Читать книгу The Treasured One - David Eddings - Страница 17

‘I think I must have offended my Oran,’ Jalkan complained to the elderly servant in Adnari Radan’s palace. ‘He claims that we need exact measurements of every church building in all of Kaldacin for church records, but I think he’s lying through his teeth. This is the most tedious chore I’ve ever had laid on me since I first entered the church, and I’ll be old and grey before I get even halfway through it.’

‘We live but to serve,’ the servant said piously.

‘Of course we do,’ Jalkan agreed sardonically. ‘Is this the Adnari’s study?’ he asked, pointing at an ornate door. ‘I wouldn’t want to disturb him.’

‘He’s over in the convenium right now.’

‘This won’t take more than a few minutes,’ Jalkan said. ‘I’m sure you have other matters to attend to. I won’t disturb anything, and I’ll close the door when I leave.’

‘I do have some chores to take care of, Hiera Jalkan,’ the old man said. ‘Are you sure you won’t need me?’

‘I’ve been doing this for weeks now, my friend,’ Jalkan replied. ‘A few more times and I should be able to do it in my sleep.’

The old man smiled and went off down the hall. Jalkan went into Adnari Radan’s study and looked around. This one seemed to be filled with all sorts of valuable items. Jalkan quickly began to scribble notes describing some of the more valuable objects. It appeared that Adnari Radan had some very expensive tastes. He had to get this place on Rabell’s list.

He was whistling as he returned home and bounded up the stairs to his second-floor cell.

Then he stopped suddenly. There were three iron-faced men in the distinctive uniforms of the church Regulators, the internal police of the Amarite church, waiting.

He turned to run back down the stairs, but the Regulators were too quick for him. They seized him and slammed him up against the wall. ‘You’re under arrest, Hiera Jalkan,’ one of them announced in an almost bored tone of voice.

‘But I haven’t done anything!’ Jalkan protested.

Almost casually, one of the Regulators drove his fist into Jalkan’s belly, knocking the wind out of him. Then, while he was gasping for breath, the Regulators slapped him into chains.

‘You’re in custody now, Hiera Jalkan,’ another Regulator declared. ‘You will come with us, and if you give us any trouble, the three of us will beat you to within an inch of your life.’

‘What are the charges?’ Jalkan demanded.

‘That’s none of our concern,’ the Regulator replied. ‘We were told by Adnari Estarg to bring you in, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.’

Jalkan began to tremble violently. Adnari Estarg was the most powerful man in the Amarite church, and he had a fearsome reputation. Church law forbade the death penalty for priests and even for novices, but it was widely known in Kaldacin that Adnari Estarg could come up with forms of punishment that made the death penalty seem almost preferable.

The Regulators dragged their violently trembling prisoner through the streets of Kaldacin to the splendid palace adjoining the huge, ornate convenium that marked the center of the Amarite faith. Then they took him up an ornate marble staircase to a splendidly furnished study on the second floor of the palace. They pushed him down onto his knees before the throne of a portly man garbed in the crimson robe of an Adnari of the church.

‘The prisoner Jalkan, your Grace,’ the Regulator who’d done most of the talking announced.

‘Excellent,’ the chubby churchman said, rubbing his hands together. ‘That’ll be all gentlemen. I’ll deal with this miscreant myself.’

‘As you wish, your Grace,’ the Regulator said with a slight bow, and then the three of them left the study, closing the door behind them.

‘Shameful, Hiera Jalkan,’ Adnari Estarg said. ‘Shameful, shameful, shameful. What am I going to do with you, you naughty boy?’

The Adnari’s tone actually sounded almost amused. ‘You do realize that you’ve profaned a sacred convenium by turning it into a den of thieves, don’t you?’

‘It’s been long abandoned, your Grace,’ Jalkan protested.

‘That doesn’t mean that the sanctification’s been revoked, Jalkan,’ the Adnari insisted.

‘It wasn’t originally my idea, your Grace. The old convenium had been long deserted, and the leader of a group of thieves just moved in and set up shop without anybody’s permission.’

‘Why didn’t you report that to your Oran?’

‘Well—’ Jalkan desperately groped for some sort of explanation that wouldn’t get him deeper in trouble.

‘I’m waiting, Jalkan.’

‘I lost my head, your Grace,’ Jalkan confessed. ‘The thieves are making heaps of money, and—’ Jalkan faltered.

‘And you seized the chance to take most of it away from them, didn’t you?’

‘Only a quarter, your Grace,’ Jalkan protested. ‘I thought at first that I could get more, but Rabell wouldn’t stand for it.’

‘Rabell?’

‘The fat man who hires the thieves. They steal and he sells what they’ve stolen. The really clever part of the business is the use of children.’

Adnari Estarg’s head came up sharply. ‘Children?’ he exclaimed. ‘What part could children play in this?’

‘They’re the ones who do the actual stealing, your Grace. As I understand it, the thieves have been using children for years and years. People with valuables in their houses usually have barred windows, but the children Rabell hires are so small that they can slip right between the bars and get inside with almost no trouble at all. Rabell tells me that when he was a child, he was the best thief in all of Kaldacin.’

‘And just exactly what part do you play in this grand scheme, Hiera Jalkan?’

‘Ah – I’d really rather not say, your Grace,’ Jalkan replied nervously.

‘I’m sure that the Regulators can come up with a way to make you change your mind, Hiera Jalkan,’ the Adnari said ominously.

‘Well—’ Jalkan said nervously, ‘I sort of find houses and such with lots of valuable things inside.’

‘And just exactly how do you gain entrance into these various houses?’ the Adnari pressed.

‘Well, they’re mostly the houses – and palaces – of the wealthier members of the clergy, your Grace. I told them that the church scholars had issued a rule that the exact dimensions of every piece of church property and all church buildings must be recorded in the church register. That opens a lot of doors for me, and I’m able to have a look around inside every building owned by any member of the clergy. When I come across a place with a lot of valuables inside, I go tell Rabell about it, and he arranges the robbery. I get a quarter of all the money the robbery brings in. He has thieves robbing other places as well, he tells me, but I only get paid for the ones I tell him about.’

‘Ah, now it’s starting to make some sense,’ Adnari Estarg said. ‘You’re very clever, Hiera Jalkan, but you do know that you’ve committed a serious offense, don’t you?’

Jalkan began to tremble violently again.

‘Don’t shake so much, dear boy,’ Adnari Estarg told him. ‘I think I’ve come up with a way for you to expiate this naughty sin you’ve committed – for a price. Everything has a price – or had you already noticed that?’

‘I’ll pay anything, your Grace,’ Jalkan vowed in a trembling voice.

‘You will indeed, Jalkan. Now, then, let’s get down to business here. How many of these tiny children can this scoundrel Rabell put his hands on?’

‘I’m not really sure, your Grace. I haven’t had much contact with their handlers.’

‘Handlers?’

‘They’re the men who more or less own the children. They decide which house they want to rob and stand guard outside while the child is inside stealing.’

‘Our business seems to be very well-organized.’

‘Our business?’

‘You might want to advise Rabell that I’m the senior partner now. I’ll put together an order about recording dimensions of church buildings and put my seal on it. That’ll get you into some houses and palaces you probably don’t even know about. Our glorious Naos, Parok VII, is so senile now that he doesn’t know night from day. That means that I, as the senior Adnari, am running the church, so what I say is the law. I think our first step should be to put these “handlers” you mentioned into the uniforms of church Regulators. That should be very useful. Nobody argues with the Regulators. You’d better go advise your fat friend that the situation’s changed just a bit.’

‘Ah, your Grace,’ Jalkan said. ‘I can’t really go anyplace just now. I’m all chained up, remember?’

‘Why, so you are, Jalkan,’ Adnari Estarg replied with feigned astonishment. ‘Isn’t it peculiar that I didn’t notice that myself?’

‘Things have changed just a bit, Rabell,’ Jalkan announced when he returned to the ancient convenium.

‘Changed? How?’ the fat man demanded suspiciously.

‘Right after I checked out Adnari Radan’s palace, I went back to my cell to put the notes I’d taken into some kind of order, but there were three Regulators waiting for me.’

‘Regulators?’ Rabell exclaimed. ‘How is it that you’re still alive?’

‘The Regulators aren’t quite that savage, Rabell. They chained me up, of course, and then they dragged me across town to the palace of Adnari Estarg.’

Rabell’s face went suddenly pale, and he started to tremble.

‘The Adnari had evidently heard some rumors about what we’re doing, so he wrung the truth out of me.’

‘If we hurry, we can be out of Kaldacin by sunset,’ Rabell said in a squeaky kind of voice.

‘Don’t get excited, Rabell. After the Adnari had heard the details of what we’ve been up to, he declared that from now on, we’ll be taking orders from him.’

‘Is this all some kind of elaborate joke, Jalkan? If it is, you’ll notice that I’m not laughing very much.’

‘Stay with me, Rabell. He told me that he was going to issue a proclamation to the effect that all church property and buildings are required to be listed in official church documents, and that the exact dimensions of every single room in all those buildings must be included. That proclamation will have his seal on it, and I’ll have it in my pocket. Whoever happens to be living there right now will be required to open the door and let me in. A week or so from now our people will be robbing houses we didn’t even know existed – and the handlers who take care of the children will be wearing the uniforms of church Regulators, so nobody in his right mind will interfere in any way at all.’

A look of astonished wonder came over Rabell’s face. ‘We’re going to get rich, Jalkan!’ he chortled. ‘We’re going to go way, way past rich! If I happen to be just dreaming, please don’t wake me up!’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear friend,’ Jalkan promised.

And then they both howled with laughter.

The Regulator who’d arrested Jalkan a few months earlier tapped politely on Jalkan’s cell door, and he was much more civil this time. ‘Adnari Estarg would have a word with you, Hiera Jalkan,’ he said mildly.

‘I’ll come at once,’ Jalkan said, rising quickly to his feet.

They moved through the streets of Imperial Kaldacin to the palace of the Adnari, and Jalkan was immediately admitted to Estarg’s study.

‘Ah, there you are, Jalkan,’ the fat churchman said. ‘Things might be looking up for us.’

‘Oh?’

‘Holy Naos Parok VII seems to be having some serious health problems. His assorted physicians have advised me that he won’t be around too much longer.’

‘I’ll pray that he recovers, your Grace,’ Jalkan declared piously.

‘We all will, of course,’ Estarg agreed, ‘but let’s not overdo it. Divine Amar’s very busy right now – changing the seasons, making sure that the sun rises and sets when she’s supposed to – all those tedious little details that take up so very much of a god’s time. Parok VII has had a full life, and he’s done very well. The church will miss him terribly, of course, but time moves on, and as soon as the holy old fool dies, he’ll have to be replaced.’

‘I’ve got a fair idea of who’s going to ascend the holy throne when dear Parok leaves us,’ Jalkan declared.