The Bone Magician

by F. E. Higgins

  ‘I didn’t understand what he meant and I waited hours before going to find him, but it was so dark and cold and the streets are so dangerous at night that I soon gave up. When I came home I found Fabian lying dead on the floor, strangled.

  ‘I haven’t seen my father since.

  ‘Everyone thinks he killed Fabian. I find it hard to believe he could commit such a crime, but if he didn’t then why did he leave? I used to wish that he would come back. I have even searched for him, but now I am not so sure.’

  Pin looked around the table and he could see from their faces that they were as doubtful as he was.

  ‘At least now you have a job and a home,’ said Mrs Hoadswood gently. ‘Perhaps you should leave the past where it is.’

  ‘I would,’ Pin said, ‘if Deodonatus Snoad would do the same.’

  After supper Pin went to Juno’s room. She was expecting him.

  ‘That was quite a story,’ she said as they sat together by the fire inhaling the fumes from the burner. ‘This is a hard enough city to survive in without all that trouble.’

  Pin shrugged it off. He didn’t want to talk about it any more. Besides, he had an idea he wanted to suggest to her. He felt confident enough about their growing friendship that she would at least consider it. ‘You do all right too,’ he said, ‘with your uncle.’

  ‘That is true, though not for much longer.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared into the flames. ‘We finish up at the Nimble Finger next week.’

  They had not spoken of their respective plans since that first night when she told him of her quest outside the City. He welcomed the opportunity to remind her.

  ‘You know I wish to go too.’ He paused. ‘Maybe . . .’

  ‘Maybe?’

  ‘Maybe we could go together.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Juno slowly.

  Pin had anticipated this, that Juno wouldn’t be as keen as he was. After all, she seemed to be an independent, resourceful sort, used to looking after herself. Sometimes he thought her herbs were more precious to her than any person. But those very herbs were his ally tonight. He knew that under their influence she would be relaxed. He had thought it through quite carefully and there was no doubt in his mind that it was a good idea: all he had to do was persuade her of that. Despite the fact that Juno earned her living from the ‘supernatural’, he knew that she had her feet firmly planted on the ground – you had to in Urbs Umida. He appealed to her practical side.

  ‘I could help you with Madame de Bona. I could take Benedict’s part.’

  Juno laughed and her tone was playful. ‘Part? You make it sound like an act. You seem to forget, corpse raisers are born, not made. Believe me, I know everything there is to know about Bone Magic.’

  ‘And I’m a quick learner,’ Pin said. Then he moved in with what he considered his trump card.

  ‘I’ll make a deal with you,’ he said, and straight away Pin knew he was right. Juno couldn’t possibly resist such a challenge. Her eyes lit up and he had her rapt attention. He took a deep breath.

  ‘If I can find out how you raise Madame de Bona, then you must take me with you when you leave Urbs Umida.’

  Juno chewed on her bottom lip. ‘Hmm. It’s not so simple. Besides, I’m not even sure I’m taking Madame de Bona.’

  ‘Still, it would be safer to travel together.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘And more fun.’

  ‘All right,’ she said finally, with a little laugh, putting out her hand. ‘It’s a deal.’

  And suddenly it was Pin who was doubtful. What if he couldn’t discover the secret of Bone Magic?

  It was only since he had met Juno that Pin realized how lonely he was. The prospect of her leaving Urbs Umida while he stayed behind was not a pleasant one. But at least now he had the chance of a new start. Of course, there was Mr Gaufridus to consider too, but he was exactly the sort of person who would encourage Pin to strike out on his own.

  ‘There is one other thing that puzzles me,’ Pin said. ‘These private corpse raisings, like Sybil’s. I mean, a skeleton in a show is one thing, but a real body . . .’

  ‘You saw Mr Belding,’ said Juno. ‘He and Sybil had a terrible argument. He accused her of not loving him and then minutes later she was run down by a horse and cart. All he wanted was the chance to say a proper goodbye and that is what we gave him.’

  ‘At least that is what he thinks you gave him,’ Pin mused. ‘But I will find out the truth.’

  Juno gave Pin a wry smile. ‘You really think you can do it, don’t you?’

  He nodded. ‘I know it cannot be real. In my world, when you are dead, you are dead.’

  ‘You should have a little more faith. Sometimes it’s good to believe in magic.’

  ‘There is no magic in this city,’ Pin said.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Aluph Buncombe

  Mrs Cynthia Ecclestope sat nervously in her high-backed chair (upholstered in the finest imported silk, with narrow delicate legs hand-carved by blind craftsmen in the forests of the sub-continent), her eyes flicking back and forth to the clock on the mantel. The golden hands showed half past eleven. Her friends, furnished with tea (her own custom-made blend) and cake (freshly made that morning from the highest-quality ingredients and bound together – unintentionally – with the sweat from the cook’s brow and – intentionally – the butler’s saliva), were gathered around her on a variety of seats each placed for optimal viewing of Cynthia. They gossiped animatedly to each other behind their hands. The topics of conversation were the Bone Magician, the Gluttonous Beast and the Silver Apple Killer. The dilemma was how they should effect a visit to the first or second without succumbing to the clutches of the third.

  On the stroke of eleven, the door opened and the butler entered accompanied by another man. He coughed quietly and the ladies all looked up.

  ‘Mr Aluph Buncombe, your ladyships,’ announced the butler before withdrawing with the subtle sneer he reserved for such exalted company. Aluph remained unmoving for a few seconds, affording the ladies an opportunity to appreciate the quality of his attire, the thickness of his dark glossy hair and his charming smile. He could hear their little intakes of breath, and smiled even more broadly, showing a rather fine set of teeth that he had buffed up earlier with the ends of a twig. Luckily he had caught sight of himself in a mirror in the hall and so was able to remove the piece of parsley – the chewing of which served to freshen his breath – that was stuck between them before he came in the room. When he felt the moment was right, Aluph strode with enviable confidence (the confidence that comes from practising such a walk in his lodging room for hours at a time) and reached Mrs Ecclestope within four strides even though the room was easily twenty feet across.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Ecclestope,’ he said, ‘what a supreme pleasure it is to look upon your fair countenance.’

  He leaned down and took her hand and kissed it, perhaps for a little too long considering she was a married woman, but that was all part of his inestimable charm. Mrs Ecclestope giggled and flushed and fanned herself furiously, only withdrawing her hand after some seconds.

  ‘And who are all these lovely ladies?’ asked Aluph, smiling in a way that made each and every one of them feel as if he had eyes only for her.

  ‘These are my dear friends,’ said Cynthia, and she introduced them one by one. And one by one Aluph kissed their soft white hands and watched as their cheeks flushed.

  ‘Ladies,’ he said when they had all settled again in their seats, ‘as you are aware, I am Aluph Buncombe, a Cranial Topographer. With these fingers –’ he held up his slender white hands and spread his digits – ‘I can seek out the tiniest bumps and irregularities on a person’s skull. These troughs and shallows are an intricate and detailed guide to every aspect of your personality, even the parts you prefer to keep secret. Interpreted correctly, they will reveal things to a person that she didn’t even know herself, an
d in that way might even show the future.’

  The ladies gasped in admiration and awe at the very thought. Surreptitiously each began fingering her skull, under the pretence of rearranging her curls or pins. No doubt they were wondering exactly how deep Aluph would probe as all their little – and not so little – secrets suddenly flashed to the forefront of their minds.

  ‘So, Mrs Ecclestope,’ said Aluph, and he wore his expression of grave and sincere concern. ‘Now that I have warned you of the possible consequences of your actions, are you still prepared to go on?’

  Mrs Ecclestope giggled nervously and looked around at her friends. They smiled and nodded their heads eagerly, and with such wholehearted encouragement she leaned forward slightly.

  ‘Mr Buncombe,’ she said, touching him lightly on the arm, ‘seeing as we are to be so well acquainted by the end of the morning, I am sure, do please call me Cynthia. And yes, I am ready.’

  ‘Excellent, Mrs – ah, Cynthia,’ said Aluph. ‘Then let us waste no more time. Please relax and make yourself comfortable.’

  Aluph went to the table where he placed his medical bag and opened it out. He reached in and withdrew a large pair of brass callipers. They were brilliantly polished and shone in the light and looked really quite menacing. An anxious ‘Oh’ fluttered around the room.

  ‘Please, ladies,’ he calmed them with his hand in the air. ‘Do not worry. Like so many things in life, this instrument’s bark is far worse than its bite.’

  The ladies’ faces registered confusion at the metaphor so Aluph hurriedly explained.

  ‘Although it looks quite brutal, it is nothing more than a simple measuring device to aid in my analysis of the head.’

  He stood behind Cynthia who was sitting quite upright in the chair with her eyes tightly closed. Her white-knuckled hands were gripping the arms of the chair. Aluph took the callipers and carefully placed them over her head at various intervals and spent the next few minutes taking measurements from many different angles: over the top from back to front, under the chin to the top of the head, around the sides, from ear to ear, from the nape to the crown and a few more for show. Aluph was another vigorous proponent of the theory that one should give the people what they want. Each measurement was carefully recorded in his notebook and on more than a few occasions accompanied by a muttered remark, such as ‘Aha!’ or ‘Oho!’ then ‘Hmm’ or ‘I see’ until the audience was in quite a state of nervous excitement.

  Once the measurements had all been taken Aluph replaced the callipers in his bag and the ladies gave him a gentle round of applause.

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Cynthia nervously.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Aluph smiling. ‘We have only just begun.’ And he stretched his arms in front of him, cracked his knuckles and then laid his splayed fingers on Cynthia’s skull. The ladies watched in amazement as he moved his manicured fingers slowly across her head. He stood very upright with his head tilted slightly backward and his eyes closed. His lips moved but no sound came out. He was most thorough and covered every square inch of her perfumed skull but still managed not to disturb her alarmingly high hairstyle. Eventually Aluph took his hands away, stood back and rolled his shoulders. Then he came round to the side of the chair to face the audience.

  ‘It is completed,’ he said, and all the ladies clapped energetically and waited agog for his findings. Aluph unrolled a large sheet of paper and fixed it to the wall behind him. Upon it were drawn four views of a hairless human head; the left and right sides, the back and crown. Each part was divided into a number of irregular sections and marked with a letter of the alphabet in the upper case. Aluph took a short double-hinged pointer from his bag. With a graceful flick of his wrist he opened it out and it clicked into place. He tapped three times on the chart.

  ‘This,’ he said solemnly, ‘is a chart of the significant regions of the human head. Each area is lettered and each letter corresponds to a certain characteristic of the human personality. From the measurements I took, combined with the feel of each area, I have reached a number of quite interesting conclusions.’

  Until now he had been addressing the ladies. At this point he turned to Cynthia and looked her straight in the eye.

  ‘Cynthia,’ he said, ‘it has been an honour to feel your cranial topography. If I was your husband I should be a very proud man for he has taken unto himself a woman of unfettered talent.’

  ‘Ooh, Mr Buncombe,’ said Cynthia, quite lost for words.

  ‘This bump here,’ continued Aluph, pointing to the upper part of the back of the head lettered T, ‘is particularly well developed, as are these bumps here and here, P and R.’ The stick tapped authoritatively on the diagram, skipping from one head and one letter to the other. Cynthia tried to follow the pointer and put her hand to her own head and started to feel her skull, managing in the process to bring about the partial collapse of her coiffure. She looked at Aluph in surprise.

  ‘Mr Buncombe, you are quite right, in the area of T there is certainly something here. How strange that I should not feel it before.’

  ‘You have never looked,’ said Aluph simply.

  ‘But what does it mean?’ said a voice in the crowd, its owner unable to control herself any longer.

  ‘Yes, what does it all mean?’ The cry was taken up by the ladies.

  Aluph allowed himself a small smile at the enthusiasm of his audience. He liked to keep them in suspense.

  ‘Well, area I relates to wit and, Cynthia, you may rest assured that you can consider yourself an eminently witty and humorous lady with a gift for comic repartee.’

  ‘It is as you say,’ gasped Mrs Cynthia. ‘My husband, dear Arthur, he says so often that I am a source of great amusement to him. And what of areas P and R?’

  ‘Aha,’ continued Aluph, well into his stride by now. ‘P indicates that you are an honest woman with integrity and a sense of justice. I suspect that you are highly sensitive to the rights of others.’

  Cynthia shook her head in disbelief. ‘Mr Buncombe, you astound me. Wasn’t it only yesterday I told that beggar to be off? He was an eyesore on the street. The neighbours were so grateful.’

  ‘And R refers to matters of benevolence, including money and generosity. You are without a doubt a most generous woman, almost to a fault if you do not mind my saying. After all, it is the duty of the housewife to be frugal, but that is where T comes in, for it suggests from its particular shape that you are both prudent and cautious, yet able to act decisively when matters of money are in the fore.’

  The audience took all this in with varying reactions. It was obvious that most agreed with Aluph’s generous assessment of their friend, but every so often there was a raised eyebrow or two and a discernible snigger.

  ‘There is another area, E, I was quite pleased with too,’ he said, and Cynthia leaned forward eagerly. ‘It is something that we need so badly in these dark days, in this city where despair greets us on the pavements every night, with that murderer at large: it is the region of hope. I must say, Cynthia,’ he lowered his voice respectfully, ‘you display in the face of adversity an unquenchable hope that things will be better. Optimism must be the greatest gift. Believe me when I tell you I have felt heads which are too melancholy to think on. How uplifting it is for me to come across someone with such a personality as yours. It gives me great hope for the future.’

  Cynthia took this as a compliment and blushed accordingly. Her friends all nodded knowingly, some even a little jealously, and the overwhelming consensus was that nearly all of the ladies had thought previously that Mrs Ecclestope’s head was quite unusual but had never said.

  ‘So, in conclusion, dear Cynthia, I should like to commend you on your good fortune and your personality. You are unique among the Urbs Umidians.’

  The good lady’s cheeks were positively burning by the time Aluph had finished and she was quite breathless. ‘Oh, Mr Buncombe,’ she gasped, ‘you’ve made my day. Just wait until I tell Arthur. He will be so pleased to know he has
such a clever wife. Sometimes I think he has his doubts.’

  ‘I am sure it will be a most welcome revelation for him,’ said Aluph, and he bowed gracefully and backed out of the room.

  The butler, who had been listening through the door, handed Aluph a leather purse of coins.

  ‘I think Mrs Ecclestope was quite pleased,’ he said in the manner of a question.

  ‘I believe she was,’ said Aluph. ‘I suggested her husband should have his head examined too.’

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ said the butler unfalteringly. ‘A jolly good idea if you ask me. And to think some people might describe the whole business as T-R-I-P-E.’

  ‘To think,’ smiled Aluph. ‘To think!’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A Gruesome Discovery

  ‘She’s got one,’ came the young boy’s cry from the banks of the Foedus. ‘She’s got one!’

  An emergent body in the river was always a matter of interest to the Urbs Umidians. Generally the victims of the Foedus’s watery clutches were foreign sailors from the ships that sailed up the river laden with their exotic and perfumed cargo. These ships might have spent many weeks at sea and as soon as they were able, the thirsty crew disembarked and went straight to the dockside taverns. After a long night’s drinking many a drunken tar had slipped on a wet deck and landed in the river. And that was the end of them. In winter, when the unrelenting cold seemed to thicken the river to a gravy-like consistency, if a heavy object, person or otherwise, hit the water, the splash was quite subdued. Even if someone did hear your fall, in a place such as Urbs Umida, you could not rely on the kindness of strangers to help you.

  Of course, all these bodies surfaced eventually. The foreigners, identified as such by the tone of their skin and the look of their face, would be carefully searched for gold (teeth and earrings) before being thrown back into the river, the thinking being that any respectable sailor would want to be buried at sea. There was also an understanding that whoever found the body was entitled to the spoils, hence the excitement in the boy’s voice. This time he was to be disappointed, for the Foedus was merely yielding the body of Harry Etcham.