The August 5

by Jenna Helland

  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.

  Gavin thought about Tamsin’s treatise for the rest of the night. By Monday morning, he’d made his decision. Once he did, he wondered why he’d ever hesitated in the first place. By seven a.m., he arrived at the cellar that housed the JFA Bulletin and worked without pause through the morning to edit and typeset the words that Tamsin had written. His three-person staff arrived around lunchtime to prep the press. Theo, his artist, designed a simple line drawing of a rising sun for the cover. They kept their heads down, worked hard, and said little. Maybe it was Gavin’s demeanor, but there seemed to be an understanding that something important was happening. When the prototype was finished, it was a twenty-four-page pamphlet called The Right to Rule by Angry Em.

  At six p.m., Theo ran out to grab the Zunft Chronicle, and when he came back, his eyes were red. He laid the paper out on the workbench, and everyone gathered around to see the headline: “Cottager Rebels Found Guilty, Executed at Dawn.” A horrible silence followed.

  “They didn’t even let them see their families before they shot them,” Theo said.

  “Michael Henry is dead?” Shauna asked. She was one of Gavin’s typesetters, and she had worked with Henry on the previous paper. “The August Five are dead.”

  Everyone looked at Gavin expectantly. For a moment, Gavin couldn’t speak. At one time, Michael Henry had been like a father to him. Henry had hated Gavin after he wouldn’t join the August Rising, and the two had never reconciled. Gavin wondered how Tamsin would hear about her father’s death. He wanted to drop everything and find her before she heard the news from a Zunft newspaper, but he wasn’t sure if she’d even want to see him.

  “Let’s get this work done,” he said finally. “Believe me when I say that this will be a fitting tribute.”

  No one else had read The Right to Rule cover to cover, but they all trusted Gavin to do the right thing. Gavin asked Shauna to add a simple dedication to the title page: In Memory of the August Five. But otherwise, he let Tamsin’s words stand as she had written them. A few hours later, Gavin sent his staff home when he knew he could handle the rest of the work himself. The press finished running at three a.m. An hour later, two hundred copies of The Right to Rule were ready to be bundled into crates. Soon, a horse and wagon rolled into the alley north of the basement offices, and Verner, an elderly man and one of Mr. Leahy’s uncles, helped Gavin load the crates into the back. By the time they were done, it was five a.m. on Tuesday. It was less than twenty-four hours after Michael Henry had died at the hands of the Zunft. Gavin watched Verner’s horses plod slowly down the muddy road and into the still-sleepy city. Despite the weight of what they carried, there was no urgency to their gait.

  The Bulletin’s distribution system had been set up without Gavin’s knowledge so that if he were interrogated by the Zunft, Gavin could never endanger the messenger boys or the shopkeepers who carried his illegal newspaper. He tried to imagine what would happen to Tamsin’s treatise now, but his mind was too foggy. He hadn’t slept since Saturday night, and then, only for a few hours. He no longer had any control over what happened, nor was he any use to anyone until he got some sleep.

  I’m getting sick, Gavin realized. His body ached and he
was starting to shiver but not from the cold. Gavin went back inside and cleaned up the presses. He took the southern route out of the warehouses and emerged four blocks away. By then, he was so unnaturally tired that he was afraid he wouldn’t make it back to his rooftop shack. He didn’t even take off his boots before he fell into bed. He dragged the quilt up over himself and faded into a deep sleep behind his blue door.

  Meanwhile, in the streets of Sevenna, the words of Angry Em were spreading like wildfire.

  24

  The Right to Rule (excerpt)

  In this story, a man is given power. He is not rewarded for any inherent goodness or innate skill. He is not a kind man. He was born into a world that favored him, but even that did not propel him to the pinnacle of control. This could be the story of how he got there—the lies he told and the people he harmed. But instead this is the story of what he did next.

  When a man comes into power, his true nature reveals itself. And Colston Shore has revealed who he truly is, and we must stand up to him before it is too late.

  I urge the immediate boycott of all Zunft businesses. Do not buy bread from those Zunftmen who have profited from Shore’s war against us. Cottagers must turn to one another in this time. No matter what you make, sell only to cottagers. If you work for the Zunft in any capacity, you must stop immediately today.

  Today is the Cessation. The cottagers will no longer serve their common master. Do not service their houses, their shops, their factories. Stay in your communities and take care of one another, the gardens, the health and well-being of your kin and neighbors.

  We will bring Colston Shore to his knees, and we will do it through kindness to our fellows.

  —Angry Em

  Tommy awoke early to put the finishing touches on his math homework. He was finally getting his focus back after his strange night with Emilie in the cottager district. For days afterward, whenever he tried to do his work, his mind refused to cooperate. But finally, he flew through the arithmetic without getting distracted by thoughts of the red-haired cottager or the cellar with the portraits of the missing. His stomach growling, he ran down the steps, just in time to meet up with Kristin and Ellie as they were leaving for breakfast in the dining hall.

  “Hello, ladies,” he said, and they greeted him cheerfully. There had been no further incidents since Kristoph and Dennett called him a pansy boy in the dining hall. He wondered if Rannigan might target him during the lecture, but so far Rannigan hadn’t paid any attention to him at all. The students avoided talking to him and went out of their way to avoid him in the corridors. He didn’t really mind being an outcast because Ellie and Kristin were better friends than any of the lads had been anyway. Tommy still hadn’t talked to Bern since the vandalism at the garden. He was mostly worried about what Bern might say to their father about him.

  They were halfway across the Green with Kristin prattling about her mother when Ellie interrupted her.

  “Something’s wrong,” Ellie said. Kristin frowned at Ellie’s interruption.

  “With my mother?” Kristin asked. “Well, I should say so. She takes everything I say out of context.”

  “What do you mean?” Tommy asked Ellie.

  “The porter wasn’t in his office,” she said. “And the bells didn’t ring this morning. Where’s Bellkeeper Ben?”

  Bellkeeper Ben was an elderly cottager who had worked for the Seminary since the dawn of time. He called all the boys John and when the girls had arrived, he called them all Missy. The bells rang on the hour, and the lads said that it took old Ben twenty minutes to climb up and down the bell-tower ladder every time. It was a running joke that by the time old Ben reached the bottom, he had to climb back up and do it again.

  “There are no groundskeepers either,” Tommy said.

  They reached the dining hall where dozens of Zunft soldiers were gathered inside the doors, far more than usual for the morning meal. The soldiers stood at attention while the students began to file into the cold room. The kitchens were shuttered and dark. Most of the tables were bare, but someone had set out platters of last night’s bread and hunks of cheese on a table near the back.

  “Where’s breakfast?” someone called.

  The students muttered among themselves as it suddenly dawned on them that this was all there was to eat. The side door banged open and Headmaster Olberg stalked in with his black robes flapping behind him. His hair was uncombed and as he chatted with two of the senior professors he surveyed the students with concern. The three men conversed while the students grew more impatient. Finally, Olberg climbed the platform, but he tripped on his loose robe and had to catch his balance on the top stair. Someone snickered, but the rest of the hall was silent with anticipation.

  “Students, there has been a work stoppage among our cottager servants,” Olberg said. “We are taking steps to make sure that their tasks are completed in a timely manner. But in the meantime, there will be no complaining. You will ignore any inconvenience and continue with your studies. Travel outside the Seminary is discouraged.”

  Ellie was standing next to Tommy and she whispered in his ear. “The cottagers didn’t show up to work, and that’s what he’s warning us about? He’s worried about people complaining?”

  Dennett raised his hand. He was standing near the front by Olberg, who nodded at him. “What about breakfast?” Dennett asked. “I’m starving and this wouldn’t keep the rats happy.”

  “Yes, well, you can leave Seminary if you are hungry,” Olberg agreed. “I don’t expect this will continue long. Classes are going to be held on their regular schedules. Do not take the laziness of the cottagers as an opportunity to be lazy yourselves.”

  After a few slices of stale bread, Tommy headed to his lecture hall for math class. A group of his classmates congregated outside the entrance while a soldier struggled with a huge ring of iron keys. He tried one after another, but none of them opened the door. Tommy waited by himself off to the side. He wished Ellie was there. At least she would appreciate the irony that the Zunft couldn’t even unlock a door without the aid of the cottagers.

  Ultimately, the class was canceled because no one could figure out how to get inside. Tommy went back to his room and tried to read. But he kept staring out at the city, wondering what might be happening in the southern districts to keep the cottagers home. Around noon, he heard a tapping on his door. He hoped it was the porter telling him the status of the lunch meal, but it was Ellie and Kristin standing in the hallway.

  “Any news?” he said.

  “Yes,” Kristin said excitedly.

  “Can we come in?” Ellie asked.

  “Uh, I guess,” Tommy said.

  “No porters. No rules,” Ellie said as she marched inside. Someone was bound to report them, but Tommy would worry about that later.

  “It’s not just the Seminary,” Kristin said. “We went up Dawson Street and it’s deserted as a cemetery!”

  “There are no cottagers anywhere,” Ellie said. “Some of the Zunft shops are open, but no one is shopping. The city is the most deserted I’ve ever seen it, even on the Sunday night of a holiday weekend.”

  Tommy wondered what his father was going to do. He would be furious at the cottagers. Any defiance from his young children brought harsh punishment. How would he take it when half the city refused to do its appointed job?

  “Did you get the Chronicle this week?” Tommy asked. “What’s been going on in the news?”

  “I haven’t read one lately,” Ellie said. “I’ve been busy with schoolwork.”

  Kristin hadn’t seen it either, so they headed over to the Reading Room in the library, which was also unnaturally empty. Usually, the soft armchairs of the Reading Room were filled with students.

  “I’m starting to feel nervous about all of this,” Kristin said. The volt-lamps glowed brightly on the polished stands beside the chairs, but there was no one there to use them. The librarians had hung the week’s papers on wooden dowels in a glass case, and Tommy flipped t
hrough them. Monday’s issue had the biggest headline: “Cottager Rebels Found Guilty, Executed at Dawn.” Emilie had mentioned Michael Henry. Maybe the work stoppage had something to do with the executions. But Tuesday’s lead article was something bland about the price of Aeren grain, not about the August Rising.

  “What do you think?” Ellie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tommy said.

  “Do you think you should talk to your father?” Ellie asked.

  “Why?” Tommy wondered. It was a strange request from Ellie, who hated Chief Administrator Shore. And Tommy didn’t like to seek his father out, especially in times like this. It wasn’t like the man would have comforting words.

  “We need to know what’s going on,” Ellie said.

  “Let’s give it some time and see if things go back to normal,” Tommy said. “There’s not going to be lunch, obviously. Do you want to go down to the harbor and see if we can find an open café?”

  “It will be funny to watch a Zunftman try to serve his own customers,” Kristin said.

  But when they got to the waterfront, all the shops and cafés were shuttered. There were no workers, no crowds—only silent, empty docks. They strolled out to the end of the longest pier where a lone wrought-iron bench faced the horizon. There was a bundle of papers on the bench, and Ellie picked it up and inspected the cover. It was a slightly damp pamphlet with a stylized drawing of a rising sun.

  “The Right to Rule, by Angry Em?” Tommy read the cover aloud.

  “It’s put out by the JFA Bulletin,” Ellie said. “I’ve read the bulletin before, and I recognize the symbol on the back. It says it was published on Tuesday.”

  The three of them squeezed together on the bench with Ellie seated in the middle. They took turns reading aloud from the treatise. When they finished, they sat staring out into the lonely sea and the flat gray horizon. “Today is the Cessation. The cottagers will no longer serve their common master.”