“Yes.” She looks away, looks out at the camp of the Answer preparing itself. Preparing itself for war. “Yes, so you keep saying.”
Even with how well I know Todd, I can also see how anyone else would see him on horseback, would see him in that uniform, would see him riding with Davy, and they would think he’s a traitor.
And in the dead of night, when I’m under my blankets, unable to sleep.
I think it, too.
(what’s he doing?)
(what’s he doing with Davy?)
And I try to put it out of my mind as best I can.
Because I’m going to save him.
She’s agreed that I can. She’s agreed I can risk myself and go to the cathedral the night before the Answer makes its final attack and try one last time to save him.
She agreed because I said if she didn’t, I wouldn’t help her with anything more, not with the bombs, not with the final attack, not with the ships when they land, now eight weeks away and counting. Nothing, if I couldn’t try for Todd.
Even with all that, I think the only reason she agreed is for what he could tell us when he got here.
Mistress Coyle likes to know things.
“You’re brave to try,” Mistress Coyle says. “Foolish, but brave.” She looks me up and down once more, her face unknowable.
“What?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Just how much of myself I see in you, you exasperating girl.”
“Think I’m ready to lead my own army?” I say, almost smiling.
She just gives me a last look and starts walking off into the camp, ready to give more orders, make more preparations, put the final touches to the plans for our attack.
Which happens tomorrow.
“Mistress Coyle,” I call after her.
She turns.
“Thank you,” I say.
She looks surprised, her forehead furrowed. But she nods, accepting it.
“Got it?” Lee calls over the top of the cart.
“Got it,” I say, twisting the final knot and locking the clamp into place.
“’At’s all of ’em,” Wilf says, smacking some dust off his hands. We look at the carts, eleven of them now, packed to bursting with supplies, with weapons, with explosives. Almost the entire stash of the Answer.
Eleven carts doesn’t seem like much against an army of a thousand or more, but that’s what we have.
“Bin done before,” Wilf says, quoting Mistress Coyle, but he’s always so dry you never know if he’s making fun. “Only a matter a tactics.”
And then he smiles the same mysterious smile Mistress Coyle always gives. It’s so funny and unexpected, I laugh out loud.
Lee doesn’t, though. “Yes, her top secret plan.” He pulls a rope on the cart to test that it holds.
“I expect it has to do with him,” I say. “Getting him, somehow, and then once he’s gone–”
“His army will fall apart and the town will rise up against his tyranny and we’ll save the day,” Lee says, sounding unconvinced. He looks at Wilf. “What do you think?”
“She says it’ll be the end,” Wilf shrugs. “Ah want it to be done.”
Mistress Coyle does keep saying that, that this could end the whole conflict, that the right blow in the right place right now could be all we need, that if even just the women of the town join us we could topple him before winter comes, topple him before the ships land, topple him before he finds us.
And then Lee says, “I know something I shouldn’t.”
Wilf and I both look at him.
“She passed by the kitchen window with Mistress Braithwaite,” he says. “They were talking about where the attack will come from tomorrow.”
“Lee–” I say.
“Don’t say it,” Wilf says.
“It’s from the hill to the south of town,” he presses on, opening his Noise so we can’t not hear it, “the one with the notch in it, the one with the smaller road that leads right into the town square.”
Wilf’s eyes bulge. “Yoo shouldn’ta said. If Hildy gets caught–”
But Lee’s only looking at me. “If you get into trouble,” he says. “You come running toward that hill. You come running and that’s where you’ll find help.”
And his Noise says, That’s where you’ll find me.
“And with burdened hearts, we commit you to the earth.”
One by one, we throw a handful of dirt on the empty coffin that doesn’t contain anything of the body of Mistress Forth, blown to pieces when a bomb went off too early as she was planting it on a grain house.
The sun is setting when we finish, dusk shining cold across the lake, a lake that had a layer of ice around the edges this morning that didn’t melt all day. People start to spread out for the night’s work, last minute packing and orders to be received, all the women and men who will soon be soldiers, marching with weapons, ready to strike the final blow.
All they look like now are ordinary people.
I’ll leave tonight as soon as it’s fully dark.
They’ll leave tomorrow at sunset, no matter what happens to me.
“It’s time,” Mistress Coyle says, coming to my side.
She doesn’t mean it’s time to leave.
There’s something else that has to happen first.
“Are you ready?” she asks.
“As I’ll ever be,” I say, walking along with her.
“This is a huge risk we’re taking, my girl. Huge. If you’re caught–”
“I won’t be.”
“But if you are.” She stops us. “If you are, you know where the camp is, you know when we’re attacking and I’m going to tell you now that we’re attacking from the east road, the one by the Office of the Ask. We’re going to march into town and ram it down his throat.” She takes both my hands and stares hard into my eyes. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
I do understand. I do. She’s telling me wrong on purpose, she’s telling me so I can truthfully give the wrong information if I’m caught, like she did before about the ocean.
It’s what I’d do if I were her.
“I understand,” I say.
She pulls her cloak further shut against a freezing breeze that’s come up. We walk in silence for a few steps, heading towards the healing tent.