The Virtue Season by L.M. Nathan

Author:L.M. Nathan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 2024-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Debris of the Lost Cities

The Penn Vale debs are marched up the North Nab by watchers who form parallel lines at either side of us. It almost reminds me of a ball. Almost.

The ground is baked hard and it is steep, the sun a tireless beast, though it is only the morning of Penance Day.

My foot catches on a loose rock and I stumble. The watcher nearest to me – a woman with hair shorn so short I cannot tell what colour it should be – shoves me up again and I glare at the floor instead of at her, fearful I might strike back.

At the top of the climb, the hill opens into a flat expanse of parched grass, with white tents scattered across it, the biggest of which is for the councillors who stand in its shade, fanning themselves with concertina paper. There was no walk for them this morning. Their horses graze in a makeshift paddock, a small square hemmed with temporary struts and rope barriers.

We gather under the canopy of seemingly endless sky, squinting into the blinding sun and the watchers are antlike, swarming all around us, and in-between too. We are siphoned past tables where watchers are taking attendance. These, at least, are shaded and offer a temporary respite from the beating sun.

“Manon Pawlak,” I say as I get to Brack’s table. He scrawls a tick against my name, two fingers curled around the pencil instead of one.

“You look half-starved,” he scorns, harpooning his incisors with the beefy length of his tongue. He doesn’t remember he is the reason why I’m thin now, that it was he and Clint who took double from us in the claims, the rooster too.

“I can pull up crops, and I’ve driven a plough horse. I know seeds. And I can cook.”

He smirks sideways as if he doubts it, balks so hard a little phlegm rattles in his chest.

At least I can hold a pencil.

He sucks his teeth.

“You can work the line,” he barks, pointing up to the top of the Nab, the very top of the moor. Another short, steep climb that is no match for me, as hungry and thirsty as I am. “There’s a heap of old stone underneath the ground, founditions or something, they called it. It’s being dug up for the new building at Castle Hill.”

He bites his lips as if to stop himself talking further and I think back to the hospital Tomie mentioned, what they are up to. “You can help pass it down.”

Stone is more precious than ever now the forests are so depleted by drought fires and ash dieback, and the last working quarry is spent. No wonder they have us digging it up. Everything in the valley is reclaimed and reused.

“If you can handle the weight of a single stone, that is,” Brack grunts, poking my forearm with his pencil, spittle clinging to his chin as he laughs.

“I know better than to eat the rooster,” I mutter as I

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