The courtyard was larger than Beorn had expected from the gate. The main building rose on three sides, and the wings extending from it ran back farther than he could see from where he stood, their far ends vanishing into the early evening shadow.
The garden in the near corner was neat, recently cut, its smell faint in the cooling air. Everything else in the courtyard was still. Still no guards. No movement anywhere.
"Why then," Beorn said, "at the gate."
Aestrith walked beside him toward the entrance. "I'd been watching you."
"For two days."
"Two days was enough." Her voice stayed flat. "I know what I'm doing."
"I don't doubt it," Beorn said.
She glanced at him. That was not the answer she had expected. "I decided it was acceptable," she said, giving the word extra weight.
"Good to know."
Beorn pushed the entrance door open and held it. She walked through. Inside, the corridor's smell changed. Stone and old air, with the faint trace of a place that had been closed more often than open.
An attendant looked up from a small table near the entrance, a young man who took them in without hurry and then dropped his eyes back to his work.
"What were you planning," Beorn said, "if not the hire."
They walked. The corridor ran long in both directions, wall sconces lining it, half of them unlit. The floor ahead showed the worn smooth line of daily use.
The floor to either side was gritty and untouched. Closed doors. Dust gathered at the sill edges.
Aestrith was quiet for one stride. Two.
"A hostage arrangement," she said. "You'd be worth something to the steward. I'd demand a sum for your safe return. Then I'd leave before the answer came back."
He passed a door. The handle had gone dark from disuse. He kept walking.
Then he laughed. Short, but real.
Aestrith glanced at him. Something moved across her face and was gone quickly. She looked back at the corridor. "The attendant's sending someone," she said.
A woman appeared from a side passage ahead. Middle-aged, unhurried, she confirmed who they were looking for, turned, and led them without hesitation down a working corridor.
The floor beneath Beorn changed at once. More traffic. More use. Everything behind them fell back into grit and settled dust. This section was still active.
The steward office stood at the end of it. She knocked, spoke briefly through the door, and held it open for them.
Inside, candle wax and old paper. The smell of a room that had been used through the cold season and still held that habit.
The steward rose from behind his desk before they were fully inside. He was lean, somewhere in his middle years. His clothes were pressed, his hair combed flat.
Nothing about him looked accidental. His shoulders loosened a fraction. The relief was immediate and real.
"My lord." He came around the desk. "I'm very glad you've safely arrived. Very glad indeed."
He meant it.
Then his gaze moved to Aestrith.
She was taking in the room. Her eyes moved across the walls, the window, the shelves behind his desk. She gave him nothing to read.
The steward's warmth continued. The words kept coming at the same steady pace. His attention came back to Beorn one beat too quickly.
"Please, sit." He gestured to the chair across from the desk and returned to his own side. "There's much to discuss when you're ready, my lord."
Beorn sat. Aestrith moved to the window and stayed standing. The steward saw where she was and said nothing.
"What is your name?"
"Eadric, my lord."
"Start with what my title means out here," Beorn said. "Practically."
Eadric settled into his chair and folded his hands on the desk. "The protectorate seat carries the crown's administrative authority over the territory and its settlements," he said.
"Revenue collection, dispute adjudication, military command of the garrison, and responsibility for maintaining Dunvarre's territorial claim against competing interests. On paper, it is a substantial position."
He paused. "In practice, my lord, the Badlands present conditions that complicate each of those functions considerably."
"How considerably."
"The revenue base has contracted over the past several years. The mines nearest the city have encountered difficulties. The garrison operates at reduced capacity. Supply chains from the capital are irregular."
Eadric kept his tone even, measured and rehearsed. "The territory continues to function, my lord. It simply requires a great deal of management to keep it doing so."
"And the previous three representatives. How did they handle the practical gap."
A half beat passed between the question and the answer. Both of them heard it. "Each had their own approach. The conditions here require adaptation. Some representatives found the situation suited their strengths. Others found it less so."
"I see," Beorn said.
"The crown's formal requirements for this seat remain ongoing," Eadric said. "Quarterly reports to the capital's administrative office. Revenue figures, garrison strength, incidents of note within the territory. I've maintained these throughout the years, my lord."
He adjusted his hands on the desk.
"What the crown's claim requires of the man holding this seat, in the simplest terms, is accountability. Evidence that the protectorate is governed, that the territory is held, that the cost of holding it is justified."
A shorter pause. "The gap between what the records reflect and what the territory is actually producing has required careful management. I won't pretend otherwise."
Then he brought up the escort incident.
He introduced it himself, a few minutes into the official business. It was in the room, and they all knew it.
"Before we proceed to current matters, my lord, I must express again the profound grief of everyone in this administration at what occurred."
Eadric's voice took the proper tone for it. "The loss of the escort party was a genuine tragedy. These men served with dedication."
"I'm surprised you already know about," Beorn said, "Terrible thing."
"It's the nature of the Badlands, my lord. Even experienced parties encounter situations that cannot be fully anticipated. The terrain, the monster activity near the wilderness. These are realities that cannot be entirely mitigated by preparation, however thorough."
He paused. "The escort assigned to your party was among the most experienced available for that route. Their loss is felt."
"The route they took," Beorn said. "Was that standard."
"The eastern approach, yes. Standard for the season, standard for a party of that composition."
"Who would have known it in advance."
"The escort senior, certainly. The staff who arranged the journey. The departure steward's office." Eadric's hands shifted slightly. "It wasn't a restricted route, my lord. A number of people would have had that information in the ordinary course of preparation."
"Of course," Beorn said.
He picked up a ledger and a quill across the table and wrote something in the margin. Eadric's eyes tracked to it and then away.
"As for immediate next steps," Eadric said, settling back into his chair, "a formal dispatch to Dunvarre announcing your assumption of the seat will need to go out before the week is through. The capital's office expects notification within a reasonable period of arrival."
He touched the wood in front of him. "There's also a ceremony of assumption, conducted before the city's administrative council. A formality the records require, and one that should not be deferred. I can arrange it at your convenience."
He paused. "And the stewardship accounts are current and available for your review whenever you're ready, my lord. I'd recommend doing so early. They'll give you the clearest picture of where things stand."
Beorn listened and looked at what he'd written in the margin.
The exile was a death sentence. The language had called it punishment. He knew it in the body, without needing to test it. The queen's court had arranged this posting because the Badlands killed people, and no one asked questions about what they killed.
He was alive. That was the condition.
Which put him here. This chair. This room. This city.
The body's record gave him the idea of what the title required. The obligations ran in both directions. The capital's claims and Ashmark's own. He could trace both.
The other life gave him the substance behind it. What governance actually meant when it worked and what it produced when it failed, what a population that had stopped expecting anything from its rulers looked like from street level.
He had walked every district of this city that afternoon. He knew what it looked like from street level.
The two rivers pressed against each other and did not resolve. They were not going to resolve tonight. He would work with both.
Eadric was still talking. Beorn kept writing.