Mirror Sight

Cade scowled as he climbed, helping a girl who tripped reclaim a couple of bobbins she had dropped. There were two brands marking her cheek. She trembled, he presumed in fear, that her delay would incite an overseer to use his whip on her. She did not say a word to him when he handed her one of the bobbins. She simply scrambled up the stairs at an accelerated pace.

Karigan was right, Cade thought. The slaves had more to fight for than anyone. And that was what had brought him to mill number five of the Greeling Textile Company. When the two of them reached the landing on the fourth floor, Cade braced himself before opening the door. When finally he pulled it open, the cacophony almost pushed him back out. In contrast to the silent mill where they’d spoken to Mr. Greeling, mill number five was fully active, shafts and gears and pulleys spinning at full tilt, leather belts singing as they transferred power to the looms.

The greatest clamor came from the looms themselves, with metal tipped shuttles being hammered back and forth, unspooling weft between warp threads, their heddles slamming up and down in alternating patterns. The shuttle moved so fast it was difficult for the eye to follow.

Through the haze of cotton fibers drifting in the light that streamed through the windows, slaves tended their looms. Male and female, young and old, their skin color revealed they’d come from all corners of the empire. Overseers, five of them, moved up and down the aisles of looms. They carried whips short enough not to get entangled in the intricate belt and pulley systems, but of a length vicious enough to inflict real pain. Blood seeped through the shirt of one nearby worker.

Across the room stood the foreman. He waved at Cade and Jax indicating they should join him. They stepped onto the mill floor, the force of the machines making it quake beneath their feet, and walked carefully down the aisle between looms to avoid brushing against any of them. One heard of horrific injuries the machines caused. Cade thought of poor Lorine who’d been partially scalped when her hair got caught in the belting. She hadn’t told him why she wore a headscarf all the time, but the professor had.

The foreman was known to Cade, was one of their own, a man who witnessed cruelty inflicted on slaves every day. He awaited them at the door at the opposite end of the mill floor. Even shouting, it was almost impossible to hear over the racket of machinery, so he pointed at the door. Cade and Jax set down their tool boxes, and Jax began to inspect the door and its hinges while Cade carried on a surreptitious “conversation” with the foreman using hand gestures, just as the slaves did among themselves when overseers were not looking.

The foreman nodded at the nearest loom. It was tended by a tall man with skin as deeply dark brown as kauv, his hair graying, his face full of dignified lines. A Tallitrean.

The foreman leaned over and shouted directly into Cade’s ear, “The General!”

Cade nodded. The Tallitrean gave them the barest of glances to indicate he knew what they were about.

To keep up appearances, Cade helped Jax remove the pins from the door’s hinges and went about the business of rehanging it. In between acting as helper, Cade continued his conversation of hand gestures with the foreman in such a way that The General could see.

Once the door was rehung, and Jax finished by oiling the hinges, Cade shouted in the foreman’s ear, “Give us twenty-four hours!”

The foreman made the sign that he understood, then gestured like he was twisting a key in a lock. Cade glanced at The General and saw the faintest of smiles on the man’s lips. Cade and Jax collected their tools and departed.

Even after they were halfway across the complex courtyard, the machine noise still hammered in Cade’s head, the throb of it only slowly fading.

“We got anyone else to see today?” Jax asked.

Cade shook his head. They’d gone to all the mills he’d planned on visiting, seeking out members of the professor’s opposition as well as those in their own rebel group. As one, those in the professor’s opposition had refused help, just like Mr. Greeling. The rebels, however, were eager. Jax, Thadd, and Jonny had spent a good part of the previous night spreading the word to their people.

Whether their plans heralded a rebellion or simply a diversion, Cade could not say for sure. Hopefully, it was a rebellion that provided the added benefit of a diversion. He did not wish for anyone to meet with violence or die for the decisions he had made, but he was not naïve.

“How’d you know that hand talk?” Jax asked, waving his hand through the air to mimic what he’d seen.

“I tutored one of the professor’s servants who had been a mill slave,” Cade replied. “Lorine. She taught me the basics. It varies a bit from mill to mill, like an accent, but we seemed to understand one another.”

“Useful,” Jax said.

“I learned it because it seemed interesting at the time,” Cade replied. “I never expected it would prove useful. At least, not this much.”

After they turned down Canal Street, they were stopped by Inspectors more than once, demanding to know their business and to see their papers. The Inspectors were more numerous and officious than usual, after the mill fire. Cade, of course, had had a false set of papers forged years ago, in case he was exposed or the professor found out.

As they continued on their way, Cade tried not to look at the smoldering ruin across the canal, all that remained of the last Josston mill. The stench of smoke laid low on the ground here. The professor’s pyre. No artifacts that were not thick metal could have survived the ferocity of the flames or the explosions. Cade hastened his pace, and Jax hurried after him.