The road should not have been there.
Riquanley knew this before he saw the inn, before the smoke thinned into something shaped like habit, before the sound of a hammer reached him from beyond the rise. Roads were made for reasons. When those reasons died, roads followed. They broke first at the edges, then in the middle, until wagons chose fields instead and fields learned the weight of wheels. This road had learned nothing new. Its stones were worn smooth, not cracked. Grass had tried to claim the gaps and failed.
He stopped where the rise leveled and stood with his pack resting against his calf, the strap cutting through wool into skin he had learned to ignore. The inn sat low and wide, built for travelers who no longer came in numbers. The roof had been repaired twice in different styles, the left side steep and new, the right shallow and sagging. Smoke rose from the newer half. Someone had decided which side mattered.
A man worked by the door, hammering at a hinge that did not need it. The door already opened. The man knew this. The work was not for the door.
Riquanley waited. Waiting cost nothing if done early. He counted the fence posts between himself and the well, noted that one had been replaced with oak where the others were pine, and that the rope on the bucket had been spliced instead of tied. He saw the tracks near the stable and the lack of them on the road beyond. Traffic arrived and stopped. Traffic did not pass through.
The hammering stopped.
"You looking for drink or trouble," the man called, not turning.
"Water," Riquanley said. "If it is for sale."
The man turned then, slow, eyes already measuring. He had the look of someone who lived at the edge of usefulness. Thick hands, careful boots. A scar on the cheek that had healed clean. Not a fighter's scar. A mistake with a blade, or a fall.
"Water is free," the man said. "If you do not mind the taste."
Riquanley did not answer until he reached the well. He drew the bucket himself, careful not to show haste. The rope creaked at the splice. He drank, tasting iron and old wood. When he finished, he rinsed his mouth and poured the rest back, as if it mattered.
"Thank you," he said.
The man nodded and returned to the hinge.
Riquanley did not move on. He set his pack down by the fence and leaned against it, facing the road behind him. The wind came from the west, carrying the smell of wet ash. Somewhere, something had burned recently. The sound of the hammer returned, steady and patient.
A woman came out of the inn with a bowl of peelings and tossed them into a trough where a single pig rooted without interest. She wore a plain dress and a belt that had been repaired with twine. Her hair was tied back tight enough to pull at the skin. She looked at Riquanley once, then again, then not at all.
"Rooms are cheap," she said, as if continuing a thought. "Meals cost what they cost."
"I do not need a room," Riquanley said.
"Then you will eat," she said. It was not a question.
He did not correct her. Correction was a form of claim. He followed her inside.
The inn smelled of boiled grain and old smoke. The floor had been swept recently, though not well. The tables were mismatched, brought in from elsewhere, their legs cut to fit the slope. Light came through the windows at an angle that suggested they had been placed without plan. Riquanley chose a seat near the wall where he could see the door and the stairs without turning his head.
The woman brought him bread and a bowl of stew thick with root vegetables. There was meat in it, though not much. He waited until she had moved away before eating.
At the far table sat three men playing at dice with stones scratched for numbers. They argued softly, not about the game but about who owed whom from yesterday. None of them wore colors. One had a knife at his belt, plain and clean. Another had a ring on his finger that had once meant something. The third watched the door too often.
Riquanley ate slowly. He had learned to make meals last without drawing attention to it. The stew was better than expected. Someone here knew how to keep food edible after scarcity. That knowledge had not traveled far.
A boy came down the stairs carrying a bucket and nearly dropped it when he saw Riquanley. The woman snapped at him without looking. The boy recovered, set the bucket by the hearth, and went back up without a word. He did not look again.
The man with the hammer came in last, wiping his hands on his trousers. He took a seat near the door and accepted a cup without asking. He did not look at Riquanley until he drank, then nodded once, satisfied.
"You came from the west," he said.
"I came from the road," Riquanley said.
The man smiled, thin and quick. "That road used to matter."
"It still does," Riquanley said, and meant it.
The woman returned and stood between them, her hands on the table. "What he means," she said to Riquanley, "is that people who come from the west usually do not stop."
"And yet," the man said.
"And yet," she agreed.
Riquanley finished his bread. "How much," he asked, gesturing to the bowl.
The woman named a price that was fair two years ago and high now. Riquanley paid without comment. The man watched his hands.
"You staying," the man asked.
"For the night," Riquanley said. "If the room is dry."
"It is," the woman said. "Dry enough."
She took him upstairs herself. The room smelled of clean straw and old walls. The window looked east, toward a stretch of road that dipped and vanished. No traffic. No smoke.
"Breakfast costs extra," she said.
"I eat little in the morning," Riquanley said.
She nodded, then paused at the door. "If someone asks your name," she said, "give them the one you use."
"I only have the one," he said.
She did not smile.
When she left, Riquanley sat on the bed and unbuckled his boots. He placed them together by the wall, toes aligned. He loosened the strap of his pack and checked its contents without opening it. Weight was right. Balance unchanged.
Below, the dice game ended in raised voices, then laughter. Someone sang a verse of a song that had lost its ending. The sound carried up through the boards, thin but steady.
Riquanley lay back and closed his eyes. He did not sleep.
After some time, the singing stopped. The voices thinned. Footsteps crossed the yard outside, then returned. A wagon creaked somewhere close and did not leave.
He waited until the inn settled into its night shape, then rose and went to the window. The moon was thin, the sky clear. By the stable, the man with the hammer stood talking to someone Riquanley could not see. Their voices were low. The words did not carry.
Riquanley stepped back and sat on the bed again. He did not pack. Packing early invited interruption.
He thought of the road behind him, and the road ahead, and the fact that both still existed. Somewhere between them, this place persisted, not because it should, but because someone had decided it would.
That was enough reason to be careful.
He lay down fully then, boots still off, knife within reach. When sleep came, it did not bring dreams, only the sense of time passing without permiss
ion.
In the morning, the road would still be there. Whether it mattered would depend on who used it next.
Sleep did not claim him so much as release him.
Riquanley woke before the inn did, the moment when the building still held its night breath and the boards had not yet begun to remember footsteps. The light at the window had shifted from silver to something thinner, a pale wash that flattened shapes without revealing them. He lay still and listened.
No wagon moved. No voices carried. The stable door creaked once, then settled. Somewhere below, a fire caught reluctantly, the sound of it small and contained. Someone had chosen to rise early, and to do so quietly.
He sat up and pulled on his boots, lacing them tight without hurry. The straw mattress rustled, and he paused until it stopped. When he stood, he did so with care, testing the floorboard with his heel before trusting it. The pack went on last. He checked the knife by habit and left the room as he had found it.
Downstairs, the common room had been rearranged. One table stood closer to the hearth, another had been turned to block a draft from the door. The dice were gone. A broom leaned against the wall where a man had slept sitting up and then decided not to stay.
The woman stood at the hearth stirring something thin and pale. She did not look up when Riquanley came down, but the stirring slowed.
"You eat little," she said.
"I do," he said.
She poured a bowl anyway and set it on the table he had chosen the night before. There was grain in it, boiled long past softness, with a hint of fat skimmed from somewhere else. He ate without comment.
Outside, the yard had been worked. The fence line near the well had been straightened, the oak post now aligned with the rest. The rope on the bucket had been tightened. Someone had done the work after dark, or very early, when effort went unnoticed.
The man with the hammer came in carrying a ledger tucked under his arm. He set it on the counter and poured himself a cup. He did not drink it immediately.
"You leave today," he said, not a question.
"Yes," Riquanley said.
The man nodded. "East."
"Yes."
"There is talk," the man said, and let the words hang where they could be ignored.
Riquanley finished his bowl and wiped it clean with the last of the bread. "Talk travels faster than carts," he said.
"Not this talk," the man said. "This one walks."
The woman stopped stirring. She set the spoon down and wiped her hands on her apron. "You can take the low road," she said. "It costs less."
"I have coin," Riquanley said.
"That is not what I mean," she said.
The man finally drank. "Low road is slower," he said. "And watched."
"By whom," Riquanley asked.
The man smiled again, thin and quick. "By people who count."
Riquanley stood and set his empty bowl on the counter. "I will take the high road," he said.
The woman met his eyes for the first time. There was no challenge in her look, only assessment. "It washed out near the bend," she said. "You will need to cross where the stones show."
"I see stones," Riquanley said.
She nodded once, satisfied, and turned back to the hearth.
Outside, the air had warmed enough to lift the smell of damp ash from the ground. Riquanley crossed the yard and paused by the stable. The wagon stood ready but unmanned, its tarp tied down tight. The horse inside shifted weight and blew softly through its nose. It was a good animal, kept fed but not rested.
"You are early," a voice said.
The boy stood by the fence, holding a length of twine and a broken latch. He had the look of someone set to a task without instruction.
"So are you," Riquanley said.
The boy shrugged. "If I finish this, she will give me bread with fat."
Riquanley reached into his pack and took out a strip of dried apple. He held it out without comment. The boy hesitated, then took it and nodded once, serious.
"They came late," the boy said, as if explaining the weather. "Three of them. Not the ones from inside."
"Where did they go," Riquanley asked.
The boy pointed toward the road behind the inn, the one that should not have existed. "They did not go far."
Riquanley thanked him and left the yard without looking back.
The high road rose quickly, its stones slick with moss where water had run unchecked. He took it slow, placing his feet where the rock held firm, letting the inn fall away behind him. At the bend, the washout showed itself, a shallow cut where the road had slumped and never been repaired. Beyond it, the stones reemerged, clean and pale, like bone.
He crossed where the stones showed.
On the far side, the land opened into a stretch of fields gone to weed. Old markers leaned at odd angles, their inscriptions worn smooth. The road narrowed and straightened, drawing the eye forward without offering shelter.
Riquanley walked until the inn's roof was no longer visible, then another quarter mile beyond that. He stopped where the road dipped slightly and the trees closed in just enough to break the wind. He waited.
The sound came eventually, as sounds always did. Footsteps on stone, unhurried. Three sets.
They came into view without care, spread wide enough to avoid surprise but close enough to speak without raising their voices. They wore no colors. One carried a staff cut from green wood. Another had a crossbow slung loose, unstrung. The third walked empty handed, his eyes doing the work of a weapon.
"Morning," the empty handed one said.
Riquanley returned the greeting and did not move.
"You passed the inn," the man said.
"I did," Riquanley said.
"You paid," the man said.
"Yes."
"That buys you food," the man said. "Not passage."
Riquanley nodded. "What does passage cost."
The man considered him. "Depends on what you carry."
Riquanley loosened his pack and set it down, opening it just enough to show cloth, tools, and a bundle of paper wrapped in oilskin. Nothing bright. Nothing heavy.
The man looked and saw what he expected to see. That was the mistake.
"You are light," the man said. "Going far."
"Only as far as the road goes," Riquanley said.
The man smiled, broader than the innkeeper's, but without warmth. "Road goes where we say."
Riquanley reached into his purse and took out a coin, then another, and set them on the stone between them. He did not push them forward.
"This is fair," he said.
The man looked at the coins and then at Riquanley. "For you," he said.
"For me," Riquanley agreed.
Silence settled, thick and waiting. The other two shifted, uncertain where to place their weight.
Behind them, somewhere down the road, a wagon creaked. The sound was distant, but it carried. The man's eyes flicked that way despite himself.
Riquanley did not move.
After a moment, the man stepped back and nodded once. "Go," he said. "And tell them nothing."
"I tell nothing," Riquanley said.
He picked up his pack and passed them without hurry. He did not look back until the road bent and the trees closed
again.
When he did, they were gone.
He walked on, the road still under his feet, still existing for reasons he did not need to know.