The scullery latch lifted with a dry, iron clatter, and the back door swung open to the river mist.
Master Dunstan Harl had returned with his mid-morning second flour barrow, supplementing the dawn delivery he had brought before sunrise. He had two heavy willow hampers balanced upon his broad shoulders, filled with warm, golden loaves that smelled of toasted caraway, cracked oats, and woodsmoke. Behind him in the courtyard, his fourteen-year-old son Pip was steadying the shafts of the hand-cart, blowing on his red knuckles and watching the gray river fog roll past the gatehouse.
“I saw the courier’s gelding at your trough, Hale,” Dunstan boomed, setting the hampers upon the zinc counter with a grunt of exertion. “A royal rider before the sun has cleared the church tower. Is the King calling another cattle levy, or is the court merely thirsty for tavern cider?”
Elin stepped forward, her hands moving smoothly across the willow wicker, inspecting the crusts with an expert eye.
“The King’s boy has a lame horse, Master Dunstan,” Elin answered, her voice calm and untroubled. “And an empty stomach. We gave him hot mint tea and a heel of rye, and Jon is taking him to the forge to have the near-fore shoe reset before the post road turns to soup.”
Dunstan laughed, his deep belly shaking the flour from his apron strings. “A royal courier eating tavern crusts! My grandfather used to say that when the King’s heralds start begging bread from innkeepers, the kingdom is either going to war or going broke. In my experience, it’s usually both.”
He wiped his sweating forehead with a towel tucked into his belt, looking around the kitchen with that keen, tradesman’s eye that noticed every missing trencher and every swept corner.
“Marta has three pans of honey buns rising in the warm room,” the baker continued, resting his thick thumbs in his leather girdle. “She told me to ask if you wanted four dozen for the noon trade. She says when the royal officers ride into town, they like sweet things to take the taste of road dust out of their mouths.”
Jon stepped up to the zinc table, looking at the baker’s heavy, work-hardened hands.
In his fourth life, those hands had been charred black. When the incendiary pitch had struck the bakehouse roof on the third night of the siege, Dunstan had refused to leave his ovens until he had hauled forty sacks of flour out of the burning cellar. He had collapsed in the street with his apron on fire, his skin blistering to the bone, muttering with his dying breath that the children in the church crypt would need loaves when the smoke cleared.
And in the life after that, Dunstan’s three children—Pip, Lark, and little Brin—had vanished from the town roll altogether, erased by the Hearth Nail’s hunger when Cael had reset time to undo an ambush at the north ditch. Jon had walked into the bakery to find an empty building with grass growing through the brick oven floor, and an elderly cordwainer living in the parlor who had never heard the name Harl in fifty years of life.
The memory struck Jon’s chest like an iron bar.
“We will take the four dozen honey buns, Dunstan,” Jon said, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing three silver shillings. He laid the coins upon the rim of the bread hamper, pressing them into the willow weave. “And we will take thirty more loaves of the dark rye tomorrow morning. Have Pip grind the grain double-fine, and tell Marta to bake them with extra salt so the crusts don’t soften in the damp.”
Dunstan stared at the three silver shillings. A working baker in Harth did not see three shillings of royal silver in a week of ordinary trade.
“Jon, that is double the guild price,” Dunstan said, his bushy gray brows drawing together in honest bewilderment. “The assize ceiling for dark rye is two coppers a loaf, and the honey buns are a penny the dozen. I cannot take silver above the ordinance. The weigh-house bailiff would fine me a mark if he saw this on my ledger.”
Jon drew the gray-cloth ledger from the shelf beside the bread trough, untying the linen tape and turning the stiff leaves upon the zinc table so Dunstan could see the fresh columns entered since dawn. The neat lines of ink recorded the courier’s arrival, the estimated oats needed for thirty royal mounts, the daily ration requirements of forty civilians, and the projected collapse of river transit once the north highway was blocked.
“The weigh-house bailiff will have other things to think about by noon, Dunstan,” Jon replied, his voice firm and quiet as the baker stared at the newly added tallies. “This is not payment for the bread. This is an advance on the next three weeks of milling.”
He leaned in closer, his dark eyes locking onto the baker’s face with an intensity that brooked no evasion.
“I want your flour out of the lower mill sheds, Dunstan,” Jon said. “Every sack of rye, every bushel of barley malt, every firkin of yeast. Pip and Lark can load the hand-cart and haul it up to the high loft behind the church. If you have grain sitting on the river wharf, move it before the seventh bell strikes.”
Dunstan looked from the silver coins to Elin, then back to Jon. The good-natured bluster had vanished from his face, replaced by a deep, troubled wariness.
“Marta was up half the night with little Brin,” the baker said, his voice dropping to a gravelly murmur. “The lad has that croupy cough that gets into his small chest whenever the river mist settles thick. Lark was helping her boil dried elderberries and wild honey over the hearth to loosen his throat. If there is trouble coming down the valley road, Jon, Brin cannot be dragged through cold ditches. He takes the blue-lip if the wind catches his ears.”
“Brin will not be dragged through any ditch, Dunstan,” Jon said, his voice softening with genuine neighborly care. “Your bakehouse has four courses of dressed river granite at the foundation, and the chimney breast is three feet of solid brick. Keep Marta and the children on the second floor above the ovens. The rising heat will keep the room dry as summer hay, and the brickwork will shed any stray sparks from the street.”
Elin stepped up beside Dunstan, touching the wool of his flour-dusted sleeve. “I have two jars of dried coltsfoot and wild thyme in my medicine chest, Dunstan. Tell Marta to steep them in boiled goat’s milk with a dollop of unsalted lard. It will coat the child’s throat and quiet the spasms. I’ll send Nell over with the jars before the noon bell.”
Dunstan drew a rough hand across his beard, a look of profound, humble relief passing over his broad features. “Thank you, Mistress Elin. When a little one is fighting for his wind, a man feels useless with nothing in his fists but a wooden peel.”
He turned back to Jon, his brow furrowing as the wider implication of their warning took hold.
“You really believe the river is going to rise, don’t you?” the baker whispered. “The water at the locks is barely three feet above summer level, Jon. The marsh isn’t even flooded yet.”
“The water that is coming down this valley is not rain, Dunstan,” Jon answered, his hand resting upon the baker’s broad shoulder. “It is iron. And when iron comes down the road, it does not stop to ask what the guild ceiling is for flour.”
Dunstan stood motionless for two breaths, his thick fingers curling around the silver shillings on the hamper rim. Outside, in the courtyard, young Pip was whistling an old river tune, tapping his wooden clogs against the stone trough.
“My father gave me this apron when I was twelve,” Dunstan said, his voice dropping into a rough murmur that barely cleared the sound of the scullery pump. “He told me that kings come and go with their banners and their taxes, but so long as a town has flour and fire, the children will eat. He said: Feed every hungry mouth that comes to your door, Dunstan, and the bread will never run out.”
He looked down at the three silver coins in his palm, then pushed them deep into his leather belt purse.
“I’ll get the flour moved, Jon,” Dunstan said, nodding his head with grim finality. “Pip and I will have sixty sacks stacked in the church loft before the noon bell strikes. And if your flood doesn’t come, you can take it out of my hide in dark rye until Michaelmas.”
“The flood will come, Dunstan,” Jon said. “Just make sure your boys are inside the ditch when it breaks.”
The baker turned and walked through the scullery door, his heavy frame filling the opening for a moment before he stepped down onto the gravel. His voice carried across the courtyard, sharp and urgent:
“Pip! Leave the trough, boy! Hitch the harness and haul the cart around to the lower mill race! We have sixty sacks of winter rye that need dry lofting before the clouds break!”
Jon stood by the zinc table, watching the boy scramble into the cart shafts, his wooden clogs clicking eagerly against the wet cobbles.
Elin walked up beside him, her hands resting upon the edge of the bread hamper. She picked up one of the warm rye loaves, feeling its weight and tapping the crust with her knuckle. The loaf sounded hollow, crisp, and perfectly baked.
“He will move the flour,” she said softly.
“He will move sixty sacks,” Jon answered, his eyes tracking the cart as it rumbled through the outer gatehouse into the river mist. “And when the granary burns on the fourth night, those sixty sacks in the church loft will be the only food left between forty children and starvation.”
He looked down at his left hand, where the four somatic rings gleamed against his knuckles.
In this life, Dunstan Harl’s name would not be erased from the town ledger. His children would not vanish into the dark like smoke off a chimney. The bread was paid for, the flour was moving to high ground, and the first line of civilian defense was already drawn across the map of Harth.
“Come,” Jon said, turning toward the peg where his heavy wool coat hung beside the larder door. “The courier has finished his tea. Let us take his horse to Garrick Holt’s forge and see what the King’s dispatches have to say about our town.”