Chapter 246: The Crown’s Answer [BONUS]

"By order of Her Majesty the Regent Queen, in the name of His Imperial Majesty, Theodric, Emperor of the Realm, Protector of Astralis, Light of the Long Peace..."

The herald’s voice rang across the square before the Hall of Petitions. He stood on the top step in a red and gold tabard, with two guardsmen beside him and the scroll held open in both hands.

It was the first cold morning of the month in Caelmar, and a crowd had gathered long before he arrived. News of the north had been running through the capital for weeks, faster than any rider, and everyone wanted to hear what the Crown would finally say. Porters stood with their loads still on their backs. Shopkeepers had come out in their aprons. Children sat on the rim of the dry fountain.

The titles went on for some time. The crowd waited through them.

"...let it be known to all subjects that the northern fortress known as the Wall has fallen."

A low sound moved through the square. Most of them had already heard. Hearing it from the Crown made it different.

"The Crown has learned that the fortress did not fall by the strength of beasts alone. It fell through treachery. An officer of the northern command, an agent of the traitors who name themselves the Revolutionary Army, opened a gate of the Wall from within and gave the fortress to its enemies. He died crying out for their cause."

This time the sound was louder. Someone near the front swore.

"The Crown will not rest until every hand behind this crime has been found. A reward of five hundred gold Solari is offered for any name that leads to the arrest of a member of the Revolutionary Army. Those who shelter such traitors will share their punishment."

The herald paused to let that settle.

"Further, the conduct of the northern command in the final year of the Wall shall be examined by the Crown. This includes the actions of the late Strategist of the Wall, Encrid Gannon, who is reported to have died in the fall."

He rolled up the scroll.

"Long live the Emperor."

"Long live the Emperor," the crowd answered. Some of them meant it.

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At the back of the square, near the steps of the Hall of Petitions, a thin young clerk stood with a bundle of letters under his arm and did not move for a long time after the herald had gone.

His name was Dellan Ost. He had worked at the Imperial Petition Desk for four years. He read ninety letters an hour, and he remembered most of them.

He remembered one in particular.

He remembered a letter from the Wall, signed by a man who was not on the Crown’s list of the northern command. It had described forty thousand Roamers and an Elder of the Great Green, and it had asked for help. He had marked it "Recommend verification" and sent it up the stairs.

He remembered the date he had written on the corner.

Dellan Ost went back into the Hall of Petitions. He did not go to his desk. He went down to the basement where the old logs were kept, found the book for that season, and turned the pages until he found his own handwriting.

Then he stood in the cold basement for a while and looked at it.

He did not know what to do. So he did the only thing a clerk could do. He took a clean sheet of paper and copied the page, exactly, line by line. Then he folded the copy small and put it in his shoe.

? ? ?

That night, in a cellar beneath a bookbinder’s shop on Tanner’s Row, four people sat around a table with a single candle between them.

The cellar smelled of paste and leather. Stacks of unbound pages lined the walls. Anyone who came down the stairs by accident would have seen a workroom and nothing else.

The first of the four was a broad man with old burn scars across the backs of both hands, the kind that came from years at a forge. He sat with his arms folded and his jaw tight.

The second was a woman whose fingers were stained deep blue to the second knuckle. She did not sit. She walked back and forth along the shelves, touching the stacks of paper as she passed them.

The third was an old man with one clouded eye. He held a cup of tea in both hands and listened more than he spoke.

The fourth was young, perhaps twenty-five, in a labourer’s coat that did not quite fit him. When he spoke, his voice had the soft vowels of the southern nobility. He hid his hands under the table whenever he remembered to.

"We did not do this," the broad man said. "I want that said first. We didn’t open any gate. We don’t have a single person north of the Riven. We never have."

"Nobody here thinks we did," said the woman with the blue fingers.

"The whole city thinks we did. Did you hear them in the square? Five hundred Solari for a name. By the end of the week, every man who owes his neighbour money will sell his neighbour to the guard."

"Then we lie low," said the young man. "As we always have."

"And let them hang us for something we didn’t do?"

"They were always going to hang us for something."

The old man put down his cup.

"That is not the question," he said quietly. They all stopped. "The question is not whether the Crown blames us. Of course the Crown blames us. It is very convenient. The question is who the dead man was really crying out for."

The woman stopped walking.

"It’s said that the man shouted out ’For the revolution.’ That’s what the herald said."

"Anyone can say a word," the old man replied. "A word costs nothing. A gate costs years. Someone put a man on that wall and waited a very long time for him to open it. That is not us. We can barely keep a printing press hidden for a season."

Nobody argued with that.

"So someone used our name," the broad man said slowly.

"Someone used our name," the old man agreed. "And thousands of people died under it. I would like to know who. Wouldn’t you?"

The candle burned lower. Above them, the shop was dark and silent.

"How?" the young man asked at last. "We have no one in the north. No one who was there."

"There is someone who was there," said the woman with the blue fingers. "The one they’re all talking about. The Watcher."

"He’s dead."

"So the Crown says," the old man said, and lifted his cup again. "The Crown also says that we opened a gate."

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Bonus Chapter for 250 power stones ~