The Grand Bishop heard the hurried panic in his own footsteps and realised he had to make a decision. If they tried to open the gap now, the crowd would run them down. His only option was to turn and face the townsfolk, talk to them as he had so many times before in the streets, in the squares and in the Central Cathedral. He’d give them God’s word they’d receive everything they required. He held his hands up to the Parsons behind him and stopped. He wanted time to regain his breath before the townsfolk caught up to them.
Atwell was right behind him.
‘What are you doing, Your Grace?’
‘Trying to prevent the end of the world. If we don’t turn and face the townsfolk, we’re finished. When we’re gone, the town will destroy itself.’
‘But wouldn’t it be safer to outrun them and take refuge at the plant? Then we can address them from safety.’
‘No. If they’ve chased us all that way, they’ll have no reason to listen. They’ll have lost all respect. We must face them.’
The Grand Bishop pushed his way back through the panting Parsons. Then, with his back to the fast approaching crowd he said to them, ‘Stand firm. Don’t give an inch or show any emotion. The Welfare is the highest authority in the town, God’s voice to His people. Let’s act like it.’
He turned to face the oncoming throng of townsfolk and grain workers. When they were still two hundred yards distant, he held up his hands with his palms to them. He set his expression in stone and waited.
The front ranks approached quickly. They were thinned out by their pace but they were only the vanguard. Hordes were close behind them. They saw the Grand Bishop but continued to run. Their faces were full of rebellion and disrespect, twisted by a feral mob spirit, knowing anything might happen and that nothing could stop it once it began. The Grand Bishop noticed many of them were armed with iron bars or lumps of rubble and brick. He filled his lungs in a final attempt to control his breathing.
He made eye contact deliberately with as many of the approaching men and women as he could. He kept his face stern and imperious. The crowd’s pace slowed. The front ranks thickened as more drew up behind them. They became a wall of faces.
He noticed how thin and hollow-faced so many of them looked while the Parsons were plump, robust and ruddy cheeked. He knew his voice would only reach the first few hundred, possibly a thousand townsfolk. After that, word would have to pass back on its own. He waited until he was sure the column had stopped and that enough folk had caught up to hear him.
‘Townsfolk of Abyrne, you are God’s children in God’s town. As His representative, as the keeper of your welfare, I tell you this: A great blessing has come to pass this day. Rory Magnus, the man who kept the town on the edge of starvation because of his greed, Rory Magnus is dead. He is dead because God wants a righteous town where everyone eats and no one starves. He wants a town where there is order and piety through compassion, not violence. He decrees—’
‘What about meat?’ shouted a voice. He couldn’t see who’d said it.
‘You shall have it. The whole town shall have meat. Go back to your homes. Allow my Parsons and I to continue to the plant where we will regain control of all production. Then we can distribute God’s divine gift of nourishment fairly and abundantly.’
‘But we’re hungry now,’ someone else shouted. ‘What are we going to eat right now?’
He knew he shouldn’t have considered the question, allowed it to linger in his mind. He should have just continued and ignored it.
‘Yeah,’ yelled another voice. ‘We want meat today. Now. Not some fucking distribution.’
More voices joined in.
‘He’s right.’
‘No distribution.’
‘Give us meat.’
‘We’ll not starve.’
‘We want it now.’
The Grand Bishop raised his hands once more to placate the agitated voices.
‘Please, please. That’s enough. You shall all have full stomachs, as God is my witness.’
A couple of the Parsons to his right backed away from the crowd. Just a couple of inches, more of a flinch really, but the townsfolk sensed it even if they didn’t actually see it.
‘Stand firm,’ hissed the Grand Bishop from the side of his mouth.
‘We want meat.’
‘I’ve already told y–’
‘We want meat.’
A chant had begun.
‘We want meat.’
‘Good townsfolk, I implore you…’
He was losing control.
The chant intensified and spread back through the crowd. Anger flared in their eyes again.
‘WE WANT MEAT.’
Someone threw a broken brick. It hit Atwell between the eyes making a loud, damp thud. Something had broken inside.
The chant stopped.
Atwell staggered half a step back, unsure what had happened. Blood cascaded from the wound, down his face and onto his robes staining them an even deeper red. He dropped to his knees and fell on his face.
The chant began again, spoken quietly now, not shouted.
‘We want meat… We want meat.’
Boots and bars tapped the broken road surface in time with the syllables.
‘We want meat… We want meat.’
The chant gained power, townsfolk from far, far back giving their voices to it.
Someone threw another brick. The Grand Bishop saw it coming and ducked. He didn’t see which of his Parsons it hit but he heard the cry of pain.
There was a moment, it stretched long between chants. In the moment both sides knew something was about to happen. It rose like an invisible wave. At the end of the moment every Parson turned away and started to run. At the same time, missiles shot from the mob and thundered into their turned backs. Stones hitting heads, rocks hitting backs and legs. The Parsons began to fall and the suddenly rushing mob trampled them into the tarmac with its thousands of stomping feet.
The Grand Bishop lifted the hem of his robes and fled.
The ditch was just deep enough that, if they kept their heads down, no one would see them from the road or from the plant. From time to time Shanti stopped and peeped up over the long grass and weeds that grew unchecked along the verge.
Collins and his followers had split into two lines. One faced Bruno’s men, the other the MMP gate. Bruno’s arrival had emboldened Torrance and the stockmen anew – their enemies were now trapped in a pincer as well as outnumbered. It couldn’t be long before someone made a move on them. Shanti didn’t want to see them butchered but going back to help would do no good. He had his part to play, as Collins had said. There were no more choices now.
Further ahead on the other side of the road was the rear perimeter fence that surrounded the meat packing plant. Shanti knew it was old and poorly maintained. Breaking through would be easy. He knelt down.
‘Girls, I want you to stay here. Lie down in the ditch or go further back into the hedge, but whatever happens, do not come out to look for me. No one must see you. Understand?’
Two solemn nods and with them, quiet tears.
He hugged them tight.
‘If there was any other way of doing this, a way that meant we could stay together, I’d do it. But there isn’t.’
In his mind he said to them: But if we survive this, it must be without either of you seeing the inside of this plant. No one should ever see such a place again.
‘So, hide now, my sweethearts, and I’ll come back for you as soon as I can.’
He gave them each another kiss, telling himself it would not be the last.
Then he scrambled farther along the ditch, far enough that none of the fighters at the gate would see him. Finally, he darted up over the lip of the ditch and across the road. The fence was completely broken down in one place and he ran straight over it to the wall of the first building. The wall was made of wood. He pulled nine thimbles out of his pocket and pressed his eight fingers and one thumb into them.