Other Lives(17)

“It’s my job. Listen,” he said patting his long, flowing coat. “I can pay you. A gold piece this time.”

“You’re going to take your dioptra with you?” she asked, eyeing the bundle.

“Yes.”

Leocadia thought about it for a moment. Curiosity. It was her greatest fault and the cause of her downfall. Curiosity had driven her to a man’s arms, into a man’s bed. Curiosity had left her dry as the playa, tough as the salt bricks.

She nodded curtly. “Tomorrow. Before the dawn. You meet me here again, alright?”

***

Leocadia touched the shiny metal apparatus while he hummed and scribbled. She did not recognize the melody.

“Why do you even care about drawing this place?” she asked him. “It’s nowhere.”

“Actually it’s somewhere. It’ll serve as a landmark. When people come by they can look for it.”

“Mmm,” Leocadia said and she bent down, looking at his toolbox with all its compartments. There were pigments and brushes and pencils neatly arranged in rows. He was drawing the temple, neatly capturing her stone lion.

“Your town will appear on maps and more people can come through. It’s good for commerce.”

Leocadia fingered a lens, holding it up towards the sun.

“There’s nothing to trade except salt,” she said. “Who will come across the plain for that?”

“I did.”

“Seems like a waste of time.”

“You don’t like the salt flat? I think it looks pretty.”

“Oh, I love the salt,” Leocadia said. “When it rains over the salt plain – once or twice every year – the salt reflects the sky like a great white mirror and it seems like you are walking through clouds. The salt, the desert, those I love. But I don’t like Comba much.”

“How come?’

Leocadia raised her head and stared at the arid wasteland. She thought of the flowers in her hair, the praise and then the dishonour. She shook her head.

“The wind is picking up,” she said pulling her black shawl against her face. “We need to go inside.”

They guided the horse and the llama up the temple steps and sat before the feet of a large headless idol. The walls around them were carved with images of frogs and slender trees.

“It’s a curious place, isn’t it?” Abelardo said. “I wouldn’t have expected such imagery.”

“There was an oasis here, once. It belonged to the water priestess. Their magic allowed beautiful gardens to blossom. Their magic is weaker now and the water doesn’t flow the same way it did, so they’ve gone to better grounds and let the desert salt have their stone palace.”

“I think I’ve seen one of their priestesses.”

Leocadia had been looking inside her leather bag for a piece of dried meat. She stopped when he spoke, glancing up at him.

“Rolan pointed her out when he was showing me town. White robes, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“A virginity cult of some sort, I’m given to understand.”

“Purity of thought is required to bring forth the rain,” Leocadia said, almost automatically.

She thought of the time when water had poured from her hands. How it ached, as though blood was being drained from her veins. And yet how wonderful it was, and how much praise was heaped on her.

“Water is a valuable commodity,” she said as she continued to rummage inside her bag, her shoulders tense. “So are the priestesses who bring it.”

“In Hellekierna they adore an alligator-god who sits upon a golden throne, and youths in golden robes feed it fish from silver dishes.”

Leocadia raised an eyebrow at him. He laughed.

“I swear it’s true,” he said and opened one of the drawers in his wooden box to reveal a little notebook. He flipped the pages and pointed at an illustration, all pretty pale watercolours. “See there.”

“You painted this?”

“Yes. I record everything I see. For maps, for the Empress.”

The eyes of the crocodile were golden and it had a great jewelled collar around its neck. It seemed heavy and cumbersome. Leocadia thought it might like to swim in a river better than padding through the throne room.

“It looks ferocious.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen anything. I went on the back of an elephant three years ago. It had tusks twice the size of a man. Here, see.”

“That’s odd-looking.”

“Just beyond the mountains that encircle your desert there are pink birds with the longest necks you’ve ever seen. They’re so pretty in flight.”

He flipped the page and Leocadia leaned over his shoulder. His hand brushed her arm, the slightest touch; a gesture with no great meaning. Yet Leocadia jumped to hear feet, as if startled.

“I’ll go look out,” she said clutching the shawl.

“I thought you said to wait inside.”

“You wait. I have to see what’s happening. We’ll have to head back to town soon.”

On the temple steps she held onto her lion and glanced at the windswept plain, the sun scorching the sky. Not a drop of moisture, nothing but the harsh wind, tossing salt in her face.

***

Her mother was stirring the stew like she did every day. However, there was a piercing silence in the kitchen. Rosaura sat in a corner with the baby in her arms. Even the child was quiet, no cooing coming from her.