Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle

by E. C. Ambrose

  With his guidance, Ruari and Lisbet took on more duties, leaving him free to deal with the most difficult cases, and to do the dirty work for the surgeons and physicians; if he was not earning their respect, at least they no longer felt the need to threaten him. There was a moment after Nathaniel’s death he thought he might never take up his tools again—but the work gave him hope and something like peace, as if each man he stitched or bound or set repaid a little of the sorrow he had caused. The chaos which had met him a week before, now settled into a routine of late nights and little sleep.

  Ruari rolled over, frowning, then his face lit up. “Wagons in from the city; wonder what they’ll bring.” He sat up quickly, pulling on his shabby boots.

  Less enthusiastically, Elisha stretched. “No good for us, I’m sure.”

  Pausing to glance over at him, Ruari said, “Last time, they brought you.”

  “That’s a recommendation?”

  Ruari poked his head out a window, then turned back with a grin. “You’ll like this cargo.”

  Curious now, Elisha sighed and pulled on his own boots. “Very well; I should go down and check on that boy with the broken head in any case.”

  Ruari made a face. “Do you never think of aught but work?”

  “In this place? What else is there?”

  That brought a grin to Ruari’s face and he urged Elisha ahead of him down the stairs. “This, you’ll like.”

  Outside, carters unloaded parcels from the wagons. The physician, too, had come out and hovered alongside the lead wagon, with Malcolm Carter at his side. Then both reached up to help his passenger dismount. When they stepped aside, Elisha caught sight of Brigit and the breath rushed out of him. Ruari had to nudge him aside with a knowing wink. “Come on, then.”

  Even as they approached, the physician spotted them and placed a protective arm about Brigit’s shoulders. “Good of you to come,” he drawled. “This is Mistress Brigit, of the herbalists’ guild locally. She plans to remain here, at my request, to assist us with identifying the appropriate medicinals, as well as to view their use in medical applications. I trust”—and with these words, he swept his gaze over the surgeons as well as his own assistants—“that she will be given the utmost respect and assistance.”

  Elisha managed a bow, though his balance felt shaky. He rose again to find her green eyes upon him, and a little smile playing over her lips.

  “Most irregular,” Mordecai huffed. “Can’t have her leaning over us, can we?”

  In an undertone, Ruari said, “I’d not mind a bit!” and Elisha shot him a glower. He worked furiously, trying to find an excuse to greet her, to speak to her, just to have her gaze linger on him a while longer. “I’ve taken leave of my senses,” he muttered.

  “Aye, and who wouldn’t—cor, she’s coming over!”

  Indeed she was, picking her way with some care over the scuffed and stained grass. Because they had begun performing urgent amputations here rather than wait to carry the patients indoors, Elisha scanned the area, making sure no stray body parts lingered.

  Then Brigit stood before him, a folded bit of parchment in her outstretched hand. “The carter had this for you, Barber,” she said, her voice pleasant but with no extra warmth.

  Elisha flinched, staring down at it. “For me?”

  “Yes, from a woman in the city, he said.” She held it out expectantly.

  “You’re sure?”

  At this, Brigit laughed, and the day grew that much brighter. Turning the parchment to face her, she read, “Elisha Barber, that is your name, is it not?”

  Wetting his lips, Elisha nodded, and at last put out his hand for the letter. It lay yellow and accusing on his palm, the incomprehensible black markings of his name mocking him.

  Brigit gasped, putting a hand over her mouth as she colored the most beautiful pink. Leaning forward, she said, “Do you need me to read it?”

  “No,” he snapped, crumpling it into his fist. His own cheeks flared to red as he cursed himself for a fool.

  At his side, Ruari cleared his throat and announced, “I’ll check on that lad, shall I?” then he hurried off without a backward glance.

  “I’m sorry I’ve embarrassed you. I just thought…” Brigit drummed her fingers together. “I’m sorry.” She took a half-step back as if to go, and Elisha swallowed his pride, though it made a lump in his throat.

  “No, my lady, I…you were right.” He held up the letter. “I would be grateful…” He needed to know. He could not think why anyone should write to him, when the few who knew him well enough to send the letter would know equally well he could not read it. With the eyes of the physician and his assistants upon them, not to mention the surgeon with his girdle hung about with books, Elisha wanted to sink into the ground—or perhaps be struck dead on the spot. He did not think they’d heard the exchange but, unless he wanted the letter to remain unread, his public humiliation would soon be complete.

  Straightening, Brigit said loudly, “Yes, I believe I know the plant you mean. Why not take me there, and I’ll be sure,” she said, brows pinched over her green eyes.

  Relief welled in him. “This way, my lady.” He lowered the hand still bearing the letter into a gesture of invitation.

  Turning to the physician, Brigit said, “I won’t be a moment.” She gave him her most winning smile. “It’s good to see you have such an eager staff.”

  As they set off side by side, Elisha broke the wax seal of the letter and made a show of examining it, hoping he made no obvious mistake in how he held it or how his eyes traveled the block of black letters.

  When they neared the bridge over the river, Brigit turned to him again, her mouth twisting into a rueful smile. “I am sorry. I did not even think.”

  “There’s no reason for you to be concerned over my ignorance.” Elisha prodded a tuft of grass with the toe of his boot. It would probably have been no more embarrassing for the doctors to know—the worst was that she already did. She was a woman who prized the mind, that was clear enough. Not that he had a chance at her notice, with herself already betrothed, and such men as the physician and his educated comrades to distract her.

  Once again, Brigit held out her hand, then gently slipped the letter from his grasp. They strolled slowly at the riverside as the sun rose, painting the sky with pale color. Immediately, Brigit frowned and darted him a worried look. “There’s no greeting,” she said. “Look, are you sure you want me to read this?”

  “Who else is there?”

  “Well, the physician, for one,” she offered, then drew back at whatever part of his loathing showed plain upon his face. “I assumed…never mind, I’ll read it.”

  She cleared her throat and held the letter before her. “‘Elisha Butcher’—that should be Barber, perhaps the writer has difficulty with her letters.”

  Gazing up to the sky, Elisha laughed bitterly. With those two words, he knew who would write to him, who would do so for this very reason, to reveal his humiliation before whomever would read it.

  “It doesn’t seem funny to me,” Brigit remarked.

  “Read on,” Elisha said, “I’m sure the humor will be made clear.”

  “‘Elisha Butcher,’” she read in her lovely voice, “‘I trust the battlefield is serving your needs—’” Brigit frowned, glancing at him again, but he made no response, so she went on, “‘Myself, I am better every day that you are away. The funerals have been held in your absence, and you were not missed. We saw that you planted the cross Nathaniel made. I take it you buried our child and now I am meant to thank you for it.

  “‘I am writing to demand that you tell me the truth of your brother’s death. Sister Lucretia spouts only good of you and will not tell me, nor will that captain who’s been about the place. Once I had them together, and both looked pale at my asking. So I put it to you plain, have you killed him? If it were not yourself, then what is the truth of it? How can I recover with this concern weighing down my breast? I may be found at my sister’s house
if you are not so cowardly as to deny me. All due respect, Helena.’”

  When she had done, Brigit examined the letter again, reading it silently and quickly, turning it about to see if there was anything else to know.

  Having fallen a bit behind, Elisha shut his eyes on the tears that threatened him. He bit his lip, his hands gripped behind him. Sister Lucretia spoke well of him, the captain held his tongue with all the justice of his office, so Helena reached across the distance to hound him with a question he dared not answer. Nathaniel was at rest, in hallowed ground, but it would not be the first time a man had been disinterred, and that could serve only to punish Helena more than had he told the truth from the moment it happened. Better that she should hate him than turn from his brother’s memory. As for himself, he had few friends or relations, but Helena and Nathaniel had many, a legion of admirers who would care for his brother’s widow, not to mention the support she should receive from his guild. What would they do on hearing the truth? Let Helena believe what she would, he would not enlighten her. If only he had a way to bring the child back—

  Again, Brigit cleared her throat, and Elisha opened his eyes to find her frowning at him. “Are you well, Barber?”

  “Aye, I’m well enough,” he said, though he did not feel it, and she did not press him.

  “Would you like me to write out your response?” She held out the letter, and it trembled slightly.

  “That won’t be needed. Thanks.” He snatched the parchment and re-folded it with jerky movements.

  “It’s no trouble,” she offered.

  “Thanks, but no.”

  “Please yourself.” Brigit walked a few steps to the river’s edge. After a moment, she slipped off her shoes and dipped in one toe. Glancing over her shoulder, she said, “In this whole valley, I love the river most.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Elisha watched her step into the water, ripples forming around her bare ankles where she held up her skirt just a bit. Then a chill struck through him as he watched; she was confronting him, challenging him to stand beside her, to reveal his knowledge of the words which flowed in the water. Was she speaking even now to those below?

  She lost all trace of smile and said, “Come in, Barber, I swear it will not harm you.”

  Slowly, Elisha tucked the letter into his pouch. What was the invitation she gave him? Could he accept that communion of the waters she shared with some strange and distant people? And yet, if she could help him, tell him about the Bone of Luz, how could he not? Carefully, he pulled off his boots and set them standing on the river bank. Then, his eyes upon her, he stepped into the rushing stream.

  The cold whipped about his ankles, and he shivered, thinking not of water but of fire, of flames licking at his feet as they had devoured the angel so long ago.

  “Bittersweet,” the water said, and Elisha twitched, glancing quickly to Brigit.

  When she caught his gaze, she grinned, full and triumphant, and the words came again, though her lips did not move. “I thought it was you, I thought it must be you—twice now, am I right? You’ve come down here, and heard voices.”

  Confused, Elisha looked around, then back to her. “Marigold?” he asked aloud, hearing the strange echo of his own voice somehow trapped in the water all around.

  Shaking her head, Brigit gazed at him steadily. “Do not speak, not aloud. You can hear me, can’t you? Let the water be your voice. Imagine you address me, and I will hear you.”

  Intently, he focused on what he would say, and asked, “How is this possible?” forming the question at the back of his throat, biting his lip to still the words.

  Brigit laughed aloud and spun a circle in the water, splashing his knees.

  “What is it? I don’t understand,” he said.

  “How is this possible? How indeed,” the river laughed. “You speak as one of us, and yet we know you not. You are a magus, you must be! Why did she not say so?”

  Confused, Elisha put out his hand to stop her dancing, but withdrew. “I’m not a whatever-you-called-me. I’m just a barber. And who should have said?”

  Stopping, with a hand pressed to her chest to still her eager laughter, Brigit let the water carry her words. “A magus—a witch.”

  At this, Elisha held up his hands. “No,” he said into the air. “I am not. I’m a barber, nothing more.”

  Taking a step nearer, Brigit pleaded with her eyes. “How else could you speak through the water, or hear my words? You are, just as I am.”

  Shaking his head, Elisha felt the brush of his hair warmed in the sun and thought of flames. He backed away, and the stones slipped beneath his feet—treacherous footing indeed.

  Brigit pursued him, putting out a delicate hand that hovered, but did not touch him. “What is it you fear so much?”

  Elisha gained the bank, standing once again on solid ground.

  “Is it what you saw?” She asked aloud, her voice in the air seeming smaller, more human. “When you were a child?”

  “They burned her,” he replied, flinging himself to the ground to jerk on his boots. “She was an angel, I could see it, but they shot her full of arrows and set her afire.” He swallowed hard, his eyes seeing not the river now, but the flames. “She had eyes like yours, my lady, and I cannot see you without seeing her, and the blood, and the fire—” He broke off and pulled himself to his feet.

  Brigit sprang to the bank and caught his wrist. As he spun to face her, to break her grip, she set her fingers on his cheek, just at the spot where he had once felt the brush of an angel’s wing.

  Chapter 15

  After a long moment, Elisha let out the breath he had been holding, and the warm, soft fingers withdrew. “How did you know?”

  “She was my mother,” Brigit murmured. “Come back to the water, I cannot speak of this in the air.” She beckoned with a turn of her wrist and retreated before his wondering gaze.

  Slowly, he did as she asked, slipping off the boots again, afraid to take his eyes off of her. They walked along in the water, carrying their shoes, down to the bend Elisha had come to six nights ago, thick with willows. Here, out of sight, she smiled up at him, but he did not return it, his dismay still too great for him to grasp.

  The river tugged at his ankles, saying, “The woman you saw was my mother. In her final moments, she worked her greatest magic, transforming herself. If she could slip her bonds, she would escape through the air. If not—” He saw the grief that turned Brigit’s lips, “she would leave the vision of herself as an angel, not devilspawn as the priests would have you think, but a creature of the Lord, as all of us are.”

  “She was beautiful,” Elisha said in the water.

  Again, Brigit smiled. “I was only four, and a hundred miles away, hidden and safe.”

  “Then how could you know about the touch? I have told no one all the years of my life.”

  “My mother told me. She told us all.”

  Elisha shook his head.

  “You and I are speaking through the water. She spoke through the fire, even as it consumed her. Any of the magi can speak in water—it forms a contact between us, but few can speak in fire. We heard her—everyone. Father thought she meant to talk to me. Instead, she found you. There was a rapture in her voice that I cannot describe.” Brigit’s eyes focused in the distance. “‘I have touched a child and seen the man.’” The green eyes flickered to Elisha’s face.

  His lips parted, Elisha tried to think of what to say, but there was nothing.

  “You came here after the death of your brother. My mother said, ‘He will be a man of healing, yet bring death in his hands.’” She watched him closely.

  In his hands? Elisha smiled grimly. Not in his hands but in his traveling chest, he had brought death indeed, beyond even the memory of his brother. At least Brigit need not know all. “How could she say these things of me? I was a boy and still am no witch.”

  “Oh, there is power in you, I think all of us can feel it. When I walked across the courtyard that day, I felt it
when I neared you, even though I thought my mother had referred to someone else. Some of us believe that when we find this child my mother touched, he will be a leader—and we can finally be as free as other men. Finding him—finding you—is the last sign I need to bring our people together. I think my mother’s touch awakened something in you, something even you are not aware of.”

  “There is nothing in me; I’m just a barber.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Her smile grew, along with a light in her eyes very like a flame. “Let me teach you; let me show you the ways of the magi, and we will see.”

  “Magi?” His brows drew together, trying to recall what the Bible said of them.

  “Yes. Those kings at the Nativity. The wise men, some say. They were not merely wise, but magi— magic. Can’t you hear the very nature of the word? We are the magi. The ignorant term us witches, among many other names, but we are the wise ones, and you are one of us.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Brigit spread her hands to take in the river around them. “How do you explain this conversation?”

  “Perhaps you have enchanted me.” The words slipped into the water before he could withdraw them, and he gasped, turning away as he knew what he meant to say, and what she must surely hear.

  Behind him, Brigit chuckled. “No,” she said aloud. “I have only recognized you.” Then, in the currents around him, “Let me teach you, let me finish what my mother began.”

  “But isn’t it dangerous? You say the devil has no part in this—”

  “And never has. Some of us are born with a skill to sing, others to plan great battles, and others still with this power, to bring up the energy of the world around us and mold it to our will. Gifts from God.”