The August 5 (24 page)

Her father would need a cairn soon. She would have to stack heavy stones in memory of his life. She thought of the rubble left from the battle at the Grand Customs House, and it reminded her of a giant cairn. Since she couldn't go to Wren Glade, she would pay her respects at the last place Michael Henry had known freedom. Tamsin continued across the bridge, and when she reached the northern side of the Lyone River, she hurried to the harbor. Being out at night without an identification card was a foolish thing to do. If she got caught by the Zunft, she would join her father in the compound or have her face plastered on the wall in the shrine to the missing.

Tamsin felt reckless. As she ran through the sleeping city, she understood why Navid loved being a messenger. The wind whipped down the narrow streets, and the shops became a surreal blur in her watery eyes. Inspired by her young friend's preferred mode of travel, Tamsin decided to head to the rooftops. She found an alley near the Grand Customs House and searched for a way to climb up, away from the perils of the street and closer to the night sky.

She glimpsed a sturdy fire ladder in the shadows, and it made her smile. Navid would tell her she'd got off easy. As she scampered to the top of the three-story building, she remembered Tommy and his mother's sacrifice. Michael Henry had done the opposite. He'd used Tamsin in search of his own glory and fame. Gavin had tried to tell her, but at the time, she couldn't accept what he was saying.

At the top of the ladder, she hoisted herself onto the gravel roof of a tenement building across the alley from the customs house. In the months since she'd seen it, the Zunft had completely rebuilt the building. The scars of the battle were gone. There was even a new bell tower on top of the Grand Customs House, overlooking Sevenna Harbor. She stared across the expanse. Leaping from building to building was easy for Navid, but it seemed ridiculously far to Tamsin.
What do I have to lose
? she thought as she backed up a few paces and got a running start. She jumped as far as she could, but didn't make it cleanly onto the roof of the customs house. She slammed into the edge, her hands frantically grasping the edge of the stonework trim.

With her boots scrabbling against the stones, she hauled herself up. She was scraped and bruised, but felt an odd sense of accomplishment. She inspected the bell tower and rattled the glossy black door, which was secured with a padlock. There was a brass plaque that read:
In memory of the brave soldiers who lost their lives during the August Rising
. If the customs house was her father's tomb, then this was his epithet. Violence was his legacy to the world.

“I'm not high enough,” Tamsin whispered to the bell tower. “I need to be closer to the stars.”

The wooden bell tower was wider at its base, and become narrower toward its peaked roof, which was painted cerulean blue. In the east, the sky was getting lighter as she scaled the outside of the twenty-foot tower. She was feeling confident until she tried to navigate onto the roof. Twice, she almost lost her grip on the planks, and the jolt of fear almost made her give up this dangerous pursuit. But on her third try, she ungracefully shimmied onto the top of the bell tower, which was barely big enough for her to sit cross-legged and catch her breath.

She was the highest thing in the city.

The sea stretched to her west. Although Aeren was too far away to see, she imagined her mother and her little sisters sleeping in the cottage near Miller's Road. She gazed north, where the Zunft Compound dominated the ridge overlooking the city. She couldn't see beyond the imposing walls, but she envisioned her father outside in the prison yard breathing the crisp early-morning air. Her eyes traced the winding Lyone River, which drew a line between the two halves of the city. North Sevenna had clean lines and sharp edges compared to the raggedy, haphazard buildings of South Sevenna.

“Am I a destroyer?” Tamsin asked the horizon, hugging her knees to her chest. “Do I want to tear all of this down, set fire to the world?”

The eastern sky turned crimson as the sun rose over the city. She could see crowds of people taking to the streets in South Sevenna as the cottagers prepared to make their way toward their jobs for the Zunft. From this height, the people seemed to move in unity, a mass exodus from the south to the north. As soon as they crossed the river, the crowd would be separated into individual parts. A cottager woman would go do a Zunftman's laundry. Another would clear his table. Others would bake his bread and sew his suit.

What would the Zunft do if they woke up to dark houses with no one to do their work? What if the masses never came to light their fires, cook their breakfasts, or start their rovers? Tamsin stared out at the sea and said a prayer for her father, hoping the winds would whip her words across the waves to the green fields of Aeren. Then she laid down her knife and went to pick up a pen.

23

ILLEGAL TRIAL CONTINUES!

The mass trial against the August Five is nearing its conclusion. The proceedings are closed to the public, but the
Zunft Chronicle
reported that the prosecution presented fourteen witnesses who testified that they saw the defendants exiting the Grand Customs House during the battle. The defending barrister, who was appointed by the state, presented no witnesses and finished his arguments in less than an hour. The evidence will now be judged by a panel of Zunftmen appointed by the chief administrator. The names of those on the panel have not been released. A verdict is expected within days.

—
JFA Bulletin,
October 28

Gavin tapped lightly on the Leahys' blue door, and Katherine Leahy opened it. She smiled brightly at him. “Come in!”

“Thank you,” Gavin said, wiping his feet on the straw mat. There was a light snow falling outside, and Gavin brushed the flakes off his cap.

“We're about to eat. Will you join us?”

It was late Sunday afternoon and the family would be sitting down to supper soon. Sunday night was usually the biggest meal of the week for cottagers, and often the only one where meat was served. The Leahys' row house smelled of stew and fresh bread. Gavin hadn't eaten anything that day and now he felt his hunger acutely.

“Thank you, but I can't,” Gavin said politely, keeping his coat on. If he stayed for dinner, that would mean less for everyone else. “Navid stopped by the
Bulletin
and said that Mr. Leahy wanted to see me.”

“Yes, thank you for coming,” she said. “We'd love for you to stay. I already set another place for you.”

It had been a week since Gavin had seen Tamsin at the Plough and Sun. Whatever she'd been planning to do with the young Mr. Shore hadn't happened, of that much he was certain. The world would have exploded if she'd kidnapped him, but there had been nothing in the news except the closed trial of the rebel leaders. Midweek, Gavin had stopped by the pub after Tamsin's shift, but she was already gone. He didn't want to try to talk to her in front of other people at dinner. It would be better to catch her alone some other time.

“I need to get back to the
Bulletin
as soon as possible,” Gavin said.

“I understand,” Katherine said. “Any news about the verdict?”

“I don't know why they're delaying,” Gavin said. “Maybe it's a show of legitimacy, but everyone knows what the final result is going to be.”

Katherine nodded. It wasn't a question of whether or not the August Five would be found guilty. The question was how long before they were shot.

“Brian's in the back by the woodshed,” Mrs. Leahy told him. “Gavin, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” Gavin said.

“Did something happen to Tamsin?”

“Why? Is something wrong?” Gavin asked worriedly.

“I think something bad happened last weekend,” Katherine said. “At first I thought it was the stress of the trial, but now I'm not sure. She's working constantly. First at the pub, then at the Estoria, and she even comes home and works. She closes herself in that room. I can see the candle burning at all hours.”

“Is she here?” Gavin asked. “I can speak to her.”

“No, she's not,” Katherine said. “I hoped she'd be here for dinner, but she said she had something else she had to do.”

“I'll talk to her when I can,” Gavin promised.

“Good,” Mrs. Leahy said. “I know she respects you.”

Gavin wasn't so sure about that, but he thanked Katherine and found Brian in the backyard chopping up a log. It was snowing harder now. Even though he was nearly eighteen years old, he still felt a childish excitement during a snowfall. He resisted the urge to bend down and scoop up a handful.

“How are you, sir?” Gavin asked. “Do you need any help?”

Brian took one more swing and left the ax buried deep in the wet wood. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a folded stack of papers.

“I'm not an educated man,” Brian said. “But I know when I read something … exceptional. Tamsin wrote it. It's a treatise from Angry Em.”

Gavin nodded. He'd asked Tamsin to write a treatise for the
JFA
weeks ago, but he hadn't been sure she would do it. Brian handed the bundle to Gavin. The pages were secured with a red ribbon.
Like a gift,
Gavin thought.
Or maybe a peace offering
.

“It's going to cause quite a stir, Gavin,” Brian said. “She's definitely Michael Henry's daughter, but after all that's happened, and with what's about to happen, this could be dangerous.”

“You mean the trial?” Gavin asked.

“Well, no, I mean the martyrdom of the August Five,” Brian said.

“What makes you hesitate about the treatise?” Gavin asked. He wanted to understand what Brian was saying, but the man seemed to be skirting the point he was trying to make. Brian was like the patriarch of the district. He'd been involved with cottager politics before Gavin had even been born. The Leahys had run a soup kitchen out of their basement during the famine years and smuggled medicine for their fellow cottagers when the poxy devastated the city nearly a decade ago. But like Gavin, he'd opted out of Michael Henry's Rising. He wasn't swayed by ballads and stories of glory on the battlefield. Gavin respected his opinion more than that of anyone else he knew.

“You've done amazing things with the
Bulletin
,” Brian said. “You've started something meaningful. It's important work.”

“Thank you. That means a lot coming from you,” Gavin said honestly.

“If you publish Angry Em's treatise, they won't ignore you anymore,” Mr. Leahy warned. “The Zunft will come for you and they'll tear down everything you're trying to build.”

“What did she write?” Gavin stared at the bundle of papers in his hand.

“She wrote the blueprint for a better world, Gavin,” Mr. Leahy said. “Think carefully, son, before you send this into the world. Once this is free, there's no caging it again.”

Gavin tucked the bundle inside his coat. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “And thank you for watching out for Tamsin.”

“When you make your decision, try to keep your feelings for her out of it,” Brian said.

“Feelings for her?” Gavin asked.

“Ah, the blindness of youth,” Leahy said, jerking his ax out of the log and swinging it through the air again.

 

 

At dawn on Monday morning, the snow turned to rain. It was a cold, harsh rain that pelted the city and turned the streets into muddy streams. At the Zunft Compound, the captain sent his men to retrieve the prisoners from their cells. The men had been in the compound since August, and the daily routine had always been the same. But now there were footsteps in the hall before the breakfast bell, and the men knew they were coming for them.

Brandon Cook's cell door was opened first. He was gazing out his narrow window watching the rain pour down. He'd stood in that exact spot for many hours and knew the lines of the cityscape by heart. Off in the distance, there was a light blue house that stood alone on a hill. It didn't matter that he couldn't see it now through the mist and rain. He pretended his wife, Marie, lived in that light blue house. He imagined that she slept on a soft bed under the window. He'd thought about it so much that he now believed it to be true. When they led him out into the corridor and put a burlap sack over his head, he pictured Marie cozy and safe behind the light blue walls of that faraway house.

Hector Linn was as angry as he was the day of the Rising. He'd lost his parents and many other relations to a Zunft raid in Catille, and he was ready to rip the world apart with his bare hands. He fought the guards until they clubbed his head with a rifle, jammed the sack over his face, and dragged him down the corridor. Kevin Smythe didn't fight and neither did Jack Stevens. They were led into the corridor at the same time, and shared a glance before they, too, were blinded by the burlap placed over their eyes. In Jack's mind, he was already dead. Shot to death, instead of his son, Christopher, on the streets of Sevenna.

They came for Michael Henry last. He had heard Hector's shouts and the dull thud of the rifle butt against his friend's head. Henry had already decided it was futile to fight. They brought the men into the courtyard where the deep puddles were crusted with a thin layer of ice. The men kept tripping as they tried to walk blindly across the open ground led by men who didn't care if they fell. The soldiers brought out a wooden chair and set it near the east wall. Hector was still unconscious from the blow of the rifle. They tried to prop him in the chair, but he toppled off and fell face-first into the mud. So they tied him to the chair and lined the other men in a row beside him.

The firing squad took its place. Each soldier had been issued a new gun to reduce the chance of a misfire. The captain gave the order silently. Each bullet found its mark, and the four standing men fell dead to the ground. Hector's head rolled back from the impact, and everything was still.