The August 5

by Jenna Helland

  “Maybe that’s just what the cottagers need,” Ellie muttered.

  “Ellie!” Kristin scolded her. “You have to watch what you say.”

  “I’m not inside the Seminary walls,” Ellie retorted. But then her eyes flicked to Tommy, as if she had remembered she was talking to the son of Colston Shore.

  “No worries,” Tommy assured her. “Which way do we go?”

  “This way,” Ellie said. They headed toward the harbor district, which was on the north side of the river, but had a large population of cottagers living near the docks. She led them into a narrow alleyway lit only by sparse shafts of sunlight. Planks had been laid between the buildings to form a makeshift floor above the alley. Shabby furniture was visible through the gaps, and people paced the rickety boards above. At the end of the alley, a flight of crumbling granite steps descended into a long tunnel that doubled as a market. The air smelled like lantern oil and oranges, and the noise of the crowd echoed off the mossy walls. Despite the narrowness of the tunnel, it was jammed with wooden carts selling cabbages, salted meats, wreaths of dried flowers, and red tulips. Each cart sported a lantern, casting shifting shadows along the length of the passage.

  “What is this place?” Kristin asked as they struggled to navigate through the crowds.

  “A creepy carnival,” Tommy said.

  “It’s short cut,” Ellie replied.

  “Are you sure?” Tommy asked. “How old is that book?”

  “I think this is Piper Leaf Market,” Ellie said. “My book only lists official Zunft sites so it’s not in here.”

  “We’re in a place that doesn’t officially exist?” Tommy said. “How did you know about it?”

  “Hywel talked about tunnels that run under the city,” Ellie said. “Most of them are old coal tunnels, and have been sealed off. He had some idea about transforming the tunnels into a transportation system that anyone could use to get around.”

  After Ellie mentioned Hywel, the conversation died away. The news that the cottagers had kidnapped the former chief administrator had broken very recently, and Tommy wasn’t supposed to know Ellie’s connection to Hywel anyway. They reached the end of the tunnel, climbed another set of crumbling steps, and emerged near Regent’s Bridge. Built from reddish limestone, it had distinctive lion’s-head carvings at both ends of the span.

  “That’s Mast Square,” Ellie told them, pointing south across the Lyone where masses of people were spilling out of the square and into the street. “Maybe there’s some kind of gathering.”

  “Let’s go see,” Kristin said. Fortunately, they were wearing ordinary street clothes with nothing to identify them as Seminary students. The girls had on long wool coats over their flowered dresses. If anyone stared at their knee-high leather boots, they would see how expensive they were, but hopefully no one would be paying attention.

  When they reached Mast Square on the opposite bank they pushed their way through the crowd at the entrance. Once inside the large courtyard, there were so many spectators that it was hard to move at all. Solid blocks of tenement houses formed both the eastern and western walls, and scores of onlookers leaned out of windows, waving green handkerchiefs. The curved side of a majestic ship rose above the heads of the spectators. Seeing the old-fashioned sailing vessel perched in the heart of the city was even more impressive than Tommy had imagined, and he wished he could have seen it without all the people around. He couldn’t imagine what circumstances could have brought such a ship so far inland.

  “What are they celebrating?” Kristin asked.

  “Maybe it’s some kind of street performance?” Ellie wondered.

  The crowd quieted as a woman stepped forward and raised her hands. From his angle below the prow, Tommy could only see the side of her face and the black curls tumbling down her back. She looked like she was in her forties, with a starburst of lines at the corners of her eyes.

  “Fellows,” she called out, her voice echoing around the silent square. “Please forgive me, I’ve never made a speech before. For those who don’t know me, my name is Meg Stevens. My husband is Jack. My son was Christopher.”

  She paused as a murmur of recognition rippled through the crowd. Her voice wavered a little, and she was gripping the edge of the prow as if she might fall over.

  “They won’t let our children get an education. They won’t let us publish a newspaper. They won’t let us own our homes. Now they threaten to send us to the estates to work as slaves and bleed us for a loaf of bread. What choice did the August Five have?”

  “Who’s Jack Stevens?” Kristin whispered to Ellie and Tommy.

  “One of the cottager rebels,” Ellie whispered back.

  “Our people are disappearing!” Meg Stevens raged. “Did you wake up one morning and find your mother, or your uncle, or your son has gone missing? Colston Shore expects us to believe that these people have trotted back to their ancestral estates like good little slaves. Well, that’s a lie!”

  “People are disappearing?” Kristin asked. “What is she talking about?”

  “I don’t think we should be here,” Tommy whispered.

  “We are the Children of the Islands!” Meg Stevens shouted. Her voice wasn’t shaking anymore. “The rightful heirs to all the land. We are the warriors of old. They are fattened lambs. We are stronger than they’ll ever be. And we will not be silenced!”

  “We need to leave—” Tommy started to say. But the onlookers roared enthusiastically and drowned out his words. Suddenly the cheers turned to shouts of warning, and people whirled toward a commotion near the entrance of the square. There was a flurry of movement, and the crowd surged, knocking Ellie to her knees. Tommy pulled her to her feet and strained to see what was happening. He couldn’t see over the heads of the people, but he could hear rovers rumbling in the street in front of the square.

  “What is it?” Kristin cried.

  Tommy grabbed the girls’ hands. “The Zunft!” he shouted over the crowd. But the frightened people crushed together and there was nowhere to run. The terrified mob pushed in all directions as Zunft soldiers riding black horses galloped into the square. Tommy struggled to stay on his feet while the soldiers spurred their excited mounts into the mob, swinging heavy truncheons indiscriminately.

  Holding hands and moving in a tight huddle, Tommy, Ellie, and Kristin tried to force their way through the crowd. Nearby, a man tumbled to the ground in front of a line of mounted soldiers. Several people came to his aid, but the soldiers closed ranks, trampling several more people under the hooves of the riled animals. Tommy heard the thud of a truncheon and a young man wheeled backward clutching his bloody head. As the soldiers drove the crowd against one side of the square, they became so tightly surrounded that Tommy couldn’t even lift his arms. The pressure of the bodies made it feel like his ribs were crushing his heart. Around him, everything seemed to be moving abnormally slow. The quivering mob paused for breath, and Tommy felt like a cornered fox run to exhaustion by dogs.

  An eerie quiet descended on the square. One of the horses danced sideways as a guard pulled hard on its reins. The soldiers advanced on the small crowd that was now trapped against the wall. Beyond the line of skittish horses, the square was empty except for the injured lying on the ground. Suddenly, a gunshot rang out and then another. A man in a flat cap crouched on the roof of a nearby tenement building. He cradled a rat gun on his shoulder. At the sound of the second bullet whizzing through the air, the mob sprang to life and rammed forward into the line of soldiers. The horses reared back as the soldiers tried to rein them under control and drive them against the crowd.

  In the confusion that followed, Tommy lost his sense of direction. He heard screams and the clatter of hooves. Terrified that they were going to fall and be trampled to death, he clung on to the girls’ hands with all his strength. Suddenly Ellie yanked his arm painfully, and he followed blindly, dragging Kristin behind him. Ellie’s head was down and she was dodging people and darting through holes in the crowd.
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  Kristin’s fingers were ripped from his. Tommy spun around as a mounted soldier loomed above her with a raised truncheon. He swung it down as if he meant to crush her skull. Tommy rushed toward her, but there were too many people between them. Kristin stood frozen, staring up at the soldier like she couldn’t believe that he wanted to hurt her. At the last second, a young man pushed her out of the way. The truncheon cracked down on his shoulder and he fell to one knee. The soldier tugged the reins and circled his horse around.

  The young man struggled to his feet. His flat cap had been knocked off, and Kristin bent down and picked it up off the cobblestones as the soldier struggled to get his horse under control. Tommy grabbed Kristin’s sleeve.

  “Get out of here!” the young man shouted.

  Tommy dragged Kristin into the crowd in the same direction that he’d seen Ellie disappear moments before. They clawed their way to the edge of the mob and caught sight of Ellie near the entrance to the square. She had climbed onto a low window ledge and was desperately scanning the crowd. She jumped down when she saw Tommy and Kristin, and the three of them didn’t stop running until they reached Regent’s Bridge. Tommy’s muscles were quivering and his legs unstable. When they reached the middle of the bridge, Kristin held out the man’s flat cap. The cloth was covered in blood from where it had fallen on the ground. Kristin tossed the cap in the river without saying a word. They watched as it floated down the current, and Tommy thought about the anonymous cottager who had helped Kristin. Gain five hundred honor points for saving a stranger from a crushed skull.

  “Act casual,” Ellie said as they strolled back through Seminary Square. That struck Kristin as hilariously funny and she started giggling, which made Ellie and Tommy start laughing, too. For the rest of the walk back to the Seminary, one of them would start laughing nervously and the others would follow suit until Tommy felt light-headed from all the laughing. Once they reached Tauber Hall, they paused under the elm outside the entrance. Tommy marveled at how normal things looked: the lads playing Litball on the Green, the ivy-covered walls of the dormitory, and the birds chirping on the branches of the trees with crimson leaves.

  “Well, thanks for the outing,” Tommy said, and they started laughing again. But now the shock had worn off and it dawned on them all at the same time: there was nothing funny about the situation. The Zunft soldiers had attacked a peaceful demonstration. People had been hurt, and maybe killed.

  “If my father finds out I was there, he’ll be furious,” Kristin said. “Your father would probably kill you, Tommy.”

  “Let’s not tell anyone else,” Tommy said. “Or talk about it again.”

  “At least not where anyone else can hear,” Ellie whispered as they trudged up the stairs and into Tauber Hall.

  14

  FIFTY INJURED IN MAST SQUARE

  Mounted soldiers attacked a peaceful demonstration in Mast Square today. More than fifty people were injured. Four women sustained life-threatening injuries. There were at least ten arrests, including Meg Stevens, the wife of Jack Stevens, who is currently incarcerated and charged with treason for his involvement in the August Rising. “The Zunft gave no warning,” said one man who wished to remain anonymous. “They didn’t ask us to disperse. They charged in, hitting women and children with clubs.”

  —JFA Bulletin, September 29

  “Mama, I’m here,” Navid called down into the root cellar. From the top of the stairs, he could see a flicker of candlelight among the stacks and barrels. “Ma-ma! Do you need help?”

  Katherine Leahy appeared at the bottom of the steep wooden steps with a heavy sack of potatoes to make stew for the evening crowd. Navid scampered down partway and helped haul up the heavy load.

  “How was school?” Katherine asked. Navid was too old for state-sponsored school, which ended at age ten for cottagers. But Gavin Baine and some of his friends ran a small school for a couple of hours during the day, which kids like Navid attended around their jobs and chores.

  “It was math day,” Navid said, dragging the sack into the kitchen.

  “Well, you’re good with your numbers,” Katherine said.

  “I like writing days better,” Navid said. “Or politics days, when we read the newspaper.”

  “Maybe you’ll be a journalist,” Mrs. Leahy said. “Like Michael Henry.”

  “Some of the fellows said he kidnapped Mr. Hywel. Is that true?” Navid asked.

  “Who was saying that?” Katherine asked.

  “Some of the boys at school,” Navid said.

  Katherine looked hard at him. “It’s not true. It’s more Zunft lies.”

  “Well, they thought Mr. Henry did the right thing,” Navid said. “They said Henry should have shot him, and bam, one less Zunftman.”

  “I don’t want to hear you talking like that,” Katherine said sternly. “Death is never that simple.”

  “I know, Mama,” Navid said. “Do you need help with the stew?”

  The pub was half-full even though it was only early afternoon. By four o’clock, the tables would be filled with hungry patrons.

  “Not with dinner, love. The pies are already cooking,” Katherine said. “This is stew for tomorrow, but I do need you to run some errands for me.”

  Navid nodded in agreement. He’d much rather do errands than help in the kitchen. He loved running through the streets, taking secret shortcuts that no one knew but him.

  “You’re such a good boy.” Katherine smiled at him proudly. “Hold up two fingers.”

  Navid did. This had been their system for years.

  Katherine tapped his first finger: “Head to Seminary Square. Visit Abel Toys. Talk only to Samuel Abel. Say, ‘I would like to buy a deer. A purple deer. I will name her Anna.’ Repeat.”

  “I would like to buy a deer. A purple deer. I will name her Anna.”

  She tapped his second finger: “Go to Ash Street Garden. Sign my name for two packages. Leeks and carrots.”

  “Leeks and carrots.”

  Katherine kissed him on top of his head. “Thank you, love. See you at dinner.”

  Before she even finished talking, Navid was already out the door, flying across the teetering boards laid across the muddy yard, through the open gate, and into the alley behind the pub. On Killough Street, he stuck close to the wall as he dodged pedestrians and slow-moving wagons. Navid crossed Shadow Bridge and ran down the Strand. When he reached the crossroads at Linden Boulevard, a Zunft soldier stopped all foot traffic for a line of rovers that crawled south. Navid waited impatiently, like a horse before a race. He paced along the wooden fence, which was plastered with posters in support of the August Five: Michael. Brandon. Hector. Kevin. Jack. He knew them all personally. They’d sat in his home or in the pub, eaten with his family, laughed with him. He and Jack regularly played kick ball in the alley behind the pub. Their ink-drawn faces stared out at him, larger than in real life. Navid wondered if one day his face would be on a poster like that. Maybe he didn’t want to be a journalist like Michael Henry after all.

  When the rovers finally passed, Navid darted across Linden and then ducked into Long Alley, which ran all the way into the city center. Long Alley was the collection site for Zunft merchants’ trash, and the smell was unbearable, but it was nearly deserted and made for quick travel. Besides, Navid carried a scarf for these occasions. He covered his nose and mouth and ran as fast as he could.

  At the end of Long Alley, the layout of the city changed. The city looked like a pretty painting, with white-stone buildings, trimmed lawns, and well-dressed people.

  Zunft soldiers would target a cottager kid in Seminary Square, so Navid had to be careful there. His parents had never registered Navid’s birth with the Zunft, and he didn’t carry identification. The Zunft gave one bag of flour per year for every child, so by not registering him, the Leahys had less to eat. But his parents believed it was better to be anonymous, and Navid was happy to be a nonperson in the eyes of the Zunft.

  Abel’s Toys was in a
shopping district near the Seminary. In the northern districts, the buildings were farther apart, so navigating the roofs would be more challenging, but Navid was an excellent jumper. As he scampered up the fire ladder in the alley and onto a town house roof, he planned his route. He would face three dizzying jumps and two scary ledges—still better than being harassed on the ground. He could see the walled Seminary grounds with its pavilions and green fields for playing Litball. From his bird’s-eye view, it looked like paradise. He imagined the lads in their crimson jackets, each sporting his team’s colors on a scarf around his neck. Navid wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he envied their easy lives as sons of the Zunft.

  When he was two blocks away from Abel Toys, he shimmied down a drainpipe, went two blocks out of his way to avoid the Records Hall, and finally relaxed when he reached Dawson Street, where both cottager and Zunft merchants sold their wares. The Zunft had the shops, but the cottagers had the open stalls, and the crowds frequented both. Buskers played music along the street, and Navid wished he had a coin to toss into the fiddler’s hat in front of Abel Toys.

  Navid pushed the heavy gilded door open and was greeted by the scent of cedar and vanilla candles. Abel Toys was the most famous toy store in the Islands. Its owner, Samuel Abel, had been an important Zunftman who left the Chamber to become a toy maker. He had a reputation for high-quality craftsmanship and whimsy, and almost every Zunft baby had an Abel’s stuffed toy in the crib from birth. They ranged from palm-size to life-size, and they were every living—and fantastical—creature you could imagine.

  Mr. Abel was helping a Zunftwoman, so Navid clasped his hands behind his back, to show that he was well behaved, and gawked at the shelves until the woman left with her package.

  Samuel Abel turned his attention to Navid. “Good afternoon, young fellow. What can I do for you?”

  Navid smiled shyly at the floor. He had been to Abel’s shop many times before, and the toy maker knew exactly who he was. Abel was like a big kitten, but you had to pretend that he was as mean as any Zunft shopkeeper. Of course, most Zunft shopkeepers wouldn’t have let cottager children inside their shop.