4

The thaw began with a leak above Kaoran’s bed.

The first night, he put a bucket beneath it. The second, he moved the bed. On the third, Isolde climbed onto the roof without telling him.

Twelve weeks had passed since Cendral. The wound in her side had closed into a thick, purplish line. She could walk around the house with her stick. Twice she had reached the hollow beside the stream, and once the split oak. Each journey ended with Kaoran carrying back the load she had misjudged.

The night before, she had heard him move the bed.

Then she had heard the bucket and his cough.

Isolde stayed awake, counting the drips.

She wanted to do something he would find finished when he got up.

The ladder had been leaning behind the barn for three days; she had checked the distance to the eaves from the window.

With a rope and time to rest on every rung, she thought it would be enough.

She leaned the ladder against the eaves before dawn. The frozen ground offered a firmness that would disappear with the sun. She had a rope tied around her waist, a bag of nails, and a piece of canvas folded beneath her right arm.

Her good foot found the first rung.

Isolde pulled herself up, brought her left leg to the next, and waited. The muscle in her thigh trembled. Her side answered with a dull, bearable pressure. She continued.

On the sixth rung, her left hand lost its grip.

Her middle and ring fingers opened. Isolde fell backward until the rope around her waist pulled tight against the post. The ladder lifted away from the wall and struck it again.

“The rope was a good idea,” Kaoran said from below.

Isolde looked over her shoulder. He stood barefoot, his shirt poorly fastened, with a small pot in his hand.

“Go back inside.”

“The pot has an opinion about the water coming through the roof.”

“I’ll fix the leak.”

“So I see.”

Kaoran set down the pot and steadied the ladder. Isolde resumed climbing. Two rungs later, the shaking in her leg reached her hip.

“Come down,” he said.

“Four left.”

“Your knee has started turning inward.”

“I can correct it.”

“Correct it on the way down.”

Isolde planted her left foot on the wood. Her knee obeyed for an instant. When she shifted her weight, the joint gave way. Her body hit the ladder. The bag of nails fell, and the pieces sank into the snow.

Kaoran held the rope.

“Don’t lift me,” Isolde said.

“I’m not.”

She found the rung again with her right foot. She backed down, one step at a time, until she reached the ground. Kaoran released the ladder when both her feet were planted firmly.

Isolde untied the rope.

“I can fix a leak.”

“Yes.”

“Then why make me come down?”

“Because the roof doesn’t need your life this morning.”

Kaoran picked a nail out of the snow and handed it to her.

“Kaor-Sai begins by looking at this,” Kaoran said. He pointed to her knee, which was still shaking. “You had four rungs left to climb and ten to come down. You’d spent what you needed for both.”

“You could have climbed up behind me.”

He gave one rail a slight push. The ladder tilted on the soft ground.

Isolde put the nail away.

“You said we’d measure my strength today.”

“You’ve been measuring it since you got out of bed. You still have to use the result.”

She looked toward the roof. The canvas was still beneath her arm. She handed it to Kaoran before he asked and held the foot of the ladder with the boot on her good foot.

Kaoran climbed onto the roof. He soon found the broken shingle and secured the canvas. Isolde stayed below, searching for the nails in the snow. When he came down, she had found nine of the ten.

“One missing,” she said.

“You’ll find it when the snow melts.”

“A horse could step on it.”

“Bruma walks on the other side.”

“A person could step on it.”

Kaoran handed her the bag.

“Then you have a need to meet.”

They spent an hour stirring the snow until Isolde saw a gleam beside a stone. She had taken more than two hundred short steps, most of them bent over. Her leg burned but still responded. Finding the nail gave her a satisfaction she decided to hide.

Kaoran saw her smile anyway.

That morning, the training changed.

Until then, Isolde had repeated exercises on a mat: lifting her heel, bending her knee, closing each finger, holding a cup, filling her lungs without guarding the scar.

Progress could be measured and hated in equal parts.

A finger moved the width of a nail. Her leg lasted five more breaths. Pain found another way to wait.

Kaoran put the mat away.

“Bring water,” he said.

He set two empty buckets beside the door.

“The well is twenty steps away.”

“Twenty-two from here.”

“I’m glad you counted.”

Isolde took a bucket in her right hand.

“Both.”

“My left won’t hold the handle.”

“Find another way.”

Isolde passed a rope through the handles and laid it over her right shoulder. The buckets hung at different heights and knocked against her knees as she walked. She adjusted the knots until they balanced. On the third step, the load pulled at her scar.

“What need are you paying for with that posture?” Kaoran asked.

“Carrying two buckets.”

“You’re also guarding your side and putting all the weight on one leg.”

“I can’t spread it out.”

“You can carry less water.”

Isolde looked at him.

“You said both.”

“I said to bring them. The amount is your decision.”

She filled the first bucket halfway. When she lifted it, the handle pulled against her weak fingers, and she had to set it down.

She searched the tool bag for a strip of leather, looped it around her palm, and tried again.

The weight now rested on the strap. She divided the water between the two buckets.

She returned watching the ground ahead of her feet. Water struck the wooden sides with each step. When she arrived, enough remained for broth, and a dark trail marked the path she would have to clean.

“Enough for the broth,” Kaoran said.

“I could have brought more.”

“You’ll have another chance tomorrow.”

For two weeks, they brought the training into the household chores.

Isolde learned to sweep by turning from the hip and to hang herbs without putting all her weight on one leg.

Kaoran corrected what increased the risk; she had to work out the rest. By the end of the first week, she carried both buckets half full to the door.

By the end of the second, she left the walking stick at the threshold to try a few steps.

The first unsupported step went crooked. Her left foot met the ground along its outer edge, and her hip shifted. Isolde spread her arms to keep her balance.

“Again,” Kaoran said.

She returned to her starting position.

“Heel first,” he added. “Let the weight travel through the center.”

“The center doesn’t respond.”

“Find where it responds today.”

Isolde tried with her foot turned slightly outward. Her leg held. She took a second step and fell to one knee.

Mud soaked through her pants.

Kaoran marked a line in the earth with his boot.

“Two.”

“The first barely counts.”

“They both count. So does the fall.”

“What need does falling pay for?”

“Teaching you where the movement ends.”

Isolde got up with the help of the stick.

“An expensive lesson.”

“The cheap ones tend to be forgotten.”

Every morning, Kaoran moved the line a little farther away. Isolde began to recognize the moment before failure: a vibration beneath her kneecap, an emptiness beside her hip, and a tightening in her ankle. If she stopped then, she could recover her stance. When she ignored the signal, she fell.

During the first days, she ignored many.

The skin on both knees broke open. Her right wrist swelled from supporting the stick. Enna arrived one afternoon, saw the bruises, and struck Kaoran’s shin with her staff.

“I told her to walk,” he protested.

“You could also have taught her to fall on grass.”

“The grass is covered in mud.”

“Mud has a better disposition than stones.”

Enna examined the scar. The lower part remained hard and tender. She asked Isolde to raise her arm, twist her body, and cough.

“The rib has knitted,” she said. “That fragment left work to do inside. The cold will hurt for years.”

“I can live with that.”

“You already are.”

Enna opened her basket and took out a cloth parcel.

“There’s something else.”

Inside was a left shoe made of soft leather. The sole had a wedge higher on the inner side and two straps crossing the ankle.

“Doven made it to my instructions,” she explained. “It’ll keep your foot straight while you regain strength.”

Isolde ran her thumb over the stitching. Enna brought a stool closer to examine her foot and waited with her hands on her knees.

The night beside the pond returned with the buckles and the patient fingers.

Darian had avoided the edge of her bandage when he put the ring on her.

She had wanted to wear it even though it was loose.

She remembered the pressure of his mouth, the hand she had brought to her knee, and that physical certainty of having chosen well.

Her body still knew how to find it; the scar took less time to answer.

Isolde rested her heel on the stool.

“I’ll fasten the straps,” she said.

Enna brought the shoe closer, leaving the buckles within her reach.

“What did you tell Doven?”

“That a patient walks badly.”

“And he makes shoes for anyone?”

“I told him the patient would pay.”

“I have no money.”

“You can sharpen tools. Doven has six sickles that mangle the grain.”

Kaoran placed a whetstone on the table.

“Your left hand can guide the angle,” he said.

Isolde looked at the shoe. The straps would let her adjust the pressure without forcing her weak fingers to tie a knot. Doven’s work had taken hours. Accepting it widened the circle of people keeping her secret.

“I’ll pay for all six,” she said.

“Seven,” Enna replied. “I brought mine.”

The shoe changed the way she walked. At first, the wedge pushed her knee into a painful position. After several tries, her foot found a steadier line. Isolde reached the wall without her stick.

Enna watched from the doorway.