They took bruises and left scratches.
They were delaying. And not with a noble lack of plan, as Elián had done. A lifetime of watching for that plume—they had all seen it. A lifetime of watching for it, and for the first time we were eager. What could one Rider do? asked my sensible self. But my sensible self was overridden. A Rider. The Riders changed everything.
The delay was short—too short—less than five minutes. How long did I need? It had just rained; the plume would not be too high. Not hours. Twenty minutes? Thirty?
Too long, too long.
The Precepture hall swallowed the noise of my friends. The Cumberland soldiers were unnaturally quiet. The nearest one to me was shifting from foot to foot like a child called before the Abbot’s desk. A pair of mourning doves flew past me, whirring and whirling, and perched on the roof of the toolshed.
“Well,” said Burr. “Hmmm. A wide shot and some chokers cut in, I guess. Unless I can use one of your boys for a reaction, Wilma?” He jerked a thumb at one of the soldiers, a gawky white boy whose wide green eyes seemed to match his skin. He looked as if he might throw up.
“No, you cannot,” she said. “Get on with it, Burr.”
Tolliver Burr paced the camera line, checking the view from each angle. Then stepped in behind a monitor. He rubbed his hands together. “All right, Greta. Let’s have some action.”
Lights twinkled as the gantry spiders manning the cranks came to life. There was the barest pause as they set their articulated legs around the pegs meant for human hands. And then the whole mechanism shuddered, and the crushing block began to descend.
The block began a few inches above my head, a good two feet from my hands. Each wheel turn dropped it the barest fraction. It was so slow that one could ordinarily hardly see it moving.
In that moment, I could see nothing else.
Tolliver Burr had moved to the tripod directly in front of me. As if I had left my body, I could picture what he saw. The iron-bound oak block, the stone pan, the screws on each side—the press made a dark frame. Inside that frame knelt a princess in white, her hands bound in front of her. I saw the single eye of the camera, and I saw what it saw. I knew what Burr wanted: for me to meet that eye with helpless, pleading terror.
And, God help me, I gave him what he wanted.
“That’s lovely, dear,” he murmured, squinting into the eyepiece. “That’s perfect.” He held up a hand. “Let’s have quiet; I want a good capture on the sound.”
Oh, the sound. The heaviness of each clock of the master gear. The sound was an arrow entering me, again and again and again. The tick-clocks came a little faster than I could breathe to, and my breath sped up to meet them. There were red spots in my vision, and the camera’s eye was like a gaping hole.
“Good,” said Burr. “Very good. We can all hear you, Greta, you’re a star.”
The spiders were turning the cranks slowly. The mechanism was geared six to one. It went: Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock. Drop.
The stone shuddered under my hands.
The camera’s eye, and beyond it the ridge, the whirligig generators, the pure blue sky. I saw no plume in it.
“I’m dropping a mute bubble on everything else,” said Burr. “You can speak freely, General. The audience can’t hear you.”
“. . . confirmation. The cabinet is in session.” Buckle was pressing her hand to her earpiece.
Armenteros pushed her lips together and shook her head. “Not the cabinet. The privy council. Tell them I want the privy council; I want the queen.”
Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock. Drop. The top of the press brushed against a stray loop of hair. I reared back from it, jerking at my arms. The plastic might as well have been steel.
“Perfect,” Burr purred.
My head was thrown back, and my shoulders wrenched. My arms began to shake like overloaded cables.
Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock. Drop.
“. . . in session,” said Buckle, to the earpiece. She kept talking. I couldn’t listen.
Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock. Drop.
The press was at forehead level now. My shoulders were screaming with pain.
The gears turned and ticked.
The press dropped.
And dropped.
Burr swung one of his handheld cameras in for a view of my hands.
I looked at my hands. The fingers were clenched and raised up. I could see all four tendons across the back of the palm, clear as dowels. I could see the knuckles: white and lumpy like tiny potatoes.
Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock. Drop.
Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock. Drop.
“We’re on-screen in the Halifax chambers, General.”
Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock. Drop.
Calm down, Greta. Calm down.
My hands didn’t look like hands at all. They looked like the Abbot’s hands, like machines.
Calm down, Greta. A Rider. A Rider is coming.
Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock. Drop.
Calm down.