The Bones of the Earth (The Dark Age)

by Scott Bury

  “Do you believe in the Word of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and renounce the Devil?” Father Peter asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you accept for this child Him who is the light of the world? Do you unite yourself to Christ?”

  “I do.”

  Father Peter turned toward Javor and, with sweeping motions of his right hand, made a sign of a cross. He took Javor’s and Austinus’ hands in his own and, chanting a prayer, led them into the church.

  A little grey light filtered in through the high windows, and candles all along the walls cast a flickering, hopeful yellow light. Father Peter led them to small chapel at the side of the church. On the eastern wall, Christ in a white loincloth stepped into a river, his halo a golden disk behind his head.

  Sunk into the middle of the marble floor was a pool, filled with water. “Step into the basin, Javor,” Father Peter said. Javor hesitated; the air in the church was chilly, and all he was wearing was a thin linen robe. Austinus and Father Albertus took him by the arms.

  Javor gasped—the water is cold! Austinus and Albertus pushed him down. “Go right under,” Austinus instructed. Javor gulped, took a breath, closed his eyes and submerged, coming up again with a gasp.

  “The servant of God, Javor, is baptized into the Name of the Father, amen,” said Father Peter.

  Austinus and Albertus pushed Javor under again, and as he came up sputtering, Father Peter said, “And of the Son, amen.” When they pushed him down a third time, Javor realized he should have expected it after his head went in, but he gasped water into his lungs anyway and came up choking and coughing while Father Peter intoned “and of the Holy Spirit, amen.” Austinus and Albertus lifted Javor out of the basin. He stood before Father Peter again, shivering and covered only in the robe, which was now almost transparent and clinging to his skin.

  “Javor, you have received the full forgiveness of the Lord,” Father Peter said, making a sweeping sign of the cross again. He frowned, looking just below Javor’s chin—directly at eye level for him. “What is this?”

  The amulet showed through the wet linen and was starting to tingle. Before Javor could react, Father Peter pulled the amulet out by its thin silver chain. “What is this pagan symbol? Austinus, how could you allow him to wear this icon of the Devil to his baptism?”

  “It’s an heirloom from my great-grandfather, who got it from the Emperor!” Javor protested. Stretching the truth.

  “Not pagan, just savage,” said Austinus, calmly. Javor was surprised at Austinus’ demeanor. He’s never seen the amulet before. “There is nothing satanic about it. Let him wear it next to a cross.”

  Father Peter looked lower. “And a knife!” The dagger, as always, was strapped to Javor’s side, under the robe. “No one brings a weapon to a baptism!” Father Peter glared at Austinus, then at Javor. “Very irregular. However, it is not good to interrupt the rites,” he said unhappily. “We now move on to the Chrismation.” He poured a few drops of oil from a small bottle onto his fingertips. “With the myron, I anoint you with the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.” He lifted his hand and drew a small cross in oil on Javor’s forehead. Very gently, the priest marked a tiny cross on Javor’s eyelid, repeating “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.” In a blink, he did the same on the other eye. He repeated the seal on each nostril, on Javor’s mouth and on his earlobes, each time saying “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.” He did the same on Javor’s hands, his chest, and with a grimace and a little grunt, got down on his knees to anoint Javor’s feet. Finished, he struggled to his feet again. “Despite your pagan—I’m sorry, your savage—amulet, you are now a laïkos, a full member of the people of God.”

  Father Peter led them into the main part of the church and spent close to an hour praying in a voice too low for Javor to understand. The morning sunlight streamed through the high windows of the church by the time he finished. Not even the blessings of the plantings or of the harvest at home took that long.

  He was still shivering as Father Peter took something out of a tall golden cup and lifted it over his head. “Take, eat, This is my Body…” He ate whatever it was. He said more prayers, then lifted another gold cup overhead, said “Drink, this is my blood,” and sipped. Javor was horrified.

  Father Peter carried the chalice down the steps, dipped a small golden spoon with a very long handle into it and pulled out something small and dripping red. “The Body of Christ,” said Father Peter, and he held the spoon to Javor’s mouth.

  “Wait—you want me to eat the body of Christ?”

  “Those were His words,” Father Peter answered, pushing the spoon closer.

  Javor pulled back. “Is it really his body and blood?”

  “It’s bread and wine, Javor,” Austinus muttered.

  “Transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of our Lord through the miracle of the Eucharist,” Father Peter insisted. “Weren’t you listening during Catechism?”

  “It’s bread and wine,” Austinus repeated. “Just eat it, Javor.”

  Javor closed his eyes and opened his mouth. He heard the spoon clink on his teeth, tasted metal, then sweet and acidy wine with something crumbled in it. He swallowed.

  “Amen,” said Austinus.

  Javor had trouble with the difference between the Church’s teachings and the priest’s behavior. “Shouldn’t we accept the fact that other people don’t have the same beliefs as the Church?” he asked one day.

  “No, never!” Father Peter thundered. “We cannot tolerate the presence of pagans or witches!”

  Javor gradually learned the hierarchies and the difference between the stated and the real order of power within the Abbey.

  The overt hierarchy was easy to learn: at the top of the Order was the Comes, Austinus, in his black and silver robes and silver chain; next was Philip, the chief scholar, with a smaller silver chain and robes that were red and black; beneath him, a ladder of lesser officials and dignitaries, each with their symbols of rank. There was the main priest, who led most of the masses, Father Albertus, and the next most important, Father Peter. There was the Head Novice, a very serious-looking, tall young man named Sergius, whose hair showed bright red no matter how short he cropped it. He directed the novices in their chores and prayers.

  Verros was in charge of the kitchen staff, a group of eight who chopped, stewed, built fires, slopped and cleaned. Javor learned that he was at that very bottom of that hierarchy.

  But there was a different, unspoken order as well. While Father Albertus was acknowledged as the leader in the chapel, he was noticeably diffident toward a certain monk, a quiet and mysterious man who wore a grey robe as plain as a novice’s, and who always kept his hood on. He seemed to be very thin under his robe. He had a clean-shaven, thin face and long, thin hands. He was called just “Theodor” by the priests, although the novices all called him “Brother.” Even Austinus spoke to him very respectfully.

  Among the novices, there were also two hierarchies. While Sergius was Head Novice, the other novices were much more likely to listen to the affable Lepidus. He was always first in line for every meal, had the lightest chores and the driest, brightest cell in the barracks. Other novices were always giving him pieces of their bread or helping him with the few chores he did. When Lepidus spoke, the novices listened; if he interrupted, the speaker paused; when he told a joke, all the novices laughed. No one ever interrupted Lepidus.

  Lepidus’ best friend at the Abbey appeared to be Mamercus, also called Quadratus: a hulking brute, as tall as Javor but much heavier. His neck was twice as thick as Javor’s, his shaved head had ripples bulging at the back above the neck and another heavy ridge supporting the bushiest eyebrows that Javor had ever seen. His jaw was heavy and loose and had few teeth. His arms looked like the heavy ropes Javor had seen on the boat from Constantia. His calves were a thick as Javor’s thighs. And apart from his head and face, which were trimmed and shaved according to the Rule, every bit of his skin was covered by thick, c
oarse black hair. Despite his hairiness and general air of animalistic menace, he could not have been more than a year older than Javor.

  Quadratus rarely spoke, only growled through hymns during Mass, but obeyed Lepidus implicitly. He glared at anyone else who spoke to him, but laughed at every joke Lepidus told, even when it was at his own expense. Javor once saw another novice gently tease Quadratus; without a second’s hesitation or any warning, Quadratus punched him full force in the chest. The smaller boy flew back, fell on his rump and banged his head on a chair. Two others helped him up, not daring to look at Quadratus, and led the victim away. Quadratus went back to hanging on Lepidus’ every word, seeming to have already forgotten his tormentor.

  The hierarchy continued below Quadratus in a series of unstated deferences, honours and obeisances that Javor gradually learned to respect. One day, he learned that he was at the bottom.

  After starting the morning cooking fires, prayers and helping to prepare the porridge, Javor took his little bowl to the main dining hall to sit with the other novices. As he approached, two moved over to block an empty space.

  “Down at the end of the table, slav!” one whined, a skinny, pimply youth named Timotheos. “Yah!” said the novice beside him, a stout boy named Zotikos.

  “What’s wrong? I always sit here,” Javor protested, attempting to wedge himself between the two.

  “Not any more,” Timotheos sneered. “You’re a dirty slav. You can sit at the far end so we don’t have to smell your stink!”

  Javor couldn’t understand. “I smell better than you do, Timotheos. When was the last time you washed yourself?”

  “None of your business, slav!” Zotikos practically spat out the last word. “We don’t have to sit beside barbarians here in our city!”

  “Your city? You’re from Smyrna, you told me yourself!”

  “At least I’m Greek, not some dirty slav!”

  “You keep calling me that, and I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Javor’s face felt hot. “My people are called the Sklavenes! What is a ‘slav’?”

  “Sklavenes, barbarians, you’re all the same,” said another novice, Fusus, sitting across the table. “Listen, Timotheos—even the name sounds like a barking dog.” He looked directly at Javor. “Bar! Bar! Bar!” He laughed.

  “Sklavenes, slaves of the Avars, barbarians,” Timotheos sneered again. “Get away from me. I don’t want to catch your bugs!”

  Javor almost felt like he wanted to cry, but another part of him wanted to smash Timotheos’ head into the table. Biting back his fury, he went to the far end of the table, and gulped at his food, fighting back tears.

  The closest novice was Flaccus, the sickly looking one with ears that seemed to bend over at the tops. He leaned closer. “Don’t pay attention to Timotheos. He’s an idiot. He always looks for ways to make everyone feel bad, especially if they’re not Greek enough for him. He made fun of me for weeks because I preferred speaking Latin to Greek.”

  Javor shrugged, gulping down his food. It tasted even worse than usual. “I’d like to break him in two.”

  “Now, now, remember,” said Flaccus soothingly. “Love thy enemy.”

  “Huh?”

  “The Word of our Lord. ‘Love thy enemy as thyself.’”

  “Maybe I’ll forgive him later, but I don’t think that I can love him.”

  Flaccus smiled. “That’s okay. I don’t love him, either.

  Danisa kissed him, then pulled out of his arms. She took the dagger from the sheath at his side and calmly walked away. Javor tried to warn her about the dragon, but words would not come from his mouth. She walked directly to the dragon’s open claws. They closed around her slim body. The dragon flapped its immense black wings and carried her away.

  Javor strained and finally pushed out a yell. “Danisa!” He sat upright and all he saw was the stone wall of his cell.

  “Shut up, you sissy!” someone groaned.

  “Stupid barbarian can’t sleep in civilization,” someone else said.

  A dream. Just a dream. Javor fell back onto his straw bed, but could not sleep.

  “Why are there no women in the Abbey?” Javor asked Father Peter during lessons.

  “Women have their own devotional orders, called convents.”

  “But why are they separate? Women and men lived together in my home.”

  “It would not be proper where there are large groups of men and women in one place,” answered an exasperated Father Peter. “It is true that such … arrangements are found among the uncivilized, lesser peoples of the world, but where we have the Word of our Lord to guide us, we follow civilized modes of behaviour.”

  “Then how are Roman babies born?”

  Father Peter’s face became bright red. “Family life is the basis of Roman civilization, and has been since before the time of our Lord, Jesus Christ!” he screamed. “Nothing can replace the family. But in an abbey like this one, we are a family of the spirit, not of the flesh, and we must safeguard ourselves against temptations of the flesh, which would be perditious outside the sanctimony of marriage!”

  “Why not have married people in the abbey, then?”

  “Because the life of contemplation must be free of the distractions and obligations of family life. Now, let us consider the importance of the prophecies of Isaiah concerning the coming of the Saviour.”

  Why do these Christians get so uncomfortable talking about sex?

  Eventually, Javor made some friends, dwellers like him at the bottom of the social ladder. Flaccus, one of the very few novices who were actually from Constantinople, was always willing to talk, when they were allowed to. Ammon, a tall boy with large, watery eyes and bushy brown hair who reminded Javor of bulrushes, was teased and humiliated for coming from a poor family from Athens. Sandulf was a fair-haired Gothic boy who could not account for ending up in Constantinople. They would gather outside the kitchen door in the chilly evenings to commiserate over how they hated Lepidus and his gang, or the strictness of Father Albertus, or how heavy their chores were. Javor said little, trying to hone his understanding of the nuances of the novices’ slang, listening for the foreign words that crept into their Greek, and disappointed that he never heard a trace of his own tongue.

  Javor yearned for a break from the routine. Every day is the same. Wake up before dawn, help make breakfast—a mean gruel that made him long for his poor mother’s kasha. Clean the kitchen. Sweep the stables. Pray. Meditate. Pray some more. Listen to the teachers blab about Christ and the saints and the prophets without falling asleep. Learn to repeat what they just said. Clean some more. With the coming of cooler weather and days of rain, thin, tasteless soup replaced bread for lunch, followed by more sweeping and more praying.

  “Which is more important, Christ’s divine nature or His human nature? Javor!”

  “What?” Father Peter had caught him off guard. Late fall sunlight streamed into the stone-walled room, whose only decoration was a large crucifix painted on the peeling yellow walls. Javor’s attention had wandered as it usually did during the religious instruction, but Father Peter seemed to love pouncing on his students with abstract questions. “Uhh, His ... divine nature?”

  “Wrong!” Father Peter shouted. Javor could not interpret the look on the priest’s face. Is he angry or amused? “Both are essential. The two natures of Christ, Divine and human, are united. He is fully Divine and fully human at the same time. ”

  Javor’s heart was pounding and his mind was spinning. “How can He be completely two things?”

  Father Peter leaned close and screamed into Javor’s ear: “He is Divine and He is a man! Do not question this or you will be a damned heretic!”

  Father Peter turned and paced across the room as he expounded on more of the Christian religion. Three gods in one God, Christ as ruler of the universe, orders and classes of angels and archangels proceeding ... Javor watched the last leaves blow past the window. He wondered how the harvest had gone at home. Will they have enou
gh food for winter?

  Father Peter was looking at him again, and Javor realized that all the other novices were reciting a prayer. He clasped his hands, looked down and tried to join them, keeping his voice low to hide the fact that he didn’t know the words.

  One suppertime as he was steeling himself to eat the thin soup he had watched Verros stir and cough over, he saw another novice, named Tomas, sit across from him and put a small cloth bag on the table. He carefully untied a string that held it closed, and sprinkled a pinch of some kind of powder onto his bread.

  “What’s that?” Javor asked.

  “Oh, it’s just a little spice,” Tomas answered, sprinkling a little more into his soup. “I just have a little. It reminds me of home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Syria.” Tomas took a bite of his bread.

  “Can I try it?”

  Tomas hesitated, and glanced around the table at the other novices, who were watching him and Javor intently. Strange, thought Javor.

  “Sure,” Tomas replied with sudden enthusiasm. He picked up the bag and tilted it over Javor’s bread. “But since this is the first time you’re having it, you won’t really taste it unless you get a lot. But I can’t do this again—spices are very expensive, especially this time of year!” He tapped the side of the bag until a healthy sprinkle covered one side of the bread. “Okay, take a big bite.” He was grinning widely.

  Javor looked at Tomas, at the bread, at the other novices who were all looking at him, smiling and nodding. “Go ahead, Javor, you’ll love it!” said one.

  Javor picked up the bread and took a big bite, almost all of the spice. It didn’t have much of a taste at first, but then he felt a heat on his tongue that quickly became unbearable. My mouth is on fire! He reached for a cup of water and gulped it all down, but it didn’t help.

  “Agh! What is this?” He grabbed someone else’s water and drank it down, too, but that didn’t help, either. Tears streamed down his cheeks and his face felt hot.