Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle Read online

  Heedless of the direction he’d run, the boy found himself surrounded by fine carriages and ladies seated beneath stretched fabric to avoid the sun. He’d just begun to squint into the distance, searching for his parents, when the crowd around him fell silent, then let out a roar. Or so he thought until he turned around.

  Elisha stood in the second rank of witnesses, not ten yards from the stake. Around him stood the king’s archers, keeping a watchful eye for rioters, not caring for a wandering child. From their distant rise, Elisha’s family could make out little but the pillar and its mound of wood. Close-to, he saw the woman bound there, clad in white, the pale ropes wound all about her.

  Her hands writhed against the bindings, and her lips moved faintly. They had shorn her hair, leaving only a rough fringe of red, revealing her terrified face.

  The roar came not from the people gathered round but from a crimson flame licking the piled wood at the woman’s feet.

  Elisha’s mouth hung open, and he shut it with a snap, his mother’s scold sounding inside his head.

  As the flames drew ever nearer to the woman’s bare feet, the movement of her lips became fierce, until she let out a shriek that deafened him for an instant. Then the crowd roared indeed, chanting for her death. Smoke swirled around him, choking him and stinging his eyes. He rubbed them, reluctant to miss any of the spectacle. And it was then that the miracle happened.

  Even as he stared, making out the woman’s form within the growing flames, she seemed to sway and stretch. Then as she howled, her back bent, and the first bond broke. From both shoulders, the fabric strained, then tore. Golden and enormous, a pair of wings stretched out behind her, dwarfing her in their embrace.

  Their first powerful sweep knocked Elisha down and blasted the shades around him, tearing at the ladies’ hair, sending one pavilion crashing to the ground as the tethered horses bucked and ran. Nobles screamed and called out prayers. The priests scrambled back to their feet, thrusting up crosses and shouting into the wind.

  Fighting that wind, Elisha rose. The sweep of her wings blew back his hair.

  She glowed from head to foot, from wingtip to wingtip, the feathers glistening in the air. Even among the saints and virgins of church frescoes, he had never seen anything so beautiful. Elisha felt sure their eyes met. Her luminous eyes reflecting the flames that spat around her as she struggled to rise, then widening in agony as the first arrow struck. Blood spattered the golden wings.

  Arrows tore into her feathers and slammed into flesh, piercing her legs and breast and throat.

  Screaming, Elisha ran toward the fire. If he could only reach her, he could stop the bleeding, cut the ropes and set her free. Had the smoke so blinded them that they could not see she had transformed into an angel?

  A priest snatched him by the shoulder, clinging despite the boy’s resistance. Still, he had come close enough to be struck first by the heat, then by the tip of one powerful wing as they beat their last and vanished.

  The witch’s body bent into the flames, all life gone from her long before her body was consumed.

  Panting, Elisha stood still, watching the flames, one hand pressed to his cheek where the angel’s wing had stroked his skin.

  Even now, twenty years later, that soft, delicious touch lingered in his flesh. For the first time, he wondered if he had avoided love because of that angel, because their eyes had met through a wall of flame.

  His fingers traced a line across his cheek.

  Too far away to see the truth, his parents thought the flames had gone out of control. When the priest returned their child, they were relieved he had not been harmed. Rumors abounded that the witch had worked some final curse upon those nearest, and Elisha was baptized again and made to attend a week of special services to rid him of whatever evil residue she had left behind. For a time, they all acted as if he had absorbed some witchcraft. His father beat him twice as hard, and four times as often, to re-instill the proper discipline, and Elisha allowed himself to be convinced that the angel had been a trick, a perversion of God’s seraphim meant to ensnare the minds of the weak-willed and the children. But as the memory of prayers and beatings receded, the angel’s touch remained.

  After they moved to the city, he’d found a barber in need of an apprentice. He learned well enough how to cut hair, pull teeth, and bleed patients on the orders of their doctors, but he quickly surpassed his master in his eagerness to learn the ways of surgery. If ever he had the chance to bind an angel’s wounds, Elisha would be ready.

  He laughed at himself in the darkness, fingering the strap of the leather bag. For twenty years that memory seemed too secret to share even with his conscious thoughts. As an adult, he had never spoken of it to anyone, though he heard the occasional reference muttered in a tavern or whispered in the church. Certainly he never sought out the company of witches, not that there were any to find in these parts after that day. The few who had been hunted down since were quietly dispatched with sword or arrow lest they cast another such glamour upon an audience so vast.

  Considering this, he finally stood, took up the satchel, and gathered his tools from the table. The Bone of Luz should be a thing of anatomy, yet he had not seen it nor heard of any man who had. Still, even Lucius Physician professed his belief, and he had studied at Salerno. Church law forbade dissection, except where required for criminal investigation, but Elisha’s work had introduced him to most of the bones and organs of the body. Where might the Bone lie, then? Not the abdomen, surely, where it might obstruct the body’s courses. Legend placed it at the top of the spine, but wouldn’t those martyrs beheaded then be denied their resurrection? He guessed it would be found in the skull, the sanctum of a man’s intellect, and perhaps his soul. Trepanation was not Elisha’s specialty. Despite his experience, the thought of punching a hole in someone’s head, even to cure him of worse ills, worried him greatly. The Bone, if it did exist, must reside somewhere behind the eyes.

  Snuffing the lamp, Elisha shut the door behind him and picked his way in the dark to the back of the house and his own chambers. There was still the packing to do—selecting the best and most needed of his tools and medicaments, the rest to be left to Helena’s disposal. Before he began that, however, he located certain salts and herbs and a squat, lidded pot recently emptied of weapons ointment and suited to his needs. In the alley behind the house stood the pump and cistern. On its stone overflow rim, he set down the satchel and gently searched its contents until he found the infant’s small, soft head. In the terrible operation he had performed, most surgeons would have crushed the little skull to let it pass more easily. Thankfully, he had not needed that final barbarity today. Placing it into the pot, he covered it with oils of turpentine and lavender, hoping the Bone within would not be damaged by the preservative mixture.

  When that was done, Elisha washed his tools, then himself and his bloody clothes, splashing cold water by the bucket over his body. He scrubbed his hands until it felt that he would bring forth blood of his own, and finally returned to his study with his burdens, shivering in the growing chill of night. He sealed the lid of his little pot with wax and thrust it to the bottom of a small chest. He found fresh clothes, draping his wet things to dry for the morrow.

  Elisha sat a long time with the sorry satchel before him. He knew what must be done, but the tools would be in his brother’s workshop, and the thought of going inside, facing that terrible absence, made him feel heavy as stone. Still, he could not leave Helena to face her child’s remains—or risk someone knowing what he had taken. Someday, he might return to her in triumph, restoring the baby he had cost her. Her husband was a loss for which he could not make amends.

  Not far off, the church bells rang, and Elisha stirred himself to motion. He had little enough time as it was. He took up the satchel and went to the workshop. He almost knocked, but his lifted hand paused in time. No amount of knocking would rouse the dead. He pushed gently and went inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust—a long moment
in which the shadows formed his brother’s corpse. But no, the place was empty, Nathaniel’s body taken away to prepare for burial, his blood merely darker shadows on the earthen floor.

  Nate always started work early, and Elisha used to pause in the yard to listen to the rhythm of hammer and files. Once, he caught his brother singing while he worked and made some remark, hoping to touch him beyond the rift he had caused, but Nathaniel turned from him and sang no more.

  Elisha’s eyes burned with sudden tears. He forced himself to look away, forced himself to move to the neat racks of tools and find the spade for turning the coals in the hearth. On a narrow bench by the windowsill waited a row of little crosses Nate would have sold at fairs or to his other customers. Elisha took one of these, the shape pressing into his palm beneath the handle of the spade. If it should carve straight through him it would not be punishment enough.

  He made his way through the narrow streets, giving a few coins to the guard at Cripplegate to let him pass. Beyond the wall, and a few more turns, Saint Bartholomew’s churchyard lay before him, humped with graves. He wished he knew where his brother would lie, so he could place the child close by. Failing that, he found a place that looked too narrow for an adult’s grave, not far from the church’s tower. The monastic hospital rose a short way off, founded by a king’s fool two centuries ago, along with the church itself. A man would have to be a fool to place his trust in either God or doctors. His brother had been failed by both.

  Using the short-handled spade, awkward in his hands, Elisha peeled back the layer of grass and dug as deep as he might. He nestled the satchel into the hole, dark into darkness, and bowed his head. There should be prayers for this. On a better day, he might recall them. He wet his lips and searched for words, his hands pressed together before him. “Dear Lord,” he started, and a lump rose in his throat. He stared down into the dark hole where his brother’s child lay. God was too far away to hear anything Elisha might say.

  To the child, he whispered, “Forgive me.” His fingers knotted together and his shoulders shook, but he felt no answer. “I swear I will take care of you.” He was the elder; his care was what Nathaniel should have had. He tried, hadn’t he? He didn’t want Helena for himself, he wanted to show Nathaniel what he thought she was, to protect him. But Elisha was wrong. He wronged his brother, he wronged his brother’s wife. He became a barber to heal others, but instead he wounded them unto death.

  Softly, ever so softly, as if the other graves could hear him speak, he said, “If I can, I’ll see you born again. If not, if there is life in me, I’ll see your spirit laid to rest.”

  He drew back and began to fill the little grave, pressing the grass back over it. Tomorrow he would go to war. He deserved death for the terrible day his deeds had brought, but he hoped for life. He hoped for a penance so great, a labor so severe that these dead might be appeased.

  Last, he found the cross his brother made. Crosses of wood and carved stones marked the graves around him, some with words he knew to be the names of the dead, with their dates of birth and death, dates that bounded lives both long and short. April fifth, the Year of Our Lord, 1347. This child had not a year, not a month, not even a single day. If they had spoken of names for their baby in the darkness of their bed, Elisha did not know it. He pushed the end of the cross, empty of mark or word, into the grass and brushed the dirt from his hands before he crossed himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered through his tears, his hands clutched together, begging. “I am so sorry.” He squeezed his eyes shut, his throat burning, until the tears receded, and he thought he could rise without stumbling.

  With the spade alone to fill his hands, Elisha walked away through the shadowed streets.

  Back in his room, silence echoing overhead, Elisha set to work on his traveling chest. All around and over the dangerous jar, he packed envelopes and vials—melon seeds, slippery elm, cochineal, thistle leaves—then sat back and stared at the motley collection.

  “I’m not a damned apothecary,” he muttered. No doubt the physician had gotten several apothecaries already, and of more use than Elisha’s mere general knowledge. And the great man himself would have a store of expensive medicines: nutmeg and cloves, powdered mummy, bezoar stone. Elisha unpacked most of the herbs and put them aside in favor of a few more instruments, a larger amputating saw, a silver crow’s beak for clamping veins, a selection of probes and lances. All of his needles he added to the chest, and the rolls of suturing thread. A few ewers and bowls for bloodletting settled on top, with a smaller basin and a spare razor. These last he hesitated over, imagining Nathaniel lying beside his best basin. That one he could not bring himself to use again, no matter its value. Let Helena sell it off.

  Lastly, he dropped in his two other tunics, woolen hose with only a few holes—he meant to buy another pair once he had the money to spare—a good belt and leather apron, and draped his wet britches over the top to dry out. By candlelight, his boots didn’t appear too blood-soaked, and traveling mud would conceal that soon enough. This pair had lasted a good five years so far, with only a few repairs, and he hoped to get good use out of them for some time longer. The cloak he would wear, and the thick farmer’s hat his mother had made years ago.

  Staring at his one small chest, Elisha wondered how many Lucius would bring, and how large. Any man who could afford the cloth of that one robe would likely have several spares besides. This triggered a thought, and Elisha brought out a long wooden box left over from childhood.

  On top he found what he had recalled—his own hidden wealth, an unworn shirt procured for his brother’s wedding two years back. After Elisha’s foolish attempt to prove Helena’s treachery, Nathaniel had threatened his life if he dared come to the church that day.

  Elisha lifted out the good shirt, woven of linen with no decoration. Feeling the heavy cloth between his fingers, he sighed again at his folly. He considered himself a practical man, and yet he afforded himself the luxury of a shirt he’d never wear. As if he should save it for some special day undreamed of. Now, with today’s tunic hopelessly stained, and torn besides from long use, he had need of this symbol of his betrayal. Tomorrow, he would wear it on the start of a journey far from the home that would not be his when he returned. If he returned.

  Below the shirt hid his few treasures: a copper coin minted in a foreign land, a handful of embroidered tokens given him by the whores at the brothels he tended, knotted charms to ward off illness and accident, kept more for sentiment than superstition, a small tin crucifix made by his brother’s hand, and, at the bottom, a rumpled cut of cloth painted like a hawk—the pennant he had begged for, which had led him to the angel of his memory. If he ever did reach Heaven, perhaps this hawk would lead him once again.

  Chapter 6

  When the east finally began to pale toward morning, Elisha arose, dressed in the clothes he’d laid out, and combed out his hair, thick and dark. A truly practical man would have trimmed the mane of dark waves to an easier length, but it was his sole vanity, and he couldn’t bring himself to cut it. He bound it back with a length of cord, slipping the comb into the pouch containing a few coppers, Martin’s strip of cloth, and emergency supplies: needles, suture, a pair of small, sharp knives and the stone to whet them by, as well as a small vial of opium to dull pain. The stuff was banned, and he ought to dispose of it, but it was costly, and it let him work in peace on a relaxed patient when the wound was especially terrible. He would have liked to offer some to Helena during her ordeal, but to do so was forbidden by church law. Did not the Bible say that women must in sorrow bring forth children?

  Elisha shook his head at this absurdity. Only a man who had never been there could enforce such a law. Now, knowing the midwife’s deceit, he was relieved he had not used the drug, for it could have been his undoing. From behind a loose stone at the base of the wall, he removed his hoarded wealth: four silver coins, one so old it bore the worn but still proud likeness of King Edward.

  He took a fe
w minutes to stitch the coins into the hood of his cloak for safe keeping. Rolling up his blankets, he secured them with a rope fashioned into a strap to go over his shoulder. Flinging on his cloak, Elisha hefted the blankets and the chest and let himself out into a chilly dawn. He glared at the rising sun. Already, he was late, and the gate was yet a good distance off. No hammer broke the silence as he passed his brother’s smithy. Steeling himself not to look back, he strode away.

  He covered ground quickly enough through the city just rousing. The appointed gate stood in a richer part of town, off the end of the high street where Martin Draper kept his shop. In the peasants’ quarter, tradesmen and laborers had begun their day, stoking the fires and gathering their tools. Many of these nodded to Elisha as he passed. On the merchant’s row, only apprentices stirred at this hour; their duties included sweeping up and clearing refuse from the streets before their shops. Down one road, he saw a handful of shops with real glass windows, and two or three servants each, washing the glass in the leaded panes.

  Dogs pursued him for much of the walk, growling and sniffing at the scent of blood which always lingered no matter how he washed. At Newgate, the guardsmen looked him over and nodded him through to the outer bailey with its portcullis not yet raised. The gate tower also served as a prison, its deep shadow reminding him of the alternative to the physician’s offer: a short trial and a sharp death.

  A half-dozen wagons formed the physician’s train, all laden with trunks as the carters tugged each rope in turn to be sure of their hold. The heavy horses and oxen stood patiently in their traces, ears occasionally perking to a sound of interest. Fifty soldiers at least milled about, a few with tall riding mounts whose breath showed as mist in the dawn. The physician himself, in an ostentatious crimson hat, directed the arrangement of his personal wagon, lording it over the carters who cast about black looks but did as he bid them. A bright white horse stamped at the rear of the wagon, fitted out with barding of crimson and gold as if the caravan were bound for a festival. Lucius probably thought his service would win him the king’s notice, and maybe the university that a royal commission could build.