The Apprentices

by Leon Garfield

  “And I’ll even ’ave to buy meself new laces!”

  He peered into the fire he’d just replenished and tried to see castles in the coals. They’ve forgotten, he thought; they’ve forgotten all about Bosun now. He shifted a piece of coal to make a roof for what would have been a fine mansion, but it fell through and the walls collapsed into blazing ruins. “’Ow like life,” whispered Bosun. “’Ow like life!”

  “Bosun?”

  “Yes, miss?”

  Blister had come down; she looked flushed and disarranged from her recent efforts. Even her ears stuck out more than usual; like a pair of cupboard doors, thought Bosun, bitterly. He couldn’t help regarding her as partly the author of his misfortune.

  “Mr. Greenin’ says you’re to gimme a glass of port wine to drink ’is son’s ’elf.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “An’ ’e says you’re to ’ave one yerself.”

  “I ain’t thirsty,” said Bosun, but nevertheless he joined Blister. There was, after all, no law that could make him drink to the infant who had just done him out of his inheritance.

  “’Ere’s to seein’ your face in the glass!” he said defiantly.

  “’Ere’s to the Son of God!”

  “The son of Greening, you mean.”

  Blister shook her head wisely.

  “It’s got to come in a stable, wiv’ free kings an’ a donkey and a special star.”

  “That’ll be the day!”

  “It’ll come, one Christmas Eve. It’s all written down.”

  “And will you be there to ’elp?”

  “I’ll be there,” said Blister, shutting her saucer eyes tightly and swilling down her wine. “Me an’ the ’oly Ghost.”

  She swallowed and opened her eyes, and the two apprentices gazed at each other over the tops of their glasses: the one mournful, the other still full of hope. In one, ambition had fallen; in the other, it still remained in the skies.

  She ain’t really such a bad looker, thought Bosun. In a narrer glass you’d never see them ears!

  “’Ave another glass of wine!” offered Bosun, feeling distinctly less careful over his master’s property than he would have done half an hour before.

  “Yus!” said Blister, thrusting out her long, thin arm.

  Bosun recharged the glasses and smiled somewhat crookedly.

  “’Ere’s to seein’ your face in the glass!” said Blister, politely echoing her companion’s toast.

  “And ’ere’s to the Son of God!” responded Bosun. They drank.

  “’Ave—” began Bosun, when there came a loud knocking on the street door. Bosun frowned and put down his glass. “’Elp yourself,” he said. And then added broodingly, “We all got to ’elp ourselves, miss.”

  He left the parlour and clattered through the shop. Blister felt a gust of cold night air come sweeping in as the street door was opened; she shivered. Bosun returned.

  “It’s for you. Midwife wanted. In a ’urry. ’Ow did they know you was ’ere?”

  “We allus tell a neighbour in Glastonbury Court. They ’ave to know where to find us. Moss!” screeched Blister.

  “What is it, Blister?”

  “Anuvver call! In a ’urry!”

  “Whereabouts?”

  Blister looked inquiringly at Bosun.

  “Said it were in Three Kings Court.”

  “Free Kings Court, Moss!”

  “Three Kings?” Moss’s voice took on an edge of excitement. “What ’ouse?”

  “New Star public ’ouse,” said Bosun.

  “The Noo Star, Moss!” howled Blister.

  “The Star? The New Star?” repeated Moss, from upstairs. “Christmas Eve, three kings, and a new star? Blister! Come an’ fetch yer instryments! Blister! It might be the one! ’Urry, girl, ’urry!”

  Blister and Bosun stared at each other. Curiosity and excitement filled the heart of one apprentice; apprehension and dread clutched at the other.

  Could it really be the one? thought Blister. Never! Three kings and an inn called the New Star weren’t enough. It had to be more than that. Partly relieved, she ran upstairs to collect her instruments.

  “Carry yer bag, miss?” offered Bosun impulsively as Blister came down again in the wake of the fat and trembling Moss.

  “Wot? All the way to Free Kings Court? Won’t they miss you ’ere?”

  “Not now they got a son,” said Bosun bitterly. “Besides,” he went on, brightening a little, “if it’s ’im—you know, the one what we drunk to—I’d like to see ’im. Wouldn’t want to miss ’im. It’d be summat to remember all right.”

  “It won’t be ’im,” said Blister, thrusting out her lower lip. “It can’t be ’im. It needs more’n free kings and a star. . . .”

  “’Urry, Blister! ’Urry!” Moss was already in the street. “What if it’s reely ’im an’ we’re too late?”

  There they went, Moss and Blister, hurrying by starlight, with Bosun clanking the bag of instruments and keeping a watch for footpads and other demons of the night. They hastened up Water Street and into Ludgate Hill. . . .

  “It’s got to be in a stable!” panted Blister.

  “’Appy Christmas, ’Appy Christmas!” called out a pair of watchmen on Fleet Bridge who were warming themselves before a brazier of glowing coals that threw up their faces in a ruddy comfort amid the empty fields of the night.

  “Look, Blister, girl! Shepherds abidin’ . . . and the glory of the Lord shinin’ all round ’em! Make ’aste, make ’aste! I reely think it might be the night!”

  But it took more than that to convince Blister. She shook her head so violently that tiny drops of salt water flew out of her saucer eyes.

  “It ain’t the night! It ain’t!” she muttered as they passed Temple Bar and came into the Strand. “There’s got to be frankincense and—and more!”

  “What’s frankincense?” asked Bosun, ready to come upon it at any moment if only he knew what to look for.

  Blister did not answer; she was in no mood to tempt fate. Moss put on a spurt of speed and scuttled on ahead. Still shaking her head, Blister stalked after, into Southampton Street and Covent Garden. Bosun, burdened with the heavy bag, came panting up beside her.

  “And—and there’s got to be a donkey,” mumbled Blister, putting yet another obstacle in the way of Moss’s heart’s desire, “and a wise man from the East.”

  As they drew near Three Kings Court, her great saucers were awash with new tears. She bit her lip and clenched her fists; and then, wickedness of wickedness, she secretly knotted a corner of her cape and vowed to keep her fingers crossed against the coming, that night, of the Son of God. It had to be she, and she alone, who was to be got with child of the Holy Ghost. She peered furtively up to the stars.

  “’Ere I am,” she whimpered. “Blister! It’s me you’re lookin’ for! Me! Down ’ere. Me wiv the big ears . . .”

  Thus Blister, in her bottomless ignorance, strove with all her might and main to prevent the second coming on that Christmas Eve. That such an event would mark the end of the world’s misery meant nothing to Blister. What would be the good of it? In the middle of all the happiness, she would have remained the one black spot of woe; and made all the darker by the thoughtless brightness all around. Moss would forget her in the excitement; Moss would be on her knees before a stranger, and Blister would be out in the cold. . . .

  At last they came to Three Kings Court, where a single lantern lit up the frontage of the New Star Inn. Despite its name, the New Star was the oldest building in the court. It was left over from the days when Covent Garden had been a convent garden and had supplied the palace of Westminster with fruit and vegetables. Since then, however, tall tenements had come crowding in, imprisoning the New Star and taking away its pleasant garden. Only the coaching yard remained to mark its former glory; but even that was a mockery, as no vehicle could possibly have gained entry to the court through the narrow passage that was all that the greedy builders had seen fit to leave as a
way in.

  There was, in point of fact, a bulky old-fashioned coach still standing, in a corner of the cobbled yard. It was a dreamy, melancholy sight that suggested a great journey abandoned, or a faithful love discarded and forgotten in the haste of new prospects. For a time it had been used as a trysting place, but when the roof had rotted and the seats decayed, it had become a playground for children. . . .

  Under the arch that formed the entrance to the yard stood a grimy, oil-smelling lamplighter who lived nearby. It was he who was holding the lantern and swinging it, turning the night into an earthquake of sliding shadows.

  “She’s in there,” he said to Moss.

  “Where?”

  “In the stable.”

  Moss turned to Blister and Bosun. Her face was ecstatic.

  “It’s no good!” whispered Blister. “There’s got to be a donkey, too!”

  They passed under the arch and crossed the yard. The lamplighter followed them, and his swaying lantern was reflected in the windows of the derelict coach, so that it seemed, for a moment, that the abandoned vehicle had come to life and was inhabited by a procession of spirits bearing candles. . . .

  The innkeeper’s wife, hearing the footsteps on the cobbles, hastened out to meet the midwife.

  “We wouldn’t have known a thing about it,” she explained. “She came in so quiet. It was only on account of her beast braying out that gave her away. And then we came out and found her. . . .

  “Her beast?”

  “She came on a donkey. It’s in the stable now, eating its head off—”

  “A donkey? A donkey! Gawd! Did you ’ear that, Blister?”

  Blister heard. “There’s got to be a wise man,” she moaned softly.

  “She’s some sort of gipsy,” went on the innkeeper’s wife. “She’s as dark as a nut. Come up from Kent, we fancy, selling apples. They thieve ’em out of barns down there and travel into London on their donkeys like regular apple sellers. She must have been took short in the Strand. She was squatting in the old coach when we found her. At first we though she was just poorly . . . so we took her into the stable, as we’d got no rooms in the house at the moment. Then we saw what it was. She’s very near her time. . . .”

  Although the innkeeper’s wife tried to be casual and offhand in her account, it was plain that she, no less than Moss, was moved by the strange and prophetic nature of the circumstance. Perhaps all this had been in her mind when she and her husband had decided to move the gipsy into the stable? Perhaps this is the way prophecies are meant to be fulfilled? Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

  Two lamps, which had once lit the ancient coach on its way, shed their light now over the stall where the gipsy had found refuge in her distress, and a bucket of burning coals had been placed in a swept corner to give some warmth in the freezing night. The sight thus illumined was old and strange, full of mysterious shadows and still more mysterious light. There was the donkey, half emerging from the gloom and bowing its gentle head to nibble at the straw on which its mistress lay. Farther back, half hidden by the wooden partition, stood the innkeeper and two or three travellers who had been putting up for the night. The dim light rendered their faces intent and profound. . . .

  “We’ve not managed to get a word out of her,” confided the innkeeper’s wife, “that we can understand, that is. She gabbled away in her own lingo when we took her out of the coach, but as soon as she saw we meant her no harm, she buttoned up her lip, and she’s been quiet as a mouse ever since.”

  The gipsy was dark brown as a nut. Her hair was black and was braided cunningly over her ears, so that her oval face seemed to have been laid in a basket of black straw. Her eyes were as black as her hair and fixed themselves on Moss with a look that was at once suspicious and defiant. Only the drops of sweat that stood upon her high forehead betrayed that she was in any difficulty or pain.

  “It’s very unusual,” murmured one of the travellers, “for any of her race to be abandoned at such a time. She must be an outcast of some description. . . .”

  “This gentleman seems to know a thing or two,” said the innkeeper’s wife softly. “He’s what you might call a wise man.” As she said this, she gave a curious smile and a little nod to Moss. Blister wept; she stood alone before the inexorable power of fate.

  Moss, her joints crackling like gunfire, knelt down beside the gipsy. Reverently she laid a hand, first on the woman’s brow and then on her rusty black gown, through which she strove to feel the motions of the child within. She looked up at Blister and nodded. Dully Blister took her bag from Bosun and began to lay out her instruments on the straw.

  The gipsy watched the preparation impassively and then transferred her gaze to Blister herself. Hastily Blister looked away. She dreaded that the woman, full of the mysterious gifts of her race, would be able to spy out the devil of jealousy that dwelt in Blister’s soul.

  The gipsy frowned and bit on her red, red lip. Moss, observing this, drew in her breath sharply.

  “Go see nothing’s locked nor tied nor stopped up,” she murmured to Blister. “I think ’e’s comin’ and we must make ’is way straight, like it says.”

  Blister swallowed and retreated from the stall.

  “I’ll ’elp!” offered Bosun excitedly. He attempted to press Blister’s hand under cover of darkness, but Blister shrank away. . . .

  “The donkey!” burst out Bosun, coming up upon Blister suddenly. “You forgot it! But no matter—I untied ’im!”

  Blister stared at the weaselish apprentice with misery. He departed.

  “There was a bit of old ’arness,” he said, appearing beside Blister again, “’angin’ on a ’ook. I unbuckled it!”

  Blister clenched her fists, and the weasel scuttled busily off.

  “There was an ol’ bottle in the corner. . . . I took the cork out! Don’t you worrit, miss! I’ll do what’s needful . . . for the sake of ’im!”

  Blister moaned.

  “There was a copper pan polished so’s you could see yer face in it. But I covered it up!”

  Blister snarled, and Bosun, mistaking the sound for anxiety, reached out to comfort Blister.

  “Miss—miss! There’s a knot got into yer cape! ’Old still and I’ll undo it. There—”

  Helplessly Blister submitted; she dared not let it be known what was in her heart.

  “Blister! Come quick!”

  Moss’s voice was summoning her. She stared wildly towards the stall. The innkeeper and the travellers had moved back, out of decency and respect. A glow seemed to rise up from where the gipsy lay. Suddenly this glow became fiercely bright!

  “I just put a bit of wood on the fire,” murmured the innkeeper’s wife, “to keep her warm.”

  “Never do that!” squealed Bosun. “That were wrong!’ He rushed inside the stall and, burning his fingers, snatched the brand from the burning bucket and doused it in a barrel of water that stood nearby.

  He smiled at Blister as she entered the stall.

  “I ’opes,” he said, sucking his injured fingers, “that ’e remembers this when we all come to be judged.”

  Thereupon Bosun retired to the darkest part of the stable, where, with the innkeeper and the travellers, he awaited the birth of the saviour.

  “Blister!”

  “Yus-m?”

  “Down ’ere! What the matter wiv you, girl? ’Old the lady’s knees. Gently—gently, girl! Remember what she might be! Oh, my Gawd! She’s all but crownin’ and not a word nor a cry! It’s a mirricle, all right!”

  Blister, leaning forward and pressing on the gipsy’s bent knees, put her face close and said fiercely, “Were it the ’oly Ghost? Tell us—tell us!”

  The gipsy’s dark eyes widened and swam with moisture.

  “Blister!”

  “Yus’m?”

  “What are you on at? Don’t fret ’er! It’s comin’! I—I can see ’is ’ead! It’s ’im all right! It must be! ’E’s shinin’!”

  Bosun
, in the shadows, heard the midwife’s rapturous cry. The coming of the saviour instantly produced in his mind thoughts of a world where apprentices were level with their masters, where there was no toil to blunt the nights and days.

  Moss thought of herself in a stained-glass window, offering the Son of God to the black-haired Queen of Heaven, while Blister, her apprentice, saw herself cast into the outer darkness, despised and rejected alike of the Holy Ghost and Moss and all mankind.

  She glared, with fearful desperation, into the gipsy’s eyes. She pretended to yawn, stretching wide her mouth. The gipsy looked suddenly frightened; she tried to clench her teeth against the awful power of Blister’s example. An expression of terrified pleading came into her eyes as she strained. Blister was the devil, encouraging her to lose her child’s soul through her open mouth! A great shudder convulsed her, and she shook her head from side to side.

  “Blister—Blister, my love!” Moss was sobbing. “That it should be us . . . together . . . on this night! Oh, Blister, I knew, when I ’eld you in me arms, that you and me would do summat wonderful! Oh, Blister! That were a blessed night when you was born!”

  As she heard these words, Blister’s heart lifted up. It had been a blessed night when she’d been born! She shut her mouth, and the gipsy bestowed on her a smile of the most wondrous radiance.

  “Scissors, Blister! Where’s me scissors? Quick, girl! What are you at?”

  Bosun, staring towards the stall, believed he saw a radiance rising up as the glorious new life began. Then came the cry, like a thread of gold. . . . Everyone pressed forward eagerly.

  “Oh, Blister!” cried Moss, her voice shaking. “Oh, Blister! We wasn’t worthy after all! It—it ain’t ’im! It—it’s a girl!”

  Hopes raised foolishly settled into ashes. The travellers went back to their rooms, and the gipsy nursed her child while her donkey nodded and nibbled. The innkeeper’s wife, rueful of countenance, bade the midwife farewell, and the old coach in the yard looked deader than ever as Moss, Blister, and Bosun passed it by.