Temple Boys (16 page)

“They'll dance in the streets for joy,” the old man said. “Glory be!”

“Me too?”

“Of course.”

Flea took him by the shoulders. “Crouch—you can't mean…”

“Child, child, do not blame him,” the old man said. “It is a prophecy. It has been decided. If he is the One, he will die.”

“No,” Flea said. He stamped on the floor and the little house boomed. “Don't you see? It can't be a prophecy if it's all just my fault. The whole thing can't … hang on that!”

“Child…”

“No,” Flea said. “I'm going.”

And he went.

 

33

The streets had emptied
by the time Flea set off again. He forced himself to jog, trying to run off his tiredness.

Flea had heard the priests chanting in the Temple. You had to be deaf not to. They did a lot of praising, and there was always something to be grateful for: the whiteness of lambs, the juiciness of pomegranates, the plumpness of doves, the yield of the threshing floor, and so on.

Flea didn't buy it.

Any good fortune he enjoyed had come about through his own quick wits. Or sheer blind luck, like the day he had found the coin on the Temple steps, or the time he'd fallen through a rotten ceiling when he was being chased by a knife gang and they'd been too scared to follow. Luck was just another link in the chain of disasters that was his life.

But right now, as he climbed the side of the valley heading for the room he had seen Shim visit, he could not see how luck could help him. Shim had already betrayed Yesh to the Results Man and now the prophecy would roll out like a Temple scroll.

Yesh would be tortured, Yesh would die, the world would end, and Flea could not take that responsibility. The problem was even knottier than that, though. Because if Yesh was the Chosen One and his death led to a whole new world that was free of suffering, maybe he should just let that happen. Then everyone would be happy, if (big IF, great big IF, great big size-of-a-mountain IF) the prophecies came true.

Too many choices. Flea stopped running and looked up at the sky for guidance.

Big mistake. The stars seemed to be circling around him—
him
—as if he were the pivot of the world. Perhaps the old couple was right. Perhaps he should just accept his fate and let events take their course. Perhaps he should just head back and drink their milk and eat their bread and wait for the world to end.

Once, twice, three times Flea stopped. But something kept him moving forward to the upper room where Yesh and Jude and all the rest of them were eating and drinking happily, ignorant that Yesh had been betrayed.

An Imp picked him up about a hundred paces from his goal. Flea tried to fight, but he was so tired he could barely struggle. When the Imp put him down Flea just stood still, his head swinging from side to side like a cow on the edge of sleep.

The soldier took him straight to the Results Man, who was sitting on the back of a cart a single street away, swinging his legs, smiling his tortoise smile, and picking his teeth with his horrid little spike.

“Wanted to see what happens? Good for you,” he said casually. “Unless of course you were trying to warn someone?”

Flea opened his eyes wide, tried to look innocent, and shook his head.

The Results Man ruffled Flea's hair. “Because you're cleverer than that. You've worked out that if you said anything to Jude, Shim would know, and if Shim knows anything, he tells me, and I would take it out on your little friends. Who are fit and healthy, by the way. So far. I showed them my instruments this afternoon and invited them to sing along. None of them took up the offer, so I popped them into a little room, gave them a bath, turned out the lights, and suggested they have a sleep.” He pretended to play his spike like a flute.

Flea looked down the street to the house where Yesh and his followers would be sitting down to eat. He could see warm light through the shutters. He wanted to be there. Nothing else. Just to be there. If he hadn't gone snooping after Shim, if he hadn't met the Results Man. If, if, if …

The Results Man broke into his thoughts. “You see, what I think is this. I do a job, and my job is to do what's best for the Imperium. Is a soldier who fights for his country bad because he's killed a man or two? Far from it. He's a hero. Well, so am I.”

“But Rome isn't your country, is it?” Flea said.

“Not in your sense. Not in the backward, old-fashioned sense where you're stuck with a country just because you happen to be born on one particular patch of earth. I mean, who wants this place?” He gestured around him. “Who wants to be trapped in this hideous, heaped-up dump of a city that runs on blood and smoke? Rome is bigger than that. Rome is an idea. Believe in the idea and you become a Roman.” He paused to smile. “When all this is over, what are you going to do?”

“I think I'd like to go a very long way away from here, from Rome, from everything,” Flea said. He remembered the line of camels, their red halters, and the sense of freedom they had given him.

The Results Man snorted. “Oh, wake up, idiot. Listen, on the very edge of the world there's an island where the sky is always gray, the land is always green, and the people have blue skin. When they kill a man, they eat his heart, cut off his head, and jam it onto a spike so they can talk to it. And yet that place is Roman too. You can't travel the world to get away from Rome. Rome is the world. Travel to explore, travel to conquer, travel to learn, but do not think for one second you can travel to escape. Anyway, I need you.”

“You need me?”

“Perhaps
need
is too big a word, as is
me
. Better to say that I have decided to work a person into my plans, yes, and that person might as well be you. You see, we have a tiny, possible risk of a situation. There are Temple patrols out tonight. If I arrest Yeshua here it might lead to trouble, and I don't want trouble I can't control. So, change of plan. When I ask you to, I want you to join the party, find out where they're going next, and then come and tell me.”

It took a second before Flea saw the opportunity this presented. “All right,” he said.

“Now curl up and go to sleep for a bit. I need to think without being disturbed.” It was not an invitation. It was an order. Flea curled up in the back of the cart and screwed his eyes tight shut.

Getting to see Jude would not be a problem now, but how could he get him away from the others to warn him?

 

34

Pitch-black.
Flea woke up very carefully, the spike sliding coldly up one of his nostrils and the Results Man's breath warming his neck. The spike encouraged him to sit up and was not removed until he did. Still stupid from sleep, Flea slid down from the back of the cart and looked out into the street.

The room that Shim had rented stood out even more starkly now. Warm tints from the lamp-lit windows looked soft and inviting. Distant voices dented the silence.

“Quite a meal they're having.” The Results Man's voice was as soft as a lover's. “They'll have had a drop or two of wine by now, so they'll be loosened up, and a clever boy like you should be able to find out what we need. Ready?”

Flea stood and nearly fell. His heart was hammering so hard his legs seemed to tremble. He didn't think he could make it.

“What is it?” the Results Man asked. “Scared? Have I been too harsh? Should I have been nicer? Should I coax you? Go, my sweet little insect. Go!”

A hand in the middle of Flea's back compelled him to take a step. The movement shook down his thoughts and seemed to bring new clarity. If it was a choice between saving the world and saving the Temple Boys, he had to save the world, because if the world went then they would all die anyway. He would warn Jude in any way he could, whether Shim overheard or not. He took one more step and then another, a small boy in an empty street, and then climbed the steps to the upper room.

On the landing, two neat rows of dusty sandals were laid out on the little platform along with a wide bowl of dirty water. It seemed homely and normal. He looked up at the door. No one had marked it with lamb's blood and no sprig of hyssop had been tied to the doorpost. Did that matter? Had the Angel of Death passed over anyway, or was it up there waiting? If he opened the door, would it slip into the room with him like a deadly shadow?

He pressed his ear to the flaking paint. The magician was talking in a low, pressing voice, occasionally interrupted by laughter or protest. What should he do?

Should he just open the door? Make a noise? Shout? He scratched the wood with his fingernails and felt the loose, crumbly grain threaten to give him splinters.

He coughed. No response.

He kicked it gently. No response.

He leaned his head against it, the catch gave, and he fell into the warm light.

 

35

A meal of lamb,
bread, olives, and wine was laid out on a cloth in the middle of the room. At the far end, under a shuttered window, Yesh sat on a cushion, cross-legged and upright. The others were sitting or sprawling around him, seemingly frozen by the sight of Flea stumbling into their feast: Yohan with a beaker of wine held in midair, Yak reaching for an olive, Shim with his mouth clamping down on a piece of bread. Tauma broke the silence by swallowing noisily. Jude rose to his feet and stepped over the remnants of the supper, reaching Flea in two strides.

“Flea, child, what's happened to you?”

His concern was so sudden and so honest that Flea felt a choking rush of tears. He fought to keep them down and shook his head.

“We'll pop outside and talk,” Jude said, shooing him to the door.

“Wait,” Yesh said.

“But I want a word alone…”

“And I said wait! I want to see the child first. He looks terrible. Why's he here anyway?” Yesh's voice was slightly slurred and his eyes were bright. He gestured to Shim, who rose to his feet and closed the door, then ushered Flea forward.

Jude smoothed the annoyance from his face. “Master, he must have come to tell me something.”

“And so he can, or is this yet another one of your secrets?” Yesh sounded sharp. “No secrets, Jude. Too late for that. If young Flea has come to do you a favor, the least we can do is feed him for his troubles and let him rest.”

“I'm fine,” Flea said. “Honestly, I'm fine. I just wanted…”

Jude mouthed the word
later
, and stepped back.

Yesh smiled. “Come closer. You're our guest. I've done my best to cheer up this lot but it's been heavy going. So join us. Please. I beg you. You'd be doing me a favor. These sour-faced old busybodies want to stop me from having fun. Yohan, bring the boy some food and a little bit of wine, I think, mixed with water. That's it. Now then, you look as if you've been through it today. Life on the street's tough, isn't it?”

“We got into a bit of trouble and had to hide … you know,” Flea told him. “We're sorry. That's why I came. To say I was sorry for not being around to thank you for having us to that dinner.” Like bitter fat, the half-truth slipped greasily between his lips.

“Sorry? Thanks? That's very formal, Flea. What's up?”

Someone's betrayed you and you're going to die, but I don't know how to tell you,
was what went through Flea's thoughts. “Just that I heard you'd be off after the holiday. That things have gotten a bit hot for you in the city,” was what he said.

“Hm. Ha. Yes. And of course you're right. But I bet you're hungry, too, and thought a bite to eat was worth crossing the city for? Good. I knew you'd come around.” He appealed to his followers. “Didn't I say it? Didn't I say, That Flea's the hardest one to catch but he'll come around? And now he has and we're all the happier.”

Flea was appalled, not just by Yesh's wrongness but by the chasm between his wrongness and the truth.

Yesh carried on. “I was thinking very hard about you boys and wanted to pass something on: my magic. All brother Jude's idea—did you know that? When I was just a simple preacher it was his idea to pull the crowds in with a few tricks. It wasn't long before they started saying it was more than that.”

“In your hands, Lord, tricks become something else.” Mat spoke gruffly. He was older than the others and tonight the flesh on his face seemed as though it was sagging. His gray hair grew up like a wiry crown.

“Hmmph.” Yesh cleared his throat and said, “Yes. That is what we believe, but sometimes I yearn to do a few of the old routines again, just for the fun of it. Life was simple in those days, but we have to accept that it can get a bit more complicated.”

“Life's never been simple for me,” Flea said. “Just staying alive is hard enough.” He tried to load the words with meaning.

Yesh looked at him sharply, then crinkled his eyes. “All the more reason for some fun, then!”

He clicked his fingers, leaned across to Yohan and pulled a coin from his mouth, then pressed it into his left ear and pulled it out of his right. Yohan continued to smile dreamily.

“You could show him your best trick,” Jude said. “As a reward for coming to see us.”

That was almost too much for Flea. He shook his head. “I don't deserve it,” he said. “I didn't do—”

“Show him, Master,” Jude said. “Show him how to hunt the king.” He locked eyes with Yesh, who was the first to look away and snap out another smile.

“Yes. Jude's right. You should know how to hunt the king. It should be passed on.” He looked around the room. “What? No one wants me to have fun? I tell you, I feel a bit let down tonight. Almost betrayed.”

An intake of breath and shocked murmurs. Let down? Betrayed? No.

Flea stared hard at Shim, but he was looking down so his face was hidden. Yesh smiled. “Good. Someone empty that bread off the tray and hand it over to me. Finish your wine, Flea. You too, Yohan. And I'll get rid of mine.” He drank it in one gulp, then put the beaker upside down on the tray and gestured for Yohan and Flea to do the same.