Rook(44)

“Sixteen days from capture? Why do they wait?”

“Keep reading, Mademoiselle.”

She did, her eyes widening until she raised her head again. “He’s insane. LeBlanc, Allemande, they’re both mad!”

“Yes, they are mad. The whole city is mad,” René agreed. “But they are also clever.” Sophia could hear the anger again. He leaned forward in the chair. “First, they take advantage of the unrest in the Lower City. They promise bread, and equality, and an open gate, and that technology will never return to replace the tradesman. They point to the Upper City and say these are your oppressors, these are the ones who look down from their high flats, they lock you in, they fund machines, feeding the hatred with lies until they have a revolution and the hatred feeds itself. Then they use the mob like a weapon, bring down the premier, seize the government and the chapels, anything with power. They kill all who oppose them, man, woman, and child. All in the name of revolution, and justice. But they cannot keep the mob rioting forever, and the list of traitors who have not fled the city grows short, yes?

“So now they say this revolution has been decreed by a Goddess, that Fate has chosen new recipients for her blessings. And the poor will follow, because Allemande has promised them all they wish to have, and because now those promises are backed by a deity. But even if they do not believe, they will follow, do you not see? They will follow out of fear of the Razor, and they will follow because there is no responsibility. For anything. All can do as they please, because all is as Fate has willed. There is no wrong. It is madness!” He threw up a hand. “A very clever madness.”

Sophia watched him, mesmerized. Just a few days ago she would have bet Bellamy House that there weren’t any such ideas in René Hasard’s powdered head. Now it was as if he’d been possessed by Tom.

“Allemande will only take now,” he continued, “as the Goddess decrees, with LeBlanc as his ‘holy man’ to make her wishes known. He will keep himself in the chair of the premier, hold the poor of the Lower City exactly where he wants them, and execute Jennifer Bonnard and the Red Rook in a ceremony of thankfulness to the Goddess.”

No, they will not, Sophia thought. She glanced down at the newspaper. “And they will draw lots from the prison. Fate will choose one out of three. One to live …”

“And the other two will die,” René finished. “Two-thirds of the Tombs will lose their lives on an altar. The gutters will run with the blood.” The fire settled, the weight of this news doing the same in Sophia’s mind.

“La Toussaint,” Spear said from the doorway. He’d been so quiet Sophia had almost forgotten he was there. “Sixteen days from Tom’s arrest will be the end of the festival honoring those lost in the Great Death.”

René sat back, thoughtful. “That is so.”

“La Toussaint is also when the saint in the form of a rook led survivors to the underground, before the city sank,” Spear continued. “That’s why they wait to execute Tom. LeBlanc has shut down the chapels, but Sophie has been leaving rook feathers. He wants to disprove the story.”

“Hammond is right,” René said, showing only the slightest surprise.

Sophia thought of that rumbling thunder, and the streaking ball of fire she’d seen moving across the sky the night she’d gone to the Holiday. The same as the iconography on the chapel walls. “It’s also the night the Seine gate will be open, so the Lower City can visit the cemeteries,” she mused. She’d never been in the city for La Toussaint. They’d always returned to Bellamy House by the equinox. But she knew there were coffins, and music and a parade, and that the graves were decorated with flowers. And feathers. She looked again at the paper. “Allemande will provide free landovers, hundreds of them, so that all may come to the Upper City and attend …”

“He is turning the mob loose on the Upper City,” Spear commented. “No one is going to put on a parade down the boulevard, much less show up for one.”

“And two out of every three will die …,” Sophia whispered.

“The gutters will run,” René repeated.

Orla picked up the vest again and started sewing. “Allemande is not mad,” she said. “He is evil.”

“I believe he is both, Madame,” René answered. “Every day the execution bells ring, and if I raise the windows of our flat, I can hear the noise of the mob echoing out of the Lower City, chanting while families are put to the blade. Half the children I went to school with are dead, along with their families, their property given over to supporters of Allemande or the ones that denounced them. When you live in the Sunken City, you look evil in the face.” He paused. “But you, Mademoiselle …” The blue eyes lifted until they found Sophia’s. “You can see the … possibilities?”

“It will be chaos,” she said thoughtfully. Her mind was already humming.

“Sophie,” Spear said. “We can’t delay. We should go as soon as the twins get the number of Tom’s cell, do it as we’ve done before. If we’re ready to go when the information comes, we could have both Jennifer and Tom, and even his mum …” He jerked his head at René. “We could have them out in two days.”

René kept his gaze on Sophia’s face. “Take your best chance, Mademoiselle.”