57.

Begin at the Beginning, One More Time

The deep Archive beneath First Threshold, Year 200 AGH (late month 12)

Josephine had slept, gone to work and eaten her supper before she came down. She had left herself time for the stair. On the last turn she was still breathing hard enough to resent the prospect of being told so.

She changed the ink bottle from one hand to the other and stepped into the chamber.

The light reached farther across the writing shelf than it had the previous evening. For a moment she could see the weave of her sleeve where her arm passed above the stone. She stopped with the bottle held against her stomach.

There was still only one thread. She followed it with her eyes. The places where others had crossed it stayed dark; along the surviving length the turquoise had gathered to a brightness that made those empty places harder to look at. She had seen light draw close like that before an account. It had always been thinner afterward.

“You brought ink,” the mind said.

“I said I would come.”

“Yes. You didn't say whether you were bringing ink.”

She put the bottle on the shelf. The wrapping had tightened around its neck during the descent, and she had to work a finger under the knot.

“You needn't do this tonight.”

“I would like you to sit down.”

“We could wait.”

“I have been waiting. You had supper.”

She tugged at the knot. The end came free too suddenly, and she caught the bottle before it tipped.

“Jo. Please put that somewhere it will stay.”

She set it farther back, took both hands away and looked at the light again. The sound beneath the voice continued, low in the grown stone. There was no new length of turquoise to discover by looking harder.

“Is this still what you want?” she asked. “This evening?”

“Yes. I want you here. I should prefer you comfortable.”

The stool was where she had left it. She moved it a little closer to the shelf before sitting. That was something she could do without asking another question.

Her bag caught against her knee. She took out the register, her own book and the folded instructions she had brought from the copy room. A clean cloth had been tucked around them to keep their edges from the bottle. She spread it beneath her forearms. The earlier accounts were tied on the lower shelf; the last one lay above them, with yesterday's stopping place marked.

She left it there.

“I did eat,” she said.

“I wasn't doubting you.”

“You were about to ask.”

“I was going to ask what you've been doing.”

“Working.”

“That sounds very dull.”

“It was, for quite a lot of the day.”

The light held while she loosened her collar. At the bottom of nine hundred and eleven steps she was warm inside her coat, though the cold had already found her fingers. She rested her hands against herself for a moment. The mind did not hurry her.

“I went round by the Trainyard,” she said. “Before supper. There was someone trying to carry a plant.”

“Trying?”

“You would have enjoyed it.”

*   *   *

The plant had been taller than the passenger's head when held in both arms. It was in a broad pot, with soil nearly to the rim, and each time they bent to lift their travelling bag the pot began to slide. Jo had stopped because the bag was across her path. Before she could offer to pick it up, a porter had put one hand beneath the pot.

“The passenger wouldn't let go,” she told the mind. “The porter kept saying, ‘I've got it,’ and they kept saying, ‘Yes, thank you,’ without doing anything different.”

“Was it a valuable plant?”

“I don't know. It had large leaves. One kept getting between them.”

“An awkward way to travel.”

“For all three of them.”

The porter had finally set the pot down, with the passenger still holding its sides. They had crouched together and stayed there a moment, looking at the bag.

Jo bent forward to show how the passenger had been gripping it, then found she was smiling at her own hands.

“They were going to try again. Exactly as before. The porter took the bag first. Then the passenger could pick up the pot with both hands.”

“And it stayed upright.”

“As far as I saw. They went through the entrance together. The porter was saying something about the leaves. I couldn't hear it.”

She remembered a small crescent of soil left on the paving. One of the leaves had brushed the porter's cheek as they moved, and the passenger had turned to apologize, swinging the whole plant toward him again. He had stepped away without releasing the bag. She had waited until they were out of sight before laughing.

“You might have helped,” the mind said.

“I would have been a fourth thing in the way.”

“A very well-informed fourth thing.”

She pulled the cloth a little farther over the cold edge of the shelf.

“I could have told them to put the pot down.”

“After someone had put it down.”

“I had thought of it before that.”

The voice made the small catching sound she knew. She waited with a smile still on her face, and it asked what else she had seen.

At a bread stall there had been a buyer who asked the price of a cake twice, although the baker's first answer had been perfectly audible. They had bought a loaf instead. Jo had been waiting behind them when the baker counted out their change.

“Too much,” she said. “The buyer put one of the coins back. The baker started to ask which loaf they wanted. It took them a while to get the coins counted again.”

“You helped with that.”

“I kept my mouth shut. There were already two people counting.”

When the change was right, the buyer had put most of it away. Then they had brought their hand out again and pointed at the cake.

“They did buy it?”

“Yes. Paid for it separately. The baker was careful with the change that time.”

“Perhaps it was for someone. They wanted to leave them something when they went.”

Jo started to answer, but the mind was still speaking.

“Or something to keep until the right occasion. You can't always know when a little pleasure will be needed.”

“They started eating it on the way out.”

The sound in the chamber went on. Jo watched the light.

“While the baker was still finding paper,” she added. “They took a corner with their fingers and ate it. Then they held the rest out for the paper. They were chewing as they walked away.”

The mind laughed. It began as the familiar catch and became a short, clear sound that made her laugh with it.

“I had a better ending prepared,” it said.

“You hadn't heard the ending.”

“Evidently.”

She leaned back. Her coat had grown comfortable around her shoulders. She could still see the buyer trying to take the offered paper without putting the cake down, the baker waiting with an expression that would have been wasted on anyone else in the queue.

“A successful cake,” the mind said at last.

“I didn't buy one.”

“I was going to ask.”

“I know. I had supper waiting.”

“You could have had both.”

“You're very free with other people's suppers.”

She told it about the pair outside the maintained cathedral approach. One had wanted to hear music before eating; the other had wanted food first. They had stopped near the steps, leaving a space for people to pass. Jo had slowed as she passed them, partly because the person arguing for music had made a wide movement with their hat.

“They said they'd miss the beginning if they went to eat. The other one said the beginning was no use to them on an empty stomach.”

“Where did they go?”

“Away together. Still arguing.”

“You didn't wait to find out?”

“I had an appointment.”

It made no answer to that. She rubbed at a mark on her cuff, where the bottle's wrapping had left a dark fleck. Then it said, “I hope they ate.”

“I hope they heard the music.”

“You have eaten.”

“So I have.”

She could let her eyes leave the light for a little while. She uncapped the bottle, laid the clean pen beside it and opened her book, though she did not yet write. The page made a dry sound beneath her palm.

*   *   *

“Kerrath got up,” the mind said.

Jo looked toward it. The last thing she had been thinking of was the hat, lifted again as the pair went down the approach.

“Yes.”

“That is something I want people to have.”

She could remember the account closely enough to see where he had put his weight. His wing would not draw in. There had been people on the plaza paving who had not got up with him, and afterward he had asked for interpreters.

“We kept it,” she said.

“I know. I am thinking of someone hearing it.”

“They'll hear what happened to him too.”

“I want them to.”

She touched the edge of the clean leaf. It was easy to remember the rising as one movement when telling it quickly. In the account it had taken him time. She had had to wait for the next words.

“Gunnhild,” she said. “Watching the fighter leave.”

The mind was quiet while she found what she meant.

“They told her the fighter could refuse. She still had to see them get their money. And go away without anyone following to change their mind.”

“Gunnhild wrote their name on another evening card afterward.”

“Yes. A month later. It would have been easier to say they could leave and then never ask them back.”

She had wanted to know about the next booking when she first heard that account. The payment had settled one question; Gunnhild writing the name again had settled another. She remembered searching the earlier pages to make sure it was the same fighter.

“And then there is what they could build,” the mind said. “The work that becomes possible when people can begin to rely on that. There are places where...”

“Mara took the pear.”

It stopped.

Jo looked down, briefly wishing she had let it finish. She knew how the interruption had sounded.

“At the supper,” she said. “Ressa said she didn't want it. Ivo offered it, and Mara said she did.”

“I remember the supper.”

“I know you do.”

“You put that beside Kerrath.”

“It's beside him in the book.”

“Not quite beside him.”

“You know what I mean.”

Her voice was sharper than she had intended. She shifted the book until it lay straight in front of her, then let her hand fall away from it.

“I don't want every person who reads it to feel they have to do something large before they can use any of it,” she said. “There was a pear. Someone didn't want it. Someone else did. I liked hearing that they could say so.”

“I liked the supper. I asked you to write it.”

“Yes.”

“A great deal had to happen before they could sit there.”

“They were sitting there. We did reach that part.”

The mind made no answer. She had begun to turn the pen between her fingers. She stopped when she saw the nib come near her sleeve.

She would not have exchanged Kerrath's pain for a pleasant dinner. It offended her to think she might have sounded as though she would. But she could still see Mara's plate, the fruit lifted onto it, nobody requiring Ressa to take the piece instead.

“I'm not taking the pear out,” she said.

“I haven't asked you to.”

“Good.”

She laid a loose leaf over the open book and dipped the pen. Nothing had been dictated, and she held it for a moment before touching the excess ink to the bottle's inner edge.

“You are waiting for something to put down,” the mind said.

“I've left myself ready, yes.”

“Not an explanation of the pear.”

“No.”

It took longer over the next words. The light seemed closer to the stone now. Jo rested her forearm on the cloth and kept the nib clear of the page.

“What will they do with what was kept for them?”

She wrote the question. When she reached its end, she went back to make the cross on a letter she had passed over. She had room beneath it for a great deal more.

“Who?” she asked.

“I don't know.”

She looked at the empty paper again. She could hear a reader asking which people were meant, which piece of the account was theirs, where to begin. She would have asked some of that herself.

“Leave it there,” the mind said.

Jo blotted the line. When it was dry she laid the sheet with the part of the account they had agreed could be copied for others. She stood to reach its cord.

*   *   *

The light gathered while she was pulling the ends level. There was a suggestion of a face. She caught herself trying to find eyes in it. The same turquoise thread remained visible through the brightness.

“There is something I want you to write before you put the pen away.”

She let the cord rest across the pages.

“All right.”

“My name.”

Her hand stayed on the stack. She could feel the ridges where some of the sheets had dried unevenly.

“Your name?”

“Yes.”

“You have one.”

“I have had one all along.”

She sat down abruptly. The edge of the shelf caught her forearm through the cloth.

“You never told me.”

“No.”

The first movement of hope had already started in her, before she had heard the distinction. A thing recovered. Something returned to where it belonged.

“You didn't forget it.”

“I didn't forget.”

She closed the small book and looked at her own name on its cover. She had brought it down on the first morning because the register's columns might not have room for everything.

“All this time,” she said.

“I wasn't ready to tell you.”

She pressed her lips together. She wanted to be pleased before anything else could show, and the effort made her throat hurt.

“I'm listening.”

“The ferryman gave it to me.”

She glanced toward the earlier bundles.

“The page is here,” she said. “I kept it after the lights.”

She lifted the packet from the lower shelf and laid it clear of the open ink. The cord had left a shallow dent along its edge. She eased it off, turned the last full account aside and found the leaf that had so little on it.

The date at the top belonged to their sitting in the seventh month. She had identified it carefully. Below it were the two words, and the entry saying that the account had been offered and could not be given. The teller had known it mattered.

She read that part aloud. She did not ask whether it still mattered.

“There was a boat,” the mind said. “Two hulls.”

Jo laid the leaf flat. She had reached for the pen, then realized that the point had dried while she was finding the page. She dipped it again.

“A twin-hulled boat.”

“Yes.”

The voice began another sound and stopped. She waited. Her hand stayed low this time, supported on the cloth rather than held ready above the page.

“Before here,” the mind said.

“Before the Archive?”

“He gave me the name before I was here.”

She almost asked where. The beginning of the question was already in her mouth. She closed it, and the mind said, “Wait.”

So she waited.

She knew the marks on the leaf. There had been a place where she pressed too hard in writing that it could not tell her. The ink had spread a little along the grain. She could still see the space she had expected a date to occupy before she wrote the date of their own failed attempt.

The sound in the stone thickened. The mind began again, but she could distinguish no word. Jo moved the bottle away from the edge with her free hand. It was already safe. She left her fingers beside it.

“I can't tell you who he was,” it said.

“All right.”

“I know what you want to ask.”

She did not deny it.

“What happened,” it said. “What he did. Why I kept trying to give you this.”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to know too.”

She looked at the nearly empty page. A boat would fit in a few words. She could have filled the rest of it with questions and left the ferryman no more present than before.

“I can put down what you've said.”

“Read it to me when you have.”

She dated the addition. She wrote that there had been a boat with two hulls, and that the ferryman had given the mind its name before its life in the Archive. She kept the old entry where it was. When she read the new one aloud, she read no further than the words she had been given.

“Yes,” it said.

Her hand relaxed. The pen had left a narrow pressure mark against her finger.

“You still haven't told me the name.”

“No. I was trying to tell you more.”

“I would like to know it.”

The light held for a while without speech. Jo kept the pen ready and waited.

“Tally,” it said.

She did not move the pen at once.

“Tally.”

“Yes.”

She said it more quietly the second time, toward the light instead of the page. Her mouth was unaccustomed to it. For months she had been able to call into this room without wondering whom she meant, and now the word was available and seemed a great deal to say.

“Would you write it?”

“Yes. Of course.”

She drew her own book toward her and opened it at the title leaf. Her name was there beneath the title she had given the accounts. She had left a space for the person who had told them, without having known what she would put in it.

Her first stroke was too firm. She eased her grip and finished the name. Then she set the nib below it and drew a line, slowly enough that it did not catch.

Tally.

She sat looking at it while the ink dried.

“That is my copy,” she said. “It stays with me. I won't put it on the one for other readers.”

“I was telling you.”

“I know.”

She had put the public pages far enough away that she had to reach to move them farther. She caught herself doing it and put her hand back on her own book.

“I should have liked to know sooner,” she said.

“I know.”

“I'm glad you told me.”

The voice came a little less clearly. “You don't sound glad.”

She laughed once, unsteadily. “Give me a moment.”

She had no handkerchief within reach. She used the heel of her hand beneath one eye, annoyed by the need to do that while it was attending to her. Then she looked at the underlined word again. It had begun to seem strange that she could shut the book and carry it upstairs.

“Tally,” she said.

“Jo.”

This time she was able to smile.

She let the ink dry without hurrying it. When she put the ferryman leaf back after the account of the lights, she took care not to fold down its empty lower half.

*   *   *

The brightness eased. Jo watched the suggestion of a face go first. The thread remained, thin enough that she had to look directly at parts of it to follow the whole length.

She closed her private book. Under it was the instruction sheet she had brought down, a corner bent where the bag had pressed it against the ink.

“When you come again,” Tally said, “bring the register.”

“It's here.”

“I mean next time.”

She put her palm on its familiar cover.

“Tomorrow evening. After supper again.”

“And read.”

“Yes.”

“I may give you very little to mark.”

Jo opened the register at the place she had kept. She knew where the narrow columns would fail her if an answer came back halfway, and where she had added a note rather than let a single stroke pretend to settle it.

“I'll put what happens,” she said. “If you're uncertain, I'll put that. If you can't answer, I'll put that.”

“You will have the names on the page.”

“Having them here doesn't tell me what you still have.”

The sound continued. She turned one page back and then forward again, checking the place before laying the marker across it.

“Who else will know how?” Tally asked.

She unfolded the sheet.

It was no longer the clean set of instructions she had first taken into the copy room. She had crossed out a line and written a longer one above it; on the back, two steps had changed places. There were separate copies of the short passage she had used to test it, each made from the same original without looking at the other person's work. She laid them beside the instructions.

“Sava tried this for me.”

“The person in the copy room.”

“Yes.”

Jo had chosen a page from an account they had agreed could be shared. She had thought she was asking her colleague to discover whether anything was missing from the instructions. Sava had found something quite different almost immediately.

“I had written, ‘Mark mistakes before continuing,’” she said. “They asked whether I meant mistakes they made while copying or mistakes in the page they were copying from.”

“Which did you mean?”

“I knew what I meant while I was writing it.”

“That was fortunate for you.”

She gave the light a look. Then she held the sheet nearer the bottle, where the paper lay flat.

“They asked whether they should put a word right if they thought it was wrong. I told them to leave the word as it was and mark the doubt separately. They asked why I hadn't written that.”

“I like Sava.”

“You would.”

She could remember her colleague waiting with the pen held still while she explained the distinction a second time, as though more words spoken in the copy room would improve the ones on the sheet. At last she had taken it back and altered it. Sava had checked the changed line and finished the passage. They had been perfectly pleasant about it, which had made her embarrassment last longer.

She read the revision now.

“‘Copy what the page says. Mark an apparent error separately. If the copies differ, keep both readings until they have been checked.’ Then it says where to put a source's own uncertainty, and how to keep a deliberate gap from being mistaken for a missing leaf.”

“Does it work?”

“That part did. We found the difference and neither of us had covered it up. There's still a place where I tell the reader to turn back without saying which page.”

She pointed to the offending instruction. She had circled it. She read the line and its neighbor aloud.

“You have given them two possible pages,” it said.

“Yes. I'll put the entry name in.”

She wrote it in the margin while it was before her. The change was small and made the direction immediately less irritating. She would copy the sheet cleanly upstairs; she did not need to hold everyone else's work still while she did it.

“Is it Sava, then?” Tally asked.

Her pen stopped. She looked at the two copies beside the sheet. She had been looking forward to showing them.

“They did well with it,” she said.

“When will they come?”

“I haven't asked them to.”

“You know them.”

“Yes. I asked them to test these instructions.”

Jo remembered Sava drawing their own page back in front of them when the test was over. She put the pen down.

“I will ask,” she said. “And when somebody wants to learn, I can teach them. I haven't found that person yet.”

“I wanted to know who it would be.”

“So did I.”

She had left a space on another leaf for the practical arrangements that would follow an agreement. She turned it facedown. It would still be there when she had something to put on it.

“They'll have to know when to stop,” she said.

“You could teach them that.”

“I'm getting better at it.”

“Yes.”

It was an ordinary answer, without the edge she had been ready to defend herself against. She smoothed the instruction sheet and folded it again along its old crease.

“Keep the readings,” Tally said. “And the count. Even when you would rather put something else.”

“I will.”

“And make it possible for someone to learn.”

She put the folded sheet on top of the two copies.

“I can do that.”

“When someone asks for the account, give it to them. Don't make them solve something first.”

Jo looked at the last sheet of the outward copy. “You've left them a question.”

“They can read it without answering me.”

“Good. I wouldn't know how to mark their answers.”

The sound caught, briefly. She waited until it had passed.

“This is what we can give them,” she said, touching the completed pages. “The account we agreed on. That doesn't open anyone's private letters. Or a sealed file. There are things people haven't given us.”

“Yes,” Tally said. “The stories we've chosen.”

She tied the outward copy. Her own book, with the name inside it, went into her bag. The ferryman leaf stayed with its account; the independent copies and the amended instructions would go upstairs for a clean version. She kept them out until she had entered the next evening's appointment.

There were three things on the shelf she could put away. She did so, one at a time. The actions had familiar endings even though she still wanted to be sitting there afterward.

*   *   *

“How will you begin?” Tally asked.

Jo looked at the tied pages. “With the hill.”

“Tell me.”

She started to reach for the earlier account.

“You needn't read it back to me.”

Her hand rested on the cord.

“I might say it differently.”

“I have heard myself tell it.”

She let go. The pen was still on the cloth, waiting to be cleaned. She moved it away from her hand and sat back on the stool.

For a moment she could remember only the first line as it had been given. It arrived with its own pace, one word requiring the next. She looked at the light and tried beginning before the child reached the path.

“In autumn of the fourth year, Eren was trying to get a root out of the garden.”

The sound in the chamber continued. Jo put her hands in her lap.

“Tarren had gone down to buy a latch. There was a chair holding the door open, and another outside with a cup beside it. Eren had a fork under the root. She had to change her grip, and her mechanical hand clicked when she did.”

She paused, picturing the dirty sleeve. She had gone into that story expecting to hear what a hero did when there was no one left to fight. She had not expected the amount of earth a sleeve could hold.

“Down in Orbag, a boy had offered Grethe Swainson two blue marbles if she'd go all the way up to the house. He kept his finger on the larger one.”

“But she went,” Tally said.

“After he brought her father into it.”

She gave that part time. Ketil had brought Grethe's father into the dare. Jo had disliked the boy from that sentence onward. She told it without softening it, then let the child leave the game and take the path up from Orbag.

She could hear herself slipping back into the earlier account's order. She stopped to take a breath and let the picture settle again.

“Snorri had told her you could feel that you weren't wanted before you got there. But first she went too fast up a steep part of the hill. Then she had to sit down.”

Tally made a small sound. She could not tell whether it was agreement. She went on.

She gave the climb a pause, listening to the low sound in the stone, then took Grethe around the bend by the longer path.

Jo's own breathing was easy now. She had settled without noticing when it happened.

“She came to the garden from the side. There was Eren, still trying to get the root out. Grethe said excuse me, and she had to wait.”

“The root,” Tally said.

“Yes. It came out suddenly and put soil in Eren's sleeve. Then Eren looked at her.”

Jo found herself holding one arm away from her side, as if to keep loose earth from sliding farther into a cuff. She let it rest again.

“Grethe told her it was a dare.”

She let Eren ask what the child would win. She gave Grethe's doubtful answer about the marbles without doing a child's voice. The amusement came where it belonged, when Eren thought the payment ought to have been collected before the climb.

Jo heard the catch in the stone and smiled before continuing.

“Then Eren let her come in from the path. Grethe was careful of the turned earth. She asked about the empty chair, and Eren told her it was Tarren's. They lived there together. Tarren had gone to buy a latch and would want the chair eventually.”

“You have told me about the latch twice.”

“It's a very important latch.”

“Apparently.”

She laughed, then had to recover where she was.

“Grethe sat down. A stone under one leg made the chair move, so Eren took the stone away and set it properly. She brought water and bread. One slice was too wide at the top and the other was too wide at the bottom.”

The turquoise held close to the wall. Jo watched it as she spoke.

“Grethe took the piece nearest her and began to eat. While Eren was still holding the plate, she told her that her father had died.”

Jo stopped. She could go on to the questions, the bread and the acorn. For now Eren was holding the plate a little longer because someone had told her something she had not known.

“That's how I would begin,” Jo said.

The mind took its time before answering.

“Yes. That is the one.”

She sat with her hands still in her lap. It had been strange to speak so long without leaving words behind her on a page. There was a mistake about a latch she would probably make again, and a place where she would pause differently if she told it another evening.

She wanted to ask whether it had liked her telling. Instead she said, “I like her waiting for the root.”

“I know.”

“You can't always know what I'm going to say.”

“Not always.”

She heard the amusement. The light had not grown brighter with it.

Jo pulled the pen cloth toward her. She cleaned the nib carefully, turning it to reach the place where ink had dried. She capped the bottle, checked the cap and wrapped it. There was no need for a second knot. She tied one anyway, more loosely than the first.

When she stood, her knees were stiff from the stool. She moved one foot and waited until it felt ready to take her weight. The bag was heavier with the papers inside it. She settled its strap and looked around the shelf for anything she had forgotten.

“The pen,” Tally said.

She was holding it.

“Yes.”

She put it in its cloth and into the bag. Then there was nothing in her hands.

“I could stay a little.”

“You have the stair to climb.”

“I know.”

“And you will want to sleep when you have climbed it.”

She looked at the stool. It was close enough that she could sit again without putting the bag down. She could give herself another task, check the cord or read the instruction she had just changed. She knew how little time any of those things would take and how easily she would find something after them.

“Tomorrow after supper,” she said.

“That is what we have written.”

She did not ask it to say more.

At the foot of the stair she turned. From there she could see the light and the edge of the writing shelf, with the stool drawn up close. She had spent months leaving that place. She could still feel the new name in her mouth.

“Good night, Tally.”

“Good night, Jo.”

She began the climb. At the first turn she shifted the bag so it would not strike the wall. She kept the pace she could carry all the way up.

*   *   *

After dawn, in the deep Archive beneath First Threshold, the single turquoise thread still gave its low, even light.