## Chapter 450 — What Things Cost Morning found Lethira awake first. For a while she stayed where she was, one leg tangled beneath the blanket and ash-brown hair spread untidily across the pillow. The bed had made several domestic problems less competitive, though Ian's pillow had somehow migrated far enough towards her side during the night that she regarded it with suspicion. She pushed it back towards him with two fingers. Outside, the stream carried its usual faint sound beneath the rear windows. Somewhere lower in the house, old timber adjusted to the warming morning with a single soft knock. The roof remained unrepaired, the ordered chairs had not yet arrived, the kitchen garden contained several unidentified plants, and the archery range existed mostly as a rectangle on Ian's map and a stretch of ground she had walked without shooting. That last one had been irritating her. Lethira rolled onto her side and propped her head on one hand. "I'm going to settle the range today." The decision plainly predated the announcement. "I don't mean build anything. I want the deed, the actual boundary and my own feet to agree before I loose an arrow across land we only *think* is ours." Her mouth curved slightly. "And if they disagree, I would rather discover that while carrying paper than while explaining an arrow to a neighbour." She reached across, caught a loose fold of blanket between two fingers and tugged it idly towards herself. "I'll probably spend the morning doing that, then attack the garden again if it hasn't defeated me." Her eyes rested on Ian, alert and amused rather than waiting dutifully for his plans. "You coming with me, or have you acquired mysterious attendant business of your own?" "I have some chores to run in this world this morning, so can meet up around lunchtime if you want? I'm trying to keep us in sync. For example, I'm currently in bed." Ian smiled at her and kissed whichever bit of her was nearest. The nearest part of Lethira happened to be the top of her shoulder. She looked down at the spot as though checking the quality of the work. "Acceptable." Then she leaned across the remaining space and kissed him properly, one hand settling briefly against the side of his face before she drew back. "Lunchtime works. I'll take the deed, check the range and probably become irritated with at least one boundary marker before then." She rolled out of bed and stretched, entirely unhurried about the fact that this left the blanket behind. "And you may conduct your mysterious chores without supervision." A few steps towards the chair where her clothes waited, she glanced back. "If you're trying to keep us in sync, meet me at home around midday. If I'm not here, I'll be somewhere on our land arguing with geography." Then she began gathering her hair out of her face, already moving into her own morning rather than waiting for his. "Don't go just yet, please." Lethira stopped with one hand still in her hair. She looked back at him, read whatever was in his face, and abandoned the chair without comment. A moment later she was back on the bed. She climbed in beside him, gathered the blanket over her legs and tucked herself close against his side, one arm crossing his chest as though the morning schedule had simply been amended. "All right." Her voice was quieter now. "Geography can survive another few minutes." She rested her head against him. "What do you want?" "I want to spend a few sleepy moments with the woman I love." Lethira's arm tightened around him. "Then you should have said that before I started preparing to argue with stones." She shifted closer until the distinction between his side of the bed and hers became largely theoretical, one leg sliding comfortably across his beneath the blanket. Her head settled against his chest, hair warm and disorderly beneath his chin. For a while she did nothing productive at all. Her fingertips moved lazily against him. The stream continued beyond the window. Somewhere downstairs the house creaked again, entirely indifferent to deeds, land prices, employers, gods or whatever other complications waited once they chose to get up. Lethira tipped her face towards him and kissed the nearest part of his jaw. "I love you." Then she closed her eyes again. "Now be sleepy properly." Ian pressed himself against her, relishing the feeling of being there. Lethira answered by shifting until there was scarcely any space left between them. One arm slid more securely around his back; the other came up beneath his head, fingers settling into his hair and against the warm skin behind his ear. She pressed her face into the hollow beside his neck and breathed there for a while, apparently content to let closeness be the entire purpose of the morning. After a minute she drew back just enough to look at him. "You know," she murmured, "for someone trying very hard to keep our days in sync, you're remarkably effective at delaying mine." Her expression softened before the tease could become a complaint. She kissed him once, slow and sleepy, then settled against him again. "I approve." "Okay, I've filled up on cosy. You may abandon me if you wish." Ian looked at her and smiled. Lethira looked at him for a few quiet seconds, then leaned in and kissed him once more. "Good." There was no tease attached to it. She rested her forehead briefly against his, apparently satisfied with the morning exactly as it had been. Then she slipped out from beneath the blanket. "I do want that boundary settled before lunch." She gathered her hair back with both hands as she crossed towards her clothes, already returning to the day she had chosen for herself. "I'll see you at home around midday." Before dressing, she glanced back at him once and smiled. Ian watched her dress, his smile never faltering. Lethira caught him watching once and did not interrupt him. She dressed by habit rather than performance: underlayer, trousers, field tunic, belt, then the practical leather outer layer she had cleaned and oiled after the Reed-Mauler job. Her repaired arrow and the rest of the quiver received a quicker check than the bow itself. Hair came last, gathered away from face and string, one loose strand tucked behind an ear. Only when she was ready did she look back at him properly. The smile still on his face brought one to hers. "I'll take that as a favourable inspection." She crossed back to the bedside, bent and kissed his forehead. Then she collected the deed papers and bow and headed downstairs to begin her own morning. --- Lethira left the house with the deed folded into its protective cover, her bow over one shoulder and no arrows nocked anywhere near it. The morning was cool enough that the grass still held damp beneath the trees. She began at the house rather than the proposed range, orienting the deed against things that did not depend upon anyone's memory: the lane, the northern shared cart track, the stream and the eastern boundary whose old stonework was already known not to follow the legal line exactly. Ian's close map remained on the scarred table inside. She deliberately left it there. Useful as it was, today she wanted the property record and the ground to argue directly with one another. The first disagreement belonged to the old stone boundary. It curved neatly enough to satisfy whoever had built it and badly enough to irritate anyone trying to use it as a legal line. Lethira followed it through grass and beneath two mature trees, checking the deed rather than assuming stone meant ownership. In one place the wall wandered inside their land; farther along it crossed outside the recorded line by enough that an arrow placed carelessly along it could become somebody else's problem. She crouched beside the stones. "Unhelpful." The wall declined to apologise. The proposed shooting ground lay farther upslope, away from the house and stream. Lethira approached it from the target end first, because that was where mistakes would eventually arrive. The ground rose behind it rather than falling away. That was useful. Beyond the rise, mature trees thickened enough to break a line of sight but not enough to become a backstop she would trust without preparation. She walked beyond them anyway, then doubled back along a different line to see what a missed arrow might encounter. No road. No cart track. No building. The legal boundary remained farther out than the practical shooting line. That improved her mood. She paced the length rather than relying on the map's proportions. The usable strip was not perfectly rectangular. One side pinched slightly around an older tree she had no desire to remove, and a damp depression near the lower end would be unpleasant underfoot after heavy rain. Neither problem mattered. Lethira walked it again from the firing end. This time she imagined people rather than lines. A beginner standing badly. A string released early. Someone walking from the garden without thinking. A visitor coming from the house. Ian attempting to be helpful in a way that created an entirely new category of safety problem. Her mouth twitched. The range could sit here. Not quite where the parchment rectangle suggested, and not quite as broad. But the firing line, target area and useful overshoot could all remain inside their holding if she angled them slightly away from the eastern side and treated the northern cart track as something the range should never point towards under any circumstances. She took a piece of cord from her pack and marked two temporary positions in the grass. Then she stopped. That was enough to establish geometry. It was not permission to start shooting. A proper backstop still needed deciding. So did target construction. The route between house and range needed to remain obvious enough that nobody could accidentally enter from the side. If Ian ever wanted to shoot there, she would want a shorter beginner distance available without moving the whole arrangement. Lethira looked towards the old tree narrowing one edge. "You can stay." It continued doing so. She spent another half hour walking the surrounding ground without the deed in her hand, checking whether the legal answer also felt sensible when approached as a Warden rather than an owner. It did. That distinction pleased her more than she expected. The range would belong on land they already possessed. It did not require resolving the uncertain land south of their holding or the river route before she could have a range. Whatever happened with the land beyond their stream could therefore remain a separate question rather than quietly becoming necessary for something she already wanted. By the time she returned to the house, the damp had mostly lifted from the grass. She put the deed back where it belonged and made three notes on one of the scraps she had already been using: **Range fits inside holding.** **Angle away from east line / cart track.** **Backstop before arrows.** After a moment she added: **Ian beginner line.** That made her smile. The garden caught her before she could go inside properly. Several of the unidentified shoots still occupied their little islands among the weeds. Lethira stood with her hands on her hips and regarded them. Nothing had become easier to identify overnight. She fetched the small hand tools anyway. The previous morning's work had cleared enough space to show where the old kitchen bed wanted to be. Today she widened it by less than she could have managed, leaving the mystery plants alone and removing only grass and runners she was confident had invited themselves. One runner resisted with enough persistence that she followed it through half the bed before discovering it had produced another rooted section behind her. Lethira sat back on her heels. "I respect the strategy." She removed that part too. By the time she stopped, soil marked both knees and one forearm. The bed looked more deliberate without looking finished. Three unknown plants remained exactly where they had begun, now conspicuous mainly because everything obvious around them had been cleared. Lethira considered doing another section. Then she looked at the height of the light through the trees. Midday was approaching. She put the tools away, washed her hands at the back of the house and carried the range notes inside. Ian had said he would meet her around lunchtime. Lethira set the scrap beside the deed on the scarred table, then went to find something cold to drink rather than waiting at the door for him. --- The Reed and Wheel had reached the useful quiet between meals. Breakfast had mostly disappeared. Two late travellers remained near the front windows with bread, cheese and mugs between them, while somebody farther back was finishing whatever argument had begun over a map. The hearth had been allowed to settle lower before the kitchen would need it properly again. Bowls and cups stood drying behind the counter, and the room smelled more of bread, woodsmoke and yesterday's polish than roasting meat. Ian appeared discreetly nearby and headed inside, hoping to catch Caswick between breakfast and lunch work. Caswick was carrying a stack of cleaned mugs from one end of the counter to the other when Ian came in. She saw him immediately. Her eyes went once towards the door behind him, evidently checking whether Lethira was following, then returned to Ian. "You're early." She set the mugs down without hurry. "Or late for breakfast." A cloth went over one shoulder. Caswick leaned one forearm against the counter and regarded him with the practical curiosity she usually reserved for customers who had arrived with a purpose but had not yet admitted what it was. "Lethira finally sent you into town unsupervised, then?" The corner of her mouth moved. "What can I do for you?" "I am unsupervised, I'm glad you identified the risk." "I wanted to ask you about money and coin, if you have a few minutes?" Caswick's expression sharpened with interest. "Money?" She glanced towards the kitchen door, judged whatever was happening beyond it, then pulled a shallow change tray closer across the counter. "I've got a few minutes before they decide I belong to lunch." From the tray she selected three pieces and set them between them: two worn copper coins of different size and striking, then a thinner pale-silver piece in noticeably better condition. "That question gets complicated faster than people expect." She tapped one of the coppers with a fingernail. "If you're asking me how many copper make a silver, I'm going to ask you *which copper and which silver*." Her gaze lifted to Ian. "Are you trying to understand the coins themselves, or what things actually cost?" "As you know, I am... foreign... and Lethira has been paying for everything so far, which I don't mind. I quite like it, in fact." Ian blushed a little at the overshare. "But I'd like to get her a gift, which has highlighted my complete ignorance in the matter. I know there are many different mints, coins from various kingdoms and what not. I wondered what was most common around here, is there a Central Kingdom mint or is it even more local?" Caswick's eyes flicked over Ian's blush. She was kind enough not to make much of it, though the faint movement at one corner of her mouth suggested the information had been safely noticed. "Being kept by a Wood Elf is not the worst arrangement I've heard this week." She touched the nearer copper on the counter. "But yes. If you're buying something in Merrowford, this is the sort of coin you want to understand first." Caswick turned it beneath one finger. The piece was worn from use, but its strike was still recognisable. "There's a crown mint. Several, if you mean the places that actually strike coin rather than one building somewhere making all of it. This town is under the same human crown as most of the country around us. Calling it the *Central Kingdom* sounds like something you'd put on a map so you don't confuse it with the northern and southern ones. People here usually just say the kingdom, the crown, or name somewhere more useful." She nudged the second copper beside the first. "These are both crown coin from this kingdom. Different issues. Different age. Both ordinary enough that I don't think about them when somebody puts them on the counter." Then she touched the pale silver. "Same with this. Recognisable issue, good enough condition. I know what I'll give you in change without weighing it." The three coins sat together beneath her hand: related, but plainly not designed as one neat matched set. "Merrowford doesn't live on crown coin alone, though. River trade brings northern pieces, southern ones, merchant-city coin, older issues that are still perfectly good, and occasionally something I make the owner explain to me." Caswick picked up the first copper and held it between finger and thumb. "So if your question is, 'What money would an ordinary person here expect to use without anyone stopping to inspect it?'—current crown copper for small things, crown silver when the amount gets larger." She put it down again. "If your question is whether every copper stamped by that crown is worth exactly the same..." Her expression became considerably less encouraging. "No." Her attention returned fully to Ian. "How expensive a gift are you imagining?" "I think more than a few copper and a few silver - land, adjacent to the place we just bought west of Merrowford." Ian smiled. "How much was our room and board here? That might help me understand, I don't think Lethira ever mentioned, she just paid." Caswick stopped with her hand over the coins. "Land." The word changed the scale of the conversation considerably. She looked at Ian for a moment, then gave a short breath through her nose. "You two have been householders for about five minutes." There was no accusation in it. She drew the broader of the two copper pieces towards Ian instead. "All right. Start with something you actually know." She tapped the coin. "Your room here—the quiet yard-side one, large bed—was eight of these a night. That's the room, wash water, linen when it needed changing, and use of the common room. Breakfast was two each if you ate a proper one. Evening food usually ran three to five each, depending on whether you wanted stew and bread or decided meat was necessary to continued survival." A second tap landed on the pale silver coin. "This particular silver issue I take at twelve of those broad coppers. Most people around here would, unless it was badly clipped or worn. That's not me telling you that *silver equals twelve copper*. It's me telling you what **this** silver and **that** copper are worth against one another in Merrowford at the moment." She pushed the smaller copper beside them. "This one is worth less. Still crown coin. Still perfectly ordinary. If I gave you change involving both, nobody local would find that interesting." Caswick considered their old booking from memory, counting with the ease of somebody who had actually kept the account. "So on a normal day when you were both staying here, eating breakfast and having a decent supper, you were costing Lethira somewhere around a silver and half again as much in copper, sometimes nearer two silver if you ate well, ordered drinks or made the kitchen work harder." Her mouth twitched. "You generally ate well." She let Ian absorb that before touching the silver again. "A week of living here as you did is enough money that an ordinary worker notices it. It isn't ruinous. It isn't wealth. It's the sort of expense you plan for if you're not Lethira." Then Caswick glanced down at the three coins, and the humour faded into practical scale. "Land is somewhere else entirely. I wouldn't try to understand a parcel by asking how many dinners it buys. By the time somebody is selling land, you're normally counting serious silver, gold, or both, and the exact coin matters less because the people handling the sale will count and weigh what you've actually brought." Her eyes returned to Ian. "But if your problem is that you've no idea whether one silver is lunch money or a week's wages, we can fix that first." "So if we stayed for 10 days we'd be somewhere between 15 and 20 silver, depending on how addicted we became to your fine cooking?" Ian smiled. Caswick nodded. "Roughly. Fifteen if you were being fairly restrained. Twenty if you kept eating like people who'd spent the day walking, adventuring or buying houses." Her expression suggested that restraint had not been the defining feature of their stay. "Longer bookings aren't always counted exactly like ten separate nights, and some days you'd spend more or less on food, but that's the right scale." She tapped the pale silver coin again. "So now you know twenty of these is ten comfortable days here for two people, give or take. Enough money that you'd notice losing it. Still nowhere near 'buy some land' money." "And would you need a lot of silver pieces (of a normal size) before it would turn into a gold piece? or do you get different sized gold or silver pieces for carrying convenience?" Caswick considered that, then reached beneath the counter and brought out two more coins from a small locked compartment rather than the open change tray. One was silver, broader and distinctly heavier than the pale piece already on the counter. The other was gold, but smaller than Ian might have expected. "Both." She placed the heavier silver beside the thin one. "People don't usually carry fifty little silver pieces just because they refuse to admit larger silver exists. This heavier crown issue is commonly reckoned as five of those thin ones here. There are other silver pieces as well—older issues, foreign ones, different weights—but these two are both familiar enough that I can take them without turning the transaction into scholarship." Her finger moved to the gold. "And gold has sizes too. This is one of the smaller crown gold pieces you're reasonably likely to see in trade. If this coin and those silvers are all sound current issues, I'd normally reckon it at about ten of the heavier silver." Caswick looked at the coins in sequence. "So, in the particular money sitting on my counter: twelve broad copper to the thin silver, five thin silver to that heavier silver, and roughly ten of the heavy silver to this small gold." She raised one finger before the neatness could become a rule. "That is **not** the law of copper, silver and gold. That's what those four particular crown issues are normally worth against one another around Merrowford. Bring me a northern gold piece, an old silver clipped down at the edge and two southern coppers, and the arithmetic changes." The small gold coin remained on the counter. "But it gives you the scale you were asking for. That one is about fifty of the thin silver you've been thinking in." Her mouth curved faintly. "So yes. You need enough silver before gold becomes convenient that paying for supper with one would make me wonder why you were making your change problem into mine." "So for buying houses, of which there is a very long range, you're into 10 small gold and then upwards depending on size etc.?" Caswick nodded, though not without qualification. "As a rough way to think about it, yes. Once you're talking about buying a house rather than renting a room, you're into gold." She gathered the smaller coins slightly apart from the gold piece. "Ten small gold would put you into the sort of money where *some* houses become possible. Small place, poor position, work needed, perhaps not much land with it. After that the range gets ridiculous." She counted possibilities on her fingers. "Town house or country. Good roof or bad one. Workshop attached. Garden. Yard. Outbuildings. Road access. Water. How badly the seller wants to sell. How badly the buyer wants that particular place." Her eyes lifted to Ian. "So I wouldn't say 'a house costs ten gold.' I'd say once someone tells me a property is worth ten, twenty, forty small gold, those all sound like perfectly believable house numbers depending on what they're actually buying." The western freeholding had changed hands for the equivalent of twenty-eight of those small gold pieces. It had been substantial by local household standards without being an estate: several acres, a three-room upper floor, water, trees and an old outbuilding footprint, balanced against a roof that needed proper work and the rest of the ordinary imperfections they were still living with. A faint smile returned to Caswick. "And if somebody offered me ten gold for one of my rooms upstairs, I would explain that they had misunderstood the business." Ian smiled at her. "That's helped me a huge amount, thank you so much." Caswick gave him a satisfied nod. "Good. Then you can stop looking at every coin as though Lethira has been paying with mysterious metal discs." She began returning the coins to their places, the gold going back beneath the counter rather than into the open change tray. "Just don't go from *I understand inn prices* to *therefore I understand land prices*. For that, ask whoever handled your house. They'll know what the ground is actually worth, and more importantly what the owner thinks it's worth." The thin silver disappeared last. "And if you do buy Lethira something extravagant, I expect absolutely no responsibility for whatever happens afterward." From the kitchen came the unmistakable sound of somebody setting down a pot with purpose. Caswick glanced towards the door. "There. Lunch has remembered I exist." She took the cloth from her shoulder and turned back towards work. Ian raised his hand. "One moment Caswick. Sorry." Caswick stopped before reaching the kitchen door and looked back over her shoulder. "Mm?" The pot beyond the door received a second, more impatient sound. She ignored it for the moment and waited. Ian stood and crossed towards her. A normal-looking page of parchment was in his hand; it had not been there before. "I wanted to thank you for helping me, I thought this might be nice, and selfishly, something we can come and buy and enjoy in future too." The page was written in Common in the hand of somebody passing a recipe to another cook, not printed or dressed up as an official document. At the top it read **Turned Apple and Dark-Berry Pudding**. The recipe used sound day-old bread as a buttered shell around apples cooked thick with honey and dark berry preserve, with practical notes for crock, oven, failures, leftovers and variations rather than pretending another kitchen would behave exactly like the first. "If you like it, I look forward to testing your version." Caswick took the page. Whatever she had expected Ian's last interruption to contain, it plainly had not been a recipe. Her eyes went first to the title, then down the ingredients. The kitchen continued making noises behind her while she read far enough to understand the shape of it: yesterday's bread buttered into a deep crock, apples cooked thick with honey, dark berry preserve through the filling, more bread closing the top before the whole thing went into moderate oven heat and was eventually turned out. At *falling heat after bread or pies have been removed*, her attention sharpened. "That's useful." She read that part again, then continued through the warning about keeping the fruit thick and the entirely practical permission to serve the first failure from the crock rather than pretending it had succeeded. That earned Ian a look. "You've written instructions for what to do when it goes wrong. I trust this recipe more already." Caswick turned the page over briefly, finding nothing hidden on the back, then returned to the beginning. "Day-old bread I already have. Apples aren't difficult. Preserve depends what I've got open, but dark berry is ordinary enough." Her thumb rested beside the baking section. "And using the oven after the main bread comes out means I'm not heating it for one pudding." The calculation was unmistakably an innkeeper's rather than a cook admiring novelty for its own sake. Then she looked at Ian properly. "Thank you." This time there was no teasing in it. "I'll try one before I inflict it on paying customers. If it behaves itself, I'll see whether the kitchen thinks it's worth making again." She folded the parchment carefully once, avoiding the written face, and tucked it beneath the cloth at the end of the counter rather than carrying it towards the steam and flour of the kitchen in her hand. "And if it becomes popular, you and Lethira still have to pay for it." The corner of her mouth moved. "You gave me the recipe, not the apples." Then Caswick headed for the kitchen with the page safely out of harm's way and a new use for tomorrow's leftover bread already occupying part of her attention. --- Ian said farewell and left the Reed and Wheel. Once he had found somewhere quiet enough not to make a spectacle of the mechanism, the walk between errands became unnecessary. He disappeared and reappeared discreetly near the civic records office, then went in to ask whether the town had answered his preliminary southern-route enquiry and what it would cost to secure continuing use of the final town-controlled ground. The civic office was quieter than it had been on Ian's last visit. A pair of traders occupied one bench with a rolled lease between them, speaking in low voices while an elderly clerk copied something from a wax tablet into a ledger. Behind the main counter, the middle-aged woman with polished lenses was sorting tied bundles into shallow pigeonholes. She looked up when Ian entered. Recognition came quickly. "Mr Kirk." Her hand paused over one bundle. "Your water enquiry came back." That saved several stages of explanation. She crossed to a side cabinet, found the reference from Ian's earlier filing and brought out the original enquiry with another sheet folded around it. The route sketch had acquired several small annotations in a different hand. "The answer is broadly favourable." She laid the papers on the counter where Ian could read them. The water desk had not accepted the remembered walking line exactly. Near the old flood channel, the proposed path crossed ground they wanted left unobstructed during high water and maintenance. Their preferred line bent farther around it, following slightly higher ground before returning towards the river margin. The difference was modest. It still produced a continuous route from the southern private parcel to the public river edge. The clerk indicated the written conditions one by one. "A narrow natural path is acceptable. You may cut ordinary encroaching growth to keep it passable, but not remove bank-holding trees or substantially clear the wet ground without asking again." Her finger moved lower. "A small sitting place is also acceptable on the higher section they've marked here. Movable bench, chairs, table—things that can be taken away. No fixed platform or building." Then the expected limitation. "Any bridge is still a separate works application. They've made no decision about one because you haven't supplied a design or exact crossing." She turned the page slightly. "What they are willing to offer for the lower ground is a standing, non-exclusive use agreement connected to the private parcel above it. The town keeps its drainage and maintenance rights, other lawful river access remains lawful, and they can temporarily close the route if flooding or necessary works make it unsafe." Her nail stopped beside the financial entry. "Sixteen heavy silver on entry." That was eighty of the thin silver Caswick had just been using as Ian's practical reference, or a little over one and a half of the small gold pieces. "Then one heavy silver each year as the continuing water-ground due." Five thin silver annually. The clerk glanced over the top of her lenses. "You're not buying the ground. That's why the figure is nothing like acquiring the private land above it. You're paying for a durable recorded right to maintain and use the route beyond what an ordinary member of the public could assume." She tapped the annotated sketch once. "If you later acquire the private parcel—or secure passage through it by some other means—the two together would give you a legally continuous route from that parcel to the river, subject to these conditions." The papers remained open on the counter in front of Ian. "That's fantastic news, thank you for turning it around so quickly! I'm happy with those terms in principle, I shall go see if I can get an offer accepted on the other parcel now. If they accept shall I return and ask for terms to be drawn up so I can pay and sign?" The clerk nodded. "Yes. Once you can show that the private part of the route is actually secured—purchase, permanent passage agreement, or another recorded right—come back with the document." She folded the water-desk response back around the enquiry. "Then we can have the standing-use terms drawn properly against the adjoining parcel and the approved lower route. You read them, sign if you're still content, pay the entry amount, and the annual due begins from the agreement rather than from today's enquiry." Her expression softened by a degree. "Until then, this remains an offer in principle from the water desk. Useful, but not something you owe money on." She returned Ian's stamped copy across the counter. "And if the private owner says no, you haven't bought yourself a path leading nowhere." Ian thanked her again. Outside the office he found another unobtrusive moment and crossed the intervening streets without walking them, reappearing near the property intermediary's office. The grey-haired intermediary was in the same narrow front room Ian remembered, with two property ledgers open across her desk and a bundle of tied papers occupying the chair beside it. She looked up when he entered. "Mr Kirk." Recognition turned almost immediately into expectation. She closed the nearer ledger and moved the papers from the spare chair. "Back about the southern ground?" Ian made clear that he wanted to put forward an offer, and that the amount was **seventy-two heavy silver**. The intermediary's earlier comparison figures had now acquired a useful shape against Caswick's coins: fifty heavy silver as an ambitious opening, seventy as the likely fair settlement, and ninety as the point where the adjoining-owner premium would begin to look like overpayment. Seventy-two sat only just above the middle figure. Her eyebrows rose slightly. "Three hundred and sixty in the smaller silver." She repeated it once as though testing the figure against the parcel rather than merely converting the coins. "That's a serious offer." The intermediary reached for a fresh sheet. "It's a little above where I'd have called the likely fair settlement, but not foolishly so. Given that the land adjoins yours, I wouldn't advise you to reduce it unless your aim were simply to bargain." She dipped her pen, then paused before writing the purchaser line. "Whose name am I putting on the offer?" "Just mine please, if that's acceptable." The intermediary gave one small nod. "That's acceptable." She wrote **Ian Kirk** on the purchaser line without adding Lethira's name. "The adjoining holding being jointly owned doesn't require adjoining land to be bought the same way. This parcel can be yours alone." Her pen continued across the sheet: the southern parcel identified from the registry record, **seventy-two heavy silver** offered for full transfer, ordinary title and registry checks to precede completion, and no assumption that the seller had accepted merely because the offer had been lodged. She sanded the writing lightly, tipped the excess away and read the material terms through once before turning the page towards Ian. "I'll put this to her as a clean offer at seventy-two. No invented urgency, no claim that she has competing buyers, and no suggestion that you're asking for anything beyond the parcel itself." The intermediary rested one finger beside the amount. "At this figure, I would expect her to take it seriously." "Thank you, I've a few more errands to do so will come back later." The intermediary nodded and drew the offer sheet back towards herself. "I'll send word as soon as she answers." She slid the paper into a narrow folder rather than leaving it loose among the ledgers. "Later should be enough. If she replies before then, I'll have it waiting." Her attention had already begun returning to the next piece of business on the desk, the offer now entered into the ordinary machinery of property rather than hanging in the room as a dramatic event. --- Ian left and discreetly removed the rest of the journey to the Lifegiver's realm. The transition left Merrowford behind without ceremony. The Lifegiver's garden was where Ian had last known it: growth everywhere, but no longer quite the seamless abundance it had once been. The bed they had worked together remained recognisably worked by hands and tools. Nearby, another patch had been disturbed more recently, its soil turned unevenly rather than corrected into impossible perfection. The Lifegiver was kneeling beside it. She had a small hand fork in one hand and dirt along two fingers of the other. A young plant beside her leaned noticeably away from where it ought to have been growing. She appeared to have noticed this and, more remarkably, had not yet fixed it. Her attention shifted to Ian. For a moment the warmth in her expression arrived before the old instinct to examine him did. That instinct still existed; he could see the beginning of it in the way her gaze sharpened. She stopped herself. The fork remained in the soil. "You came back." She sat back on her heels, leaving the crooked plant crooked. Then her eyes narrowed with sudden interest. "Did you find out what the land actually costs?" "Give me a hug before that." Ian smiled. The Lifegiver looked at him for half a heartbeat, then smiled. "Yes." She pushed herself up from the soil and crossed the short distance between them without trying to inspect, mend or improve anything along the way. Her arms went around Ian. The embrace was warm and close, carrying the faint scents of turned earth, leaves and something flowering farther across the garden. Dirt from her fingers marked the back of his shirt where one hand settled, and she made no attempt to remove it. For a few quiet moments, she simply held him. Ian squeezed back, then broke the embrace. "Yes. I have the amount I need. If you think it's too much, I'm happy to do more work, as it means I can spend more time with you as well." He told her the combined amount he expected to need: seventy-two heavy silver for the private parcel, sixteen for the town's entry payment, and one more for the first annual due. The Lifegiver listened without interrupting while Ian laid out the figures. "Eighty-nine heavy silver." She repeated the total carefully. "Four hundred and forty-five of the smaller silver you described. Just under nine of the little gold pieces." Her gaze drifted towards the worked garden bed, not towards any imagined pile of money. "That is a great deal more useful than telling me you need 'enough to buy land.'" Then she shook her head slightly. "But whether it is too much is the wrong question." She crouched and picked up the hand fork she had left in the soil, turning it once between her fingers. "If I employ you, I should pay what your work is worth. You wanting eighty-nine heavy silver does not make one morning of gardening worth eighty-nine heavy silver, and wanting to spend more time here does not make your labour cheaper either." There was something almost pleased in the firmness of it. The old Lifegiver might have solved the need first and justified the means afterward. This one was refusing to let Ian's desired outcome determine the value of the transaction. She looked back at him. "The town amount sounds settled if you choose to proceed. But the seventy-two is still an offer, isn't it? Has the owner actually accepted it yet?" "No, I've made the offer. But I can't accept a deal without funds. That would be dishonest." The Lifegiver's expression softened. "Yes." She said it without hesitation. "You may make an offer you intend to honour. But you should not sign away money you do not yet possess merely because you expect me to provide it." She looked down at the worked bed again. "The price has still done what I needed it to do. I know the scale of the problem now. I do not need the seller to accept before we can agree what your work is worth." Her fingers brushed loose soil from the fork. "And I don't think we should measure it by days. Time here is an inconvenient thing to use for wages, and I don't want either of us pretending otherwise." She indicated the completed garden bed. "We can price the work instead. A properly cleared, prepared and planted bed of agreed size, done by hand, with no divine correction and no use of your other abilities. The same kind of work you already did." There was a pause while she regarded the result with considerably more seriousness than the crooked rows probably deserved. "Then the amount is the amount because that work is worth it to me. Not because you need eighty-nine heavy silver." Her attention returned to Ian. "We should value the first bed too. You already earned something before either of us knew what you were trying to buy." She rested the fork against her shoulder. "Shall we agree the price per completed bed?" "Yes, whatever you think is reasonable, but please take chocolate into consideration." Ian smiled at her. The Lifegiver's expression changed immediately. "Ah." There was entirely too much recognition in the sound. "The chocolate." She looked at Ian with narrowed eyes, then down at the garden as though this had introduced a serious complication into divine employment law. "No." A smile escaped anyway. "You gave me that. If I turn it into part of your wages after the fact, then it wasn't a gift. And I liked it far too much to permit that kind of accounting." She pointed the hand fork at him. "I will, however, take it into consideration when judging the character of an employee who attempts to influence his employer with chocolate." The fork lowered. She regarded the bed they had already made together, then the surrounding ground, taking longer over the actual question. "Two heavy silver for a completed bed of that size, prepared to the same standard." Her gaze returned to Ian. "That is deliberately more than ordinary digging would be worth. But ordinary digging isn't what I want from you. I can move soil without effort. I can make roots grow where I please. I can correct every uneven line before anyone notices it." She looked towards the crooked young plant nearby. "What I cannot buy from myself is another person coming here, working beside me, using hands and tools while I practise allowing the work to be imperfect. The restraint is mine, but having someone here who is not an extension of me is part of what makes the work useful." A small pause. "So two heavy silver is what one finished bed is worth to me. Not because you need eighty-nine, and not because I possess enough coin to be careless about the difference." Her mouth softened. "The first bed counts. You already did the work." Then the smile returned. "The chocolate still does not." "I agree, but might I work it off as debt?" Ian looked hopeful. "After the second one we can do now." The Lifegiver studied him for a moment. Then she nodded. "Yes. That can be honest." She planted the hand fork into the soil beside her. "But only because we've already agreed what the work is worth. I won't lend you eighty-nine and then decide afterward how much gardening that somehow represents." Her fingers moved as she counted. "The first bed earns two heavy silver. If we finish another today, that makes four you've actually earned." She looked faintly amused. "Then I can advance you another eighty-six heavy silver against forty-three more beds at the same rate." That would put ninety heavy silver in Ian's hands altogether—one more than the eighty-nine he presently expected to need—without changing the value of a single bed to fit his purchase. "You would owe me forty-three completed beds. No interest. No changing the price later because either of us discovers the arrangement was unusually convenient. If you decide you don't want to keep working here, you return the unpaid balance in coin." Her expression softened. "And you may take as long as you like between them. I am not going to turn friendship into a labour sentence simply because you asked for an advance." She looked across the garden towards an untouched patch beside the first bed. "That one can be the second." "I might enjoy my servitude." Ian smiled and prepared to start. The Lifegiver gave him a long look. "Do not call employment *servitude* while negotiating unusually favourable credit with your employer." There was no real severity behind it. Then they worked. Time in the garden remained difficult to measure because neither sun nor shadow had any obligation to Merrowford's morning, and for Ian's errands the visit sat outside the useful flow of Merrowford time. The work itself supplied its own sequence. The Lifegiver marked the second bed with cord rather than making the soil understand where its edges ought to be. Ian broke the surface with a spade. She followed with the fork, loosening the heavier clods and exposing pale roots that had spread beneath the neighbouring growth. Some came easily. Others did not. A thick runner disappeared beneath the edge of the bed and returned twice farther along. The Lifegiver found the second return, stared at it, then began laughing. "I made things like this." She pulled. The root remained where it was. Her expression became offended. Ian worked beside her until enough soil had been opened to trace the runner properly. They removed it in sections rather than with a thought, leaving several smaller roots behind when neither of them could honestly tell whether pursuing them would help more than it damaged the surrounding earth. The Lifegiver nearly corrected one uneven edge. Her hand lifted before she noticed what she was doing. She stopped. The soil remained uneven. A little later Ian put a forkful down somewhere she plainly would not have chosen. Her eyes followed it. Nothing happened. That seemed harder for her than the digging. They rested when the work made resting sensible. Water appeared only when deliberately fetched rather than because thirst had become an unacceptable biological condition. Dirt accumulated on hands, knees and clothing. Once, the Lifegiver wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist and left a brown streak there for several minutes before Ian's expression made her realise what she had done. She laughed again and left that too. The planting was slower. They chose what belonged in the bed before anything entered it. The Lifegiver could have known the perfect depth, spacing and future shape of every root. Instead she worked from the same practical decisions they had agreed upon: room for growth, sensible rows, enough space to weed between them. One line wandered. She noticed. Ian noticed her noticing. The line continued wandering. By the end, the second bed was recognisably related to the first without being its duplicate. Its edges were a little less straight. One section of soil remained clumpier than the rest. The plants stood at human-made intervals rather than divine ones, and one near the end leaned fractionally towards its neighbour. The Lifegiver sat back on her heels. For some time she simply looked at it. Then she put the hand fork down in the soil between them. "Finished." Her voice carried quiet satisfaction. She glanced towards the first bed, then back to the second. "Four heavy silver earned." A smile appeared. "And forty-three beds of terrible servitude still available to you, should you survive the conditions." "The company more than makes up for the conditions." The Lifegiver went still for a moment. Then her expression softened in a way that had nothing to do with gardens, wages or whether the second row wandered. "That," she said, "is an extremely dangerous thing to tell an employer." Her eyes dropped briefly to the dirt on Ian's clothes, then to the matching state of her own hands. "But I am glad." She sat beside the finished bed rather than correcting anything in it, close enough that their shoulders could nearly touch if either of them shifted. For once, the silence around her did not seem like something she needed to fill with care. "I like the company too." Ian passed her a hundred-gram bar of eighty-percent chocolate with pistachio. "Thank you, I mean it." He touched her hand briefly. The Lifegiver looked down at the bar in Ian's hand. Then at Ian. Then back at the bar. "You are doing this deliberately now." There was no accusation in it at all. She accepted the chocolate with both hands, reading the wrapping as though it were a document of considerable personal significance. The darker percentage meant something to her now; the pistachio did not, at least not yet. Ian's brief touch against her hand held her attention for a moment longer than the gift itself. Her fingers curled lightly around his before he withdrew. "I know." The answer was quiet. Then she broke off a small piece. The first taste made her eyes narrow. This one was less immediately sweet than what he had brought before, the bitterness arriving first and lingering beneath it. A moment later the pistachio changed the texture and gave her something else to notice entirely. She chewed with great concentration. "Oh." Another small piece followed. "That's unfairly good." She looked at the remaining bar, then towards Ian, visibly resisting the impulse to consume a hundred grams of evidence in the name of understanding it. "I am putting this somewhere safe before I discover that restraint has more than one application." The chocolate disappeared into the ordinary little collection of things she had begun keeping rather than transforming, correcting or absorbing into the endless garden. When she looked back, the warmth remained. "Thank you. For this, and for coming back." Ian stood and embraced her. "Till my next shift." He smiled. The Lifegiver embraced him back at once. This time there was no hesitation in it, only familiarity beginning to form around an arrangement neither of them had expected: wages, garden beds, chocolate and friendship occupying the same strange corner of her existence. "Till your next shift." She drew back enough to look at him. "I'll try not to complete all forty-three beds before my employee returns." A beat passed. "That was a joke." Her expression became more serious. "I won't." Then she smiled and let him go. "May I take the advance in a mix of small gold and silver?" The Lifegiver nodded. "Of course. The value is what matters, not making you carry eighty-six pieces because we happened to state the debt in heavy silver." She considered the familiar Merrowford-useful coins they had already separated from the old offerings. "For the advance: eight of the small gold and six heavy silver. That's eighty-six heavy silver in value." Her mouth curved. "And the four heavy silver you've actually earned remain wages, not debt." She held the distinction for a moment, evidently pleased with it. "So altogether you leave with eight small gold and ten heavy silver. Ninety heavy silver of value. Eighty-six advanced against forty-three future beds; four already yours." Ian showed the palm of his hand. The same amount from the Lifegiver's vast reserve of genuine mortal offerings appeared there: eight of the familiar small gold pieces and ten heavy silver. He left his hand open for her to check if she wanted. "Thank you again." The Lifegiver did check. Not because she doubted Ian, but because they had spent too much effort making the transaction honest to become careless at the final step. She counted the coins in his palm: eight of the small familiar gold pieces, ten heavy silver. Each came from the old mortal offerings they had already filtered for coins Merrowford would recognise and accept without requiring an explanation of their origin. Nothing new had been made; nothing had been altered into local money. Her fingertip touched one gold piece, then the last silver. "Ninety heavy silver in value." She looked up at him. "Four earned. Eighty-six advanced. Forty-three beds owed." The accounting completed, her expression softened. "Good." She closed Ian's fingers gently over the coins. "Now they're yours." At his thanks, she smiled. "You're welcome, Ian." Her gaze moved briefly towards the two imperfect garden beds. "And I expect my employee back eventually. I have apparently become accustomed to the company." Ian gave her a brotherly peck on the cheek and disappeared. The Lifegiver blinked as the kiss touched her cheek. For once, she had no immediate answer ready. Then Ian was gone. She remained standing beside the two worked beds, one hand rising slowly to the place he had kissed her. The expression that followed was quieter than surprise and less complicated than anything she would once have tried to make of it. After a moment she looked towards the garden. The crooked plant still leaned. The uneven row remained uneven. The chocolate was safely put away. And forty-three beds waited for an employee who intended to come back. The Lifegiver smiled and returned to her work. --- Merrowford had not spent the same stretch of time while Ian was away. With the Lifegiver's garden removed from the useful flow of his morning and his other journeys reduced to discreet transitions, there was still time before the lunch he had promised Lethira. Ian returned to the intermediary. She looked up almost as soon as he entered. This time she did not need to ask why he was there. She drew out the narrow folder containing his offer. "Good timing. She accepted." The intermediary turned the page so Ian could see the seller's mark and the short written acceptance beneath the offer amount. "Seventy-two heavy silver. No counteroffer." Apparently the seller had been in town rather than out at the parcel, and the intermediary's runner had caught her at her sister's house. She had taken enough time to read the offer properly, asked whether Ian was seeking only the registered southern parcel rather than any right beyond it, and accepted once that was confirmed. The intermediary tapped the purchaser line. "We'll check the current registry and prepare the transfer in Ian Kirk's name alone. If nothing new has been entered against the parcel, it can be ready for signatures and payment later today. Keep the money until then; an accepted offer is not completed title." "Fantastic! I have funds now so we can proceed through the necessary work. I'll come back later afternoon to conclude then?" "Yes. Later afternoon should be fine. If the registry finds anything worth delaying over, I'll tell you before you sign." She placed the accepted offer with the papers for the registry, expecting routine rather than trouble. Ian waved, departed, and again used the mechanism discreetly rather than spending the remaining morning crossing town on foot. He appeared near the civic office and entered to have the lower-route terms prepared now that the private owner's answer was known. The middle-aged clerk with polished lenses reached for Ian's increasingly familiar enquiry bundle before he had finished explaining that the owner had accepted his offer and the transfer was expected later that afternoon. "Good. Then we can prepare it." She drew out the water-desk response and its annotated route sketch. "Not execute it yet. The accepted offer doesn't give you rights over the private ground. Once the registry records the transfer to you, it will." A fresh sheet joined the earlier papers. The draft formalised the conditions already explained that morning: a non-exclusive pedestrian route across town-owned wet ground, with the natural path, limited clearance and movable sitting place permitted while drainage, working access and temporary closure remained under town control. Vehicles, fixed works and alteration of the drainage or watercourse remained excluded. The final wording also made constructed steps, bank work and any bridge separate works applications. The sixteen-heavy-silver entry payment and first annual due of one heavy silver would both fall due when the agreement was executed: seventeen heavy silver at signing. "This one will be yours." Her finger rested briefly beside **Ian Kirk**. "The right serves the southern parcel. If that parcel is transferred into your name alone this afternoon, you alone can enter this agreement with the town." The jointly owned house did not enter the instrument. Legally, the town's agreement began at the boundary of the adjoining parcel. The clerk sanded the draft and placed it with the annotated plan. "When your transfer is complete, bring the registry evidence back. We'll confirm that you're now the recorded owner of the adjoining parcel, you can read the final instrument again, then sign and pay the seventeen." She tied the draft together with the water-desk response. "After that, you'll have the private land and a recorded continuing route from its southern boundary to the river."