On the road back to town from the northern slope, Sharlo sensed that something was wrong.
There were more carriages and horses at the town gates—a fine black-lacquered coach drawn by six horses, with attendants uniformly dressed in the grey robes of the Patriarchal Society, though the hems were embroidered with the Council of Elders' golden sheep. The mayor and half the town's leading citizens were assembled in welcome before the chapel. The resident priest bowed low, creases of delight folding his doughy face.
The man who descended from the coach was an elder of about sixty. He was lean, vigorous, and impeccably groomed, his silver beard trimmed to perfection. In one hand he carried an ebony staff inlaid with silver; with the other, he traced a soothing circle before his chest. As he walked, he nodded and smiled to the townspeople by the road, benevolent beyond reproach.
"Elder Ebner, of the Council of Elders at the central sanctuary." Even the mayor's voice floated as he made the introductions. "The Elder is touring the southern dioceses and happened—"
"Happened to hear that two honoured guests from the Grand Belfry were labouring within our Society's territory." Elder Ebner turned to Sharlo and Viola, his smile warm. "An audit is proper business. How could this old man be remiss? Whatever ledgers you require, you need only ask."
Sharlo returned his bow while his eyes read.
The mass of words above Elder Ebner's head was dark and dense, arranged with remarkable order. Unlike Grey's snarl of tangled thread, it resembled a neatly bound ledger. Upon its uppermost layer, one line stood in an immaculate hand—the ornate, playbill-like script that Sharlo had seen once and would never forget:
【He will act according to the list.】
According to the list. Not according to his conscience or his orders. The list.
"Thank you, Elder." Sharlo withdrew his gaze, his smile never shifting. "Our examination of the accounts is nearly complete. Everything is beautifully clean. We shall return to the capital and report within a few days."
"Then the timing is fortunate." Elder Ebner stroked his silver beard and disclosed the true purpose of his visit. "Tomorrow night, our Society will hold a 'Special Year-End Prayer' in Lambton. The Pacification Bell will toll nine times, praying for all the people of the southern lands. It is a grand rite held once every three years. Since you are our honoured guests, I must insist that you attend. Upon your return, you may bear witness for the gentlemen of the Grand Belfry."
Nine tolls.
Cold spread layer by layer across Sharlo's back. The ordinary three tolls collected gossamer strands of the "impulse to stray." Nine tolls, during "prayer by the entire town"—
This was no blessing. This was deep ploughing.
"Nothing would please me more," he heard himself say, "though I would not have dared ask."
That evening, Elder Ebner gave a banquet at the town office and specifically requested the company of "the Grand Belfry's two honoured guests."
The meal was not extravagant: four dishes and a soup, all local fare. The refinement lay in the conversation. The elder was an easy talker. He ranged from the southern seasons to the price of wool, from the origins of sacred hymns to the capital's musical circles. His manner remained courteous, every sentence avoiding the matter at hand and every sentence a probe.
"As it happens," Ebner said after three rounds of wine, stroking his silver beard as if making idle conversation, "I studied the pipe organ in my youth. The heart of that instrument is 'wind.' The organist makes no sound himself. He merely sends the wind; the voices arise as it passes through a thousand pipes, each singing for itself. My teacher used to say that the organ is the instrument most like 'the governing of an age.' A ruler need not speak in his own voice. He need only direct the wind aright—and all the people will rest content in their proper pipes, each sounding its proper note."
"An elevated theory." Sharlo raised his glass. "But in Kandelburg I once lent a hand around a theatre company, and learned a different maxim. However great the organ, it fears one thing."
"Oh?"
"A leak." Sharlo smiled. "The bellows may be full, but one crack in a pipe throws the whole instrument out of tune. And an old musician once told me that cracks cannot be found from the outside. You have to listen. Find the pipe whose note is 'too true'—too perfect to have come from a living person's breath—and the crack will be nearby."
The table fell silent for a moment.
Elder Ebner looked at him and slowly smiled. The smile remained benevolent, but deep within his lens-like gaze, something slid into focus.
"It would be a pity," he said unhurriedly, "to waste such ears on auditing."
"It would be a pity," Sharlo returned, "to waste such hands away from an organ."
Host and guests parted in perfect amity. Ebner personally escorted them to the gallery, and as they took their leave, added half a sentence in a voice only Sharlo could hear. "Tomorrow night's special prayer. Nine tolls. Since our honoured guest understands the organ, listen and tell me whether the wind I send is true—or false."
On the road back to their lodgings, Viola asked softly, "What did we gain?"
"Two things," Sharlo said. "First, the doctrine of 'sending the wind' that his teacher handed down and Winchell's doctrine of 'the world's skill' were taught at the same school. I can smell the Dirge Society's method of training its people. Second—" He paused. "When he said the word 'teacher,' I read his words. Buried at the bottom of that ledger was an old line, so worn it had almost vanished: 【He will finish repairing the organ for his teacher.】"
"What organ?"
"I don't know." Sharlo looked toward the bell tower in the night. "But my guess is that the 'organ' isn't in Lambton. Lambton is only one pipe."
* * *
That night in the lodgings, they argued in lowered voices.
"Grey's order was to ascertain and withdraw." Viola slapped a telegraph sheet onto the table. Headquarters had replied that evening with one word: WITHDRAW. "Ebner's identity is confirmed. He leads the 'New Rules faction' in the Council of Elders and directs the Pacification Bell programme. 'Who is directing it'—ascertained. Assignment complete. By order, we leave tomorrow morning."
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"We leave tomorrow morning, and tomorrow night the bell tolls nine times," Sharlo said. "Raven, you did not see that layer of waves during morning prayers. Three tolls comb away gossamer. Nine tolls, the whole town praying together, every person bowing in piety, every door flung open—the thing combed away tomorrow night will be a cable. Matilda's thirty-seven pupils will lead the hymns. They will be standing closest to the bell."
"I know." Viola's low voice was taut as well. "Which is why I must read you the rest of this telegram. Listen. 'Further: Ebner, Eames Ebner. Records predating his entry into the Society forty years ago have been retrieved. Formerly enrolled in the organ programme at the Royal Academy of Sacred Music. Did not graduate. Reason: implicated when his teacher fled under investigation. Teacher's name entered in the records as—'"
She turned the telegram around and pushed it beneath the lamp.
"'Name unknown. Archival designation: the Grand Organist.'"
The candle flame leapt in their lodgings.
"Ebner was the Grand Organist's pupil," Viola said, one word at a time. "The Pacification Bell programme is the Dirge Society working in the Patriarchal Society's robes. The Dawn Tower's ash-wick has taken the form of a bell and been buried inside the Society. Sharlo, this is no longer a tax audit or an ecclesiastical dispute. This is the second tower of the Lamp-Oil Case. That is why Grey ordered us to withdraw. Something on this scale must be struck from the capital."
"A strike from the capital will spend half a month passing papers back and forth," Sharlo said. "The nine tolls come tomorrow night."
They looked at each other across a candle. On either side of the flame lay a road that was right: the road of regulations, and the road before their eyes.
At last, Viola spoke first. She drew out paper and pen, rapidly wrote a document, and pushed it across the table. It was a Report on Remaining in Place in Defiance of Orders, impeccable in form, with grounds, evidence, and responsible party all supplied. She had signed her own name at the bottom and entered herself again under "responsible party."
"Charge the account for disobeying orders to me. Your file is colourful enough already." Her tone was as flat as if she were reciting regulations. "Now tell me your plan. I have only one condition—"
She looked at him and enunciated every word:
"Do not touch the bell. Do not enter the hill. We will not break a single word of Grey's death-order. If we win, we win inside those two red lines. Mr. Curtainbreaker, here is a real puzzle for you: wreck this play in shackles."
* * *
Wreck the play in shackles. By the light of one candle, Sharlo took the puzzle apart until deep into the night.
They could not touch the bell. It was a sacred object. Tampering with it would unite the entire Patriarchal Society against them, and half of Grey's battle over the accounts in the capital would collapse at once. They could not enter the hill. Whatever slept below it could not be startled at any price. Nor could they use their authority as a cudgel. The Committee's licence covered accounts, not prayer. Producing it would only give their opponents a weapon.
What remained?
The bell's source of goods.
The Pacification Bell produced nothing. It was a funnel. What it collected was the living person's "impulse to stray"—and that impulse could be combed clean only from "piety with head bowed and ears obedient." Sharlo had seen it clearly during morning prayers. For the three breaths of the bell's tolls, the whole town lowered its head, every mind emptied, every gossamer strand came into view, and each could be stripped away in a single stroke.
Every mind emptied.
"Raven." In the latter half of the night, he suddenly spoke. "What did I do to wreck the Golden Iris that night?"
"Took the stage, spouted nonsense, and made the whole house laugh," Viola answered. "The laughter broke the tragedy's 'field.'"
"Exactly. Fear and laughter live on the same nerve." Sharlo's eyes brightened in the candlelight. "What about Lambton's field? It isn't sorrow. It is 'stillness'—seven thousand perfectly emptied minds. And laughter is not what breaks stillness."
He wrote one word on a sheet of paper and pushed it across the table.
A question.
"A real question entering an empty mind is like a stone falling into still water," he said. "For three years, no one in this town has asked 'why.' Not because they cannot, but because the little spark that wants to ask has been combed away three times a day. Yet a spark is something whose stock can be combed away, but not its new supply. If someone kindles a fresh one in public—large enough, bright enough—then in the instant all seven thousand heads think 'Wait' together—"
"The bell will have nothing it can comb." Viola took up the thought. "A river full of stones. The water turns muddy, and gossamer cannot cast a net."
"And it is within regulations." Sharlo bared his teeth in a grin. "Asking a question violates no law of the kingdom and no church rule. We never touch a red line."
"Then," Viola asked the essential question, "what question can make all seven thousand people in this town think 'Wait' at the same instant, under the tolling of the special prayer?"
Sharlo did not answer immediately. He rose, took something from his luggage, and set it beneath the candle—a ball of fine Lambton wool he had bought at the market that day.
"This town has had no questions for three years. But it has one thing that has grown better and better in those three years—so good the whole town is proud of it, so good even silk merchants in the capital chase after orders." He teased the ball of wool between his fingers. "Wool. Raven, don't you find it strange? Strip away people's 'impulse to stray,' and people grow docile. If the sheep's impulse to stray is stripped away as well—the old shepherd said not one sheep has strayed in three years—then the sheep grow docile and their coats improve..."
He raised his head.
"But good wool carries a price. This afternoon, I examined three years of hide-and-wool accounts from the town market. While the wool grew steadily better, one thing was quietly growing scarcer with every year—"
He spread a copied page of accounts on the table and put his fingertip on a column of numbers falling year by year.
"Lambs," he said. "In three years, the lambing rate of Lambton's ewes has fallen by forty percent. No one mentions it. No one asks. The accounts are posted on the market's public board. Seven thousand people pass them every day, and not one has ever thought 'Wait.' Because the spark that says 'Wait' was combed away long ago."
"The impulse to stray is not only the thought of leaving home." Sharlo's voice dropped. "It is every spark that 'wants something different'—the bit of wildness that makes an animal choose among its mates, the obstinacy that makes a seed thrust through the soil. This bell has collected for three years. What it has collected is all Lambton's vitality. The wool is the last bright flare; the lambs are the true account. Docilely, happily, without a sound—this town is going barren."
The candle flame swayed softly.
"Tomorrow night, before the special prayer begins, a new notice will appear on the market's public board," Sharlo said. "Unsigned. No accusations. No mention of the bell or any god. Only one arithmetic problem, simple enough for a child: three years of wool accounts, three years of lamb accounts. Two lines, one rising, one falling. And a final line in small type—"
He picked up his pen and wrote the words they would post throughout the town:
People of Lambton: when you have finished this account, before you bow your heads tonight, ask yourselves why.
If you cannot think of an answer, ask the question.
Ask it aloud.
The work of copying out the notices fell to Matilda, who did it through the night.
Sharlo had meant to find a scrivener outside the town. They could not implicate anyone who lived there. The schoolmistress flatly refused. She wrote on the page: First, your handwriting is the capital's handwriting. It looks strange to the people here. Mine has filled the town's ledgers, marriage contracts, and memorial inscriptions for nineteen years. They trust it. Second—
Her pen paused. Then she wrote on, the strokes biting through the paper:
Second, for three years this deaf woman has watched them turn into sheep one day at a time, unable to shout a single word. Tonight, these seventeen sheets of paper are my voice. I have waited three years to give this shout—sir, you cannot shout it for me.
When Sharlo had read it, he handed the pen back and did not argue again.
In the latter half of the night, beneath an oil lamp, the schoolmistress copied one stroke at a time, very slowly and very neatly—more neatly than any schoolwork she had ever marked. Halfway through the ninth sheet, she suddenly stopped and wrote Sharlo one line on the scrap paper:
Let me ask you something. After tomorrow night, if this works, will the townspeople remember who posted the notices?
No, Sharlo wrote. People who do this kind of thing never leave their names. Does that hurt?
Matilda looked at the words, shook her head, and wrote:
It doesn't hurt. I am a teacher. In this profession, if the pupil remembers the lesson and forgets the teacher, then the teaching was done right.