He watched the great canopy of summer foliage rushing overhead as the vehicle traversed the green tunnel. All his life he had gone to work on his bike, in uniform. On his bike he would be able to hear the thrushes and the woodpeckers and see butterflies working the hedgerows, but he had asked the chauffeur to lower the black leather hood so he could enjoy the breeze, scented with thyme and clover. England in August! The hay-fields were deserted today, their crop half cut. Down in the bottoms horses swished their tails at flies. Everywhere he looked, the hazy skyline was ornamented with church spires and towers rising over the trees. Once he could have named them all and probably still could if he had a moment to think—St. Peter's in Button Bent, St. Alban's in Cranley ... Norman, High Gothic, Perpendicular. For a thousand years, every Englishman had dwelt within walking distance of a church.
He had pulled out his watch before he realized that the bells had just told him the time. Elsie would be pulling out the stops in St. Wilfred's about now. He was going to be early for his appointment.
This jaunt was all a waste of time anyway. Leatherdale had a corpse and a killer and an open-and-shut case. The motive might not be obvious to nice-thinking folks, but a copper knew about the seamy side of life. Such things could happen even in drowsy little Greyfriars, where a runaway horse was a month's excitement. They happened; they just weren't talked about. This jaunt to Fallow had been Mrs. Bodgley's idea and the Old Man had been ready to agree to anything. So Leatherdale got a ride in a Rolls Royce. He yawned.
Fallow? He had passed the gates a few times, never been inside. It was outside his manor. Outside his ken, too—educational establishment for young gentlemen. Snob factory. Fallow boys would show up around Greyfriars sometimes, on day outings with their parents, like tailors’ dummies in their school uniform, top hat and tails, each one like every other one. All speaking alike with the proper accent and polite as Chinese mandarins, all of ‘em.
He'd thought to quiz the police doctor about Fallow, but the answer had been very much what he'd expected. A highly respected public school, Watkins had said. Not Eton or Harrow, of course. Second eleven, but probably about the best in the second eleven. Has a very solid relationship with the Colonial Office. Turns out the men who run the Empire—something of a specialty of the house, you might say. A chap'll bump into Old Fallovians all over the globe, in just about every Crown Colony everywhere. Running them, of course. White Man's Burden, palm and pine, and all that.
Dear Mrs. Bodgley could not imagine anything on God's green earth that would turn a tailor's dummy, right-spoken, frightfully polite Fallow boy into a savage killer. Or her equally well-mannered son into a victim.
But Leatherdale could. Not nice. Not nice at all!
5
THE SKY WAS GROWING LIGHTER AS THE TRONG TROUPE approached the temple. They were still arrayed in approximate order of size, although that was not a conscious arrangement. Trong Impresario led the way, like some peripatetic monument, with the statuesque Ambria at his side. Last of all came little Eleal Singer. The wind was still just as bitter and boisterous, whirling scattered snowflakes along the canyon of the street.
Hobbling under the weight of her pack, Eleal was immediately behind Klip and Olimmiar. She hated Narshvale. It was her least favorite of all the lands the troupe visited each year. Narshvale was cold, with leaden skies always seeming just about to spill snow. In Narsh itself the streets stank, because of the coal the Narshians burned to warm their ugly stone houses—grimy stone with roofs of black slate. The people stank, too, probably because they didn't wash their clothes. You couldn't wash Ilama fleece, it wouldn't dry before next winter.
She especially disliked the temple and Ois, its goddess, although of course no one would ever say such a thing out loud. Ambria probably felt the same way, because she always told Eleal to wait outside. If the old hussy thought Eleal did not know what went on in there, then she was sorely misinformed. In some of the villages the troupe played, they all had to share the same sleeping room. Eleal knew perfectly well what happened in the dark, under the covers. Uthiam and Golfren did it a lot, because they'd been married less than a year. K'linpor Actor and Halma did it too, and Dolm Actor and Yama, but not as often. Even Trong and Ambria did it sometimes. Everyone had to pretend not to hear, and nobody ever mentioned it, although when one couple started it, they often set off others.
They were married and did it because they wanted to and must like it. What happened in the temple of Ois was different. It involved money, and was supposed to be a sacrifice to the goddess, but no other god or goddess that Eleal knew of demanded that. She often wondered how the priestesses felt about it. She'd even asked Uthiam once if that was what the men did on their annual visit. Uthiam had become indignant and said of course not, Trong Impresario would never allow them to, not even the bachelors.
"You mean it's wrong?” Eleal had asked, very sweetly.
"Certainly not!” Uthiam had declared, one must not presume to judge what the gods decree. She had turned very pink and changed the subject.
Up front, Trong and Ambria had rounded the corner. They would stop at the temple door for everyone else to catch up, and then Ambria would order Eleal to wait outside. Well, Eleal saw no reason why she should walk all that way and then back again with this heavy pack. She was not going to wait outside and freeze to death—she had other plans!
Checking that Uthiam and Dolm were still talking and paying no attention to her, she ducked into a doorway and made herself as flat as paint.
She felt breathless and her heart was thumping faster than usual. She had eaten no breakfast, yet there was a tight feeling in her insides. The annual mammoth ride over Rilepass always affected her like this. The summit was very scary, with huge masses of ice and snow liable to break off and crash down. Sometimes even a surefooted mammoth could slip and fall miles down, into a gorge. It was very exciting.
Everyone sacrificed to Ois before crossing Rilepass. On the other hand, the goddess was not likely to worry very much about one twelve-year-old girl, and even the goddess couldn't drop an avalanche on her without also dropping it on all the other people riding in the same howdah. Eleal was going to go and pray to Tion instead. She had some very special prayers to make.
She risked a glance around the corner, but Dolm and Uthiam were still in sight, and a few of the others also. She pulled back into her hiding place, grateful to be out of the wind, puffing on the tip of her nose to warm it.
Some big cities boasted several temples, but even towns like Narsh that had only one temple would also have at least one shrine to each member of the Pentatheon, either in person or to an aspect. Ois was an aspect of Eltiana, the Lady in her role as custodian of passes. Narsh also had a shrine to Kirb'l, the Joker, and the Joker was an aspect of Tion, the Youth.
It was very curious that the dour Narshians should have chosen that particular Tion persona to be his local representative. Narshians had less humor than any people she knew. Whereas most people never left the land they were born in, Eleal was very well traveled. The troupe visited seven of the Vales on their annual circuit. This year they had spent half a fortnight in Narsh. They had staged the comedy three times and the tragedy four times, without taking in enough to pay for the groceries, so Ambria said. Mill owners and ranchers, she grumbled—the meanest people in the world. They certainly had no sense of humor, so why should they honor the Joker so?
Piol Poet said that humor was the highest form of art, because it made people rejoice. He was joking when he said so.