Beneath Ceaseless Skies #186

by Bruce McAllister

  Issue #186 • Nov. 12, 2015

  “Holy Water, Holy Blood,” by Ian McHugh

  “The Guardian’s Head,” by Tamara Vardomskaya

  For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  HOLY WATER, HOLY BLOOD

  by Bruce McAllister

  The fishing village where I was born and would, I felt certain, also die sat at the foot of a towering, battle-worn castle. The castle stared out, as if stunned by time and the folly of men, at the great, green Ligurian Sea. Although we had heard rumors about the Drinkers of Blood, how Rome was falling under their teeth and thirst, the story sounded absurd.

  Such rumors could not matter to our little world anyway. We knew all that we needed to know: that our castle and its seaward fortification would always be prized by the great and jealous city-states of Genoa and Pisa, the Archbishops of Parma, and the famous Medici family of Florence. They had fought over us before. They would again. How could these “Drinkers of Blood” matter? They were far away and, like most rumors, would fade with time.

  At the moment, our castle was in the hands of Genoa again. Peacefully so. This did mean, however, that Genoese soldiers occupied the castle and would not let us boys play there. So Father Tamillo explained to us, after mass in our village’s tiny stone church—and more than once, since he did enjoy talking.

  The Genoese occupation of our castle had occurred a week before the night in question and bore no relation to it. Why would it? The maritime maneuvers of city states had nothing to do with a message a father might send to a son he had never seen.

  I was standing on the wharf below the castle, waiting. I had no idea the message was coming, so I was not waiting for it. Instead, I was waiting for my mother to finish entertaining her last guest of the night—a man from the village who, like so many others, had a wife who could not make him happy. I loved my mother and knew she entertained men only so that we might have the florins we needed; but I felt what I always felt when I was alone on the wharf and waiting: how much I missed him, my father, though I had never met him and knew little about him. He had spent but one night with my mother, long enough to make me, and then had passed on to the north, to Lombardy.

  He had been a strange man, people said—with hair the color of bright rust, an accent from the cold countries far to the north, and a musical instrument he played just once in the square. With its leather bladder and pipes, it had sounded, so they said, like a dying animal, though not one afraid of death.

  As I waited for my mother, I tried not to scratch my rash, which had always plagued me and which the salty air annoyed. I stared out at the inky sea, listening to the waves lapping at the wharf. What I heard must have been my imagination: Thinking so intensely of my father I was hearing what I wished to hear, not what was really there: A sound like a dying animal....

  It was indeed there, however, and it was growing louder. It was not the moan of some great sea-beast but rather the squeak and sigh of something much smaller. Dying, yes, but not grandly.

  The man approaching me now under the torches of the wharf was dressed like a minstrel but without the bright tunic or cap minstrels wore, as if preferring not to be noticed except by his strange music. He was holding a little cornamusa made of a sheep’s bladder and two pipes. The music came from it as he blew through the bigger pipe to fill the bladder, which he compressed with his left arm to make it sing and groan. He didn’t bother with the little pipe. As he reached me, stopping but a stride away, his lips left the pipe, and he smiled as if he knew me.

  Looking around once, he said:

  “Hello, Emilio.”

  How did he know my name?

  “Hello,” I answered hesitantly.

  “I am not sure where to begin,” he said. “Wherever I begin, you will not believe me—at first anyway. I shall begin with this: That your father, whom you must think of even if you do not know him, has sent me. If you are your father’s son, which you are, you will do what I ask because he is the one who asks it, not I. I am but a messenger, and not one as commanding as your father would be were he here, cornamusa and all.”

  It was true. I did not believe him.

  He wanted something from me—that I understood—but what? He was spinning a tale—one about my father, whom perhaps he had heard about from a villager—so that he might obtain what he wanted. But what might that be? That I follow him in the night to my father, so that on our journey he could attack me? But why? I had nothing worth stealing.

  “You do not believe me. Yet if you do not do not believe me, Christendom will fall to the Drinkers of Blood and their dark communion. And you, my boy, for the remainder of your life, will know that it fell because you did not believe. I do not know how else to say it, cruel though these words may sound.”

  I squinted, trying to see his face in the torchlight. Understanding, he stepped closer. It was not a face I knew. It was aquiline and weathered, and certainly a stranger’s. His smile turned serious as he said:

  “Do you not have a rash on your skin, which, though unpleasant, warns you of danger when others cannot sense it?”

  This was true. My mother did not like to hear of it, so I had stopped telling her; but the boys I sometimes played with had witnessed it: there were things I knew that a boy should not. A viper we might have stepped on in the olive groves. A thief fleeing for his life from the market in the square, about to collide with us in his panic. A poisonous bush. A rabid dog. All because my rash—which was red, but also bluish—itched badly at such times, warning me, and I could not but mention it.

  But how would a stranger know this? Even if another boy had told his parents, how would this man know?

  “Did your rash tell you to beware of me—that I am a danger?”

  “No.....”

  “Trust me, then, Emilio. Your father, who knows all about you, has sent me to tell you that you are the only one—because you are more than his son—who can, if you do what must be done, stop the Drinkers on the shores of a great northern lake. There, light and darkness will meet to decide our fates, and there your father awaits you even now....”

  I wanted to believe him and thought I could feel it on my skin, the truth of what he was saying. I wanted to meet my father, to know him at last, to see hair the color of mine, and to discover, too, whether his ears were as big as mine.

  “Do you believe me now?” he asked at last.

  I nodded.

  “There is not as much time. You have more leagues to travel than any boy should have to, but you must travel them soon or the events the world needs will not occur.

  “You must find the holiest water in the land and take it with you. Otherwise, nothing else will be possible. You must go to the Island of Elba and find the Child Pope Boniface. You must reach him as soon as you can, for only he has the holy water you will need. From there you will go to Siena, to find a horse-racing girl named Caterina, who—”

  “Why would il Papino give me holy water?” I asked.

  “Because of who you are.”

  “My father’s son?”

  “No. Because you are the emissary of the spirit of La Compassione, without whose blessing the Drinkers will prevail.”

  I did not know how to answer.

  * * *

  Looking behind him in the darkness, as if hooves or claws might suddenly sound on the cobbles, he gave me a leather pouch. From it, my hand shaking, I removed a long, dark fang—what could only have been a dragon’s.

  “It is no dragon’s,” he said, as if hearing my thoughts. “There are no dragons.”

  “But this tooth is real,” I answered in awe. />
  “Because the creature it belonged to is real.”

  The tooth was as long as my hand and tied to a short leather cord. I did not want to look away from it, but the pouch held other things. I pulled them out: Ten ducats. Ten florins. And two empty glass vials, capped with cork and the length of my finger.

  “If the Child Pope does not have glass like these, you will need these. You do not need to wear the tooth of the great beast for protection, for you have other ways; but wear it now, Emilio, so that it does not break the glass should you fall on the pouch.”

  As I stared at the tooth, I asked: “Why are you helping my father?”

  “Because he taught me how, with this little cornamusa, to call the creatures of the lake,” he answered. “And because he needs my help now, just as he needs yours.....”

  As the tooth continued to hold me mesmerized, he gave me other directions—ones I barely heard. When I looked up again, he was gone. I could hear his running feet in the darkness and, beyond them, something heavier running, too.

  He is drawing them away from you, a voice said to me. That you might be safe. That you might take the journey your father needs you to take....

  I had heard that voice my entire life—telling me, among other things, that my father awaited me somewhere—but I had always thought it was daydream.

  It was not, I saw now.

  I went ahead and obeyed the man. I put the leather cord and its tooth around my neck.

  As he left, the stranger had said, “We will be waiting for you at the lake named Como, Emilio. Do not lose faith.”

  Of all the words he had spoken to me, it was these that most helped me to believe.

  * * *

  I left the next morning without telling my mother. I wanted to tell her, but I also knew she would try to make me stay. That I could not do. How to believe the tales of a minstrel in the night, but how not to—if it meant seeing my father? It made me sad to look down at her sleeping body, but she would be safe in the village. I understood this even though I was a boy. The Drinkers, if they existed, had no reason to bother common villagers; they were interested in larger matters. If what the minstrel said was indeed true—that I was important to a battle to come, that I was an emissary of a spirit that would matter in that battle—the Drinkers would follow me and not remain here.

  I thought of telling Father Tamillo, because he had taught me so much about the world beyond our little cove and castle. But I did not want to argue with him either, and he too might try to make me stay.

  I had ways to protect myself, the stranger had said. Was this true? If it were, did he mean more than my rash, scaly as it was, and the itching of my skin?

  How to know until danger found me?

  I took my dog, Stappo, stocky and ugly as he was, because he wanted me to. He knew I was leaving. He wished to go with me, and I wished him to go. It was that simple.

  * * *

  How we reached Elba, when the odds were against us, is another story for another time. But reach it we did, as stowaways in the night on a quarry barge, sleeping on the beach at Porto Azzurro in an abandoned stone hut.

  What had the stranger said before he left, in his bee-swarm of instructions? “You will find Il Papino in a crumbling church with windows as narrow as slits and a priest’s residence attached. You will find it on the side of tiny Monte Castello, just above Porto Azzurro, the harbor you must sail to, however you manage it.

  “Do not go too far up the mount. The church is hidden on the leeward side in the tall trees, ones the sea winds cannot dwarf. It is the other churches, Emilio—bigger, grander, less humbled by time—that interest both rulers and commoners... and creatures who were once men.”

  When we woke at dawn, it was from dark dreams, but we headed bravely toward Monte Castello.

  * * *

  The monte in question was barely big enough to be a mountain and therefore took little time to reach. Its leeward side, a sheer cliff of rock, protected the little forest of tall, dark trees the stranger had spoken of. We chose the path that led toward that darkness. I looked for a flash of marble or glass in the trees but saw nothing. We walked on, entering the forest, and still caught no glimpse of chiseled stone among the trees.

  Sighing, I stopped. Looking at Stappo, I said, “I certainly have no idea where to go; but you, Stappo—you have the blood of hunters in you. That face of yours. Such eyes. Such jowls. Such pride and courage. You know what the tooth means even when I still do not. Take us where we need to go. Please. I cannot do it by myself.”

  At this, Stappo took off, heading into darkness. Though I called to him to wait for me, he did not. Was he already hearing voices in the distance that I could not, smelling smells I could not? Should I worry? It was men who waited in the trees for us—not monsters—was it not? A Child Pope and those attending him?

  I hurried on, hoping to hear Stappo’s bark. When I heard it, it was far away, muffled by the trees. I could not see him. The trees were taller now, the shadows deeper.

  * * *

  When I spotted him at last, he was a speck of white among the trees. He did not run to me but turned and disappeared.

  I followed. When he exploded from the bushes near me, proud and excited, I looked to my left and saw it: a stone edifice begging for the sun. An oak, the oldest of this part of the forest, towered above the church itself, its roots in the courtyard. Other oaks, nearly as tall, darkened the courtyard, and a priest’s residence seemed to hold up the church’s walls. Laurel and younger oaks would have hidden it all had Stappo not told me to look. It was a perfect place for il Papino to hide. Only minutes from the harbor, he might as well have been on another island entirely.

  * * *

  Men who had to be guards, though they were dressed in simple robes, looking like burly monks, stood by the church’s wooden doors and watched us approach. When we reached the marble steps that led up to the doors, I did not hesitate. I climbed the steps quickly, feeling six pairs of eyes on me. How must have I looked to them—a boy with a pouch striding as if the world depended on him?

  The first guard was huge, with big calloused hands, deep-set eyes and a scar on one cheek. Men like these were not in the business of smiling, so he frowned.

  “I am here to see the Pope Boniface the Twelfth,” I said.

  The man jerked in surprise and frowned even more. “Il Papino isn’t here,” he answered. “He is in Rome, of course. That is where any pope would be. We are but monks, living lives of silent prayer, except when a boy intrudes.”

  “I must see il Papino.”

  The big man snorted, looking at the two other men, who snorted, too. “You cannot see someone who is not here. Even if he were on this island, why would His Eminence grant an interview to a dirty boy with his equally dirty dog?”

  He laughed at his own joke. The others grinned.

  I knew what I was supposed to say. I knew what the stranger in the alley would have me say.

  “Because of this,” I answered, reaching into my shirt, pulling out the tooth, and holding it in my hand for him to see.

  At first the guard did not seem to notice it, or if he did, he did not know what it was. In that moment I felt certain my journey had been a mistake, that the man in the alley was not really sent by my father but was a liar or madman.

  But then the guard’s eyes widened, the pupils blooming like tiny black flowers, and he straightened, stepped back, and crossed himself.

  “La Compassione....” one of them muttered.

  The minstrel had used this same name, insisting I was “La Compassione’s emissary.” What did this mean?

  “He carries proof!” the big guard was saying to the others.

  “Who is he?”

  “The Emissary...”

  “Whose...?”

  “Silenzio!” the big guard shouted, and the others fell silent, though all three continued to stare at me.

  I let go of the tooth, letting it hang for all to see.

  The big guard’s voi
ce was different now, kinder if nervous, as he asked, “What is your name, ragazzo?”

  “Emilio Musetti... of L’Erico... near Spezia.”

  “May I ask what you want of His Eminence?”

  “I must ask him for something only he can give me.”

  “And what might that be—so that I may tell him?”

  I started to answer, but, as I looked at the other guards, I saw something in the eyes of the third—as if a shadow were there, watching and listening.

  Again, I knew what to say. Was La Compassione—spirit or being—telling me what to say?

  “That,” I said, “is not a question you should ask of one who carries this, Signore.” I gestured at the tooth.

  It must have been true, for the guard bowed. “Forgive me. I will take you to his Eminence. I must, however, ask you to leave your dog here. As you may have heard, il Papino is afraid of dogs.”

  I had not heard this. How could I have, in a tiny village so far from Rome?

  The poor guard, I could tell, was afraid I would insist on keeping Stappo with me, and then what would he do—caught between the Pope’s fear and the demands of a boy who was, he believed, not just any boy?

  “If I leave him with you, will you feed him and give him water?”

  “Of course, Master Musetti.”

  I leaned over, looked Stappo in the eye, and said, “I will be all right. Stay with this man. I will come for you before the sun sets.”

  No dog likes to be told to stay when it wishes to come. But after a complaint or two, Stappo lay down on the marble and did not follow as the big man led me inside to even darker shadows.

  * * *

  When my eyes adjusted, helped by the feeble light from the church’s broken windows, I found the guard again and followed him to the altar, where we stopped. There had once been gemstones on the altar’s figures of Christ and Mary, and perhaps, too, on the five saints that stood around them. But these had been looted long ago by one or more men who believed they needed florins more than sanctuary or grace.

  To the right of the altar was a small wooden door. The guard knocked. When a boyish voice answered on the other side, the big man said respectfully, “Forgive me, Your Excellency. La Compassione has arrived.”