Benjamin Tate - Well of Sorrows

Paul leaped to his feet. “He can’t do that! We’re citizens of Andover! We have rights! We have-”

“Paul!” Sam’s voice cut across Paul’s rant like a blade, stopping him short, breath drawn in, face red. He motioned for the smith to sit down.

Paul exhaled sharply, mumbled something under his breath, but sat.

Sam turned back to Tom. The small room was silent. Even Ana had stopped moving, although she remained in the shadows.

“I assume you protested,” Sam said.

“Yes.”

“You told him we had nothing to do with Shay, that we have nowhere else to go?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he say?” Ana asked.

Tom shrugged. “He said it was our problem. That we should go back to Andover or find someplace else here on the coast.”

Paul cursed loudly, and for once Ana didn’t slap him on the back of the head or protest.

“What are we going to do?” Sam said after a long silence.

“I can’t go back to Andover,” Paul said. “The Armory would snatch me up and send me to the front of the Feud in an instant.”

“For being a smith?” Ana asked incredulously.

“No,” Paul answered. He caught Tom’s gaze. “I was part of the Armory before. The smithing came after. But there was an incident. One of the recruits who joined with me died. I saw it happen. The commander discharged me, with the understanding that I wouldn’t speak of it, wouldn’t report it to the Family. At the time, I was more than willing to get out; the Armory wasn’t for me. The commander’s watched me for years. He was elated when I told him I was heading to New Andover. If he saw me back in Trent…”

“We can’t go back either,” Ana said. “We’ve used all of our coin to survive here in Portstown.”

Tom thought he would hear accusation in her words, but he didn’t. “There’s another option.”

“Sartori had another suggestion?”

“No. The West Wind Trading Company’s representative.”

All of the others frowned.

Tom sighed. “He wants us-the guildmembers in Lean-to and anyone we trust-to lead an expedition onto the plains, to set up a town so that the Carrente Family can lay claim to a large swath of the inland when the Court finally gets around to dividing up the lands here.”

“We aren’t farmers, Tom. We aren’t… we aren’t settlers, for Diermani’s sake!”

Tom shot Paul a glare. “I know that. I told him that. But he doesn’t seem to care.”

“What about the groups that have already been sent east?” Sam asked. “Sartori already has people who’ve settled farther inland.”

“According to Daverren, the Signal from the Company, those farmers haven’t settled far enough east for it to count. And they’re only farms. He wants another town, a place that can trade with Portstown and other towns along the coast once it’s established. He’s willing to fund the expedition, but he needs people willing to settle it, to make it work.”

“He needs people to take the risk,” Ana said roughly. “Sartori has tried a settlement before, but none of those people have ever returned, have they?”

No one said anything for a long moment. Then Sam stirred.

“What did you tell him?”

Tom shook his head. “Nothing. But I don’t think we have any choice, and Daverren knows it. Sartori isn’t going to let us stay here, not after the riot. He’s not completely convinced we don’t have anything to do with Shay.”

Both Sam and Paul grimaced.

“What do you want us to do?” Sam asked, climbing to his feet. Paul followed suit.

“Spread the word. About the trial tomorrow and about the expedition. About Shay. Make certain everyone understands that Sartori is serious about destroying Lean-to.”

“What do you think is going to happen to Shay and the others?”

Tom thought about the rage he’d seen on Sartori’s face as Arten led him and Daverren back to his estate, and he frowned, troubled. “We’ll find out in the morning. But we all know they went to the dock to start a fight.”

He’d tried to keep the concern out of his voice, but when Sam and Paul ducked out through the entrance they both looked grim. Tom stood to watch them go, then turned.

To find Ana standing directly behind him. Her hand was clasped to her chest, to the pendant beneath her shirt.

“Tom,” she said, and he could hear all the fear he saw in her eyes in that one word, all the worry, the concern, the dread. And all the hatred, of Sartori and Portstown.

And beneath all that, hatred of him. For bringing them to this place. It was thin, and it was buried deep, but it was there. And it hurt.

Because he could think of nothing he could do to make it go away.

When Tom and Ana emerged from their home the following morning, the rough blanket sliding off Tom’s back as he ducked out into the weak sunlight, they found a group of men, women, and children waiting, mostly guildsmen but a few of the men from the rougher part of Lean-to that they’d befriended. Sam and Paul stood at the forefront. Karen, her father’s hand resting protectively on her shoulder, stood behind them. Her father’s face looked haggard and drawn, had looked haggard and drawn since the voyage across the Arduon and the loss of his wife and two other children to sickness, but he offered a thin smile and nod of support, his hand tightening, pulling Karen a little closer.

No one said anything, and after a brief moment, casting a quick look at Ana, taking her hand, Tom turned toward Portstown.

The twenty or so that had gathered followed, but along the way they gained more. Men and women stood outside of their huts, waiting. They touched Ana and Tom as they passed, murmured words of support, of encouragement, all in grim voices, before joining the group behind. By the time they left the ragged edges of Lean-to, the group had more than doubled.

The town was shrouded in a faint mist that slowly began to lift as they made their way down the grassy slope to the outskirts of the town proper. They passed through the low stone walls of the estates, down past the wharf and the docks, and turned toward the town’s center, toward Sartori’s land and the barracks and penance locks to one side.

As they approached, a sound intruded on the morning calm: the sharp report of hammers.

Tom frowned.

When they entered the square, Ana’s grip tightened, and she shot Tom a terrified look, halting in her tracks, hand going to her pendant. “They can’t,” she said, but then she choked on the words, denied them with a shake of her head.

Not certain what she had seen, Tom searched the mist, followed the sound of the construction And saw through the lifting fog the Armory, saw the gallows they had built since last night, which they were finishing now.

A hand closed around his heart, closed and tightened, and for a long moment he couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred, narrowed, a yellowish film closing in on both sides. It felt as if he’d been punched in the gut, as if he were reeling from the blow.

He would have stumbled, would have sagged to the ground, his knees weak, but Sam was suddenly at his side. “It can’t be for Colin,” he said, his voice harsh, angry. “They can’t hang him. They’ll have another riot on their hands if they do, Diermani curse them.”

The hand around Tom’s heart loosened. He blinked, steadied himself. Behind, he heard the rest of those gathered grumbling to themselves. A low warning rumble.

Straightening, he squeezed Ana’s hand in reassurance, leaned down to kiss her. He could feel her trembling, even though she stood perfectly still, back rigid.

“Colin,” she said.

“I won’t let anything happen to him. We won’t.”

She pressed her lips together, nodded.

Tom turned and led the group through the square.