Nall wanted his boots.
They were beneath the bench where Mell had put them, close enough that he could see one heel whenever someone moved past. Phia had finished with the ankle and was folding the used cloth away. He waited until she had reached for her bag before asking.
“Both?” she said.
“I don't want to arrive with one.”
Rowan brought them out. Mud had dried along the welt of the right one. The other was laced loosely, its tongue pushed forward to make room that had not been there when Nall put it on. Rowan tied them together and laid them beside the young man's bag.
“Thank you.” Nall looked toward the door. “Are we going?”
“Ansa wants to see you with the frame before anyone lifts it.”
“She's seen it.”
“With you on it.”
Nall let his head rest against the folded cloak. Across the room, Arven was watching the boots.
Pell came in carrying water and stopped between them, uncertain which vessel to fill. This morning there were bags against the wall and other people doing the things he had learned.
“Here,” Arven said. He raised his good hand before Pell could fill the cup. “I have to carry that.”
“I can carry it.”
“I know you can.”
The boy poured less.
Outside, Harran was trying to pack the grain into a bag too small for it. The woman from the river house stood beside him with her arms folded. Whenever he shook the bag, she moved one foot away from its open mouth.
“There was another sack,” he said.
“There still is. You've put the pot in it.”
He stopped shaking.
Rowan went to the spring and washed. The water was cold enough to take the last of sleep from his hands. Beyond it, Phia's protection made the far trees look slightly farther away than they were. A bird came down to the edge of the run, dipped its head and flew up again without noticing the held curve above it.
Derren stood with Nerin beside the wall. They made room for Rowan without stopping their argument.
“You need someone at this end,” Nerin said.
“I have someone.”
“I mean someone who'll stay.”
“So do I.” Derren glanced toward the doorway. “She lives down there. I've been asking her to come up for years.”
“You've chosen an attractive morning to begin.”
“There's a roof and the spring works. I didn't promise her quiet.”
Nerin turned to Rowan. “We'll bring the three down after Ansa's satisfied. There's room to keep them apart at the settlement. She can see Arven there without everyone stepping over his bedding.”
“And you?” Rowan asked Derren.
“As far as the turn with you. Then back here. I want the path kept while we work out what needs doing below it.”
“I'll leave you the changes before I go,” Rowan said.
“I have them. Show me where to read what you put down.”
They went together to the nearer edge. Rowan took a little ash and found the protection without drawing it farther toward him. Phia had seated the curve in water that moved through the spring and the wet ground beneath them. His own beginning lay within it, familiar enough that he could pick it out, different enough that he could not have remade the whole from memory.
Derren knelt on the dry stone and put two fingers against its lower face. He followed what he could, then moved his hand.
“Here.”
Rowan nodded. “That's the part beside the door.”
“I can keep an eye on that.”
Ansa came out with Nall's bag and a flat piece of bread. She gave Rowan the bag.
“Mell and Tessa can take him. They know the turns and where to stop. He wants the island, but he doesn't need to reach it today.”
“Will he reach the settlement?”
“Yes. Ask whoever has the boat about the rest.”
She went back inside. By the time Rowan followed, Nall was sitting forward with Phia supporting the injured foot. He held his boots in his lap.
“I can keep these.”
“Until they lift you,” Rowan said.
“You could tie them on the end.”
Mell looked at the frame. “Then I'd have them in my face at every hill.”
“The other end.”
Tessa took the boots from him. “I'll decide where your boots go. You decide whether that cloth is folded under your knee.”
He shifted the cloth. When they lowered him back, his hand opened on the side rail. The frame was narrower than Phia's cradle, with less room to forget how he was being carried. She drew water into a low support beneath the ankle while Ansa watched him settle.
“Tell them if it changes,” Ansa said. “Don't save it until the next stop.”
Nall agreed. Harran came in for the case and found Enna already holding it.
“I can take a turn.”
“You can take the grain.”
“I have the grain.”
“Then we're ready.”
They were not all going together. Ansa stayed with Arven while Nerin made ready to bring him down later. Rusk had been taken outside, where he could put on his coat without passing the beds. Pell stood beside the clean shelf, holding the last folded cloth.
Rowan went to him.
“Nerin will go with you.”
“I heard.”
“He'll want you to tell him what you told me.”
The boy looked toward Arven. “With him there?”
“You can ask to speak separately.”
Pell pressed a corner of the cloth between his fingers. “Does that change it?”
“It changes whether you can finish a sentence.”
For the first time that morning, Pell looked directly at him.
“I didn't know there'd be anyone hurt.”
“Put that in your account. Put what you did after you knew in it too.”
Arven had closed his eyes. Rowan could not tell whether he was asleep. He thanked Pell for the water, then left him with the cloth and the people who would travel with him.
Phia came out last. She paused beside Derren and laid her hand over his on the stone. They spoke too quietly for Rowan to hear. When she took it away, Derren remained where he was, listening to the spring.
The departure took less noise than the preparations. Mell called the first lift. Nall caught his breath, said he was comfortable and sounded surprised to find that he was. The woman with the grain sack went ahead to open the gate. Harran followed Enna through it. Oswen had his bag slung across his good shoulder, the covered arm resting against his coat.
He stopped beside Rowan.
“I can carry something.”
“You've got your bag.”
“It isn't much.”
Rowan lifted Phia's bundle from the wall. “Do you want this?”
Oswen judged it before reaching. “Yes.”
Rowan gave it to him, and he went through the gate with something that belonged to the journey.
The path to the settlement kept them beneath trees for most of the morning. Its turns were broader than those below the standing stone. Two children passed carrying a basket between them; they stepped aside to let the frame through, then stood watching Nall until Tessa asked whether they meant to open the next gate or simply admire him.
One ran ahead. The other walked beside the frame.
“Did you fall?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Down the old path.”
The child considered that. “You're not meant to go there.”
Nall looked up at Tessa. She was watching the gate.
“I know that now,” he said.
They rested where Ansa had shown the bearers, beneath a spreading tree. The frame stood level while they sat. Phia knelt beside Nall; a little water moved within the padding and he stopped gripping the rail.
Enna handed Harran food and made him sit before giving him the case.
“I want you to read this.”
He wiped his fingers on his coat and took the sheet.
Rowan saw the old landing named in the first lines. Enna had written the day they left the carts, the people who went and the promises on the instruction. Farther down, her hand grew larger. She had included the return they had attempted, Nall's fall and the days spent at the house.
“You haven't put what I said about the boat,” Harran said.
“Put it in.”
He looked at the space beneath her last line. “You remember it.”
“I want you to remember it.”
Rowan lent him a pen. Harran crouched beside the case and wrote across its lid. Enna read his addition, then tied it beneath the original instruction.
“That will go with mine.”
“I'd like Cadd to see it,” Harran said.
“So would I.”
No one filled the silence for him. After a while he got up to fetch Nall water.
The first houses stood where the trees thinned. Their gardens came out farther than their roofs suggested, with beans trained above low walls and washing hung where the path caught the wind. The child who had opened the gate ran through one doorway and emerged with a woman holding a towel. She listened to Mell, glanced at Nall and went ahead of them toward a broad building above the lower lane.
Derren stopped at the turn. Nerin knew which rooms were being kept; Derren had the spring to return to.
“You've work enough here,” Rowan said.
“We usually have work enough. It helps when it's the work we knew about.”
He took back the sheet showing the protection, to go with his account, and turned uphill.
Ansa's household had room for a bed beside the light, a door onto the lane and a separate entrance to two back rooms. Mell went inside to move a chair.
Nall watched the doorway.
“Am I staying?”
“For tonight,” Phia said. “You can ask about tomorrow after you've eaten.”
“I have eaten.”
“Then ask when Ansa's here.”
He looked as though he might argue, but Mell had returned. They lifted the frame through the door, turned it without striking the post and set it beside the bed. Nall gave Tessa the boots himself.
Outside, people were carrying sacks uphill from a landing hidden behind willow.
“You'd like to see the boat,” Phia said.
“Whoever keeps the arrival names.”
“That might be a different person.”
“I've learned to ask.”
She smiled and went back inside.
At the landing, a woman held a rope away from the water, a slate beneath her arm. Rowan waited until it was fastened before asking about the boat arranged at the old river house.
She asked the day, then who had gone down.
“Six people. They're here now. Above the lane; one hurt ankle.”
Her breath caught. She handed the rope to a man carrying sacks.
“Show me the paper.”
“Enna has it.”
“Then show me Enna.”
On the steps she gave her name, Dalta. She had sent no boat to the river house; if somebody had asked, she would have arranged it with people who used that shore.
Enna was outside with her case open. Dalta recognized the soft-edged instruction before she had finished unfolding it.
“That's the old direction.”
Harran came to the doorway behind her.
“It was sent to us.”
“I can see that.” Dalta held it by the clean margin. “We used this wording before the lower channel shifted. The regular boat came against the steps then. Whoever copied it has left that part exactly as it was.”
“Do you keep a copy?” Rowan asked.
“Of what I send now. I may still have the older one.”
“I'd like both beside this.”
She looked toward the lower lane. Her boat was waiting, the sacks not all counted. Enna closed the case.
“I'll come with you.”
“He can stay with Nall,” Enna said, and went down the lane with her.
Harran watched them turn. From inside came Nall asking whether the window could be opened farther.
“She doesn't usually do that,” Harran said.
“What?”
“Leave before I've said where we're going.”
Rowan looked at him. Harran rubbed his hand over the dust on his sleeve, making a pale mark darker.
“I knew she was keeping the dates.”
“She was keeping six people.”
He let Harran think about that. When Nall asked again about the window, the officer went inside and opened it.
Ansa arrived before Dalta returned. Nerin came with her, Arven carried between two people Rowan had not met. Pell followed with the water jar tied beneath his pack; Rusk walked ahead of Nerin, saying nothing until he saw Harran.
“You found your men, then.”
Harran's hand closed on the window shutter.
“Into the back room,” Rowan said.
Nerin held the door. Rusk went in without taking his eyes off Harran.
Ansa directed Arven's bearers and found a place for Pell's jar while the bed was made ready. Once Arven was settled, Nerin took Pell through the other entrance.
Harran remained at the shutter.
“He was there?”
“At the carts. Venn can tell you what he saw. I can tell you about the roof.”
“What did he mean?”
“You'd have to ask him.”
Harran let go of the wood. “I don't think I will.”
He went to Nall instead. Rowan stood in the lane until the doorway was clear again.
Nerin called him into the back room before the meal. There was a bench, a small table and a window too high for anyone seated to look out. Rusk occupied the end nearest the wall. Pell sat on the other side, his hands between his knees.
“I've taken his account,” Nerin said, indicating Pell. “I'll want yours separately. Ansa will tell me when Arven's fit to finish.”
“I can finish now,” Rusk said.
“I expect you can.” Nerin turned back to Rowan. “Venn's downstairs with the landing men. He'll be here after he eats.”
Rowan put his wrapped packet on the table. It held the attack at the roof, his account of the two men leaving and the words Venn had heard earlier. Nerin opened it and found the blades named separately beneath their owners' descriptions.
“These stay with me.”
“Yes.”
“You can write that I didn't draw on anyone,” Rusk said.
“I've written what I saw.”
Rusk watched Pell. The boy pressed his knees together beneath the table.
Nerin drew a clean sheet toward him. “Your turn. Where were you when the trees were cut?”
Rowan went out before the answer. He would give his account in the next room.
Venn waited below the window, eating an apple. He held a second one against his coat. When Rowan came down the steps, he offered it without looking toward him.
“From the boat,” he said. “She said to take two.”
Rowan took it. They stood clear of the door while a woman carried fresh bedding inside.
“You're going back to Cadd?”
“When Nerin's done with me. He'll need people if the loads move.” Venn turned the apple, searching for the place he had bitten. “I thought we'd be off this road before the next rain.”
“You may be.”
“I meant the last one.”
Below them, someone pushed a barrow up from the landing. Its iron rim struck every stone in the lane. Rowan stepped back to let it pass. Venn watched the load go round the corner before he spoke again.
“He knew we were still up there.”
Harran was inside with Nall. The open window gave them the sound of his voice, asking whether the support was too close to the foot.
“He asked about bringing a boat back,” Rowan said.
“Did he?”
“Sella heard him ask.”
Venn looked at his apple. “We could have used one.”
“Yes.”
For a while they ate. The fruit was tart, its skin thicker than Rowan expected. He had not noticed how long it had been since he ate something that had not come from a bag or a pot.
“I'm still angry with him,” Venn said.
“You don't have to stop because we found him.”
“I thought you'd tell me about the six.”
“You brought them food.”
Venn's mouth shifted. He took another bite, then lowered his hand.
“I heard him asking Nall what he wanted. He never asked us.”
Rowan glanced toward the window. “You can tell him.”
“In there?”
“When you're ready. He can hear you somewhere other than beside a bed.”
Venn rubbed a thumb over the place on his knuckle where the strip had been. A pale line remained beneath it. “And if he doesn't want to?”
“He can say so.”
That made Venn look up. Rowan turned the apple in his hand, choosing how much he meant to say.
“I can put what happened on the road before him. I can ask him to answer it. I can't give you the answer you'd like him to make.”
“I'm not sure I'd like any of them.”
“Then you'll know when you've heard it.”
The barrow came back empty. Its owner leaned over the handles and coasted the last few paces downhill, one boot dragging to slow it. Venn watched him with open envy.
“That's the way to carry a load.”
“You'd have got it stuck at the first root.”
“Not if you moved the root.”
“I'd be at the second one.”
Venn laughed, briefly enough to surprise himself. He pushed the apple core into his empty food wrapping instead of dropping it beside the steps.
“I'll speak to Nerin first.”
“He's expecting you.”
“I know.” He looked toward the house again. “I'm glad we found them.”
Rowan nodded. Venn went up the steps, leaving Rowan beside the window with the taste of the apple and no one waiting for him to make the morning simpler than it had been.
Dalta had found the old wording in a bound book beneath her landing table. The paper Enna laid beside it bore the same turn of phrase: the steps at the river house, the boat that would meet them, the name of a keeper who no longer took those arrivals.
The present direction named the maintained landing and Dalta.
“When did this change?” Rowan asked.
She found the first use of the new wording. Enna compared the day with the reception instruction. The newer direction had been in use before Harran's party was asked to travel.
“This wasn't written here,” Dalta said, touching the soft page. “I don't know whose hand it is.”
“Nor do I,” Enna said. “It came inside the arrangements.”
Harran pulled a chair close enough to read. This time he waited while both women set down their papers.
“Send them together,” he said. “The old wording, the new direction and what we were given. With my addition.”
Enna took out a clean sheet. “I'll need to keep the instruction.”
“Copy it,” Rowan said. “Dalta can check that part before she goes.”
They did it at the table beside the open window. Dalta went back down to count the sacks before the boatman came looking for her. Enna kept the original in its case, but the new packet went beside Nerin's outgoing accounts.
By evening, Nall could hold his own spoon. The woman from the river house had fetched bread and was arguing with Mell about whether he had eaten enough. Tessa had gone home with the frame, leaving the boots tied to Nall's bag.
Ansa changed Oswen's arm covering beneath the window. Phia had left her account with her and was drying the cloth she would take home.
“Are you going in the morning?” Harran asked Rowan.
“If Nerin has what he needs.”
“And us?”
Rowan looked toward Nall.
“Ask him.”
Harran took the chair beside the bed. He placed it where Nall could see him without turning his head.
“The landing has a boat tomorrow. It can take the people ready to go. I'd like Enna there to speak to the station before we arrive.”
Nall turned his spoon in the bowl. “Am I staying?”
“Ansa says you can rest here. She'll tell us when the next journey would be sensible.”
“I heard her.”
“Is there someone you'd like with you?”
The young man looked across the room. The woman carrying the bread stopped arguing.
“Her, if she'll stay.”
“I've got a name,” she said. “You've had time to learn it.”
Nall smiled for the first time since they set down the frame. “Ula. Would you stay?”
“Yes.”
Harran nodded. “I'll leave enough for the two of you.”
“Three,” Oswen said from the window. “Ansa wants me here tomorrow. I'll help Ula.”
Enna wrote it down, then crossed out the number and wrote the names instead.
They ate with the window open. Nall told Mell what had been in the rooms he was meant to prepare, until they were both rearranging furniture in an island building neither had seen. Harran listened. Once he began to correct the size of a room, then stopped and asked Enna whether she had the description.
She had. It was beneath the directions that had brought them to the wrong place. She took it out, and this time they spread the page where everyone could see.
Before putting away his pen, Rowan finished Cadd's promised copy and Thane's account: who had reached the settlement, the correct landing and where to find the separate statements.
Ula moved the bread into the space he had cleared.
“You can have that now.”
He took it. Beyond the willow, the last boat was coming against the steps. Someone called Dalta's name from below, and she answered before the call had finished.