Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle (6 page)

Wiping his bared forearm hastily across his face, Elisha said, “I’ll not be here in any event. Doctor Lucius has called me to the front.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Called you? You? He’s never had any use for you before.”

Giving a bitter laugh, Elisha explained, “I’m the hands to do his bloody work.”

“Heaven knows you’re good at that,” she cast back at him.

He leaned his forehead against the floor, caught on the stairs between two women who hated him, trapped as a mouse by feral cats.

“Get a move on, then,” Helena’s sister told him.

With an effort, he raised his head and looked across the upper floor at Helena who stared back. “The house is yours, Helena. If you rent my rooms, and the—” He couldn’t bring himself to refer to his brother’s workshop. “Anyhow, the money should be fair. I’ll be taking some of my instruments; the rest should fetch a good price for you.”

He heard her sister’s husband and young son come in at the door, ready to bear her away. Elisha offered, “I can help.”

For a moment, all were silent. Then came Helena’s voice, stronger than before. “Two years ago, I swore never again to suffer your hands upon me.”

Defeated, Elisha backed down the stairs, trying to shrink into himself so as not to brush against her sister. After a few minutes, the three had gathered up Helena and carried her back down and out the door, sparing neither word nor glare for Elisha as he stood alone in the large room.

The table dominated one end, draped over with cloth to conceal the
blood which must stain it. Examining the floor, he saw the glint of his spilled instruments, and knelt down to retrieve them with unsteady hands.

“Barber?”

Elisha jerked, scattering the gathered tools once more across the floor. He turned swiftly to the door and saw the master draper there, his half-beard shaved clean by some other hand.

“Martin,” Elisha gasped, trying to still the wild pulse.

Martin darted a quick glance around, then mounted the front steps, and shut the door. He bent down and collected a silver knife which lay at the turned-up toes of his shiny boots. “I came, I’ve been waiting—” He gave a nod toward the fireplace beyond which was Elisha’s own chamber.

“About this afternoon,” Elisha began. “I am sorry, I hadn’t expected Nate, after so long—and to find me there—”

Laughing gently, Martin lifted another knife in his clean, beringed hand. He shook his head. “Don’t apologize, Elisha. I know what’s happened today. I least of all would ask any such apology from you. It is I who should apologize. I was playing at the supercilious merchant and got a little carried away. Half your fee indeed.”

Still kneeling, Elisha brought one knee up before him to act as a prop for his aching head. “How long were you waiting?”

“Not long.” Martin gathered a probe and a lancet, then a curved parting blade.

“Long enough to hear?”

He nodded.

Elisha blew out a breath.

Martin Draper, Master of the Draper’s Guild, crouched on the floor, one by one gathering Elisha’s filthy tools. Fastidiously, he avoided kneeling down and besmirching his clothes. Every so often, he wiped both tools and hands on a delicate kerchief not quite up to the task.

“Don’t do that,” Elisha said at last, snatching the handful of tools and reaching out for the next. “Your wife will notice blood.”

Laughing again, Martin rose. “My wife is dallying with a weaver, unless I miss my mark. Handsome lad he is, too. And a good thing, since he’s like to be the father of my next child.”

“I’ve no idea how you manage.”

“I am a tradesman, Elisha. I contract, I conspire, and, above all, I compromise.” He remained standing, staring down at Elisha on the floor. After a time, while Elisha polished his tools on an edge of the soiled linen, Martin said, “I wish you’d just come clean; this curiosity is killing me.”

Sighing, Elisha dropped the tools on the table with one hand, sitting back on his haunches. “I tried to seduce her. On the eve of their wedding.”

“Oh, my.” Martin’s eyebrows notched upward.

“I thought she married him only to get out of the brothels, that she wanted to set up on her own at worst, or take advantage of him at best. Nathaniel was so taken with her that he wouldn’t hear a word against the marriage, not from me. I told her I knew what she was up to, that I’d keep her secret, if, well, I got mine.” His face flamed, and he kept it averted. “I expected her to be more than willing, and I would have my proof. I’ve never been so wrong about a person in my life. She called me every sort of monster, slapped me, and called my brother to throw me out. Neither one would hear an apology.” He broke off, and looked up at last to Martin’s sympathetic face. “It’s been Hell, really, living in this house, but which of us could afford to move?”

“If you’d told me,” Martin began, but Elisha cut him off.

“No, you wouldn’t. You’ve got a position to maintain. If anyone knew—” But there was little point to finishing that sentence.

“I love you desperately,” the draper said, advancing to touch Elisha’s cheek.

Elisha gently withdrew from the caress. “No, you don’t.”

“Are you sure?”

As much at the mournful expression as at the wistful tone, Elisha smiled. “It’s time you found someone to return your affections, Martin. You deserve better than a barber.”

Running his fingers along his own cheek, Martin said, “A barber who doesn’t even finish the job.” With a shrug, he reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a narrow strip of cloth.

“What’s that, a favor to carry into battle?”

“Consider it such, if you like. I like that idea well enough.” He held it out and Elisha took the delicate fabric. “Keep it on you, Elisha, don’t part with it for anything.”

Frowning, Elisha looked up at his friend. “But what does it mean, Martin?”

Laying a finger across his lips, Martin smiled. “Now that would be telling. Promise me you’ll keep it?”

“Is it blessed by a saint or something?” He ran the silk through his fingers, its fine fibers catching on the bits of dead skin. Threads of gold ran through in some pattern undistinguishable in the gloom.

“Charmed by a witch, perhaps. Now don’t look at me like that. Just you keep it on you, and secretly.”

“You do like your games,” Elisha grumbled, tucking the fabric into the pouch the captain had returned.

With a final sigh, Martin slipped out of the door, back to his wealthy house, his courtly wife, and her handsome weaver.

Sometimes, Elisha would have liked to love him, would have liked to think himself worthy of such a man—or, indeed, of anyone. But he was no good at make-believe, and Martin’s affection was a dangerous gift, even left unconsummated. He endured the flirtation when he tended Martin’s barbering needs in the privacy of the man’s chamber, but they could both be ruined if anyone knew.

Elisha rolled his neck from side to side, trying to shake the tension, and caught something out of the corner of his eye. On all fours, he crept to the table and saw beneath it the thing he had noticed: the neglected leather satchel, still seeping blood.

W
ith cautious hands,
Elisha drew the satchel from its hiding place, the weight of the dead child dragging it along the floor. He sat staring at the thing in front of him and thought again of the Bone of Luz, that mystical seed from which he might grow a new man. If he only knew how. The wild hope leapt within him that it might be possible, that some magic could bring it about, undo a little of the harm of this day and restore to Helena part of what she had lost, and with it, bring himself some measure of peace. Again, his heart raced. Yet how could he know if it were true? Who was there to ask without sending them both to the gallows, or worse?

He had witnessed magic once, when he was yet a boy, the last time a witch had been brought to trial. This was before even the terrible drought which had forced his family into the city to find work. His parents came in from the country to watch the execution, packing lunch for all of them, plus a few leftover vegetables from the garden gone soft and rotten, ripe for the throwing. Nathaniel, judged too young over his protests to the contrary, had been left at a neighbor’s house to sulk.

The three of them rode in their pony cart, the rangy new colt drawing them onward with the press of country folk all out in a common purpose. A tall pole had been erected outside the city wall in a patch of barren ground. The vivid purple of the royal pavilion, where the king and his two sons could recline in comfort for the festivities, brightened the gray of the city wall. Elisha had never been so close to the royal family, before or since. Nobility and townsfolk occupied the ground nearest to the site, leaving some distance for
safety, so that the country farmers took up the surrounding grass, paying a few pennies to stand atop wagon seats for a better view.

Vendors wandered the makeshift rows, hawking all manner of sweets and ale from barrels slung upon their backs. Musicians roamed as well, offering songs for the ladies, while a handful of bards tossed off poems with quick wit.

Elisha begged a penny from his father to buy a little pennant of cloth painted with a hawk. So equipped, he ran about the grass, watching it flutter in the breeze. Dashing down a long slope, he stopped short.

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.