by L. W. Jacobs
“Facts,” Tai snapped, too angry to get into it with Aelya. “I need facts. Who did we actually see attacking? Are there any of them left to question?”
“They all ran,” Aelya said, face infuriatingly peaceful. “You should have seen ‘em yesterday.”
Arkless shifted in his seat, the refined man clearly uncomfortable.
“Arkless,” Tai said. “Speak.”
“They ran,” he said, glancing at Aelya, “because your friend here was executing them at will.”
“We were trying criminals,” Aelya said. “And you’ll notice we haven’t been attacked since.”
Tai remembered the lighthair Aelya had struck down earlier that week, the way the man had lain pale and unconscious in Marrem’s infirmary. “Trying them? Under whose authority?”
“Under mine,” Aelya snapped. “Under authority of needing to protect the mecking city from people trying to kill us.”
“We’ve talked about this,” Tai said, voice going cold as his anger got hot. “You are not a judge. Everyone deserves a fair trial. Meaning even lighthairs.”
“Oh, so I guess you would have stopped the men burning buildings and asked them nicely to wait for an arbitration to organize? I’m sure that would have worked great. Too bad you were too busy chatting with lighthairs in Gendrys to do anything about it.”
“Aelya, I need you to shut up for a minute,” Tai gritted, “so I can learn what happened. Anyone other than Aelya. Who attacked us?”
Aelya snarled but kept her mouth shut. Good enough.
“It did seem to be primarily lighthairs, sir,” Sigwil spoke up, glancing uneasily between them. “They hit Hightown just after starset, as far as we can tell. By the time we rallied out of the barracks and got there, well, there wasn’t much we could do.”
“Were there Broken? Brawlers? How many did we kill?”
“Hard to tell in the firelight, sir. No Broken, but I’d say we killed upward of thirty men.”
“Fifty-six,” Arkless said, some of his composure apparently returned. “I counted fifty-six in the square.”
“The square?”
“Your—accomplice had them dragged there and displayed. As a lesson, I believe she said.”
“Shatting right,” Aelya spat. “And it worked.”
He should be worried, or disappointed, or anything, but Tai just felt hot. “And this is when lighthaired people started to leave, I take it?” Ella’s face was ashen.
“It appeared to be leave or undergo interrogation followed by execution,” Arkless said. The man almost seemed to be enjoying this.
“And none of you did anything about it? Thought that maybe you should step up and stop this?”
“No,” Aelya snapped, “they didn’t, because they were alive, and because they understood this is how you survive. You kill the traitors in your ranks, or next time they attack it’s not just your food it’s your homes, it’s you.”
“We—I thought you left her in charge. Sir,” Sigwil said.
Tai blew out air. “And you couldn’t take charge yourself?”
Sigwil shifted in his seat.
“Or you, Arkless? You know better than this. Know this is madness.”
“With all due respect,” the genteel man answered, “all of this is madness. Resisting the Councilate has been madness from the start. It’s no wonder people are starting to leave.”
This stopped Tai cold. “What?”
“People are leaving, Tai,” Marrem said gently. “Not just the lighthairs. Regular folk. There’s no food to be had, and with the attacks…” She shrugged.
Tai summoned his anger back. Anger was better than the sudden despair threatening to swallow him. “The attacks on us, or the ones we made on our own people, you mean?”
Aelya scowled. “So, I guess this is all my fault then? That I did something instead of letting them burn the whole city? I’m not the one who left to chat with the enemy while we were under attack.”
“No, you’re not. You’re the one who decided hair color meant guilt and then started killing. Who’s next? Sigwil, with his fyelocke hair? Me, because my hair is too thin for Achuri black? Redhairs like Lumo or Feynrick?”
“No Tai, don’t you get it?” An element of pleading entered her voice, though she was clearly still angry. “We’re darkhairs. This isn’t rebels versus Councilate or Achuri versus Worldsmouth, or any of that. It’s darkhairs versus lighthairs. Like it’s always been.”
“No. That’s what the Councilate made it. That’s what we were fighting. And we were only different because we were better, because we didn’t fall for it. Because our movement was a place for everyone who wanted to be here, not just the ones that looked like they fit in.”
“And look where that got us.” Aelya waved a hand at him. “Our food burned and a bunch of traitors in our city.”
There was no missing the accusation in her voice. “So, you’re saying it’s my fault?”
“You’re the one who left instead of taking charge. Somebody had to do it.”
“We have a council for that.”
“We have a council because you want one. Tai, you have your own mecking religion now.” She waved a hand at the Blood members in the wide room. “And none of that means scat when we’re being attacked. Then it’s all you. Except it wasn’t all you, because you were gone. So, I did what I had to.”
Tai’s skin burned. “This isn’t about me. This is about killing lighthairs.”
“No, it’s about defending our city. About leading it. And if you’re not going to do it, then somebody else will.”
Tai clenched his fists, partially because something inside said she was right. That Marrem had been saying this all along.
“You want leadership?” he snapped. “Fine. Aelya, I’m stripping you of command. You’re out of the militia, out of the council, out of any position of authority until we can gather the facts about what you did.”
“What I did? Save us, you mean? No. It’s too late for that.” She stood, looking suddenly nothing like the girl he’d spent years on the streets with. “You had your chance. Men.”
She swept her gaze at the militiamen seated around her, and some of them stood. Others looked away, uncomfortable.
“Don’t do this, Aelya,” Tai said, too angry to think it through, resonance starting to hum inside him. “Don’t split us up now.”
“You already did.” She jerked her head angrily at the standing men and walked for the exit. Some of the other people in the audience got up and followed.
It was all he could do not to slam a wall of air down around them, not to strike her down, not to shout at her for how stupid she was being. But he didn’t, because that would only make things worse, and because she was right. Ayugen needed a leader, and he’d been avoiding the job.
“Well,” he said in the awkward silence that followed. “Where were we?”
35
The rest of the meeting was rocky. Ella, he, and Feynrick reported on what had happened at Gendrys, though Ella didn’t give away all the details of what she’d seen in the army camp. Catching her glance, he also reported on the failure of the parley but left out his suspicions about Semeca. They couldn’t be sure of the loyalties of anyone in the audience, and it didn’t make sense to spill all their secrets, in case the Councilate had someone there.
And they would have someone there, because they weren’t stupid. They’d timed their attack perfectly for when Tai had left, so they’d clearly known about it, had been planning it for some time. And Semeca had known details of the Broken attack at the fort that would have been impossible without having someone on the ground, hard as that was to believe of any of the militiamen.
“So you’re saying the Councilate likely thinks this was us breaking the parley truce?” Marrem asked.
Ella nodded. “For our part, we did end up attacking the army camp, though it was more out of self-preservation. And what happened at the parley—”
“It wasn’t our doing,” Tai said,
anger cooled into disappointment and regret. “But whoever did it wanted it to look that way. And I don’t know how far my saving of the councilors will go towards changing that.”
“Especially as ye didn’t get all of them,” Feynrick winked. The man was annoyingly upbeat for all that had happened in the last day.
“On the bright side,” Ella said, “it will take them some time to restart their Broken project, or to regroup the army there.”
“How long is the crucial question,” Arkless said.
Ella looked to Tai who looked to Feynrick, who shrugged.
“Long enough for you to pursue whatever it is you learned there?” the wealthy merchant asked. “To devise some sort of defense?”
All attention in the room shifted to her, and Ella licked her lips. “It will have to be. I think I do have promising leads. But I’m going to need to expand the school. Get more volunteers.”
Hands shot up in the crowd, and Ella smiled and began taking down names.
“What of the food?” Marrem asked. “Even with less people here, we are living on the unburned remains of the granaries, and there are precious few fields still intact in the valley.”
“The grain wagons,” Tai said. “We need to make sure they get here in one piece. Sigwil, can you pick a group of ten or so men and go to meet them in the forest?”
The man nodded and stood, and Tai was grateful he hadn’t been one of the ones to follow Aelya. He or Feynrick. Still there were too many empty seats where militiamen had been. What would that mean going forward? He needed to find Aelya and talk to her. As soon as he was done being disappointed and furious.
“That’s fine,” the healworker said, “but five wagons of grain isn’t going to last an entire city long. We need a longer-term solution.”
And they all looked to him. Was this what leadership was? Solving impossible questions? “What of the forests? Can’t we hunt for game?”
“Empty,” Feynrick said. “Yer rebellion cleaned ‘em out last summer, and game’s been slow to return.”
Tai rolled his shoulders. “We should at least try. Can you choose some men and send them out in parties? We could work across the river, too. I don’t think the rebels ranged that direction as much, for fear of getting caught.”
“Aye,” Feynrick said. “And what should I do about the Blackspines?”
“The what?”
“It’s what your friend has taken to calling her core militia,” Arkless said. “After you, if I’m not mistaken.”
Anger flared up again, hot. That she would name them after him, and then do what she did. “I’ll handle that. Are we all clear?”
The people nodded, but there was an air of uncertainty he remembered from his own gang on the streets, when things were hard. They needed something more. Some confidence to cling on to.
And that was his job too.
“I know things are hard right now, but we’re making strides. We struck a big blow to the Councilate in Gendrys, and with any luck we’ll be able to overcome their Broken soon. In the meantime, this food situation is not the end of the world. Those of us from Ayugen, we’ve faced hard winters before. We can do it again. And if we need to, the rest of the world is dying for our yura. I don’t doubt we could feed ourselves all winter on a fraction of what’s down there. Let’s just get through each day as it comes, and worry about the next one when it arrives.”
He had never been good with words, but that seemed to help some, and people stood, the meeting breaking up.
“Impressive speech,” Ella said, in tones low enough they wouldn’t carry. “Walk with me awhile? I’ve got a library to pilfer.”
A walk didn’t sound like the best thing right now, but he had to get used to the crutches sometime—and after what happened with Aelya, he could use a friendly ear. “Sure.”
They mixed in with the crowd leaving the amphitheater, people talking in low voices, and Tai was relieved to hear they didn’t sound overly distraught or worried. Relieved and at the same time concerned, because though these people had stayed when Aelya left, he still wanted them to be outraged at what she’d done. Was he overreacting?
“How are you feeling?” he asked Ella as they split away from the main crowd and began climbing the Tower’s long spiral ramp.
“About?”
“About what happened while we were gone. About the whole conversation with Aelya just now.”
His lighthaired friend kept her eyes forward and didn’t speak for a minute. “I don’t like it, of course. I don’t—I don’t want to feel unsafe here, and I don’t think I am. I don’t think anyone would attack me, or accuse me of being a spy, now. But still it’s not what I would have hoped for. And I am worried for the other lighthaired people still here.”
“If there are any.”
“I hope there are.” She clicked her tongue, looking up at the vast spiraling emptiness of the Tower’s inner chamber. “It’s only fair, in a way. I’ve lived my whole life knowing it was harder for darkhaired people, knowing we mistreated them, but it’s another thing to feel it. Probably no less than what I deserve, coming from Worldsmouth.”
“No one deserves it,” Tai said, feeling his anger finally start to fade. Under it was exhaustion, and worry, and disappointment. “I still can’t believe she did it.”
“She was just scared. No different than hundreds of Councilate officers have done when something happens in their outposts. Find someone to blame and make an example of, so that no one ever does it again.”
“Only they do. We did. No one would have rebelled if the Councilate had just treated us like equals, given us decent opportunities when they came here.”
“And that’s why equal rights is so worth doing, even if it’s hard, even if not everyone can handle it. Because if we do it right, no one will have reason to rebel against us, resent us the way everyone resents the Councilate.” She laughed then, pointing. “Remember that door?”
The polished teakwood was broken in, caked with dirt from a month of weather blowing in the broken window beyond. “Was that yours?”
“Yup. Room 336. The same one I opened for you when you’d tried kidnapping Sablo and the whole Tower was after you.”
“Thank ancestors you did.” He would have been dead long since without her.
“I thank my ancestors too,” she said, suddenly serious. “Or I would, if I believed in them. But helping you was the best thing I ever did. I don’t know where I’d be without all this, without what we’ve done.”
Tai smirked, remembering Feynrick’s account of the day he spent with Ella. “Probably eating plum tortes in some fancy bakery.”
“It is regrettable, how the Councilate took their bakeries when they left.” She smiled, then glanced at him. “You doing okay?”
His leg hurt, actually, and no doubt Marrem would tell him he needed to be in bed, but that just wasn’t going to happen. Not with Aelya and the Councilate still hanging over his head. “I’m fine. Though I don’t know if I’m going to make it all the way up to Sablo’s rooms.”
“No need,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure we were alone.”
He nodded. “I noticed you holding back in the meeting. I hate to think that way, but we probably do need to be careful about who’s around when we talk now.”
“I’ve read a lot, about different political structures,” she said. “Things the Councilate tried, the old Yersh systems. Instead of the one big council now, you might be better served with two—one with people you trust, and another bigger one where we can leave out some details but still invite anyone and get their feedback.”
“I notice you say ‘you’ like it’s my decision.”
She shrugged. “That’s the other thing. Aelya’s right, for all that she made the wrong decision. Councils take time to gather and to make decisions. In war you don’t have that kind of time. At least in those situations, you need someone in charge. And for better or worse, people need a symbol, a figurehead, someone they can look to. That’s w
hat Fostler thought, anyway.”
He didn’t know who Fostler was, but it made sense. Still the hesitation rose up, the memory of all the bodies strewn outside Newgen after the rebel attack. “I don’t see how anyone can think I’m right for the job. After what happened with the rebellion.”
Ella frowned. “If the requirements for the job are someone who’s never made a mistake, I think it’s going to be empty for a while. You were learning. You’re still learning, but this can’t wait. Anyways. That’s not why I wanted privacy. I talked to some of the militiamen, after you dropped us off. Nauro was at these attacks too. A couple said they heard his fox howling near the fires, and another said he saw Nauro watching during the fight.”
Tai’s hands went cold. “You think they’re behind the attacks? The ninespears?”
“I don’t know, but the lack of Broken part fits at least. Why wouldn’t the Councilate send Broken to do it? They had forty or more in that pavilion, ready to go. Why would they use regular men?”
Tai flexed his hands on the crutches. “I thought maybe a strike like this was too precise, too timed for the Broken. If it was the ninespears, why would they care about our food? What do they have against us at all?”
“I don’t know. Hopefully Sablo’s books will still be there, will have something to tell us. But in the meantime, I wanted to say that I don’t think you can wait to find Nauro. We set the Councilate back some, and they might not be targeting our food at all. But Aelya and everything else aside, we can’t handle another attack like that.”
“Right. But where? He always comes to us.”
“I might have a lead on that, too. The day he talked to me, before we left for Gendrys, he ran away toward the eastern forest.”
“Which is closest to the part of Hightown that got attacked,” Tai said. “He ran east after I talked to him too. You think he’s living in the forest?”
Ella shrugged. “He always has that fox. People would notice him if he was around town much.”
“No,” Tai said, thinking of that stretch of woods. “Not the forest. The old rebellion base—the one the Councilate stormed after our attack on Newgen. There was a stream there, and probably still one or two useable buildings. It’s a place to start, at least.”