Six Hours at the North Gate

Cassian did not take the six hours in all at once.

First he broke them apart: the distance a horse could cover, the change of watch at the gate, the tonnage of three barges. On the map table at the North Gate the barges were three red markers, but in truth they were a number of men, a number of sacks, and the days left before the ice came. From inside the council hall he could still hear the murmuring over the motion on the Crown Princess's safety, and out at the map table the sand was passing through the thin neck of the hourglass.

“If you stay, you can stop the vote,” Dorian said. “If you go, the floor stays in the Chancellor's hands.”

“If I do nothing, the first fortress loses a week.”

“The Grand Duchess cannot make that week over again.”

Dorian used the exact title on purpose. Instead of new wife, or duke's daughter, or ally, he chose the hardest and most distant form of address.

Cassian turned to the second page of the report. “Which of the three barges is slowest.”

“The slow barge is not the problem. The rotation schedule is. If the gate warden hands off responsibility after the change of watch, he closes the river.”

“Which is why I have to go.”

It came out short, like an order, but Cassian did not set off at once. He waited while Lydia read the original report. Her hands did not shy away from the wet paper, and she left marks beside the numbers with the small pencil Elias had handed her. He could not tell what she was thinking. He had a habit of guessing at what he could not know and filling the gap with an order. Today that habit ate time.

“What do I do if your vote is needed?” Lydia asked.

“You must not want my vote.” Cassian drew out a proxy authorization and signed it. “It has to be a judgment you exercise while I am absent. If the record shows you moved as I wished, then the interim representative's seat becomes a spouse's seat from the very first day.”

Lydia looked at the signature line. “Write that sentence down exactly as you said it.”

Cassian gestured to the scribe. The scribe sat between the wet maps and the dry parchment and took the sentence down. ‘Cassian Roen, Grand Duke of the North Gate, delegates to his proxy Lydia Avern not prior instruction but independent authority of judgment during his absence.’

“Every original report is shared,” Lydia said. “And add a line saying that this authorization will not be recalled even if I cast a vote against Your Grace.”

Dorian laughed, briefly. It was less a laugh than the sound of breath pushed out through his nose. “Your Grace, you are handing over the leash right here in this room.”

Cassian looked at him. “Dorian.”

“Soldiers cannot trust a commander with no leash on him.”

“Soldiers cannot trust a commander who starves them either.”

Lydia picked up the pen. “I will not put the word leash in the record.”

That closed Dorian's mouth. Cassian used the silence to sign. When he set the pen down, the sand in the lower half of the hourglass had thickened by another layer.

Before she folded the authorization, Lydia asked for one more line. “Even if I support an amendment that works against Your Grace, the force of this signature will not be revoked after the fact.”

The scribe's pen stopped. This time Dorian did not laugh. Cassian did not answer at once either. That line was not political courtesy, it was a ring that would bind him later. The North Gate army's budget might come late. His supporters might decide he was being swayed by his spouse.

“Write it,” Cassian said.

“Your Grace,” Dorian said, low.

“You may add the fact that I cannot command in two places at once.”

Lydia heard that sentence and did not thank him. Instead she pulled one wet page from the report and handed it to Elias. “This is the copy to leave in the council hall. See that the damage at the North Gate is not used only as a political slogan.”

Cassian remembered the instruction. He also remembered that she had not said she trusted him, and that she had said she would use the North Gate's losses as material for her vote. Remembering was less comfortable than giving orders.

The military coach north shook the moment it left the palace stone road. Cassian did not look out the window. Dorian sat across from him and pulled off his wet gloves. From his left wrist to the back of his hand ran an old burn. It was the scar from the day the channel beacon exploded. Cassian had not forgotten that five men failed to get out of the gate that day because an order came late. Dorian had not forgotten either. Only their ways of not forgetting were different.

“The new Grand Duchess will see supply as votes,” Dorian said.

“We see votes as supply.”

“Which is why it is dangerous. The gate will close before either side learns the other's language.”

Cassian spread the rotation schedule across his knees. “The change of watch at the gate is half past the fourth bell. From the lower landing to the gate, riding the dry channel, two hours and ten minutes. Send three barges up in a single line and the last one is shut out.”

“We have to split them into two groups.”

“Then one barge is late.”

“That is the one I said we give up.”

Cassian rubbed the dirt mark at the edge of the report with a finger. “What we give up is not a barge, it is part of the cargo. Keep the men and the hull and we can load it again next week.”

Dorian's eyes narrowed. “Will the captain accept that arithmetic?”

“I will explain it until he does.”

“Does Your Grace have time to explain?”

“Give an order and a writ arrives half a day later. Explain and it costs ten minutes.”

Dorian turned his eyes to the window. The coach wheels beat through the mud and went on. Cassian knew he had gone quiet not because he was persuaded but because he was choosing his next objection. That was enough. In the North Gate army, silence was not agreement. It was a sign that the order would be carried out for now.

At the riverside the smell of grain was mixed with the brackish smell of water. The three barges were tied up at the lower bend, and on the wooden bridge above the gate the guards were already forming up before the change of watch. When Cassian came down from his horse the gate warden came running, but he called the captains first.

The gate warden said he would open the way the moment he saw the royal seal, but Cassian refused that too. Opening it with the seal would give the next warden on duty grounds to close it. The North Gate feared the line for responsibility more than it feared orders.

“Write down who is cleared to pass before the change of watch. Now,” Cassian said.

The gate warden took off his wet cap. “There is no confirmation from the Chancellery.”

“That is why I came.”

“The warden who follows me will take issue with the Grand Duke's signature alone.”

Cassian looked at Dorian. Dorian had already lost his temper, but he had the blank form out faster than he could speak. A subordinate you had kept a long time was useful not because he read your mind. It was because he knew which sheet of paper was needed in which situation.

“We write the transfer of responsibility for the incoming warden at the same time.” Cassian set a pen down in front of the gate warden. “I do not intend to leave your name off it. But I will not make you carry it alone either.”

The gate warden's shoulders came down a little. He took up the pen. There were times when a single sheet of paper held a man longer than the current of the river did.

“Send all three up in the same line and the last barge spends the night in front of a closed gate,” Cassian said. “The first and second go up loaded as they are. The third empties twelve bays of its forward hold and holds the gate with the lighter hull.”

“Are you telling us to dump it?” the captain of the third barge asked.

“The crown compensates whatever cargo is dumped. We do not lose the hull or the crew.”

“Put it in writing.”

Dorian took a step forward, but Cassian stopped him with a hand. The captain's demand was not a delay. If they threw the cargo into the river and no compensation writ existed, the crew went hungry on the next voyage.

“I will write it.” Cassian turned his eyes to the coordinator. “The channel.”

The local coordinator drew a line with a stick in the dirt at the water's edge. “The left bend is shallow. Only a light hull gets through. A heavy one goes that way and it scrapes bottom.”

“Good. First and second take the deep water on the right, the third the shallow water on the left. The third empties twelve bays of its forward hold. The sacks to go are the unmarked ones first.”

“The unmarked ones are the reserve ration,” Dorian said.

“Throw out a named sack and the ration table for each fortress collapses. The reserve ration can be carried as a loss.”

Cassian handed the compensation writs to the captains. The captain of the third barge stared at the paper for a while, then wrote his own name. There was no word of agreement. There was a name left behind.

Cargo sacks spilled onto the riverbank. Soldiers carried them on their shoulders, and two harbor laborers cut the bindings. Wet grain burst and stuck to their palms. Cassian did not wait for a cheer, he looked at the rotation schedule above the gate. The time left before the fourth bell was two finger joints' worth.

When the first barge went through, the gate warden asked for a confirmation of responsibility. Cassian held out the paper he had already written. The second barge stopped a moment on a fouled rope. Dorian went into the river himself to free it, gripping the wet rope with the hand that carried the burn.

As the third barge entered the shallow water on the left, one of the crew looked back. On the bank the twelve bays of abandoned sacks lay in a low heap. Cassian did not look away from that number.

“Who takes those sacks?” the coordinator asked.

“The wet ones go to horse feed, the dry ones are sealed in the lower warehouse.”

“If they are sealed, no one eats today.”

Cassian watched the current, then looked back at the coordinator. The question from the ground always came late. Late, but useful.

“Take this evening's portion out of the fortress ration table first. The shortfall is booked against the reserve ration. We do not leave the people downriver with nothing but empty sacks.”

Dorian spoke low. “Then the fortress menu shrinks three days from now.”

“I know.”

“The capital will not know.”

“Which is why I am sending the numbers.”

Dorian said nothing more. A soldier slipped and cracked his knee, and a captain swallowed a curse and pulled him up. Cassian did not send the injured man to the rear. He had him write his name down first. A loss with no name attached became a man who did not exist in the next order.

The iron chain of the gate began to come down. The coordinator threw his stick and shouted, and the bow of the third barge slid barely into the shadow. The sound of timber meeting iron spread out over the river.

“Through!” the gate warden called.

The soldiers raised their hands, but Cassian took the loss sheet first. Twelve bays of reserve ration, four rows of soaked sacks, one injured crewman. The loss had come down from a week's worth for the fortress to three days of supplementary ration. Victory did not erase the numbers.

The desk at the temporary North Gate command post was covered with wet gloves, loss sheets, and compensation writs. Even when the courier from the capital arrived, Cassian signed the last line of the loss sheet first.

“The result of the vote,” he said.

The courier caught his breath and held out an envelope. “Her Grace the Grand Duchess cast the vote.”

“Was the signature valid.”

The courier paused a moment. In that pause Cassian saw something worse than defeat.

“It was recognized in the vote on the interim representative's seat. But a suit has been filed in the name of the Capital Citizens' Protection League.”

Dorian threw his wet gloves onto the desk. “The Citizens' Protection League?”

The courier opened the first page of the complaint. The letters were very neat in dry ink.

“The vote of the defendant Lydia Avern was cast under coercion by a royal spouse and is therefore void.”

Cassian read the sentence to the end. The plaintiff had set down the justification of protecting Lydia. The word protection was being used as a leash again.

“Ready a horse,” Cassian said.

Dorian looked out the window. “Riding to the capital means two changes of horse.”

“Change them.”

“The proceedings will already be open by the time you arrive.”

Cassian did not fold the complaint. Not because folding it would make the sentence look as if it had disappeared, but because he still did not know which way Lydia had voted. He had to go back without knowing the outcome. This time it was not in order to undo that outcome.

“Make two copies of the complaint,” Cassian said. “One goes in my saddlebag, one stays in the North Gate records chest.”

“Why leave one at the North Gate?” the courier asked.

“The fact that I was not there is evidence too. And so is the reason I came here.”

Dorian wrapped his wet wrist with a cloth. “Do you believe that evidence helps Her Grace?”

“I do not know.”

“You do not know, and you leave it anyway?”

Cassian looked again at the first line of the complaint. The word coercion sat in front of Lydia's name. The fastest way to deny that word was to ride to the capital and speak in her place. It was also the most familiar way.

“If I speak in her place, that sentence lives longer.”

Dorian did not answer. He still saw Lydia as a danger. Cassian did not try to erase that assessment on the spot either. At the North Gate, the man who erased a danger died first. But if you do not name the danger precisely, you end up binding the person you meant to protect.

On the desk lay the tally of the grain that had been saved. Beneath it the suit to void the vote lay overlapped. The two sheets pressed down on the wet board with the same weight.