Tribute Read Online Free Page B

this was one of Benedict’s tests, my tutor had already seen enough to condemn me.
    â€˜Shocking,’ Gerontius repeated. ‘Except you believe it too. We call them “kine”. Cattle. But you know better. Unless I’m mistaken, you’re an empath – like Eleanor. You have my sympathy. It’s a sore and challenging affliction, being forced to share other people’s pain, anger, joy and love. But at least you can’t pretend they aren’t human. I’m staking my life that I’m right. You loved Swift. And you hate your father for killing her. Well, you can hate him for killing your mother too. They won’t have told you that.’
    The blast of emotion that blazed from the old man branded his words as truth. This was real. My life was changing. Again. And I didn’t know what was more shocking: the fact that I was no longer totally alone – that I had finally met someone who hated Benedict as much as I did – or that my father had murdered my mother. She was only the shadow of a memory – she died when I was little more than a baby – but knowing Benedict had taken her away from me, as he had Swift, carved a new channel of pain in my soul.
    I was shocked, yes, but not surprised. It all made sense now: all the things my father had hinted and said over the years. Why he looked at me with muddy eyes and I tasted bitterness, loss, and the will to control me as he had failed to control her.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Gerontius said at last. He groaned, shoved himself upright, and strode towards me with a heavy tread. ‘But I’ve got something that might help you sort out who you want to be. She writes a good letter, does little Swift. Handwriting’s a bit dodgy, but you’d expect that.’
    He
was
a miracle, this man. I felt tears stream down my face. She wasn’t completely gone. There was something left.
    â€˜She came to me,’ he continued. He picked up a paper from his desk. ‘She found out about me; don’t know how. I think she somehow sniffed out the Knowledge Seekers and got in touch with them. Astonishing really. She’d only just turned eight. She was clever. Very, very clever.
What a bloody waste!
’
    He glared at me as though I had killed her. I flinched at the blast of anger and frustration.
    â€˜I’m a teacher, Zara. I hate the waste of potential. It’s why I became a heretic, like your mother. There haven’t been many of us over the years. Most end up dead  …  or mad. But I have to hope that someday we can change things. If we don’t, in the end we’ll go the way of the Makers. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be for the best.’
    It was the most shocking thing he had yet said.
    Then he smiled and held out an age-speckled hand, offering the paper. ‘Take this away with you,’ the old man said. ‘Read it. She asked me to keep it safe in case something happened to her. To give it to you when the time was right. She believed in you. Don’t let her down.’
    I took the letter. The paper it was written on had once been the blank end-page of a book. The torn edge was smooth and straight. I saw Swift’s fingers folding and refolding the crease, painstakingly separating the page. It would have wounded her – damaging a book.
    I glanced up into Gerontius’s face, at the unbearable understanding his eyes.
    Then I turned and ran, terrified he might change his mind  …  that it might, after all, have been a trick, a mistake. Later, alone in my room, I held the letter with trembling fingers and read these words for the first time:
    Dear Zara,
    I need to write to you the things I cannot say.
    I’m sorry, but I have to leave soon. I am going to run away to the other side of the Wall – to the Maker cities. The Makers will let me read. They will help me learn all the things I need to know. I will be free.
    There are books about the