Crusade - James Lowder [41]
The cleric smiled warmly and continued. "I've gathered you here so that you can see what good fortune may bring." He pointed to the beautiful, threestory facade of Wyvernspur House. "These people have been graced."
A murmur of approval ran through the crowd.
The cleric spun around and pointed at his audience. "Are they better people than you?" he asked, raising his voice slightly. "Are they more worthy people than you?"
"No!" someone yelled.
"Of course not," a man close to Azoun hollered in a deep, rumbling voice.
"They don't even work for what they have," a woman cried. Another murmur ran through the crowd, this one tinged with anger.
"But there you are wrong!" the priest said, pointing at the woman who had spoken last. Again his voice grew a little louder. "The people who live along this street, even the royals who live in the grand palace-" The cleric threw his hands into the air, gesturing toward the castle that stood at the other side of the gardens as if he'd just seen it. "They've all paid for what they own. Do you know how?"
A few people muttered, "No."
The cleric raised his voice and clasped his hands together in front of his chest. "Do any of you know how?"
"No!" a few more commoners cried. "Tell us!"
Another warm smile crossed the cleric's face, and the man dabbed sweat and pushed a few strands of dark, matted hair from his brow. "Yes," he said softly, "I'll tell you."
Azoun felt a dull anger welling up inside of him as he watched the cleric play the crowd. He'd seen bullfights in the south, and the toreadors had toyed with the bulls in just such a way, forcing the beasts to dance like trained bears. The king couldn't be too angry, though; he'd used some of the same rhetorical tactics himself when giving his speech to the crowd in the gardens.
As the smiling priest paused, waiting for anticipation to build in his audience, the king studied him closely.
The cleric's hair was dark brown, almost black, and combed back from his broad forehead. Deep blue eyes lay under the man's thick eyebrows. His most startling feature was his mouth, which was somehow amazingly expressive.
With just the twitch of a lip, the cleric could convey more than most people could with their entire body. Azoun silently noted that the tongue inside that mouth was most likely gold-plated, probably forked, too.
Whatever else there was of the cleric was hidden in a thick brown robe, which was itself very clean, even newly laundered. That fact alone made the cleric stand out in the crowd of grubby peasants that surrounded him. A small silver disk hung at his throat, a symbol of his devotion to the Goddess of Luck.
Since the cleric was facing west, whenever he moved, the late afternoon sun glinted off the disk and flashed into someone's eyes.
The priest finished mopping his brow. "These people have won the favor of the Goddess of Luck because they've helped themselves, taken their destinies into their own hands." He signaled to a young boy in the crowd, who moved forward, carrying a small wooden box.
"But what can we do?" asked a pathetic-looking old woman. She held her bony arms outstretched toward the cleric, and her shapeless gray frock shifted on her thin frame.
Without a word, the dark-haired cleric took the box from the boy's hands, held it out to the woman, and opened it. A large golden coin lay in the velvetlined case. The coin was a gold lion, if Azoun guessed correctly, and like the cleric's holy symbol, it caught the rays of the afternoon sun and flashed them at the old woman. This time it was a gasp that escaped from the crowd.
Servants from Wyvernspur House now lined the street in front of the manor, and a few noblemen and ladies peered