The rain began before dawn and refused to stop.
By midday, the road outside the Briar Hearth had become a brown river of mud.
Raymun stood beneath the stable awning, watching water pour from the roof.
Beside him, Ellyn held a wooden spoon like a sword.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“I can make it.”
“You’ll fall.”
“I won’t.”
“The mud is nearly to your ankles.”
Ellyn narrowed her eyes.
“I have bigger ankles than you.”
Raymun looked down at her feet.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“You’re three.”
“So?”
Before Raymun could stop her, she charged into the yard.
She made it four steps.
Her boot sank.
Ellyn stopped.
Raymun folded his arms.
She pulled.
Nothing.
“Ray.”
“No.”
“Ray.”
“You have bigger ankles.”
“RAY!”
He laughed and went after her.
That was his mistake.
Five minutes later, Garran found both children covered in mud.
Ellyn had lost one boot.
Raymun had somehow lost both.
Garran stood beneath the awning.
He stared at them.
Raymun stared back.
Rain dripped from his hair.
“Before you say anything—”
“Your mother.”
Raymun winced.
Ellyn whispered, “Run.”
“Where?”
She considered that.
They were surrounded by rain.
“Oh.”
Mara did not use the spoon.
She merely held it while delivering the lecture.
That was worse.
Afterward, Raymun and Ellyn were scrubbed clean, dressed in dry clothes, and assigned the terrible punishment of helping inside.
The Briar Hearth was already filling.
Bad weather was good for inns.
Usually.
Today, it was becoming too good.
A merchant caravan had stopped rather than risk the road toward Duskendale.
Two carters arrived soon after.
Then three travelers on horseback.
By late afternoon, nearly every table was occupied.
Wet cloaks hung wherever space could be found.
The common room smelled of stew, smoke, horses, damp wool, and too many people.
Raymun carried bowls from the kitchen.
“Three stew!”
“Four,” Mara corrected.
Raymun stopped.
“I counted three.”
“The man by the window ordered one.”
“He already ate.”
“He ordered another.”
Raymun looked toward the customer.
The man raised his cup.
“Good stew.”
Raymun returned to the kitchen.
“Four.”
Mara handed him another bowl.
“Listen before counting.”
Raymun resisted the urge to point out that counting was normally supposed to happen first.
The System remained mostly closed.
Raymun had learned quickly that staring at invisible menus during work was a good way to walk into furniture.
Besides, the Briar Hearth didn’t need a System today.
It needed hands.
Garran worked between the stable and common room, arranging horses wherever he could fit them.
Mara controlled the kitchen.
Raymun served food, collected cups, carried messages, and tried not to drop anything.
Even Ellyn received a job.
She stood near the kitchen and carried spoons.
Mara had apparently decided this limited the damage she could cause.
Ellyn treated the responsibility with enormous seriousness.
Then the door opened again.
Everyone near it groaned as cold wind and rain entered.
A man stumbled inside.
He was soaked through.
Older, perhaps fifty, with a patched cloak and a pack over one shoulder.
“Room?”
Mara looked toward the stairs.
Every private room was taken.
The sleeping loft was nearly full.
“No private rooms,” she said.
“I’ve space near the hearth if you don’t mind the floor.”
The traveler looked at the fire.
“I’d sleep beneath the table tonight.”
“That costs extra,” Garran called.
Several customers laughed.
The man did too.
“Floor, then.”
By evening, there was nowhere left to sit.
Raymun ended up eating his own supper on the kitchen floor beside Ellyn.
She leaned against him, exhausted.
“This is stupid.”
“What?”
“Too many people.”
Raymun looked through the doorway.
Coins were changing hands constantly.
Six months ago, he might have seen only that.
Revenue.
Occupancy.
Demand exceeding capacity.
An obvious business opportunity.
Now he noticed other things.
Mara hadn’t sat down in hours.
Garran’s trousers were soaked from repeatedly crossing the yard.
One of their regular carters was helping move benches without being asked.
The elderly traveler near the hearth had given his better spot to a woman carrying an infant.
A merchant who had complained about the sleeping arrangements was currently sharing a bottle with two strangers.
The Briar Hearth was overcrowded.
Loud.
Messy.
Imperfect.
Alive.
Ellyn nudged him.
“You’re thinking.”
“I do that sometimes.”
“Don’t.”
Raymun looked at her.
She dipped bread into his stew.
“Hey.”
“You were thinking.”
“That doesn’t make my food yours.”
She ate it.
Apparently it did.
Later, a crash came from outside.
Garran swore.
Raymun jumped up.
One of the wooden covers over the feed storage had broken loose in the wind.
Rainwater was getting inside.
Garran rushed toward it.
Raymun followed.
“Stay inside!”
“I can help!”
“You’re six!”
“I have hands!”
“So does your sister.
I don’t trust hers either.”
Raymun followed anyway.
They fought the cover back into place while rain hammered the yard.
Garran secured it with rope.
Raymun held the lantern beneath the awning.
“Higher.”
Raymun lifted it.
“Not that high.”
He lowered it.
“Little left.”
Raymun moved it.
“Other left.”
“You could say your left.”
Garran glanced at him.
“Your mother says you’re the clever one.”
Raymun scowled.
Garran grinned.
Then the wind struck again.
Both of them grabbed the cover.
For several minutes, there was no cleverness.
Only work.
Customers slept everywhere.
On benches.
Under tables.
Across the common-room floor.
The fire had burned low.
Raymun sat beside Garran near the hearth.
His father looked exhausted.
“Good day?” Raymun asked.
Garran considered the crowded room.
“Profitable day.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Garran looked at him.
Then smiled slightly.
“Good enough.”
Raymun nodded.
After a moment, he asked, “We need more rooms.”
“Maybe.”
“And more stable space.”
“Maybe.”
“Better covered storage.”
“Definitely.”
Raymun waited for more.
None came.
“That’s it?”
Garran leaned back.
“What?”
“You usually tell me we’re not buying half the Crownlands.”
“You’re learning.”
Raymun smiled.
Outside, rain still tapped softly against the shutters.
Garran pointed around the common room.
“Don’t look at this and think every day will be like today.”
“I know.”
“Some weeks we’ll have empty beds.
Some weeks grain will cost too much.
Some traveler will break something and swear it was already broken.”
Raymun nodded.
“Growing because you’re busy once is how fools lose money.”
Raymun became quiet.
That was better advice than anything the System had given him.
He opened the Journal.
Not visibly.
Just enough to record a sentence.
A FULL INN IS EVIDENCE.
He paused.
Then added:
IT IS NOT PROOF.
Garran nudged him.
“Stop thinking.”
Raymun looked at him.
“Ellyn said the same thing.”
“Smart girl.”
“She’s three.”
“Still smarter than you.”
Raymun leaned against his father.
Garran put an arm around him.
For a while, neither spoke.
Raymun listened to the rain.
Six years ago, these sounds had belonged to strangers.
The woman’s voice had been Mara.
The man’s voice had been Garran.
This building had been an alien place in an impossible world.
He still remembered Earth.
Electric lights.
Traffic.
Phones.
His apartment.
His old job.
Sometimes he remembered them so clearly that it hurt.
But sitting beside the dying fire, surrounded by sleeping travelers and the smell of wet wool, Raymun realized something uncomfortable.
When he thought of home now, he no longer saw his apartment first.
He saw this hearth.
He looked at Garran.
His father was already half asleep.
Raymun didn’t correct the word in his mind.
Not Garran.
Not the man who had become his father.
His father.
Across the room, Mara appeared from the kitchen.
She looked at them.
“Bed.”
Raymun smiled.
“Yes, Mother.”
The word came naturally.
Mara didn’t notice anything unusual about it.
That made it better.