The spring rain brought down more than water.
High in the northern draws, wind had torn several large trees from the riverbank. The melt carried them south until five trunks jammed against the mud near the place where the village stream crossed the Old Stone Road.
In Ashvale, five trees mattered.
They were roof beams.
Fence posts.
Winter fuel.
A larger sheep pen.
By the time Aether and Kaelen reached the riverbank, half the village seemed to be there.
Tom the trapper stood ankle-deep in mud.
Across from him was Lane the miller.
Both were shouting.
“My boys put the first hooks in them!” Tom yelled.
Three iron hooks were buried in the bark of the largest trunk.
Lane pointed toward two of his apprentices standing in the shallows with a thick hemp rope.
“And my boys pulled them out of the main current. Without that rope, your hooks would be halfway to the delta.”
“We saw them first.”
“And we saved them.”
Tom stepped closer.
“So they're ours.”
Lane did the same.
“Try taking them.”
Aether stood beside Kaelen at the edge of the road.
He knew both men.
Tom had eaten at their hearth.
Lane had helped repair Harold's roof after an ice storm.
Neither looked like a thief.
Kaelen folded his arms.
“Tom's right.”
Aether looked over.
“Why?”
“First iron in the timber.”
Kaelen pointed at the hooks.
“That's how it's done.”
One of Lane's sons heard him.
He turned and pointed toward their longhouse farther up the slope.
A corner of the roof had been stripped open. Bare rafters showed beneath the gray sky.
“We need them.”
Kaelen looked at the roof.
Then at the logs.
His certainty faded.
“It's only five trees,” he muttered.
An old tracker beside them turned.
“Five trees is a warm bed in January.”
Kaelen said nothing after that.
The argument grew louder.
Finally someone called:
“Get Harold.”
***
Harold came down from the ridge without a weapon.
He did not shout for silence.
He did not step between Tom and Lane.
He simply stood on a flat stone several paces away.
Then he listened.
When both men had finished, Harold looked at Tom.
“When did you see the timber?”
“Second hour after dawn.”
“Who reached it first?”
“My eldest.”
“Where?”
“Above the bend.”
Harold turned to Lane.
“Where did you set the rope?”
“At the shallows.”
“Before or after the rocks?”
“Before.”
“Who went into the water?”
“My two boys.”
“How deep?”
Lane pointed to his thigh.
Harold kept asking.
Who had seen what.
Who had done what.
Where.
When.
By the time he finished, no one was shouting anymore.
Harold looked at the five trunks.
“Tom takes two.”
Tom opened his mouth.
Harold continued.
“Lane takes two.”
Lane frowned.
“The fifth goes to the timber crew.”
“For what?” Tom asked.
“The footbridge.”
Harold pointed upstream.
“If the May flood takes it, none of you will care who owned these trees.”
Silence.
Tom looked unhappy.
Lane looked unhappy.
Aether noticed that Harold did not seem bothered by either fact.
Tom spat into the mud and waved his sons toward the two trunks.
Lane called his apprentices back into the water.
The crowd began to break apart.
No one cheered.
No one thanked Harold.
The work simply continued.
***
That evening, Aether found Garan carving a piece of cedar beside the fire.
He sat down nearby.
For a while, he watched the old man's knife peel thin curls from the wood.
“They aren't bad men,” Aether said.
Garan did not look up.
“Who?”
“Tom and Lane.”
“No.”
Aether waited.
Garan continued carving.
“Then why were they ready to fight?”
The old man turned the cedar in his hands.
“Tom has known winters when his children slept cold.”
The knife moved again.
“Lane has known winters when rain came through his roof.”
Aether looked into the fire.
“So who was right?”
Garan smiled faintly.
“You were there.”
“I know.”
“Then you tell me.”
Aether frowned.
“Tom found the trees.”
“Aye.”
“Lane's sons pulled them out.”
“Aye.”
“Lane needs the roof.”
“Aye.”
“Tom needs the wood too.”
“Aye.”
Aether became frustrated.
“You're not answering.”
“I know.”
Garan shaved another curl from the cedar.
After a while, he said:
“People usually see most clearly what is closest to their own hearth.”
Aether looked at him.
Garan nodded toward the fire.
“A cold man sees firewood.”
Another stroke of the knife.
“A hungry man sees food.”
He shrugged.
“That doesn't make either of them wicked.”
Aether thought about Harold standing in the mud.
“He gave neither of them what they wanted.”
“No.”
“They were both angry.”
“Aye.”
“Then how did he know it was fair?”
This time Garan stopped carving.
He considered Aether for a moment.
“Who said it was fair?”
Aether stared at him.
Garan returned to the cedar.
“Sometimes you choose what lets people wake tomorrow and keep living beside each other.”
The fire cracked.
Aether said nothing.
***
Later, in the sleeping loft, Aether took out one of his pine boards.
He almost began to write.
Instead, he stopped.
What would he write?
Tom was right.
That was not true.
Lane was right.
That was not true either.
He turned the charcoal between his fingers.
Then he drew a line down the middle of the board.
On one side, he wrote:
Tom — found the timber. First hooks. Needs winter wood.
On the other:
Lane — saved the timber from the current. Needs roof beams.
Below both, after a long pause:
Bridge — everyone needs it.
Aether sat back.
The board did not tell him who was right.
It only showed him why none of them thought they were wrong.
For now, that was enough.