Soulstar

by C. L. Polk

  “We’ll start the petition tomorrow,” I said. “And you have to write to your mother.”

  “That’s tomorrow,” Zelind said. “For right now, I just want to stay right here. With you. Can we stay like this?”

  I curled back into kher arms. “For as long as you like.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The First Day in Session

  We slept tangled together on the narrow bed until morning came.

  I hadn’t laid out my clothes the night before, and so I sorted through a closet of decisions before we ventured downstairs to a hearty breakfast. Not long after, we climbed Main Street and came upon the crowd of people waiting in front of Government House. Yellow ribbons fluttered from sleeves, and the uniform gray of Service coats made the people who had come to see the first meeting of the Free Government look like an army. They clapped mittened hands, jostled and laughed, and kept their assembly in a wide horseshoe around the citizens in velvet-collared coats and shiny shoes.

  They watched me climb the wide, shallow steps to join them. I counted thirty-five Elected Members on the steps—everyone from Kingston, and a handful from the ridings closest to town. Beyond them stood a dozen people in scarlet tunics and capes. The royal guard blocked the way inside and watched us, alert to any wrongdoing. Cordoned off to one side were the reporters, shoving their way forward to get pictures and a better chance at hearing the proceedings. Everyone had come to see history done, and it made my palms go damp inside the soft lining of my gray leather gloves.

  I smoothed my hands along the front of my borrowed short cloak and turned to the Elected Members. “Thank you all for coming.”

  I went through the gathering shaking hands with each one. I repeated their names, spoke briefly with locals I recognized, and then turned back to our spectators.

  “Thank you—” My own amplified voice startled me. I looked around for the source, and saw Windweavers in the front row. I nodded my thanks to them and tried again. “Thank you for coming today.”

  Applause rained down on me. The people curious enough to come to the first meeting had bundled up against cold weather. They brought so much hot tea and cider that the scent of it wafted on the air among the cheers.

  “I promised you a government that works for you, the people. Here we are on day one, ready to hear you. More are coming into town on the trains, but they can catch up when they get here.”

  Some laughter.

  “What I’m going to ask you to do is write notes. Jot down the things that matter to you most, and if you see your Elected Member here, give them your notes. If you don’t, then give them to me. I’ll take care of them.”

  People had to borrow pens and paper from each other, but the first people bearing notes climbed the stairs and gave them to their members. I tilted my face to the puffball-clouded sky and let out a deep breath. This was going well. We’d meet for an hour, and I already guessed the first order of business.

  The Elected Members read through their notes, sorting them like a hand of cards. They spoke to the people who brought them notes, thanking them for their votes. Do you see this? I wondered, reaching inside for Jacob. Can you see what we’ve done?

  Inside me, something warm stirred.

  I caught my breath. Jacob?

  But no other sensations rose. It might have been nothing.

  I turned to my notes and read them. We need raises, a great many of them said. We need aether back fast, said even more. Start a turbine factory and put us to work. I sorted through requests for banks to lessen their account fees. I had a dozen requests that Jessup Family Foods be forced to improve working conditions. A few expressed concerns that landlords were deliberately neglecting their buildings and raising rents too fast, but there was nowhere else to move. All around me, the people settled into the business of directing the aim of the Free Government, and we were going to fight for them.

  While I read through the notes, spots of red caught my eye. More guards from the palace ventured outside, ringing the crowd with their presence. People watched them, murmuring to each other, and unease rippled through the crowd.

  That could lead to trouble. I had to settle them, and the guards. There would be no trouble today.

  “I’d like to welcome the brave members of the Kingsguard to our meeting,” I called, and my amplified voice carried over the crowd. “This is your government too, citizens. If you have a moment, I’d like to invite you to write a note about the issues that concern you the most as Aelanders.”

  None of them moved to accept the paper and pencils on offer. They stood still, watching the crowd for trouble, or anything they could call trouble.

  “I’m sorry your duties exclude you from participating,” I called. “But when you’re at home, I encourage you to write to your Elected Member, in privacy, and tell them what they can do to help you and your family.”

  I clapped my hands, and the leather palms of my knitted gloves thumped together. The other members took up the flattery, and the crowd echoed us, politely.

  Friendly gesture completed. We were a peaceful crowd, for now.

  “This meeting will now begin. I call upon Rodney White-Harris, Elected Member of East Kingston–Birdland. What have your constituents stated is the most important problem in their lives?”

  Rodney, a lanky young white man whose ears stood out from his soldier-short red hair, stepped forward and consulted his notes. “They want to know more about the designs for a wind-powered turbine for aether, ma’am. They want to know when the turbine’s coming, how they can help build them and get them up on the roofs where they’re needed.”

  A new clump of people joined the crowd, snow goggles shielding their eyes—Greystars. I watched them spread out among the spectators, chatting with their neighbors.

  “Same as mine,” another Elected Member said. “They talk about needing jobs and better pay, but everyone’s agog over this wind contraption. They want it as fast as they can get it. What do we need to do to get this moving?”

  Nearly every Elected Member said the same thing—if aether wasn’t at the top of their people’s concerns, then it was a close second. I listened to them all and nodded. Below, the crowd listened, drawing closer to hear what their leaders would decide. A Greystar lifted one hand, two fingers spread out in a “V.” A signal I knew from my days in Beauregard Veterans’, it meant “all clear.”

  Why were they signaling to each other? They were dispersed in the crowd, no two of them standing together, and they were up to something.

  “It’s clear that the lights are our top priority,” I said. “The plans explain how the turbines work, but we haven’t the means to manufacture them. That resource would come from the Crown. Do we write a petition to present to the Chancellor on behalf of the people? Yea or nay.”

  “Yea,” the Elected Members declared in one voice, and the audience across from us joined in.

  “Then let’s start planning our proposal now—”

  The doors of Government House burst open, and red-coated guards poured outside bearing truncheons and copper-lined manacles.

  “You are trespassing,” one guard, in the braid and white wig of an officer, bellowed. “Disperse at once. We insist that you disperse at once.”

  But guards surrounded us. Anyone who approached first would be taken away and arrested. How could they expect obedience, when obeying was such an obvious trap?

  I cleared my throat and pointed at the end of the square. “Clear that exit of guards and we’ll go,” I called. “We don’t want trouble.”

  “Noncompliance will be met with stronger tactics,” the officer called out, and I huffed.

  “I just said we’d cooperate. Clear your people from that exit and we will leave in an orderly fashion.”

  “We order you to disperse and leave immediately.”

  “You’re blocking the way, you wooden-headed gumboot!” one of the spectators shouted, brandishing a pair of clenched fists. “Get out of the way! Get out of the way!”

>   The others took it up. “Get out of the way!”

  Greystars in the crowd raised their fists, but the signal was soon lost as others took up the gesture, still chanting at the guards. This situation was three steps past trouble.

  The guards who had surrounded the crowd backed up. Beside me, an Elected Member sighed in relief.

  “They’re moving back,” she said. “They’re letting us leave.”

  But trouble crept up my back on a hundred tiny feet. Only the officer stood his ground in front of the crowd. He lifted a hand, and the guards reached into carrying bags and pulled out brown rubber masks.

  My heart stopped. Gas masks. Those were army-issued gas masks. Two guards in red coats and rubber masks that made them look like insects dashed forward, carrying canisters.

  They pulled the tabs and threw them into the crowd, the canisters’ flight made wobbly by smoke ejecting from one end.

  “Tear gas!” someone cried. “Run!”

  The smoke billowed up. People shouted, running every which way to escape. A man howled in pain and fell to his knees, gasping for breath in the smoke.

  My eyes stung. I covered my face with the silk scarf I had tied around my neck, but it wasn’t enough. I shut my eyes, but it didn’t help the stinging, the tears trying to wash the gas away. I choked on my own saliva.

  We breathed fire. My skin burned where the gas touched it.

  Coughing, choking people fumbled their way through the crowd, dragging each other outside the gas clouds to fresh air. People screamed as they tried to soothe their distress with handfuls of snow, warning others against that idea.

  My throat was too tight to get words out. I squeezed my eyes tight again, but the pain didn’t go away, and the tracks of tears down my cheeks burned as if they were boiling.

  Around me, people stumbled around, unable to see, sobbing in pain.

  “We need water,” I tried again. “Soap and water, to wash it off. We—”

  I coughed, and tears streamed from my eyes. They gassed us. Citizens! They used weapons of war on us, like we were the enemy, and I couldn’t do anything but cough and weep.

  How could they do this to us?

  Rodney hustled me down the steps, into the middle of the chaos. He ducked through the crowd, his hand tight on mine as he sought a way through—but where was safety? We were surrounded by guards in gas masks, waiting to round us up.

  My face still stung, but I had cried enough tears to see more than just blurry shapes. Red smudges mixed with the gray as the guards waded into the near-helpless crowd trying to recover—what were they doing?

  A red coat filled my stinging vision as a guard grabbed a woman, pinning her hands behind her back and marching her away. Another guard grabbed Rodney, who let go of my hand, leaving me alone in the swirling, shouting crowd.

  I tried to shout, but coughing seized me. I held up my hands, but no one could see—and then another citizen turned on the guard trying to shove him around and shoved back.

  All around me, people shoved and got in each other’s way, trying to break free of the ring the guards had closed around us. I stumbled, terror leaping at the vision of falling in the midst of a stampede. Off to my left, another guard burst into the crowd, grabbing a young boy roughly by the arm. He cried out, and a woman in a Service coat and snow goggles pulled a chunk of brick from her pocket.

  “You mustn’t!” I cried, waving my arms. She smashed it into the guard’s face, and blood sprayed.

  Those sparks of violence caught, and the blaze leapt into the air.

  The crowd was a mob, now, and they were shoving at guards, dragging the people they’d arrested away from them.

  “We have to run,” I shouted. “Run!”

  I tugged at people’s coats, trying to guide them. I pushed them to head in one direction, but another group in layers of gray and snow goggles crossed our path, shouting and pulling stones from their pockets.

  A rock arced through the air.

  “No,” I said, and horror turned my hands cold.

  I needed to get out, but I was a leaf on the tide, elbowed and shoved along the crowd’s furious current. They surged forward, shouting, and met the guard with fists and boots. The guard answered with blows—the end of a stick in someone’s middle, knocking the breath from them, overhand blows cracking over skulls. Some of the royal guard fought, while others hauled people from the mass, hobbling them together in a line to be processed.

  This was chaos. It was wrong, all wrong, the moment to defuse tensions utterly destroyed.

  A woman in goggles and a Service coat kicked at the guard attempting to drag her away, fighting to get free until two Greystars came and hauled her off.

  The guards caught a teenage boy, and the crowd dashed in to pull him back, determined to hold the line against our opponents. He faded back into the ranks, yanking stones from his pockets to hurl at his would-be captors.

  This assembly—this peaceful, orderly first day of the Free Government—lay trampled under the feet of the mob. They attacked the line of royal guards, managing to seize one of their number and pull him into the swirling mess of the crowd. I saw him stretch out one hand, screaming at his fellow guards to help him.

  That could not stand. I fought my way through the crowd, desperately searching for the guard’s red coat—there! I threw my own elbow shots to get to his side. I threw myself at him, dragging my arms around him. Blood poured down his face from a scalp wound and a broken nose, and I clung to him, bracing myself for a blow meant for him.

  None came. The people ready to beat him to death backed off, and I dragged the guard with me. We fought our way back up the steps, where the guards surged forward. A painful, crushing hand closed around my wrist, and something as cold as the air chilled my skin, and then burned it.

  My vision warped. Nausea rolled over me like crashing waves. Rough hands hauled me up the remaining stairs, and I would have fallen if they hadn’t had me by the scruff. I was tossed to other guards waiting to gather up the arrested, and a woman in gold braid frog-marched me inside the rotunda, reciting a declaration of arrest.

  “You are under arrest for civil upset, destruction of property, and violent assault of a royal guard. You may refuse to answer questions, but silence does not guarantee your exoneration, while anything you say could be used as evidence in a future criminal hearing—”

  “I rescued that guard,” I said. “They were going to kill him. I risked my life to—”

  “You have the right to a meeting with a doctor of laws authorized to advocate on your behalf,” the guard went on. “I am required by law to ask you for your advocate’s name, so they can be informed of your incarceration.”

  “Chancellor Grace Hensley,” I said.

  The guard shook me like a misbehaving terrier. “This is no time for jokes.”

  “I’m not joking,” I said. “Tell her you’ve arrested me. Fetch her to me right away.”

  * * *

  It took two hours to regret my choice. Grace was a busy woman. And I hadn’t thought about the appearances. We had trespassed in a symbolic act to assert that we were the legitimate government. They didn’t have to use tear gas, and the guard started the violence with the crowd after we escaped, but the magistrates weren’t going to see it that way. We had rioted, destroyed property, attacked guards, and I was responsible, as their leader.

  The Chancellor couldn’t come over to the Tower and advocate for me. “I will help where I can” didn’t include getting me out of the mess I had made for myself. I should have asked for Orlena. She would have sent someone from the firm, who would be here by now.

  The Tower cells were centuries old. They didn’t have water commodes, so they stank, and I shivered in a hemp tunic and skirt, watching other arrestees get called out of the cells. Every one of them had seen the magistrate. None of them had come back. I was alone, and cold, and I had to swallow my pride and admit to the guard that Grace wasn’t coming.

  It was another forty-five minute
s before the door opened and a guard stepped in.

  “Looks like you do have friends in high places,” she said. “You’ve been released on surety.”

  That was expensive. “Who signed for it?”

  “Sir Christopher Hensley.”

  “What? He couldn’t have.”

  “Nevertheless, he’s waiting for you.” The guard unlocked the cell and opened it wide. “Unless you’d rather stay here?”

  I wavered. If I stepped out of this cell, I would owe that man my freedom, and he would use my debt against me. I couldn’t see how, but he would find a way, and I would pay for it. I didn’t want to owe Christopher Hensley the time of day.

  “I think perhaps I had better. Thank him for the offer, but it’s not one I can accept.”

  “You’re a strange one,” the guard said, and she closed the cell door. “If I had a handsome young man like that looking out for me—?”

  I looked up. “Did you say young man? About thirty or so? Walks with a cane—”

  And then Miles himself moved to the door. “I had to use my legal name for the documents,” he said. “She didn’t say Christopher Miles, did she?”

  I eyed her. “No.”

  “Well, now you know,” Miles said. “It’s cold in here. Let’s get your clothes and go.”

  My clothes needed a good laundering, but at least they were mine. I shook them out as best I could. I inspected my belongings and found that my wallet and my pen were scrupulously untouched, but my manacle key was gone. I signed a guarantee to appear for a hearing, and I was free of Kingsgrave Prison.

  I stood in the thin, chilly evening air, filling my lungs with the cool, clean smell of late winter. It smelled of snow, tinged with the smoke from the bonfire burning on the palace square.

  Miles had his sister’s sled waiting outside the prison, and he climbed in it. “So. Rabble-rousing.”

  “That wasn’t my intent,” I said. “Things just ran away on their own—No. No excuses. I failed out there today.”