Temple Boys. Jamie Buxton

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 travellers 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 grey robe was suddenly standing between the soldiers and the boys, hands outstretched, palms out.

      He was one of the travellers and Flea couldn’t work 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 grey, or perhaps it had been grey 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 marshily and gobbed.

      ‘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?’ A showman’s smile lit up every part of his face. Big pointed to himself, then at the donkey. ‘Me?’ he asked.

      ‘Only if you’re not too busy,’ the small man said.

      Another of the travellers – skinny with cropped, rust-coloured hair and dressed in a striped robe – joined them. He showed Big how to free the donkey from the shafts and Snot how to calm it. Then Big and Snot led the donkey out of the chaos and over to the far side of the bridge. The small man climbed on to its back and, suddenly, the world went mad.

      People began cheering, shouted, surged forwards, surged back. On the other side of the road a man shinned up a dusty date palm. He started pulling the leaves and branches from it and throwing them down. People caught them. Some waved them; others threw them under the hooves of the donkey. The man’s fellow travellers pushed ahead of him, somehow forcing a clear way down the middle of the bridge.

      ‘Did you see that? Did you see what the magician did?’ Red shouted.

      ‘Is that him? Are you sure? He just looks like a tramp to me,’ said Flea.

      ‘He only went and saved Big and Snot. He only stopped the Imps arresting them. He only rubbed their Roman noses in the dirt.’ Red slapped Flea on the back, held up Halo so he could have a look, slapped Flea again.

      Flea could not get excited. Disappointment didn’t do justice to his feelings; betrayal was more like it. This small man with the showman’s smile could not be a famous magician, let alone the Chosen One. It was the biggest let-down of his life.

      ‘That can’t really be him, can it?’

      ‘You’re the expert,’ Red said. ‘You brought us here.’

      Which was true and just added to the sense of deflation.

      ‘But we can’t rob him now,’ Flea said. ‘He’s seen us. He’s ruined our plan.’

      Red looked at him, appalled. ‘Of course we can’t rob him,’ he said. ‘He just saved Big and Snot from the Imps.’

      ‘But –’

      ‘Forget about the plan. This is better.’ Red dropped Halo to the ground as the donkey passed underneath them, then followed behind, punching the air and shouting.

      The cheers rose louder and louder as the magician, still riding the donkey, approached the City, the crowd trailing behind him like a long cloak. Still sitting in his tree, Flea saw Red say something to one of the magician’s followers – a tall, broad-shouldered man with a face like a twisted root. To his amazement he saw the man turn back, stoop, pick up Crouch and Halo, and carry them off under his arms.

      He felt a jab of jealousy and resentment, but not wanting to be left alone, he dropped from the tree and caught up with the crowd as it streamed towards the Temple.

9

      Flea was a vulture hanging on broad, ragged wings high above the City.

      He was drawn by the stench of blood. His broad wing tips feathered the column of warm, meaty air that roared skywards from the Temple’s fire altar. His keen eyes scanned the courts below and nothing escaped his piercing gaze: the livestock pens to the north where the newly washed lambs glowed white; the high towers and dazzling gold rooftops of the Temple; the crowds that milled in the huge outer court; the gathering press of people in the inner courts; and, right in the middle, the inner sanctuary where the fire blazed and the slaughter floor was wet and red. A dozen lambs slaughtered at a time, a hundred doves; thousands killed in a day. Mountains of flesh, fields of gore, rivers of blood.

      But for what? People never said, but Flea sometimes wondered if the Temple’s invisible god had a vulture’s tastes and greed. Or maybe not quite a vulture, which preferred raw flesh to cooked and was always hungry. Apparently the god of the Temple only visited the Sanctuary once a year. Maybe he didn’t have to eat. Maybe he just liked to smell the meat.

      The rumbling in his stomach brought Flea back to earth when he reached Temple Square. Well, he did have to eat, and one of the reasons he usually kept away from the Temple was that the smells from the fire altar always reminded him of how hungry he was.

      He took stock of the situation from his level, which was approximately halfway up everyone else’s. The magician, his followers and the enormous crowd had disappeared into the Temple, forcing their СКАЧАТЬ