stores of grain left behind when the farmers fled. Though I imagine the Burgrave probably raided them. He’ll need to feed his army, and-”
Malden stopped because he’d heard a noise coming from beyond the wall of Castle Hill. A great jeering roar, full of boos and hisses.
“That can’t be good,” he said. They rushed to the broken gates and hurried out into Market Square. A crowd had gathered before the Cornmarket Bridge, a rough mob of women and old men who were throwing garbage at a train of wagons. Malden’s first thought was relief that the subject of the crowd’s ire was not himself.
His second thought was that it was his job to find out what was going on-and to stop it.
“We need to get through there and see what’s happening,” he said.
“On’t,” Velmont said, and started grabbing people from the crowd and thrusting them out of the way. Cursing and kicking, he forced a path through the gathering and Malden swept through until he stood at the end of the bridge, where rotten vegetables and bits of refuse coated the cobblestones, the remains of garbage thrown by the crowd.
A dozen men and women huddled there, sheltering themselves from the stinking missiles. They were dressed in heavy mantles and scarves as if they intended to travel a great distance. Behind them mules pulled three wagons overloaded with bundles and crates.
“What’s going on here?” Malden asked.
The leader of the group lifted his arm away from his face. It was the priest of the Lady who’d ministered to Pritchard Hood the night the bailiff died. The others, Malden realized, must be those few people left in Ness who still worshipped the Lady. The last few weeks had been difficult for them, Malden knew.
The priest stared pure hatred into Malden’s eyes. “I’m taking my flock to a better place.”
“Beyond the walls of Ness? It’s dangerous out there.”
“Less so than staying,” the priest insisted. “We are attacked by ruffians in the street. Our images are smashed. Our churches defiled by thieves and whores! You’ve driven the Lady’s face away from this city, Lord Mayor, and you will suffer the consequences.”
Malden grunted in frustration. He’d heard tales of violence against the Lady’s adherents, but had been able to do little about it. His staunchest supporters were those most devoutly attached to the Bloodgod, who seemed to think that the Lady’s priests were fair game.
“Don’t go,” he beseeched. “I’ll protect you. I’ll make it illegal to persecute anyone for their belief.” It had been one of the things he wanted to do anyway. He’d assumed he had some time before he had to start convincing people that they should accept all religions. Apparently it was now or never.
“We’ll take our chances with the barbarians, thank you very much. If you really want to help us, move this throng out of our path.”
Malden shook his head. “Where will you go?”
“The Northern Kingdoms do not worship the Bloodgod. Their interpretation of the Lady’s word is different from ours, but we share some articles of faith. Perhaps they will listen to our preaching there. If not, well, the Old Empire knows many faiths. The Emperor tolerates all religion as long as no one preaches against his rule. We can live there without fear of being murdered in our beds, simply because we believe in the true faith,” the priest said. He looked tired already. Malden wondered how far he would get before bandits killed him and his people for the contents of their wagons. Ten miles? Twenty? The Northern Kingdoms were two hundred miles away, and crossing the sea to the Old Empire would take months-assuming the pilgrims weren’t slaughtered by pirates or wrecked by storms.
“I won’t stop you,” Malden said, when for a minute he’d considered doing just that. He turned around and faced the jeering crowd. “All of you get back and let them through. And stop throwing that filth! They’re leaving. Isn’t that what you want?”
Grudgingly the crowd moved back to make an opening. They kept jeering and shouting insults but kept their garbage to themselves. Malden bowed to the priest and gestured for him to go through.
Velmont, however, had thought of something Malden had missed. “Boss,” he said. “What’ve they got in yon wains?”
For the first time Malden paid close attention to the priest’s wagons. They were filled to bursting with bundles of clothing, tents, and tools. More importantly, they were full of bags of flour, casks of lard, whole sides of salted beef and pork, and barrels of small beer.
Food. Enough food to get them to their destination. Alternatively, food that could feed a hundred people in Ness for a week.
Malden wrestled with himself. He could not, in good conscience, do what good politics demanded of him.
But he needed that food.
“Hold,” he said. The priest glared at him. Malden took a purse from his belt. It was full of silver coins and a few gold royals. “I’ll give you fair recompense for the food you’re carrying,” he said.
“We’ll need it on the road,” the priest said. But there was a new look in his eye. A look of fear.
Malden tried to push the purse into the priest’s hand. The old man wouldn’t take it. “You can buy food on your way. It’ll make your load lighter.”
“Let me pass,” the priest insisted. His voice was weak. He knew that without Malden’s approval, he would never make it as far as the city gates.
“You can stay here and keep everything. Or you can leave the food behind on your way out of Ness,” Malden said through gritted teeth. His heart shriveled in his chest, just speaking the words. “Take the coins, damn you.”
“Every demon of the pit will take turns gnawing on your soul,” the priest said.
But he took the coins.
Chapter Seventy-Two
“Be of good cheer, lad,” Slag said as he led Malden down toward the Meadlock Stair. “Think of the fucking bright side already.” Ahead of them the river Skrait was at its narrowest, and it ran cold and fast, swollen with melted snow from the north. That morning white flakes had settled for a moment on the courtyard of the Lemon Garden, melting before Malden could be sure they were real. Winter was almost upon them.
Malden could barely imagine a bright side, much less see one. He strained for optimism, and came up with only the barest rationalization. “The pilgrims will die on the road, long before they would have had need of those foodstuffs,” he said, mostly for his own benefit. “In this weather-they’ll freeze before they starve.”
“That’s not precisely what I meant. Here, let me show you something I think will please you,” Slag said. He headed down the steps toward the river, where his latest creation was spinning freely on a massive steel axle. It looked like the Bloodgod’s own wagon wheel, twenty feet across and made of massive beams of wood. All along its circumference paddles stuck out like the oars of a war galley. The paddles dipped into the water, where the current pushed against them and sent them speeding upward again, water spilling from them in a constant torrent. “The force of the river, you see, is transmitted to the axle as angular moment, and from there to a reducing gear which-”
“I don’t speak dwarven, and you know it,” Malden said. He followed Slag up a rickety scaffolding to look down on what had once been a yard for the storage of tar barrels. Now it had been turned into a grain mill. The steel axle of the waterwheel was connected by some ingenious bit of clockwork to a wooden shaft as big as a tree trunk. This rotated constantly, turning as it did so a millstone busily churned out crushed wheat. The human millers down there looked afraid to touch the mechanism, but they worked spryly enough at gathering up the grain and scooping it into sacks.
“This rod turns that rod, which turns the arsing stone,” Slag explained, a bit testily. “It works, that’s the important thing.”
Yes. Yes, it was. As little grain as Ness still possessed, it was worthless if it couldn’t be ground into flour. Now, at least, that part of the problem was solved. Malden felt hope blossom in his chest for the first time in days. “Slag,” Malden said, “you’ve done it again. Is there no end to your invention?”
