The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 57 The Book at the Door

“A dispatch entry,” Jun said. “About my brother.”

The guard held out his hand.

She kept the folded copy against her chest. Behind him, two laborers began loading the weighing house's outer records into a crate. They moved quickly, stepping around the cart whose wheel had struck the post.

“Family copies remain with the office during transfer,” he said.

Ista closed the book.

“Show me that order.”

He turned on her. “The office is being moved.”

“Then list what you're taking.”

Jun could hear the market outside. So many people, so close, and none yet aware that the small room had become a trap. Osric stood with his unstrung bow against one shoulder. He could not make it ready without giving the guard a reason to draw blood.

The guard reached for Jun's paper.

She stepped behind the table.

“It's a copy. She marked it for me.”

His fingers closed on the edge anyway. Jun let the loose question sheet come away rather than tear the attested page beneath it.

He read the first question and swore.

“The answer,” he said.

Outside, wood cracked.

The cart had been left on the sloping cobbles with one wheel against a loose stone. A mule shied at a falling crate. The stone rolled. The cart lurched backward into the post again, harder this time.

A beam dropped across the doorway.

The guard went down beneath it.

Dust burst through the room. Osric caught Ista by the shoulders and pulled her from the falling shelf. Books struck the table and slid into the wash basin. Water spread beneath their bindings.

Jun clutched the copy so hard she crumpled it.

“Pellan!”

“Here!”

He was beneath the window, one arm over his head. A second crack sounded overhead. Jun looked up and saw daylight where roof tiles should have been.

The window was wide enough to climb through. The guard's hand reached from beneath the beam blocking the door.

For one clear instant, Jun knew she could leave him.

He had tried to take her brother away again, reducing the first real news to a paper she was not permitted to carry. She could step over the broken stool, climb out, and let somebody else decide whether he deserved help.

Then his hand stopped reaching.

“Osric. The beam.”

They could not lift it. The wood had caught beneath the fallen shelf, pinning the guard's thigh against the threshold. Osric tried once and shook his head.

Jun saw the weighing lever under the table.

It was thick ashwood, polished by years of use. She dragged it free and pushed one end beneath the beam. Pellan wedged a stone weight under the middle while Osric cleared the broken shelf.

The guard cried out when they pressed down.

“Pull your leg,” Jun said.

“I can't.”

“Your other leg. Push with it.”

Dust trickled into her eyes. The lever bent. Her right forearm scraped a nail, and sudden warmth ran beneath her sleeve.

Ista shouted through the window for help. Two market porters appeared outside the fallen doorway. One seized the guard beneath the arms. The other pushed the cart forward, taking its weight off the ruined post.

Jun leaned harder.

The beam rose the width of two fingers. The porters dragged the guard clear. Osric pulled Jun backward just before the lever split with a sound like a snapped bone.

They escaped through the window one at a time. Ista came last, carrying the thin dispatch book under her coat. A porter had saved the larger meal ledger from the basin, though its lower edges were soaked.

Jun stood in the market with blood dripping from her cuff. Her knees would not stop shaking.

The guard lay beside a water trough. He was conscious, furious, and unable to stand.

“Those records are Summit property,” he said.

Ista faced him. “Then help me record where they go.”

The porters watched. So did the woman who owned the neighboring oil stall and three carters whose carts now blocked the lane. The room had lost its walls. It had gained witnesses.

Another officer arrived from the weighing yard. Ista demanded an inventory before the books moved. She named the saved volumes and the damaged shelf. She also named Jun's family inquiry and the attested copy already issued.

Jun waited for the officer to order it seized.

Instead he looked at the broken post, the injured guard, and the growing crowd.

“Keep your copy. Leave the books.”

She had never intended to take them. The permission still felt like something he believed he had given her.

Pellan bound her arm with clean cloth from their travel roll. The cut was shallow but dirty; they washed it before covering it. Osric retrieved his bow from the window ledge.

Ista would remain to supervise the inventory. She refused Jun's offer to come with them.

“Bring your next question to Bellcut,” she said. “This room has given you what it can.”

By afternoon they were on the homeward road. Jun checked the receipt, the attested copy, and Pellan's separate notes before they left the last houses.

All three had survived.

Pellan offered to carry the papers until her arm hurt less. Jun handed him the questions but kept Maret's receipt herself. Osric walked behind them, listening to the road instead of asking her to speak.

She had wanted to return carrying an answer. Instead she carried an address, a four month old injury, and the knowledge that she had saved a man who might still have taken them from her.