“Now, if there only were a piece of bread to be had, then we’d know what it feels like to live in the palace!”
I glue my gaze down, on the oil-stained concrete. If these two men only knew how much goes to waste in the palace! We nibble and sample and taste for fun, only to send away practically untouched plates because some minor detail didn’t quite please us. Or because we have changed our minds about what we want for breakfast or lunch or brunch or dinner. I can’t plead innocence, having committed those crimes too many times to count. My sisters and I, we are as guilty as any who dwell in the world that these men can’t even imagine.
Because I gaze down, I happen to lock eyes with an elderly woman whose head comes only up to my knees; she’s standing in a longitudinal depression that runs all the way to the end of the hall. A railway track, I realize. I stare back at the woman, impressed by her boldness. People don’t often meet my eyes, not when I’m a Daughter of the Moon. The woman presses her fist tight against her heart. She, too, wears a red mitten.
I repeat the gesture, though I don’t know what it means. The gloves and mittens and rags around hands, they must signify something. But what, I can only guess. All these people in the train depot, they are connected by the same concerns and goals. And there are enough of them, in the small towns and cities, spread across the whole empire, to make a difference at last.
“Come.”
I let my love lead me farther into the hall, where the crowd gets thicker and louder. Even the railway depressions are packed with people. Railroad workers in their loose trousers and boots that have seen too many feet, faces black with oil and coal, stuck in permanent grimaces carved by the harsh winters. There’s militia, too, men whose coats and trousers bear silver stripes, huddling in groups of two and three, mainly footmen. Women stand proud alongside these men, floral scarves tied around their heads, with furs on their shoulders, lamb and fox and wolf, with aprons peeking from under their long coats. Some don’t have coats, but many dresses layered for warmth. There are too many children to count, the scruffy sort that live on the streets.
A thought occurs to me, one that I try to push aside, but that’s too sharp for me to touch. These pits with rails, they are full of people, thousand-eyed trains. Smoke, it’s from their breath. The hoots, from their mouths. And once these trains roll into motion, they will be unstoppable.
I hear a snippet of conversation, but can’t pinpoint the person talking. The words are no less impactful. “How can the Moon watch over us when the empire has tripled in size? Perhaps he simply doesn’t see our plight. Perhaps that’s why he lets us suffer.”
I glance up out of reflex. A thicker layer of snow covers the ceiling now. I can’t see out through the windows, and ask my father if it’s really him who has failed our people, or only my family.
I stumble in my sabots; my toes are solidly frozen. A flicker of concern crosses my love’s proud forehead, and he guides me toward the side of the hall, where the pressure of the crowd isn’t as intense. Once there, he places himself firmly behind me, wraps his arms around me. “This is far enough, I think.”
I smile despite myself. No matter what will happen in this world, with him I will be safe. I’m privileged in more than one way. I plant a kiss on his clean-shaven chin.
But his attention is elsewhere. He’s craning over the crowd, looking intently toward the back of the hall. Ah, there, a narrow stairway leads from the ground level to what must be the foreman’s office. Men with shoulders so wide that they must no doubt walk through doors sideways stand guard at the bottom of the stairs and on the platform midway up. They remind me of the railway man I talked with earlier. So full of uncontrolled anger and power. Ready to beat even metal into submission.
Whatever is going to happen tonight, I realize, is going to take place at the platform. For gradually everyone in the crowd turns to stare in that direction. I chew the inside of my lips as my heart pounds faster, with vigor. This is altogether different from the other places my love has taken me. This is a gathering of unhappy souls, of people who yearn for change. People like me. And people not at all like me. I want to know one thing above everything else. Whom are we waiting to see? Whom are we waiting to hear speak?
I glance over my shoulder at Janlav. He must have known what I’m about to ask, but he just places his red-gloved hand against my heart. I place my red-mittened hand atop his. He won’t tell me. He wants me to listen to my heart.
At last, the door of the foreman’s office slowly opens. I rise on my toes to catch the first glimpse of the person all these people have come to hear speak. The sabots press painfully against my toes, and though my ankles threaten to twist, I rise higher. I want to know this person’s name, for he or she is the one to whom I must offer my help if I’m to change this empire for the better.
A man emerges through the doorway and halts at the first step of the iron staircase. He is tall and his dark hair is braided. He wears the black robes of a gagargi. I know this man, though his presence here is very much impossible. He’s a man of the empire as much as I’m its daughter.
But I’m not mistaken, for the crowd knows him too.
“Prataslav! Prataslav!” The rising roar slams breath from my lungs. The crowd punches their right fists in the air, and above their heads red spreads like blood spilled. “Our great Gagargi Prataslav. The gagargi of the people!”
I can’t say his name, for my tongue has gone numb; not even as I feel my love’s chest expand, hear his voice joining the cheer. I was expecting the leader of the insurgence to be of high position, one of the generals perhaps, or a high-ranking court official. Never even in my darkest dreams did I imagine him to be Gagargi Prataslav.
Gagargi Prataslav, my mother’s closest advisor, openly placing himself against the empire. This is as pure a treason as can ever be. It’s almost worse than what I’m up to, for I’m only the second daughter!
A gust of warmth touches my left cheek. I flinch before I realize it’s just my love about to whisper in my ear. “You are surprised?”
I don’t dare to let him see my expression. For I’m shocked more than surprised. I was ready to offer my help for the insurgence movement. But now that I know that it’s led by Gagargi Prataslav… There’s something odd, even frightening about him. Both Alina and Merile openly fear him, and not only because they saw something not meant for their eyes, I suspect. I cautiously study the frenzied crowd. A mere moment earlier, I considered myself a part of it. But now… now I want to run away as fast as my feet can carry me.
Before I can form the words that would surely drive my love away from me, the crowd stills. Even my love stills, forgetting he asked me a question. My gaze is drawn toward the balcony of its own accord. For it’s not possible for this many people to be this quiet, this unrelentingly focused, but I swear, I swear I could hear a feather drift, set against the floor. It’s that quiet.
“Thank you,” Gagargi Prataslav says as he floats down the steps to the platform, or that’s how it seems. His black robes hide the movement of his legs, and his boots don’t make a sound. Apart from his voice, nothing exists. “Thank you for gathering here to hear what a man has to say to his equals.”
My jaw slackens as the numbness of my tongue spreads through my body. For him to act so boldly, so openly to step down from his podium… Myself, I can imagine living a life much simpler, but he’s supposed to be the sacred messenger of the Moon!
With an effort that cramps my cold-tensed muscles, I manage to crane my neck and glance at the ceiling. My father can’t see us. Not with the snowfall thickening. Not with all the windows being just dark panes of dirty glass tonight.