By sunset, someone else could hold the queen’s power. Urd had come to the council with the rules open in front of him.
Sel put her mother’s crown on the council table. Under it lay a sheet signed in the queen’s broad hand.
Visiting my sister. Return expected yesterday. Leave ends at sunset today.
“She went willingly,” Sel said. “You can’t hand her court to someone else because a boat is late.”
“A regent holds power while the queen is away,” Urd said. “That is what the leave allows. We need her return or a new signed instruction.”
He had kept the council records for thirty years. Sel had spent many of those years wishing he would speak faster. This morning she was grateful he made the rule plain.
Across the table, a councilor offered to lead guards over the river. The queen had boarded a human boat. Perhaps the humans needed reminding whose guest they carried.
Sel looked at Harl, the human harbor keeper. His coat was wet at the cuffs. He had crossed on foot from the bridge, since the ferry remained shut after last night’s storm.
“Where is she?” Sel asked him.
“I don’t know. But if your guards close my harbor, neither town gets flour.”
“You saw her leave.”
“My boatkeeper did.”
Sel wanted him to sound frightened. Instead he sounded tired and angry.
Urd unrolled the road map. The ferry dock was marked with a red stone. The land road curled above the floodplain, past the queen’s sister’s house.
“I sent a rider by the ferry yesterday,” he said. “He could not cross. The high road opened this morning. I can send him that way.”
“Send him now,” Sel said. “Ask whether she’s safe and whether she’s returning before sunset. If she stays, she must send a signed order.”
The rider left while there were still long morning shadows on the floor.
Sel went with Harl to the harbor. She didn’t apologize for her question. She didn’t repeat it either.
Her mother had left in her plain travel cloak. The court cloak still hung upstairs. At breakfast the cook had complained that two loaves were missing, until an attendant said she’d wrapped them for the queen and her companion.
Sel had taken that for carelessness. Now she tried to picture her mother going somewhere without a feast already waiting.
The boatkeeper brought his booking board out under the roof.
“Two seats,” he said. “Queen and attendant. Paid by her sister. Downriver at ten yesterday.”
“Was anybody waiting to force them aboard?” Sel asked.
“Her attendant was trying to keep a bread parcel dry. Your mother was telling her not to fuss.”
Harl pointed across the water. A broken branch lay against the return dock. A strip of landing boards sagged into the river.
“We closed that dock when the storm began,” he said. “The grain boats are waiting too. An inspector is checking it now.”
“So she couldn’t return by boat.”
“Not safely.”
“She could have sent word.”
“Yes.”
He let that stand. Sel disliked him less for not trying to excuse everything.
By midafternoon, the councilor who wanted guards had brought four armed men into the courtyard. He said they were there in case the rider failed to return.
“In case you need a regent,” he added to Sel. “My house has kept order before.”
She looked at the men, then through the open gate at a cart waiting for flour. The driver had turned his empty sacks into a pillow.
At the council table she told everyone what she’d seen. The booking matched the signed leave. The damaged dock explained the delayed boat. Neither proved what her mother wanted now.
“I will not call a missed boat an attack,” she said.
“And I will not call a guess an instruction,” Urd answered.
For the first time all day she didn’t resent him.
The rider came back with dust on his boots before the lamps were lit. He carried two pages in a cloth pouch.
The queen’s page extended her leave until noon tomorrow. She would return by the high road. Her sister’s note said her husband had died while the queen was on her way to visit. The queen was staying through his burial.
Sel read that note twice. Her mother had gone to be a sister. Sel had been preparing to send guards after her.
Urd compared the signature with the leave beneath the crown. Then he read the extension aloud and entered its end time in the record.
“No regent tonight,” he said.
The waiting councilor took his guards home.
Harl remained by the door. Sel went to him.
“I accused you without enough reason.”
“You had reason to worry. That isn’t the same thing.”
“I know. Will you come to breakfast when she’s back?”
“I have grain boats to unload.”
She stepped aside to let him reach the courtyard.
From the courtyard they could see the harbor inspector wave a white flag over the repaired landing. Harl asked a waiting runner to carry his order: reopen the dock for grain, one boat at a time.
Sel watched the first boat turn out of the quiet water. Its crew pulled toward the landing, where people had already begun lifting the empty sacks from the carts.
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