Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle Read online

  Sinking down on the bed beside her, Elisha pulled the towel from his belt and tore it in three. “Give it here,” he told her.

  Blinking, she glanced away toward the distant nun, then back.

  “I’m a barber,” he said soothingly. “Give it here, it’ll be fine.”

  Hesitantly, she held out her arm. The gash was long, but not too deep, cutting across the muscles of her forearm. This, at least, he knew exactly how to handle. With the first strip of cloth, he wiped around it. Then holding her hand between his knees, he pressed together the sides of the wound and wrapped it carefully, tucking the bandage end in when he was done. From his ever-present pouch he slipped a packet of white powder and pressed it into her grasp. “Just a pinch for the pain—no more, you hear me?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Get out of here,” Elisha urged, drawing her up from the bed. “Go home.”

  With a quick glance behind her, the girl darted away, holding her injured arm close once more. He stared a moment after her, wishing Helena could be so readily healed.

  A hand thrust aside the curtain, admitting Sister Lucretia followed by a plump woman with her sleeves bound back from her arms. “Elisha,” she grunted. The midwife. Elisha’s heart sank yet further when he recognized her: matronly, barely competent, with a demeanor soothing to pregnant women. Her combination of piety and comfort would appeal to his brother almost as much as the fact that Elisha disapproved of her.

  Following close, they returned to Helena’s side.

  “Now, dear,” the midwife said, bending down to check the infant’s position. Only Elisha caught the flash of horror on her face. When she looked up again, her voice was still as calm as ever, though her hands quavered. “Now, dear, the physician recommends a cutting. We’ll lift the babe from your belly and stitch’t back up again, eh?”

  Nodding desperately, Helena clung to her husband with both hands.

  “We’ll be needing water then,” the midwife went on, “and a better knife than what I’ve brought.”

  With a cold certainty, Elisha laid a hand on Helena’s taut belly, pressing the still form of the child she carried. Too still. He grabbed the midwife’s arm and pulled her aside, turning his face from his brother. “You’re going to cut her open?” he whispered urgently.

  “The physician advises—”

  “He knows who she is, and her circumstances?”

  “Aye, Barber, he does,” the midwife snapped, tugging at his grip.

  Elisha swore under his breath. “So he thinks to save the babe at her expense.”

  The midwife dropped her gaze, her thin mouth set. “God willing, if I stitch her right up—”

  Elisha didn’t listen to the rest. Under the best of circumstances, cutting into the abdomen was risky—best left to the master surgeons, and even then more likely to kill than to cure.

  He looked at Lucretia.

  The nun nodded once. “And horses.”

  The first good news he’d yet been offered. Elisha grinned. “Bless you.”

  He lifted Nathaniel to his feet and pushed his barbering tools into his brother’s hands. Then, with a nod to the imperious ward sister, he caught up Helena in both arms and drew her to his chest. “There’s not a moment to spare.”

  “But she said—!” Nathaniel began to protest, then he whirled, seizing the midwife’s hand. “Come with us.”

  Elisha met the midwife’s eye, the fear in his brother’s voice still ringing in his ears. Grudgingly he said, “She’ll have need of you.”

  She held up her hands in a gesture of despair. “Aye, Barber, I’m coming.”

  “Then we have a life to save,” he said, turning away to escape the hospital, and its reeking beds of corpses both living and dead.

  Chapter 2

  They dashed from the hospital, pursued by the furious ward sister. “Only the saints may intercede for her!” she cried, tugging at Elisha’s arm. “By God’s grace alone, and through His physicians shall she be saved.”

  He snarled low in his throat, causing the nun to stumble and cross herself. He should have been there as soon as they thought she was pregnant, but his own arrogance had estranged them. He would welcome the saints if they could save her—and damn them all if they could not.

  Outside waited a new wagon with tall wheels, drawn by a sturdy team of chestnut draft horses. A pair of apprentice wainwrights idled with their charge, grinning at the sight of Lucretia. Elisha had no doubt how she’d come to earn their favor in years past. Nathaniel clambered into the wagon, kneeling to draw Helena’s clenched form from Elisha’s arms.

  With easy strength, Elisha scooped up the midwife and deposited her alongside, then started when Lucretia took a hand-hold and pulled herself in as well.

  She met his gaze and murmured, “To pray for her, at the least. She may need help from more than God, but His aid is worth the asking.”

  “Aye, Sister.” Elisha moved around to mount the wagon beside the carter. “You’ll have our gratitude to make it speedy,” he told the man as the apprentices clambered up as well.

  “Course.” He flashed a snaggle-toothed grin. “’Twas my son’s leg you saved last winter. Hya!” He snapped the reins and called out encouragement over the horses’ broad backs.

  Elisha pointed the way, taking them by quick turns from the main streets to byways where they could urge the team to greater speed. Behind him, he heard Helena’s screams, Nathaniel’s soothing tones, and the steady rise and fall of women’s voices in prayer. The screams came more quickly now, and by the time they reached the tinsmithy, she let out a continuous wail of agony.

  Springing down before they’d even stopped, Elisha ran to the squat house adjoining his brother’s shop. Despite the hurt which lay between them, he and Nathaniel yet shared the house left them by their parents. The married Nathaniel had claimed the front rooms and—for the child they dreamed of—the loft, while Elisha, though older, had taken the low back rooms for his home and study. Now he left the others to bring Helena in while he gathered his tools.

  Hooks and shelves lined the study, even concealing the little unglazed windows, for which he now cursed the lack of light. Catching up a leather satchel, Elisha tossed in a few knives as well as containers of herbs to soothe during childbirth. He knew the tool he needed, the only tool, but dreaded to carry it alone, as if doing so would be to admit failure.

  He rounded the house and mounted the stoop outside, taking a deep breath before entering the open door. They’d moved the two benches and the basin stand from the center of the room to stand in the yard, with Elisha’s barbering tools heaped on top. Helena screamed, a dreadful sound that tore through him. Lucretia was right, it was God they needed here.

  “Feet first!” Nathaniel cried from within.

  “Aye, sir, and naught I did for her would turn it,” the midwife replied. Then almost timidly, “There’s still time to take the physician’s word.”

  “But Elisha—”

  “Is just a barber, for all that he’s got good hands.”

  Squaring his shoulders, Elisha ducked inside. “And whose hands would carry out the esteemed physician’s advice? Yours? I find it unlikely.” He leveled a cold stare at her. “Do what you can for the lady, and let me attend the child.”

  With a grunt, she turned away.

  Gently, Lucretia tucked an arm around Nathaniel’s shoulders. “Come away, sir, we’re too many here. Let them do what they must. Perhaps your work would bring you some comfort now.”

  When they’d gone outside, Elisha knelt at the table. Helena’s gown lay askew, barely covering her distended belly, which heaved and shuddered as she sobbed. The midwife held both Helena’s arms, murmuring without words. Between Helena’s legs protruded the tiny foot, grayish and foreign.

  “How long has the child been dead?” he asked, in a quiet voice.

  “Don’t know what you mean,” the midwife returned, adjusting her grip, her kerchiefed head lowered.

  He stared at her, a strange
numbness suffusing his heart. “Of course you do. You know your business, just as I know mine. This child was dead before she ever went to the hospital.”

  “Nothing for it but to have the baby, is there?” She dodged his glare. “Will you cut her then? That’s what the physician—”

  “God damn the physician!” Elisha shouted. “And God damn you,” he added through clenched teeth.

  Her head jerked up, her mouth working on words she could not speak.

  Spilling the leather satchel onto the floor, Elisha searched among the tools for the one he needed, a slender, long handled saw with fine sharp teeth. Meant for the amputation of fingers or toes, the tool had never been put to such terrible use as what he must do. He gripped it tightly and nearly prayed himself.

  “But you cannot be intending,” the midwife said, her lips trembling.

  “Her body won’t rest until the child is out,” he told her quietly. “It’s already lost to me, but she is not.”

  From the doorway, Lucretia said, “Oh, Sweet Lord,” crossing herself.

  Her eyes suddenly open and wild, Helena shrieked and kicked. “You’ll not! You bastard, you’ll not cut my baby!” but the protests drowned in another cry, and blood stained the table beneath her. The nun crossed to her and caught her leg, shouting Bible verses to be heard above the din.

  Humming in his throat, letting the sound buzz up into his skull, Elisha gripped the instrument and began his awful work, laying the child to rest in the empty leather bag as blood flowed around his arms. His namesake saint had once healed a river with salt, but Elisha knew there would be no healing this flood.

  When it was done, he sat back on his heels, letting his humming die away. The delicate saw dropped from his tired hand. He applied a careful pressure to Helena’s lower belly, watching intently to be sure the blood was stopping. He leaned back from her when he was satisfied. Up to the elbow, blood slicked his arms. It stained his shirt and his britches where he knelt on the floor. In his urgency, he hadn’t thought to take his apron. For a long time, he stared down at his hands. Now they shook with the horror of the deed. Unsteadily, he pulled to the flap on the leather satchel and thrust it under the table, as far from himself as he could. Only then did he notice the quiet and raise his head.

  Helena’s legs lay at last relaxed, her belly still large, but flaccid now, draped with the ruined gown. At her side, Sister Lucretia stood, pale, lips still murmuring prayers, but with the words misplaced, the cadence trailing off, then recalling itself.

  The midwife laid Helena’s arms across her chest and met Elisha’s helpless gaze. “So now you’ve done. Happy, are you, to have cost your brother his wife?”

  “No,” he breathed. His hands dangling, Elisha got to his feet and searched Helena’s still, pale lips. “No!” he repeated. “She can’t be.” Unwilling to touch her, with her child’s blood still on his hands, Elisha stared hard at her throat and saw no sign of pulse or breath. He stood stunned, his hands aching from the close, careful work, his skin recalling the intimacy of the mother’s flesh.

  “Did you cut something else down there? Did you ruin it all a’purpose, or by ignorance?” The midwife thrust herself close to him. “Putting yourself in woman’s business, evading the physician’s order, casting curses all about you—you’ve no place here, Barber. Your brother must be told.” She jammed her fists onto her hips and bustled out the door.

  Dazed, Elisha moved to the head of the table, near Lucretia. “What happened?” he asked. “What’s gone wrong?” He wiped his hands upon his thighs, leaving long red streaks. He tried to remember through the near-trance that settled over him while he worked. He reviewed the care he had taken with each cut. He recalled being grateful when she finally lay still—merely unconscious, he thought—but there was nothing, nothing he would do differently.

  “Go to your brother,” Lucretia said. “Don’t let it be her word he hears.”

  “But she’s right.” Leaning upon the table, Elisha felt the strain in his arms and knees. How long had he knelt there, trying to be careful, to be sure he did no harm to the mother, his brother’s wife. “If he’d only got me sooner,” he murmured, “maybe then, or if we’d stayed at the hospital…”

  There was noise behind him, but he could not be distracted.

  “The hospital’s unclean, and full to the roof of illness, Elisha,” the nun told him, reaching out to touch his arm. “I know that as well as you. ’Twas charity brought me there, not hope. If the child was already dead, what could the physician’s order do but wound the mother yet again?”

  What did it matter if he had done the right thing, now that it had gone so terribly wrong? Shaking his head, Elisha straightened. “What penance for the work of this day, Sister? Tell me that, if you know.”

  “Ask it of the Lord, Elisha,” she said. “And remember that He is also merciful.” She gave his arm a little squeeze. “Go to your brother. He’ll be needing you, though he doubts it now.”

  “Aye, as would any man of sense.” Edging back around the table, he kicked his scattered tools and a vial rolled beneath his foot to be crushed. Elisha did not heed them. After this, heaven forbid he ever take up his instruments to cut more than hair. “Cover her, Sister?”

  “I will.”

  He tripped on the steps and shook himself, blinking, in the sunlight. How dare the sun look bright upon him today? His fingers flexed and released. He had lost patients before: strangers, neighbors. It always hurt, even when he knew they could have had no better care. But this…. He could not imagine a loss so great, a failure so awful. Two years he hoped to reconcile with his brother, his only living kin. He would be lucky, now, if Nathaniel even came to his funeral. He had to face him and receive the curses he so well deserved. To one side, the wainwright’s men stood watching, their faces slack with horror and wonder at a tragedy which touched them not. Elisha wondered why they’d not yet gone to spread the news. “Nathaniel?”

  Beside the door the cleared-aside furniture, piled up and abandoned, seemed an emblem of the family he had torn apart. Something was amiss there, but it escaped his addled mind.

  “Nathaniel?” He swept his gaze about the yard, settling it a moment on the apprentices who shifted uneasily.

  “Workshop, I think,” one of them said. “Lucy—er, Sister Lucretia took him there. We’ve just come back to see what help she needs.”

  Nodding, Elisha turned away. Knocking on the door, he heard no answer, and pushed it open with a soiled hand.

  The shaft of sunlight he let in traced its path upon the dirt floor, lighting up the workbench, striking a brass gleam off a familiar item, so out of place he could not at first name it. His basin, that was it; his wide, metal basin, brimful of darkness, with his brother’s blond head sunk in grief beside it.

  “Nathaniel,” Elisha said, coming forward from the light.

  Perched on his tall stool, Nathaniel bent over the table, his arm outstretched, Elisha’s razor close to his hand.

  “No no no no,” Elisha chanted to himself, his eyes sweeping the trail of blood, the open blade, the angle of his brother’s arm.

  All the breath had left him, all of his own blood, like his brother’s, like his nephew’s, seeping away, until he stood as a marble figure in the shaft of sunlight, struck through and dying.

  And yet he alone still lived. How was it possible? How had God let it be so, that these should all lie dead while he was standing, unharmed though not unwounded? If they’d not left the hospital, if his brother had trusted him, if he’d not been such a fool two years ago—his righteous pride, his stupid conceits—ignorance indeed.

  “I’ve killed them all,” he said aloud, his fingers dripping blood into the brazen sun.

  Chapter 3

  The constables would have to know, Elisha thought, staring at his brother’s blond head, haloed by the sunlight. And the tin guildsmen must be told. If he had taken in any work, the customers must be found. Helena had a sister, somewhere in the city, married to a tradesm
an.

  The next thought chilled him even in the sun, and caught his breath. Nathaniel had taken his own life. He would be bound for an unmarked grave, unsanctified earth despite his years of service and the tithe he made from his meager pay.

  Elisha’s hand reached out of its own accord, snatching up the razor at his brother’s side and flinging it into the darkest corner. Quickly, he rounded the table, embracing his brother and lowering him to the floor. The loose hands fell lax and defenseless. His body was still warm in Elisha’s arms. Blood dripped from the worktable to the dirt floor, soaking in, becoming part of the shadows almost as if it had never been. As if his brother had never been. It was said that inside the skull rested a seed called the Bone of Luz, and if one had the skill and knowledge, this seed could be tended, to grow into a new man. Elisha wondered where the seed was, if he might locate it. Would the new man be another Nathaniel? He held his brother on his lap, as if they were boys again. Nathaniel’s hair stroked soft against his skin, the lips parted for a trickle of blood. For the last time, he stared into his brother’s face, still and pale.

  “Stand up!” someone barked out from the doorway. “We’ve no wish to harm you.”

  Shaking himself, Elisha turned, starting at the sight of four armed men, their swords drawn on the instant he turned. He lowered Nathaniel at last to the unyielding ground. Elisha brought both hands slowly into the light before he rose.

  “I am unarmed.” He advanced a few steps from the building to be surrounded by them. Beyond, the two apprentices spoke at once, their voices high and excited, as a guard captain nodded, glaring in Elisha’s direction. The captain strode across the yard, his mail coat glinting and chinking as he passed by to look into the workshop. His head jerked when he absorbed what he saw, then he spun on his heel, taking in Elisha’s bloody hands and garments. “Arrest him.”

  Elisha bowed his head, silently crossing his arms behind him, awaiting justice.