Chapter 16: The Exodus
In Ravan, the tiny shrine in Alhena’s house beside the Temple of the Faith was filled almost to overflowing with visitors. It had been built as a private sanctuary for the High Priest, not as a place for public prayer, and was strained to accommodate the numbers of people who flocked here almost daily to pray in a house that had not been defiled by the corruption that so overwhelmed the rest of the holy city. Priests from the city’s lesser temples, men who were old friends of Umar’s, conducted services here when their “official” duties did not require them elsewhere.
Alhena’s budget, based on the pittance given the widow of a former high priest, would have been woefully inadequate to the task were it not for the donations of her patrons, some of whom came from the
