I'd always known I might be arrested some day, so it wasn't entirely unexpected. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a criminal. I was doing something patriotic. But the people in charge of things disagreed.
That can be a problem.
In those days I was running the newspaper from a little dressmaking shop in Tull. I worked the shop in the mornings, cutting and draping and stitching gowns for Tull's most fashionable ladies, and in return I got three squares and a bed in the attic with the other two seamstresses, Elena and Tarri. Elena was working because she had been widowed, and her husband's brother had thrown her off the estate. Tarri was an irrepressibly adventurous thing of seventeen, who had run away from home with nothing but the clothes she stood up in, and was nevertheless making a life for herself with great enthusiasm.
And then, when I wasn't working, I ran the paper. It really wasn't much, mostly just accounts of unethical behavior by government leaders, or of people being abused by those in power. An officer who raped a pretty farmgirl – a judge who took bribes – persecution of the Soralites in a border town. Many of the rural counties still held to a landowner-tenant system just one step away from fealty-and-fiefdom, and there were too many opportunities for an unscrupulous landowner to take advantage of his farmers. I didn't have a problem with our system of government. I didn't even have a problem with Lord Maven; in fact, I rather admired him. I just wanted people to have an opportunity to know about the instances of oppression around them.
That afternoon, I was delivering a draft to my printer. Well, actually, Jaki was just an journeyman printer, but Master Lacey had known my mother, and he had a bit of a revolutionary streak himself, so he turned a blind eye. Of course, the guard knew that the paper must be printed somewhere, and they watched the printshops. Fortunately, the guard did *not* know that Master Lacey had a second press in the cellar, and so Jaki practiced his trade for me by candlelight once a month.
Today, Jaki was in the back room mixing ink colors, his hands full of pots and spoons and packets of dye. Master Lacey specialized in colored woodcut printing, and Jaki was well on his way to becoming the best colorist in Tull. I put the folded draft in his apron pocket, and as I leaned forward he gave me a quick little kiss, with a wink afterwards. He never lost an opportunity to sneak a kiss. I told myself that I was far too busy to worry about a lover. And also, he was far too young. And also, it would put him in danger. And also, I didn't want to jeopardize our professional relationship.
In other words, I was close to kissing him back. I'd had lovers before, and Jaki was sweet and funny and attractive. But we hadn't quite got there yet.
"I heard about a riot in Westerville," Jaki said, stirring some blue and adding a touch of yellow. "The West Elders doubled the price of wheat, because of the shortage, but they didn't consult with the Farmers' Council. They say someone died."
"Have we heard anything about it from Cy?"
"Not yet."
"Then it can wait. We don't publish rumors. Cy will let us know if it's true."
Jaki nodded. "Just thought you'd like to know."
I leaned against the counter. "Anything new about Lord Randall?"
Jaki snorted in disgust. Lord Randall had explicitly deviant sexual tastes. Normally I wouldn't be interested in that kind of scandal, not for the paper at least, but in this case the activity was illegal as well as immoral. Girls of sixteen are one thing. Girls of eleven are quite another.
"We got two more reports that the children Mackinal bought last Friday were actually for Randall. But Damien still says he doesn't know anything about it."
"Three independent reports are good enough. And that makes four separate incidents of Randall abusing children. We can publish it next month. What's Damien doing in the capital, anyway? He hasn't sent any news our way for a good while now."
"He's busy," said Jaki shortly. I didn't push it. Damien and Jaki were cousins, and if Jaki needed to keep a secret, that was fine.
"I'd better get back," I said. "That wedding dress is due tomorrow, so it's all-hands until it's finished."
"That's been quite a project," said Jaki. "You'd better let me take you out for a celebratory dinner afterwards."
I gave him a quick smile. "We'll see."
Of course, that dinner never happened. I was arrested within the hour.
***
I'd been made before. Three times, actually. No one's perfect. But I'd always had some warning, at least enough to get out of town. This time, I didn't even hear a whisper of danger. It turned out that there was a reason for that, but I didn't find out until later.
I'd just barely got back to the shop. I came in the back way, and I was hanging up my shawl on a hook when I heard the front door slam open. There were the usual noises of feet and voices tending to a customer, and then a voice called out loudly, "I have a warrant for the arrest of Marja Pala Mansard!"
I froze. I couldn't see the officer – it must be an officer – and he couldn't see me. But I couldn't leave; if I opened the back door again, the light from the setting sun would give me away. I took a step forward.
"Don't you dare go out there!" Tarri hissed. I glanced over; she was just a few yards from me, in the back storeroom. She knew what I did after work – indeed, the whole shop did, or the arrangement wouldn't have worked. "He can't possibly know whether you're here or not. I'll tell him you're out." And indeed, she crept into the front room with a passable display of fearfulness, and stammered that Marja had gone to the market, and no one knew when she would return.
"I'm afraid I can't take your word for that," I heard, and then the singing scrape of a sword being pulled out of its scabbard, and a muffled sort of gasp from Tarri.
"Search the building," he said, presumably to other officers. And then he called out, "And Marja, if my men find you before you show yourself, I'll slice this girl's pretty throat wide open!"
I didn't even think. I just ran into the front room, and I practically ran into the counter that divided the store from the storerooms, and I stopped there and tried to breathe, not knowing what to do next now that I'd shown myself.
This was the scene:
The officer who had spoken was standing in the middle of the room, with one hand in Tarri's hair, pulling her head back, and the other holding a sword to her throat. Tarri had her eyes closed and her hands were clenched around his wrist, her knuckles white. Irrelevantly, I noticed three stripes on his shoulder; he was a captain. Elena was standing with a customer off to one side, both frozen to the spot. At the back were two more guards.
"Come here," said the Captain. "Right now. And kneel."
The human brain doesn't like to be in terrifying situations, and it has developed lots of defense mechanisms against them. I don't remember walking forwards, past the counter. I don't remember kneeling down. I must have done it, because there I was. But the only thing I remember is a feeling that the air around me had turned to glue.
"Please let her go," I whispered.
