Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle

by E. C. Ambrose

  “What, him? Is he not beneath her station, then? I’m given to think she’s local royalty, if ye get my meaning.”

  Elisha nodded. “I get it. And her—why not acknowledge him? It’s not as if you and me are likely to tell her father.”

  At this, Ruari gave him an appraising once-over. “Unless she’s come to reconsider. Just like a lady to change her mind at the sight of something better.”

  “God, Ruari, don’t even think it,” he protested, even as he wished it could be true.

  “But ye’re a fine sight of a man, as I ’spect ye know. And in a good line of work.”

  “Barbering is not quite a respected trade, or hadn’t you noticed?” Elisha looked down at his hands, flipping the blanket off his shoulders. A few fibers stuck, and he winced.

  Watching him, Ruari puffed out a breath. “Twenty-seven lashes, Elisha. Ye’re not of this earth, are ye?”

  “Sometimes I’m not sure.”

  “Ye picked the right man to save, and that’s a fact. We should’ve kept him a wee bit longer—imagine the look on that doctor’s face to see he’s lashed ye for saving the king’s own messenger.”

  Bowing his head, Elisha rubbed his aching temples. “So that’s what my blood bought,” he mumbled to himself, “a royal messenger, Brigit’s betrothed.” He should be proud, he should be the first to hold it up to Lucius and crow, but in his exhausted state, it was hard to muster any feeling one way or the other.

  “Lie down,” Ruari urged him. “Get some rest.”

  Sighing, Elisha pulled himself to his feet. “Now don’t look that way. I’m just going to lie in the courtyard. The cool grass’ll do me good.”

  Gruffly, Ruari said, “Ye’re the barber.” Then he, too, rose, shaking a finger at Elisha. “Mind, I’ll be watching. If I see ye step foot beyond the gate, I’m right after ye like a dog on a hare.”

  This did win him a smile, slender though it was. Elisha made his careful way up and into the moonlit yard. He let himself down beside the stream, cupping his hands in the water for a long drink, letting the water run down his chest. He lay on his side, his fingers trailing in the water. At first, all was silent, then he heard a lone voice offer the requisite greeting, “Who’s there?”

  “Bittersweet,” Elisha answered, his lips murmuring the word, never more true than at this moment.

  “Sage,” the other replied.

  The stream babbled to itself for a long time.

  “Why’ve you come?” Sage asked at last.

  “I don’t know.”

  After another pause, “You are not long a magus, are you?”

  Elisha sighed. “I am not one at all, to tell the truth.”

  “I should go to the air, with that remark.”

  “No,” Elisha said, the thought frightening him somehow. “No,” he said more carefully, “I mean no harm.”

  “Rather the reverse.”

  “What?”

  “It’s you who has been harmed. There is such pain in you even the river feels it.”

  “And you feel it.”

  “Hard to miss.”

  “I’m sorry, I should—”

  “No,” Sage answered swiftly, “no, you should not. You sought comfort in the river, only your misfortune to find me here, not some other one.”

  “No matter,” Elisha whispered. “Strangers all.”

  “If Marigold held sway here, we would be meeting in the church, and wearing badges, so as not to be missed.” Another pause. “You’re the one she sought, aren’t you?”

  “I suppose I am, not that I know what it means.”

  “You should know she’s not the only one. Most of us sat by fires that day, to listen. Fire-speech is difficult, but we hoped Rowena might manage it. They say—”

  Elisha waited, but Sage remained silent. “My ignorance is complete,” Elisha told him. “I can’t even read.”

  “No shame in that,” Sage replied. “They say a magus has the most power at the moment of his, or her, death. In that moment, great things might be done, such as the transformation Rowena wrought upon herself. Transformation is hard to work on a creature of will, even oneself. What she gave us, in that moment, were those words, like a prophecy, and the sense of the touch.”

  Elisha knew immediately what touch he meant. Strange that a moment he had held so private these twenty years turned out to have been shared with how many others, he might never know.

  “To send something so delicate as that touch, I cannot imagine it,” Sage said.

  This time, the hesitation was on Elisha’s part. He steeled himself to speak, reminding himself that this was a stranger, a man he might well never know face to face. “Could any magus feel my pain through the water?”

  “Not any, no. Each has his talents, and his sensitivities. You’ll learn, in time, both your own, and other people’s.”

  “I’m scared,” Elisha admitted.

  “You’d be a fool if you weren’t.” He let the water ripple between them for a time. “Myself, I was awakened at the age of twelve, crossing a desert with my family. We bent to drink at a well, and I suddenly felt that my mother was with child. I said as much to her, but she only claimed it was the heat.”

  In the encampment, a flute played a lively tune and as suddenly was silenced by frustrated sleepers.

  “Were you right?”

  “Six months later, she died in childbirth.”

  “My God, I’m sorry.”

  “You claim ignorance, Bittersweet. You’ll also learn that knowledge is rarely enough. A man can think he knows all, and yet not know what he most needs.”

  “Aye,” said Elisha, “you are Sage indeed.”

  “Not enough,” the stream replied, “and not often. Each of us can only soldier on in his own battle, until he falls beneath the enemy and does not rise again.”

  Elisha thought of the angel’s touch, and how it had enflamed something within him, burning through to this day and to all that he had done. It was the beacon that led Brigit to find him, as well as the inspiration that made him a healer. He smiled to the darkness and added, “Or rises in a way that even he cannot foresee.”

  Chapter 18

  Elisha awoke with the dawn, stiff and sore, the welts stinging with dew. Dragging himself up, he walked back to his own room, not surprised that Ruari wasn’t there. No doubt the man had spent the night in the hospital, the better to keep an eye on him. He sorted his lightest shirt from the chest, then hesitated. Beneath the layers of instruments and packets of herbs, he could make out the lid of the pot he had carried with him, the relic of that terrible day, patiently waiting his attention. If only he could consult the physician’s books or even the surgeon’s, he might find the truth about the Bone of Luz without endangering any life but his own. As it stood, though, the magi were his best hope.

  He slipped Helena’s letter from his pouch and studied it, her bitter words echoing in his head. The worst was, she was right: He was a coward, at least where she was concerned. His apologies had come to naught, along with his efforts to save her. Oh, he had prevented her death, true enough, but now the specters of her husband and child haunted her, the ruin of her family and dreams weighed in every word she had written. Some things could not be forgotten. Or forgiven.

  He stuffed the letter down behind the pot and covered both. Next, he pulled off his boots and rearranged the padding inside. They should be re-lined, if he had a chance, though that chance seemed unlikely to come any day soon.

  His stomach rumbled, and he realized how long it had been since he’d eaten anything. Pulling his boots back on, he reached for the shirt, dropping it over his head without thought and gasping as it seemed to catch on every one of the twenty-seven blows. When the fire in his skin had died down, Elisha stood and returned to the hospital. Avoiding the lords’ infirmary this time, he came in at the back and stood a moment surveying the sleeping men.

  A few whimpered or moaned, but most lay quiet, and one or two even had the strength to snore. Many em
pty spaces gaped between them, and he frowned over that, making a note to ask Ruari what had happened in his absence. For now, though, he remembered the city hospital, with its beds crowded with screamers and corpses, the whole place reeking of sickness. This place was surely none too fresh, but the women kept it swept and mopped as best they could and lay down new straw mingled with woodruff to mask the scents. Having the water barrel made a world of difference, and he wondered how the idea might be applied in a larger hospital.

  One of the men gave a sharp cry, and Elisha went swiftly to his side. He had a broken leg not yet set, and he had rolled too far in that direction. Looking into the worried eyes, Elisha smiled. “You’re all right. We’ll get you taken care of first thing.”

  “You’re back,” the man croaked, and Elisha gave a short laugh at the unintended pun.

  “Where else should I be?”

  The man whimpered again, sweat standing out on his forehead despite the chill. Elisha pulled out his little vial of opium and tilted the man’s head back to swallow a pinch. “That should take away the pain while we straighten you out.”

  He made brief visits to any of the others who lay awake, then went up to the courtyard to pull his gate and refill the barrel. This done, he carried water to the patients, topping off a few pitchers spaced at intervals around the room. Once, those pitchers marked who would live, and the wall had shown who would die.

  From a place by the barrel, close beneath the windows, Ruari stirred and stretched. Rubbing his head, he pushed himself up, his eyes widening, then glaring at Elisha. “Ye should be sleeping, yet.”

  “Not likely,” Elisha returned, “Not the way I’m feeling. I’m surprised I got as much as I did.” Coming nearer, he dropped his voice. “Look, where’ve all our patients gone? Please tell me we didn’t lose so many.”

  At this, Ruari grinned. “Indeed, no, Elisha, they’ve gone home.”

  “Home? How is that possible?”

  “Well, and we were running short of space already, so any who were able climbed on board the wagons back to town and off wherever. A few were judged well enough to return to the lines.”

  Brushing at his eyes, Elisha tried to blink away sudden tears. He thought again of the king’s messenger. The duty of a single man could win the war, and Elisha’s hands could hold sway over that man’s life. Sage’s words, too, echoed in his mind with this conviction. When he chose to become a barber, Elisha knew that many would disdain him, that he condemned himself to a life of ruined shirts and blood beneath his nails. He did not need respect or company or even love to fight this battle of his.

  “Are ye well?” Ruari asked gently.

  Elisha smiled. “Aye, that I am. That physician has taught me something I needed to know. I should thank him.”

  “Tell me yer joking!”

  “Am I? Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

  Together, they pulled and twisted the broken leg back into place, and Elisha spent a tedious time crouched on the floor, making sure there were no splinters, and tending the torn muscles and skin.

  Straightening out the ache in his back, Elisha winced as Benedict came through the door, no doubt on his way to the kitchen for his pot of boiling oil.

  With a regal air, Benedict surveyed the remaining men, examining them as he approached. “It appears you’ve lost a few, Barber,” he remarked.

  “Aye—lost them to their wives and children.” He longed to stand and stretch out his legs, but didn’t want to betray any pain before this lordling.

  “I don’t understand you.” Benedict frowned, but his eyes kept roving over the wounded soldiers.

  “They went home.”

  This brought the assistant’s attention back to Elisha, and the barber laughed at the consternation on the long face. Shaking himself, Benedict strode on toward the kitchen. “I’ll be taking over with the cure. Lucius wants to be sure it’s done by a man he can trust. Oh, and I think Matthew will be along for the cauterization.”

  “Excellent, I’ll fetch some wool to plug my ears.”

  At the door, Benedict turned back, still wearing that frown. “I fail to see how you can laugh after the events of yesterday.”

  “I’m a peasant, sir, it’s not in my nature to brood, or I’d be brooding all my life.”

  “Ah. I see your point.” He gave a tight smile. “In that case, laugh on, Barber, your lot is unlikely to improve any day soon.” Benedict disappeared through the door.

  Just as he had predicted, Matthew shortly entered, walking quickly, his jaw locked like a vise as he ignored the barber and shut the kitchen door behind him.

  Ruari and Elisha shared a look. “It appears I’m on the outs with everyone this morning.”

  “Only the high born,” Ruari pointed out. “Ye’re practically a legend among the rest.”

  They busied themselves with a few more broken bones, interrupted once more when Lisbet appeared, holding up her apron like a little girl, her face aglow. Maeve looked up from the patient she was dressing and said, “It’s about time, now.”

  With only a brief look to her mother, Lisbet crossed over to Elisha. “See what I’ve brought you!” She knelt down with extreme caution. Held in her gathered apron lay a half-dozen eggs. “I remembered you asking, and I found these out walking this morning.”

  “She means that she was walking, not the eggs,” Ruari teased, and Lisbet cast him a mock-angry pout.

  “Lisbet, you’re a wonder!” Elisha crowed. They were few, but large, and they gave him an idea. He rose unsteadily to his feet, waving away Ruari’s offered hand. “I’ll get us a pot.”

  Beaming, Lisbet stepped out of the way.

  In the kitchen, a charged silence hung in the air as both assistants jerked up when he entered. It seemed he’d come in on an argument. Immediately, they returned to their separate labors, and Matthew barked, “I’m ready for the first, if you’ll bring him in. I’ll be doing the amputees as well.”

  “Aye, sir.” The thought turned Elisha’s stomach and seemed to throb through every stinging lash. Quickly he snatched a pot from the wall and left the room. As he lifted the eggs from Lisbet’s apron, he said over his shoulder, “Ruari, I hate to ask it of you,” then broke off and sighed, bowing his head over the pot.

  Holding her skirt up a bit longer, affording a view of her strong legs, Lisbet fidgeted, then dropped it.

  “What’s the question?” Ruari asked lightly, but his face went solemn.

  Still, Elisha hesitated, and Lisbet retreated to join her mother, hiding her face.

  “It’s the cauteries. Matthew says he’s ready, but I—” He rubbed a bit of dirt from one of the speckled eggs. “Oh, God, Ruari.”

  “Ye’re not up to it, are ye, then?” Ruari ruffled his hand through his hair. “Sweet Lord, Elisha, course ye’re not. Go on, I’ll handle it.”

  Relief cleared the ache in his throat. If that made him a coward, so be it. “What would I do without you?”

  Snorting, Ruari replied, “Ye’d have to pray to find me, that’s what. Go on. I’ll spin a yarn to Matthew that ye’ve got more important things to do. And won’t it be true in any case.” He got up and brushed off his britches before finding the first man to undergo the hot irons.

  Taking his pot of eggs beneath his arm, Elisha hurried through the infirmary before he could regret his cowardice. The drapes were gone around the corner where the king had rested, and all seemed at peace there. Mordecai raised his eyebrows at Elisha’s passage, but kept his head bent over an enormous book spread upon his lap.

  In the vestry, Elisha gathered the ingredients for his ointment, then made a packet of flaxseed as well, dropping them all in the pot of eggs and nodding to the attendant as he made his escape. Crossing the courtyard, he saw Lucius and his younger assistant seated on sunny benches, with Brigit before them. The stylus in her hand sketched quickly over a waxed board, illustrating some herb she was describing. For an instant, her eyes flicked up then back, and there was no break in her voice as he passed b
y.

  Finding a place by the river, Elisha emptied the pot onto a flat, table-like stone. He cracked and separated all but one egg, holding it in reserve. They made little ointment, but it might ease a few hurts. Again, he wondered about the salve he had been given. There was nothing like it in the vestry supplies, nor would he expect to find it there, for the ingredients were almost certainly too rich to hazard in open stores. The mixing done, he rolled his shoulders, plucking at the cloth of his shirt to try to prevent it sticking more than it already had. The welts hurt with every movement, but he did his best to pretend otherwise, and was, on the whole, successful in his self-deception. The heat of the springtime sun tingled on the welt across his throat, and he was about to go back inside, despite the screams from cauterization that he could hear faintly, behind him, when Brigit crossed over the bridge.

  Taking no notice of him, she tucked a basket handle over her arm and walked down to the river. Once there, she slipped off her shoes and waded in from the shore. Carefully, she dug her fingers into the riverbed, bringing up a plant by its roots, and let the dirt be washed away.

  Elisha took up his egg and the one packet he had not opened, casually strolling to the shade beneath the bridge. Here, he sat on a stone and kicked off his own boots, placing his feet with the water lapping at his toes.

  “Hello, Bittersweet. I trust you slept well?”

  “Aye, that I did. Better than expected, really. And you?”

  “No, not well. The pain of others is never easy to bear, especially if they themselves will bear it in silence.”

  “I take that for reproach, Marigold. Was it you who sent me the salve?”

  Upstream, she paused, then bent for another root. “Not I. What do you mean?”

  “Someone sent a salve, rich stuff, better than any I’ve had care over.”

  “Why not ask the bearer?”