The Alleluia Files (3 page)

Cross the street; escape the floodlights of the Exchange Building. Pick up the pace a little, hurrying into the shadows. Here, the salty, fishy smell of the ocean was especially strong, and the wind pressed her garments tightly to her chest and thighs. Another streetlight, another stretch of pavement to cross. Back into darkness. One more block safely negotiated.

Zeke saw the street sign before she did. “Saturlin,” he breathed, and crowded her toward the right. Saturlin was more of a cobblestoned alley than a true street, so narrow that most of its traffic surely came on foot. But it had the advantage of sporting absolutely no streetlights—which was also a disadvantage, because it was nearly impossible to make out distinguishing characteristics of any of the low buildings they slowly felt their way past.

“How will we know it?” Zeke asked, his voice edgy. “Do you have a street number? A name?”

“Eighth house on the left,” she murmured. “With red shutters.”

“Red shutters! I can scarcely see the windows, let alone the color of the paint—”

“There. Two buildings up. There’s a light on in the window and it looks to me—well, there are shutters. They might be red. Let’s get closer.”

They crept nearer, arriving at the uninviting wood door reinforced with three bands of bronze. Faint light did indeed filter down from the second-story window, and as it passed through the slatted frame it seemed to cast a rosy glow on the peeling paint of its shutters.

“Six, seven, eight … Well, I think this is it,” Tamar said.

“
Think?
And if it isn’t? What will you say to whoever answers the door?”

“Oh, be quiet,” she said impatiently, and rapped on the door as loudly as she dared. The silence of Saturlin, which had seemed comprehensive, instantly grew more complete; it was as if the house itself held its breath while the residents inside
looked up wide-eyed and apprehensive. Midnight visitors must be a rarity, then. Tamar knocked again, just as forcefully.

She was not prepared to have the door flung open or to find a giant of a man glowering down at her from the threshold. She took a step backward, stumbling into Zeke, and found herself gulping once from nervousness.

“Well?” the large man demanded. “Who are you? What do you want? Why do you come to my door at midnight?”

“I came—we’re looking for a priest named Ezra,” she began, but before she could say another word, the big man grabbed her arm and jerked her inside. Zeke, scrambling after, barely made it inside before the door slammed shut behind him.

“Ezra!” the man repeated in a fierce whisper threaded with both amazement and fear. “No one comes here asking for him! No one! Who are you? What do you want? Tell me at once or I’ll call the watch on you.”

Tamar shook herself free, feeling calmer now. This was the right house, sure enough, and it was unlikely this man would be turning anyone over to the Jansai authorities. “My name is Tamar. I was told about Ezra by a friend of mine named Conran Atwell. This was the place I was directed to go.”

“Well, and Conran Atwell had best keep his directions to himself.” The big man scowled. Now that she got a chance to look at him, he was not quite the giant he had seemed at first, but large enough. It was his burly figure, wild beard, and rough mane of dark hair that made him seem so overpowering. “I don’t like strangers who come calling in the dead of night.”

“We won’t take up more of your time than we can help,” Tamar said. “Can you direct us to Ezra?”

“No, I cannot, and I would not if I could!”

“Are you Ezra?” she pursued coolly. The big man stared down at her.

“And if I was, why would I tell you that? The priest Ezra is no more. That should be enough for you—
and
for Conran Atwell.”

“I need to see him,” Tamar said, unheeding. “I need his help. I know he is here—or that he’s you—and I won’t go until I’ve had a chance to talk with him.”

“You’ll go soon enough if I throw you out on the street,” he threatened her.

“I don’t think you can afford an altercation on your door
step,” she said. “Or you would not have been so alarmed when we arrived.”

“What man can afford a brawl in Breven?” he muttered, but he was eyeing her sideways in an effort to judge her nerve and her tenacity. She could not tell how much of the bluster was real, how much assumed, but she had quickly lost her fear of him. Conran had assured her that Ezra would help her (“though you may have to ask him more than once”), and Conran had never lied to her. And she had come this far….

“I only want one thing from you. I won’t stay a minute longer than I have to. I won’t ask for shelter, or food, or any other aid. I just want Ezra’s … services.”

“And what can you afford to pay him?” the big man asked bitterly. “Nothing, am I right? You Jacobites are all alike. All guts and glory and not a penny among you.”

Zeke had smothered a gasp when their host named their party, and the older man threw the younger one a look of scorn. “Well, who else but Jacobites would come to an ex-priest in the middle of the night, asking for the only service a priest can provide? Besides, if Conran Atwell wasn’t named Conran Atwell, he’d be named Jacob Fairman, for he’s the most thorough anarchist I ever met in all my life.”

“I have money,” Tamar said quietly. “Not much, but some. Would fifty gold coins be enough for you?”

It stopped the big man in his rantings, and even Zeke stood stock-still with surprise.
If he’d known how much I was carrying on me, he probably would have robbed me this side of Breven
, she thought cynically. Samaria had only recently changed over from a system of gold coins to paper currency. Most of the merchants were enthusiastic about the new money, but the more wary elements of society still preferred cold, hard metal. For one thing, the exchequers at the Exchange Building had to be keeping track of how much money they printed, and that meant they could trace the bills from hand to hand—or so the suspicious believed. But gold was an anonymous bounty, and it never devalued, and you could melt it down to create something just as precious as its barter weight. No one would turn down an offer of gold—particularly not when the number in the offer was so high.

“It might be,” the big man said, giving her a long hard speculative look. “If I could see this money. If I had it in advance.”

Bargain, bargain, bargain
, part of her brain said, but another part, the part that had trusted Conran this far, merely wanted to strike the deal and get it over with. “Are you Ezra?” she demanded.

“I’m Ezra.”

“Then you can have the money now.”

And she slipped her knapsack from her shoulder and knelt right there in the cramped foyer, and she pulled out her gold. She had taken a narrow piece of red velvet and sewed it into a sleeve, and slipped in the coins one at a time; then she had tied strings between each coin and coiled the whole thing as tight as it would go. Thus no clink of money would give her away—to Zeke, to anybody—as she traveled.

“Shall I show you every coin?” she asked as she used her pocket dagger to slit each bit of string.

“Every last one,” said Ezra.

So she used the tip of her blade to rip out the hem at the top of the sleeve and poured out the gold in a glorious tumble onto the cold floor. She could feel both Zeke and Ezra staring. Nobody walked around carrying a ransom like this, not in Breven, not anywhere.

“Very well,” Ezra said. “Tell me what you want.”

She came fluidly to her feet. “I want you to install a Kiss in my arm.”

“You’re a Jacobite. You have no need for a Kiss that will bring you to the attention of Jovah. You do not even believe Jovah is your god.”

“I have a need for a Kiss that will help me masquerade as someone other than a Jacobite.”

“So you fear for your life, and you compromise your principles to save your skin.”

“As do you, as does everyone.”

Ezra’s eyes narrowed at that, for he clearly wondered what Conran had told her, but he did not reply directly. Instead, he jerked his head in Zeke’s direction. “And him? Does he also want the Kiss? And does he have his own fifty gold pieces, or does he think you shall pay his way?”

“I would think fifty gold pieces would buy Kisses for ten of my friends,” she said, “but you must ask him.”

“No,” Zeke said, speaking for the first time since they had
leaped inside the door. “I don’t want a Kiss in my arm. I have no need of one—I am going to Ysral.”

“Well, and good luck on that venture,” Ezra growled. “Twice this past week Edori ships have put into port and been boarded by Jansai warriors. I’d guess they searched every cargo hold and lifeboat, looking for prey just like yourself.”

Zeke’s chin went up. It was clear to Tamar that he did not care for the ex-priest. “I’ll be careful,” he said. “I got us this far safely.”

Ezra was fitting the coins back into their velvet carrier. When he was done, he knotted it at the top and slid the whole package into a voluminous trouser pocket. “Doesn’t matter to me what you do or whether you make it,” he said. “I’ll do what I’m paid for, and then you’re both out of here.”

Tamar nodded. “Then let’s get to it.”

Ezra led them up a shadowy stairwell to a suite of rooms on the second floor. Tamar looked around critically as they entered. The stone walls were badly mortared, and the electric light was dim and insufficient for the space, which was furnished with chairs, tables, and other oddments that appeared to have been salvaged from a junk heap. The whole building gave the impression of being ancient, ill-built, and poorly kept, like some of the older structures in Luminaux that had undergone inadequate renovation after the advent of electricity. But Breven, she knew, had had few permanent buildings along its wharf until the past century, so this place was very likely less than a hundred years old. It had just been carelessly put together and was no doubt cheap as dirt.

But what other residence could an ex-priest afford?

Ezra gestured toward a tattered black chair set awry in one corner of the room. “Sit there,” he instructed Tamar. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“She’s already paid you,” Zeke said loudly, swinging around to watch Ezra as he headed for the door. “So you’d better be back.”

The big man briefly broke stride, then left the room without turning back to reply. Settling herself on the chair, Tamar silently shook her head. No matter what, she was at the priest’s mercy now. Zeke’s posturing served no purpose.

But Zeke turned back to her, satisfied with his empty threat. “Tamar,” he said, coming over to crouch beside her, “where
in the world did you get that much money? And why didn’t you tell me you had it?”

She elected to leave the second question unanswered. “Con-ran gave it tome.”

“And where did
he
get it?”

“He said it was a legacy. That my mother left it.”

“Your mother? Who—why—none of the Jacobites have that kind of money!”

Tamar was silent a moment. Only a handful of the remaining Jacobites had ever known her mother and father, and none of them had bothered to sit and tell her warm, sweet remembrances of her martyred parents. That they had died for the cause, she knew, in the first bloody uprising nearly thirty years ago, the event that had taken the life of Jacob Fairman and the other early fanatics. That she was their only child she also knew, and their names had been given to her as Lianna and Rolf. But what they looked like, how they had met, what had drawn them to the fiery radical Jacob Fairman—no one had ever bothered to tell her that. Once or twice she had suspected that her mother was a daughter of the Manadavvi, the wealthy elite class living in the rich province of Gaza, and that would certainly account for the inheritance of fifty coins. Or perhaps not. The few affluent individuals who had joined the Jacobites had usually dumped all their jewels and assets into the community coffers, always woefully low. For a young woman to have the foresight to set aside a dowry for her daughter was singular in the extreme. So perhaps Conran had lied about the money.

“Well, that’s what he told me. Frankly, I don’t care where he got it. It’ll buy me my Kiss.”

Zeke gave a minatory look at the door through which Ezra had left. “Maybe it will,” he said darkly. “If we can trust him. What do you know about him, anyway?”

She shrugged. “He was a priest for twenty-five years and now he’s not. Conran was not specific. My guess is that he was caught in some kind of illegal pursuit, so the oracles stripped him of his position.”

“Installing Kisses in rebels?”

“Conran says not. Not until after he was defrocked, anyway.”

“So you’re not the first who’s come to him.”

“No, but I don’t think there have been many others.”

“Is he a Jacobite?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “He’d almost have to be, to be a friend of Conran’s. But if he was a priest for twenty-five years— well, wouldn’t he have to believe in Jovah?”

“Maybe he converted. Maybe he came to see the truth.”

“Maybe he thinks they’re all fools—angels, priests,
and
Jacobites,” Ezra said from the doorway. He was carrying a small leather briefcase that was so covered in scratched, layered dust that it appeared to be written on in mysterious hieroglyphics.

Zeke swung around to challenge him. “So you don’t believe in the god Jovah, who sends sun and rain, and listens to the prayers of the angels, and guards our souls when we die?”

“No, and I don’t believe that there’s some great electronic brain orbiting over our heads on some thousand-year-old spaceship, either. Although, to tell you the truth, I couldn’t really decide which theory is more preposterous.”

“Then why did you spend half your life as a priest?” Zeke demanded.

“Because it paid well. Now shut up. Go sit on the other side of the room, you’re annoying me.”

Zeke stiffened and seemed to be considering a protest, but then he stalked away and flung himself onto a dilapidated couch next to the window. Ezra pulled up a chair on Tamar’s right side and opened his briefcase on his knees. She could not see inside; she was not sure she wanted to.

“Will this hurt?” she asked.