Chapter 2
'Make me a Prime March can be proud of,' said Mathias. 'I want to learn.'
Sala Pedralis sat across from him on a balcony that overlooked the inner Manse gardens. Her features were grey and craggy but somehow, beneath it all, she had retained an element of youth. Once, for a brief few months, she had been the Prime's partner; later, she had been elected on to the board of the Hanrahan clan to serve as one of his main advisers. In this capacity she had been responsible for Mathias's education. She had found him ancient books, shown him the wonders of discovery, fed his hunger for knowledge and understanding.
She laughed lightly. 'So the old goat has finally made some sort of an impression on you?' She laughed again.
'Sala, he's my father. I don't want to keep fighting him.'
'Or Greta Beckett, hmm?'
Mathias blushed and looked out over the rich greenery of the gardens. The scene was bursting with life: flycatchers darted after fluffy grey moths, froglets clung motionless to the lichen-coated tree trunks, grana seeds parachuted themselves towards the few open spaces that were not paved.
'Mathias, I've been tutoring you for the last five or six years. You know what I mean when I say someone is decent or moral. You know I believe in progress but that I also believe advances should be gradual and considered. What more do you want me to tell you, hmm? I can't just snap my fingers and turn you into the right stuff. I can't still your temper or make you less of an impetuous young fool. There's no secret rule of thumb that all good Primes know and others can only guess at.'
Mathias felt a surge of anger at her words but he controlled it. He would have to do it all himself then, if even Sala refused to help. After a few minutes of small talk, he rose and left her on the balcony. It was all a question of will-power, strength of mind.
He closed the door and turned and Edward was standing before him in the corridor with that familiar half-smile on his face. 'Please, Miz Sala,' he said, 'make me a Prime to be proud of!'
Mathias grabbed him by the jacket and pushed him up against the wall. Edward was small and weak and he didn't try to struggle. 'At least I am going to be Prime,' hissed Mathias. 'At least I am not destined to stay forever in someone else's shadow, crawling behind them with my nose up their—'
'So you have changed your ways, have you?' It was the voice of Lucilla Ngota. Her timing was perfect. Mathias guessed that she had been keeping a close watch on him, waiting for the very first sign of deviation.
Slowly, he released his grip on his half-brother. Ignoring Lucilla's comment, he glared at Edward and said, 'I do not like people listening to my private conversations.' Then he turned to Lucilla. 'I do not like being spied upon as a rule.'
He turned and marched away, his shoulders braced, his breathing steady. At last he was learning some kind of control over his actions. He grinned. He would cope on his own, he didn't need Sala's help—primacy was in his blood.
~
Mathias was determined that his new attitude would endure. He found that he felt better about himself now, calmer, more purposeful. The self-discipline was paying off. He had realised that he needed this sort of goal in his life, something to aim at, something to focus his energies upon.
The only thing he resented was the loss of his books and journals. Returning after his encounter with Edward and Lucilla, he had instructed his servants to remove all of the ancient artefacts from his rooms. It had been painful, but he had seen it as necessary. He found life difficult without the books, the strange and wonderful world they painted, but it had been a sign that he meant business and at last Greta seemed pleased with him.
Earlier today, she had even suggested he could be her concessionary male at one of her Gatherings.
He had started at that suggestion, but when he studied Greta's face it was clear that her suggestion was innocent. She could never hide anything from Mathias. He had refused, as she must have expected, but now, waiting in the darkness outside the deus house, he began to wonder if he should have accepted her offer.
'Here they comin', ya' highness,' said Idi Mondata, pointing to the blocky building's entrance and pulling a face that might have been a manic grin.
Mathias pushed his friend into the alley and for a moment it felt like they were still children, slipping out without their parents' knowledge, high on the adrenalin of disobedience.
But they were older now, and Mathias's mood was more subdued. The adrenalin was no longer there.
'You coming inside then?'
Mathias could see the whites of Idi's eyes in the darkness. 'Sure,' he answered. He pulled his cloak around himself, the coarse material feeling unfamiliar, the camouflage of the street. 'Come on.'
That morning, Mathias had been gutting fish with Idi. 'I sometimes wonder what goes on in there,' he had said, 'in their Gatherings.'
'Brainwashing,' Idi had said. 'Brainwashing 'n' witchcraft. That's what Rabi always used to say.' Then his eyes had narrowed and he had continued. 'You want to see for yourself, Matt? I know some Dee Krishnas who could get us in if you want. They've been watching them for years—don't trust 'em. You want?'
And so they stood in the shadows as the drizzle began and the first of the Daughters and Little Sisters of the Convent made their way along the Street of the Holy Fountain, their route lit dismally by hanging torches, dampened by the night. They entered the deus house in threes, all bowing their heads, passing through the doorway without pause, carefully stepping on the white entrance stone and simultaneously crossing themselves with geometrical precision.
There was a sound nearby in the shadows and Idi put a hand on Mathias's arm. A short man had joined them.
As his eyes adjusted to the level of the light, Mathias saw that the man was bald, his head and face covered with tattoos—hearts and flowers and eye-centred swastikas—making it impossible to judge his age. The Death Krishna blinked slowly and Mathias saw that caricatured eyes had been tattooed onto his eyelids.
'This is Joseph,' said Idi. 'He's our guide.' The man, Joseph, nodded briefly and then retreated and gestured for them to follow.
~
The balcony ran the length of the auditorium below. Sounds of the Gathering were louder here, voices chanting, the words indistinct, a chaos of uncoordinated chants.
They had entered the deus house's basement through a trapdoor, and then they had followed Joseph up a series of spiralling staircases. The place smelt of incense and damp and there were posters still hanging from the walls from when this had been the city's only theatre.
As the three fanned out along the balcony, Mathias looked at the Gathering below. The smell was stronger up here and the first thing that struck Mathias was the banked mass of purple candles burning on a raised platform at one end of the auditorium. Behind the candles was a huge crucifix, easily ten metres high; nailed to the cross was the contorted figure of a woman carved from dove-grey jelebab wood, her face tipped to the heavens, her features settled into a peaceful smile. Mathias stared, transfixed, into the wide-awake eyes of the carved Mary/Deus, almost on a level with his own.
Below, the Little Sisters and Daughters of the Convent stepped forward, three by three, and prostrated themselves, moaning, before the giant crucifix. Behind them the congregation buzzed in excitement; even the Conventist Guards dotted around the wall seemed to be overcome with the experience. Mathias shook his head, glad that Greta had already been to her Gathering for this week.
He glanced to his right, first at Idi, picking his nails and staring at the giant crucifix, and then at the small Death Krishna, looking down patiently over the Gathering. He wondered what it was that drew the Krishnas to the Convent, and then he began to wonder just how much he had been sheltered from, brought up in the Manse, what dark currents lay hidden from him beneath the familiar surface of Newest Delhi.
And then he looked down and saw that Greta Beckett was lying face down before the crucifix, moaning like her sisters on either side.
That sun-white hair was unmistakable.
'Fountain of life, the greater part.' The congregation started to sing. It was a hymn Mathias recognised from the past, from neighbourhood pageants put on for the Prime, although the words had been altered. 'Wet my brow, Sorority.'
He couldn't take his eyes from Greta's prostrate form, the slight, ecstatic movements of her legs, her hips, the arching of her back as she took up the hymn. 'Springing up within the heart'—he was sure he could hear Greta's voice, carrying clear above the rest of the congregation—'Mary/Deus, Eternity.'
He jerked away, shaking his head in a vague effort to clear his mind of the image from below. He felt dirty, he hadn't come to spy on his fiancée. He would never have been here if he had thought there was the slightest chance that...
He'd only wanted to see for himself.
He looked across at Idi and Joseph, still studying the Gathering intently. He couldn't take any more. He peered through a curtained archway that led off the balcony. The corridor was empty so he stepped out, feeling an instant release from the tension Greta had stirred in him.
He walked slowly to the first junction, reconnaissance diverting his thoughts from what Idi would think when he saw that he had been unable to stay.
The way was clear and he turned back to join Idi.
It was then that he heard the voices and he paused. He knew he should return to Idi and the Krishna but instead he took a step, then another, down the right-hand fork in the passageway. At the next junction he determined that the voices were being carried up a nearby stairwell. He stopped at the railing, keeping out of the light seeping up from below, breathing slowly so as not to choke on the candle smoke being carried up by the draught.
'...if he will not protect the sorority's name, then we will simply have to make him do so,' said one of the voices.
'We have always had ways,' said another. 'A good woman can control a hundred men, particularly a Valley man.' The two women laughed.
The Convent had recently made representations to the Prime about what they described as their persecution in some of the southern valleys—that must be what the women were talking about. March had not been forthcoming in his response. Mathias was about to return to the balcony when he heard the second woman add, 'The world should remember the strength of the deus.'
He shook his head. Once, the Convent had carried great influence with the Primacies of the day; there had always been a matre or a Little Sister on hand to advise and, eventually, to manipulate. The Convent had grown rich and strong before it had been reduced to its current status. But that had been three, maybe four, generations ago. Now, the Prime's view of them fluctuated between amusement and irritation.
Mathias straightened as he heard a noise from the corridor. Idi and Joseph must be stirring—they would want to be clear before the Gathering broke up.
He turned and then he knew that he had been trapped. Two Conventist Guards blocked his way, a Little Sister standing nervously behind them. The Guards were big and they were wrapped in leggings and jackets of thick black cord. Their hands hung easily by the long knives strapped to their thighs.
The Little Sister stepped forward and called down the stairwell and Mathias knew that this would be his only chance to break free and save face: they were yet to recognise him in his ordinary street clothes.
He raised his hands, said, 'Listen,' and then darted at the gap between the two guards.
But they were ready for him, as he had expected. They caught him easily and held him firm as three more Conventists appeared at the top of the stairs.
Two of the new arrivals were Little Sisters but the third, a thin woman with a large crucifix hanging across her chest, was a priestess, a matre. She looked at Mathias and her recognition of him was betrayed by a brief twitch of her eyebrows. 'They say your diplomacy is non-existent,' she said to him, signalling to the guards to release him. 'But I had not believed it could be so.'
Mathias's skin was burning, adrenalin coursing through his veins. 'I just wanted to see for myself,' he said. He was not going to apologise to a matre.
'And what did you see?' The matre folded her hands across her crucifix and waited.
'An old theatre that could be put to better use.' She had no right to question him, she knew who he was.
'And nobody knows that you are here.'
Suddenly, in the ensuing silence, he realised how vulnerable he was. The matre's statement was not a threat, but it was an observation that cut right through Mathias's defences.
The matre whispered sharply to one of her companions, who then hurried back down the stairwell. After a few minutes of taut silence, Mathias heard footsteps returning up the stairs and then he saw that it was Greta, accompanied by the Little Sister.
He wouldn't meet her eyes. He didn't dare. He knew she had inherited a sharp temper from her father but she had never had reason to vent it on him.
He had never seen her body so tense, the knuckles of her fists so white by her sides. 'Matti,' she said quietly. 'We have to go.'
They walked in stiff silence back to the Manse, chaperoned by a Little Sister. Every step was painful, every silent breath more punishment than her temper could ever have been. He felt like he was drowning in shame, like he was being smothered.
At the entrance he finally looked up at Greta. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to...'
'I'm sorry too, Matti.' She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and kissed the air in parting. Mathias watched her figure retreating across the Playa Cruzo, shadowed by her chaperone, and wondered if things would ever be the same again.