The night watch guard's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

The guard sat on the low wall with his arm bound and counted the cost. The missing guard lay on the cobbles behind him, breathing but pale, one leg wrapped tight above the knee. Neither of them could walk the woods again tonight. The ferryman had promised one hour. That hour was almost gone. If the guard left now, alone, he could catch the boat and send help back. If he stayed, the ferryman would push off without them, and the crossing back would cost him a favor he did not have. He looked at the man on the ground and knew he could not carry him. He knew, too, what waited in the brush between here and the water. The woman knelt beside her clay pot and pressed the shoot deeper into the soil. Ink stained her sleeves to the elbow. She had watched him weigh it. "You can't carry him," she said. "And you won't outrun what cut you." She stood and brushed her hands on her dress. "Stay here. Both of you. The boat will go. Another will come." He started to argue about his crew, about the wall, about the hours past the second bell when the dark grew thick and something got bold in the corridors he was not there to walk. She let him speak. When he stopped, she said, "You cannot guard anything from a grave in the woods." He let the hour pass. He heard, in his mind, the ferryman's oar dip once and push off. The sound was not real. It settled in him anyway. Across the square, a tall lantern stood on an iron post, its glass shaped like a cat's ears, small painted notes drifting up its base. Its light held the cobbles in a wide yellow ring. The woman helped the missing guard to his feet and walked him under that ring toward a small cottage at the square's edge. The door was cut in the shape of a black cat. Books leaned in stacks against the outer wall. She looked back and waited for him to follow. Inside she set two cots by the hearth and boiled water. She cooked without hurry — broth, bread torn by hand, a bowl set on the floor beside each cot. She unwrapped his arm and cleaned the claw marks again. Her fingers were steady on the torn skin. She did not speak while she worked. He watched her hands and thought of his cats on the wall without him, of the east tower where sound came from the wrong side, of the strays who stayed because they sensed what he sensed. He thought of them, and then, for a long quiet minute, he thought only of her hands. "You'll heal," she said. "Then you'll go back." She tied the fresh cloth off. "Not before." He nodded. The ferry was gone. The watch was not his tonight. He had traded one duty for another, and the trade was made.