Rook(116)

He looked up to the edge of the cliffs, where LeBlanc’s office building perched, and where he knew there was a lift. The moon was gone, the sky just beginning to pale in the northeast. He wondered if he had time to climb.



Spear wondered if he should try to climb the stacks of bones and see the layout of the paths from above. Probably his light wasn’t bright enough even if he could. He kicked the pyramid of skulls in front of him, putting his foot through one. He was lost, and furious, and beginning to be afraid that Sophia and Tom were not even in this godforsaken grave. He studied the hole he had made in the skull, fourth one from the corner, near the floor, and took off at a run down the next narrow path.



Sophia wondered if she would have time to climb the fencing, slip her bonds over the top of the post, and perhaps set fire to the haularound before they could catch her. But her hands would still be tied, and there would still be Tom. So she looked straight ahead, ignoring the shouts and stares, and the people standing along the streets and in the doorways of their shanties. News in the Lower City traveled much faster than a haularound, and she could see the crowds gathering farther down the road.

There had been fighting here. Smoldering wood and rubble, and doorways with something black nailed on, announcing a death. And the sign of the red feather. And now that she was listening, some of the shouts were not the mockery she had expected. “Red Rook” came at her from all sides, but they were shouts of encouragement, and there were men and women who stood in respectful silence as the haularound passed. And then she heard her name.

“Sophie!” She turned her head, scanning the crowd until she saw a young, bearded man with his hair cropped short. “Sophie!”

“Justin!” Tom called.

Sophia felt a smile break over her face. She leaned as close to the edge of her rolling wooden prison as the ropes would allow. It was Mémé Annette’s son. “Justin! How is Maggie?”

“Five children!” he said as the haularound passed, his face falling as they all three remembered they were not actually having a reunion.

“Tell her we love her!” Sophia called. “And the children!”

He nodded, and Sophia watched a small crowd form around him, asking questions and listening to his response. “Justin!” she yelled suddenly. “Can you get Tom water? Do you have a flask with you? Please!”

She watched Justin patting his shirt and pants, as if he might discover water, others around him doing the same. She wondered how many would remember Sophie and Tom from Blackpot Street, the children who spent their summers selling an old woman’s oatcakes and romping around in the mud and grime of a Lower City market, Tom’s hair tucked up in a cap.

She heard a thump behind her and turned her head to see a leather flask at Tom’s feet. He slid down the post and got his hands on it, the gendarmes around them seeming inclined to do nothing. She sighed in relief. So there was still goodness somewhere in the Lower City. It made her stand straighter as they drove the twisting streets, all the way to the turn into the prison yard.

There was a mob there the size of which she’d never seen. An ocean of bodies and faces packed into the square, the Razor rising up like an illuminated island of black and white flowers in its midst. She looked up at the sky. Surely they were early; there was only the barest lightening of the dark on the northeastern horizon. She met Tom’s eyes, and he shook his head. If there was anyone in that crowd who wanted to rescue them, she didn’t know how they could possibly do it. The numbers were unbelievable, overwhelming. She felt the loss of hope solidify, rock hard inside her. And then, as the people caught sight of them, one by one, the mob went silent.



Spear had gone silent, no more yelling. They weren’t there. There was no one there, nothing but death. He found the steps to lead him out of the cavern, ran straight through the lift and out into the prison. There was no one there, either, no guards. No Sophia. No Tom. Dread settled on him, like the bone dust that was covering his face. He turned right and dashed down the stairs and into the stinking tunnels, feet splashing in the quiet. Surely it couldn’t be dawn yet.



René turned at the strange, growing silence of the mob. Surely it couldn’t be dawn yet? And then he saw a haularound, lit with torches, bright at the opposite end of the prison yard. The sight set his fear on fire. The haularound snaked a path through the mob and now he could see Sophia in the back of it, hands tied and head up, her brother too weak to stand at the other end.

He looked around, trying to control his panic. Benoit, émile, his uncles, Cartier, and their recruits from the party guests were a short distance away, crowded around the prison door, where they’d thought Sophia was going to come out. They were cut off. René launched himself into the sea of people, swimming into the crowd, but there were many hundreds of bodies between him and the scaffold.



LeBlanc looked down on the hundreds of faces, indistinct in shadows and torchlight, and smiled beatifically. He was seated in the viewing box, his streak straight and robes perfect, all wounds discreetly covered. And he was in Allemande’s chair, from where his new power would flow. The other ministres had not seemed quite confident in his story of Allemande’s death by armed rebels, LeBlanc had thought. But they all knew who the gendarmes were taking their orders from. And so the ministres were around him on the scaffold, one or two yawning with the early dawn, seated in their velvet chairs, waiting to witness the death of the Red Rook.