For a service like this one, where no one was really expected to come join in the worship, there was no grand procession up the center of the Temple. Instead, a few priests came in from doors on either side of the altar, lit candles and incense, and began very quiet chanting. If you knew the chants and wished to join, you could — otherwise, you could observe and pray, according to your own nature.
He was the only person in the sanctuary other than the priests, and he had found a marginally warm place in the shadows of a pillar, so they probably didn't even notice him. They certainly didn't make any effort to pitch their voices to carry, and the distant murmur, combined with the fact that he could lean up against the pillar, allowed him to drop into a drowse again.
He drifted back into the dream of this morning; it seemed to be a continuation of the same story. This time he and the girl were crouched together in a closet, listening to something in the next room. The murmur of the priests at their devotions blended with the murmurs in the dream. Then the dream changed abruptly, as dreams tended to do, and he found himself incongruously staring deeply into a pair of large, deep blue eyes that filled his entire field of vision.
Blue eyes? Whose blue eyes? He didn't know anyone with blue eyes.
Abruptly, the bell signifying the end of the service rang, and he started awake.
Huh, he thought with bemusement. Haven't dreamed this much in — can't 'member when. Must've been ev'thin' I et!
He got to his feet when the priests were gone, sauntered out of the sanctuary, and joined the rest of the pupils now gathering for their lessons.
But today was going to be different. For the first time ever, he put real effort into his attempts to master numbers. If he was going to have a position with Bazie's gang, he didn't want the authorities looking for him to clap him back into lessons. There was always a chance that they would catch him. If that happened, his uncle would know exactly where to find him.
No, the moment that Bazie had a place for him, he wanted to be able to pass his test and get released from school. Then he could disappear, and Uncle Londer could fume all he wanted. At the moment, he couldn't see how hanging with Bazie's gang could be anything but an improvement over the Hollybush.
His determination communicated itself to his tutor, and the younger boy put more enthusiasm into the lesson than Skif had expected. By the end of it, he'd made more progress in that single morning than he had in the four years he'd been taking lessons.
When lessons were over and the bell rang, he got ready to shoot out the door with the rest, but before he could, he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, holding him in his seat.
Beel. He must have noticed something was different. Skif's stomach knotted, and his heart sank. He was in trouble, he must be — and for once, he didn't know why, or for what reason. And that made it worse.
“You can all go — ,” said Beel, whose hand, indeed, it was — but Beel's hand kept Skif pinned where he was.
Only when the room had emptied did Beel remove his hand from Skif's shoulder, and the young priest came around in front of him to stand looking down at him soberly.
“Skif — do you do work at the tavern in the afternoons?” Beel asked, a peculiarly strained expression on his face.
What?
Skif hesitated. If he told the truth, surely Beel would tell his father that Skif was a regular at playing truant from the Hollybush, and he would be in trouble. But if he didn't — Beel was a priest, and might be able to tell, and he would be in worse trouble.
But Beel didn't wait for him to make up his mind about his answer. “I want you to do something for me, Skif,” he said urgently, his eyes full of some emotion Skif couldn't recognize. “I want you to promise me that today you won't go near the tavern from the time lessons let out until the time darkness falls.”
The look Skif wore on his face must have been funny, since Beel smiled thinly. “I can't tell you why, Skif, but I hope that you can at least trust the priest if you can't trust your cousin. My father… is not as clever as he thinks he is. Someone is angry, angry at him, and angry at Kalchan. I think, unless he can be persuaded to curb his anger, that he is going to act this afternoon. You have nothing to do with all this, and you do not deserve to be caught in the middle.”
And with those astonishing words, Beel turned and left, as he always did, as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever transpired between them.
After a moment, Skif shook off his astonishment and slowly left the building. Once out in the sunlight, he decided that whatever Beel was hinting at didn't really matter, because he had no notion of going back to the tavern during the day anyway. He was going to meet Deek, and get his first lessons in the fine art of thievery!
