“This man is ill,” Thameron commented to some others in one room of the apartment house. He laid his hands on the forehead of an old, haggard pickpocket. “Where is the nearest physician?”
“There aren’t no blood-takers around here, priest.”
“Then you must take him to one.”
“Let him die, Thameron. His time’s come.”
Thameron faced the speaker, a fat, weathered man. “I don’t believe that. Where there is life, there is hope. If he can be saved, he will reawaken and perhaps see with new eyes. Are you waiting for him to die so you can pick his pockets?”
A few of them laughed.
“Are you?”
“He’d do it to us, Thameron. We have to live down here. If we could sell his body for some long gold, we’d do it. His time’s come. Our time’ll come. You can’t scare us.”
“I’m not trying to scare you.” He reached into his purse and withdrew some of the silver given him by the devout and the guilty. “This money is cursed if you steal it from me,” he reminded one of the men. (This was a common superstition.) “But if you accept it, you must do with it as I tell you.”
A tentative brown hand reached for the coins.
“Take it, and do with it as I say, or demons will follow you and you’ll suffer an accident. Take this man, your brother, to the nearest physician. Do it in good faith. Whatever is left from what the doctor asks as a fee is yours. Drink, gamble, find your pleasure, but remember that Bithitu watches; but first take this man to a physician. Do you understand?”
Someone chortled. “Why don’t you just light candles and pray for him?”
“This time I’m praying for him with silver. Do you understand?”
They understood. His calm reasoning, his unprovoked sympathy, his goodness, his tolerance, his honesty won them where proud priests and city guards and court downcallings had ever failed. Two of the men took up their friend and, with Thameron’s silver in their fists, carried him off, down the stairs and out into the street, to get him proper attention.
“I am a lamp in a storm,” said Bithitu; “I guide the lost with unwavering light.”
And always, when he was in this pocket of town, Thameron made it a point to visit Assia. Sometimes he wondered whether (had life gone differently) Assia might somehow have been the sister he had never had. As it was, he cared for her, sought to nurture her and awaken her. Something in his spirit one time, sometime, had sensed something in Assia’s spirit, and both had felt it; since then, Thameron had felt a compulsion toward the young woman, and he grieved that her dangerous life must someday shadow her inner light unless she could get away from here.
He entered the tavern on Sirruk Street and nodded to the burly man behind the counter, ignoring the chortles of some of the patrons at tables. He went to the rear and took the creaking stairs up to the second floor. He walked halfway down the landing till he came to Assia’s door. It was a while before noon yet, but Thameron felt she must be awake. As he knocked on her door, a tired face poked out from another room farther down.
“Thameron.”
“Morning graces, sister.”
“I thought it might be you.”
He smiled and made the sign: a circle in the air and the line of the flame. The prostitute smiled back at him, withdrew, and closed her door.
From within Assia’s room: “Ibro?”
“No. Thameron.”
Quick footsteps, and the door was opened. Assia’s crisp black eyes, her flowing blue-black hair, her smile. “Oh, come on in. Come in.”
He entered, quietly closing the door behind him. Assia, half nude, had not yet finished dressing. Thameron realized that she probably spent half her life undressed, so he did not take her casualness as an affront. He could, however, appreciate Assia’s beauty—although her inner beauty counted for much more than what the world saw. Her face, oval and dark; her eyes, deep as pools; her slim arms, slim legs. Foamy, cascading hair. Her heavy breasts, far too large for a woman of so slight a build. Her dainty feet.
Assia sat in a chair and pulled on her skirt, stood up and wriggled to get it over her hips. Thameron smiled tolerantly. She crossed the room; her hair floated, her breasts swayed. Retrieving a short cotton vest from her bed, she pulled it on but left it unlaced in the front. Then she perched on the end of her bed, took up her comb, and began to do her hair.
Strong sunlight fell through the window; by it, Thameron noticed how pale Assia had become. He crossed to her, took up a chair, and sat in it, facing her.
“How have you been?”
“Well enough. I have to hurry—”
“What happened to your eye, Assia?”
She ceased combing so diligently and glanced at Thameron apprehensively. “Some character last night.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged.
“Why are you hurrying?”
“Ibro…is angry with me again.”
“Why?”
“Junis. She told him some things.”
“Is it money?”
Assia nodded. “My father needed—I didn’t give everything to Ibro. I think this—” she pointed to her eye “—was planned. He could’ve hurt me a lot more. Now Ibro wants me to go visit some nobleman. I have to go.”
Thameron reached into his purse. “If this money goes to the church, they’ll only waste it on themselves. It belongs to the people. Here—how much would you make?”
Assia stared at the money in his hand. “I—can’t.…”
Thameron poured all the gold into her palm. “That much?”
“Gods, at least!”
“Take it. Give it to Ibro. Any left over, use for yourself. Hold some back for yourself, now. Assia, please, go see a physician.”
“I’m all right, Thameron.”
“No, you’re not. You look weak. Are you eating properly?”
She laughed as though he had told an obscene joke.
“Don’t, Assia.… Please, now, just—”
“Thameron, really—I’m all right.”
“Take the money. At least buy yourself some decent food, not the slop they make here. Take care of yourself—and, Assia, don’t gamble it. Do you hear me?”
She frowned and set the money on the bed. She held onto Thameron’s hand and searched his eyes, and her demeanor softened. “He’ll know if I don’t visit that nobleman.”
“Tell him you found a better prospect on the way.”
Assia laughed merrily. “Tell him I found a priest?”
Thameron didn’t smile.
She sighed. “Why are you a priest, Thameron?’
This—all over again. The feel of Assia near him. The strange sense of a shifting balance within him. “There is much good to be done in the world.”
“It can be accomplished without a priest’s robes.”
“But Bithitu is the Light. He protects, he guides—”
“Those priests at the temple protect and guide no one but themselves; they’re as corrupt as anyone. Anyone except you. You’re too good.”
“Even they can be saved. They have…strayed. We all stray. I stray, in my heart.”
Assia loved this Thameron, and in a way more profound than how he loved her, or the way in which he loved the prophet. She did not love an enigma, an idol, a lesson or a spiritual challenge; she loved a young man, this young man, and she loved his spirit. Sometimes she idly wondered if the same mischance that had made her a prostitute had also made Thameron a priest. She wondered, too, at the frailty of emotions and the fleetness of time, and how difficult it was to manage truth when often truth was very obvious and ordinary.
And she knew she desired Thameron; but she wondered, with all of her truth, if the desire was actually for Thameron, or simply for Thameron the priest.
“Noon,” he announced abruptly, standing. “I must return to the temple.”
It was for Thameron, although she could not tell him, though she could not show him, though he suspected it but act
ed as if he didn’t, though the love and concern she felt for him were equal to the love and concern he felt for her.
“Thank you, Thameron.…”
“We can leave together. Here. Ibro will think you’re going to see that nobleman. Just spend some of that getting a good meal, will you?”
“I’ll try.”
“Don’t gamble it, and see a physician, Assia! I mean it.”
“I’ll see.”
“Come on. Are you finished?”
“Yes.” She tied her vest in the front, very loosely, then glanced at herself in her cheap copper mirror. “Do you like my hair this way? I could always—”
“It’s very pretty. You’ve very pretty, Assia.”
“Are priests allowed to compliment women?”
“This priest, I’m afraid, does a lot of things most priests aren’t supposed to do.”
Yes, it was for Thameron, although she could not tell him.…
“I am the Heart and the Hand and the Eye,” said the Prophet Bithitu; “feel with me, touch my hand, see with my eyes.”
* * * *
On his return to the temple, Thameron managed to collect additional gold and silver, although he was used to turning in sparse purses at the end of the day. He felt good only when he had been able to give more than he had received—in gold, in heart, in replenishment.
If only his masters at the temple could understand these things as he did.…
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
That evening, Thameron was absent from evening prayers and supper. He did not wish to deliberately provoke his masters. However, he had returned to Ibro’s tavern to make certain that Assia had done as he had insisted. He told himself that he did this because he wanted the best for her; he was acting as a heart and a hand and an eye for her, as the prophet did for him. Yet to his disappointment, Assia admitted to Thameron that she had stopped to see her father, a retired seaman, while on her way to a physician; and her father, learning that she had money, had taken half the gold Thameron had given her. That left her without enough to take care of herself, for Ibro expected to be paid.
Upset with her, Thameron nevertheless fought to contain his anger. But before he was able to talk further with Assia, Ibro himself intruded and demanded that the priest either pay him for the woman’s time or be on his way. Thameron, promising to visit Assia again, left to walk the nightfallen streets with a heavy heart.
The day that had begun with such promise so ended with severe frustrations. Thameron was reprimanded when he returned to the temple. Hapad, the brother who slept on the cot next to his, a young man whom Thameron considered a friend, whispered to him in the darkness, “They are disappointed in you.”
“They are always disappointed in me.”
“I mean this, Thameron. I heard talk at supper tonight. Muthulis knows your name, and he’s losing patience. He may confine you for a week.”
Thameron didn’t answer, but the threat found a home in his heart. He wondered why it was so difficult for him to do good when all he wished was to do good. He lay awake in the darkness trying to decipher how he managed to behave so regrettably and, at long last, fell asleep.
* * * *
Muthulis, Chief Priest of the Temple of Bithitu in Erusabad and Head of the Synod of Masters and Priests, was an officious man who believed that human error—especially error stemming from enthusiasm—was more a matter of self-awareness than it was an act of outright defiance. He was, by nature, a sympathetic but cautious man. Forty-five years of service in the political back ways of the temple had taught him that strong convictions are sometimes difficult animals to leash. Thameron erred; Thameron was young and headstrong. It was splendid to have strong personalities in the church, so long as they used their strengths in the proper direction. Muthulis remembered himself as a young man.
Thameron was ushered into the chief priest’s private office and left there, standing before this stern, grandfatherly official who, from behind his desk, fixed Thameron with dark gray eyes.
Thameron stood still, respectful in the silence of Muthulis’s grand, lavishly decorated office.
The long moments passed.
Muthulis’s eyes did not waver.
At last, when Thameron had begun to perspire and his imagination was threatening to lead him down angry avenues, Muthulis lowered his hands from his chin, spread his fingers on his desk, and asked in a grave tone, “Do you know why you have been brought here?’’
Thameron cleared his throat. “I—I think so, sir.”
“You think so?” The tone reduced Thameron to the status of a dullard. Quietly, Muthulis rose and stood behind his desk. “Why, then, do you think you have been brought here, Thameron?’’
They are disappointed in you. They are always disappointed in me. But before the stern and grave Muthulis, he was able only to mutter, “I know that I—I returned late last night.”
Muthulis frowned.
“And—some other times, too. I returned…late.”
Muthulis sighed strongly. “We operate this temple on a schedule,” he told Thameron, “and we appreciate it when our young priests are respectful enough to do as we ask them. Our regulations are quite lenient toward our recruits, as I think you know. But don’t you think it rather odd that I would require your presence here simply because you were late in returning to your cot for a few evenings?”
Thameron felt himself coloring.
Muthulis walked around to the front of his desk and clasped his hands before him. “Let us be honest with each other, Thameron. You know as well as I that you deliberately do things that are outside the recommendations we set for our young priests. You have been reminded of this; you have been reprimanded. Now you have been brought before me. What would you have me do with you?”
Thameron was confused. “Sir, I don’t quite understand.” When he saw Muthulis’s reaction to his comment, however, he asked, “Do you mean—that I spend my time in the city?”
“Thameron, you spend your time in the city with the waste of humanity.”
The words struck hard. “The—? Sir, the waste of humanity?”
“Why do you do it?”
“Your worship, to help them!”
“Our doors are open to them. Must you spend all of your time with them?”
“My Lord Muthulis—with all due respect—I have yet to see many beggars and prostitutes enter our temple to stand in prayer beside our bankers and our aristocrats! Our Prophet Bithitu, in his day, himself sought to win such souls to the true light. In point of fact, he expressly phrased many of his lessons in words to reach such people. It is not my intention to—”
“Thameron.”
“Sir?”
“You are not Bithitu. And the world has changed greatly since the days of Bithitu, hasn’t it?”
Thameron felt extremely awkward. “Lord Muthulis, I don’t pretend to be Bithitu! I merely follow the method he himself used when he brought the Word of the Light to the people.”
Muthulis raised a hand. “I understand what you’re saying, Thameron. I do. You have eagerness in you, and I appreciate that. You see some come to worship with us, and you see others who do not. You wish to educate those who do not, and these are the lesser of society.”
“Lord Muthulis, that is exactly what I wish to do.”
“This I understand. But when I tell you that the church has established certain ways to accomplish this, and that you are ignoring these methods by serving us in your own way, you bring yourself into conflict with some basic proscriptions. I don’t think you wish to do that, do you?”
“My lord, all I wish to do—”
“Is serve your prophet. This I know. But you must realize that the prophet is served by his church. I am his church, and you are his church. Those who fall outside our church, either through ignorance or blasphemy or apostasy, will be dealt with—their souls gained, or their souls punished—according to the words of the prophet and the scriptures of this church. You are a priest. Do you no
t wish to be a priest?”
Terror struck him. It can be accomplished without a priest’s robes. He felt two different voices moving within him at once.
“Thameron, do you not wish to—”
“I am a priest!” he nearly shouted. “My lord—sir—I am a priest, you conferred that honor upon me, my status—”
“Then do honor to your robes, as you are a priest. Follow the rules and guidelines we have set down, Thameron, as you are a priest.”
Prolonged silence filled the office.
Thameron was thoroughly confused. “My lord, may I ask a question?”
“Certainly, Thameron.”
“If—Lord Muthulis, if the words of Bithitu say one thing, but if the laws of the church say another thing, if both set down principles—”
“Thameron—”
“—that we are to follow, then which am I to follow?”
“Thameron.” Now there was an edge to Muthulis’s voice. “You are a priest of this church. You are to behave according to the regulations set down for priests of this church.”
“But if there is an apparent hypocrisy—”
“That is enough! You do not decide what is policy and what is not policy for this church! You entered into an agreement with this church when you took your vows and received your robes and rings. Did you not do that?”
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