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 preached 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?’