Temple Boys (6 page)

Why was it worse? Because everything was his fault. He had suggested they go and see the magician. He had argued against them taking their chances in Temple Square. And he had refused to join the others when Yeshua had invited him to.

Twilight turned to night and the dark was cold. He walked up and down the street outside the alleyway, flapping his arms, then headed for the water fountain: sometimes a street seller would set up a charcoal brazier that you could huddle around. But the weather was too foul and no one was out. Once he thought he saw the skinny girl disappear around a corner in front of him and he ran to try to find her, but there was no one there. He was chasing shadows.

Wherever he went the cold wind found him. He settled down in the street close to the gang's shelter, his back against the wall, hugging his knees.

 

TWO DAYS TO GO

 

13

It wasn't the cold
that woke Flea but pressure under his ear. In the end, he'd curled up on the woman-across-the-alleyway's rubbish dump. The faint warmth of decomposition made it less frigid than hard earth and paving stones.

He opened his eyes. A very black sky, very bright stars, and a man-shape blocking them.

“Here. Too cold to be lying around.”

Flea recognized Jude's voice. He started as something warm landed in his lap.

“Don't unwrap it! It's a hot stone. You don't do that in the city?”

“D-do w-what?” Flea had to clamp his teeth to stop them from chattering.

“Heat stones during the day and put them in your bed at night. Maybe it's a northern thing. You have to be careful, though. Some stones explode when they get too hot. How does that feel?”

“All r-right.”

In fact, it felt wonderful. Wrapped in his hands, cradled against his belly, the stone felt like a small, personal sun.

“How did you find me?” Flea asked.

“My keen sense of smell. That was a joke. I was going to roust you out of your shelter but Shim, one of Yesh's followers, said you didn't join them, so I kept my eyes peeled. Anyway, if you're warm enough, stand up. We've got a busy day.”

“We?” Flea rubbed his eyes.

“I'm paying you for a day's work. Part of the deal?”

“The whole deal, as far as I can remember.” Flea felt both light-headed and sharp. He saw a flash of teeth in the starlight.

“Well, that's good.” Jude sounded amused. “I don't imagine you have a better offer.”

Flea bridled. “If you think I'm desperate…”

“You? Desperate? Never. It's me that needs the help.”

“Say something that surprises me,” Flea replied. But when he looked up, the moonlight had caught Jude's face and he was not smiling.

Quite the opposite. His face was twisted into an odd shape, almost as if he was trying to stop himself from crying.

Flea opened his mouth to jeer, then thought better of it. He heard himself ask, “So what … do you want?”

“Fewer questions from you.”

Jude set off quickly down the twisting alleyways of the dark city, heading north in the direction of the sheep market. He was wrapped in a blanket, and, hot rock or not, Flea wouldn't have minded a corner of it. He blew clouds of vapor from his mouth and tried to keep up.

By the time they reached the sheep pens, the sky was getting lighter and the market was waking up. Sellers haggled with buyers. Priests were on hand to bless the new sacrifices, slaves throwing down straw in front of them to stop their holy robes from being despoiled by unholy dung. Trembling lambs glared white in the gray light. The air was thick with sheep stench and bleats.

“What are we doing here?” Flea asked. He hated the sheep market; the lambs seemed to know what was about to happen to them.

“My official duties for the day are to go and buy a sheep for our feast.”

“Shouldn't take long.”

“And a couple of other pieces of business. That's where you come in.”

“What do I do?”

Jude looked at Flea. “Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. If it works out, I'll be back in favor and that might help you.”

“How?”

“If your gang wants to hang out with mine and I say you're part of my gang, then your gang will start sucking up to you as sure as this little lamb's going to be grilled.” Jude turned swiftly to business. “Here! What do you want for this one?”

He was calling to a Wild Man, a nomad from the eastern desert dressed from head to toe in black. The man's daughter, with hair the color of desert sand and eyes lined heavily with black pencil, was kicking her heels against a wall. She stuck out her tongue at Flea. Her feet were bare, her clothes were rags, and the chain that looped from her nose to her ear was gold.

“What are you staring at?” Flea asked.

“Your face,” she said. “What are you doing with Jude?”

Flea glanced across at Jude, who was haggling in a relaxed, practiced way.

“Helping him.”

“Hah! He must be desperate,” the girl jeered.

“He's paying me.”

“What? A mite? Two?”

“Half a shekel,” Flea lied.

The girl's eyes widened and she jumped down off the wall. “Father! Double the price! The rumors are true. It's the end of the world and Jude's throwing his money away!”

The two men looked at her and laughed. Then they touched hands and Jude walked off with his head up, not looking to left or right.

Flea had to jog to keep up with him. “How do you know them?” he asked. It wasn't often he felt superior.

“Unlike you, I have a lot of friends.”

“But they're not … our people. They're unclean.”

Jude laughed. “You're not so clean yourself and, anyway, do you really think you know who you are?”

“Huh?”

“Who are your parents, Flea?”

“I don't know. Dead, I think.”

“Remember them?” Jude asked coldly.

“No, but…”

“So for all you know, you're a Wild Boy yourself.”

“I'm not!” Flea said, suddenly hot. “I can't be.”

A lump blocked his throat. He had a memory that he guarded like a dog guards a bone: a courtyard, a storehouse, towering earthenware jars, a woman who looked at him from a doorway. He knew that once this had been his home and she was his mother, but he didn't like to think about it too often because the feeling choked him.

Jude pulled Flea around and saw the look on his face. “I'm sorry,” he said. “That was wrong of me. I just meant that it doesn't matter whether you're high priest or Wild Boy or child of the streets. What's in here: that's what counts.” He thumped his chest.

Flea said nothing.

“What?” Jude asked. “You want me to beg forgiveness? Crawl on my knees? Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Just imagining what you'd look like hacked to bits.”

“How many?”

“Fifty.”

“Ouch. I'm hurt.”

“Good.”

“Cut to the quick.”

“That's such a lame joke.”

“I'm all in pieces.”

“It was funny at first, now it's not.” They walked on.

“Anyway,” Flea continued. “What did the Wild Girl mean about the end of the world?”

“Hold your idiot tongue,” Jude said urgently. “Talk like that could get you into trouble. Haven't you felt the mood in the city?”

“No different from usual.”

“Good god. How are you still alive? Use your eyes,” Jude said. “Look!” He pointed to a corner where a group of men were huddled together talking. One of them put his head up, whispered something urgently, and the group dispersed. Then Flea saw three other men approaching, moving smoothly as if they knew no one could touch them: Temple spies. You could always tell them by the way they walked, as if they owned the city but never stopped looking around.

“And there,” Jude said. More spies were closing in from the other direction.

“And in the middle of all that, Yesh starts a riot in the Temple.”

“You thought that was stupid?”

“Stop asking questions, Flea.”

“Or wrong? Why does it matter?”

“It matters. That's all you have to know.”

“Oh, I get it,” Flea said. “You want to protect him from danger. Nothing bad about that.”

Jude looked Flea straight in the eye. “Stop. Asking. Questions. And. Do. What. I. Say. This is where you start to earn your keep.”

 

14

Flea's job was to stick
behind Jude, look unimportant, and check to see if anyone was following him. He was good at not being noticed and was pleased that Jude didn't spot him when he looked back.

Jude turned off the street of the spice sellers and into a small yard where half a dozen donkeys and two camels with patchy fur were tethered to wall rings. He spoke to the groom, who shrugged and shook his head. Around the corner was another yard, and close to that a couple more. In each one, Jude asked questions but always got the same shrug or shake of the head. Flea noted how Jude's shoulders slumped each time he was sent on his way.

But what was he doing? There was no sign of haggling, so he wasn't looking to hire a beast. Rather he seemed to ask a couple of questions, often repeating them before moving on. So he was trying to find something out.

To the west of the sheep pens Jude followed a series of twisting alleyways so narrow the houses almost met above their heads, and the air was as still and thick as a stagnant pond. Flea did not know this part of the city, and he became even more cautious. He watched as Jude squeezed down an alleyway beside a half-ruined warehouse. In front of the sagging doors, traders were selling stale vegetables laid out on the ground. From inside came the sound of hammering. Smoke was belching from a chimney, which probably meant it was some kind of factory.

Cautiously he followed Jude down the alley and peered around the corner into a dank, sunless court that stank of animal dung. At the back of it was a shelter where a stringy brown donkey nosed at an empty manger, and a camel stared haughtily at a wall.

Jude was talking to an old man.

Suddenly the scene on the bridge from the day before flashed into Flea's mind. That old man was the donkey driver and here, surely, were the two useless beasts that had caused the traffic jam. What were they both doing here, sharing the same stall? Jude was arguing and the old man was shrugging and looking blank, but there was something sly about him. Now Jude was reaching into his purse and pressing coins into the hand of the old man, who shrugged, then said something. Jude seemed to ask for confirmation, then nodded and walked away, a very different expression on his face. Thoughtful, worried, but more determined.

As Flea followed Jude out of the alley, he noticed a man stooping in front of one of the vegetable sellers. The man was pretending to smell the herbs, but his eyes were darting left and right. When Jude turned in his direction, he looked away quickly.
No reason to do that,
Flea thought, and he hung back.

Jude set off. The man standing at the vegetable stall put down a large green bunch of parsley, straightened up, and ambled off in the same direction. Even though he was tall, he managed to look apologetic and insignificant as he bobbed and weaved through the crowd.

Flea followed them south into the heart of the city, wondering how he could warn Jude without being spotted. When Jude paused at the entrance to the covered market—a warren of narrow streets, roofed over to keep the sun out in summer and the rain out in winter—Flea moved near a large woman whose bags were being carried by an equally large slave.

He pushed closer, then waited while the tall man fiddled with his sandal strap. As soon as Jude plunged into the gloom of the market, the tall man followed and so did Flea.

This is better,
Flea thought. He knew the covered market. He'd spent days in here the winter before; sheltering from the cold and the gloom made it easier to steal from the stalls. He liked the smells that enveloped him: the head-rush of spices, the nose-tickle of soap and oil, the wide stink of blood and butchery. A shard of light speared through a hole in the roof and lit up the tall man. Flea could now see him more clearly. Thin lips in a bony, clean-shaven face curled into an empty, tortoise smile. Questioning, arched eyebrows cloaked quick, darting eyes.

Flea squatted by a bucket of skinned sheep's heads, trying to ignore the naked eyeballs.
Maybe he can't see you, but we can,
they seemed to say.

But the man had lost Jude. He swore under his breath and backtracked, stopping right in front of Flea, so close that the hem of his tunic brushed up against Flea's upturned face. Flea smelled old smoke, but, more important, he saw a little pocket sewn into a fold of the garment right in front of his nose.

Destiny!
Flea thought. It would be criminal to let an opportunity like this pass.

Flea's hand dipped into the pocket and felt something small and smooth. He caught it between two fingers and when the man moved away, he just seemed to be left holding it. Palming it, he was about to set off again when two hands clamped down heavily on his shoulders.

“Where do you think you're going?” Jude hissed in his ear. Flea had no idea where he'd come from.

“That man was following you,” he hissed back.

“The tall one? Where did he pick me up?”

“Just outside the alleyway where you found the old man, the camel, and the donkey.”

Jude's eyes momentarily widened. “That far away? I only just noticed him. How close did you get to him?”

“Close enough to get this.”

Flea opened his hand to show the thing he had stolen: a small, carved ivory tube, about the size of a man's middle finger and still pocket-warm.

“Not so clever. He's going to miss it. Wait a minute: describe him.”

“Wearing gray. Long neck. Looked like a tortoise. Black eyebrows. Smelled of smoke.”