Read Online Temple Boys by Jamie Buxton - Free Book Online Page A

sky if you wanted something to look at. We were … I was … happy. I knew it wouldn’t last. Yesh’s father was a carpenter, but Yesh was never going to settle down to that. I just thought if I could keep him moving, keep him living on his wits, he might forget…”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHis difference. Yes, that’s the word. I thought he might be busy enough to forget his difference. And then things changed. It all happened so slowly I didn’t even notice, and by the time I did, it was too late.”
    Jude looked at Flea.
    â€œSomething you need to know about Yesh. He could have been anything he wanted, except he didn’t want to be anything you or I could dream of. That’s part of his difference. He’s a one-off. An original. When he started doing a new sort of trick and people began to think it was real magic, he didn’t exactly argue with them—and that made things dangerous. Every village has a priest, and while they might turn a blind eye to conjuring, real magic is witchcraft and you can be stoned for that. I tried to warn him, get him back to what we were doing before, but he said he was on the verge of something really important. He thought a change was coming to the world, and people—his people—should be ready for it.
    â€œSoon he was pulling in the big crowds, really big crowds, and he picked up more people, which turned into an inner circle of followers. You saw them with him yesterday. We all got along at first, but then one evening, when we were sitting around the fire, I suddenly realized that instead of everyone talking and sticking it to each other, they were all just listening to him.
    â€œNext thing, when we came back to places we’d already been, there were people waiting for us, and I found out all kinds of stuff I somehow hadn’t noticed before. He’d turned the water into wine, breathed on a dead sparrow and brought it back to life, cured people of leprosy and blindness. For a while we were followed around by an old pig man who swore Yesh had pulled little demons out of his throat and given them to his pigs to eat. Another person swore he’d fed a whole crowd with a handful of fish and a couple of loaves of bread—that’s the sort of audience he was pulling in …
    â€œTruth was, he always thought his talk was more important than the magic. He found a way of getting through to people better than the priests ever could. He talked about a world where everything was turned upside down—good for the poor, hard for rich, where you could make yourself pure just by doing good things.”
    Jude paused, and when he started talking again he wore the expression of someone taking bad medicine. “Then last year he ran into this Ranting Dunker called Yohanan, blast his miserable guts. This Yohanan, a grizzled old hermit, lived on the edge of the desert and had a following himself, but he said he was nothing compared to Yesh. He said Yesh wasn’t just the best conjuror in the world, nor even the best healer. No, he said he was the Chosen One himself, and Yesh’s other followers—the ones he’d picked up along the way—didn’t laugh it off, they believed him. They started calling my old friend Master, which was annoying enough, then Lord. And now, to cap it all, suddenly I realize they’re planning something big, here, in the city, on the busiest day of the whole year, and I don’t know what it is. You with me, Flea?”
    â€œI think so—and it all had to start with Yesh sitting on a donkey?”
    â€œThat’s it. The man with the pitcher of water was a sign to Yesh; when he got on that donkey it was a sign to the people.”
    â€œBut what’s the problem? Why not just go along with it?”
    Jude gave a wry smile. “Coming from you, young Flea, that’s a bit rich. When have you just gone along with anything? I’m frightened. I’m