Ashes of the Earth (4 page)

"What
does it mean?" he asked.

Buchanan
stared at the amulet with a worried expression before tossing it into
the shadows. "Nothing. A coincidence, a piece of trash that
tangled with the body."

"Jackals
run with ghosts," Hadrian ventured, echoing the boy's words to
Kenton.

Buchanan's
eyes flared and he looked over his shoulder as if suddenly
frightened. After a moment he muttered a low curse and leaned on his
shovel. "He drank too much at the banquet, the fool. It was
before we opened the public bathhouse." As Hadrian continued
digging, Buchanan spoke in a slow, deliberate voice, as if rehearsing
his official explanation. "Afterward he came here to use the
public privy near his mother's cottage, tumbled over the side, and
sank in. He was drunk and that railing on the back was never high
enough."

Hadrian
stopped his work, staring with new foreboding at the now fully
exposed torso. "He did collect a little salvaged steel."

"What
are you talking—" The words died in the governor's throat
as he lifted the lantern and spied the blade of reworked metal
between the man's ribs. "Noooo!" he moaned. "No,"
he repeated after a moment, in a steadier, contemplative tone, as if
rejecting what he saw. He stared at the makeshift blade so long
Hadrian went back to work, freeing the man's legs.

At
last Buchanan straightened, stripped off his jacket, and laid it over
the body. "I'll get a canvas to roll him in," he announced.
"And a cart to carry him to the harbor. Find some stones for his
shroud."

"He
was murdered."

"You
will row him out half a mile and drop him in."

"Jonah
and I will need to study his body, to understand what happened."

"He
was martyred in the service of the colony. There are all kinds of
dangers lurking in the ruined lands. Everyone knows how many of our
scouts never return. The world resists being rediscovered."

"He
was murdered," Hadrian repeated.

"We
don't have murders. We have never had murders in Carthage."

"No
history. No murders. What's your next decree, no more disease?"

"You,
Hadrian," the governor growled, "are in no position to—"

The
sound of the bells rose slowly through their words. First one, then
another as the alarm was taken up across the town. Hadrian and the
governor darted up the trail to the top of the ravine.

"God,
no!" Hadrian cried as he spied the flames on the hillside half a
mile away. Spotting the governor's bicycle leaning against a nearby
tree, he spun about and shoved Buchanan against Sergeant Kenton.
"Find Jonah!" he shouted as he mounted the bike, ducking as
the policeman recovered enough to swing his truncheon at him. "He'll
know which books are the most important to save! He has places there
where he stores colony treasures!"

Weaving
through the crowd of frightened onlookers, he cycled past the fire
brigade frantically trying to lay hoses from the nearest cistern. As
he threw the bike down and darted into the burning library, men and
women were beginning to empty buckets of water on the flames, while
others were carrying out books and furnishings from the lower floor.
Holes licked by flame were already appearing in the cedar shake roof
as Hadrian bounded up the stairs toward the workshop. As he reached
the chamber, he froze, a desolate groan escaping his lips as he
collapsed onto his knees. Hadrian had found the colony's most
important treasure.

Above
his burning worktable, Jonah's body swung from a rafter.

Hadrian
was not
aware
of moving, only of realizing suddenly that he had grabbed the bucket
from the stunned policeman who appeared at his side. He tossed the
water on the table, dousing its flames, grabbed the knife that lay
there, leapt onto the table, and cut the rope on the rafter.

He
was on the floor beside Jonah an instant later, cradling him, pulling
off the noose. The old man seemed to gasp and, with frantic hope,
Hadrian laid him flat and pushed his abdomen before realizing it was
just the dead air escaping his lungs. Through the tears that filled
his eyes he saw men and women streaming into the room, emptying more
buckets of water.

"Hadrian,"
a woman in a long white apron called in an anguished voice, "let
me help you take him outside."

But
Boone lashed out, shoving her away, raising his fist to warn off
others. He lifted Jonah in his arms, cradling the grey-whiskered head
to his shoulder as he carried him out. Collapsing onto the grass, he
took one of the ink-stained hands in both of his as a long sob
wracked his body. The end of the world had come again.

Through
his fog of pain he became gradually aware of a company of prisoners
being marched double time onto the grounds, of a fire hose sputtering
then filling with water to spray the building, of Lucas Buchanan
shouting orders then gasping as he saw Jonah. He watched, numbed, as
prisoners hauled armfuls of books out of the building, then he
struggled to his feet and joined the effort.

An
hour later, his arms and face blackened with soot, he stood and
watched the smoke rise from the smoldering library. Half the roof was
gone but the rest of the building had been saved. Police whistles
trilled as more onlookers arrived, clogging the street. Sergeant
Kenton shoved Hadrian toward the rank of prisoners being formed for
the march back to the prison. He resisted for a moment as Kenton put
manacles on his wrists, then saw that Jonah's body was gone and, as
if in a terrible dream, let himself be led away.

Half
the individual
cells
in the long two-story stone building housing Carthage's prisoners
were usually empty. Most of the inmates, convicted of mere
misdemeanors, were kept in shared barrack cells where they could
easily be checked by guards between card games. A few of the youngest
now hooted as Hadrian was shoved into their midst. He was something
of a hero to them, not just for being the oldest of the repeat
offenders, but also for his well-known feud with Kenton. The
remaining prisoners stared coolly at him. They were old enough to
remember he'd held office in the government of Lucas Buchanan.

A
young prisoner tossed a tattered, soot-stained towel to Hadrian and
stepped back from a basin of grey water. Hadrian was the last to wash
up. Over a dozen men had already used the water to clean themselves
after the fire.

"They'll
get the roof back up in a week, Mr. Boone." Nash was a habitual
burglar from one of the outlying farms, who had been a pupil at the
school when Hadrian still ran it.

Hadrian
covered his face in the filthy towel for a moment. Jonah's dead
countenance seemed to be everywhere, even when he closed his eyes. He
clenched his jaw, struggling not to weep. Most of the prisoners were
grinning at him, mocking him, when he looked up.

Collapsing
into the deep shadows of his bunk, he felt his grief gnawing away at
his heart, and for a long time he lay as if paralyzed. Then, with
great effort, he pushed the pain back. There would be only one way to
deal with this agony, only one way to carry on his life. He had to
understand what happened, had to find those responsible. Replaying
the terrible scene at the library workshop in his mind's eye, he went
over it again and again, finally considering the flames and the
pattern of destruction. The papers on the top of the desk had just
begun to ignite when he arrived, but two stacks of shelves had
already burnt so intensely they'd set off the roof above. Under the
desk had been shreds of colored paper, which he had furtively
collected, and below the burning shelves had been the remains of the
two oil lamps Jonah used for writing at night, a dozen feet from the
desk. They could not simply have been knocked down by Jonah's
flailing feet. Rather, they'd been lifted from his desk and thrown
against the shelves. The papers on the desk had been lit by a stray
ember.

Left
on the desk had been the unfamiliar heavy knife Hadrian had used to
cut the hanging rope. His palm and fingers were slightly burnt where
he had held the knife. He studied the pattern of reddened skin.

The
hilt had been brass and disproportionately thick, the blade also was
very thick, with a cupped guard around the hilt. It had not belonged
to Jonah.

He
sat up, looking for Nash. The other prisoners were in their bunks,
but the young thief had washed his socks and was trying to dry them
over the solitary candle lantern on the table.

"Swords,"
Hadrian said as he approached him. "Who has swords? Why would
one be cut down into a heavy knife?"

Nash
shrugged. "Everyone loves a sword when one turns up in salvage
or the black market. But then they get it home and realize it isn't
so useful. Practical men, they'll grind them down to a useful size."

"What
kind of practical men?"

"Farmers,"
the youth offered, then considered the point a moment. "Fishermen,
millers, maybe butchers and carpenters, even—"

A
low singsong whistle cut Nash off. He scowled at the brutish man
sitting on a bunk near the door. "Fuck you, Wade," the
youth spat, then turned so as to put his back to the bearded
prisoner.

"If
you wanted to get into the library at night," Hadrian continued,
"how would you do it?" The whistle continued, and Hadrian
looked back at Wade. It was a prisoner's taunt, a warning about those
who sang out secrets.

"But,
Mr. Boone," Nash said, "I would never ... not the library.
My momma goes there. She'll come into town, all those miles, just to
borrow a book."

"But
just suppose."

Nash
bit his lower lip. "I would bet old Mr. Jonah never locked those
doors on the upstairs balcony he used for experiments. Wouldn't be
hard to put a ladder up there. But probably no need. The librarian
works late a lot. She leaves the front door open for people to return
books."

Hadrian
gave the boy a grateful nod and returned to his bunk. He was so deep
in thought he failed to notice the shreds of paper until he sat on
them. He shot back up, straining to see in the dim light. There were
dozens of paper strips. As he scooped up several and took them to the
lantern, Nash retreated uneasily.

With
a shudder he saw they were fine vellum, some covered with a classical
typeface, others with the bright inks of a map. Low, gravelly
laughter rose from near the door.

He
threw the shreds in Wade's face as he reached the big man.

"You
stole a book tonight!" he spat.

The
cell's bully held up an elegantly bound volume entitled World
Geography 1900. "I liberated a month's worth of ass wipes. Stuff
they put in the latrines is like sandpaper."

"It's
irreplaceable!" Hadrian clenched his fists.

"So's
my arse!" Several men in the adjacent bunks joined in Wade's
jeering.

"It
belongs to the colony."

Wade,
a fisherman imprisoned for slashing his opponent in a bar fight,
opened the book to a page captioned Lands of Asia featuring a color
plate of the Great Wall. With glee he tore the page out, jerking a
thumb toward Hadrian.

"Our
distinguished visitor is still full of hisself," the burly
prisoner declared as the other prisoners surrounded Hadrian. "I
think he suffers from a misunderstanding of what is important in this
world."

Hadrian
felt hands close around his arms. "Himself," he said. "Of
himself. You should have stayed in school, Wade."

Wade
guffawed again. "Maybe his highness is just hungry," he
quipped with a nod. It was a signal. Hadrian was flung to the floor.
Three prisoners knelt on his arms and legs, another clamped his
nostrils shut.

Hadrian
held his breath as long as he could. When, at last, he opened his
mouth, gasping for air, the wadded page was shoved inside. One of the
men seized his chin and worked his jaw, opening and shutting it so
that he chewed the paper, leaving him gagging and choking. He crawled
to the piss bucket and vomited up the ruined page.

When
he finally collapsed onto his bunk, Hadrian faced the wall and
clamped his hand against his chest. They did not know he still had a
dozen salvaged pages inside his shirt.

In
the morning
Hadrian
was left in the cell as the other prisoners were marched out on work
detail. Wade had sneered, making a slashing motion across his throat
when the guard announced Hadrian was not to join the detail. They all
knew he was the governor's favorite dog for kicking, and Buchanan
would be in a kicking mood. He paced the cell, pausing at Nash's bunk
as he saw its bloody blanket. The young thief had been beaten in the
night.