The carrier did not know how many people were at the farm.
He began with the household, added the people helping with the load and stopped when Tavin asked about the two who usually came by water. One had stayed overnight. The other had gone home before the rain and might have returned by now.
“There's always someone,” he said. “I don't count them coming in.”
“Who's at the water?” Rowan asked.
“A woman taking the empty baskets back. If she's still there.”
“And who will know whether she's gone?”
“Tirra. It's her place.”
Tavin helped settle the empty frame farther from the man's neck. When they walked on, he gave Rowan his name, Hal.
“You'll want it when you send me somewhere.”
“I want it now,” Rowan said.
The inland way rose through trees and came out above a worked field. Water sounded beneath the path before turning round its lower bank. Boats used that approach when the cart road was wet.
Hal led them to a gate fastened with a loop instead of a latch. Beyond it, a cart stood beneath the trees, the shafts laid on the ground and part of the load covered. A man sat on the near wheel, mending a broken strap. He stood when he saw Hal's frame was empty.
“Where are they?”
“Not coming this morning. There's been trouble at the packing roof.”
The man looked past him at the people he had brought, then stopped at Phia. He took a step toward the gate before remembering the strap in his hands.
“Here too?”
“We haven't seen it here,” Rowan said. “Who's at home?”
“Tirra. I'll fetch her.”
“We'll come.”
They passed the cart into a yard wider than the one at Kadan's. The house stood on the higher side, with a roofed space joining it to a building used for work. Across the yard, two long doors opened onto sacks, empty frames and bundles tied where they could be lifted without rolling. A little boy was trying to push one of the smaller sacks beneath the bench. Whenever he got it clear of the leg, it folded over his hands.
A woman came out of the house wiping one forearm with a towel. Her sleeve had been rolled too tightly above it, leaving a red line around the skin. She unrolled it as she crossed the yard.
“Hal. You were sent for hands.”
“I brought some.”
“So I see.”
She greeted Phia by name. The two women took one another's hands briefly, then Tirra turned to Rowan and Tavin.
“Which part do you want me to stop doing?”
“First, tell us who's here,” Rowan said.
“For work?”
“For anything.”
She looked at Hal. He told her what had happened at the orchard while she led them beneath the joined roofs. Rowan listened without correcting him until he said that the men had gone.
“Three took the boat,” he said. “We held one. We don't know where the others put in.”
Tirra stopped at the workroom door.
“Along our water?”
“It's one way they could come.”
“I have people down there.”
She named everyone in the house, the workroom and behind the stores, and sent for the children before they could wander off to find their mothers. Her father had retreated to his own room after a morning of being asked whether he was in the way.
“He'll be glad you brought more,” she told Phia.
“He can ask me whether I'm staying.”
Tirra smiled, then took down the towel she had just hung up.
“The woman at the boat is taking empty baskets. Her daughter's here.”
Rowan left his pack beside the house door and asked Tavin to hold the road gate while Tirra helped him hear who was still outside. Hal began moving toward the stores.
“Don't fetch another frame,” Tirra told him.
“I wasn't.”
“Then you won't mind staying.”
She led Rowan and Phia down. The boy with the sack had got it beneath the bench at last.
“Come inside,” Tirra said.
“I've done it.”
“I saw.”
He went in ahead of the woman calling for the children behind the bins.
The lower path came out beside a wide tank. Water had been led along the bank into it, with an overflow running beneath a little bridge and down to the landing. Beyond the bridge, a fence separated the yard from the nearer field. Its gate stood open. Someone had left a basket of cut greens beneath the post and a small knife on the wall beside it.
Tirra picked up the knife and put it into the basket.
“They're always leaving that where somebody can sit on it.”
She went no farther toward the field. At the bridge she stopped and called to the person below.
An older woman stood in the boat with one foot on a bundle of empty baskets. She had drawn it against the bank, but its line remained loose in her hand. When Tirra called, she looked up the channel instead of toward them.
Rowan stopped beside the bridge. Past the landing, the water bent beneath trees that had not been cut back as far as those at the orchard. Above the bend, a narrow footbridge joined the opposite bank to the field path; reeds hid its nearer end. He could see the nearer part, the bank beyond it and a narrow strip of current moving against the roots. Something darker moved behind them.
The woman in the boat saw him look.
“There's someone up there,” she said. “I thought they'd put in farther along.”
“How many?”
“I heard them. I haven't been up to ask.”
Phia came to the bridge and looked along the channel. She rested one hand on the stone beside her, the fingers loose. Water near the bridge began moving differently, gathering out of the slower reach into a clear curve beneath it.
“Bring your baskets,” she told the woman.
“I've only just put them aboard.”
“They can stay. Come yourself.”
The woman looked at Tirra. She was already holding out a hand. Rowan went down the few steps and steadied the boat while she took the nearer one. Her foot caught beneath the bundle. She moved it free, gave the baskets an irritated push and climbed onto the bank.
The line remained in her hand.
“Tie it there,” Rowan said.
She looped it around the post, pulled it twice and looked upstream again.
“They called for somebody. I don't know who.”
“Come to the house,” Tirra told her. “Your daughter is there.”
“She could have come down.”
“You can tell her.”
They went back over the bridge. Rowan stayed on the steps until Phia touched his sleeve.
“There's another place to come out above this,” she said. “The bank turns under the trees.”
“Can you see it?”
“I can see where the water goes. Someone has kept it clear.”
The movement behind the roots stopped. Rowan waited. A boat's bow emerged beside the opposite bank, slow enough that he could see a hand on the branch above it. The person aboard was drawing it round without bringing the paddle against the bank.
He recognized the man from the packing roof's doorway.
The man saw him a moment later. His hand left the branch, and the bow struck it before he could push clear. Someone behind him spoke sharply. Rowan could not see the speaker.
“Stay there,” he called.
The man looked past him to Phia. Then he turned toward the people behind him and said something Rowan did not catch.
Rowan went up the steps. He could see the workroom door across the lower yard, with Tirra's father standing in it. The old man leaned against the post rather than on the stick beside him. Two children had stopped beyond him, looking back for the woman who had called them in.
“Inside,” Rowan said.
The old man looked toward the water. He did not ask why. He took the nearer child by the shoulder and sent both through the door, then pulled it most of the way shut.
Tavin came across the yard.
“Who is it?”
“One of the men at the roof. Others in the boat.”
“How many?”
“I haven't seen.”
Tavin looked toward the stores. Hal was standing just inside, the empty frame at his feet. A woman had come from behind the building carrying a little bundle against her chest. It was not until she moved that Rowan saw the child's head beneath her chin.
“Take her through,” he told Tavin. “Then keep the gate.”
“I'm here,” Phia said behind him.
Water lifted from the tank and lay across the lower approach, broad and clear above the stones. Beneath the bridge, the current took the moored boat closer against its post. The line tightened, then settled. Phia came to stand where she could see both the channel and the yard.
Rowan took his ash pouch from beneath the cloak. There was no need to spread the protection across every door. He drew moonlight between the workroom and the stores, seating it across the open place where people still had to pass. Its light gathered above the paving, pale until he spread his hands and gave it the height they needed.
The woman with the little child looked up at it and stopped.
“Come through,” he told her. “It will hold.”
She came with Tavin beside her, one hand cupped over the child's ear. Hal followed with the last boy. He had left the frame where it lay. Once the boy was inside the workroom, Hal went back to the stores to close up.
From the water came the sound of a paddle striking stone.
Rowan watched the last person reach the workroom door, then turned toward the lower path. Phia had moved no farther. The water along the approach remained raised beneath her open hand.
“Rowan.”
He looked where she indicated.
Beyond the trees, a second boat had come against the far bank. A man stepped out of it carrying a long wrapped bundle. He set it across two roots, looked toward the farm and began loosening the tie.
There were four in that boat. One remained at the stern with the paddle laid across his knees. Another held the bow against the roots while the fourth went up the bank, looking at the ground before he put his weight on it. Once the boat lay steady, the man at its bow followed him toward the narrow crossing above the bend. The trees hid them before they reached it. Rowan could still see three in the nearer boat. One of those was the man who had split the green stem.
The two boats had arrived within sight of one another.
“Tavin. The field side.”
The warden looked beyond the open gate. From there a person could come round the stores without passing the bridge. He moved until the near building no longer hid the approach.
Rowan stayed beside the light he had seated. The people behind it had finished crossing; it stood between the lower path and the doors now, giving him room to see who came toward them. In the nearer boat, the man at the bow lifted both hands.
“We only want the landing.”
“Stay where you are.”
“We can go round.”
“You can go back.”
The man looked at Phia's raised water. Behind him, somebody put a foot against the boat's side. Its bow moved out, then stopped against the changed current. Phia had not looked away from the far bank.
The long wrapping opened. It held narrow rods, a folded sheet of something darker and two tied rolls. The man who had carried it put one roll on the ground, took a rod in each hand and set them apart against the roots. He looked toward the bridge, moved the nearer rod and bent over the sheet.
He was not trying to reach them.
Rowan watched his hands. The man from the first boat had gone ashore on that same bank, below him. A fresh green frond showed beside his thigh. He took it by the stem, drew his fingers along its length and pressed it down against the earth.
The frond crumpled. It did not merely bend beneath his palm. Its broad green surface drew close along the ribs, dulled and broke into little folded pieces. Grass beneath his other hand flattened in the same quick movement Rowan had seen at the orchard. He remained kneeling after it had fallen, his head turned toward the held water.
The man with the rods made a mark on the sheet.
“They're watching,” Rowan said.
“I can see them,” Phia replied.
She lowered her hand a little. The clear breadth across the approach spread farther along the bank, leaving the bridge and the steps within it. It moved around the mooring post without pulling the older woman's boat from its line.
Across the channel, the man with the rods shifted one again.
“Behind the stores,” Tavin called.
Rowan turned.
Two people had come through the far gate. They were keeping the building between themselves and the bridge, one close against its wall while the other came through the lower growth. Both carried blades. The man at the wall had stopped to look beneath the eaves, where the stores joined the side of the workroom.
Hal was still inside. The frame lay at his feet, the door open wide enough for Rowan to see his hand around its post.
“Shut it,” Rowan called.
Hal looked past him, saw Tavin coming and pulled the door in. The nearer stranger reached it before the fastening dropped. He put his boot against the lower edge and pushed. Hal's shoulder struck the wood from inside.
Rowan left his protection seated and crossed the yard.
Tavin had gone for the second man, stopping him from coming round the corner into Hal's back. Rowan reached the door as the first one turned his blade toward the gap. He caught the edge of the door with one hand and drove it out, forcing the man's wrist away from the opening.
The blade scraped down the wood. Rowan put his shoulder against the stranger's chest and took him backward into the post. He was heavier than he looked. The post shook, and something above them fell hard against the paving.
“Let go.”
The man tried to bring his arm across Rowan's back. Rowan drew a short reach of moonlight beneath the wrist and lifted it clear of his own shoulder. The man grunted as the movement opened his hand. Rowan turned with him, using the post to keep the blade from coming round again, and drove his forearm against the elbow until the fingers loosened.
The knife struck the step.
Hal kicked it into the room and came out with the carrying frame held in both hands. He looked at Rowan, then past him.
“The other one.”
“Stay at the door.”
Rowan brought the man's arm behind him. The stranger twisted, trying to turn the wrong way into the pressure. Rowan changed his grip before it took the joint too far and pushed him onto his knees beside the post.
“Stay.”
Hal set the frame across the doorway. Its upper crosspiece struck the post hard enough to split, but he left it there and held out a length of the cord cut from the sacks. Rowan took it without releasing the man's wrist.
Tavin's opponent had given ground toward the field. He kept looking past the warden, searching for the way round him. When Rowan raised his head, the man saw the one kneeling by the door and ran for the gate.
Water met him before he reached it.
It came along the drainage cut in a low, swift reach, rose across the opening and turned him back into the yard. He struck it with his blade. The edge went through, throwing bright droplets toward the fence, but the breadth closed behind it. Phia stood beside the bridge with one hand turned toward him and the other still open over the channel.
“Put it down,” she said.
He struck again. Tavin waited until the blade had passed, stepped in and drove the heel of his hand against the man's wrist. The weapon fell into the wet grass. He took the stranger by the coat and brought him against the wall, clear of the fallen edge.
Rowan finished the binding and stood with his foot between the kneeling man's knees. The cord was rough against his palm. He could feel the stranger testing it before it had been fully drawn tight.
“Don't make me do it again.”
The man stopped moving. Hal brought another length of cord to Tavin, keeping far enough from the wall that nobody could reach him. The two wardens looked at one another over the bound men.
“Here,” Rowan said. “Keep them apart.”
Tavin nodded and called Hal back to the door. Rowan went to the opening between the buildings.
The channel had changed while he was at the stores. Both boats were clear of the landing. Phia's water had turned the nearer one broadside against an empty stretch of bank, where its occupants were climbing out among the roots. The second lay farther over, its bow still held by the man who had stayed aboard. The bundle had been folded once, hastily. One rod remained upright against the tree.
“Come away from the water,” Rowan called.
The man with the sheet looked at him, then at the two strangers held beside the stores. He raised one hand toward the others. The one kneeling on the earth stood and wiped his palm down his leg.
They did not come toward Rowan.
One went into the trees above the bank. Another followed him, carrying the shortened bundle. The others backed away from the boats before turning. Phia spread her fingers. Water rose between them and the landing, a clear height through which Rowan could see the trees broken into wavering pieces.
“Stay there,” he said.
The man with the sheet lifted his chin. He put the folded paper inside his coat and went after the others.
Rowan could have followed the upper edge of the field and reached the turn before they did. It would have taken him beyond Tavin's sight. The road gate stood open, the stores door was still damaged and Hal had put his frame across it as though he could keep people out with the thing he used to carry their loads.
“Keep them from coming ashore here,” he told Phia.
“They won't.”
“Tavin. Have Tirra keep everyone in until we know which way they've gone. Nobody follows them from the farm.”
The warden called through the workroom door. Tirra answered from inside. Her father had come back to stand beside the opening, the stick in his hand now. He heard Rowan's last sentence and stayed where he was.
Across the channel, five people moved beneath the trees. Rowan counted them as they passed an opening: the man from the packing roof, the one who had crushed the frond, the person with the bundle and two others. They kept close enough to see one another. Beyond the opening, the bank rose; he heard one call out, then the sound of a branch springing back.
The boats remained below them.
Phia turned her wrist. A clear reach gathered beneath the first boat and brought it toward the empty landing without tipping it. The other came after, slower where its stern caught beneath the roots. She drew it clear and let both settle against the bank beyond the older woman's little boat.
One line had gone with the people who brought it; the other hung loose beneath the roots. Tirra's father passed a rope out through the door. Rowan took it to the nearer post while Phia held the boats steady.
“Not that one,” the old man called. “It's split underneath.”
Rowan changed to the farther post. He put two turns around it, made the line fast to the boat's bow and checked the place where it crossed the wood. The second boat could wait until somebody knew what it had carried. Phia left it held against the bank while he brought another rope.
When both were secure, she lowered the great clear breadth above the approach. Water ran back through the little bridge without overtopping the bank. The yard seemed larger when he could see its whole lower edge again.
Phia kept one hand open toward the far trees.
“Are they still there?” Rowan asked.
“I can keep the water between us. I can't tell you what they do behind that bank.”
Tavin came as far as the corner, leaving Hal where he could see both bound men and the people inside.
“They're asking to stand.”
“One at a time. Bring them here, clear of that door.”
They put the first man on the low bench beneath the joined roofs. He moved his hands against the cord, looked toward the water and said nothing. The other began speaking before Tavin had turned him.
“You saw them leave.”
“Yes.”
“They've gone.”
“You stayed.”
The man looked down at his bound hands. Rowan checked the wrists, loosened the cord where it had begun biting and retied it with the hands held farther apart. Tavin had put the nearer blade inside the stores. Tirra's father stood beside the door until he returned, then put the stick against the wall and sat down.
“It's not the first time someone's tried coming round that side,” he said.
Rowan looked at him.
“A goat. It got into the meal. Tore three sacks before anybody thought to shut the door.”
Hal put the frame down at last. Its upper crosspiece had cracked where it struck the post. He looked at it without moving, then set it flat along the wall.
“I brought that for the load.”
“You kept the door,” Rowan said.
“I didn't mean to break it.”
“Neither did I.”
The man let out a breath that almost became a laugh. He wiped his hand down the front of his coat and went through to the workroom.
Tirra found one woman missing from the workroom. She had gone for a vessel by the field wall before the boats appeared. Rowan and Phia went to look while Tavin stayed with the prisoners.
At the gate, Phia drew the last water into the drainage cut. Rowan collected the fallen blade. Beyond the wall, the woman stood holding her empty pot; she had crouched beneath the field's lip while the strangers passed above her.
“Come round,” he said. “The gate's clear.”
“I heard more than one.”
“Two are here. Five went the other way.”
“Seven?”
“That I've seen.”
He held the gate while she came through. Tirra met her, looked at the empty pot and began laughing; after a moment the woman laughed too.
“I told you to leave that.”
“I went before you said.”
“Then I ought to have said it sooner.”
Everyone was accounted for, including a woman Tirra had seen leave before Hal returned. Nobody was fetched home merely to complete the count.
Rowan released the moonlight between the stores and the workroom. Its pale edge drew back across the paving and went out above his open palm. In the clear space it left, the boy who had pushed the sack beneath the bench began looking for something that had fallen from the eaves.
“Leave it,” his mother called.
“It's the cup.”
She came out and knelt beside him. The thing that had struck the ground when Rowan drove the man against the post was a little clay cup left to dry beneath the roof. Its handle had broken cleanly away. The boy brought the pieces to her one at a time.
“We can keep them,” she said.
“Will it work?”
“We'll see.”
He gave her the largest piece and kept the handle in his fist.
Rowan went back to the bench. One of the bound men had turned to watch the small exchange. When he saw Rowan, he looked away.
“What are you called?”
The man Tavin had held named himself Edrik. The one caught at the stores door said his name was Veth. Rowan asked them separately where they had come from that morning. Edrik looked toward the water. Veth said they had walked round the lower field.
“From the boat?”
“From the bank.”
Rowan let the answer remain as he had given it.
“Did you know there were children here?”
“We came for the stores.”
“You put a knife through an open door.”
Veth looked at the post. A pale mark ran down its lower half, ending where Hal had brought the wood against it. He said nothing else.
Phia came to the bench with water in a small bowl. She looked at Edrik's wrist before asking him to open his hand. Tavin had struck it hard enough to swell beneath the joint. He tried once to pull away, then let her hold it.
“You'll be able to tell us when it hurts,” she said. “You needn't make me find out by moving it farther.”
He looked at her, surprised. After a moment he pointed with his other hand. She examined the place, cleaned the scrape beside it and wrapped it without binding the fingers shut.
Rowan stood clear while she worked. The water that had turned a boat and taken a man off his feet was steady beside the little cloth.
Edrik watched Phia take the bowl away, its water still despite the uneven paving.
“Does she keep the river?”
“She came with me,” Rowan said.
“I saw.”
Tavin stayed beside Veth while Rowan drew a stool nearer Edrik. The two men could hear one another; this was not where he would get their separate accounts.
“What were you told was here?”
“Stores. What could go by water. How many people there were.”
“Who told you?”
Edrik looked toward the boats. “He'd been through before. More than once. We were to see the ways. They said the houses stood apart.”
“Was the island one of them?”
Veth turned his head. Edrik hesitated, then said he had gone there earlier with two others. He placed the journey beside a loaded boat leaving in rain; Rowan wrote it down for Iven to compare with the landing book.
“What did you take?”
“Money. A packet. He passed it to people who said they could keep the station looking the other way.”
“You saw it passed?”
“Yes. I heard what they asked.”
“Who took it?”
“Isker. Lower landing.”
Rowan asked him to repeat the name.
“Who gave it?”
“The man with the rods.”
Rowan put the small page inside his notebook, covered from the sun. A name, a landing and a journey to check. He told Edrik they would hear him again without Veth beside him, then moved the folded cloth beneath his swollen wrist.
Tavin had found a man willing to take word to the orchard. He knew the upper way and had come from that side the night before. Rowan gave him a short account for Adra: two men held, one swollen wrist treated; five gone inland along the far bank; two boats secured, owners unknown. The household could stay. They needed help for Tavin's watch from the station, not people coming round by water to inspect empty boats. The carrier repeated the message, took food from Tirra and left by the upper gate. Then Rowan went down to the boats.
One boat had baskets like Lessa's and a light strip where a tie had torn away. The deeper hull had a small stern cover and a loose paddle. Their owners still needed finding.
Phia came down. “I'll hold them while you look.”
“They're tied.”
“I saw what you tied them to.”
Rowan checked the post, then followed her look across the channel. The upright rod remained beneath the roots. Beside it lay the loose end of the long wrapping. It had caught against a broken twig when the person carrying the bundle pulled away. Rowan could see a little of the ground beneath it, the same flattened, dull growth he had watched around the man's hand.
“That side first,” he said.
They went by the footbridge above the bend and kept to the far bank instead of crossing the yard again. Phia held the channel clear beside them. At the roots, Rowan found a second rod laid flat, a length of fine cord and a small folded piece of paper damp against the earth. The cord had knots at unequal distances. One end had been fastened to a piece of wood marked along its edge.
He knew measuring things when he saw them.
He did not know what these had been measuring.
The paper had been opened to the edge of a drawing. A bend, two buildings and a long line of trees showed beneath marks made in a different hand. One building had the shape of the packing roof; the other might have been the house above it. Rowan looked back across the channel to be sure of the angle before unfolding another part.
There were more buildings farther along the page, some small enough to be no more than dark squares. Beside one was a little group of words he could read. Water held here. Beneath it, in a tighter hand: more than one reader.
At the next mark, the words were different. Ask again when loads come.
He held the paper where Phia could see it.
She read without taking it from him, then looked toward the farm.
“They didn't draw that this morning.”
“No.”
There was a turn on the page that had been closed when Rowan came with Tavin on his southern journey. Someone had drawn the older way lightly, then crossed it out and put the newer line beside it. It could have come from another account, or from a person who knew the ground. The marks did not tell him which.
“I want Adra to see the places,” he said. “And Iven to tell me whether the nearer shore is his.”
Phia pointed to the little group of words beneath the house.
“Keep that with it.”
“I will.”
He folded only the part that had already been folded, leaving the damp corner open. The frond beneath the man's hand had become a little heap of curled ribs. Rowan showed Phia before lifting a loose piece with the clean cloth from his pocket. Its surface broke when he touched it.
There was green growth all around it. Beyond the flattened patch, the bank looked no different from the places where they had walked down to the water.
Rowan wrapped the rods and marked the place from the tree and the upper bridge so Adra could find it. Phia brought the loose paddle ashore.
By the time they returned to the yard, Tirra had brought the food out.
She did not ask whether anyone wanted it. The bowls were filled and set beneath the joined roofs. Tavin stayed beside the bench while Hal carried the prisoners' portions to him. Tirra gave her father a place from which he could see both the road gate and the little boy with the broken cup.
“You can sit somewhere else if that doesn't suit,” she told him.
He moved the bowl a little nearer his elbow. “This is the one I would have chosen.”
“I know.”
Rowan found a seat on the low step. The ground had warmed in the sun; there was a pale dry place where his protection had stood. Across the yard, the woman with the baby had put the child against her shoulder and begun speaking about the load as though it might still leave that afternoon.
Tirra shook her head.
“Not today.”
“The other people will be waiting.”
“Then we'll tell them.”
“With what?” Hal asked. He pointed at his frame.
Tirra looked at its cracked crosspiece. “We'll put that right too. You aren't carrying a message on it.”
She took his empty bowl before he could make it part of the argument.
Rowan ate slowly enough to notice the food. He had expected to be hungry when it stopped. Instead the first mouthful made him aware of how tightly he had been keeping his teeth together. He took another and looked toward the lower path, then made himself finish what was on the spoon before looking again.
Phia sat beside him. “Tirra has people at the upper turn. They know what's happened here. They'll send before they move.”
Tavin was speaking to Edrik. Hal sat beside them, clear of both men, with the carrying frame at his feet.
Phia set her bowl down and watched the little boy try the broken handle against the cup. Each time it fitted, he seemed to expect it to remain there when he took his hand away.
“Would you like a hand with that?” Rowan asked the boy.
The boy held the two pieces together. “I want to try.”
“All right.” Rowan smiled. “I'll be here if you need me.”
After the meal Tirra changed the cloth round her forearm. A scrape showed beneath the faded red line, where she had caught the door while bringing the older woman in.
“If Hal had come back without you?”
“He'd have found us at the orchard.”
“He'll say he should have gone earlier.”
“Did you ask him to?”
“He went when I asked.”
“Then tell him that.”
She looked at Rowan. “You could hear yourself sometimes.”
“I've people who see to it.”
“Keep them.”
She went into the workroom. Rowan moved the damp drawing out of the sun. Beneath it, his own book had opened at Noma's unfinished lanes; he brushed the road dust away.
The message from Adra came before the afternoon was far advanced. She had put two people on the higher approach and told the shore wardens where the five had gone. One had seen movement beyond the far bank, then people going inland beneath the trees. Nobody was following them alone. Another man was coming from the station to stay with Tavin while the accounts and the two boats were taken in hand.
There was no word of the five returning toward the farm.
Tavin came beside the step.
“You've sent to Thane?”
“Not yet. Adra will have someone going by road. I want her to look at the drawing before it goes.”
“What will you tell him?”
Rowan looked at the farm, the workroom door with its broken cup on the sill, the lower path where the clear water had gone back to moving through stone.
“That the people here are safe. We've held two, and five have left the water without their boats. That they were looking at more than the stores.”
“The marks?”
“Yes. And what Edrik has said. Iven may know the man he named. Until somebody can put those things together, I'll keep the account with the person who gave it.”
Tavin nodded. He took the message back to the bench and let Hal tell him which side of the frame had broken. The men they held could hear them, but neither interrupted.
Rowan stood. He could walk from the workroom to the landing now without taking someone out of their own work to show him. Tirra's father saw him pass and asked where he meant to go.
“To see the boat's owner when she has time.”
“She's had time. She'll tell you you've had enough of hers.”
“Then I'll ask.”
The old man smiled. Rowan went down the lower path. At the bridge, the basket of cut greens had been brought into the shade. The little knife was still inside it where Tirra had put it.
Beyond the landing, the channel turned beneath the roots. Two empty boats lay tied where their crews had meant to come ashore. The far bank was quiet, watched now by people who knew where its paths came out.
Rowan took the older woman's line off the split post and put it where it would hold. Then he went back to ask her where the boat belonged.