Resurrection (Blood of the Lamb) (24 page)

If he returned today as promised, she figured he'd not arrive until at least midday, and so she set about scrubbing the interior of the yacht—her surprise gift for his homecoming. The physical activity helped to tamp down her jitters and to distract her racing mind. She washed the black blooms of mould out of the corners of the cabin and wiped away the greasy crust of salt, imagining Lazarus's excitement when he heard how well she'd coped the day before. It was still only really starting to sink in—that this terrible confrontation she'd feared for so long was over now. Others could take up the cause, leaving her at last to forge some kind of peaceful life. The possibilities suddenly seemed endless: settling in Motirawa, perhaps; or maybe, if her luck had really changed, her father might forgive her and welcome her back home. She beamed at the thought. One day soon.

She was emptying a bucketload of dirty water over the side of the yacht when she heard something above the water's splash. Startled, she stopped and listened intently. There it was again!

“Maryam!”

Lazarus was back!
Thank you, thank you
. She ran along the
exposed pathway to greet him, bursting to tell him her good news and find out what had happened on the ship.

He was still standing outside when she broke free of the cave.

“You're here!” she said, smiling so wide she could feel her cheeks squeeze into the space under her eyes. He looked especially pale, as if he'd not slept well, and said nothing as he held out his hands to her. She took them both, pulling him into a happy embrace. “Have you heard? It all went—”

Before she could finish, he pressed his lips onto hers, so suddenly she almost pulled away. But there was something in the softness of his kiss, something so intangibly coy and tender that she gave herself over to it, surprised how different it felt from the hard kisses he'd forced upon her in their past—and so different, too, from Joseph's, the only other kisses she'd ever known.

When he pulled his mouth away she felt dizzy, barely noticing as he breathed three little words into her ear. “I'm so sorry.”

She laughed at his wounded puppy face, amazed by her eager reception of his lips. It must just be the excitement, the joy that everything had—

A dozen burly servers emerged from the bushes and circled them.

Holy Father in Heaven, what has Lazarus done? He must've brought them here. He must've known.

She struck out at him, punching him so hard on his forearm that her knuckles ached. All she could do was stare into his face, open-mouthed, as one of the men seized and bound her. Lazarus would not look up from his feet. Would not meet her eyes. He simply dropped into a squat and hid his treacherous face behind his trembling hands.

“How could you do this?” She could barely hear her own words over the furious roaring in her ears. Kissed and betrayed. So stupid. So incredibly stupid to have dropped her guard.

Now one of the servers kicked Lazarus on his backside. “Get up. It's time we left.”

Still not able to look at her, Lazarus stood up to have his own hands bound as well. Only when the servers had thrust them both toward the path back to the village did he finally glance into the fire of her glare.

“Please believe me, I had no choice.”

She didn't know what to say to him, didn't even know if his words were real. Perhaps she'd merely conjured them up in some vain attempt to explain away this inexplicable act? But she had no time to question his sincerity. All she knew now was that both she and Lazarus were being bundled along the rocky track—straight back toward the Holy City,
Star of the Sea
.

For the first three-quarters of the journey the captives were kept apart. Maryam's head was bursting with outrage and fury.
What a Judas!
After everything they'd been through, the notion that Lazarus would expose her just as she made some headway was nothing short of unbelievable. Why encourage her to forfeit all chance of a peaceful return to Onewēre if he had no commitment to the plan himself? She just couldn't understand it—and daren't think about what now lay in store.

When they finally traversed the mangroves and began the approach to Kakaonimaki village along the jungle track, her captors called a halt. They ordered Maryam to sit down by a large tree fern, then shackled her to its prickly trunk by a rope tethered to her ankle. Then they released her hands to allow her fruit and water. The move confused her. Why were they bothering to sustain her if she was doomed to die? It made no sense. But she was loathe to assume any hope in such an act, fearing it meant that Father Joshua needed her alive just long enough to restore his exalted position through some ritual humiliation before he took her life.

Lazarus, too, was promptly released, but he remained free to move around and he approached her now, squatting down beside her as the guards looked on. His face had gained no colour, despite the exertion of their walk, and dark circles stood out beneath his eyes. He stared at her so intently she turned her head away.

“Maryam, please. Let me explain.”

Try as she might she could not contain her anger. She spun back around, annoyed to feel tears well up in her eyes. “Good job. I actually trusted you. How stupid is that?”

“Listen. You don't understand. When word of your claims reached Father, he just went wild. He was going to send someone to kill you straight away.”

“And I'm supposed to be thankful you've spun this out? Were you worried you wouldn't get a chance to watch?”

Lazarus slammed his hands down on his knees. “For heaven's sake, give me some credit.”

“Why?”

“It's not what you think. My mother put her foot down—insisted you be brought back to tell her of the cure. She wants to know, Maryam. She really does. Father agreed to bring you back safely, and she believed him, but Mother Elizabeth told me she overheard him plotting with these men—” he swept his hand toward her captors, implicating them—“to organise a fatal “accident” somewhere along the track. The only way I could think to stop them was to insist I came along as well.”

For a moment Maryam was silent as she processed everything he'd said, watching him peel away a jagged strip of nail from his thumb. Eventually the furious words that had been spinning around inside her head while she was walking took vent. “Good try, but there are holes as big as the cave in your charming little speech. Number one: they bound your hands as well, so obviously you've got as little leverage as me—unless, of course, that was some kind of nasty game to hide your guilt. Number two: Mother Elizabeth is as big a traitor in her dealings with me as you are. And, number three: what makes you think your presence here would stop them carrying out your father's plan? You
think they'd give a care for that? And, one more thing. How stupid do you really think I am? You were the only one who knew exactly where I was hiding…”

Lazarus sprang back up to his feet, causing the guards to halt their whispered conversation and watch closely, ready to intervene. “Okay,” he snapped. “If you want to play it that way…” He paced before her, marking off the first of the points on his gnawed index finger. “Number one: the only way Father would allow me to come was if I was bound as well. He's madder than all hell at me. I had to bribe these servers with promises of extra toddy so they'd release me now.”

“How convenient. Perhaps I should offer them a virgin Sister so they'll set me free as well?”

“The Lord control me…there are times I'd truly like to wring your neck.” He turned his back on her, his bony shoulders heaving as he sucked in several deep breaths.

“Spare yourself the trouble…your father has first shot.”

He spun back, jabbing at his middle finger. “Number two: Mother Elizabeth has had a lot of time to think. She's on your side, Maryam, I swear it. Whatever you said to her when you and Ruth fled has burnt into her heart. She remains there under sufferance, because she has no choice.”

As he pointed to the next finger, ready, she thought, to embellish his badly concealed lies further, the guards approached. “We must get moving again,” one of them said, removing the rope from Maryam's ankle, only to rebind it around her wrists. Lazarus, however, remained free.

They set off down the jungle path again, Lazarus hovering at her side. “And as for your number three…what was it? Oh yes. My mother—would you believe it?—threatened them on
pain of death to bring you back alive. She told them I would testify against them if they dared to cause you harm.”

“You're right, I don't believe it,” Maryam said. “Since when did your dear mother have any heart?”

“Don't get me wrong,” Lazarus said. “She's sure not doing this for you. But she's a good reader of situations and, with the villagers excited and uneasy since you spoke, she's not prepared to let him kill you yet and risk making things worse.”

“Yet?” Maryam laughed bitterly. “And worse for who?”

“I didn't mean it like that.” His voice rose to match the heightened colour in his face. “Damn it, Maryam, stop twisting my words.”

“Be careful what you say then…” She glanced at him sideways, thinking about how foolishly she'd compromised herself at his insistence the day before. “Words can kill.”

They were approaching the outskirts of Kakaonimaki now, and their procession started to draw curious eyes. Many villagers stopped to mutter to each other and stare suspiciously as the group trudged past.

Lazarus rushed in front of her, forcing her to stop, much to the disgruntlement of the guards. “One final point: there were already rumours running rife all over Motirawa that you were hiding somewhere in Te Ikawai's domain of the dead. It was only a matter of time before they flushed you out. And, as for calling you out to meet me, these servers were too scared to go into the cave—and, besides…” He lowered his voice, so only she could hear. “I didn't want them to find
Windstalker
. We still might need her to get away.”

“And the kiss?” Don't blush, she willed herself. Let him be the one to squirm.

He blinked and flushed an even deeper shade of puce. “I refuse to justify that. Make of it what you will.”

She was searching around inside her head for the perfect comeback when she noticed that they had been joined by a straggly line of hostile-looking villagers. As they made their way along its scruffy, chicken-littered paths, more and more people emerged until a great crowd of them stood before the entrance to the causeway, blocking the two forward guards from stepping up onto its bamboo slats.

A painfully thin woman, one of the brave mothers from the day before, stepped forward, thrusting her rescued daughter toward Maryam's face. “Kiss your saviour,” she instructed the child, who shyly leaned in to Maryam and pressed her little snot-smeared mouth to Maryam's lips.

Now the woman was joined by the other five mothers and their girls, each one insisting Maryam receive a kiss of thanks. She was so moved, her nose tingled with the first sign of tears, but they remained dammed in the corners of her eyes. If only she didn't feel so guilty: the freedom she'd hoped to deliver them was all too quickly falling apart. Once Father Joshua had done away with her, these mothers’ hearts would be cruelly wrenched yet again.

The women formed a human blockade, and others stepped forward to bar the way as well. “Promise us no harm will come to our Sister,” one of the newcomers demanded of the guards, while another yelled out from the back of the milling congregation, “Why is Sister Maryam bound?”

The lead guard, a brawny server in his middle years, jostled to the front. “There is no need to worry. Our Holy Father merely wishes to receive her news first-hand.”

Now the young man who had begged for Maryam's healing the day before pushed through to confront the guard. “Untie her then!” Around him others murmured their agreement and moved forward to surround Maryam in a protective scrum.

Lazarus stepped forward now, a smile teasing at his lips. He quickly untied the bindings from Maryam's wrists. “Come!” he announced grandly, “Join us as we walk!”

The guards shook their heads and tried to muscle in on Maryam's rowdy entourage, but Lazarus was taking charge now, hooking his arm through Maryam's and steadfastly stepping with her onto the causeway that linked the island to the ship.

“This is good.” He grinned, jerking his head to indicate the accompanying crowd.

“Good?” she said. “I don't see how. You're still escorting me into a trap.”

“Look,” he said, exasperation clear in his voice. “Don't you see? You can't run from him unless you want to live out your days alone back on Marawa Island. At least with the villagers here as witnesses you still have a chance.”

Marawa Island suddenly seemed an excellent option. Was it not enough that she'd given her people the recipe for the cure? Why go through this farce when Father Joshua would never voluntarily relinquish his control? She was stupid, so stupid, to have believed one word from her would bring him down. The fact that Lazarus was now steadily propelling her toward the ship further rekindled all her doubts.

“They hailed the Lamb before they turned on him and bayed for His blood,” she muttered. She was suddenly weak and weary—and very scared—as the bamboo causeway pitched under the combined weight of so many people, catapulting her
forward as though even it was impatient to deposit her at Father Joshua's feet.

As they neared the huge rusting hulk that was
Star of the Sea
, her heart started thumping so hard it felt as if a flock of birds was trapped inside and trying to break back out through her chest. Her knees lost all their strength and she would have fallen had not Lazarus been there clasping her arm. A sea of faces peered down from the open deck, and the crowd behind her fell silent as the boarding platform was lowered down the ship's side. The guards reasserted their control, ordering the villagers to disperse. With Lazarus still supporting her, Maryam stepped aboard, turning back to face her supporters as the servers above began to haul the ropes back up.

“Whatever happens,” she shouted, desperate for one final word, “question everything you're told. This island is ours—the birthplace of our ancestors since time began. We have the right to serve our own destinies, without the controlling lies of the Apostles of the Lamb.”

Already the villagers were losing focus, their faces a mix of anger, excitement and appalling fear. Do they really understand the price that all of them might pay for standing up to Father Joshua and his kind? Do I? If not her mind, then at least her body understood the gravity of what awaited her: she was trembling uncontrollably now and her mouth was dry. And, no matter how much she swallowed, she couldn't shift the sense that something sharp and immutable had lodged inside her throat.

Lazarus also cleared his throat, as if he suffered from the same choking nerves. “Whatever happens, I promise I'll stay next to you.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders as the platform bumped and jolted to the top.

Beyond the villagers, the imposing peaks of Onewēre rose from the sparkling infinity of sea, the lush dark-green hues of the jungle offset by thrusting silver rock formations and the glorious strip of stark coral sand that painted the shallow waters inside the reef an iridescent blue so pale it could have been the sky.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help…
The Holy Book's lyrical words drove tears into her eyes again. How much she loved this place, with all its vibrant colours, shapes and smells. How much she loved the people too. They had not asked to be controlled by the Apostles’ Rules…instead, just like the detainees who'd fought to make that stinking camp in the Confederated Territories some kind of home, the people born with Onewēre's native blood inside their veins had merely tried to make the best of what they'd been served up after the Tribulation's darkest days. A single tear rolled down her cheek. If this was to be her last day on this earth, at least she'd tried to show them they had some choice.

Aanjay's fine-boned face flashed into her mind. Where was she now? Was she, too, battling those who had imposed their will—or was she gone, happy at the Buddha's side until she was reborn? Everywhere, it seemed, good honest people suffered at the hands of those who fed on power. It simply wasn't right. Maryam took a deep breath and shrugged away Lazarus's protective arm. If she was to meet her death today, then she would try to face it with the serenity and strength of Aanjay, using this bird's-eye vista of the island as her touchstone to steady her mind.

When the platform drew level with the opening in the great ship's side, Maryam stepped off onto the scuffed metal deck, aware of the unsympathetic stares of the male servers who
had hoisted her and Lazarus up. Mother Michal was there as well, her thin pale hair scraped back sternly from her face.