Stonecross tried on the day and found it didn't fit.
Mist clung where lanes met, the sky kept its blue folded. Brukk Ironhorn came along the tannery path—quiet as a big man could be—with one wolf in the ditch and one shadowing the fence like a rumor. He set his shoulders small and his eyes lower than usual. The trick to not being noticed is not to insist on the right to be.
"Quiet," he told the torn-ear wolf. It placed its paws like thoughts it meant to keep.
He went to the wash yard. Lines ran between leaning poles; sheets made pale flags of other people's hours. Steam drifted from a copper tub; a wooden mangle complained. Tawny bent to the work with sleeves turned and hair a furious republic of red.
"You again," she said. "You left the air better yesterday. Keep it up."
"I brought it back the way I found it," Brukk said. He nodded at the tub. "Need a back?"
"Always. If you split my mangle, you owe me its next three husbands."
"I'll be gentle," he said, laying his palms to the handles like altar rails. The rollers spoke in wet syllables; the sheet fed through obediently. Tawny nodded once and fed him another.
They worked long enough for the yard to accept the trespass—the language of weight and pace and being bored where boredom keeps a trade from bleeding thin. Wolves lay with heads on paws where the yard couldn't complain. Mist pooled under the mangle as if it liked the gravity of chores.
"Talk," Tawny said when patience had been paid.
"A thread from your line told me a cold-sweet bed," he said. "Not a hurt one."
"If a woman lets the night in on purpose," she said, "are you planning to punish that? Tie it to a chair until it explains itself to men with knives and questions?"
"No," Brukk said. "No fear. No harm. My master needs a person whose blood has known a vampire in bed—not in a fight. Choosing, not taken. Mouth willing to make pretty promises when asked. The rope I carry is for keeping the living safe while work happens, not for making them small."
"Your master has a name?"
"Kael Morcant," Brukk said, setting it in the yard like iron on a sill to keep a door honest. "He speaks Lady to the woman on his table. He bows when he says it. He wants her back."
Tawny's eyes flicked toward the lane where Rook and Iria lived, then away as if glances could bruise. "The coat that writes MINE doesn't bow," she said softly. "You're not with that."
"No. I spell different."
The torn-ear wolf sneezed at soap. Tawny threw it a look that had raised boys better than threats; the wolf put its nose back on its paws.
Brukk fed another sheet—work linen, not the city kind that flirts with skin. He folded and handed it without looking at her hands.
"Who is she?" he asked. "The one who had the cold-sweet."
"Not mine to sell," Tawny said by reflex.
"Then sell me a way to ask."
She studied how he stood, where his feet planted, how he didn't look at her hair the way trouble looked at it. At last: "Sera Vale," she said. "Widow. The mill took the husband two years back. She learned to like quiet, then company. She brings washing to me because the river forgets her if she goes alone."
"Will she look me in the face," he asked, "or set me on fire with it?"
"She'll look. She doesn't waste looking." A small smile. "Be careful what you bring to that look."
"I brought bread," he said, producing a wrapped loaf—still warm. "And work. I can fix your hinge."
Tawny sniffed, took it—women with four jobs know when to stop pretending. "Fix the hinge and the pump handle. If you've a minute before your mountain remembers you, carry water from the public well."
"I owe it," Brukk said, and pretended not to notice the way her shoulders let that answer live.
Footsteps at the lane. Wolves lifted heads. Calder Mott walked past, coat open, lamp unlit, tired carried like a parcel. His eyes did their quick tier: wolves, Brukk, Tawny. A tight nod both ways, and he moved on, shoes writing their circle.
"If I send Sera to you—and that's an if—she meets you in company," Tawny said once the rhythm returned. "Not alone, not after dark. The weaver's yard, mid-afternoon. You stand where my eyes can read you. Make your wolves look like dogs. Bring bread again. And don't pray at her with your eyes."
"Yes," Brukk said. "I'll stand."
"And if she says no?"
"Then no. I carry it back up the hill like bread. It feeds the right mouths."
"You're bad at lying for a man who smells like secrets."
"I try to be good at one thing at a time."
Across the lane came the soft scrape of stone on wood—Rook sanding his shutter. Iria's low voice had the tone that says work is a promise we keep out loud. Brukk didn't look. Manners keep rooms from breaking when they're not yours.
Tawny handed him a smaller sheet—the kind you set under a sleeping child or a sin. He ran it through; water came off honest. "You're sure you're not with the coat?" she asked again, because repetition makes fences sturdy.
"I'm against the coat," he said. "I'm for the Lady. And for work that doesn't shame the morning."
She grinned—like a scar that healed better than expected. "Raised by mountains then. Most men here were raised by corners."
She took a scrap of oat-colored linen, folded it into a narrow ribbon, tied it to the line with two careful knots. It hung a hand's width above Brukk's shoulder. "If Sera says yes to a talk, you'll find one of these on the fence post by the weaver's yard. If she says no, you won't. You'll go home and tell the truth."
"You need me to tie something to show I understood?"
"You'll tie nothing. You'll wait like a polite animal. If waiting's hard, carry water. If that's hard, fix this hinge." She nudged the yard door; it complained.
"I brought a pin," Brukk said, producing a square nail with shoulders like a moral. "It doesn't write MINE. It writes stays shut."
"Good nail," Tawny said, approving the shoulders first. "Fix. Then fill the trough. Then go, before the lane makes a parade of us."
He set to the hinge—respect for wood that had done years, iron that had taken rain without quitting. Lift, shift, set the pin, test, adjust—listening while the complaint changed from hurt to gossip to quiet. Tawny gave him a look women give when an afternoon's been made better three weeks in advance.
"Thank you," she said. "For the hinge. The rest you'll earn when and if."
"Understood." He wiped his hands after checking the coat could take it. "I'll set a watch and keep it from showing teeth."
"Do." She broke the bread and handed him a knuckle's worth. "Eat for the walk you pretend isn't long."
He chewed. Bread tells the truth when everything else wants to be a story. This said: flour from Stonecross, hands that rush and still know how to be kind.
Across the lane, scraping slowed. The torn-ear wolf made a chest-noise—agreement with a thing it didn't name.
"Your dogs are well trained," Tawny said.
"They're wolves who enjoy behaving," he said. "There's a difference."
"Keep it." She untied her apron, shook it, retied it. "I'd like my yard boring for one hour, just to remember if I miss it."
Brukk nodded as if boredom were a luxury he could afford. He tied a length of twine loosely around his wrist—reminder, not signal—and clicked his tongue. Wolves rose without drama. The ditch one dissolved into the crates' shadow across from Rook's house. Torn-ear moved to the orchard gate and considered apples with the seriousness apples deserve.
"Mid-afternoon. Weaver's yard. If there's a ribbon."
"If there's a ribbon," Tawny said, putting a second oat-colored scrap into her pocket like a thought she meant to have later.
Brukk looked at the lines once more. The cold-sweet lifted faintly as a sheet took a draft and fell back. He did not touch it. He had touched it yesterday, and yesterday is a tool you shouldn't overuse.
He bowed—not to Tawny; to the work—and stepped into the lane sideways so he wouldn't take more world than he needed. The lane pretended not to see him. He preferred to be a path more than a parade.
"Work," he told the morning, because words arrange tasks. The morning didn't argue.
He set off along the fence toward the river, wolves posted, and the weight of a possible yes in his pocket where he kept tools that didn't cut.
Behind him the laundry snapped its small flags and settled, like promises that had decided to be kept.