old man laughing together at a meeting o’ the guild, before his old man died and the guild got broke up. He was a grim-looking bastard now. But a lot of weavers were. Mostly on account of Masrud’s weaving engine.
Lock walked to the parapet and frowned down at the water.
Filthy water, full of foam and rubbish, streaked with glistening oil. He’d stood here often. This very spot. Considering the waters. After his wife died. Hard to imagine, in this hot summer, how bitter that winter had been.
Maybe it was the cold done it, or the hunger, or the grip, or maybe it was just the hope bled out of her. Got so she just couldn’t be warmed. Got sicker and sicker and then she never woke. His son followed two nights after, eight years old. His daughter was last to go, just before the thaw. He couldn’t remember what they’d been like, really. Couldn’t remember ’em living. But he remembered ’em dead. He’d slept next door to ’em a few nights, while the ground softened. A few last nights together.
He remembered the burying. One grave, and he’d been lucky to get it, there were so many going in the ground. His wife on the bottom, the children on top, like she was holding ’em, maybe. He’d looked down, and thought they were the lucky ones. Wished he was with ’em. He hadn’t cried. He didn’t know how. The gravedigger had put a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘You should come to a meeting. Hear the Weaver speak.’
He remembered looking over and seeing some rich folk walking past, laughing. Not laughing at him and his sorrows. Not even noticing ’em. Like they lived in a different world from him and his.
They didn’t now.
He turned to look at ’em.
A few men bleeding and a few women blubbing but Lock felt no pity. Didn’t feel anything. Hadn’t felt anything for a long time.
‘What are you doing?’ one of them asked. The man with the bloody mouth. ‘I demand to know what—’
‘Shut up!’ shrieked the girl with the ripped dress and the red cheeks. ‘Shut your fucking hole, you fucker!’
Lock looked at the heavy chain. No way any of ’em were swimming shackled to that. All he had to do was push the first couple in and the lot would be dragged after, and down to the bottom of the river, and that’d be that.
He knew it wouldn’t be justice.
But he wondered if it might be close enough.
Two men chased another past with sticks, laughing as they hit him, sent him stumbling, dragged him back up, hit him again. There was some beggar, crouching in a doorway at the foot of the bridge, watching Lock with bright eyes.
The old Breaker who led the column looked right at her and Savine edged away around the corner, huddling into her stinking coat.
She dared not go up onto the bridge, where she would be hemmed in and helpless. She had only followed the prisoners because she hardly knew what else to do. At least with them ahead, it felt as if she was not quite alone. But she could not help them. They could not help her. There was no help for anyone.
Her body wanted desperately to run, every muscle aching with tension, but there was nowhere to run to. All she could do was slink down streets scattered with torn papers, with upended wagons, slaughtered horses, broken machinery, sword clutched under her fetid rag of a coat, casting about for somewhere to hide. Some hole where she could reason out what had happened, and some way to escape it. Some place the madness had not reached. But soon enough she realised it was everywhere. Spread like sickness. Like wildfire. The whole city had lost its reason. The whole world.
She flinched at a woman’s scream, quickly muffled. Saw bodies moving in an alley, someone forced into a gutter, kicking legs, one stockinged foot, one scuffed shoe. ‘Help me! Help me!’
She could have done something. She had a sword. But instead she hurried on, the wild shrieks quickly lost in the shouts, the crashes, the barking of dogs. She heard a creaking and glanced up, recoiled against the wall. A body swung from a gib on the side of a building. A well-dressed body, hands tied, grey hair in wild disarray. Some mill owner? Some engineer? Some acquaintance of hers, who she had laughed with at some function?
She hobbled on, eyes fixed on the ground as it