An Address Is Not Permission

In the morning, Cal was in the yard carrying water. The pails were small because his injured arm would not manage a large one. He took twice as many journeys as the innkeeper's son and looked as though he considered the difference deserved.

Ada intercepted him beside the pump.

“You can stop doing that when it hurts.”

“I offered to help.”

“Then help. Don't turn it into something I'm supposed to watch.”

He put down the pails.

The pump handle continued trembling after his hand had left it. A drop gathered at the spout, held, fell.

“I thought,” he said, “if Tovan had a person she could vouch for, she would take a greater risk for the rest of you.”

“So you put yourself into the calculation.”

“Yes.”

“And us.”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell her where the other copies went?”

“No.”

“Did you give her Neris's name?”

“No. Or Orla's. I gave her names she already knew were wanted. I thought that made a difference.”

“It does make a difference.” Ada watched his face. “It doesn't make all the difference.”

He nodded once.

Beyond the stable, the innkeeper was explaining the value of runner beans to a rider who had not been present when the horse ate them. The rider listened with the resignation of a man who had been appointed responsible for a category of events rather than a particular event.

Cal rubbed his good hand across his forehead.

“I spent years learning to ask for things through somebody who could say yes. A better room for another ward. Permission to send a letter. A place at a table where they might hear my father differently. If I could make the request useful to them, sometimes I got it.”

“And sometimes somebody else paid.”

“Yes.”

Ada leaned against the pump. The wood was cold through her coat.

“When I asked whether you trusted me, I hadn't sent it yet,” he said. “I was trying to decide.”

She remembered the river, his expression, the kiss.

“That makes it worse.”

“I know.”

“No. You need to hear this part. I thought you were asking me about something between us. You were also trying to make yourself feel able to do a thing I hadn't agreed to.”

He looked at the ground for a long moment. When he looked up, his face had lost the careful readiness with which he usually received a difficult answer.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

She believed him. Belief did not return her to the evening beside the river.

Upstairs, the others were already arguing over Serit's terms. Ada went in without waiting for Cal. He followed later and took the chair nearest the door.

They did not make one decision. They made several.

Ysra would go if her records were protected. Tomar would not travel under a description of himself as a recovered dependent; Serit crossed out the phrase and initialled it. Ren would attend as an independent engineer, not as a former servant seeking reinstatement. Pella would take work with the river carriers and meet them in Orison by her own route. She wanted no protection that could be withdrawn because a grandparent failed to behave.

Ada would go with her aunt.

“I need you to know,” she told Cal, with everyone listening, “that this isn't attendance you secured.”

“I'll write that.”

“You'll tell her before we arrive.”

He agreed.

Bett came from Greyford after breakfast with two other town officers and a loaf baked around too many seeds. They had heard about the escort from the posting yard. News travelled efficiently when it involved strangers eating local vegetables.

“You can take our trial record,” Bett said. “You cannot offer our yard for a larger transfer.”

“We won't.”

“Put it in writing.”

Ada did.

Bett read the sentence, then asked for another beside it: Greyford's attendance did not constitute approval of a replacement national schedule. The demonstration had established that a prepared release could be operated locally. It had not established that every proposed load was acceptable, or that a town council could volunteer households that had not been consulted.

The page became untidy with limits. Ada liked it more when they were finished.

Before noon, they sent a carrier ahead to request representatives from the disputed western districts. Not all would come. Some could not leave their work. Some would not put themselves within reach of the Hall. Their absence would be recorded as absence, not agreement.

The innkeeper produced the schedule copy she had hidden in a hollow part of the hearth where no one in their party would have thought to look. She handed it to Ren in front of Serit.

“It's a copy,” she said. “There's another.”

“Where?” Cal asked before catching himself.

The innkeeper regarded him.

“Yes,” he said. “Fair enough.”

That afternoon, Ada helped Ysra pack. Her aunt chose two shirts, her old testing tools and a square of soft fabric for resting her wrists. She left the broad binding brush behind.

“You might need it,” Ada said.

“Someone might. Someone can bring another.”

Ada folded the fabric and put it where it would be easy to reach.

At the river landing, Pella tightened a strap on the mule's pack. The laundry carrier had brought it to White Net as agreed. They had hired another carrier to return the animal to its owner; Pella had described its habits in a note far longer than the note describing the equipment.

“Don't look sentimental,” she told Ada. “He'll bite you before he goes.”

The mule leaned forward and took a small piece of Ada's sleeve between his teeth.

Pella removed it patiently.

“There. A formal farewell.”

Ada laughed for the first time that day.

Their boat left on the evening tide. Cal stayed near the bow, apart from the papers and the people making plans around them. Ada did not invite him closer. Neither did she require him to disappear. There was work enough on the boat for a person to be present without being forgiven.

When the White Net passed behind the bend, she opened her notebook. Between Perrin's bird and the revised safe conduct lay a blank page.

She wrote the date. Then, underneath it, she wrote what had actually been agreed.