Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [83]
“That was a copy. This is the original.”
He looked at it again and then nodded, somewhat stiffly. Clearly he wasn’t comfortable in such august company. “He was at the afternoon service, I think. On Tuesday. Yesterday,” he added helpfully. “I was watching in the foyer, like Father Renalds told me to. This guy came out of the sanctuary right after the service, almost the first one out. He was in a real hurry.” He looked down at the picture again, then nodded. “I’m pretty sure it was him. His hair was a little shorter, and he wasn’t quite this thin, but the face looked about the same.”
“Did you find out who he was?”
He shook his head, scattering the red hair out of its embankments. “I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t stop. I asked a few people who were there if they knew who he was, but no one did.”
“Did you follow him?”
The boy looked stricken. “No, Holy Father, I ... I’m sorry.” His face had flushed so bright a red that it almost rivaled his hair. “I didn’t think of it. I didn’t realize.... Please, forgive me.”
“It’s all right.” He took the drawing back from the boy. “There’s no reason you should have thought to do that. We’re not training you as a spy.” He tried to keep his tone as beneficent as possible; the boy was so nervous he looked as if a light breeze would knock him over. “Thank you, Elerin. You may go now.”
He did so anxiously, bowing repeatedly as he backed his way toward the door. Not until he was gone did the Patriarch let his smile fade, and a more businesslike expression take its place.
“I want to know who this man is,” he told the priest, tapping the drawing. “If that means following him, then do it. If our people lack the skill to pull that off gracefully, then hire someone who can.” He glanced at the picture again. “Get one of our priestesses to keep watch outside the sanctuary during services. Someone young and pretty, whom he might be willing to talk to. Unmarried,” he added sharply.
Would that be bait enough? The face in the picture, though roughly sketched, was clearly a handsome one. Such a man might stop to talk to a pretty woman, while ignoring the man right beside her.
“Are you sure he’ll come back, Your Holiness?”
He shut his eyes for a moment; visions rose unbidden before his inner eye. “A vision showed me that he would come here, and he did. It also showed me that he would return.”
“Of course, Your Holiness.” The priest’s voice trembled with awe as he bowed deeply before his religious master; clearly he was of the faction that considered the Patriarch’s visions to come directly from God. “We’ll find out who he is, I promise you.”
I am a prophet in their eyes, the Patriarch mused, as the priest made his way out of the chamber. Would that I could be so sure of it myself.
As he gazed down at the drawing in his hands, he could not help but shiver. And a chill wind of awe coursed up his back as it seemed to him, for one fleeting instant, that Reverend Vryce’s sketch of Gerald Tarrant was looking back at him.
JAGGONATH: Violence shook the Street of Gods once more as vandals skirmished with police, following the fifth in a series of assaults upon houses of worship here.
Police estimate that the vandals gained entrance to the Maidens of Pelea Temple sometime between three and four a.m. through the servants’ entrance in the rear of the building. As in the previous incidents, the only motivation appeared to be desecration of the temple and its relics. Banners, signs, books, and other fiammable items were assembled in the worship chamber, doused with kerosene, and burned. As in the previous incidents, the nature of the articles destroyed, combined with lack of theft in the incident, suggests either a hostile secular organization, or rivalry between religious factions based within the city.
Neighborhood watches along the Street have been doubled, and a Street of Gods defense fund has been established to defray the cost of private guards and additional investigators. Several local leaders have demanded an