12 #4

The records filled three shelves. There were lists of origin, destination, age, trade, and debt.

A final column assigned each person to a labor need.

Minors were listed beside kitchens, workshops, or future recruitment.

Pregnant women received a six-month extension.

The sick were directed to workhouses that could deduct the cost of lodging.

Isolde found Ordel’s code.

The route had been approved forty-nine days before the local office declared the debt. The initial destination was a Rhyne quarry. The Meral directions diverted the families to the recruitment post, then to different jobs according to age and strength.

“They never expected them to reach Meral,” she whispered.

Teren opened another book.

“Look at this.”

The emptied lands were listed as collateral for a loan the Reconstruction Council had granted to the Houses. If the village paid, the office would have returned property already being used to secure someone else’s money.

“The debt could never end,” Isolde said.

The scribe moved in the next room.

Teren readied a bag.

“We take the books.”

“They’ll notice the theft and change the codes.”

“Then we copy fast.”

There were hundreds of pages. Isolde chose the indexes, the authorizations, and a sample from each route. Teren copied dates. She reproduced seals with charcoal and soft wax. She also wrote down twelve full names of people assigned to each destination.

The storeroom door opened.

The scribe raised his lamp. He was about fifty, with ink on his cuffs.

“Who are you?”

Teren put a hand on his knife.

Isolde closed the book.

“People from route M-4.”

The man went pale.

“You should be in Meral.”

“The bridge is closed.”

“That’s in the instructions.”

“Then you knew the families would be trapped.”

The scribe set his lamp on a crate.

“I copy what they send. My wife is sick, and the office pays for her medicine.”

“Who prepares the destinations?”

“The administrators in Caleryon. We receive the packet before each quota.”

“Can you prove it?”

The man pointed to a locked box. Teren picked the lock with two needles. Inside were sealed envelopes and dates of receipt. Ordel’s had reached the post months before the eviction.

“Take one,” the scribe said. “If the whole box goes missing, they’ll arrest me. An envelope could have been lost in transit.”

“Why are you helping?” Isolde asked.

“My son is listed under C-7. He signed on for six months’ work. It’s been eleven, and he hasn’t come back.”

Isolde wrote down his name: Ilan Deyr, carpenter, nineteen years old.

“We’ll trace the route.”

“Who will?”

“A network that can ask about him in Caleryon. We need the date of his last letter and the name of whoever brought it to you.”

They left through the window with the copies and one original envelope. The scribe returned to his desk. At dawn, he would send the next list and keep a way open to warn them of new codes.

In camp, Isolde checked the envelope against the copies. She noted which dates she had seen in the books and which came from the scribe’s statement. In the margin, she wrote: the living first. Ilan Deyr joined the names to be checked in Caleryon.

Teren would take a copy along the three-knot route. Isolde kept the original envelope with the orders from Ordel.

Isolde spoke with the representatives of the three caravans.

She shared the maps of open wells, posts, and trails.

Each group chose its destination. Some would continue to Meral by the shepherds’ route.

Others would turn toward Vessa. The young people without families would travel with Neris until they found work that did not chain them to a debt.

“You could come with us,” Aren told Isolde.

“I have to follow the wagons toward Arkhe.”

“The Guard is looking for you.”

“That keeps some of them busy.”

“What’s your name?”

The question came again, with the open road ahead.

Isolde looked at Darel asleep in the wagon, at Bel with his splinted leg, and at the blue handle in Neris’s hand.

“The woman who walked with you,” she said.

“That’s a long name,” Aren replied.

“You can shorten it when you tell the story.”

Neris gave her a copy of the figures: eighty-three people on reaching the well and eighty-four after the birth; fourteen wagons at the start, thirteen at the end; one lost door, one broken leg, and no one handed over for recruitment.

“That’s what our route cost,” she said. “Keep count if you’re going to follow others.”

Isolde put the page away beside the map of Nydel.

The caravan took the road to Vessa. The wagons moved slowly, loaded with everything a village had managed to salvage. The first carried an empty frame where the door had been.

Teren took the turnoff to the relay, the copies protected beneath his clothes. Isolde and Kaoran continued west.

At the crossroads, they found a post with three official arrows. All three pointed toward Guard posts.

Isolde tore off the signs. Beneath them, she drew the routes to the free wells and marked beside the one at Meral that the bridge was still closed. The post would replace the sign when they found it. Until then, anyone reaching the crossroads could choose with the news in front of them.