The chair set aside for Rowan had somebody else's coat on it.
He took the one beside the window. It gave him a view of the door and left enough room beneath the table for his legs. Thane watched him settle without moving the coat.
“He's coming back for it,” he said.
“I assumed he would.”
“I told him that an hour ago.”
Thane put a cup beside Rowan's packet and uncovered a plate of dark-crusted fruit cake.
“Mare?” Rowan asked.
“I haven't asked. I might have to return the plate.”
Rowan took a piece. Thane drew a folded paper from beneath his cup.
“Before the others come. Will you take this room tomorrow morning?”
“Who'll be here?”
“I usually find out when they arrive.”
“And you?”
“Far enough away that nobody can fetch me before I've had my meal.”
Rowan looked at the doors: stores, street and the inner passage. He had imagined Thane at the other end of the table, available whenever a question reached the place where a name should be.
Thane spread the paper. “The things I've already promised. One man wants the long table. The woman in the stores will show you what can go out. You know how to find the Circle.”
“And if it needs you?”
“It can come when I'm back.”
“Unless it can't.”
“Unless it can't. I'm asking whether you'll take the morning, not swear the town won't need anything difficult.”
The list was shorter than Rowan's would have been.
“Yes.”
Est came in carrying a chair.
“There's one here,” Rowan said.
“That one's waiting for its coat.”
She put hers at the end and went back for the jug.
“Jeren can bring it,” Thane said.
“He's carrying something.”
Thane went instead. Est sat, smoothed her plum shawl and took a piece from Rowan's plate. By the time he returned she had read the two questions on the packet.
The man behind him had broad shoulders and carried a flat case beneath one arm. His long pale hair had been drawn back from a weathered face, auburn showing at the roots. He paused inside the door to look at the coat.
“I wondered whether I'd left it here.”
“Only once you needed it?” Thane asked.
“Before then. I didn't need to come back until now.”
He moved it to the peg and held out his hand to Rowan.
“Jeren.”
His hand was large, the grip brief and firm.
“Rowan.”
“I've heard.” Jeren set the case down. “There are rather a lot of people who can begin a sentence with your name at present. I wanted to meet you before I had to write one.”
“I hope they finish them.”
“Eventually. Est has been useful.”
“I tell him which part happened,” she said.
Jeren opened the case and laid out the copy of Harran's instruction.
“Enna kept the original?”
“Yes.” Rowan gave him the checked addition and Enna's booking account.
“Dalta arranged the journey?”
“Only the maintained way onward. She had no notice of a special boat.”
“Has anyone asked whoever promised one?”
“Not while I was there.”
Jeren drew a clean sheet toward him. “I won't make your account do that work.”
Jeren began writing.
“Who receives it?” Rowan asked.
“Whoever can find where the instruction came from. Harran gets a copy of the question. I'd like him to recognize his part when it returns.”
He read the pages naming Nerin's three. Arven was still being treated; Rusk and Pell could give their own accounts. Rowan had promised nobody an outcome.
“Enough to begin,” Jeren said, putting down his pen. “I'll ask again if something comes back your account can't answer.”
Rowan looked at the unopened part of his packet. He had still brought too much.
Jeren turned his board over. “One smaller thing, before tomorrow. You promised the long table, Thane. I promised the room for a fitting.”
“At the same time?” Est asked.
“On two different pieces of paper.”
He took a shallow tablet of prepared clay from the case, unwrapped it and set his palm against its surface. With his other hand he marked the room's corners and the two doorways. Fine ridges gathered beneath his palm, dividing the clay around the shapes he had given it. He drew a finger along the long table's place, then left the narrow space between it and the inner door clear.
Est leaned nearer. “That's where she'll have to turn.”
“And where he means to put the roll.” Jeren looked at the actual doorway. “We might want to hear from both of them.”
“What's the fitting?” Rowan asked.
“A woman with a new walking support,” Est said. “Her maker needs to see her turn.”
“And the table?”
“Cloth for several houses,” Thane said. “The man doesn't want to cut it on the ground.”
“Can he come now?”
“He's on his way,” Jeren said. “I told him we ought to look before deciding.”
The man arrived before the water was finished. He brought the length of cord, a woman with a large pair of shears and a boy carrying the end of a wrapped roll. Rowan rose to help, but the boy shook his head fiercely and lifted his part over the threshold.
“I've got it.”
“Put it here, then.”
Rowan moved his packet to the smaller table while Thane cleared the cups. Est opened the inner door; the woman expected for the fitting was already waiting beyond it.
“I was told tomorrow,” said the man with the cord.
“For cutting,” Jeren said. “Today we decide where everyone will stand.”
“Wherever I can get the cloth straight,” the woman with the shears said.
She put the shears on the table and began opening the cover. The boy looked at Rowan to see whether he should continue holding the roll.
“Leave it wrapped for now,” Rowan told her.
Her hands stopped. She looked up sharply.
“We won't be long.”
“I'm not worried how long you'll be. There's someone else coming through.”
He moved the chair beside the passage and left the way clear. A woman came from the inner passage with Est beside her and a short wooden support in one hand. The man behind them carried another, taller and newly made. He had rubbed the places where his hands would hold it until they shone.
The woman stopped when she saw the roll.
“You could have told me.”
“We've just found out,” Est said.
“I could have stayed at home.”
“We haven't asked you to leave,” Rowan said.
“Not yet.”
He remembered watching people approach a chair and say the place would be easier without whoever needed it.
“Would you show me how much room you need?”
She looked at Est.
“If you want to,” Est said. “We can move the things first.”
The woman nodded toward a chair. Rowan brought it to her. She sat, put aside the old support and reached for the new one. The maker crouched beside her without touching her knee.
“Still the same height?” he asked.
“Until I've stood.”
He sat back on his heels.
Her first movement was small. Rowan had expected a struggle and caught himself preparing to help before she had asked. She set the support, shifted her weight and rose. Est stood where she could reach her, one hand loose at her side. The new wood made a clear sound against the boards.
The woman took three steps, then stopped.
“There.”
“Where?” the maker asked.
“It catches when I turn.”
He came round to look. The cloth boy had moved away from the table to give them more room, but the roll remained close to the woman's left side. Rowan took its weight and set it lengthwise along the wall.
She tried again.
This time the turn carried her farther than she expected. Her free hand reached toward the table, beyond her now. Est was there before Rowan moved, taking the hand without pulling it.
“I've got you.”
“I know.”
The woman breathed out, settled herself and looked down at the support.
“It doesn't catch.”
“That's what you asked me to change,” the maker said.
“You might have warned me you'd done it.”
He laughed. The woman with the shears smiled before bending to examine the edge of the wrapped cloth.
Rowan looked from the table to the cleared space.
“Thane. Could we move the table beneath the window?”
“There's a chest.”
“I can see it.”
“I thought you might.”
The man with the cord shook his head. “If you put it there, we can't get round the other side.”
“Can you work from one?”
The woman answered before he could. “I can. He'll have to stop reaching across.”
“The roll will pull.”
“Then you can hold it.”
“You take this end,” Rowan told the boy. “We'll move it empty.”
Thane took the other end while Rowan drew out the chest. A pale button rolled against his boot.
“I've been looking for that,” Jeren said, holding out his hand.
“For an hour?”
“Longer. I didn't leave it with the coat.”
Est laughed. The woman tried the support at the far end with its maker, while Rowan pushed the chest beneath the smaller table and helped Thane.
The long table fit beneath the window. The boy slid along the wall after it, peering into the space left behind.
“That'll do,” Rowan said.
“We could get it closer.”
“Then she couldn't reach the cloth.”
The boy looked at the woman with the shears and stopped. She ran her hand over the cleared surface.
“I could do this now.”
The man checked the roll. “I haven't brought the measures.”
She pointed at the cord in his hand. He looked at it, then began to laugh.
“Will tomorrow still suit?” Rowan asked the woman testing the support.
“It will if you leave that there.”
He followed her glance to the chair.
“We can leave it.”
“And the table?” the maker asked.
“That too, if Thane doesn't need it back in the middle.”
Thane looked at the room.
“I can try walking round it.”
The cloth would stay wrapped until the people taking their shares were present. They left it along the wall, clear of the passage, and the boy carried the empty cover outside. At the door, the woman with the support tried the turn once more.
The maker watched. She looked down at the new wood, then carried it out instead of the old one.
Est watched them past the step, then sat beneath the window.
“Everyone who wants to put something on that chair will have to ask now.”
Jeren wrapped the tablet and tied his sheets between the boards.
“I'll leave the letter for you to read tomorrow. You don't need me to decide when Thane goes out.”
“I have decided,” Thane said. “Tomorrow morning.”
“That isn't retirement.”
“It's a beginning.”
“Then begin.”
Jeren went out with the button still in his other hand.
Est waited until the door settled. “They'll believe you want more time when you use it.”
Thane sat beside Rowan.
“I want more than a free morning.”
Rowan waited.
“There are people I only see now when they need something. Places I know well enough to give someone else directions, and haven't stood in for years.” He rubbed the side of his thumb, a small movement against the edge of the table. “I'd like to find out whether I'd still go if there weren't a reason I had to.”
“You could have gone before I came.”
“For a while.”
“Then what's different?”
Thane smiled faintly. “You moved the table.”
Rowan looked toward the window. “That isn't enough.”
“No. It isn't.”
“I've seen you on the road,” Thane said. “Read what people sent back. They've had time to decide whether they want you at their door.”
“Some still want you.”
“They'll have me. I'm not going to vanish.”
“We'd find you,” Est said.
“That's part of my difficulty.”
Rowan leaned forward. “What do you want me to say?”
“Whether you want to begin taking more of it.”
“I do.” It came before Rowan had prepared the rest. “I don't know all the people, or who to ask about some things. And there are days I want to be somewhere else.”
“Good,” Thane said.
“Working somewhere else?” Est asked.
“Or not. I don't want to forget how to leave this room.”
“I won't ask it of you,” Thane said.
Est smiled. “Come to the Circle before you've tried all our parts yourself.”
“I haven't—”
“I was speaking generally.”
Thane glanced at her. She laughed.
“Yes. I heard it.”
While the light moved across the table, Thane showed him the small book kept by the door. Several hands had filled it with brief entries, fewer explanations than Rowan wanted and more names than he knew.
A question beneath one entry had been answered in the margin. The next concerned a door left open until somebody returned a key. Rowan could have written more. He read the names first.
When Thane went to the stores, Est crossed to the wall.
“Show me where they were.”
He went to stand beside her. The Glenn filled the part he could see most clearly. His glance caught Anet's hollow among the familiar marks. He remembered the darkness close against its held edge; he still wanted to stand there with Olan and see what lay deeper. Farther out, the work became less complete, roads reaching toward places he had marked on separate sheets. His fingers followed the journey without touching the wall.
“Farther than this part shows properly. The carts were here. The river house below the old way.”
“And the people waiting for them?”
He looked at her.
“At the other end. Someone thought they were coming.”
“Yes.”
“Did word get there?”
“Harran intended to send it from the landing.”
“Good.”
“I'd like more of it here,” Rowan said.
She looked at the wall. “The road?”
“The people along it. Enough to know where a message could go when the person you expect isn't there.”
“You'll fill the whole wall.”
“I've been told that.”
“It wasn't a complaint.”
Thane joined them from the stores. Rowan thought of the old instruction and the copies still somewhere beyond Enna's correction.
“If this changes while someone's away, I'd like them to know before they arrive.”
Thane looked along the wall. “I've wanted a map that could do that for years. One place learning what's changed in another, before somebody arrives to find it.”
“Something they could keep at the other end.”
“A connected map. I've sent plenty of copies.”
“I don't mean send a new sheet every time a gate moves.”
“Good. Est has enough to carry.”
Est gave him a look and returned to the table.
“I don't know how to make it do that yet,” Rowan said.
“Neither do I. But you've put the places and the people beside one another. That's farther than I got with it.”
Rowan looked back at the sheets. “We could ask who'd use it. What they'd need to recognize at their end, and who could show them when it was wrong.”
Thane nodded slowly.
“I'd like you to.”
It wasn't a plan yet. Rowan wanted to hear the ideas and objections of people who would use it.
They carried the cups and plate into the inner room, leaving the long table ready. At the outer door Rowan picked up his packet.
“What time?”
“Before they bring the cloth.”
“And you?”
Thane looked down the street. “Before someone remembers a reason I ought to stay.”
“You could leave by the other door.”
“I've thought of that.”
He held the door while Rowan went into the bright lane. Instead of going home to the unfinished portrait, he turned toward Mare's.
At the next corner he met Phia coming the other way with a covered plate in her hand. She stopped when she saw the direction he had chosen.
“You'll have to be quick.”
“Is there any left?”
“I was thinking of Mare.”
He looked at the plate. Phia moved it to her other side.
“You can ask her yourself.”
“I was going to ask you something.”
“That will make a change.”
“About the shield.”
She waited. Rowan could hear the question he might have brought from Cresting, asking how she had made it stronger. It no longer seemed sufficient.
“I'd like to watch what you do when you're not taking over mine.”
Phia's expression changed, interest rising beneath the amusement.
“Bring a reason to need it.”
He considered that.
“And someone to keep dry,” she added.
Rowan laughed. She went on toward her own lane with the plate. He watched long enough to see her stop at another door, already lifting its cover to show the person who came out.
Then he continued toward Mare's. Tomorrow he would have a morning's work that belonged to him. Tonight there was somebody he wanted to see before she finished putting away the flour.
He reached the room next morning before the man with the cloth. Thane had left by the other door.
The woman in the stores told him, then returned to counting bowls. The book and large key lay on the table.
Rowan hung his cloak beneath Jeren's coat hook and opened the street door.
The morning smelled of rain. A few heavy drops had darkened the step, but beyond the roofs the sky remained pale. He looked at it, then at the covered roll beneath the window, and moved the nearest empty chair clear of the path before anyone arrived.
Edda put a sewn parcel beside the roll.
“Mine. So we'll know how much to cut. The last piece was short.”
She called a greeting to the stores woman and went through. Neither lowered her voice because Rowan was there.
The shears woman arrived with her companion, the boy and a second roll too long for the doorway. Another house had added to the order. Rowan took its front end, but chairs had filled the place beside the window again.
“On the step for a moment.”
Rain struck his sleeve as they carried it out. The man hauled at the loose cover.
“Leave that,” Rowan said.
Rowan set his end firmly on the dry stone beside the post. He took ash from the pouch, the familiar green gathering about his fingers, and brought his other hand beneath it. Moonlight held pale against the morning. He drew the working over the doorway and let its curve widen beyond the step.
Rain touched it and ran aside. A heavier shower swept along the lane, turning the paving dark while the cloth remained dry beneath the low dome.
The boy reached toward its edge.
“Keep your head this side,” Rowan said. “The water still has to go somewhere.”
He waited until the boy had moved, then angled the curve so the rain ran clear of the place where people would step. The man let go of the cover and looked down at his own dry hands.
“That helps.”
“It will help more if we move the chairs.”
Edda came through the stores and saw the chairs.
“Who put those there?”
“I did,” said the man.
“Then you can put them somewhere else.”
Once he had cleared the way, Rowan helped him bring the roll to the long table. He left the protection over the step while the last people hurried through the shower.
Est brought the woman with the new support; the old one rested over her arm. Rowan set her chair clear of the table. Edda moved another for the maker. The room filled, everyone needing a different part of it except for the busy doorway.
Jeren came last with the folded letter beneath his coat.
Rowan took it to the smaller table. It asked where the instruction came from, quoted the wording and enclosed checked copies, including Harran's unchanged addition. He read to the end, then returned to the names.
Jeren waited. Across the room, the shears began cutting.
“There,” Rowan said.
The Teller leaned over his shoulder.
“This makes it sound as though I saw Enna receive the arrangements,” Rowan said. “I didn't. She had them when we found her.”
Jeren read the line. “Does she know who sent them?”
“I didn't ask. The outer part wasn't with the instruction she showed me.”
“Then I'll ask her that.”
He amended the line and wrote the question beneath the paragraph. Rowan read the change, then put his own name beside the account it accompanied.
“That's what I know.”
“Thank you.”
Jeren folded it away. Across the room the shears cut cloth; Est laughed at something the woman with the support had said. Edda laid her sewn parcel beside the first length to compare the edges.
The shower had passed. He went to the door and released the protection, letting the last held water fall beyond the step. Across the lane a woman waited with a covered jug. He recognized the blue glaze before she lifted it.
“You did remember,” she said.
“The other gate was farther down.”
“It still is.”
He smiled. “What did you want me to see?”
“The road above the house. There's a branch hanging where the children cut through. I told them not to use it, which means they'll go there to find out why.”
“How long has it been down?”
“It hasn't come down. That's the trouble.”
Rowan looked back into the room. Est saw him at the door and came far enough to hear.
“I'll have to go to the blue gate,” he said.
“Then go. I know where to find you.”
He took his cloak. The large key remained beside the book, and the woman in the stores had begun explaining to Jeren why the pan was not where he expected it.
Outside, the woman waited for him to settle his cloak before starting. He walked beside her, asking which tree, whether the branch still held leaves, who else used the path. She knew the names. By the time they reached the crossing she was telling him which children would try to go first, and he knew what to look for when he arrived.
He would be back before they had finished dividing the cloth.