch, then took one into the room.
“This is the part I needed,” she said, reaching the shelf without having to hold the door clear. “Will it stay like that?”
“The post should,” the carpenter told her. “I’ll come back after it’s had some use.”
Bren showed her the new cut. Her husband would read the protection that evening; Rowan left the changed drawing on the cleared shelf.
Outside, he washed the ash away at the barrel. The water was cool enough to make him keep his wrist beneath it for a moment.
“Was it harder than you expected?” Bren asked.
“For the part I held, yes.”
“It came through evenly at the stone.”
“I found it there too. I’ll put the difference beside it.”
Bren looked back through the open door. “I’ll compare it with his reading tomorrow.”
Rowan nodded. He would meet Anet on the farther field path, then join Bren at the road before evening.
When they left, the door was open and the woman was bringing another stack of trays from the house.
Thane’s room was occupied when Rowan came in. Anet stood beside the wall with one of the smaller sheets in her hand. Her delivery path was missing; she was explaining it to Thane.
“Not through the orchard,” she told him. “Round the end. I can’t bring a load under those branches.”
Rowan set down his notebook. He had walked that way with Bren two days earlier. On the larger drawing, the road ran close enough to the orchard to hide the turn.
He took the loose sheet and marked the approach beside the house.
“There’s a low wall here,” he said.
“Yes. You can turn before it if the ground is dry.”
“And after rain?”
“We wait, usually. If it must come through, they carry it from the road.”
Thane found the household account while Rowan added that beneath the route. The woman asked whether someone coming with the next load could take a copy. Rowan gave her the smaller sheet to show him, and marked where it belonged before she left.
“She came to see you,” Thane said.
“I wasn’t here.”
“She noticed.” He returned the account to its place. “I’ve told people when you’re likely to be in. Some of them prefer to try the door.”
Rowan opened the repair book to leave the household’s change. Thane laid the mill comparison beside it, with a note asking Phia and Olan to follow the harder return together. Nothing on that page suggested the cleared outlet had relieved it.
Rowan looked at the wall. The first household patch was still there, now joined to two more sheets. Rell’s mill stood near the lower edge of his river approach. Across the lane from Brin’s garden, Del’s yard had acquired the small marks for its two rooms. There were people behind each part of the drawing who could tell him when it was wrong.
He had expected the work to change when he reached a town. He had not expected to spend an afternoon rearranging two wardens’ circuits beside a retired head priestess, or to have a healer he remembered from station visits keeping patients in rooms the account scarcely showed. At the Pass, the people whose judgment he trusted had often worked beside him. Here they might be making bread, tending a garden or waiting for someone to come through their door. He was still learning which question belonged to whom.
Thane read the drying-room entry while Rowan put its drawing beside the old one. The prepared connection had not moved, but Rowan marked where his hold had taken more effort than he expected.
“You’re not going back with Bren?”
“He’ll read it with the householder. I’ll follow the field reaches we agreed on.”
“Leave the readings here when you’ve compared them. I want to see which part changes with use.”
Rowan put the next day’s sheet beneath his notebook. There were two household names on it, and a note from Anet, who used the farther path. She had offered to show him a path beyond the last anchor in Thane’s account. He would meet her before making his way back to Bren.
He worked on the drawing through the afternoon, leaving room where the household branches met for the accounts still coming in.
He stopped when the light on the wall began to fail. Thane was still at the table. Rowan left the drawing where he could reach it, took the smaller notebook, and went to meet Soren.
Soren was closing the shop when he arrived.
The larger light frame lay folded on a board near the door, wrapped except for one end where a new fitting showed. It had worked steadily through several trials. He was taking it north to the yard that had bought his earlier piece, where they could try it beside the one already in use.
“Is that finished?” Rowan asked.
“Finished enough to leave the bench. I’ve packed everything I’d rather not need.”
“What have you left out?”
“A second bench.”
Rowan smiled and waited while he turned the sign and locked the door. Soren had tied his hair back more securely than usual. There was still a bright smear on one finger, which he noticed as he put away the key.
“I thought I’d got all of it.”
He wiped it with the cloth over his wrist.
Before they left, he passed Rowan a folded sketch of the frame. He had drawn it shut as well as open, with the new fittings beside it. Measurements crowded the margin. Rowan followed the ingenious fold with his thumb, then put the page inside his notebook.
They walked toward the river. Rowan had asked him to come two evenings earlier, when Soren said he needed to see something beyond the shop window before beginning another round of packing. The promised repairs were finished now, and the frame was ready to be loaded. He had a little time before leaving.
Rowan had drawn part of the nearer-bank path since their first breakfast. In the new page he had put the lower trees in more carefully and left out a landing that could not be seen from where he sat. Soren had looked at it, then taken him to the landing itself.
Two people were bringing a boat out this evening, one holding the bow while the other stepped in. Soren waited until they had settled before continuing.
“How long will you be gone?” Rowan asked.
“Most of three weeks, if the fitting goes well. Five days to the Pass, then farther. I want a few days with it working before I come back.”
“By cart?”
“As far as the yard. It folds, but I wouldn’t ask an animal to wear it.”
They stopped beside the low wall where the path turned. On the far bank, light reached the upper trees after the ground beneath them had fallen into shade.
“You’ll have a good deal of town left when I get back,” Soren said.
“I haven’t been waiting for you to show me all of it.”
“I know. You keep bringing drawings of places I haven’t taken you.”
Rowan looked at him. “You asked.”
“I meant to.”
Rowan told him about the people he had been meeting, and the hours he had spent at Thane’s wall. Soren knew several of them from the things they brought to the shop. He could place a doorway Rowan had not found, and admitted that he had never noticed another which stood beside a path he used most weeks.
“I suppose I ought to go past it from the other direction,” he said.
“You might see where it opens.”
“I was thinking I’d see who comes out.”
Rowan smiled. The boat had passed behind a tree farther downriver. Neither of them had noticed it leave.
“There are two people who may ask you about repairs while I’m gone,” Soren said. “I’ve told them when I return. Don’t promise them an earlier day.”
“Why would they ask me?”
“You’ve been seen coming out of the shop.”
“I’ll tell them what you’ve told me.”
“Thank you.”
Rowan rested his hands on the wall. The stone was warm where the sun had reached it. He could hear someone calling from the landing below, then a reply from farther along the bank.
“When you return,” he said, “would you like to eat somewhere?”
“I will very much like to eat somewhere. Preferably where neither of us is asked to move a bench first.”
“I can choose.”
“Do you have somewhere in mind?”
“Not yet. I’ve three weeks.”
“Then I’ll leave it with you.”
They walked back into town when footsteps on the path made them move from the wall. At the turn toward Rowan’s lodging, Soren stopped, his shoulder brushing against Rowan’s.
“I’ll see you when I’m back.”
“Yes. Safe journey.”
Rowan watched him turn into the street leading to the shop, then climbed the steps to his room. There was enough light at the window to look once more at the page Soren had given him. It showed the frame folded close, with the space it would occupy marked beside it. In the margin, Soren had drawn the door through which it needed to pass.
Rowan put it beneath his own river drawing and opened the next day’s field sheet. The houses lay beyond the streets he had learned to find without directions. He left a clean page behind it, then set the book beside his pack.
Soren’s cart was gone when Rowan crossed the town in the morning. The shopfront was closed, with the return day written beneath its sign.
At the road, Bren caught up with him carrying the tools for the household checks. They walked together until the turn toward the drying room. Bren would see him at the farther junction before evening.
Rowan continued uphill. Beyond the last house, the ground opened into fields he had only seen from below. Anet stood beside the gate he had been given, waiting with a cloak folded over her arm.
He raised a hand and went to meet her.