Ashes of the Earth (34 page)

Jori
seemed to sense the change in him, and the tightness left her as
well. It felt as if they had been dancing like this all their lives.
When the record was over she asked Morgan to play it again. Hadrian's
hand trembled as he put a finger under her chin and lifted her face.
With his handkerchief he began wiping away the Angel Polish.

"I
know it's silly. For some reason I didn't want to be me tonight..."
she murmured, not bothering with the tear that rolled down her
mottled cheek. He quieted her with a finger on her lips and gently
removed the rest of the cream. Then she pressed closer and they
danced.

Somewhere
beyond the sea,
the
lost singer crooned,
my
lover stands on golden sand and watches the ships that go sailing.

Outside,
another ending of the world was coming. But here, now, in the
fairy-tale lair with the blind woman floating serenely over the
floor, the dead singer transporting their spirits, the ancient bear
snoring in the next room, for the first time in years something real
flickered in Hadrian's heart.

Hadrian
watched the
farm
for half an hour, waiting as a wagon approached the lanky figure with
the ax and dropped its load of logs for splitting into rails. He
studied the crudely built tower of logs at the edge of the fields as
he waited for the wagon to disappear, then took a step forward and
paused. He glanced at the trail behind him, half expecting to see
Jori.

He
had nearly reached Carthage when she had caught up with him, out of
breath.

"You
aren't ready for this," he had warned her.

"I'm
only panting," Jori replied as she lowered a heavy pack to the
ground, "because Helen packed half her larder in here for us."

"I
thought I left without waking anyone."

"I
don't think she slept at all last night. She can see more than most
people with eyes."

He
looked at the bulging satchel with a pang of guilt. Morgan and Helen
needed all their supplies to get through the winter. "You mean
she knew I was going."

"She
knew we were
both
going. I told her I
thought she would try to persuade me to stay."

"What
did she say?"

Jori
looked away, color rising in her cheeks. "She said if I didn't
go, something inside would always wonder if you'd left just to run
away from me."

"Jori..."
he began. "It could never ..." His words choked away.

"Never
what?" she asked.

He
looked toward his own feet, toward a patch of snow, anywhere but
toward her. "I am never going to be the man you think I can be."

The
silence seemed interminable.

"Promise
me to be careful," he said finally. Reaching into his pocket, he
extracted the round disc of agate. "This was Jonah's," he
told her, pressing it into her hand. "When he had problems to
solve, he would rub it. For me, it's become something of a good-luck
token."

She
offered a stiff nod and buried the stone deep in her own pocket. He
lifted the pack to his own shoulder. "You will have to tell them
you jumped off the boat, that you were hurt in the explosion and
found a cave where you were recovering. You don't know where I am,
don't know if I am alive."

He
had led her to Jonah's cottage and promised he would return there
that night before beginning his slow circuit of the town. He paused
only at Dax's mill, but found it empty, with no sign of having been
inhabited for weeks.

The
young man laboring with the ax stared as if paralyzed when he saw
Hadrian. He raised the ax as if defend himself.

"You're
dead!" Nash yelled. "Drowned in the lake. They said so in
the prison."

"In
the prison they believe whatever Kenton tells them," Hadrian
said, advancing with his hands raised. "I've always been slow to
die."

Nash
grabbed the head of his ax and extended it handle first, prodding
Hadrian's belly. He limped badly as he walked. "It's really you,
Mr. Boone?"

"In
the flesh. I had to go away. Now I am back."

A
grin overtook the young burglar's countenance.

"What's
happening to the farms? What are these towers in the fields?"

"Guard
towers. There's been raids. Five, six men at a time, always at night,
trying to steal corn, cows, pigs."

"Food?"
Hadrian asked. "Is it only food they take?"

"So
far. Not much really. They usually get scared away, even though they
carry shotguns. But the governor says we must be prepared for
anything." As he spoke Nash tugged Hadrian into the shadow of
the large beech they stood beside. A group of horseman appeared,
moving at a fast trot down the road.

"Armed
patrols," he explained. "They've been ordered, day and
night, through the farms to the south and west of town."

"You
mean Buchanan assumes exiles are doing the raiding."

"It
has to be, don't it? There is no one else."

"Did
the raiders do that to your foot?"

Nash
frowned, then looked uneasily back toward the farmhouse. "Men
from the fishery. Wade's men." He limped into the open again,"
retrieving two wedges for splitting the next rail, then glanced at
Hadrian with an apologetic expression. "I promised my mother I'd
stay away from townsfolk and their troubles."

"Why
would Wade's men break your foot?"

"It
was nothing. I can walk."

Hadrian
picked up a log and brought it to him. "Maybe I'll stay and
help. Maybe I'll go to the house and introduce myself."

Nash
winced. "Captain Fletcher wanted something I couldn't give him.
He thought I was lying, so he had to be sure."

"Wade
is dead, Nash. I killed him. What did Fletcher want?"

The
youth's jaw dropped. He stared at Hadrian in disbelief. A woman
stepped out of the farmhouse. A wolflike dog darted from her side,
loping toward Nash. "A painting," he answered, his tone
urgent now. "There was a job last spring. He thought I took a
painting when I was there. I told them I never laid a hand on it. I
only took little things. Jewelry and silver and such." He looked
at the dog, nearly on them now. "Jesus. Go!"

"What
kind of painting?"

"Birds.
Ducks on a lake."

"So
you saw it?"

"Never
laid a finger on it. They just kept asking about it. They held me
down, used a hammer on my foot. After they broke the bone they
decided to believe me."

"Who
did lay a finger on it? Who was with you?"

"Please,
Mr. Boone. My ma will tell the corps if she sees you."

Hadrian
backed away.

"It
was ducks," Nash yelled as he disappeared into the shadows. "Big
ducks taking off at sunrise."

Hadrian
turned northward, the threat of patrols keeping him on game paths,
watching so intently in the direction of the road that he failed to
notice the ruins until he was upon them. Work crews had built the
road spur, continuing for perhaps a week before stopping. They'd made
good progress on the footer for the bridge, even sunk two heavy posts
and laid the ramp that would channel traffic onto the one-lane
structure. But now all was ashes.

Jonah's
bridge between worlds had been burnt.

He
pulled himself away and climbed the next hill, then up a high ridge
along a stretch of cliffs. His melancholy grew as he moved through
the gnarled oaks and maples that lined the base of the cliffs,
studying the overhanging limbs. With a stab of pain he found what he
was looking for, the unmistakable collar of scar left where the
weight of a hanging rope once chewed the limb down to raw wood. He
had been haunted by Dax's secret map since the day he'd seen it. This
would have been the first suicide, a girl of eleven, three years
before.
One.

He
walked quickly and found another, then another.
Two
and three.
In the next quarter
mile he found the fourth and fifth, futilely trying to fight his
memories, to keep the images from his mind's eye. He'd been at many
of the trees before, had cut down the limp bodies of children who had
been so sure they could find something better than this world. He had
faced so many shrieking, sobbing mothers and brooding, broken fathers
that there were entire families who shunned him now.

Hadrian
had just found the seventh of the death-scarred trees when he heard
an odd metallic rattling. He crouched behind a rock for a moment,
remembering the police patrols, then realized the sound came from
directly in front of him, in the line of trees. In the direction of
the eighth tree, the next circle, an empty circle, on Dax's map. He
leapt up and ran, ready once again to act as cheater of death.

So
wildly, so irrationally hopeful of saving a life was he that when he
finally reached the little clearing a wracking sob escaped his throat
and he collapsed to his knees. The rope scar was so fresh sap still
dripped from it. A length of rope lay on the ground before him,
hacked and tattered in several places where someone seemed to have
attacked it. On the end closest to Hadrian was a bloodstained noose.

The
metallic noise had stopped. On the other side of the clearing Hadrian
now saw a square-built figure in a brown homespun robe, holding an
old censer by its chain. When William pushed his cowl back, Hadrian
recognized the friar, but it did not seem the monk recognized him.

The
sturdy friar stared at Hadrian, disbelieving, then quickly crossed
himself.

"They
say ghosts congregate here," he said in a tentative voice, "that
they float over the ridge and watch the town."

"Maybe
when the time comes, I will, old friend," Hadrian offered, "but
for now I just stumble along like other mortals."

The
monk gave a visible sigh of relief and quickly stepped toward
Hadrian, arms open to embrace him. "Just yesterday Emily came to
me and asked if I might preside over a memorial service for you at
sundown one day this week."

Hadrian
offered a sorrowful grin, then pointed to the noose. "Was it a
child?"

But
his companion seemed not to hear. "Captain Fletcher reported
three bodies pulled from the lake, said you were on the same boat,
and that your body must have sunk. He has offered to speak at your
memorial."

Hadrian
looked over the long frozen expanse that was now the lake. Near the
harbor a course had been laid out for the iceboats that raced in the
winter. "I'm like the fish that keeps getting thrown back in the
water. Too tough to eat."

"I
should say Carthage is better for it," William offered.

"That,
Father, remains to be seen." Hadrian gestured to the noose once
more. "A child?"

"Two
days ago. The only daughter of a carpenter."

Hadrian
looked at the censer, from which fragrant smoke still drifted. "I
haven't seen this before."

"We
have a new member of our congregation. He comes in once or twice a
month. He says he was taught that the soul lingers for a year at the
site of the death before passing on to paradise. I found him up here,
burning chips of cedar. He said the fragrant smoke would summon in
the spirits of the forest to keep the girl company. He said he'd lost
a younger sister, and that his uncle had done that for her."

Father
William's faith may have been shaken but at least he kept trying. He
looked at Hadrian with question in his eye, as if asking for
approval. Hadrian slowly nodded. "If we can't help them before
they cross over, we should do what we can for them afterward."

William
sighed. "The girl was up here last week, skipping rehearsal from
some play to help me. She asked for you again, asked if it was true
you were dead."

"The
governor's daughter? Sarah?"

William
nodded. "Tears were in her eyes when I said I thought we had
lost you. 'How will we remember who we are?' she said to me. Then she
started shaking as if she was sick. I asked if I could help her but
she suddenly laughed and ran away."