Temple Boys. Jamie Buxton

      

      First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Egmont UK Limited

       The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

      Text copyright © 2014 Jamie Buxton

      The moral rights of the author have been asserted

      First e-book edition 2014

      ISBN 978 1 4052 6800 4

       eISBN 978 1 7803 1369 6

       www.egmont.co.uk

      A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

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       For my dear friend Leon Arden, who gave me the idea.

       For the king has come to seek a flea, as one who hunts a partridge in the mountains

      The Book of Shama-el

       Stone disobedient children

      The Book of Spoken Words

       Flea smelled the dump before he saw it. A bad place, deeply unclean. The thick air bounced with fat black flies and once Flea had seen a body there. Swollen, revolting, compelling, it had lain for three days until the Temple persuaded someone to move it with promises of spiritual purification. But that was nothing compared to what he had just seen today. Nothing at all, really.

       Big white moon, gusting wind and the sky pulsing silver and black, black and silver. The rolling clouds sent the walls into a slow endless topple towards the valley floor. Flea dragged his right hand against the stone blocks. Their rough mass told him the walls still stood so the Temple still stood, and the dead were not walking so the world had not ended. Not ended yet.

       Maybe he still had time to put things right. Maybe he could find out how a man he had just seen die was going to change everything.

       He heard the dogs start up again in the distance and forced his feet to shuffle into a broken run. The quicker he moved, the sooner he’d find Jude, and the sooner he found Jude the quicker he’d be sorted. Jude would know. Jude would help him.

       And all would be well.

       Wouldn’t it?

      Contents

       Cover

       Title page

       Copyright page

       Dedication

       Epigraph

three days to go

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two days to go

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       one day to go

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