“We’re not going to Treshka, though, are we?”
“Of course not, that would be too fortunate for the likes of weary pilgrims like us.” Rylke opened before us, with its ordered streets, beige brick buildings, and in the town center, a statue of some dull Fenian historical figure. I wondered if there was a different man captured in bronze in every Fenian town, or if they all had the same dour-faced effigy. “But I say that we spend a bit of time at the foundry. See how the order is progressing.”
Even though I preferred the cold comfort of our sparse rooming house to the fiery heat of the foundry, I followed Alba, walking to the other side of Rylke from the woolen mill. Alba peppered the foremen with questions about every step of the process and nagged the foundry owner’s son—assigned, to his chagrin, to accompany us—about the quality of ore used in various applications. We weren’t to go near the blazing ovens and yawning maws of red-hot iron, though I didn’t need any encouragement to follow that rule.
The heat in the foundry made me feel like a loaf of bread baking, but Alba showed no signs of waning in her enthusiasm. I slipped away, tiptoeing down the narrow stairs and stepping out into the biting Fenian autumn air.
The cliffs were lower on this side of Rylke, and tapered toward a small harbor where waves lapped a craggy black sand beach. I considered walking down to the strand, but I knew that might be foolish. I didn’t know the tides—perhaps the water would rush up and leave me trapped, clinging to a sea stack.
I sat instead on the long benches that the foundry workers used for their tea and lunch breaks when the weather was clear. Now that I had spoken with the mill workers, I felt the eyes of the Fenian foundry workers on me. Instead of keeping my face turned toward my scuffed boots, I began to look at them, noticing their curiosity and silent determination. As a group of foundrymen passed me, dinner pails in hand, they clasped their left fists in their right hands, a gesture I was sure held deeper meaning than I knew but that I understood as solidarity.
I felt, suddenly, much less alone.
7
I SAID NOTHING TO ALBA OF MY CONVERSATION WITH THE MILL workers or the contact with the foundrymen, and we spent another week ricocheting between the foundry and the mill. Another order of wool, this time a rich madder red for the coat facings and cuffs. It was more expensive than the plain gray, but I had suggested and Alba agreed that the impact sharply made uniforms could effect, on both our own troops and on the enemy, outweighed the cost.
We watched the last of the red wool leave the looms with quiet satisfaction. The wool was finished, the cannon barrels well underway, and Pygmik and its shipyards our next stop on the long tour back to Galitha and her war. Alba chattered about the prospective shipyard bids we would entertain until we reached our rooming house near the center of Rylke’s town square. Our accommodations were as luxurious as anything in Fen, which was to say that they were spare, stark, and coldly but beautifully made. The woods and woolens of the paneling and carpets were of the finest quality, but there were none of the bright colors that Galatines or Serafans favored in their decorations. My room had exactly one frivolous item, a starburst inlaid with mother-of-pearl that hung over the doorway. Alba said it was a half-defunct religious custom.
I flopped gracelessly on the bed, kicking at my boots. Under Alba’s direction I had been given clothing favored by Fenians, dour gray and blue petticoats, jackets cut narrow and laced over plain stomachers, and a pair of heavy boots. I hated them. Compared to the pert latchet shoes and lightweight silk slippers Galatines wore, the calf-high boots with their tight laces felt like weights. I tore at a knot that had managed to work its way into the lace, finally getting the wretched things off my feet.
There were a pair of red silk slippers in my trunk, an incongruous find in the storehouses of Alba’s order, and when I discovered that they miraculously fit my large feet, I claimed them. Slipping into the lightweight silk and leather soles induced a sigh.
Alba rapped on my door and swept in before I could answer. “Good, you’re still dressed.” She glanced at my feet. “Mostly.”
“Supper already?”
“I’ll bet you’ll never guess what’s on the menu.” The scent of fish wafted thick from the inn’s kitchen. I’d never had so many iterations of fish in my life—fish stews and baked fish and thick slabs of fish seared brown on the outside and still raw in the center.
Tonight was golden haddock, which flocked to the waters off Fen in the late summer and autumn, braised in butter and spices. “Do Fenians eat any other kinds of meat, aside from fish?” I asked the innkeeper’s daughter, who worked in the kitchens.
Alba translated, chortling quietly as the girl answered my question. “By midwinter the ruby sailfin are running, and those are just delicious. And cod and silver herring and all sorts of mackerel—oh, and shark in midsummer. They gather to eat the seal pups,” she said, via translation through Alba.
I turned back to Alba. “Did you not translate my question correctly?”
Alba suppressed a laugh. “My translation was perfect. You have your answer.”
I wasn’t ready to sleep after dinner, and the sun still hovered far from sunset. Nights were shorter here in summer than Galitha’s were, though I understood that winter days were truncated and the nights long. The inn’s windows were hung with thick curtains to block the light for the benefit of weary summertime travelers. Fenians, however, seemed to revel in the full length of the autumn days, at least as much as Fenians reveled in anything. From my window overlooking the sparse garden outside the inn’s back door, I saw late evening picnics and fishing parties, and the occasional wagon loaded with young foundry workers and laundresses, rattling over the uneven roads.
They seemed happy, I thought wistfully, as I watched a gaggle of young men and women with baskets over their arms, traipsing toward the center of town. It was no Fountain Square, I thought. No public gardens. I sighed. The gardens would be beautiful as late summer turned to fall, roses in their final blooming and a blaze of zinnias and weeping hearts and purple fireflower. Even in the midst of war, I thought, nothing would stop the gardens from blooming.
Unless, of course, they’d been burned to the ground or razed or shelled out by artillery fire. I blinked back sudden tears at that thought, at the catastrophe that destruction of the gardens meant—that the city had been overrun.
I pushed the panic back, as I did every day. Galitha was an ocean away, and since I couldn’t know any better, the Reformists and the Royalists simultaneously had the upper hand. Kristos and Theodor were alive and dead, the possibilities balanced in tandem. No, I thought firmly. They are alive. The Reformists hold the city, they hold fast in the south.
Hold fast, I repeated to myself.
Though the sun still filtered through the garden and into my window, I was exhausted. I drew the thick curtains closed in our room, stripped off my boots and wool clothes, and burrowed my head under my pillow to drown out the light and the thoughts barraging me even as I fell asleep.
It was black and silent when I woke again.
“Get up!” A firm hand jostled my shoulder into the thick featherbed. I reached out and gripped the wrist, twisting it in a newfound instinct of self-defense. “Let go, mercy of the Creator—Sophie, it’s me, but get up!”