They were thankfully interrupted by the call to prayer rising from the tent-town. Verlain took up his jar-pipe and bubbled loudly all the way through the song. Tymon paused to listen to the voice. He found it achingly beautiful.
Morning, noon and night, the disembodied chant floated over the stink and poverty of Marak like a balm. The seminary taught that the Eastern Doctrine was a heathen heresy, and he was surprised to find that the Nurians had a First Liturgy at all, let alone one he recognised. He had never visited the tent-town shrine, never ventured into that heart of darkness. Verlain had warned him that the Nurian temple was the province of criminal gangs, to be avoided by Argosians at all costs. The threat of violence lurked beneath the haunting music as it did all else in the city.
‘That horrific noise,’ moaned the priest as the song faded away, ‘frays my poor nerves to shreds. I shall need more medicine tomorrow, if you don’t mind.’
Tymon’s heart sank. Verlain had of late taken advantage of their supposed complicity to send him on personal errands, questionable commissions that required him to extend the scope of his supply run to the black market in the tent-town. In the squalid alleyways behind the custom house, traders hawked everything from the luxury of fresh vegetables to a staple of prostitutes. In return, the Nurians insisted on being paid in water, or at least in Argosian money for their wares. The local strawpaper currency bearing the large-nosed likeness of the Governor was almost valueless, and only a whole talek, the hardwood disc making a guilty lump in Tymon’s pocket as he hastened through the streets, was enough to buy Verlain his daily fill of som.
The priest could not seem to do without this powerful sedative. He would put a generous portion of the stuff into his pipe every evening, exhaling a noxious sweet smoke that clung to the compound rooms like oil. The sticky vapour seeped over the low partition wall from his quarters into Tymon’s cubicle, and the boy’s nights became unpleasantly heavy, troubled by dreams of fire and flight. He loathed purchasing the packets of dull grey powder from the taciturn dealers in the tent-town, paying the equivalent of a month’s room and board for one paltry dose. It was doubly galling to him that Verlain did not appear to think it at all inconsistent, in this instance, to send him straight into the arms of the Nurion gangs he so deplored.
That day, trapped on the couch in the ghostly wake of the prayer call, he felt a rising sense of panic. Maybe this was it, he thought. Maybe this was all he could hope for from life in Marak. Samiha’s balloon had gone down in the pathless thickets and he would spend the next two years running errands for a disreputable drunk. The idea that the elusive red-haired spy might actually have arrived in the city, but chosen not to contact him for reasons of her own, was more unbearable than any thought of accident or injury. For she had left him to fend for himself in a world without hope.
The Harvest month came to a dry and unproductive end; the official start of the rainy season brought with it only a stifling rise in temperature. Not one drop of water fell on the parched city. The mission compound sagged in the heat and huge, mottled flies flew lazily around the incense-burners in the courtyard, expiring with a pop when they were caught in the flames. Although Verlain never again offered his assistance to Tymon in any capacity, his afternoon transcriptions became a torture of sweat and immobility. Day after interminable day, the boy counted the annihilated insects between the fat man’s phrases, gagging on his smell until the dinner hour brought his misery to an end. There was never the slightest response to the volumes he copied out for his employer. The storm of correspondence simply vanished into thin air. He did not see the letters being given to messengers or dispatched by bird. The more time he passed in Verlain’s company, the more irksome the priest and his habits became. He began to hate every waking minute at the mission.
‘Father, why do the Nurians sing the First Liturgy?’
The voice from the tent-town filled the space after Tymon’s question with longing. Verlain paused in his dictation and gave a spasmodic cough, peering sharply at him over his pipe-draw. For an instant, he appeared entirely sober.
By the fourth day of the Water month and his fifth week in the city, Tymon’s patience had run out. He had spent over a month at the mission with nothing to do but sit by Verlain’s side, listen to the priest’s droning voice and plug his nostrils against his smell. He was now convinced that Samiha had run into difficulties in the life-vessel, and the thought tormented him. His employer had kept him trapped on the courtyard couch yet again that day, writing to the Governor to complain of ‘the shadow of heresy that sullies the fair face of our city’; the heat was suffocating, and Verlain’s prose resolutely purple. There was nothing, never anything but cheap strawpaper to write on at the mission. Tymon’s pen snagged on the rough surface of his copy. He had botched and rewritten the word ‘heresy’ every time the priest had used it and the yellow paper was full of unsightly brown blots. He was considering rewriting the whole thing from start to end when the voice from the shrine rang out for evening prayer. It seemed to mock him. His question to the priest was a last resort, an act of desperation.
The call faded, but the heretical query hung in the air, dangling unanswered between the priest and the boy. Verlain dissolved into a renewed bout of coughing and wiped his streaming eyes.
‘Considering your innocence, your curiosity is understandable,’ he gasped at last. ‘But I pray lest any taint of the dangerous beliefs rampant in this city mar the purity of your soul.’
‘Sir?’
‘The shrine in the tent-town. I hope you don’t attend it.’
‘No, of course not—’
‘Good. There is a reason I ask you not to, as your concerned friend and mentor.’ The priest took another noisy draw from his pipe, exhaling wetly. ‘These damned Nurries say it’s a Tree temple, just like ours. They’re lying, of course. If it was, the parishioners would want to go on pilgrimage, wouldn’t they? Instead here we are, writing letters.’
With slow-dawning hope, Tymon realised what the fat man was saying.
‘You mean, people in Marak don’t sign up for the tithe?’ he murmured. He had difficulty keeping the exultation out of his voice.
‘Not the ones who go to the shrine, no.’ The priest’s chins wobbled as he leaned closer to the boy, his voice dropping to an unctuous whisper. ‘The Nurries here think they’re better than all that. They believe in the Sap heresy, which basically means they have no end of fine philosophical reasons for not doing an honest day’s work. No man shall own another, for ye are leaves of the same branch, or some such nonsense. It’s a good thing there’re always recruits among the refugees or we’d be reduced to choosing pilgrims by lot.’
Tymon digested this new piece of information. It was hardly surprising that the members of the Council were so keen to stamp out heresy: it threatened their livelihood. ‘The Sap heresy?’ he prompted cautiously, hoping Verlain’s revelatory mood would hold out. Anything was better than dictation.
‘Their so-called religion. The Nurries, of course, claim it’s no different to proper Tree worship, but there are far too many fundamental—’ Verlain coughed, spluttered, and fanned himself ‘—fundamental variances in dogma for it to qualify as anything but a degenerate sect. They don’t even acknowledge the Tree as creator. But the temple rites are by far the worst. The call to prayer is a blasphemy in itself. Take the shanti, the local shaman whom we are obliged to hear chanting that awful song.’
‘The First Liturgy…’
‘My boy, the First Liturgy is immaterial. The ritual is a deliberate perversion, a heresy. The Nurries have female shanti. It’s disgraceful. Disgusting. Their very presence in the temple is an outrage.’
To Tymon’s sheltered sensibilities the ladies of Marak were loud, pushy and provocative, a fact that went some way to explaining Samiha’s extraordinary behaviour. They owned stalls in the market, wore breeches under their long cloaks and looked him straight in the eye when they spoke, in defiance of all Argosian norms of propriety. But this
was the first time he had heard they could hold priestly rank. His face must have betrayed his surprise, for Verlain gave a prim little nod of commiseration.
‘Oh yes, though it pains me to speak of such things. These so-called priestesses use their charms to lead young men astray. Of course, everyone knows the Sap heresy is just a cover for Nurry rebels. I have it on authority that the local shanti recruits in a most unsavoury manner for their cause.’
Where females were concerned, Verlain’s permissiveness disappeared completely. The fat man waxed lyrical in condemnation of Nurian customs until late that evening, holding forth on women and heretics all through supper while the flies expired in the flames and Amu Bibi leered at him over her platter of beans. Tymon resigned himself to another wasted day and concentrated on slapping the insects away from his face and neck. He wished morosely that he had some luck with women, any women, even heretical ones. But the Nurian girls in the market did not play the game of seduction by the rules he had been taught. They were not coy, or suggestive, or even attractive, with their garish pale skin and light hair. He thought despairingly of Samiha, wondering what had become of her, and whether she was even alive.
That night he dreamt of fire again. It seemed to him that he heard the bells pealing out from the bell-tower, sounding the dreaded warning. But this time he was lost in a strange city. The smoke was already coiling thick and noisome about him. ‘Foy,’ cried a far-off voice in Nurian. ‘Foy!’ He ran down ramps, climbed never-ending ladders in a desperate hunt for the way out. The walls of the buildings were too thin, flimsy, already consumed in the roaring flames. Fear weighted his limbs and his breath came in short gasps. He could no longer see in front of him for the smoke. A terrible pressure mounted in his chest. He opened his mouth to scream.
He woke up with a start, coughing. The stale odour of som drifted over the wall from Verlain’s quarters, catching in his throat. Over time, his body had grown accustomed to the effects of the drug, and the saccharine vapour no longer made him so drowsy. He slipped out of his hammock and groped his way to the door, sweat slicking the tunic to his back. The courtyard outside was awash with moonlight. He lingered on the threshold, feeling the welcome breeze on his neck, and thought with distaste of the fat priest breathing stupefying fumes in the cubicle next door.
Then he froze. Verlain was not in his room but standing at the entrance to the mission, his unmistakably bulbous form outlined in silver light. He had his back to Tymon and appeared to be waiting for someone. Instinctively, the boy retreated into his cubicle doorway. Soon a second shadow, tall and lithe, flitted across the temple courtyard to join Verlain. The two spoke in whispers, drifting in and out of earshot.
‘…not safe any longer.’ The priest’s tone was wheedling. ‘It’s really best we communicate through an intermediary.’
‘I work alone. No intermediaries.’ His companion’s yellow hair and beard caught the moonlight. Tymon saw with a shock that the stranger was a Nurian. What had become of Verlain’s qualms? ‘Do not seek to deceive me, priest. Your life will be worthless.’
‘No need…no need to be suspicious. The Council finds your movement sympathetic to our needs.’
‘Expedient, you mean.’ The Nurian’s pale features broke into a derogatory smile. ‘You think you can make use of my revolution!’
‘Quietly, Caro,’ muttered Verlain. He glanced warily in the direction of the third tier, and the Governor’s palace. ‘Give me the address of a safe house.’
The man named Caro hesitated before answering. ‘Ladder six, Kion Street,’ he said. ‘The house with the green door.’
‘Perfect. I have a little surprise for your enemies. In two days’ time your revolution will get a kick-start, my friend…’
The conversation dropped out of Tymon’s hearing and he leaned forward, straining to hear the whispered exchange. At last the priest’s nasal murmur became audible once more.
‘…meet you there with the goods, if you insist.’
‘Very well. Though I will not be present to receive them. Come on the ninth of the month, at sunset—the house will be empty then. The door is never locked. You can leave the delivery in the back alcove, behind the stove.’
‘You can rely on me.’
The yellow-haired man bowed his head in farewell, turned on his heel and disappeared from sight. Verlain shambled back into the compound.
Tymon pushed shut the cubicle door, his heart pounding, and dived for his hammock. The shuffling gait of the priest paused an instant outside his room then carried on. The door to his quarters clicked shut and a moment later candlelight bounced soft shadows over the open top of the wall. Tymon heard the fat man manoeuvre himself laboriously onto his sleeping couch. There was the scrape of a fire-stick, and a fresh cloud of som drifted over the gap to sting his eyes.
He lay awake in the darkness, his mind buzzing with questions. Why was the seminary brokering a secret deal with Nurian rebels? Who were the members of the ‘movement’ the Council found sympathetic? Were they Samiha’s friends? He racked his brains to imagine why the Council was aiding a revolution in its own colony, and realised that there was only one sure way to solve the mystery. He would have to lie in wait for Verlain’s associate on the evening of the ninth. He would have to find out what goods were being delivered to the Nurian safe house, and to whom.
Even after reaching this decision he was unable to rest. Somehow, finding out that Verlain was linked to the rebels did nothing to reassure him or improve his opinion of the fat priest. He bewailed the fact that Samiha was lost to him, and that he was unable to discuss the matter with her. He could not imagine her having anything to do with the Council. He tossed and turned in his hammock through the dark hours till dawn. It was a long time before the smoke from Verlain’s pipe lulled him back to sleep.
14
From that moment on, Tymon took nothing for granted at the mission. His unease about Verlain grew. He made an effort to stay awake during the night and noted that although the priest lit up several pipefuls of som, he spent very little time in his quarters, pacing outside in the courtyard to the early hours. The pipe was left to smoke on its own, sending sticky clouds into Tymon’s cubicle. A cold insight crept over the boy. The sedative was destined for him. He was being kept out of Verlain’s way, segregated from whatever business the priest was conducting under cover of darkness. His hatred of the seminary flared up once more. To be drugged and lied to was as vexing as any injustice he had experienced in Argos. He wrapped a damp cloth across his mouth and nose to cut the effects of the smoke, and observed the fat man’s every move. But he did not witness any further clandestine activity in the days leading up to the meeting in Kion Street.
That week, the atmosphere of unrest in Marak worsened considerably. The official water-toll soared to ten taleks a measure, the equivalent of a barrelful of the useless strawpaper pon, and the town rumbled with dissent. Both the heat and the tension reached fever pitch. To add to Tymon’s dismay, the mission cistern was running low and he was faced with the prospect of a trip to the official water dispensary at the custom house. He had come to dread the periodic expedition to fill the cistern; the task summed up everything he hated most about life in the colony. The youthful mob of Nurian refugees targeted him every time he arrived on the quays with his heavy shoulder-yoke and two covered buckets, as if his errand were a direct insult to them. He would have to fight through the crowd to the dispensary, wait in line to have his allotment of water doled out by soldiers then lug his precious load back to the mission, pursued all the way by a band of ragged beggar children. He was not allowed to spare them so much as a ladleful, and could only hurry through the streets, feeling guilty and wretched, with their shrill accusations ringing in his ears: Putar. You kill mother, you eat baby. He put off each trip for as long as he possibly could and waited until the cistern had attained a murky low before confronting his ordeal again.
By the eighth day of the Water month, he was obliged to face the inevitable. Ve
rlain had luckily dispensed with his copying services, and he delayed his departure for the quays until late that afternoon, hoping that the temperature would abate. It did not. At last he had no choice but to hoist up his heavy yoke in the wilting heat. He was about to exit the compound gates, the cumbersome buckets banging and thumping against his legs, when a door slammed behind him and Verlain’s nasal voice echoed out across the courtyard.
‘Wait, my boy. I have a job for you, if you’re going down to the air-harbour.’
The fat priest waddled up to him with unusual alacrity, his bulk heaving under his stained robe. He had a sheaf of strawpaper in one hand.
‘The promotional bills for this year’s tithe have arrived,’ he announced, flourishing the papers. ‘Cost me a fair fortune in bribes to the Governor’s office, too. You’re to put them up in the main market and on the quays.’
Tymon’s shrinking gaze took in the blockprinted letters, the ink bleeding through the cheap grain. BE A PILGRIM! SIGN UP FOR THE MARAK TITHE! proclaimed the handbills in cheery capitals. ADVANCE WAGES IN WATER! Then in smaller letters at the bottom: Candidates present themselves directly to the tithe-ship authorities. Conditions apply.
‘I thought you didn’t agree with the seminary’s policies, sir,’ he muttered, taken aback. The next tithe-ship was not due for months. Why was Verlain suddenly so keen on recruiting pilgrims?
‘Agree, disagree, it all comes to the same thing in the end,’ gulped the priest, nervously. His eyes searched the corners of the compound, as if he were expecting someone to jump out at him from the shadows. He was not even particularly drunk. ‘Truth is relative, so stick to the lies you know, I say,’ he babbled.
He thrust the wad of paper at Tymon, who struggled to catch the bills while balancing his yoke. As if on second thoughts, Verlain rummaged in the grimy purse at his belt and withdrew a whole talek piece, which he slipped on top of the paper bundle. For a moment the boy thought he was going to ask for yet more som. But Verlain only winked connivingly at him.
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