Maniu T's Arc

Chapter 5 of 9

By evening, the folded paper on the schoolhouse door had done its work without being read aloud. Word traveled faster than Maniu could walk. By the time he reached the well, two mothers were waiting for him with their aprons twisted in their hands. By the time he reached his own gate, a father stood there too, boots muddy, mouth tight. "You're going to the east side," the father said. "Then my boy stays home Monday. If the landowner takes you, he takes the school. I won't have my son on his list." "He hasn't taken me yet," Maniu said. "He summoned you. That's the same thing, just slower." The two mothers nodded. One was Mark's neighbor. The other had a daughter who could already write her own name. "Give us until morning," Maniu said. "Meet me at the school at first light. Bring the children. If you still want to pull them after you've heard me, pull them." They went. He did not sleep. At dawn he swept the schoolroom floor and set three chairs in a row facing the door. Princess Letter arrived before the parents did. She tied her white horse to the post and came inside without knocking. A small green pup trotted at her heels, leaf-shaped ears flopping, brown paws quick on the boards. "You look like a man about to beg," she said. "I am." "Don't. Beg loses. Offer a trade." "I have nothing to trade." "You have the answer he wants. Give it in writing. Make the children carry it." Maniu stared at her. She set a wooden letter on his desk. A bold red C, edged in yellow, warm in his hand. "C," she said. "For consent. He wants your answer in person so the village sees you kneel. Send the answer with the children instead. Three students. Three letters. They read it to him at his own gate." "He'll be furious." "He'll be watched. By his own men. By ours. A landowner who strikes a child who just read to him loses every field hand by planting season." The parents came at first light, six of them, standing in the doorway like a wall. Maniu did not sit. He held up the C. "I'm not going alone," he said. "I'm not going today. The children will carry my answer, and they'll read it themselves in front of him. If you won't allow that, pull them now and I won't argue." Silence. Mark's mother stepped forward first. Then the father with the muddy boots. One by one, five of the six nodded. The sixth turned and walked home. Two students left on his roll. Two, and a written answer in a child's hand, and a road east that had to be walked by Monday. The pup sat by the door and watched the road with him.