Allen showed him, over and over again, until the Rogjan chanted from the chapel spire, calling the monks to their evening prayers to the Almighty; to ask him for his blessings on their food, and on their other necessities.
CHAPTER FIVE
The days passed.
The streets of Pomperaque were silent for most part and only now the people were slowly recovering from the ordeal that was brought on them by the rain.
Lloyd, too, was recovering for several days, ever since Dearborne and Boy dragged him home. Now he strolled from room to room and through the hallways, stretching his stiffened legs and getting to know his new surroundings.
He wore an ivory-coloured frock and a black puma-fur vest, over which a long, dark-blue cape hung down, to keep him warm. The day was oddly cool and cloudy and some feared that the rains would fall again. Others, however, knew that this wouldn't happen. The rains hardly ever fell again after a few days of warmth and clear skies that followed the first and usually last rain.
Lloyd stopped at the end of the hallway, and looked out the window at the panoramic view of the city of Pomperaque. Everything was dry, including the distant farm terraces.
One would never believe that rain fell in the city because the rich land soaked up the water and dispersed the rain's potency into the vegetation, which already seemed to be a meter taller than what it was a few days before.
People were in the streets. They worked in groups of five or ten, called Keys. They were pulling up unwanted weeds and grasses from the hard ground and from around the buildings. Although the rain had blessed the crops and forests, with quick growth, it also cursed the city-people with the task of removing the unwanted, thick undergrowth from the streets. That job sometimes took them several days to complete. They threw the extracted vegetation into carts and hauled them over to the organic recycling factories, outside the city.
He looked straight ahead and saw the great Halls Cathedral, standing tall and solitary atop the butte, on the other side of the valley. That lovely valley had many stone and mud buildings, in rows on the different levels of ground that at one time served as agricultural land. Right in between him and Halls was the town square where just a few days ago, he nearly joined his ancestors. Now, for the first time, he saw the enormous distance to which Dearborne and Boy had to drag him; secreting him, to the Blue Mansion. The feat induced a respect in him, for his frail-looking hostess. That lady that had as much courage, as she had beauty.