Scorched Earth

by Tommy Wallach

  “You,” she said, angling her head like a curious bird, “you man or woman?”

  Francie laughed nervously. “A girl could get offended by a question like that.”

  The tribeswoman didn’t appear to understand. She said something to her companion, who looked Francie over and then shrugged, saying something in Wesah that anyone could have translated as I don’t know.

  “I’m a woman,” Francie said, as if this were obvious.

  “Show,” said the first warrior.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your parts. Woman parts. Show them.”

  It had been such a long time since Francie had dealt with anything like this. Not since her school days, boys and girls alike mocking her for the way she spoke and the way she walked, her father taking his anger out on her while her mother hid away in the kitchen, humming to drown out the sound. But Francie had left home, transformed herself as much as a person could, and even met Drew, who’d loved her and whose demons played nicely with her own. And though she knew she ought to be afraid of these women who’d come to Edgewise tonight with killing on their minds, her outrage crowded the fear out completely.

  She advanced on the larger warrior, until another step would bring them nose to nose. “Kill me if you’re gonna kill me. Otherwise move along.”

  They stared at each other. Francie thought about how it was almost funny, that her very life could hinge on this, the very thing that had nearly killed her as a child, that she’d survived only by the grace of God himself. Drew had always told her her talent for finding the humor in things was one of her best qualities; so when the notion came to her, she decided she might as well indulge it. Angling her chin downward, she looked up at the warrior out of the tops of her eyes and batted her eyelashes: the blameless innocent with a heart as pure as gold.

  The reaction was nearly instantaneous. Both of the tribeswomen burst out laughing. Without another word, they turned and went into the church, stepping over Olmstead’s body on the way. There seemed a kind of justice in that; a couple of years back, the Honor had worked out what Francie was, and though he’d kept her secret, he’d made no bones about the fact that he saw her as an abomination.

  “An abomination who’s alive,” she said to his cooling body. “Unlike some abominations I know.”

  Sad to think there’d be no one to give the homily this Sunday. Francie liked watching the churchgoing folk from her window—all prim and proper, primped and polished. But she hadn’t actually gone to services since her falling-out with Olmstead. Maybe she could start again, whenever the Anchor got around to sending a new minister—if they ever did.

  Francie understood what the Wesah had in store for Edgewise now. It was a shame, really: there were some good men in this town. But not many. A scream carried up the hill, the crack of a gunshot. Francie made the sign of the annulus on her chest and went back inside.

  Knit one, purl one. Knit one, purl one.

  Part II VAGRANTS

  But Paradise is locked and bolted, and the cherubim stands behind us. We have to go on and make the journey round the world to see if it is perhaps open somewhere at the back.

  —“On the Marionette Theatre,” Heinrich von Kleist

  1. Clive

  HE SAT AT A CORNER table, the cowl of his robe up around his face, nursing his pint of ale and watching the empty stage. The Budding Rose was packed wall-to-wall tonight. At the table next to his, a pair of women sharing a single feather boa were taking turns kissing a handsome young man dressed in a foppish suit. Up at the bar, a group of thickly bearded Protectorate soldiers were working their way through a veritable military parade of shots, slamming the glasses upside down on the table as they finished them, loud as gunfire. A pretty girl in pigtails was making eyes at Clive, but even if he’d come looking for that kind of thing, odds were she’d expect to be paid double her usual rate. He sipped at his ale, which had also cost a fair bit more than he’d expected; imminent apocalypse did strange things to economies.

  Finally the gas lights at the front of the stage flared to life. Two girls emerged from the wings. One carried a calliope and wore a crisp white sailor’s suit trimmed in blue, cut to look as risqué as possible. The other wore an outfit designed to be removed—a titillating puzzle of stockings and gloves, stays and snaps, buckle and bustier. The girl with the calliope sat down on the edge of the stage and began to play a sinuous melody in a minor key. The other girl closed her eyes and swayed along with the rhythm. The Protectorate soldiers started hollering as the swaying transformed into a full-fledged dance, and soon after, even the most pleasantly distracted of the venue’s patrons found their attention drawn to the stage. The dancing girl pulled at each finger of her right-hand glove in time with the music, then peeled the whole thing off to a drawn-out glissando that elicited a collective groan of pleasure from the crowd. Even Clive found himself momentarily hypnotized, though it was the other girl he’d come here to see.

  This was the Anchor on the eve of war—a place of heedlessness, of abandon. Part of it could be traced to the diminished influence of the Church since Chang’s coup, but in Clive’s opinion, the root cause was simple fear. Kittyhawk’s next attack could come at any time of the day or night, and Sophia’s army was said to be only a couple of days out from the Anchor. People were taking this opportunity to live the lives they’d always wanted to live, to become the people they felt they really were underneath all the habit and decorum. It was a sobering thought, that only in the shadow of death could a person become his truest self—but Clive’s head was full of little else but sobering thoughts these days.

  It had been just over two weeks since the bombing in Annunciation Square, since Clive had left the Mindful hideout at gunpoint. In that time, he’d been introduced to a whole new side of the Anchor. He’d always been part of some community before—first the Hamill ministry, then the Protectorate; now he was just a man adrift, and to his surprise, the city took him in. He’d gotten drunk with a crew of masons working to rebuild Notre Fille. He’d played dice with the beggars who rattled their cups in the alleys of the Second Quarter. He’d befriended a middle-aged streetwalker whose generous offer to discount her prices he’d turned down as gently as possible.

  Of course, his first order of business after leaving Ratheman Chapel had been to transform himself into something unrecognizable to both the Protectorate and the Mindful. He’d snuck into the sacristy of a church, where he’d stolen some old minister’s robes and shaved his head clean—the same indignity that had once been inflicted on Paz. Disguised as well as was possible, he’d spent his days wandering the city looking for his brother and his nights sleeping in houses of worship he knew welcomed the indigent (and once, a secluded corner of Portland Park). Mitchell Poplin would’ve taken him in, of course, but Clive could only assume the Grand Marshal was keeping tabs on the house, which meant neither he nor his brother could risk going anywhere near it.

  The dancer had begun to shed her clothing in earnest now, each fallen layer revealing another, prolonging the seduction, earning her another jangling fanfare of copper coins. Clive watched the calliope player, who scarcely seemed to be present. She played by rote memory, her fingers dancing over the keys, her thoughts far away. Talent really did run in the blood.

  The music changed just as the dancing girl reached the final threshold, standing tall and proud in nothing but her underclothes. The melody that had guided her through the carefully choreographed striptease gave way to a boisterous waltz—accompaniment to a bawdy song about baking full of painfully obvious double entendres. The calliope player joined in on the choruses, harmonizing with the melody line: “I can’t handle all of your lovin’, there’s a little too much bread for my oven.”

  When the song was done, the audience showered the stage in shekels. A barmaid swept them into a basket while the two musicians took their bows and sashayed offstage. Clive drank down the last of his ale and followed them. In a little alcove next to the kitchen, the two girls were di
viding up the spoils from their performance. They looked up as he came in.

  “The fuck you want?” barked the dancer, revealing her coquettish onstage persona for the pretense it was.

  Clive pointed at the calliope player, whose name was Hannah. “Her.”

  “We’re musicians, not whores. And you oughta be ashamed asking for something like that in your robes and all.”

  Clive had forgotten he was dressed like a minister. He still had his hood up, but was surprised Hannah had yet to recognize him. “I just want to talk.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “Hush, Michaela,” Hannah said. She looked at Clive. “How much for talking?”

  “Five silvers.”

  “You got yourself a deal.” She stood up. “And if I’m not back in ten minutes, Michaela’ll send those soldiers at the bar looking for me. You understand?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “Good.”

  She took his hand and led him through the kitchen and outside, into an alley empty but for a bin full of food scraps and a thin layer of mist.

  “You really have five silvers? Let’s see ’em.”

  Clive reached into his pocket and took out everything he found there. Hannah picked through it with her index finger. “A button, some lint, and two coppers. I knew it.”

  “I’m sorry. I had to get you out here.”

  “Even if I were that kind of girl, and I’m not saying I am, this would hardly get you more than a tickle.” She cocked her head. “You’re young, though, aren’t you, especially for a minister. The way everyone’s acting these days, I’m surprised you have to pay for it. Let me see you better.” She pushed back the cowl of his habit, rasp of rough cotton across his shaved scalp. Recognition flooded her face. “Clive?”

  “Hello, Hannah.”

  The girl’s cheeks reddened, but the shame was quickly replaced with anger. Clive just missed getting his hands up in time to deflect her slap, which set his head to ringing. “Why didn’t you say something sooner, before you made a fool of me?”

  “I didn’t make a fool of you. I don’t care what you get up to. I don’t judge anyone for anything anymore.”

  “Says the man in the Honor’s robes.” Hannah Delancey sighed her way into a sideways smile. “You Hamill boys are nothing but trouble. Always have been. I told Kita as much, but she didn’t listen.”

  It was because of Kita that Clive was here in the first place; there had been something familiar about the girl Clover had brought to the interrupted executions at Annunciation Square, but it had taken Clive more than a week to realize why: she’d borne an uncanny resemblance to Louise Delancey. He’d gone to their family workshop straightaway, but the place was teeming with Protectorate soldiers—Chang had drafted many of the city’s best craftspeople into “the war effort,” a euphemism for whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it. Clive staked the place out for a couple of days until he finally spotted someone he recognized: Louise’s sister, Hannah. He’d followed her when she left earlier this evening, unaware he’d end up at an underground burlesque show.

  “How’s she related to you?” Clive asked. “Kita, I mean.”

  “Cousin on my da’s side. Clover came by last month asking after Louise, I guess, and Kita’s been starry over him ever since.”

  “You know where they are?”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s my brother. I’m worried about him.”

  “Are you then? ’Cause I was worried about my sister when she told me she was trying to get at you. And then she ended up dead.”

  “I wasn’t the one who killed her, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  A couple of the Protectorate soldiers from the bar lurched through the back door of the Rose and into the alley, belting out the chorus of Michaela’s song as they went. Clive kept his eyes firmly latched to the ground.

  “I could kill you with a word, couldn’t I?” Hannah whispered. She gazed after the soldiers, and Clive wondered if he should start running now. But where would he go, and to what end? The soldiers disappeared into the mist. “You know, Louise used to have such a crush on you. But you were so pious. Couldn’t even be bothered to flirt. And there was some girl your parents wanted you to marry, wasn’t there? What was her name?”

  “Gemma.”

  “Right. Gemma. Louise always hated her. Called her ‘the little angel,’ like it was an insult.”

  “Well, she’s dead too, if that’s worth anything to you.”

  “It won’t bring Louise back, will it?”

  Clive knew Hannah was just trying to rile him, but he didn’t have the patience for it. “Listen, if you want to punish me for not loving your sister, or not saving her, that’s your right. But I’ve lost plenty of people myself. I’ve been punished. I don’t want to lose my brother, too.”

  “You mean the brother you shot in the back?”

  This was pointless. He was getting nowhere with Hannah, and to add insult to injury, it had just begun to rain; he needed to find shelter for the night. “Never mind,” he muttered. “I’ll find him without your help.”

  He’d made it a dozen steps up the road before Hannah called out after him. “My family keeps a warehouse in the Seventh, on the corner of Aurora and the Black Road. My da had a couple apartments built on the second floor. He thought he might rent them out, but he couldn’t ever be bothered to find tenants.”

  Clive turned back around. “Thanks.”

  “I hope you find him,” Hannah said, her voice thick. “But I still think you did my sister wrong.”

  Clive put his cowl back up. “I’m sure I did,” he said.

  * * *

  Passing through Annunciation Square on his way across the city, Clive was once again taken aback at the extent of the damage. Notre Fille had suffered the worst of it; apparently, the bell tower had collapsed and crashed through the ceiling of the nave, where it had reduced half the pews to splinters. Repairs had already begun on the eastern facade—an enormous sheet of canvas flapping against six stories of rickety scaffolding covered what would otherwise have been dozens of exposed rooms and hallways—but there was unlikely to be enough stone on hand to finish the job, and no one would be quarrying anything until the siege was over. In other words, the great cathedral might never be itself again.

  The rain began to fall more heavily, beading up in starlit sparks along the arms of Clive’s velvet robes. He pushed his hood back and let the drops land on his bare head, remembering how heartbreakingly beautiful Paz had looked after they’d shaved her down to the scalp in the Bastion dungeon. God, but he missed her.

  He was soaked to the skin by the time he reached the Seventh Quarter and the intersection of the Black Road and Aurora Lane, but at least he didn’t have any trouble finding his destination. The second floor of the warehouse was cantilevered five or six feet out over the street and prominently labeled: DELANCEY FACTORY WAREHOUSE. The latticed windows that made up the whole southern-facing wall were white with moonlight diffused through the clouds. He tossed a few wet pebbles against the panes—shattered glass, Flora glowering down at him from her bedroom, Gemma’s gentle but firm rejection of his proposal, the shame still as keen as ever, even after all this time—but nobody appeared. That didn’t count for much, however, if Clover and Kita were trying to lie low.

  After an optimistic stab at simply opening the warehouse doors, he went around to the back of the building. There were windows along the ground, placed to provide light to the basement, but all of them were latched. Clive glanced around to be sure no one was watching, then pulled the right sleeve of his robe over his fist and punched through one of the panes. Gingerly navigating the treacherous stalagmites of glass, he lifted the latch and swung the window open.

  Between the dense garlands of cobwebs and the junk piled up everywhere, the basement might as well have been expressly designed to dissuade trespassers, but he managed to fumble his way across without making too much noise. The rickety stairs shook and shifted a
s he ascended to the ground floor of the building, which housed nearly a dozen wagons in varying stages of completion—some scarcely more than buckets with wheels, some bonneted like village girls on their way to church, some oversize and double-wheeled, built to military specifications. The Hamill ministry used to have two Delancey wagons; one had been left in the woods behind Amestown, and the other along the mining road north of Wilmington, Eddie Poplin’s body still in the back, and little Michael moldering just a few steps away.

  Distracted by the memory, Clive didn’t hear the footsteps drawing subtle creaks from the floorboards. It wasn’t until he felt something loop around his ankles that he realized he wasn’t alone; the cord tightened as someone pushed him forward onto his stomach. Knees dug into his back, one on either side of his spine.

  “Who are you?” It was a girl’s voice, though she was trying to deepen it into a growl. “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for my brother.”

  “Your brother?” She pulled his hood back and leaned over to get a better look at him. Her voice became unexpectedly amiable. “Clive! It’s you! Where’d your hair go?” She slid off him and pulled the cord loose from his ankles. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

  Clive followed her through the darkness to a doorway, beyond which another set of stairs led up toward a flickering golden light. It came from the grill of a large potbelly stove centered against the wall. Clover stood before it, gently shaking a skillet.

  “I told you it was just the rats—” he said, but stopped short when he glanced their way.

  “Hey,” Clive said, and barely had time to open his arms before his brother came crashing into his embrace.

  2. Athène

  THE JOURNEY FROM EDGEWISE TO the Anchor was uncharacteristically slow, as the tribe wasn’t accustomed to traveling so heavy. Athène had ordered them to take anything and everything that might be useful, and now the horses’ saddlebags bulged with jars of food, coats and scarves, and even some guns they’d taken off the Protectorate soldiers guarding the docks. There had been a larger military presence in Edgewise than Athène had expected, and the fighting had been fierce. In the end, she’d lost nearly eighty warriors.