Watson, Ian - Novel 16 Read Online Free PDF Page A

single
vaulted archway which gave access sunkenly into shadows; and then only on the
side of the street which faced the cooler north. Yet the walls, which continued
on from one building to the next, weren’t featureless. They were built in a
saw-tooth style, in and out, in and out, so that the sunshine - where it reached
into the street - cast bands of brightness and shadow. The walls on the sunny
side were a chiaroscuro of slats like a long louvred window set on its side, as
though a sudden jerk on a rope running the length of the houses might have
swung all the bands of clay bricks at once, rendering the interiors breezy and
visible.
                 Realistically,
of course, in that unlikely event the houses would just have tumbled down - as
indeed their highest elevations seemed already to be doing bit by bit,
resulting in frayed, crumbling crenellated battlements up top.
                 One
house was scaffolded precariously with poles and rope. Builders were hauling up
baskets of clay from a damp greasy mound tipped in the street, partly blocking
it. The men were repairing a section of slumped roof and parapet wall. Grown-up
kids playing mud pies, for real.
                 ‘I
bet they guarantee those repairs at least till the next thunderstorm,’ said
Alex, nodding aloft. ‘Albeit a year from now.’
                 ‘Adobe’s
a good building material. It’ll
outlast steel and glass.’
                 ‘Should
they slap it on while it’s wet?’
                 ‘Become
a builder. Find out.’
                 He
nudged her. ‘Talking of men wearing perfume,’ he whispered, ‘I hear the local
Macedonians have all gone Persian.’
                 ‘So?’
                 ‘You
said that was effete. You seemed to disapprove.’
                 Briefly
Deborah looked confused, but then she laughed. ‘Look, Alex, where I come from - came from, I mean - guys could bathe
in asses’ milk, should they find a convenient ass. And many did. They could
wear bones through their noses and raspberry jam on their cheeks. It only
bothers me as a visiting Greek lady, see? If it attracts you, do it. Find
yourself.’
                Oh,
I will, he thought - and felt ashamed, of naivety. Not for the first time
it occurred to him how his own home community had been fairly puritanical in
its codes of behaviour . . . But wasn’t Babylon, too, in its own way? A woman
who murdered her husband for the love of another man wasn’t just locked away.
She was impaled alive. Supposedly.
                 Obviously
a law like that wasn’t carried out to the letter.
                 Or
was it?
                 A
crashing and clanging issued from the next doorway. A pall of fumes arose from
the house’s hidden courtyard, smutting the blue sky overhead; Alex concluded
that this particular building must house a factory or a smithy. (Unless, which
was less likely, the place was on fire within and the frenzied occupants were
trying to beat out the flames with swords and chains and hammers.) No other
sign gave notice of a workshop. No clay tablet trodden with duck’s-foot
cuneiform letters was inset by the door. How did the locals know where a place
was? Or whose place was whose?
                 From
here on much of the rest of the street was sky- soiled on the north-facing
side; and more intermittent Nibelungish din soon reached his ears from within
the walls. Half a dozen houses - not all quite in a row - were anonymous
foundries or blacksmiths’.
                 ‘This
must be the Street of the Smiths, but how does anybody find the right Mr Smith?
I don’t see any signs.’
                 ‘I
guess,’ said Deborah, ‘if you have business here, you already know.’
                 ‘That
isn’t much help to a newcomer.’
                 ‘Why
should there be signs