“Temple?”

“Where the Southerners pray to God.”

“God, eh?” Shivers’ neck ached as he squinted up at those spires, higher than the tallest trees in the valley where he was born. He’d heard some folk down South thought there was a man in the sky. A man who’d made the world and saw everything. Had always seemed a mad kind of a notion, but looking at this Shivers weren’t far from believing it himself. “Beautiful.”

“Maybe a hundred years ago, when the Gurkish conquered Dawah, a lot of Southerners fled before them. Some crossed the water and settled here, and they raised up temples in thanks for their salvation. Westport is almost as much a part of the South as it’s a part of Styria. But then it’s part of the Union too, since the Aldermen finally had to pick a side, and bought the High King his victory over the Gurkish. They call this place the Crossroads of the World. Those that don’t call it a nest of liars, anyway. There are people settled here from across the Thousand Isles, from Suljuk and Sikkur, from Thond and the Old Empire. Northmen even.”

“Anything but those stupid bastards.”

“Primitives, to a man. I hear some of them grow their hair long like women. But they’ll take anyone here.” Her gloved finger pointed out a long row of men on little platforms at the far end of the square. A strange bloody crowd, even for this place. Old and young, tall and short, fat and bony, some with strange robes or headgear, some half-naked and painted, one with bones through his face. A few had signs behind ’em in all kinds of letters, beads or baubles hanging. They danced and capered, threw their arms up, stared at the sky, dropped on their knees, wept, laughed, raged, sang, screamed, begged, all blathering away over each other in more languages than Shivers had known about.

“Who the hell are these bastards?” he muttered.

“Holy men. Or madmen, depending who you ask. Down in Gurkhul, you have to pray how the Prophet tells you. Here each man can worship as he pleases.”

“They’re praying?”

Murcatto shrugged. “More like they’re trying to convince everyone else that they know the best way.”

People stood watching ’em. Some nodding along with what they were saying. Some shaking their heads, laughing, shouting back even. Some just stood there, bored. One of the holy men, or the madmen, started screaming at Shivers as he rode past in words he couldn’t make a smudge of sense from. He knelt, stretching out his arms, beads round his neck rattling, voice raw with pleading. Shivers could see it in his red-rimmed eyes—he thought this was the most important thing he’d ever do.

“Must be a nice feeling,” said Shivers.

“What must?”

“Thinking you know all the answers…” He trailed off as a woman walked past with a man on a lead. A big, dark man with a collar of shiny metal, carrying a sack in either hand, his eyes kept on the ground. “You see that?”