The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 114 The Price of Open Hands

Rovan tipped a broken grain screen onto Iven's table, and a dead mouse fell out.

“That's the least damaged one,” he said.

Iven looked at the hole in the woven mesh, then at the trader.

“You know how to make an offer attractive.”

“I know how to show you what you're agreeing to.”

On the seventy eighth morning, thirty eight and a half pounds would remain after Hearthfast's daily issue. Three residents were traveling, their eight days of provisions already deducted. The people at home still needed seventeen pounds each day, and the raised beds offered shoots small enough to disappear beneath a sparrow.

Rovan had brought eight damaged winnowing frames from a grain yard west of the crossing. Their owner would exchange one hundred forty pounds of rye for sound repairs. He supplied the replacement mesh, pegs, and cord. Hearthfast supplied the labor and accepted responsibility for work that failed inspection.

No one was buying the mouse.

Berrit examined every frame before discussing hours. Two needed new corner joints. One was twisted beyond the original owner's estimate. The others required careful tightening and replacement mesh.

“Twenty four useful hours,” he said. “Three people, spread across today and tomorrow. If that corner opens when we tension it, we stop and renegotiate.”

Rovan agreed to carry the qualification back.

Edrin offered eight hours. Berrit would do eight. Corven, standing near the equipment register with his split boot, offered the final eight if Berrit would teach him the mesh knots.

“You've repaired fishing screens?” Berrit asked.

“Badly enough to know which knots slip.”

“Then start with those.”

Iven repeated the payment terms in front of all three. The rye belonged to the fort when the owner accepted the repairs. Their participation was voluntary. Corven's boot claim would be heard separately; working for grain did not buy a favorable judgment.

He frowned, then nodded.

By noon, the yard smelled of wet cord. Berrit set the strongest frame against a straight edge and found that the twist came from one corner's old repair. Removing the wrong peg would have split the entire rail.

Edrin started to force it.

“Stop,” Berrit said.

The younger man froze with the mallet raised.

“Wedge underneath. Then ease it.”

Edrin put the mallet down. His face had gone blank in the way it did when correction sounded too much like a remembered order. Iven watched him take a breath and ask Berrit to show the angle again.

Tev offered to sort the sound pegs from the split ones. Pella limited him to a short interval, and Iven set a shallow tray where he could work with his left hand.

When the hand began to cramp, he stopped before anyone told him to.

Corven took the unfinished tray without comment.

Iven saw how carefully Jun watched that exchange. In another place, an unfinished task had become evidence against her brother. Here, a second pair of hands continued it while he rested. She brought him water and sat beside him, leaving the pegs where they were.

Across the yard, Berrit tested the repaired corner once more before covering it for the night.

That evening, nobody pretended the work was finished because the store had grown frighteningly light.

Rovan's buyer arrived the next morning with the rye on a small cart. His name was Hadrik, and he inspected the tightened screens with his own sample of chaff and grain. Berrit's repaired corner held. Corven's first mesh sagged under a heavier test and had to be tightened before Hadrik accepted it.

Corven swore quietly and did the work again.

When the final frame passed, Hadrik had the sacks weighed. One hundred forty pounds entered Hearthfast's stores on the seventy ninth day. After the resident allocation, one hundred sixty one and a half remained.

Iven wrote the balance, then crossed out the completed repair obligation.

Edrin wiped cord dust from his hands.

“Does that go against what people say I owe?”

“No,” Iven said. “It goes against this agreement.”

He stared at the closed entry. She let him decide whether a finished piece of work could matter without becoming forgiveness for something else.

At the next bench, Corven was looking at the grain cart.

“Half my knots were wrong.”

“And you fixed them,” Berrit said.

“I'd rather have fought something.”

“Screens don't usually stab back. Enjoy the difference.”

Corven laughed despite himself.

Before Hadrik left, he made another offer. His grain yard needed reliable work through winter. If Hearthfast reserved its best hands for him whenever called, he could promise regular deliveries.

Iven asked how much notice, how much grain, and whether workers could refuse particular jobs.

The answers became less generous as they grew more precise.

“We'll consider separate orders,” she said.

“You could have certainty.”

“We could have a promise whose price you haven't finished naming.”

He shrugged and took the repaired frames. The completed bargain remained complete; neither party had to turn it into a lifelong arrangement to make it useful.

After the cart passed the gate, Iven found Tev watching from the infirmary step.

“You said no before you knew what he'd do,” he said.

“I knew what he'd already agreed to pay.”

“That doesn't always stop them.”

“No. But this time there were people here who had heard it.”

Tev looked toward the workers cleaning the bench. Corven was showing Edrin the knot he had finally learned, his damaged sole flapping against the stone.

For once, the sight made Tev smile.

Then Nera called Corven's name from the claims table.

His boot was next.