The Book of Boy

by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

  The bones of Saint Paul and the threads of his shroud I arranged at the grave’s head.

  I made my home at the opposite end, at the foot. There I gathered the relics of Saint Peter. My pack held rib tooth thumb toe, and now also the dust of Saint Peter’s bones from the grave of Saint Paul. Rib tooth thumb toe dust.

  My tunic served as my pillow, for the poor thing was shredded past all repair. But ’twas no matter for I did not need to cover myself, not when no one could see me.

  At first I tried to ignore my wings; I’d lose them once I became a boy. But the wings so loved to be touched, and the feathers felt so fine when I cleaned them. Caged birds preen themselves, and captive hawks. So, I reasoned, should I preen as well, and I could even reach some feathers to my mouth. Though I did not care for the taste of dust, I cherished the feeling when the cleaning was done. Grooming took many hours, but in the end my wings were smooth as silk.

  Within the narrow low grave, I would extend one wing and then the other, becoming ever more adept at working them. I’d even picture how it felt to fly. Imagine soaring over the manor, waving down at Sir Jacques. Would he smile, seeing me? Would the goats notice and laugh? Stop dreaming of flying, I’d scold myself. Do you want Cook to see you? Or Ox? They already think you a monster! I did not want the cruel names that folk called me. Are you an angel, or a boy? Saint Peter had asked. I was a boy; I was meant to be one. Someday.

  Though the saints did not reappear, I was not alone, for I had the company of a mouse. How the mouse entered the coffin I never did learn, but she slept curled against my neck, and wakened me with tickling whiskers. She brought me crumbs with eager affection, and when I passed them back, she nibbled them down: Don’t mind if I do! She’d clean her ears whilst I cleaned my wings, the two of us like two cats grooming in sunshine.

  So you see that my life was quite lovely. The worst times, in fact, were my nightmares of the steward hunting me with knife fingers, or the black-eyed girl pelting me with questions and stones. . . . I’d awake panicked, though my pulse would slow once I saw darkness. No wicked soul would find me here! Then I’d preen, and arrange the dust and bones and cloth, and set the dirt into patterns. At times I fancied hearing footsteps and the chanting of hours. But those were echoes of a reality I’d do best never to think of. Instead I taught the mouse to run along my wings, and laughed at its whiskers, and tidied. There was work to be done.

  Such was my existence and such, I knew, would be my existence for a very long while.

  26 A Roughly Sketched Figure

  Much time I spent pondering Secundus.

  The one who found the way, Saint Peter called him. Saint Peter knew Secundus! That was good, yes, for Peter held the key to heaven. Perhaps Saint Peter was planning to let Secundus in. But as time passed, this hope faded, for I knew where Secundus had gone: back to hell. My prayers included a plea to Satan to treat him well. I had little faith my prayers would help, but prayer was all I could offer.

  One day I was squatting in my corner with the pack of Saint Peter as always, shaping dirt into a pattern of grapevines. The mouse watched from my shoulder. I sang as I shaped, a nonsense song with nonsense verse that I used to sing to Sir Jacques till tears of laughter ran down his face. Poor Sir Jacques. I tried to sing to him after his injury, but always Cook found me and put me to work.

  ’Twas the mouse that first noticed. Her ears perked up.

  Perhaps I should shape the dirt into ivy, which did not twist so. Had Secundus sung to his little boy? Poor Lucius, to be in heaven without his father . . .

  A scrape of stone. The mouse leaped from my shoulder.

  Brightness poured down through the hole in the lid of the stone altar above me. Light flooded the coffin—light so bright that I screamed. Mouse, what is happening? I cried.

  The mouse dashed away: Hide, Boy!

  But where? Mouse, help me!

  Now could I hear arguing—odd for an altar. The light shifted. A shadow . . .

  A feather floated down from the hole in the altar—the hole that now was open.

  No, not a feather: a page from a book. A page with burned edges. It settled on my grapevines.

  I crept over. With shaking hands I unfolded the page and held it to the light:

  A sketch. A quick sketch of a boy with skinny arms and curling hair and huge eyes. And wings. And two lines crisscrossing the boy’s narrow chest . . .

  ’Twas a drawing of me! An angel boy bearing the pack of Saint Peter.

  “Secundus!” I cried.

  Shouting. A shadow passed over the hole. Voices. A crowd. A cough . . .

  “Milord, I am here!”

  “Who?” Perhaps who. Perhaps another word wrapped in the tumult. “Did I—did I hear the name of Saint Peter?” a voice cried.

  “N-no . . .” What was he saying?

  “You are saying we should all of us leave this church and go to the tomb of Saint Peter?”

  I had not said that! But ’twas Secundus’s voice. It must be. Perhaps I was going insane. . . . “Yes. You should go from here to the tomb of Saint Peter.” But do not forget me.

  Another shadow. “What are these words?” A skeptical voice, bossy.

  What should I do? Should I answer? I pressed my mouth to the hole. I hope you know what you’re doing, milord. “You should go to the tomb of Saint Peter!”

  Voices like a thousand crows. The din grew, and the pounding of feet.

  “Secundus!” I reached up the hole toward the light so far away. But I received only scratches and a shower of grit.

  The ruckus faded.

  “Secundus? Anyone?” Mouse? But I heard only silence.

  That moment . . . that moment was the worst of my life. I had trained myself not to hope, convincing myself that life in this grave had value. But the light—the voices—had burst that hope free. Now my hope lay dashed to bits, as awful a torture as I could imagine.

  I crept to my corner. Away from the hole. I curled up, wings over my ears, clutching the pack of Saint Peter.

  No sound. No movement but for dust motes drifting through the shaft of light.

  More dust motes . . .

  Dust.

  Dust rained upon my head. Dust, and mortar.

  The lid of the coffin began to lift—the lid with the hole, with the altar above it. I’d seen that altar! Enormous, it was, and thicker than my arm was long. Its weight . . . I could not begin to imagine.

  A sliver of daylight. A head appeared, surrounded by sunshine. “Boy, are you there?”

  Bless you, Saint Peter! Bless you, Saint Paul. “Yes, I am, milord!”

  “Are you—” His voice caught. “Are you sound?”

  “I can hear you!”

  “No. I meant—are you quite right?” The crack widened. “Can you fit through?”

  How to explain? “Milord, my tunic is ripped—I can’t cover my . . . things. . . . ”

  “’Tis heavy, Boy.” Did he even hear me?

  It did not matter—I must get out. So, holding the pack of Saint Peter, I climbed up out of the grave and fell on the church floor, my wings wide and drooping. I peered around, flinching at the thought of stones and knives . . . but the huge church was empty.

  “Ah. ’Tis good to see you.” Secundus wiped his face. Oh, did he look ill! His cheeks were hollow, his eyes bruised . . .

  “Are you crying, milord?”

  He smiled, and tousled my hair. “You still have the pack. Well done, Boy.”

  A horrific squealing—the coffin’s lid was being lowered. The lid, and the altar above it. But what man is strong enough to achieve such an impossible task?

  No man. The slabs of stone were being lowered by women.

  Four women. Four washerwomen with rolled sleeves, their arms muscled from four lifetimes of wringing out clothes. Each wielded a pole for stirring vats. They tsk’d as they worked, backs straining. . . .

  The lid with its great stone altar settled back in place with a thud that rang up to the sky.

 
“Milord, why is the church empty?”

  “Shh,” Secundus smiled. “I’ll tell you anon.”

  The women surrounded me, beaming. Stroking my hair. Holding me up. Brushing dirt from my hose. Chuckling and cooing as they opened my wings. My wings! White, yes, but blue as well, and violet, and gold, and rich red at the tips. How they gleamed.

  The washerwomen folded the wings—they’d been folding since before I was born—and settled them against my body.

  Oh! Wings should fold.

  Images came to me: swallows tucking their wings when they landed . . . sparrows flicking their wings back as they hopped for crumbs . . . swans gliding down onto water, settling their wings as they floated so gracefully. . . .

  “What are you doing?” Secundus frowned at me.

  “I am sorry, milord. I was trying to move like the birds. . . .” How fine the feathers felt against my skin. My wings wiggled like toes in a shoe.

  “Hmph.” He coughed. “Your hump is gone.”

  “What?” I spun, silly me: no one can see their own back! I felt with my hand. . . .

  I had wings, yes. But wings that now rested between my shoulder blades. No hump.

  I stood, stunned . . . and jumped as a washerwoman knelt at my feet. Quickly she stitched up the holes in the knees of my hose. The others held up a tunic they’d stitched in no time at all, from the lining of one of their skirts. They slipped it over my head, the linen soft and pale from years of washing. Oh, did it rest well on my back.

  “How fine it feels,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

  The washerwomen chortled, and with strong arms they tied on the pack of Saint Peter.

  I tested the cords and turned to Secundus. “Rib tooth thumb toe dust. Now you have five.”

  He smiled. “Yes. And I have you.”

  The washerwomen kissed my curls and waved as Secundus and I strode off through the huge ruined church, the blue sky above us. Good-bye, mouse, I called. Good-bye, Saint Paul. Thank you for sharing your grave.

  “Come, Boy.”

  So quiet, this church was, and empty . . . Or was it?

  “Come,” Secundus repeated. “We must hurry.”

  27 The Heads of Saint Peter and Saint Paul

  As everyone knows, the bones of Saint Peter rest in his tomb in Rome—except of course for his dust in the grave of Saint Paul. But many years ago, the pope decided the two saints’ heads must be preserved specially. So he took the head of Saint Peter and the head of Saint Paul, and put them in the Mother of All the Churches because that is the church of the pope himself. Thus the Church’s three heads were all together: the pope and Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The pope has since fled to Avignon to escape savage Romans. But his church remained in Rome, and so did the heads of the two saints, guarded and never displayed—except for this Holy Year of 1350, when they sat on the altar for millions to see.

  And so ’twas to the Mother of All the Churches that Secundus and I trekked, walking the league from the church of Saint Paul to the city of Rome. We had rib tooth thumb toe dust, and now we needed the skull. How marvelous the sunshine felt, the breeze tickling my curls. How fine to have a back that was smooth, and the pack lying smoothly upon it. We walked an ancient road, alone but for the whine of mosquitos.

  “Hello, marsh,” I cried, skipping. “Hello, ruins.”

  “Slow down.” Secundus smiled. “We’ve some distance to go.”

  I skipped back to him. “You’re not dead, milord!”

  “Nor are you.”

  “I was so worried, but you’re alive.”

  “So you’ve observed.”

  “And you still—” I took his hand. The hand with the scar.

  “No. The monks did not catch me.”

  The weasel—the scream . . . “Milord? How did you survive?”

  “Ah. That was a scene. When the monks discovered us, I had only a moment. So I smashed my head against the wall.”

  “You did what?”

  He removed his hat to display a yellowing halo of bruise. “I hit my head so hard I passed out. When I awoke, I said the other pilgrim had hit me.” The weasel.

  I was so stunned I stopped walking. “But—that was lying.”

  “Ah, Boy. I had to survive. You see, stealing relics is a very great crime. But almost worse is crime at an altar. That man was guilty—don’t you agree? I simply added another sin to his list.” His smile faded. “And you? How did you manage?”

  “’Twas not bad at all.”

  He shuddered. “They would not let anyone near the grave, not for money or prayers.” He tapped the key beneath his robe. “Not for small coins, at least.” His smile returned. “How I missed you, Boy. The guard dogs—”

  “You stole?”

  “I stole all that I could, from every rich man in Rome! And I found strong women, and I gave the church this many coins”—he cupped his hands like an orange—“so I could get to the hole in the altar. So I might—” He swallowed. “So I could learn how you’d fared.”

  “I knew ’twas you! That’s why I shouted.”

  “And I heard you. I cannot describe my relief. At once an idea came to me, and I announced that a voice said everyone must leave this church to go to the tomb of Saint Peter.”

  “That voice was me.” I shivered in pleasure.

  “Ah, Boy, you played your part well. And everyone left.” He shook his head, still amazed. “Even the abbot.”

  What a scene it must have been. Thousands of pilgrims and monks—and an abbot!—rushing out the church doors. I sighed. “I wish I’d been there.”

  “You silly goose: you were. When you came flopping out . . . ” His voice caught, and he looked away.

  “So you got back the relics,” I said, simply.

  “’Twas not the relics that concerned me. . . .” He stared at the marshes lining the road, the air dark with insects. “When I lived here, this land was all villas.”

  “Wasn’t it muddy?”

  He snorted. “We drained it. We turned this wasteland into gardens and homes. ’Twas beautiful, Boy. But then the barbarians came and the ditches clogged, and no one knew how to drain them.” He spat. “Barbarians know nothing.”

  A howl in the distance . . . wolves.

  Even Secundus shivered. “Nor did we tolerate that. . . . Behold, Boy, the grand walls of Rome.” For ahead stretched a high battered wall. “The boundary of the city.”

  “Did your people build that?” The wall looked to go on for miles.

  “To keep out barbarians. Not that it worked. Now wolves prowl the city. Romans these days are more useless than dung.”

  We passed through the sagging gates, and oh, my disappointment, for the city looked no different from the wasteland outside. The road remained cracked and rutted, and trees grew through rotting roofs. I looked for wolves . . . but saw only shadows where they might hide.

  We came to a structure so enormous that I could not see its far side. “That, Boy, was the grandest bath in Rome. Its library held more wisdom than the world today knows.” He flipped to a page of his book: a drawing of a building with arches and statues and fountains, and a ceiling nigh as high as the sun.

  “You drew that, milord?”

  “I lived it. I drew it so I might remember . . .” He nodded to a vine-choked ruin. “There, I believe, was the villa of my dear friend Marius. He had a sculpture of Hercules wrestling a lion. It used to terrify Lucius. He’d stare and stare. . . .”

  Lucius. Secundus’s son.

  “Flavia scolded that I’d give the boy nightmares. But that only happened once. He imagined the lion was outside our door. He cried out for me. Me—not Flavia. Not the nurse.” He smiled. “I told him a lion would never attack us. I said, ‘I’m too stringy to eat.’ Then he asked, ‘What about me?’ A lawyer already. And I said, ‘You’re too small. You wouldn’t fill one lion tooth.’ And with that he rolled over and went back to sleep.” Secundus gazed into space, his eyes a thousand years away.

  “I am sorry, milord
,” I whispered. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  “For so long, I did not let myself hope. And now the memories come flooding back.”

  Memories flooded me as well: Sir Jacques tossing his son as the boy shrieked in glee. Sir Jacques laughing at my nonsense song, and scolding that I must eat . . .

  Dusk darkened the sky. We passed houses packed with pilgrims, and church steps with monks doling out bread—not enough bread, for the pilgrims complained. We passed tents of folk left homeless by the earthquake. Women tended their cook fires right in the road, their children playing betwixt pilgrims’ feet.

  “Don’t hunch, Boy,” whispered Secundus. And later: “What are you doing?”

  “I—I’m walking. Isn’t this how folk walk?”

  He laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  So I tried harder . . . but how can one try to be normal? Normal is what somebody is.

  We arrived at a vast square filled with pilgrims and tents. Straw sellers moved through the crowd hawking bedding. ’Twas a pity they couldn’t hawk baths.

  We entered the Mother of All the Churches, through doors as big as a barn. This building had suffered worse, even, than the church of Saint Paul, its roof also smashed to naught by the horrible earthquake. The walls bore black streaks where flames had clawed skyward, and the columns yet standing were charred black as the night.

  “Milord, this is awful.”

  “Indeed. I had not anticipated such crowds.” Brown-robed pilgrims packed the church. Pilgrims beyond counting lined up to worship, catching us in their midst, and pushing us forward.

  Miraculously, the altar had not burned in the fire, and neither had the two heads. They lay upon the altar: the head of Saint Peter and the head of Saint Paul, each with pink wax cheeks and glass eyes and gray hair (Saint Peter) and a red beard and bald pate (Saint Paul). The heads were so close that I almost could touch them—were it not for the thick bars protecting the altar.