Then an image came of herself surrounded by the sick and wounded, healing them; maybe this was what God meant for her. Her life fell into place, all the disjointed or missing pieces now so clear—not part of the Church, but rather part of the world, sharing her gifts and her training as a healer. She would be a saint. But not yet. Not now. Not until she was ready.
The minnesinger pulled on her arm. Mouse caught him off balance and shoved him back under the portico, her arm pressed against his chest, her face inches from his own.
She laughed as the tickle of power ran up her throat. “It was the blessed Ludmila who came to you and restored your sight, a gift for all the joy you bring to others.”
His eyes went blank for a moment and Mouse was scared she had undone the miracle, but then he saw her, embraced her. “I can see! The blessed Ludmila has given me my sight!” And he went dancing into the rain.
“You are soaked!” Gitta said as Mouse spun around the room minutes later, spraying rainwater everywhere. “Why so happy, my Lady?”
“It is my birthday and Father Lucas has come back to me!” She grabbed Gitta’s arms and swirled with her.
“Today is your name day? All Hallows’?” Gitta asked breathlessly as she started to remove Mouse’s wet clothes.
“Not a name day—I do not have one of those—but my actual birthday.”
“Well, God bless you, my Lady. And glad I am that it is a happy one. You deserve a bit of happiness after all that trouble in the woods.”
“Thank you, Gitta.” But the gift that filled Mouse’s mind was the one she meant to give Luka as soon as she figured out how to get the monks to let her in at Strahov.
Later, at the feast before the All Hallows’ vigil, she asked Ottakar once more to get her admittance to the monastery.
“No,” Ottakar said again. “I told you I will not interfere with the Brothers.” But he was smiling. How could he not? Mouse beamed with joy in a way he had not seen since the attack on her in the woods. Her playfulness and confidence drew him in like a song, like that night he had watched her dance.
“But it is my birthday, my Lord.” Her eyes sparked.
He leaned in closer, turning his back on Lord Rozemberk and oblivious to the crowd in the Great Hall, who all talked about the minnesinger’s miracle.
“Then tell me something I might give you.”
Mouse felt his breath slide across her cheek and down the back of her neck. She saw herself in his eyes. She knew what she wanted. And what he wanted.
But then he looked over her shoulder and straightened. “Welcome, Father Lucas.”
The older man bowed. “Thank you for inviting me, my Lord,” he said and then turned his attentions to Mouse. “May I have a moment with you?”
“My Lady Emma,” Ottakar said. “Be quick. We leave for the vigil at St. George’s soon.”
“Of course, my Lord.” Mouse bowed.
Father Lucas led her down the hallway and into the chapel, guiding them to a bench at the back.
“I heard about the minnesinger. What have you done?” he asked.
“I do not know what—”
“The girl I left at Teplá told no lies and no half-truths either. The woman I find at court has told me little else.”
Embarrassed by how easily he saw through her and shamed by the truth of his accusations, she felt her cheeks flame, but rather than confess her sins, she lashed out. “Reap what you sow, Father. Is that not what you teach your flock?” She felt the power, fully awake since her afternoon miracle, purr and stretch in her chest.
“I do not understand. What have I sown? And are you no longer part of my flock?”
“I never have been, according to Mother Kazi,” she spat back.
“Ah, I see. You turn the knife on those who hurt you. But I have taught you to do better. And when have I ever hurt you, Mouse?”
The gentleness of his voice and the care in his face swallowed up the angry words she meant to fling, and something inside her uncoiled just a little so she could breathe.
She hid her face in her hands. “I am sorry, Father.” And she told him everything, everything except about the baby; that secret was hers alone. “I did not mean to do any of it, Father. Not the lies. Not Luka. Not giving the old singer his sight. But that was a good thing, was it not?”
“Oh, little andílek—”
Mouse sighed, sorry for the disappointment in his voice. “You call me that, your little angel, is that what I am?”
“Have I not told you that you are God’s creature? Is that not enough? To live by his will? To do good?”
“But I did good, Father. Even Christ restored sight to the blind.”
“Even Christ? Is that what you think of yourself now?”
Mouse blushed. “No, I did not mean it that way. I meant that others have done miracles. St. Wenceslaus gave a blind woman her sight. St. Procopius drove out demons. St. Ludmila—”
“Ludmila was driven from her homeland and then strangled. Wenceslaus’s own brother hacked him to pieces.” His frustration and fear sharpened his words. “Is that what you want? I would not have it for you.” He shook his head angrily.
Mouse thought about the sheep and the cows waiting for slaughter in the bailey.
“But if it is God’s will? He gave me these gifts, should I not use them?” she asked quietly.
This time, Father Lucas lowered his head into his hands. “It is not safe, Mouse. You saw how the people at Teplá treated you, and they had only seen your oddness as a child with no idea what you were truly capable of doing. And, besides, your arguments are hollow. You know the danger already. According to the minnesinger, it was St. Ludmila who gave him his sight. I am quite sure she was not at St. Vitus’s this day, was she?”
Mouse shook her head, and they sat in silence.
“Father, do you know who my parents were?”
The old man showed no surprise at the question. “God made you. Like he made all of us. Nothing else matters.”
“It matters to me. And it matters to Ottakar.”
“You mean to say ‘My Lord, the King.’” He lifted his head to look at her, his eyes dark. “Beware, Mouse. Court is as dangerous as the Church, both steeped in politics and power-mongering and filled with ambitious people. Will you not come back to Teplá with me?”
“I am not wanted there, Father. And you will not stay there long anyway.”
“I think my travels may be close to done.” He sounded tired. “I have something for you.” He pulled a book from his leather bag and handed it to her.
It was smaller than most, the cover cracked with age. She opened it. It smelled of saltwater and sand. The Book of Enoch scrolled across the top of the opening page. “It is in Hebrew,” she said with some relief, glad to have a book she could actually read.
“Yes, but it is like the others in my cabinet. Not everyone would understand why we would want to read such a book.”
“What is in it?”
“Stories you will not have heard before, but I think you might find the book most helpful for other reasons.”
Mouse thumbed through the pages, thinking about what he said. She looked at him sharply. “It is the key! To reading the other book!”
He nodded. “I traveled a long way on the hopes that it was, but I confess I can find no answers to breaking the code in it. I hope you will be able to see something I cannot. But for now, take it up to your room and then we will go back among the wolves. I imagine we have overtaxed the King’s patience.”
Heavily scented smoke swirled around the ceiling frescoes in the Great Hall like clouds waiting to descend on the handful of revelers below. As Mouse entered, Ottakar beckoned to her, then stood, pulling her to him and kissing her cheek; he smelled of sweet wine and fatty meat.
“I sent the others on to the church,” he said as they stepped out into the night.
Only a few people remained in the courtyard, and they formed a straggly line toward St. George’s Basilica. The air had gone c
old, the day’s rain now scattered flurries and the clouds thick enough to shutter the moonlight. A fuzzy circle of candlelight emanated from the lanterns hung from hooks on either side of the open doors to the church. They looked like eyes glowing beside a fiery mouth, and the dark spires of the Adam and Eve towers shot up into the night sky like horns; it looked like a waking dragon filling its belly with people before taking up battle.
Tomorrow the faithful would feast in the church for All Saints, but tonight they would keep vigil against the darkness of All Hallows’ with a night of prayers for the dead.
“Soul cake,” a child’s voice called out over the courtyard.
People looked around, confused.
“Soul cake!” another child’s voice echoed, until all through the courtyard from palace to church, the high, plaintive whine of voices clamored. “Soul cake, soul cake, soul cake.”
Mouse looked past the thinning crowd and saw them, dozens of children wearing masks, their gaping mouths painted red on white faces with black eyes—masks of the dead. They closed in from the deeper shadows near the walls.
“Be you town children?” someone asked.
“Soul cake,” came the answer.
“Soul cakes come on the morrow with All Saints as you well know. Be off with you. Come back tomorrow and you shall have your soul cake. Go on!” someone shouted and waved his hand at the children encircling the crowd.
And then the bells began to ring.
The people lifted hands to cover their ears as the bells of St. George’s and St. Vitus’s clanged from either end of the bailey. The town bells rang from across the river. The people shuffled forward toward the church, bumping into each other in their hurry.
“No one rings the bells in Prague,” Ottakar muttered, letting go of her hand and pushing through the crowd.
“Why would they not?” Mouse asked. Ringing the bells for the dead had always been part of the vigil at Teplá. But Ottakar was gone.
Mouse made to follow, but the children closed around her, their heads cocked as they said as one, “Soul cakes!”
And she knew that the dark creatures had found her at last.
THIRTEEN
Mouse watched as the church doors closed, shutting Ottakar inside with the last of the stragglers and leaving her alone in the courtyard with the children who were not children.
The masks they’d worn morphed into the hollow-eyed, sharp-toothed faces of the dark things from the baby cemetery. They laughed liked normal children—high and playful—but Mouse knew that whatever they may have been once, these things were anything but innocent.
One of the child-things reached out and tugged her hand. “Play?” it asked.
And then Mouse saw the church. Flames danced at the windows, bright backdrops for the dark silhouettes of people burning. Fire licked up the outside of the basilica.
Ottakar was in there. And Father Lucas.
Mouse ran toward the church doors.
She could smell her flesh burning, feel the heat searing her as she grabbed the iron pull. The doors would not open. She fell to her knees, clawing at the bottom of the door trying to find leverage to force it open, splinters driving beneath her fingernails. The screams inside the church grew higher until they sounded just like the screams of the horses that had burned in the smithy’s stables at Teplá.
Exactly like the horse’s screams.
She jerked her head up. The hollow-eyed children were playing with her mind, feeding her the vision of the burning church. The screams, the smells—none of it was real.
“No more,” she said as she walked down the steps toward the creatures that now huddled close and stood unnaturally still. She ignored the sounds of wood cracking in the heat and focused on the sound of the bells. “Go away.”
Mouse’s hands clenched at her skirts as she let the angry, squirming power build in her throat. “I said to go away!”
The children laughed and suddenly the clang of bells stopped.
“Will you come and play?” they asked as they held out their hands.
Mouse turned slightly at the sound of footsteps behind her. Someone had come out of the church.
“The King is asking for you. Will you come inside?”
Mouse took a step in front of Father Lucas as he came to stand beside her.
“I will be there soon. Will you go tell him for me?” She wanted him back in the church. One of the hollow-eyed children reached its hand toward Father Lucas.
“Is there trouble, andílek?”
“Be careful, Father!” She pulled him out of the thing’s reach. “These are not children as they seem. They are—” But Mouse did not know what to call them.
“I know. These are the things that haunted you as a child, yes?”
She nodded.
“But these are not the lost souls of the unbaptized, Mouse.”
“What are they, then?”
“Corruptors.” Mouse shivered at the chill in his voice. She wanted to ask him what he meant, but it would have to wait. The hollow-eyed children had started to sidle closer, bit by bit.
“I tried to command them to leave, but they did not obey. I can try again—”
“No!”
Mouse jumped at the sharp order.
“I do not think that will make a difference,” he said, softer this time, but Mouse could hear the fear in his voice. “Step back slowly. We will be better able to protect the people when we are inside the church.”
The creatures followed them step for step like shadows. Mouse made Father Lucas slip through the open door at the church first, and she slammed it shut as she crossed the threshold.
“I do not think doors will stop those things,” Father Lucas said.
“We could shape protections but we have no salt.”
Father Lucas nodded.
Screams came from the nave. Mouse listened closely, isolating the chaos of noise with her unnatural senses.
“They see the crucifix bleeding,” she explained to Father Lucas. “Those creatures can make you see anything, believe anything. Father, if we do not do something, these people will suffer. Someone will get hurt.”
“We can use blood to make the charms, Mouse. The salt is only a channel; it is the blood that holds the power,” he said as they stepped back into the vestibule.
“That is a lot of blood, Father.”
“We have no choice. I will move along the side aisle to the left and up to the choir. You start here and take the right aisle. I will cover the north transept and you, Ludmila’s Chapel. Our blood will form the cross.”
Without hesitation, Mouse took the knife tied at her waist and sliced into her hand. But when she laid the blade against Father Lucas’s outstretched arm, she could not cut.
“Let me do it alone, Father. It is my fault those things are here. It is my responsibility to—”
He put his hand over hers and pushed the knife into his flesh.
They parted, each walking slowly along the outer aisles leaving a trail of blood, each murmuring the protections as they went. They kept their backs against the wall, hiding their bloody palms as they slipped past the people in the nave, who bowed as the bishop began the prayers for the dead.
“‘Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice,’” came the whispers of the faithful in response. They shuffled and shifted, spreading out as they could to make room to kneel.
As Mouse stepped up into Ludmila’s Chapel, she searched the crowd until she saw Ottakar’s crown flickering in the dim candlelight, and she sighed with relief. At the back corner of the chapel where no one could see, she opened a gash on her other palm, the first already beginning to knit closed. She waited until her hand filled with blood before she began tracing the wall again. As she reached the end of her side of the cross, a wave of dizziness overcame her, and she leaned against the wall near the steps leading up to the choir, letting herself slide down to her knees. She bent her head.
“‘My soul waiteth on His
word: my soul hopeth in the Lord,’” she mumbled with the others.
A cool breeze touched her face. She opened her eyes and saw the mouth of the crypt. They had forgotten the crypt.
Mouse started to crawl toward the steps when Father Lucas fell heavily to his knees beside her. His eyes were closed, his face too white. He had lost too much blood, and he sagged against her, driving her into the wall. She tried to catch him, but he was too heavy. The bishop stopped praying, and everyone was looking at her.
Then Ottakar was at her side. “Let us move him to the crypt for the cooler air,” he said, slipping his arm under Father Lucas’s shoulder and looking up to Bishop Miklaus. “Your Excellency, the people seemed disquieted. They are in need of your guidance.”
The bishop bowed, taking up the prayer again as Ottakar and Mouse guided Father Lucas down the lower steps into the crypt. Mouse looked up, the gold in the ceiling mural drawing her eye as the candlelight wavered with the bishop’s swaying; the painting showed John’s vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem, streets of gold, a city made of glass. From Mouse’s view, it looked like the city hung there, held by the artist’s thin strokes, waiting to come shattering down on them.
After settling Father Lucas on a bench, Mouse knelt beside him. He rested his head against the column at his back, his eyes closed; she slipped her hand inside the hem of his habit, ripping away a piece of the linen tunic underneath. She tried to shield the blood-soaked sleeve from Ottakar’s view as she wrapped the cut, but he saw and grabbed at Father Lucas’s arm.
“He is bleeding.”
“It is not what you think, Ottakar. Stop.” She put her hands on his without thinking and then pulled them away with a sticky smack.
“And you, Mouse?” He held her hands, bloody palms up. “What is this?”
“Let me tend him first, then I will tell you what I can.”
He nodded and let her hands go. He walked up the steps a little, motioning to someone in the nave. “Fetch some bread and wine,” he ordered.
“No!” Mouse said. “No one can leave the church. It is not safe.”
Bohemian Gospel Page 12
