## Chapter 451 — Lunch at Home

By midday, the house had settled into the warmer part of the day.

Lethira had changed out of the outer leather layer she had worn for the boundary walk, though her field trousers remained marked at the knees from the garden. The deed was back in its cover. Her range notes sat beside it on the scarred table, the final line—**Ian beginner line**—still written beneath the more serious observations.

Lunch had not become complicated.

Bread sat beneath a cloth. There was cheese, the remains of yesterday's cold meat, a small bowl of pickled vegetables and two apples. Lethira had considered cooking something, then decided that spending the morning measuring land and fighting plant roots did not oblige her to manufacture a hot meal simply because Ian was coming home.

She poured herself another cold drink and carried it to the table.

From where she sat, she could see part of the garden through the rear window. The bed she had worked looked marginally more intentional than it had that morning. Beyond it, the stream disappeared beneath leaves and lower ground towards the uncertain land south.

That could wait.

The range no longer had to.

Lethira picked up her note again and studied the practical decisions. The ground fitted. The angle worked. A backstop remained the first real construction problem, and she wanted something substantial enough that a beginner's mistake ended in earth or timber rather than an apology.

She put the scrap down.

Ian had said around lunchtime.

Lethira glanced towards the front of the house, then deliberately did not get up to check anything. He knew where home was.

Instead she cut the first apple in half, took one piece for herself and left the other beside the second plate.

Ian entered.

"Hello, my Lady."

Lethira looked up from the table.

"Hello, my decorative economic dependent."

Her eyes took him in, then returned to his face. Whatever she noticed there made her set the apple down.

"You look pleased with yourself."

She gestured towards the second chair with two fingers.

"Come eat before you become mysterious at me on an empty stomach."

"I haven't quite aligned time, my real body is still in the bath, lunch is about an hour away. That's pretty close though."

Ian sat down beside her and took a bite from the other apple half.

Lethira watched the missing half diminish.

"An hour is close enough that I'm prepared to call that progress."

Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, evidently picturing the absurdity of one Ian sitting beside her while another remained in bathwater somewhere unreachable.

"Although it does mean I'm having lunch with a man who is technically still bathing."

She took another bite from her own half and let that observation stand.

Then her attention shifted to the range notes beside the deed.

"My morning worked."

A small, satisfied smile appeared.

"The range fits. Not exactly where your rectangle put it, but entirely inside our boundary. I want a proper backstop before I shoot there, and I've left room for a shorter line when you eventually decide to become dangerous with a bow."

She pushed the scrap across far enough for him to see **Ian beginner line** at the bottom.

"How did your mysterious chores go?"

"Does this mean you're going to attempt the challenge of teaching me to shoot?"

Lethira's eyes moved from the note to Ian.

"Yes."

She said it plainly.

"I don't expect it to be especially difficult. I expect *you* to make parts of it difficult."

Her mouth curved.

"But yes. If you want to learn, I'll teach you."

She tapped the line she had written for him.

"Short distance first. Light bow if we can get one that fits you properly. Stance, draw, release, and enough repetition that you stop trying to solve every arrow after it has already left."

Then she took another bite of apple.

"You'll be terrible for a while."

The satisfaction in her expression suggested that this was not remotely a problem.

"I might have to hide in the bath until you come find me."

Lethira gave him a slow, assessing look.

"Your real bath?"

She leaned back in her chair.

"That seems strategically poor. I can't reach that one unless you decide I can."

Her eyes dropped briefly to the apple in his hand, then returned to his face.

"And hiding the version of you I *can* reach would merely make this into tracking practice."

A faint smile appeared.

"I have considerably more experience at that than you do."

"I wish I could let you open the door I can see and enter. Oh well."

Ian paused briefly.

"My morning was good. I also went to see the Lifegiver. She's doing okay. I think seeing someone helps. She's trying to deal with prayer and that. I think she's doing well so far. I helped her do some work in her garden by hand, not magic. I think that helped too."

Lethira's expression settled into something more thoughtful.

"Good."

She reached for a piece of cheese and broke it in half before continuing.

"Not *fixed*. Good."

Her eyes returned to Ian.

"Prayer seems like it would be one of the harder parts. People asking her for help all the time, often because they're frightened or hurting, and her entire history telling her that answering is what makes her good."

She ate the smaller piece of cheese.

"The garden sounds useful for exactly the opposite reason. Something can need doing without needing a god."

A little amusement returned.

"And making the Lifegiver pull weeds by hand is an image I intend to enjoy for some time."

She glanced at the dirt still marking Ian's clothes from the work.

"Did you enjoy it?"

"I did."

"I did get some advice on our kitchen garden from her, but only if you want it. We can still discover unknown plants ourselves if you prefer."

Lethira considered that properly.

"I'd like the advice."

She glanced towards the garden beyond the window.

"But not if she told you what the unknown plants are. I want to find that out here."

Her attention returned to Ian.

"Anything about soil, spacing, what to leave alone, what looks unhealthy—yes. I'll happily steal several aeons of gardening experience."

A small pause.

"The mystery plants can keep their mystery."

She reached for another piece of bread.

"What did she suggest?"

Ian passed on the Lifegiver's practical advice while keeping the identities of the surviving plants out of it: what she had said about the soil, leaving enough room around established growth, clearing cautiously rather than assuming everything unfamiliar was a weed, and judging the bed by how the plants responded rather than trying to make it tidy all at once.

Lethira listened with the concentration she usually gave useful field information.

Once, her eyes narrowed towards the garden as though reconsidering something she had pulled that morning. By the end she was looking distinctly pleased.

"Good."

She glanced through the window again.

"That mostly confirms I was right to leave the things I couldn't identify alone. And apparently I don't need to declare war on the whole bed in one afternoon."

She picked up another piece of cheese.

"I can work with that."

A brief smile followed.

"And when one of the mystery plants eventually turns out to be something embarrassingly obvious, you are forbidden from telling me how long the Lifegiver knew."

Ian smiled at her.

"And your morning sounded good too. Shall we dine in town tonight?"

Lethira nodded.

"Yes."

She looked down at the remains of lunch, then towards the window where the afternoon waited.

"I'd like that. We can spend the rest of the day separately again and meet in town this evening."

Her expression softened.

"Reed and Wheel, unless you want somewhere different. I haven't yet exhausted the pleasure of arriving there from my own day and finding you already attached to a table."

"I like Caswick, so yes, that sounds good. Then a walk after."

Ian reached for her hand and squeezed it.

"I don't think I can bear the entire evening separately."

Lethira turned her hand beneath his and squeezed back.

"You aren't required to."

Her thumb moved once across his knuckles.

"We'll have our afternoon. Then dinner, then a walk, then home."

She glanced towards the window and the land beyond it.

"That seems a perfectly adequate amount of separation for one day."

Her eyes returned to Ian, warm and steady.

"And I like Caswick too."

"I have been in this bath too long, in my world, so should get out."

"Unless you have any suggested activities I need to perform before?"

Ian grinned suggestively.

Lethira's eyes narrowed at the grin.

"No."

She leaned across the table and kissed him slowly enough to make the refusal less convincing than the word.

When she drew back, her fingers remained around his hand.

"Get out of the bath before you dissolve."

A small smile appeared.

"If I ever gain access to that particular room, you may ask me again."

Ian smiled.

"What plans for you this afternoon?"

Lethira considered it over the remains of the apple.

"I'm going back to the range first."

She glanced towards the scrap beside the deed.

"I know where it fits now. I want to mark the firing line and target position properly, then spend some time behind it deciding what sort of backstop I actually trust. The rise helps, but I don't intend to discover the weak part of my plan with an arrow."

Her fingers drummed once against the table.

"After that, probably a little more garden. *A little.* I've learned that clearing one patch merely reveals several more patches with opinions."

A quieter professional thought followed.

"I may walk into town early and stop at the Guild before dinner. Brannock was meant to get a follow-up after the drainage crew went back into the Reed-Mauler ground. I'd like to know whether that bank was as undermined as it looked once they opened it properly."

She reached for the last piece of cheese.

"I'm not taking another contract this afternoon unless something genuinely urgent has happened. The roof is waiting for its dry window, the chairs and mattress are waiting for other people to make them, and I refuse to invent household emergencies merely because I have several free hours."

Her mouth curved.

"So: arrows I will not shoot yet, weeds I may or may not understand, possibly one clerk, then Caswick and you."

They finished lunch together. The remains were put away, and when there was nothing left on the table worth pretending to preserve they stood.

The kiss began as goodbye and lasted long enough to become something else before settling back into one. Lethira's arms went around Ian and held him close for a few quiet moments, cheek against him, the afternoon waiting outside without becoming urgent.

"Reed and Wheel this evening."

She drew back, kissed him once more and let him go.

Then they pursued their separate afternoons.

---

Ian allowed Merrowford a reasonable amount of time to conduct its paperwork before returning to the intermediary.

By then the light had moved noticeably across the narrow office window.

The grey-haired woman had cleared most of the morning's papers from her desk. Ian's southern-parcel folder sat by itself near the centre, untied.

She looked up as he entered.

"Mr Kirk. Good."

She opened the folder and turned the registry sheet towards him.

"The current record is clean. Same owner, same parcel, no new debt, lien, access dispute or competing transfer entered against it."

The intermediary had also checked that the parcel's recorded northern boundary met the existing holding where expected and that its southern edge adjoined the town-controlled lower ground Ian had been discussing with the civic office. The old field marker remained merely a convenient physical reference; the registered boundaries, not the stone, controlled the transfer.

A second document lay beneath the registry extract.

"The seller has signed."

Her mark and witnessed signature sat at the appropriate places. The transfer named **Ian Kirk** alone as purchaser and recorded consideration of **seventy-two heavy silver**, while leaving the physical form of payment to be counted and acknowledged at completion.

The intermediary placed the document squarely in front of Ian, then set an empty counting tray beside it.

"Everything necessary on her side is done. If you're satisfied with the record, what's left here is your signature and payment. Then we lodge the executed transfer with the registry."

Ian signed.

He handed over the payment, small gold first and then the balance in silver.

One small gold piece went onto the tray, then another, until seven lay in a neat line. The intermediary counted each familiar issue by sight and weight in the hand. Seventy heavy silver in value.

Ian added two heavy silver pieces.

"Seventy-two."

She counted the value through once more before drawing the payment acknowledgement towards herself.

Nothing about the coins required explanation. They were ordinary recognised pieces of the kinds Merrowford already accepted, old mortal histories reduced here to weight, strike and value.

The intermediary signed the receipt.

"Payment received in full."

She placed the executed transfer, seller's acceptance, payment acknowledgement and current title check into the narrow folder.

Ian's remaining money amounted to one small gold and eight heavy silver—eighteen heavy silver in the same local reckoning.

"I need to present evidence of this to the town clerks, if you were going to deposit may I come with you?"

The intermediary nodded.

"I was."

She left Ian's purchaser copy with him and tied the registry folder closed.

"You can come. It saves you presenting a fresh copy five minutes after I've lodged the original."

She stood and reached for her outer coat.

"The registry desk will enter the transfer first. Once they stamp your copy against the new record, you can take that straight across to the clerk handling your water agreement."

Her expression suggested this was less an expedition than two pieces of administration conveniently sharing a corridor.

"Come on, then."

Ian followed the intermediary through Merrowford.

The walk took them through the ordinary middle of the afternoon rather than any part of town interested in property drama. A cooper's apprentice rolled two hoops across a yard. Somebody was arguing over onions at a market stall. A cart blocked half a street while its driver attempted to reverse into a space that had plainly not been designed with optimism in mind.

The intermediary walked with the parcel folder tucked beneath one arm.

"You chose a good time," she said as they crossed towards the civic offices. "Another hour and half the desks start preparing to become tomorrow's problem."

Inside, she went directly to the registry side rather than the counter Ian had been using for the water enquiry.

The clerk there knew her. That reduced the exchange to papers rather than explanations.

The intermediary laid out the executed transfer, seller's acceptance, payment acknowledgement and current title check. The registry clerk compared the parcel description against the existing entry, checked Ian's purchaser name and the witnessed signatures, then disappeared briefly into the records room with the transfer sheet.

When she returned, she carried the registry volume with her.

The old ownership line received a closing notation.

Beneath it she entered the new one:

**Ian Kirk — sole registered owner.**

The consideration was recorded as **seventy-two heavy silver**, with payment acknowledged in full. The adjoining joint holding to the north remained unchanged.

The clerk pressed the registry stamp onto the official entry, then onto Ian's purchaser copy.

"There."

She handed the stamped copy across the counter.

"The transfer is entered. The southern parcel is now registered to you."

The intermediary glanced towards Ian, evidently satisfied that her part of the transaction had reached its proper end.

Then she nodded towards the other side of the civic office, where the polished-lenses clerk handled the waiting water agreement.

"That should be the evidence she needs."

Ian thanked her, took his stamped copy, said goodbye and headed to the other clerk.

The intermediary accepted his thanks with a small nod.

"You're welcome, Mr Kirk."

With the stamped purchaser copy safely in his hand, her role was finished. She tucked her own papers beneath one arm and turned back towards the registry desk while Ian crossed the civic office.

The clerk with polished lenses saw the stamp before he reached her counter.

"Completed?"

Ian handed over the registry evidence.

She checked the parcel entry, Ian's name and the registry mark, then drew the tied water-agreement bundle from its pigeonhole. The draft she had prepared earlier came out with the annotated route plan and the favourable water-desk response.

"Good. This is enough."

She compared the southern boundary of Ian's newly registered parcel against the approved beginning of the town route, made one confirming notation, then turned the agreement towards him.

Nothing material had changed from the terms explained and drafted that morning. The first annual due still began with execution, making seventeen heavy silver payable at signing and one heavy silver annually thereafter.

The clerk placed a pen beside the execution line.

"Everything is ready. If you're still content with those terms, we can execute it now."

"I'm happy to proceed."

The clerk nodded once.

"Then we'll execute it."

She turned the agreement fully towards Ian and indicated the signature line first, with the annotated route plan laid beside it for reference.

"The seventeen heavy silver is payable with the signing. Once that's acknowledged and I enter the agreement against the parcel, the standing right begins today."

She set an empty counting tray beside the document.

"Sign there, then we'll take the payment."

Ian signed. And paid.

One small gold piece first, followed by seven heavy silver.

The clerk counted the value through carefully.

"Seventeen heavy silver."

She entered the payment beside the execution line, signed the civic acknowledgement and pressed the office stamp onto both the agreement and its attached route plan.

The final entry went into the water-ground register against Ian's newly acquired southern parcel.

"Done. The standing right is now in force."

She turned the stamped copy towards him, her finger moving over the approved route. The first annual due was paid; the town's access and the construction restrictions remained exactly as written.

The papers came back across the counter.

Ian now owned the private parcel and held the recorded continuing right from its southern boundary across the lower town ground to the public river margin.

Of the money he had brought from the Lifegiver, one heavy silver remained.

"Thank you. You've been great."

The clerk's expression softened.

"You're welcome."

She gathered the office copies back into their proper bundle.

"You made it easier by asking what you wanted before asking us to make it legal."

Her eyes flicked towards the stamped agreement in Ian's hand.

"Enjoy the river path, Mr Kirk. And if you decide you want a bridge, bring me a drawing before you build one."

Then she returned to her ledger, the transaction complete.

Ian walked out of the clerk's office and sighed happily.

Outside, Merrowford carried on as though nothing particularly important had happened.

A cart rattled past the civic offices. Somewhere down the street a hammer struck metal in a steady rhythm. Two children pursued one another around a rain barrel until somebody inside a shop told them to stop doing that near the customers.

Ian's stamped papers made no noise at all.

The southern parcel was his.

The lower route to the river was secured.

The annual due was paid for the first year, the private title stood in his name alone, and the route from that parcel to the public river margin now had a legal answer instead of a collection of hopeful questions.

For once, the bureaucracy had not merely explained why something was difficult.

It had finished.

---

Ian headed to the Reed and Wheel to wait for Lethira.

He arrived first.

The common room had begun filling for the evening, though there were still enough empty tables that he could choose one without competing for it. Caswick was behind the counter checking a slate against something the kitchen had apparently failed to count in the same way.

She looked up when Ian approached.

"Lethira isn't here yet."

Ian asked whether they could order, for after dinner, two experimental puddings from the recipe he had given her.

Caswick stared at him for a moment.

"You realise I said I would *test* it."

Her expression gave way first.

"I showed it to the kitchen. They liked the part about using yesterday's bread, which may be the fastest route to an innkeeper's heart."

She glanced through the kitchen door.

"We haven't made one yet. But the oven will be at about the right heat once the evening pies come out."

Caswick considered the request more practically.

"I can have two small crocks tried. Same filling, separate puddings. That way if one refuses to turn out, we may learn whether it was the recipe or the person holding the crock."

The corner of her mouth moved.

"You'll still be paying for the ingredients."

She reached for the order slate.

"And you are accepting that *experimental* means I make no promise they arrive looking dignified."

"You've made nothing that hasn't been great. I have faith in you."

Ian smiled and took a seat to await Lethira.

Caswick gave him a look over the slate.

"I'll choose to believe that was a compliment."

She added the two experimental puddings to the kitchen order and went back to work.

Ian took a table with a view of the door.

The inn filled gradually around him. Evening voices gathered beneath the beams, plates began crossing the room in greater numbers, and the smell from the kitchen shifted from roasting meat towards pastry and browned onions. Somewhere behind it all, two small crocks had apparently become an experiment.

Lethira arrived before Ian had been waiting long.

She came in with her bow over one shoulder and the faint signs of an afternoon spent outdoors still on her: a little soil near one knee, hair tied back for practical work, and the composed satisfaction of somebody whose day had gone approximately where she intended.

Her eyes found Ian almost immediately.

She smiled and crossed towards him.

"There you are."

Ian stood and kissed her before seating.

"How was your afternoon?"

Lethira met the kiss easily, one hand settling at Ian's side before they sat.

"Productive."

She unhooked the bow from her shoulder and rested it safely beside the wall.

"I marked the range properly. The firing line is slightly farther west than your drawing had it, and the targets need to sit at an angle so the eastern boundary is never part of anyone's mistake."

She reached for the cup Caswick had left at the table.

"The rise behind them is useful, but not enough by itself. I want an earth backstop there. Broad, taller than the targets, with enough depth that I don't have to wonder what repeated arrows are doing inside it. We can use timber to hold the shape if necessary, but I don't want a wall pretending to be a backstop."

A faint satisfaction entered her voice.

"I also paced out your beginner line."

She drank.

"You have been allocated a generous distance at which to embarrass yourself safely."

The humour passed, and she continued.

"I did a little more in the garden. *Little* remained an important word. Your borrowed advice helped. I cleared around the plants we're keeping mysterious and stopped before I became ambitious."

Then her expression sharpened into professional interest.

"I went by the Guild on the way here. The drainage crew opened the Reed-Mauler bank."

She set the cup down.

"It was worse underneath than it looked from above, but not catastrophically so. Two old stone courses had lost support and part of the fill behind them had washed out. They closed the reed-side path properly and started rebuilding from firm ground. Brannock said my warning saved them from treating it as a simple surface repair."

Lethira leaned back, visibly pleased with that result without making more of it than necessary.

"So: range decided, garden not destroyed, previous contract still satisfactorily finished."

Her eyes settled on Ian.

"How was your afternoon?"

"A good day. My afternoon was fine. Shall we eat, my love?"

Lethira's expression softened.

"Yes, my love."

She reached across the table and rested her hand briefly over his.

"I have done enough useful things for one day. I am ready to become interested in dinner."

Caswick noticed the shift before either of them had to call for her. She came over with the evening board tucked beneath one arm.

The night's choices were beef with onions and dark gravy, roast chicken with barley and greens, or river fish with buttered roots and herbs.

Lethira glanced over them.

"I'm having the beef."

"The same for me, please, Caswick."

Caswick nodded.

"Two beef."

She made the mark on her slate and moved on towards the kitchen without giving Lethira any reason to think there was more to the order than dinner.

Lethira settled back in her chair, one leg shifting until it rested comfortably against Ian's beneath the table.

"Good choice."

Her gaze moved briefly around the increasingly busy common room before returning to him.

"I've spent enough of today looking at dirt. I intend to spend dinner looking at you instead."

Ian blushed.

"That comparison makes it hard even for me to be self-deprecating."

He reached out and held her hand.

"Should we visit anywhere beyond Merrowford one day? I am actually quite happy here. The realms of the five don't really count as a pleasant day sight-seeing."

Ian looked into her eyes.

"The views here are without equal."

Lethira's fingers closed around his.

The blush pleased her; the rest of it softened her expression.

"Yes. Eventually."

She glanced towards the common-room window, where Merrowford existed beyond the glass as roofs, streets and the evening beginning around them.

"But not because we've exhausted this place."

Her thumb moved slowly across his hand.

"I've spent a great deal of my life travelling because somebody needed me somewhere. Roads, courts, contracts, messages, borders. I think I'd like to find out what travelling feels like when the only reason is that we wanted to see what was there."

Her eyes returned to his.

"I'd take you back through the Woods without us being on our way to something. Great Peak again, perhaps, when neither of us has decided it needs to be a spectacular date. And there are roads east and south I've walked before that I'd like to see differently."

A small smile appeared.

"We could even take a river boat somewhere and accomplish absolutely nothing when we arrive."

Then his final line reached her properly.

Lethira held his gaze for a moment.

"Careful."

She leaned slightly closer across the table.

"You say things like that while holding my hand and I may become impossible to travel with."

Her fingers tightened around his.

"But I am happy here too."

The answer came without qualification.

"I don't feel any need to leave Merrowford in order to prove our life is interesting."

"I have had quite a lot of interesting, yes. For now, I think I want great company and good food. So I have all I need."

Lethira's expression warmed.

"That sounds suspiciously close to contentment."

She kept hold of his hand for another moment before Caswick arrived carrying two plates.

The beef came thick with onions and dark gravy, accompanied by bread and a small heap of buttered roots. Steam rose between them, carrying enough of the kitchen with it to interrupt philosophy on practical grounds.

Caswick set Ian's plate down, then Lethira's.

"Two beef."

Nothing in her manner suggested there was any other arrangement waiting beyond dinner.

Lethira released Ian's hand only because eating one-handed seemed an unnecessary demonstration.

"This," she said, looking down at the plate, "appears to satisfy the good-food requirement."

She cut into the beef and took the first bite with obvious approval.

After swallowing, her eyes lifted to Ian again.

"And the company remains acceptable."

Ian pretended to doff his cap.

"My Lady."

Lethira inclined her head gravely in answer to the imaginary cap.

"Very proper."

Then they ate.

The beef was tender enough to come apart beneath a fork, the onions cooked down into the gravy rather than merely sitting in it. Lethira used bread to collect what escaped across the plate and, after the morning's walking and the afternoon spent pacing the range, made steady progress without much conversation being necessary.

The Reed and Wheel filled around them. Somebody near the hearth laughed loudly enough to earn several looks. A pair of travellers at the next table debated tomorrow's road while Caswick moved between tables with the efficiency of someone who knew exactly which customers required attention and which were perfectly capable of feeding themselves.

Lethira's foot found Ian's beneath the table once and stayed there.

By the time both plates were mostly empty, she sat back with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had been hungry without making an event of it.

"Good food," she said.

Her eyes rested on Ian.

"Still good company."

Before anything else could be added, Caswick appeared beside their table carrying two small baking crocks on folded cloths.

Both were deeply browned across the top.

One looked admirably respectable.

The other had developed a slight lean.

Caswick placed them down with care.

"Ian asked the kitchen for an experiment."

Lethira's attention moved from Caswick, to the crocks, and then very slowly to Ian.

Ian smiled, failing to look innocent at all.

"Thank you Caswick, we'll let you know how it tastes."

Caswick looked between Ian's expression and Lethira's.

"I believe him."

The dry judgement landed entirely on the failed innocence rather than the pudding.

She indicated the straighter crock first.

"Apple, honey and dark berry preserve inside bread. Your mysterious man gave me the recipe this morning. The kitchen has made no promises beyond it being cooked."

Then she collected the folded cloths and left them to the consequences.

Lethira continued looking at Ian for another moment.

"So."

Her eyes dropped to the two browned crocks, lingering briefly on the one with the lean.

"You secretly gave Caswick a pudding recipe."

There was unmistakable amusement in her voice.

She took up her spoon and broke through the crisp bread top of the more precarious example. Steam escaped carrying butter, cooked apple and the sharper scent of berry preserve.

Lethira inspected the filling revealed beneath it, then looked back at Ian.

"What exactly have you arranged for me?"

"I think we owe Caswick a complete investigation on this first."

Ian took his spoon and dug in.

The outside gave a little resistance before yielding with a crisp scrape against the crock. Beneath it, the apple filling had held thick rather than running loose: soft pieces still distinct inside a darker mixture streaked with berry preserve, the edges nearest the bread rich with butter and fruit syrup.

Lethira watched his spoonful disappear with the seriousness of someone observing a field test.

Then she took her own.

The bread had absorbed enough fruit at the inner edge to become soft and rich without losing the toasted exterior. Apple came first, warm and sweet, followed by the sharper berry preserve and the faint salt that kept the whole thing from becoming cloying.

Lethira chewed slowly.

Her eyes narrowed.

She took another spoonful before offering any judgement.

"That's very good."

She turned the crock slightly, examining the place where the shell had browned darkest.

"And annoyingly sensible. Old bread, ordinary fruit, preserve, butter. Nothing in it requires Caswick to pretend she's running a noble kitchen."

Her spoon found another piece of apple.

"I understand why you wanted two."

"I'm surprised there hasn't been an unexplained string of thefts from mine."

Ian pondered.

"I think I need to introduce custard into this world, if it doesn't exist already."

The last important word did not become Common.

*Custard* arrived between them as the same English sound Lethira had heard before.

Recognition was immediate.

Her eyes sharpened.

"The hot sweet cream from after Great Peak."

Apparently its earlier ranking had survived intact.

Lethira looked down at the apple-and-berry pudding, then slowly back at Ian.

"Oh."

She broke off another section of crisp bread shell and considered it with the seriousness of a Warden identifying a newly discovered threat.

"Yes. That would work extremely well."

A moment later practicality caught up with appetite.

"I've never encountered anything here that was quite the same. There are milk creams, sweet sauces and egg dishes, obviously, and some court cooks have done things I never asked enough questions about. That doesn't mean nobody in the world has ever thickened milk and eggs together."

Her spoon descended again.

"But if Common had an ordinary name for exactly what you mean, your word probably wouldn't have arrived sounding like *custard*."

She tasted another bite.

"So you may have found your next contribution to Merrowford."

Lethira took another spoonful.

"And if you're planning to inflict *custard* on Caswick as well, I want to be present when you explain it."

They finished the puddings.

The slightly leaning example proved no less edible than the respectable one. Crisp bread disappeared first from the edges, then the softer fruit-soaked sections beneath it, until only streaks of berry-darkened apple and a few buttery crumbs remained against the pottery.

Lethira scraped one of those crumbs onto her spoon.

"I think the experiment succeeded."

She sat back, comfortably full now, and regarded the empty crock with approval.

"The berry keeps the apple from becoming too sweet. And the bread is better for having been yesterday's."

Caswick passed near enough for Lethira to catch her attention.

"Caswick."

The innkeeper slowed.

Lethira lifted the empty crock slightly.

"Make it again."

Caswick looked at the complete absence of pudding, then at the second equally empty dish.

"Useful feedback."

She collected both crocks.

"I'll tell the kitchen the first trial had no surviving witnesses."

Lethira waited until she had moved away before looking back at Ian.

"I assume you're pleased with yourself."

"I'm hoping that feeling continues, as I have a surprise for you. A gift, but, only if you want it."

Lethira's expression changed at once.

The amusement remained, but something more attentive settled beneath it.

"A gift."

She left her spoon in the empty crock and turned more fully towards Ian, her hand finding his across the table.

"You have my attention."

Her thumb moved once over his fingers.

"And yes, I appreciate the wording."

A small smile.

"Show me what you're offering, and I'll decide whether I want it."

Ian produced the two key documents—the stamped ownership record for the parcel south of their home, and the executed agreement granting the continuing rights across the final town-controlled section—and slid them over.

"We can have our own path to the river."

Ian smiled at her.

"And, before you answer, I did not just will this to happen. I did it the normal way."

He paused.

"Mostly."

"I love you."

Lethira's hand stopped over the first document.

For several seconds she did not touch it.

Then she drew the papers towards herself and read.

The first took longer.

Her eyes moved carefully over the registry confirmation, lingering at **Ian Kirk — sole registered owner**, then lower at the consideration and completed transfer. She read it again before setting it half aside and opening the town agreement.

The second changed her expression more visibly.

A path.

Not merely the line they had walked through wet grass and alder, wondering who owned what. A recorded route from the southern parcel across the lower town ground to the river. Natural surface. Ordinary clearance. A sitting place. Movable furniture. The restrictions were all there too: drainage, flooding, trees, bridges requiring another application.

Lethira's eyes returned to the first page.

Then to Ian.

"You bought it."

There was no accusation in the words. Mostly disbelief.

Her fingers touched his name on the registry copy.

"And you bought it in your own name."

That detail held her for a moment before her gaze dropped to the payment figure.

"Seventy-two heavy silver."

Now surprise arrived from another direction.

She looked at him sharply, clearly remembering that only that morning he had still been a man cheerfully admitting that she paid for everything.

Then his qualification—*the normal way. Mostly.*—caught up with her.

A laugh escaped, small and incredulous, but it did not last. Her eyes had become too bright for that.

She reached across the table and caught his hand.

"I love you too."

Her grip tightened.

For a moment she looked back at the two documents: the land immediately south of their home, then the final stretch to the river they had wanted without knowing whether it could ever become more than a walk.

When she faced him again, her voice was quieter.

"I need to understand what you're giving me."

Her thumb pressed against his hand.

"Are you offering me the land itself?"

"If you want it, we'll change the names to be joint on both documents."

"I didn't want to presume that was okay, but I also wanted the surprise to be complete—putting it in my name felt the right middle ground. I can earn and spend my own money without forcing something on you this way."

"And if you don't want it, that's fine, the journey was fun. I can tell you about it, if you want."

Lethira listened without interrupting.

By the time Ian finished, some of the uncertainty had gone out of her hand. Not the emotion, but the question of what exactly he had done.

She looked down at **Ian Kirk** on the registry copy again.

"Yes."

The answer came quietly, and then more firmly.

"I want it."

Her fingers moved from the ownership document to the town agreement.

"If the clerks can change both properly, I want the parcel and the river right in both our names."

She looked back at Ian. Her eyes had gone bright again, and this time she did not look away from it.

Lethira rose from her chair and came around the table. She bent over him, put both arms around him and held him tightly.

"Our path to the river."

The words caught slightly on the way out.

She kissed him, then stayed close, forehead against his.

"I love you."

After a moment she drew back enough to look at him properly.

"And yes, I want the story."

A small, incredulous smile finally returned.

"Because this morning you were happily being kept, and by lunch you had somehow become a landowner with seventy-two heavy silver to spend."

"I still like being kept, but that made giving you a gift awkward."

Lethira's mouth twitched.

"I can see the logistical difficulty."

She stayed beside him rather than returning to her chair, one hip resting against the edge of the table while Ian told her the story.

He began with Aelira.

Ian repeated her warning without improving it in hindsight. Learn what the land was and acquire the means to contribute, Aelira had advised, but leave the purchase until he and Lethira had chosen together. She had specifically said that she would have concerns if he secretly acquired the land first and presented it as a gift.

Lethira gave a slow nod.

"That sounds like Aelira."

There was affection in it, and no offence. She looked from Ian to his name on the deed.

"She wasn't wrong. You do get carried away."

Her fingers moved to the route marked beside the river.

"But you bought it with your money and put your name on it, not mine. And I wanted this path before either of us knew whether the ground could be bought."

A smile appeared.

"This gamble worked."

Then her eyes narrowed slightly.

"Don't come home with any more land tomorrow."

Ian continued with the clerks. The land immediately south of their holding was a private parcel retained by the woman who had sold them the house; below it, the route crossed town-controlled wet ground which could be used but not bought.

Lethira's eyes dropped to the documents again.

"So that was what you were doing while telling me your day was mostly clerks."

It had indeed involved a surprising quantity of clerks. He explained the amended line around the flood channel and the limited path and sitting rights the water desk had approved.

Then came the money problem. Ian had wanted to pay for the land himself, but possessed almost no local money and would not simply create it. Lethira's eyebrows rose as he described the Lifegiver's aeons of genuine mortal offerings and the careful search for coins Merrowford would recognise.

"And she wouldn't simply give them to you."

No.

The Lifegiver had refused to call an ancient offering pile his wages merely because he wanted it. Instead she had offered him employment: gardening, by hand.

Lethira stared at him.

Ian described the first bed: an omnipotent human and a builder-goddess digging with ordinary tools because neither of them was going to cheat. Roots resisted, soil remained imperfect and the Lifegiver had to tolerate things being slightly wrong when correcting them would have taken less effort than breathing.

That image finally broke Lethira.

She laughed.

Not politely. Not briefly.

She put one hand over her mouth and failed to stop.

"You got a goddess to employ you as a gardener."

The first visit had ended without a wage being set or paid because the Lifegiver would not invent a labour value backwards from an unknown desired sum. That had led Ian to Caswick, where he admitted that the woman he loved had been paying for everything, that he rather liked it and that he consequently understood almost nothing about ordinary money.

Lethira's expression became delighted.

"You told Caswick that."

Apparently he had. Caswick's lesson had used familiar crown issues—their particular ratios, rather than a universal ladder of metals—and the cost of their old room, meals and existing freeholding to make local money mean something to him.

Lethira blinked.

"You didn't know?"

He had not. That amused her nearly as much as divine gardening; she had simply paid.

Lethira's reaction to that was quieter.

"I knew what I paid. I hadn't realised you had no sense at all of what it meant."

There was no rebuke in it.

Once Ian understood the scale, the intermediary's guidance made sense: fifty heavy silver as an ambitious opening, around seventy as a fair likely settlement and ninety as probable adjoining-owner overpayment. Ian had offered seventy-two.

Lethira looked at the ownership document again.

"Just over fair."

The favourable water-desk response added sixteen heavy silver for the continuing right and one for its first annual due. That gave Ian a real immediate cost of eighty-nine, so he had returned to the Lifegiver outside Merrowford's useful flow of time.

Lethira closed her eyes briefly.

"Of course it does."

Ian told her about asking for a hug before discussing money. The Lifegiver had still refused to let the required sum determine his wage. She set it at two heavy silver per completed bed because she valued his company while she practised not correcting everything, turning need into permission or making another person an extension of her will.

The first bed counted and they made a second together, earning four heavy silver. Ian then asked for the rest in advance. Lethira's expression slowly changed as the arithmetic approached its inevitable conclusion: eighty-six heavy silver against forty-three future beds, interest-free and returnable to the extent unearned. The purchase and town agreement left one heavy silver from the resulting ninety.

Lethira stared at him.

Then at the papers.

Then back at him.

"You owe the Lifegiver forty-three garden beds?"

"Omnipotence now in indebted servitude to the goddess of life."

"I did try to bribe her with chocolate but that didn't help the terms really."

"And yes, there is a lot of unskilled labour in my future."

Ian smiled at her.

"But it's worth it."

Lethira stared at him for another moment.

Then she laughed again.

"Indebted servitude."

She shook her head.

"You negotiated a fixed rate, interest-free advance, an exit condition and enough freedom to decide when you work. I think your oppression may struggle to attract sympathy."

Her thumb moved across his hand.

"And of course you tried chocolate."

That detail seemed entirely believable.

"I assume she accepted the chocolate while continuing to refuse the corruption."

Ian's smile answered enough of that.

Lethira looked down at the two documents again, and the humour gradually gave way to something quieter.

Forty-three beds was still a great deal of manual work. Not dangerous work. Not compelled work. But real work nonetheless, deliberately left real because both Ian and the Lifegiver had decided that mattered.

Her fingers tightened around his.

"You really earned this."

She glanced towards the ownership paper.

"Not all of it yet, apparently."

A small smile returned.

"But you made yourself responsible for the rest."

She leaned down and kissed him.

When she drew back, she stayed close.

"Yes."

Her eyes were bright again.

"It's worth it."

Ian sighed.

"I'm so glad. I was a bit upset when I thought I was never going to be able to get the money to do it, and, cheating felt wrong."

"And I'm still wanting to be kept, normally."

Ian held her hand.

"I very much like being kept, and held. And..."

He blushed.

"If you are okay with it..."

Lethira's fingers closed more securely around his.

"I know."

There was no amusement in that answer.

"You liking being supported by me never bothered me. Earning this doesn't cancel it."

She shifted closer, her free hand settling against his arm.

"And you are very easy to hold."

The blush drew a small smile from her, but she did not rescue him from whatever he was trying to say.

"If I'm all right with what?"

"Enveloping me in your love and beauty..."

Ian smiled at her.

"And money where needed."

He kissed her.

Lethira kissed him back.

One hand slid behind his neck and kept him close after the kiss ended, her forehead resting lightly against his.

"Yes."

The answer was quiet and entirely certain.

"Love, beauty, holding you, feeding you, paying for things when I want to."

Her mouth curved.

"I can manage all of that."

She drew him into her arms properly then, folding him against her with the familiar ease he had been asking for since morning.

"And occasionally," she murmured near his ear, "allowing my tragically indebted gardener to buy me land."

She held him a little tighter.

"I like keeping you too."

"This world's money system is crazy."

Lethira laughed softly against him.

"It is."

She drew back just enough to look at his face.

"You've discovered why most people learn it by being handed coins as children instead of trying to understand the whole thing at once."

Her fingers remained linked with his.

"Different crowns, old issues, foreign pieces, merchants weighing anything they don't trust, and everybody pretending this is perfectly sensible because they've lived with it all their lives."

A small smile returned.

"You learned enough in one morning to buy land."

She glanced towards the documents.

"That seems adequate progress."

"The Lifegiver had a LOT of gifts. Like a huge amount. It was absurd. All those people trying to buy their way to health, or beg, or whatever. She had no idea."

Lethira's expression sobered.

"That sounds like her."

She remained close, one hand resting against Ian's.

"Not because she wanted payment, necessarily. Because people in pain kept putting value in front of her and calling it hope, gratitude, desperation, obligation—whatever made sense to them."

Her eyes dropped briefly towards the table.

"And after long enough, I can imagine the gifts becoming part of the landscape. Something accumulated because people had always given, rather than something she ever stopped to count."

A faint crease appeared between her brows.

"The uncomfortable part is that many of those people probably believed the gift mattered. That it might make her notice them, heal them, favour them, or at least prove they deserved to be heard."

She looked back at Ian.

"And she had enough of it lying around that you could filter out sentimental things, useless things, unfamiliar money, and still find a ridiculous quantity of coin."

Lethira shook her head slowly.

"I think I understand why seeing the pile bothered you."

Ian kissed her.

"Shall we walk our path?"

Lethira kissed him back.

Then she looked at the two documents on the table and smiled.

"Yes."

She gathered them carefully, keeping the registry copy and river agreement together.

"Our path."

A small qualification followed.

"Yours on paper until we inconvenience the clerks again."

She stood, collected her bow and waited for Ian beside the table.

"But I would very much like to walk it knowing nobody has to wonder whether we're allowed to be there."

They left the Reed and Wheel and walked the path home.

The evening still held enough light to make the longer route worthwhile.

Lethira carried the documents inside her pack rather than in her hand. Once they were outside, she slipped her fingers through Ian's and steered them towards the river instead of the western road.

Merrowford thinned by degrees.

Market noise became individual voices, then carts and workshop sounds, then mostly water and the occasional call from farther along the bank. The broad river caught the late light in long broken bands.

At the point where they had turned west on their first exploratory walk, Lethira slowed.

Last time, the ground ahead had been uncertain in several different ways at once. They had known only that it could probably be crossed and that wanting a path did not make one theirs.

Tonight she stepped onto it differently.

Not possessively. Simply without the small hesitation that had accompanied every boundary question before.

The lower town ground came first. They followed the amended water-desk line rather than exactly repeating their earlier route. It bent around the old flood channel onto slightly higher ground, where the footing was firmer and the reeds gave way to grass beneath alder and willow.

Lethira looked back towards the river.

"I prefer their line."

She tested the edge of the higher patch with one boot.

"This is where they said the sitting place can go?"

The papers already answered her. She smiled faintly at the ground, imagining something no more elaborate than a bench or two where the river could be heard and seen through the trees.

Farther on, the route reached the northern edge of the town land.

And there the character of the walk changed again.

Lethira stopped at the boundary of the private parcel.

Ian's private parcel.

She looked through the rough grass and wet woodland ahead, then sideways at him.

"So this is yours."

The words seemed to amuse her in a way the legal document had not.

She stepped across.

The stream gave them the easiest line north. The parcel was not manicured ground and did not pretend to be. Tufts of rough grazing rose between wetter patches. Alder roots broke the soil near the water. One low area would plainly become miserable after prolonged rain, while another section farther west sat high enough to remain useful.

Lethira's attention wandered constantly.

Not because she doubted the purchase, but because she was finally looking at the land as something connected to their daily life rather than an uncertain strip beyond the boundary.

She pointed once towards a cluster of trees.

"Those should stay."

Farther along:

"That patch is going to be unpleasant in spring."

Then, after another twenty paces:

"And that is a much better place to cross the stream than the line we used before."

No decision followed any of it. The observations could remain observations.

The old marker eventually appeared ahead.

Lethira slowed beside it, then deliberately ignored it in favour of the ground and the recorded line she now knew lay nearby.

Beyond that was their existing holding.

She crossed onto it and squeezed Ian's hand.

Behind them lay the river, the town ground they could now use, and the parcel Ian owned.

Ahead, through the trees, the roof of their house appeared.

Lethira looked back once along the route they had just walked.

"That feels different."

She stood there for a moment, listening to the small stream beside them continue towards the river.

Then she turned towards home.

"Come on."

Her fingers remained linked with Ian's as they walked the last stretch beneath their own trees.

Ian followed her into their home.

Lethira opened the door and went inside.

The house received them with the familiar smell of old timber, stone and whatever faint trace of lunch still remained in the kitchen. Evening light had shifted across the scarred table, catching the grain where the four maps had rested only a few days earlier.

Lethira set her bow aside, then took the two new documents from her pack.

For a moment she simply stood with them in her hands.

The deed to their existing home already had its place among the household papers. These were different: one carrying Ian's name alone, the other giving that piece of land a lawful route all the way to the river.

Soon, if the clerks agreed, both might carry hers as well.

She laid them carefully beside the original deed.

Then she turned back to Ian.

"We should inconvenience those clerks tomorrow."

A smile touched her face.

After that she crossed the small distance between them and wrapped her arms around him.

"But tonight I think I would rather enjoy the gift."

Ian kissed her.

"Lethira?"

Lethira kissed him back, then stayed close enough that her breath still touched his face.

"Mm?"

Her hands remained around him.

The single sound held no impatience. She simply waited.

"Will you take me upstairs, and make love to me?"

Ian stood on his toes and ran the back of his finger around the edge of her ear.

Lethira's eyes closed for the briefest moment when his finger traced the edge of her ear.

When they opened again, the answer was already there.

"Yes."

Her voice had gone low and warm.

She caught Ian around the waist, drew him firmly against her and kissed him with none of the restraint she had used downstairs. One hand stayed at his back; the other slid beneath him, and a moment later his feet were no longer doing any useful work.

Lethira smiled against his mouth.

"You did ask me to take you upstairs."

She carried him towards the stairs.

The house creaked beneath them as she climbed, unhurried despite the ease with which she held him. At the bedroom door she kissed him again, longer this time, then carried him through into the room they had been slowly making theirs.

Whatever remained of the evening outside could wait.

Lethira set him down only when she wanted both hands free, pulled him close again and made good on the rest of his request with the familiar confidence of a woman who loved him, wanted him, and knew she was wanted in return.

Later, the river papers remained downstairs beside the old deed.

Upstairs, neither of them was thinking about property.