by Jamie Buxton
Flea smiled and waited. Two purses, he thought. One for loose change, one rather more promising—and the merchant had just given away where it was. The twins made a great show of scowling at the merchant as he set off down the street.
What the merchant did not spot was another small boy walking toward him, who seemed to trip and crash into him before running off.
The merchant shouted at the boy’s retreating back, walked on, and then patted the place where his fat little purse had been. It was gone. He fumbled in his robes, looked at the ground, and stared accusingly toward the twins. They hadn’t moved. He looked down the street, but even if he had been able to spot the small boy, it wouldn’t have made any difference: Flea’s expert gaze had seen the small boy pass the purse to a one-eyed boy, who in turn had handed it on to a boy with a twitch. It was the perfect setup.
The merchant yelled, “Stop thief!” But who to stop? The stream of people in the street flowed on, sweeping away the twins and all the other gang members.
Misdirection was the longest word Flea knew. It was the art of making someone look so hard at one thing that they missed what was going on under their nose. He had just seen it in action.
Flea had a few tricks of his own. He followed the twins all the way back to their den and had been hanging around with the Temple Boys ever since.
But that was then. Now Flea and the gang were close to the Temple, picking their way through the dark alley over the rubbish that had accumulated in the past few days.
At the end of the alley they could see Temple Square bathed in sunlight: a big, clean space, watched over by the Temple Police, who were, in turn, watched over by Imperial Roman soldiers. That was the system—if the Temple Police ever lost their grip and a riot started, for example, then the Romans would step in and start killing. The soldiers didn’t care. They were as hard as stone and as obedient as well-trained dogs.
But before the gang could split up and get to their tasks, the alleyway was blocked by a hulking figure with a broken nose and greasy hair plastered forward onto a bulging forehead.
“What’s this?” he said. “A bunch of rejects heading for the Temple? Piss off before I call the guards.”
The thick leather straps around each wrist marked him as one of the Butcher Boys, a gang from the Lower City who hung out near the slaughterhouses. Normally they didn’t come this close to the Temple, but the rich holiday pickings had lured them up the hill.
“We’ve got a right.” Big tried to square up to him. “We belong up here. We’re the Temple Boys. We work the Temple.”
“You’re pathetic losers,” the Butcher Boy spat back. “You’ve got no rights unless I say so. Now get lost.”
“Who’s going to make us?”
Flea half admired Big for trying. On the other hand, he knew things would only end badly if they carried on like this. Big would fight, then the others would join in, then the rest of the Butcher Boys would get involved and the Temple Boys would be badly beaten. He felt an all-too-familiar hot swirl of fear in his guts. Someone had to do something.
“Wait!” he shouted as loudly as he could. He wished his voice did not sound quite so thin, but it had done the trick. The thug looked down at him.
“You talking to me?”
“Yeah, you. Wait,” Flea repeated. “We don’t even want to hang out at the steps. We’re going somewhere better.”
“Piss off.”
“But that’s just what we want to do,” Flea said. “We don’t want trouble. We just want to get going.”
The Butcher Boy looked at Flea, then away, then at Flea again. Then he smiled.
“All right,” he said. “Where?”
“The Black Valley Bridge,” Flea told him. “There’s a magician coming to town. He can make pigs fly and dead men dance. He’ll snap his fingers and the Temple’ll turn to mud, then he’ll snap them again and it’ll turn back to stone.”
“Believe that, do you?” The Butcher Boy looked over his shoulder and called out in a baby voice to a minion who was watching his back, “De lickle Temple Boys believe in magic!” He turned to Big. “Suckers. Get on out of here. But if I see you anywhere near the Temple, you’re dead.”
Flushed and furious, Big pushed Flea out of the way and led the Temple Boys across the square.
5
As soon as they were out of sight of the other gang, Big grabbed Flea and pinned him against the wall.
“What was that about?” he demanded. His breath coated Flea’s face like a sour mask.
“I got you out of trouble, didn’t I?”
“You made me look like an idiot. I’m not scared of the Butcher Boys.”
“Maybe not you, but the rest of us wouldn’t stand a chance. And anyway, if the Butcher Boys are in the Square, the rest of the gangs will be there as well: the Water Gang, the Mad Dogs, the Holy Rollers … They’ll squeeze us out wherever we go. There won’t be a decent space left.”
Flea knew he was talking sense but also knew that might not save him. He should have kept his mouth shut.
Silence. Then, “I had it covered,” Big said. “Don’t you forget it.”
“I’m sorry,” Flea said. “Really sorry.” He felt Big’s grip on his tunic loosen.
“And what was that crap you were spewing? About a magician?” Big looked suspicious.
Flea opened his eyes and tried to look honest and sincere. “It’s true. I swear it. The best magician in the world is coming to town by the Black Valley Bridge.”
“How come we haven’t heard?”
“He’s coming from up north, from Gilgal or somewhere. A merchant told the Grinderman and the Grinderman told me. I just thought, what with the crowds and them all being tourists, there’ll be rich pickings.”
Big dropped Flea. “Rich pickings, you reckon? Robbing tourists?”
Flea nodded. “That’s what I thought. They’ll all be gawking at the magician.”
Big almost cracked a smile. “And that’s why you’re an insect and will always be an insect. We’re not going to waste our time stealing pennies off out-of-towners. This magician’s from Gilgal, right, the other side of the back end of beyond. He’ll be clueless. What does he do after he performs all his tricks? Well?”
Crouch was the quickest to catch on.
“He’ll take a collection.”
“Exactly. He’ll empty everyone’s pockets, and then what do we do? I’ll tell you. We’ll empty his. We’re the Temple Boys. We know how to handle a conjuror. We’ll give him a welcome to the city he’ll never forget.”
Big went through the plan. Crouch and Halo were to get the magician’s attention by asking a lot of stupid questions; he and Little Big would work out who was carrying the purse. Clump, Snot, Hole-in-the-Head, Gaga, Crutches, and Red would surround them, and then Grab would cut the purse free and Smash would take it and run. They’d all rendezvous back at the shelter at noon.
“What about me?” Flea asked.
“What about you?” Big answered. “You can just … hop off.”
He looked around the rest of the gang until he got a couple of sniggers. Then they set off for the Black Valley Bridge.
6
The Black Valley ran below the eastern city walls. To reach the bridge from Temple Square the gang hurried alongside the western Temple walls, turned right into the blaring chaos of the sheep market with its pens and purification baths, and headed for the eastern gate.
The crowd was surging and chaotic. Clearly they weren’t the first people to hear about the coming of the magician.
In the choke point of the narrow city gate, Flea found himself wedged between a porter carrying a sack of grain and a fat man’s belly. “Is he here? Do you really think he’s the Chosen One?” a voice called out.
“That’s what I heard,” the porter close to Flea answered. “Miracle worker. There was this leper up at Bethany: one touch and he was better. He made a man with a withered leg go dancing up and down the street—completely cured—and he does eyesight
, too!”
“Miracle worker?” the fat man jeered. “He’s got to be a lot more than that if he’s the Chosen One. King David—he was the Chosen One, and he was a proper warrior and a king as well. You think this conjuror can match up to King David? Next you’ll be saying he walks on water!”
That drew a big laugh from the crowd; then all other words were lost in the rising din.
Flea freed himself from the crush and pushed on. Ahead, he saw Red climbing a tree near the bridge. Flea shinned up after him until he was far above head height and could see all the way across the Black River Valley.
An old stone bridge crossed the steep valley in a single span. Both the bridge and the road on either side were blocked solid. Gawkers ambling out of the city to see the action met out-of-towners streaming into the city for the feast. All the passing places on the bridge were occupied by black-robed Wild People selling souvenirs to the tourists. Imperial soldiers had set up a roadblock to try to take matters in hand but were just making things worse. To complete the chaos, a donkey pulling a cart into the city had met a camel carrying a mountainous bundle of hay out of it. Neither was prepared to pass the other—or reverse.
From high in his tree, Flea surveyed the scene cheerfully. His plan had worked. By a mixture of luck and guile he had persuaded the Temple Boys to do what he wanted. If the day went well, surely he’d be properly accepted by them. He felt happy.
“Stupid tourists,” he said to Red. “Don’t see how anyone’s going to get through this.”
Red ignored him.
“You know Big’s plan to rob the magician? I thought—”
Red said, “Shut up.” He snapped off a long, thin twig and started poking a man’s turban with it. The man turned on his neighbor; angry words were exchanged. Red gave a stiff, lopsided grin, wiped a tear away from the corner of his ruined eye, and handed the stick to Flea to have a turn.
Flea tried to get the conversation going again. “So, how long do you give this magician before the Temple Police throw him out of town? A day?” He dropped the twig on the angry man’s head.
Red snorted. “Half a day if he’s lucky, but it won’t be up to the Temple Police. This is the feast. The city’s going nuts. If he’s a troublemaker, the Imps won’t even let him cross the bridge. You watch.”
They stopped for a moment to watch the Imps—Imperial Roman soldiers—failing to organize the chaos on the bridge.
“There seem to be a lot of people here to meet him.”
“Maybe he’s that good,” Red answered.
Flea shook his head. “If he’s that good, why haven’t we heard of him before? I heard someone asking if he was the Chosen One. What was all that about?”
“Shut up, insect,” snapped Red. “Can’t you stop talking? Can’t you stop … thinking?”
Flea did shut up but quickly began to feel bored. The sun was weak but the sky was bright white and made his eyes water. He narrowed them to slits and scanned the landscape on the other side of the bridge, the rocky slopes of the Black River Valley and then the pale scar of the road winding down from a notch in the soft shoulders of Olive Tree Hill.
He couldn’t stop thinking of what he’d just heard in the crowd. Is he the Chosen One? What if this magician really was someone special? Suppose he was a great king in disguise, a cross between King David the Giant Killer and King Solomon the Magician? That really would be something, and in years to come he’d be able to say, Ah, yes, I remember when the Chosen One first came to the city. Of course, no one had any idea who he really was and I had a bit of a job persuading my friends to come and see him, but I had a feeling, you see. And you know what we were planning to do? Rob him.
As Flea drifted off on his own train of thought, the clouds broke up and the sun pierced through. Suddenly, there were clear blue skies to the east but for a single small cloud. If he squinted and forgot the cloud looked like a dog, he could almost imagine it as a chariot drawn by a winged horse, and he could almost definitely see the magician in the back with a golden bow and a quiver of burning arrows. And now the winged horse was pulling back its lips to show long red teeth, jagged as saws. The feathers on its wings were as sharp as swords—one sweep of them and Roman heads would tumble. But the archers on the battlements had seen the threat. Now they were pulling their bows back into quivering arcs.
“Watch out!” Flea cried. And as the arrows leaped upward in a black swarm, the magician raised his right arm. Fire shot from an outstretched finger and he drew it across the blue dome of the sky to create a blazing barrier so the archers’ arrows flamed and fell in charred twists. Now he started shooting his own arrows. They smashed into the battlements, turning soldiers into flaming, screaming, dancing monsters before they fell to their deaths.
The magician reined in his snorting steed and circled Flea’s tree in his chariot, wreathed in smoke, shining with strength, and at the sight of him, the crowd fell to the ground, wailing and moaning in terror.
Only Flea—Flea the Brave, Flea the Magnificent—dared to meet his calm and level gaze.
“Well done, courageous Flea. You have saved me, you have saved your friends, and you have saved your city. As your reward, Flea … Flea … FLEA, you idiot! Wake up and tell us what’s going on!”
Flea blinked and looked down. Big and most of the rest of the gang were at the bottom of the tree.
“What’s going on, insect?”
“Nothing,” Flea said. “Nothing.”
“Well, since you’re up there, keep watching! Don’t go all la-la like you usually do.”
Big opened his mouth into a stupid gape and rolled his eyes up into his head. Flea scowled across the crowded bridge.
And really did see something.
7
On the other side of the valley, a dense little group was moving with purpose down the road from Olive Tree Hill. People seemed to be clearing the road ahead of it. Above the background noise Flea thought he could hear faint cheers.
“Something’s happening!” he called down to Big, who grabbed Snot. Together, they wormed their way through the crowd toward the bridge. Halo scrabbled up into the tree with Flea and Red. Flea helped him onto the branch and held him tight. Halo was inclined to get excited and fall off things.
In the middle of the bridge, the stuck donkey had managed to back the cart hard against the parapet, the camel was trying to turn sideways, and a man carrying a pitcher of water was stuck between them, trying desperately not to let it fall. At the same time, the heaving press of people was stopping any man or beast from going backward or forward, and more people were trying to squeeze onto the bridge all the time. To make matters worse, Flea saw Big and Snot jump onto the cart and start stamping and yelling in imitation of the driver.
Problem. They were making so much noise they’d attracted the attention of the Imps. The two Temple Boys on the cart showed clearly above the heads of the crowd and made easy targets for the soldiers, who started to shoulder their way toward them, all leather plates and polished buckles.
And now something was happening on the far side of the bridge, behind the soldiers’ backs.
The little group Flea had seen on the road had arrived. But a strange thing was happening. The crowd on the road started moving to either side. Some of the people bowed their heads. Others put their hands across their chests as a mark of respect. Some even knelt, so at last Flea could see them from his vantage point … Not a wizard in his flaming chariot with an army of demons, but a dozen or so of the shabbiest travelers that Flea had ever seen.
This was the Chosen One and his followers? This bunch of dusty tramps? But Flea couldn’t be disappointed for too long, because things on the bridge were looking horrible for Big and Snot. They were still jumping up and down on the cart, but with their backs to the approaching Imps. They had no idea of the danger they were in.
Flea saw the Imps look at each other, saw the metal flash as they drew swords. The man with the pitcher dropped it and it shattered. He yelled a warning at
the boys on the cart but could not make himself heard. Then a small man in a dusty gray robe was suddenly standing between the soldiers and the boys, hands outstretched, palms out.
He was one of the travelers, and Flea couldn’t figure out how he had moved so fast. The Imps stopped and stared, swords still raised. Flea held his breath. The Imps would smack him with their shields, batter him with their sword hilts, and when they’d finished with him, they’d turn on Big and Snot.
But the small man just stood there and smiled. And smiled. And smiled.
8
The soldiers looked at each other. Sunlight glinted on their swords.
“What do you want?” one of them asked the small man in his harsh, foreign accent. His voice carried over the hushed crowd.
“I’m sorry, friends,” the small man said. “I just thought I might be able to help with this traffic jam.”
He had narrow shoulders and a dramatic head, with long hair swept back from a widow’s peak and dark, dark eyes set between a heavy brow and a boxer’s cheekbones. His tunic might have been brown once and was now fading to gray, or perhaps it had been gray and was so stained it seemed brown.
At this moment the donkey gave a short, despairing honk and sat down. The cart tipped over, throwing Snot and Big down, so they sprawled in the dust between the small man and the Imps.
The crowd had fallen silent and the mood had changed. All eyes were on the Imps. People were watchful, but ready. Flea saw the Imps’ eyes darting to the right and the left as they were forced to reconsider. No help anywhere near. Massively outnumbered. They slid their swords back into scabbards. “Get on with it, then.”
The small man helped Big to his feet, then Snot, who sniffed noisily and spat.
“Nice,” the small man said. Then, “Tell you what, why don’t you unhitch that unfortunate beast and walk it over here to me? Think you could do that?” His showman’s smile lit up every part of his face.
