Holy City: Chapter Twenty-One

The next morning Harold roused V from his bed right after sunrise. Harold was dressed in grand robes that flowed to the floor and beyond. He was an early riser. V shielded his eyes because Harold sparkled in the rays of the early morning sun.

“Let’s go for a walk.” Harold said, his chest threatening to burst from the robes because of his vitality.

V and Harold walked through the streets of Hatusha. Harold proudly showed V the gleaming citadels and bustling markets of his home city. Two priests from the High Temple followed closely behind listening carefully to each word that was said. They listened to Harold because of their obsequiousness and they listened to V because they hoped to catch him in a lie. Behind the priests, the rest of Harold’s court followed. V looked back expecting to find a jester dressed in bells and a four-pointed hat amongst the courtiers, but there was no jester only the usual followers of a powerful ruler.

“I walk amongst my people every morning I can because I am one of them.” Harold said proudly. “I do no forget where I came from.” V was surprised by this statement because it implied Harold had been born a commoner. This was not the case. Harold had never been a commoner. He was the second son of the previous king, King Leander. His brother died in adolescence only a few years before Harold’s father died passing a wealthy kingdom to Harold. Harold had ruled for nearly 30 years by the time V arrived from the desert. Lyonesse had a strict class system, those they passed on the street begged because their fathers and their mothers had begged and those in the middle class apartments that lined the street lived in those apartments because their parents had. And Harold was king because his father was. The only way to move up in society was to marry above oneself.

Disease didn’t care about these class systems and spread throughout Lyonesse without regard to place or house. The sweating sickness had struck nearly a tenth of Harold’s kingdom during the previous year and threatened to consume even greater numbers in the current year. The disease made it more difficult to fight the war or, in Harold’s mind, more necessary to fight the war. The sickness had even reached Harold’s palace, two valets and a cook had been struck down in the weeks before V arrived. Harold was giving this tour in the hopes V could stop the sickness from spreading further. He had healed a man’s leg. He had brought a baby back to life. V was a healing prophet. He wasn’t a war prophet. Harold believed he could use him to heal his people.

Harold threw coins from his purse to the sick and the begging on the street as they walked. He did this to show his generosity to V, to gain the prophet’s favor. It wasn’t working. V nodded to the purple purse with ruby and diamond inlay showing interest. Harold handed it to him, thinking he was impressed by its beauty. They kept walking. Now V passed out the coins. He was more generous than Harold.

“You must not be too generous with them. If you are too generous the streets will become filled.”

“I was once like them, a refugee looking for shelter.”

“They are not refugees.”

“They are not?”

“You must remember. A society that takes in all refugees will soon lose its abilities to take in any refugees. The reason we can provide for our people is because of our restraint.”

V looked at the people on the streets. They were fewer in numbers than the ghosts of Vitesia, but the streets still saw those who needed the generosity of others to survive.

“Perhaps your majesty could use his wealth in a better way to help the poor than mere handouts.” V said this in an offhand manner as they walked.

The King stopped the procession. V had made an observation that could be taken as an accusation. This accusation could carry severe consequences when said directly to a King. Harold fixed V with a long hard stare. The courtiers surrounded V and the two priests from the High Temple began making preparations to dispatch another false prophet from Harold’s circle.

But Harold was not ready to dismiss V. On occasion he liked those who spoke their mind in his presence because he rarely heard anyone speak honestly in his presence. It’s possible King Harold had never heard anyone speak honestly to him since he became King Harold when he was a teenager. He continued his long hard stare. There was something in the stare that wasn’t right. V looked into the King’s eyes and could see a slight spark. The King had solidified a thought in his head, only V had no idea what that thought was. The King’s spark became a sparkle and the King laughed a loud uproarious laugh. “I was warned about you.” The King said. “You might be a Citizen after all. I’m not sure I can trust you with this.” The King laughed a second time and took the purple purse with ruby and diamond inlay back. The group started walking again.

“You know they don’t have freedom of thought, those Citizens in Damasia. I am benevolent to my people, I allow all kinds of thought. Even what you said to me just now.” The King passed out more coins.

“All kinds?”

“There are limits of course. No one likes dissent. Some political philosophies claim to be better. They only use different methods. Instead of using the power of an institution they use the power of the mob. I do not lie to my people. They know where I stand.”

V and the King kept walking. The courtiers and the priests kept following. The blocks of the city center soon ran out and the procession was over. Harold climbed into a waiting vehicle to take him back to the Summer Palace. V was offered a ride in the same vehicle.

“I would prefer to walk,” V said.

“I thought you would be tired of walking by now.”

“I was once. Not any longer.”

“Then you shall walk.” The King laughed. “I decree it.”

The door to the armored vehicle was closed and the walking procession turned into a motorcade and sped off, leaving V alone in the center of Hatusha.

V thought back to a conversation he had not so long ago and asked a passing stranger if he knew the way to the covered market. The stranger pointed towards a gleaming citadel of gold that was more than a dozen blocks away.

“Walk in that direction, you will reach the covered market in ten minutes.” The stranger said.

V thanked the stranger and began to walk in the direction of the dome of gold. The streets of Hatusha were orderly in a way the streets of the capital city of Vitesia were not. Every block was a square. All of the streets were part of a grid. This made purposeful walking easier. Cars were banned on most of these streets so foot traffic was common. There were shops in the buildings that lined the streets but there was no commerce on the sidewalks. People walked slower than they did in Vitesia. There were groups in cafes having animated conversations on many of the street corners. Women with children gathered in parks that V passed as he continued to the covered market. The daily life of this city felt as it had for centuries.

After a couple of blocks and a couple more minutes, V’s gaze dropped, no longer focusing on the reflecting sun that shone off the golden dome of the citadel. He could see tinted glass two stories high, an enclosed structure that served as the covering of the covered market. Traffic picked up as he neared the tinted glass. People were walking faster, both to and from the covered market. V picked up his pace as well. He wanted ice cream. He had come to the covered market to try ice cream.

V entered the covered market. It felt as if all the business transactions of the city had been confined to this area of three city blocks. Haggling and bargaining and trading for all types of goods was being conducted with great urgency under the glass ceiling above.

“Can you tell me where to find ice cream?” V asked a tall stranger who had stopped and lingered a little too long in front of him by one of the stalls that was selling hand-painted ceramics. “I heard one could find ice cream in the covered market.”

The tall stranger looked at V with suspicion. “There is no ice cream here.” He said. “Food is not allowed in the covered market and you will be lucky to find ice cream in all of Hatusha. Who said you could find such a thing here?”

V thought back to the person who had told him about the ice cream in the covered market. He smiled at the thought. “Perhaps he was mistaken.” V said.

“He was.” The suspicious tall stranger said. V nodded that this was true and watched as the tall stranger walked away. V did not follow. He walked the other direction, away from the tall stranger, further into the din of the covered market.

Now, without the hope of finding any ice cream, V was directionless. He reached the center of the covered market and was lost. Lost amidst the noise of the voices surrounding him. All these voices bottled under glass like butterflies trapped in a jar and desperately trying to get out. As if the conversations of an entire city were crowded together with no means of being heard. V longed to detach from the cries of the market so he looked up to the sky. He saw a walkway made of steel that led to an exit. Vines hung down from the bottom of the elevated walkway like falling rain. V moved towards the stairs of that steel framed walkway pushing through traders and sellers and buyers who were shouting at each other.

He reached the stairs and noticed an oblong piece of stone inorganically emerging from the ground, hidden behind the vines. The stone was approximately the size of two adult human beings. It was curved at the top and had the rough outline of a hunched over person. The out of place stone caught V’s eye as he was about to ascend. V was worried the hunched stone could topple at any moment. Who had placed this unsteady stone in the middle of a bustling market, V wondered, as he took his foot off the first step of the stairwell and walked over to the hidden figures.

The stone was both an ancient monument and a forgotten relic. It had been placed there thousands of years ago. It was the oldest site in the region. The covered market had been built over it. The city of Hatusha and the Kingdom of Lyonesse had been built over it. All of this civilization had been built over it, this carved statue that resembled life from three thousand years ago. A statue that had stood in that exact place for all that time; admired for a period, worshipped for a period and then forgotten for a period. It was of a person, V could tell that. He looked closer at the stone. He could see a second standing body.

V brushed away a couple of vines and gazed at the ancient stone figures. It was a woman with one bare breast, a man standing next to her, bare in torso, the woman holding a baby swaddled in cloth. The faces of all three sanded away by time. V brushed another vine away and looked from another angle. The statue was simple and complex, artificial and real. Stone turned to life. From one angle it looked like a young family, from another, a baptism, from yet another, the woman and her infant were the spoils of war for the man standing over them. The details that made such things clear had been lost. Maybe none of these explanations were true and V was looking at a representation of something larger, like lady justice or a representation of the ancient gods. There was a thin rope on the ground forming a square around the figures. A not very effective protection against those who were too busy conducting business to notice carvings made by ancient ancestors. A loud shout could be heard above the other voices further on in the busy market. V stood on his tiptoes looking to see if he could find the shouter. He could only see the tops of many heads. V decided it was time to leave the covered market and ascended the stairwell and exited through a hole in the glass ceiling.

The Summer Palace wasn’t far from the covered market and it wasn’t long before V was back at the Summer Palace. He found himself in a quandary. He stood at the front door of the castle. There was no doorbell to ring. He did not have any identification. He had no idea how he would get back in. Perhaps his time as a prophet was over. He was a guest who stayed at the King’s palace at the King’s pleasure and maybe that pleasure had been revoked.

He looked at the two decoratively uniformed guards that stood in front of the official entrance to the palace. He knew they were under strict orders to not respond to any type of conversation or provocation. He knew they would not respond to him or help him regain entrance to the palace. There was a square building on the edge of the fence that surrounded the Summer Palace. Perhaps V could find help there.

V entered the building and found an administrator who he thought might help. He explained his situation and referenced the name of the protocol attache, Ariadne, who had first brought him to the palace. He wished he knew the name of the junior military man who had introduced him to the protocol attache but he did not. V explained all of this to the administrator, his adventures from the last couple of days, and the administrator nodded as they listened and then said with a pleasant blankness that there was nothing they could do to help V. V tried to explain his situation a second time, this time he would emphasize his conversation with the King of this land, hoping this would help clarify his situation, but the administrator cut him off and said once again with a pleasant blankness on their face there was nothing they could do to help.

V took them at their word and left the square building on the edge of the gates that surrounded the palace and walked amongst the tourists and visitors who stood outside the Summer Palace for no apparent reason. There was a long garden that was circled by a motorway and V walked across the large lawn of the garden, across the motorway and sat down on a bench next to a construction crew. The crew were on break and were having either an early lunch or late breakfast.

It wasn’t clear what the construction workers were building but there was scaffolding on several of the nearby buildings. The workers ate bread and cheese and drank a fizzy beverage that V was not familiar with. It wasn’t long before they surrounded the bench V was sitting on as they found what open areas they could to sit down and relax while on break. From a distance it looked like V was part of their group, if dressed differently, as he sat in the middle of all these workers as they chatted and ate and drank. At one point a cheese and bread sandwich was absentmindedly passed to him as if he were a member of the team. It was a large crew of more than a dozen and the man who passed the sandwich assumed the man sitting to his left in the middle of the group was part of the same work crew. V looked at the cheese and bread sandwich and took a bite and soon the conversation that was passed from one crew member to another came to V as well and he joined in the discussion, the relaxed talk of workers on break that consisted mainly of jokes and insubstantial observations of immediate surroundings.

Caught up in this talk, V no longer wondered if he would be allowed back into the Summer Palace. He didn’t have time to think about his future in Lyonesse, how he may have already been forgotten by the King and the Queen, how he could drift off back into the crowds and ensure that he was forgotten by the King and the Queen. On one side of this divide of his current discussions was an unknowable future that awaited a man with no name in a nation that was not his own, on the other side of the divide was a palace and a king and a queen and a certain fate.

V did not have time to contemplate these things as he took another bite from his cheese and bread sandwich and listened to the conversation surrounding him. He did not have time to think about such things as chance and fate as a well-dressed young woman appeared in front of him while he was looking to the person on his right as he sat on the bench. Ariadne’s work as a protocol attache for the court of Lyonesse was never truly complete and she now had the assignment of retrieving a stray prophet from his wanderings amidst everyday workers and visitors to the Summer Palace of Hatusha.

“Please follow me.” Ariadne said to V and V’s fate was assured. He put down his sandwich and rose from the bench. The construction workers took this as a sign their break was over so they rose as well. The construction workers returned to the scaffolding, V, following the aptly named Ariade, returned to the Summer Palace.

Next Chapter: Chapter Twenty-Two
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