“We’ll find him. Ask around, see who looks suspicious,” Aaro said. Conna said nothing but held Piers’ wrist with a white-knuckled grip.
There was no way to avoid parading past the cooking fires and the villagers who would undoubtedly be there at this time of the morning. Illya would rather have avoided the stares and gossip that would follow. But even if they had been able to keep the arrest quiet, with the damage to the wheel and investigation into the second perpetrator, there was no way the incident would go unnoticed.
There was a shocked silence, followed by a wave of muttering and whispers as they passed the fire. Elias’ arrest had followed an incident that everyone had witnessed. No one could have denied that there had been no better choice. Elias had been unbalanced, dangerous. This time, all they saw was the aftermath: a man they all knew, hands tied and ankles hobbled, accompanied by the entire pack of Enforcers.
Illya shot a glance ahead at Impiri, where she was ladling out hazelnut mush. There was soot smeared across her face. She looked up, appearing as startled as the rest of the people when the procession passed; not the expression of someone who was involved.
As Illya passed her, he nodded, thinking that courtesy couldn’t hurt.
She tilted her head then smiled in return, not genuinely. It was an odd smile but with at least the semblance of respect. She turned back to her cooking pot. Illya went on to catch up with the rest of the procession, which was now a little distance ahead.
He was a few steps away when he thought he heard her say something.
“What was that?” he said, turning around again. Impiri was looking away muttering under her breath, apparently to herself; no one else was nearby.
“He sends rain, right out of the sky. Part of the curse. Thinks I don’t know, but I do, oh yes I do,” she said to the pot. Illya’s mouth gaped. She glanced back over her shoulder and gave him another smile.
She resumed her stirring. Illya looked closer: the level of mush in the pot was so low that her spoon did not reach it. She didn’t seem to have noticed.
Illya shivered and backed away from her. She was distracted; that must be it. The sight of a man arrested was a shock. She was afraid, not thinking about what she was doing or saying. He shook his head, unwilling to acknowledge the other possibility. He had been small when Benja’s sister Rachel had lost the gift. Much too small to remember what it looked like when it happened.
Jannica had lost the gift, if the stories could be believed, just a few weeks ago. Was it like a Calamity, drifting through the air waiting to infect them all? He had worried about that when Elias had threatened Benja, but that had seemed to be different, a moment of desperation. Elias still had all of his senses afterward. Illya covered his mouth and nose with his hand, as if she carried the ’fection, and stumbled away. Conna and the Enforcers were returning from the stone house.
“We will have to round everyone up now, ask if they know anything,” Julian was saying.
“No need,” Conna said, holding up his hand. “We already know who was behind it,” he said.
“Did Piers say something?” Illya asked.
Conna shook his head. “Didn’t have to, obvious isn’t it?” he said.
Illya hesitated. It was true that there were people who had been against him from the start, but that wasn’t enough evidence to know.
“It was my pa. Piers and him are best mates… If that’s what you call getting drunk together every day,” Conna said. Aaro was standing beside him, staring at the ground.
“We both saw the other guy; he was smaller than Piers. That’s not like your pa at all,” Illya said.
“You can bet it was another of his friends then,” Conan said with a grimace. “If one of them was involved, all of them were. We have to make an example. You know there will just be more trouble until we do.”
“Pa’s all talk. Usually,” Aaro muttered, kicking the dirt.
Conna glared at him sharply. Aaro looked at the ground and scowled.
“I don’t know,” Illya said, feeling slightly sick. There had been no other choice than to lock up Piers and Elias, but how could they lock anyone else up unless they were sure they had been part of it?
“Impiri is the first we should question,” Julian said. “Always been against us, hasn’t she?”
“Sure, but that was no lady out there this morning,” Aaro said.
Illya’s stomach flipped over. If he had eaten any breakfast, he would have spewed it across the mosaic stones. If Impiri was losing her mind, he didn’t want anyone seeing. An epidemic of madness in the village would turn everyone against him and fast. It would look like everything she had predicted had come true.
He glanced around casually to cover his reaction. Maybe Conna was right. His father was trouble; there was no doubt about that.
Conna was eying him. Illya swallowed. Despite the logic of it, acid was rising in his throat.
When he hesitated, Conna’s eyes hardened, as if daring him to disagree. Illya met his stare and realized that he had another, far bigger problem. If Conna decided that he didn’t want to support the plan anymore, what would he have left? Nothing, that was what. A book and pile of opinions as fickle as the weather. Everyone would desert him at the first prediction he got wrong, the first disaster that struck.
The Enforcers would go with Conna. Illya would have no power against those who wanted him to fail. The whole plan would fall apart.
That couldn’t happen. Whether or not Jimmer had been part of this particular incident was a small detail. He had already caused plenty of trouble. What Conna wanted was nothing compared to the plants and how important they were.
He swallowed back the acrid taste. Conna’s stare bored into him.
“Right then,” he said. “Jimmer and his friends, round them all up.”
Conna smiled with a momentary gleam flashing in his eyes. Illya turned away. The plan was everything. None of those men would thank him come winter if they were free but starved to death.
The Enforcers had them all arrested in less than an hour, everyone who drank with Jimmer. Most of them had reacted with genuine surprise. They had not expected to be singled out. With Piers, there were five of them—Jimmer, Tom Garland, Lionel Sutter, and Donnie Johnsted, Ban’s older brother. Lionel had been the only one to try to run when the Enforcers had come knocking on his door. The silhouette that they had seen fit him, which was reassuring. It had taken a few extra arrests, but both of the saboteurs seemed to be safely out of the way.
Repairing the wheel took most of the day. Ban spent the morning carving new pieces and directing the other builders in the delicate task of removing the broken parts without destroying the rest of the wheel. He said nothing about his brother’s imprisonment. After that, it had been simple to put it all back together. Even so, Illya held his breath as he watched the men raising the wheel back onto the towers as evening approached. It spun just as well as ever, and the sound of the water rushing down the pipes to the field was particularly sweet. The water soaked readily into the soil. None of the little plants, now ankle-high, had wilted. It seemed that they would be no worse off for their day without water.
As the light fell, Illya made his way home more exhausted than he had been in a long time. There was yelling coming from his family’s hut, and he paused to listen. It was his mother and Benja.
“It’s not like him.” Benja was not yelling anymore. Illya had to strain to hear.
“He needs us more than ever now,” his mother answered, her voice shaking.
“Doesn’t mean we have to like what he is doing,” Benja said, his voice rising again.
His mother mumbled something.
Benja answered, too quietly to hear, and the door to the hut burst open. Illya ducked off the path and hid behind a tree. He had never tried to avoid Benja before in his life, but he had reacted before he could think about it. Benja stormed past him, not looking around.