“They what?” I asked. It seemed important, what she was saying.
She grinned at me. “If they catch you stealing, they cut off your hand.”
23 Scrabbling
I trailed Secundus, numb with horror at the girl’s words. They cut off thieves’ hands! I’d seen it—the poor beggar! What had he stolen? It could not be more valuable than the dust of Saint Peter.
“Milord?”
Secundus slapped a mosquito. “What?”
“Milord, is that what will happen to us?”
“What? Ah. Do not think about such things.”
You do not answer me. “Milord, I do not want to lose a hand.”
“Neither do I.”
That still does not answer me. “Milord, I don’t want to thieve.”
“Don’t worry. At the moment I need a strong back and a slow mind, and you have neither.”
We approached the church of Saint Paul—a massive church surrounded by old cracked buildings. The first Christians (so Father Petrus taught me) built this church directly over Saint Paul’s grave, and they placed half of the body of Saint Peter beside him so that the church was doubly blessed. This was the dust Secundus sought: the dust of Saint Peter in the grave of Saint Paul.
Closer we drew to the walls lit by the sunset—so close that we were now in the line of pilgrims. Seeing me, they made signs of protection, and pointed me out to their children.
Oh, was I tired of this. I was tired of other folks’ stares, and their gestures. Tired of fear.
“Cannot you walk faster?” Secundus snapped, and “Stop hunching!” He groaned. “Fine. I will store you somewhere.” He flipped through his book: “No . . . no . . . Ah. Perfect. They all died of pestilence.” He stopped at a door. With a twist of his wrist, he unlocked it. “Get in,” he ordered. “And keep the pack safe.” With that, he sealed me in a room that smelled of dust and loneliness, and held only a high empty window.
“Milord!” I called. “I must get to Rome!”
No answer.
I sighed. Oh, I loathed this! How much longer till I could live like normal folk without being glared at? How much longer till I did not have to fear the sign of protection, or knives, or the sharp eyes of wicked girls? I go to Rome to become a boy. Well, Rome was only one league away. . . .
And so I resolved: I would take myself to the city of Rome and the tomb of Saint Peter, and see my miracle granted. Then I’d help Secundus complete his quest. Once I was a boy.
There.
But courage is cheap. Escaping this room was impossible. Secundus had locked the door, and the window I could not reach. . . .
An idea—No! I must never reveal myself. What if I were seen?
But Secundus might be gone for days. I could not remain here, waiting and fearful. I must risk the part of an angel to achieve my life as a boy.
At once I went to work, struggling with the knots on my chest. I had the same struggle with the rag ribbons, which in several places had rubbed me raw.
The first flex made me scream—oh, how my wings hurt. Slowly they opened, wider than my two arms. The feathers were longer, too. They shimmered.
Even in my fear and haste, I marveled at their beauty. Can you feel the air? I asked. I need you. Just this once. I tied the pack and tunic round my waist. Please, Saint Peter. Help me. And forgive me for using my wings.
I paced to the room’s far side, filling my lungs. The window was twice as high as me. But the dusky sky gave me hope. See, wings? Aim for the sky. We must find the tomb of Saint Peter!
I crouched, and ran with all my speed, flapping, and when I reached the wall I leaped.
I did not get far. The wall scratched my fingers, and tore my hose. My beating wings drove my face into the stone. My toes scrabbled for a purchase. With the greatest effort I reached—grabbed the windowsill—and hauled myself up.
I lay there, gasping.
Below me lay an empty courtyard surrounded by black empty windows. No movement, no sound, no candlelight . . . This whole building, it seemed, was abandoned.
Are you ready? I asked my wings.
I did not fly—oh, no. But my wings spread enough to slow my fall, so that I only banged my knees rather than crashing.
How fine it felt to be free.
Hurry, Boy. If Secundus finds you, he’ll be right enraged.
So I bound my wings, the ribbons barely reaching: already they’d grown. Naughty wings—but I’d lose them soon enough.
I donned my tunic and the pack, tugging the cords extra tight.
I crept out of the building. I must get to the tomb of Saint Peter.
I kept my head down, following other pilgrims, a small fish in the stream of the faithful. The crowd pushed, catching me up, and as one we spilled into a square—a church square half the size of the sky! How Father Petrus would have loved to see this.
Pilgrims fell to their knees, crawling forward. I joined them. How could I not?
On my knees I entered the building, in the throng of crawling pilgrims.
Oh, ’twas sad. The church’s roof had completely collapsed, and its ceiling beams lay shattered. Thick grass grew in the broken floor. “An earthquake,” pilgrims murmured to one another, reaching for coins to donate, and crawling forward.
I did not have a coin, but I crawled with the others, caught up in their passion. On my knees I approached the altar—an altar protected by a railing, with two monks raking the offerings. A fine lady pilgrim lowered a string into a hole in the altar. She pulled up a long strip of cloth, and kissed it. When she left the altar, other pilgrims pressed round, reaching for the cloth.
I reached, too, and I, too, murmured “Saint Paul, Saint Paul!” and I followed the others down a staircase, to a crypt beneath the altar. One wall of the crypt had an iron grill, and behind it the narrow end of Saint Paul’s stone coffin. A small wood altar stood before this grill, and two monks warned pilgrims not to scratch the walls, for pilgrims will make relics of anything.
I smiled, and the bones of Saint Peter warmed my back. Behold, I whispered. ’Tis the grave of your friend Saint Paul. Your dust lies within—
A hand clamped my shoulder. Hot breath scorched my ear: “I see that my angel has flown.”
24 Dust, the Fifth
I jerked like a fish, but the man grasped me tight. “You ran away, you dumb pail of milk!” Secundus!
Oh, was I relieved. “I am sorry, milord—I was seeking Saint Peter—”
“Huh!” scoffed a weaselly pilgrim with battle-scarred knuckles. “The hunchback’s a liar.”
Secundus shook me. “You shouldn’t have come here!” His eyes burned with fever and fury and—I saw now—with fear.
“What’s he got in that pack?” asked the weaselly pilgrim.
“Naught of your concern. Sit in that corner, Boy. Don’t move.”
Cook’s voice came to me: you stupid thing, you’ve jumped from the pot to the fire. Indeed I had. Now, it seemed, I was part of Secundus’s thieving!
Around us pilgrims hurried away for the night. Longingly I watched them depart.
“Does he get a cut of the bounty?” asked the weaselly pilgrim.
“No,” sighed Secundus. “Nor do I. I want only the dust. All the coins go to you.”
At the mention of coins, the weasel stiffened like a dog on a scent.
“For a thousand years, pilgrims have come to this grave. I have seen—” Secundus caught himself. “They dropped their donations through the lid. By now there should be wealth enough to buy yourself a cardinal.”
The weasel licked his lips.
Secundus turned his attention to the monks. He filled their hands with coins, and escorted them to the stairs, promising that he would guard the gravesite whilst they sang vespers. The monks departed, reluctant to leave the tomb but grateful for the coins, and eager for prayers. They promised to return soon.
Then we were alone—Secundus and me and the weasel with battle-scarred knuckles. The weasel who so clearly wasn’t a pil
grim.
“Guard the stairs, Boy,” Secundus ordered. He unlocked the grill.
From beneath his pilgrim robe, the weasel pulled a hammer and chisel and pry bar. The two men hauled themselves onto the wood altar.
Music floated down the stairs: monks chanting.
The weasel hammered at the end of the coffin, matching the song’s rhythm. Secundus pried with the bar. . . .
The music ended. The weasel paused, adjusting his grip.
A new song began. I peered up the stairs: why didn’t anyone come? ’Twas wicked, what Secundus and the weasel were doing!
Secundus toiled, sweat beading on his brow. The weasel hammered with all his might. The coffin’s stone end moved with a creak. . . . It fell. Secundus and the weasel caught it, just barely, and eased it onto the floor. Secundus reached into the open coffin—and snatched back his hand. He smiled as he blew on his fingers. “Get it all,” he whispered to the weasel. “Quickly!”
Grinning, the weasel swept coins into a sack.
“The dust!” hissed Secundus.
The weasel grabbed more coins. He reached further, but he could not reach all the way in. He turned to me. . . .
No! Not me! “Milord—the beggar—”
The weasel pulled out a dagger. “Get in there,” he ordered.
Secundus looked at me. “The dust, Boy. ’Twill be fast.”
The weasel grinned at me as he tested the tip of his dagger.
To stand on an altar—that itself is a sin! And oh, did the coffin look dark.
“Please, Boy,” Secundus whispered.
“Don’t beg him!” The weasel jumped off the altar, eying me—
But already I was climbing up beside Secundus. I would help him. I must.
“Thank you, Boy. Here, step on my hand—”
I could reach on my own. With a deep breath, I hauled myself into the coffin. ’Twas so dark! And dusty. My pack caught the edge. “No!” I cried—
Ow! A sharp pain to my bottom.
“Don’t touch him!” Secundus snarled at the weasel.
With a great twist that tore at the pack, I pulled myself all the way into the coffin. “I am so sorry,” I whispered. “I am so sorry, Saint Paul, to be inside your grave.”
“Hurry, Boy!” whispered Secundus.
The space, I concede, was large for a coffin: longer than a man, and half as wide as me. But I could not sit up, and oh, was it dark. My toes and fingers felt dirt and mortar and crumbling bits, and my head cracked on the lid. The pack rubbed, the cords fraying. “Saint Peter!”—I reached behind me—but too late. The pack fell from my back.
“Boy, gather the dust!”
“The coins, you brat! The money!”
Scrabbling, I shoved everything I touched toward the opening.
“More!” the weasel snapped. Coins clinked in his sack.
A shard of bone, a scrap of cloth . . . oh, my wings ached. They strained against the ribbons.
“Come out of there,” whispered Secundus—
A shout!
I jerked back. The ribbons snapped—the stitching on my tunic ripped—my wings opened!
A pounding sound—
On my hands and knees I spun. Through the open end of the coffin, I could see monks racing down the steps of the crypt. Monks!
I scrabbled to the grave’s far end. Please, saints, do not let me be seen. . . .
A monk approached the opened coffin. Oh, was he close! He could see right in if he tried—
He bent—I could see his shaved tonsured head—he placed the weasel’s sack in the coffin—he bowed his head to pray. “Amen,” he finished.
Amen, I repeated silently. Even a thief can do that.
The monk withdrew, his head bowed.
I exhaled.
More monks—monks with trowels of wet concrete. Now I would be caught for sure!
They spread the concrete round the coffin’s edge, keeping their eyes downcast. Not looking in. A command—they lifted the stone end, and slipped it into place.
Darkness.
A thump that shook the ground: the monks setting a heavier stone into place. Perhaps they were blocking the iron grill?
Silence.
I crept forward, pressing on the coffin’s stone end. But it did not budge.
I was sealed in the grave of Saint Paul.
I am not feared of heights and I am not feared of falling, but oh, do I fear dark. Worms should live under the earth, and corpses, but not a living creature such as me. “Secundus,” I whispered. “Secundus!”
How I wished I’d called to that monk! To be exposed as a thief was a horrible fate, and worse still to be exposed as an angel, but neither was so horrible as this. I’d risk my hands—my life—for the chance to live on earth instead of beneath it, unable even to sit.
But wait—the darkness was not completely dark—
The hole! The hole in the altar through which the lady pilgrim had lowered the cloth. The hole descended from the altar all the way down through the coffin lid.
Up I peered. Candlelight flickered!
A noise reached me—shuffling. Oh, how I wanted to shuffle. To stand, to jump . . . Monks might cut off my hand, but I deserved it. One did not need hands to jump.
I pressed my mouth to the shaft. “Help!” I cried.
A barked order. A thump—the screech of stone—the light disappeared. Where once I saw candlelight, now . . . naught. Had the hole been sealed?
I reached up the shaft as far as I could . . . but my fingers did not come close to the top. “Help! Cut off my hands!”
I shouted till my throat was raw. I pounded on the slab, the walls, the lid, shouted into the blocked hole. My fists bled, my knees, my head.
I will die here.
But wait . . . do angels die? I cannot starve—to starve, one needs to eat.
Again and again I felt the walls, the floor, the dirt. . . .
I will go mad. I’m mad already.
I lay there, willing Secundus—the weasel—anyone—to come. I tried to remember: a scream . . . Was it Secundus who screamed? He must be alive—he was Secundus! He’d escaped a thousand years in hell. Could he come for me without a hand? I shuddered. “Please, milord,” I whispered. “Save me.”
I felt about for the pack of Saint Peter, and clutched it. I knelt, my wings rubbing the lid, and I prayed. I prayed to Saint Peter, and to his remains within this grave. I prayed to Saint Paul, and thanked him for sharing his grave with Saint Peter.
I drifted to sleep, into nightmares that I was trapped underground. . . .
Each time I awoke to discover again that my nightmares were true.
IV
Arrival
25 Red Beard and Gray
A man’s voice, sharp.
A second voice rumbled, telling a story—a long story, it seemed, but the teller enjoyed it.
Now I could see the speaker: a tall man with a beard. Gray hair curled around his face and his chin; his eyes crinkled. White linen draped his frame, and he swung a long key.
“I said I’ve heard it before.” The second man wore linen splattered with ink, and wrote in a thick book. His beard was long and red, and red hair framed his bald head.
“Mmm? About the fishbone?” asked the gray-bearded man.
“Please, brother.” The writer dipped his pen.
“Your penmanship is so lovely,” sighed gray beard.
“I say it again: I can teach you.” He held back his beard as he wrote. Imagine being clever enough to both write and speak whilst holding one’s beard!
“I’m only a fisherman. . . . Gracious, someone is here.”
The red beard did not look up. “Yes. The angel.”
“Well, bless my soul.” The gray beard smiled. He was, I noticed, missing a tooth. Light came from his head. From both their heads. “Hello, there.”
“Hello, Father”—for Father seemed the right word.
“Are you an angel, though?” He frowned. “Or a boy?”
??
?He is the one with Secundus.” The red beard blew on his ink.
Gray beard swung his key. “Ah. Secundus. The one who found the way.”
“That one.” The red beard looked at me through thick brows, and oh, were his eyes fierce. “Boy, there is work to be done.”
I awoke facedown in rubble.
Why were my surroundings so black? I had just been in light. . . .
I felt the masonry, but thickly. My fingertips were covered in scabs—cuts from scratching at the coffin’s walls, though now the scabs were almost healed.
How long had I slept?
The tall man with his curly gray beard—how kind he’d seemed. And the bald man was ever so clever. He knew how to write, and he knew Secundus, and he knew me. . . .
Saint Peter. Of course. Saint Peter with his key to heaven. The other man must be Saint Paul—Saint Paul writing the good book.
A piece of mortar dug into my cheek. I brushed it away—and found it warm to the touch. Warm not from me, but from its own power.
’Twas not mortar, but a fragment of bone.
I grasped it. At once I saw a red-haired man preaching. Whilst some called insults, others listened with both their ears, and men and women prayed.
Saint Paul’s arm, this fragment was. I could even see its outline. . . . The fragment glowed, enough for me to make out its shape, and to reveal the five fingers on my hand. I still had a hand! I could see the grime, even, worked into my skin.
I looked around: patches marked the coffin’s floor, patches not quite so dark as the rest of the darkness. Nearby rested a chip of rock—no. Bone. I touched it. At once I felt the passion that filled Saint Peter—Peter, a fisherman who did not even know how to read. A scrap of linen glowed with a dull purple light. Soon as I touched it, I knew ’twas a remnant of Saint Paul’s burial shroud. I clutched it and prayed.
Every fragment in this grave had a story. Every bit must be sorted.
Boy, Saint Paul had said, there is work to be done.
So I worked.
I started by sorting all that I could find on the coffin floor, and arranging the bits into piles. Dried mud formed the largest mound. A river, it seemed, had flooded this church. What if the river floods me? But I scolded the thought from my mind: Do not think, Boy; there is work to be done. I piled the mud in one corner, next to the pile of coins.