A City of Bones, One Night in Red

The guard struck the gate with his rifle butt, and every woman in the glassworks yard flinched except me. I was kneeling beside a girl with a split lip, trying to stop her from swallowing blood. The sound made her jerk against my hand. I kept my palm on her shoulder until she looked at me again. "Stay still, Nell. Breathe through your nose." The guard shouted something in the clipped accent of the northern army. I understood only the word for silence. I had heard it often enough. The old glassworks had been built beyond Bellwether's eastern wall, near the river road. Its furnaces had been cold for years, but the brick sheds still held the heat of the summer sun. More than a hundred of us were packed into its yard and workshops. Children slept beneath workbenches. The older women took turns standing watch at the barred windows. We had one well, one latrine, and a ration cart that came when the guards remembered us. It was the third day since the city surrendered. I had counted because counting gave time edges. Before that, there had been the gunfire, the bells, and the rush from our house with nothing but the clothes on my back. My husband, Captain Elias Vale, had been with the defenders at the river crossing. He had told me that if the northern army breached the eastern wall, I should go to the glassworks with the other families. He had not said what to do if he failed to come back. The guard at the gate stepped aside. A local man entered with two soldiers behind him. He wore a gray coat too large for his shoulders and held a folded paper in both hands. "Who is Mara Vale?" he asked. The yard went quiet. I stood. Nell clutched my sleeve. "That's me." The man glanced at the soldiers. One of them nodded, and the messenger swallowed. "Captain Vale's company was overrun at the river," he said. "Your husband was among the dead." I didn't ask how he knew. I didn't ask whether anyone had seen the body. My mouth had gone dry, and the words seemed to come from very far away. "When?" "During the retreat." "What day?" He looked at the paper, as if the answer might be written there. "The night before the surrender." I had heard cannon fire that night. I had stood in our cellar with a sewing needle in my hand because I'd been repairing his cuff when the first shell hit. I had thought of him crossing the river in the dark. I had thought of him coming home. Now the yard watched me. "Did he leave anything?" I asked. The messenger's eyes flickered. "No." One of the soldiers ordered him to move on. I sat down beside Nell. I didn't fall apart. I didn't scream. I put both hands flat on my knees and stared at the pale dust between my boots until the messenger had gone. That was when Major Rusk came through the gate. I knew him by his black gloves and the small scar cutting through his left eyebrow. He had been in the square the previous afternoon, watching as the northern soldiers searched houses. He walked with a cane, though I had never seen him limp. "Mrs. Vale," he said. "You speak our language." "Yes." "I need a woman who can read and keep accounts. You will help the infirmary issue rations and record the names of the prisoners." I looked past him at the soldiers. "And if I refuse?" "Then someone else will do it badly." He made it sound like a joke. His eyes didn't change. I had treated burns and cuts in the glassworks since we were brought here. If I took the work, I'd have access to the storeroom, the guard schedule, and whatever lists the army wanted me to copy. If I refused, Rusk would choose someone younger, weaker, or easier to frighten. "I'll do it," I said. "Good. We begin now." Nell caught my wrist before I could rise. Her little fingers were sticky with blood. "Don't go," she whispered. "I'll be back before dark." I wanted it to be true. I had no way of knowing whether it was. Rusk led me to the office that had once held the glassworks owner's ledgers. A desk stood beneath the shuttered window, covered in lists. A map of Bellwether had been nailed to the wall. Someone had drawn a red line from the river to the western road. "These are the prisoners," Rusk said. "Names, ages, skills, household. The army needs a reliable count." "Why?" "Because men make poor clerks." He pushed the papers toward me. The top sheet listed families and their assigned quarters. Some names had a black mark beside them. Others had a red one. "What do the marks mean?" "Nothing that concerns you." I lowered my eyes to the paper and began to copy. At the bottom of the stack, I found a delivery order for flour, lamp oil, and two hundred feet of rope. The destination was the old quarry north of the city. I read it twice. "What is the rope for?" Rusk rested one gloved hand on the desk. "You're here to write, Mrs. Vale. Not to ask questions." I dipped my pen. As he turned away, I noticed the map again. The red line did not end at the western road. It ended at the quarry. I made a careful copy of every name, every mark, and every delivery order. I knew better than to believe that a list was harmless simply because it had no blood on it. That evening, when I returned to the yard, Nell was still waiting by the gate. I sat down beside her and told her my husband was dead. She didn't say she was sorry. She simply took my hand. For a long while, we watched the guards walk their rounds. I counted each turn, then each pause, then the time between the gate opening and closing. The messenger had said there was no message from Elias. I decided I would find out whether that was true. *****