The Service Walk

The transfer cart had one good wheel, one noisy wheel and enough folded linen to conceal the fact that two of its passengers were supposed to remain in the house.

Orla did not hide Ysra and Tomar beneath sheets. She put them in plain sight as patients, wrapped against the cold, with a medical transfer order clipped to the side. A lie that looked like a sensible piece of work was sometimes less conspicuous than a shape trying not to be seen.

Pella pushed. Ada walked beside the cart carrying a basin and a bag of linens. Cal waited beyond the lower wall, where the service walk met the river path.

At the first door, a guard glanced at the order and stepped aside.

At the second, he read it.

“Salt Steps?”

“Hands and mobility,” Orla said. “The infirmary here is full.”

“The overseer should approve the transfer.”

“He asked me to reduce the number of patients unable to work in the east room. I'm reducing it.”

The guard frowned, trying to decide whether this counted as an answer. Behind them, a bell rang. People began moving through the passage with meal trays.

Orla held out the order.

“You can take them back to the workroom and explain why the care was delayed. Or you can let the cart reach the landing before the tide changes.”

He let them pass.

Ada did not breathe more easily. There were still two turns, a gate and a stretch of open path before the boat.

At the river wall, they met a woman in a lieutenant's coat coming up from the landing with three guards. She was younger than Rusk, older than Cal, and carried herself with the alert economy of someone who expected details to matter.

Her gaze moved from the cart to the transfer order.

“Names,” she said.

Orla gave the official patient names. Not false ones. Tomar and Ysra were in the house records; inventing new names would have created a problem the first guard could check.

The lieutenant stopped.

“Those two are not to be moved without the Chancellor's office confirming.”

“The care order—”

“Names of the attendants.”

Pella's hand tightened on the cart handle.

Ada looked at the narrow service walk behind them. It was a real route, with sound paving and clear anchors, but she did not know the counterloads well enough to bind it safely. The ink case was outside with Cal. Even if she had it, panic would not create the missing knowledge.

She looked at Orla.

The woman moved first.

She tipped the basin against the wall, sending water across the steps, then caught the lieutenant's sleeve as though losing her balance. It was not enough to defeat anyone. It was enough to interrupt the order forming in the woman's mouth.

“Go,” Orla said.

Pella drove the cart towards the gate. Ada lifted the latch. Cal appeared from the river path and caught the front of the cart before the bad wheel struck the threshold.

The lieutenant saw his face.

“Arden!”

Cal's expression closed.

Behind them, a guard reached for Ada. She twisted away, leaving a strip of her coat in his hand. Cal stepped between them with the wooden pole used to steady the cart. The guard's short blade cut along his forearm before he knocked the weapon aside.

“Keep moving,” he said.

Pella did.

The path sloped towards the landing. The cart wanted to run. Ada held it back from one side while Cal steadied the other, blood darkening his sleeve. Tomar gripped the frame with both hands. Ysra's face was white, but she kept the records pressed against her chest.

At the landing, Orla's boatman had already loosened the rope. He saw the guards and swore.

“We agreed a transfer.”

“It's still a transfer,” Pella said. “Faster now.”

They helped Ysra and Tomar into the boat. Ada passed the records down. Cal stayed on the landing until the others were aboard.

The lieutenant reached the top of the path.

“Do not fire,” she told a guard lifting a bow. “The ward is to be taken alive.”

The word bought them a few breaths.

Cal jumped into the boat. The boatman pushed off with the pole. Pella took an oar and pulled hard enough to make the boat swing away from the bank before the current caught it.

Orla remained on the service walk. Ada saw her standing between the guards and the discarded cart, one hand raised, talking. She did not know what story Orla was telling or whether it would protect her.

The river carried them beyond the bend.

Only then did Cal sit down.

Ada pressed folded linen against his arm. The cut was not deep enough to stop him moving, but it bled steadily and made her hands shake with delayed fear.

“Look at me,” she said.

He did.

“Still interesting?” he asked, his voice thin.

“Unbearably.”

He smiled once, then closed his eyes while she held the cloth in place.

Behind them, Quarry House disappeared above the trees. The country did not become safe. It became, for a little while, river, breath, the weight of rescued people in a small boat and the work required to keep them moving.