Parson Atwell had led their scouting mission and the Grand Bishop addressed his questions to him.
‘What did you find?’
‘Nothing, Your Grace.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Not exactly nothing but certainly no enforcement party. What we found were their gowns and their weapons. That’s all.’
‘But where Atwell? In what condition?’
‘Forgive me, your grace, I still don’t understand it myself. We found their garments littered as though they’d fallen in battle but there were no bodies. Not one.’
‘What do you think happened?’
‘They may have been overcome and taken prisoner, their gowns arranged over the ground as… some kind of message. Or they were thoroughly bested and their bodies taken away – again with the clothing left as a sign.’
‘A hundred of our best Parsons captured or killed by thirty tunnel-dwelling starvelings? I don’t believe it.’
He’d meant the outburst as a challenge, to get Atwell to speak up. It had the opposite effect. Atwell looked down, clamping back an angry response. Nor would the other two Parsons meet the Grand Bishop’s eyes. He softened his tone.
‘All right, Atwell. I wasn’t there and I didn’t see it for myself. You can imagine how it must sound to my ears, though.’
Some of the tension went out of Atwell’s jaw.
‘Of course, Your Grace.’
‘I want your assessment. What do you think happened out there?’
Atwell hesitated, glanced at his two companions and then appeared to realise it was no use looking for answers there. He faced the Grand Bishop.
‘I think they’re dead. All of them. I believe Collins and his followers are far stronger than we’ve given them credit for. I also think they plan to take over the town.’
‘Do you?’ said the Grand Bishop. ‘Do you really?’
He was angry but not with his scouts. In his heart he believed exactly the same thing. How could he have let all this happen right under his nose?
‘Where in God’s name did they acquire this strength?’
‘I can’t answer that, Your Grace.’
‘I know, Atwell. I’m sorry. Just thinking out loud. What else have you discovered?’
‘We’re fairly sure Magnus was tipped off about Collins’s whereabouts because we watched seventy of his men returning from the tunnels. They were tired but looked unhurt. I don’t think they found him.’
‘Unless he sent a hundred and seventy men and only seventy returned.’
‘That wasn’t how it looked, Your Grace.’
‘I know, I know. Dear Father.’
The Grand Bishop sat back and closed his eyes for a moment. It was difficult to think.
‘Your Grace?’
He opened his eyes.
‘You can go now, Atwell.’
‘No, Your Grace. I… haven’t finished.’
‘What else, then?’
‘It’s only a rumour – we haven’t had the time or the manpower to go and check for ourselves yet – but it seems that Magnus’s men did meet Collins in combat and also suffered defeat. Magnus himself was seriously wounded. The townsfolk know something is wrong. Word passes quickly. It’s only a matter of time before they begin to demand order. Already people are clearing out the butchers’ shops in expectation of a shortage of meat. When the butchers run out, the townsfolk will go up to MMP in numbers too great to control. If we’re going to prevent that, we need to act now and put a curfew in place.’
‘Yes. See to it immediately.’
‘There was just one other matter, Your Grace.’
The Grand Bishop no longer tried to maintain his stature and sighed openly.
‘Go on.’
‘Doctor Fellows reports that Parson Mary Simonson is no longer in the convalescent room. He thinks she’s been gone some time.’
‘Not there? But she’s far too sick to go anywhere.’
‘Apparently not, Your Grace.’
‘All right. Thank you, Atwell.’
The Grand Bishop waved a hand at them. They bowed and retreated.
When they were gone he stood and went to a slim closet where he kept his gowns. Hanging beside them was a heavy femur club, jaundice yellow and long untouched. He unhooked it and felt the weight in his right hand. Long-dormant aggression rose in him at the touch of cool bone in his palm. Stepping back, he swung it left and right until some of the strikes he had been so adept at returned to him. He’d never expected to need it again.
Twenty-six
Magnus was thankful for Bruno. There was a man he’d picked for the right reasons. There was a man that was loyal. When they’d broken out of the cells, Bruno was the first there. He directed four of the others as they freed Magnus from the railings.
Magnus didn’t like to remember it. After so long hanging there, the spikes were almost part of his legs. It had taken three of them to hold his weight and an extra man to wrench free each leg. The pain was different, worse: his wounding in slow, jerky reverse. He’d vomited and then, mercy of mercies, passed out.
Now he was on his bed, legs washed and bandaged by Doctor Fellows – another good man worth every illegally supplied bullock. Fellows said that he was a strong man and there was a chance he would make it. A chance. That was all Magnus wanted. That was all he’d ever needed to make things work for him. Magnus could do with slim chances what others could not. Most of the men Magnus knew didn’t even know a chance when they saw it.
He might heal.
He might not lose his lower legs.
He might walk again.
And if he could do all that, there was no reason he couldn’t carry on running the town by controlling every single cut of meat that would ever be fried.
But his stomach was a vice of tension as he tried to ward off the pain that owned everything below it. The level of the pain varied from intolerable to insane-making. He rose and fell with it. The thing that surprised him most was how it had cleared his mind of all peripheral concerns. He was thinking more clearly than he had for months.
His plan was a simple one. Bruno would take every surviving guard in Magnus’s employ and go immediately to MMP. There they would join up with all the stockmen and workers from the plant. They’d number at least three hundred men. That made the odds against Collins and Shanti ten to one. Not even Collins was good enough to survive those kinds of numbers. Finally, through the simple violence and force that had always ruled the town, Magnus would regain control. But that wasn’t the end of the plan. With the crazies eliminated, Magnus would take all his men and storm the Central Cathedral. They would capture the Grand Bishop first, as an insurance policy and to weaken the will of the Parsons. Then there would be a pogrom in which Magnus planned to end religious influence in the town overnight. They would burn every Book of Giving and every Gut Psalter in Abyrne and atop the conflagration cook the bodies of every Welfare worker. Perhaps they’d eat them too. It would have the desired effect on the minds of the townsfolk. In fact, yes, that was what he’d do: he’d eat the Grand Bishop’s roasted heart in front of every person in the town. They’d never forget the image of his flame illuminated face, feasting on the core of his enemy.
Bruno had already left. The plan was in effect. Only time lay between him and the new future of Abyrne. Only waiting and pain. He’d survived the worst of that already at the hands of Shanti’s demonic twin bitches. Those girls and their father would live a lifetime of pain before he let them die. He’d see to it personally. He knew how much their suffering would aid his recovery.
He looked down at his legs. Already the bandages were soaked through with fresh leakage. It was spreading gradually out onto the white sheets. He had lost a lot of blood and though Magnus wasn’t short of anger to fuel the ensuing weeks and months of convalescence, Doctor Fellows had expressed concern over the blood loss. ‘If anything kills you now,’ he’d said, ‘it’ll be the life blood you lose and how quickly your body replenishes it. Because you were inverted, the wound did not bleed as much as it might have. You’re fortunate to be alive.’