Revolution (Chronicles of Charanthe #2)

  Chapter 20

  By midwinter Eleanor’s belly had swollen so far as to make even walking uncomfortable. Every day as she performed her morning stretches she found herself needing to further adjust her posture to account for the steadily increasing weight she carried at her waist, and it was becoming more and more of a challenge for her to keep up with the others when she took the guards out on exercises.

  “I think I’m going to head home in the next few days,” she said. She was sitting at her usual table in the Old Barrel Yard with a few of her First Revolutionary Guard Corps. The voluntary force had continued to grow as the movement expanded, with more and more little rebel gangs putting themselves forwards for guard duties, but Eleanor usually socialised with a subset of her own trainees.

  “Don’t go,” Rosemary said.

  “You don’t really need me any more, and if I leave it much longer it’s only going to get harder to make the journey.”

  “Don’t go at all.” Rosemary rested one hand on her arm. “It’s all men back there, isn’t it? What use will they be when the baby comes?”

  “Precisely none, I expect.”

  “Then stay,” Molly chimed in. “Rosie can teach you all sorts of things about babies.”

  Eleanor glanced down to where Ollie sat between their feet. He was playing with a blunted dagger, seemingly oblivious to the adults surrounding him.

  “And you don’t even like him,” Nicole said.

  “Who?” Eleanor asked, still thinking of Ollie and wondering how anyone could think she didn’t like such an adorable boy.

  “Your boyfriend.”

  Eleanor stared at her. “Whatever gave you that impression?”

  “You never talk about him except to complain.”

  “That’s just the way things are with me and Daniel. It doesn’t mean I don’t like him. Anyway, I’ll only be out of action for a few months and Dash can look after things here. Speaking of which” – she turned to Dash – “we need to talk strategy before I go. Can you spare me some time tomorrow?”

  “Let’s talk about it now.”

  Eleanor looked around the table. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the others, but Dash was the only one she’d ever really thought of as a potentially serious player.

  Dash must have seen her eyes move. “We’re all friends here,” he said.

  “And we’re all risking our lives in this war,” Nicole said. “You can’t just cut us out of the important stuff.”

  “I just thought it might be boring,” Eleanor said. “But if you’re sure you don’t mind, we can do it now.”

  “We don’t mind, do we?”

  Rosemary, Jace, and Molly all agreed that they were positively longing to hear it, and Eleanor realised she was fighting a losing battle.

  “I’ll probably be gone for about five months,” she said. “I need to come back in time to visit the schools so I’ll come and see you then, but in the meantime you need to start thinking about long-term security.”

  Dash nodded.

  “Keep Second Corps here to run the regular guard, and maybe bring Sixth across from the eastern district just to make sure. You’ve been doing a great job with the nightly raids, but now I want you to take First Corps out and get me a gate.”

  “A gate?”

  Eleanor reached for the map that Ade kept behind the bar, and laid it out on the table. The four rebel districts had been shaded in as they developed and grew, and now accounted for almost a fifth of the ground within the city walls.

  “If we can secure all three gates – or even stop the supply carts further out – we can effectively beseige the city. But that’s just a nice daydream for now. The critical point is that if we don’t take one gate quickly, they’ll do the same to us.”

  “Yes boss.”

  “There’s plenty of farmers out there who’d like to keep the revolution fed and watered, but it won’t do us any good if we’re trapped within our own walls.”

  Dash glanced down at Ollie. “I’m not sure all of First should come out on a job like this.”

  “That’s up to you. They’re your unit.”

  “What d’you think, Rosie?”

  Rosemary studied her fingertips for a long moment. “Ade and Nasha could look after him,” she said at last. “It’d only be a few days at a time, wouldn’t it? He’s got to learn to live without me some day.”

  “Anything else you want us to take care of?” Dash asked.

  Eleanor shook her head. “Just get me that gate before our stores run low.”