The Scar - China Mieville [264]
She had to walk through her memories of him. She hated it. She hated the sadness. She hated the misery, the astonishment she felt when she thought of him dead. Bellis had liked the boy a great deal.
More than anything she hated the guilt. She was awash in it. She had used him. Without ill-feeling, of course, but still she had used him. She was aware in a hateful, inchoate way that had it not been for things she had done, Shekel would be alive. Had she not taken the book from him and used it; had she only thrown the fucking thing away.
Aum was dead, Johannes was dead, Shekel was dead.
(Silas Fennec is alive.)
Much later, Bellis found Carrianne wandering stunned through the streets around her house. She had hidden throughout the night, with her door locked, and had emerged to discover herself a citizen of a non-riding.
She could not believe the Brucolac had tried to take control, and she could not believe that he had been captured. She was as confused as a child, watching events she did not understand.
Bellis could not tell Carrianne anything about what she herself had done and seen in the bottom of the Grand Easterly. All she told her was that Shekel had died.
They went together to see the Lovers speak.
It was two days since the mutiny, and Garwater’s rulers called a public rally on the Grand Easterly’s deck. At first Carrianne said she would not go. She had heard what had been done to the Brucolac, and she said she would not see him like that. It was a violence he did not deserve. Whatever he had done, she insisted, he did not deserve that.
But finally it was not hard for Bellis to persuade her. Carrianne had to come—she had to hear. The Lovers knew what was at stake; the Lovers knew what was happening in their city. This was their attempt to regain control.
The foredeck was very full: men and women massed in ranks, bruised and wounded, every one haggard and unsmiling, waiting.
Above them all, the Brucolac gibbered and whined thinly in the sun. His skin was burn-scarred and stained as a map.
When Carrianne saw him she cried out in disgust and unhappiness, and she turned her head away and told Bellis tersely that she would leave. But after a minute she glanced back at him. She could not take seriously the notion that the emaciated, festering figure drooling and champing slack jaws was the Brucolac. She could look up at the jabbering husk with nothing but pity.
The Lovers stood on a platform and addressed the crowd, with Uther Doul beside them. They looked careworn and terribly tired, and the assembled citizens stared up at them with a weird spirit of respect and challenge.
So, they said in their stares. Tell us. Convince us all over again. Tell us that this is worth it.
And they did an impressive job. Bellis listened and watched the mood soften.
The Lovers were clever. They did not start with bombast, or claims of power and prowess that they had repelled the threat from traitors.
“Many of those who are dead,” the Lover began, “many who our fighters killed . . . were loyal. They were good people doing what they were sure was right for our city.” And in that way, respectfully and mindful of the tragedy, he continued.
They spoke in turns, imploring those who were gathered not to lose heart now. “We are very close,” the Lover said, and an edge of excitement crept into her voice. Very close to powers that could never have been imagined before. Very close to making Armada truly great, a dynamo powered by potentiality, able to do anything—able to do contradictory things at once.
“Mutiny is not the way,” said the Lover. “If this project is not all of ours, it cannot go ahead.” You brought us here, she told the crowd. This is your doing, and it is great work.
This was not any time for division, the Lovers said, and unity meant unity in purpose, and the purpose of the