By midday the road lost its patience.
It did not end, but it ceased to explain itself. The stones thinned and spread, some sunk deep enough to catch a boot heel, others loose and ready to turn. The land on either side showed signs of former care that had not been renewed. Hedges grew inward. Ditches had filled and overflowed, blurring the old boundaries between field and path. Riquanley adjusted his stride and kept going.
He passed no one for hours. This did not trouble him. Emptiness had a sound of its own, and this stretch of road made it honestly. Wind through tall weeds. The faint click of seed pods knocking together. Somewhere distant, a bird calling once and not again.
He drank sparingly and did not stop to eat. The men from the morning would not follow. They had already made their calculation and moved on to something nearer, something slower. Men who counted did not chase what had already paid.
Near the afternoon's end, the road dipped toward a shallow stream that cut across it at an angle. The crossing had once been bridged. The remains lay downstream, timbers wedged against rocks like a thought that had not been finished. Riquanley crossed where the water spread thin and clear over flat stone. His boots darkened but did not soak.
On the far side stood a marker stone half buried and leaning away from the road. Whatever name it had carried had been chiseled off cleanly, not worn. Someone had taken the time to remove it. That mattered more than the name itself.
Beyond the stream, the land rose again and the road straightened, leading toward a cluster of buildings set low against the slope. Not a village. Too spread, too quiet. A way station, once. A place meant for stopping, not staying.
Riquanley slowed as he approached. He counted the structures and noted their use by shape alone. A long house with a roof pitched shallow to shed wind rather than snow. A storehouse with its doors hanging open, empty by intent. A small stone building with narrow windows, solid and plain. Office, not home.
He stepped onto the packed earth of the yard and stopped where the road met it, letting himself be seen without presenting himself. The smell here was different from the inn. Less smoke. More dust. Paper and old grain.
A man came out of the stone building carrying a bundle of folded sheets tied with string. He wore a plain coat with a stain on the cuff where ink had soaked through. His hair was cut short, his beard trimmed to the edge of regulation. He looked at Riquanley with the practiced neutrality of someone who had learned to wait before deciding.
"You are late," the man said.
"I arrived when I arrived," Riquanley said.
The man accepted this. "Name."
Riquanley gave it.
The man repeated it once, quietly, as if testing the weight. "Purpose."
"Travel," Riquanley said.
"From where."
"The road behind me."
"To where."
"The road ahead."
The man nodded and made a mark on the top sheet with a stub of charcoal. "You will wait," he said.
"For what," Riquanley asked.
"For the waiting to finish," the man said, and went back inside.
Riquanley waited.
He chose a spot near the edge of the yard where the slope gave him a view of the road behind and the approach from the east. The sun slid lower, turning the dust gold and then dull again. A cart arrived carrying sacks of something that smelled of rot masked with salt. Two men unloaded it without speaking and left as soon as the last sack hit the ground. No one checked their names.
Another traveler arrived on foot, a woman with a wrapped bundle held tight against her chest. She stood where Riquanley had stood earlier and did not move until the same man came out again.
"You are early," the man told her.
She said nothing.
"You will wait," he said.
She waited.
When the sun touched the tops of the weeds, the man came out a third time with a different bundle of papers. He called Riquanley's name, then the woman's. They were taken inside separately.
The office smelled of damp stone and ink that had been stretched too far. Shelves lined the walls, some full, some bare. A table stood in the center with a ledger open to a page half filled.
The man gestured for Riquanley to sit. He did not sit himself.
"You passed the western inn," the man said, not looking up.
"I did," Riquanley said.
"They keep records," the man said. "Poorly."
Riquanley did not answer.
"You paid," the man said.
"Yes."
The man made another mark. "That makes this easier."
"For whom," Riquanley asked.
"For the page," the man said. "Not for me."
He turned a sheet and scanned it, then frowned. "There is a discrepancy."
Riquanley waited.
"Your name appears twice," the man said.
"That happens," Riquanley said.
"Not here," the man said. "Not unless you are doing something twice."
Riquanley leaned back slightly, enough to signal comfort without arrogance. "Or unless someone else used it."
The man looked up then. His eyes were tired rather than sharp. "Names are not reused lightly," he said.
"Nor are they owned," Riquanley said.
The man considered this. "You will need to clarify."
"How," Riquanley asked.
The man named a fee. It was not large, but it was unnecessary. The number had been chosen because it fit the space left on the page.
Riquanley reached into his purse and counted out the coin slowly, letting the man see that the amount did not trouble him, only the principle. He set the coin down.
The man hesitated, then pushed it back. "No," he said. "That is not correct."
Riquanley looked at him.
"This requires time," the man said. "Not coin."
"How much," Riquanley asked.
"Until the page is settled," the man said. "You may not leave the road district."
Riquanley nodded. "Where does the district end."
The man pointed to a map on the wall, its edges curled. The boundary was generous. Too generous.
"And if the page does not settle," Riquanley asked.
The man closed the ledger. "Then you will remain," he said.
Riquanley stood. "I have no reason to remain."
"That is not relevant," the man said.
Outside, the light had faded to the color of old parchment. The woman with the bundle was gone. The yard stood empty except for the sacks by the storehouse and a boy sweeping dust that would return by morning.
Riquanley walked the boundary the man had indicated and found it porous. Paths crossed it without care. The road itself did not respect the line.
He returned to the yard and sat on a low stone, his back to the slope. He ate then, bread and dried meat, measuring each bite against the remaining light. He did not sleep.
After dark, voices came from the stone building. Two men, then three. The tone was not urgent, but it was intent. Somewhere a page was being rewritten.
Near midnight, the man with the ink-stained cuff came out again. He carried a single sheet, folded.
"You may go in the morning," he said.
"What changed," Riquanley asked.
The man looked at the paper. "The page learned to agree with itself."
Riquanley nodded. "That is good."
"For you," the man said.
"For the road," Riquanley said.
The man did not correct him. He went back inside and closed the door.
Riquanley lay back on the stone and watched the stars until they blurred. He slept then, lightly, with the sense that nothing here would follow him, only remember that he had passed.
By morning, the road would be open again. Whether it would remain so was not his concern.
Riquanley left before the man with the ink-stained cuff returned to his morning habits.
Dawn came thin and colorless, spreading across the yard without warmth. The sacks by the storehouse had been covered with canvas sometime during the night, weighed down with stones placed carefully at the corners. Someone had taken the time to do it right. Someone else would be accountable if it went wrong.
He rose, stretched once, and adjusted the straps of his pack. The boy who had been sweeping the evening before was gone. The broom leaned where it had been left, bristles already bending under their own neglect. Riquanley stepped around it rather than over it. Habit again, though no one was watching.
The road east left the way station without ceremony. No gate. No marker. Just a narrowing of earth and stone that suggested intention had once been here and moved on. He followed it until the buildings dropped out of sight, then another half mile beyond that before allowing himself to slow.
The land here had not decided what it wanted to be. Scrub gave way to rough pasture, then back again. Fence lines appeared, vanished, reappeared crooked. He passed the remains of a collapsed shed, its timbers stripped for reuse, nails left behind because pulling them took time and tools someone had not had.
By midmorning, the sky had hardened into a pale blue that promised heat without delivering it yet. Riquanley stopped beneath a stand of thin trees and ate, counting the pieces before he began and again when he finished. The count matched. That mattered.
When he set off again, the road began to show signs of recent traffic. Wagon ruts, shallow but fresh. Hoof marks that did not wander. Someone had moved through here with purpose and enough authority to expect cooperation.
He felt it before he saw it, the shift that came when land remembered being used. Grass bent the wrong way. Stones displaced and not returned. The quiet changed shape.
At a bend where the road skirted a low rise, he saw smoke.
Not much. A thread, pale and deliberate, rising straight before dispersing. Camp smoke, not hearth. Temporary.
Riquanley did not change direction immediately. He walked until the road crested the rise, then stepped off it and took the slope at an angle, using the thin trees for cover without hiding himself completely. There was no need to pretend he had not come this way. Only to choose how.
The camp sat in a shallow hollow beside the road, placed where it could be seen from a distance but not easily approached from behind. Three tents, mismatched. A fire pit with stones set neatly around it. Two wagons drawn up nose to tail, their tarps marked with faded sigils that had once been bold.
Men moved about the camp without hurry. Not soldiers, but close enough to borrow the shape. Their weapons were worn, maintained just enough to function. Authority carried lightly, but it was there.
Riquanley stepped back onto the road and continued openly.
He was noticed before he reached the camp. A man detached himself from the wagons and walked to meet him, hands empty, posture relaxed. He had gray in his beard and a scar that pulled at one corner of his mouth, giving him a permanent expression of mild dissatisfaction.
"You are early," the man said.
"So I am told," Riquanley said.
"Where are you headed," the man asked.
"East," Riquanley said.
The man nodded. "Everyone is, these days."
They stood there a moment, the space between them measured and held. Behind the man, another pair watched without pretending otherwise. One leaned on a spear. The other held a ledger, closed.
"You passed through the district," the man said.
"I did."
"Any trouble," the man asked.
"Only the kind that stays behind," Riquanley said.
The man smiled at that, not because it amused him, but because it fit. "We are taking names," he said.
"Then you should write quickly," Riquanley said. "They move on."
The man glanced back at the ledger carrier, then returned his attention. "Name," he said.
Riquanley gave it.
The man repeated it once, then waved him forward. "You can rest," he said. "Water is clean. Food if you have coin."
Riquanley walked into the camp without haste. He accepted water and paid for bread that was hard but honest. He sat on a low stone near the fire and ate, letting the presence of others settle around him.
The ledger carrier approached after a time and opened the book on his knee. He asked questions that were precise and unnecessary. Riquanley answered only what was required and no more. The ledger filled, not with truth, but with something consistent.
A woman arrived near noon, leading a mule heavy with panniers. She spoke with the gray-bearded man at length, their voices low and careful. When they finished, the man gestured east, and she went without staying.
By afternoon, the camp prepared to move. Tents came down. Fires were drowned properly. The wagons were turned to face the road. Everything was done in order, without rush.
Riquanley stood when they did.
"You traveling with us," the gray-bearded man said.
"Only for a time," Riquanley said.
"That is how it usually starts," the man said, not unkindly.
They set off together, the wagons setting the pace. The road held. Where it narrowed, men walked ahead to check footing. Where it widened, they spread, not to intimidate, but to see.
As the light began to soften, the gray-bearded man fell into step beside Riquanley. "You keep yourself light," he said.
"I move better that way," Riquanley said.
"You do not ask questions," the man said.
"I listen," Riquanley said.
The man nodded. "That will serve you."
They walked in silence after that. When the camp stopped for the night, Riquanley helped without being asked, then slept on the edge, where leaving would be easiest.
In the morning, he rose before the wagons were fully loaded and walked on alone.
No one stopped him.
The road remained, stretching eastward, open for now.