Page 25

He holds the vines aside while I put it on.

Outside, the western path takes us past the clustered roots of the Heartwood and into brighter, thinner woodland. Rows of saplings grow beside shallow stone channels that carry water down the slope. Some trees have pale branches joined to darker trunks. Others are braced upright with strips of cloth.

Daurek stops beside a young tree with a split in its bark. He removes a strip that has grown too tight and winds a fresh one around the join.

He uses the flat of one claw to tuck the cloth into place. I’m still watching his hands when he turns toward me.

“Will it heal?”

“It has started. See the new growth here?”

He points, leaving room for me to bend closer. A thin ridge of fresh wood is closing over the split.

“Could you make it happen faster?”

“A little. Too much new growth would weaken it. This needs time.”

He moves to the next tree. I follow him through the rows, asking about the grafts and the channels, enjoying how he answers here. He knows every damaged branch. When he touches a trunk, he waits for a response before moving on.

Near the end of a row, we come to a tree with half its crown cut away.

“What happened to that one?”

“The larger branches were taking more than the roots could supply.”

“Could you have braced them?”

“They weren’t going to break. They were keeping the rest from growing.”

I look at the cut ends. New buds are opening below them.

“How do you know which ones to keep?”

“I watch the growth. Look for disease. Judge how much the roots can support.”

“And if you choose wrong?”

His hand rests against the trunk. He takes longer to answer this time.

“I can help it recover. I can’t put back what I’ve cut.”

I think of the second delivery Hadrin missed. By then, two stallholders had wanted out. I’d convinced them that leaving would cost everyone more than giving him another week.

“You’re frowning,” Daurek says.

“I was very good at persuading people to wait for a man who wasn’t coming back.”

“The grain seller.”

“Yes.”

I expect him to tell me I couldn’t have known, or that Hadrin alone was to blame. People said both things in Tesseny while finding reasons to keep their money out of my hands.

“What made you give him more time?” he asks.

“If he’d delivered, everyone would have been better off. I kept thinking about that.”

Daurek looks at the pruned tree.