Chapter summaries The Devils Joe Abercrombie

Chapter 43: My Greed Is a Famine

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

After the failed peace talks, the camp disperses. Balthazar is tasked with locating Princess Alexia using a compass ritual. Feeling despondent and enslaved by the papal binding, he decides to take a drastic risk: instead of performing a simple tracking spell, he stands at a convergence of ley lines and summons the demon Duke Shaxep. His companions—Baptiste, Jakob, and Baron Rikard—are horrified as the demon manifests. Shaxep delivers a terrifying speech about her powers, but when Balthazar begs her to free him from the binding, she admits she cannot. Shaxep explains that even she, a Duke of Beneath, has limits. She offers other services (wealth, turning enemies to salt) and leaves. The party is shaken. Baptiste is sick; Baron Rikard and Jakob are convinced that if even Shaxep cannot break the binding, then Pope Benedicta's power must truly be divine. Balthazar's desperate, scornful laughter dies as he begins to realize the impossible: the little girl might actually be the Second Coming.

Key Events

The count and countess leave for a private reconciliation, the priests resume their theological bickering, and the mercenary camps disperse.
Baptiste urges Balthazar to perform a compass ritual to find Princess Alexia.
Balthazar, feeling he has nothing left to lose, uses the standing stones at sunset—a place where the boundary between worlds is thin—to summon Shaxep, Duke of Beneath.
The demon manifests with terrifying grandeur: antlers, wings, chains, and a voice like thunder. She delivers an introductory speech about her greed, envy, lust, and fury.
Shaxep offers to do business but after examining the binding, confesses she cannot break it.
She suggests other services (wealth, vengeance) and leaves, leaving behind melting black feathers and golden dust.
Baptiste, Jakob, and Baron Rikard are traumatised by the encounter.
Baron Rikard and Jakob conclude that if a Duke of Hell cannot break the binding, the Pope must truly be the Second Coming.
Balthazar tries to rationalize it as a trick by Cardinal Bock, but his companions reject that explanation. He ends the chapter in silent, stunned realization.

Character Development

Balthazar: Falls from weary despair to reckless desperation. Summoning a demon is his last gambit; when it fails, his worldview is shaken. He struggles to accept that the binding is unbreakable, which has profound implications for his identity as a powerful magician.
Baptiste: Shows terror and then pragmatic disgust. Her reaction is visceral—curling up, being sick—but she quickly recovers to mock Balthazar's megalomania.
Jakob: Remains blunt and grim. The encounter leaves him weeping, but he is the first to state the simple truth: this is no trick; the binding is too strong. His summary—"the trouble with clever people is they think everything must be clever"—underscores Balthazar's fatal flaw.
Baron Rikard: The eternally smirking vampire loses his composure entirely before Shaxep. Afterward, he re-evaluates his skepticism about Pope Benedicta's divinity. His shrug at the end signals a fundamental shift in his beliefs.
Shaxep: A Duke of Beneath who enjoys sycophancy but admits her own limits. She is capricious, terrifying, and oddly practical. Her line "power is a cage" echoes the chapter's theme.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Desperation as a gateway: Balthazar summons the demon only when he believes he has "nothing left to lose." The chapter explores how absolute despair can erase caution.
The limits of power: Shaxep, a being of immense infernal authority, cannot break the Pope's binding. This reinforces the idea that some bonds—perhaps those of divine origin—are beyond even hell's reach.
The cost of ambition: Balthazar's lifelong pursuit of magical mastery has led him to summon a demon; even that fails. His hubris is punished not by the demon but by the confirmation of his own helplessness.
Symbolism of the standing stones: They represent a thin boundary between worlds. The passage from daylight to darkness mirrors Balthazar's crossing of a moral line.
The binding as a theological test: The impossibility of breaking it forces the characters to confront whether the Pope is the Second Coming. Balthazar's scornful denial gives way to horrified silence.

Why This Chapter Matters

This is the turning point for Balthazar's personal arc and for the novel's central mystery. Until now, the papal binding has been presented as a magical problem to be solved. By having a Duke of Hell fail to break it, Abercrombie raises the stakes to a cosmic level. The chapter also cements the theme that overreaching ambition leads to self-destruction. Balthazar's reckless summoning harms no one but himself and his companions, and it leaves him with fewer options than before. The final silence—"Finally, he gets it"—is the chapter's emotional punch: Balthazar must accept that his entire worldview is wrong. This sets the stage for his possible reformation or further rebellion in the remaining chapters.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Balthazar decide to summon Shaxep instead of performing the tracking ritual? Balthazar feels utterly hopeless: enslaved by the binding, stripped of his books and dignity, and mocked by his companions. He believes he has "nothing left to lose" and rationalizes that summoning a demon is a quicker, more spectacular solution. It is both an act of desperation and a last attempt to reclaim his identity as a powerful magician.

2. How does Shaxep's inability to break the binding affect the other characters' beliefs about Pope Benedicta? Baptiste, Jakob, and especially Baron Rikard (who had been skeptical) now accept that the binding's strength implies divine origin. Jakob states it bluntly: if Shaxep cannot break it, then the Pope's power must come from God. Rikard gives a helpless shrug that signifies his conversion. The encounter transforms their theological doubt into something close to faith.

3. What does Shaxep's statement "power is a cage" mean in the context of this chapter? Shaxep, despite being a Duke of Beneath, admits that even she has constraints—rules, limits. She cannot break the binding. The line undercuts Balthazar's belief that ultimate power would free him. Instead, it suggests that all power, even infernal or divine, comes with its own chains. Balthazar sought power to escape enslavement but may only exchange one cage for another—as Shaxep warns him earlier, "if I free you from these shackles, you will have heavier ones to wear."