فصل 06

6.

In Which Antain Gets Himself in Trouble

During Antain’s first five years as an Elder-­in-­Training, he did his best to convince himself that his job would one day get easier. He was wrong. It didn’t.

The Elders barked orders at him during Council meetings and community functions and after-­hours discussions. They berated him when they ran into him on the street. Or when they sat in his mother’s dining room for yet another sumptuous (though uncomfortable) supper. They admonished him when he followed in their wake during surprise inspections.

Antain hung in the background, his eyebrows knit together into a perplexed knot.

It seemed that no matter what Antain did, the Elders erupted into purple-­faced rage and sputtering incoherence.

“Antain!” the Elders barked. “Stand up straight!”

“Antain! What have you done with the proclamations?”

“Antain! Wipe that ridiculous look off your face!”

“Antain! How could you have forgotten the snacks?”

“Antain! What on earth have you spilled all over your robes?”

Antain, it seemed, could not do anything right.

His home life wasn’t any better.

“How can you possibly still be an Elder-­in-­Training?” his mother fumed night after night at supper. Sometimes, she’d let her spoon come crashing down to the table, making the servants jump. “My brother promised me that you would be an Elder by now. He promised.”

And she would seethe and grumble until Antain’s youngest brother, Wyn, began to cry. Antain was the oldest of six brothers—a small family, by Protectorate standards—and ever since his father died, his mother wanted nothing else but to make sure that each of her sons achieved the very best that the Protectorate had to offer.

Because didn’t she, after all, deserve the very best, when it came to sons?

“Uncle tells me that things take time, Mother,” Antain said quietly. He pulled his toddler brother onto his lap and began rocking until the child calmed. He pulled a wooden toy that he had carved himself from his pocket—a little crow with spiral eyes and a clever rattle inside its belly. The boy was delighted, and instantly shoved it into his mouth.

“Your uncle can boil his head,” she fumed. “We deserve that honor. I mean you deserve it, my dear son.”

Antain wasn’t so sure.

He excused himself from the table, mumbling something about having work to do for the Council, but really he only planned on sneaking into the kitchen to help the kitchen staff. And then into the gardens to help the gardeners in the last of the daylight hours. And then he went into the shed to carve wood. Antain loved woodworking—the stability of the material, the delicate beauty of the grain, the comforting smell of sawdust and oil. There were few things in his life that he loved more. He carved and worked deep into the night, trying his best not to think about his life. The next Day of Sacrifice was approaching, after all. And Antain would need yet another excuse to make himself scarce.

The next morning, Antain donned his freshly laundered robe and headed into the Council Hall well before dawn. Every day, his first task of the morning was to read through the citizen complaints and requests that had been scrawled with bits of chalk on the large slate wall, and deem which ones were worth attention and which should simply be washed down and erased.

(“But what if they all are important, Uncle?” Antain had asked the Grand Elder once.

“They can’t possibly be. In any case, by denying access, we give our people a gift. They learn to accept their lot in life. They learn that any action is inconsequential. Their days remain, as they should be, cloudy. There is no greater gift than that. Now. Where is my Zirin tea?”)

Next, Antain was to air out the room, then post the day’s agendas, then fluff the cushions for the Elders’ bony bottoms, then spray the entrance room with some kind of perfume concocted in the laboratories of the Sisters of the Star—designed, apparently, to make people feel wobbly-­kneed and tongue-­tied and frightened and grateful, all at once—and then he was to stand in the room as the servants arrived, giving each one an imperious expression as they entered the building, before hanging up his robes in the closet and going to school.

(“But what if I don’t know how to make an imperious expression, Uncle?” the boy asked again and again.

“Practice, Nephew. Continue to practice.”)

Antain walked slowly toward the schoolhouse, enjoying the temporary glimmers of sun overhead. It would be cloudy in an hour. It was always cloudy in the Protectorate. Fog clung to the city walls and cobbled streets like tenacious moss. Not many people were out and about that early in the morning. Pity, thought Antain. They are missing the sunlight. He lifted his face and felt that momentary rush of hope and promise.

He let his eyes drift toward the Tower—its black, devil­ishly complicated stonework mimicking the whorls of galaxies and the trajectories of stars; its small, round windows winking outward like eyes. That mother—the one who went mad—was still in there. Locked up. The madwoman. For five years now she had convalesced in confinement, but she still had not healed. In Antain’s mind’s eye, he could see that wild face, those black eyes, that birthmark on her forehead—livid and red. The way she kicked and climbed and shrieked and fought. He couldn’t forget it.

And he couldn’t forgive himself.

Antain shut his eyes tight and tried to force the image away.

Why must this go on? His heart continued to ache. There must be another way.

As usual, he was the first one to arrive at school. Even the teacher wasn’t there. He sat on the stoop and took out his journal. He was done with his schoolwork—not that it mattered. His teacher insisted on calling him “Elder Antain” in a breathy fawning voice, even though he wasn’t an elder yet, and gave him top marks no matter what kind of work he did. He could likely turn in blank pages and still get top marks. Antain still worked hard in spite of that. His teacher, he knew, was just hoping for special treatment later. In his journal, he had several sketches of a project of his own design—a clever cabinet to house and neatly organize garden tools, situated on wheels so that it could be pulled easily by a small goat—a gift intended for the head gardener, who was always kind.

A shadow fell across his work.

“Nephew,” the Grand Elder said.

Antain’s head went up like a shot.

“Uncle!” he said, scrambling to his feet, accidentally dropping his papers, scattering them across the ground. He hurriedly gathered them back up into his arms. Grand Elder Gherland rolled his eyes.

“Come, Nephew,” the Grand Elder said with a swish of his robes, motioning for the boy to follow him. “You and I must talk.”

“But what about school?”

“There is no need to be in school in the first place. The purpose of this structure is to house and amuse those who have no futures until they are old enough to work for the bene­fit of the Protectorate. People of your stature have tutors, and why you have refused such a basic thing is beyond comprehension. Your mother prattles on about it endlessly. In any case, you will not be missed.”

This was true. He would not be missed. Every day in class, Antain sat in the back and worked quietly. He rarely asked questions. He rarely spoke. Especially now, since the one person whom he wouldn’t have minded speaking to—and even better, if she spoke back to him in return—had left school entirely. She had joined the novitiate at the Sisters of the Star. Her name was Ethyne, and though Antain had never exchanged three words in succession with her, still he missed her desperately, and now only went to school day after day on the wild hope that she would change her mind and come back.

It had been a year. No one ever left the Sisters of the Star. It wasn’t done. Yet, Antain continued to wait. And hope.

He followed his uncle at a run.

The other Elders still had not arrived at the Council Hall, and likely would not until noon or later. Gherland told Antain to sit.

The Grand Elder stared at Antain for a long time. Antain couldn’t get the Tower out of his mind. Or the madwoman. Or the baby left in the forest, whimpering piteously as they walked away. And oh, how that mother screamed. And oh, how she fought. And oh, what have we become?

It pierced Antain every day, a great needle in his soul.

“Nephew,” the Grand Elder said at last. He folded his hands and brought them to his mouth. He sighed deeply. Antain realized that his uncle’s face was pale. “The Day of Sacrifice approaches.”

“I know, Uncle,” Antain said. His voice was thin. “Five days. It —” He sighed. “It waits for no one.”

“You were not there last year. You were not standing with the other Elders. An infection in your foot, as I recall?”

Antain tilted his gaze to the ground. “Yes, Uncle. I had a fever, too.”

“And it resolved itself the next day?”

“Bog be praised,” he said weakly. “It was a miracle.”

“And the year before,” Gherland said. “It was pneumonia, was it?”

Antain nodded. He knew where this was going.

“And before that. A fire in the shed? Is that right? Good thing no one was injured. And there you were. All by yourself. Fighting the fire.”

“Everyone else was along the route,” Antain said. “No shirkers. So I was alone.”

“Indeed.” Grand Elder Gherland gave Antain a narrowed look. “Young man,” he said. “Who on earth do you think you’re fooling?”

A silence fell between them.

Antain remembered the little black curls, framing those wide black eyes. He remembered the sounds the baby made when they left her in the forest. He remembered the thud of the Tower doors when they locked the madwoman inside. He shivered.

“Uncle—” Antain began, but Gherland waved him off.

“Listen, Nephew. It was against my better judgment to offer you this position. I did so not because of the incessant needling of my sister, but because of the great love I had, and have, for your dear father, may he rest easily. He wanted to make sure your path was assured before he passed away, and I could not deny him. And having you here”—the hard lines of Gherland’s face softened a bit—“has been an antidote to my own sadness. And I appreciate it. You are a good boy, Antain. Your father would be proud.”

Antain found himself relaxing. But only for a moment. With a broad sweep of robes, the Grand Elder rose to his feet.

“But,” he said, his voice reverberating strangely in the small room. “My affection for you only goes so far.”

There was, in his voice, a brittle edge. His eyes were wide. Strained. Even a bit wet. Is my uncle worried about me? Antain wondered. Surely not, he thought.

“Young man,” his uncle continued. “This cannot go on. The other Elders are muttering. They . . .” He paused. His voice caught in his throat. His cheeks were flushed. “They aren’t happy. My protection over you extends far, my dear, dear boy. But it is not infinite.”

Why would I need to be protected? Antain wondered as he stared at his uncle’s strained face.

The Grand Elder closed his eyes and calmed his ragged breathing. He motioned for the boy to stand. His face resumed its imperious expression. “Come, Nephew. It’s time for you to return to school. We shall expect you, as usual, at mid-­afternoon. I do hope you are able to make at least one person grovel today. It would put to rest so many misgivings among the other Elders. Promise me you’ll try, Antain. Please.”

Antain shuffled toward the door, the Grand Elder gliding just behind. The older man lifted his hand to rest on the boy’s shoulder and let it hover just above for a moment, before thinking better of it and letting it drift back down.

“I’ll try harder, Uncle,” Antain said as he walked out the door. “I promise I will.”

“See that you do,” the Grand Elder said in a hoarse whisper.

Five days later, as the Robes swept through the town toward the cursed house, Antain was home, sick to his stomach, vomiting his lunch. Or so he said. The other Elders grumbled during the entire procession. They grumbled as they retrieved the child from its pliant parents. They grumbled as they hurried toward the sycamore grove.

“The boy will have to be dealt with,” the Elders muttered. And each one knew exactly what that meant.

Oh, Antain my boy, my boy, oh Antain my boy! Gherland thought as they walked, tendrils of worry curling around his heart, cinching into a hard, tight knot. What have you done, you foolish child? What have you done?