Resurrection (Blood of the Lamb) (29 page)

There was wild dancing going on below, the whole structure of the maneaba reverberating with the stamping of feet on the timber floor. Various obscenities, punctuated by loud drunken laughter, drifted up toward the loft—all variations on what Lazarus should do to his new wife. He cupped his hands over her ears, so everything was muffled now and tempered by the knocking of her heart. If only they could stay like this, suspended here forever above the unpredictable world seething below.
Why, oh why, was I so adamant to return home?

She must have dozed, still affected by the toddy, for the next thing she registered was such loud clapping and cheering that it drowned out the approach of Father Joshua and Brother Luke, who kicked her foot to rouse her, startling her so that she jerked free of the sheet. She clutched it back around herself, curling into a ball beside Lazarus who, dishevelled and slightly confused, was rising to place himself between her and her tormentors.

“How touching,” Father Joshua said to his aide. “It almost looks as if he cares.” He nodded his head once, clearly a signal, and Brother Luke drew out the gun, aiming it at Maryam's heart. “My darling wife has many gifts…her initiative in
wielding my ancestor's weapon has put me to shame. I plan to take her lead. Therefore, if you so much as blink an eye when not instructed to by me, you will die.” He jerked his hand toward Lazarus. “And then your traitorous husband too.”

He stepped forward and secured a handful of fabric, tumbling Maryam over as he stripped her of the sheet. The slash of red, clearly visible even in the gloom, drew from him a whistle as Maryam cowered in the shadow of Lazarus's back.

“My, my. Didn't you do well.” His sarcasm was underlined by the rhythmic clapping and chanting that had erupted from the crowd below, a taunting call to show the blood and confirm the match.

He let the sheet fall to his feet as though it had no meaning, and snapped his fingers at Brother Luke. Still aiming the gun, Brother Luke edged over to one corner of the drapes and fumbled around within their folds, removing from them another immaculate white sheet. He shook it out, never once taking his gaze off his two prisoners, and handed it to Father Joshua with an ingratiating smile. “Holy Father?”

Father Joshua raised his hand to his mouth in mock surprise. “Oh no! What have we here? Don't tell me our little bride has proved herself a liar and a slut.” He spat the word at her, the loathing in his voice so barbed it stung her cheeks.

“How dare you?” Lazarus was shaking as Maryam placed a calming hand on his arm, but he was so fired up he shook her off. “If there was a Lord, he'd strike you down.”

Father Joshua's eyes widened before he lunged and cuffed Lazarus hard on his ear, sending him sprawling over Maryam in a tangle of arms and legs. “You doubt the Lord as well? This little witch is even more powerful than I thought.”

As Maryam scrabbled to help Lazarus and wrap the bloodied sheet back around herself, Father Joshua strode across to the drapes and flung open the central panel. A roar of excitement came from the crowd as he gazed down on them, the unsullied sheet resplendent in his hand. He drew himself up to his most imposing and motioned for silence. Only when every last voice had stilled did he begin to speak.

“My children, we gathered here today to celebrate what was to have been a miraculous joining in Holy wedlock…” A stir rippled through the crowd, as subtle as an inhaled breath. “Remember, We are tasked by the Lord to be entrusted with the teachings in the Holy Book, not so as to please mortal men, but only Him. We seek not glory as the Apostles of the Lamb, but are gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her only child. Remember, brethren, our labour and travail: we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we merely preached unto you the gospel of the Lord.”

What does he mean? Words of great pomp and majesty, stolen from Thessalonians in the Holy Book, yet to Maryam they made little sense except to bolster Father Joshua's rule.

“Therefore it grieves me all the more, true believers, to have to tell you that this girl who wove such exciting tales to seduce us is nothing but a liar and a whore. There is no sign of blood—see for yourselves.” He flourished the unused sheet.

Lazarus flung himself forward, screaming abuse as Father Joshua dropped the sheet down to the furious crowd below. “You total, utter—”

Brother Luke struck Lazarus on the back of his head with the butt of the gun. He crumpled to the floor with a sickening crash. Instantly Maryam leapt to his side. She tried frantically
to rouse him, but he remained motionless. Below her the baying anger escalated as Father Joshua continued to address the crowd.

“I seek not to influence you, my children—I know how much We all wished for this whore's words to be true. But she has lied about her travels and about finding a cure, just as We can now prove the lie that she came to my son virgin and pure. What does the Holy Book say of such a sin? But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly…to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.”

The mass of roaring voices swelled like a storm at sea as Maryam tried vainly to stir Lazarus, slapping at his cheeks, calling his name, shaking him in a desperate bid to haul him back from the brink. But now she was torn from his side by Brother Luke, who thrust her toward Father Joshua and into the sight of the angry hordes. A torrent of abuse swept over her as Father Joshua grasped her roughly and pushed her to where all those gathered in the maneaba below could look on her. “Tell them, Sister,” Father Joshua demanded, his voice penetrating through the uproar like a knife through skin. “Tell them how you set upon my son and knocked him out cold once it was clear you lied. Tell them who sent you to destroy the Lord's good work.”

Below her the villagers started chanting “Lucifer…Lucifer…” and she knew she had no chance to plead for justice above their damning cry. Father Joshua was in his element, unable to control his delight as he raised a hand to silence them. “The good Lord has seen this sinner—this messenger of
Lucifer—before, children. He tells us of her in the Holy Book. I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet covered beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: and upon her forehead was a name written, “Mystery, Babylon the great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth”.”

The villagers and servers surged up at her, hands stretching out to try to wrestle her down. She felt faint with panic, sure that if Father Joshua let her go she'd be dismembered in a heartbeat. She scanned the crowd, hoping to find some pity in the faces of those who'd not yet surged in for the kill. Under the low-slung beams at the very back of the building she was sure she spotted the terrified faces of Vanesse and Lesuna, but it seemed her father wasn't there. Please, Lord, that he has returned home, gone before these accusations were given air.

Father Joshua now knocked her feet out from under her, and she screamed. She was suspended only by his grip around her arm. She could feel fingers clawing at her feet, and then the tug as someone caught a little of the fabric that encased her and began to pull it off. Her arm was dragging from its socket, the pain so intense it blanked all else except the desperate need to stop it—stop it—stop it…but now searing pain commandeered her consciousness as her shoulder dislodged and she dropped like an anchor stone into the squall of arms.

As if falling into a basket of squirming eels, everything moved around her. Hands tore at the sheet seemingly blind to the smear of Lazarus's blood, literally shredding it into tiny pieces, as others fought to slap or spit or pull her hair.

“Be still!” Father Joshua roared. “We are not animals; we are disciples of the Lord. The Abomination will be tried, and given a chance to repent her sins, before the Lord dictates the best way to mete out his wrath.” He crossed to the ladder and began to descend.

The multitude peeled away from Maryam then, leaving her to cower in agony on the dusty wooden floor. She barely registered when, moments later, someone bent down beside her and kissed her on the forehead.

“Be brave now, little one, this is going to hurt,” Vanesse whispered.

She tucked one of her plump bare feet into Maryam's armpit and grasped her dislocated arm with both hands, concentrating all the force in her ample body into one almighty heave. For a second Maryam lost consciousness altogether, but she roused to the audible kerplunk as the limb dropped back into place, and the sickening pain vanished as quickly as it had come.

Father Joshua approached her now, and Vanesse gave Maryam one last supportive squeeze before she backed away. “The Lord bless you for your kindness,” he commended Vanesse, although his eyes burned with such anger Maryam feared for what might lie in store for her. He turned the same blistering gaze on Maryam.

“Get up!” he shot at her, snatching a discarded scrap of sheet from a villager's hands to toss at Maryam. “Cover yourself up—enough of our congregation have already been seduced by your disgusting guise.”

He nodded as Brother Paul stepped from the crowd, hoisted Maryam to her feet and prodded her, none too gently, toward the door. As they moved off, Maryam saw Brother Luke struggle
down the ladder with Lazarus slung across his shoulder like a slaughtered goat, unconscious and so pale Maryam feared he was dead. The thought almost felled her, pummelling panic inside her chest stealing all her strength. She stumbled, only to glimpse Brother Paul unsheathe his knife, warning she had no choice but do as she was told.

Amidst the jeering, hostile crowd Maryam found herself at the head of an unruly procession sweeping back toward the ship. At the foot of the causeway Father Joshua paused grandly for one final word.

“Tomorrow, in the temple of our Holy City, you shall judge this sinner for yourselves, then join with your Apostles to exorcise the evil and send her straight back to the fires of Hell.” He glared out at the crowd, his eyebrows two ominous storm clouds over his smouldering eyes. “Rule Number Ten!”

Even if they had not tolled it out like thunder, Maryam knew every one of the damning words by heart.
“Let any who reject the word of the Apostles of the Lamb be cast from the flock and punished in the name of the Lord.”

Her bladder weakened and she felt a trickle of warm urine splash her feet. The Rules were there to be obeyed. The Rules could never be destroyed. The Rules would see her dead before tomorrow night.

Exhausted, hungry and filled with a gnawing sense of doom, Maryam was left alone inside the old engine room. She had no idea what had become of Lazarus once they'd reached the ship, or even if he still lived. But the thought that she might never see him again filled her with such intense misery it drove aside any fear of her own demise. Death would be a favour when, again, her heart was being demolished by such pointless loss.

She climbed into the top bunk where Lazarus had lain, and wrapped herself in the rough scrap of blanket, seeking the comfort of its prickly warmth as though it could protect her from what lay in store. But it could not stop the churning of her thoughts. She'd truly thought, at first, that Lazarus would use the knife to force the surrender of her body…and it shamed her now to think how wrong she'd been. He quite simply wasn't the same boy who'd tried to take her at the pool; it was as if all the goodness she'd thought had been extinguished when Joseph died merely jumped ship, finding a new home inside his cousin once he'd exorcised the evil of his past.

The thing that hurt the most was that if she died tomorrow, without an opportunity to speak with him again, she'd never have a chance to say she loved him too. Perhaps not quite as vehemently as he'd expressed his love for her—or in the same way she'd loved Joseph—but, still, she saw now that there was a bond between them that would never break. She loved how he so plainly spoke his mind, even when he knew she'd not agree, and how his energy and passion boiled in every cell.
And I finally trust him
.
She laughed aloud at the surprise of it. The truth was that, like Joseph, he made her feel valued for herself. Yes, she was pig-headed, quick to flare, unable to believe in anything without sight of proof, but was she not essentially good?

She rolled over, trying to escape her own stench, but it was impossible to block out the pungent mix of vomit, sweat and urine. Beyond the room, the huge generators were marking the passage of time with an unrelenting pulse, hampering her efforts to find inside herself a place of calm. Tomorrow, when they came for her, the only thing she had left to try to turn the tide was a tight grip on her dignity and a commitment to the truth. This was what Ruth would do—Lord, how she missed Ruth—and Aanjay…the only difference being that Ruth would meet her death convinced she would be welcomed to the afterlife by the Lamb, and Aanjay truly believed she'd be reborn. Maryam had no confidence in either. She hoped only that whatever caused the spark that gave her life would release back to the heavens still charged with a desire to do some good. The light was fading now, the filthy window aflame as the sunset engulfed the western sky. Maryam climbed down from the bunk and pressed her nose against the encrusted glass, taking in the lilac cloud that feathered through the last of the sun's rays. So beautiful. Tears overflowed her eyes. What she would give for one last chance to float upon the soothing sea before she faced her trial.

She was startled from her reveries by the turning of the wheel that locked the door. Brother Luke entered. In one hand he carried a bucket of steaming water, and in the other he lugged a large container of the foul yellow toddy, topped by a cup. Two blankets were draped across his arm. He did not meet her eye until he had relinquished his load.

“Compliments of Mother Elizabeth,” he said. “She recommends you wash, then use the toddy to help you sleep.”

Mother Elizabeth? “What news of Lazarus?” she asked, clenching her fists in preparation for bad news.

“He lives, that's all you need to know.”

Thank you, oh thank you
. So vast was her relief, her forgotten tears transformed to painful, gulping sobs, which in turn set free other tightly held emotions. They seemed to battle for possession in her mind, pelting her with nightmare images of how her life might end. What would he orchestrate, cruel Father Joshua, who understood the need to engage others in the drama of his game? Would he have her stoned? Consumed by fire? Shot? Run through by spears? Or would he gain more satisfaction goading his toddy-fuelled disciples to tear her limb from limb?

She busied herself with bathing, then scuffed herself dry on one of the thin blankets. But as soon as she'd finished, anxiety overwhelmed her again. Perhaps, after all, Mother Elizabeth's suggestion of the toddy was not the insult it first seemed: if she didn't sleep, she'd have no strength tomorrow to defend her case. Reluctantly she poured a full cup of the liquid and tossed it down, clamping her hand over her mouth as her gag reflex fought each choking attempt to swallow it. When it was done, she propped herself up against the wall, ready for the worst, and closed her eyes. For the first time in her life, she welcomed the drink's hazy stupor. Bring on dreamless sleep, she urged. Dreamless, schemeless, screamless sleep…

Hunger woke her, but it was the thumping headache that eventually drove her from the bunk. The toddy had worked, stealing her night, but now the after-effects made themselves known. Aside from her pounding head, her mouth was so dry it felt as if she'd swallowed sand, and her eyes hurt whenever she turned them toward the filtered light.

She clambered down from the bunk and scooped a little of the murky water from the bathing bucket. Though it tasted foul, it helped to quench her driving thirst, and she took another and another, thankful it was there.

With nothing to do but wait, she lay back on the bunk, hoping that perhaps she'd sleep the time away. But her hunger would not allow her rest. In the end she stood at the window, trying to take comfort from the sea beyond. The next-door generators were far too noisy to allow her to hear the soothing tumble of water on the reef, but she imagined it, conjuring up the swish by cupping her hands over her ears and listening to the rush of blood inside her head. Outside the window, storm petrels, sooty terns and short-tailed shearwaters competed in the updraughts thrown by the reef, reeling and gliding in a complicated sky-dance. Maryam closed her eyes and tried to summon up memory of their calls. But her mind was quickly overwhelmed by fear, and she was reduced to humming to keep her rioting thoughts at bay.
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine…

The creak of the unlocking door brought a strange kind of relief. It was the waiting and not knowing that was hardest. She expected to see Brother Luke or Paul, but it was Mother Elizabeth who walked toward her now, her arms buried beneath a bundle of richly coloured cloth.

“You are to wear this,” she said, handing Maryam what turned out to be a long scarlet gown.

It was unlike anything she had ever seen, the shiny fabric soft and smooth to her touch. Cut low at the neck—way, way too low—the gown nipped in at the waist before it billowed out in sumptuous folds. But the seams were stressed, in places rotting clean away, and the fabric was stained and crushed. Moths and other tiny insects had eaten into the folds, leaving trails of destruction in their wake. And it reeked of mildew, as if it had been bunched up and stowed somewhere damp for years.

Maryam shuddered, thinking how the insects might feel against her skin. She remembered those phantom gnawing night creatures she'd seen at the hospital when she'd been drugged. Did Father Joshua somehow know her darkest fears? She let the gown fall from her hands, disgusted by Mother Elizabeth's complicity.

“Is Lazarus all right?” she asked, aware how cold and unfriendly she appeared in both tone and stance.

“I'm sorry, I have not been told.” Mother Elizabeth flushed under Maryam's steely scrutiny. She leaned down, straining over her pregnant belly, to retrieve the gown, and offered it again to Maryam. “Please, I have strict orders to prepare you.”

“Go away,” Maryam said, turning her back and climbing into the top bunk to face the wall. She could feel Mother Elizabeth staring at her, as if she didn't know what to do: any power she'd once held over her young charge was now well and truly gone. “You've chosen and come out on the side of wrong. Lord help your luckless child. Best you pray it is a boy.”

“I—” Whatever Mother Elizabeth was going to say stalled at her lips. She sighed, long and hard, then turned on her heel
and walked back toward the door, knocking once before it was opened to let her out.

The encounter left Maryam shaken, not just because of her adopted mother's betrayal but because the ruined gown promised some fresh humiliation before her life was spent.

Brother Luke now entered the room with Brother Paul. They didn't even bother speaking. Brother Paul simply hauled her from the bunk and wrapped a choking arm around her throat to secure her as Brother Luke manhandled her into the gown. It was far too large, hanging off her as preposterously as the inflated scarlet gular of a courting frigate bird, the neckline so low and gaping it barely hid her breasts.

Next they took a strip of purple fabric and tied it around her waist to form a sash, knotting it so tightly she could hardly breathe. The last scrap delivered by Mother Elizabeth, a long fine ribbon of gold, they tied in a noose around her neck as if she were a tethered goat. They tugged at it now to hold her still while they plastered her face with thick creamy stains: blue above her eyes, red on her lips and along the bony outcrop of her cheeks. When she struggled, trying to loosen the ribbon with her hands, the Brothers bound them too, leaving her helpless to do anything but obey.

They marched her up through the labyrinth of gloomy stairwells to the atrium, which teemed with servers and Apostles and, more surprisingly, villagers from the island beyond. They circled the huge space with mouths agape. Most had never before entered the Holy City, and all were awed by its magnificence and size, as Maryam had been when she'd first Crossed. That Father Joshua would invite them here, using the power of the Holy City to overwhelm their simpler sensibilities, was cunning indeed, and fear gripped even tighter at Maryam's heart.

The crowd parted as if she were contagious. “Abomination!” people cried, and “Brazen whore!” They were competing to prove their total obedience to the Lord. Game upon game.

As Maryam was herded up the silver-bannistered staircase, the central dome reflected back dozens of tiny scarlet versions of herself that crazed and fractured as she climbed. Outside the door to the theatre she remembered so well from her public haranguing all those months ago, two tables were set up with large vats of toddy for the audience, as little or as much as they desired.

Inside, the tiered seats were already filling fast. Quite clearly the room would not accommodate everyone who waited outside the doors. Maryam was hauled up onto the red-fringed stage, the altar forming a candlelit foundation to the life-sized crucifix of the white-skinned Lamb. She was struck again by the astonishing paintings that flanked either side—the misery of the Tribulation, a nightmare of destruction and death, in vivid contrast to the smiling Lord who blessed the bejewelled chair where Father Joshua now sat in wait.

But what truly scared her—rocked her—were two additional crosses, like those used to crucify the two thieves in the Holy Book, that had been constructed to stand one each side of the mournful Lamb. Surely he could not be thinking to kill her in the same way? A buzzing heat tornadoed through her and she stumbled, falling to the wooden floor as her mind fogged to black.

Seconds later she had her answer. Brother Luke hauled her up roughly and lashed her hands to the splintered wooden crossbars. Her only consolation was that she could still stand—her feet had not been hoisted off the floor. But now came another shock as Lazarus was hustled up onto the stage, followed closely
by his mother. He looked shaken and dazed, deep purple bruises under his eyes and so little colour in his face she could see the network of tiny veins beneath. Was he about to be lashed to the other cross?

“Leave him,” she begged Mother Lilith as she passed. “This sin is mine alone.”

“Really?” Father Joshua leapt from his chair to halt his family in a tight huddle right in front of Maryam. “Don't spoil my fun. At least deny your blasphemies for a short time, so I can work the crowd.” He snorted, his cynical smile driving chills through Maryam's heart.

Now he turned to his son. “Fear not, spoiled fruit of my loins, I plan to redeem you…in good time. But for now know this: one word from you, so much as a tiny squeak, and the Lord's powers of forgiveness come to an end.” He slipped his hand inside his jacket and pulled out the gun. “Your mother will stand guard behind you throughout the proceedings, and if you do anything bar sit and watch, she will shoot you dead.” He handed the gun to Mother Lilith. “Is that quite clear, Lilith? Anything, and you pull that trigger, no questions asked.”