08 A Little Hatred: Book One (The Age of Madness)

But no one had come, and a great heap of legal papers, and engineers’ drawings, and official pronouncements, and lewd etchings, and broken furniture from the offices around the square had built up to his thighs.

A pyre.

He did not suppose they would actually light it. They could not possibly mean to light it. Could they?

He had wondered if it was a questionable neighbourhood in which to lease an office. But to be taken seriously, an engineer needs an office, and the rents in the better parts of Valbeck were out of all compass. They had said the Breakers were entirely under control. Had been taught harsh lessons. That the Burners were just a rumour spread by pessimistic moaners intent on talking down the city. They had pointed out the brand-new and thoroughly modern branch of Valint and Balk, and talked of gentrification.

Now flames spurted from the windows of the brand-new and thoroughly modern branch of Valint and Balk, ash and flaming promissory notes drifting down across the square, and the Burners had vomited forth from the shadows, in person, a demented legion, capering about him with their torches and their lamps.

Someone slapped him across the face, laughing, laughing. Why did they hate him? He had made the world better. More efficient. Countless small improvements to the machinery and operating practices at several manufactories. He had been steadily building a name for himself as a diligent worker. Why did they hate him?

‘What a day!’ someone was screaming. ‘The Great Change, come at last!’

He caught a choking waft of smoke, stared desperately about to see if his pyre had caught light, but no. So many bonfires, glimmering through the desperate tears in his eyes.

‘Help me …’ he muttered, to no one. All it would take was a stray torch. A stray burning paper on the capricious breeze. A stray spark. And the longer this went on, the wilder they became, the more likely his destruction.

A woman ripped down her dress and another poured wine over her bared breasts and a man shoved his face between them like a pig into a trough, all shrieking with desperate laughter, as if the world would end tomorrow. Perhaps it had ended already. The fiddle-player capered past, sawing discordant music, broken strings dangling from the neck of his instrument.

Alinghan closed his eyes. It was like some story of the Fall of Aulcus, chaos and debauchery on the streets. He had always thought of civilisation as a machine, cast from rigid iron, everything riveted in its proper place. Now he saw it was a fabric gauzy as a bride’s veil. A tissue everyone agrees to leave in place, but one that can be ripped away in an instant. And hell lurks just beneath.

‘Stack it up, you bastards!’ roared the one they called Sparks, the chief Burner, the chief demon, the temporary Glustrod of this square, and men and women flung more papers in Alinghan’s face, and they fluttered and curled and whirled on the hot breeze.

‘Help me …’ he whispered, to no one.

Of course they would come. The city watch. The Inquisition. The soldiers. Someone would come. How could they not?

But Alinghan was forced to concede, as he looked down in horror at the steadily growing heaps of paper about his legs, that they might come too late for him.

‘The Great Change!’ someone shrieked, cackling with mad delight. ‘What a day!’

‘What a day!’ bellowed that bastard with the squint. Mally could never remember his name. Nasty little bastard, she’d always thought. The sort that’s always peering in at windows, looking for something they can snatch.

‘We’re fucking free!’ he shrieked.

Mally wanted to be free. Who doesn’t? In principle. It’s a pretty dream, to go running through the flower garden with your hair down. But she didn’t want to be free of getting paid. She’d tried that, and it hurt like you wouldn’t believe. That’s how she’d ended up whoring in the first place. No one had forced her to it, exactly. It was just that a choice between whoring and hunger weren’t no choice at all.

They’d broken down the door o’ the tapping house and dragged out the gentleman callers by the feet, made ’em dance for everyone’s amusement in the glare of the burning bank, dressed, or undressed, however they’d been at that moment. One portly old gent shuffled about the heap of papers with his hat still on but his trousers around his ankles. Another fellow, a lawyer, she thought, that one who was always going on about charity and liked to cover his face while he was having his cock sucked, was naked as a babe, whip marks on his hairy back glistening in the firelight.

Watching the regulars dance for her made a nice change, she had to admit, and she wasn’t the least bit arsed if the bank turned to ashes, but there was a worry looming about who was going to pay for her broken door. And a bigger worry looming behind that one. If they burned all the regulars, who’d pay for anything tomorrow?