The Girl with the Peacock Harp

by Michael Eisele

  Something about the way he says that makes Rolf sweat more than the labour of carving, and again he sets to work, smoothing with brick dust, and polishing after, ’til his finger ends be most worn away, and finally after three more hours the sun was about going down, so he lights the lamp and keeps on working, and that rose was fair sparkling with dew by now and he could think of nothing more to do lest he break the thing in slivers and pieces. So, despairing he strokes it gentle like with one raw fingertip, and whispers ‘Live!’ and puts his head down on the table among the dust and chips, so, tired as to death.

  And he is like that when he hear footsteps a’coming, and here’s the Worthy Gentleman with a lamp in his hand, and Rolf he raises his head, more afraid than ever he was of Master Thomas’ big fist, and the first thing he sees is the Worthy smiling, with the sharp little teeth he has showing between those red lips, and the next thing is the sight of his rose, only it bain’t cold stone no more, but bloomin’ blood red with two green leaves, from out of the centre of that ol’ stone block.

  Then the Worthy says, still smiling that horrible red smile, ‘You have Craft, boy, but I have given you a power greater still. Now you must learn to use it!’

  So on and on Rolf works. Next thing, it is a rabbit the Worthy wants, and this is harder by far than the rose was, for Rolf must carve the thing free standing, with ever blessed by’r Lady hair in place, and ears which were a nightmare to do, so thin be they, but Rolf tells me the Worthy must have put some spell on his hands, ’cause he seemed to know just how it should be, and how it should be done, ever’ last bit o’it. And finally there it stands, just as if you could see the nose a’twitching, and them blessed ears a’listening, but o’course ’tis stone only, and the Worthy says just as before, ‘You bain’t done yet, boy. Make it live, or it will be the worse for you!’

  The Worthy goes away, and Rolf he sits there, a’looking at that little stone rabbit, and he knows by now that there be no more carving or polishing to be done, but only the touch that give life to it, And he tells me, me that was closer to him than a brother, that the doing of that were more terrifyin’ than anything in the world to him just then, save for the one thing only, and that were what the Worthy Gentleman might have in store for him if he failed to do as he were told. ’Cause by now Rolf knows who he be dealing with, as I ’spect ’ee do as well, aye? Best to say no more.

  So Rolf he lays his hands on the stone rabbit, and just like before he says, ‘Live!’ But nothing happens. So he says again, ‘Live, I say!’ But the stone rabbit is still stone, and Rolf by now is feeling mighty afeared, as ’ee might suppose, and the stone rabbit’s little stone eyes is ’alooking at Rolf, much as if to say, ‘Happen ’ee forgot sommat?’ So then Rolf remembers how his finger ends was all wore down from the polishing of the rose, raw to bleedin’, they was, and he takes the little point as is used for the finest details and he pricks his finger to bring blood, and he lays that oozing finger on the stone rabbit’s head, and he says ‘Live!’

  Next thing, there was this rabbit, a hoppin’ about on the table, bold as you please, only ’twarn’t no ordinary woods bunny, grey or mebbie brown, no, young masters, it were black as coal, with a wicked red eye on it, and Rolf he knew then, he says, that the power he’s been given come from no good place.

  Just then, as he might have been waiting outside the door, in come the Worthy Gentleman, and he sees the black rabbit what Rolf done, and he smiles his red smile and shows his sharp white teeth, and he opens his cloak so’s the rabbit leaps into it, black into black, and all in an instant ’tis gone.

  Then the Worthy says, ‘You have done well, boy. Now it is time to begin your travels, and he opens his hand, and there on a gold chain is the journeyman’s sigil, compass and square, just as ’ee’l be a’getting one day, I reckon, in sign that he has his Master’s permission to work in any land what has its guild. And he has Rolf bow his head, and he puts the chain round Rolf’s neck, but as soon as the sigil touches his skin ’tis like a hot coal laid on, so Rolf snatches the chain away, but ’tis too late, for as he looks down he sees a mark has been made on his chest, burnt deep and sharp with a little wisp of smoke still rising.

  ‘And here is my mark,’ the Worthy says, with a nasty sort a’ grin, and the mark is like a circle with a vee cut in, and the pain of it was to be with Rolf all his days, so he says.

  ‘Now you go on your journeyman’s travels, to become Master in your turn. But hark to me!’ And his eyes which are like black pits stare into Rolf’s own, ‘In seven years I will come to you again, when you are made Master, and then a great work you will do for me. Remember!’ And he gives Rolf the purse with the five gold sovereigns, as ’tis the custom still, and sends him on his way.

  So off went Rolf, travelling from place to place, wherever there was stonework, from Master to Master he went and ever’where his skill at carving won him a place, and all said his carven figures seemed about to move, so full of life they be, and Rolf he would smile bitterly, and sometimes a wicked voice in his heart would say, ‘If only they knew what I might do if I were minded so,’ but he never did, and sometimes carving one o’ them monster things high up in a church he’d get to thinkin’ on what might happen, and his heart’d fail him, and he feeled again the pain of the mark the Worthy Gentleman had put on him.

  On and on, and this Master ’n that would bid him stay and do his Masterswork for the guild to judge, and so be made Master in his turn, but Rolf’d not stay for the restlessness that was on him, and he fear’d to mark the years passing, for he knowed the Worthy Gentleman’d come again, and then what might he be made to do?

  On and on, and then the seven years was nigh gone, and Rolf was up in the Frankish country, and I tell ’ee, there bain’t nothin’ on this earth so close t’heaven as one o’ them Frankish churches, with the towers reachin’ up fair to touch the robe o’ the Almighty Hisself. Then the Master that was there, he says to Rolf that the priest wants an angel made, only the place where it’s to go be up on the topmost gallery, and no one be found who will work so high.

  So Rolf studies where he points, and he says, ‘Does you but winch me a block of stone there, and set it in place, I will do it.’ So they done that, and then Rolf he says, ‘Now build me a little hut up there alongside, for I bain’t a’coming down ’til I be done.’ And they done that as well, with a bit o’ roof to keep the rain off, and Rolf climbs up there with his tool bag slung on his back, and sets to work.

  Now there’s Rolf, up there with only the birds and the heavens for company, searching with his beechwood mallet and chisel for his angel. And at first, he says, ’twas like tearing down walls to where she might be hiding, so the great chunks of stone be flying into space, tryin’ to get to where the shoulder might be, or the top of her head, or the great snowy sweep of her wings, and slowly the shape o’ her come clear, and stood out proud. Then out came the smaller chisels, to smooth, and bring into being what Rolf could see in his mind’s eye, so clearly, and the tap tap tap went on day after day, and hours into the night by lantern light, when folk passing the great towers of the church would look up and say, ‘There labours a great Mason, may the good God guide his hand!’ And betimes a round loaf, some cheese, or mayhap a flask of wine and water’d come up in a basket what Rolf let down, but oft and again the food’d lay there untasted while Rolf laboured on, smoothing, picking out the detail of windblown tresses, or a dimple in a sunwashed cheek, or the great pinions in the gathered wings, and the angel’d look down on Rolf as he toiled, already with a secret smile and eyes downcast.

  ’Til one even’ when the work be done, and Rolf he stands back, ’til behind be only the sky and the long dizzyin’ drop to the flags below, and he sees what he made. The red o’ the sunset puts a blush to her white cheek, and she stands where an invisible wind blows her stone robes about her like as if they be gossamer. Beautiful she be, with a proud lift to her head like as if she was lookin’ at them people living down below and pitied them for their smallne
ss and weakness, and her great wings was furled like as if she were about to take flight, and were only restin’ for a bit.

  And Rolf, he heard louder than ever before, that wicked voice a’whisperin’, a’tellin’ him that with one small drop of his blood she could be made flesh, that he loved her and she would love him as well, on and on it whispered, and his heart grew cold within him in terror of what he might do, and he remembers the change that had come to the innocent little rabbit he had made and brought to life, the inky blackness of it and the evil in its glowing red eyes, and he shudders and opens his hands and lets his tools fall, and he drops down on his knees before the angel, and lets fall his tears on the delicate stone feet of her.

  Then ’twas a strange thing that happen, for mayhap the magic that was in one drop o’ his blood, was in some fashion in Rolf’s tears as well, but howsobeit ’twas a different sort o’ magic, for Rolf feels a silv’ry light about him, and he looks up to see his angel looking down on him. And he holds up his two hands and he cries, ‘It bain’t my fault, ‘tis but the wickedness has been put in these hands that’s to blame.’

  And the angel looks down, and seems like she were less loving-like than he’d a’ made her, and more stern, and she don’t say nothing, but the words sorta hang in the air like thunder after lightnin’ ‘Wherefore if thy hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee . . .’

  Then Rolf, who ain’t had no proper meal or sleep for days, he falls down in a swound and knows nothin’ more.

  Next thing, it be morning, and Rolf hears voices near him, and raises his head to see the High Guildmasters gathered around that comed out of a hatchway in the roof. And Rolf fears then that mayhap she flew away in the night, but his angel be still there, arms outstretched t’ the dawn sky like as if she be blessin’ all below. Then all the Guildmasters be murmuring to each other, and finally one steps forward, and Rolf stands, as is proper.

  What the Guildmaster says then be long in the sayin’, but the short of it is, Rolf have done ’is Masterwork, and he shall be a Master stone mason made and sworn, so soon as he come to the Guild Hall that very day. Then they help poor Rolf, who can barely stand on his two legs, down from the roof, and they takes him to an inn to be fed and rested, and when his meat and ale be set afore him by and by they see he bain’t attending to what’s said to him, and so they leave him be.

  Now in Rolf’s head be room for only one thing, and that be what the Worthy Gentleman did say, that in seven years when he had been made Master, the Worthy’d come again, and even as he’s a’ thinkin’ it, a shadow falls across the inn table, and there’s the Worthy Gentleman hisself, in the selfsame black cloak, and the red smile like was cut with a knife, and the eyes like two holes in his pale, pale face. And the Worthy sits hisself, and smiles and smiles, and says, ‘See, the seven years have passed, and you are Master mason, just as I said.’ And he sees Rolf look around like he’s minded to run, and he laughs showing the little sharp teeth that he has, and holds up one o’ them long spidery hands, sayin’, ‘Nay, no such thing, Rolf my friend, in fact I have a commission for you. The greatest commission that has ever been, to say true.’

  And Rolf is curious despite he knows he oughtn’t to be, and he asks, ‘What sort o’ commission is that?’

  Then the Worthy says, ‘Long ago my friends and brothers were expelled, banished to a place of darkness and sorrow. I shall teach you their forms and lineaments, and you shall carve them, one by one you shall carve them as I direct, and then you shall give them of your blood, that blood that is the life, and they shall live again in this world, live and rule, now and forever, ’til the end of days!’ and then he laughs like metal tearing, and vanishes in a cloud black as his cloak.

  Rolf he stares around at the room again, but everyone is drinking and at their meat like always, like as they never seed or heard nothing.

  For the rest o’ the day, poor Rolf wanders the streets up and down. Hours pass, and still he walks to and fro, and up and down, tryin’ with all his might to find a way out. He knowed full well there bain’t anywhere he can go that the Worthy can’t find him, he been catched good and proper ever since the day his hands was held by those cold fingers that burned like fire, and there’s the mark the Worthy made on his breast under the Journeyman’s sigil, burning still.

  Then he remembers what his Angel had said, or seemed like she said. Cut off a hand? ’Tis easy said, but what about t’other? All this time the clouds be gatherin’, and now Rolf he feels a drop of rain, and it comes to him. Clear as day he sees the new chancel they be building, how when he was working up so high he seed the foundation laid, all ready for the great cornerstone.

  Now, I ’spect ’ee has seen how a cornerstone be laid, how ’tis brought in on poles by four of ’ee and laid on the salt blocks made ready on the mortar bed. How water is poured careful on the top, and that great ol’ stone just settles slow into ’is bed as the salt washes away . . . ’ee knows, do I say true? But just to think on’t, if a man was to lay his two hands between the salt blocks, at night with the rain comin’ down steady like, if he stayed there as that great heavy stone come down, slow and slow. . . .

  Oh, sorry Master, I do beg pardon, ’twas only me doin’ a bit o’ story tellin’ and no harm meant . . . did I fright your young gentlemen? Well ’twas only that they was so kind as to give a poor beggar hearth room, an’ I hopes you won’t take it amiss, my tellin’ a story o’ olden times . . . what’s that you say? Cursed? Oh, aye, you seen the mark, I reckon, under these old rags, well, ’twon’t come off, now will he? Not like a journeyman’s sigil which is easy tossed away. . . . O, Master, have pity, by all th’ Blessed Saints, ’tis bitter cold it is out there this night, and what’s an old crippled beggar to do, what has no place to go, an’ nobbut these poor useless paddles for hands?