The Last Rune 6: The First Stone

by Mark Anthony

  Another hand pawed up my leg. I kicked back with my bare foot, contacting something soft and fleshy, mashing it beneath my heel. By the wet cry of pain I guessed it was his nose. The hands let go.

  Free of his grasp, I wriggled up the passage, which had been carved into the stone not by human hands but by the action of flowing water long ago. There were many such ways, connecting with the crypts and passages that had been hewn beneath the foundations of the city, and like all the children who dwelled down there—the ones who survived, at any rate—I had explored many of them. I knew that crack connected to a drain that spilled out on Grassmarket Street, in the shadow of the castle.

  However, it had been at least a year since I had last used that particular passage, and I had grown. Bony as I was, I came to a bend where my chest became wedged. Panic gripped me, and I feared I would have to shimmy back down. Or worse yet, that I was stuck, and that some smaller child in years to come would find my bones and take the knife and coin and silver cloth even as I had taken them from the corpse of my mother.

  I strained with all the might in my skinny limbs, bracing my feet against either side of the crack. Stone sliced though my shirt and bit into my chest, drawing blood, and the fluid acted as a lubricant. My body popped through the narrows and tumbled down the crack into a larger way—a clay pipe slicked with water and mold. Out of control, I slid down the pipe toward a circle of gray light that rapidly dilated before me. I shot through the hole, landing on hard stones, wet with slime like a newborn baby. Air rushed into my lungs, hard and shuddering, as if they had never drawn a breath before.

  I looked up, squinting against the sullen daylight, which seemed inordinately bright to my dark-adjusted eyes. When was the last time my mother had brought me up to the surface? I could not remember. People walked by, but no one paid me more heed than they would a rat that had just crawled from the sewer. I touched my chest, wincing, and my hand came away red with blood. It hurt, but I had suffered worse. I was alive, and indeed I was like an infant again, wet with ichor, birthed from the canal of the drain, with an entire new life before me.

  It was not, as I would come to learn, the last time in my existence I would be reborn.

  I spent that first morning on the surface lurking in the stairs and walled closes along the Grassmarket. Horses trotted down the muddy street, pulling glossy carriages; trinkets of gold and silver shone behind shop windows. Though tempted to venture closer, I kept to the shadows, watching as folk in fine clothes passed by, conscious of the soiled rags that clad my own raw-boned form. This world was strange to me, and though it seemed fair compared to the labyrinth below, I sensed it was every bit as perilous.

  As the day wore on I grew bolder and crept up the steep curve of Candlemaker Row, passing—unbeknownst to me at the time—the shop where my mother had spent her childhood. It was the rich smells of roasted meat and tobacco, drifting from the pubs that lined High Street, which lured me upwards.

  The afternoon was drawing on toward evening, but it was June and still light. I skulked along alleys like the numerous stray dogs, obeying the instinct to keep out of sight. Finally, as dusk stole through the city, I ducked into a courtyard tucked among tall buildings—a place I would later come to know as Advocate’s Close, and a good bet for picking a rich man’s pocket.

  Stairs led down to a door in which a small window glowed with the warmest yellow light I had ever seen. It was the back entrance to one of the pubs that faced High Street. The door opened, and more light spilled out, along with raucous laughter. A woman with frowsy hair and an ample bosom emptied the contents of a bucket on the cobbles.

  “Here ’tis, ye whelps,” she called. “Coom an’ take it away fer me.” She stepped inside and shut the door.

  Several dogs slunk from the shadows toward the heap of slop. I was faster. I leaped forward, snarling as I brandished the knife I had stolen from my mother, and to my surprise the dogs slunk back, tails between their legs. I grabbed as many of the choicest bones as I could, then ran across the close, leaving the rest for the curs.

  I climbed atop a wall, then ate. The bones were legs of lambs pulled from a soup pot, and there was little meat left on them, meant as they were for the dogs, but to me they comprised a succulent feast. I ate, smacking my lips, enjoying the feel of gristle against my teeth and gums. I cracked the bones against the wall and sucked the marrow out.

  Finally I was done. The dogs were fled. Above, the last gray light was fading from the sky. It was time to find a place to curl up and hide for the night—time to go back below the city. I wiped my greasy hands on my shirt, and as I did I felt a lump within.

  I pulled it out. It was the silver cloth I had taken from my mother. My shirt was stained with blood, yet the silver cloth remained as clean as before. I held it up, marveling at the silken feel. It seemed to catch the twilight, shimmering in the gloom.

  “Hey, you up there!”

  I knew at once there was nowhere to run. The back entrance by which I had entered the close was now barred with an iron gate. Someone must have locked it as dusk fell, and in the rapture of gnawing on the bones I had failed to notice. There were several other doors lining the close, but I was certain all would be locked, save perhaps the back door to the pub. However, I dared not try that way. One big hand on my scrawny neck, and my flight would be in vain.

  The only other way out of the close was by the main archway that led out onto High Street. Two men stood in that archway.

  “Where did you get that?” one of the men said, pointing at the silver cloth.

  He was corpulent, his jowls spilling out of a lace-collared shirt. His velvet coat was just as rich, sewn with brass buttons, and at first I supposed him some sort of lord. When I did not answer him, he turned to his companion. “This will take just a moment.”

  The other remained silent. He was tall, a dark cloak draping his broad shoulders and his face shadowed by the wide brim of a hat.

  The gentleman marched forward. “I daresay that kerchief is too fine for the likes of you, boy,” he said, his breath wheezing, as if he had walked up a long flight of steps rather than just across the close. “Where did you steal it?”

  “It’s mine,” I said. “My mother gave it to me.” It was not exactly the truth, but close enough to it.

  “Liar,” the man spat, and before I could move he snatched the cloth from my hands. A new emotion cut through my fear: anger.

  He pawed at the cloth with thick fingers. “This is fine indeed. I’d warrant you pilfered it from some noble lady. It’s malefactors like you that are ruining this city. I’m a barrister for the king’s court. I’ll have you hauled up to the castle and thrown in the dungeon.”

  I started to push myself off the wall, but then the other—the tall, shadowy one—stepped closer. He raised a gloved hand.

  “Let him go, Brody,” he said, and I froze. His voice was deep and resonant, and for some reason it sent a shiver up my spine. “Let us go inside.” He gestured to the back door of the pub. “I would see to our business.”

  Although the other spoke to the barrister, Brody, I felt certain it was me he was watching, even though I could not see his face.

  Brody glanced back at his companion, and I knew this was my chance. I leaped down from the wall and snatched the cloth from the barrister’s hand. He moved faster than I would have guessed for one so large, whirling around and grabbing for me. I let out a snarl and glared at him. He stumbled back, his face pale in the gloom, and I knew at that moment my eyes flashed green just like my mother’s.

  Clutching the cloth to my chest, I ran for the archway. I was forced to pass so close to the barrister’s companion that I brushed against his black cloak—the fabric was heavy and soft—but he did not stop me.

  I pounded barefoot over the stones of High Street, dodging horses, coaches, and people, expecting a hue and cry to rise up behind me at any moment, but it did not. I careened around a corner onto Candlemaker Row, then ran on, down toward the Cowgate and the fri
nges of the old city. I had left the throngs behind; there were no people to observe me as I scrambled up a stone wall, then dropped down the other side.

  The noises of the city receded. A hush closed around me. Pale stones shone in the dimness.

  This was Greyfriars cemetery—though at the time I did not know its name, only that it was a graveyard and that it suited me. The living would not bother me there, and I feared them far more than I did the dead. I moved deeper into the cemetery, shivering as the sweat brought on by my flight evaporated. Even in summer, nights in Edinburgh were cool.

  I suppose I surprised the grave robber as much as he surprised me. I came from around a large headstone topped with a Celtic cross, and there he was, hunched over his work, muttering to himself as he pried at the door of a mausoleum with a pickaxe. He had already broken away a corner of the stone door.

  Startled, I let out a gasp. The grave robber dropped the pick and turned around, his eyes like saucers in the gloom.

  “Mother Mary, save me!” he said, clutching a marble column, his face a mask of dirt and fear.

  I reached out a hand and tried to tell him it was all right, that I wouldn’t hurt him, but he let out a strangled cry and turned around to flee. As he did, his cloak caught on a hawthorn bush. He jerked free of the garment, then ran away through the graveyard.

  I suppose he thought I was a ghost, pale as I was, scabbed with blood and dressed in rags, and that I had risen from the grave to punish him. Quite the opposite, I was grateful for his actions, as now I had discovered where I could spend the night.

  I retrieved the cloak from the bush, then squeezed through the gap the grave robber had made—too small for a man, but perfect for a thin boy. Only the faintest light followed me into the mausoleum. There was a musty smell, from the rats that had long ago built a nest in a corner, but the odor was faint and old. Crypts lined the marble walls; one of them was open and empty, awaiting a body.

  I gave it mine. Bruised, aching, and tired beyond imagining—yet strangely pleased for a reason I couldn’t quite name— I wrapped myself in the robber’s cloak and lay down inside the cold crypt. The stone seemed to me the softest feather bed, and there I slept like a corpse, born and dead in the very same day.

  Perhaps it was from dwelling among the dead for so long that I came to care so little for the worth of my own life.

  Over the course of those next few years, I slept many nights inside the mausoleum, and in time I came to think of its denizens as my family. I could read a little; my mother had taught me, writing with bits of charcoal on the walls of our niche in rare, peaceful times. Thus I was able to make out some of the inscriptions on the marble crypts.

  There was Lord John Gilroy, surely a fatherly figure, stern of face, and demanding of obedience, but kindly in quiet moments. Old Lady Gilroy had lived a generation earlier, to the ripe age of ninety-two, and so she became my imagined grand-mother, comforting me when all seemed cold and bleak. Then there was little Jennie Gilroy—deceased at the tender age of nine, according to the writing on her crypt—a little sister whom I would fiercely protect, and in whom I could confide when I was lonely and afraid. Sometimes when I lay down inside the crypt to sleep, I would drape the robber’s cloak over me like a burial shroud, then fold my hands together on my breast and pretend I was dead as they were, and at peace.

  Only I was neither. And like some restless and unholy spirit, I would rise from the crypt each day and slip out of the mausoleum to prey upon the world of living men.

  I had no name besides that which my mother had given to me—James—for my bastard-making father the judge had not deigned to lend me his appellation. Nor did it matter. One made one’s own name on the streets of Edinburgh, and I came to be known among the people who dwelled there, in the gutters and in the shadows, as Jimmie Golden—for my fair locks, which were the only inheritance my father had granted me.

  Early on I learned that my hair—thick, yellow as wheat, and curling about my thin shoulders—was my greatest asset. Though my clothes were invariably grimy, I kept my golden locks as clean as I could, dunking my head in one of the city’s fountains even on the coldest days and using my fingers to comb through the ringlets. I knew they fancied it—the gentle ladies who fretted over me.

  I would stand along High Street, positioning myself in a shaft of sun so that the light would shine upon my hair. As a fine carriage passed by, perhaps on its way from the castle down through Canongate to the palace of Holyrood, I would affect a look at once placid and forlorn—a beatific expression I had copied from cherubs painted inside St. Giles cathedral, which I had seen once when I sneaked in through the doors.

  Most of the coaches would clatter on by, but eventually, if I waited long enough, a carriage would stop and a lady would emerge. Sometimes she was young and fresh-faced, dressed in a gown sewn with ribbons, at other times older and motherly. Either way, while I gazed up with plaintive eyes, the lady would cluck her tongue and fuss over me. She would murmur that she had never seen hair so gold, and how I had the face of an angel, and that surely God had touched this poor, wretched orphan.

  Quickly enough, a man—sometimes her husband, sometimes her attendant—would leap from the carriage and race after the lady, gently but forcibly pulling her away from me. The lady would protest, the man would give me an angry look, then he’d pull several coins from his purse, toss them at my feet, and tell me in gruff tones to be off. Not needing to be told twice, I’d snatch up the coins and run.

  The men were red-faced and hard-eyed—I felt no qualms taking their money—but I liked the ladies, especially the younger ones. They smelled like flowers, their voices as gentle as the calling of doves. I liked that they could imagine God had touched me, even though I knew it wasn’t true.

  “It’s the devil in ye, Jimmie, not our Lord, that’s for certain,” Deacon Moody said to me as often as the pretty ladies spoke otherwise, and with greater conviction in his voice.

  I could find Deacon Moody almost any day, fair or foul, along the Grassmarket, the hem of his black robe dragging in the muck, speaking the gospel to all who would listen to him, and taking any alms—coin, food, or preferably ale—where it was given. No one seemed to know for sure if Moody had been a real deacon once, but a few times I heard it whispered he indeed had been one, only that he had committed some heinous act, and was ejected from the Church years ago.

  Whatever the truth, the folk who lived on Edinburgh’s streets—and in the dark ways below—often came to Deacon Moody, asking him to speak a rite of marriage, or to baptize a newborn babe, or to grant forgiveness when the supplicant feared death drew nigh, for the doors of the city’s churches were closed to folk such as they. Nor did Moody ask for any recompense for these acts, much as he sought handouts at other times, and that was what made me think the stories about him were true.

  “Where are you off to, lad?” Deacon Moody said to me one autumn evening as he caught me dashing through the Grassmarket. For nearly four years I had been living on the streets of the city by day and dying by night in Greyfriars cemetery.

  “Nowhere,” I said.

  It was true enough. It wasn’t where I was running to that concerned me, but rather where I was running from: a stair that linked the Grassmarket to High Street, where I had just lifted a man’s purse. I didn’t usually resort to such brazen thievery, but the purse had been full and heavy, dangling from the man’s belt like a ripe fruit ready to be plucked.

  “If it’s nowhere you’re going, then you’ve time to indulge me in a bit of conversation,” Moody said, his voice and breath thick with drink. A falling mist beaded on his black robe and dampened his gray hair. “Now tell me, lad, have you given any further thought to your salvation?”

  I gave him a pert grin. “I sleep in a crypt, Deacon, you know that. So you can’t save me, seeing as I’m already dead.”

  The deacon’s expression, previously jovial, became grim. “No, you’re not, lad,” he said, laying a rough hand on my shoulder. He gazed ar
ound the Grassmarket. “There are many on these streets who are dead indeed. They keep on walking and eating and breathing, but they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be alive, and their hearts have gone cold as iron. All they care for are hard things, like the weight of gold in their pockets, or the feel of a gun in their hands. Beyond grace, they are. But not you, Jimmie Golden. Not yet. Do you hear me, lad?”

  I reached into my own pocket, feeling the heavy purse. Perhaps the man I had stolen it from had planned to use the money to settle an account. Perhaps now he would be thrown in debtor’s prison to rot.

  Dread grew in me, and my own heart felt cold, but I quickly traded the feeling for anger and directed the full force of it at Moody. They had cast him out of the Church for his sins. What did he know? I was a thief, that was all. Grace was not for the likes of me.

  I glared at him, and I know not what he saw upon my face, but he jerked his hand from my shoulder, and a soft word escaped his lips. It might have been, Mercy.

  Moody stumbled back against a wall, and I pushed past him, racing down the Grassmarket. I reached the square where witches and criminals were hanged, then veered right, heading down toward Greyfriars.

  Dusk was thickening to dark, and the mist clung to my eyelashes; I suppose that was how I did not see him standing before the iron gates of the graveyard. I rounded a corner of the wall and ran into him headlong. He was tall, and solidly built. I glanced off him like a bird striking a window and fell dazed to the cobblestones.

  Strong hands picked me up and shook me out, standing me back on my feet.

  “Sorry, my lord,” I said, keeping my eyes down, then started to move past him.

  His hand touched my shoulder, stopping me. “Perhaps you can help me,” he said, his voice deep and thrumming. “I’m looking for someone.”

  I kept my eyes on his black boots, but a shiver coursed through me, for I recognized that voice, though it had been almost four years since I had heard it last, in the confines of Advocate’s Close.