Ashes of the Earth (5 page)

He
gazed out the window at the smoldering library on the ridge above,
expecting the lock on the door to rattle open at any moment. Then he
realized Buchanan would have been up most of the night and not be
seeing anyone until the afternoon. He lay on his pallet, trying to
sleep but seeing Jonah's body hanging from the rafter every time he
closed his eyes. He paced the cell, tested and rejected the old
porridge left for breakfast, now cold and thick as paste, then paused
by Wade's bunk. It took him only a moment to find the old book,
hidden in the horsehair stuffing of the pallet. He considered whether
to hide it elsewhere, or even to throw it through the hatch on the
door for a guard to find, then leafed through it and studied the
beautiful hand-painted maps, nearly twenty in all. If Wade couldn't
find it, he would beat Hadrian. If a policeman found it, he would
probably take it for his own latrine. Hadrian began tearing out the
maps and stuffing them into his shirt.

He
stood at the door for several minutes, pressing his cheek against the
barred hatch to watch down the empty corridor, then used wood
splinters to pin the filthy towel over the hatch. Jammed in his sock
were the pieces of parchment he had scooped up from under Jonah's
table when he had gone back to fight the fire. He extracted them and
arranged them, inked side up, on the table. He started with the
outside edges first. As he connected the brown and purple vine that
wound its way around an inch-wide border, framing a little sailing
ship at the bottom, he realized the page was familiar. It was from
Jonah's secret journal, the page he had seen him working on the day
before.

It
was a work of art, painstakingly detailed. Only the right-hand border
was incomplete. Two semicircular pieces had been torn away, leaving
two gaps on that side.

The
elegantly inked text in the center of the page read like a poem:

Over
the golden water this dawn could be seen the ten steamers of the
fleet, the wanderers all returned home. The harvest fair continues,
with wagons in from distant farms and children wide-eyed over giant
pumpkins. Pipe and fiddle music rose with the moon last night. The
dance stage was a joyful drum echoing down the valley.

Up
from the meadows rich with corn, clear in the cool September morn.
Round about them orchards sweep, apple and peach trees fruited deep.
Fair as the garden of the Lord.

It
was a poem, or at least the last paragraph was. Hadrian puzzled over
the words. They sounded vaguely familiar, but incomplete. The last
couplet was not finished. He pushed the edges closer together, as
though new words would appear, not knowing what he had missed but
with a rising suspicion that there was something else, a hidden
message. Jonah Beck had delighted in the mysteries of language, in
word plays. The passage on its face was a lyrical description of the
major event of the past week. It could have been published in the
daily paper. Yet it had been part of Jonah's secret journal, had been
quite deliberately destroyed. He paused, looking out the window. But
when? During his murder, or just before?

Hadrian
separated the pieces and slowly reassembled them, taking several to
the window to hold them in the sunlight, marveling again over their
artistry. He knew from experience that Jonah might spend as long as a
week on a single page, working on it in the late afternoon and
evening as one of his many pastimes after long days bent over
blueprints and designs. While he had not exactly hidden his journal
from Hadrian, he had never spoken of it in detail. Hadrian had always
assumed it was simply the old man's account of daily life in the
colony.

Fatigue
swept over him as he stared at the page in frustration. Gathering up
the pieces, he stretched out on his pallet.

It
was nearly
noon
when a square-set figure roughly tapped Hadrian's stomach with his
truncheon. "You need to clean yourself up if you're going to see
the governor," Sergeant Kenton growled, pushing Hadrian down the
corridor to the horse trough outside. When he finished, Kenton tossed
him a yellow armband, the mark habitual criminals were required to
wear in public. The sergeant wore an expectant expression as Hadrian
slid the band over his sleeve. He had not yet punished Hadrian for
the day before. Kenton was biding his time, waiting for the governor
to draw first blood.

When
Kenton left Hadrian in Buchanan's office, the governor acknowledged
him only by shoving a thin newspaper across his desk. The colony did
not have enough paper to circulate the news to all its citizens. Only
senior officials received personal copies, with the remaining ones
posted on boards scattered about the colony.

With
an angry heart Hadrian quickly read the first article, its headline
announcing the suicide of legendary scientist and Council member
Jonah Beck. Police arrived moments too late to resuscitate him but
then discovered a fire that had tragically broken out elsewhere in
the building. Courageous efforts saved the structure and most of the
book collection. Governor Buchanan had declared the next day an
official day of mourning, with a state funeral at noon.

When
Buchanan finally looked up, Hadrian spoke first. "You don't need
me. You've already settled everything. Jonah succumbed to a suicidal
compulsion. You decreed that the fire was unrelated. Hastings's body
by now is no doubt under a thousand feet of water. You've done what
you do best when reality overtakes you. Manipulate the truth in the
name of public order."

Buchanan
was silent a long time. Low voices rose from out in the hall.
Hadrian's eyes widened as he turned and saw the policeman at the
reception desk being relieved, handing over his pistol to a tall
blond bull of a man.

"My
god!" he said. "You think you're next."

Buchanan
rose. "No one comes in, Bjorn," he instructed his new
sentry, then shut the door.

"You
tell the colony Jonah was a suicide," Hadrian spoke slowly,
studying the governor, seeing now the lines of worry around his eyes.
"But behind closed doors you fear the killer."

The
governor stood at the window, gazing out over the inland sea, grey
and choppy under a brisk autumn wind. "These are unsettled
times. I haven't endured all these years just to have a blade shoved
in my ribs."

Hadrian's
mind raced. "Something in Jonah's death frightens you." It
was a statement, not a question.

"The
killer must be stopped."

"You've
told the world there is no killer. So there is no one to stop. We
have no murders in our paradise on earth."

"You
can stop him." Buchanan's face was tight. "You must stop
him."

"Tell
me, Lucas, why would I want to do that?" Hadrian asked.

The
governor spun about. Hadrian half expected him to leap at him across
the desk. Buchanan paused, taking a deep breath. "I'm giving you
your freedom," he replied in a simmering voice. "No
banishment."

"My
sentence is up in four days anyway. We both know with the stroke of a
pen you could make me an exile five minutes after I walk out the
door."

"It
shall be recorded in the Council's ledger. No exile. Official freedom
to come and go. An expression of our gratitude for the way you helped
at the fire."

"I'm
not sure I want to live in your colony anymore."

Buchanan's
eyes burnt into Hadrian's. "Damn you! What do you want?"

"My
armband comes off. Stop putting your slogans on the walls. And the
bridge. You promised Jonah to build one over the west ravine."

"You
go too far! You will not dictate the use of public resources."

"After
the bridge, there will have to be a road. Then wagons of grain. The
colony silos will be overflowing soon."

"Ridiculous!
That grain is our lifeblood! Without it we'd never survive the
winter. I keep telling the Council we must expand the plantings."

"More
has been harvested than ever before."

"And
we have more mouths to feed."

Hadrian
stared at him. "You never intended to construct the bridge,"
he finally said. "You lied to Jonah, to appease him. My
grandfather once told me that a lie to a dead man always comes back
to haunt the living."

"It's
impossible. The people won't allow it. You know how they hate the
slags."

"Only
because you taught them to." Hadrian rose as if to leave. "I
can wait until my sentence is up, then disappear into the forest, let
you spend the next year jumping at every shadow. I wonder what people
will think when suddenly they see you surrounded by bodyguards after
you've already assured them Jonah's death was just another suicide."

Buchanan
grimaced. He was clearly struggling to keep his voice level. "We
must get the new roof on the library."

"Split
the crews. But I won't do your dirty work for you until I see work
begun on the bridge. Jonah already gave you a set of drawings. First
come the anchor piers on this side of the ravine..."

"Extortion
of the governor is treason."

"There's
no such law. It will be fascinating to hear how you explain to the
Council why you need one now."

Buchanan
seemed to flinch at the mention of the Council. His hold over the
supreme political body of the colony was tenuous. He had firm control
over only three of its seven votes, and the vacancy caused by Jonah's
death meant even more uncertainty.

"Go
back to the hole you crawled out of," Buchanan said through
clenched teeth.

Hadrian
shrugged. "The killers left a knife on Jonah's table. Did you
see it? An old sword, cut down, heavy and sharp as a razor. A blade
like that will slice your heart in half before you even feel it."

A
city worker was lighting the fish oil lanterns hanging at each street
corner. Hooves clattered on cobblestones. A bawdy song rose from a
tavern near the waterfront. A horse nickered in a stable. Hadrian,
enjoying his newfound freedom, paused to watch the moon rise over the
endless water, then slipped through the rear door of an L-shaped log
and stone building, the largest in the colony except for Government
House.

The
woman who sat at the kitchen table by the huge woodburning stove
didn't see him at first. Her brunette hair, streaked with grey, hung
over her face. She stared wearily into the steaming mug in her hands.
The white apron she wore was frayed and stained with blood.

"I'm
sorry about shoving you away at the library, Emily," he said
softly.

Her
head came up slowly as she straightened her hair and scrubbed at her
cheeks. The sturdy, unshakable head of the colony's hospital had been
crying.

"Did
you, Hadrian?" she said. "I didn't notice."

"You're
lying, but thank you."

It
had been four months after the founding of the colony when Hadrian
had found Emily ten miles inland, caring for three dying children in
a cave. He had stayed with her until their struggle ended, then dug
the graves before bringing Carthage its first doctor. During the past
year they'd sat up many nights nursing Jonah through his bouts of
illness. She rose now and poured him tea from the pot on the stove.

"I
just came to beg a little soap and water."

Emily
lifted an oil lamp toward Hadrian and winced. "A little? Weeks
in jail, hauling old manure?" She jabbed a finger into his
chest, pushing him onto the back veranda, then pointed to a metal
bathtub sitting in a corner. She cut off his protest with an upraised
hand. "You are not going to bury Jonah smelling like a latrine."

A
quarter hour later Hadrian was luxuriating in hot water from the tank
attached to the stove. A match flared as Emily settled into a rocking
chair ten feet away and lit a small tobacco pipe.

"He
was murdered, Em," Boone said.

"I
am the known world's foremost authority on the damage done by hanging
nooses. Asphyxiation by rope was the official cause of death."

"He
would never commit suicide. Not Jonah. Life was too precious to him.
He had too many unfinished projects."

"Above
all here in Carthage we know the pathology of the human spirit. I
could give you twenty reasons why he might suddenly give up. His
arthritis was getting worse by the day. Do you have any idea what
constant pain can do to you?"

"Give
up and also try to burn his life's work?"

"Half
a dozen reasons."