The Crimson Skew

by S. E. Grove

  “‘Criminals?’ He smiled wryly. ‘I’m no sheriff, Pip.’ No doubt he could see the consternation written on my face. Graves considered me for a moment, and then he gave a great, deep laugh. ‘You don’t mind seeing a boy torn to pieces by dogs, but the sight of a few slaves in shackles makes you itchy?’ He shook his head. ‘You’ve got a strange sense of right and wrong, Entwhistle.’”

  The members of parliament erupted with murmurs of horror and disbelief, and Pip waited, shaking his head sadly. “What could I say? He was right. Entirely right. I was left speechless, and Graves, with a cheerful wave, locked the wagon, climbed aboard, and made his way out of town.”

  • • •

  MR. FENTON THANKED Pip for his testimony. In the pause between witnesses, the murmuring among the members of parliament grew louder. Shadrack caught a phrase or two and smiled. “. . . simply outrageous.” “The temerity . . .” “. . . nothing more vile.”

  He glanced at Cassandra, who nodded slightly. “Very effective testimony,” she said.

  The judges had to quiet the room before Mr. Fenton could call his next witness. “Miss Susan Eby, your honors,” he said, gesturing to the slight woman with the braided hair, who rose silently at the sound of her name.

  She was nervous. Her hands clutched a yellow handkerchief, which she worked through her fingers as if attempting to wring every last drop of moisture from the faded fabric.

  “Please take your time, Miss Eby,” Mr. Fenton said reassuringly. “I am aware of the difficulties you face in being here today. The judges and I are grateful for your testimony.”

  Slowly, the woman raised her eyes to Fenton’s face. She kept her gaze pinned upon him all throughout her testimony, seemingly afraid of what she might see if her eyes wandered. “Would you please identify the man sitting beside Mr. Appleby?”

  “His name is Wilkie Graves,” Miss Eby said quietly.

  “Thank you. Could you please tell us, in your own words, Miss Eby, how you know him.”

  For several long seconds she looked into Fenton’s eyes, agonized. He gave her a slight smile, and Susan Eby took a deep breath. “I met him fifteen years ago, when I was eleven. My mother and father passed away, and my sister and I were put in the home of a neighbor who ran a home for children. Only there was no one to pay for our stay, and we were not yet old enough to earn our keep. Three months and four days after we went to the home, Graves took us away. At the time I did not know he had bought us. Carol and I thought we were being adopted.” Susan had rushed through her words as fast as she could, and she stopped now to take another deep breath. “We learned we were wrong when Carol was sold to a farmer near Mud Flats and I was sold to a factory six hours away. I lost touch with my sister for seven years, but after that time I ran away and found her, thank the Fates, and we were reunited.”

  “Do you know for certain that you and Carol were sold?” Mr. Fenton asked, as kindly as he could.

  “I do,” Susan said, with more firmness than she had used yet. “I saw the money change hands both times.”

  “And did you ever encounter Graves again?”

  “I did not. After Carol and I found one another, we moved to New Akan, where there is no slaving, and we have lived there by ourselves ever since. I have not seen Graves again, thank the Fates, until this day.”

  “Thank you very much, Miss Eby.”

  Shadrack watched with some curiosity as Broadgirdle, his face unchanging, kept his eye fixed upon the balcony. He seemed entirely uninterested in the witnesses and their testimony. The members of parliament, on the other hand, grew more agitated with each one. They no longer made any attempt to conceal their disgust and disapproval, and the rapid conversations that followed Miss Eby’s account were unequivocal in tone.

  “Is that confidence or capitulation on the prime minister’s part, I wonder,” Shadrack murmured to Cassandra.

  She smiled. “Of course it is confidence. Though he alone knows why.”

  “I would next like to call Victor Manse,” Mr. Fenton declared when the judges had finally quieted the room.

  Victor Manse lumbered to his feet and put his hat carefully down on the table. In response to Mr. Fenton’s questions, he said in a slow, deliberate voice that he knew the man sitting beside Mr. Appleby as Wilkie Graves. “Though we always called him ‘Early Graves,’ those of us who knew him,” he said with a wry smile, “as he had a reputation for sending those he sold to an early grave. I was bought and sold by Graves three times,” he continued somberly, “because I always caused some trouble to those who bought me. I believe I even caused Graves some trouble,” he added with satisfaction, “since thanks to me he had more than one unhappy customer.” He gave Mr. Fenton the names and locations of those places where he had been traded, and concluded by saying that his last master had died, leaving him and the other slaves he owned free.

  “Thank you, Mr. Manse. Let me call Mrs. Hannah Selvidge.”

  The old lady in the puffed sleeves and spectacles did not even wait for the attorney’s first question. “That’s Wilkie Graves, all right,” she said, pointing accusingly at the indifferent Broadgirdle. ‘Early’ Graves, just as Vic said—we all called him that. He had a reputation, for sure. We even joked about how many days we’d survived with him, since any amount of time with Graves between purchase and sale was perilous. You’d think he had no care for his merchandise!” she scoffed. “I imagine it would be hard to sell a dead slave, but Early Graves seemed not to worry about that, giving us just the barest crumbs to eat on the way to wherever we were going.

  “Time I spent with Graves was eighteen days, and I tell you, by the end of them I was practically asking to be put on the auction block. It couldn’t be worse than Graves, I figured. There was a boy working with him then—a young boy, and I’m guessing it wasn’t by choice. Fates above, he was scrawny. I urged him to run away—he wasn’t chained, was he? But he looked at me terrified, as if I’d suggested he jump off a cliff. That’s how Graves was—he made everyone afraid of him. And the more time you spent, the more afraid you were.”

  Hannah Selvidge concluded her testimony with several vehemently stated facts about when and where Wilkie Graves had circulated as a slaver. And then Mr. Fenton turned his attention to Sorensen and the two Eerie.

  He began with Solandra, who rose and stood with a stately air, gazing coolly across at the prime minister. It was clear that many in parliament had never seen the Eerie’s distinctive green skin. She waited patiently for the whispered comments to stop before speaking.

  “My name is Solandra, and I am one of the Elodeans living south of the Eerie Sea. In New Occident, I believe you call us ‘Eerie.’ I had no knowledge of Gordon Broadgirdle before this past year, when we came to Boston in response to a letter sent our way by Shadrack Elli, the cartologer.” She nodded to Shadrack, who gave her a brief, regretful smile. He was well aware of how his request for aid had unwittingly plunged the Eerie into their nightmarish misadventure.

  Solandra, her green arms crossed across her chest, turned deliberately to face the parliament judges. “We never had the chance to speak with Shadrack, for we were captured by seven men. I did not know them at the time, but I have since heard them refer to each other as ‘Sandmen.’ They share several qualities, among them scarred faces, a curious choice of weaponry, and an unquestioning loyalty to Gordon Broadgirdle, who soon made himself known as the architect of our capture. The purpose of our capture was quite clear. Broadgirdle had heard rumors of the Elodean gifts, and he desired to use them for his own ends in the course of the war against the west.”

  “And remind us when this planning for the war took place?” Mr. Fenton prompted her.

  “Late autumn of 1891.”

  A murmur from the parliament seats reflected their collective surprise.

  “Well before Broadgirdle was prime minister,” Mr. Fenton clarified, in case the judges were in any doubt. �
��And what is this gift you speak of?”

  Solandra uncrossed her arms and held out her hands, palms up. She took a breath like a long sigh, and suddenly clusters of white blooms appeared in her hands.

  The members of parliament burst into urgent exclamation. Their comments reflected awe and wonder and not a little wariness.

  “Please,” Mr. Fenton urged them. “Let us allow the witness to continue her explanation.”

  Solandra smiled. “There is little to explain. All the Elodeans have similar gifts. I believe in the Baldlands they say that people like us have the ‘Mark of the Vine.’ In us, the Mark is especially strong. Elodeans vary in their gift, though gifts are familial. And my daughter . . .” she said, and paused. For the first time, she seemed upset, and she swallowed hard before speaking. “My daughter,” she continued, with visible effort, “has a gift that is most dangerous. The flowers she brings forth hold poison, and it is this poison that Gordon Broadgirdle has been using to fight his war.”

  —11-Hour 01—

  INSPECTOR GREY, STANDING outside the closed doors of the parliament chamber, heard the running footfalls with apprehension. “Inspector Grey,” the officer panted, rushing toward him.

  “What is it, Ives?”

  “Twenty men. On the State House steps.”

  “What do they want?”

  “You’d better come yourself, Inspector.”

  Inspector Grey kept his pace steady as he accompanied Ives back along the corridor to the entrance of the State House. There twenty men waited, just as his officer had reported. All of them were scarred, with long, uneven lines that ran from cheek to ear. They carried weapons: pistols and long, curved grappling hooks on ropes. “How did they know to come?” Grey asked Ives quietly.

  “We don’t know, sir. It must be that someone in the State House who saw us escorting the prime minister conveyed the news.”

  Grey nodded curtly, suddenly furious at himself for not taking greater precautions.

  The man nearest to Inspector Grey stepped forward and rested his hand loosely on the grappling hook that hung at his waist. “We’re here for the prime minister,” the man said flatly.

  “What is your interest in him?” Grey asked coolly.

  “Our interest is not your concern,” said the man. “We’re here to take him away, and we’re not leaving without him. I’m not asking.”

  37

  The Iron Cage

  —1892, August 20: 5-Hour 32—

  The Elodean (Eerie) story-explanation for the weirwind describes a creature known as the Ording, a kind of giant magpie. It gathers trinkets of no value to anyone but itself, hoarding them as treasure. The weirwind is the Ording’s manner of gathering the precious pieces of the world, blowing through to collect wonders great and small.

  —From Sophia Tims’s Born of the Disruption: Tales Told by Travelers

  BIRKE’S PASSENGERS WERE mute as the southward-running streams took them through the woods of New Occident. They had all looked through the mirrorscope, each for only seconds, but the visions had stayed in their minds, leaving them shaken.

  Overhead, the sky darkened. Beneath them, the rippling water had become inaudible—it seemed to rise and fall and splash without so much as a murmur. The birds had fallen silent. Then a high, distant keening sound began. At first Sophia could not place it, and then she knew: it was the mounting of a weirwind.

  The tree branches murmured uneasily in the gathering wind. Sophia felt fear in her stomach: tense and coiled and trembling. She was afraid of what she had seen, and she was afraid of what the gathering storm might mean, and she was afraid that they would arrive too late. What if they reached the grove only to find the kind of horrors she had seen in the mirrorscope actually happening?

  The fear made her mind turn in panicked circles, racing from one thought to the next, until they all ran together: memories from the birch bark; visions from the garnets; sights and sounds from the woods around her; and scenes of what might already be happening in the grove. Sophia could not open her eyes. As the howling wind grew sharper, she thought she heard voices. Who was crying out in the distance? Were they human? Where were they?

  Birke plummeted down a short waterfall, and the icy spray made them all gasp. Sophia’s eyes flew open. A flash of lightning cut through the dark clouds. Thunder crashed, drowning out the keening wind. Rain began to fall in heavy sheets, and the forward motion of the canoe made the droplets bite.

  “Here!” Casanova shouted, holding out one of the rubber tarps that Smokey had packed. “Get down into the hull and cover yourselves.”

  Thunder crashed around them once more. Sophia and Theo huddled down, pulling the tarp over them and peering out uselessly into the driving rain. They could not see where they were going—yet Birke shuttled onward as steadily as ever, coursing along the turbulent waters, circling boulders that appeared suddenly out of the gray, wavering storm. The howling weirwind seemed more remote now, but now there was something else—an uneven sound more like a whistle than a howl.

  “Do you hear that?” she said loudly in Theo’s ear.

  He nodded. “It’s Fen Carver’s men. It’s the call.”

  Sophia shook her head under the tarp, signaling that she did not understand.

  “They whistle before they attack,” Theo said.

  Sophia listened again, and now she heard the difference between the howl of the weirwind and the piercing call of the troops: a haunting rise and fall like the whistle of a dying fire.

  • • •

  THE RAIN DROVE down, and they drove forward. Finally, the tree canopy diminished, and as the rain drew back from downpour to shower, Turtleback Valley came into view. Sophia and Theo pushed the tarp aside. It was difficult to see what lay below them on the floor of the valley. The grove appeared to stand intact, the tall trees swaying with the force of the winds. Beyond the grove, two great patches discolored the slopes on either side of the river: to the east, Fen Carver’s troops, a meandering brown stain punctuated by patches of blue and green and yellow; and to the west, the New Occident troops, a rectangle of red and white. In a flash of lightning, Sophia saw the river that ran between them, a long, uneasy serpent of gray.

  Just as she had standing at the edge of the valley with Bittersweet days earlier, Sophia perceived clearly the old one’s fear, concentrated around the grove. The Clime’s intentions had hardened. There was desperation in the howling wind and the crashing thunder, but the desperation was controlled. Now there was also determination in the relentless wail of the weirwind that waited at the crest of the western hills, ready at a moment’s notice to raze the ground before it. Sophia looked toward it apprehensively, and as the hilltop crackled with light, she realized that this was no ordinary weirwind. So tall that it merged with the clouds overhead, the weirwind carried lightning inside it. It was just as Borage had said: Keep firing that pistol and you’re going to hit someone. And make them very, very angry.

  With horror, Sophia saw what would happen. When the troops moved forward and launched into battle, the weirwind would descend to protect the grove, and the men would be obliterated, destroyed—killed. She half stood in the canoe, and it rocked dangerously. How can they not see it? she asked herself. How can they not see what will happen?

  The whistling of Fen Carver’s troops and the howling of the weirwind were interrupted by a long roll of thunder, and when it rumbled into silence, the whistling had stopped.

  “Are we too late?” Sophia cried.

  “They are negotiating,” shouted Casanova. “Look!”

  Halfway between the two armies, on the western bank of the river, was a small cluster of men on horseback. “Negotiating what? Surrender?”

  “The terms of battle,” Casanova replied. He gestured to the east and west. “Fen Carver’s troops are in a defensive position. They would gladly walk away from this if they could. It is General
Griggs who will attack. Carver is likely trying to ensure the safety of any troops who survive. We still have time,” he decided, “but not much.”

  As if in response, Birke picked up speed, taking the short waterfalls with greater abandon. Water splashed into the canoe. Sophia stared so hard at the dark cluster between the two armies that her eyes hurt, and her hands ached from clinging to the sides of the craft.

  Finally, Birke reached the base of the valley. As they surged along the winding river, Sophia lost sight of the negotiators, only to spot them again at the next bend.

  The grove was before them now, on the right bank, so much larger than Sophia had imagined. Red trunks towered overhead, and the long branches tossed this way and that like frantic arms. Sophia thought of Tree-Eater, and for a moment it seemed she could see the great monster, standing at the edge of the grove in anticipation of the destruction he would cause. His great jaws and antlers were made of men, and his golden eyes were made of fire. In the dense clouds of the storm, the figure wavered, and then it was gone.

  Birke moved onward. The grove was behind them, and the axis of the battlefield came into view. A group of boulders formed a natural bridge across the river, and water stormed through its crooked archway. Caught at the mouth of the funnel it rose rapidly, swamping the banks. Theo clutched Sophia’s hand.

  But before they reached it, the waters governed by the three sisters launched Birke onto the eastern bank. Theo and Sophia stumbled out into the mud. Casanova dragged the canoe away from the river, along the stony ground.

  Sophia rushed forward with the mirrorscope; then she slowed her steps, confused. Several hundred feet away, the armies were waiting on the slopes to either side. The front lines of each stood in apparent stillness, the individual faces obscured by the rain. But there were no negotiators. The horses and men she had seen from the hilltop were gone. In their place was something else: a large square frame—as tall and wide as a man.