The Frost Child (23 page)

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pawn on the chess board. Cati looked at the two boys. There was a way, but she longed with all her heart not to use it. And even if she did, would it work?

The morning sped past. The Convoke hall started to fill with all the Resisters who could be spared from defending the Workhouse. The mood was somber. Many people would not meet Cati's eye as they filed into the hall.
Not a good sign
, she thought. She looked down the hallway and gave a start. Pieta! Gaunt and pale and supported on either side by her children. Her ruined arm was strapped to her side. Cati's eyes strayed to it, then she looked guiltily away. She didn't want Pieta to think she was staring. But Pieta walked past without looking at her and took her usual seat by the fireplace.

Samual strode in surrounded by six of his red-coated soldiers. Rutgar and Contessa took their places. Rosie slipped in just after them, giving Cati a quick wave.

Finally, when the hall was full, Uel and Mervyn were led in. They nodded to the Raggies gathered around Wesley in one corner of the Convoke. They were walked to the dais by Samual's soldiers, and there they sat down on plain chairs. The hall fell silent. Cati swallowed and felt that everyone could hear her. Contessa stood up, and the whole room stood quietly with her.

"This trial of the Resisters is convened," Contessa said. "Uel and Mervyn of the Raggies, you are accused of stealing the Yeati's ring, an object of great life-saving power. This act was carried out in a time of war,

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which adds to the gravity of the offense. Are you guilty or not?"

"Guilty," Uel said quietly.

"We done it," Mervyn said.

Samual got to his feet. "I don't think we need to go any further with this matter," he said. "They've both said they did it, so let's get on with the sentence." There was a murmur of approval from Samual's soldiers. The rest of the Resisters looked troubled.

"The sentence is the long sleep," Samual continued. "We should proceed."

"Wait a minute," Cati said, standing up. "We should know something about the crime--for instance, why they did it. Why did you steal the ring?"

Uel and Mervyn looked at each other uncertainly and shifted in their chairs. They did not seem able to answer.

"They did it because they are thieves," Samual thundered.

"Or perhaps they can't say why they stole the ring because they didn't do it, and for some reason they are pretending to be guilty," Cati said.

"Nonsense," Samual snapped. "They are simple Raggies. They're not capable of such things."

"Maybe." Cati drew a deep breath. "But there is something else I want to say. I think that the thief of the ring is the same person who let the Albions in."

"That doesn't follow," Samual said, eyeing Cati suspiciously. "You're only trying to get them off."

"Put it this way," Cati said, every eye in the hall on her

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now. "If I could prove who let the Albions in, would you think my theory was good?"

"No!" Samual said, but the Resisters were looking at each other. Cati felt that at least she had got them thinking.

"Besides," Samual went on, "you can't prove who let the Albions in."

"That's where you're wrong," Cati said. There was dead silence in the hall. Cati put her hand into her pocket and drew it out slowly. Slowly, because she wished that she was anywhere else rather than standing in front of the Resisters at that moment. Slowly, because things would never be the same again when she opened her hand and showed the Resisters what it contained.

But open it she did.

"This," she said, "was found on the ground by the door where the Albions got in. No one has any reason to be there, so it must have been left by the person who opened the door."

There was a pause that seemed to go on forever, then every eye in the hall turned toward a small figure sitting on her own. They all recognized the object in Cati's hand. There was no mistake. No one else in the Workhouse wore ornate pins in their hair.

"It's yours, Rosie, isn't it?"

Rosie's face was very pale. Her hands pulled at her hair, as if she wanted to pluck it out. She swallowed hard, then nodded her head. Wesley stared at her, his fists clenched. There were gasps from the other Raggies.

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"They must be working together," Samual said.

"No!" Cati said. "Uel and Mervyn were trying to protect the little girl who found the ring. I don't know why Rosie acted the way she did--"

"I never trusted her anyway," Samual said. "And the sentence is the same as it was for the two Raggies. The long sleep."

"Wait," Contessa said. "If she is under some outside influence, then she cannot be held to account."

"Outside influence!" Samual sneered. "More like promised money when the Workhouse fell."

"Let her speak for herself," Cati said, her heart aching.

Rosie opened her mouth to speak, but as before, music swelled in her head, and this time the accompanying pain was excruciating. She buried her face in her hands.

"I call for a vote!" Samual said. Cati looked around the people in the Convoke. For the first time she noticed just how many red coats there were. Samual had obviously worked it so that Rutgar's men were doing guard duty. He hadn't left the vote to chance. There were enough of his soldiers to win any vote.

"Hands up, those who say the sentence should be imposed," Rutgar said. Immediately almost two-thirds of the Resisters in the hall put up their hand. Pieta's hand stayed down, as did Contessa's and all of the Raggies'. Many of the Resisters looked troubled. Cati looked over at Dr. Diamond. Very slowly his right hand rose into the air. He did not look at Cati.

"The vote is carried!" Samual cried. "Take her away."

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Rosie, with a confused expression on her face, was hauled to her feet. Cati could barely watch as Samual's soldiers led the tiny figure away, her black hat tipped at an angle on her curly hair.

Wesley caught up with Cati on her way out of the hall. He grabbed her by the arm. "Did she really do it?"

"I think so. Dr. Diamond found the hairpin by the door. He gave it to me."

"I can't believe it."

"Neither can I."

"We've got to help her!"

"It looks like Samual wants to convict her anyway. To make an example or something. I don't know."

"When do ... when do they do it?"

"Put her to sleep? Two or three days, I think. You're allowed some time. We need to think, Wesley, really think!"

Cati saw Mervyn and Uel watching her from the dais, where they still sat. There was no expression in their eyes, so why did she feel as if they were accusing her?

Samual's grip on the Workhouse was tightening. If not for the pass that Dr. Diamond had given her, Cati would have been unable to go anywhere. As it was, guards stopped her at every turn. Several times she set out to see Dr. Diamond but turned back at the last minute. She could not forget how his hand had risen into the air to convict Rosie. Nor, if she was honest with herself,

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did she want to be reminded of her own part in the conviction. She could not bring herself to go see Rosie. She remembered the Yeati in his grim cell, his fur matted with dirt. Having the free-spirited Rosie in a cell was just as bad.

The next morning she went down to Owen's Den. Part of her wished that he was there, thought that he would know what to do. Another part of her was angry with herself for relying on someone else. She couldn't bear the idea of Rosie sitting alone in a cell, even if she had betrayed the Workhouse. She took out Owen's tin of biscuits and munched moodily on one, and that was the way Wesley found her.

"Guessed as you'd be here," Wesley said, sitting down and helping himself to a biscuit.

"I can't help thinking about Rosie," she said.

"Same here," he said. "There's something well fishy about all of this." He thought for a moment, then burst out: "It's not right, Cati--she shouldn't be in there no matter what she done. We got to get her out."

Cati nodded. She'd had the same thought, unspoken.

"At least if we talk to her," Wesley went on, "we can try to find out what's going on in her head."

"I owe that much to her," Cati said miserably. "It's my fault she's in there."

"Would you rather it was Uel and Mervyn?" Wesley said gently. "You done your best, lass."

Together they slipped back to the Workhouse, staying off the pathways in case Wesley was stopped. They

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headed around the back of the Workhouse to where Rosie was being held. They went through the positions occupied by Rutgar's soldiers. The rough-hewn men and women had no interest in Samual's decrees and did not stop them.

Rosie was in an old storeroom under the high back wall of the Workhouse. There was only one approach to it, guarded by four red coats. Cati and Wesley studied it for a long time.

"Can't see no way past them guards," Wesley whispered. Cati's heart sank. What would they do?

"There's something else we can try," Wesley said.

"What's that?"

"We can find out who Rosie was talking to through that pipe. We might get some answers off them."

The corridors and tunnels underneath the Workhouse were deserted. Normally you would have found men and women coming and going, putting items into storage or looking for things that had been put away. But now that movement was restricted, the Resisters weren't bothering to seek the necessary pass.

Cati and Wesley had been lucky in evading patrols, but their luck was about to run out. As they turned a corner at the bottom of the stairs, they ran straight into Samual's lieutenant, Moorhead.

"What are you two doing down here?" she demanded.

"I've got a pass," Cati said. "I'm not answerable to you."

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"You might have a pass, but your friend here doesn't, I bet." She glared at Wesley. "Just because we locked up that Hadima girl doesn't mean that we're not looking for other traitors. I think I should take the two of you topside and find out what you've been up to."

Cati and Wesley exchanged glances, then bolted past Moorhead. The woman made an attempt to follow, but she was puffing after ten yards.

"I'll be looking for you, Raggie," she shouted after them, shaking her fist. "You're a marked man from now on."

"Maybe that wasn't very sensible," Cati said as they slowed down.

"I don't care," Wesley said. "Raggies is fed up with all these rules and all. Down at the warehouse we done what we liked."

It might be a long time before you see the warehouse again
, Cati thought.

Wesley showed Cati the pipe Rosie had used to communicate with her mystery accomplice. He examined it.

"Looks like an old ventilation pipe, keeps air moving down here. That's why the place is nice and dry."

"I wonder where it comes out."

"Must be in the air," Wesley said. "Somewhere on the roof. Hang on a sec."

Before Cati could stop him, Wesley had climbed into the pipe.

"Not too bad," he said. "A bit snug."

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"Careful," Cati warned.

"There's rivets in here you can put your foot on," Wesley said. "I might as well just climb on up."

"No!" Cati said, but in seconds Wesley had disappeared from sight. She waited anxiously for what seemed like hours, then a weird low sound came down the pipe. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

"Wesley?" she said uncertainly into the pipe.

"Cati, can you hear me?" Wesley's voice sounded like wind blowing through a canyon, but she could make out his words.

"Where are you, Wesley?"

"Climb up and see." Cati looked dubiously at the shaft winding upward into darkness, then climbed in. It was claustrophobic, but surprisingly easy to climb. The rivet heads used to join sections of pipe gave good foot- and handholds--but it was dark and dusty and she sneezed several times. The sneeze echoed in the pipe like the call of some lonely animal. As she went up she could see other shafts leading off to the side.

At last she reached the top and felt Wesley grab her under the arms and haul her out into the fresh air. She stood up and looked around. They were on the very top of the Workhouse, standing on a roof ledge, looking down on the battlements forty feet below. Behind them, only the Nab was taller. Cati shivered. You wouldn't want to slip.

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"No footprints or nothing," Wesley said gloomily. "Must have been fresh snow last night."

"You're right," Cati said.

"But there's one good thing," Wesley said, brightening. "I won't have to worry about old Red-face anymore. Far as I can see, these shafts go all over the Workhouse."

Cati realized that she had seen the pipes in every part of the Workhouse without ever wondering what they were.

"What's that?" Wesley frowned. There was something attached to the side of the chimney above their heads, a square red object that, Cati realized, could not be seen from the battlements. In seconds Wesley had scaled the brickwork, finding hand- and footholds, though Cati could see none.

"Looks like some kind of an aerial," Wesley said. "I'll take it down."

"No, leave it!" Cati said. "Whoever owns it will know that we've found it. Leave it."

"Might be innocent enough anyhow," Wesley said.

"I don't think so." Cati's eyes narrowed as she stared across the river valley. She could just see the chimney of Johnston's house, and there, attached to the side of the chimney, was a splash of red that looked suspiciously like the one above their heads. Somebody in the Workhouse was in contact with Johnston, but who?

"The rose," Wesley said to himself.

"What?"