“We need your voice most now,” said Kehinde. “Come along.”
To my surprise Bee meekly followed Kehinde and the trolls into the passage. The silence in the far room was replaced by the trampling of feet as people hurried to rescue the press.
Brennan shoved the table against the thick wall and climbed up on it to open one of the deep-set windows. “Cat! Go along after them now.”
My stormy despair was overtaken by a desire to punch someone. I jumped up next to him. “Give me a leg up. I can fight dirty in ways you never imagined.”
“Cat…”
I met his eye. “If you say because I am a woman, I am best away from the fight, I will lose all respect for you.”
“Let her go first,” said Rory. “You won’t regret it.”
With a shrug he made a basket with his hands. I shimmied through the window into a light well and up to the courtyard. A quick survey revealed many handy coils of rope on the wagons. Tying an end to a post, I uncoiled it across the paving stones to the far wall. When men wearing marshals’ uniforms ran into the courtyard carrying muskets and flourishing halberds, I yanked on the rope with all my strength.
As I slammed back into the wall, the rope popped up tautly to waist height. None of them saw it coming, for they could not see me. The force of so many men pushing into the rope at the same time jerked me forward so hard I had to let go, but the men in front stumbled and the men behind bumped into them. Into this confusion I waded with my cane, whacking men in the back of the neck so they turned around to chastise their comrades. I grabbed muskets and halberds out of their hands and flung the weapons as far as I could. I trod on feet. Their boiled leather helmets made excellent balls to be tossed high, so they had to throw up their hands to protect themselves as the helmets crashed down. Flailing hands struck and pushed me. A burly man with stinking onion breath bumped hard into me, so I dropped to a crouch and he smacked heads with the man next to him. By sticking my cane between the legs of staggering men, I tripped four in a row before they thought to start kicking.
Laborers swarmed out of the building on all sides. I snatched up as many muskets and halberds as I could. Now mostly unarmed, and surrounded by men bearing hammers, adzes, and axes, the marshals shrank back into a defensive group.
Brennan sauntered into the gap between the two groups without the least evidence that he feared the muskets pointed at him. He rolled back his sleeves and put up his hands. “I challenge you all to put down your weapons and settle this as real men do, with our fists. Who will be first? It is sure not one man of you can outlast me.”
Onion-breath man shoved past his fellows. “Let’s see what ye have got.”
They circled in the manner of men putting on a show in a boxing ring, but by the scowl on the marshal’s face and the measuring gaze of Brennan, the fight was deadly serious. The marshal broke in to throw a blow that was easily parried by Brennan, who followed with a jab that landed square on the other man’s nose. Blood gushed like a pungent iron brine. I thought it prudent to back away lest I betray myself. Other men bolted forward, and the courtyard dissolved into a mass of men slugging each other. I backed up to the cellar windows and dumped muskets and halberds into the window well. Rory watched the fight with a lazy smile.
“Aren’t you going in?” I asked. “To prove you’re a real man?”
“I’m not a man. I need prove nothing. If there’s trouble, I’ll pounce.”
“That’s not trouble?” The roil of the fight echoed against the walls.
“The marshals in Lutetia are underpaid and recruited from the plebeian class. They don’t like to arrest men who share the same grievances they do. But they have no choice but to obey orders even though they chafe at them. Now they can say they fought.”
Above, windows on the second story were thrown open. Bee stood framed in the opening.
“Enough! Those who oppress us feast on the blood we spill for them when we fight each other! Who is our true enemy? Our neighbor whose children cry for bread in the evening? Or the lord who throws the leavings from his heavily laden table to his pigs?”
As the fighting men paused to look up, women moved into the courtyard and thrust pamphlets into the hands of the marshals.
“What d’ye mean me to do with this?” shouted Onion Breath, shaking a pamphlet toward the upper windows. “D’ye think I can read?”
“If you cannot, then whose fault is that? The lord’s children can all read. They who hold the lash do not want you to know you are not alone in speaking against its cruel bite! Why do you think they hate printing presses or any person whose voice spreads the news of a declaration of rights? Why do you think they fear a civil code whose laws will demolish the privileges of the few? Why do you think they send the likes of you to arrest printers and smash presses? Not for your sake! They aren’t protecting you! Go on, then! Go, but remember that you are our brothers. Remember that we fight for you.”