‘Tifereth? Never heard of any place called Tifereth round here.’
Whenever Rahab asked his question, he was greeted with suspicious glances or blank looks.
They had spent the last of Lia’s money on bread, fruit and ale. They had sheltered the night in an empty shepherd’s hut. At sunrise they had finished the bread and fruit and set off up into the mountains.
At first they kept to the shadows. But as the sun climbed higher in the cloudless sky, the shadows dwindled, offering scant shelter from the heat. The track wound on upwards through sun-baked pastures. Rahab walked doggedly on, although he could feel the perspiration trickling down the back of his neck. But Lia had begun to lag behind, and after a while he looked back only to realise that he was toiling on alone. Lia had disappeared.
He retraced his steps to find that she had wandered from the road and flopped down in the shade of a clump of walnut trees.
‘Maybe you’re asking the wrong question,’ she said. She was tracing a pattern with the toe of her shoe in the dust. The air was noisy with the chatter of cicadas.
‘Wrong?’ Rahab, hot and cross, wiped his face with the corner of his shirt. ‘What d’you mean, wrong?’
‘Maybe you call it Tifereth in Arcassanne. But maybe they call it something else up here.’
‘So I just ask if there’s “something else up here”?’ he said. The heat was fraying his temper.
‘It’s a college, isn’t it?’ She picked a grass stem and split it, holding it between her thumbs, trying to blow a note out of it. ‘Ask if there’s a college. A foundation. A place where people study.’ She blew again on the grass and produced a piercing squeak.
To his irritation he realised that she was right. And he did not want to have to admit that he might have been in the wrong.
‘We’d better find this place soon,’ she said. ‘I don’t want another night under the stars. And I want something decent to eat.’
‘Oh, I forgot,’ he said, unable to stop himself, knowing it would provoke her. ‘Demoiselle Maury is not accustomed to hardship or hunger. She has led such a sheltered life.’
‘You haven’t forgiven me yet, have you?’ She glanced up and he saw her eyes had narrowed.
‘For what?’
‘For eating the last of the bread.’
‘You could have split it between the two of us.’
‘It was my money. It was my bread. I was starving.’
‘Oh, and I wasn’t?’
‘Ssh!’ She knelt up, shading her eyes into the sun. ‘Someone’s coming!’
Rahab listened; he could hear the gentle tonkle of bells in the distance. Gazing up the hillside, he saw a herd of mountain sheep grazing their way down the steep pasture.
‘Only sheep,’ he said dejectedly.
The air sizzled with the midday heat. His parched throat burned. He was desperate for a drink. He had hoped there might be a farm along this track where he could ask for a cup of water. Or a mountain stream, running cold and clear from the high peaks …
He tried to put the thought from his mind. The very idea of water was a torture. In his mind the memory of fast-falling rain was still fresh, the shimmer of grey haze streaked by lightning, the hail of raindrops that had guttered from Barakiel’s cloud-feathered wings …
Some of the sheep meandered on to the track, their cloven hoofs kicking up a dustcloud.
A voice, high and shrill as a bird’s, called out and the sheep bleated in reply.
‘There!’ Lia said smugly. ‘Look.’
Rahab looked. Was it the sun beating on his head – or was it the swirling dust, gilded by the sun? A figure was emerging from the dustcloud, coming along the track with the sheep trotting beside him. For an instant Rahab thought he saw a glimmer of angei-light about the figure –
He shook his head to try to clear his blurred sight. The heat must be frying his wits! This was only a boy, a shepherd boy, he guessed, spotting the rough wooden crook he carried.
Rahab walked back out into the glare of the sun.
‘Good-day to you,’ he called, his voice hoarse from thirst.
Dust hazed the air. Rahab put up one hand to cover his eyes as the boy drew near.
‘Good-day,’ the boy replied, smiling. Sheep spread out around him, busily cropping the mountain herbs.
‘Can you help us?’ Rahab noticed the water flask slung on a strap over the boy’s shoulder. ‘We’re lost. We’re looking for a – a college. A place of learning. Have you ever heard of such a place round here?’
The boy grinned at him, a dazzling grin, white teeth in a sunburned face. There was something oddly familiar about his face, with its rough-cut fringe of sun-bleached hair – although Rahab could not identify what it was.
‘The scholars? You’ve come the long way round. You should have gone up the valley and kept in the shade.’
‘But there is a college?’ Rahab was so excited he almost choked on his words. ‘And we’re on the right road?’
‘Keep on up the track until you come to a fork. Take the right down towards the forest. A way further along, you’ll come to a stream. Follow the stream up the mountain. Look out for the watchtower of the ruined castel.’
‘Stream?’ Rahab hardly heard the boy’s last directions in his desperation to find water. ‘There’s a stream?’
‘You look parched,’ the boy said, holding out his water flask. ‘Here. Drink.’
Rahab hesitated.
‘I know where to find more,’ the boy said, grinning again.
Rahab took the flask and tore out the stopper, pouring the water into his mouth. It was so cold, so clean, so sweet …
‘Rahab!’ Lia, seeing the flask, came hobbling over, trying to avoid the sheep.
Rahab lowered the flask, wiping the wet from his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Don’t leave any for me, will you!’
He handed her the flask. She attempted to drink in refined little sips – then, overcome by thirst, tipped her head back and let the water gush down her throat.
‘Thank you,’ she said stiltedly, handing the empty flask back to the boy.
‘Don’t forget – right where the path forks.’ The boy whistled up his sheep. ‘Follow the stream.’ He set off down the winding track, followed by his sheep, and as the dust eddied up about him, he was soon lost to view.
‘Thank you!’ Rahab echoed Lia. His eyes were still fixed on the shimmer of dust where the boy had been. How had he come to disappear from sight so swiftly?
That eerie thrill of recognition he had sensed when he looked into the boy’s face. He had been thinking of Barakiel. And then the boy had appeared, almost as if he had called him. Could he have been –
‘What is it?’ Lia asked sharply.
No. It couldn’t be. Rahab shook his head. ‘Nothing. Nothing … of consequence …’
By the time they reached the stream, the light was beginning to fade and the mountains beyond were coloured an intense rose-gold. There was a stillness in the air, broken only by the rush of the stream waters. Blue shadows darkened the sheer forested slopes of a little hidden valley.
Lia shivered, rubbing her upper arms with her hands.
‘It had better not be far,’ she said. ‘I’m not sleeping out again. There could be – wild things up here. Bears.’
Rahab hardly heard her. As he stood, gazing down at the hidden valley, the only shiver he felt was one of excitement. Tifereth. Were they really so close at last?
‘Come on.’ He forced himself to start walking again. ‘If you want to find somewhere to sleep tonight – somewhere safe from bears.’
She let out a little whimper of fatigue and wearily began to tramp upwards after him.
He supposed he should ignore her complaining; after all, it wasn’t her fault she had led such a sheltered life. She had probably never walked further than the market in Arcassanne; she had probably been carried everywhere else by litter. He did not like to think what state her feet were in by now. He was sure she would tell him.
Over and over again.
The sun was dipping between the high peaks when Rahab caught sight of a jagged tower silhouetted against the gold of the sunset. Perched precariously on the edge of the cliff, it commanded an almost impregnable position above the narrow valley.
‘That’s it?’ Lia said in a wail. ‘But that’s a ruin.’
Twilight shadows darkened the slopes.
The boy said it was here – so it must be here.’ Rahab turned and began to trudge on up the steep track. The walking had rubbed raw blisters on both heels, and his toes were still throbbing from having stubbed them on a hidden stone on the path.
‘How can a college be up here, so far from civilised life?’ Lia grumbled as she trailed after him. ‘Where do they get their food?’
‘They grow their own.’
‘But they’re scholars. They’re supposed to study, not grow vegetables.’
‘I’m sure they find the time to do both,’ Rahab said patiently, feeling as if he was humouring a fractious child.
The path was taking them closer to the side of the valley; looking down into the shadows, he saw that the cliff sheered away to a distant silver sliver of water far beneath.
‘Keep away from the edge,’ he cautioned Lia.
‘Yes, yes …’
‘It’s a sheer drop.’
When she didn’t reply, something made him glance back. She was drifting blindly towards the edge.
Sleep-walking.
He lunged out and grabbed her, dragging her against him away from the ravine. Dislodged stones rattled over the side, cascading down into the brambles far beneath.
‘Get – your hands – off me!’
Dizzy with fatigue, Rahab lost his balance and they both fell down on to the path, Lia beating at him with her fists.
Awake now, she stumbled away from him, breast heaving, glaring.
‘You’re – an animal!’
Rahab lay back on the stony grass and closed his eyes. What did she imagine he had been trying to do?
‘Next time I’ll let you fall.’
She sat down a way off from him, rubbing her ankle.
‘And you hurt my ankle. How can I walk with a twisted ankle?’
Rahab did not bother to reply. Getting to his feet, he went back to the edge of the cliff and forced himself to look down. It was rapidly growing darker and a chill breeze blew from the ravine beneath, wafting a faint, resinous breath of pine-sap.
‘No sign of buildings below.’ He drew back from the edge and started to trudge on up the path. ‘So it must be further up.’
Lia made no comment.
He looked back to see her still sitting where he had left her, a pale blur against the gathering darkness. ‘Surely you’re not going to give up now, Lia? Within sight of the castel?’
‘Within sight of a broken-down ruin.’
‘At least it’ll be somewhere to shelter for the night.’
‘Huh.’ She stood up and began to hobble up the path towards him. ‘Some shelter.’ He was sure she was exaggerating her injury. He would not give her the satisfaction of noticing she was limping.
She can’t help herself. She’s a spoilt little rich girl, Papa’s treasure. Maybe this journey has opened her eyes to the realities of life outside the Merchants’ Quarter … even if it’s almost driven me to insanity …
He stopped again to gaze up at the jagged black outline of the watchtower.
Was that smoke, curling up in a thin, gauzy ribbon against the gold sheen of the twilit sky? He forced himself on, wanting to make certain it was not just a wisp of cloud he had seen.
‘Lia! Lia!’ he shouted. ‘Smoke!’
‘So?’ came the sulky reply. ‘Who cares?’
He pressed on up the path, ignoring the fiery blisters, the stubbed toes – and stopped as the ground levelled out into a grassy ridge. He could just see that in the fading light – set at a distance from the watchtower – stood an ancient, dilapidated castel, its crumbling stones mottled with lichens.
He set out eagerly across the soft, springy turf, hastening his pace, until he stood in the shadow of the walls.
The only sound of human habitation was the distant cackling of chickens; the only sign, the curling smoke.
No one had challenged him.
Surely there must be someone about? Rahab went – more cautiously – towards the gatehouse.
‘It could be a brigand stronghold,’ Lia said, catching up with him. ‘The shepherd boy could be their lookout, sending unwary travellers up here to be robbed and murdered.’
Rahab, one hand upraised to knock at the door, paused. He too had heard stories of ruined mountain castels haunted by brigands …
‘So why has no one stopped us?’
‘They’re waiting for us to go inside. Then they’ll pounce. I’ll bet you the door isn’t barred.’
Rahab knocked. The sound rolled around the twilit ridge, hollow as a drumbeat.
From behind the ancient door, its faded paint cracked and flaking, a man’s voice asked, ‘Who is it?’
‘Travellers. From Arcassanne.’
‘At this hour?’
‘We lost our way.’
‘Do you know where you are? Do you know the name of this place?’
Rahab suddenly sensed he was being tested.
‘Tifereth,’ he said, risking all.
‘And what is Tifereth?’ came back the reply.
Rahab thought back to his studies with Rebh Jehiel.
‘Tifereth is Beauty,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Tifereth is the Sixth Sefirah, Tifereth is at the heart of the Tree of Life.’
‘Come in.’ The heavy door swung slowly open. ‘Come in – and be welcome.’
Cautiously, Rahab crossed the threshold, followed by Lia, who now walked so close to him, she had almost shrunk into his shadow.
A man stood in the courtyard, his arms open wide in greeting.
‘Welcome to the Realm of the Soul,’ he said, smiling. ‘My name is Malakhi.’
Lia stood close to Rahab as curious scholars appeared in the torchlit courtyard, summoned by the man calling himself Malakhi.
Suddenly she found herself surrounded by the Tsiyonim; men, old and bespectacled – and young, with wisps of dark beard. All were wearing fringed shawls. Were there no women here? She edged closer to Rahab, feeling suddenly as if she had wandered into an alien country, clinging to the only familiar person.
The scholars peppered them with questions.
‘Have you come far?’
‘How long have you been on the road?’
‘Was it hard to find your way?’
‘Where have you come from?’
Malakhi raised his hand for silence.
There’ll be time to talk later. Can’t you see our visitors are tired and hungry after their long climb? Rahab, Lia, would you like to share our supper?’
Supper. Lia nodded her head vigorously.
‘Thank you,’ she heard Rahab say. His voice sounded odd, as if he were overcome with emotion. As Malakhi led them across the grassy courtyard, she saw in the torchlight that the tailor’s cheeks were wet with tears.
A few days ago, Lia would not have dreamed of appearing before strangers in a tattered, smelly, travel-stained dress, her skin sunburned, her hair unkempt. Now her hunger was so acute that she did not care who saw her looking such a mess. After a perfunctory splash of water to rub the dirt and perspiration from her sticky face and hands, she was ready and ravenous for supper.
The dining hall was a plain, lime-washed chamber with trestle tables and benches. All the furniture was rough-hewn and had a home-carpentered look. Only the many-branched bronze candlesticks were finely, ornately crafted, a legacy, she guessed, from earlier, more prosperous days.
There were women in the hall, busy laying plates, knives and spoons on the trestles. They nodded to her as she came in. Lia nodded back, suddenly overcome with shyness. She couldn’t help but notice that most were wearing headscarves, twisted in the fashion her mother often favoured around the house. And to her surprise she saw that there were children present: a little girl and a boy of about ten years, carrying in dishes of salad and bread. Children in a college? Astonishment made her completely forget her hunger for a moment. She had assumed that the scholars were celibate. And then Malakhi was ushering everyone to the table. She sat between Rahab and Malakhi, hungrily scanning the laden dishes, reaching out to seize a piece of bread and begin.
‘Baruch atah adonai elohenu …’
Lia felt her face reddening; looking around the table she saw that everyone had bent their heads as Malakhi pronounced words of blessing in a tongue she did not recognise, and the others murmured a response. Rahab had told them nothing but her name; naturally, they would assume she was one of them, that she knew their ways and customs. For a fleeting moment she had felt as if she were amongst friends – and now she knew herself a stranger again. Even the dishes of food on the table looked unfamiliar. Was there some unspoken protocol here as well? She hesitated – remembering tales Papa had told of eating with foreign merchants and their families, remembering how she had laughed as he described his blunders. Now those stories did not seem so funny.
Malakhi turned to her, offering to serve her from the dish in front of him.
‘Vine leaves? Stuffed with rice? They’re very good. We grow all our own fruit and vegetables up here.’
Lia risked a questioning glance at Rahab. Was there any other custom she was unaware of? The smell arising from the dish was delicious, and she felt her stomach ache with emptiness. Then, seeing the scholars enthusiastically helping themselves, she nodded, holding out her plate.
‘Please, please start,’ Malakhi said, passing her the bread.
She needed no further encouragement. The stuffed vine leaves were delicious, and so were the stuffed peppers. After that came fruit: juicy plums, late greengages, sweet and ripe, and peaches.
‘All from our own trees,’ Malakhi said proudly.
‘Listen to him!’ exploded an older man sitting opposite. His hair and fiercely bristling brows were speckled with silver. ‘You’d think he’d grown them himself!’
‘Let me introduce Elon to you,’ Malakhi said. ‘Our authority on orchards. Apples, pears, plums, he knows all there is to know.’
‘If only I did! The blight’s back in the late-fruiting apricot,’ Elon said to Rahab. ‘Any tips?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rahab said, smiling an apology, ‘but I’m a tailor. I know nothing about gardening.’
‘My mother –’ Lia blurted out, and then stopped as everyone looked at her. ‘My mother might be able to help,’ she finished in a small voice, ‘if she were not in Arcassanne.’
‘So what’s the news from Arcassanne?’ asked a woman, an older woman about Zillaïs’s age.
Lia looked at Rahab. The buzz of conversation at the table died and she realised they were all looking expectantly at them.
‘Arcassanne …’ Rahab repeated. There was something in his voice that made Lia glance sharply up at him. She saw a muscle twitch in his face as if he were making an effort to hold back tears. And when he spoke again, his voice was choked with emotion. It’s … a long story.’
‘We’ve got all night to listen,’ Malakhi said. He refilled Rahab’s wine-cup and passed the jug along the table. ‘Speak, Rahab. Tell us what brought you both here.’
Once Rahab began to tell the scholars what had been happening in Arcassanne, he could not stop; memories and details came pouring out in an impassioned, barely coherent flow. It was only when he came to Jaufré’s tearing down of the prayer-shells that he became aware of a rustle of heightened attention around the table. He checked himself, catching Lia’s eye. Thus far he had not once mentioned the amulets, nor had he said anything of Lia’s involvement.
‘So our kinsmen were forced out of their houses into hiding? By this – what did you say his name was?’
‘Jaufré d’Orbiel,’ Rahab said. ‘He has much influence with Comte Aymon. Or so my master Schimeon says.’
‘And he arrested your master?’
‘My master, his eldest daughter and our teacher, Rebh Jehiel. It was Jehiel who said I should come here to ask for your help.’
‘Jehiel!’ Malakhi said, his voice softening. ‘So he’s still alive. I owe him and his wife Miriam a debt of gratitude. They showed me much kindness many years ago …’
‘Miriam died three summers back,’ Rahab said. ‘And I fear for Jehiel’s health. Prison is too harsh a place for a man of his years.’
‘So this Orbiel has our people trapped in the Quarter?’ put in a quavering voice from the end of the table. ‘You say he won’t even let them leave the city? This sounds like Tolonada all over again.’
‘Tolonada?’ Rahab heard Lia repeat under her breath.
‘And what was the excuse there?’ continued the wizened old scholar. ‘Some nonsense about poison in the wells. But the true reason,’ and he wagged his finger at Rahab, ‘was that the First Minister was a practitioner of the Dark Arts. He wanted to learn our secrets.’
‘That was only a rumour, Lamech,’ said Malakhi as a buzz of discussion began at the old man’s suggestion. ‘It was never proven.’
‘It was never proven because everyone was massacred,’ Lamech insisted over the voices of his fellow scholars. ‘And the talisman that he was so keen to seize for himself disappeared.’
Talisman. Rahab glanced at Lia and saw that she was staring at Lamech, her mouth half-open, as if she had been about to say something – and had thought better of it.
‘But how are we to resolve this situation?’ Malakhi asked, calling the arguing scholars to order. ‘Our kinsfolk need our help. We have no army to ride down the mountain and relieve the siege. What was the situation when you left, Rahab?’
Rahab cleared his throat, which had suddenly become tense and tight. This was the part he had been dreading.
‘They – they set fire to the Quarter,’ he said.
‘I told you! Just like Tolonada!’ cried old Lamech over the murmurs of dismay.
‘So – how did you both escape with your lives?’ Malakhi asked, his face stern. ‘How did you know where to find us?’
‘We – we didn’t know where you were. We lost our way. If it had not been for the shepherd boy, we would never have reached you tonight.’
‘Shepherd boy?’ Malakhi said, frowning.
‘Way back, the other side of the hill. He said he knew you.’
Rahab saw the scholars look at each other blankly, exchanging shrugs.
‘We’ve gone to such trouble to conceal our true identity. Yes, we are scholars, this is a college. But to our neighbours, to the landowner from whom we rent this castel, we are merely immigrant farmers from across the mountains in Galicys. The word Tsiyonim has never been mentioned.’
‘You never told us how you escaped,’ said a fresh voice from the far side of the table. Rahab looked and saw a young man sitting beside Lamech, watching him with clear, penetrating eyes. He suddenly felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the clear gaze; almost as if the young scholar had looked into his mind and learned that he was holding something back, something of vital importance.
‘Yes, Bar Talmai,’ Malakhi said, turning back to Rahab. ‘Our guest has not told us how he escaped Orbiel’s soldiers.’
Rahab looked again at Lia and saw her nod – almost imperceptibly – her permission. He took up the wine-cup and drained it, hoping the wine would give him confidence to relate the unrelatable.
‘Rebh Jehiel asked me to bring this to you.’ He reached into the breast of his jacket, brought out the folded scrap of cloth in which he had wrapped the amulets and laid it on the table. There was just the faintest shock of sensation in his fingertips as he touched them … but nothing more. Slowly, he pulled back the protective folds of cloth until the two sections of amulet were revealed, their metallic enamel sheen gleaming in the candlelight, like the carapaces of two exotic beetles glinting in the sun.
The room fell silent. All the scholars stared at the amulet fragments. It was so still that Rahab could hear the hoot of an owl swooping across the courtyard.
‘Two Guardian Amulets?’ Malakhi said, his voice hushed. His long, slender fingers rested on the table-top but Rahab could sense that he longed to reach out, to touch them.
‘Barakiel,’ read out Elon, ‘and Rashiel.’
Barakiel. The pronouncing aloud of the name of his Guardian sent an involuntary shiver down Rahab’s spine.
‘You used the amulets?’ The clear voice of Bar Talmai broke the silence. How could the young scholar know what he had done? Had he read his mind? Or was his guilt all too easy to read in his eyes?
They were all staring at Rahab now. He could not find his voice to reply.
‘Well?’ Malakhi said. ‘Did you?’
‘Rahab cast his eyes down, ashamed. He felt as if he had committed a terrible sacrilege. Now he was to be punished for daring to transgress their Holy Laws.
‘It was the only way to save them,’ he heard his voice saying. ‘The storm put out the fires in the Quarter. But it … it ruined the harvest. I did not realise how powerful …’ His voice trailed away.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he found himself gazing into Malakhi’s frank, sun-burned face.
‘But the Guardian chose you.’
Rahab nodded.
‘ “Blood of the pure, blood of the innocent”,’ quoted Lamech. Rahab started; he had heard those words before, in a very different context.
‘But we have two amulets here. If one was Jehiel’s – where did the other come from?’
‘From my mother,’ Lia said. Until this moment, she had kept – unusually, Rahab thought – her silence. But now all the scholars turned their attentions to her.
‘And who is your mother?’ asked the woman, Selima.
‘Zillaïs, daughter of Ithamar of Tolonada,’ Lia said, faltering.
‘Ithamar’s grandchild!’ Lamech cried out gleefully. ‘But Ithamar and his children drowned. In the tidal wave that followed the earthquake.’
‘My – my mother was rescued.’
Rahab saw Lia staring at the old man.
‘You said this amulet was … was Rashiel.’
‘Bringer of Earthquakes, yes.’
‘You mean – my grandfather used the amulet? To save them? And … the earthquake led to a tidal wave – and they were all drowned? All – all the ones he meant to save?’ Lia clapped her hand to her mouth as though trying to stifle the words.
‘Not quite all. I got away,’ Lamech said, ‘or I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. Until today, we believed the Rashiel amulet to be lost. Deep under the ocean.’
‘Oh,’ said Lia, very softly. ‘Ohh.’
‘Suppose this Orbiel is a practitioner of the Dark Arts?’ Lamech insisted. ‘Suppose he’s trying to find these amulets?’
‘What do you know of the man?’ Malakhi asked.
‘Of Jaufré d’Orbiel?’ Lia said, frowning. ‘He’s a poet, a soldier, he’s travelled … he was in Djihan-Djihar with my betro –’ She broke off.
‘Djihan-Djihar?’ Malakhi exchanged glances with the other scholars. ‘Do you think it’s possible he might have –’
‘Anything’s possible,’ said Selima grimly.
‘And you’re sure no one’s come after you? No one’s followed you?’ Malakhi asked Rahab.
‘Or, more to the point, no one’s noticed you’ve gone,’ said Lamech.
Lia nudged Rahab hard in the ribs. ‘Remember?’ she whispered. ‘What I overheard at the Aude Gate. About my being “abducted”?’
Rahab tried to remember. But the events of that night remained veiled in a cloudy blur of exhaustion; he could not even recall how they had reached the riverboat.
‘You think Jaufré d’Orbiel may … may be after the amulets?’ he asked uncomfortably.
Malakhi rose to his feet.
‘We need to give this matter very careful consideration,’ he said. ‘Let’s not act hastily. We’ll review the situation in the morning. You must be tired after your journey. Let us show you to your rooms. Lia, will you go with Selima? Rahab – Bar Talmai will take charge of you.
‘And the amulets?’ Rahab’s hand hovered.
‘I will place them in the Sanctuary for safe-keeping.’
A feeling of deep unease settled over Rahab. He had carried the amulets next to his heart since they left the Gorge. To be separated from them now seemed like … like losing a part of himself. He became aware that Bar Talmai was standing, waiting for him. But still he lingered, unwilling to relinquish the amulets.
‘Don’t worry.’ Malakhi said. ‘They will be safe in the Sanctuary. Much safer than they ever were in Arcassanne.’
Rahab nodded. He knew he must trust Malakhi. But as he watched the scholar wrap the amulets in silk with reverent fingers he felt a sense of rising disquiet, of disorientation …
He reached out towards Malakhi, wanting, needing to keep hold of the Barakiel amulet – no, his amulet, it was a part of him now; without it he felt incomplete.
‘Come,’ said a light, clear voice behind him.
Rahab turned and saw Bar Talmai patiently standing waiting in the soft light. Behind him Selima was snuffling out the candles, one by one, murmuring the words of the evening prayer.
Seeing the pattern of light and shadow on Bar Talmai’s face, hearing the familiar murmured words, Rahab blinked, cast back years without number to his house in Galicys, remembering his mother extinguishing the evening candles whilst his father patiently watched her with the same scholarly stillness and intensity he saw now in Bar Talmai. If Shaoni had grown to manhood, he would be about the same age as this young scholar. Could Talmai be …? For one moment Rahab found himself wondering, wishing … and then put the thought firmly from his mind. What was the point in wishing? He would never find Shaoni now. Shaoni was dead.
‘Your room is next to mine. East-facing. The sun will wake you early.’
Rahab yawned, stretching.
‘Don’t worry – nothing will wake me!’