Propolis

by Non Bramley

  First published 2020 by Unusual Books

  Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-9163855-0-4

  .epub eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-9163855-3-5

  .mobi eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-9163855-4-2

  Copyright © Non Bramley, 2020

  The right of Non Bramley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ***

  This volume contains very strong language, some scenes of gore and other disturbing themes. Reader discretion is advised.

  Smashwords Edition

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Propolis Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Come away to us,

  Come away to the stillness,

  Come away to where the hidden live,

  Come away to us in the darkling cliffs,

  Come away to us where the red flame burns,

  Come away to the cliffs and the soft night breeze,

  Come away to the laughter, Come away to us.

  Based on the traditional ballad Olaf Lilyrose.

  Chapter One

  I am ambivalent about people.

  I’m ambivalent about people. Trying to find that spark of God in the whole ripe mess of us is a daily task. But I try. Terrible things are done in the name of love.

  Come away with me.

  Here is a walled city, seething with sentience.

  Gulls cloud over peeling fishing boats. Skinny cats stalk rats too big to make a meal. The sea rolls away.

  A woman looks out from a high window and turns her face to the sun.

  Chapter Two

  The faint sea breeze was salty and good as I opened the shutters and looked out across the city of Eglwys wrth y mor. I’d slept on straw in this crowded inn, but despite the biting of bugs and drunken shrieks of the whores and their customers I had slept well. It was good to be out in the world again. After a winter spent at home in my little house at Saint Ivo’s Abbey I was itching for something to do – an itch it was far harder to scratch than the red bites of bugs.

  —Jude, as usual you tell me more of bedbugs and sinfulness than you ever do of your tale. Do you really want all this written down for posterity?

  —Every word. My life has been measured out in bugs and buggers, Levi.

  The bells hadn’t yet rung for Terce prayer, so I broke my fast at a favourite street stall, standing to eat bread and honey. The bread was fresh and the ale weak enough to be almost palatable. I’ve a great dislike of ale but plain water gives me the shits if it’s from a city well.

  The old man who ran this stall grinned and passed me another chunk of bread, spread thick with honey.

  ‘The size of you, giantess, you’ll never last on that crumb. Here, have another.’

  Giantess was his name for me. It’s apt.

  ‘Here to find work? I know a few people I can ask. You a mason?’ he asked, gesturing to the lump hammer I keep at my belt.

  ‘This? It’s for killing trolls and demons,’ I said. ‘And for breaking the bones of thieves and murderers when I can’t find any trolls.’

  He smiled at me, but nervously. When I left him he was carefully drawing a circle within a circle with a blackened stick from the cooking fire. My mention of demons had made him wary and this witch mark was well known for keeping Lucifer’s children away.

  You can see witch marks all over the walls of this town. They’re a superstitious lot. Six petaled daisies to invoke the protection of the Virgin, circles and strange convoluted knots that would keep demon spirits entangled for eternity were marked by every doorway and window.

  —I’ve no time for superstition. It’s easy. It wants nothing more than we obey it. Faith on the other hand is bloody complicated.

  I wasn’t here for demon hunting of course, I’d travelled to Eglwys to attend the Convocation of Bishops, there to make my yearly report. It’s my job to find thieves, punish murderers and exact some sort of law for the diocese of Saint Ivo, which was ruled over by our Prior, Richard.

  The twelve bishops of those lands that had clawed together the basics of civilisation met here every year, to make obeisance to the Most Reverend Archbishop Juliana, and to discuss the progression of the faith and their own communities. Juliana was new to the job, had been appointed only three months prior. She was, as yet, an unknown quantity.

  I liked this town despite its overcrowding. It was good to hear different accents, different languages, and to be dwarfed for once by the towering dark-skinned men who came across the seas to trade. The whole place was squeezed tight by thick stone walls and gates that were shut at sunset and opened at dawn. Nowhere else smells quite like Eglywys in summer – the reek of woodsmoke, rancid fish and lilac blossom combine to make its own rankly beautiful perfume.

  The procession of Bishops would come this way, up from the harbour to the church in the market square. It was a steep climb; some of the more elderly clerics would be puffing and trembling by the time they arrived.

  Ah, it was beginning. Horns blared and seashells rattled in their frames, shaken to keep evil away from these pious men and women.

  Crowds lined the street, kept back by black-robed brothers and sisters who were contriving to look grim and intimidating in a gentle Christian way. A difficult trick to conjure.

  A gentle, slithering pressure by my knees caught my attention. A small hand, dusty and brown, was snaking its way into the pocket of the middle-aged woman pressed up to my right side. It gently extracted a coin and retreated, but not before I caught it and hauled the lad attached to that hand up to my eye level. The kid kicked me in the belly and winded me slightly. I had grown a little soft over the winter and it made me grin.

  Sweat and grime made him slippery enough to squirm out of my grip and be gone. I gave chase. He was little; I am big. He slipped through the wall of legs and skirts whereas I had no option but to force my way. The child crossed the empty roadway just ahead of the solemn procession and darted back into the safety of the watching crowds that scattered as I followed. Over open ground I could finally match his pace.

  A more experienced thief would have jinked and dodged but he ran straight as an arrow. I scrambled over a cart, leapt and dropped, to pin the child to the ground with one hand.

  The lad was about eight years old and very thin. He had the pointed, feral face of the undernourished. He kicked and spat in my grip as I took the stolen coin and gave him another from my own pocket, whispering, ‘If you were older I’d cut off your fingers for that. Find a new profession.’

  He was away as soon as I opened my hand, as quick as a leveret.

  I dropped the matron’s stolen coin into her hand with a nod, expecting the usual thanks.

  ‘You’ve let it go? What did you let it go for? Thieving little shit des
erves a beating!’ she said.

  ‘Go fuck yourself, you vicious old pissant,’ I answered, mildly.

  I’m ambivalent about people. Only good, pretty children deserve the understanding of strangers.

  —Why did you let the child go, Jude?

  —Need. There are countless little thieves that I’ve purposely lost in a crowd. If they’ve stolen a few coins or a loaf because their belly is empty, I think of it as a natural tax on the well fed. If we looked after the hungry and filthy they wouldn’t need to risk the beating, or worse. It doesn’t take much – a few coins dropped into the hand of a beggar will keep him an honest man. A little petty theft is the price we pay for charity beginning and ending at home.

  Then I noticed the silence. The holy procession had stopped, had witnessed the whole incident, the cursing child and the fish-eyed matron. The Bishops, looking hot and pale were held up by Archbishop Juliana’s raised hand. She leant on her crosier and snorted, staring at me with what could have been amusement, fury or phlegm. She was hard to read. As they moved off she gave me a surreptitious wink, or maybe she just had dust in her eye. A subtle woman that, I thought.

  It would be a long day. Those of us called to give our reports kicked our heels outside the church. Hours passed. We played at dice, and I took a few coins from a wealthy tradesman come to ask Juliana for the rights to wool-dying in the town.

  When they finally called for Jude of Calder all heads turned to me. I realised with some unease that many knew me by name - I’m tall and broad and have faced down my fair share of treacherous bastards. That news had spread. The idea that I was known about the town made my skin itch. I pocketed my winnings, dusted off my arse and followed the sound of my name.

  Juliana sat before a pink marble altar veined like a slab of bacon fat. The Bishops were seated to her right side; and Priors and Secretaries stood to the left. There were too many candles and the heat was oppressive. Juliana gave me a calculating glance and called an attendant to her who hurried to open the doors wide, but it did little to cool me. Bishops grumbled in their chairs. The old like it hot – the hotter the better. Still, Juliana had placed my comfort over theirs; it was a kindness.

  ‘Prior Richard, introduce this sister in God to us,’ she said.

  Richard, Prior of Saint Ivo’s Abbey, stood and gestured to me. ‘This is Jude of Calder, so named for the place of her birth. She is Reeve for the Diocese of Saint Ivo, which is twenty miles from this place. She has been with us for six years and I recommend her to this conclave.’ Richard turned to me. ‘Give your report now, Jude.’

  I told them of bodies discovered, of murderers found, of thieves punished and of dark, desperate acts of sin and horror dragged into the light.

  Juliana raised her hand. ‘All this in just twelve months?’

  ‘It’s been a busy year,’ Richard said.

  ‘I’m confused by what it is that your Reeve is tasked to do. In other parishes a Reeve is simply’ – she searched for the word – ‘I can find no other description but tax collector. I don’t think you’ve collected any tithes this year have you, Jude?’

  ‘No, Archbishop.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Sometimes I forget how to count.’

  Juliana looked at me shrewdly and I gazed back, doing my best to radiate innocence.

  ‘I help people who have no one else to stand for them. I have a mind that likes puzzles and I can read people, read when they’re lying or afraid or guilty.’

  ‘Whose idea was this, to give you authority as a thief-taker?’

  ‘Mine, Your Grace,’ Richard said. ‘Although I’d no idea Jude would be so … busy.’

  ‘It’s intriguing – has some biblical precedent. Since the fall we’ve been concerned with survival, perhaps now we need to look at temporal justice. Could you train another to think as you do, Jude? Is it a skill that can be learned?’

  Juliana was an old woman, her thin grey hair scraped back from a face that was almost repellent in its animation. I had some sense then of her power. She could change the world and my life with a word.

  ‘Perhaps, if the learner was clever enough and a rational thinker. Most people are stupid and bigoted. I count myself in that, we all have a little bigot in us.’

  ‘Am I a bigot then, Reeve?’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace, but I believe you recognise it and do your best to mitigate any harm it might cause.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ she said, rubbing her nose. ‘But not a very appealing thought.’

  ‘It’s human nature. We trust what we know, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the purpose of life.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Fucking and eating. When you get down to it, most crime’s about fucking and eating, eating and fucking. And the eating’s mostly so we can fuck. A mind unmotivated by those things is hard to find, Archbishop.’

  ‘A mind like yours then, child?’ Juliana said.

  ‘Oh, I’m hungry all the time,’ I said, grinning.

  —What a sad view of the world, Jude.

  —Is it? I just know it’s true. I could dress it up in prettier language if you like … call it power and destiny. But they’re both still eating and fucking on a grand scale.

  —And what of God?

  —We breed and eat to give life rhythm. God makes it a tune you can dance to.

  ‘Jude the Risastórt,’ said a small man dressed in homespun wool the colour of red earth. He stood with the secretaries, but the cross he wore from his neck declared him to be a holy man, a priest or perhaps the Prior of a poor, rural place. His nose was startlingly flat to his face, it must have been broken years ago and mended at this curious angle.

  ‘Brother Olaf, I didn’t see you there,’ Johanna said kindly. ‘I’ll have a seat brought for you.’

  ‘Thank you, I will stand.’ His accent was strange and beautiful, a sound full of whispers. ‘I’ve come to ask a favour, Your Grace, and the woman I need is standing here before us all. I will ask my favour of you, Archbishop and Prior.’ He turned and bowed slightly to Richard. ‘But it is Jude the Risastórt, Jude of Calder who can grant it.’

  —Risastórt?

  —Giant.

  —Ah.

  The earth-coloured brother gazed at me with strange relish. ‘I am Olaf, Brother of the Abbey at Tingale in the far west country. When I can travel I minister to a colony of my fellow countrymen who sailed from Snæland to the islands off your western coast, over a decade ago. They have flourished and named their place Stadur Sigurdar, Sigurd’s Town, where I hope to build a church one day. I have travelled from this place directly to you. We have great need of help. We are sorely troubled by Huldufólk.’

  ‘Huldufólk?’ I asked him.

  ‘Hidden folk – elves, you would call them.’

  Olaf paused, wringing his hands, the centre of a spreading ripple of indulgent laughter. He raised his voice and spoke directly to me.

  ‘They sailed with us from Snæland, hidden in nutshells, and when we arrived at the island of Tresgo they claimed a neighbour island for their own. Recently, a child went to their shores. He stole from them, trespassed and he died for it that same day, raving like a madman. The Huldufólk are capricious, vengeful, and we are afraid. You have been touched by a Christian saint and can sweep the Huldufólk away before all of our children are dead. Please help us, Reeve.’

  I looked to Juliana, who nodded, so I bellowed for quiet, placing my hand on the hammer at my belt. The noise subsided.

  ‘Have you seen these elves? Seen them harming children?’

  ‘No,’ Olaf said, ‘but, the child was healthy until the moment he stole from them. What more evidence do you need? Our children are well and then they are dead, whipped from this life in terrible dreams of the hidden men.’

  Juliana called me to her and spoke quietly. ‘What does Brother Olaf mean, you’re touched by a saint?’

  ‘I discovered the bones of the blessed Saint Ælfgifu last winter. She’s been my protector
and my guide.’

  ‘Your version of events is shorter and less fantastic than the story your Prior tells,’ Juliana said, studying my face. ‘Could my lands truly be troubled by elves?’

  ‘Does it matter? This is a suspicious death – that’s my stock-in-trade. By your permission and that of my Prior, I’ll return with Brother Olaf to the west country. If children are dying, by whatever means, natural, supernatural or criminal, it’s my duty to help if I can – to offer temporal justice to the faithful.’

  ‘You repeat my own words back to me.’ She waved me away and raised her voice. ‘Even though these folk aren’t yet Christian, my Reeve will go with you, Brother Olaf. You will be her guide.’ Johanna paused and looked to the open doors where the crowd of supplicants peered in. ‘And I will find you an apprentice thief-taker, Jude. Take them with you to learn their stock-in-trade. Now, to other business.’

  And just like that, she claimed me, and slipped a millstone round my neck.

  Chapter Three

  My millstone turned out to be a young man named Asif.

  Brother Olaf and I would leave for the west country in three days and I spent those days doing my level best to be unfindable. I’d no need or desire for an apprentice, so I dodged the increasingly fractious messengers sent to my lodgings and slept in a fishing boat moored at the quay.

  My mistake was returning to my favourite food stall one morning, and it was here that Asif found me.

  I was leaning against a wall, eating my usual bread and honey. A rat sat by my feet, up on its haunches and nibbling a crust I’d thrown to it. Its stuffed cheeks amused me. There’s something joyous about gluttony.

  ‘I’ve bought everything I think we’ll need, but I’m not sure. Here’s the list,’ he said.

  I wiped honey from my face and looked down at the young man facing me. He was smiling, nervously and offering me a crisp sheet of paper. Crisp was the word for him. His dark hair was neatly cut and his beard clipped close to his thin face.

  ‘And you are?’ I said.

  ‘Asif Scrivener. You’re to train me, Reeve. You were, unavailable, so I’ve made some preparations but they may not be correct. I’ve done my best.’ He proffered his list again and I took it. It was a long list. Asif had bought enough food for a month; ropes, oiled-leather clothing, candles, paper and ink, even a valuable compass made before the fall.