Kiri's father came off the step before she reached him.
He took her by both shoulders, looked down at the shoe tied with cloth and said something too quietly for Rowan to hear. She answered at once. His hand moved to the back of her head, then fell away when he saw the people behind her.
“Tavin.”
“We came by the upper way.”
“I can see that.” He looked at Rowan, then Adra. “You've heard?”
“What she saw,” Rowan said. “I'm Rowan.”
“Kadan.”
He stepped back to let them through. Kiri went inside ahead of him, still speaking. A woman stood beside a table laid for more people than the room presently held. She heard the first part without answering, then drew out the chair nearest the hearth and pointed at it.
“Sit where I can see your foot.”
“It's the shoe.”
“Then you can take it off.”
Kiri sat. Her mother knelt to untie the cloth, and Rowan stayed clear while Tavin put his bag against the inner wall. Beyond the table, a little boy had pressed himself into the corner between a chest and the window. Another child leaned over him, whispering something that made neither smile.
Kadan offered them food.
“After we've seen where they were,” Rowan said.
Kadan took Rowan and Tavin to the first orchard tree. Below them, a bar through two iron loops secured the packing roof's nearer door. The three men had stood round its lower side.
“One went round before I told him where it was,” Kadan said. “He wanted goods he said were waiting. When I asked whose, he told me to open the door and he'd show me.”
“Was anything brought in after the loads went?” Tavin asked.
“Two empty baskets and a broken hoop. Nobody was due till morning.”
The lower track curved along the bank, hidden from the house by the last trees. A way behind them reached the neighboring yard. Kadan had fastened its upper gate; his brother, who had seen the men, was putting his animals in next door. The children were already here.
“I sent her because Adra asked us to. I didn't know she'd bring you.”
“We were at the station.”
Phia came round the wall with her hand wet.
“The cistern's full,” she said. “There's a runnel beneath the back bank. It comes out beside the lower path.”
Kadan nodded. “We keep it clear when the leaves fall.”
“Show me the outlet before you go in.”
He showed her the outlet. Inside, Adra had the children at the table while Kiri's mother sewed the split shoe.
“It won't last,” the girl said.
“It will get you out of that chair.”
“I can walk without it.”
“I know. You've brought half the path inside.”
She gave Rowan her name, Nessa, then asked if they should leave. Two women had been finishing below: Kadan's sister and Dera, who kept the tally. They were to return through the garden and the house. Neither had come.
“How long?”
“Before she went for you.”
“I didn't see them,” Kiri said. “I went the other way.”
“You were meant to,” Rowan told her. He asked Nessa to keep the children with Adra while they checked the garden way.
Outside, Tavin had heard enough. He went to fetch Kadan without calling down the slope. Rowan stood beside the wall and watched the covered space beyond the roof. The evening light had caught its upper edge. Beneath it, the lower door was almost black.
Something moved there.
It might have been cloth. He waited, looking at the space beside it rather than straight into the shade. A hand appeared against the doorpost and withdrew. The person behind it remained out of sight.
Tavin came back with Kadan. Phia followed them, her bag fastened at her side.
“Dera was finishing the tally,” Kadan said. “My sister stayed for her. I told them to come up.”
“Where would she go if she couldn't come up?” Rowan asked.
“Behind the lower wall. There's a narrow way round the water tank.”
“Does that reach the next house?”
“If you climb.”
“Can she?”
Kadan looked at the doorpost below them. “She can. The other one couldn't.”
He began going down the track. Rowan caught his sleeve before he passed the first tree.
“Tell me the way behind the wall.”
“That's my sister.”
“Then show me how to reach her without putting you in the same doorway.”
Kadan stood with his weight against Rowan's hand. Then he took a breath and turned toward the orchard instead of the track.
“Between these two. Don't go below the stone.”
Rowan let go. Tavin went to the upper gate; he could see both the house and the turn from there. Rowan asked Kadan to stay with him long enough to show him which opening led to the neighboring yard.
“Then go in,” he said. “Nessa needs to know what you've told us.”
Kadan looked as though he might argue. Phia was already moving between the trees.
“Come,” she said to Rowan. “We'll look from the water side.”
They went down together. The earth was dry beneath the nearer trees, the shallow channels between them kept clear of weeds. Rowan passed a basket turned upside down beside a trunk and a little ladder laid flat to keep it from falling. He stepped over it without breaking stride.
Behind the stone, the ground dropped sharply. A small tank sat against the packing roof, half hidden beneath a lean-to. Water came into it from a channel above and ran out toward the lower bank. Rowan could hear it beneath the faint sound of someone moving inside the building.
Phia stopped beside him. She put one hand near the outflow, without touching the stone. Water rose toward her fingers in a narrow, bright reach. It spread along her palm, then slipped down between the wall and the ground.
She leaned far enough to look beyond the tank. “Two,” she said quietly.
Rowan looked along the wall. At its lower end, a woman sat on the earth with her legs drawn close. Another knelt beside her. The tank screened them from the door, but it also kept them from seeing Rowan. He moved until he could show one hand around the stone.
The kneeling woman saw him. She opened her mouth and shut it when he put a finger against his lips.
He went nearer, keeping below the top of the wall.
“From the house,” he said. “Can you come this way?”
The woman shook her head and pointed to her companion's foot. Its shoe had come off. One hand gripped the fabric above the ankle so tightly that the knuckles looked pale.
Phia came behind Rowan. She crouched beside the woman, listened to a few whispered words and put her hand above the foot.
“Don't try it again.”
The woman let out a breath that had been waiting for permission. Rowan looked back toward the corner. From inside the packing roof came a thud, then the scrape of something heavy pulled over boards.
“Who is in there?” he asked.
“Two. The other went round.” The kneeling woman's voice shook. “They tried the bar. She came out to tell them it wasn't theirs. He pushed her into the wall.”
“Where is the third?”
She pointed beyond the tank, toward the lower track.
Rowan took off his pack and set it where the women had been sheltered. He could bring the injured woman up between the trees, but not if the men came out behind them. The way was narrow enough for one person carrying another to slow everyone after.
“Phia.”
“I have her.”
The water from the tank had gathered in a curve beside her. It spread across the earth, lifted clear of the mud and came beneath the woman's folded legs and back. Phia let the woman feel the support before raising it. The other woman reached to help, then stopped when there was nothing for her to take.
“Walk beside her,” Phia said. “Tell her where we're going.”
Rowan stood far enough above the wall to see the lower door.
“Stay behind me.”
He took ash across his palm and brought moonlight between his hands. A pale curve opened at the end of the narrow way, seated between the tank and the stone. Beyond it, a man's head turned at the light.
“Who's there?”
Rowan spread the working until it covered the opening through which the women would pass. He could see the door now. Its lock had been struck loose from one loop; the bar hung at an angle beneath it.
“Wardens. Leave what you're holding.”
The man stepped out with a short iron tool in his hand. He looked at the curve of light, then past Rowan toward the water lifting the woman. His mouth changed, anger displacing something that might have been uncertainty.
“She fell.”
“Put it down.”
Another man came to the doorway behind him. He held one of the empty baskets Kadan had named. Its rim caught the door and broke as he tried to bring it out. He dropped it with a curse.
Rowan heard the women moving behind him. Phia's water cleared the uneven ground without forcing the injured foot to move. The unhurt woman was speaking close to her companion's face, too softly for Rowan to make out the words.
The man with the tool looked toward the lower track. Rowan moved a little to keep him from seeing round the shield's edge.
“Your people have gone,” the man said. “Go after them.”
“You'll wait where I can see you.”
“It's not yours to keep.”
“Neither is she.”
He had not meant the woman, but he looked at her. Rowan saw the moment he decided to use the tool. The movement began at the shoulder, his free hand coming up to balance the weight.
The iron struck the protection hard enough to send a bright line across its face. It fell short of Rowan's hand. He kept the working seated, watching the man's other arm.
“Down.”
The man struck again. Behind him, the second one had begun backing out of the doorway toward the lower track.
Phia lifted her free hand.
Water rose from the channel beside the tank. It passed Rowan in a clear breadth, crossed the ground beneath the man's boots and took his feet out from under him. The tool left his hand as he fell. He caught himself on one palm, slid farther than he expected and struck the lower step with his hip.
“Stay there,” she said.
He stared at the water gathering between him and the tool. Then the second man called from beyond the roof, and he tried to scramble after him.
A clear band closed around his wrist. Phia lifted two fingers, drawing his hand back against the stone before he could get his weight onto it.
“Tavin,” Rowan called.
The warden came down between the trees. Rowan kept the shield across the lower opening while Tavin took the man's free arm and brought it behind him. The man pulled once against the water, then stopped when it held him clear of the fallen tool.
“Let me stand.”
“Slowly,” Tavin said.
He brought him up facing the wall. Rowan stepped forward long enough to kick the iron out of reach, then went back to the women. Phia kept the injured foot steady while Tavin bound the man's hands. Only when the cord was secure did the clear band loosen from his wrist.
The second man had gone. Rowan took a step toward the lower track. The lower bank lay open where the track bent. A little boat stood against it, its bow held by someone beneath the trees. Another person had come off the water side and was looking uphill toward the house.
The injured woman cried out behind him.
Rowan turned. The water had carried her past the narrowest point. She was calling for her brother. Her companion had stopped walking. Phia was speaking to both of them.
“Go on,” Rowan told the woman beside the water. “He's at the house.”
He held the shield until they reached the stone above the tank. Then he drew it back with him, keeping the lower opening covered while Phia took the woman uphill. At the first tree, Kadan came to meet them. He saw his sister and went white beneath the dirt along his face.
“Don't take her weight,” Phia said before he could reach for her. “Give me room.”
He backed up at once. The woman beside her began explaining. Kadan looked down toward the roof, then at Rowan.
“They pushed her?”
“She's told us what happened.”
“And you've let them go?”
“Tavin has the one with the tool. The others are below the roof. Keep Nessa and the children in.”
“You could—”
“Kadan.” His sister lifted her hand. “Look at me.”
He did. She waited until he had taken his eyes from the lower track, then asked him to open the inner door. He went ahead of Phia without another word.
Tavin brought the bound man to the first tree. Adra took him beneath the dry roof, clear of the house door, and stayed with him while Tavin watched the upper gate. Rowan went between the nearer trees to see the water. He let the shield fade, cut a basket cord caught at knee height and laid its ends against the trunk.
Below him, the man from the doorway was climbing into the boat. Someone held the bow close to the bank while he stepped over the side. The man beneath the trees remained outside it. He was shorter than Rowan had thought, with a strap crossing his back and something dark held in his fist.
He looked toward the house.
Rowan stopped behind the tree. The man could not have seen him from there unless he had been watching before Rowan came to the wall. He looked past the roof, then down at his hand. A long green stem protruded between his fingers. He bent it until it split.
Grass at his feet folded inward. The change moved out across a patch of ground no larger than the space beneath a chair. Green blades curled, dulled and fell against one another. The man lowered his hand toward it.
“Here,” someone called from the boat.
He turned. Whatever he held went into the bag at his side. He stepped through the withered patch and down to the water, leaving two bare impressions among the collapsed stems.
The boat drew clear before Rowan could see the hands of the people already aboard. It went along the bank, staying close enough for branches to catch against the outer man. Somebody pushed them away. At the point, the boat turned out of sight.
Rowan remained at the tree. Three people had left by water. He had seen two of their faces clearly and could not say whether one of the faces belonged to a man Lessa had described. The patch of fallen grass stayed where it was. Nothing spread from it into the orchard.
He went back to the house.
Inside the house, Nessa had cleared the table without putting the food away. Her sister-in-law lay on a bed brought close to the inner doorway. Phia sat beside the foot, water held between her fingers and the cloth above it. The woman who had hidden beside the tank was washing her face at the basin with both hands.
Kiri stood near the hearth. One shoe was on. The other lay beneath her chair, its new seam still loose at the end.
“Can I fetch something?” she asked Rowan.
“My pack's behind the tank. Wait for Tavin; he'll go with you.”
Kiri nodded. Rowan put away his knife and knelt beside the woman at the basin.
“I'm sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“We should have come up when he said.”
“You were finishing your work.”
“I wanted the tally right. If I left it, they'd ask in the morning. She said she'd wait.”
Rowan took the wet cloth when she held it out and put it beside the bowl. She looked at her hands as though they had not been brought back with the rest of her.
“What are you called?”
“Dera.”
“Dera. Is there someone you want told you're here?”
“My brother. He'll come looking for me.”
“Where?”
She named the place. It was a house on the cart road, not far from the turn Tavin had shown him. Adra knew it when Rowan asked her at the door. She called a man from the neighboring yard, gave him the name and told him to return by the upper gate.
“Tell him she can speak for herself,” Dera said.
The man stopped.
“I'll tell him.”
She nodded, then went to stand where she could see Phia's hands.
The injured woman's name was Sira. She let Rowan ask what he needed while Phia worked, answering with the impatience of someone who had spent too long being spoken around. The men had come back after Kadan went uphill. They had asked again for the lower door. She told them the owner was away and that nobody had put anything there for them. One took her arm when she reached for the lock.
“I wasn't opening it for him,” she said.
“I know.”
“He thought I was taking the key out. I was going to put it somewhere he couldn't reach.”
The key lay on the table now. Dera had kept it inside her sleeve while they waited behind the tank. Rowan picked it up, turned it once and put it back without asking how the lock had come apart. He had seen the iron tool.
“Did they take anything?”
“They were looking when you came. They wanted a long bundle, he said. There weren't any long bundles. We don't pack them until the morning.”
“Do you know what he meant?”
“Ask him. He wouldn't tell me.”
Phia put down the wet cloth. Sira moved her toes when asked, then stopped staring at Rowan long enough to look at her own foot.
“How soon?”
“Not on the lower track tonight.”
“I didn't ask about tonight.”
“Then ask me after you've rested.”
Sira looked as though she might, then let her head fall back against the folded cover. Phia drew the last water from the cloth into the bowl and rested her hand above the ankle once more. Her attention settled; the room grew quiet around it without anyone asking.
Kiri returned with his pack and put it clear of the doorway. Tavin stayed with the prisoner while Adra heard Rowan's account: three had left in a small boat; one had split a green stem as the grass collapsed around his feet. The change had stayed within that patch. Rowan had seen no result beyond it.
Adra wrote to Vard, including the last visible direction, the one man held and the need for an escort. The neighbor returning from Dera's brother took the sheet down the kept path.
Kadan stood beneath the eaves, looking at the keys in his hand. He had brought out the one from the table, then found he still had the others in his pocket.
“I have to go down.”
“We'll go together,” Rowan said.
“They've broken the lock.”
“I've seen.”
“Then why are we waiting?”
Rowan took the little lamp from the shelf beside the door. Its light was pale against the last daylight; he turned it away from Kadan's eyes before holding it out.
“We aren't.”
They went down together. Tavin stayed with the bound man beneath the dry roof; Adra watched the upper gate. On the track, Kadan stopped where Sira had been pushed and looked at the mark on the wall. The lamp shook in his hand.
“I told her to come up.”
“She was waiting for Dera.”
“Dera would have followed her.”
“She did.”
Kadan turned toward him. For a moment Rowan thought he would be angry. Then he lifted the lamp and went round to the door.
The broken basket lay across the step. Inside, two empty boxes had lost their lids. Kadan checked a crate of bottles beneath the bench, then showed Rowan the two remaining bundles of pressed hoops; four had gone on the carts. None was the long bundle the men wanted.
“Has anyone else asked about the loads?”
Kadan rubbed his palm against his coat. “Before the last ones. A man deciding what he could take by water. He wanted the lower door open too.”
“One of these?”
“I don't think so. I'd seen him at the landing. I'd know him again, but I don't know what to tell you.”
“Tell Adra in the morning.”
Kadan picked up the basket. Rowan wrapped the fallen iron tool in a cloth; it did not belong here.
“You can leave it. The lock needs doing,” Kadan said.
“We'll find you something that belongs here.”
Kadan looked at the bar. Its weight had torn one loop partly from the wood. He set down the basket and took out the broken fastening. Rowan brought a little moonlight beneath the bar, taking the weight clear of their fingers. Kadan found a sound length of cord on the inner shelf. They lashed the door from the outside, leaving a mark that would be broken if someone opened it before morning.
It was not a protection against determined people. Kadan knew it. When Kadan tested the knot, he looked uphill toward the light at the house.
“I don't want to leave that with her down here.”
“She's up there,” Rowan said.
“I meant—”
He stopped. Rowan let him find the rest without supplying it.
“It ought to stay shut.”
“We'll keep watch from the gate. You don't need to do it from this step.”
Rowan picked up the wrapped tool. They went back by the cart track, leaving the lower door bound and the little strip of cloth tied where it would show in the morning.
At the house, Dera's brother had come in through the upper gate. He stood with her beside the hearth, holding the piece of bread she had given him and forgetting to eat it. Nessa put more food on the table. The children had begun speaking again, very quietly at first, then with a sudden loud dispute over who had sat where before the visitors came.
Phia had finished at Sira's foot. She could rest here, and Dera chose to stay. Her brother began nodding before she answered; she gave him a look and he remembered the bread in his hand.
Kadan followed Nessa into the inner room to explain the door. She asked if he had eaten since midday. When he returned, the keys were gone from his hand.
He offered bedding beneath the dry roof and gave Rowan a chair near the doorway. Tavin still watched the prisoner. Adra took food to both of them before joining Phia; Rowan ate from his own warm bowl, his wrist quiet.
Kiri sat on the floor beneath the window, turning her repaired shoe toward the lamplight. Nessa had finished the seam. It looked stronger than the one beside it.
“You came back,” the girl said.
“You knew where to find us.”
“I didn't know you were here.”
“Adra was.”
She looked toward the two women, then down at the shoe. “I thought there'd be too many other people.”
Rowan put the bowl beside him.
“She heard you.”
“I know.”
For a while she rubbed the new thread with her thumb. Then she put the shoe on and went to the inner room, where the little boy was asking Nessa whether anyone would have to go back for his blanket.
Phia came to sit beside him. Rowan showed the size of the withered patch with his palms and told her it had stopped changing after the boat left.
“Have you seen that before?”
“Not what you've described. We'll look in the light.”
Inside, Sira asked Dera to stop telling everyone she was comfortable. Phia smiled and went to hear for herself.
The reply from the station reached them after dark, brought by Vard and the man Adra had sent down. Another warden had come in for the watch before they left. Vard had given him the names and sent word ahead to Iven that his own journey might wait for another boat.
“I can take this man down in the morning,” he said. “If he can walk.”
Phia had examined the captive's bruised hip. He could walk without help; she would check him again before departure. Vard relieved Tavin beneath the roof and asked twice before the man gave his name, Renik.
Rowan brought the lamp.
“When do you untie me?” Renik asked.
“When someone can hear what happened and decide what comes next.”
“You saw it.”
“I saw you strike at me. Sira will tell them what happened before I came.”
“The door was meant to be open.”
“Who told you?”
Renik shut his mouth. Rowan put the lamp behind him so that it did not shine in his eyes. Vard had food and water ready to help him with. Outside, Kadan asked if the man had been fed. Rowan said yes. Kadan nodded and took the empty cups indoors.
Vard had sent word along the shore and kept someone at the lower turn. The woman who came by water had seen no boat pass her after she left the far bank, but she had come in by the nearer channel. Adra read it, gave Rowan the direction and put it away.
“They may have put in before she reached that turn.”
“Or gone the other way.”
“Yes.”
Tavin and Rowan took the first watch from the upper gate. Adra spoke to the neighboring house; Phia stayed where Sira could wake without having to call across the room.
Between the dark orchard rows, Rowan found a place where he could watch the lower trunks without showing against the sky.
“Kadan'll want to come out,” Tavin said.
“Will he listen to you?”
“Sometimes.”
At the house, Kadan raised a hand to them and went back inside.
“That time,” Tavin said.
Water sounded at the tank. Nothing moved on the lower track that did not move again when the wind reached it.
When Adra came to take Rowan's place, he showed her the opening he had been watching. He did not tell her how to stand in it. She chose a place nearer the stone, waited while her eyes found the lower ground and nodded for him to go.
He slept beneath the dry roof with his cloak over the folded bedding. As he closed his eyes, he remembered the little patch of grass more clearly than the faces around it.
In the morning, Vard took Renik down to the station with the man who had carried Adra's message. Phia had watched him walk across the yard before they left. He said the hip hurt; she told Vard what would make her want him seen again rather than asked to keep walking. The tool went with them, separately wrapped.
Adra remained with the household. She would keep somebody at the upper gate until the people from the shore came through. Nobody at the station would have to guess where the prisoner had gone while waiting for the island boat.
Phia went down before the household had finished eating. Rowan and Tavin followed. The door cord was intact, and the bank showed where the boat had rested. Tavin watched there while Rowan brought Phia to the tree from which he had seen the man.
The grass lay dull amid green growth. Phia knelt and let water fall on clear earth beside it.
“Don't wet that part yet,” Rowan said. “I'd like Adra to see it.”
“Then fetch her.”
Adra left Kadan the name of the person expected at the upper gate and came down. Rowan showed the man's standing place and the lowered hand. Beside one bare impression lay a split stem, dark at its crushed end. He let Adra see it before lifting it in a clean cloth.
“The one he held?”
“It looks the same. I didn't see him drop it.”
Adra would keep feet off the patch while leaving it open to the light. When they returned uphill, a man with an empty carrying frame was waiting at the gate. He had come from a farm farther along the inland way for two helpers who had not arrived.
“Who's there now?” Adra asked.
“The usual people and yesterday's load. They heard about the shore before I left.”
The farm used the cart road in dry weather and the lower water otherwise. Tavin confirmed the channel could reach its bank without passing this roof.
“Are you telling me not to go back?” the carrier asked.
“Tavin, Phia and I are coming with you,” Rowan said. “Tell us who'll be waiting when we arrive.”