Maniu T's Arc

Chapter 2 of 9

The morning after the school opened, Maniu found the four desks empty again. A note was pinned to the door with a nail. It said the east-side landowner had summoned every enrolled family to his hall. The families had until Friday to pull their children out. Mark's father had written one line at the bottom: We can't cross him. Maniu read the note twice. He walked to the road and started east. He found the families gathered outside the landowner's gate, heads down. Mark stood behind his father, holding his slate like a shield. The other three children clung to their mothers. The landowner had not come out. He didn't need to. His word had already done the work. "He said no reading," Mark's father said. "He said any family that sends a child loses their field come spring." Maniu had no field to threaten and no coin to match. He had a school and a promise, and neither would feed a family through winter. A small pink butterfly drifted past his ear and settled on Mark's slate. Then a voice cut across the yard. "Move." A girl walked through the gathered parents like they were tall grass. Her dress was stitched with every letter of the alphabet, bright and crooked and impossible to miss. A thin crown sat on her head. She was smaller than Mark. She was his cousin from the far kingdoms, and Maniu had written to her twice and never expected her to come. "Princess Letter," Maniu said. "You're losing," she said. She turned to Mark's father. "You're afraid of one man. Why?" "He owns the fields." "He owns the dirt. Not your boy." She pointed at the note in Maniu's hand. "Read it out. All of it." Maniu read it aloud. The threat. The Friday. The signature. Princess Letter looked at the parents. "He signed his name. You can't read it. That's why he wins. He puts words on paper and you nod because you don't know what they say." She held out her hand to Mark. "Come to the castle school tomorrow. Learn one letter. Then come home and teach your father. When the next paper comes, he'll read it himself." Mark looked up at his father. His father looked at the ground a long time. "One letter," he said finally. "That's all. Then we see." Two other fathers muttered the same. The third family turned and walked home. Maniu watched them go. Three children out of four. He could work with three. On the road back, Princess Letter walked beside him. She did not smile. "He'll come himself next," she said. "Men like him don't send notes twice." Behind them, a shadow moved on the eastern ridge. Something tall. Something purple against the trees. Maniu did not turn to look. He already knew who was watching.