The first winter without their parents was the hardest. As the nights lengthened and icy winds began to blow in from the mountains, their money became even more desperately stretched. Day after day, they had to choose between firewood for the hearth and food for the table. Between starvation and freezing.

Inhei’s older brother continued to work on the temple scaffolds. He never complained about the labour, but Inhei could tell it was taking its toll. Every day, he looked more worn and distant, his face lined and weathered, as though grown old before his time. He spoke little, even to Inhei. His stony silences began to frighten the little ones, who shrank away from him when he came home.

They must think he’s becoming like Father, Inhei thought.

The neighbours seldom brought food any more. Inhei didn’t bear them any grudge. Nobody on their street was wealthy, and in the cold months every crumb was jealously guarded. Very occasionally, one of his mother’s friends would leave a bundle of vegetables on their doorstep, just enough to make a pot of thin soup. That was as much a cause for celebration as spiced lamb and honey cakes had once been.

At night, the siblings all slept huddled together in the same bed. Inhei and his older brother tried to keep the little ones warm between them while they shivered beneath their parents’ old blanket. Many nights, Inhei found he was too hungry to sleep. He would lie awake, grimacing at the endless ache of his empty belly, until the dawn came.

He did all he could to help. He ran errands along the riverbank and in the outer districts of Kursalian, where the merchants didn’t recognise him or know of his mother’s crime. He swept doorways and scrubbed floors until his hands were red-raw. He carried messages back and forth through the freezing streets, no longer pausing to study the fading god-marks on the alley walls.

He could not ask the gods for help. All he could do was endure.

On warmer days, he joined the beggars on the street corners near the temple steps. Burying what was left of his dignity, he learned how to prostrate himself and plead with his eyes. Sometimes, he got a few coins or a heel of bread. More often, he was ignored. There was nothing worse than coming home empty-handed to face the hollow, hungry stares of his younger siblings.

There were times when he considered becoming a thief. Whenever he passed a baker selling meat-pies beside the tollgate, he dreamed of stealing some from the stall. The smell of cooked food was almost maddening to his starved stomach. He saw full coinpurses clinking on the belts of merchants, coin enough for a month of fine food. It would be so easy to snatch one and run.

Then he thought of the wardens coming for him with their hard eyes and their iron-studded cudgels. They would beat him like they had beaten his father and brother, maybe even haul him away to the temple. And who would care for his siblings then? The alley gods?

That winter seemed like it would never end. The little ones were wracked with coughs and sniffles that never went away. They shivered constantly and whimpered with hunger. Listening to his youngest sister cough and cough in the night, Inhei felt a pang of helpless fear. There was no money left for a doctor. If she worsened, he could do nothing to help her.

But, by the skin of their teeth, they survived. The days grew longer and warmer, and the wind lost its biting chill. Inhei and his siblings went into the spring stick-thin and sunken-cheeked, but alive.

For the first time since his father’s death, Inhei thanked the gods.

*

Things never became easy, but they managed.

In time, the stigma upon their family faded. There were some in the neighbourhood who never forgave them for being the children of an idolatress. Most, however, were not so hard-hearted. Their mother and father had been well-liked, and once the wardens’ attention was elsewhere, some of the old smiles and greetings began to return. Even so, Inhei made sure his siblings did not miss the daily prayers. He would not see them ostracised again.

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He continued to work every odd job that came his way. Now that the merchants on the Pedlars’ Bridge no longer scorned him, his hopes of an apprenticeship were revived. He learned a little of a dozen different trades, from baking to knife-grinding, enough to make himself of use and earn a little more. It was exhausting to be such a dogsbody, and he was wracked with guilt whenever he had to leave his younger siblings alone at home. At least he no longer had to beg in the streets.

When he found the time between jobs, he still wandered the alleys, looking for the signs of the alley gods. He kept in mind the silent devotions his mother had taught him. And when he saw Chehga in the street, rattling along with her strings of unfashionable beads, he gritted his teeth and looked away.

He did not, in the end, become a barrel-maker. At thirteen, he was apprenticed to a portly copper merchant in the Lower Apothecaries. He found he had something of a talent for minding the old man’s shop, selling pots, saucepans and kettles to the housewives, measures and alembics to the doctors. After so many years as an errand-boy, he had a rudimentary grasp of numbers and letters, which served him well in keeping the accounts. The customers and wholesalers liked him. Before long, his master trusted him to run the shop almost by himself.

With two steady incomes, their family could once more afford the things they’d done without since their father’s death. Good lamb and chicken, sweetmeats and jasmine tea, new clothes to replace the threadbare things they’d been wearing for years. The little ones no longer had to go barefoot, or shiver in their sleep. Inhei could not help smiling when he saw his youngest sister’s pride in her fine new sandals.

The wardens did not loosen their grip. The copper merchant’s customers gossiped constantly about raids and arrests. Most took place in the slum districts, though occasionally even a nobleman might be found to have blasphemed. Beheadings were rare – most idolaters chose to serve instead – but when they did happen, they happened with much fanfare. And the alley gods were not ignored by the wardens. Sometimes, Inhei found that a god-mark that had endured many years in a hidden passageway was suddenly gone, hastily scoured away by temple workers.

There were always new marks, though. Sometimes, an erased mark reappeared within days on the very spot that had been painted over. Inhei never saw who made the marks; nor did he care. All that mattered was that they were made. The alley gods endured.

Then came the day when his older brother did not return from the scaffolds.

It was another temple worker who knocked at their door, slump-shouldered and with downcast eyes, to tell Inhei the news. His brother had fallen from the scaffolds in a sudden crosswind. Two hundred feet or more, onto the rooftops clustered around the temple’s southern walls. A quick end, the man said. No pain. And the wardens would pay for the funeral, as the boy had died faithfully in their service, in due atonement for the sins of his mother.

Inhei wanted to shout and curse at his brother’s friend, to spit on the wardens and their promised funeral. In that moment, he wanted to watch the temple burn to ashes and crumble on top of all its priests and servants. He wanted to hurl old Chehga into the flames and hear her reedy screams as she burned.

But, with his younger siblings looking on from the room behind him, all he did was nod. “Tell the wardens they have our thanks,” he said.

That night, after his siblings had cried themselves to sleep, Inhei lay awake in the little house that now belonged to him. He did not weep. He did not think he was even capable of tears, any more.

Instead, by moonlight, he prayed.

*

To the other mourners at his brother’s funeral, Inhei must have seemed the most devout boy in Kursalian. He recited the threefold prayers for the dead without missing a word. He brought oil and pomegranate wine to offer up to the Father-to-All and his divine sons. His devotional sash was spotless, and his siblings all chanted along in perfect harmony, as he’d taught them. The priest overseeing the ceremony gave him a broad smile of approval once the body had been laid to rest. As if to say, welcome back to the fold.

Inhei kept his face blank. He thought of the alley gods looking down upon him, drifting on the wind.

He knew he could not provide for his siblings alone, not on the meagre pay of an apprentice. They were all still too young to find work of their own, and he certainly would not see them beg in the streets.

So, on his fifteenth birthday, he arranged for the house to be sold. The last vestige of his parents went with it. He led his siblings through their old street one last time, their few possessions bundled on their backs. They bid the neighbours goodbye, thanking them for all their kindness and promising to visit when they could. Then they set off across the Pedlars’ Bridge beneath a bright summer sun.

On the way, Inhei saw old Chehga scowling from her doorstep. He ignored her.

His master owned a fine courtyard-house overlooking the curve of the river. He agreed to let Inhei have one room of it, for a modest rent that he could just about afford. His siblings were expected to help the maidservants about the house, and otherwise to keep themselves out of trouble. Inhei promised that they would.

“If they’re as sharp as you, maybe one day I can put them to work in the shop,” his master remarked as they were settling in. “Make sure they learn from you, boy.”

“I will,” Inhei told him.