22.

The Water Between the Lines

Leijona, AGH 91

Aru Fenet moved the stone under Hema's gun.

She caught his wrist before the barrel slipped.

“Leave it.”

“You'll hit the wall.”

“I can see the bend.”

“You can see where a person turns. A loaded cart comes wider.”

He eased the stone toward her. Hema looked along the barrel again. From the new rest she could see a strip of road that had been hidden by the projecting end of the wall.

She let go of his wrist.

The Mkango leonin settled beside her with the small grunt he used for lowering himself under a carriage. In their other work he would have gone on explaining until she admitted the correction. This morning he kept his mouth shut. She found that more irritating.

Dawn had reached the top of the low ridge behind them. The road below still lay in shadow. It came up from the Crown's protected depot, turned beneath their wall and climbed toward the occupied well. The railway could deliver all it pleased to the depot. Everything going the last distance had to pass the strip of road now visible over Hema's sights.

She checked the lane behind them. Nobody in it. A door stood open with a stone against the bottom, exactly as it had when her party arrived in darkness. She had ordered the households off this approach before the attack. One of the people leaving had asked whether they could take the stone from the doorway for a hearth at the place they were going.

Hema had said they would be back before they needed to build a hearth.

Aru touched her sleeve. He had heard the wheels first.

A team came around the lower curve, laboring up the rise. The leading cart carried covered water vessels, their lashings drawn tight across the rounded sides. A soldier walked by the near wheel. Another was farther up the road, already past the point where Hema would have expected them to stop and look.

She lowered her cheek to the stock. Aru was right about the turn. The cart would come almost against the wall.

At forty-eight, Hema Tinun, an Aristan leonin, had spent more of her life getting loads through bad approaches than stopping them. She knew the temptation to hurry the last piece of a journey, when the place where one could unload was finally in sight. The Crown had been trying to make that last piece of road safe for three years. Behind the water carts were guns and stores and orders claiming a right to stay. Beyond them were the fields and dwellings of a country that had never agreed.

The forward soldier raised a hand. The cart slowed.

Hema waited until the near wheel reached the pale break in the road.

“Now.”

Her shot struck the wood beside the walking soldier's shoulder. He dropped out of sight. Aru fired. From farther along the wall came the flat, close reports of the rest of her party. The driver hauled at the team before there was room to turn; the leading animal backed into its mate and the cart swung across the bend. One of the water vessels hit the side hard enough to snap a lashing.

“Back,” somebody shouted below.

The forward soldier ran for the outside of the road. Hema fired at him and missed. He dropped behind a rise in the bank. Dirt jumped above her hand.

She ducked.

Aru had already moved his gun into the narrow gap between two stones. He fired through it, pulled back and began to reload. His elbow knocked hers.

“Your side,” he said.

A soldier was coming up beneath the far end of the wall. Hema could see the gun first, then a shoulder. She shifted onto her knee. Her boot slid on the rubble, and for an instant the whole weight of her weapon dragged against the stone Aru had placed.

She got the barrel clear and fired.

The shoulder vanished. A shot struck the face of the wall beside her and filled her mouth with grit.

Below, the cart was moving backward. The driver had got the team straight, but a rear wheel struck the bank. The cart stopped crooked. Water poured from the split vessel, making a dark fan across the dust.

They needed it back beyond the bend. If the soldiers settled here and brought more guns up, Hema's party would be caught against the empty houses.

She called to the defenders at the end of the wall. One answered. The other crawled into a different position and fired down the lane mouth.

Aru rose just far enough to see.

The impact turned him toward her. His gun scraped the stones and fell on the inside of the wall. He sat down hard, his legs folding badly beneath him.

For a moment Hema thought he was taking cover.

“Aru.”

He tried to put a hand on the wall. It slipped.

She got an arm under his shoulder and pulled him lower. There was blood beneath his collar, too much of it. It ran over her fingers while she tried to find where to press. His head rested against her forearm. He was looking past her at the open door.

“Stay down,” someone called from the lane.

She was already down. The words made no sense until another shot struck the wall above Aru's head.

Hema bent over him. His mouth was open. She could feel no breath against her hand.

The cart jolted free of the bank. She heard the driver shouting, the wheels bumping back over the broken road. A defender at the far end of the wall rose and immediately dropped again.

“They're coming up the side.”

Hema looked toward the lane. There was a way out through it, past the emptied houses, before the Crown soldiers could get around the wall. There would not be one if she stayed here.

She pressed her hand harder against Aru's neck.

His blood was warm. The rest of him had become a weight she could not ask to help her.

“Hema.”

She withdrew her arm and lowered his head to the ground. His gun lay beside his knee. She caught its sling, then let it fall. Carrying both weapons would occupy the hand she needed to climb.

“Through the lane. Keep low.”

The two at the far end moved first, one covering while the other crossed the gap. Hema waited for the last of them. She wanted someone to give her a reason to stay, some change in Aru, a sound she had missed.

Nothing changed.

She crawled away from him.

At the doorway she turned. The cart had gone below the bend. A soldier was firing from the bank where it had stood, keeping them from the wall. Hema put a shot into the dirt near him. He pulled back, and she ran the length of the empty lane.

They stopped on the far side of the ridge. Her breath hurt. Blood had dried between the fingers of her left hand.

The defender who had called her out was watching the lane.

“When they fall back, take someone and get him,” Hema said. “Don't go while they can see you.”

“And if they stay?”

She looked over the ridge. The depot was beyond it, protected and working. They had stopped one movement on a road.

“Then wait.”

He nodded without making the word kinder.

*   *   *

By the time Hema reached the carrier shed, the sun was on its roof. The transport for the two reserved movements stood in the yard: a broad cart and a hand-carriage, both marked for the neutral passage. People were fastening loads and arguing over a length of rope that had been cut too short. Suma Kethi, a Mkango leonin carrier, stood at the back of the cart, checking the tie at the foot of a litter.

“Not round that,” she told the person holding the loose end. “You'll have to undo it with somebody on top of it.”

She pulled the rope out, passed it beneath the support and gave it back.

Hema waited while they tried again. She had washed her hand in a little water beside the path. There was still blood in the edge of one nail.

Suma stepped down. Dust lay in her tawny fur and along the darker rims of her ears. She planted her feet wide and put one hand under the litter's foot. The lashings held as she lifted against them.

“I'm keeping the household cart until we leave,” Hema said.

Suma let go of the frame.

“It's going this morning.”

“I know what we agreed. The remaining kit has to come out tonight. If we unload now we'll be carrying it all afternoon.”

“Then unload it before the afternoon.”

“We still need our cart.”

“My sister's cart.”

Hema looked across the yard. It stood by the shed wall with the shafts on the ground. A shelter roll and two closed cases occupied the bed; the rest of the stores had already been taken away. It was a waste of a cart, that little remaining load. On foot, after a day's fighting, it would be enough.

“We can have it back to her after the withdrawal.”

“She needs it to move.”

“From here?”

Suma opened the door beside the shed.

The room behind it had been made smaller by bedding. A rolled mattress stood between the table and a chest. Folded covers filled a chair. Cooking pots had been pushed beneath it, and a large cloth bundle lay across the place where Hema would have put her feet if she had tried to sit.

“They have somewhere on the other side of the approach,” Suma said. “They can go today.”

“They're staying with you.”

“Yes.”

“One more night won't put them out in the road.”

Suma looked at her.

“Where do you think I'm sleeping?”

Hema looked at the mattress again.

“The bench,” Suma said. “In there.”

She pointed into the carrier shed. Hema could see the narrow bench under the hanging harness. A folded jacket lay at one end.

Suma went past her and lifted the edge of the shelter roll on the cart.

“This could be off in a moment.”

“It's not only getting it off.”

“I can see how much there is.”

“We still have to get it away.”

“So do they.”

A carrier called Suma's name from the other side of the yard. She held up a hand for a moment, then turned back to Hema.

“The two teams you took from the larger firms have gone.”

“They had work waiting.”

“My sister has a room waiting.”

“Their people were at the arrangements. They said when they had to be back.”

“I was here. Loading your stores.”

Hema began to answer. Suma was already pulling a strap free of the cart's side.

It was true. Hema remembered the two representatives standing over the laid-out routes, one of them insisting on a return before midday. They had known the roads, the condition of their teams, the work they had promised. She had been glad to have people who could give her answers. Suma's sister was one of the people she had ordered out. Hema had put her household down as having somewhere to go.

Suma stopped with the strap in her hands.

“May I?”

Hema looked at the cases. One contained the papers and small equipment they could not leave. The other would take two tired people changing hands along the field path. That had been the reason for keeping the cart.

“Take it off.”

Suma unfastened the other strap.

Hema called to the two defenders watching the stores by the far doorway. One wore a grey cap; the other had been binding a cloth around a cracked pack strap.

“These go with you tonight,” she said. “The cases and the shelter.”

The one with the pack looked at the cart.

“Along the field path?”

“Yes.”

“We'll be slower.”

“I know.”

“Do you want them taken now?”

“Put them by the door until we leave. Keep the papers dry.”

He made no further objection. He and his companion lifted the heavier case between them. Hema took the other end of the shelter roll while Suma pulled it toward the tail of the cart. Something inside it caught on a board. Suma put a hand underneath, lifted the snag clear and let Hema take the weight.

The cart bed was empty.

Suma ran her palm along it, found a loose piece of cord and threw it into the shed.

“The hire,” she said.

“I'll put it in the return.”

“Two days.”

“Yes.”

“Agreed hire. Not help.”

Hema stood with the shelter roll against her hip. A blackened patch on its cover had come away on her sleeve.

“Two days of hire, unpaid. I'll record it.”

Suma nodded once and called into the room. A woman came out, followed by someone carrying the bundle that had occupied the floor. Suma took it from them and set it in the empty cart. They began with the bedding.

Hema and the defender carried the shelter to the doorway. When she looked back, Suma was showing her sister where the heavier bundle needed to sit so the shafts could be lifted.

The carrier on the other side of the yard called again.

“Coming,” Suma said.

*   *   *

The report reached Hema at midday. She was sitting on the end of a wall above the lower approach, trying to get a pebble out of her boot without putting her foot in the dust.

The runner had come from the receiving point. He waited while she shook the boot, then held out a folded copy of the notice passed through the liaison.

“Soan's stopping the extension,” he said.

Hema took the paper.

The third well was being abandoned. Putland had accepted the withdrawal. The reserved evacuation movements were to proceed.

“Both?”

“Both. The carriers are being kept for them.”

Below Hema, the lower road lay empty except for the people putting up the agreed markers. Higher on the slope, one military cart was coming back with part of its load still aboard. She had been watching for the next water movement since morning. It had not appeared.

“And the position above the crossing?”

“Still held. They haven't brought the gun down.”

She looked toward it. The low works above the crossing commanded the exposed bit of the lower road as well as the upper military track. Nobody taking the marked route could avoid being seen from there. That was the point of marking it.

Tavu Reni, an Intare leonin, had come up while she read. He bent over the notice without asking to take it.

“When do their wounded move?”

“After ours reach the collection point,” the runner said. “The arrangement hasn't changed.”

Tavu nodded toward the works.

“We could get beside that.”

Hema pulled her boot on.

“From the field path?”

“With the carriers.”

The runner looked at him. Tavu kept his attention on Hema.

“Not a whole party. A few of us. No guns showing until we're past the bend.”

Hema looked down the lower road. A strip of pale cloth had been tied where the approach narrowed. Beyond it, the ground curved beneath the Crown position. A person coming openly by the separate field path would be seen long before reaching the same distance.

“Among the wounded?”

“Behind them. Close enough to go with the movement. They won't fire into it.”

“They might when you come out.”

“By then we're where we need to be.”

The runner shifted the strap on his shoulder.

Tavu put a finger on the top of the wall, tracing the bend for Hema.

“Here. We take the gun before they get it back onto the upper track. Then they can't settle again at the next rise. We keep them moving.”

She knew what a working gun at that rise would cost. She had spent the morning below one. Tavu's party could go by the field path, but the Crown would see their approach and have time to bring the weapon around. Under the marked movement they might reach it before the crew knew there was an attack.

“They'll see what we've done,” she said.

“They'll be leaving.”

“And the next carrier that comes along that road?”

“If we break the position now, there won't be a next carrier going into it.”

“There will be people coming out.”

Tavu's finger stopped on the wall.

“We're losing them every day we let the Crown sit here.”

“I know.”

He looked at her hand. She folded it into her lap before she had quite decided to move it.

“We can make them pay for this morning,” he said.

For a few moments she wanted him to go. She could see the attack taking hold: the sudden turn from beneath the bend, the gun crew caught in the work of moving, the defenders on the upper track unable to fire down through their own people. He had chosen a real opening.

The runner was still waiting for her answer to the notice. Suma was somewhere below, preparing to put wounded people on the road Tavu wanted to use.

Hema had sent commercial loads through guarded approaches herself. She knew how readily a frightened soldier could find a reason to stop a cart. At home she had teams and promises of her own, people who would need to work after the military markers came down. She would not be there to stand beside every driver and explain which painted board could be believed.

“No,” she said.

Tavu lifted his hand from the wall.

“We keep the pressure on the upper track. Use the field path. Stay clear of the lower road.”

“They'll see us.”

“Yes.”

“We may not get the gun.”

“Then don't lose the party trying to prove you could.”

He looked away toward the exposed rise. Hema let him look. There was no use making the other approach sound safe.

“The broken wall,” Tavu said. “We can reach it from the back.”

“Work from there while they take the gun down,” Hema said. “Don't follow them toward the depot.”

“That gives them the bend.”

“It gives them a way to leave.”

Tavu pressed his lips together. Hema waited for him to go on.

“What if they turn back?”

“Keep them off the approach. That's still the work.”

He took the notice when she offered it, read the last lines himself and handed it back.

“I'll want the people at the shed.”

“Two are carrying our kit out. Use the rest of your party. The lower passage keeps the hands assigned to it.”

He stood for another moment, calculating with fewer people than he wanted.

“All right.”

He left by the upper side of the wall. Hema watched him turn onto the field path. It carried him away from the white markers, out onto ground where the Crown position could eventually see him.

She wrote the acknowledgment for the runner.

“The passage goes ahead,” she said. “Tell them we're keeping the lower approach clear.”

*   *   *

The wounded arrived in an uneven line. Some were carried flat. Others walked with a shoulder under an arm, stopping whenever the person they supported could not take another step. The hand-carriage stood at the mouth of the lower road; the broad cart needed the wider ground behind it to turn. Past that, the road drew close to the wall.

Hema went down it on foot before the movement started. She found a loose board at the narrow crossing and moved it out of the way. From road level, most of the receiving yard was hidden by the wall. Through the gap beyond the crossing she could see people beneath a shade cloth, with water set out beside them. The stretch between offered no shade at all.

She went back to help.

A Crown soldier lay on a litter near the front. His sleeve had been cut away and the dressing beneath it had begun to darken. He watched Hema approach. When she put her hand under the frame, he jerked toward the other side.

The litter rocked.

“Hold it,” Suma said.

Hema held.

The soldier was staring at the gun across her back. His good hand had closed around the edge of the litter.

Suma crouched where he could see her.

“We're lifting at the ends. You stay where you are.”

He looked past her.

Hema loosened the sling and handed the gun to the defender beside the carrier.

“Keep it with yours.”

She took the handle again, this time from farther away from the soldier's face.

“Ready?” Suma asked.

“Ready.”

They lifted. The soldier made a low sound through his teeth. Hema shortened her step until the litter stopped swaying. At the carrier, Suma guided the end onto its support while another hand kept the nearer corner level.

“That's it. Down.”

The soldier's grip eased. He did not look at Hema.

She went for the next litter.

While they loaded the broad cart, the edge of a litter handle rubbed a sore place on her palm. Suma took the folded cloth from under her own hand and held it out.

Hema shook her head, then took it on the next journey.

A voice called from farther up the slope. Hema looked toward the Crown works. Someone was moving behind the low wall there, but she could not tell what they carried. On the field path beyond, Tavu's party was no longer visible.

The hand-carriage went first. The broad cart followed, with the walking wounded beside it.

Hema and Suma walked between them. Ahead, two people managed the long handles of the hand-carriage, keeping its litter level as they approached the narrow crossing. The wounded person was strapped to the litter, one knee propped and wrapped. A blanket covered the other leg.

The wheel beside the drainage cut struck the edge of a stone.

The carriage lurched, straightened for a moment, then tipped toward the cut. The person at the front grabbed the handle with both hands. The one behind tried to hold the frame up. The long handles swung across the road; one struck the wall.

“Stop,” Suma shouted. “Stop there.”

The cart behind them halted. Some of the walking wounded kept coming until the message reached them. The wounded person cried out, a sharp broken cry that stopped before Hema wanted it to.

She braced a foot on the firm edge of the cut and got her shoulder beneath the falling edge of the frame.

“Don't pull.”

The person at the front held the handle still while she took the weight. It drove against her shoulder. The wheel on the wall side was still upright; the one beside her had twisted under the carriage, leaving the axle end jammed against stone.

Suma knelt by the foot of the litter.

“Keep that side up.”

Hema shifted her other foot farther onto the road. The ground sloped toward the drainage cut. There was room to brace herself there, not to bring another carriage past.

The wounded person had both hands clenched in the blanket.

“We're holding you,” Suma said. She looked up at the rear bearer. “Come round. Here.”

He came around the back, braced the damaged corner beside her and took some of the pressure. Hema could breathe again.

From the upper slope came a burst of firing.

The front bearer looked toward it.

“Here,” Suma said.

He looked back.

Hema examined the trapped wheel. The rim had gone beneath the frame and the support had split. Pulling harder would drag the bed down with it.

“Can't roll it,” she said.

“No.”

Suma felt along the place where the litter sat in the carriage. Hema remembered her checking the tie in the yard.

“The litter comes free. We need to lift it out.”

The bearer looked down the road.

“There's nowhere.”

“Behind us,” Hema said.

A little way back the road widened beside the end of the wall. They had just walked through it. The broad cart had stopped there and filled the space.

She called to its driver to move back.

“Only to the marker. Keep the line stopped.”

The driver looked over a shoulder and called for room. The process took longer than Hema expected. A wheel moved, then stopped; someone walking beside the load had to come through first. Her shoulder began to shake under the weight.

“Nearly,” the rear bearer said.

“I can see it.”

He looked at her, startled by the sharpness. She shifted her grip and made room for his hand.

The cart rolled backward. The level patch opened.

They could not lift the litter while Hema was the thing keeping the frame from tipping. Suma found a heavy stone at the base of the wall and pushed it under the damaged side. Hema lowered the frame onto it by degrees. The stone rocked once, settled and held.

“Don't stand clear yet,” Suma said.

She freed the lashings that held the litter to the carriage. The straps across the wounded person stayed fast. She pulled at the litter's foot; it moved within the frame without moving the frame itself.

They took the four corners. Hema put the folded cloth over the handle that had hurt her palm. The wounded person was watching their faces now, trying to see which one would tell him what was about to happen.

“We're going back a little,” Suma told him. “Then forward again.”

“I can't do that.”

“You don't have to get up.”

He nodded, although his mouth was still drawn tight.

“Together,” Suma said.

They lifted.

For an instant the foot of the litter caught under the bent side of the carriage. Hema felt the weight increase and stopped.

“Not yet.”

Suma lowered her end a fraction, freed the catch and raised it again. The litter came away cleanly. They stood with it between them, leaving the crooked empty carriage below.

Hema had to turn without making the others turn too quickly. She watched Suma's feet, then the end of the wall, and stepped backward onto the level patch. Nobody spoke except to say where the stone or the rut lay. They lowered the litter with its wooden runners on the ground.

The wounded person shut his eyes. His breath came in little deliberate pulls.

Hema straightened and found she had no wish to straighten. The muscles along her side had tightened around the carrying position.

Suma was already going back to the empty frame.

Without the person on it, the carriage could be lifted. Hema and one bearer raised the fallen edge while Suma freed the twisted wheel from the stone. Together they turned the empty frame back into line, moved it against the wall and rolled it onto its side. A litter could pass. The broad cart would have to edge through with someone watching its near wheel.

Hema looked at the distance to the receiving yard.

“We carry this one the rest of the way.”

The bearer wiped his face on his sleeve.

“All the way?”

“The wheel won't.”

“I know that.”

He sounded as tired as she felt.

Suma took her place at the litter. “Change ends with me at the far marker.”

He went to the other handle.

They lifted again. The person on the litter opened his eyes and kept them on the strip of sky between the bearers. Hema watched the road. Her world had narrowed to the places where a foot could go without sending the weight into someone else's arms.

At the crossing they turned sideways, one after another, giving the broken carriage what room it needed. Suma told the bearer nearest the drainage cut to wait while she stepped past a projecting stone. He waited. Hema's hand burned. She did not hurry them.

They came out onto the wider road.

Behind them the cart began to move. Someone called clearance from beside its wheel. The walking wounded followed.

At the marker Suma stopped them long enough to change ends. Hema wanted to set the litter down, but the ground there was uneven. She and one bearer held it while Suma and the other changed ends. Hema waited with her knees bent until the weight eased.

The receiving yard had a shade cloth fixed between posts. A worker beneath it was watching them come. She called to someone behind her, moved a waiting container out of their way and pointed to a clear place.

“Here.”

Hema kept walking until her toes touched the edge of the shade.

“Down.”

For a moment after they released the handles, her fingers stayed curled.

The worker bent to the wounded person and began asking him something Hema could not hear over the sounds of the yard. Suma gave an answer about the broken carriage. The worker nodded and called for water.

Hema stepped out of the way.

Beyond the shade, the lower road was still moving.

*   *   *

She sat on an overturned container until her hands were steady enough to drink without spilling. There was a little grit on the rim of the cup. She drank it anyway.

The two reserved movements had reached the receiving point. People in Crown clothing lay beside Leijonan wounded under the cloth. Farther back, someone was being helped to remove a boot. The person doing it had a knife ready for the laces.

Hema found Suma by the end of the shade.

“Everyone you brought?”

Suma looked along the places where the litters had been set down.

“Yes.”

“There was a party still above the far cut.”

“They didn't reach us.”

Hema went to the runner who had brought the midday report. He had been helping to carry water.

“Any word from the far cut?”

He shook his head.

“Did someone go?”

“The bearers couldn't get through. They sent word back before the movement left.”

She looked up the lower road as though the answer might have been delayed behind the last cart.

The runner waited.

“All right,” she said.

He picked up the water.

Tavu came in near the end of the afternoon with dust up to his knees. One of his people carried a torn strap wrapped round a hand. He put it down on the wall while Tavu reported.

“They've taken the gun back.”

“How far?”

“Past the rise. Toward the depot.”

“And the approach?”

“They left it.”

He took the cup Hema offered and drank before continuing.

“We kept them moving from the broken wall. Couldn't get closer once they had the gun turned.”

“Any of ours left there?”

“Not from my party.”

He handed the cup back. Neither of them said what might have happened on the other route.

A defender waited behind him with a cloth bundle. Hema recognized the woman who had gone back with the recovery pair.

“Aru's out,” she said.

Hema put the cup down.

“We got him through the lane when they pulled away. He's with the field carriers. These came off when we moved him.”

She opened the cloth.

Aru's tool roll lay inside it with his belt and a small pouch. One of the tools had fallen loose, a narrow piece of metal Hema had seen him use to work a stubborn pin out of a fitting. She picked it up and put it back through the loop.

“His gun?”

“Came out with us.”

“Good.”

It was a foolish thing to be glad of. She was glad of it.

She folded the cloth over the belt. There was dirt on one side of the buckle. She rubbed it with her thumb, then stopped.

“You know his door,” she said to the defender.

“Yes.”

“Take these with him. Give them to the household. Don't leave them at the stores.”

“I won't.”

The woman reached for the bundle. Hema held it a moment longer than she meant to.

She had worked with Aru when nothing worse than a late delivery had been at stake. He could spoil the satisfaction of getting a load through by explaining what she should have done at the first corner. That morning he had been right. She could still feel his wrist beneath her fingers.

She let the woman take the bundle.

“Thank you.”

The woman tucked it close against her body and went to join the field carriers.

Hema stayed by the wall until someone asked her where the remaining command kit was to go.

*   *   *

It was nearly evening when Suma found her at the shed. The household cart had gone. Through the room door Hema could see a chair with nothing on it.

“They got away?”

Suma was washing dust from her hands in a basin.

“Yes. Before the road filled.”

“And the lodging?”

“They're in.”

She dried her hands on the cloth hung by the door and pulled the chair out. Hema moved the papers so there was room for her to sit.

The two defenders were fitting the cases to carrying straps. The one in the grey cap had put his cap in a pocket. He was trying to arrange a folded pad where a corner would press his back.

Hema set the return in front of Suma.

The household's cart was identified under the stores movement. Two days of agreed hire. Unpaid. The agreed terms were to follow with the claim to the responsible Leijonan command.

Suma read it once, then put a finger under the duration.

“Both full days.”

“Yes.”

She read the rest.

“Is this the one you take?”

“This one.” Hema drew the command copy toward her. “That one's for your sister.”

Suma compared them. Hema waited.

Outside, the defender with the repaired pack strap got a case onto his shoulders and stood still under it. His companion pulled one strap tighter, then stepped back to let him try walking.

Suma moved the copy toward Hema.

“You haven't signed this one.”

Hema signed it. She checked the other and put her name there too.

She had no detachment money left to give Suma. The defender shifted the heavier case on his back.

Suma folded the copy along a clean part of the sheet and put it inside her clothing.

“I'll take it to her.”

Hema tied the command papers together and closed the case.

They left by the field path. The two carrying the stores went first so the rest would not set a pace they could not keep. At the rise one of them had to stop and lift the pad away from the corner pressing his back. Hema waited with him. Behind her, the defender carrying Aru's effects stood with the field recovery party.

The Crown position above the lower road was empty. Farther away, toward the protected ground, a lamp had been lit. There would be people there unloading the gun, counting what had come back, deciding where to put it next.

Hema turned from the light and followed her party.

*   *   *

AGH 96

The well keeper asked Hema to move her container back.

“I'm after her,” Hema said.

“I know. I still need this space.”

She moved it.

The repaired cover swung clear without scraping the stone. Beside it, a Leijonan civil officer was checking the current service sheet with the keeper. Hema had seen the repair accounts. Crown money had paid for specified work; inspectors had withheld acceptance where the work was wrong. The officer had a question about a fastening. The keeper demonstrated it, closing and opening it again while the queue waited.

Hema looked toward the road. Her carriage was out of the way, with the rest of its load ready. She wanted to be gone before the hotter part of the day. So did everyone else, judging by the containers around her feet.

A voice behind her said, “If you put it there, you'll move it twice.”

Suma stood with a broad container balanced against her hip.

Hema looked at the space she had chosen. It was directly in the way of the filled vessels coming out.

She moved hers again.

Suma put her own down where there was room to pass.

“How are you?”

“Waiting,” Hema said.

“So am I.”

Suma looked toward the keeper. The officer was trying the fastening now. It held. The keeper took the service sheet back and called the next person.

“Your sister,” Hema said. “Is she still at the lodging?”

“No. They're home.”

“And the cart?”

“Working.”

“Good.”

Suma bent to adjust the cloth under her container. One end lay in the dust.

“Did anything come for the hire?” Hema asked.

“No.”

Hema looked at her.

“Those two days?”

“Those two days.”

Suma pulled the cloth free and shook dust from it.

“She still has your copy.”

Hema remembered signing the second sheet with the two laden defenders waiting outside. Five years was a long time to keep a paper that said one had done two days' work.

The keeper called again. Suma lifted her container.

“That's me.”

Hema stepped aside.

Suma set it below the draw and steadied it with both hands while the keeper brought the water up. The flow struck the bottom loudly, then changed sound as the container filled.

Hema waited until it was clear, put the ordinary charge into the keeper's hand and brought her own vessel forward. The keeper checked its position before letting the water run.

It came cold over Hema's fingers when she reached to hold it steady. On the road, Suma had stopped to let another carrier pass. Then she took up her load and went on.