Ashes of the Earth (24 page)

"Which
means what, that you are working on a new world order?"

Kinzler,
still smiling, pushed the bowl of vegetables toward Hadrian.

"You
wouldn't tell, Hadrian," Nelly said, an edge of worry in her
voice. "About the wood."

"Of
course not. Jonah and I both always wished the best for the camps,
you know that. It's only curious that a fisherman would take the risk
of helping you escape simply because he likes cheap firewood. If
Buchanan knew, he would seize the boat."

Shenker
squeezed his mug of water so tight his knuckles grew white. Nelly
picked at her plate. "The cell door was opened before dawn by
someone we couldn't see," Shenker told him. "And the rear
one at the bottom of the stairs was ajar. We made our own way as best
we could across the border. Fishermen would never take the risk to
help us."

He
was lying, Hadrian was certain. But why? Of course he'd want to
protect the fishermen who had helped them back to the camps. But it
hadn't been a fisherman who arranged the escape from the prison.

Hadrian
silently studied each of the three in turn, nodding slowly. "I
have always wished the best for the camps," he repeated.

"And
what is it exactly you are helping us with on this visit?"
Kinzler asked after a moment. A memory of the man's wife suddenly
came to Hadrian. She had developed a wasting condition like leprosy
and had taken years to die, in one of the group hovels with nothing
but a mud-and-stick fireplace at either end for heat. Scars from such
an ordeal would run deep in a man like Kinzler. It wasn't his
lightless smiles that caused Hadrian to distrust him. He distrusted
him because he didn't show his scars.

"Jonah's
murder still needs to be resolved."

"A
crime of Carthage," Kinzler reminded him. "I still am at a
loss to understand what help you bring now to New Jerusalem."

"Governor
Buchanan has already named his prime suspect. To back down now would
be a political defeat. He will send a small army of police to seize
Nelly."

"He
can try!" Shenker spat.

"Every
man he sends will have a firearm."

Hadrian
did not miss the alarmed glance Kinzler threw at Nelly. "We can
hide her," the chairman suggested. "The forest is deep."

"The
truth would be better," Hadrian countered. "Help me find
the real killer."

"We
know nothing." Kinzler seemed to sense he had spoken a little
too quickly. He shrugged. "The citizens of New Jerusalem hardly
have incentive to assist Carthage."

"I
believe Jonah died trying to help the camps. That very day he spoke
with me about building a new bridge, about sharing our grain."

Kinzler
removed his wire-rimmed spectacles. Rubbing the bridge of his nose,
he said, "Perhaps we should take you on a tour of our
cemeteries. Two out of every three graves are there because of your
colony's refusal to help. They may have been sick but it was
malnutrition and the cold that ultimately took them."

Hadrian
broke away from the chairman's disapproving gaze and turned to Nelly.
"You were in Carthage when Jonah died. Surely you must have some
notion as to why he had summoned you."

"Healing,"
Nelly replied, drawing a chastising frown from Kinzler. She
continued. "He was confident there would be a thaw in relations
soon. He asked what were our priorities, which should come first,
food or clothing."

"Asked
how?"

"Letters.
I told him neither. It was medicine we wanted. We had survivors with
new children, healthy, normal children who were dying of pneumonia
and fevers. He asked if we could find willow bark, and when I said
yes he told us he'd found an old recipe for making aspirin out of it.
It worked! Soon he was sending suggestions for other medicines."

Hadrian
nodded. Nelly never lied, simply managed not to tell the whole truth.
He remembered the books hidden in Jonah's secret vault, remembered
Emily's description of her lab's experiments with more potent herbs.
"You thought he had more urgent news about a medicine?"

"He
had asked for a list of our common maladies. I had consulted with all
our midwives and sent it to him the month before. I thought he had
made a new batch, something he wanted us to have right away."

Hadrian
was about to remind her he had seen the note about the shifting of
the world. But a new emotion swept over him. "He never told me
about it," Hadrian said instead, flushing at the bitterness that
had crept into his voice.

"Hadrian
..." Nelly began. She looked down at her food. "He spoke
often of you in his letters. Being picked up for public drunkenness
and vandalism, spending frequent nights in jail. How could you be
trusted with such secrets?"

It
was Hadrian's turn to stare silently at his plate. He gestured to the
throbbing wound on his arm. "I think I need to lie down."

Shenker
grinned.

Nelly
helped him to his feet.

The
poet bard
was
working at the table when he woke. It was probably two hours before
dawn. In a pool of moonlight at the far end of the table was a stack
of books. He watched from his pallet in silence as Nelly read from a
thick volume and took notes with a quill pen, remembering the warmth,
even hope, with which he had once watched Jonah bent over his own
manuscript.

When
at last he stirred she rose and poured him a mug of tea from a
battered pot on a brazier, then gestured him to the table as she
returned to her work. Once he had known her only to write poems and
reconstructions of old songs. But that wasn't what she was doing now.
"Herbal infusions," he read from the heading at the top of
her sheet.

"These
books turned up in salvage a month ago. Nineteenth-century
pharmacology. Much more useful than anything later, since it doesn't
require equipment we don't have." Nelly offered a quick smile,
then returned to her work, pushing a candle closer to her notes.

"What
do the salvage teams have to report when they return?" Hadrian
asked after a long silence.

"Not
much."

He
regretted the words at once, for the chill they cast. Even after so
many years, salvaging for many felt like raiding tombs. Speaking
about the objects collected was inevitable, but talking about the
ruined lands was taboo.

But
clearly Nelly herself had already asked. "The skeletons are
mostly gone now. Nature has reclaimed everything less than a square
mile of pavement. The few high-rises left are completely entangled in
vegetation. Lots of predator animals. Some say animals that escaped
from zoos are cross breeding. Lions and cougars. Grizzlies and black
bears. So many rumors, crazy rumors. A colony of meat-eating monkeys.
Pythons hanging in trees." She shrugged. "Who knows?"

He
lifted a piece of empty paper waiting beside Nelly's books, admiring
the weight and texture. It was handmade. "So much better than
anything I've seen in Carthage." The sheet beside it was
transcribed with music. An old folk song. "Fifteen Miles on the
Erie Canal."

"An
artisan in the northern settlements sends it. It holds the color of
our berry inks perfectly."

Hadrian
laid the paper in front of him. There was nothing quite so hopeful as
a sheet of fresh, blank paper. "I thought the north only had
some struggling fishing camps."

Nelly
chose not to reply. She got up to lift the kettle to refill their
mugs. "I need to know you believe, Hadrian," she said
suddenly.

"Believe?"

"In
our work. In the future."

The
words were simple, almost silly, but they brought a strange tightness
to Hadrian's throat.

Nelly
covered his hand with her own a moment. Then she rose with a glint of
excitement before gesturing him to wait as she stepped into the
drafty little room that served as her sleeping quarters. She returned
moments later carrying a bulky, squarish object covered with a cloth,
setting it in front of him with a conspiratorial gleam.

"They
brought this in and Kinzler's shop fixed it." With a ceremonial
air she lifted the cloth, then opened the tattered case underneath.

His
fingers trembled as he reached out and touched the old typewriter,
one of the black boxy portables from the 1940s. He thought he should
say something but his voice cracked. She put a hand over his again.
"When I first saw it I broke down and cried like a baby,"
Nelly confessed. She produced a pocketknife, sliced away the bottom
of the paper she had been writing on, and fed it into the platen,
gesturing to him expectantly. "I dab pokeweed ink onto the
ribbon," she explained. "I think I'll be able to saturate
some strips of linen to use."

Hadrian
lifted his fingers to the keyboard and after a moment typed eight
words. Do not go gentle into that good night.

She
leaned over his words, a thoughtful expression on her countenance.
"It's going to be different, Hadrian, I can feel it. Jonah felt
it." She ran her own fingers over the keys and typed another
line. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.

He
stared at the exhortation, remembering the last time he had seen it.
"Why do you mention Jonah?"

"He
used these words with us," she said. "His way of reminding
us, of keeping our heads up."

"He
was feeling his age."

Nelly
paused, fixed him with a look of uncertainty. "Hadrian, surely
you understand. He wasn't referring to himself. There wasn't an ounce
of self-pity in Jonah Beck."

"But
that's what the poet meant. Rage against old age, against death,"
he explained, looking back at the typed letters. For the first time
he realized they could have a different meaning.

"Jonah
wasn't speaking about the light of his existence. He was speaking
about the light of humanity. He meant it was time to take action."

Hadrian
stared at the words again. The pain of Jonah's loss never seemed to
dissipate, only took on new dimensions. "Carthage still runs
this world of ours, Nelly."

She
unrolled the paper from the machine and handed it to Hadrian. "Nobody
rules us here," she said defiantly.

"Because
the camps remain unimportant to Lucas," Hadrian replied. "He's
always assumed they would eventually die away."

"If
Carthage lets us die, then the best parts of Carthage die too. Don't
you understand?" There was a new torment in Nelly's voice. "It's
what Jonah was talking about. It was why he died."

"Buchanan
also senses things are changing. Even in the colony people are
becoming too independent-minded for his liking. He gives speeches in
Council about how vulnerable Carthage still is, how it constantly
totters at the edge of destruction."

"Uttering
such phrases is just part of who he is. We are the shadow that gives
meaning to his light. If he didn't have a real threat, he would have
to invent one."

Hadrian
studied his friend with fresh worry. "Meaning he has a real
threat now?"

Nelly
returned his steady gaze without speaking.

"Things
are going to be different," he said. "He's been looking for
a reason to clamp down, to secure more power." He looked away,
apology now in his tone. "One of his policeman was murdered,
Nelly. The night you escaped."

Her
breath choked. She dropped into her chair.

"Who
helped you at the prison?" he asked. "You were on that
steamboat that sailed out at dawn, you must have been." He
sighed in frustration when she didn't answer. "Buchanan wants to
be able to call it a budding insurrection. It's the opportunity he
has been waiting for. He will use the exiles as his scapegoats and
take more power as a result. If he can't destroy you, he'll simply
annex you and throw all your leaders into prison."

Nelly
looked out the window into the darkness. "Every night since I
heard of Jonah's death I've had the same nightmare. I'm in a chair on
a porch, rocking in the dark. Jonah appears and puts his hand on my
shoulder. Not Jonah. His ghost. He says he forgives me for his death.
It makes no sense. It tears my heart out."

Once
more Hadrian had the sense that it was Jonah who'd set in motion the
machinery that seemed to be grinding them all up. He recalled the
ominous message Jonah had sent to her. "What did he mean, Nelly,
about the shifting of the world being upon us?"