Ashes of the Earth (10 page)

Lafayette
Avenue at
dawn
had an atmosphere of old Europe. The founders had had grandiose
visions for their town once they had realized the colony was going to
succeed. Hadrian had been in the meetings where municipal names had
been chosen. Washington Boulevard. Edison Park. Hannibal Square, in a
gesture to the name givers of the original Carthage. Among them,
Lafayette Avenue was the one street that carried a sense of a
civilized past. The cobblestones wet with a predawn shower, the
stalwart stone buildings, the slow clip-clop of a milk-wagon horse,
the scent of baking bread in the cool autumn breeze refreshed Hadrian
as much as an hour's nap. He settled onto a bench near the library,
watching the little shop across the street as he considered his
encounter on the hill.

Punic
prick,
his
attacker had muttered. It was not an epithet used by those of
Carthage. Rather it had been born in the camps, where some former
scholar had recalled the adjective used for those from ancient
Carthage. Futility he tried to piece together the bits of
conversation he had heard from those operating the signal lantern. He
had not heard enough to make sense of the words, but there had been
something in their patterns, an uplifting in tone at the end of
sentences. He realized now he had heard it as a youth when visiting
the maritime provinces of what had been Canada. Yet discovering
someone from such a distant, scoured place would be as likely as
encountering a little green man in a spaceship.

He
watched as a policeman progressed along the street, snuffing out the
night lanterns, then stepped to the shop door and tried the latch.

"Closed!"
came the voice of a harried woman in the kitchen as he stepped
inside. "Thirty minutes!"

Hadrian
pulled out a stool and sat at the counter.

The
compact figure who appeared at the kitchen doorway wore a spattered
apron.

"If
you ever got all the flour out of your hair, Mette, I know we'd find
a thirty-year-old beauty underneath."

The
woman's peeved expression evaporated. "Hadrian!" she cried,
stepping around the counter with arms outstretched. With a grin he
accepted her hug.

"You
look like a man who needs breakfast," she suggested.

"And
yesterday's lunch and supper," he replied, suddenly famished.

She
disappeared into the kitchen, calling out orders to her assistants,
before returning with a steaming mug of chicory coffee and one of her
famous maple sugar pastries. Mette Jorgensen had been one of fifteen
vacationing Norwegian birdwatchers who had staggered out of the
wilderness into the original Carthage settlement. The Norgers, as
they had come to be called, had created a vibrant subculture in the
colony, and provided the best of its shipwrights. "Scrambled
eggs and bacon in ten minutes," she said, then sobered. "I'm
so sorry about Jonah."

"I
want to ask you about that night," Hadrian said between bites.

"Whatever
I can do, you know that."

Hadrian
always felt guilty over the gratitude Mette had shown him for so many
years. He had intervened as a Council member when the tribunal
selected by Buchanan was marking citizens for exile. Mette's husband
had suffered wasting nerve damage from radiation that left him with a
useless arm. Hadrian had insisted it was from an accident, had given
a sworn statement to the tribunal. Though her husband had died only a
year later, Mette's gratitude continued unabated.

"I've
lain in bed awake, thinking about it," she told him. Her
expression was suddenly grave.

"Jonah
wasn't suicidal."

"Hadrian,
he came in here every day for coffee and a roll, always with a smile
and full of plans. Last week he stood at the window and gestured for
me to see a butterfly that had alighted on his finger. The smallest
joy was a great one for Jonah."

"Did
you see anything at all that night?"

"It
wasn't like I was standing watch. In the evening I might sit out
front for a pipe. At bedtime I usually glance outside as I adjust the
upstairs curtains."

"And?"

"When
I was out on the bench there were two people in cloaks on the other
side of the street. They walked past the library, as if they were
studying it. I waved. They didn't wave back. Five minutes later they
walked by from the other direction."

"Two
men?"

"I
don't know. They had cowls over their heads. It was getting chilly.
After they passed the second time, they disappeared into an alley in
the shadows between the lanterns. I had the impression they were
waiting for me to leave. When I looked out from upstairs there was no
sign of them."

"How
long before the fire was that?"

Mette
shrugged. "Half an hour."

"No
one else?"

"The
police patrol, an hour ahead of their usual schedule. Usually they
stop for a smoke on the bench, but that night they kept moving."

"Had
you seen Jonah earlier that day?"

She
nodded. "More than usual. He came for coffee in the morning,
then stopped to have tea late in the afternoon. Most days he holes up
in his workshop until after dark, even sleeps there quite a bit. He
had his tea, then left. Down the street. But he came back later. I
saw the light from his workshop reflected onto his balcony."

That
would have been after Hadrian had visited him. "Tell me
something else, Mette. Do you recall ever seeing him with Micah
Hastings, one of the young market hunters? It would have been maybe
six months ago."

The
baker shrugged, then paused to gaze out the window. "There was a
boy, in green and brown clothes. He stopped Jonah one day as he left
with his tea and they sat on the bench outside. They spoke for a long
time. I had the impression Jonah was trying to talk him out of
something, and failed. He looked upset. He drank all his tea there,
watching where that boy had gone as if thinking of following him. I
remember because he always takes his tea right back to his workshop.
Took,"
Mette
added in an anguished whisper before disappearing into the kitchen.

"You
ask better questions than the police," she offered as she
returned with a plate heaped with eggs, buttered bread, and bacon.

Hadrian
shot her an inquiring glance as he chewed.

"There
was a young woman, one of those with the spider-web faces," she
said matter-of-factly. "She asked if I'd seen anyone running
from the fire, that's all. Like she was going through the motions.
She was very quiet, ordered a cup of tea and nursed it for a long
time. Then suddenly she up and asks if you were the same Mr. Boone
who used to organize poetry readings for the school classes."

Hadrian
stopped chewing. He could not have heard correctly. "I'm sorry?"

"I
swear, Hadrian. I had to ask her to repeat herself. She said did I
ever hear Mr. Boone recite poetry. I just said you were the head of
the school, then she got quiet again and left. Except she insisted on
paying for her tea. Police never pay. Kenton didn't pay when he
showed up a few hours later, and he had a whole meal."

"Asking
about the fire?"

"Not
at all. Asked if a Sergeant Waller had been here. I said there'd been
no introductions but
I'd
been visited by an officer with mottled skin. He asked what she'd
said, then asked about you, if I'd seen you, if I knew things about
you."

"Things?"

Mette
busied herself in wiping off the counter. "Where you were
sleeping," she replied, a new awkwardness in her tone, "where
you were getting meals, questions like that." The kind baker had
always acted as if Hadrian's plummet through society had never
happened. She paused. "Then I asked if I could send some bread
to those two in prison. He laughed again and warned me not to let the
governor hear of such talk."

"Were
you there, Mette?"

"At
the funeral? Of course I was there. I started the singing down below,
after poor Nelly led the way."

"That,"
Hadrian said, "is what you don't want the governor to hear."

He
felt like
a
soldier in hostile territory as he approached the decrepit mill, the
first built by the colony but abandoned years earlier after
construction of the terraced ponds that powered newer, bigger mills.
A lookout in a tree called a warning to those inside. A youth stepped
from behind another tree, aiming an arrow at Hadrian.

"I
came to see Dax," Hadrian declared in a level voice. He glanced
over his shoulder to make sure no one had followed.

"Hickory
dickory dock, mice run up the clocks," the boy intoned. He had a
disquieting, feral air about him.

As
Hadrian studied the young guard, who kept his arrow aimed at his
chest, he became aware of other shapes in the shadows. "Hey
diddle, cat and a fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon," he
offered.

The
bowman cocked his head, confused, but did not lower his weapon until
a sharp whistle came from overhead. Dax looked down from the top of
the large waterwheel where he was moving his legs at a relaxed pace,
keeping up with its movement so that he remained stationary. Two
other boys emerged from the brush, holding bows at their sides, as
Dax stepped into one of the catch chambers of the wheel, riding it
down and jumping off as it approached the bank. He landed lightly in
front of Hadrian.

"I
want, to know about the jackals," Hadrian declared.

Dax
frowned.

Hadrian
reached into the pouch on his shoulder, extracted a fresh loaf, still
warm from Mette's ovens, and tossed it toward the gathering boys.
Dropping all interest in playing the stern sentinels, they gleefully
ran to a log bench to share it.

Dax
looked at them with disapproval. "We ain't going back to any
classroom. They treat orphans like pet dogs there."

"You
forget I was thrown out of the school." Hadrian glanced uneasily
at the coils of rope by the log bench, several with familiar knots at
the ends. The children had been practicing tying nooses. "I'd be
happy just to have you stop playing with death."

"The
jackals don't force anyone to take the ride." The boy pulled a
copper medallion out from under his shirt.

With
a speed that obviously surprised the boy, Hadrian grabbed it, turning
it over in his hand. It was the same shape as the other medallions,
but it bore no markings. Which made Dax what? A would-be jackal? A
probationary jackal?

"Better
keep it covered," Hadrian advised as he stuffed the necklace
back in the boy's shirt. It was illegal to own copper in Carthage,
and any known bits of the metal were government property, for coins.

"Kenton
will arrest you for that copper alone. He'd be happy to send you to
the heavy salvage crews."

"Been
assigned before," Dax said defiantly. "A month hauling iron
rails over the mountains to the foundry."

As
he followed the gangly youth into the mill, Hadrian gazed at the worn
wooden mechanism, remembering how Jonah had labored to find the right
proportions for the gears in this, the first of the colony's mills.
The rest of the chamber was filled with the gang's particular
artifacts. A television without its tube, puppets on strings hanging
in the open space. A hair dryer into which a battered toy rocket had
been stuffed as if it were a launcher. One wall was nearly covered
with photos torn from yellowing magazines.

"Train
rails?"

"That's
what the crew chief called 'em.
Train
rails.
All
in a line, though you had to dig away the brush and weeds to see 'em.
Heavy as hell. Nailed right into the earth."

Hadrian
paced along the wall of photos. "Do you know why those rails
were laid on the ground, why they were always so straight and the
same distance apart?"

Dax
shrugged. "You take the salvage where you find it." The
phrase had become part of the vernacular, a way to dismiss any need
to explain the original function of the mysterious objects found in
ruins.

Hadrian
gestured at the images of obsolete objects, pointing to the first
one. "This is a toaster, for warming bread slices. We had one in
our kitchen, and my mother would get mad because I tried to put
cookies in it." He indicated another. "This is a record
player. You put black discs on it, and you would hear music. This is
a man playing golf," he said of the next. "It's a game. You
hit a little white ball around mown fields, trying to sink it in a
hole." He looked into the boy's uncomprehending eyes and
gestured to one more. "A toy spaceship like I got for Christmas
once."