Fanuilh by Daniel Hood (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📗

muttering of "So be it" rose from the assembled crowd, and every person in the square and the wineshop galleries where Liam stood bowed their head. On cue, two of the acolytes caught hold of the immaculate tarp that covered the image on the litter and pulled it back, so that it slid up the front of the statue and then fell back from its shoulders.

Liam almost whistled, but checked himself. The statue was incredible, an eight-foot-tall woman bearing a book and a lantern and a benign expression. Uris had been rendered in exquisite detail, but what struck Liam was the obvious cost of the image. Carved of wood, barely an inch was free of some expensive decoration, from the cloth-of-gold robes to the chips of jade that were inset in her fingers to stand for nails. Her eyes were multifaceted diamonds, her hair uncountable wires of beaten silver; the book and lantern were gold, and in the heart of the lantern, representing the flame, was an enormous winking ruby. Countless smaller gems glittered from her robes, sewn into the cloth-of-gold.

Absurdly, Liam thought of a thief he had once known who would then and there have resolved to steal the statue, and then made good on the resolution. Thievery, however, was far from the minds of the worshippers in the square, who could not decide whether to gaze devotedly on their goddess or hang their heads in humility.

Once he judged the people had had their fill of the statue, the priest walked down off the platform and allowed the procession to form behind him. Without any discernible scurrying, everyone found their places; the pageboys once again in front, joined by the acolyte with the horn, followed by the priest, the litter, the rest of the acolytes, then Coeccias and his Guardsmen dressed in their ceremonial armor. As the only layman who had made all the processions of the week, Viyescu walked alone next, with the musicians behind him. Last in the official procession came Marcius and his gaggle of prominent merchants.

The horn sounded again, the musicians struck up a tune, and the procession began to move fairly quickly out of the square to the south. As soon as Marcius and his group were past, the general crowd fell in behind them, beginning to raise up songs and shouts. Instruments appeared among the hitherto silent worshippers, and the noise swelled into a happy celebration, loudly heralding the unveiled Uris through the city.

The procession was headed down towards the harbor and moving rapidly, the hundreds of worshippers pressing hard after, bearing their noisy celebration with them.

Liam watched until the last had straggled out of the square, leaving a loud silence in their wake. A long pent-up sigh escaped from the messenger, calling attention to him.

"Where will they go?"

"To the harbor, sure;" the man said, as though it should be obvious. "And then they'll up through Aurie's Park and Northfield, and so back to Temple's Court."

"I've never seen the celebrations for Uris-tide before," Liam said, thinking with pity of the litter bearers and their heavy cargo.

"They're every year," the man said, looking at him like he was an idiot. "How could you not?"

He began to explain, but then decided not to bother. If the man couldn't figure out from his accent and his name that he was a Midlander, why bother enlightening him? Instead, he simply shrugged and sat down at the table, pulling his unfinished wine to him.

The messenger stayed for a moment to bestow a pitying look on him, and then left.

Liam stayed at the wineshop for another half an hour, reflecting on the ceremony through two more cups. Few other Taralonian gods required processions, even in Torquay, which was noted for its zealous maintenance of ancient rituals.

At length, however, he could not keep his thoughts from the investigation, and he felt compelled to do something, even if it was just to walk—which he did, at length.

The procession's taking a long time, he thought as he strolled the nearly empty streets, with even more pity for the litter bearers.

He walked west from the square, past the outdoor theater he now realized was the summer home of the Golden Orb's company, and into the Warren, the sprawl of narrow, twisted streets and tortured lanes that housed most of the city in ramshackle houses that stretched impossibly high. They seemed to rely on each other for support, leaning forward across the streets, almost touching as they reached four and five stories.

Ordinarily he would not have gone there, but the spirit of the celebration must have taken hold, and there were few people in the streets, some of whom looked like they might actually have been cleaned to honor the goddess. Even the ranks of the beggars were thinner, many undoubtedly gone to try their luck with the processors.

And besides, Coeccias had told him that the apartment rented by the hooded woman was in the Warren. He pondered Viyescu's strange behavior once again. For some reason, his questions about the woman had upset the gruff druggist, but Liam found it difficult to understand why. It might have something to do with Tarquin, but it might have been that the druggist was simply unwilling to discuss the intricacies of sin with a priest. He might well have tripped himself up again with his religious imposture, closing off an avenue of investigation with an ill-chosen ploy. Or maybe Uris herself was frustrating him, as a punishment for pretending to be one of her Hierarchs.

Still—Viyescu had wanted to tell him something, and had not. Until he knew what it was, he could not dismiss the inkling at the back of his mind.

His thoughts as aimless as his footsteps, he was well into the Warren before he heard the bells tolling from far to the east in Temple's Court. On hearing them, he pulled up short and immediately turned around. There was little for him and Coeccias to talk about—the news about the rent being paid made little