Second Draft Chapter 22

“Mind if I sit here?” I asked.

“Ah, he returns to us at last,” David said in his dramatic voice. “Why aren’t you eating with Clio today?”

“I told her to get lost for a while. I needed to spend time with my friends.”

“Yeah, sure you did. We know who wears the pants in that relationship Jon, so don’t even try that one on us. Did she have a test she had to study for?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, there’s always a spot for you at this table Jon, you know that,” David said, moving his tray to make room. I sat down and nodded my greetings to Helen and Icarus.

“You should invite Clio over to our table for lunch sometime,” Helen said. “I know things didn’t go terribly well at the picnic, but I enjoyed talking to her.

“Yeah, you didn’t introduce me yet,” Icarus said. “It’s no fair keeping a girl that pretty to yourself Jonny.”

Helen made a face at Icarus, and then turned to me. “Don’t worry Jon, I’ll make sure he’s on his best behavior.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll try and drag Clio over here next time,” I said. “What about in the evenings? We never hang out in the evenings anymore.”

“You’re the one who’s got busy with Cadet practice,” David said.

“What do you guys do in the evenings anyway,” I asked. “I know you don’t study the whole time.” I twirled my fork in my mash potatoes with one hand while I tried to smile casually.

“Oh, this and that,” David said.

“What does that mean?”

David shrugged. “Nothing special. I’d invite you to come with us sometime, but you have Cadets every night.”

“What about after Cadets?” I asked.

“Yeah, after Cadets is fine. Just stop by anytime. You know where our rooms are.”

I chewed on a piece of roll in silence while I tried to decide if I was learning anything useful from this conversation. “Is Emma still going around with her anti-war petition?” I asked at last.

“No, she turned that in a long time ago.”

“How many signatures did she end up getting?” I asked.

“Oh I don’t know. Close to two thousand, I think.”

Two thousand. That was a fourth of the entire student body. My first thought was that at least my brother’s name was safely buried in those numbers. My second thought was: how many of those names were involved in the pamphleting.

“What is Emma up to now?” I tried to sound casual again, but I immediately sensed that question had been the equivalent of a cannon going off. I could see all three faces tense up.

“Why do you want to know Jon?” David asked.

“Just curious,” I answered, taking a sip of my water. “Emma’s the kind of person who’s always up to something.”

David took a drink of his water as well. In fact he drained his whole glass and put it back down on his tray, before answering, “I don’t know what Emma’s up to. You’ll have to ask her yourself if you really want to know.”

“What about you Jon,” Helen asked. “What have you been doing in Cadets?”

She seemed a little too eager to change the subject, but I went along with it. I was getting nowhere with my questions anyway. “Oh, the same things we always do. Running in circles mostly.” I thought about telling them about the cannons, but I didn’t think they would appreciate the beauty of the thing, and it didn’t seem worth the breath it would take. Instead I turned to Icarus. “Did Hermes show you that painting yet?” I asked.

“I haven’t seen Hermes all week,” Icarus answered.

“You should stop by his room then. Orpheus, Clio’s brother, gave Hermes one of his paintings, and Hermes thought you would appreciate it.”

“Well, I’ll try and check it out sometime then,” Icarus answered. “Although I should warn you, I’m not an easy man to impress.”

I couldn’t help laughing a bit at this, because there was a lot of truth in it. Icarus was the kind of person who purposely disliked everything people told him he should like. The only way you could get him to admire something was make him believe he was the first one to discover it.

“Hermes also wants you to start coming to art guild,” I added.

“I’ll see,” Icarus answered. “I’m pretty busy these days.”

Again, I couldn’t help laughing. “You? You are not busy. I’m the one who is busy.” I had finished off the last of my food, and I was just getting ready to clear my tray off and leave, when I was struck by one last thought. I’m not sure what made me think of it so suddenly. Maybe it was just the expression on Icarus’s face just then, or some forgotten association in my mind, but the thought was suddenly there.

“Hey, Icarus,” I said. “You remember when we were back in school, and we snuck into the University.”

“Yeah, of course I remember that,” Icarus said. “Hey, you remember that David?”

David just nodded, so I continued my question. “You used to talk about how there were secret entrances in and out of the University that only you knew about. Is that true?”

Instead of answering me, Icarus looked over at David, and David answered. “Come on Jon,” David said. “You know Icarus.”

“Yeah, come on Jonny,” Icarus said. “You know how I’m always making stuff up.”

“Yeah, I guess I should know that by now,” I answered. After that, the table got very quiet, so I decided it would be a good time to leave. As I stood up, I turned to David and Helen one last time. “I’ll stop by your dormitory room tonight after Cadets. We can hang out then and catch up some more, if that’s okay.”

“We’ll be waiting for you Jon,” Helen said with a smile.

******************************************************************

At Cadet practice that afternoon I told Orion everything that had happened. He was less than pleased. “You made them all nervous,” he said. “Now it will be even harder to get information from them.”

“But this proves they’re up to something,” I said.

“I already knew they were up to something,” Orion answered. “The reason I need you is to find out what they are up to and where it takes place. You did the exact opposite of everything I told you to. If I had wanted to play detective, I could have done that myself. Your job was to simply listen to what they have to tell you.”

“But they don’t want to talk to me,” I protested.

“That’s because you asked them direct questions and you were too interested in the answers. Remember back when you didn’t want to hear anything about Lucius? They couldn’t shut up about him then.” This was definitely true, although I don’t know how Orion knew this. Somehow he always knew a lot of things I never told him. Or maybe it was just a lucky guess on his part.

“What do you want me to do now?”

“Keep your promise to hang out with them tonight,” Orion said. “But don’t ask them any questions. Don’t react to anything they say. Listen to what they say, but don’t appear too interested. You have no strong opinions of your own about anything.”

I nodded. This was going to be difficult for me. Didn’t Orion know subtlety was not my strong suit?

“And if you can,” Orion added, “Try and be as talkative as possible. Talk about Cadets all the time. Tell them everything about Cadet practice, no matter how boring or trivial. Monopolize the conversation and make them fight to get a word in about anything that’s not about Cadets. And then when they tell you something, pretend to be just listening out of politeness, and then try and direct the conversation back to yourself as soon as possible.”

This was actually pretty good advice. I was taking careful mental notes of everything Orion was saying.

Orion continued talking. “You set yourself back a couple steps after your performance today, so you probably won’t get any information tonight, but don’t worry about that. Take your time and don’t do anything else stupid. If it takes two weeks to find out what’s going on, we can wait that long.”

I kept nodding as I focused on Orion’s words. When he stopped talking, I spoke up again. “What about the secret passage?”

“There is no secret passage. They must have been trying to mislead you.”

“But I was the one who brought it up. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but they all got really nervous when I talked about it.”

“There is no secret passage out of the University,” Orion answered. “If there was, the Cadets would know about it. We’re in charge of campus security.”

I pressed the point a little more. “Icarus tells a lot of stories. I’m never sure what to believe, but I don’t think they’re all false. He says his father was in charge of redesigning the University after the restoration. Is there a way to check that?”

“This University is older than the town,” Orion answered. “I’ve don’t know why anyone would want to redesign it.”

“Is there anyway to find out.”

Orion gave in with a sigh. “I’ll ask Zeus after practice,” he said. “But he’ll probably laugh me out of the room.”

********************************************************************

Clio was furious when I told her I would not be spending the evening with her. “First you got ride of me at lunch with you,” she said. “Now you’re going to spend the night with your friends? Do I fit into your day at all?”

I couldn’t really give her a good response. What could I tell her? I need this time so I can spy on my friends?

And I certainly couldn’t bring her along. She could freeze the room up with one glance, and then I would never get anything out of David or Icarus.

So I walked over to David’s room with Clio’s angry voice still ringing in my ears. There was a light covering of snow on the ground. We never really got a lot of snow in Urbae, but it was just high enough to be above my ankles and it sank in through the rims of my shoes and melted down in my socks. I suppose as a Cadet I wasn’t supposed to mind this slight physical discomfort, but the cold half melted snow slushing around by my toes just made Clio’s words reverberate all the more loudly in my brain.

True to his word, David was in his dormitory room. Helen and Icarus were there as well. The room became oddly silent as soon as I walked in, and I knew they had been talking about me.

David tried to cover up the awkwardness with a show of force. “So you came after all Jon,” he said in his dramatic voice. “We weren’t sure if you were serious or not.”

“Of course. If I say I’m going to come, I’ll come. I keep my promises. That’s one of the things they teach us in Cadets.” I walked across the room as I talked and sat down in an empty chair. Icarus was already sitting in the other chair. Helen was using the bed as a sofa, and David was leaning against the wall by the door.

With a slight effort David pulled his back away from the wall, straightened upright, and walked towards the window. “I’m sure they do. The rest of us were wondering why the sudden interest though. We have hardly seen you at all since that double date in the park, and then not only do we get to see you at lunch, but you clear out your whole evening for us. No Clio again tonight?”

“She’s still studying for that test.”

“Of course she is.”

“I just wanted to catch up with you guys a bit, that’s all. I never see anyone because of Cadets. Did I tell you we got new Cannons yesterday.”

“Cannons?” I could tell David was a little surprised by this abrupt change in conversation. Everyone else looked a little bit confused as well.

“Yeah, big cannons, like the kind they shoot off in battles these days. You must have seen pictures before in the newspapers or something.”

“Like the kind on a pirate ship?” Icarus asked.

“No, course not, not those old clunkers. What century are you living in?” Icarus opened his mouth to answer, but I talked over him. “These are state of the art artillery. You could hit something five miles away with this kind. And it has a site and a compass and everything, so you can crank on the wheel the exact number of degrees you want it aimed.”

“Want what aimed?” David asked.

“The cannon mouth. This isn’t like those old pirate cannons were you just point and shoot. Everything is calculated.”

“Let’s talk about something else beside guns,” said Helen. “With the war in the newspapers everyday, there’s already enough of that.”

“Why would they give cannons to the Cadets?” David asked, ignoring Helen’s request. “What are you going to do? Shoot them on campus?”

“I think just practice loading them.”

“Practice loading them? How difficult can that be?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never done it before. Apparently the men at the front don’t know how to load it properly, so they want the next class of Cadets to graduate already knowing how to load and fire the new artillery.”

“So you are going to fire them?”

Again I shrugged. “I don’t know that either. Orion said that Zeus is trying to get special permission.”

“To fire those things on campus? Are they out of their minds?”

“Because I’m first in my class, I’ll probably get to fire it if we get permission. Orion didn’t say so, but I’m sure the class leaders will go first. And besides, after Orion I think I’m the best marksman in the whole Cadet Corps.”

“I bet I would have been pretty good with a gun if I would have joined Cadets,” Icarus said.

“I don’t know. It’s not as easy as it looks,” I said.

“Wait, wait, wait,” David had his palms held up and his eyes closed as if it was too much information for him to process at once. “They’re going to let you fire the cannons Jon? Now I know they’re out of their minds. Are the rest of us going to get some warning about when this is going to happen?”

“What good would a warning do you?” Icarus asked. “Where are you going to go to be safe? He just said they have a five mile radius.”

“Would I be safe in a basement?”

I thought about this for a moment. “You’d be safer in a basement. But there are stories of the shell hitting the roof of a house and going right through the ground floor into the basement. I think that happens a lot in some of these boarder towns that get a lot of heavy shelling.”

“Please, let’s change the subject,” Helen said.

“So you’re telling me that they are going to let you shoot one of these things off, and there’s no where within a five mile radius of campus that I’ll be completely safe?” David asked.

“It’s going to be supervised,” I said. “They’re not going to let me just start launching shells all over campus.”

“Can you imagine that?” David said.

“I said they’re NOT going to let me launch shells all over campus.”

“Yeah, but still.” I could tell David had the same image in his head that I did of University lectures going on amid the chaos of falling shells.

Evidently so did Icarus. “I’m not sure some of my professors would even notice,” he said. “Some of them are so out of it they would probably just keep right on teaching. In fact there are stories that my Math professor had half of his classroom blown away once during the Restoration, and he just kept teaching. And at the end of the class he collected the homework, and gave zero marks to the half of the class that didn’t pass in anything.”

“I can imagine my science professor doing that,” David said. “He’s a real bastard.”

“Well what if I just took out the professor then, and left students unhurt?”

“That I could get behind. But can you do that. Aren’t those shells rather imprecise.”

“I told you I’m the second best marksman in the Corps. You just make sure the professor is standing by the window or something. I’ll hit him square in the belly.”

“I’d sure like to see his face when the shell blows him away,” David said, with a look that indicated he was half imagining it.

Helen, who had resorted to reading one of David’s books to try and escape our conversation, slammed the book shut at this point. “That does it. If you boys can’t talk about something else, I’m leaving.”

“Honey, we were just joking,” David said. “I don’t really want to see him blown away.”

“There’s quite enough people being blown away in the papers these days without you having to joke about it,” Helen said.

David sat down on the bed and tried to comfort Helen, but it was obvious she was upset about it.

“It’s mostly the Amicaen shells,” I said, trying to help. “Our army doesn’t bombard civilian areas. All that stuff in the papers is when they shell our boarder towns. Why just last week their troops shot an old women who was walking into town to buy some bread.”

“I thought you didn’t read the newspapers,” Icarus said.

“I don’t. I hear about it at Cadets.”

“You know, I’ve never understood why you don’t read the papers,” David said. He had one arm around Helen now, but was leaning back on the bed and looking pretty relaxed. “You’re the one who might have to fight in this war someday. Don’t you want to know what it’s about?”

“It’s not the job of a Cadet to question why we fight,” I answered. “I just obey orders.”

“You can’t really mean that.”

“Of course I do. If everyone had their own opinions about everything, the army would fall apart. The good Cadet obeys orders.”

David sat forward on the bed. Helen still seemed mildly upset with him, but he took his arm off of her shoulder to point it at me. “In that case, what makes you any different then the Amicaen soldiers.” I rolled my eyes at this. “No, really, you’re talking about how they shell civilian cities, and how they shoot old women, but they’re just following orders just like you. If you had those orders, would you be any different?”

“Oh, sure,” I answered sarcastically. “Their commanding officer told them, ‘Make sure you sons of bitches shoot that old women walking into town to buy her bread, or I’ll have your hides flogged purple’.” I was hoping that this would make David realize how ridiculous his whole argument was, but he just looked confused. I finished the thought. “Nobody ordered them to shoot the old woman. They did it for fun.”

“Why would they do something like that for fun?” Icarus asked.

“Don’t ask me. Why would they shell civilian cities and boarder towns? They’re animals. They’re not the same as you and me.”

“Jon, six months ago you barely knew Amicae even existed,” David said. “And now you’re an expert on their psychology? You’ve been hanging out with the Cadets too long.”

“And I suppose you know better?”

“What if I showed you some real reports from the boarder towns?”

Icarus suddenly sat up straight in his chair. Helen whipped her head around and stared at David. This was too easy. Orion was a genius. I tried to play my part. “What are you talking about? I hear reports every day at Cadets.”

“Those aren’t real. You can’t trust any of that stuff you read in the papers.”

David stopped talking, and I knew he was waiting for some signal for me before he continued. This was a critical point. I couldn’t sound too curious. “I’m listening,” I said.

Helen and Icarus were both looking nervous now, but they had decided to defer to David’s judgment, and were simply watching from the sidelines. “We get first hand reports smuggled in from the boarders. It is a whole different war than the one you read about in the newspapers.”

“Whose we?”

David took a breath. He was on the point of telling me, and then he must have remembered his suspicion from earlier in the afternoon. “Why do you want to know Jon?”

“Oh just tell him,” Helen said. “You might as well now. Either you take him fully into your confidence and you trust him or you don’t but there’s no point in just giving him hints. That’s more dangerous than not telling him anything at all.” David just starred at Helen, obviously not comfortable with having her take control of the conversation. “What is he going to do?” Helen continued. “Turn us in? This is Jon we’re talking about.”

David didn’t say anything but gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, and gave Helen a look which said, “Alright, do it your way. But it’s your funeral if this goes wrong.” And then David leaned back on the bed and let Helen take over the conversation.

“You wouldn’t turn us in would you Jon?” It wasn’t really a question the way she said it, but sounded more like a statement of established fact. “I know we can trust you.”

My throat had suddenly gone try. I opened my mouth, but when it was apparent no sound was going to issue forth I just contented myself with a nod of the head. Helen smiled. “I knew you wouldn’t. That’s what we were arguing about before you came here. I kept telling these guys we could trust you. If we can’t trust Jon, I told them, we can’t trust anyone.”

David coughed. “It’s not just a matter of trust,” he put in. “Jon belongs to the Cadets. In fact, as he keeps reminding us, he’s a Cadet leader.”

“But it’s the same Jon, no matter what club he joins,” Helen protested. “Do you honestly think he’d turn us in? People can’t change that much.”

David threw up his hands. “Well, go ahead and tell him then,” he said.

Helen leaned forward, and reached out and grabbed my hand. My throat went dry again, but I made eye contact with her. “Jon, we’re part of the Central Student Committee,” she said.

I was silent for a while as they all waited to see how I would react to this. “LJ’s group?” I asked, when I could find the words.

“Actually Rosa started it,” Icarus said. “But the group is based on Lucius’s ideas.”

“And who else is a member?” I asked.

“A lot of people you know,” Helen said.

“Emma’s a member, right?”

“Yes, Emma is too.”

“And Sophia and Vera?”

“Yes, both of them. If you’re curious Jon, why don’t you come with us to the meeting tonight?”

I was on the point of accepting, when I remembered Orion’s advice and drew back just in time. Things had been going pretty well, but I wasn’t home free yet. “I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of homework to do, and we have Cadets practice early tomorrow morning.”

“Forget about Cadets for just one night,” Icarus said. “This meeting could change your life.”

I gave a short derisive laugh. “I hardly think attending one meeting could do that.”

Icarus had swallowed the bait whole. He was actually getting upset now that I didn’t want to come. The volume of his voice rose as he snapped at me. “Just give it a chance. You can’t let Cadets decide everything for you.”

Helen remained her usual calm self, but she once again reached out and touched my hand. “Jon, nobody is pressuring you to do anything you don’t want to do. We all think you might learn a lot by coming to our meeting and seeing what it is we do. But the choice is yours.”

I tried to appear thoughtful as I pretended to deliberate the question. “Okay,” I said with some reluctance, “I suppose I could come just for tonight. There’s no sort of commitment, is there? I wouldn’t have to come for any other meetings if I didn’t want to?”

“No, of course not,” Helen answered. “Then it’s agreed?”

“Just a minute.” David got up from the bed and stood up beside me. I was sitting in the chair so I had to lean my head back to look up at him. “I want you to swear that you will keep everything you learn tonight a secret. I want you to swear it on our friendship, and the friendship of everyone in this room.”

“David!” Helen’s voice was both shocked and scolding at the same time.

David reddened slightly. “I’m sorry Jon. I wouldn’t ask if it was just me,” he said. “But I can’t risk everyone’s safety without being sure.”

“I swear it,” I answered.

**************************************************

We spent some time making small talk after that. I did my best to keep the conversation light hearted by telling funny stories about Cadets, mostly focused on what a jerk Ajax was, or what a pompous ass Christopher was. This led to reminiscing about our school days in general.

Around eleven David indicated that it was time for the meeting, and we all followed him out of the dormitory.

The snow had started falling again once we were outside. It was still not very cold out yet, but I still thrust both of my hands in my coat pockets. “I still don’t know where we’re going,” I said.

“We’re going to the chapel,” Helen answered.

“Isn’t the chapel locked at night?”

“You remember when we came here years ago, and Icarus pulled the doors off the cellar?” David asked me. “Same idea.”

When we got to the Chapel and went around to the back, I could see that the doors had already looked out of place, as if someone had pulled them off and replaced them clumsily. David knocked four times on the cellar doors, and the door opened from the inside.

It was almost midnight, but there was a full moon, and besides my eyes had already adjusted to the darkness, so I was able to clearly recognize Sophia’s face. “We’re not late are we?” David asked.

“No, these things never start on time anyway,” Sophia answered. “Everyone’s downstairs, but they’re just chatting so far.” Sophia’s eyes moved from David to the rest of us. She suddenly stiffened when she noticed me.

“It’s okay Sophia,” Helen said. “He’s with us.”

“He’s a Cadet,” Sophia said in a trembling voice

“He’s only a Cadet because his father made him,” Icarus replied.

Sophia looked at all of us, and then decided to appeal to David as the voice of reason in the group. “David, he can’t be here.”

“It’s okay. He gave me his word. You can trust him. Jon and I have been friends since we were five years old.”

“You don’t understand. He was with Orion that night they came looking for Lucius. They threatened to line us up against the wall and shoot us. I’m going to have to get Rosa.”

Sophia went down the stairs and shut the cellar doors behind her. In the moonlight I could tell everyone was looking at me with a different expression, so I cleared my throat. “It’s true, I was with Orion that night. He got me out of bed, and so I came with him. But I had no idea what was going on, and Orion did all the talking. You don’t think I would really shoot Sophia or the rest of them, do you?”

A brief silence followed, which David was the first to break. “No of course not. Besides Jon, you’ve given us your word.” Although we were all half hidden in the darkness, I could even see a hint of a smile from David’s mouth. “If you can’t trust your friends, who can you trust?”

The cellar door practically exploded open as Rosa burst through. She didn’t waste any time. Her finger pointed accusingly in my direction, while looked at David, “What is he doing here?” She didn’t yell, but every syllable she uttered was inflected with a furious tone.

“It’s okay,” David said. “He’s with us.”

“Why would you bring him here?” Rosa asked. Her eyes were glowing with fire. “Everyone knows he’s a Cadet.”

“Rosa, I’ve been best friends with Jon since I was five. I know this man. If you trust me at all, then trust him. If you don’t trust him, then maybe you better throw us all out because if he can’t be trusted, then neither can I.”

“Nor I,” Helen said.

“Me too,” Icarus joined in.

Rosa thought about this for a while, and then leveled her gaze at me. “What does the Cadet have to say for himself?” she asked.

I realized that in all the years I had known Rosa, in all the time I had attended both school and church with her, this was the first time she had ever spoken directly to me. My mouth went dry and I found myself unable to answer her at first. I wondered if this was just some left over schoolboy reaction caused by being addressed by the most popular girl in school. And then I noticed the look in Rosa’s eyes. I remembered how Rosa could even intimidate teachers with that look. Her eyes were so powerful that I lost all power of speech.

“I know he and Orion charged in on you that night Lucius escaped,” David said. “But he didn’t know what was going on. He was just following Orion’s lead.”

“Can he speak for himself?” Rosa asked. “Or is he just going to stand there with his mouth hanging open like that?”

I realized that my mouth was indeed open. I shut my mouth, but still didn’t speak.

Rosa turned back to David. “Look, this story about you and Jon being friends is very touching, but you know as well as I do what will happen if the Cadets find out about us. Unless someone else is willing to vouch for him, I can’t take him in on your word alone.”

“I’ll vouch for him.”

Rosa turned in the direction of this new voice, to see another female figure emerging from the cellar doors. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see what was going on.” As the figure stepped into the moonlight, I could see that it was Emma. “I’m free to go where I want, aren’t I?”

“We have a guard posted by the door for a reason,” Rosa answered. “If everyone is standing by the door at once, it could create too much attention.”

“So were you planning on giving the rest of us any say in this?” Emma asked. “Or were you just going to decide by yourself?”

Even in the moonlight, I could see Rosa’s cheeks turn red with anger. Rosa was one of those people who had been used to always getting her own way ever since childhood, and she didn’t handle contradiction well. But she managed to control herself, and the color in her cheeks left as quickly as it appeared. “Emma, you were there that night. How can you vouch for him?”

“Because we’ve all known Jon since we were kids, and I know he’s got a good heart.” Emma may have been answering Rosa, but she looked straight at me when she said that sentence. Then she turned back to Rosa. “Besides, I want to make sure he gets a fair hearing. You can’t just arbitrarily decide these things.”

Again, the redness flared up in Rosa’s cheeks. The eyes also narrowed. Rosa looked like she wanted to tear Emma apart.

Sophia, who had been looking nervously back and forth between the two, spoke up. “Well we can’t argue about it here.”

Rosa came back to herself again. “No, we can’t,” she agreed. “Jon, you wait outside here. We’ll go downstairs and put it to a vote. If that will make you happy Emma.” That last bit had enough acid in it to eat a hole through the ground, but Emma knew she had won. She just nodded and went back inside.

David gave me an apologizing look and a shrug. “Looks like it’s out of my hands from here Jon,” he said. “Sorry. I’ll see you inside later maybe.”

“Don’t eat all the refreshments before I get down there,” I said. “Are there refreshments at these meetings?”

David laughed. “There should be,” he said. “I can see you’re going to be a valuable member already.”

After David, Helen and Icarus had all gone inside, Rosa turned to Sophia. “Stay outside and wait with him. Make sure he doesn’t go and get his Cadet friends.” Sophia nodded to show she understood. “Do you want me to carry your vote to the others?” Rosa asked.

“Tell the others I vote no entrance for the Cadet,” Sophia responded.

Rosa nodded approvingly and shut the door behind her as she went back inside. And I was left outside with Sophia.

Sophia was standing against the chapel wall, and her face was half-hidden by the chapel’s shadow, so that I couldn’t quite make out what her expression was, but I could see she was looking straight at me. Evidently she intended to keep her promise to keep a close watch. It was a little disconcerting. I put my hands in my pockets and rocked back and forth a little on my heels. I looked up at the sky. The moon was beautiful, but it was outshining most of the stars that night, so it wasn’t a great night for stargazing. I blew out a big breath of air, and watched the mist from my breath slowly disappear in the night. I looked back and Sophia’s eyes were still fixed on me. “Cold out tonight, isn’t it?” I said. There was only silence back from Sophia.

I cleared my throat. “Listen, Sophia, I want you to know I’m not taking your vote personally. I understand your position, and I know how this must look to you. I know you have nothing personally against me.”

“You’re too generous,” Sophia answered in a flat voice.

I looked around at some of the nearby trees. I made a show of trying to whistle, but no tune came to my mind. “Are they going to be in there long?” I asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Sophia answered. I thought she was done speaking, but just as I was about to look away, she added, “My guess is that it will be a short time if they decide to let you in. It will be a long time if they vote no, because then we need to decide what to do about you.”

“So whose in charge of this group? Rosa?”

“We have no leaders,” Sophia answered. “Everyone has an equal say.”

“But Rosa thinks she’s in charge, right?” [too direct? Better simply to imply a lot of this?]

Sophia didn’t answer this. Instead I just noticed her shift her weight uncomfortably. I silently congratulated myself on a well-placed barb. I may not have been helping my cause by deliberately angering Sophia, but a certain point my instincts for irritating just took over, and I had already determined that Sophia wasn’t an ally.

When more silence followed, I decided our conversation was at an end. “Do you mind if I sit down?” I asked. “If they’re going to be a while, I don’t want to be standing the whole time. I’ll sit against that tree right there where you can see me.” Sophia didn’t say anything, and so I just made my way over to the tree. There was still some snow on the ground, but it was a small layer, and I made sure the tail of my coat was under my bottom before I sat down.

Surprisingly comfortable under the tree, I soon forgot about the passage of time as I was lost in my thoughts. But before too long I heard the chapel door open. Both Sophia and I turned to see who it was.

David poked his head out. As soon as I saw his face, I knew I was clear. They wouldn’t have sent him to give bad news. “It’s okay Jon,” he said. “You can come in.” I stood up and started heading to the door. Sophia’s body straightened and became rigid, and David noticed her in the shadows. “Oh, Sophia, Rosa said you can come down now. We’re not expecting anyone else.”

Sophia stopped to face me before heading inside. “I don’t care what the vote was Jon,” she said. “I’m keeping my eye on you.” With that, she turned and went down the stairs. {Go back to earlier chapters and make more of a stair case?}

As Sophia’s back faded from view, I looked at David and raised my eyebrows. “Glad to see the old Jon charm is still working,” David said dryly.

“How close was the vote?” I asked.

“You don’t want to know,” David answered. “Just make sure you’re on your best behavior tonight. You have a lot of people to win over still, but Helen, Icarus, Emma, Simon and I all spoke in your favor.”

“Simon? I thought he was out wandering around with Joshua?”

“He is, but that doesn’t stop him from coming to our meetings also. He still has his old student pass, so he can get in and out of the University.”

“He told me he was using up all his time with Joshua as it is,” I said. “How does he find time to go to these meetings?”

“You’ll have to ask him,” David answered.

David and I went in the cellar door. David used a wooden plank to bar the door shut from the inside, and we went down into the basement.

When I had been down here before with Icarus, it had been pitch black, but this time there were a few lamps and candles lit so that I could actually see where I was going. David led me into a large room where everyone was gathered. Everyone was sitting in a circle. The lighting in the room wasn’t great, but there were just enough candles in the middle that I could make out everyone’s face. Rosa was standing in the middle.

“Welcome Jon,” she said. “It looks like you’ve won your vote. I can only hope you prove me wrong about you.” Her anger was gone, and Rosa seemed to be taking her defeat well. The atmosphere of the room was quiet and had all the formality of a meeting already in progress, so instead of speaking I merely nodded in reply and David and I took our seats. “I believe you already know most of the people here,” Rosa continued. I looked around and she was right. Half of the group was from our old school. Emma, Vera, Icarus, Helen, Simon, David, Ares, Julius, Varro, Clodius, Philip, and others were there.

“We don’t have any new letters from Lucius,” Rosa said, addressing the whole group now. “As for the last letter we sent updating him on his activities, I can only assume it reached him. Although you can never be sure with the underground postal service.” She smiled as she spoke, and there were a few laughs in response. I didn’t really know what she was talking about, but I gave a half chuckle just to fit in. “Before we get down to new business, we do have an issue on the table from the last meeting. Philip, could you explain your proposal one more time before we open up the discussion.”

Philip stood up and addressed the whole room. “I think we’re getting too careless with all these letters,” Philip said. “Our system for smuggling them in and out of Urbae is far from perfect, and it’s only a matter of time before they’re intercepted. And when they are, there’s too much damning information in them.”

“That’s part of the risk,” Clodius blurted out. “You don’t make revolutions without taking some risk.”

“It’s not taking risks I mind,” Philip answered. “It’s taking stupid risks. For example, we shouldn’t be using people’s real names in our letters. That’s just stupid. Why should we just give Flash that information?”

“There’s no way Flash is going to get a hold of those letters,” Julius said. “We keep them too carefully guarded.”

“Oh, come on,” Vera said. “What if you’re caught jaywalking across the street, and the police decide to randomly search you? Then all of our names are right there for them to read.”

“Maybe we should write the letters in code,” Icarus said.

“You’ve been reading too many spy novels,” Julius said. “We’re not going to learn a secret code. We have a hard enough time understanding each other as it is.”

“A secret code wouldn’t be a bad idea necessarily,” said Varro. “But Flash’s spy’s should already be used to intercepting and decoding messages from Amicae. Do you think you could make a code they couldn’t break?”

“In a heartbeat,” Icarus answered. Everyone ignored him.

“I think we’re making this more complicated than it needs to be,” Philip said. “All I ask is that we be careful about what kind of information we include in the letters.”

“No one would disagree with that,” Rosa said sharply, effectively cutting off all debate. “Do you have any specific guidelines you wanted to propose?”

“No names,” Philip said. “If we need to refer to a specific person, we should use some sort of code or nickname.”

“My nickname is ‘The Fox’,” Icarus shouted out.

“Um, we don’t have to necessarily decide the nicknames now,” Philip replied. “I just want to establish the principle.”

“Okay, but remember the fox has been taken,” Icarus said.

“So noted,” Rosa said icily, fixing Icarus with a stare intended to freeze him back into silence. “Anything else, Philip?”

“No place names, no specific dates…”

“Are we going to be able to put anything at all in these letters?” Julius asked. Rosa shot him with a look, but he persisted. “No, really, I mean what is the point of exchanging these letters at all if we’re just going to talk about the weather. If we’re going to plan a strategy, we need to take some risks.”

“This whole discussion is a waste of time,” Clodius said. “We don’t need to make our own little bureaucracy around these letters by voting on pre-established rules. We’ve all got a bit of common sense after all. Each letter should be evaluated on its own, and at that time the risks should be judged against the benefits of communication.”

At this point Philip produced a prop. He dug into his shirt pocket, and produced two scraps of paper. “I have here copies of the last two letters we sent out,” he said. “Which I think show a distinct lack of common sense in terms of the kind of information enclosed. Would you like me to read them in order to refresh everyone’s memory?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Rosa said. “Clodius is right, this discussion has gone on long enough. I’m moving for a vote. Philip, let’s just vote on the nicknames tonight. If you feel later that this proves insufficient, you can bring the issue up again at a later time.”

Sensing that my presence was somewhat probationary, I decided to abstain from the voting. Rosa called for a show of hands for both approval and disapproval, and Philip’s modest proposal was passed through.

“Okay, now that we took care of that matter, let’s move onto more serious business,” Rosa said. “We’ve had a lot of success with the fliers we’ve been handing out the past few weeks, but I think they’ve served their purpose now. We’ve put them in all our usual safe places, and even a few not so safe places, so it’s time for some new material.”

“I thought you said there were no new letters from Lucius,” Simon said.

“There aren’t,” Rosa answered. “So in his absence, Varro has agreed to draft a new flier. Do you have a copy with you Varro?”

“I do,” Varro answered, reaching behind him for his backpack.

“Maybe you could just pass it around and let everyone see it,” Rosa suggested. Varro nodded in response. “Okay, everyone look closely at this,” Rosa continued. “If anyone has any problems with it, let us know. Otherwise, this is the new flier that we’ll be handing out for the next few weeks. If there are no problems, we can even go to press tonight on it.” Varro found the paper he was looking for, and passed it to Philip on his right. Philip looked at it, and then passed it on again.

“Now, I think the final item of business is to discuss our organizing in the working class neighborhoods, and the future of the student worker alliance. Whose been doing field work in that area? You have, haven’t you Vera?” Vera nodded yes. “And Ares, you have too, right?” Ares also nodded. “Would you like to report to the rest of the committee?”

“I’ve been working on that too,” Emma spoke up.

Rosa blinked a couple of times. “Yes, that’s right,” she said at last. “I’m sorry Emma. Well, what is your report?”

“We’ve blanketed every working class neighborhood with fliers,” Vera said. “The old kind that Lucius printed up. Unfortunately we’ve had,” she paused to purse her lips, “we’ve had a bit of a mixed response. Almost all of our fliers were thrown in the river. And our wall posters were torn down. Some of it was the work of the police, but most of it was the workers themselves, the very people we were trying to help. Ares almost got in a fight with a couple of them.” Ares didn’t say anything, but he looked very pleased with himself as Vera recounted this little detail.

“The problem is that the army recruits all its grunt soldiers from the working class neighborhoods,” Emma said. “Lucius is essentially telling them that their sons are going off to die for nothing.”

“What do you suggest then, Emma,” Rosa asked.

“As long as the war is going well, we aren’t going to make any progress. But it’s just a matter of time before we will have a few major defeats, and then I think people will look at our pamphlets with new eyes. In the meantime we need to focus less on the distant war, and more on the daily needs of the workers. Why do they go to sleep hungry every night when Flash and his buddies have food to spare? I saw the new flier that Varro was passing around and I like it, even it is just rephrasing Lucius.”

Varro turned red at this point. “I don’t claim to be as smart as Lucius,” he answered. “But I did try to make his ideas easier to understand.”

Icarus nudged me from behind, and I turned to see what he wanted. He handed me Varro’s flier, which had been working it’s way around the circle. I glanced down at it.

“Attention all workers:
“Arise you who are hungry. Arise those who are poor. Arise all whose children don’t have a place to sleep. Arise those who don’t have enough blankets to keep warm at night.
“In the banks is stored more gold then you could possibly dream, so why are you starving? Why are the wealthy reaping the benefit of your hard work, and you don’t get paid enough to buy clothes for your family. They may try and tell you that you’ll get your reward in heaven, but don’t listen to their lies. Demand your earthly bread now. Organize yourselves. Educate yourselves. There is power in groups.” [I don’t remember where this is from. I probably made it up. Look for something more authentic].

Varro’s writings continued down the page. My eyes skimmed over it briefly but I felt like I had gotten the general point of it. I handed it off to David.

Julius was talking when I looked back up. “I thought the workers already had study groups,” he said. “Isn’t that were Lucius learned most of his stuff.”

“Some of the workers are already extremely advanced and well organized,” Emma replied. “Unfortunately the ones that might be sympathetic to our cause don’t trust us yet. They don’t like students, and they think we don’t have long term commitment. And fortunately we haven’t done anything yet to prove them wrong. All this group has done since it was formed is talk and write pamphlets.”

“You must be patient,” Philip answered. “Lucius himself said the time wasn’t ready for any direct action. We have to focus on education first.”

“Let me educate you a little then,” Emma replied sharply. “There are two types of workers out there now. There’s the kind that isn’t listening to us, and there’s the kind that already knows more than we do. We need to do something bold to make them take us seriously. After that the students will be leading the movement.”

Despite herself, Rosa was looking intrigued by this idea. “What did you have in mind?” she asked.

“Assassinate Flash.” Rosa’s expression abruptly changed from one of interest to one of annoyance. She rolled her eyes. “No, I’m serious,” Emma said. “Flash comes to visit the University campus all the time. He never has any bodyguards with him. Anyone of us could slip in and shoot him. All it would take is one bullet.”

“First of all, none of us have any guns,” Rosa said.

“A knife would work just as well.”

“None of us have any knives. And Flash isn’t as easy to get to as you think. He wants it to look like he strolls around campus without any guards, but the Cadets are always on high alert when ever he visits. Isn’t that right Jon?”

From the tone of her voice, I knew this was one of those questions that’s best answered with a quick nod, rather then getting into all the technicalities of Cadet procedure. I bobbed my head up and down a couple times to indicate my assent.

“And even if you could get to him,” Rosa continued, “It wouldn’t change anything. Angelo would just take his place. We would only substitute one tyrant for another.”

“It’s not about Flash or Angelo,” Emma said. “It’s about doing something for once besides sitting around and talking. Something that will inspire others to action.”

Varro cleared his throat nervously, and Rosa gave him a look which seemed to say, “Yes, I hear you, what have you got to say?”

“Lucius’s writings are very clear on this point,” Varro said. “Until we have built up a broad base of support through education and organizing, sporadic acts of violence are not going to produce any kind of significant—.”

“I know what Lucius wrote,” Emma snapped. “But think of the propaganda value this would have. It could inspire people. It could draw more people to our cause than ten years of leafleting.”

“We’re not discussing this,” Rosa said at last. “Lucius’s writings are crystal clear on this point, it is impossible to get to Flash, and even if it was, it would accomplish nothing. Next item of business.”

“I want a vote,” Emma demanded.

Rosa sighed. “Is there anyone besides Emma who wants to continue discussion on this topic.” Ares raised his hand. Sophia put her hand up halfway, but then quickly lowered it again when Rosa glared at her. “Not nearly enough votes to continue discussion,” Rosa said. “Moving on to the next item of business.”

The meeting dragged on for over an hour. Most of it was spent discussing a lot of pointless details. For example the last fifteen minutes were completely dedicated to the fascinating topic of finding a time when everyone would be free to meet again. My mind wandered in and out through the whole time. At one point I even caught myself counting the bricks in the wall. This was almost as boring as church. I couldn’t believe all these people were here voluntarily.

At last the meeting ended and we all stood up at once. Since we had been sitting on the floor I stood up slowly and stretched as I felt the blood returning to my legs.

Simon walked over to us and slapped me on the back. “I was wondering when you were going to start coming to these meetings Jon,” he said. “It just didn’t seem like the group was complete without you. Who else are we going to get to steal our police hats for us?”

I tried to smile at this. “I’m surprised to see you hear Simon,” I said. “Didn’t you tell me Joshua was taking up all your time?”

“Almost all my time,” Simon answered with a smile. “But I can usually find one hour a week for these meetings. I think both are equally important.”

“Have you thought about what I said about getting a job?” I asked.

Our conversation was interrupted as Rosa came storming up to us. “Not one word of what you saw tonight leaves this room Jon,” she said. “Especially not to the Cadets.”

“Relax Rosa, he already knows,” Simon said.

Rosa looked at me. “I know,” I quickly added.

There was something on Rosa’s face which didn’t look completely satisfied, so Simon added, “Look, we’re all old friends here, right? He doesn’t want to see his friends get expelled.”

Rosa looked hard at me for a moment, and then her expression softened slightly. “Well, if you really have come to join us, we could use someone who could pass us information from the Cadets. We barely got Lucius out in time when you and Orion came that night. Next time some advance warning would be nice.”

“I didn’t know what was going on that night until it happened,” I answered.

“Well keep your ears to the ground just the same. Anything you can pick up would be useful.”

And with that she walked away. We both stayed frozen until she was out of earshot, and then Simon turned to me with raised eyebrows. “Looks like you passed the test Jon.”

My throat had gone dry again, so I cleared it. “I don’t think I like being on her bad side.”

“Don’t worry about it. I think she does like you, she’s just cautious about everyone. Once you prove yourself, you’ll have no problems.”

Simon left the chapel shortly afterwards, claiming he had to get back and rejoin up with Joshua and the others. But almost everyone else stuck around for a while and talked. It was apparent the Central Student Committee functioned just as much as a social club as it was political.

I saw Helen sitting by herself over by the stairs, so I walked over to her. “Mind if I sit down?” I asked.

Helen, whose thoughts had clearly been elsewhere, looked up and noticed me for the first time. “Oh, hello Jon,” she said. She moved over to make room for me on the steps. “I was meaning to ask you how you liked it?”

“It was okay,” I said. I lowered my voice slightly. “Actually I thought some parts of it were a little bit boring.”

Helen laughed and moved her head closer to mine. “I did too,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m glad I’m not the only one.”

We shared a small laugh, and then Helen straightened her head and added in a more serious tone, “I do think these meetings are important though. We all have to do what we can to stop the war.”

“Yeah, actually that was one part I really didn’t get.”

She gave me a strange look. “What’s not to get Jon?”

“Well for example Varro’s pamphlet didn’t say anything about the war. It was all about organizing the workers.”

Helen knit her brows. “Hmm, yes I see, that confused me at first too. But David explained to me that the cause of all wars are the kings and emperors, and in our case the Duke. When the kings decide they want to fight each other, it’s the common people who must pay the price. If there were no kings, there would be no more wars. Kings are the only ones who have anything to gain by wars. If normal people are just left to themselves, they don’t want to fight each other.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes you need to fight a war. Look at all the terrible things Amicae has been doing in the boarder towns. We had to stand up to them.”

“But that’s not the people of Amicae. They’re following their king just as we are. If people everywhere were truly free, what need would they have to fight against each other?”

I considered this. “Sometimes people want to fight,” I said after a while. “Take the Cadets for example. Most of us can’t wait for our chance to go out and kill Amicaens.”

“But you don’t feel that way, do you Jon?”

The transition from the general to the personal startled me. “It’s not really about me personally.”

“It is to me,” Helen answered.

I turned my head to look at Helen’s face, and she was staring directly into my eyes. Then she blushed slightly and shook her head. “I’m sorry Jon. It’s just important for me to believe that the sweet boy I met five years ago isn’t gone completely.” A strand of hair had fallen over her eyes, and she brushed it back out of her face. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but David and Icarus were reluctant at first to let you come. They’ve changed their minds now of course, but before you came tonight we were talking about you, and I was the only one who trusted you completely.”

My heart was in my throat again. “Why would you trust me completely?”

She smiled. “What a silly thing to ask Jon. Why wouldn’t I trust you completely? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

******************************************************

Orion pulled me aside after Cadets practice the next morning. “How did things go last night?”

“It was just like you said,” I answered. “I didn’t get any information out of them, but I think I went a long way towards gaining their confidence.”

“Can you give me any specifics?”

“I just talked about Cadets the whole time like you said. They tried to talk about other things, but I kept switching the conversation back to me.” I paused and looked at Orion’s face. He gave me no clue as to what he was thinking. “Actually in retrospect I might have overdone it a little,” I continued. “Maybe if I would have let them talk a little or led them on a bit I could have found out something, but I was concentrating so much on just monopolizing the conversation, like you told me to.”

“You didn’t find out anything that was useful?”

“I didn’t give them a chance to speak.”

Orion chewed this over. “That is what I told you to do,” he admitted. “And I didn’t think we’d get anything important the first night. You can’t appear too eager. But you have to judge these things for yourself. I can’t be there to hold your hand, so try to think on your feet a little.”

“Okay, I will. I’ll keep trying,” I said.

“By the way, I asked Zeus about the tunnels.”

“Yeah?”

“Zeus said he didn’t know anything about secret tunnels, but that someone named Daedalus was in charge of redesigning parts of the University shortly after the Restoration. Does that name sound familiar?”

“I think that’s Icarus’s father,” I answered. [check to see if Daedalus is mentioned before].

Orion nodded slowly. “There just might be something to this secret tunnel story after all. Keep your ears open and see what you can find out.”