Toby’s new room could not have been more different to the cell he had woken in that morning. He was now in an area of the sanctuary he had not seen before, away from both the cathedral and the rear courtyard, in a villa raised off the ground by stilts. Its sides were open to the sun, light curtains drifted in the sea breeze and the large bed was covered in pillows. In the centre of the room a bath set into the floor was filled with steaming water that scented the air with rosemary and bergamot.
Clean yellow robes hung on the back wall. They were simple, dress-like and floor length, with a wide hood and gold link belt. He would look like Father Dahon.
“Ayla?”
“I hear you.” Ayla’s apartment was so close to his that their billowing curtains occasionally tangled. He heard a splash and then a sigh as she lowered herself into her bath. “Relax, Toby, we’ve got a week before the others arrive to meet us at the festival. Enjoy it.”
“How can you, after what we’ve done?” Toby looked at his hands. His knuckles were scraped and his nails encrusted with dirt and blood. His throat and ears were blistered from the sun.
Slowly he removed his shirt and dropped it on the floor. His chest was still an angry red from the salt and around his stomach the stained bandages were still tightly wrapped.
He looked around him. He seemed to be alone, but in this place, who knew? He undid the bandages and caught the inverter as it fell. Where could he hide it now? There was no burying it here.
Toby still had the fork tine stuck in the hem of his sleeve. He wriggled it out, used it to slit the side of a pillow, slid the inverter inside and pushed it under the pile at the back of the bed. It was the best he could do.
Then he pulled his trousers over his protesting legs and dropped them on the floor. Bruised and aching, he stepped into the water.
Toby laid his head back on the edge of the bath and allowed his muscles to loosen. The water leached the dirt from his skin and grew dark.
Toby closed his eyes. Exhaustion wrapped around him and pressed him against the porcelain. He slept.
Toby’s aches and pains had all but gone. He was dressed in yet another new yellow robe, his feet were bare and his hair had been oiled until it shone. The challenges that had led up to the day of the festival almost seemed a distant dream. But that morning, when he had carefully removed the inverter from his pillow and strapped it to his shoulder with the old bandages, he was well aware that the haze of the last few days had been nothing more than a brief escape from reality.
When they were not being ordered to pray, lectured on their future duties, or being offered fine meals and drinks, Toby and Ayla conversed in soft voices. They were unable to talk openly, due to their endlessly rotating entourage, but managed to speak in code about life on board their ships.
Toby learned that Ayla had collected the beads in her hair in every port she visited and realized that they formed a map of her life, right back to the very first time she stepped on board the Banshee. He learned that, sometimes, the Banshee was so silent that Ayla felt as if she was disappearing, so she would shake her head to hear the clattering and feel real again. He already knew that she loved to fight but he discovered that she saw each kick or strike as a step in a dance and that when she fought she heard a beat.
Toby wasn’t stupid: he knew his feelings for her had grown too big for him to handle. Each time he thought of the day of the festival when they would return to their ships, his heart ached.
And now the day of the festival had arrived.
Toby stood outside his room, refusing to be herded by his entourage of brothers until Ayla emerged. Finally she came out. Her hair had been braided into a complex style and her precious beads shone.
Her long grey robe had silver threads that sparkled as she moved. Toby looked down at his own robe. His had gold woven through the yellow.
Ayla looked at him. “Very … shiny.”
“Back at you.” Toby stared at her boots poking out from under the robe. “You’re wearing those?”
“We tried to tell her,” a sister whispered. He received a knife-sharp glare in return.
Toby picked at a loose thread on his sleeve and heard a small gasp from a sister behind him. He dropped his hand.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked and Ayla nodded. When Hideaki had visited to tend her wounds, she had retrieved her inverter. Toby assumed it was now tucked into one of her incongruous steel-capped boots.
“We must go.” A young sister stepped in front of Toby and gestured towards the corridor. “The festival gifts await your inspection.”
“Praise the Sun,” Toby murmured dutifully.
Ayla reached across and took his hand, squeezing his fingers before pulling away. Toby’s breath caught at the unexpected gesture, then he realized that she had left something in his palm. He closed his hand around it and, as soon as the attendants had turned away from him, he opened his hand and looked at the tiny bluish pill.
This was how Toby would die.
Under the pretext of adjusting his robe, he managed to tuck it into the hole in his sleeve left by the loose thread.
They were guided away from their villas and into the rear courtyard. Toby raised his eyes as the shadow of the cathedral fell over his face. There in the centre was a wagon piled high with pale yellow cloth. Each piece had a small embroidered sun in the centre. Standing beside the wagon was Mother Hesper.
“I thought the sanctuary collected all depictions of the Sun,” he muttered. “Now we’re giving these away?”
“These have been purified,” Mother Hesper said. “That’s why they’re so special. Each pilgrim will be permitted a single depiction of the Sun to help focus their worship over the coming year.”
“So we’re to hand these out, one to each pilgrim?” Toby thought of the inverter. It wouldn’t be too difficult to fold it into a piece of cloth.
“Toby.” Ayla nudged him. Loading a final pile of cloth squares on to the wagon was a familiar figure.
Without thinking, Toby started towards her. “Leila!”
The girl looked up. She had lost weight and her brown eyes had sunk into her sockets.
Leila signalled for Toby to give her his hand.
At first he thought she wanted some kind of blessing, but instead, Leila took his hand and turned it palm up.
Then she started to form letters with her fingernail.
I … a-m … g-l-a-d … i-t … w-a-s … y-o-u.
Suddenly Toby found it difficult to swallow. He nodded to show that he understood and Leila dropped his hand.
“Are you all right?” he whispered. “Are they feeding you?”
Leila gave him a tremulous smile, before the other attendants, at Mother Hesper’s signal, hustled her off.
Ayla stared after her. “They’ll be fine,” she said eventually. “They’re warm, fed, clothed… Some of them came from places where that wasn’t the case.”
Toby sighed. “It doesn’t look like Leila’s eating.”
Mother Hesper loomed at his shoulder. “Many of the most holy choose not to eat. To live on sunlight is the purest form of worship.” She was so close that he could smell her sour breath. “Regardless of her choice, my dear Sun, it does take some time to learn to eat without a tongue.” She rolled back on her heels, pleased with the expression of horror on Toby’s face. Then she pointed towards the steps. “Time to greet your pilgrims. You have until the sun reaches the apex of the sanctuary dome to give out all the gifts.”
“Then what?” Toby didn’t mean to whisper, but he did.
“Then it will be time for you to give a final gift to the Sun – your vision.” Mother Hesper showed her teeth. “Make the most of the sights of today, they will be your last.”