The Bone Magician

by F. E. Higgins

  But enough of that. What news of the Silver Apple Killer, I hear you ask? Well, there is news, and it is with some sorrow I must report that yesterday morning another body, the sixth now I believe, was pulled from the Foedus. And still Mr Coggley, our esteemed head constable, can provide us with no clue as to the identity of the fiend who is responsible. These are indeed dark days for the City.

  Deodonatus smiled to himself as he re-read the piece. ‘The Silver Apple Killer’. Yes, he liked that very much. It rolled off the tongue. Then his mind turned to the Gluttonous Beast. Deodonatus was the first to admit that he had a cold heart – he felt little for others, unless it was scorn or hate – but with the Gluttonous Beast, it was different. When he looked upon him his insides seemed to twist. He did not like to think why.

  Deodonatus was not surprised that the Urbs Umidians were so enthusiastic about the Gluttonous Beast and the Bone Magician. People wanted to be shocked and entertained, and they wanted to know that there were things out there whose existence was just that little bit worse than their own. The Beast was certainly proof of that. As for the Bone Magician, well, where was the harm in it? And there was undoubtedly money in it. ‘Not a job for me, though,’ thought Deodonatus, suddenly standing, holding a lapel with one hand and flourishing his paper with the other, to declare authoritatively:

  ‘Ας εξασκησει ο καθενας την τεχνη που ξερει.’

  He sat down with a smile. ‘I take my advice from Aristophanes. ‘‘Let each man practise the craft he knows’’.’

  Then he put pen to paper again and continued. Just as he signed off with his trademark ‘Until next time’, there was a knock at the door.

  ‘You’re early,’ growled Deodonatus as he hurriedly rolled and tied the sheets. He slipped them through the crack of the door, along with a penny, and listened as the boy scampered away. Then he went to the window and looked down on to the street, absent-mindedly swatting a fly that buzzed around his head. How did they survive this damned weather? Would he go out tonight? Perhaps not. He was tired. He pulled down a well-thumbed volume from the mantelpiece and turned to his favourite story. He had hardly read more than the first page when his heavy lids closed. The book slid to the floor and lay open, displaying in the flickering firelight a picture of a green and gleaming toad with jewels for eyes.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A Late Supper

  While Deodonatus was snoozing comfortably by his fire, Pin was out on the cold streets wondering when they would ever reach the lodging house. Beag waxed lyrical about the place the whole way and when the trio finally turned into Squid’s Gate Alley, ‘Home to Mrs Hoadswood’s Lodging House, the best in the City’, he was disappointed to find that the house looked no different from its neighbours, all of which were in a similar state of decay.

  Once inside, however, he was pleasantly surprised. The place smelled fresh and dry, and his hopes were raised even further when he came to the descending stairs and inhaled the aroma that rose to tease his nostrils and make him lick his lips. The stairs led down to a large open kitchen with a grey stone floor and an enormous fireplace on the opposite wall. A long dining table stood solidly in the middle of the room, a bench along its length on either side and a rather more decorative carver chair at each end. A woman stood by the fire, stirring a huge pot of stew. She looked up at their entrance.

  ‘Evenin’, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘You’re just in time for a late supper.’

  She was not pretty, thought Pin, not in the way his mother had been, and was fit to burst out of her stays. Her round face was red-cheeked and her large hands chilblained, but when she smiled she radiated warmth all about her which you could almost feel.

  As Pin stared at her so Mrs Hoadswood stared at him. In an instant her sharp eyes took in his worn shirt and threadbare coat, his skinny legs, his ankles poking out from under his trousers (the hems had been let long ago) and the down-at-heel boots. She knew straight away this was a boy who was looking after himself. She frowned with concern.

  ‘Pin,’ said Beag, ‘meet Mrs Hoadswood.’

  ‘You’re very welcome here, Pin,’ she said as she lifted the pot from the fire and set it down on the table. She bustled him along the bench and sat him down, then brushed a few bones and bread crumbs from a plate and put it in front of him. ‘Help yourself,’ she said smiling. ‘No one is allowed to leave until it’s all gone.’

  ‘It’s no penance,’ said Beag, already ladling the thick stew on to his plate.

  Aluph passed the ale up the table and Pin filled his wooden cup, held it aloft and looked at Beag. ‘My thanks,’ he said, and took a long swig.

  Just as he was about to scoop up his first meaty spoonful an elderly man came into the kitchen and sat quietly on a carver. Pin barely looked up, so intent was he on his meal, but he held the next newcomer’s gaze rather longer. She didn’t acknowledge that she knew him, but somehow, after the day Pin had just had, it was no surprise to him to find that he was looking straight into the dark eyes of Juno Pantagus.

  As they ate, they talked. The topics however, were rather limited in scope: mainly the weather (Aluph proclaimed that the Foedus herself had slowed her flow, it was so cold) and the Silver Apple Killer (Beag had the latest about a body in the river – ‘She spat it out,’ he said, in his inimitable way, ‘as if she didn’t like the taste.’). Pin said little enough and ate until he thought he would explode. Now and again he looked from under his lashes invariably to see Juno staring at him. Upon introduction she had smiled lightly but that was it. When she looked away he took a moment to observe her. Her hair was black and it fell in curls from the crown of her head down past her shoulders. Her eyes were dark as deep water and her skin was so white that when she took a sip of wine Pin was convinced he could see the purple liquid running down the inside of her throat. Mr Pantagus beside her, currently sporting neither moustache nor beard, looked tired and frail, but the girl’s animated conversation seemed to refresh him.

  Inevitably the conversation turned to Pin and reluctantly he spilt his tale of woe. How he lost his lodgings (Mr Gumbroot’s reputation was known to all at the table and his companions tutted sympathetically) and of his job with Mr Gaufridus (all were eager to hear more of the toe-pulling, tongue-yanking and other practices) and then to his job as corpse-watcher.

  ‘Have you ever had anyone wake up on you?’ asked Beag. ‘After all, that’s what you’re watching for.’

  ‘That has not been my experience,’ said Pin carefully, aware that Juno regarded him intensely.

  ‘You have a fine way with words, Master Pin,’ said Mr Pantagus thoughtfully, speaking for the first time.

  ‘If I speak well it is the fault of my mother,’ said Pin quietly. ‘She was from a good family, the Merdegraves. She taught me many things, to read and write, to consider others, to use a knife and fork.’

  ‘What is your family name?’ asked Mrs Hoadswood.

  Pin hesitated. He couldn’t not answer, that would look strange, but he didn’t want to be thrown out of Mrs Hoadswood’s lodging house before he had even had the opportunity to stay a night.

  ‘Carpue, weren’t it?’ butted in Beag. ‘That’s what you said on the Bridge.’

  ‘Carpue?’ repeated Mr Pantagus and raised his eyebrows.

  Pin sat miserably in the chair. He knew what was coming next. It was Aluph who asked the question:

  ‘Do you know an Oscar Carpue, the fella that—’

  ‘Yes, Oscar Carpue is my father, but I haven’t seen him since—’

  Seeing Pin’s discomfort Mrs Hoadswood interrupted. ‘And what of your mother?’

  ‘She’s dead, well over a year ago now.’

  ‘Then you shall need a room,’ she said firmly. ‘I have a small one up in the eaves if that would suit.’

  Pin was almost speechless with delight. What luck! ‘Of course,’ he said gratefully.

  ‘That’s settled then,’ said Mr Hoadswood cheerfully. ‘Let us talk no more, only eat a
nd make merry. Beag, have you a song or a story for us tonight?’

  Beag’s eyes lit up. He pushed aside a platter and his mug and leaped on to the table.

  ‘I have indeed,’ he said with a broad smile.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Beag Tells a Story

  ‘When I was a young lad, not much shorter than I am now, I lived in a village at the foot of the Devil’s Back, a steep and barren mountain. It was a sheltered spot, with the mountain behind us and the sea in front. On early summer mornings I could see the dawn’s rosy fingers turning the water to a shimmering pink. In the autumn swollen clouds hung so low, sometimes almost half the mountain would disappear. In the winter the brine would be a stony grey and the Devil’s Back would be white with snow. With the advent of spring the thaw would swell the rivers and everywhere there would be the sound of the land coming to life. When I think on it now, I swear it brings a tear to my eye.

  ‘As I grew older, yet grew no taller, a rumour began that I wasn’t my mother’s son at all but a changeling, a child of the mountain sprites left in place of the true baby they had stolen. The villagers were disturbed by this and wanted proof that I either was or wasn’t such a baby.

  ‘‘‘You must go to the Cathaoir Feasa,’’ they said.

  ‘High up on the narrow ridge of the Devil’s Back, there was an old tree trunk. The tree itself, an ancient oak, had been struck by lightning many years ago and all that was left was the charred stump. And the strangest thing was that the stump had burned in such a way as to truly resemble a throne, complete with two arms, four sturdy legs and a high back. And this wooden throne was called the Cathaoir Feasa – the Chair of Knowledge. It was believed that if a person could spend a whole night, from dusk until dawn, on the Cathaoir Feasa and come down the hill under his own steam in the morning, then that person must surely be a sprite’s child and would be blessed with the gift of poetry and a yen for travel.

  ‘My parents warned me of the dangers. The last person to sit on the Cathaoir Feasa had returned a gibbering wreck. It wasn’t poetry he was spouting but lunacy and he travelled no further than the madhouse in his lifetime. I will not deny that I was wary, but I was also intrigued. At the advanced age of ten years I bade the village goodbye and set off up the Devil’s Back one early autumn afternoon.

  ‘The sky was blue and cloudless, the trees already turning as the days grew shorter. There was a nip in the air, but I climbed in a good humour. As I approached the halfway point the land began to change. It was as if winter had already arrived. The few trees that grew there spread their bare branches up to the sky and the ground was increasingly rocky and bare. The sky turned grey, threatening rain, and the wind was picking up. The sea, such a blue when I left the village, was now almost black and sprinkled with bobbing heads of white foam. My confidence ebbed with the setting sun.

  ‘As the last ray of light disappeared over the horizon, the edge of my known world, I reached the summit of the Devil’s Back. And what a bleak place it proved to be. The narrow ridge was no more than five strides across and there, in the middle of my path, was the Cathaoir Feasa. I expected to see the Devil himself seated on it for surely only he would deserve to sit on a throne as black and charred as it was. I went forward slowly and settled down and hoped for the best.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you now, such a wretched night I have never spent before nor would I wish to spend again.

  ‘Nature tried her very best to deter me from my quest. The cold descended and bit my toes and my cheeks with its razor-sharp teeth. The wind howled around my ears and whispered terrible thoughts in my head that would drive a man crazy. I was shivering violently and clinging on to the arms of the chair for dear life. The gusts were so strong that I thought I should be taken up and tossed off the ridge. Then a thick fog crept up the hillside and rolled around me and over me. After that came the rain to drench me.

  ‘I had no idea what the time was; perhaps an hour had passed, perhaps four, when the wind quieted and the rain turned to drizzle. I thought I was through the worst of it. But then the noises started. Howling and rustling, barking and baying. Great crashes like giant’s footsteps on either side of me. And I felt things too, those wicked sprites no doubt, stroking my face and pressing their cold lips against my ears. I began to think that I was truly on the verge of insanity. I swear by the three-legged stool of the great Bard Porick O’Lally, I could feel hands grabbing my clothing and pulling at me, trying to drag me from the chair. My last memory of that night is the sight of the cloven-footed Devil himself standing right in front of me, lit up in a streak of forked lighting.

  ‘I woke to the sweetest tune in the world. Birdsong. And with that blessed singing I saw a ray of light. The sun was breaking through the darkness over the sea. I felt, not saw, the spirits of the ridge flee the approaching dawn, and I was overcome by a feeling of elation and then utter exhaustion.

  ‘It was a sorry sight greeted the welcome party when I finally staggered back into the village. I was drenched and bedraggled, my clothes were in tatters, my shoes had been blown off my feet and I was raw from the lashing I had received all night.

  ‘Everyone rushed out to see me.

  ‘‘‘He did it,’’ they exclaimed. ‘‘He did it!’’

  ‘‘‘But at what cost?’’ cried my mother and she dragged me home half dead as I was and laid me on my bed and fed me stew and dumplings. I fell into a fever and lay there wildly restless with my eyes closed. For three days and three nights I muttered in a language that no one could understand. On the fourth day I awoke to see my father and mother and brothers and sisters and half the village staring down at me.

  ‘‘‘Well?’’ asked my father, his knuckles white with anxiety. ‘‘What have you got to say for yourself?’’

  ‘Words, foreign words, tumbled from my parched lips.

  ‘‘‘Neel ain tintawn mar duh hintawn fain.’’

  ‘‘‘He has the knowledge! He has the knowledge!’’ they cried and clapped my father on the back.

  ‘Of course, as the son of a sprite – this was considered proven beyond a doubt – I could no longer stay where I was. I was expected to go out into the world and earn my fortune. Thus you see me standing before you today. And let it be known, I might throw potatoes for a living, but in my heart I will always know that I, Beag Hickory, survived a night on the Cathaoir Feasa and poetry was my reward.’

  Beag took a bow and smiled as his audience broke out into enthusiastic applause. Aluph Buncombe even stood and cheered.

  ‘Bravo,’ he said. ‘Bravo. A fine story, Beag. I do believe that if anyone could survive a night on that mountain, it would be you.’

  ‘How about one of those songs you’re always telling us about?’ suggested Mrs Hoadswood, and Beag’s face lit up and he was off again. As soon as one song was finished he launched into another (what a repertoire he had!) and Mr Pantagus and Aluph, and occasionally Mrs Hoadswood, sang along heartily. Pin, however, was fighting off one yawn after another. Juno tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said.

  Pin hesitated then clambered off the bench and followed her up the stairs. In the hall above, away from the fire, the air was sharp and he felt wide awake again.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Pin.

  ‘Mrs Hoadswood told me to show you to your room,’ said Juno over her shoulder, already halfway along the corridor.

  ‘Wait for me, then,’ called Pin after her and ran to catch up.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A Disturbed Night

  Breathing heavily, Pin followed Juno up countless crooked flights of stairs, around numerous corners and down a multitude of corridors. Mrs Hoadswood’s lodging house was maze-like in its layout and Pin had no idea any more whether he was facing north, south, east or west. Finally his silent guide opened a door on to one last set of stairs that led to a tiny attic room with such low eaves it was hardly possible to stand up fully even in the middle.

  ‘Here you are,’ sa
id Juno with a smile and handed him a candle.

  Pin held it up and looked around with curious surprise that turned immediately to pleasure. Granted the room was exceedingly small but, as a consequence, easily warmed by the fire burning brightly in the grate. There was a skylight in the roof, but it was covered over with frozen snow. The floor was laid with broad planks of ancient oak. A large part of the room was taken up by a low wooden bed with woollen blankets and a thick bolster. At the foot of the bed was a chest upon which sat a white pitcher of water in a basin.

  ‘So, will it suit?’

  ‘It’s marvellous,’ said Pin enthusiastically. ‘Better than anything I could have expected. But . . . how much?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘A shilling a week,’ said Juno.

  He had been paying four at Barton’s.

  ‘There’s a nightshirt on the bed and you’ll find some old clothes in the chest if you need them.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Pin. Although they had not spoken of the night in the Cella Moribundi he felt that there was some understanding between them.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she smiled, and left without any further conversation.

  Pin, suddenly overcome by fatigue, threw off his outer clothes, pulled on the thick nightshirt and climbed into bed. The beams across the ceiling were only inches away from his face, but he didn’t care. He was warm and well fed; what more could a boy want? He hugged himself tightly and congratulated himself on his good fortune. All those weeks at Barton’s with the mice and rats and noise and filth. He was reminded of something his mother used to say: ‘Suffering sweetens the reward.’ She would be pleased to see how well things were working out for him.