The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 40 A Place at the Table

Daren's chair remained empty while Keela explained her terms.

He sat on a bench with his leg supported, close enough to hear and far enough from the table that nobody could pretend his body filled every place of authority. Iven had arranged it. She had not asked whether the symbolism pleased him.

The sixteenth morning shone through the hall's patched shutters. Seventy residents were eating thin barley porridge supplemented with roots. The two visiting burners had brought their own food and shared dried apple with the children before beginning business.

Keela wanted the crossing repaired, the damaged approach kept sound, and a clear answer about who could speak for Hearthfast when Daren was away or injured. In return, Cinderbank would allow agreed travelers and pack animals through its path, subject to the deck's safe load and the burners' own needs.

“No soldiers using our roofs as a road to yours,” she said.

“No taking animals because we need them,” Iven added.

Keela nodded.

Brida laid out the work. The replacement brace was ready. Two worn anchor lashings needed changing before heavy loads crossed again. Hearthfast had cord, but giving too much would weaken its own repairs.

They counted lengths rather than calling the supply sufficient by hope.

Jun offered to carry the witness account to Halvek when the crossing was ready. Berrit offered the brace he had cut, not a promise to work beneath the suspended deck. A burner named Ress would fit the lower fastening, using his own safety line.

Daren listened while people described what they could actually do.

It was slower than issuing orders. It produced fewer hidden objections.

Keela asked who would decide if another party arrived after dark.

“Brida for the route's safety,” Iven said. “The people maintaining it for the work. Food comes through me.”

“And if you disagree?”

No one answered immediately.

Daren had been waiting for that silence. He could fill it by saying the final choice was his. He could make the whole discussion look generous while keeping its outcome in his hand.

Instead, he asked what disagreement was most likely.

“People needing passage when the bridge is unsafe,” Brida said.

“Then it stays closed,” Keela answered. “Help them wait somewhere safe. Don't put them over it to make yourselves feel kind.”

That rule was written first.

They agreed to review the arrangement after seven days. Either side could stop passage when there was a specific danger, but would send word rather than letting travelers discover a missing deck in darkness. Neither side promised warriors on demand. Witnesses would record seizures and attacks together when they could do so without creating more victims.

It was a route agreement, not an alliance against the whole mountain.

Berrit asked for the working names to be written below the agreement, so that a traveler could find the right person without asking for a lord. Keela approved. Jun wrote slowly, leaving space for names to change when someone was ill or absent.

Daren watched his own name become one mark among several. He felt a brief, unreasonable sting. The fortress had become safer because he was less necessary to each decision, and some frightened part of him experienced that as a loss.

He recognized the feeling without obeying it. When Jun asked him to check the spellings, he checked only the spellings.

Daren put his name beneath the others only after the terms had been read aloud.

Keela studied the marks. “That will do to begin.”

After she left to oversee the repair, Iven brought the grain tally to his bench. By that evening's allotted ration, seventy seven and a half pounds would remain. No one had taken a transport f*e from the food, but the sacks kept shrinking anyway.

“We have a road,” she said. “Now we need another trade.”

Daren thought of Harrowmere's crossing and the six days he owed. He could not pay that debt by sending someone else without asking. Nor could he use his injury to pretend the promise had been ceremonial.

He dictated a message to Hessa: the animals had passed safely onto the lower road; his knee had worsened; he asked to schedule his work when he could travel, with inspection and plans sent sooner if useful. She could refuse the change. He would wait for her answer.

Orin carried the finished message to Jun, holding it by the dry edges.

The boy had begun to trust paper for ordinary things again.

That afternoon, the monastery's bell sounded. Three strokes, a pause, and the long note Selka had described.

Everyone in the hall stopped.

Brida went to the door. The watchers answered from the quarry: the third chain had touched the ridge, held briefly, then lifted again. More testing. No descent toward Hearthfast yet.

People returned to their work, though not as easily as before.

Daren looked at the two barley shoots on the shelf. They were still alive. Across the room, the closed iron chest held his old core, offering a kind of strength he had not accepted and could not safely reach.

Near sunset, Sive approached the table with Jun beside her. The old woman laid down a strip of cloth bearing the mark Selka had drawn for Tev's transfer.

“We have settled who speaks for the road,” she said. “Now we settle who answers for the people sent away.”

Selka rose slowly from her place beside the hearth.

Daren's first instinct was to stand with her.

He remained seated while she walked to the table alone.