Then, one by one, the voices fell away until only a single lone woman remained singing. Henry craned to see who she was and eventually located her, a plump girl scarcely older than himself, whose eyes were closed tight and her head flung back as she carried the remainder of the song.
The girl continued singing while four men shuffled into the plaza, carrying two long poles from which a smallish wooden box was slung on leather thongs. Henry’s heart jumped. Was this the ark of Euphrosyne? He leaned forward to get a better look, but others around him were doing the same and blocked his line of sight. As the men lowered the box reverently to the ground, he could see that it definitely looked old, perhaps even old enough to be the original ark. But beyond that, it was difficult to make out much detail.
The light was failing now and the thing itself was quite a distance from him, on top of which, the men who had carried it were fussing round it, removing the leather thongs and placing it just so in what he supposed must be its ritual position. From what he could see, the wooden surface of the box seemed to have metal inlays, possibly silver and gold, although they could just as easily be steel and brass.
The singing stopped. For Henry it was as if the entire tribe held its collective breath. The four men fanned out, taking their poles with them. To his surprise they had managed to construct a frame table and the ark now stood at chest height on top of it.
Another pause, then a scrambling movement to his right as the tribespeople parted to allow a woman through. Unlike the others, there was no paint on her body. Instead she wore a shimmering golden robe that dropped from shoulder to ankle and might actually have been cut from silk. The effect was astounding – she was the first of the Luchti Henry had yet seen who wore anything at all – and hugely enhanced by the silver mask that hid her face. She walked, head high, towards the ark.
Beside Henry, a man murmured, ‘Euphrosyne…’ He pronounced the name the way a Greek might: You-fross-sin- ee. At once his neighbour echoed the word; then it was taken up into a quiet chant: ‘Euphrosyne
… Euphrosyne… Euphrosyne…’
As the woman walked to the ark, the pole-carriers moved to escort her like proud bodyguards or priests. She reached the frame table and fell on her knees, arms stretched upwards in a gesture of supplication. ‘Charaxes!’ she called. ‘Charaxes!’ She had a light, clear voice. For some reason Henry recalled Lorquin telling him this Euphrosyne was only twenty years old.
The crowd took up the call. ‘Charaxes! Charaxes! Charaxes!’
The ark began to glow.
Henry blinked. A reaction from the ark was the last thing he expected. This was obviously a religious moment for the Luchti, but Henry, who was Church of England, had never come across glowing arks before. The cynical thought passed through his mind that it might be something engineered by Euphrosyne or her priests. Then he remembered these were the Luchti, who roamed the desert naked. They hardly had the technology for glowing arks.
Heedless of the glow, Euphrosyne leaned her head against the side of the ark as if listening. ‘Charaxes speaks to her,’ murmured the man beside Henry. There was a matter-of-fact tone to his voice as if this was more or less routine for the occasion. But then the masked woman stood up and slowly turned her head as if searching the faces of the crowd and at once there was a murmur of surprise.
The movement stopped. It was difficult to be certain with the mask, but Euphrosyne seemed to be looking at someone close by Henry. She began to walk across the plaza. In a moment of growing nervousness, Henry thought perhaps she might be walking towards him.
He swallowed. She was standing directly in front of him. ‘Charaxes wants to speak to you,’ she said.
Seventy
The walk across the plaza was the longest Henry could remember taking in his entire life. He could feel every eye upon him. He could sense the tension in the tribe. The very fibres of his being told him this was bad news. What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to talk to a god?
God used to speak to people fairly often, according to the Bible, but Henry was painfully aware the only ones who heard him nowadays were lunatics. But even that wasn’t relevant in this situation. Charaxes wasn’t the God you prayed to every Sunday, then ignored for the rest of the week like any other sane Anglican. Charaxes was the god of the Luchti and they believed in him implicitly. Charaxes led them out of bondage. Charaxes guided them to this hidden city. Heaven alone knew what other things he’d done that Henry hadn’t heard about. How were the Luchti going to take it when they found out Henry couldn’t hear him. Unless…
An earlier suspicion resurfaced. Maybe Euphrosyne and her helpers faked it. Henry seemed to remember reading somewhere that priests in Ancient Greece – or was it Ancient Egypt? – had secret speaking tubes built into statues of their gods. When the faithful came to worship, the Head Priest spoke down the tube and the congregation thought the god was talking. Speaking tubes were probably a bit sophisticated for the Luchti, but maybe Euphrosyne was a ventriloquist.
Henry decided that if the ark did talk to him, he’d play along. What did it matter if Euphrosyne was fooling her people? It probably brought a bit of comfort into their harsh lives. And if the ark didn’t talk, maybe he could pretend it did. Maybe he could claim it gave him a secret message. Something nice to cheer up the tribe. You’re God’s favourites so he’s looking out for you, sort of thing. It was kind of dishonest, but now he’d thought of it, it was probably the least he could do. They’d taken him in as one of their own and Lorquin had saved his life. He owed the Luchti big-time.
Euphrosyne reached the ark and stopped so abruptly Henry almost walked into her bottom. (Was there a penalty for walking into the bottom of a priestess of Charaxes?) Close up he noticed that the ark inlays really were precious – silver and gold, without a doubt. He’d seen no sign at all that the Luchti worked metal, but the ark looked so ancient it might well have been made by an early civilisation, possibly even the one that built the city.
Euphrosyne undid a catch, opened the lid, then stepped back a pace. Henry could see a short metallic rod protruding from the ark. She turned back towards him and, to his complete surprise, removed her silver mask. Underneath, she had a pleasant face – not particularly pretty, but fresh and cheerful. She smiled broadly at him. ‘Charaxes speaks now,’ she said conversationally.
Without the mask she looked so much less daunting that Henry immediately forgot his earlier plans. ‘What do I do?’ he asked. It suddenly occurred to him she might be a medium who’d go into trance and speak for the god. If so, that would make things easier.
‘Walk to the ark and say, "I am here,"’ Euphrosyne told him. ‘Charaxes cannot see, but he will hear you.’
For some reason it never occurred to Henry to do anything other than what he was told. He took three steps forward, licked his lips and said softly, ‘I am here.’
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ Charaxes demanded clearly from the ark. Henry took a step back, his blood chill, his heart thumping. That wasn’t the voice of a god.
It was the voice of Mr Fogarty.
Seventy-One
There was an emergency team waiting as Madame Cardui and Nymph stepped out of the Palace portal. Two of its members moved into the flames at once and reemerged seconds later carrying the prostrate Pyrgus on a stretcher. ‘Place him in stasis immediately,’ Madame Cardui ordered.
‘One moment,’ said Chief Wizard Surgeon Healer Danaus pompously. He was dressed, as always, in the formal robes of his profession. The stretcher-bearers stopped.