The Book of Thomas - Volume One: Heaven

by Robert Boyczuk

  Kite was right, but that didn’t excuse murder. I said so.

  “It had to be done.”

  “Why?” I wanted a reason, needed a reason, as much for myself as for Kite. When I’d heard what the boy had tried to do, I felt murder in my own heart, too.

  “I cannot tell you. Leastways, not yet.”

  I turned, and Kite reached through the bars and snagged my arm, pulling me back. Our faces were centimetres apart. “There is war brewing, Thomas.”

  War? Was Kite justifying his murder as an act of war? There was no conflict, had been none for a generation. Not since heretics had challenged the doctrine of infallibility. But, as the Third Addendum documented, their improvised army had been shattered, and the few Fallists that had survived had been castrated and banished—with all of their kith and kin—to the Spheres of the Lesser Apostles.

  Kite, as always, seemed to anticipate how the wheels of my mind turned. “Not the Fallists.”

  “Then who?”

  He hesitated, and I pulled back, ready to walk away. “Lower Heaven makes ready.”

  The Angels were preparing for war? The idea was absurd. Lower Heaven stood apart from the affairs of man. And who would be audacious enough to defy the Angels, and in so doing, God? The Fallists had tried to overthrow the Holy See, never Lower Heaven. Indeed, their greatest heresy was in claiming the one true God for themselves.

  “I speak the truth, Thomas. The Angels are less than you think, and there are men who believe themselves more than they are.”

  I recalled the refugee camp; how easy it would be to lose faith there. Their numbers were great, and growing—along with their desperation. “The Meek?”

  Kite shook his head. “They’re weak and disorganized and poorly armed. If they figure into the struggle, it will be as pawns.”

  If it was not a resurgence of the Fallists, or the new found desperation of The Meek, then—

  “The Church.”

  Kite did not respond; as usual his expression gave away nothing—and confirmed everything.

  The Church at war with Lower Heaven. The monstrosity of the idea made me reel. I staggered away from the cage. Somehow, I managed the ladder. No one tried to stop me when I entered Meussin’s cabin. Ali was abed and unconscious, sweat bathing her pallid face below a bloodied compress. She looked barely alive. I fell into a chair by her side, and took her cold, limp hand between mine.

  And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.

  Could such madness be upon us?

  Perhaps it was my agitated state, but only then did I realize I had neglected to ask Kite the most important question of all: had he murdered that poor boy for the sake of the Church—or at the behest of Angels?

  An Impromptu Trial

  I’ve been told that trials at sea are usually speedy affairs, regardless of the outcome. And so it was with Kite’s. However, before the trial commenced, the better part of the morning was spent wrangling over issues of jurisdiction. In civil matters, lay judges ruled; in all else, Clergy. Crimes of a venial nature were presided upon by Parish Priests and, for the lesser offences, Deacons, while crimes that endangered the mortal soul were judged by Bishops. As far as I knew, this jurisprudence applied everywhere, save in Heaven and at sea where only a captain’s absolute authority could maintain order. So it was only after a heated debate that two chairs were placed behind a table where ordinarily there would have been only one. Here sat both Bishop Singleton and Captain Richardson. As was the custom, the trial took place on the weather deck, for God and all to witness.

  It was a cloudless day, and the wind barely plucked at the sails. The Captain scowled, irritated with the tepid wind, as well as with necessity of the trial; yet not so irritated that he was willing to cede authority to the Bishop. For his part, the Bishop, unused to such open proceedings, endured the warm day beneath his heavy robes, and perspired heavily.

  The trial was relatively straightforward. Kite told his story, and was then cross-examined by the judges who probed for inconsistencies, of which there were none. When Kite stepped down, the Bishop said in a sonorous voice, “Are there others who will bear witness?”

  None did.

  In the absence of other witnesses to contradict his story, Captain Richardson declared himself satisfied that events transpired as Kite has said. The Bishop was not convinced, however, rendering the two judges deadlocked.

  In the end, the oldest form of sea justice prevailed: it came to a vote. It went in Kite’s favour, ten to one. The captain, in what seemed an attempt to simultaneously placate and nettle Bishop Singleton, still fined Kite a silver bishop for the loss of a working crew member, and in a spate of generosity earmarked it for the family of the deceased. Kite proffered a second, and asked that it be divided amongst the crew as compensation for the extra work that had fallen to them. I thought this unwise for two reasons: it further irked the Bishop, and I noticed that Kite’s purse, once fat with coin, now seemed to weigh next to nothing. Nevertheless, I knew Kite always had his reasons, so I brushed away my misgivings.

  By noon, the wind had picked up and we made good time; shortly, a tip of land hove into view. Well before sun-off, we made anchor close by a fishing village not unlike the one from which we departed, except that it did not fall under the shadow of an Assumption and here desert had given way to sere terrain. Captain Richardson bade us depart first; I suppose he did this to give Kite a chance, should the Bishop try to gain sole authority and overturn the verdict once ashore. I did my best to help as the crew rigged pulleys so that Ali, who remained unconscious, might be lowered to the dinghy on two planks secured with rope. When Kite disembarked, the captain did not shake his hand.

  In short order, Kite had hired the only pony and cart available in the village, and we set out for the Assumption, which lay inland several kilometres. As we crested a hill just outside the village, I looked back to see Meussin leaning on the taffrail of The Charon, following our progress. (Years later, when I witnessed the Christening of a recently constructed vessel, I startled when I saw a figurehead on the prow that matched Meussin’s pose and visage so closely it could have been her twin, and I wondered if perhaps it had been carved by one of the sailors who crewed The Charon that day.) Below Meussin, on the weather deck, the Bishop seemed as discomfited as he had been ten days earlier as we’d waited to embark, for he was alternately railing at the Captain and individual members of the crew, who seemed in no hurry to assemble and transfer their party’s considerable number of bags and trunks to the dinghy.

  The villager, whose cart we’d hired, never spoke a word on the journey; when Kite paid him the agreed upon amount, and then an extra brass deacon to take his time returning, he tipped his cap. “Godspeed,” he said.

  Carrying Ali on her makeshift litter, we passed beneath the portcullis and into the gloom of the Assumption.

  Rome

  “He’ll be back.”

  Lark looked hopeful at my words, but the Jesuit merely shrugged. “You wouldn’t be the first boys abandoned here—nor, I fear, the last.”

  We had been waiting for Kite in the upper ante-room for near an hour. But that was only a guess. Like all Assumptions, there were no windows, and so no way to accurately gauge the passage of time.

  “We’re going to be in the choir of the Cappella Sixtina,” Lark said, apropos of nothing. “Ignatius promised.”

  The Jesuit raised his eyebrows, giving us the once over. “You ought not tell lies, boy.” He looked irritated, perhaps at having to keep an eye on us.

  “We are,” Lark insisted.

  “The schola cantorum does not take boys unheard,” the Jesuit said. “It is rare for them to grant an audition, and rarer still for them to accept a boy. As best as I can remember, they have taken only two new boys in the last five years.”

  Lark looked crestfallen. But this didn’t concern me, knowing that I wasn’t for the choir; I was more anxious about how clo
se on our heels Bishop Singleton might be. I knew Rome to be a large, complicated city; even with Ali’s litter, once away from the Assumption it would be easy for us to disappear into the labyrinthine tangle of streets. I trusted Kite—up to a point—and I’d no doubt he had a much better idea how soon the Bishop would arrive. Even so, I couldn’t push away my worry. What if something had happened to him? I realized I was tapping my foot, and that the Jesuit was watching me do so. I stopped. For his part, Lark looked on the verge of tears. I was trying to think of something reassuring to say to him, when, from the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Ali stir on her litter. The light in the room was poor, and when I looked directly, she lay as motionless as she had since the attack. I had to stare for a full minute before I detected the slight rising and falling of her chest that confirmed she still lived.

  Lark began sniffling.

  Compassion must have overridden the Jesuit’s irritation, for he said to Lark, “Perhaps he just stopped for an ale. . . .”

  I was about to suggest that I go in search when there was a pounding on the door. The Jesuit shuffled over and opened it. Kite strode back into the room. Without a word, he handed me his halberd and scooped up Ali. We followed him into the ante-chamber.

  “And what am I supposed to do with this?” the Jesuit shouted after us, waving his hand at the abandoned litter.

  “Whatever you wish,” Kite replied, and I heard the Jesuit blow out an exasperated breath before slamming and barring the door.

  We crossed the room to the inner portcullis. A Garde posted there shouted up an order, and the portcullis was jerked upwards, the rasp of iron on stone deafening. A moment later we passed under the second portcullis and I blinked at the light, a shock to my eyes even though it was now dusk. And so we emerged from the Assumption, passing between two more Gardes stationed outside, and into the glorious tumult that was Rome.

  I have been in a good many cities, both large and small. Up to that point, Los Angeles Nuevo had been the largest. Though no official census exists, I feel fairly confident in saying, based on its extent, that it was home then to no less than a hundred thousand souls. Rome had ten times that number—and perhaps more. There were people everywhere, and with them the jostling cacophony of their lives. The murmur of conversation subsumed us, mixed with laughter, voices raised in anger and, now and then, the jolt of an anguished cry cutting through it all like a knife.

  No one paid the least attention.

  I thought it equally strange that no one gave us a second glance, Kite carrying Ali, her head wrapped in a bloody dressing, and I struggling with a halberd twice my size, its butt dragging across the cobbles of the street. But I didn’t know Rome then.

  Kite pushed on, elbowing relentlessly through the crowd; Lark and I trailed in his wake. I found it hard to keep Kite in sight, for I was looking up as much as ahead, struck by the height of the buildings. I craned my neck, gawking, as I’m sure all visitors unaccustomed to such sights do, for I’d never seen lay structures so high. Whereas most cities boasted edifices no more than a few stories (and those always dwarfed by Cathedrals and Church spires), many of the buildings here had half a dozen or more floors of apartments. And these were indisputably lay structures, for at the base of each building awnings covered all nature of dry goods and foodstuff laid out on painted boards, the vendors hawking their wares incessantly, the bustle of commerce unmistakeable. Smells, too, assaulted my senses, a hundred novel odours battling for attention. The swirling richness of it all stupefied me.

  Kite turned down an alley so narrow we had to walk single-file. Once, we had to turn sideways and press ourselves against the wall as a group of revellers brushed past us going in the opposite direction. We stuck to narrow lanes until the sky had darkened. Rising on either side now were geometric patterns of yellow squares as lamplight bled from windows. We came to a large building that stood detached from others and boasted rows of arched windows. It was also more lavish, made of a kind of stone I’d never seen before, grey and veined with white, smooth and cool to the touch. (I later learned this was marble, and as far as I am able to determine, Rome is the only place in the world where such stone is to be found.) Kite led us around back. I wondered if Lark and I would be sleeping in a stable, and if Ali was to be hidden there, too, like so much excess baggage.

  I needn’t have worried.

  Kite hustled us around the clamour of a cart filled with caged chickens, and through a broad back door into the steam and chaos of a massive kitchen; he exchanged nods with a fat man in an apron who seemed to be choreographing the mayhem. We followed a passage away from the bedlam and climbed a narrow set of stairs up several flights, emerging in a quiet, beautifully appointed corridor, decorated with stone pillars and paintings depicting all the stations of the cross. Between the paintings, on either side of the hall, were numbered doors.

  Kite took us to the one labelled 512. Holding Ali with one arm as women hold infants, he pulled a large key from his pocket, slipped it into the sturdy lock, and led us in. In the front room there were two beds; another room in the back held two more. A third, smaller room, contained a washbasin and copper tub large enough to fit us all.

  It was an inn, of course. I did not recognize it right off as such, having never seen one so magnificent, nor expecting that we would be staying in a princely place like this. I did not yet know that, as nice as it seemed to me then, this was merely one of a hundred such indistinguishable places to be had in Rome.

  Kite laid Ali on a bed; then, more gently than I would have believed, undid the dressing over her wound. The gash, although it had ceased bleeding, looked awful; the flesh gaped, wrinkled along the edges, revealing the sheen of skull beneath. I sat on the edge of the other bed and watched Kite expertly change her dressing—and noticed that aside from towels and linen, a supply of fresh dressings had also been laid out in the bathroom.

  Not long after that, a furtive-looking man in a black overcoat knocked on our door and Kite let him in without hesitation. He must have been a doctor, for he carried a doctor’s kit—and a sick call cross. I had seen these crosses before and knew they usually held two candles and a small bottle of holy water used in the Sacrament of the Sick liturgy to anoint the dying. He placed bag and cross on the bed next to Ali, then pulled back the new dressing and took a quick look at Ali’s wound. He must have noticed my agitation, for he picked up the cross and said, “I always bring this as a precaution,” then handed it to me. “I won’t be needing it today. Please put it on the table by the door so I don’t forget it.” I did so, with great relief, while he washed up.

  I watched as he pulled open her lids and examined her eyes, then palpitated the wound with dexterous fingers. I guessed (and found out later I was correct) that he was checking for cracks or depressions in the skull that would signal more serious trauma. He tilted her head first one way then the other, looking behind both her ears, though for what I couldn’t say. At one point he leaned forward, and squinted at the side of her head, as if he’d found something odd, though whatever he might have been staring at was nowhere near her wound. When he had finished his exam, he nodded to himself as if satisfied, and set to stitching up Ali’s wound. After applying a fresh dressing, he cleaned himself up, reached into his bag, and handed Kite a bottle containing a cloudy ointment.

  “Change the dressing twice a day, and each time spread this unction on it so that it covers the wound.” He pulled a small vial from his bag, and handed it, too, to Kite. “Wait a day or two. If the boy does not come round, try this. It produces a powerful odour that sometimes shocks the spirit to wakefulness.”

  The doctor packed up his things and stood. “There’s a circular scar on his temple. An old one.” He stared at Kite, and I wondered if this was his way of enquiring about his patient’s medical history.

  “He joined our company recently,” I said, wanting to be helpful. “He’s an orphan, and was reluctant to speak about his past.”

  “I can imagine,” the doctor said.
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  Kite looked troubled. “This old wound presents no danger?”

  “It’s not a wound, but the vestiges of a surgical procedure. A trepanning, to be precise. A circular section of the temporal bone was cut out, and then replaced with something harder and smoother. A silver Bishop, would be my guess.” He made a small circle with thumb and forefinger to show its size. “The scar is clean and barely visible, and the skull beneath has knit extremely well.”

  “Then why mention it?”

  “Because this kind of surgery is a last recourse for those possessed—if the devil cannot be ousted any other way.”

  “I do not believe in the devil,” said Kite, “and I’ve no interest in the boy’s past.”

  “Nor I,” answered the doctor. “But many do not survive such a procedure. And those who do often find their faculties severely impaired. Yet this boy, as you’ve told me, is in every respect normal. I’d also have expected his scarring to have been more severe. Much more severe.” He shook his head, as if in disbelief, then looked at Kite expectantly. “I would consider it an honour,” he said slowly, “to meet a surgeon of such skill.”

  When Kite said nothing, the doctor sighed. “Too bad.” He snapped his bag closed. “Well, then,” he said, “I will take my leave.”

  Kite followed him to the door and thanked him. Withdrawing his purse from his pocket, Kite upended its contents into his palm: two silver bishops and a single brass deacon. He offered it all to the doctor—who refused. Kite continued to hold out the coins and the doctor as steadfastly refused to look at them. A history of debts, too long and convoluted to untangle, seemed to hang between the two.

  “Even if things go well, it could take several weeks for a full recovery,” the doctor said, pushing Kite’s hand away. “And we both know nothing in Rome comes cheap.”