Scar Night Page 0,10
pedlars out stamping their feet, rubbing their hands, and hollering through the morning mist.
“Coal, oil, coal, oil.”
“Hot bread, fruit bread.”
“Birders, ratters, guarders.”
Some Lilley servants were already out, milling round the carts, buying, arguing, and laughing like it was their money they were spending.
There was no other way but on through the market. Mr. Nettle kept his head down and quickened his pace, and no one bothered him until he reached the flower sellers at the far end.
“You, mister?” The man got right up off his stool and stood in front of him, blocking his way. “Got daisies and poppies and Shale Forest milkflowers, all fresh and nothing over a double a bunch.”
He had a thin, dirt-coloured beard and a loop of gold in his ear, big enough to slip a finger through.
“Nothing over a double, and halfpenny sprigs of sickleberry from Highwine—and look here.” He picked up a bunch of the white roses and cradled them like he was holding a baby. “Lilley roses, home grown, six a penny.”
Mr. Nettle was staring at the earring.
The pedlar was looking at Abigail’s shroud. “Nobles been buying them up for twice that. Soil comes all the way from Goosehawk’s Plantation in Clune. Listen, give you another couple on top, same price.” He pushed the flowers into Mr. Nettle’s hand.
They were a tired-looking bunch: curling petals and brown stems.
“That’s eight for a penny,” the pedlar urged.
Mr. Nettle gripped the stems and shook hard. Petals scattered.
“Hey.”
“Withered,” Mr. Nettle said. He snatched a fist of petals from the ground and threw them at the pedlar. “Dead.”
The sky was flat white when he carried Abigail into Bridgeview, where the road unravelled into dozens of deep lanes. He wove through one after another, checking the signs to keep from losing his way. Victoria Lane, Plum Lane, Silvermarket. On Rose Lane he heard the shuffle of feet and looked up. High above, the soft silhouettes of the nobles’ bridges jagged between the townhouses. Muted conversation drifted down: they were going to see the angel; they were tired and cold, and if this dreadful fog didn’t lift they’d see nothing. Mr. Nettle reached the end of the lane, clumped down four steps, and came at last to a misty courtyard abutting the open abyss. Here he stopped.
The Gatebridge shattered the dawn. Arcs and struts of iron rose in a skeletal fan. Along the deck, low bolted gasoliers burned feverishly, lighting wedges of the thick oak beams which ran all the way to the temple steps at the opposite end. The dead lay there: six or seven that he could see. So few? His stomach tightened like twisted rope. He brought his hand to his mouth before he remembered he’d thrown the bottle away. His gaze lingered a while on those pale shrouds. Why could there not have been more today?
The Church of Ulcis rose up behind, its walls like black cliffs. Fierce convolutions of stone, sharp in the glare of the gasoliers, spread outwards from the doors, softened, and faded into the fog, so the building itself looked like it stretched to the ends of the world. Mr. Nettle knew how vast it was. On clear days you could see its fist of spires clear from the League, so big you felt you could reach over and grab it. But this was as close as he’d been in twenty-three years. There had been thirteen dead that previous day, fourteen including his wife. He’d left Abigail asleep in her tiny cot and carried Margaret here. A week before Scar Night and the guards had been lax: they’d opened none of the shrouds. But that day he’d had nothing to hide.
The courtyard nurtured a silence like a pause in the clangour of bells. He felt it in his bones and it set his skin crawling. The cleaver was a cold weight under his belt, the steel pressing against his thigh. It had to be now or never.
He held his daughter firmly. For a long moment, he almost felt inclined to turn away.
And then he yanked the hood lower over his face and advanced. He stepped onto the bridge, his boots loud on its deck.
Other mourners crowded the bridge. Some stood in silence; others huddled in whispering groups. Black robes seethed around him as they parted to let him through: robes of silk and velvet, some finely cut and sewn in folds that rippled as they moved, some cut plain, but all were as black as his own. Most of the mourners turned