Temple Boys by Jamie Buxton

smoked and flared, dropping fire on the pavement.
    A small figure was standing on the edge of the crowd, watching. The skinny girl. She waved. Flea tried to look superior but felt oddly uneasy that she had seen him, as if he had been found out somehow. What had she said to him? That Yesh had come to the city to make trouble. Well, I’ll find out soon enough if I can do anything about it, thought Flea.
    Yesh stood in front of the great doors. He pretended to blow and they opened smoothly. The crowd oohed and aahed, then clapped.
    The doors revealed a great courtyard and a palace rearing up in stiff cliffs of white marble. When closed they shut out the sound of the city. All you could hear was a fountain’s silvery splash and, very faintly in the distance, a harp.
    â€œThis is the house of a very rich man.” Red’s voice was full of awe. Light spilled like gold from every window and made his scars look livid and shiny.
    Across the courtyard, doors led up to an open archway that framed a man dressed in a long blue robe embroidered with gold stars. They shimmered and gleamed as he walked. A long beard spread over his broad chest, which sloped down to an even bigger belly. Very slowly he came down the stairs toward them and bowed to Yesh before kneeling to kiss the marble in front of his feet.
    Yesh briefly laid his hand on the man’s head. Yohan and Yak helped him to rise just as Mat bustled up to the Temple Boys.
    â€œStop gawking and listen!” he snapped. “That is Yusuf of Ramathain. He’s just paid the Master the greatest possible honor and I’m not having the evening ruined by you lot. If you’re going to eat with us, you’ve got to clean up. Come. Come!”
    They followed him through a side door and down a long, vaulted passageway. At the end of it, heat and noise blasted from an open door. It was a huge kitchen where ovens the size of furnaces roared. A row of cooks chopped, stirred, and mixed. Plucked birds nestled in rows, ready for the oven, while meat sizzled on spits. The gang was hurried past bowls of fruit and sacks of spices, but Flea hung back. In a dark recess of the kitchen a man was standing alone, watching the activity. His eyes ranged over the Temple Boys, his head nodding as he counted them off. The face snagged on a memory. Flea had caught a glimpse of him before, and recently, too, but where?
    â€œCome on, come on, stop staring.” Mat hustled Flea along, ushering him into a side room that smelled of scented oil and mold. The Temple Boys were looking around, apparently confused by the sight of a row of water basins.
    â€œThis is where you wash,” Mat said. “You have heard about washing? Soap, water, oil. Or do I need to get one of the slaves in to show you how it’s done?”
    â€œBut why?” Big said.
    â€œPeople wash before they eat,” Mat said.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œTrust me, you’ll want to look your best when you find out who you’ll be eating with.”
    Big stepped up to a basin of water and the others followed. Soon Clump was prancing up and down in a parody of a fine lady, and Smash and Grab were having a water fight. Slaves brought more water. Another brought clean tunics. Mat fussed and grumbled, sent the boys back to clean their nails, gave a grudging nod if he thought they could pass, or told them that they were late and ruining everything, then sent them back to the basins.
    At last, tingling, oiled, and stinking of flowers, the gang stood in front of Mat and he said, “I suppose that will have to do.”
    Flea thought about the lambs being washed before they were sacrificed.
    â€œBaaa,” he said, but no one heard, and he followed them down a long corridor that ended in a curtain that moved like water.
    Behind the curtain, a monster with a hundred voices was roaring.

 
    18
    Mat pulled the curtain aside and the gang was suddenly drenched in the din of drunken adults having fun. A