Chapter Thirty Nina #2
Patrick’s eyes touched the woman’s collarbone, where a cut had barely scabbed over, to the bruising, the tears in her eyes, the point of the knife.
There was calculation on his face, but there was sorrow, too.
There was guilt. “I can’t give you bluff.
But I can send for coal and rations. Perhaps some medical supplies. ”
“We called for it already, sent countless messages down the tunnels.” She laughed mirthlessly, blinking furiously against the tears. “There ain’t anyone on the other end answerin’.”
“But you need it, don’t you?” Patrick said patiently.
“Whoever you’ve got holed up here still, I imagine they’re too wounded to have escaped with the rest.” He looked to the woods and pastures, blackened to ash.
“Soon there’ll be nothin’ to eat. No heatin’.
Even your strongest will grow weak. It’s just a matter of time. It’ll mean a dead winter for you all.”
At the mention of a dead winter, the woman’s expression became sallow.
Patrick grimaced. “But I’m guessin’ there’s already a heap of dead somewhere, still waitin’ to be buried.
” Patrick’s eyes fell to the woman’s hands, which were cracked and blistered, grubby with dirt.
“Bet the ground was difficult to break. It’s near frozen.
Bet you resorted to incineratin’ ’em, religion be damned. ”
The woman shuddered delicately.
Patrick turned to the smoke spiraling out of the single chimney. “You’ll run out of bodies to burn eventually. And it will feel like a relief, at first. And then the temperature will keep droppin’, and you’ll wish you had a few of ’em back. It’ll feel like a curse.”
The woman sobbed. She wobbled on the sleet, and Theo winced as the blade glanced skin.
I imagined this woman trying in vain to break the earth to bury her dead. How long she must have persevered to ruin her hands that way. “I can help you,” I told her, my own eyes pricking. “I can give them proper graves.”
The woman winced, her eyes searching my face.
“This is the leader of the Miners Union,” Patrick said, gesturing to his father.
“And this woman is a Scribbler. Whatever you need, we can have it sent quickly. And in several weeks, I’ll come callin’ again, only it’ll be bluff I’m deliverin’.
More than you’ll need. Enough to bring everyone back to health. ”
She laughed again in that deadened way. “You say there’s no bluff, then promise it anyway? Which is it?”
“We have a lead on some terranium,” Patrick said. “And when we find it, the House and its infantry won’t stand a fuckin’ chance.”
The woman seemed distrustful, but she didn’t immediately reject the offer, either. Beneath her ferocity was desperation.
“We ain’t dead yet,” Patrick added, stepping closer. “I promise you that.”
Her chin wobbled. The knife fell away by degrees. “There ain’t any bluff left?” she asked, voice still guarded.
“No. But there will be.” Patrick sounded so sure, so convincing. It was difficult not to believe. “In abundance. And in the meantime, you’ll have coal to burn from Kenton. I can have food transported from Hoaklin and Dunnitch. We only ask for a day or two here.”
She was hesitating now, the need outweighing her caution. Her arm slackened on Theo’s neck, then slowly fell away.
The woman tipped her head to the sky and worked to control her breaths. “Idia help us,” she said.
Theo stumbled to the ground, cursing.
“What’s your name?” Patrick asked.
“Edith,” she said, her cheeks wet now, mottled by the frigid air.
“Edith,” Patrick repeated. “How many are left?”
“A hundred n’ forty livin’.” Her whole body was shaking, like the blasts still tolled through her. Trent had been a population of more than three thousand. “The rest ran to Sommerland, or they’re dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Patrick said, but not in the way of condolences. This was self-blame. Failure. I watched it anchor itself to him.
“Take us to ’em, miss,” John said now. “I’d like to shake the hands of the stubborn bastards who outlasted the Lords’ fuckin’ Army.”
Edith laughed wetly at that, her breaths clouding before her.
“Put that knife away now,” John told her softly. “The fight’s come and gone.”
Edith took us to a factory, a sign above its great doors reading BLEAKER’S TEXTILES.
The space inside was dense with giant iron machinery, all of it unmanned, unnaturally still, but untouched by fire.
Starlings swarmed the rafters high above, escaping the cold.
Settled on the floor, between the threading machines and the washers, were a series of pallets.
Men and women lay atop them, gray-faced, their injuries many. One man’s face was so bloodied it was difficult to tell if there was anything to salvage beneath.
Moving among the injured with broth, blankets, bandages, and water was an army of women. Some sported injuries of their own, like Edith, but all worked on the wounded like a living engine.
“Where are the men?” Polly asked quietly, her mouth agape.
Edith eyed her with contempt. “Gone,” she said, her gaze trailing to the man with the butchered face. “Or half gone.” She led us on. There was hardly a single person who lifted their face to look at us. Their hands were too full to care.
Edith walked with slow, weighted steps to the rear of the factory, then out a small creaking door to a ravine. Beyond it was a fast-moving river threading through the trees, eroding the snow on its banks, churning the mill wheels to no avail.