straining as if he might move it on his own. He even was, a little. Then a couple of bedraggled Suljuks jumped in beside him and between them got it rolling. Luline Buckhorm was lifting her children up into a wagon and Temple went to help them, scraping the hair from his eyes.
‘Repent!’ shrieked Ashjid. ‘This is no storm, this is the wrath of God!’
Savian dragged him close by his torn robe. ‘This is a storm. Keep talking and I’ll show you the wrath of God!’ And he flung the old man on the ground.
‘We need to get…’ Shy’s mouth went on but the wind stole her words. She tugged at Temple and he staggered after, no more than a few steps but they might as well have been miles. It was black as night, water coursing down his face, and he was shivering with cold and fear, hands helplessly dangling. He turned, bearings suddenly fled and panic gripping him.
Which way were the wagons? Where was Shy?
One of his fires still smouldered nearby, sparks showering out into the dark, and he tottered towards it. The wind came up like a door slamming on him and he pushed and struggled, grappling at it like one drunkard with another. Then, suddenly, a sharper trickster than he, it came at him the other way and bowled him over, left him thrashing in the grass, Ashjid’s mad shrieking echoing in his ears, calling on God to smite the unbeliever.
Seemed harsh. You can’t just choose to believe, can you?
He crawled on hands and knees, hardly daring to stand in case he was whisked into the sky and dashed down in some distant place, bones left to bleach on earth that had never known men’s footsteps. A flash split the darkness, raindrops frozen streaks and the wagons edged with white, figures caught straining as if in some mad tableau then all sunk again in rain-lashed darkness.
A moment later thunder ripped and rattled, turning Temple’s knees to jelly and seeming to shake the very earth. But thunder should end and this only drummed louder and louder, the ground trembling now for certain, and Temple realised it was not thunder but hooves. Hundreds of hooves battering the earth, the cattle driven mad by the storm, so many dozen tons of meat hurtling at him where he knelt helpless. Another flash and he saw them, rendered devilish by the darkness, one heaving animal with hundreds of goring horns, a furious mass boiling across the plain towards him.
‘Oh God,’ he whispered, sure that, slippery as he was, death’s icy grip was on him at last. ‘Oh God.’
‘Come on, you fucking idiot!’
Someone tugged at him and another flash showed Shy’s face, hatless with hair flattened and her lips curled back, all dogged determination, and he had never been so glad to be insulted in his life. He stumbled with her, the pair of them jerked and buffeted by the wind like corks in a flood, the rain become a scriptural downpour, like to the fabled flood with which God punished the arrogance of old Sippot, the thunder of hooves merged with the thunder of the angry sky to make one terrifying din.
A double blink of lightning lit the back of a wagon, canvas awning madly jerking, and below it Leef’s face, wide-eyed, shouting encouragements drowned in the wind, one arm stretched starkly out.
And suddenly that hand closed around Temple’s and he was dragged inside. Another flash showed him Luline Buckhorm and some of her children, huddled together amongst the sacks and barrels along with two of the whores and one of Gentili’s cousins, all wet as swimmers. Shy slithered into the wagon beside him, Leef dragging her under the arms, while outside he could hear a veritable river flowing around the wheels. Together they wrestled the flapping canvas down.
Temple fell back, in the pitch darkness, and someone sagged against him. He could hear their breath. It might have been Shy, or it might have been Leef, or it might have been Gentili’s cousin, and he hardly cared which.
‘God’s teeth,’ he muttered, ‘but you get some weather out here.’
No one answered. Nothing to say, or too drained to say it, or perhaps they could not hear him for the hammering of the passing cattle and the hail battering the waxed canvas just above their heads.
The path the herd had taken wasn’t hard to follow—a stretch of muddied, trampled earth veering around the camp and spreading out beyond as the cattle had scattered, here or there the corpse of a dead cow huddled, all gleaming and glistening in the bright wet morning.
‘The good people of Crease may have to wait a little longer for the word of God,’ said Corlin.
‘Seems so.’ Shy had taken it at first for a heap of wet rags. But crouching beside it she’d seen a corner of black cloth flapping with some white embroidery, and recognised Ashjid’s robe. She took off her hat. Felt like the respectful thing to do. ‘Ain’t much left of him.’
‘I suppose that’s what happens when a few hundred cattle trample a man.’
‘Remind me not to try it.’ Shy stood and jammed her hat back on. ‘Guess we’d best tell the others.’
It was all activity in the camp, folk putting right what the storm spoiled, gathering what the storm scattered. Some of the livestock might’ve wandered miles, Leef and a few others off rounding them up. Lamb, Savian, Majud and Temple were busy mending a wagon that the wind had dragged over and into a ditch. Well, Lamb and Savian were doing the lifting while Majud was tending to the axle with grip and hammer. Temple was holding the nails.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked as they walked up.
‘Ashjid’s dead,’ said Shy.
‘Dead?’ grunted Lamb, setting the wagon down and slapping his hands together.
‘Pretty sure,’ said Corlin. ‘The herd went over him.’
‘Told him to stay put,’ growled Savian. That man was all sentiment.
‘Who’s going to pray for us now?’ Majud even looked worried about it.
‘You need praying for?’ asked Shy. ‘Didn’t pick you for piety.’
The merchant stroked at his pointed chin. ‘Heaven is at the bottom of a full purse, but… I have become used to a morning prayer.’
‘And me,’ said Buckhorm, who’d drifted over to join the conversation with a couple of his several sons.
‘What do you know,’ muttered Temple. ‘He made some converts after all.’
‘Say, lawyer!’ Shy called at him. ‘Wasn’t priest among your past professions?’
Temple winced and leaned in to speak quietly. ‘Yes, but of all the many shameful episodes in my past, that is perhaps the one that shames me most.’
Shy shrugged. ‘There’s always a place for you behind the herd if that suits you better.’
Temple thought a moment, then turned to Majud. ‘I was given personal instruction over the course of several years by Kahdia, High Haddish of the Great Temple in Dagoska and world-renowned orator and theologist.’
‘So…’ Buckhorm pushed his hat back with a long finger. ‘Cuh… can you say a prayer or can’t you?’
Temple sighed. ‘Yes. Yes, I can.’ He added in a mutter to Shy. ‘A prayer from an unbelieving preacher to an unbelieving congregation from a score of nations where they all disbelieve in different things.’
Shy shrugged. ‘We’re in the Far Country now. Guess folk need something new to doubt.’ Then, to the rest, ‘He’ll say the best damn prayer you ever heard! His name’s Temple, ain’t it? How religious can you get?’
Majud and Buckhorm traded sceptical glances. ‘If a Prophet can fall from the sky, I suppose one can wash from a river, too.’
‘Ain’t exactly raining… other options.’
‘It’s rained everything else,’ said Lamb, peering up at the heavens.
‘And what shall be my fee?’ asked Temple.
Majud frowned. ‘We did not pay Ashjid.’
‘Ashjid’s only care was for God. I have myself to consider also.’
‘Not to mention your debts,’ added Shy.
‘Not to mention those.’ Temple gave Majud an admonishing glance. ‘And, after all, your support for charity was clearly demonstrated when you refused to offer help to a drowning man.’
‘I assure you I am as charitable as anyone, but I have the feelings of my partner Curnsbick to consider and Curnsbick has an eye on every bit.’
‘So you often tell us.’
‘And you were not drowning at the time, only wet.’
‘One can still be charitable to the wet.’
