Burning : A Tale of the Dark Apostle (9780698144743)

by Ambrose, E. c.

  Nate always started work early, and Elisha used to pause in the yard to listen to the rhythm of hammer and files. Once, he caught his brother singing while he worked and made some remark, hoping to touch him beyond the rift he had caused, but Nathaniel turned from him and sang no more.

  Elisha’s eyes burned with sudden tears. He forced himself to look away, forced himself to move to the neat racks of tools and find the spade for turning the coals in the hearth. On a narrow bench by the windowsill waited a row of little crosses Nate would have sold at fairs or to his other customers. Elisha took one of these, the shape pressing into his palm beneath the handle of the spade. If it should carve straight through him it would not be punishment enough.

  He made his way through the narrow streets, giving a few coins to the guard at Cripplegate to let him pass. Beyond the wall, and a few more turns, Saint Bartholomew’s churchyard lay before him, humped with graves. He wished he knew where his brother would lie, so he could place the child close by. Failing that, he found a place that looked too narrow for an adult’s grave, not far from the church’s tower. The monastic hospital rose a short way off, founded by a king’s fool two centuries ago, along with the church itself. A man would have to be a fool to place his trust in either God or doctors. His brother had been failed by both.

  Using the short-handled spade, awkward in his hands, Elisha peeled back the layer of grass and dug as deep as he might. He nestled the satchel into the hole, dark into darkness, and bowed his head. There should be prayers for this. On a better day, he might recall them. He wet his lips and searched for words, his hands pressed together before him. “Dear Lord,” he started, and a lump rose in his throat. He stared down into the dark hole where his brother’s child lay. God was too far away to hear anything Elisha might say.

  To the child, he whispered, “Forgive me.” His fingers knotted together and his shoulders shook, but he felt no answer. “I swear I will take care of you.” He was the elder; his care was what Nathaniel should have had. He tried, hadn’t he? He didn’t want Helena for himself, he wanted to show Nathaniel what he thought she was, to protect him. But Elisha was wrong. He wronged his brother, he wronged his brother’s wife. He became a barber to heal others, but instead he wounded them unto death.

  Softly, ever so softly, as if the other graves could hear him speak, he said, “If I can, I’ll see you born again. If not, if there is life in me, I’ll see your spirit laid to rest.”

  He drew back and began to fill the little grave, pressing the grass back over it. Tomorrow he would go to war. He deserved death for the terrible day his deeds had brought, but he hoped for life. He hoped for a penance so great, a labor so severe that these dead might be appeased.

  Last, he found the cross his brother made. Crosses of wood and carved stones marked the graves around him, some with words he knew to be the names of the dead, with their dates of birth and death, dates that bounded lives both long and short. April fifth, the Year of Our Lord, 1347. This child had not a year, not a month, not even a single day. If they had spoken of names for their baby in the darkness of their bed, Elisha did not know it. He pushed the end of the cross, empty of mark or word, into the grass and brushed the dirt from his hands before he crossed himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered through his tears, his hands clutched together, begging. “I am so sorry.” He squeezed his eyes shut, his throat burning, until the tears receded, and he thought he could rise without stumbling.

  With the spade alone to fill his hands, Elisha walked away through the shadowed streets.

  Back in his room, silence echoing overhead, Elisha set to work on his traveling chest. All around and over the dangerous jar, he packed envelopes and vials—melon seeds, slippery elm, cochineal, thistle leaves—then sat back and stared at the motley collection.

  “I’m not a damned apothecary,” he muttered. No doubt the physician had gotten several apothecaries already, and of more use than Elisha’s mere general knowledge. And the great man himself would have a store of expensive medicines: nutmeg and cloves, powdered mummy, bezoar stone. Elisha unpacked most of the herbs and put them aside in favor of a few more instruments, a larger amputating saw, a silver crow’s beak for clamping veins, a selection of probes and lances. All of his needles he added to the chest, and the rolls of suturing thread. A few ewers and bowls for bloodletting settled on top, with a smaller basin and a spare razor. These last he hesitated over, imagining Nathaniel lying beside his best basin. That one he could not bring himself to use again, no matter its value. Let Helena sell it off.

  Lastly, he dropped in his two other tunics, woolen hose with only a few holes—he meant to buy another pair once he had the money to spare—a good belt and leather apron, and draped his wet britches over the top to dry out. By candlelight, his boots didn’t appear too blood-soaked, and traveling mud would conceal that soon enough. This pair had lasted a good five years so far, with only a few repairs, and he hoped to get good use out of them for some time longer. The cloak he would wear, and the thick farmer’s hat his mother had made years ago.

  Staring at his one small chest, Elisha wondered how many Lucius would bring, and how large. Any man who could afford the cloth of that one robe would likely have several spares besides. This triggered a thought, and Elisha brought out a long wooden box left over from childhood.

  On top he found what he had recalled—his own hidden wealth, an unworn shirt procured for his brother’s wedding two years back. After Elisha’s foolish attempt to prove Helena’s treachery, Nathaniel had threatened his life if he dared come to the church that day.

  Elisha lifted out the good shirt, woven of linen with no decoration. Feeling the heavy cloth between his fingers, he sighed again at his folly. He considered himself a practical man, and yet he afforded himself the luxury of a shirt he’d never wear. As if he should save it for some special day undreamed of. Now, with today’s tunic hopelessly stained, and torn besides from long use, he had need of this symbol of his betrayal. Tomorrow, he would wear it on the start of a journey far from the home that would not be his when he returned. If he returned.

  Below the shirt hid his few treasures: a copper coin minted in a foreign land, a handful of embroidered tokens given him by the whores at the brothels he tended, knotted charms to ward off illness and accident, kept more for sentiment than superstition, a small tin crucifix made by his brother’s hand, and, at the bottom, a rumpled cut of cloth painted like a hawk—the pennant he had begged for, which had led him to the angel of his memory. If he ever did reach Heaven, perhaps this hawk would lead him once again.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  E. C. Ambrose is a fantasy author, rock-climbing instructor, and accidental scholar. She lives in New Hampshire with her family, and spends too much time in a tiny office with a mournful black Lab lurking under the desk.

  Elisha Barber, the first book of The Dark Apostle, has received advance praise from authors such as Glenda Larke, Kevin J. Anderson, and Sharon Shinn. Elisha Magus, book two, will be available in the summer of 2014.

  For more from E. C. Ambrose and The Dark Apostle, including historical research, special extras, and pre-order info, please visit http://www.ecambrose.com.