“Let’s go,” said Broad, steering Savine by the shoulder. There was no violence in it, but there was no resisting it, either.
The Burners pressed in close as they set off across the square. She could see nothing between their bodies but running figures, the odd flash of a terrified face. She could not even tell where Orso was. Somewhere else in this jostling, stinking, red-spattered knot of fanatics. She wished he was beside her. This one last time.
She stumbled, would have fallen if Broad hadn’t caught her arm. Candles sent skittering. Set up as a little shrine beside one of the names carved in the flagstones. The names of those killed to keep the old regime in power, half-glimpsed under her shuffling feet, blurred through the wet in her eyes. The names of those her father had beaten, tortured, hanged so that she could be rich.
Broad had tied her hands in front of her rather than behind. They had no fear she would make some mad bid for freedom. She had sometimes watched the arrested taken away, mute and tame, and wondered why they did not fight, however long the odds. But now she let herself be herded to her death without even—
The children! A sudden pang of dread. She cast about wildly, clutching at her dress, straining at the cords around her wrists. Freid had them. She sucked in a shuddering breath. Freid would keep them safe. And if she did not, what could Savine do? Not a thing.
She had been fixed on becoming a better person for them. Better than her parents had been for her. Their best friend, faithful protector, wise teacher, honest confidante. Now they would grow up without ever knowing her. Not even remembering her. Ever since she was arrested she had been telling herself she was doomed. But it was only now that she really started to believe it.
There was a crash as something hit one of the Burners on the helmet. “This is madness,” someone was hissing, “fucking madness,” his nervous eyes darting, clearly less of a true believer than the rest.
“Keep moving,” came Judge’s snarl.
The sounds of fighting were growing louder. Closer. Leo might be just beyond the edge of the square. Might be cutting his way through to her, even now. A surge went through the Burners and she was shouldered sideways, caught her shoe on something, bit her tongue as she nearly fell. The outstretched arm of a limp body, bloody hair spread across the cracked flagstones.
“Keep moving,” Broad growled, nudging her on.
It had been easy to be brave, in the Court of the People. To play the part of the noble martyr. Now the Tower of Chains loomed up ahead, Savine’s neck tilting further and further back as she stared towards its roof, and the fear began to grip her. The way it had in Valbeck, when she crawled through her own whirring machinery, when she ran through the ruined streets. Her mouth grew dry. Her knees grew weak. Her breath came faster and faster.
She was so fixed on the tower’s top she did not see Curnsbick’s lift until they were almost upon it. But then it had few of the flourishes of the inventor’s best work. A dizzying column of rickety scaffolding, a wooden platform at the bottom with a rail around the edge and chains at each corner. At the sight of it she could not seem to stop her chest heaving, and yet she could not seem to get a proper breath. Suddenly, stupidly, she desperately wanted her mother.
“It’s not too late to talk!” she blurted out.
“It’s always been too late.” Judge thoughtfully raised one brow at her. “Do you know why they call me Judge?”
Savine stared back dumbly.
“Honestly? Neither do I.” She jerked her head towards the lift. “Get her on there.”
Broad half-ushered, half-lifted her onto the platform. She felt so weak she thought she might fall as he stepped up himself, his great boot making the whole thing shudder.
“You have the king,” said Savine. “You could make a deal.”
A few more Burners were finally showing some doubts, but not Judge. “That’s your thing, not mine. No one’ll be deal-making their way out o’ this. You lot, hold the line here! Nobody comes through, you understand? Sarlby, Halder, let’s go.”
They manhandled Orso onto the lift beside her. He still had that mocking smile at the corner of his mouth. The one everyone thought was contempt for the world, but she knew was really contempt for himself. He was as calm as a man on his way to a card game.
He leaned towards her as more Burners crowded onto the lift around them. “Have you ever been up before?”
“What?” she croaked. It was the first time they had spoken in months. Since she begged him for Leo’s life. Since she told him she was his sister. And he talked as if they were polite acquaintances running across one another in the park.
“The view’s astonishing. The perfect spot to watch the Lords’ Round burn. You’re going to love it.”
She stared at him, mouth slightly open. “Are you… joking?”
“I rather think it might be my last opportunity.”
She found she’d given a disbelieving laugh. Laughed and sobbed at the same time, perhaps.
He nudged her with his shoulder. “It’s probably not much comfort, but I’m glad I’m with you.”
“So am I.” She felt stronger for it. Managed to work up the kind of arch glance she might have given him in Sworbreck’s office, long ago. “My mother always told me it’s very important who a girl is seen with.”
“Aw,” said Judge. “This is sweet. Think I might cry, Sarlby.”
“Think I am crying,” said Sarlby, “but maybe it’s the smoke.” There was a tickle of it on the air now, as the flames licked ever higher up the Court of the People. Or was it the Lords’ Round again, just while it burned?
Broad did not look as if he would cry. He looked like a wooden man, moved by Judge’s words like a machine by levers. Another Burner stepped stiffly onto the platform beside them. As if he would much rather have stayed but could not see how to avoid the trip. Savine realised she knew him. One of the men Broad had hired, for labour relations. Bannerman, was it? She had seen him smiling, at the trial. He was not smiling any more. Their eyes met, and he swallowed, the knobble in his throat bobbing.
The sounds of fighting were louder yet. The people trapped in the square even more desperate. The rest of the Burners made a crescent about the base of the tower, weapons pointing outwards.
Judge jerked her thumb towards the heavens. “Take us up!” There was a squeal of gears and the hoist lurched, then began to rattle upwards.
“At least we don’t have to climb the damn steps,” said Orso, tipping his head back to follow the chains straight up the well of scaffolding to the square of sky at its top. “Thanks to Master Curnsbick’s excellent lift.”
“There’s progress,” whispered Savine.
“Save the king!” squealed Gorst, ploughing through the panicking crowds. The badly carved virtues of the Great Change squinted down on havoc, people running, wailing, cringing, blundering into each other. Hard to say what side anyone was on, if there was such a thing as sides any more. Most were just trying to live through it.
“Save the king!” Gorst hacked someone down with his long steel, sent them bouncing from a pedestal, smearing blood across the stained marble. He kicked, shoved, screeched his way through the mob and Vick limped after him, her face one enormous throb, a watchful eye on his steels in case he took her head off with a backswing, wondering what her chances were of finding someone out here who could set a broken nose.
They burst onto the Square of Martyrs and she hobbled to a stop, nearly slipping over backwards, her free hand up to shield her battered face. The Court of the People was on fire. A giant torch, angry flames roaring. One of its great windows shattered, sparks showering, throwing garish light across the chaos.
Something hit Vick on the back of the head and she stumbled. Didn’t even know what it was. Where it had come from. Touched fingers to her hair and they came away bloody. But then she was covered in blood already. Her nose was blocked with it, her chin crusted with it, her mouth salty with it.
“Save the king!” Gorst pounded on, peo
ple scattering in front of him. Horsemen spilled from the slogan-daubed buildings on the right, clattering across the square, chopping people down, indiscriminate. A horse fell right in front of Vick, rolled, crushed its rider. She nearly fell herself as she staggered around it, barged into a woman clutching an armful of candlesticks.
“Save the king!” shrieked Gorst, pounding on towards the Tower of Chains. Through the tears the smoke had stung from her eyes, Vick thought she could see Curnsbick’s lift crawling up the scaffold on its side.
There were Burners there. A curved line of them, weapons ready, sharpened steel gleaming with the colours of fire. A last line of defence around their place of execution.
Horsemen crashed into them. Anglanders maybe, in dark uniforms. Spears darted. Swords rose and fell. The noise was appalling. Tortured metal, tortured beasts, tortured men. Something crunched into Vick’s side and sent her rolling over and over, into a fallen wagon with one wheel squeaking around in the air. She squirmed onto her back, clutching at her jacket. Just dirt. She wasn’t hurt. No worse than she’d been before, anyway. Mace still flapping around her wrist on its thong and she caught it by the handle and scrambled up.
The Burners’ line was coming apart. She shrank back as horsemen thundered past. She saw one catch a spear in the throat, tumble from the saddle. She saw a man drop with his helmet dented right in. She saw Gorst, face locked in a snarl, savagely swinging.
A Burner stared straight at Vick. She stepped up, caught him by the paint-smeared breastplate. Before she could even lift her mace, Gorst’s long steel whipped past and took his head off, left Vick staring in shock at the squirting stump. Her hand was tangled with his armour and she was dragged down on top of him, fresh blood in her eyes, in her face.
She twisted free, spitting and coughing. A bearded man sat, very surprised, a shattered spear shaft sticking from his groin. A woman knelt blubbing, great strings of snot hanging from her nose. A rider with a soot-streaked face stared down at his stricken mount, lying on its side, hooves scraping weakly at the bloody flagstones.
“Where is she?” someone roared. “Where is she?”
“Help! Some help here!”
“For the king!”
“My shoulder! Please, my shoulder!”
Vick stood staring, breathing hard through her sore mouth, still gripping the mace so tight her hand ached.
Gorst held his bloody steels in clenched fists, staring up towards that great scaffold, the platform inching its way upwards. “Not again,” he growled. “Not again.”
The Burners were finished. Most of them dead or wounded, the rest throwing down their weapons. For better or worse, it looked as if the Great Change was done. Or maybe there was a new Great Change, but what it was a change into no one could yet say.
Brock sat above the whole mess on his high horse amid a cluster of dark-uniformed Anglanders, pointing towards the Tower of Chains with his sword.
“How does that bloody lift work? We have to get it down!”
Vick stared up towards the roof. The platform had stopped moving. They were already at the top.
She licked her split lip and spat yet again, then untangled the thong from her wrist with clumsy fingers and tossed the mace on the ground. After a moment’s thought, she sat down wearily beside it. Blood had trickled into one of the martyrs’ names and picked half the letters out in red.
“We’re too late,” she mumbled.
Broad stepped onto the roof of the Tower of Chains. It had turned out a fine day. Crisp and sunny, with a cool breeze carrying off the vapours so you could see across the city. That same mad view he’d witnessed a hundred times, but every time it somehow took him by surprise.
He caught Bannerman’s eye. The man had lost all his swagger. He looked scared and confused at once. Like he couldn’t see how they’d ended up here. Broad knew how. Some men can’t help themselves.
He wasn’t drunk. Hadn’t touched a drop all day. But he felt drunk. Head spinning. He wondered how many people he’d thrown down now. How many he’d seen thrown down. Never someone he knew well, though. Never someone who’d saved his life. His family’s lives.
He felt the letter, crushed to a sweaty ball in his fist.
We hear you are in trouble.
Didn’t think he could hear fighting any more. Just the sounds of the wounded now, thin on the wind. Had the Young Lion won? Was the Great Change done? The thought brought up no real feeling. He was playing dead, maybe. He’d done that in Styria. Told himself he was dead so nothing that was done to him could matter. Nothing that he did could matter.
Peaceful up here, so high above the city. As high as the highest smoking chimneys. He watched Bannerman nudge Savine up the three steps to the platform. He watched Orso shake off Halder’s hand and take the three steps himself to stand beside her. Facing the city. Facing the sea.
We hear you have lost yourself.
“Don’t worry,” said Judge, her wild red hair whipped and slashed by the wind, and behind her flames flickered, smoke rolling into the sky from the burning Court of the People. She put a hand on Broad’s cheek. “I know this isn’t easy. Sarlby?”
“No,” said Broad. He tossed the letter over the parapet, watched it drop out of sight. “It should be me.”
We know who you are.
He stepped forward. Shouldered past Sarlby, and Bannerman, and Halder. Comrades from the battlefields of Styria, the barricades in Valbeck, the midnight beatings of striking workers. Everything took an effort. Like he was wading through a bog.
Our husband.
More of the city showed as he stepped up onto the platform. The grimy white towers, the dark mill chimneys, the maze of roofs leading all the way to the sparkling sea. Everything smelled of burning, so strong it was hard to breathe.
Our father.
Savine stared towards the long drop, muscles working on the side of her face. Slightly bent over, like she wanted to huddle to the roof. Orso stood with hands tied behind him and the fixed smile of a man attending an event he found insufferably dull.
A good man.
“Ready, Your Majesty?” Broad stepped up close, cutting the cord between his wrists with a sharp jerk of his knife, then pressing it into his palm.
Orso looked over his shoulder, brows shooting up. “I’m willing to give it a go.”
You just have to remember.
Broad nudged his lenses up his nose with a fingertip, took a deep breath, stepped down from the platform and pushed Bannerman off the tower.
He wasn’t expecting it. Wasn’t braced for it. A firm shove with one hand was all it took. His head snapped sideways, he dropped his sword and he tripped one foot with the other.
He gave a surprised grunt as he tumbled over, like a man who’d sat down only to have his chair whisked away by some joker.
“Wha?” said one of the other Burners. Broad punched him in the face so hard his helmet flew off. He reeled back, hit the parapet, caught it with one wild hand.
Broad bent, grabbed his ankle and yanked it up. He screamed as he went over, flailing at the air.
“No!” shrieked Judge. Half fury, half wounded disbelief.
Orso had stabbed Halder, knife buried under his jaw, blood squirting over the king’s clenched fist and soaking his dirty lace cuff. Savine stood beside him, framed by the blue sky, eyes huge in her pale face, a dotting of blood on her white dress.
One of the other Burners was coming at Broad with a mace. Luvonte was his name. A Styrian. Strange, that he’d be a Burner. But then who’d have thought Broad would ever be one, either?
He swung as Broad ducked and the mace caught him a glancing blow, bounced from the top of his head. Broad came up, caught Luvonte by the breastplate, lifted him off his feet and rammed him into the roof head first.
He felt a jolt, a pricking in his back. Hardly any pain. Surprising, to see a dagger sticking out of his shoulder, Sarlby’s fist around the grip.
Broad gave a great roar, twisting around. Sarlby punched him.
It bounced off his cheek but his knuckle caught Broad’s lenses and knocked them skewed, hanging from one ear. Suddenly the world was all fog. A sparkly blur.
Broad tried to catch Sarlby’s throat but he was slippery as a fish. He lashed blindly with both fists but Sarlby dodged. Broad tripped over something. Luvonte, groaning as he rolled onto his back, face a red smear. Broad shook his head, squinted, managed to catch his lenses and pull them back on. One was cracked. A crack in the world.
He saw Halder sat against the parapet, hand clutched to his throat, blood squirting between his fingers, black as tar.
Then he saw Sarlby, with Bannerman’s sword in his hand and his teeth bared. He swung and Broad dodged back. The blade clanged into the parapet and sent up a puff of stone dust. Sarlby lifted it to swing again but Broad stepped into him, caught the hilt with one hand before it came down, blade waving at the sky between them.
Broad punched at him but Sarlby got his free arm up, fending him off. Broad rammed him back against the parapet and drove his breath out in a wheeze. Sarlby dropped the sword and it fell twinkling, tumbling, spinning towards the bloodstained moat far below. Tiny figures down there, looking up.
Broad could hear Orso swearing at the top of his voice.
He punched again, spitting, snarling, grunting, the strange and beautiful view spread out beyond, snapped Sarlby’s head back so it smacked into the parapet, left blood on the stone. How many times had they fought side by side?
He’d been a good man, Sarlby. Better than Broad. Maybe he still was.
Broad did his best to smash his face in even so.
It all happened so fast.
Savine turned from the long drop to see that two Burners had gone off the tower. A third sat staring with his throat slit. A fourth lay groaning, face covered in blood. Broad had Sarlby half-pinned over the parapet, one arm going up and down like a piston as he punched him. Orso spat curses while he struggled with the last.
They staggered to one side, wrestling over an axe, leaving Savine and Judge to stare at each other across the flat roof of the Tower of Chains.
The Wisdom of Crowds Page 44