Ashes of the Earth (48 page)

"Alternatively
our first order of business can be a vote to expel them, thereby
formally ending their roles in the Council. We will then vote to
accept the proposal of unification with New Jerusalem. We are
prepared to recommend your continuation for a term as governor of the
combined colony, with much-reduced powers of course. The police will
report to the Council. The schools and hospital will report to the
Council. No more censorship. You will be an administrator."

Hadrian
saw now that Buchanan held something in his hand. His marble rook,
clenched now with white knuckles. Hatred flared in his eyes as he
gazed at Hadrian. For a moment Hadrian thought he was going to throw
the rook at him.

"There
will be much work for you. A clinic, a new dining hall, houses to be
built in New Jerusalem. That bridge across the ravine and a new road
to connect the towns."

Buchanan
stared only at his chess piece now. Hadrian almost felt sorry for
him. He well knew the feeling of worlds collapsing around him.

"The
emissary from New Jerusalem believes they have an antidote to the
drugs, Lucas, a cure for the addicts," Emily said in a softer
tone. "The recipe was developed by Jonah, just before he died.
We will dedicate a floor of the hospital to their recovery. Your
Sarah will have a bed there."

Hadrian
had whispered an apology to Jonah when he had pulled the plaque from
the wall in the vault and uncovered the complete formula for the
antidote. He had noticed the newness of the plaque when he'd first
sat in the vault with Jonah's journal. It had been placed there, he
was now certain, after Jonah had witnessed the dying of the light in
the addict at the mill. The antidote had been his weapon to defeat
the criminals, and in the end it had worked. Emily had immediately
made sense of the recipe when Hadrian had explained how to read it. H
had been for hellebore, MAN for mandrake, SS for solomon seal, BC for
black cohosh.

Emily's
words quieted Buchanan.

"Emissary?"
Buchanan looked toward the shadows at the other end of the room.

"The
new chairman of their Tribunal." Emily made a gesture toward the
side door. Nelly stepped forward, Jori at her side.

Buchanan
shot up from the table. "She is a convicted murderer!"

"She
has the right of appeal. You know the law because you wrote it, when
you controlled the Council. The appeal is to the Council. We have
heard the evidence. She killed no one. Sergeant Waller heard the
confession of Jonah's true murderer before he died. Perhaps you would
like us to call the witnesses you put forward at Nelly's trial to see
if they wish to stand by their testimony?"

Buchanan
again sank back into his chair. Hadrian rose and stood at the end of
the table. "There is still a final piece of the puzzle," he
stated. "The one who made everything in Carthage possible, the
one who was able to keep everything so secret, the reason the drug
dealers could operate openly. I'm talking about the one who arranged
Jonah's murder and then Nelly's escape from the prison. Those who
plotted from outside Carthage were powerless without the involvement
of someone in the government."

Buchanan
spoke in a flat voice. "You said Fletcher is dead. We were
watching him. We knew what was going on. Kenton stayed on top of it.
He told me about everything. That secret journal. Signals on trees,
secret boats at dawn. Black market smuggling, that's all Fletcher was
interested in. Fletcher is dead," the governor repeated.

Hadrian
looked past the table to Jori. Her eyes were filled with warning as
their gazes met, as if she somehow anticipated his lie. He broke
away, and took a deep breath before addressing Buchanan. "I have
one of the drug dealers finally, ready to talk. Let the corps know.
He's meeting me tonight at sundown, at the cavern warehouse used by
the smugglers."

The
trail that
curved
around the edge of the steep ravine had not been used since the last
snow. Hadrian's boots crunched loudly in the still air. He paused at
the outside of the sharp turn, surveying the landscape. Tatters of
red cloth still hung in the old signal tree. The crews working on the
new ice road to New Jerusalem, laying sand and straw to ease the
passage of wagons, were streaming back to town. The cemetery lay in
quiet repose, with a single solitary figure in a red coat kneeling at
Jonah's grave.

Dax
had waited for Hadrian before going to Hamada's barn that afternoon.
The old man had welcomed them with a new energy, then introduced them
to one of the exiles who had carried grain, a grey-bearded professor
sent by Nelly to discuss a new library in New Jerusalem. Dax had
asked Hamada to be seated at his desk, then solemnly presented the
missing book. Hamada couldn't stop grinning. He seemed to have lost
ten years in age.

"I
guess you think I'm a fool for putting that old phone in his grave,"
the boy had said as they left the compound. "I know now it is
just one of those old things. As good as a rusty nail."

"Jonah
would have understood."

"Maybe
it was better," Dax had said after a long silence, "when I
thought I could speak to those on the other side."

Hadrian
gestured him to a bench overlooking the lake. Children were skating
along the shoreline. Dax watched them with a distant expression. Not
for the first time Hadrian considered the torment the boy had
endured, the many ways in which his world had been shattered, how
he'd been forced to deal with truths most adults would flee from. In
the time Hadrian had known him, Dax had outgrown his childhood.

"I
once knew an old man from China who would write letters to his
mother," Hadrian said at last. "She had died years earlier,
on the far side of the world. He would take each letter to a quiet
spot and light a match to it, then watch the ashes rise up to heaven.
He said he knew his mother always received his messages.

"I'll
tell you a secret, Dax, that no one in all the world knows. I write a
letter to each of my dead children on their birthdays. I take it out
on a ledge by the lake and burn it at sunset."

The
boy considered the words a long time in silence, then finally nodded.
"There are things I have to say to Mr. Jonah. I don't have any
paper."

"I
know where we can find some."

The
library was almost empty in the middle of the afternoon. No one
seemed to notice when Hadrian took Dax into the now restored workshop
on the second floor. Hadrian helped the boy settle at the desk,
pulling paper, pen, and ink from the drawer, then told the boy he
would cross the street to visit Mette.

"I
am a baker without flour," the Norger woman had said in
greeting, then insisted he stay for a plate of apples sautéed
in maple syrup. Her nephew, one of the first to receive the new
medication, had been awake and asking about his family when she
visited him that morning.

Half
an hour later he returned to find Dax folding his letter. As he
handed the boy a bag of sweets sent by Mette, Dax pushed the letter
toward him. "I don't know. I never learned how to pray or
anything like that."

Hadrian
hesitated, then saw the boy's anxious expression and lifted the
letter.

Dear
Mr. Jonah,

I
am very sorry you had to die. Sometimes when I walk in the woods I
feel you by my side. I was the one that stole that book and never
told you. I wanted to be a jackal. But Mr. Hadrian showed me the true
things about jackals.
We
stopped them good, and
they are in a big black boat at the bottom of the lake. I know about
your old world now and I am sorry it got broken. I think I understand
about keeping the spark alive.

Out
in the ruined lands I heard a wolf and smiled cause I thought it
might be you. Mr. Hadrian and me have nobody else now. I will ask him
to help me learn the constellations like you wanted me to. And maybe
we can read books together sometime. He and I have to protect the
spark now. I want to be the boy you thought I was.

Amen,
Dax

Hadrian
refolded the letter and returned it to the boy. "No one could do
better," he whispered to Dax.

As
he watched now, he saw a small flame flicker at the head of the
grave. He did not move until all the ashes of Dax's message had
spiraled up to Jonah.

Minutes
later he shoved the long bar on the cavern entry with his shoulder,
let it fall to the ground, and dragged it away before swinging open
the doors. The tattered wingback chair was still in the entry, across
from the mounted moose head. He sat down and waited.

A
deer appeared and began browsing on the shrubs that jutted out from
the bank before disappearing behind the door against the steep bank.
A crow cawed from the far side of the ravine.

The
sky was deep purple when a cloaked figure appeared around the bend,
carrying a lantern. Lieutenant Kenton offered no greeting as he set
his light down on a barrel. "The governor explained things, said
the bastard might try to get away, that we'll want to hold him. I can
hide," he suggested with a gesture toward the shadows of the
tunnel, "take him from behind." He tossed his cloak behind
the barrel.

Hadrian
gestured toward a bench on the opposite side of the entry. "Take
a seat. It's a fine evening. The stars will be out soon."

"You
never listen, Boone. I have to hide."

"The
bastard's already here."

Kenton's
head snapped toward the tunnel. His hand went to the pistol on his
belt.

"Sometimes
the best place for a pig to hide is right in the barnyard. I always
underestimated you, Kenton. You were the perfect instrument for
Sauger."

The
lieutenant lowered himself onto the bench. "I hear long spells
out on the ice can damage your brain, Boone. You need a good long
sleep in a small warm cell. I can arrange that."

"It's
hard to put together a puzzle when you don't know if you have all the
pieces, don't even know its final shape. Lots of misleading pieces. I
was impressed when I heard you were looking for that map of the
suicides. But you weren't trying to help the children, you wanted to
make sure it didn't reach the wrong hands. Once I had all the pieces,
though, it was remarkable how quickly they fit together. It's been
months since the Dutchman died, but he was sending messages through
you until a few weeks ago. You told Buchanan you got them through
someone in the guild. You spent a lot of time in the horse barns at
the fair. It's where you went after we found Hastings's body, to
arrange for Jonah to be killed that night. You probably checked on
your racehorses. How are your stables in the south? The Dutchman
spared no expense in building them. Were you there when the martens
were feeding on him?" He should have known, Hadrian chided
himself, that night he had waited in the governor's smokehouse. Sarah
had attacked a police badge with a hammer.

Kenton
drew out his revolver and slowly rotated its cylinder, checking that
they were all loaded. "He wasn't cooperating. Too rich already,
no motivation. The other two guild heads were resisting. We made sure
they were there when we cut into his gut. My mistake was not tying
you down beside him. Still, it kept the other guild heads on good
behavior for a while."

"Until
their replacements were lined up. Then Fletcher poisoned them."

"We
could have turned it into a war. St. Gabe would have been outnumbered
but those fighting for Carthage would have reported to me. Do you
know how many would have died then?"

"We
should no doubt be grateful. But there is the matter of the dozens
you would have starved to death this winter."

"Name
a revolution where people haven't died." Kenton sighted his
pistol against the light of the lantern. "I had so many chances
to kill you, so many times Buchanan was on the verge of asking me to.
But he was weak. He always held back, as if he owed you something.
And after a while you were so powerless you hardly seemed worth a
bullet." Kenton aimed the pistol at Hadrian's knee. "Today,
however, I am willing to use half a dozen."

"I've
come up in the world. Jansen only justified two of your bullets."

Kenton
shrugged. "Jansen was uninspired. No ambition. The stupid
bastard didn't know what a shotgun shell was. He had actually had cut
one open trying to understand what it was. I told him I could make
him rich. The fool said he had orders from his sergeant, said he had
taken an oath. He didn't even understand when I had put the first
round in him. I'm not sure he'd ever seen a pistol fired before."
A ragged laugh escaped Kenton's throat. "He saw the blood on the
front of his shirt and was confused, asked if I had done that, the
idiot. I said here, let me show you, then put the barrel close to his
heart and shot him again. He had no more questions after that."