by E L Stricker
“Right,” Julian said and took off. Aaro and the other Enforcers followed him.
By the time the sun was fully over the horizon, they had given up the search for the second man. He'd had a solid head start, and there was no sign of him. With Conna pushing a bound Piers before him, they returned to the village.
“He was short, maybe thin,” Illya said. There were one or two men who could have matched that description. He did not think it had been a woman. Something about the way the figure had lumbered made him sure.
“There are only a few people it could be,” he said. Conna grunted in response.
“We'll find him. Ask around, see who looks suspicious,” Aaro said. Conna said nothing but held Piers' wrist with a white-knuckled grip.
There was no way to avoid parading past the cooking fires and the villagers who would undoubtedly be there at this time of the morning. Illya would rather have avoided the stares and gossip that would follow. But even if they had been able to keep the arrest quiet, with the damage to the wheel and investigation into the second perpetrator, there was no way the incident would go unnoticed.
There was a shocked silence, followed by a wave of muttering and whispers as they passed the fire. Elias' arrest had followed an incident that everyone had witnessed. No one could have denied that there had been no better choice. Elias had been unbalanced, dangerous. This time, all they saw was the aftermath: a man they all knew, hands tied and ankles hobbled, accompanied by the entire pack of Enforcers.
Illya shot a glance ahead at Impiri, where she was ladling out hazelnut mush. There was soot smeared across her face. She looked up, appearing as startled as the rest of the people when the procession passed; not the expression of someone who was involved.
As Illya passed her, he nodded, thinking that courtesy couldn't hurt.
She tilted her head then smiled in return, not genuinely. It was an odd smile but with at least the semblance of respect. She turned back to her cooking pot. Illya went on to catch up with the rest of the procession, which was now a little distance ahead.
He was a few steps away when he thought he heard her say something.
“What was that?” he said, turning around again. Impiri was looking away muttering under her breath, apparently to herself; no one else was nearby.
“He sends rain, right out of the sky. Part of the curse. Thinks I don't know, but I do, oh yes I do,” she said to the pot. Illya's mouth gaped. She glanced back over her shoulder and gave him another smile.
She resumed her stirring. Illya looked closer: the level of mush in the pot was so low that her spoon did not reach it. She didn't seem to have noticed.
Illya shivered and backed away from her. She was distracted; that must be it. The sight of a man arrested was a shock. She was afraid, not thinking about what she was doing or saying. He shook his head, unwilling to acknowledge the other possibility. He had been small when Benja's sister Rachel had lost the gift. Much too small to remember what it looked like when it happened.
Jannica had lost the gift, if the stories could be believed, just a few weeks ago. Was it like a Calamity, drifting through the air waiting to infect them all? He had worried about that when Elias had threatened Benja, but that had seemed to be different, a moment of desperation. Elias still had all of his senses afterward. Illya covered his mouth and nose with his hand, as if she carried the ’fection, and stumbled away. Conna and the Enforcers were returning from the stone house.
“We will have to round everyone up now, ask if they know anything,” Julian was saying.
“No need,” Conna said, holding up his hand. “We already know who was behind it,” he said.
“Did Piers say something?” Illya asked.
Conna shook his head. “Didn't have to, obvious isn't it?” he said.
Illya hesitated. It was true that there were people who had been against him from the start, but that wasn't enough evidence to know.
“It was my pa. Piers and him are best mates. . . If that's what you call getting drunk together every day,” Conna said. Aaro was standing beside him, staring at the ground.
“We both saw the other guy; he was smaller than Piers. That's not like your pa at all,” Illya said.
“You can bet it was another of his friends then,” Conan said with a grimace. “If one of them was involved, all of them were. We have to make an example. You know there will just be more trouble until we do.”
“Pa’s all talk. Usually,” Aaro muttered, kicking the dirt.
Conna glared at him sharply. Aaro looked at the ground and scowled.
“I don't know,” Illya said, feeling slightly sick. There had been no other choice than to lock up Piers and Elias, but how could they lock anyone else up unless they were sure they had been part of it?
“Impiri is the first we should question,” Julian said. “Always been against us, hasn't she?”
“Sure, but that was no lady out there this morning,” Aaro said.
Illya's stomach flipped over. If he had eaten any breakfast, he would have spewed it across the mosaic stones. If Impiri was losing her mind, he didn't want anyone seeing. An epidemic of madness in the village would turn everyone against him and fast. It would look like everything she had predicted had come true.
He glanced around casually to cover his reaction. Maybe Conna was right. His father was trouble; there was no doubt about that.
Conna was eying him. Illya swallowed. Despite the logic of it, acid was rising in his throat.
When he hesitated, Conna's eyes hardened, as if daring him to disagree. Illya met his stare and realized that he had another, far bigger problem. If Conna decided that he didn't want to support the plan anymore, what would he have left? Nothing, that was what. A book and pile of opinions as fickle as the weather. Everyone would desert him at the first prediction he got wrong, the first disaster that struck.
The Enforcers would go with Conna. Illya would have no power against those who wanted him to fail. The whole plan would fall apart.
That couldn't happen. Whether or not Jimmer had been part of this particular incident was a small detail. He had already caused plenty of trouble. What Conna wanted was nothing compared to the plants and how important they were.
He swallowed back the acrid taste. Conna's stare bored into him.
“Right then,” he said. “Jimmer and his friends, round them all up.”
Conna smiled with a momentary gleam flashing in his eyes. Illya turned away. The plan was everything. None of those men would thank him come winter if they were free but starved to death.
The Enforcers had them all arrested in less than an hour, everyone who drank with Jimmer. Most of them had reacted with genuine surprise. They had not expected to be singled out. With Piers, there were five of them—Jimmer, Tom Garland, Lionel Sutter, and Donnie Johnsted, Ban's older brother. Lionel had been the only one to try to run when the Enforcers had come knocking on his door. The silhouette that they had seen fit him, which was reassuring. It had taken a few extra arrests, but both of the saboteurs seemed to be safely out of the way.
Repairing the wheel took most of the day. Ban spent the morning carving new pieces and directing the other builders in the delicate task of removing the broken parts without destroying the rest of the wheel. He said nothing about his brother's imprisonment. After that, it had been simple to put it all back together. Even so, Illya held his breath as he watched the men raising the wheel back onto the towers as evening approached. It spun just as well as ever, and the sound of the water rushing down the pipes to the field was particularly sweet. The water soaked readily into the soil. None of the little plants, now ankle-high, had wilted. It seemed that they would be no worse off for their day without water.
As the light fell, Illya made his way home more exhausted than he had been in a long time. There was yelling coming from his family's hut, and he paused to listen. It was his mother and Benja.
“It's not like him.” Benja was not yelling anymore. Illya had to strain to h
ear.
“He needs us more than ever now,” his mother answered, her voice shaking.
“Doesn't mean we have to like what he is doing,” Benja said, his voice rising again.
His mother mumbled something.
Benja answered, too quietly to hear, and the door to the hut burst open. Illya ducked off the path and hid behind a tree. He had never tried to avoid Benja before in his life, but he had reacted before he could think about it. Benja stormed past him, not looking around.
Illya watched him go. His stomach felt hollow. When Benja was out of sight, Illya edged out from behind the tree. He hesitated, not sure that he wanted to go inside at all. Still, he could hardly sleep out on the ground.
Taking a breath, he pushed open the door.
Molly was not there. His mother was squinting over some mending at the table. She looked up when he entered, with a strained smile, but said nothing. Illya licked his lips, which suddenly felt parched. He tried to return the smile, pretending that he had not heard anything. He stood over his pile of furs, contemplating them intently, trying to think of something to say to break the strangled silence, perhaps to head off what he knew was coming. His mother sighed.
“Are you sure you know what you are doing?” she said. He turned and saw that she had shoved aside her mending. She did not look angry after all. She looked worried. He didn't know which was worse.
“Yes,” he said, mustering as much confidence as he could to put into his words.
She turned away and picked up the mending again. She looked down at it but didn't resume her work. He watched her, and the moments stretched out in silence.
“Just say what you think,” he said, the words bursting out when he could no longer contain them.
“These Enforcers . . . Elias was one thing, but arresting people just because they don't agree with you?” Her eyes looked watery. “And people . . . people are saying that some of those men had nothing to do with it.”
“If they destroyed the wheel, it would kill the plants. How could I let them do that?”
“You didn't even give them a chance to give their side of the story.”
“What could they possibly have to say? Those men have been trouble since the first day,” he said.
Sometimes the wind blew, whistling through the cracks for hours without stopping. It pushed you until you felt like screaming. The concern on her face had been grating on him for days, and it made him feel the same. She didn't think he knew how to do anything.
But he wasn't a weak little boy anymore. He was the Leader. They chose him. Why couldn't she trust him to know what he was doing?
“I don't think that you believe that,” she said.
“Of course I do.”
“If you let them talk, then maybe people would agree with them. You are afraid. That's why you are letting Conna push you into this,” she said.
“That's ridiculous,” he said. Boiling against her pity, her worry, he spat the words at her. “I thought you were behind me, I thought you of all people would understand how important this is.”
“This isn't you. My kind, thoughtful boy would never do something like this,” she said. Illya hardened his jaw. She continued.
“I don't know what's happening to you, Illya. Telling everyone what to do, arresting people who haven't done anything, it doesn't have to be this way.”
“It does. You just can't see.”
“I'm worried about you.”
Illya turned away. His insides had turned to stone.
“You shouldn't be. I know what I'm doing,” he said.
“You can't control everything.”
“I'm doing what needs to be done! You don't know anything about it,” he said, his face flaring hot. Grenya pressed her lips together.
“I don't need this, and I don't need you.” Illya turned his back to her, shaking as he scraped together his belongings.
He shoved the book into the middle of the haphazard pile of bedding and clothes and hoisted it all up under his arm. Without looking at his mother again, he kicked the door open and left the hut. Molly was running along the path toward home.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Away,” he said and walked into the night without looking back.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ILLYA SET HIMSELF up alone in one of the north-side huts, beside the Enforcers and Conna. This was accomplished by bursting through the door and tossing the pile in the corner before flopping down on it and falling into an exhausted sleep. It was not a peaceful rest. He was wrung out, drained by too much worry and too many feelings.
His anger seeped into his dreams as a strange montage, involving the image of a rock smashing against the wheel over and over then the realization that he was the one wielding it, trying to destroy the wheel. The vision of the wheel was replaced by Benja, then Impiri, then Jimmer, but he felt like he was hitting them with a cloud, so soft that it made no difference. All of his efforts were pointless.
He woke grumpy, with only a vague memory of why. Squinting at the unfamiliar walls, he was confused. He blinked a few times; then it all come flooding back and, with it, the nauseated, hollow feeling. He had never woken without his family around him. For a moment he felt like he would crumble under the weight of what he had done. But he couldn’t take it back now.
He scowled at the cracked mud on his new wall. Benja and his ma could think whatever they wanted. He didn't need them anymore. He was the Leader; he had the whole village now.
The new hut was in a bad repair. Light shone through the roof where the thatch had fallen in, illuminating the fact that the floor was littered in a thick layer of leaves and dirt. Illya didn't care. It had a door. That was all that mattered.
It was a long time before Illya ventured out past the safety of that door. He spent a little time arranging his things and a lot of time staring at the places where the mud had flaked off the walls, thinking.
The Enforcers, who were sitting around outside in the sun, looked at him with mild surprise when he did emerge. He wished that he had thought of bringing water for washing in with him the night before. He was sure that his eyes were red from crying, but if they noticed, none said anything about it.
He spent a good part of the remaining day fixing the roof of his new hut. He re-mudded the walls and swept out the collected debris, grateful for the excuse to stay away from everyone. He saw his mother and Molly from a distance when they went out with the other gatherers. They didn't see him.
He wondered if they had thought it as strange to wake to a hut without him in it as he had felt to wake in a room without them. He decided that he didn't care about that either and returned to weaving fresh grass through the lattice of branches on the roof. He didn't see Benja at all that day and thought that he was glad about that too.
Illya sat alone at dinner but was joined by Conna before long. Illya felt an unexpected surge of fondness for his Second as he walked up with an easy grin on his face. They sat in companionable silence, eating fish, greens, and the first of the summer berries. It was not quite the same as friendship, but it was the closest thing he had. Of everyone in the village, Conna knew how hard it was to be a Leader. No one else understood.
Illya got swept away by these thoughts and, without meaning to, sighed out loud.
“What?” Conna said. Illya shook his head and shrugged.
“Everything is so different now, you know,” he said.
Conna laughed out loud.
“You're telling me. One day we are just nobodies. Me and Aaro living under that...“ His jaw tightened. “You hanging around with that old coot and his plants. The next day, here we are, running the whole village.”
“Samuel isn't an old coot,” Illya said.
Conna grinned at him and shrugged, softening the words. “He's kind of an old coot.” Illya eyed him then smiled back.
“Alright, I guess you could say that. He is kind of a coot. He's definitely old.”
“You got to give a gu
y respect for being old,” Conna said. “Doesn't happen much.” He frowned and was silent for a while.
“We're going to fix that though,” he said with a quick grin. He handed Illya a skin of liquid.
“Here,” he said. Illya took it and sniffed curiously. It was pungent and burned the back of his nose. He coughed, his eyes watering. Jimmer's brew.
He had never tried it before. His mother always got a look of disdain on her face whenever it was mentioned. A lot of people disapproved, not just because of the wildness it brought but because to make it they used fruit in the fall that they could have stored for food.
When he thought of what his mother would say, Illya scowled and took a swig. It seared his throat, and he choked. Coughing, he gasped and shook his head. Conna chuckled.
“Never tried it before?” he asked. Illya hesitated, embarrassed to admit it, but nodded. The brew burned in his chest; soon it dulled to warmth and spread out through him.
Conna regarded the skin.
“Probably a good thing,” he said then took a swig himself. They sat in silence, watching the fire for a long time. A good deal of the awkwardness Illya had been feeling had burned away with the brew; it was a loosening sort of sensation. He found that he wasn't worried about anything. It was as if the brew had untied a knot that had been tethering him to all of his responsibilities and cares.
“Should have locked the old man up a long time ago, for all he used to do to us when he got into this stuff,” Conna said. His tone was casual; he could have been talking about the weather or how well the fish were biting. Illya stared at him, caught off guard.
“Now he's got no one around to beat on,” Conna said and laughed, a flat sound with no joy.
“That's something else that's different,” Conna said, glancing to meet Illya's stare briefly before looking away. “The old man hasn't been able to hit on me in a while, not since I got big enough to fight back. Aaro, though, he's still kind of a little guy. Once he started being one of your Enforcers, Pa didn't touch him anymore either.” Conna smiled.
“He hit Aaro?” Illya asked, more to have something to say than from a need to know the answer.
