Elisha Rex

by E. C. Ambrose

  “Let him up.”

  “He’s one o’ them—you can see the marks,” the man protested.

  “He claims that he’s not, now let him up.”

  The young man scrambled to his knees and crawled forward, holding out his hands like a supplicant. “I’d have saved him, sir—I tried to get him, before they strung him up, I did.”

  “I tell you, lad, I’m in no mood to be lied to. If you’re lying and looking for mercy, it won’t be just me you’re facing, but all of them.” Elisha gestured to the citizens, who watched with grim and angry faces, eager now to prove their fealty by following his mandates.

  “It’s true, sir, I swear it.”

  Over the tousled head, Elisha met Ysabeau’s eyes, glimmering once more with tears. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “They dragged me away, I couldn’t see. . .” her voice trailed off, and she pressed her hand over her mouth.

  “Please, as God is my witness, it’s true.”

  Elisha lowered himself to one knee, and laid his hand on the young man’s back. A wave of fear passed through the contact, and he reeled with the force of it in his raw, too-open state. Nonetheless, Elisha righted himself, shaking his head to his guards who came to his aid. To the youth, he murmured, “Tell me what happened.”

  Trembling beneath his touch, the young man answered, “We was throwing rocks at the windows, I can’t deny that. I was, too, and hoping to steal, maybe, but it went wrong. We’d got restless, not being able to leave the city, see? Somebody in the first shop tried to scare us off, and they caught him. But what they done—” he quaked, and choked back his response.

  “It’s over now,” Elisha said, remembering the bedside tone of a healer. “Go on, tell me about the draper’s.”

  “Somebody’d already broken in there, and a house was burning down the way. I would’ve got out, but I was in front and there was too many people. We were trapped. I got on my knees to see could I crawl out. That’s when he came out. He acted. . . peaceful, see? Calm, as if he just came out to talk, and he started saying he’d listen, that he wanted to help, if we’d just back off. I was all for that, and you could see some o’ the others were, too. They wanted to listen, but that huge man jumped up with a cudgel and knocked him down.”

  As the words flowed, Elisha caught glimpses of the scenes through the boy’s eyes. Less focused than a true witch’s sending, but still, the images held the clarity of shock, and Martin’s appearance, viewed from between threshing legs, shone like a vision from God.

  “He fell right in front of me, and they started kicking. That man brought out his rope. People ran to get around me, I had this break in the crowd, and I grabbed his arm and shook him. ‘Come on,’ I says, and he tried to, but they had his legs—” In the boy’s memory, Martin’s hand was torn from his. His darkened fingers grasped at the air and held nothing.

  Tears stung Elisha’s eyes. “Sit up,” he said, supporting an elbow. “Thank you for trying to help him.”

  Miserably, the youth nodded. “What you said, why didn’t we help and all—I should’ve tried harder.”

  Elisha gripped his shoulder. “It was only you, against all those men, you couldn’t do it alone.” The words blazed into his mind with a radiance as if Martin himself was reminding Elisha to take his own words to heart. “Put your hands together.”

  “Like praying?”

  “Aye, like that. This . . . it might hurt.” In faith, Elisha did not know if he could undo the damage he had caused—the body resisted change if the skin was unbroken. Likely, it would be agony, but, for Martin’s sake, he must try, or condemn the youth to the life of an outcast, marked for a crime he did not commit.

  Elisha pressed his hands to the boy’s hands and bowed his head over them. Once more, he reached for the talisman that hummed at his side, the lock of Thomas’s hair resonating and answering his need. Using the affinity of one hand for the other, he showed the body how to heal, the toughened, stained skin became clear and smooth again. The boy cried out, and Elisha gripped him tighter, sending him strength, until the rigid pain left his body. At last, Elisha released him and sat back, his weary hands falling into his lap. “You’re free,” he said. “Stay if you want to, you have my blessing.”

  Flexing his fingers as if he’d never seen them before, the young man nodded, then flashed a smile and waved his clean hand in the air.

  “What is this, Elisha?” breathed the voice of Duke Randall.

  Slowly, Elisha raised his head as the duke swung down from his horse, the crowd of citizens falling silent again. Putting out a hand to Elisha, the duke asked, “Can you rise?”

  With a gasp that burned his insides, Elisha said, “I don’t know.” He knelt in the dirt, exhausted, and shrugged limply, then took the message from his belt and put it into the duke’s outstretched hand. “Thomas is in terrible danger.” He caught his breath and stilled, glancing about, hoping none had overheard the slip: no barber, much less himself, should be using the king’s given name. “It may be too late. I can’t tell.”

  In an instant, his eyes were dazzled as another man stood before him, an imposing figure in a high, golden hat, his shoulders draped with a matching cloak. The archbishop stared down at him, eyes keen over a sharp nose. “It seems, Your Grace, that even you did not realize what a formidable person your foresight has brought to us.”

  Elisha ducked his head, wiping the glitter of gold from his gaze.

  Cloth-of-gold crinkled as the man bowed. “Allow me to be the first to recognize you—Your Majesty.”

  Chapter 6

  Startled, Elisha glanced warily about again, but he knew there had been no mistake. The archbishop of Canterbury, the prelate of the entire nation and beholden to none save the pope himself, had addressed him as the king. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”

  The archbishop lifted his hands and cried out, “Arise, Your Majesty, God’s anointed! Had I not with mine own eyes witnessed the miracle, I should never have believed!” Those eyes shimmered with tears, his hands trembling as he raised them to the heavens. His voice rang, deep and stirring, rich with reverence. “Did you not see, my brothers, my children? God has granted him the holy touch, that sacred power reserved unto kings! A blessed miracle! Thank you, Lord!” Then he dropped to his knees in the dirt, hands clasped, and his voice rang out in Latin, echoing from the gate tower.

  With a murmur and rustle—and an occasional cheer—Elisha’s followers likewise knelt, except for the healed youth who stared in wonder at his hands, then flung himself prostrate to the ground.

  “Get up,” Elisha said, shaking the boy’s arm. “This is madness.”

  “Your Grace,” intoned the other priest, still mounted on his horse, his accent lilting toward the French, “I hesitate to criticize—”

  “Did you not see?” shouted the archbishop again, breaking off his prayer. “And there have been other miracles! A whole extraordinary series of them, from the moment when God’s power and will entered into this humble man. As once the Lord elevated a simple shepherd to become the king of his chosen people—yea, verily, even as His only begotten son once worked as a mere carpenter, the Lord has once more granted unto these undeserving sinners a leader in our time of need!”

  “It’s madness,” Elisha said again, but none seemed to be listening. Even Duke Randall stood gaping before him.

  But the archbishop, crazed with the light of God, almost glowing in the vigor of his faith, wasn’t finished. “King Hugh, a man in his prime, fell as if aged beyond measure. You yourself, Father Osbert, have travelled all the way from the Holy Father to bear witness to these events. King Hugh’s younger son slain on the eve of claiming the throne—his elder son condemned this man to die, but the casket was raised and lo! For it was empty!” The archbishop sprang to his feet, arms spread, cloak flaring out, the golden cross upon it struck with sun. “And I have heard reports of the noise and violence raise
d up there. As if he fought to rise against a great enemy, and well he might, for surely the Devil himself would have prevented his return.

  “And then even our King Thomas, whom we had accepted as our rightful lord, even he was taken from us! And we prayed in misery. All these signs and portents, all these moments, surely they show us God’s disfavor! We wept, and prayed, my children.”

  A chorus of assent rose up at Elisha’s back.

  “Perhaps, indeed, we face the end of days, my lambs, but we need not face them alone, no! For the Lord’s wrath was bent to this, to reveal His true servant, the one He chose to lead us through the darkness!”

  The pope’s inquisitor, Father Osbert, blinked down at them, then slid off his horse and stood, frowning.

  “Has he not, even as our Lord Jesus Christ, healed his flock of many afflictions?”

  “Yes!” roared the crowd, and “Amen!”

  “No,” Elisha breathed, as every moment of his last few months was twisted to have some other meaning entirely. “No!” he said again, louder, and scrambled to his feet. “Your Grace, forgive me, you can’t do this. You can’t simply—” But he had no words for what was happening.

  Duke Randall coughed apologetically. “Your Grace, as admirable a man as I find the barber to be, he has no royal blood, nor even noble.”

  “It is the mark of divinity that makes a king. Blood is royal when God proclaims it so!” thundered the archbishop.

  “He smothered the fire, Your Graces!” called a voice from the crowd. Elisha whirled, but could not find who had spoken.

  “We felt it, Father,” cried another. This time, the man limped from the crowd and grasped the legate’s sleeve. “We all did, at his graveside, Father. We felt his goodness, and we felt our own shame.”

  Elisha’s stomach churned. He wanted to laugh aloud at the absurdity of it all. He wanted to vomit at the preposterous stories of his own deeds as others testified around him. He was a sorcerer, a killer—damned to Hell for any of a dozen offences. And yet, the grains of truth at the heart of these wild stories gave him little ground for denial. Yes, he healed that young man’s hands. Yes, he healed the wounds of the fallen guard and eased the ills of a thousand others. Diabolical magic or the royal touch? Thomas was king. Thomas had need of him—if he lived. How could Elisha ever do what he must if he were imprisoned by chains of gold? And how could Thomas ever forgive him usurping his throne?

  “You can’t do this!” He spread his hands before him, pleading. “I beg you to stop.”

  The archbishop turned, his face pink with excitement, then he gave a little gasp—for an instant as dumbstruck as Elisha himself—his eyes flared, the color fled his features, and he fainted to the ground, sagging in a sigh of gold and white.

  At a hint of movement, Elisha thought the papal legate might come to the archbishop’s aid. Indeed the man crossed himself fervently, mumbling in French and Latin, then dropped to his knees, his gaze arrested by Elisha’s outstretched hands.

  A scar marked the center of each palm, a short tear, healed with Thomas’s help. A little of Martin’s blood pooled in the left-hand mark, and Elisha pulled back his hands, horrified.

  “I was branded,” he protested. “You know that—you all must know that.” But his voice faded as he clenched his hands, the scars just as visible at the back as on the palm. “They’re not what you think.”

  Helena parted herself from the crowd, approaching almost timidly. She reached out and took his fist in her hand, staring at the pale mark, then peeling open his fingers. “These are no burn scars,” she murmured. “How did I not notice them?”

  “Helena,” he said softly, urgently, “you, of all people, must know I’m not divine.”

  “And I,” snapped another voice. Sister Lucretia pushed up close, glaring. “I was there, in the Tower, the night before his execution. Treason, and sorcery! Black Magic!”

  Elisha flinched to see his old friend’s face so twisted with her anger.

  “Madame! Good Sister, surely you do not accuse His Grace of blasphemy?” The black-robed inquisitor inched forward on his knees. “Or can you explain the signs that have been seen?”

  “The fiend may counterfeit miracles, Father.”

  “And the very stigmata of our Lord? How do you explain this?”

  Helena met Elisha’s gaze. There had been a fiend involved, true enough, but Morag had been a devil of mortal origin, and Elisha did not know how to tell the story without drawing in Thomas, or Alaric’s death.

  Lucretia faltered, her veil fluttering as she turned away. “I cannot, Father. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To explain false miracles?”

  Gravely, the man nodded his silvered head. “Indeed, Sister, I shall seek out such truth as may be, but I have seen the healing with my own eyes and have heard these witnesses with my own ears—a hundred citizens or more who saw the inferno doused at this man’s intervention. It is my task to seek for heresies, or for saints.” His deep-set eyes searched Elisha’s face and figure. “It is another matter to investigate God’s miracles in the presence of the one who was their tool.” Then he gave another nod, deeper this time. “Your Majesty.”

  Almost, Elisha took the lord’s name in vain. Almost, he flew into a rage to let them think the madness was his own. But the claim was not so lightly set aside, not if his every gesture should be taken as a sign, his every movement as holy.

  “Elisha.”

  He turned to Randall’s voice, hoping for some wisdom to dispel this insanity, but the duke gently shook his head, placing a finger to his lips as he, too, sank to his knees, head bowed.

  “No!” Elisha seized him. “No,” he whispered urgently. “Not you, too.”

  “Look around you, Elisha,” the duke whispered back, clinging to his arms. “How can I defy this? How can I be the last man standing? Someone must take the throne.”

  “Thomas! And Rosie.”

  Randall winced, then pulled away. “When they are found.” He held the crumpled note in his fist. “If they are found, Elisha. Until then, who will stand against France? Who will mediate between the peasantry and the barons?”

  “But the barons will never accept me—this will only rile them more. Surely there is another more worthy. Who stands heir to the throne?”

  “Thanks to the blood I share with Hugh, it’s me,” the duke said softly, his face a decade older since his daughter’s disappearance. “I’ll take it, if I must.”

  But it would be the death of him—his pasty skin said as much.

  “Many will stand with me, if I support you. More will stand with him.” Randall tipped his head toward the archbishop. “Especially when they see the army at your back.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the citizens of London.

  A growl of frustration or fear lodged in Elisha’s throat, and he stalked over to the archbishop. Here, at least, was a problem he might affect, a small thing, well within his skill. He laid his hand at the prelate’s temple, by the skewed rim of his golden miter. The man’s dark eyes flew open. He smiled faintly. “Bless you, Your Majesty,” he sighed. And he felt like nothing at all.

  Elisha’s breath caught. The hollowness of a necromancer? In the archbishop? It couldn’t be. Elisha was simply exhausted, stunned by grief, by casting, by this man’s declarations. Still, the words echoed in his memory, Morag’s master telling Alaric, We have made kings before and unmade them.

  “We must arrange a coronation as quickly as possible, or risk the further wrath of the Lord if we should ignore the signs He has sent us,” the archbishop said. The man’s manner hadn’t changed. He gave away nothing, his voice warm, his face open and almost radiant.

  Elisha struggled and found his breath at last, looking for an excuse to touch the archbishop again, to be sure—but in his exhaustion, would he even know? He had numbed himself with the sense of death and had yet to master the grief of Martin�
��s passing.

  The archbishop reached up for him then, taking Elisha’s arm to draw them both to standing, and his touch conveyed a faith so deep it seemed fathomless.

  Chapter 7

  “Your horse, Your Majesty,” said Lord Robert’s voice, suddenly at his elbow, tinged with humor.

  Wrong, then. He had been wrong about the archbishop. Elisha clutched the pommel with one hand, seeking balance, as Robert knelt, fingers laced, to help him into the saddle. Once Elisha was mounted, Robert checked the stirrups and handed up the reins. “Last time I escorted you to the Tower, ’twas in a cart.” He grinned. “I never expected to do it again, much less like this!”

  “Nor I,” said Elisha faintly. “Thank you.”

  “Ought to at least wave, or something,” Robert muttered.

  Taking a deep breath, Elisha sat up straighter and gave a wave of his hand. Most of the citizens cheered. Sister Lucretia looked pale and crossed herself but spoke no more, not risking the archbishop’s disapproval. Madoc kept shaking his head in disbelief, while Ysabeau retreated to Helena’s side. As a few of the duke’s guard came forward, the crowd opened to let them pass in procession, Elisha riding alongside the archbishop, who scattered blessings among the crowd and occasionally murmured fervently in Latin. Elisha’s time with Mordecai had given him a bit of Latin, but he wasted little effort in translating prayers. Instead, he sought attunement, the familiar stride of his horse comforting him. Smoke still hung in the air, but they need not pass the place where Martin died. They rode instead down streets of charred houses where bodies still lay amid the ruins of their lives. London needed to be rebuilt, not only the buildings, but the unity of her people as well.