Once all of them were safely on the other side of the fence, Ulli closed the gate behind them.
As Ian had expected, the bandits had made a plan for what to do with any discovered food. Lane split them off into pairs and directed each pair to a quarter of the village.
Relying on Robin’s knowledge of the village, Ian followed her down their directed road. Quietly slipping up to each cottage they passed, they left small offerings of food until every house had been visited and the bags were empty.
Robin said very little as they went.
Ian wanted to know what she was thinking about, but they were too close to sleeping villagers to start a meaningful conversation.
A short while later, they met up with the others on the far side of Doulast and started the long walk back to Lockwood. Lane led the way this time, pushing quickly down the trail on his long legs, seemingly unaffected by a night of no sleep.
Ian found himself dragging behind the rest of them, hanging back close to Robin who took up the rear.
“Say it, Ian,” she said, so quietly that Ian doubted the others could hear her.
“Say what?” Ian asked. He definitely had things to say, but he wanted to hear what she was thinking first.
“Tell me I was wrong,” she said, her voice filled with self-loathing. “That my fear of enacting rules caused me to fail those who were counting on me.”
“No!” Ian protested. “That is not what I would say. I do not think...” He stopped speaking as the image of her unrestrained anger in the cellar came to mind. He wondered if that anger had not been directed toward the reeve at all, but rather toward herself. This was not about Ian’s opinion; it was about her opinion of herself. “Robin. You are not a failure,” he said, finding the words as he spoke. “I do not think that. No one thinks that. The people in Doulast were still getting the food they needed, the reeve was just taking more. That was his failing, not yours.”
“But I did fail,” Robin protested, her voice quiet and only for him. “I failed the people of every other village on the route after Doulast because we did not have enough to go around. I failed the people who were relying on me to provide food for their children. That makes me...” She left the final word unsaid.
Ian let the silence sit as they continued to walk. He wanted to jump in and comfort her, to use every manner of logic to show her that she was not a failure. The words that bubbled up inside his throat would come out in his older-brother voice. And somehow, he knew that would not be effective or appreciated by Robin. He had to see what she was seeing and how she saw it. He had to speak with her as just Ian, the boy who had been her friend all those years ago.
Rather than responding to her shame-filled words, he focused his question on the problem at hand, the problem she was trying to solve. “How long have you been distributing food?” he asked.
“For years,” Robin replied. Her voice was still quiet, but her tone had steadied. “At first it was just a way to share any extra bounty from Lockwood. But then the silverreign storms started turning into greenreign storms, and harvestreign no longer had any harvest, and we saw how many people were truly going hungry, year after year. By then, Lockwood was struggling just to support our own. So I reached out through River’s Talon and requested resources from the kingdoms that were not as affected by the weather patterns.”
“How long have the carts been coming?” Ian asked. “Ilida said that they come every other sevennight, but she did not say how long that has been happening.”
“For the last two years or so,” Robin said.
“And when a cart arrives, you immediately distribute all of it?” Ian asked. He looked over his shoulder, but it was too dark to make out her expression.
“Yes, we distribute all of it as soon as it comes in,” she replied. “If people need food, I want them to have access to it as soon as possible.”
“How often is the wagon late?” Ian asked, happy to hear her sounding like herself again as she explained the process.
“Often,” Robin replied. “Especially with the Chendas soldiers traveling through Iseldis. They have stopped the cart several times and demanded its contents for themselves. It has been harder and harder to expect it to arrive on schedule.”
“And the villagers know this?” Ian asked.
“Of course,” Robin continued. “We tell them everything we can because we want them to know that we are doing everything we can, even if it is unpredictable. Why all the questions?”
Ian walked for several more paces before quietly responding, “Do you really want to hear my thoughts?”
“Yes,” Robin replied immediately.
“I think you are focusing on the wrong part of the problem,” Ian said. He had been trying to distract her with his questions, but he had also been thinking through how the councilors would have approached a similar problem in the capital city.
“I am listening,” Robin said, her tone inviting him to continue.
“Ilida has been asking for a change in the distribution method to prevent villagers taking more than they need,” Ian explained. “Which is a solution to the problem, but not the only one, and for the reasons you have stated, perhaps not even a good one. So let us look at the problem of scarcity instead of the problem with the distribution method.”
“Scarcity is the problem,” Robin replied. “We know that. No matter what we do, someone is going to go without.”
“And in trying to solve for that,” Ian continued, “you are perpetuating the scarcity itself, literally taking from your own plate to feed others.”
