'Just as children seem foolish to adults, so humans seem foolish to the gods.' -
Salisbury's streets were oddly otherworldly in a flood of light from flaming torches that had been attached to the now-useless lampposts; their sizzling pitch added a spicy quality to the cooling air. More people milled around than Mallory would have expected with the encroaching night. Many shops remained open, their trade carried out by candlelight. Friends chatted beneath the crackling torches, freed from the rigour of days that had become unduly hard. Children played in the gutter without fear of cars or buses, although the occasional horse-drawn cart moved by them at an alarming clip. Outside the Maltings shopping centre, a teenager strummed on a guitar while his friends danced or drank home-made cider. Others flirted or kissed each other in the shadows.
The population had adapted remarkably well to the inversion of their lives. Indeed, from the good humour evident all around, they appeared to be relishing it. Mallory and Miller moved through them, watching silently, enjoying the normality.
Near Poultry Cross, where tradesmen had hawked their goods for centuries, a man with lank grey hair to his shoulders stood on an old kitchen chair and preached passionately to a small detached crowd. He seemed to be proclaiming the glory of a god that lived at the bottom of his garden. Further on, three women prayed silently around a picture of George Clooney framed with wild flowers. At the marketplace, there were more, individuals preaching to no one at all, or large groups singing of the wonder of some deity or other.
'They're crazy,' Miller muttered.
'Your God's more real, is that it?' Mallory noted.
'Yes.' Miller knew Mallory was baiting him but couldn't resist responding. 'He's been worshipped for millennia, not ten months.'
'So in a couple of thousand years, old Clooney-'
'Oh, shut up.' Miller tried to stop there, but he couldn't. 'There's a whole coherent philosophy behind Christianity-' His ears burned at Mallory's laughter. 'There is!'
'You don't have to sell it to me, Miller. Just don't try pretending you're better than these poor sods.'
They continued to wander, exploring the sights. As a new city, Salisbury had the benefit of being planned on a rectangular chequerboard pattern like some Roman metropolis. Most people gathered in a small square that ran from the market to the Makings and up to Crane Street and New Street, a continuous thoroughfare that was the closest to the cathedral.
As Mallory and Miller wandered along the path at the side of the culverted river, watching the trout, grayling and dace swim in the light of an occasional torch, they were disturbed by the sounds of a scuffle coming from further along the lonely path where no light burned. Mallory was ready to ignore it, but when Miller jumped to investigate he felt a weary obligation to follow.
Barely visible in the gloom, three men were hunched over a still shape on the floor. Before Mallory could utter a caution, Miller was already yelling, 'Leave him alone!'
Against his better judgment, Mallory ran in behind Miller, who was rapidly closing on the three. The gang half-heartedly squared up to him, then saw Mallory behind and decided it was too much trouble. They turned and ran off into the dark, but not before Mallory saw that they were all wearing black T-shirts marked with a bright red V from shoulders to navel.
'Have you lost your mind?' Mallory said.
Miller was kneeling next to the shape on the floor: a young man crumpled in a growing pool of blood. 'We're knights. We're supposed to help people in trouble.'
'I'm going to have to have a word with you about the difference between fantasy and reality.' Mallory checked the victim's pulse. 'Dead.'
'Poor man. Who shall we tell?'
'No one.'
'We can't leave him here,' Miller said. 'He'll have a family-'
'Someone will find him soon enough. Listen, we're strangers here. They're likely to think we did it. Not everyone has a naive belief that all people speak the truth.' He knelt down and started to go through the victim's pockets.
'What are you doing?' Miller said, aghast.
Mallory fished out a wallet and went through the contents. 'Look at this. They've got their own currency going on here. A local economy.' He took the amateurishly printed notes and stuffed them in his pockets.
'You can't do that!'
'He can't take it with him.'
'You're as bad as the people who killed him!'
'No, I'm not, because I didn't kill him. Come on, we'll have a drink on him.'
'I will not,' Miller said peevishly.
'Then you can sit beside me while I have a drink. You've got to get your head around how the world works these days, Miller.'
'What, without ethics or morals?'
'Something like that.' Mallory sighed. 'No, I don't mean that. But you've got to be hard, Miller. There's no safety net in this world any more. No Welfare State to help you out. Everybody's watching their own backs — that's the only way to survive.'
'I don't believe you, and you'll never convince me otherwise. Basic human nature is decent.'
'And then you woke up. Are you coming or not?' Mallory walked back towards the lights. Miller hovered for a moment, sad and angry at the same time, then followed.
They found a pub overlooking the market square. The bright green doors of the Cornmarket Inn were thrown open to the night, tempting passers- by into the smoky interior lit by just enough candles and torches to provide shadows for those who preferred to drink out of plain view. The customers were a mixed bunch: some rural workers, grime on their clothes and grass seeds in their lace-holes, some weary-eyed traders and shopkeepers who had finished up for the night, and a large group who all appeared to know each other. They ranged from teenagers to pensioner age, but the smattering of dreadlocks and shaved heads, hippie jewellery and colourful clothes made Mallory think of New Age travellers.
True to his word, Miller eschewed a drink, but he appeared happy enough surrounded by the high-spirited pub-goers. Mallory ordered a pint of ale brewed in the pub's back room and they retreated to the only free table.
'What do you think those Blues were up to?' Mallory mused as he sipped on his beer. 'The elite group,' he added with mockery.
Miller didn't appear to have given it a second thought. 'Nothing for us to worry about.'
Mallory looked at him in disbelief. 'Of course it's something for us to worry about. Everything is something for us to worry about.'
'Blaine-'
'The bishop, the canons, all of them… You don't put your trust in people who set themselves up as leaders, Miller. In religion, in politics, in the military, in business… the simple act of seeking high office is a signifier of a peculiar, unreliable, controlling, unpleasant pathology that means they shouldn't be allowed any kind of power. And I'll keep saying that over and over again until everyone on this planet listens.'
'That's ridiculous. If we followed that line of thought we wouldn't have any leaders at all.'
'And your point is?'
'You can't have a religion without leaders-'
'Who says?'
Miller squirmed with irritation. 'I hate it when you do this. Why are you picking on me?'
'Because your life's just too perfect, Miller. You need to be brought down to everyone else's level. Just see me as your own personal tormentor, a living horsehair shirt for the soul.'
Miller took a deep breath. 'You can't have a religion without leaders because you need discipline-'
'No, you don't.'
'-to help the followers find the true path to God through all the confusion.'
'You can do it yourself.' Mallory jabbed a finger sharply into Miller's sternum.
No, I can't.'
'You just don't think you can. You can do anything you want, Miller.'