The crowd
mimicked the behavior on the podium. Those who had allied themselves over
Windemere's guilt now argued over his punishment. The ranks supporting
Windemere swelled and gathered around his family, and they pushed forward to
the podium like a plow through a field, its blade Windemere's wife, who
screamed and pointed at Nyomae. "And what of her? She who murdered her own
daughter? Does she not deserve death, too?"
Soon the sun
glinted off the pikes of the Britannian Guard as they swarmed into the fray,
separating contenders who had resorted to blows, knocking back others, and
dragging still others off the grounds. Three of the guards took up position
around the boy Blackthorn and Dryden, and three more around the Lord Mayor,
Nyomae, and Windemere. The boy Blackthorn barely noticed, enraptured with the
mob below. Dryden was shouting something at him, but he could not hear, not
over the cacophony of curses and cries. As he watched, Yew's blacksmith split
the lip of a foreigner who, in turn, broke the blacksmith's nose. Both men went
down, blood drenching the earth, limbs entangled in a storm. The Lord Mayor
observed the unruliness as well, and though he frowned, the boy Blackthorn knew
his father well enough to read the satisfaction in his eyes.
The boy
Blackthorn stirred when Dryden shoved him forward, and then was surprised to
see that at some point, the guards had managed to slip Windemere and Nyomae
from the podium, and now they were attempting to escort the Lord Mayor, Dryden,
and himself into the halls below. He allowed his legs to move, to stumble after
those ahead of them, but that was all. His senses were still fixated on the
masses, each person a blur of gesticulations and shouts—all but one, a boy his
age, Windemere's son, the one with silvery-white hair. He, like the boy
Blackthorn, moved not on his own accord, but with the storm around him. Unlike
Blackthorn, whose focus had drifted from person to person, brawl to brawl, the
gaze of Windemere's son remained locked on one individual, eyes slit with rage
and hatred.
That individual
was the boy Blackthorn.
So fierce was
the stare that the boy Blackthorn lost his footing on the last of the steps,
and he spilled off beyond the border formed by the Britannian Guard, into the
ocean of jostling bodies. Shouts, cries, and screams tore at his ears. Arms and
robes flailed around him, perspiration rained on him. Still, he did not panic,
did not cry for help, merely smiled and allowed himself to flow with the crowd,
to calmly float in a circle as he drifted upon the hostility that raged in the
hearts and spirits of his fellow Britannians.
He allowed
himself to circle downward into the crowd.
Allowed himself to circle . . .
To circle
downward into . . .
* * *
The crowd which
spanned the green sounded with vigorous applause as Blackthorn knelt before his
Majesty, Lord British, who stood with the others upon the podium. For a moment,
Blackthorn had to steady himself as a wave of disorientation washed over him
along with the clamor of the crowd. He did not know where he was, or how he had
arrived. Neither did he understand why his green robes had been replaced with
black, boiled leather. And the Lord Mayor, his father, where was he?
|