Ryo stared at the strip of pale winter light lying across the flagstones and decided he would not move until someone forced him to. The council chamber had no warmth, no tapestries, only a long table and three chairs on one side. His father sat in the middle. The steward had a ledger. His eldest brother leaned back, fingers tapping the armrest like a habit he'd never had to break.
"You were given a horse," Lord Halwick said. "You sent it back to the stable and walked when the hunt horn sounded."
Ryo kept his eyes on the light. The room smelled faintly of old lime and damp wool.
"I was tired," he said. His voice came out even, and he was grateful for that. He had learned to hold his tone together in another life, in meetings where everything was already decided.
"Tired," the elder brother said. "From what? Sleeping through dawn drills?"
The steward, a narrow man with steady hands, did not look up from the ledger. "The tutors' reports claim you engaged in… extensive personal study."
"That is how they wrote it," Ryo said. "I read the ledgers in the counting house. I shelled peas in the kitchens. I watched the blacksmith set a shoe. I thought it would help to learn the foundation work."
His father's gaze sharpened for a moment at "ledgers," then dulled. "Foundations are for the ground, boy. You're the third son of Halwick. You wear a blade. You ride when I say ride. You stand where I put you."
Ryo let the words soak and pass. He didn't need to argue. He had done too much arguing when he'd been thirty-two and falling asleep on trains, telling himself he would quit once the quarter ended. The quarter never ended.
"I don't believe this life suits me," he said quietly.
The room stilled. The steward glanced up. The elder brother snorted, but even that was a beat late.
"Then what, precisely, do you believe suits you?" Lord Halwick asked.
"Simple work," Ryo said. "If you disown me, I will not contest it. I will sign whatever writ you prefer. I'll leave today. I ask only for what will keep me from starving on the road."
His brother sat forward. "You think you can bargain from that chair?"
"I'm not bargaining," Ryo said. "I'm trying to make it easy."
Silence stretched. Ryo watched a bit of dust drift through the light. His chest felt clear, the way it had after he'd told his old manager he was going home at eight and then walked out knowing the emails would continue without him.
"You are a disappointment," Lord Halwick said finally. The words were tired, as if they'd worn grooves in his tongue. "If you leave, do not use the name. Do not come back with debts. There is a reason sons go to war when they are useless at home."
Ryo thought about mud and arrows and men shouting in the dark. He did not see himself there. He saw a wooden counter and a pot simmering that nobody rushed. He swallowed once.
"I will not use the name," he said. "I will not return. I need a letter of manumission and travel papers. A small pouch with coin for a week. A knife. Boots that fit. A cooking pot if the kitchen can spare one."
His brother hissed through his teeth. The steward's quill scratched.
Lord Halwick watched him without warmth. "You plan to cook your way through the winter?"
"I plan to try," Ryo said.
The quill paused. "He will need a writ to buy or lease property," the steward said. "If he is nothing, he cannot sign."
Lord Halwick waved a hand. "Write it. Third son, Ryo of no house, free to sign contracts and to be responsible for his debts. Stamp it with the old seal. If he makes a fool of himself, let it be clean."
Ryo felt a weight lift from a place he hadn't named yet. "Thank you."
"You're thanking me?" his brother muttered.
"Because you made a decision," Ryo said. "That's rare."
The elder brother's face colored. Lord Halwick's mouth tightened but he did not speak.
The steward slid papers across the table. He had already written the lines, steady and neat. "Sign here. And here. Your name, as you will use it."
Ryo took the quill. His hand didn't tremble. He wrote the simple shape of his name and felt something settle as the ink dried.
When it was done, the steward packed sand over the script and lifted it away. The seal pressed into wax like a final door closing. Ryo bowed his head and stood. No one stopped him.
In the corridor, the gentle chaos of the manor's stomach rolled around him: footsteps, murmurs, a cart's wheel squeak. He took the servants' stair because it was closest and because it was always warmer there, the heat from the kitchen rising like bread.
He found Matilde in the middle of eight things. She was large in the way of women who hauled sacks of flour every day, with red wrists and a voice that cut through steam. A boy bent over a sink, scouring. Someone was crying into a heap of onions.
"Matilde," Ryo said.
She didn't turn. "If you're back for a plate, you're late. If you want to lean, take a broom instead."
"I need a pot," he said.
Now she turned. Her eyes took in his clothes and the papers tucked under his arm. "What did you do?"
"I made things easy," Ryo said. "They made it easy back. I'm leaving. I'd like a pot you can spare, a knife you won't miss, and if there's an old pair of boots with soles that haven't cracked."
Matilde folded her arms. "And why should I give my pots to a boy who spent a year avoiding the simplest fact of his life?"
He considered. She had cooked for him when he'd come down at odd hours to wash vegetables just to keep his head quiet. She had told him when to get out of the way and when to stir. She did not like waste.
"If I take a pot," he said, "I can boil water at night. That means I won't come back here coughing up the pox and give it to your boys. If I take a knife that's dull, I'll still cut onions slow enough not to bleed on your table." He offered the smallest smile he had. "And if I leave, that's one less mouth asking for meat off your spit."
Matilde's mouth twitched. "You know which spatulas stick and which won't. You know where we keep the salt when I don't say it. You sweep under the benches when nobody watches. If you'd been this honest with your lord, you'd be a squire with sore thighs right now."
"I would be dead inside by spring," Ryo said. The words were plain. He didn't feel the need to sweeten them.
Matilde studied him, then jabbed a finger toward the corner. "Broom. Show me how you sweep. If you're going to take my pot, you're going to earn it here and now."
He went to the broom. The bristles were uneven. He turned it in his hands, feeling the weight and the way the handle flexed near a hairline crack. He dipped the broom into the bucket just enough to dampen the ends.
"Don't slop water everywhere," Matilde said. "I eat in this room."
He started at the far wall. He pulled benches out with his hip and shoulder, slow enough not to scrape. He worked the broom along the grain of the floorboards to keep the dust from settling into seams. He pushed with a steady rhythm, small arcs he could repeat, overlapping edges until each lane cleared. He swept toward the door, not away from it. He stopped to shake the broom outside when it clogged. He did not make a show of speed.
The boy at the sink glanced over. The crying girl sniffed and watched him move the onion skins aside without tearing them apart on the wood. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. He kept moving. His shoulders warmed. The surface of his thoughts went quiet, as if each stroke lined something inside him.
When he finished, Matilde looked down and grunted. "Most folk would leave the chips in the corners. You didn't."
"They make their way back into the stew pots if you let them sit," Ryo said.
She thrust a knife into his hands then, blade dull from bone work. "Dice three onions. Even. Don't bleed on my floor. If you do it right, you take your pot. If you don't, you take the lecture."
He peeled the first onion. The knife dragged. He adjusted his grip, curling his fingers to keep knuckles ahead of the blade. He did not rush. He rocked the knife through the flesh, aiming for pieces like his thumbnail. He lined up the onion, pressed down, slid forward, pulled back. He breathed with the motion. When the knife stuck, he lifted it, wiped it on a cloth, and set the lines again. The pile grew even and pale.
Matilde picked up a handful and let the pieces fall. "Huh."
"Sharp knife would do better," Ryo said.
"I know," she said. "Most boys skip the wipe and smear the skin and then we fish it out of the stew."
He finished the third onion. The crying girl had stopped. Matilde jerked her chin toward the shelves. "Top left, dented iron pot with a lid that rattles. It still holds water. Take a spoon that won't splinter. I've got boots the carter left when his feet swelled. We'll see if they fit."
"Thank you," Ryo said.
She watched him wrap the pot in a cloth. "You going to the river road?"
"I'll go where it's quiet," he said. "Somewhere I can buy a corner and not be noticed."
"You won't get far east," she said. "Lord Gareth's men have started asking coin off wagons that pass the mill. They call it a toll. Looks like robbery to me. Take the south track. The ground's bad but the folk are decent."
"South," he said. He filed the name away. Gareth. Toll. Mill.
She handed him a pair of boots. They were a touch large. He stuffed cloth into the toes.
At the back door, he paused. The kitchen's heat pressed against his face. He could still turn around, hand the pot back, and apologize, and take a path everybody understood. The thought drifted in and away. He had taught himself the lesson too late once. He would not do it again.
He stepped into the winter air. It was thinner and cleaner than anything inside, and his lungs pulled it in gratefully. He shifted the pot and the bundle of onions in his arms and found that the weight settled in a way that didn't strain. The paper with his new nothing name crinkled in his pocket.
He walked to the back gate. The guard there knew him by face, not title. The man glanced at the pot, at the boots, at the bundle.
"You going down to the village?" the guard asked.
"I'm going," Ryo said.
"Need a ride as far as the bend? Old Derran's cart is going out with feed."
"I won't be in the way?"
"Not more than the sacks."
He climbed onto the back of the cart. The feed smelled like dry grass and dust. The ox snorted and shifted, hooves clopping. Fields rolled past in brown strips. Smoke rose straight up from a dozen chimneys.
After a while, Derran's voice came back over his shoulder. "You look different, lad."
"I probably am," Ryo said.
"You got the look of a man who finally shut a door behind him," the carter said. "It's better than running with it open all winter. Where you aiming?"
"South track," Ryo said. "Somewhere with a roof I can rent."
Derran grunted. "Go past the willow stump. There's a posting board by the old shrine. Last week I saw a notice. Roadside alehouse in Low Marsh. Roof's ugly and the well's shallow. Owner died with no sons and the nephew hates the place. Cheap."
Ryo listened to the cart's creak. "An alehouse," he said.
"That's what the board said. You could do worse than a roof and a taproom if you've got the hands for it. The marsh folk drink. They fight too, but they drink first."
Ryo felt the shape of a counter under his palms that hadn't existed yet. He thought of a pot on a fire that burned steady because he fed it slow. He rubbed the edge of the iron lid with his thumb, feeling the old dents.
The ox slowed at the bend. Derran pulled the brake. "This is your stop," he said.
Ryo jumped down, boots crunching on the frozen dirt. He shifted the pot and tested the straps on his bundle. His fingers had warmed from the kitchen work. His mind felt level.
As he turned toward the south track, something flickered at the edge of thought, as if a note had been slid under a door while he wasn't looking. It wasn't a voice. It was the sense of a sentence he hadn't composed.
Cleaning: a habit has taken root.
It left as quickly as it came. He stood still for a breath, waiting for the dizziness that sometimes followed odd dreams. Nothing. Only the cold air and the creak of the cart behind him and the faint smell of river mud.
He could have made much of it. He could have called it a sign. He had played that game with himself in another life, tallying small coincidences into choices someone else wanted. He had decided, after the fluorescent lights and the bad coffee and the cough that didn't go away, that he would not turn himself into a project again.
He adjusted the pot on his hip and walked, one step and then another. The road dipped. A row of bare willows stood like ribs against the sky. A bird took off from the ditch with a startled cry. He preferred that sound to horns and orders.
He reached the shrine. The posting board leaned slightly, nailed to the old stone. The notices flapped, edges damp. He found the one Derran had mentioned because it was the only one written in a clear hand.
Low Marsh Alehouse. Roof in need of pitch. Well draws shallow but sweet. Taproom benches sturdy. Kitchen hearth runs hot. Deed for sale by writ, price negotiable to a man with steady coin and steadier hands.
Ryo let out a slow breath and felt something like an answer inside him. Not a sign. Just a match between a desire and a thing in the world. That was enough.
He reached into his pocket and counted the coins by touch. Not many. Not enough for comfort. Enough for a conversation.
Behind him, a traveler splashed through a frozen puddle and swore. Far off, somewhere toward the mill, a horn blew once and went quiet. Ryo folded the notice and slid it into the pot, under the lid so the paper wouldn't tear. Then he set his boots toward the marsh.
As Ryo stepped onto the south track, the distant horn sounded again—three low notes in a pattern he didn't recognize. The cart man swore, turned his ox toward the manor, and shouted something about a toll gone bad at the mill. Ryo tightened his grip on the dented pot and kept walking, unaware that the simple alehouse in Low Marsh had already drawn the attention of a man who called himself Lord Gareth's collector.