Temple Boys

‘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.’ Now 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 vapour 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 grey light. The air was thick with sheep fug 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 favour 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 colour 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, practised 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 rumours 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 this 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 round 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 say sorry? 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 said. ‘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 coats were tethered to wall rings. He spoke to the groom, who shrugged and shook his head. Round 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.

Even 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 round 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 old man’s hand, who shrugged, then said something. Jude seemed to ask for confirmation, 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 tall man stooping in front of one of the vegetable sellers. The man was pretending to smell the herbs, but his eyes were darting to left and right. When Jude turned in his direction, he looked away quickly.

No reason to do that, Flea thought and 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. In spite of his height, 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 to a large woman whose shopping was 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 was 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 stink of blood and butchery. A shard of light speared through a hole in the roof and lit up the tall man and Flea could 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 importantly 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 grey. Long neck. Looked like a tortoise. Black eyebrows. Smelled of smoke.’

‘Did he smile a lot?’

‘All the time.’

‘Can you get us out of here?’ Jude’s voice was suddenly urgent.

‘Yes, I know this area.’

‘Then do it – and lose that thing you stole, whatever it is.’

Flea nodded and was off. He knew many escape routes out of the market. The one he chose took them between a soap seller and a spice warehouse into a gap so narrow even he had to squeeze sideways. Then there was a wall to climb and a view down into a tiny roofless room where dull-eyed children picked through sacks of dried lentils and didn’t look up.

Flea led Jude across the rooftops, crossing streets where the houses came close enough together to jump the gap and on until the streets widened and the houses were built out from the hillside. They stepped from a roof straight on to a small strip of carefully terraced garden.

Jude checked the sun. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘This is far enough. Now then, Flea. You and I need to talk.’

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