The accounts of the Matron

The Matron's room had no windows. She didn't need it: the walls were covered with maps, and each opened on a different way of holding the city.

Zesstra Xil’Nrae stood in front of the oldest. Black wires connected guard posts to warehouses, warehouses to bridges, bridges to temples. Zaelyra recognized several strokes of her own hand. She had never traced the black wires.

"You subtracted a svirfneblin from the temple interrogation, kept a map that does not belong to you and hid the blackened fragment that the spider brought you," says his mother. "In what order do you want to explain these choices?"

Rhylor stood by the door. He didn't look at her.

"The svirfneblin is a witness. The map is a piece to be examined. As for the fragment, it carried no order."

"And now?"

Zaelyra kept her eyes on the pin planted in the map. "I don't know more."

His mother finally turned her head. In the light of the lamps, his face looked more tired than the day before. "That's a cautious answer. Don't confuse it with an inconsequential answer."

Zesstra put a finger on the southern pillar of the map. The Three Echoes were drawn as three parallel lines, interrupted in the same place.

"You're going to resume your statement. Rhylor will accompany you. You will go to the first relay, you will measure the walls and you will come back before the next Narbondel ignition. The svirfneblin will remain in the lower annex. He will have no map or blade."

"He can't help us if you remove his instruments."

"He can help us as long as we understand that he is not free."

"What if he didn't do anything?"

"Then he will survive a night of caution."

"How will this be registered?"

His mother raised an eyebrow slightly. "You already have the order."

"I'm talking about Nym. You say he's not free. The guards will say that he is guilty."

Zesstra pointed to a tablet placed on the edge of the table. "Write what you know. Not what you suppose."

Zaelyra took the stylus. "Nym Varr. Cartographer svirfneblin. Found in a reserved conduit with an old map copy. Ankle injured by a trap."

"And the reason for his presence?"

"He says he measured a draft to warn his own of a risk in their galleries."

"Do you believe it?"

"I think he told me."

The Matron followed the line of gaze. "It's not the same thing."

"No. That's why I wrote "he says"."

Zesstra did not answer right away. She took the stylus, added to the bottom of the tablet that Nym's tools would remain on guard, then returned it to him. "You can attest to what you saw. You can't attest to what he wanted to do."

Zaelyra signed. The line of his name seemed darker than ink. She had just officially acknowledged that she had taken part in the decision to keep him. If Nym was injured, if the priestesses took him away or if he disappeared, this line would not protect him. She would only prevent the House from claiming that she had never been consulted.

"A tablet is not a guarantee," says Zesstra.

"I know."

"But it allows you to ask who changed the words."

The Matron removed a pin from its sleeve and planted it in the layout of the southern district. The metal went through the parchment, sank into the wood and held the map open.

"When I was your age," she said, "I accompanied an escort to a gallery that had to be safe. The report said that the passage was free. The verification was three days old. We arrived on the fourth."

Zaelyra knew the story. We rarely talked about it, and never in the same way. In the version of the House, the escort had been surprised by looters. In that of the servants, a guide had sold the itinerary. Her mother had never talked about it in front of her.

"We lost seven people," Zesstra continued. "The House has lost a contract, two allies and the confidence of an entire neighborhood. The fault was attributed to the guide. However, he had handed over the good statement. The shift came from a scribe who had copied the wrong column."

"The date of the inspection was found below that of departure," she explained. The passage had been free on the day of the visit. On paper, three days had disappeared."

Zesstra went around the map without touching the wires. She stopped at the edge of a secondary line, where a small triangle marked the location of the ambush.

"I asked the guide if he knew of a detour," she said. "He told me that he knew three. I asked him which one was safer. He said he didn't know."

"Was that the right answer?"

"It was the only one he could defend. I wanted some certainty. I ordered him to choose one."

Zesstra spread his hands. The sons did not move.

"He chose one. We lost the seven. After that, I learned that one of the other detours would also have been dangerous. I don't know if we would have survived."

"So you wanted him?"

"I resented him for not giving me what I wanted. Then I understood that I had asked him to lie so that I could call my choice a safe decision."

"What happened to him?"

"He returned his badge and left the relay."

"The House continued to say that he had sold the road."

"Yes."

Zaelyra waited for the rest. His mother didn't look away.

"You knew that nothing proved that he had done it."

"I knew the report didn't prove it."

"And you didn't say anything."

"I thought that by keeping silent, I was protecting the House from a second loss. In reality, I was also protecting my place with her."

The nearest black thread trembled when Zesstra touched the map. She put it back in place, without trying to hide the gesture.

"I'm not telling you this story so that you forgive me," she says. "I'm telling you because obedience and prudence can have the same face. Sometimes it takes years to see what they cost."

The Matron moved the triangle a few fingers. "Since then, I have demanded reports that distinguish a measure from a guess. It's not always enough. But it's better than sending people to the front of a fabricated certainty."

Zaelyra looked at her mother. She had long believed that Zesstra's fear came from the weakness she refused to show. Perhaps it came more from the precise memory of what an order could do to those who obeyed it.

"So you want me to check every line."

"I want you to understand that mistakes have legs. They take out maps and walk with the living."

Zaelyra looked at the black wires on the wall map. "What if the report is incomplete because someone chose to delete it?"

"Then you will find out who benefits from it before deciding that you can correct it."

The answer was neither a warning nor a permission. It was Zesstra's method, hardened by years of having to survive truths that could not be said out loud.

"You know the name of Do’Urden," says Zaelyra.

"I know the names of many people who have died or gone."

"It is said that he survived."

"You don't know anything about it."

"You don't either."

Zesstra removed the pin. The paper kept a small tear. "I'm not asking you to stop asking questions. I ask you to stop believing that the first answer makes you free."

Zaelyra refrained from looking at Rhylor. She would have liked him to confirm that she was right, or at least tell her what question to ask next. He wasn't there for that.

The harshness of these words did not erase the fear that preceded them. Zaelyra recognized her because she had heard her, in the past, in her mother's voice after her father's disappearance. An ancient fear, organized in rules.

"Why did someone write this name on the back of the map? She asked.

"Someone writes a lot of things. A note is neither a fact nor a proof. Zesstra folded the map. "Don't turn a rumor into a compass."

In the corridor, Rhylor waited for them to be alone.

"Did you know she was going to send us there? Zaelyra asked.

"I knew she would want to see if you obeyed."

"And you?"

"I want to know who moved the dust in front of the annex."

It wasn't an answer, but it was the first time he named the danger.

They went down to get their lamps. At the foot of the stairs, Vhaelyn was waiting for them. She adjusted the clasp of her sleeve, a calm gesture that she reserved for the decisions already made.

"Our mother entrusted me with custody of Nym," she says. "I will not let him be questioned by the priestesses."

"Do you protect him? Zaelyra asked.

"I protect the House from a scandal that it cannot contain. Vhaelyn approached. "Don't forget the difference."

Then she walked away to the lower annex.

Zaelyra followed her to the gate. Nym was sitting on a narrow bench, his ankle surrounded by a clean band. His tool bag rested on the other side of the grid. He wasn't sleeping.

"Do you have something to tell me? He asked.

"Not yet."

"This is a noble answer."

"This is an honest answer."

Vhaelyn approached the door. "He asked for his tools. I refused them to him."

"Can I do my statement without him?"

"You can. But you will take longer."

"What if the Matron asks why?"

"You will tell him the truth. I kept him under surveillance."

Zaelyra observed her sister. "You're really going to let him out?"

"I'll leave the door unlocked. The rest will depend on him."

Nym had a joyless laugh. "A considerable privilege."

"It's more than what the guards offered you," says Vhaelyn.

She did not look at him as a prisoner or a guest. She saw it as a risk of which she had agreed to bear a share.

"If you go out, you will be wanted," says Zaelyra.

"I already am."

"What if you stay?"

"I will be questioned."

A slight friction ran under the door of the annex. Rhylor turned to the corridor. The dust had been moved on a narrow line, as if something had just slipped below the threshold.

Zaelyra crouched down and picked up a turquoise thread knotted around a stone splinter.

Nym froze. "A passer's mark."

"Do you know this knot?" asked Rhylor.

"Left hand, reverse tightening. Someone wants us to notice it. That doesn't mean the road is safe."

"Who left him? Zaelyra asked.

"I don't know. Nym looked at the dust at the foot of the door. "But this person knows we're here."

Rhylor stared at the corridor. "Our mother already knows. I'm talking about someone else."

She slipped the thread under her sleeve without noting it on the map. Vhaelyn brought the door back almost against the frame, without engaging the lock.

Zaelyra found nothing to answer. Rhylor took the stairs; she followed him. The official road led them to Les Trois Échos. The turquoise thread, hidden against his skin, seemed to weigh more than an entire map.