Jamie Buxton - Temple Boys

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 and 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.

It wasn’t the cold that woke Flea but the pressure of a finger 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 recognised 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 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?’ he 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.’ 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.’