The children had put the branch beside the blue gate.
Rowan found it there three mornings after he had helped lower it from the tree. Someone had stripped the smaller twigs away and set the fork upright against the wall, with a piece of board balanced between its arms. The woman who kept the jug had written the children's names on the board. Beneath them, in another hand, someone had added the name of the child who had gone to fetch her.
“He wasn't here when we began,” one of them told Rowan.
“He was here when I came.”
“He fetched you.”
“Then he had the right idea.”
The child examined the board as though that had not been among the possible explanations. Another came out through the gate carrying a length of string. He stopped when he saw Rowan, put the string behind his back and looked up at the place where the branch had hung.
“We're not going up.”
“Good.”
“We want to keep that straight.”
He meant the board. Rowan held it while they tied the two ends. A pale patch beneath one arm of the fork marked where his moonlight had borne against the weight.
“There,” he said.
They stepped back. The board leaned.
“It's the wall,” the first child said.
Rowan let him consider that while he put away the cord they had not used. Across the lane, the woman with the jug was coming toward them with something wrapped in a cloth.
“Don't give him another job,” she told the children. “He's on his way somewhere.”
“It's finished.”
She looked at the board. “So it is.”
The cloth held three little rounds of bread, split and filled while still warm. Rowan accepted one before she could explain how long she had been waiting for him to pass. He had learned that much in the Glenn.
“There's no need to come back this way for the tree,” she said. “Bren was here yesterday.”
“I came for you.”
“That won't improve the bread.”
He smiled and took a bite. Something sharp had been mixed through the filling. She watched him long enough to see that he liked it, then began explaining which child had first thought to keep the branch.
By the time he reached Thane's room, the bread was gone and he knew all four names.
Est had kept half the long table clear. At the other end, a man was trying to make a brass fastening do what it had done at home.
“It catches here,” he told her.
“Then do it again.”
“It won't now.”
“I can see that.”
Rowan hung his cloak beside Thane's empty chair.
“He's out again?”
“He said he'd return after his meal. He didn't say which meal.”
The man laughed and pressed the two pieces together. This time they caught. Est put a scrap beneath the fastening and asked which door it belonged to.
While she wrapped it, a woman brought back a flat basket holding three keys tied with blue thread. Only two had gone out. Rowan entered the spare under its door and gave the basket to the stores woman, who appeared before he had decided where to put it.
Jeren arrived with notice of a delayed load. He had three people to tell before they hired hands for the wrong day; the woman returning the keys knew Rell's wife would be at the hall and took her copy there.
“We could put that place beside her name,” Rowan said.
“She was going to visit someone else until she met me.”
“I'll ask where to send word.”
“She may tell you something different next week.”
“Then she can tell me.”
Jeren stopped at the door to speak to someone about the load. Est caught Rowan looking at the cleared half of the table.
“You can leave that clear.”
“I wasn't going to put anything on it.”
“Good. You'll have to explain that to the next person.”
He left her the fastening's owner and went to the shop, where he was expected.
Soren had put a chair in the lane.
It was a good chair, broad enough for a man in a cloak, with one arm polished by years of somebody reaching past it. Rowan stopped before taking the place beside it. A woman stood in the shop doorway holding a cushion.
“He says he needs to see it in the light.”
“I do,” Soren said from inside.
“It's had light on it before.”
He came out with a little frame balanced across his palms. Its ends had been wrapped where the fittings were new. He set it on the chair's arm, moved the cushion away and looked toward the wall behind Rowan.
“Would you stand there?”
Rowan did. Soren turned the nearer end. A soft light opened beneath the frame, spreading across the cushion instead of striking upward into the eyes of anyone seated there.
“That,” the woman said, “would have been worth coming for.”
“Will you sit?”
She sat. Soren brought the cushion behind her back and waited while she settled it to her liking. When she reached for the frame, its light moved with her hand, leaving the page in her lap darker.
“There,” she said.
“I see it.”
Rowan remained against the wall while Soren changed one fitting. His fingers rested around the frame; its light narrowed, then returned to the cushion without following the woman's hand. She tried it again. He knelt to watch from the height of her eyes.
“Better.”
“Try the other hand.”
“I read with both of them.”
“Then it ought to manage both.”
By the time she stood, two people had stopped to watch. Soren put the frame into its cloth and carried the chair inside himself. The woman followed with the cushion. Rowan moved clear as another customer came to the counter, then went up to his room.
The portrait of Nall lay beneath its cover. He had worked on the water until he disliked it, then begun another small drawing beside the first. In that one, there was little beyond a cheek, a closed eye and the line where the head rested against cloth. It pleased him more than the full page. He put it on top before Soren came upstairs.
“Have I kept you?”
“No.”
“We can go after we've eaten.”
“I brought something.”
The woman from the blue gate had wrapped the other two rounds with his, despite his attempt to take only one. He put them on a plate. Soren looked at the filling, then at him.
“Who wanted something done?”
“It's already done.”
“That makes a change.”
They ate standing for the first few mouthfuls, until Rowan drew out a chair and Soren remembered the other. Below them, somebody tried the shop door. The small sound came through the boards and stopped. Soren did not rise.
“Where are we going?” Rowan asked.
“Past the upper gardens. A woman I know has a place along the lane. She said we could look from her yard.”
“At what?”
“The houses below it.”
“You're not working there?”
“No. I asked her. You said you might like living farther out.”
He had meant it. It was different to find Soren had carried the wish to someone with a yard.
“I'd like to go.”
Soren took the last piece from the plate. “She'll be home after the meal.”
They left by the side door. Rowan had his smaller book in his cloak. He had put it there without thinking, but when Soren glanced toward the pocket he said, “For the windows.”
“I wasn't going to ask.”
“You looked.”
“I look at you quite often.”
Rowan turned his face toward the lane before Soren could see how much the answer pleased him. They walked past the place where the path divided and took the narrower way between two gardens.
The woman was on a low step with a bowl of peas. She lifted one hand when she saw them, then indicated the gate with her chin.
“It's fastened at the bottom. He still tries the top.”
Soren bent to lift the catch. Rowan followed him into a yard with enough room for a table, a small tree and a length of washing that had been hung where it caught the best of the afternoon. Beneath the tree stood two stools. The woman had brought out a third before beginning the peas.
“I'm Noma,” she told Rowan. “He's said your name often enough that I ought to know it.”
“Rowan.”
“Good. I thought so.”
She set the bowl beside her foot. From the wall at the far end of the yard, they could see two lanes descending at different angles. Between them, houses showed their backs to one another: kitchens, steps, a little covered passage whose owner had put pots along its roof. One house had a broad window with a board across its lower half. Another had two narrow ones beneath the eaves.
“That room gets the morning,” Noma said, pointing. “The one beside it gets whatever he remembers to cut off the vine.”
“Is someone living there?” Rowan asked.
“At present. His sister wants him nearer her. He wants the house to go with him.”
“Will he leave it?” Soren asked.
“When they settle where his bench will stand.”
The house had a little patch of ground behind it, with a tree tied to a post and a chair laid sideways against the weather. Rowan leaned to see beyond the nearer wall.
“There's a gate on the other side,” Noma said. “I've carried enough things through it. Is this still about a room to work?”
“We have those,” Soren said.
“Then don't begin by asking whether the tables will fit.”
“I hadn't yet.”
“You were looking at the window.”
“I like windows.”
“So do I. Mine has peas beside it instead of drawings.”
She picked up the bowl and let them go to the wall. The washing moved between them and the houses, lifting once to show the lane beyond. A woman came through it carrying a pot against her hip. Somebody in the house with the broad window opened a shutter and called down. The woman answered without stopping.
“You could get home without passing the shop,” Rowan said.
“I'd have to learn how.”
“You could leave by its other door.”
Soren smiled. “Thane's been telling you things.”
“He left by it this morning.”
“Then it works.”
Rowan rested his forearms on the wall. The stone was warm enough that he could feel it through his sleeves. He imagined coming to this yard with nothing to show for the afternoon, sitting down while somebody finished a bowl of peas, and not being expected to make the time useful.
“I'd like somewhere we could eat outside.”
Soren followed his gaze to the stools. “Not beside a customer's chair.”
“That too.”
“And somewhere to put things we don't mean to make anything from.”
“You already have a shelf.”
“It's a small shelf.”
Rowan took out the book. He did not draw the house. He began with the piece of washing where it crossed the view, the bright line folding down toward the tree. Beyond it he put the two lanes, leaving the houses unfinished.
Soren stayed beside him. Noma finished the peas without asking to see the page.
“Do you keep the tree small?” Rowan asked her.
“I try. It doesn't always agree.”
Its lower branch reached over the place where she had set the bowl. A small new shoot had turned toward the washing. He put that in, then looked at the narrow patch of soil beneath it.
“I've never had one of my own.”
“A tree?”
“A garden.”
“You needn't have one. He comes here for mine.”
Soren looked round. “I come to see you.”
“And you look at the tree while I speak.”
She rose, brushed the empty pods into the bowl and took it inside. Soren moved closer to see the drawing.
“Would you want one?”
“I don't know what I'd put in it.”
“We could ask Corren.”
“He'd want to know why.”
“What would you tell him?”
Rowan looked at the crooked shoot. He had put it too near the line of the washing. On the page it seemed to hold the bright cloth up.
“That I'd like to see what grew.”
Soren smiled. “That's a beginning.”
They had meant to leave when she took the bowl inside, but she came back with a plate and insisted they try something she had made with the first picking. Rowan had eaten enough. He took a little anyway, and Soren took the piece that broke when she lifted it. By the time they reached the gate, she had promised to ask about the house without promising it to them.
“No decision,” she said. “I don't want him bringing the bench up here before you've seen the stairs.”
Outside, Soren waited while Rowan fastened the lower catch.
“You needn't like the idea.”
“I do. A home, with you. I don't know which door yet.”
“Neither do I.”
They walked down together. At the crossing, a man came out of Thane's street and stopped when he saw Rowan. He had a folded sheet in his hand and no breath left for a greeting.
“Est sent me. There's someone from the marsh.”
Rowan put the book away.
“Hurt?”
“No. He brought Iven's packet. Thane's back.”
“I'll come.”
Soren took a step with him, then stopped at the turn toward the shop.
“I'll be there.”
Rowan nodded and followed the man up the street. The small drawing remained open against his fingers inside the pocket until he remembered to close it.
Iven's packet had been wrapped twice. The outer cloth lay on Thane's table, stained along one edge where something wet had rested against it. The man who had brought it sat near the window drinking. Est had found him food, though he had scarcely touched it.
Thane gave Rowan the letter before saying anything.
Iven had written the day above his name. At the island station, a storehouse had been entered after its keeper went home. The lock was broken, two packed cases gone. A warden had seen people bringing a load down the farther approach, called to them, then stopped when someone drew a blade. They had taken a boat before anyone could come from the yard.
The keeper's son had followed far enough to see which landing they used. He had not followed onto the water.
Rowan read the last line twice. The warden had not recognized the people. The boat had been borrowed without its owner's leave and found the next morning along another piece of shore. No one at the station had been badly hurt. The cases had not been recovered.
Below that, Iven had set down what he had been told about a fishing settlement on the mainland shore. A group had come through it armed, asking for stores and a boat. The person who brought that account had been collecting nets on the other side of the water when it happened. Iven named him, then wrote that he had sent the account to the marsh rather than wait for somebody who had stood in the lane.
Derrit, who worked with loads at the marsh, gave the packet's journey: Iven had sent it three mornings ago; it reached the marsh two days ago, and he had left before light yesterday. The marsh warden had added the names of people sent to ask at the fishing settlement. There was no later answer. Derrit had brought the packet on rather than leave it waiting for another island boat.
Thane turned the marsh sheet toward Rowan. The fishing roofs stood close to their landing, beside the track Tavin had named on the southern walk.
“This comes out by the packing houses?” Rowan asked.
“With their loads. Ask Tavin which approach you mean.”
“I'd like to go down. We can hear what they've found without sending every question back along this road.”
Iven had also asked for someone to take the shared accounts while two wardens spent more time at the landings. Rowan could arrange that help without keeping it all himself.
“Tavin's at the upper houses,” Thane said. “Bren should know when he'll be back.”
“There's a woman coming from that shore,” Derrit put in. “She was at the roof behind me. I told her where to find you.”
“Did she see them?”
“She spoke to them.”
“Why didn't you say?”
“I didn't know she'd come today. Her son had a load. She wouldn't leave him to manage it because I wanted somebody to hear her.”
Thane pulled out a chair. “We'll ask Bren from here.”
The woman arrived with her son and a wrapped bundle that had leaked something dark onto his sleeve. She was not breathless. She stopped in the doorway to let someone carrying a basket pass, then looked at Derrit with a satisfaction Rowan recognized before she spoke.
“You got your meal, then.”
He lifted the remaining bread.
“Some of it.”
“Good. You went fast enough for two.”
Est brought her water. Her son set down the bundle beside the door and tried to rub the mark from his sleeve. It only spread. The woman took the cloth from him and folded it beneath the wet part before greeting Thane.
“Lessa,” she said to Rowan. “I live beside the boat shed. He's Toll. He was with me.”
The young man lifted his head at his name. Rowan brought a stool for the bundle, leaving the chair for him.
“You came by the fishing settlement?”
“From it.”
“Iven's heard people came through.”
“They did more than come through.”
She drank, set down the cup and put both hands flat on her knees.
There had been eight on the lane when she went out, she said. More might have remained beneath the trees; she had not gone there to count them. One wanted the boat shed opened. Another asked for food, then began looking past her at the house before she answered. They had packs and good blades. One carried a long wrapped bundle between his shoulder and the bag at his hip.
“Did they give you a name?” Thane asked.
“Not one I believed belonged to anyone. He said he was expected.”
Rowan looked at the letter on the table and left it where it lay.
“By whom?”
“I asked. He said the man who kept the boats. My husband's been dead six years. He didn't expect me to be the one holding the key.”
Toll rubbed his sleeve again.
“He didn't know her,” he said.
“No,” Lessa agreed. “Though he'd been told where to come.”
They had taken two sacks from the shed and a smaller boat from the shore. The larger one was out with people fishing. Lessa had not told them when it would return. Her son had been at the back of the shed, with the little daughter of the woman next door beneath the net bench. He could see the lane through the gap where a board had loosened.
“They didn't look behind it,” he said.
“You stayed still?” Rowan asked.
“She did.”
He looked toward his mother. She moved her hand until the side of it rested against his knee.
“That was enough,” she said.
The boat had gone along the shore, not out toward the island. Four people took it, three with paddles and one beside the sacks. The others went by the track behind the last house. Lessa had watched the turn from the shed door. One had stopped to examine the ground where the track divided, then waved the others after him.
“When?” Rowan asked.
She gave him the day. It was later than the storehouse entry, but early enough that Iven could have heard the first account before writing. He put the day beside her name.
“Did they meet again?”
“They could have. I couldn't see beyond the point.”
“Where does that track go?”
“To the packing houses. There's more than one way after that.”
Thane turned the marsh sheet. Lessa looked at it without leaning closer.
“I can't tell from there.”
Rowan drew it nearer and put it in front of her. She found the settlement by its shed, then asked for something to point with. He gave her the charcoal.
“This is too close.”
She moved the track away from the roofs and put in a little curve before joining the inland way. Rowan held the corner while she found the place where the boat would disappear.
“There. If they went farther, I'd have had to climb the bank to see.”
“You didn't.”
“I had people to get out from under a bench.”
“Where are they now?”
“At the next house. The little girl wouldn't go home until she'd seen every room.”
Est looked toward Toll. He had stopped rubbing the sleeve. She gave him a clean cloth and left it in his hand without asking him to clean anything.
“Has anyone been back?” Rowan asked.
“Not while I was there. Two wardens came before we left. One stayed by the shed while I showed the other the track. I told them I was bringing Toll up to his aunt. He didn't need to sit there looking at the empty place.”
Her son looked away. Lessa did not take back what she had said.
“What did they ask you?” Thane said.
“What you're asking. Where they went. What they carried. I showed them the cut tie and the place where the boat had been. They took the names of the people who were out.”
“Did they send anyone along the track?”
“They were waiting for someone who knew the upper turns. I left before he came.”
“Have you somewhere to stay tonight?” Rowan asked.
“My sister's. If she hasn't given the bed away because we're late.”
Toll looked at the dark mark on the bundle. “She wanted these.”
“Then she can wash your sleeve,” Lessa said.
He smiled a little. Rowan helped them lift the bundle. It smelled of fish when the cloth moved. Lessa thanked him for the water, checked that her son had his own bag and went out before anyone offered them another chair.
Derrit offered to take their account back after resting. Est took him to the stores woman for a bed. Rowan and Thane stayed beside the track Lessa had corrected.
“I'd take the road in the morning.”
“Bren's back. We'll ask about Tavin and the houses.”
“And Phia?”
“Ask her what she intends.”
By evening they had the beginning of a party, and people covering the work it would leave. Tavin could meet him on the road. Another warden would go to the marsh with them, carrying the request for someone to take Iven's accounts. Phia was at home. Rowan found her in the yard, lifting the last water from a length of cloth before folding it.
She listened without putting it down.
“The shore below the packing houses?”
“That's where she saw them turn.”
“Then I will come. I know the water there better than Tavin.”
“He knows the approach.”
“I should hope so. I've no wish to carry him through his own orchard.”
Rowan smiled. She folded the cloth once more and put it into the basket beside her.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“Time to speak to Irma. And my evening.”
“You'll have it.”
“So will you, if you stop bringing me questions.”
He thanked her and went home.
Soren had left the side door open. The chair was gone from the lane, the frame from the counter. Upstairs, the wood and the colored glass stood together on the shelf. Rowan put the little book beside them and left his cloak on its hook.
Soren came from the back room carrying two cups.
“In the morning?”
“Yes. The marsh first. There are people there who need help with the shore.”
He told him what Lessa had seen. Soren listened without asking what Rowan thought lay beyond it. When he had finished, he put one cup beside the book.
“Will you take that?”
“Not all of it.”
“The book.”
Rowan looked down. It had fallen open at Noma's washing, the two lanes beyond it still almost empty.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“She'll ask about the house before I'm back.”
“She may. I'll hear what he says.”
“Don't decide without me.”
Soren met his eyes. “I wasn't going to.”
“I know.”
Soren drew out the chair beside him. Rowan sat. They drank while the last light moved up the wall, leaving the little glass bright after the table had fallen into shade.
Later he packed. The larger drawings stayed where they were. He took the corrected marsh approach, Iven's letter and Lessa's account, a few clean sheets and the smaller book. Through the open door he could hear Soren putting away the two cups.
He left the book on top until morning. Before closing the pack, he looked once more at the bright strip of washing crossing the two unfinished lanes.