Page 18 of The Sun He Buried

“What if the next shipment isn’t one shipment?”

“What do you mean?”

I place the pieces in a row between us. “Three smaller loads. Send them on different days. Weigh each one when it leaves the mine, at the pass, and here.”

He looks down at the bread.

“If all three arrive light, you know it keeps happening,” I continue. “If only one does, you can look at who handled that cart. You could change the seals too, or—”

“Sól.” He lays his hand over mine.

His palm is warm. Rough. The ink stain sits close to my little finger.

“I have it.”

“I know. I was only—”

“You don’t need to spend tonight fixing my ore routes.” His thumb presses once against the back of my hand. “I sent word. I’ll sort it out.”

He smiles. He means it kindly.

“All right.”

I eat the piece marking the pass.

Baldr picks up the cake knife. “Have I ever taken you through the lower market?”

“Asta and I have been twice.”

“With four guards.”

“Nobody will bargain with them behind me.”

He gives me the other corner of the cake. “Come with me next market morning.”

“To protect the ribbon sellers?”

“They’ve suffered enough.”

I should tell him I had another thought about the seals.

The cake has honey in the middle, and he remembered the corner again.

I can tell him later.

We stay until the fire burns low. We talk about the market, Gullither, and the bench Baldr broke at my family’s palace when I was seven.

He still claims the wood was rotten. I still remember the sound.

With him, I never have to search for the next thing to say. He watched me spend half my childhood falling into furniture and the other half saying whatever entered my head. He knows I cry at weddings and once brought a sick lamb into my bed because it looked lonely.

The door opens before I can sit too long with that.

The same servant begins clearing plates. Baldr rises and takes my chair before the young man can reach it. My skirt catches under my heel, the chair bumps my knees, and Baldr catches my elbow before I can join the carpet.

The servant becomes very interested in a fish plate.

“I had that.”