Tavington walked into the settlement at midday, when the sun would cast no shadow to soften his arrival. The people stopped their work to watch him. He needed them to see him choose. A structure. A symbol. Something that would ache every time they passed it. This settlement would bend, or it would break. Either outcome pleased him equally. He stopped before the old meeting house that stood at the crossroads. Too humble. Too theirs. He gestured, and his men began hauling timbers and stonework from the wagons. By nightfall, the building that rose in its place bore a crown above the entrance, columns flanking the door like sentries. A veranda stretched across the front where he could stand and be seen. Where they would have to look up. Before the steps, his men mounted a bell in an iron frame. Tavington ran his hand along the inscription cast into the metal. The words promised loyalty, reminded them who allowed them to live beneath its sound. He pulled the rope once. The tone rolled across the square, into the forest, through every open door. Faces turned toward the noise, then toward him. As the sun dropped, he hung a lantern in a cage from the veranda beam. The flame inside caught and held, brighter than it should be. It would burn through the night, he knew. Every night. A eye that never closed. He stepped back and watched the settlers watch the light. Their shoulders had already begun to curl inward. Good. They understood what they were looking at. They understood what he had built here was not just a building. It was a hand around their throats, and he was the only one who decided when it squeezed.

The bell had rung three times each day since he installed it. Morning, noon, and dusk. The settlers came when it called, heads bowed, knees bent. Tavington stood on the veranda and watched them perform their loyalty. Most had learned quickly. But not all. He had the platform built in the square where the old memorial stone used to stand. Now his monument rose there instead, dark granite carved with names of battles won, territories claimed, oaths sworn to the Crown. At noon, he assembled the settlers on the benches he'd arranged in rows before it. Elegant iron railings kept them in place. The wood seats reminded them of prayer, of submission. He stood on the platform and called for the man who had refused to ring the bell that morning. The crowd shifted. No one moved forward. Then a farmer stepped out, jaw set, eyes level with Tavington's own. Tavington descended the steps slowly. He gestured to the monument. "Kneel before it," he said. "Ring the bell. Show your loyalty." The man didn't move. Tavington waited, letting the silence stretch until it hurt. The settlers watched from their benches, trapped between the railings and their own fear. He drew the cursed sword an inch from its scabbard. The whisper rose immediately, familiar and cold against his ear. The farmer's eyes flicked to the blade, then back to Tavington's face. Still standing. Tavington smiled and sheathed the sword. "Take him to the stocks," he told his men. "Let him watch from there while the rest of you ring the bell for him." One by one, the settlers climbed the platform. One by one, they knelt before the monument and pulled the bell rope. The sound rolled across the square, again and again, while the farmer stood locked in the restraints at the edge of the crowd. Tavington watched the man's face. He was searching for the moment of collapse, the instant when defiance turned to despair. But the farmer kept his eyes forward, jaw tight, even as his neighbors betrayed him with their obedience. Tavington felt something unexpected. Not satisfaction. Irritation. The man had not broken. The settlement had bent further, yes. But this one remained whole. He turned and walked back to the veranda, already planning what he would take from the farmer next. A man who would not kneel could still learn to scream.