by Jamie Buxton
“Trust him,” Crouch said.
And so they ran. It was hard. Crouch could not straighten up or lift his feet high and Flea had to keep hold of him so he didn’t pitch forward onto his face, but somehow they managed.
Behind them they heard the brazier fall and the shouts of angry men, clear and distinct. They zigzagged down the hill as far as the new aqueduct, where Crouch gasped, “Must rest.”
They leaned against one of the pillars. A great arch leaped dizzyingly above their heads then stitched a path across the jumbled rooftops to the Temple.
Flea peered through the gloom, back in the direction they had come from. The boy might have sent the pursuers the wrong way, but no place was safe. They were near where the priests left out the remains from the fire altar and Temple kitchens, supposedly for the poor. But in reality it was now a racket controlled by gangs who chased beggars away as a matter of course.
“I don’t like the way they’re looking at us,” Flea said, nodding at a knot of men under the next arch. A couple of them had stooped to pick up stones. “We can’t stay here.”
“But where can we go?”
Flea thought rapidly. The direct route to the room where Jude, Yesh, and the followers would be eating was through the Lower City, but that was Cutter territory and full of spies and informers.
“We’ll have to go the long way round. Sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Crouch said brightly. But it wasn’t. Crouch knew it wasn’t and Flea knew it wasn’t, but there was nothing to be done about it. They just had to carry on until Crouch could go no farther.
30
To avoid the Lower City they had to head deep into the southern slums, where there was barely room to move. Entire families squatted in doorways, water sellers picked their way through the crowd, con men shouted out the latest deals.
Tomorrow was the feast of the Death Angel. Every family had to purify themselves in the Temple, kill a lamb, mark the door with its blood, tie a sprig of hyssop to the frame, then cook the lamb and eat it. Salesmen were busy with last-minute deals. Genuine charcoal from the Temple stores! Holy lambs blessed by the high priest himself! Herbs from the Temple kitchens! Come on, people: don’t risk the Angel of Death coming to pay you a visit. And while you’re at it, why not buy a bucket of sand in case of fire? There were accidents every feast—some years whole sections of the city caught fire.
But death could come from anywhere, Flea thought. At one crossroads a man was standing on the edge of a water trough so he could scan the crowd. Flea felt a surge behind him and sensed that others were pushing toward them.
Spies were here, too!
He hunched down and drew the neck of his tunic over his head. “This way.” A narrow alleyway off to their left was less crowded.
“What if it’s a dead end?” Crouch said.
“It’s the only way.”
Damp air clamped their clothes to their bodies. The alleyway was run-down, lined with houses crumbling on either side. Weeds tugged at their feet. They became aware of a swelling sense of broken emptiness. A growing quietness that roared a warning.
Stumbling around a corner, Flea and Crouch saw why. A rough barrier blocked the road. It was as high as the houses on either side and built of rubble and old timbers, as if people had piled up anything they could, then left.
This wasn’t a recent construction. The wood was blotched with lichen. Weeds struggled out of crannies.
Crouch’s weight dragged Flea to a halt. “Dead Streets,” was all he said.
The Dead Streets were forbidden. Taboo. Utterly unclean. Rumors shadowed the narrow alleyways: the dead from a Roman massacre still lay in the streets, just bones now, moldy bones, piled so deep they crunched underfoot as you tried to pick your way through them. It was the Romans themselves who first threw up the blockades, to hide their crime from the world. Then the high priest declared the whole area unclean and said that anyone entering had to purify themselves for thirty days if they crossed the barriers. Superstition did the rest. The gang used to dare each other to cross but no one ever had and, as far as Flea knew, no one had even come this far.
And it was almost dark now.
A cold wind nudged them. A banging door somewhere sounded loose and hollow. The power of the dead reached over the barrier. Flea felt it like cold hands on his skin.
Crouch tugged at his arm. “Come on. We’ve got to go back.”
“We can’t. And we can’t hang out here either. We’ve got to go in.”
“But the ghosts,” Crouch wailed. His face was shriveled with terror.
“I know, but think of the mob. If it’s Cutters, they’ll gut us. What’s the worst thing a ghost could do?”
“Gut us too?” Crouch said. “Drag us down to hell?”
“We’ve got to risk it. It’s certain death or … possible death. And I’ve got to try to find Jude.”
There was an abandoned house on their left, its door sagging loose. Flea scraped it across the floor and peered inside.
A small square room. Empty. A few ashes in the middle of the earth floor. It was dark inside, but there was just enough light to show a rough ladder leading to the next floor.
“No,” Crouch said. “I just can’t. Not here. Not at night.” Behind them the slap of footsteps faded to silence.
“That’s it,” Flea said. “Someone saw us and has gone to get the mob. I’m not frightened of a few moldy bones. Think about it. The mob won’t follow us into the Dead Streets, so we’ll be safe. I’ll go first.”
The ladder was old, the wood splintery. When Flea put a foot on the lowest rung he felt it give, but only by a little.
“It’s fine,” he called, and to his relief Crouch followed. The floor above was lighter and another ladder took them up through a trapdoor onto a flat roof. A small tree was growing in one corner, leaning over the street. Rags were piled in another, and straight ahead Flea could look over the barrier into the Dead Streets.
The view was an anticlimax and a relief. No old bodies stacked like timber, no strewn bones. Nothing, in fact. The Dead Streets just looked empty and messy and sad.
“We’ll be fine,” Flea said. “We just have to cross one more roof and then we can follow that alley all the way.” He stepped over the parapet.
“Flea.” Crouch’s voice was small with fear.
“What?”
“Something’s moving behind me but I’m too scared to look.”
Flea looked, but wished he hadn’t. Behind Crouch the pile of rags had shifted and was taking on form: a hunched thing of blackened limbs and tattered cloth.
The hairs on the back of Flea’s neck lifted. Terror strangled him. He tried to speak but no words came.
Then Crouch was past him, moving faster than Flea had ever seen, stumbling over the parapet to the next house, then the next. Flea followed until they found steps that led down. They half fell down them and finally landed in the Dead Streets.
31
Weeds clawed their feet. Tiles crunched and slid. The thing of rags was behind them somewhere, stretching out, trailing shreds. Bent double, Crouch tried to row himself through the air. Flea felt old nightmares gather. Dark doorways spilled horror he had to splash through. He risked a glance behind. Saw nothing. He slowed, panting, and let Crouch slide to the ground.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Crouch gasped. “I should never have come.”
“It’s fine. Look—we’ve lost it, whatever it was. Come on, we can walk now.” While they’d been running, they’d been protected by a bubble of panic. Now that they were walking, every noise made them jump. Flea tried to remember what had happened here. It was coming back now …
There had been a water riot—people complaining that the Romans or the Temple or both were starving the city of water. Whatever the case, the riot had gotten out of hand and the Temple Police had driven the protesters into these streets, where the Imps had been waiting.
They had massacred everyone, protesters who had run here and fam
ilies that lived here, and then left.
A big rat ran in its broken, hobbly way across the road in front of them and Flea lashed out with a foot, connecting with something round and white that had been buried in the weeds. A skull? It crashed into a door. The hollow knock seemed terribly, terribly loud. Unseen things skittered.
“What was that?” Crouch asked.
“Nothing. Just walk.”
“I am walking.”
Flea stared straight ahead, trying to block his peripheral vision.
There was a noise to their left now, behind the row of houses.
“That’s bigger than a rat,” Crouch said. “That’s—
He screamed as the pile of rags leaped out of a side street and blocked their way. A ragged man. Ragged hair, ragged beard, ragged skin, ragged clothes. Cracked dirt glazed his skin. Eyes very white. Teeth very absent.
“Bones, bones, bones,” the man said. His mouth stretched into a soft, wet O.
“Bonny bones. Boney bones. Is he coming, bathed in glory?”
Running was useless. They backed against a wall.
“Did you come to see the bones? Did you come searching? Are you looking for the way?” warbled the man.
“Out of here?” Flea asked.
The ragged man winced. His face was blunt; skin stretched like a tight tent across where his nose had once been.
“Out of the bone cage! Out of the skin sack! Into the light!”
He jumped, then pulled his rags apart and beat his chest. His ribs were shocking and white. He smelled like a glue maker’s yard.
“No, master,” Flea said. “Just…”
“I am not the Master. I am from the desert. The Master came to the desert but now is back among men.” He stretched his arms skyward. “Oh, why have I been cast away? Why have I been left in this cesspit of sin? In this vat of vileness? In the desert I sought him but found him not. In the mountains I looked for him and he was not in the rocks, nor in the caves. Where is my savior? Where is my purity? He has led me to the filth to find the light. I have followed him to the flesh pits for my salvation.”
Crouch tugged Flea’s arm. “I think he’s one of them … you know, a Ranting Dunker.”
The man stooped, picked up a bone, and began to dance with it, hopping from one foot to another. “We have seen the light! We have come to the darkness to shine the light. Here! He has come to the city, where the truth will become light and bones become flesh. Here the dead will dance and I will see it!”
Ranting Dunkers, Flea knew, lived off insects. They wore animal skins they had cured themselves, which would explain the smell, and meditated in total solitude, which might explain the manner. They also believed that sins could be washed away in river water, not animal blood, which in no way explained the dirt.
But Flea had never heard of a Ranting Dunker hurting anyone. He whispered to Crouch, “It’s all right. I think he’s harmless.” Then he said out loud, “Glory be!” It was something he had heard their followers say. “May I ask a question?”
The Ranting Dunker shot him a sly glance. “Many are the questions but only one is the answer.” It sounded like a prepared statement.
“Glory be. When you say he has come to the city, who do you mean?”
“He is the answer to all questions. The Chosen One. The Chosen One who is washed clean of sin and is wrapped in glory! That is why I am here among the dead. When he comes, the dead will be reborn. The dead will dance with joy. I have gathered their bones. I have made me a pile of their bones, and in the great gathering bones that were parted will gather, flesh that was sundered will join.” He stepped closer. “Flesh. Will. Gather.”
“I don’t think he’s harmless,” Crouch whispered. “He’s just taken out a knife.” The blade was small but had been sharpened to a silvered edge.
“And that’s why you’re in the Dead Streets?” Flea’s back was pressing hard into the wall behind him.
“I am here to gather up the dead and save the living! Let me save you!” The knife point danced between them.
“Er, we’re fine,” Flea said. “I mean, we hung out with the Chosen One and his followers, didn’t we?”
He nodded encouragingly to Crouch. They couldn’t get past the madman and they had nothing to fight with. All they could do was buy time.
“We ate with them,” Crouch said. “We saw him cure the sick down at the Healing Pool. We agree with everything he says, glory be.”
“Can you tell us how you save people?” Flea asked.
“With this.” The knife’s tip seemed to be unstitching a seam in the air. “This. This. This.”
“You kill people?” Crouch’s voice rose to a squeak.
“How else can they be reborn?”
“This is what I don’t get,” Flea said. “It’s all very well you going around saving people with your … er, knife, but who’s going to save you? It doesn’t seem fair.”
Doubts flickered across the Dunker’s face. The knife stopped pecking. “Who’s going to save me?”
“Well, yes. And how are you going to do it?”
“I…” He was looking down at his knife now.
“I mean, we could help.”
“Flea?” Crouch warned.
But Flea was on a roll. “You see, we spent time with the Chosen One and he always went on about this thing. We should try to save as many people as possible. His orders. So if we saved you, it would be saving us.”
The man peered at him. “You would do that?” Flea held out his hand.
The Ranting Dunker held out the knife, then snatched it away. “Let me save your friend first. My way of saying thank you.”
“No thanks are needed. This is my duty.” Flea tried to look calm and reassuring.
“Your duty.” Tears spilled from the Dunker’s eyes and filled the fissures of his face.
Flea hoped Crouch would know what to do. The Dunker handed over the knife, bared his neck, and knelt. “Here?” he asked.
“There!” Flea threw the knife as far as he could over the roof of the house opposite. “Run!”
He grabbed Crouch and they surged forward. Behind them they heard the Ranting Dunker howl. Ahead, the barrier blocking the road loomed, the Upper City rising behind it.
“He’s going to catch us,” Crouch said as Flea shook the doors of the houses close by. All locked. “He’s coming!”
“Can you climb?” Flea asked, and almost before he had finished talking Crouch was hauling himself up the barrier, hand over hand. Flea followed and helped him up onto the roof, where they collapsed, panting. They climbed half a dozen more parapets before shock caught up with them. Flea could not stop the trembling in his arms and legs. Crouch’s skin was gray and pinched from pain. His head kept falling onto his chest as if it were too heavy.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll be better in a while. I just need to catch my breath.”
“That’s all right,” Flea said. “We’ll just … Oh no. That sound.”
He crawled to the edge of the roof and peered over. A crowd was marching down the street toward them. Some people were holding flaming torches; others were knocking on doors.
They sounded angry.
“What do we do?” Crouch asked. He looked exhausted and even more shrunken with pain. Flea knew he couldn’t walk any farther, let alone run from a mob.
“We stay put,” he whispered. “Don’t worry. Shh. Listen.”
The banging on the door seemed to come from right below them.
Muffled voices from inside the house. “What? Who’s that?”
“Temple business,” a gruff voice answered. “We’re after two boys. Blasphemers. Trying to disrupt the feast.”
Crouch crawled across to Flea. “Blasphemers? Us? That means they want to stone us.”
“It’s not you. It’s me, but I don’t know what’s going on,” whispered Flea. “First the Cutters and now the Temple? I mean, how can the Temple and the Cutters be after me? They hate each other, don’t they? Why don’t
I understand, and what am I meant to know?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Crouch wailed. “It’s too late. Look!” He was peering over the roof’s parapet. “They’re on the rooftops. They’ll see us. They’re looking everywhere! If we move they’ll see us. If we stay still they’ll catch us. We’re stuck. We’re … Oh no.”
The scrape of wood on wood. A few paces away, a black square appeared as a trapdoor in the roof creaked open.
32
Flea looked at Crouch blankly. He had opened his mouth to say sorry when a quavering voice spoke.
“I was right. I was sure I could hear something up here. I knew I was right.”
“We’re just beggars. We’re lost. We haven’t done anything wrong,” Crouch squeaked.
“And I’ve got a knife.” Flea tried to sound menacing.
“Oh dear,” the voice said. “Miriam, they’re scared. Bring a light so they can see me. That should reassure them.”
A small oil lamp was passed up from below. Its light showed a very old man with long white hair and a white beard. “Two little angels fallen on our roof. Our prayers have been answered. Come quick.” The light played in the hollows and wrinkles of his face.
“How do we know we’ll be safe?” Flea said.
“Dear child, you don’t. But there’s no safety up here and the mob’s closing in. Even my deaf old ears can hear them. I beg you, come in.”
And before Flea could think of anything else, Crouch was crawling across the roof to the trapdoor and climbing down.
Flea followed him into a small square room. In one corner a fire burned in a simple clay oven. A roll of bedding was laid out in another. There was a rush mat in the middle of the floor and a few pots and plates stacked along the wall.
“Welcome,” the man said. “We heard you … arrive … just as we were saying our prayers. We have no interest in following the mob. The night before the Great Feast is a time for prayer and kindness.”
“We were praying for guests,” the woman said. “Our prayers have been answered.” She was a tiny concentration of sweetness and wrinkles. On her forehead and chin were tattooed small crosses the color of the sky at the end of a dusty summer’s day. “Sit, please. They are here.”
