Bakune dutifully rose to the bait: ‘And where is that?’
Sadeer wagged a sausage-like finger. ‘Ah-ha, my friend! You have hit upon it. The true value, the deeper measure, is attention. Attention and relevance. That is what really matters in the end. The lack of gold, the condition of poverty, that can be remedied. But the lack of attention? Irrelevance? These are much harder to overcome. They are in fact terminal.’
‘I see … I think.’
The Jasstonese captain was picking his teeth with a sliver of ivory. ‘Exactly. The true economy is relevance. Once you are judged irrelevant – you are out.’
Later that night, after Sadeer had risen, belching, and lumbered off to find a brothel, Bakune sat at his small round table thinking. Attention. He’d not paid attention. Or had turned a convenient blind eye to what he did not want to pursue. That was his fault. A narrowed vision – and wasn’t that precisely what the priest had accused him of?
Two days later came the Festival of Renewal. Boneyman’s was crowded. It was not a day, nor a night, to be a foreigner on the streets of Banith, or in all of Rool for that matter. Unless one wore the loincloth of the penitent. From the door, Bakune watched while the holy icons were paraded through the streets on their cumbersome platforms held aloft by hordes of the devout all competing for the privilege – some trampled underfoot in an ecstasy of fervour. A number of the platforms carried young girls or boys draped in the white silk of purity, dusted with the red petals of sacrifice. Drops of blood spotted the silks of some, dripping from the stipulated woundings at wrists and neck.
Bakune now winced at the sight. How could he not have seen it before? The children, the red petals symbolizing blood, the woundings. All prescribed. All handed down as ancient ritual. What was all this but a more sophisticated playing out of what in earlier times had been done in truth? Ranks of the penitents came next, marching in step, naked but for their loincloths, each wielding flail or whip or chain, each lashing their backs in step after slow measured step up the devotional way to the Cloister doors.
Blood now flowed in truth. No stand-in. No delicate inferential symbolism. Flesh was torn. A carmine sheen smeared the backs of these men. It ran down their legs to paint their footsteps red. Bakune flinched as cold drops struck his cheek. He raised a hand and examined the traces on his fingers.
I am implicated. Marked as accomplice and abettor. Sentenced. My hands are just as red.
Unable to stand the sight of it all, he went inside.
He stood at the bar of the low-ceilinged common room and glimpsed Boneyman himself sitting in a far corner: bald, gleaming in sweat, nothing but hollow skin and bones; hence the name.
‘Not a good night to be out,’ growled a voice next to Bakune and he turned: the priest had emerged from their room.
Bakune signed for a glass of wine. ‘Does everyone know my plans?’
‘Not so hard to guess.’
‘You would dissuade me?’
A slow shake of the head. ‘No. I’ll come along.’
‘You will? Why?’
‘You’ll need me.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘In case you succeed.’
Bakune studied the man: the squat toad-like posture that instead of conveying weakness or sluggishness somehow gave the impression of great power held in check. ‘And if you are along, then so too your companion, Manask, yes?’
The man grimaced his irritation. ‘Yes. But on a night like this … he would hardly be noticed.’
But Bakune was not listening; he was plucking at half-memories. Something about two men, a priest and a giant. Something about the first invasion … ‘Did you fight in the first invasions?’
The man’s gaze slid to the open door where hordes still lined the way and the occasional icon or statue of the Lady tottered past over the heads of the crowd. ‘You are Roolian,’ he said. ‘What do you think of your quaint local festival now?’
So, a change of topic. Very well … for now. ‘It disgusts me,’ Bakune answered curtly, and he downed his wine.
The narrow weighing gaze slid back to Bakune. ‘Disgust … Is that all?’
Bakune considered. He examined his empty glass. No. There was more than that. Far more. ‘It terrifies me,’ he admitted.
The priest was nodding his slow profound agreement.
At dusk Hyuke and Puller thumped down at Bakune’s table. ‘What’s the plan?’ the sergeant asked. He was tossing nuts into his mouth one by one and spitting the shells to the floor. The nuts stained his mouth red.
‘Surveillance,’ Bakune said, and he grimaced his distaste at the sight of the man’s carmine lips, teeth, and tongue.
‘Is that all? What if we get a bite?’
‘Then capture.’
The ex-Watchmen nudged one another, winking.
‘Alive!’ Bakune said.
The two lost their smirks.
‘You have your truncheons?’
‘Yeah. Got ’em.’
‘And the priest will be along as well.’
‘Hunh,’ grunted Hyuke. ‘That means the big guy.’
‘You’ve seen him?’
Hyuke gave a look that asked how stupid he could be.
Bakune coughed into a fist. Right. How could anyone not see that thief?
Puller had been pinching his lower lip. ‘Where?’ he suddenly asked.
‘Where what?’ Hyuke said, annoyed. ‘Where’d we see him? When he escaped. That’s when. Eluding pursuit, he called it. Throwing a guy off a roof! That’s eluding pursuit all right.’
‘No, no. Not that. And anyway, you weren’t hurt so bad. No, what I mean is where are we going?’
Hyuke glared at his partner. ‘Fine. Right.’ He looked to Bakune.
The Assessor envisioned his map. How useless that they should have taken it, he realized, when he had every detail impressed upon his mind. ‘We’ll keep watch on the South Way.’
Hyuke grunted his ill-tempered agreement and spat more shells on to the floor.
The priest was waiting for him in the kitchen. The old cook – whose name Bakune had yet to discover – eyed the two of them like chickens ready for dismemberment. Bakune bowed a wary farewell to her and they hurried out into the alley. They kept to the lesser side streets, but even here the noise was inescapable, a constant low roar punctuated by cheering and chants.
As the dusk deepened, bonfires lit the night at major crossroads. Crowds circled them, chanting prayers to invoke the renewal and return of the Lady. Bakune saw the flaw in his plan then. Tradition dictated that these fires be kept alight all through the night. The most devoted would circle them continuously in a slow shuffle till dawn. The Cloister would be jammed with pilgrims and the priests would all be pressed into performing cleansings and blessings.
The night was just too damned busy. Still, was that not cover enough for anyone who could slip away or go unnoticed among the hordes and the tumult? What to do? He leaned to the priest. ‘We can’t see anything from here.’
The priest was nodding. He slipped a hood up over his head and motioned Bakune onward. They joined the throngs pushing and shoving their way up and down the street. Hawkers waved roasted meats on sticks and all the usual amulets, beads, blessed healing salves, and other trinkets.
The crowd thickened, pulling them along. Not even the priest’s none so gentle thrusts could free them. Bakune heard chanting ahead, and as the words uttered from hundreds of throats clarified in his mind the hair on the nape of his neck rose.
Burn her! they chanted. Burn her!
He caught the priest’s gaze, horrified. The man pushed ahead, drawing Bakune in his wake. At a tall heap of bracken and firewood two Guardians of the Faith held a girl wearing a torn white slip. Her hair was frizzy and wild, a Malazan half-breed. She was weeping, her hands tied at the wrist.
‘No!’ Bakune heard torn from the priest in a muffled grunt.
‘This one is known to many of you!’ one of the Guardians was shouting. ‘Long has she prea
ched against the Lady! She espouses foreign gods! In our fathers’ time she would have been cleansed long ago … but we have been wayward in our fidelity!’ The man gestured to the east. ‘And look how we are rewarded. Fresh invasions. The insult of foreign occupation!’
He raised both hands over the now silent crowd. ‘My friends – we are being punished! Yes, punished! For we have been lacking. Negligent. Too many of us give lip service only to our guardian, our deliverer, our one and only protector! The Lady is turning her face from us, and rightly so …’
He took a torch from a man next to him. ‘We must rededicate ourselves. Prove our devotion with blood … and with sacrifice …’ He pushed the girl down on to the piled bundled branches. She lay weeping, perhaps crazed with fear. He thrust the torch into the kindling.
Bakune stared, horrified, paralysed with disbelief. How could such an appalling barbaric thing be occurring before his eyes? Were they not all beyond such things? Would no one stop this?
The flames leapt up then almost immediately fell away. It was almost as if they were sucked down and snuffed. At Bakune’s side the priest had simultaneously smacked his hands together in a loud slap. Bakune stared at the man, as did many others nearby.
Oh no. More than a mere priest?
The two Guardians shared a bewildered look, then they peered out over the crowd. ‘Who is here?’ one called. ‘Reveal yourself!’
A woman who had been next to the priest suddenly pointed, shouting: ‘It was this one! I saw!’ She made a sign against evil at her chest. Bakune thought it prudent to join the crowd flinching away from the man.
One Guardian pushed forward. ‘Hold him!’
‘Ha ha!’ a great voice bellowed and a giant figure straightened from among the press, throwing off a cloak. ‘My diversion worked!’ Manask took one long step up on to the heaped bracken. ‘Now, while all eyes are elsewhere I shall snatch this innocent away!’
Everyone stared at the bizarre apparition. ‘Who in the Lady’s name are you?’ the remaining Guardian demanded. In answer Manask kicked the man down into the crowd. He threw the girl over his shoulder and followed. Pilgrims swung at him with staffs and sticks but all rebounded from the man’s rotund figure. He bulled forward. People fell like dry grass before him.
‘And now I make my furtive escape! Where has that phantom gone, the crowd gasps!’ He kicked down a door and ducked inside. The priest pressed a hand to his forehead as if to blot the sight from his eyes.
The Guardians arrived at the doorway. ‘After him!’ one shouted, pushing another fellow to the door. But none appeared willing to chase so gigantic a quarry. Snarling, the two dived within.
‘Disperse now!’ the priest suddenly yelled in a surprisingly strong voice. ‘Go home and examine your consciences, each and every one of you! What if that were your daughter, your wife, or yourself upon that blaze? What then?’
The nearest pilgrims turned on him. Those carrying staves held them in white-knuckled grips. The priest returned their furious stares calmly, almost haughtily. He crossed his thick arms. One by one the press thinned until all had drifted away. Bakune and the priest were left alone in the darkened midnight square. Alone but for two figures across the way sitting on the stone steps of a bakery, heads back as if asleep: Hyuke and Puller.
The priest sighed and waved to invite Bakune to accompany him to the gaping doorway. On the second floor they found the two Guardians unconscious and bound. Manask was standing at a window, eating a wedge of cheese. The girl lay on a child’s pallet. Bakune joined Manask to peer nervously over the streets. ‘More will come,’ he warned.
‘They are too busy, I think,’ the priest answered. He sat on the pallet, brushed the girl’s hair from her face. ‘Ella,’ he whispered gently. ‘Come to me.’
The eyelids fluttered. A gasp, chest heaving. The eyes opened wild, white all round, then found the priest. The trembling limbs eased, relaxing. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I tried. Really I did. After you disappeared I took up your message. They came for me – but I am not as strong as you.’
He brushed her brow. ‘You shouldn’t have taken up the burden, Ella. That was not my intent … I am the one who should be sorry. I should have realized.’
She sat up then, gripping his arm. ‘They have seen you! You must hide!’
Gently, he removed her hand, stood. ‘No. No more hiding or running. In fact, I think it is long past the time when I should have acted. Yes.’ He pressed a hand to her cheek. ‘I go now to confront the demon in her den. You are the one who must hide. Go to the settlement just outside the town. You’ll find sympathizers there. Continue the mission. In secret for a time. Do I have your word?’
‘She will destroy you!’
His frog smile was reassuring, and unconcerned. ‘They have you now, Ella. I am not required.’
Clearly the girl wanted to argue but clearly she also respected his wishes, and so she was silent, tears coursing down her cheeks. The priest went to the window where Manask stood tapping the wedge of cheese against his chin, frowning. ‘I am not so clear on this plan, my friend,’ Manask said. ‘As I see it, your delivering yourself gains us entry to the Cloister. Once there, while they are busy prodding you with red-hot pokers and eviscerating your bowels, I clean out the treasury. Is this the plan?’
‘Something like that,’ the priest growled, glaring.
‘Ah!’ Manask nibbled the cheese. ‘Well, I like my half of it.’
Bakune eyed the priest, uncertain. ‘You’re not really going to walk into the Cloister, are you?’
The priest appeared distracted, his head cocked as if listening to some distant sound. ‘No, not the Cloister,’ he said, his brows furrowing. ‘That’s not where she is … What is that noise?’
Bakune heard it as well. Roaring, yelling. A mob – a riot. ‘Things have gotten out of control,’ he murmured.
‘No. Worse than that. That’s real terror. Come.’ He started to head for the stairs, but stopped and turned to the girl. ‘Leave town now. Speak to no one. Farewell, and may the gods overlook you.’
‘Farewell,’ she managed huskily, barely able to speak.
At the street Hyuke and Puller were waiting for them. ‘Somethin’s up,’ Hyuke drawled. The two ex-Watchmen were eyeing Manask, their truncheons in their hands.
Townsfolk ran past, coming up the street from the waterfront in an ever-thickening torrent. Screaming was clearer now, rising from downslope. ‘What’s going on?’ the priest asked.
Hyuke thrust out a leg, tripping a man, who fell without a sound. He lay on his back struggling to rise while Hyuke held him down with his foot. ‘What’s going on!’ Hyuke demanded.
‘I like your way of tricking information out of people,’ Manask said. ‘Reminds me of my own techniques.’
‘They’re coming!’ the man gasped, his eyes fixed downslope.
‘Who?’
‘The Stormriders! They’re here! In the harbour! Run! It’s the end of the world!’ And the man brushed Hyuke’s foot aside to scramble away.
‘Riders here?’ the priest muttered. ‘Absurd.’
The crowd thickened; all rushed past, ignoring them. Bakune heard more shouts warning of Stormriders. The priest headed down against the rising tide of humanity. Bakune followed. Manask clomped away into a side street. A number of distracted townsfolk ran into the priest, only to rebound as if having encountered an iron post; Bakune kept in his wake. Several shops were aflame on the waterfront – perhaps from abandoned bonfires. And out past the pilgrim ships at anchor, further out on the dark azure blue of the bay, rested a score of far larger vessels.
They were nothing like any ships Bakune had ever seen before, and he’d grown up next to the sea. Three-masted, extraordinarily large, with dark-painted hulls and tall castles at the fore. ‘What are they?’ he asked of the priest.
For the first time Bakune heard awe in the man’s voice as he answered, ‘I’ve never seen them myself, but they match descriptions I’ve heard. Moranth ve
ssels. Moranth Blue.’ The priest faced him, his expression amazed. ‘The Malazans are here, Bakune. This means they’ve completely broken Mare. Passed through Black Water Strait.’
Bakune could only stare at the man while townsfolk pushed past. Some carried snatched precious goods wrapped in cloths or in baskets. He knew where all were fleeing; where the entirety of Banith’s population plus thousands of pilgrims would end up: clamouring before the doors to the Cloister. The very place he had to go. ‘I must speak to the Abbot.’
‘I imagine the man’s rather busy right now.’
Bakune pointed to the harbour. ‘We must decide how to respond to this. We don’t even have a militia!’
‘No doubt the Guardians will order everyone to fight to the death.’
Bakune turned away to head with the tide. ‘Don’t be foolish.’
He just caught the priest’s dark: ‘I wasn’t.’
Long before they were far enough up the Way of Obtestation to glimpse the tall copper doors of the Cloister it became clear that the night’s panic and confusion had degenerated into open terror and riot. Looting had begun, citizens breaking into shops to snatch what provisions or supplies they could before heading for the presumed safety of the Cloister, or striking inland to flee the coast.
Bakune’s two guards now walked at his sides, truncheons at the ready, which they swung at the slightest provocation. The priest went ahead; so far no one had become so drunk on panic as to attack him. Of the giant Manask, he’d seen no sign. This must be his night – the night the thief dreamed of all his life. Law and order shattered. All households and shops open to plunder. This must be what a sacking is like. Something we in Rool hadn’t witnessed in generations.
Pushing round a turn in the Way, they saw ahead a milling press of humanity filling the narrow path like a solid wedge that ran fully up to the distant torchlit – and now firmly closed – copper doors. Before the entrance massed Guardians fought to keep back the mob. Staves rose and fell like scythes. Everyone begged for entry, arms raised, hands beseeching. Bakune leaned to the priest to shout: ‘This is impossible! I know another way!’
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