The Bone House be-2

by Stephen Lawhead

  “Oi! That’s not fair,” shouted Archie. “You ate my apple! You owe me!”

  “Yah-boo!” The young toff waved his arm out the window, offering Archie the vee sign with upturned fingers as the carriage rumbled on. The boy scooped the apple from the gutter, drew back his arm, and let fly. The apple struck the broad back of the carriage, but missed the window.

  “Thief!” shouted Archie. “You stinking bloody thief!”

  Shaking with anger, he watched the back of the retreating carriage, and the thought came to him of running to catch it, jumping on the back. He had heard the older boys talking about this. Once a wealthy occupant had been identified, the boys hitched a ride and rode it to its destination-most often a great house or large town house where they disembarked before anyone was the wiser, and waited for an opportunity to enter the house and steal whatever valuables they might find to carry off.

  In this instance, Archie felt the thievery justified: the young aristocrat had stolen from him first. Archie gathered himself. He was just drawing breath to start his run and scramble up onto the footman’s stand of the coach when he heard someone call from the pavement a few paces away. “They’re gone, lad. The damage is done. Let them go.”

  Archie glanced around to see that he was being watched by a man in a long black coat and old-fashioned beaver-skin top hat. The man had dark, full moustaches and a little pointed beard shaped like a heart. He appeared to be of middle age and stood with his back to the bridge rail, holding a cane upright over one shoulder.

  Embarrassed that his humiliation had been observed and his attempt at retaliation so nearly discovered, Archie felt the colour rising to his cheeks. He turned aside quickly and started to run away. He still had an apple left. If he hurried he could get to the next bridge and maybe still make a sale before dark.

  “A moment!” called the man in the black coat. “A moment more of your time.”

  Archie looked over his shoulder to see that the man was following him. Ignoring the man, he ran on.

  “Wait, I say,” insisted the man. “Come back. I want to talk to you.”

  “Can’t stop now,” called Archie.

  “I shall definitely make it worth your while,” offered the man.

  Although Archie did not fully understand what was being said to him, something about the man’s dry, clipped tones suggested an aristocratic bearing that compelled him to pause and turn back-if only to try selling his last remaining apple. He hurried back, fishing out the apple as he ran.

  “I saw what happened,” called the man. “A most deplorable cad, that fellow. He should be publicly horsewhipped.”

  “Would you like to buy an apple, sir?” asked the boy, rubbing the red skin of the fruit on his filthy shirt. He held it up to be admired.

  “Are you really an orphan?”

  “Yes, sir. Orphaned these four years.” He pushed the apple higher. “You like this apple, sir? Very good for you.”

  “Tell me the truth, lad. Are you an orphan? I have a particular reason for asking.” When the boy hesitated, the man insisted. “The truth now.”

  Archie shook his head. “No, sir. But it’s just me and me mum. I’m not really a orphan.”

  “As I thought,” replied the man crisply. “And not a street rascal either, though no doubt well on your way. Here now-” Dipping his fingers into a waistcoat pocket, he withdrew a coin and flipped it to the ragged boy. “That is for telling the truth.”

  Archie saw the glint of yellow metal in the fading light and caught the coin in midair. He opened his hand, and his eyes nearly started from his head. On his palm was a solid gold sovereign-a coin he had never seen before, but dreamed about often.

  Clutching the coin, Archie extended the apple. “It’s too much, sir,” he said, his throat going dry. In truth, he knew there had to be a mistake, and when the man realised what had happened, he would cry thief and Archie would face a beating or worse-he’d be taken by the bailiff and thrown into gaol. “Please, sir, it’s too much. You made a mistake.”

  “No mistake,” said the man, regarding him keenly. “Keep it.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Archie whipped the coin out of sight.

  The man still held him with a fierce attention. The boy squirmed, growing uncomfortable beneath such unwonted scrutiny. “How would you like a job?”

  “I don’t understand, sir,” replied Archie, still holding out the apple.

  “A job, lad-work and wages.” The man smiled suddenly. “There are more gold sovereigns to be had.”

  Archie said nothing.

  “Well? Come now! I could use a persistent, resourceful lad like you. How about it?”

  “I don’t know how to do nuffin’-I mean, anything.”

  “Do you know Marlborough House? Do you know where to find it?”

  Archie shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “Well, you’ll have to ask someone. Come to me there first thing tomorrow morning, and we will discuss your future.” He gave the boy a stern look. “Hear me, lad. This could be the most important decision you are ever likely to make. Do you understand me?”

  Archie understood the part about more gold sovereigns, so nodded slowly.

  “And you will come to me at Marlborough House?”

  “I will, sir.”

  “Good. I will take you at your word. When you come, ask to see Granville Gower,” said the man, taking the apple at last. “Until tomorrow, then.”

  CHAPTER 13

  In Which an Impossible Birth Is Celebrated

  Serenity seemed to flow over Etruria in wave after wave, like the gentle surf of an endless ocean of blissful calm. Never had Xian-Li felt more at peace. Although she still had not felt the baby move, she no longer feared the worst.

  Turms’ continued assurance that all would be well served as a restorative tonic. It was as if the ceremony performed by the king to learn the likely fate of the unborn child had driven off the clouds of doom and disaster that had gathered so thickly about her, and dispelled any lingering doubt. Since that night, everything had changed; she held the memory of the strange ceremony as a rare and precious gift.

  They had stood in the temple portico before a small stone altar. The king was attended by a fellow priest and one identified as the netsvis; dressed in a blue robe with a tall conical hat similar to the king’s, he would conduct the augury. A few curious onlookers had also come to observe the ceremony.

  In the last rays of the day’s sun, a young lamb had been brought to the temple, its legs bound with a golden cord, and laid upon the altar. After a brief incantation, Turms, splendid in a crimson robe and tall hat trimmed in gold, stooped low and thanked the animal for the sacrifice of its life. With a nod to Arthur and Xian-Li, he beckoned them to the altar and instructed them to place their hands upon the lamb. He then drew a knife made from black volcanic glass across its throat. The small creature lay still and expired without a sound. Then, while attendants eviscerated the carcass, a golden bowl in which some of the blood had been collected was passed to Turms.

  He lifted the bowl and drank, then offered the bowl to both Arthur and Xian-Li. After she had taken a sip, he pointed to her stomach and said, “Open your gown just there.” She did as instructed and bared a section of her rounded belly. The Priest King dipped a finger in the still-warm blood and, with the tip of his finger, drew a small circle on her stomach; he dipped again and added a cross inside the circle of blood. As he did so, he breathed a single word, “Imantua.”

  The netsvis approached and, with a bow of deference to the king, offered up a golden dish bearing several of the animal’s internal organs. The two exchanged a few private words, whereupon the king announced: “As you have seen, the animal died at peace and without distress. This is a good omen. The liver and entrails were pristine and perfectly formed-this, too, bodes well for our inquiry. We will now conduct the augury.”

  He passed the dish to the seer, who carried it back to the altar where he began to examine the contents, standing with on
e foot on a block of uncut stone that had been placed beneath the altar. Other attendants gathered around, and all leaned near to study the organs and determine from the signs what could be told of the unborn child’s future.

  Twilight overtook the ceremony, so torches were lit. Arthur and Xian-Li stood waiting while the priests continued their deliberations amid much mumbled discussion. This continued far longer than Xian-Li might have expected. She watched with dread fascination as one of the priests took up the obsidian knife and began to divide the liver into sections, subjecting each section to minute examination.

  The first stars were shining in the east when the netsvis finally turned and offered his judgement. Turms listened, his head bowed, nodding now and then as the blue-robed seer spoke. The king thanked him for his counsel, then summoned an attendant, who brought forth a censer on a chain. The attendant blew on the coals in the bowl, then dropped a pinch of something onto the glowing charcoal. Fragrant smoke billowed from the bowl. Turms bowed at the waist as the censer was swung before his face. He closed his eyes and breathed in the smoke. .. once… twice… three times; he made a gesture as if he were washing his hands in it, then placed his hands over his face. Palms pressed to his eyes, he grew very still.

  Xian-Li began to think he had fallen asleep on his feet when Turms opened his eyes and gazed at her. With the glint of a rising moon shining in his dark eyes, he said, “I have seen the life light of the child stretching far into the future like a radiant silver cord. The end of this cord cannot be seen. It is lost to view in the unformed darkness of the distant future.” He smiled. “I believe this signifies a long and meaningful life for the child soon to make his appearance in the land of the living.”

  Arthur squeezed his wife’s hand. “The child will be born alive,” he said, more a question seeking confirmation than a statement.

  “The birth will be blessed with success, and the resulting infant will thrive,” the king assured them in a tone that allowed no room for doubt. “I, Turms the Immortal, have seen this.”

  “Thank you, O King,” breathed Xian-Li. Then the tears began to flow as the fear that had held her these last weeks released its unforgiving grip. “Thank you.”

  “I have seen something else,” Turms continued. “After this child, your womb will be closed. There will be no more children for you.”

  Arthur darted a glance at his wife to see how she would receive this blow, but her smile did not alter. “I understand,” she murmured, resting her hand on her belly. “I will cherish this one the more.”

  The ceremony moved to its conclusion, but Xian-Li remembered little of what happened after the pronouncement. That night she slept better than she could remember and rose the next morning at perfect peace. The house was still asleep when she slipped out. Unseen, she walked down the path to the temple and there, as the first rays of the sun touched the temple steps, she knelt and gave thanks for the life of her unborn child.

  Now, as the first pangs of birth came upon her, Xian-Li recalled the serenity of that sacred moment. Her heart rose, and she pressed a hand to her swollen belly. Soon-before another day had dawned-she would hold her babe in her arms. When the next quiver of pain came upon her, she reached over to her sleeping husband and let her hand fall upon his shoulder. She did not shake him, but let the warmth of her body gently awaken him.

  “It is time,” she said when he raised his head from the pillow beside her.

  He sat up with a jerk. “Now?”

  She smiled. “Soon. In a little while. Lie down beside me.” He put his head down again and closed his eyes; she closed hers too, remembering that day a few weeks after the ceremony when, over a dinner of roast quail and greens, Turms had announced, “It would please me to have the child to be born here in the royal palace.” Before either she or Arthur could reply, the king had quickly added, “It is a long time since this house heard the sound of a baby’s cry. I would consider it an honour if you agreed to this request.”

  “After all you have done for us, the honour would be mine,” she had said, picking out the words in his language-the first time she had spoken to him on her own. This surprised and delighted their noble host. “We accept.”

  “She has been learning,” Arthur told him.

  “I am impressed.”

  “You have done so much for us already,” said Arthur. “We are in your debt.”

  “How can friends ever be indebted to one another?”

  Thus, Xian-Li had completed her time in the best place she could have imagined-luxuriating in the sun and warmth, the food and company, and all the accoutrements of the palace. Had she been a queen, she could not have been treated more royally. And the knowledge that she would be delivered of a living child made it all that much more to be cherished. The final weeks had passed, and now it was time for the child to be born. She was ready.

  When, later in the day, she was in the throes of birthing the baby and surrounded by skilled Etruscan physicians, she knew that all was as it should be. There was a rightness to things that surpassed understanding, but she knew beyond all doubt that in each and every circumstance her feet had been guided along this path and to this place. A favourite saying in China-which she had heard on occasion from her own grandmother-was that the threads of life are easy to weave, but difficult to untangle. Xian-Li knew, for Arthur had shown her, that the threads of her life were being woven by a master of the loom.

  It was Arthur who, having spent the better part of an anxious day sitting outside the birthing house, appeared at her bedside to receive his first glimpse of the newborn. “Well done, Xian-Li,” he said, beaming with pride. “We have a son.”

  “Yes, a son,” she whispered, somewhat dizzy with exhaustion. “Is he not the most beautiful child?” Xian-Li pulled back the edge of her robe, which swaddled her baby, to reveal a small, pinched red face with a mass of spiky black hair resembling the glistening pelt of a bear. The infant’s eyes were shut tight and its tiny lips pressed firm as if the child was determined to sleep through any efforts that might be made to introduce him to this strange new world.

  “He is perfect,” murmured his father. Arthur leaned close and gave his wife a kiss. “Thank you,” he said.

  She reached for his hand and squeezed it.

  “What shall we call him?” he asked, perching on the edge of the bed, his hand resting on the tiny lump beneath her robe.

  They had been so preoccupied with the troubled pregnancy-and, truth be told, in some part of their deepest hearts they had not fully believed Turms’ prediction of a successful birth-that they had utterly neglected the important task of selecting a name. Whatever the reason, they now realised this oversight.

  “He is your son,” said Xian-Li, brushing the infant’s forehead with her lips. “You should choose, husband.”

  “Very well,” agreed Arthur. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  She shook her head. “The son of an Englishman must have an English name. Whatever pleases you will please me also.”

  He gazed at his newborn son, hoping for inspiration, but nothing came to him. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “There are so many.”

  She laughed. “He needs only one.”

  He rubbed his hand along his unshaved jaw. “This is going to take some thought.”

  The Etruscans had a custom that a newborn infant should not be named until seven days had passed. “On the eighth day,” Turms told Arthur, “the child receives his name. This is a very old tradition. The eighth day-it is the most propitious day for naming, beginning a new venture, or undertaking a journey.”

  Arthur liked that idea, since it allowed him plenty of time to think. It did not, however, make the thinking any easier. In his search, he conjured before him the faces of all his male ancestors-all those he could remember, alive or dead-to see if any of them had qualities he admired and whose names he might borrow and commemorate. This proved a useful exercise, but all the time devoted to the project failed to bring him any closer to a final deci
sion.

  When, after four days had passed, Xian-Li asked him what he was thinking, he was forced to admit that while he had begun drawing up a list, he had not yet chosen a name. He told her what Turms had said about refraining from conferring a name until seven days had passed. She accepted this, but warned, “Ponder as much as you like, but you have only four more days.”

  His ruminations carried him to the final hour of the final day. “The king has asked me to inform you that tomorrow morning at sunrise we will hold the naming ceremony,” the king’s chief housekeeper told him. “I am to come and wake you at the appropriate time.”

  “Ah,” replied Arthur, wondering where the days had flown. “Thank you, Pacha. Please, tell the king we will be ready.”

  So, as the night ended and the moon began to set over the Tyrhennian Sea, Arthur and Xian-Li walked down the moonlit path to the little temple at the bottom of the hill. Xian-Li carried the infant asleep in her arms. It was the first time she had been out since the baby was born, and it felt good to move and feel the soft night air on her face, and to see the world once again. Turms had come to see her several times since the birth, and she wanted to thank him for his thoughtfulness.

  When they reached the temple, however, he was not there. In fact, no one was about except a young acolyte, who had been charged with the task of informing them that the naming ceremony would not take place in the temple. “I am to ask you to follow me,” he said. “It is not far. But there is a donkey ready if you would like to ride.”

  “It feels good to walk,” Xian-Li said when Arthur had relayed the offer.

  “Thank you, but we will walk,” Arthur told the youth. “Lead the way.”

  They continued along the path towards the town and soon came to a small pillar standing to one side. The acolyte paused here and, turning to them, said, “They are gathered at the king’s tomb. It is on the sacred road.” Indicating the little pillar, he said, “You are to wash before you enter the sacred way.”