The Book of Boy

by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

  Again the dog snarled and snapped. But he bit the air. Not Secundus. Not me. The dog turned to me and spoke one word—one word only—and spoke it only once: Run.

  “Milord,” I cried. “We must run!”

  “Attack!” Lord Vulture demanded. He smacked the dog, whose snarl deepened.

  “The lantern, Boy!” Secundus leaped past Lord Vulture into the hall, and I followed. He slammed shut the door. “You’re a liar,” he shouted through the wood.

  Voices—a distant cry—

  He kicked the door. “I needed that bone!”

  “Milord, we must depart.” The shouts were closer, and the glow of torchlight.

  “That was the fourth relic! My relic!”

  “They are coming. If they find us—” I gulped.

  “For decades I’ve planned this!” Again he kicked the door. He stomped away. “Come, Boy. We go this way, and turn left, and then right.”

  The directions at least were not lies—not like the words of Lord Vulture—for they led us to a storeroom filled with bolts of cloth, and a door hidden behind the bolts—a door that Secundus of course could unlock. The tunnel beyond stank of sewage and rot, and looked darker even than night. But I followed, shaking with fear, and I nigh shrieked when he stopped to study his pages.

  “The shin,” he muttered. “Rib tooth thumb shin—shin! Now what?”

  Who cares? thought I. Naught matters but escape from this tunnel. We’ve relics enough— “Milord!” my voice echoed. “The toe!”

  “What of it?” he snapped. “Hold the light closer.”

  “The toe is a relic. Rib tooth thumb toe—does not that work instead? The shin might be fake, but the toe is real.”

  Secundus lowered his book. “You have a point.”

  I did my best to sound calm. “We have four relics. Saint Peter has seen fit to aid us.”

  “Rib tooth thumb toe . . . I shall have to ponder this.”

  Onward we trudged. I tried not to dwell on what squelched betwixt my bare toes.

  The stench shifted from sewage to fish; the air freshened. We came to a grate. A quick whiff of brimstone as Secundus unlocked it, and we were on the banks of the river, the sky pink in the east. Sailors shouted, and water splashed, and the bells rang prime to mark the morn.

  “Hurry.” Secundus pushed his way along the riverbank, studying each ship and sailor.

  A shout behind us. “Stop them!” I heard . . . or I thought that I did.

  A ship was pushing off. “We need passage!” cried Secundus.

  “Won’t have it,” returned the ship’s master. “Heave, men.”

  Another shout, closer . . .

  “Five florins,” cried Secundus.

  The ship’s master paused. “Ten.”

  Secundus leaped aboard. “Come, Boy.” Already the ship was three feet from the dock. “Jump!”

  Behind me a trumpet sounded. “Stop them!” a man cried. I knew that voice!

  Dropping the lantern, I ran—I leaped for the ship—

  Secundus grabbed me with his hand so scarred from the relic. With a grunt he hauled me aboard.

  “Milord!” I nigh shook him, I was so feared. “The steward’s behind us!”

  21 At Sea

  I will never forget that awful voyage. I’ve feared many things in my life: Brigands. Wolves. Cook. Night. The sharp-faced steward who trailed us. But now I feared sailors.

  Oh, were they superstitious—of women, birds, sounds—but mostly of me. They made the sign of protection right to my face, and muttered that I was a monster. Never had I felt so alone. I’d rather suffer Ox—at least on land I could flee.

  Secundus, for his part, did not believe I’d heard the voice of the steward. “That scoundrel is halfway across France!”

  So I said no more, though my mind dwelled on the steward’s shouts of “Stop them!” and my dreams of him breaking off his own gold fingers, and clicking his fingers like knives. . . . whilst Secundus cursed his luck because he so hated sailing, and muttered over cups of the ship’s vile wine.

  The ship carried wool to the cloth merchants of Florence—bales of wool filled with mice. The mice, too, were rude—nigh as rude as the sailors—and even the gulls were unhappy. They complained that the land was too close or the land was too far, and chided me for not giving them food. When I explained I did not eat, they flew off in horror and never spoke to me again, but floated over the ship, gossiping about me, and mocking.

  On the ship sailed, lurching with each swell, though the sailors claimed the weather was fine, and indeed blamed me for the wind. “The hunchback’s luck will make us pay later,” they grumbled, and laughed when I gagged at the rolling.

  How long each day was, and each minute. Once Secundus bellowed my name, and I climbed over the wool bales to where he sat tossing dice with the cook. “Hold this,” he ordered, handing me the ink pot, and opened his book to the list. “Rib tooth thumb shin dust skull tomb,” he read aloud. “Shin,” he repeated, hissing, crossing it out with thick lines of ink. Beside it he wrote another word—“Toe,” he murmured—and crossed this out, too.

  Toe.

  “Congratulations, milord,” I said, and for the first time onboard I smiled.

  His face darkened as he flipped through the pages. “Dead ends,” he muttered. “What else have I missed?” He downed his drink and recommenced dicing, and I slipped away, my happiness gone.

  That night I poured for him as he sat with the sailors, dining on fish long dead. The sailors recited tales of bloodthirsty pirates, and mermaids who drew men down to hell.

  Secundus laughed till he coughed. “And what of it? From hell, you simply escape.”

  Escape hell? scoffed the sailors. ’Twas impossible.

  “’Tis not,” slurred Secundus. “’Tis only very hard. I will tell you. First you go to hell—which all of you’ll do, I wager—and you befriend the damned. You befriend even Satan, because Satan needs good counsel. Are you listening?”

  “Of course,” a sailor laughed. “I need to if I’m going to hell.”

  “That you are . . . You learn everything you can. And you wait. You wait centuries. You wait till pestilence strikes the world. Millions of souls, pouring into hell. Too many to count. And you stand—are you listening?—you stand in this river of souls. You step closer—just one step—to the gates. The next day, you step again.”

  “That’d take forever!”

  “It takes years. All the time, you fear you’ll be found. You fear pestilence will end. But at last you reach the gates—the gates that always stand open. You pocket the key to the gates.” He chuckled. “No one will notice its loss. Then you’re free.”

  The sailors shifted, eying each other. “Does your master always talk such nonsense?” one asked me.

  ’Tis not nonsense. He comes from hell, this man does. But such words would end both our lives. Instead I shrugged. “You should hear what he says of the English.”

  The sailors roared in relief, and Secundus stumbled off to vomit, and the next day his cheeks were gray though the sweat of fever gleamed on his forehead.

  Still the sailors watched me, and glared. What’s in it? they’d ask of the pack on my back. What riches? What does his hump look like, I wonder . . . till I feared even to sleep. So I resolved to find somewhere safe far from them, and from the mice that complained I stank like a bird.

  What a fool I was.

  That night I climbed the rigging, and settled on the long straight yard that holds up the sail. The clouds hid the stars and the moon, and the night air felt as soft as a cloak.

  Somewhere above me a goose honked, and another goose answered.

  You are up late, geese, I called.

  We know, they answered. We are all of us headed to nest. Their honking faded, though I fancied I could yet hear their wings. What would that feel like, I wondered, flying through the soft night air?

  Stop, I scolded. You must think about sleeping.

  My wings ached. Always they ached, but u
p here they ached more. I had not stretched them since the inn in Avignon, and oh, they throbbed. I must release them—

  No! ’Twould risk my life, and Secundus’s. And stretching seemed to make them grow.

  But the notion would not give me peace. I was alone. No one could see me. I would stretch only till the pain eased. ’Twould only be a moment.

  And so I fell to temptation.

  Carefully I removed the pack of Saint Peter and tied it to the mast. I removed my blue tunic, and tied it over the pack. I unbound the rag ribbons that held down my wings.

  At the first movement, my wings cramped—such agony!

  The pain passed, and—oh, joy!—I could spread them. The salty breeze licked me like a dog’s warm tongue. My wings cupped the air as hands cup water.

  I stood on the yard. That is how brave I was: I stood as I once stood on trees, my arms spread wide, and my wings, and never in my life had I felt such delight.

  I balanced on that yard for I do not know how long—balanced and bobbed and skipped and danced. How delicious, how perfect, it felt! At last common sense scolded me to stop. So with great reluctance I sat, and went to work settling my wings.

  But the wings wouldn’t obey.

  I cursed them for being so stubborn, and myself for being so stupid. When I did manage to tie them down, oh, how they hurt. But suffering was my punishment for prancing midair, and so I bound them, weeping, and donned my tunic, and the pack of Saint Peter, and I tied myself to the mast to sleep.

  The sun found me cramped and shamed, but with joy in my heart . . . till I returned to deck, where the sailors looked at me in horror, and as one made the sign of protection.

  My curls were no worse than ever; the pack sat as always on my hump. . . .

  Secundus loomed over me. “Your hump is bigger. What have you done?”

  “Naught, milord—” which was a lie.

  “Keep out of sight. The sailors are frightened enough.”

  And so I did, and did not free my wings again no matter how they ached. I sat by Secundus as he drank and muttered, the wind blowing us to Rome, and I slept so close to him that I smelled his key to hell. I’d dream of spreading my wings, the breeze tickling my feathers . . . then the dream would shift to Ox’s sneer, and Cook’s scolding, and the hiss of the sharp-faced steward.

  I’d awake with my hump throbbing in pain, my throat raw from the brimstone, and pray that this journey would end.

  22 The End of the World

  At last we reached the port of the city of Rome: a river of thick yellow water clogged with shipwrecks and reeking of swamp.

  With great effort and cursing by the crew, the ship drew up to the bank, a bank that had once been grand but whose stones now tilted madly or lay half buried in muck; few walls remained standing. The people, too, looked worn and cracked. Beggars clustered around Secundus but stayed far from me, and all made the sign of protection. Secundus hissed at me to stand up straight.

  One beggar, his arms tucked beneath filthy rags, insisted on guiding us to Rome.

  “I know the route,” Secundus snapped. “I lived here.”

  But the beggar trailed us, saying it was a full day’s walk to the city, and unsafe due to brigands.

  Secundus picked his way along streets that were now rubble paths. The houses lacked roofs, their insides choked with weeds. Pestilence, I knew, left buildings empty but standing; warfare burned them to the ground. But these houses had suffered so slowly that even the ghosts were withered to dust.

  We passed two men smashing pink marble walls.

  “That was a house of pagans, fine pilgrim,” whined the beggar.

  “Shut it,” snapped Secundus, his lips a thin white line.

  We approached a pit that glowed like hell . . . though (I told myself) it did not smell of brimstone, and the men around the pit did not look like demons.

  “They harvest pagan stone,” the beggar whined. “The rich pilgrim like to see?”

  A man hurled a rock into the pit—a rock carved like the head of a woman, her hair held in place with a band. Between the coals glowed a great muscled torso.

  “God’s work to make limestone . . .” The beggar kept his eyes on Secundus’s purse. “To build churches for greatness of God.”

  “That is not limestone, you barbarian. That is art.” Secundus wiped his eyes. “This city, Boy . . . I had a friend here I’d visit. His family imported wine. We’d sit beneath his pomegranate tree and quote the poets, sampling the best of Spain and Sicily and Provence, in crystal glasses . . . ’Tis hard to imagine, I know.”

  No. ’Twas impossible.

  The land turned to marsh as we walked, the road raising itself out of the mire. Ahead stood a tower ten stories high—a tower that a magpie would make, with many colors of marble, and columns mismatched.

  “Brigands, pilgrim,” piped up the beggar. “They build tower and call themself noble. From everyone they take money.”

  Secundus stared at the tower. He looked across the marsh to distant columns sticking up like bones. “I was warned. But I could not believe it. . . .” He reached into his purse. “Go away,” he said, tossing a coin at the beggar.

  The beggar shot out an arm. He had no hand! Only a stump.

  The poor man! “I am so sorry—” I began.

  But the beggar scuttled off, gesturing rudely. A hunchback, it seemed, was even worse than a one-handed beggar.

  Secundus trudged toward the ramshackle tower. “Come, Boy.”

  Men appeared, men with scarred faces and ragtag weapons.

  “Brigands,” I breathed, my heart beating.

  “Poor pilgrims got fat purses, eh?” the biggest brigand smirked. His black beard was a tangle of curls. “What’s the boy got in his pack?”

  A girl elbowed past him—a girl no older than me, with filthy feet and tangled black hair, though she had a jeweled lady’s knife in her waistband, and red ribbons in her curls. Her eyes were black and quick and hard.

  She studied me. “Uncle, he’s not a boy.”

  Secundus clinked a fistful of coins. “Forgive me, but we need to pass.”

  At once the brigands turned toward the clinking—

  But not the girl. “What are you?” she asked me, as a farmwife tells a hen you’ll be lunch.

  “I’m naught—I mean, I’m a boy—”

  “He’s my servant.” Secundus added a coin to his palm. “We have just left a ship where he terrified sailors because sailors find hunchbacks bad luck. In Avignon we sought the pope, but the pope himself was feared, because of the bad luck that hunchbacks will bring.”

  The brigands shifted, and stepped back.

  “Then why do you keep him?” the girl asked—emphasizing the last word.

  “Because I promised his mother I would. Because he says little and eats even less. Because I learned long ago never to touch his hunchback or even his pack because bad luck at once would befall me.” He stepped forward. “May we pass?”

  The big brigand snatched up the coins, making the sign of protection. But the girl watched with hard eyes.

  Did we trot away quickly from that ramshackle tower! Secundus mopped his brow. “That girl had eyes like a serpent’s. Did you see her?”

  “Yes, milord.” I shivered. “She scares me.”

  “I should think so. She’d scare Satan himself.”

  “Ho there,” the girl called. She was following us! “Why do you pretend you’re a boy?”

  Oh, she made me squirm! Nervously I tested the cords of the pack.

  “What do you carry?” she called. “It must be precious because you fuss. Is it gold?”

  Secundus spun at her: “You think you’re clever, don’t you?”

  “I know I am,” she answered. “I’m the cleverest person I know.”

  “Then be a good girl,” he snapped, “and go back to your hideous tower.”

  In a flash, the girl snatched up a rock and hurled it at him. “Don’t call me good! I am wicked. Do you understand me?”
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  I gaped at her. Why would anyone boast about wickedness? That itself was wicked!

  “My great-grandfathers were senators—do you hear? Someday I’ll be queen of Rome.”

  Secundus snorted. “Rome doesn’t have queens.”

  Again he had to duck. “Not yet!” the girl shouted. “But it will. And my sons will be emperors and popes. How much gold do you carry?”

  Secundus strode off, his chest rattling as he breathed.

  I willed myself to follow him, doing my best to ignore the wicked girl behind us. The hot Roman sun beat down. Great cracks split the ground. Broken white tombs lined the roadside, each tomb filled with bubbling green water. And a massive building on the horizon—

  “Milord,” I breathed. “A church!”

  Secundus’s face brightened. “The church of Saint Paul. Ah, Boy, we almost are there.”

  “Rib tooth thumb toe dust . . .” I counted. “Dust is next.”

  “Yes. The dust of Saint Peter, stored within the grave of Saint Paul.”

  Still the girl followed us! “By the way, you two are mad to travel alone.”

  She no sooner spoke than a howl drifted toward us.

  “Do you hear that?” she chortled. “Those are wolves. They eat pilgrims.”

  A second howl. I shivered.

  Secundus drew close: “Can you control wolves, Boy?”

  I looked at him in horror. Wolves?

  “That’s why pilgrims travel in groups,” the girl continued. “Why, I know of pilgrims dragged off whilst sleeping. . . .” But I did not hear more because I stomped to drown out her words. Soon enough I could make out a line of pilgrims approaching the huge church. . . .

  Secundus smiled at the sight. “They are walking from Rome. We are less than a league from the city, Boy. We need only this dust, and then we will enter Rome itself—”

  The girl tossed a pebble at my head. “You! Talk to me.”

  Secundus gritted his teeth. “Will you—will you be a wicked girl and leave us alone?”

  “For a florin,” she retorted.

  “No!”

  “You needn’t yell. . . .” She looked at me. “You don’t have to hide, you know. You can just be a girl.” Her eyes drifted toward the church. “Be careful in there. The monks, they . . .” She shook her head and turned, heading back to the ramshackle tower.