Temple Boys (14 page)

“Yes, but…”

“What's he like? He must be wonderful.”

“He's just like … He's a man. He's … I don't know.”

“And the change? When's that going to happen?”

“I don't know about an uprising and I don't know about a change!”

“You spend too much time stuck up by the Temple. Down here in the slums there are stories. Any day now the fountains will be running with wine and there'll be food for everyone, all the time.” The vendor's boy was really warming to his theme now. “The Chosen One's fed a whole crowd from scraps. Food just kept on coming and coming and coming and no one was told to stop eating. He's cured cripples, cured leprosy. All you have to do is listen to him talk. I could do that. I could listen to a man talk if he fed me. It'd be better than being beaten all the time. If you have anything to do with him, tell him most of the people are behind him, but he's got to act quick.”

Flea glanced at Crouch, hoping he'd put the boy right. But Crouch's eyes were shining and his face was bright.

“Yes,” Crouch said. “That's what Yesh said on the steps of the Temple. He said we had to catch the moment for the change to happen. I know it can happen. Flea, we must do what we can!”

“Cutters want to kill me!”
Flea shouted.
“A mob is on its way. I don't care about your change and I don't care about your moment! I just want to get away!”

Was it his imagination or was the awful din getting closer? And wasn't that the flare of torches glowing against the wall?

The boy blinked and shook his head. “All right. If you tell me which way you're going, I'll say you've run off in the opposite direction. It'll save you a bit of time. I know what that sounds like, but I won't give you up.”

“Trust him,” Crouch said.

And so they ran. It was hard. Crouch could not straighten up or lift his feet high and Flea had to keep hold of him so he didn't pitch forward onto his face, but somehow they managed.

Behind them they heard the brazier fall and the shouts of angry men, clear and distinct. They zigzagged down the hill as far as the new aqueduct, where Crouch gasped, “Must rest.”

They leaned against one of the pillars. A great arch leaped dizzyingly above their heads then stitched a path across the jumbled rooftops to the Temple.

Flea peered through the gloom, back in the direction they had come from. The boy might have sent the pursuers the wrong way, but no place was safe. They were near where the priests left out the remains from the fire altar and Temple kitchens, supposedly for the poor. But in reality it was now a racket controlled by gangs who chased beggars away as a matter of course.

“I don't like the way they're looking at us,” Flea said, nodding at a knot of men under the next arch. A couple of them had stooped to pick up stones. “We can't stay here.”

“But where can we go?”

Flea thought rapidly. The direct route to the room where Jude, Yesh, and the followers would be eating was through the Lower City, but that was Cutter territory and full of spies and informers.

“We'll have to go the long way round. Sorry.”

“That's all right,” Crouch said brightly. But it wasn't. Crouch knew it wasn't and Flea knew it wasn't, but there was nothing to be done about it. They just had to carry on until Crouch could go no farther.

 

30

To avoid the Lower City
they had to head deep into the southern slums, where there was barely room to move. Entire families squatted in doorways, water sellers picked their way through the crowd, con men shouted out the latest deals.

Tomorrow was the feast of the Death Angel. Every family had to purify themselves in the Temple, kill a lamb, mark the door with its blood, tie a sprig of hyssop to the frame, then cook the lamb and eat it. Salesmen were busy with last-minute deals.
Genuine charcoal from the Temple stores! Holy lambs blessed by the high priest himself! Herbs from the Temple kitchens! Come on, people: don't risk the Angel of Death coming to pay you a visit. And while you're at it, why not buy a bucket of sand in case of fire?
There were accidents every feast—some years whole sections of the city caught fire.

But death could come from anywhere,
Flea thought. At one crossroads a man was standing on the edge of a water trough so he could scan the crowd. Flea felt a surge behind him and sensed that others were pushing toward them.

Spies were here, too!

He hunched down and drew the neck of his tunic over his head. “This way.” A narrow alleyway off to their left was less crowded.

“What if it's a dead end?” Crouch said.

“It's the only way.”

Damp air clamped their clothes to their bodies. The alleyway was run-down, lined with houses crumbling on either side. Weeds tugged at their feet. They became aware of a swelling sense of broken emptiness. A growing quietness that roared a warning.

Stumbling around a corner, Flea and Crouch saw why. A rough barrier blocked the road. It was as high as the houses on either side and built of rubble and old timbers, as if people had piled up anything they could, then left.

This wasn't a recent construction. The wood was blotched with lichen. Weeds struggled out of crannies.

Crouch's weight dragged Flea to a halt. “Dead Streets,” was all he said.

The Dead Streets were forbidden. Taboo. Utterly unclean. Rumors shadowed the narrow alleyways: the dead from a Roman massacre still lay in the streets, just bones now, moldy bones, piled so deep they crunched underfoot as you tried to pick your way through them. It was the Romans themselves who first threw up the blockades, to hide their crime from the world. Then the high priest declared the whole area unclean and said that anyone entering had to purify themselves for thirty days if they crossed the barriers. Superstition did the rest. The gang used to dare each other to cross but no one ever had and, as far as Flea knew, no one had even come this far.

And it was almost dark now.

A cold wind nudged them. A banging door somewhere sounded loose and hollow. The power of the dead reached over the barrier. Flea felt it like cold hands on his skin.

Crouch tugged at his arm. “Come on. We've got to go back.”

“We can't. And we can't hang out here either. We've got to go in.”

“But the ghosts,” Crouch wailed. His face was shriveled with terror.

“I know, but think of the mob. If it's Cutters, they'll gut us. What's the worst thing a ghost could do?”

“Gut us too?” Crouch said. “Drag us down to hell?”

“We've got to risk it. It's certain death or … possible death. And I've got to try to find Jude.”

There was an abandoned house on their left, its door sagging loose. Flea scraped it across the floor and peered inside.

A small square room. Empty. A few ashes in the middle of the earth floor. It was dark inside, but there was just enough light to show a rough ladder leading to the next floor.

“No,” Crouch said. “I just can't. Not here. Not at night.” Behind them the slap of footsteps faded to silence.

“That's it,” Flea said. “Someone saw us and has gone to get the mob. I'm not frightened of a few moldy bones. Think about it. The mob won't follow us into the Dead Streets, so we'll be safe. I'll go first.”

The ladder was old, the wood splintery. When Flea put a foot on the lowest rung he felt it give, but only by a little.

“It's fine,” he called, and to his relief Crouch followed. The floor above was lighter and another ladder took them up through a trapdoor onto a flat roof. A small tree was growing in one corner, leaning over the street. Rags were piled in another, and straight ahead Flea could look over the barrier into the Dead Streets.

The view was an anticlimax and a relief. No old bodies stacked like timber, no strewn bones. Nothing, in fact. The Dead Streets just looked empty and messy and sad.

“We'll be fine,” Flea said. “We just have to cross one more roof and then we can follow that alley all the way.” He stepped over the parapet.

“Flea.” Crouch's voice was small with fear.

“What?”

“Something's moving behind me but I'm too scared to look.”

Flea looked, but wished he hadn't. Behind Crouch the pile of rags had shifted and was taking on form: a hunched thing of blackened limbs and tattered cloth.

The hairs on the back of Flea's neck lifted. Terror strangled him. He tried to speak but no words came.

Then Crouch was past him, moving faster than Flea had ever seen, stumbling over the parapet to the next house, then the next. Flea followed until they found steps that led down. They half fell down them and finally landed in the Dead Streets.

 

31

Weeds clawed their feet.
Tiles crunched and slid. The thing of rags was behind them somewhere, stretching out, trailing shreds. Bent double, Crouch tried to row himself through the air. Flea felt old nightmares gather. Dark doorways spilled horror he had to splash through. He risked a glance behind. Saw nothing. He slowed, panting, and let Crouch slide to the ground.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Crouch gasped. “I should never have come.”

“It's fine. Look—we've lost it, whatever it was. Come on, we can walk now.” While they'd been running, they'd been protected by a bubble of panic. Now that they were walking, every noise made them jump. Flea tried to remember what had happened here. It was coming back now …

There had been a water riot—people complaining that the Romans or the Temple or both were starving the city of water. Whatever the case, the riot had gotten out of hand and the Temple Police had driven the protesters into these streets, where the Imps had been waiting.

They had massacred everyone, protesters who had run here and families that lived here, and then left.

A big rat ran in its broken, hobbly way across the road in front of them and Flea lashed out with a foot, connecting with something round and white that had been buried in the weeds. A skull? It crashed into a door. The hollow knock seemed terribly, terribly loud. Unseen things skittered.

“What was that?” Crouch asked.

“Nothing. Just walk.”

“I am walking.”

Flea stared straight ahead, trying to block his peripheral vision.

There was a noise to their left now, behind the row of houses.

“That's bigger than a rat,” Crouch said. “That's—

He screamed as the pile of rags leaped out of a side street and blocked their way. A ragged man. Ragged hair, ragged beard, ragged skin, ragged clothes. Cracked dirt glazed his skin. Eyes very white. Teeth very absent.

“Bones, bones, bones,” the man said. His mouth stretched into a soft, wet O.

“Bonny bones. Boney bones. Is he coming, bathed in glory?”

Running was useless. They backed against a wall.

“Did you come to see the bones? Did you come searching? Are you looking for the way?” warbled the man.

“Out of here?” Flea asked.

The ragged man winced. His face was blunt; skin stretched like a tight tent across where his nose had once been.

“Out of the bone cage! Out of the skin sack! Into the light!”

He jumped, then pulled his rags apart and beat his chest. His ribs were shocking and white. He smelled like a glue maker's yard.

“No, master,” Flea said. “Just…”

“
I am not the Master
. I am from the desert. The Master came to the desert but now is back among men.” He stretched his arms skyward. “Oh, why have I been cast away? Why have I been left in this cesspit of sin? In this vat of vileness? In the desert I sought him but found him not. In the mountains I looked for him and he was not in the rocks, nor in the caves. Where is my savior? Where is my purity? He has led me to the filth to find the light. I have followed him to the flesh pits for my salvation.”

Crouch tugged Flea's arm. “I think he's one of them … you know, a Ranting Dunker.”

The man stooped, picked up a bone, and began to dance with it, hopping from one foot to another. “We have seen the light! We have come to the darkness to shine the light. Here! He has come to the city, where the truth will become light and bones become flesh. Here the dead will dance and I will see it!”

Ranting Dunkers, Flea knew, lived off insects. They wore animal skins they had cured themselves, which would explain the smell, and meditated in total solitude, which might explain the manner. They also believed that sins could be washed away in river water, not animal blood, which in no way explained the dirt.

But Flea had never heard of a Ranting Dunker hurting anyone. He whispered to Crouch, “It's all right. I think he's harmless.” Then he said out loud, “Glory be!” It was something he had heard their followers say. “May I ask a question?”

The Ranting Dunker shot him a sly glance. “Many are the questions but only one is the answer.” It sounded like a prepared statement.

“Glory be. When you say he has come to the city, who do you mean?”

“He is the answer to all questions. The Chosen One. The Chosen One who is washed clean of sin and is wrapped in glory! That is why I am here among the dead. When he comes, the dead will be reborn. The dead will dance with joy. I have gathered their bones. I have made me a pile of their bones, and in the great gathering bones that were parted will gather, flesh that was sundered will join.” He stepped closer. “Flesh. Will. Gather.”

“I don't think he's harmless,” Crouch whispered. “He's just taken out a knife.” The blade was small but had been sharpened to a silvered edge.

“And that's why you're in the Dead Streets?” Flea's back was pressing hard into the wall behind him.

“I am here to gather up the dead and save the living! Let me save you!” The knife point danced between them.