By midmorning, merchants and tradesmen had begun to erect booths and tables all around the park, likewise decorated with many lanterns and candles and painted in bright colors. River thought fondly back to the solstice celebrations of her youth. She remembered these as pleasant occasions consisting of feasts and gifts, but the festivities had always been tempered by the menacing presence of the Vangars.
This, she thought, must be what winter solstice was meant to look like…
It seemed an injustice that while the citizens of New Boston prepared for their festival, River was locked in a cell. She could only hope that word of her situation had reached the Iron Horse, and before long Kale or Thane would come to her rescue. She was certain the matter could be cleared up by paying a fine, or perhaps even making an apology. Unfortunately, the constabulary had not yet provided her with such an opportunity. This left River with little else to do but gaze out the window and wish she were out there instead of locked in her dingy cell.
At midday, a guard brought a tray of food to River’s cell. The meal consisted of roast beef, sliced bread, cheese, and a mug of ale. When the guard passed the food to her through the bars, River’s eyes widened.
“This is what you feed prisoners?” she said in disbelief.
“Is there a problem? If you don’t like this I can bring roasted quail, or perhaps a soup…”
“No, it’s fine,” River said. “Thank you.”
She settled on the cot with the tray on her lap. She stared in disbelief at the food for a few seconds. Then hunger overwhelmed her, and she devoured the meal in a matter of minutes. River drank the ale down in just a few gulps. She wasn’t sure if it was the effect of her hunger, or of having spent the morning locked up, but it was the best ale she had ever tasted. When she was done, the young mechanic settled back on the cot and her eyelids drifted shut. The last two days had been nonstop, with hardly a moment to rest. The exertion caught up with her all at once, and in seconds, she was sound asleep.
River woke several hours later to the sound of voices down the hall. A tall man with a beard appeared outside her cell. He wore a long-tailed coat and top hat, and carried a cane. He looked vaguely familiar, but River couldn’t place him.
“Your name is River?” he said. She nodded and rose from the cot.
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Eagan Cronwyn. I’m the mayor of New Boston.”
“Cronwyn?” she said. “You’re Mayor Cronwyn’s cousin!”
His face lit up. “You’ve met Dael?”
“Yes, in Port Haven. You look a lot like him, but you’re… thinner. And taller. But he dresses just like you.”
Eagan threw his head back and laughed. “Yes, that sounds like my cousin. Tell me, is he well? I suppose he must be, if his girth continues to swell.”
“I would say so, yes. Plenty of swelling.”
The mayor looked her up and down. His smile vanished, and he leaned in close to the bars. “And what did you steal from him?”
“What? Nothing! In fact, he gave me a gift, a pet raccoon… You think I’m a thief?”
“What else would I think? First, you barge unannounced into a poor old shopkeeper’s toy store and start wrecking the place, and then you try to steal a machine several times your own weight.” He clicked his tongue. “Not a very good thief though, are you?”
“I can’t steal something that already belongs to me.”
“Ah. Now that sounds familiar. I presume the rabble-rousers at the railroad depot are friends of yours?”
River clamped her mouth shut. The mayor smiled. “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anyway. You’ll be seeing the magistrate first thing in the morning.”
“Magistrate?”
“Yes, young lady. You see, New Boston is a town of laws. Fortunately -well, not fortunately for you- the magistrate had an opening in his court schedule first thing in the morning.”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong!” River shouted.
“Truly?” he said skeptically. “What about the man you shot? Or the constable you assaulted?”
“They were trying to rape me!”
“Perhaps. Then again, perhaps what you really are is a thief and a murderer. Either way, we shall know soon enough. My advice is this: when the magistrate asks, I recommend you request a trial by jury. Who knows? You might even find some thieves on the panel to vote in your favor.”
River stomped over to the window and glared at the carriages passing below. “You’re nothing like your cousin.”
The mayor stared at her a moment, his face an unreadable mask. Then he turned and vanished down the hallway. River heard the door swing shut, and the key in the lock.
She whiled away the next few hours studying her cell for weaknesses, and when that failed, pacing back and forth. During that time, the sky outside grew dark and she heard distant rumblings coming from the north. As darkness fell, lightning began to crack across the sky. She stood at the window and watched, wondering about the fate of her companions back on the train.
Mayor Cronwyn had called them rabble-rousers. That didn’t sound very promising. Judging by the sound of it, there had been some disagreement about the ownership of the Iron Horse. River could have kicked herself for not realizing something like that might happen. Regardless of what Micah had said, she truly wasn’t cut out for leadership. There was too much responsibility involved, too much thinking and planning. River was a woman of action… at least, she was when she wasn’t in a jail cell.
River settled back on the cot, determined at least to get a good night’s sleep out of her arrangement. No sooner had she closed her eyes than she heard a knocking sound outside the window. River leapt out of bed and pressed her face up against the bars.
“Psst!” said a familiar voice. “Down here!”
River craned her head around and saw Micah balanced precariously on a ledge several feet away. He was dressed in dark clothing, but in the light of the streetlamps, he was plainly visible against the building’s light-colored bricks.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know. Everything has gone terribly wrong. I just found out you were here a few hours ago, but I waited for darkness to climb the building.”
“Where are the others?”
“On the train, where else? You don’t think they could climb this wall, do you?”
“The mayor said they were trying to steal the train.”
Micah nodded. “They’ve barricaded themselves inside,” he said. “They’re threatening to stay in there until you are returned.”
“Unlikely. I’m scheduled to go to court tomorrow morning.”
“That doesn’t sound good. River, these people take their laws very seriously.”
“I know,” she said, leaning up against the wall. “Micah, I need you to do something for me. I need you to find Socrates-”
“I already have,” Micah said cheerfully. Then his smile vanished. “But I’m afraid he’s broken.”
“What do you mean? If it’s that gear in his head…”
“No, it’s not that. The old man fixed that already. But there’s something wrong with him. He looks like Socrates, but then… he’s not. He can’t seem to think straight, or even get through a single sentence. I don’t think he can be fixed.”
River slowly digested this information. “Micah, you have to leave. You’re the only one of us who has a chance of coming out of this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Where would I even go? I wouldn’t be able to stay here, that’s for certain. You should see the way people stare at me. I’m a freak. Everyone here is so very normal, and proper. Honestly, I don’t know how they can live with each other.”
“Then leave this city. There must be other places. Go back to one of the villages on the Forgotten Sea. Rowena can take you.”
“No, Rowena is gone. She left as soon as our fuel supply was returned. I guess she was in a hurry to start making money with her new
airship. Besides, the Horse is my home now, and you are my family. Whatever your fate may be, I will share it with you.”
With that, he began scurrying back down the wall.
“Wait!” River called after him. “Where are you going?”
“To get ready for court, of course!”
And then he was gone.
River didn’t get much sleep that night. Micah’s visit had been anything but reassuring, and soon after he left, the skies opened up with a violent downpour. The rain came down as sleet and the sleet soon turned to hail. Lightning crackled across the sky and thunder shook the windows and shutters of every building in town. The trees in the park creaked and moaned in the ferocious gusts, and the wind howled through the eaves mournfully. Gutters channeled the downfall along the streets, which soon became rivers glistening beneath the gas lamps.
River spent most of the night reclining on her cot, her fingers laced behind her head, listening to nature’s destructive symphony outside the window. Her mind raced with worries about her friends, about Socrates, and about her date with the magistrate. At some point, sleep returned, but it was anything but restful. River dreamed of monsters lurking in the dark and hideous men lurching out of the shadows, clutching at her with long bony fingers and stabbing at her with cold, sharp blades.
She woke the next morning when the guard brought in her breakfast. She ate in gloomy silence, hardly tasting the sweetbread and the steaming mug of coffee the guard had provided. Long before he returned to collect her tray, she had pushed it aside. She went to the window and saw that a thick layer of fresh white powder had covered the city. The sky to the east was light, but a heavy layer of clouds loomed overhead, threatening to make the entire day as dark as River’s cell. Across the street in the park, the merchants cleared the snow from their tables and booths and began unloading all of their wares. City workers built bonfires here and there, especially along the lake, where the children had already begun to gather with ice skates dangling over their shoulders.
At last, the guards came to take River away. They shackled her wrists behind her back, and shackled her ankles together. They led her out into the street, where a horse-drawn carriage with barred windows and steel doors was waiting. With little fanfare, they loaded River inside, chained her shackles to the floor, and set off. The carriage only made it to the end of the street before the driver locked up the brakes. River heard voices outside, and the door swung open. Mayor Cronwyn climbed inside. He settled onto the seat across from her.
“You look tired,” he said, glancing out the window. “Not surprising I suppose, under the circumstances.”
“What do you want?”
He stared at her, fiddling with his gloves as he spoke. “I thought long and hard about our talk last night.”
“You mean when you called me a thief?”
“Yes, I believe it was that conversation. Something about what you said bothered me.”
“Perhaps it’s the fact that you’ve imprisoned an innocent person, and you stole our train!”
He chuckled. “See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You seem so convinced of your own innocence. You almost make me want to believe you. Either you truly are innocent, or you truly are a sociopath. I can’t be sure which, though. Can I?”
River bit her tongue and glared out the window.
“That’s why I sent word to my cousin.”
“What?” her head spun and she locked gazes with him.
“It’s true. Last night, I sent a letter to Dael. I sent it by ship, of course. On horseback, it never would have made it on time.”
“What does that mean? If he tells you I’m not a thief, will you let me go?”
“I’m afraid it’s not that easy. You stand accused of numerous crimes. Not just stealing that machine. There’s the constable you attacked, and the man he says you killed, and there’s also the matter of your friends. I’m afraid this entire issue has become rather complicated… However, if my cousin should vouch for you, I imagine it would change things in the magistrate’s eyes, and that really is the first step towards clearing this matter up. After we hear from Dael, we’ll know if you’re a thief or not, and that should guide our decisions going forward.”
River sank back into her seat. For the first time in two days, she actually felt a moment of hope. If the mayor had truly sent word to his cousin, then surely Dael would vouch for her. “What about the storm?” she said. “What if the message didn’t get to him?”
“We are all bound by the whims of fate,” the mayor said. “Sooner or later, we all suffer the consequences.”
The carriage had circled the park while they talked, and now it pulled into a circular drive before a tall white building with columns out front. The driver locked the brake, and a constable opened the door from the outside.
“Here we are,” the mayor said as he climbed out. “I’ll see you on the inside.” He vanished into the crowd of people milling around the courthouse.
It took a moment for the guards to unchain her. They also removed the shackles on River’s ankles, but the ones that held her wrists behind her back remained. One of the constables took River by the arm and led her around the back of the building. They entered through a private doorway, pausing to kick the snow off their boots on the way in, and then walked down a long hallway lined with jail cells. At the end of the hall, they turned left through a doorway, and River found herself standing in the courtroom.
It was an imposing space with a domed ceiling five stories high and row upon row of chairs filling the room. There was a balcony at the back with even more seats. The magistrate’s desk rested on a dais at the front of the room. Before it rested two tables. The guards moved River towards the furthest, and removed her shackles before they told her to sit. River settled uncomfortably onto the chair. She glanced around the room and realized that all of the seats and benches were bare hardwood, except for the magistrate’s heavily cushioned chair. One of the guards settled into the seat next to her, and they waited patiently for the proceedings to begin.
Over the next few minutes, several hundred people filed into the room. Shortly after that, the bailiffs -dressed in uniforms similar to the constables’ - closed the doors.
“All rise for Magistrate Vallan Larkin!” one of them announced.
The magistrate was an elderly man with short gray hair and a close-cropped beard. He wore black robes and octagonal-shaped spectacles. He settled into his chair and waited patiently while the spectators took their seats. When things had quieted down, he slammed the gavel down and said:
“So begins the two hundred and fifty-seventh session of the Grand Court of New Boston. Is the defendant present?” He glanced over the rims of his glasses at River, and she looked around nervously.
“Are you called River Tinkerman?” he said.
“Yes,” she said quietly. The guard leaned close and whispered in her ear:
“Call him Magistrate, or Your Honor.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” River quickly corrected herself.
“I see. I have read the charges against you. Bring forth the witnesses.”
One of the bailiffs opened the side door through which River had arrived, and two men entered. One was the old man who had attacked her in the alley. The other was his friend, Constable Shepp. The old man settled down at the second table while the constable came forward to address the judge.
“Your Honor, I was performing my shift duties in Southside last night when I heard noises coming from an alley. With no concern for my own safety or well-being, I fearlessly rushed to the aid of what I thought might be the victim of some heinous misfortune.”
“I see,” said the Magistrate. He didn’t bother looking up from the papers he was shuffling on his desk. “Go on.”
“Well, when I entered the alley I came upon this woman here,” Shepp pointed at River. “She was brandishing some sort of weapon and threatening a pair of homeless unfortunates. I instantly discerned that she was a vagrant and a t
hief, so I proceeded into the alley to stop her.”
“That’s a lie!” River said. “They were trying to rape me. You were going to help them!”
River heard gasps and murmuring behind her. The magistrate slammed his gavel down.
“Enough!” he said angrily. “Young lady, hold your tongue. When I’m ready for your side of the story, I will ask for it.” He turned his attention back to the constable. “Go on.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. As I entered the alley, I saw this woman raise her weapon and fire, point blank, right into the face of Lank Ulsen. The poor hapless fellow dropped dead right before my eyes. Naturally, I rushed the woman, thinking to disarm her, but she got the better of me with a kick to my niddles.”
The magistrate stared at him, grinning wryly. “Niddles, eh? No permanent damage, I hope.”
“No sir. Everything’s back in working order.”
“Good to hear it. Do you have anything else to add?”
“Only that this here woman is a menace to society. She has no respect for the laws of our fair city, or those brave men who carry them out.” He quickly added, “And she’s a killer, too. A cold-blooded murderer.”
“Thank you, Constable Shepp,” said the magistrate. “You may take your seat.”
River covered her eyes with one hand. Any hopes she’d entertained of surviving the trial reasonably intact vanished like a puff of smoke in a hurricane. This was a kangaroo court, and she had a better chance of sprouting wings and flying away than she did of getting a fair hearing. She turned, scanning the scowling faces of the crowd, and noticed a familiar face near the back.
“Burk,” she said between clenched teeth. The muscular, bald-headed ruffian stood at the back of the room. He stared straight at her with a menacing grin. River clenched her fists and started to rise, but the guard put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. She settled back onto the chair, remembering the magistrate’s warning.
“Next witness,” said the magistrate, shuffling the papers on his desk. The old man at the other table grunted as he rose to his feet and approached the dais.
Killing the Machine (Aboard the Great Iron Horse Book 2) Page 19