The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 59 Four Months Between the Lines

Jun came home before sunset on the twenty ninth day, with her right sleeve tied above the wrist and Maret's receipt dry beneath her coat.

Daren saw the bandage first.

“Pella,” he called.

“It's a cut,” Jun said.

“Then she'll be pleased to find only a cut.”

Osric grinned wearily behind her. Pellan went straight to the water bench. They had reached the named shelter on schedule, crossed at Cinderbank that afternoon, and come up the quarry path without being followed as far as any of them could tell.

Sive stood in the hall doorway.

Jun stopped when she saw her.

For a moment, Daren feared the answer was worse than silence. Then Jun reached into her coat and brought out the folded page.

“He was admitted to an infirmary. Four months ago.”

The old woman's hand rose to her mouth.

“He's alive?”

“He was alive then, according to the entry. We don't know after that.”

Jun spoke each part carefully. Daren heard how much it cost her to keep the second sentence beside the first.

They sat at the long table. Pella washed the cut while Jun described the room at White Stair. The wound was sore but showed no spreading redness. A clean dressing replaced the road cloth.

Maret received the original receipt first. She unfolded it with Nera beside her, checked the old crescent cut and meal marks, then wrapped it again.

“Thank you,” she said.

Jun looked as though those words nearly undid her.

The attested copy came next. Pellan laid his separate notes beside it. Osric listened while Nera read both aloud. The household mark, father's name, age, extension, transfer, injury, and infirmary entry agreed. Ista's correction from Nere to Neve was clear on Pellan's sheet.

Selka sat where she could hear without taking either paper.

“Do you know the infirmary?” Jun asked her.

“Only where it is.”

“Do you know Neve?”

“No.”

Sive closed her eyes. Her grandson had reached a place. He had been injured. Someone had received him. Those small facts were enough to change the shape of the room without letting anyone rest.

“What burned him?” she asked.

“The book says scalded,” Jun answered. “It doesn't say how.”

Daren thought of hot conduits and cracked basins. He did not give the thought a voice. A resemblance was not a memory, and none of them needed his imagination added to their grief.

Then Jun described the guard, the cart, and the fallen beam.

“You helped him?” someone asked from the hearth.

Jun looked at the bandage Pella was tying.

“Yes.”

“Did he thank you?”

“No.”

The answer drew a hard little laugh from Berrit. Jun did not join it.

“I kept thinking I should leave him. I still think about it.”

Daren remembered soldiers he had dragged from fields who later returned to the enemy line. He had never found a clean feeling to place over those memories.

“You don't owe us a prettier version,” he said.

She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded.

Ista had remained with the books. An inventory was being made when they left, under the eyes of market witnesses. They did not know where the volumes would finally be stored. Pellan had noted the receiving officer's name, Hadrin, for any later inquiry.

There was another journey ahead if Jun wanted it. A route to Bellcut, supplies, questions for an infirmary that might have changed staff or closed its doors. Nobody planned it that night. Pella wanted Jun's arm rested, and Sive wanted to sit beside her granddaughter while the news remained new.

Daren took the papers only after Jun offered them. He copied the infirmary's name onto a clean board and handed the originals back.

Orin watched from the hearth with the blue wool in his hands. Jun had taken it out of her pocket while Pella changed the dressing. The boy asked whether he should put it with the papers.

“With Sive,” Jun said.

He carried it across carefully. Sive smoothed the little piece against her knee, then tucked it into the fold of her sleeve. Daren thought of the wooden horse, the birch receipt, the cuff kept long after its owner had gone. None could bring a person home. Still, people held them, making room for a return they could not promise.

Across the yard, Rovan's last two hoops stood beside the finished gate braces. Brida and Berrit had completed the old order. The trader would inspect them tomorrow. Daren's four hours of measured work on the newer bargain were also done, spread across several afternoons. Eight hours remained from the others, due by the thirty sixth day.

Iven counted the stores after supper. Eighty five and a half pounds remained after that day's allocation. The peas had bought time. No one mistook the tally for winter security.

Outside, the monastery's lights emerged against the dark. Tomorrow Rusk would return to inspect the watercourse, and Daren still had no complete alternative to show him.

Selka found him beside the gate plan.

“You didn't ask me to explain the scald.”

“Do you know?”

“No.”

“Then I would only have been asking you to make it easier.”

She stood beside him without answering. Their shoulders almost touched.

Inside the hall, Sive asked Jun to read the entry again. This time she stopped her at the infirmary's name and repeated it herself.

Daren listened until she pronounced it steadily.

A name could be a destination now.

They would have to keep a road open long enough to reach it.