The daughter nodded, listening, and smiled though the blind man could not see.
“And the miracles,” the blind man sighed. “Only yesterday an old man crawled twelve leagues to get here. He crawled to the altar and kissed Saint Peter’s shoe, and at once his crippled foot was healed and he danced his way out of the church!”
I gasped in delight. I had witnessed this miracle! To be fair, the old man had not crawled or danced, but ’twas his mind as much as his foot that had been healed, which is a miracle indeed for one so crabby—
A poke in the back gave me a start: Secundus. “Come, Boy.”
So I gathered my stick and I patted the dogs and I waved good-bye to the daughter who burbled with laughter. She said the dogs would miss me, which made me hope that she would miss me, too, and I followed Secundus out into the morn.
Today’s crowds were even thicker. Secundus checked the safety of the pack on my back because a crowd such as this has busy fingers, and he tested the rope around my waist. “How do you feel? Can you climb?”
“Oh, yes, milord.” I tugged the rope to show him how fine I was.
“Prepare yourself. Events will occur quickly. You must move fast, and do what I say.”
I nodded, my pulse quickening. We had a relic to save.
We made our way to the church steps where the same preacher promised the miracles to be found in Rome. Secundus handed me the silver cup that Cook had given me one two three days past, though verily it felt like one two three years. “Wave it high, Boy,” he said as we entered. “We have an offering!” he shouted. “Make way that this boy may gift the church of Saint-Peter’s-Step.”
The crowd oohed at the silver, and let us pass.
Saint Peter’s shoe rested in its chest with guards all around. Before the shoe knelt rich and poor and young and old, men and women both.
Secundus released his hold on the rope and nodded me toward the altar steps. The high windows behind the altar stood open, airing out the smell of incense and pilgrims.
I knelt, resting my stick beside me. I lay the cup upon the coins and tokens and candles and wax, remembering the night Sir Jacques toasted the birth of his son. I prayed for milady and her three babies. I prayed that Sir Jacques might be cured of his terrible injury. As I’d promised, I prayed for Cook: “Please, Saint Peter, preserve Cook from eternal damnation.”
I glanced at Secundus. He stood studying the guards.
“And please, Saint Peter,” I whispered. “Please, I am only a goatherd, and—a monster. . . . But please, Saint Peter, cure my hump so no one stares.”
There. I had said the words aloud.
“Amen.” I waited.
Perhaps Saint Peter would answer my prayer later.
I climbed to my feet, rope in hand. Secundus stood, not moving.
The crowd pressed forward. Near us a young mother held a pink-cheeked baby chewing two fingers. The mother looked in fright at the mass of pilgrims. Even with the open windows, the air hung thick with incense and candle smoke, and no breeze moved the cloths hanging on the walls.
A woman screamed that she was suffocating. Another woman screamed, and a man. The pink-cheeked baby began to cry.
“Milord . . .”
“Be patient,” Secundus murmured. “They will come when the third hour rings.”
The bells began to toll in the tower above us—bells marking the third hour of prayers.
A great clamoring rose behind us, at the entrance to the church.
“Thieves!” someone cried.
“The monks!” cried another. “They’ve sent fighters!”
The monks. Secundus was right!
“We’ve come for our relic,” a man bellowed. Metal clashed, and the crowd pressed away from the battle—pressed us so that I feared we’d be trampled. The mother screamed, clutching her baby.
The altar guards stiffened, their pikes pointing outward. Secundus watched, frowning. “Go aid your brethren,” he shouted.
“Milord, the baby—”
“Move, men!” Secundus commanded. But the guards did not.
“Milord, the baby will be crushed—” We must protect the relic, I knew, but a baby is more important than a shoe.
“Forget the—” He spun to me, his face lighting up. “You are right! Climb, Boy. Climb to the window. I will toss the baby to you.”
’Twas a madcap solution, but better than naught. Better than letting a baby get crushed.
The guards gripped their pikes, and did their best to peer over the crowd, trying to catch sight of the battle. They did not notice me wiggling like a salamander betwixt their legs toward the wall. Up I climbed, gripping rocks and tapestries, the rope trailing behind me. I reached the windowsill.
“Ho, Boy!” bellowed Secundus. He snatched up the baby.
“No!” shrieked the pretty young mother, lunging for her child. The pilgrims around her screamed.
“Boy!” yelled Secundus, so loudly that the guards turned to look, and the mother, and the pilgrims. He cocked his arms—
I struggled to balance on the narrow windowsill. What was he doing? No good person would ever throw a child—
Secundus tossed me the baby.
Till the end of my days I shall remember that moment. The crowd stood in shock, the mouth of every man and every woman hanging open in the shape of an egg, as the baby flew up, up to me. The guards turned, their eyes wide, watching. The baby’s mouth, too, was egg shaped, and its arms flailed in the smoky air.
I must save this baby or it will die.
I reached out, my legs gripping the sill, every eye in the church upon me.
The baby soared—the crowd gasped—
I grabbed the baby with both my hands, and pulled us to safety.
The baby stared at me for a long second—and released a wail of outrage.
“My baby!” cried the mother, hurling herself past the guards. She grabbed the rope around my waist and climbed. Never would I have thought a mother so nimble, but right soon she was perched beside me, clasping her baby.
At once the crowd’s screaming redoubled, and the crash of weapons, and battle.
“Boy!” shouted Secundus, near tugging me off the window as he, too, climbed my rope. He hauled himself up with a triumphant laugh, pulling the rope behind him. “Jump,” he cried, and I jumped onto the roof below the window, away from the panic and fighting, and I helped the mother creep down the mossy tiles, and I held the baby as she jumped down to the street, and lowered the wailing baby to her.
“May God bless you,” cried the pretty young mother. “May God bless you forever and ever.”
“Be off with you,” Secundus snapped, landing beside us. “Come, Boy.” He dashed down an alley that stank of cats. I trotted behind, thrumming with excitement as shouts echoed from the church. I’d saved a baby’s life! A baby and a mother. And possibly—although this did not matter so much—possibly even my own.
The alley emptied onto a street, and another, and a thick gate with two guards, and we were outside the walls of the town.
“We did it.” Secundus beamed in delight. The badges on his hat twinkled in the sun.
“We saved them!”
“What? Ah. Yes. We saved the—” He sniffed.
But all I smelled was rotting turnips. “Don’t worry, milord. Turnips smell like dog wind.”
“What?”
“The dog last night—you did not like the smell. Turnips and dog wind smell the same.”
He barked a laugh. “Ah, that mongrel breaking wind. You are right: ’tis the smell of bad turnips. Ah, Boy, I will miss you.”
Miss me?
“You surely can climb,” he chuckled. “And you’re a clever one to think of that baby.”
I could not help but smile, for pride is the downfall of every soul.
We walked, Secundus with his thoughts and I with mine, the rope trailing behind me. I had witnessed two miracles, I had: the old man healed and the baby in flight. I had walked across water and seen the ve
ry shoe of Saint Peter. (Whatever became of the shoe, I wondered . . . but a baby matters more than a shoe.) I’d talked with a girl who did not call me a monster, and I’d received a smile from a fine lady. And I’d prayed for Cook as she ordered. How fine it would be to report this. Perhaps Cook would no longer shout at me so.
Glad I was that we had three days to return to the manor, for I would need every minute to set these stories to memory. Perhaps one day when I was old and blind, I would tell these tales for a small bit of honey I could give to the dogs. Perhaps I’d have more than dogs to talk to, and goats. Perhaps I’d have a friend whose laughter burbled like water on rocks. . . .
We arrived at a spot where the road approached the riverbank. Upstream I could see a fording place with a long wet rope and a herdsman leading oxen through the knee-deep water, his hands gripping the cable.
Secundus studied his book. He pointed. “You’ll need to cross there.”
“Yes, milord . . .” I did not care for the way he said you as though it would be me alone.
He frowned, and at once my heart stopped, for though I cannot read words I have skill at reading people, and I remembered how he said he would miss me, and in that instant I realized he’d just sent me away.
8 A Fork in the Road
“Please, milord!” I dropped to my knees. “Please do not dismiss me.”
“Stand up. I needed a boy who could climb through a window. I do not need that anymore.”
“Please, milord—”
“Silence! Give me the pack. Where is the stick?”
The stick! “I’m sorry, I lost it—”
“You lost it? How am I to carry the rib?”
“I can find you another—” I dashed down the path, but such is the world that a stick was not to be found. Behind me, Secundus clutched his book, seething. His silence gave me time to think. I would never find the manor, I knew: it lay somewhere west, and west is a very broad distance. And even if I did know the route, I could not walk alone. Good men would think me a runaway or worse. I’d be murdered by brigands, or eaten by wolves.
But another thought crept into my head as a vine creeps betwixt stones, and this thought featured vanity. Not once since Secundus tied his pack to my hump had I been called hunchback or monster. I enjoyed that, I did. I enjoyed getting smiles. I should like to enjoy them some more.
With every step this thought grew inside me. The goats would not miss me—they’d miss my company, I should like to think, but they did not need me, for goats are clever and tough. Ox had other victims. As for Cook, I had donated the cup and prayed for her soul, and could report so. But I did not need to report it quite yet.
I patted the pack on my back. My heart lifted at its soft warmth.
“What are you doing?” Secundus snapped.
“Begging your pardon, milord, I am making sure the relic is safe.” Appreciating its protection. Wishing I could wear it longer. “Milord?” I asked. So carefully.
“What?”
“I do so enjoy—I know ’tis not my place—but I like bearing your burden—”
“My burden?”
“Your—your pack, milord—”
Secundus spun so quick that I feared I’d be slapped. “You have no notion of my burden. No notion at all.” He brandished his book: “Look.”
Pages of words. Words, and drawings, and lines I did not understand. Whole pages crossed out, or written to the very edges. “This is my quest. Decades—centuries!—of knowledge. The seven relics of Saint Peter. I have maps, I have floor plans, I have . . . secrets. I learned only six months ago of the monks’ plan to attack. Just before—before Paris. That was the last detail. Or so I thought.” Without warning he swung at me.
I flinched—but he was not striking me, no; he was clawing at the pack on my shoulders. He was almost clawing, for no sooner did he touch the pack than he screamed.
“That is my burden,” he spat. Off he strode.
I followed, rope trailing. What else could I do?
“Gather six relics and take them to Saint Peter’s tomb in Rome. Rib tooth thumb shin dust skull tomb. Simple. What could I have missed, in all my research? One fact, barely worth mentioning: I cannot touch the saint’s bones!” He glared at the scar on his palm.
“Rome, milord? Did you say Rome?” Secundus was headed to Rome?
With a snap, he broke a branch from a tree.
Rome! Why, Rome is the city of miracles—everyone knows this. Men are healed both body and soul when they reach the tomb of Saint Peter. “Milord?”
“Give me my pack.” He held out the branch.
“Please let me serve you.”
“What?” His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because . . . I should like to carry this pack. So you are not burned.” Because I should like to reach the tomb of Saint Peter, so that he can make me a regular boy.
I gathered the rope that trailed behind me, though mud soiled my hands. That is how diligent a servant I was: I would cover myself in muck for Secundus. “You could be my master, and I’d be your boy. I’d serve you as I served Sir Jacques. . . .” Carefully I untied the knot.
Secundus strode down the path.
I raced after him, and handed him the rope.
He tossed it aside and strode on.
I kept pace. “I can hurry. I can walk as fast as a man.” One two three days prior I had been so frightened of this pilgrim that I would have done anything to avoid him, and now I wanted naught so much as to serve him. I must get to Rome. There, at the tomb, Saint Peter will grant me a miracle. Then Cook would accept me, and Ox, and no one would sneer or throw stones, and I would no longer be a monster.
We came to a fork in the road. To the left flowed the river with its wide shallow ford. To the right rose a path.
Secundus stopped.
I halted, panting. I had kept pace.
I stood with the pack warm on my hump, and I bowed my head as a good servant should. Dearly did I want to kneel, but I sensed this would not sway him; indeed, the reverse.
“You eat naught.” He did not look at me.
“No, milord.” There was more I could have said, but didn’t.
“You can carry . . .” His mouth twisted. “You’ll carry my relics till you delay me. Then—”
“Yes, milord.” I would never delay him. Not once.
He studied me, from my old red hood to my tattered too-big boots. “Come.” He swept up the path. Away from the river. Away from the manor. Toward Rome.
Oh, my heart leaped in my chest, but I spoke not a whisper. I kept inside me many words I might have said. I did not say Thank you, master. I did not say I must go to Rome to lose my hump. I did not say I shall tell you the truth, master: I am a monster, not a boy.
And so I was a liar. A lying monster en route to Rome. Wicked me.
II
The Relic Thief
9 Tooth, the Second
Up we climbed, up and up, but however I panted I did not slow, for I was going to Rome!
I go to Rome to become a boy.
How good these words sounded.
The hill grew steeper till the path sprouted steps and became a staircase—a staircase slippery and old, missing stones. Several times I fell, banging my shins, but I did not tarry.
Secundus paused, cheeks flushed, and pulled out his book. “Does that rock look like a resting cow?”
Indeed it did, now that I noticed. And the drawing in his book looked just like the rock.
“That’s the trail we’ll need later.” He studied other drawings, and words around the drawings, and words crossed out. “The monastery of Saint-Peter’s-Mount . . . Many places to hide a tooth.” He looked up, and his frown changed to a grin. “And so we will have to barter.” He reached into his purse for a dusty object, and just as quick returned it.
I gasped: “The shoe!” Saint Peter’s shoe, from the altar at Saint-Peter’s-Step!
Again he grinned: “Come, Boy.” Off he set.
“But—” Th
at moment when Secundus tossed me the baby—every pilgrim had turned to watch me. Every woman. Every man. Every guard . . . Every face, I realized, except Secundus. For in that moment he was snaking his hand to the altar. “But milord, you said we must protect the shoe.”
“Do you think it’d be safe in that mob? And the baby—if not for us, the baby would have been trampled. The baby and the shoe. A brilliant diversion, Boy. Brilliant.”
“But don’t the townsfolk want their relic?”
“You heard the blind man—they took it from the monastery. We are returning it.”
But you risked a baby’s life, I wanted to say. You risked mine. You say words that sound true but confuse me. You said— “Milord, you said that relics burn you.”
“Clever child. So how can I carry this shoe? Because of course it is fake . . . Ah. Here we are at last.”
The staircase ended at a crumbling wall sprouting ivy, its gate sagging: the monastery of Saint-Peter’s-Mount. A fortress it was, though in decline. No sound met my ears save the whistle of wind. No one in this place ever laughed like the burble of water.
Secundus squared his shoulders and entered.
I followed, stunned yet at his revelation. Secundus had the shoe!
Grass squirmed between paving stones. Weeds choked mounds of dirt topped with crosses: pestilence had struck this place hard.
A bent gatekeeper shuffled toward us. A word and a coin from Secundus, and he led us into a great room that blocked the wind but stored the chill. There sat a man, his head bent in prayer.
He is praying for his men, I realized. Small wonder he looked worried.
“Greetings, Brother Abbot. I apologize for our interruption.” Secundus laid a thin gold coin on the table. “Might I have a moment of your time?”