Dream Boat

Chapter Twenty-one

Did you know, ears never stop growing? Everything else — lungs, bones, lips, veins — reaches a certain stage and then cuts out. Ears, it seems, were never given guidelines. Or maybe they're programmed to quit at the age of 125, only no one lived long enough to find out.

Quite what the individual facing Claudia would look like when he clocked up his century, she couldn't imagine, but elephants sprang to mind. As did rabbits, and not necessarily because bunnies have big ears. His whole face was rabbity. That sort of softened wedge shape which, while attractive in small children, becomes off-putting in an adult.

'… feeling unwell, I can take you to Shabak.'

'What?' Mesmerised by the length and breadth of the ear flaps, and intent on rattling the gates to the temple compound, Claudia had paid scant attention to his wittering. He seemed to be concerned for her health. 'No, I'm fine, I'm looking for my puppy.'

'He won't be in there.' Long, twig-like fingers pulled her away. 'I'm Penno, the Temple Warden and Chief Petitioner, Servant of the High Priest, and unless they're for sacrificial purposes, beasts are forbidden to set foot on sacred territory.'

You aren't.

Maybe it was the ceremony earlier, with those realistic animal masks flickering in the torchlight, but all the men Claudia had encountered tonight conjured up images of beasts. For if Geb was the Barbary ape on two legs, then surely Shabak, with his narrow waist, narrow hips and (alas) narrow shoulders was the monkey — and now she had Penno's coneylike features to contend with!

It's this place, she thought. It's overloading my imagination, I'll be hallucinating next.

The rain had eased off temporarily, but the storm still cloaked the hills, sending out brilliant splashes of white and ominous rumbles of thunder. And the heat throbbed like a kettledrum, and the cicadas rasped in the waterlogged grass, and dolphins leaped through hoops in Claudia's stomach.

She shook herself free of Penno's grip and hoped it was the lightning which twisted his face into a sinister leer. 'The storm will frighten him,' she said, 'I need to check for myself.'

Dammit, I'm down to a few hours.

'Sister.' There was an edge to the temple warden's voice. 'Only initiates are allowed inside these walls outside of the times of prayer and petition, that's why the gates remain locked. Your dog's not in there, believe me, and even if he was, you wouldn't be.' The tone softened, became almost wheedling. 'It's late, my child. You'll be tired. I'm sure he'll come home in the morning.'

It was late. Without a herald to call out the hour or stars to check the time by, Claudia could not be certain, but she imagined it was more than two hours past midnight. Only one window in Mentu's wing showed a light, otherwise the whole commune slept, and the temple warden had every right to be suspicious of a member wandering around at this time of night. The question is, what was he doing prowling about on his own?

A celestial rumble broke overhead, signalling the storm's intention to return. Back in Rome, there'd be brawls and barter, the lowing of oxen pulling the delivery drays, wheels clattering, crates banging, shouts, ribald laughter, singing from the taverns, creaks from overburdened axles. Thunder would not get a look in!

'Ordinarily,' Penno said, 'I'd be a gentleman and escort you back to your quarters. Unfortunately — ' he jangled a set of keys,

– 'Ra will return to us in less than three hours and there is much work to be done. Excuse me.'

With a curt nod he disappeared behind the wicker gate, and at least that answered her question. Tomorrow (today!) was the start of the month of Ibis. There'd be another festival to prepare for. A public holiday to organise. More prayers. More ritual. More opportunity to befuddle brains and step up the mental treadmill so that people became too scared to come off.

Mentu's scam might be earning him a packet, but the number of people he was damaging was growing by the day. Zer canvassed Rome, but there would be other Zers dotted around, bringing in members from Naples, Ancona and, like Mercy, from Brindisi. Damaged individuals, who Mentu and his money-grubbing cronies sought to damage further.

Damage… and possibly worse.

Six girls, Mercy reckoned. Six girls aged between fifteen (Donata) and twenty-two (Berenice) had skipped this valley without trace and, if gossip was to be believed, Berenice had deliberately poisoned her five-month-old son before leaving.

Leaning her back against the high temple compound wall, Claudia felt something lumpy dig into her flesh. What the…? It was an ear. Glory be, it was a pottery ear stuck on the wall. How very odd. Her hand followed the contour of the wall at the same level, until she'd counted ten cemented at regular intervals on to the stonework. Ears? At first, she couldn't believe it, but yes. Human ears made of terracotta… and as she walked the perimeter, she cast her mind back to dinner. To something Mercy had said about the wall needing to be high to keep evil and impurity from Ra's holy place of worship. And since mortals were only allowed to worship Ra through an intermediary god, there was the facility for them to come at any time when access to the temple was barred to whisper their hopes and prayers (and indeed worries, should they have them!) to any one of the Ten True Gods who would always be on hand to listen to their pleas and pass the message on to Ra, through his holy son, Osiris.

Meaning, Claudia assumed, this was some form of spying!

She wriggled her finger deep into an earhole and was not surprised to find it wasn't stopped by masonry, only by the fact that her finger wouldn't reach that far. She plucked a scabious, growing underneath the wall. Well, well, well. Wouldn't you know, that stem just kept on going! He was a wily old bugger, Mentu. What odds that behind each ear would be one of his cronies, writing down everything the petitioner said? Reporting back.

Claudia's thoughts returned to the six missing girls as she stared up at the sky. Heavy clouds, black as Hades, hung over the valley, muting the zigzag flashes. Mercy's explanation didn't make sense. Tonight's charade showed that young men in their muscular prime don't make it through the double barriers. What chance had pampered young women? And the Berenice business bothered her. 'Touched' had been Mercy's description, but to feed hemlock to your baby and simply walk off was way, way beyond 'touched'.

The rain began to fall again. Chip. Chip. Chip-chip-chip. What was Claudia to make of the so-called tragic accident, in which a boy who'd tried to escape had been cut to pieces by Mentu's thugs? Was it truly an accident? Or an convenient way to dispose of a problem?

As the hot raindrops hammered down, Claudia began to have a very bad feeling about Mentu's paradise valley.

And it didn't help that she could not locate Flavia.