What I Could Carry

Ailis

The first thing Tessa did after becoming free was tear her cuff.

She caught it on a splinter beneath the bench and pulled before she felt the cloth catch. The seam gave with a small, ugly sound.

I looked down.

Tessa looked down too.

“Don’t.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“Your face has.”

I took her wrist.

The tear was small. It would not remain small if she continued moving her arm as though nothing had happened.

She moved her arm.

“Hold still.”

“It is only a cuff.”

“That is how cuffs become sleeves.”

She stopped.

I pressed the edges together. The cloth was worn, but the damage was simple. Ten careful stitches. Twelve if ten displeased me once I saw them.

I could mend it easily.

I had no needle.

This remained offensive.

For five years, someone had always known precisely how many needles were in any room I occupied. Mistress Seryn had known where each one was, who held it, and how long it had been away from its box.

Now I was free, and apparently freedom contained no needles at all.

An Aedrathi woman carrying folded blankets stopped near us. Her brown hair had been braided around her head, and a needle was tucked through the front of her leather apron.

My attention went directly to it.

Hers went to Tessa’s cuff.

Then to my fingers holding the split seam together.

I noticed her noticing me notice the needle.

For a moment we looked at one another.

Then she said something I did not understand and walked away.

Tessa watched her go. “What happened?”

“I have no idea.”

“You looked as though you did.”

“That was confidence.”

“Was it useful?”

“We will find out.”

It was not immediately useful.

The woman did not return while we were shown where we would sleep. She did not return while I washed my face twice because the cloth came away gray the first time. She did not return while Mara scrubbed flour from the cracks in her hands.

I had almost accepted that confidence had failed me when I saw the woman again near the supply wagons.

A heap of torn linen lay beside her.

And there was still a needle in her apron.

I went over.

She looked at me, then at the linen, then took out the needle.

Victory.

I held out my hand.

She gave me a torn sheet.

Less complete victory.

There were two low stools beside the pile. I sat on one.

The woman placed the needle in my hand and touched the split edge of the sheet.

That was clear enough.

The first stitch felt strange.

Not because of the work. My hands knew what to do before the rest of me became involved. Fold the raw edge beneath. Keep the seam flat. Thumb under the cloth so I knew where the point would emerge.

Needle through linen.

Thread drawn smooth.

Again.

What felt strange was that nobody stood behind me counting.

Nobody had told me how many stitches I was permitted to use. Nobody would inspect the cloth afterward and decide whether I had worked quickly enough to deserve supper.

The linen was torn.

I knew how to mend it.

So I did.

When I finished, the woman examined the seam.

Then she examined me.

I understood that look in any language.

I held out my hand for another piece.

Her smile widened.

That was better than praise.

We worked until the ache beneath my left shoulder returned. I had once hated that ache. Today I found it reassuring.

My body remembered this.

So did I.

Tessa sat nearby with her cuff still open, which I was trying not to look at because there were limits to how much suffering a person should be expected to witness patiently.

Eventually an Aedrathi soldier brought another bundle of cloth.

I recognized him from the room below the stronghold. He recognized me too.

“Thirty-four,” he said in Veyrathi.

I looked up.

“You counted.”

“Someone had to.”

His mouth almost smiled.

I glanced uphill instead.

Soldiers were still going in and out of the stronghold.

“Are they still searching?”

“Yes.”

“Every room?”

“Every room.”

General Aodren’s order.

I already knew that. Still, hearing it confirmed settled somewhere differently.

The soldier followed my gaze.

“They found six more this morning.”

My hands stopped.

“People?”

He nodded. “Lower storage. Door behind shelving.”

Six.

I thought of yesterday’s broken lock.

No.

Not yesterday.

Earlier.

The lock had broken earlier that same day.

It already felt farther away than that.

Perhaps another commander would have searched again. Perhaps the soldiers would have found those six anyway. There was no way to prove the opposite, and I disliked giving certainty to things I could not know.

But six people were outside that stronghold because someone had kept looking.

That, at least, was true.

I finished my seam.

When evening meal was called, I offered the needle back to the brown-braided woman.

She shook her head.

I tried once more.

Another shake.

Then she pointed at the needle.

At me.

I stared at her.

“Mine?”

She did not understand the word.

I touched my chest, then the needle.

She nodded.

Oh.

She took a small scrap of linen, wound a little pale thread around it, laid the needle across the middle, and folded the cloth closed.

Then she placed the bundle in my hand.

I closed my fingers around it.

Needle.

Thread.

Mine.

“Thank you.”

She could not understand the words.

I hoped my face had become useful again.

That night, after I repaired Tessa’s cuff, I wrapped the remaining thread around the linen and tucked the needle across it.

I checked once before lying down.

Still there.

That seemed important.

The next morning, an interpreter announced that the southern road had opened as far as Sael. A column would leave the following morning for anyone traveling toward Aedrath.

Questions rose around me.

Villages. Roads. Bridges. Family.

Tessa went very still.

Her village was east.

Within an hour she had learned the road to Lethin was open and that soldiers would escort a group partway there that afternoon.

“You can go home,” I said.

“I can go to Lethin.”

Right.

Home was more complicated.

I looked at the road.

Yesterday I had not known where I meant to go.

Now I thought of six people beneath Aedrathi blankets. Of my name on their parchment. Of a commander with smoke-gray hair whose soldiers were still opening doors after the battle had already been won.

And beyond all of that, Aedrath.

Not home.

Not yet anything.

But somewhere I had never been owned.

I went to the clerk.

“The southbound column.”

He found my name.

“Ailis Edevane.”

“Yes.”

“You wish to travel with them?”

My fingers closed around the little bundle hidden in my sleeve.

Needle.

Thread.

Everything I owned that mattered could fit inside one hand.

“Yes.”

The clerk made a mark beside my name.

Such a small thing.

Yesterday, the empty road had frightened me because it could lead anywhere.

Now it led south.

For the moment, that was enough.