A drop of moisture splashed on to Rahab’s face. He huddled down in his blanket. Another drop, icily cold, splashed down.
‘Why doesn’t Schimeon get the roof mended?’ he mumbled sleepily. And then, opening his eyes wide, he looked up and saw the ivied roof-joists above, crisscrossed against a pale sheen of ice-blue sky.
He sat up, stifling a groan as his stiff limbs creaked. Why had he fallen asleep? He had meant to keep watch.
Talmai lay curled asleep beside him. Rahab looked down at him. Asleep, Talmai looked so young, so defenceless. It was difficult to believe that only hours ago he had brought devastation to the mountainside, had sent men hurtling to their deaths over the side of the ravine.
And now the snow was melting. The random drips were fast becoming a steady patter; it was time to go back to Tifereth before the thaw drenched them.
Rahab leaned forward to touch Talmai’s shoulder to rouse him. And paused a moment, wanting to check again the birthmark he had discovered last night – yet not wanting to draw Talmai’s attention to it.
He sat back on his heels, looking at Talmai’s face, trying again to match the features to his faded memories of his mother, his father …
‘What is it?’ mumbled Talmai crossly.
‘The thaw’s set in. We’d better go back.’
‘N-no … I’ll stay here … You go.’
Rahab tried to remember his own exhaustion after Barakiel had abandoned him. His memory was blurred; all he knew was that he had slept for countless hours hidden in the Maurys’ cellar.
He tapped Talmai’s shoulder again, firmly this time.
‘You may not want to break your fast but I’m starving. And if we stay here, we’ll get soaked to the skin.’
‘Who cares?’ murmured Talmai.
‘All right!’ Rahab said with a sigh. ‘If that’s the way it is … He pulled Talmai’s arm around his shoulder. ‘On the count of three, we stand up. Ready? One, two, three …’
Lia yawned again until her jaw cracked. The wick was smouldering in the lamp beside Berengar’s bed. It wasn’t worth trimming now, for the first, dull light of dawn had begun to penetrate the cracks in the shutters; she would let it burn itself out.
She had kept vigil beside Berengar’s bed all night … but now exhaustion threatened to overcome her. Her head began to droop … She forced herself awake, sitting back, stiffly upright, in the hard-backed wooden chair. She must not fall asleep! Suppose Berengar should need her?
Or Rahab …?
There had been something about the way Rahab had looked at her when he bade her farewell that had made her stomach flutter as if invaded by a flock of butterflies.
What was she doing even thinking of Rahab when Berengar lay here so seriously injured? She must stay alert, ready to respond if he regained consciousness …
She tried to stifle another yawn.
Must stay awake.
Her head drooped lower, lower …
She is standing beside the sea on a long, empty stretch of sand, pale sand, white as crushed pearls.
Smoke billows across the shore, acrid, bitter smoke. She turns – and sees a city in flames behind her. Distant cries reach her through the smoke, faint as the keening cry of gulls far overhead.
The ground shakes beneath her feet, flinging her down on her face in the pale sand.
From out of the smoke-choked sky comes swirling a vast presence; dust and molten fire rain down on the city from its fast-beating wings. The earth trembles, the walls of the city crack and crumble. Terrified, Lia gazes up into the heart of the turbulence. And sees a figure materialising, falling to earth, tumbling on to the white shore.
From this distance she cannot be certain … but there is something familiar about the slender, wild-haired figure …
And now there comes a roar of churning waters. Looking behind her, Lia sees the grey sea boiling, gathering itself in one great foam-crested wave, higher than the highest spire in Arcassanne.
The beach is water, the sky is water, as the monstrous wave comes crashing down.
‘Help me!’ she cries, arms outstretched, imploring. ‘I’m – I’m drowning –’
At last the figure slowly turns, and she sees with a shock of recognition that it is her mother.
‘Lia.’ Zillaïs holds out her cupped hands. ‘This is for you.’
Muddy quicksand is sucking her down; water crashes over her head, a cold, winter drowning-tide.
‘Help me –’ she gasps.
‘Take it. You must take it.’
Zillaïs places something in her hands. It is a shell, a prayer-shell, smooth as ivory –
‘Mother?’ Lia cried, and opened her eyes to find the scholar Jorah staring sternly down at her.
‘You were asleep,’ he said accusingly.
Lia blinked. She was still mired in the quicksand of her dream, disoriented, uncertain where she was. Her mouth was dry and foul with the taste of the choking mud.
‘Have you been checking his progress as I asked you?’
She looked down at her empty hands. She could still feel the contours of the amulet-shell, worn smooth by the passing of time. What did it mean? Had Zillaïs been Rashiel’s Warder? Was this the secret her mother had lived with all these years? That she, not Ithamar, had caused the destruction of Tolonada?
‘Well?’ demanded Jorah.
‘No change,’ she said. Her voice came out muzzy. This was not the time to puzzle over a dream.
‘I need to change his dressings,’ Jorah said. ‘Selima’s busy. You’ll have to help me instead.’
Still half-asleep, Lia nodded. What she really wanted now was a mug of Emmenza’s hot spiced tea: apple, cinnamon and ginger. And fresh bread.
‘You’re not squeamish, I hope,’ Jorah said, pulling back the sheet, revealing Berengar’s bruised, broken body beneath. ‘You’re not going to faint?’
‘Do I look the sort of girl who faints?’ Lia snapped back.
‘And you’re not going to complain that your modesty is offended? For I’m going to have to cut away these nethergarments.’
In truth, the sight of the dried, oozed blood had begun to make her feel a little queasy. But stronger still was the sense of utter helplessness in the face of such terrible injuries; she had always believed Berengar to be indestructible. And she was damned if she’d let Jorah see her show the slightest sign of weakness.
‘Give me the knife, Jorah,’ she said, putting out her hand, palm upwards. ‘I’ll do the cutting for you.’
At the door of the watchtower, Rahab stopped to get his breath. Talmai slid slowly down towards the ground; Rahab, leaning against the wall, let him lie there.
Outside, the light of the rising sun sparkled on the wide expanse of melting snow, a dazzle of ice and water, bright as crushed diamonds. Above, the sky was a swathe of palest blue silk, the last fleeting ribbons of cloud tinged with gold.
Golden cloud, Rahab thought, remembering a distant day in Arcassanne. Wasn’t it a spool of Golden Cloud thread the child Jacou brought me that day from old Sorel the Silk Merchant?
The child … whom he had found lying dead on the workshop doorstep, the golden-haired child who had reminded him so vividly of lost Shaoni.
His gaze slid from snowfields to the corner where Talmai slumped against the mossy wall.
‘Shaoni?’ he said softly. ‘Shaoni?’
Talmai mumbled something inaudible in reply.
It might just have been a response to the sound of his voice. An instinctive reaction. Now was not the time to go into family history.
‘Come on, then, whoever you are,’ he said, heaving Talmai to his feet again. ‘Let’s get going.’
‘Stay here,’ murmured Talmai. ‘Too tired …’
They set out across the slush. Talmai leaned so heavily on his shoulder that Rahab wondered if he could support him all the way back to the castel. Far above, the high mountain crags glistened with snow. But the sparkling air was utterly still; there was no sound of dawn birdsong or buzzing insects.
Something crunched hard in the slush under Rahab’s foot. He looked down – and let out a soft cry of dismay. The fast-melting snow had revealed the stiffened corpses of little birds and the shells of cicadas, frozen to death in the sudden chill of the blizzard.
‘Shalgiel’s harvest,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, Talmai, Talmai, what have you done?’
*
Rahab gazed up at the castel walls and almost lost his balance as Talmai sagged heavily against him. Malakhi was waving to him from the battlements, his white hair silvered by the sparkling sun.
‘We’ll come down and help you!’
‘Good,’ Rahab muttered. ‘About time too.’ He was sweating with the effort of supporting Talmai, a hot, soaking sweat, and his legs were trembling with fatigue.
The castel gate was tugged open and Malakhi and Elon came squelching out to meet them across the glistening slush.
‘You’re safe,’ Malakhi cried, hugging the young man. ‘Thank the Lord you’re safe.’
‘Well done,’ Elon said gruffly to Rahab. ‘We feared we’d never get him back.’
Rahab felt a sudden pang of envy; Talmai might have lost his blood-family but he had found in Malakhi a second father who loved him as dearly as if he had been his own son. And much though Rahab had come to care for Schimeon, he had always been his indentured apprentice; there had always been the distance of servant and master between them.
‘What’s this?’ Malakhi touched the gash on Talmai’s head. Talmai shied away. ‘A head wound? We’d better have Jorah take a look at him.’
Melting icicles dripped from the eaves of the castel roofs as Rahab tramped across the muddy courtyard behind Malakhi and Talmai.
What he really wanted right now was a long soak in a steaming-hot tub. But everyone was so busy mopping up after the blizzard that he suspected no one would have time to heat the water for him. In Arcassanne, he would just have strolled down the street to the Bath House where the water was hot at all hours and the brown soap smelt of rosemary oil.
No bath, then. Even though he was dirty, aching, stinking of sweat. And all because of Talmai.
He trudged up the steps and entered the castel.
Talmai.
If only he could stop thinking about that faded whorl of tattoo-pricks stained red and blue he had discovered last night behind Talmai’s ear. Had he dreamt it? Had he been so desperate to find lost Shaoni that he had begun to imagine connections where none existed?
He stopped outside Talmai’s room, seeing Jorah bending over the bed, busy cleaning the gash on Talmai’s head.
Had no one else in Tifereth ever discovered the birthmark? Had no one else ever asked what it signified? Jehiel had recognised it straight away. Was it known only to the sons of the Tribe of the Chazhaelim? Or had Malakhi seen it – and sought to hide the truth from Talmai, wanting to keep his adopted son from the pain of his past?
Maybe it was better to let the past be, to forget what he had seen. And yet, if it was true, how could he ignore it? How could he walk away from his own brother?
Jorah came out of Talmai’s room, carrying his box of tinctures and bandages.
‘How is he?’ Rahab asked.
‘Remarkably well,’ Jorah said, ‘considering the stresses his body has undergone.’
‘Can I go in?’
‘Just for a few minutes.’ Jorah said punctiliously. ‘He needs rest. I’m going to mix a draught to help him sleep.’
Talmai lay on the narrow bed, eyes closed. Rahab hesitated, wondering if he should creep away without disturbing him. He had reassured himself that he was all right; he could return later …
Talmai’s eyes suddenly opened and stared at Rahab, then slewed away, as if deliberately ignoring him.
‘I knew what the risks were,’ Talmai said. He stared straight ahead. ‘I had no wish to endanger others. I made my choice – I expected to deal with the consequences. You had no business coming after me.’
Rahab did not know what to say to this. It was not at all what he had expected.
‘I’m a grown man, a scholar. I was capable of looking after myself.’
‘I only thought you might be hurt. When I heard you calling –’
‘Nobody asked you to play the hero. Nobody asked you to go risking your life to find me. So don’t expect me to thank you, to be grateful.’
‘But I didn’t come here for thanks –’ Rahab began stumblingly. ‘I-’
Talmai’s eyes fixed on his; they glittered with the grey sheen of winter ice.
‘You know what I mean,’ he said. ‘Don’t expect it to make any difference between us. Understand me?’
Jorah reappeared, carrying a phial filled with a dark liquid.
‘I think you’d better go now,’ Talmai said, each word hard as a chip of ice.
Rahab backed away.
Life as a Tsiyonim apprentice had accustomed him to slights and cuffs – but he had been completely unprepared for such an unprovoked assault.
He went hurrying out through the courtyard, not heeding the greetings of the scholars he passed, dashing wildly on until he could be sure he was well away from prying eyes.
At the back of the castel, the crumbling boundary wall ran almost to the edge of the ravine; the cliff-face dropped away into the deep wooded valley far beneath.
Rahab sank down, back against the wall. Talmai’s rejection had hit him with the full force of a punch in the stomach: at first he was too dazed, too winded to notice the hurt. Now his whole being smarted.
What had he done wrong? What had he said to deserve such a rebuff? Why was Talmai so angry with him?
The revelation struck as violently as one of Barakiel’s lightning shafts.
Talmai did recognise him. And maybe he didn’t like what he saw, maybe he didn’t want to be the brother of Rahab, the tailor’s apprentice; he wanted to retain the glamour of his cloak of anonymity, his lack of identity. Maybe he had constructed a fantasy brother in his mind, an impossibly erudite, heroic and powerful brother who would come striding back to claim him. And the real Rahab ben Chazhael had proved a considerable disappointment.
And worse still, maybe Talmai hated him for abandoning him in Galicys. Maybe he thought he had done it on purpose, out of brotherly spite –
Little children were like that; he had seen Thirzah furious at some imagined slight, at first uncomprehending, then utterly inconsolable.
Galicys. The pine-covered crags, the misty blue of the clear sky dissolved, and Rahab found himself flung back into the burning streets of his home city.
Fires light the sky. Everywhere smoke, choking smoke, and the acrid smell of burning. People fighting, pushing, stampeding to escape.
‘Stay with me!’ Rahab cries, trying to hold on to his little brother’s hand.
A floodtide of people breaks, the force pulling them, tugging them apart.
‘Mama!’ The little one twists and cries, panicked. ‘Where are you, Mama?’
He jerks his hand free – and the crowd sweeps him away. Dazed, Rahab can only stand and gaze numbly at his empty hand.
Rahab blinked. He was still staring down at his hand, a man’s hand now, hardened and callused by years of pushing a needle through cloth.
Shaoni had trusted him. How could a child that young understand what had happened that night? He would remember nothing but his fear. He would only remember that his brother had not held on to his hand, had abandoned him.
Could he undo the damage done by those lost years? Could Talmai ever come to forgive him?
Rahab covered his face with his hands. And something small and scrumpled fell out of his sleeve. He leaned forward to pick it up and saw that it was the stained felt of the rabbit puppets which he had absent-mindedly scrunched together into a ball after handing the retrieved amulets into Malakhi’s care.
He began to straighten out the crumpled felt, trying to smooth back some semblance of their original shape. One frayed eye stared rakishly up at him. In his mind he heard the faint laughter of Iudith and Thirzah, saw them doubled up, giggling at the silly antics of the two ‘mossieus’.
And suddenly his eyes misted over and the rabbit’s stitched features blurred. He had not realised till then how much he missed his adoptive family. He might not have been able to be a brother to Shaoni – but he had tried to do his best for the little girls.
A hot breeze stirred the pine branches in the ravine far below, wafting up a resinous whisper … and another sound, the faint, plaintive sound of a child crying.
He listened, trying to determine where the crying was coming from. Perhaps one of the children had fallen and hurt themselves. And no one else was around this side of the castel to hear them.
He rose, still listening, and followed the sound of the crying. It was quiet crying, interrupted by sniffs and sad little sighs. What was it Chadassah used to say? ‘I know they’re all right if they open their mouths and scream at the top of their voices. It’s the silence that brings your heart to your mouth …’
The crying drew him to the very edge of the cliff, below the tumbledown wall. Huddled in a heap, was Jael, Selima’s little daughter, her shoulders heaving with racking sobs.
‘What’s wrong?’ Rahab asked.
‘Go away!’ she said fiercely.
‘Are you hurt? Did you fall over?’
Slowly she raised her head until he could see that her puckered face was red and stained with crying. ‘I hate him,’ she said in a gasp. ‘He won’t let me play. He called me a – a baby.’ The tears began again.
‘That was very unkind of him,’ Rahab said, wondering which of the children had so upset Jael.
‘He never lets me join in. Just ‘cause he’s older than me. I hate him!’
‘Your brother?’
Jael nodded, tears still spurting from her eyes. Rahab reached into his pocket, searching for his kerchief. His hand encountered the rabbits. He wondered … and then wriggled one hand into the red puppet, the other into the brown. The rabbits confronted each other, nose to nose.
‘Guess what these are,’ he said.
‘Don’t know. Rats,’ she said disconsolately.
‘Rats! We’re rabbits, I’ll have you know,’ Rahab said in the voice of the red rabbit.
‘You’re never rabbits,’ Jael said, turning her head away. ‘Your ears are all wrong.’
‘They’re brothers,’ Rahab said. ‘They like each other really. But they can’t get on. They fight over things.’
‘What sort of things?’ Curious now, she sat up, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
‘Oh, the usual … carrots and suchlike.’
He saw a shadow of a smile in her eyes.
‘What are their names?’
‘Names?’ Thirzah and Iudith had never named them; he thought for a moment and then said, ‘You choose.’
‘This one,’ she said, touching the brown puppet, ‘is Smudge because he’s got dirt on his nose. And the red – is Cross-Eyes.’
Rahab squinted down his nose at Cross-Eyes, making Cross-Eyes squint back.
‘My sight is perfect!’ objected Cross-Eyes. ‘I don’t know what those two little girls can possibly mean.’
‘Two?’ echoed Jael. The shy smile had broadened into a delighted grin.
‘And I haven’t got a dirty nose,’ put in Smudge, ‘I was just snuffling around looking for a carrot –’
‘Carrot?’ Cross-Eyes turned on Smudge, squashed ear flapping. ‘So it was you who stole my carrot!’
Jael burst into a sudden peal of laughter. ‘One carrot?’ she said. ‘Or two?’
Rahab made Cross-Eyes go searching around the wall.
‘Thief!’ he cried. ‘Now they’ve all gone!’
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding.’
Rahab, red-faced, glanced up and saw Selima watching him. Her lips were pressed together – but he thought he caught the glint of a smile in her eyes.
‘Don’t stop, don’t stop!’ cried Jael.
What must Selima think? Here he was, making a complete fool of himself. Now his credibility as a Guardian Warder was ruined forever.
‘Mama’s been looking everywhere for you, Jael.’ Selima held out her hand to the little girl. ‘I was worried. Why didn’t you stay with Laban?’
Jael stuck out her tongue, pulling a face.
‘Here, Jael,’ Rahab said, taking off the glove-puppets and offering them to her. ‘You can help them sort out their quarrel.’
Jael beamed at him and eased the puppets on.
‘It’s been hard, bringing these two up on my own,’ Selima said, gazing out into the pure blue of the mountain sky. ‘Jael never knew her father. Laban doesn’t really remember. He was only three when Jaered died.’
‘I – I’m sorry,’ Rahab said. Her candour took him by surprise. ‘How did he die?’
‘Avalanche,’ she said. ‘My Jaered was a dreamer. Not very practical, not used to the mountain ways. Malakhi has been kind to us, allowing us to stay on …’
‘Smudge is being naughty,’ announced Jael. ‘He hit Cross-Eyes.’
‘Then he’ll have to go without his dinner,’ Rahab said in a voice of great severity.
‘You hear that, Smudge?’ Jael asked the puppet. ‘No dinner for you!’
‘You’ve got a way with children,’ Selima said, smiling at Rahab. ‘Do you have a family of your own back in Arcassanne?
‘Me? Oh no. No …’ He was flustered now, recognising what lay behind the seemingly innocent question. She was asking him if he was single. Unattached. Available. ‘I – um – I helped look after my master’s children.’
‘If you stay here in Tifereth, you can be your own master,’ she said softly. Her eyes reflected the colour of the mountain sky, startlingly blue in her sun-browned face, yet her brows and lashes were brown and gold, as was the stray strand of hair she tucked back beneath her plaited headscarf.
‘My own master? That has its attractions,’ he said, smiling back at her. He had never been so openly propositioned before and he had to admit that he was rather flattered. His first impressions of Selima had been of a strong, self-sufficient woman, proud of her independence. Now he glimpsed someone much younger, two or three years older than him at most. Married at seventeen, widowed at twenty, twenty-one …
‘Besides,’ she said, ‘I’ve never been much good with a needle. And though I’ve tried to train them to look after themselves, these scholars have their heads in the clouds. It’d be nice to have someone to take care of all that.’ She placed her hand on his, gently pressing to emphasise her sentiments. It was a simple gesture, the touch of hands between friends, no more … although Rahab was aware that it had the potential to lead to something altogether less innocent.
‘Selima –’ Jorah came around the corner. He stopped, seeing the two sitting together, hands touching. A swift succession of emotions flashed across his face, like wind-driven clouds on a stormy day.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.
‘Talking,’ Selima said coolly. ‘Is there a Holy Law against two people talking together?’
‘A man and woman talking here alone,’ Jorah said, his voice strangely choked, ‘that could be misinterpreted.’
‘Obviously only by you,’ Selima said. Her manner had become formal – and she did not remove her hand from Rahab’s.
Rahab felt distinctly uncomfortable; the instant he saw Jorah’s expression change, he suspected there must be some understanding between Jorah and Selima … and that the attachment was evidently stronger on Jorah’s part. And from his brief acquaintance with the doctor, Rahab had observed that Jorah was a humourless, inflexible man, unlikely to tolerate a rival.
‘I’d better be getting back,’ he said, hastily getting to his feet.
‘What about Cross-Eyes and Smudge?’ Jael asked, lower lip beginning to droop again.
‘Would you like to take care of them for me?’ Rahab said. ‘For tonight?
‘Yes, yes!’ Jael went dancing off, a puppet on each fist.
Jorah came striding after Rahab, planting himself in front of him, blocking his way.
‘Don’t sneak off, Ben Chazhael, I’ve something to say to you.’
Rahab shot him a weary glance. He supposed he’d have to hear the man out, if only for Lia’s sake. There was no point in antagonising the only doctor in Tifereth capable of healing Berengar.
‘Make it short, will you? I’m tired.’
‘I think it would be better for Tifereth if you moved on. Don’t you?’
‘Better for Tifereth – or for you?’ Rahab said. He was damned if he’d let Jorah bend the truth to suit his argument.
‘This was a peaceful community until you arrived. Look at the havoc you’ve caused.’
‘I’ve caused? Look, Jorah. Say what you really want to say.’
‘All right. You want plain speaking?’ Jorah drew himself up to his full height, looking down on Rahab. ‘Then here it is. Stay away from Selima. Is that plain enough? Stay away.’
‘Fine.’ Rahab nodded. A few paces on, he turned and said over his shoulder, ‘I’ll stay away from her. But … what if she doesn’t stay away from me?’
It was a foolish jibe – but he just couldn’t resist it. Jorah came after him.
‘No, Jorah!’ Selima caught up with Jorah, taking hold of him by the arm. ‘Will you stop interfering in my life? What I do, who I talk to, that’s my business.’
Rahab did not wait to hear Jorah reply, but hastened on out of earshot. In Arcassanne Schimeon had often warned him that women would confide secrets to their tailors and dressmakers that they did not share with their husbands. And jealous husbands, Tsiyonim or Gentile, were bad for business.
If he had been in Arcassanne, he could have laughed the whole incident off, could have decorated it as a good tale to tell in the workroom: the pretty widow, the handsome young tailor and the jealous doctor. But this was Tifereth. Tifereth, named for the central sphere at the very heart of the Tree of Life. He had cherished secret hopes of finding a resolution to the troubles that beset him in Arcassanne. And all he had done was uncover problems, more problems.
Perhaps Jorah was right. Perhaps his presence had disturbed the equilibrium of Tifereth. Perhaps he should quietly pack his few possessions … and leave.