Chapter Thirty Nina #3
Lined on the ravine’s edge was an endless row of bodies, a hundred or more. Only their blackened feet showed. Each one was covered with a fibrous blanket, snowfall piling in the creases of their torsos and necks, care taken to offer them some dignity.
Not even the crisp winter air could completely hide the smell of death.
“We can’t bring ’em inside,” Edith said, her eyes glazed and focused on nothing, as though shutting out the sight. “They foul too quickly.”
Polly doubled over and vomited, coughing violently onto the ground.
“Lord almighty,” John uttered, and swiped the hat off his head.
Patrick simply stared, his eyes hardening, jaw ticking. Eventually he wiped a hand over his face and shifted his stare to the river, the trees beyond. “All Union members?”
Edith tracked a small swallow leaving its nest, born too late. It swooped dangerously close to the river before alighting. “We all were,” she said. “And a fat load of good it did us.” Her eyes closed and didn’t open. I wondered how long it had been since she’d rested.
Patrick stared and stared, something wretched in his expression.
“What provoked this?” Theo asked. He stood just over my shoulder. From this close, I could hear the way his voice shook, the stop-start of his breaths.
“I did,” Patrick said bluntly, his eyes trailing over the boots, the ashy toes. “We encouraged strike action in the Southeastern parishes through winter, to cut off the city.”
“And we listened,” Edith mumbled bitterly, her voice fracturing. “Like fools.”
Patrick’s hands went to his hips, as though he could hardly bear his own weight, then he rubbed his eyes once, twice, thinking.
“Polly, scribble to Donny. Tell him Trent has been attacked and ask for supplies. Food, coal, medical aid. Whatever can be spared should be spared. Call on support from Dunnitch. Make sure he knows it’s me.”
But John stepped forward, just as Polly nodded and closed her eyes. “Now just a minute, son. They’ve got enough of their own to tend to back home. Kenton took its own losses.”
Patrick barely spared him a glance. “They’ve got enough in reserve.”
“Patty—”
“Polly,” Patrick said, taking a step toward the ravine. “Send the message. Tell Donny the Morland tunnel is caved in, they’ll need to use the Sommerland line. And for the love of God, don’t leave a trace of yourself on the page.”
Polly winced but nodded.
“It will take another three days for it to come through the tunnels,” Patrick told Edith. “Someone should be waiting on the other side when it arrives. Preferably not with a carvin’ knife.”
Edith nodded. “What about the bluff?”
“You’ll have it,” Patrick said, with a confidence plucked from the sky. “I’ll ensure it comes. And in the meantime, I assume there are at least a few coppers here who remained.”
Edith wiped her hands down her front, fingers shaking.
“They evacuated before the army got here. A few came sauntering back in once the fires died out.” She looked once more to those bodies lined neatly on the slope of the ravine, and her eyes turned hard, bitter.
“They’re holed up in the trading post with a few cases of port, last I saw. ”
John and Patrick traded glances.
“We’ll pay ’em a short visit,” John assured her. “In return, we need to hunker down a night or two.”
Edith nodded her assent. “I need to go and help the rest,” she muttered, wiping her nose on her sleeve. She turned and used whatever vestiges of strength remained to drag herself inside.
At first, we five remained, but the snow had begun to fall, and the air bit at our skin, and the wall of corpses became impossible to look at.
“We’ve earned a bit of rest,” John said decidedly, somberly. “We’ll recoup for a bit.” He pulled a flask from his pocket and took a thorough swig. He held it out to Theo as he passed. “Here, kid. That’ll pump the blood.”
Theo accepted it and turned his eyes away gratefully, and Polly followed. They needed no other prompt to flee from the dead.
“No rest for you, swank,” John said to Polly, slapping the Stewards’ book against her sternum. “While we’re here, you’ve got some readin’ to do.”
Polly pressed a retort between her lips and followed the men inside.
Then it was only Patrick and me, too disturbed to look away from the line of shrouds.
“Nina,” Patrick said, and he said it as though it were a lifeline. His throat bobbed. He didn’t dare look at me.
I watched the valleys of his expression, the reds in his eyes straining. What was once startingly blue now appeared a bleak gray. “I don’t want to ask—”
“You’re not asking, Patrick. I’m just doing it.”
His gaze was torturous.
I made to move around him toward that first sheet. Something stopped me.
Patrick’s hand taking mine. Not pulling, but simply holding it for a moment, his rough fingers encasing my own.
I looked back to find his eyes had closed. He breathed through his mouth in great puffs, gripped onto me like he was clinging to a ledge.
I waited there, unmoving, watching parts of him crack, then knit themselves back together.
A lark cried. His eyelids snapped open. Our hands retracted.
He watched there in the cold while I worked, his hair dusted in snow as I buried the bodies, the earth giving way beneath each and swallowing them whole.