Bone Dance (30 page)

Wallingford held up a silencing hand. “Calm yourself, Brother.”

“You must forgive me, I cannot be silent. I had not told
you yet, but Thomas was going to ask your permission to make another edition of that woman's book. All those years it rested in our library, and no one set eyes upon it until this man printed it for all the world to see.” The monk pointed an accusatory finger at Wat.

“Ah, my dear Phillip, perhaps you do not know the very song you mention, the song you yourself sang today, is by a woman.” The Abbot responded to his secretary's stricken look with derisive malice. “Aye, quite so. A nun in the Rhineland was its authoress long, long ago. It was but adapted by the folk in our town. So, if the printer's sin was disseminating the work of a woman, it seems you too are guilty, and I must order your eyes cut out. What say you to that?”

Wat was shocked by a side of the Abbot he had never seen, and then surprised by Brother Phillip's courage, for the monk answered, albeit meekly, “I say it was a miracle.”

Wallingford sighed impatiently. “You are very tiresome. Yet, I suspect most of the town also would like it to be so. And a miracle we may well have, but we must seek some answers before it is proven. Schoolmaster, what questions might you have if you were serving as the devil's advocate?”

“Oh, your Grace, I would not presume.” Wat had an uneasy feeling he was being used for some end he could not see.

“Come now, humility is not helpful here. You knew the man, you knew his work. What would you ask?”

Wat was still uncomfortable, but he could not deny the state of the room made him curious. “First, what happened here? Thomas had too much reverence for his work to leave it in this disarray.”

Wallingford nodded. “Do you have an explanation for that, Brother?”

“A wind of Heaven swept through and scattered the tools of the Devil.”

“How picturesque. Well then, Schoolmaster, are there other questions?” The Abbot was obviously amused by the debate he had instigated between reason and emotion.

“What was Thomas doing in the statue? How did he get there? Is there not usually a monk who pulls the strings?” Wat was beginning to enjoy himself after all. “Why was there no blood anywhere? Granted, he seems unmarked, but his eyes . . .”

Brother Phillip crowed triumphantly, “This is the greatest proof of all! Did not the eyes of Saint Alban's executioner fall from his head? Is it not the same here? It was surely accomplished by the hand of God.”

“There could be another reason.” The three men looked around as if they could not imagine who had spoken, but Gorta was undeterred. “If he was already dead when his eyes were taken out, he would not bleed.” Then, indicating the body, she addressed the Abbot. “May it please you, sir, I should like a closer look.”

He gave his now speechless debaters a wry glance “It seems all questions—even all answers—have ceased for the moment, so please do what you will. Perhaps you can provide us with further information.”

While Gorta went quietly about her quest, Wallingford continued. “Allow me now, as a matter of form, to suggest other alternatives. To the question of what happened in this room, may I suggest some physical upset, either in the person of the printer or in another who might have confronted him here. Why was he in the statue? If, in fact, he was killed by human hands, perhaps it was simply a place to hide the body or a way to direct suspicion toward a desired end. How did it get there? Quite easy. The statue is removed from the cathedral to the
Market Cross at sundown on the eve of the feast day and then left alone there until our quaint procession begins. But harder to understand, and perhaps more important, is the question of the monk who usually pulls the strings. That is Brother Aengus, and it occurs to me I have not seen him today. Phillip, send a message to find him and have him come here to us.”

Wat watched the monk make his way across the room, giving the still-quiet dog a wide berth, and start slowly down the stairs. Poor fellow, Wat thought, he really wants nothing to come between him and his miracle. Then he turned his attention to Gorta, who held a small wooden box into which she gazed intently. When she put it down, Wat realized with a start it contained Thomas's eyes. Next she concentrated on the dead man's hands. “Wat,” she said, “he has nicks and little cuts on his fingers. Would that be a normal thing?”

“I had them all the time. The type can be sharp, and it is easy to get pinched when you are working with the press.”

She called softly, “Dagda, come to me.” Then, while Wat and Abbot Wallingford looked on in quizzical silence, she held one of the stiff, dead hands out to the dog and said, “Smell. Good boy. Now, go. Find.”

By the time Brother Phillip returned, Dagda was moving intently around the room, poking his nose into corners and under stools, snuffling through ashes in the fireplaces. With increasing anxiety, the monk attempted to keep the Abbot's tall chair between himself and the big white animal, at the same time whispering: “I left word we have need of Brother Aengus. But what is happening here?”

“Watch this. It is quite interesting, really. The dog is looking for something he smelled on the printer's hand.” Wallingford looked up at his secretary. “Oh, for pity's sake, do not fret so. He will not harm you. He is under perfect control.”

Dagda completed his circumference of the room. There was nothing left to investigate but the printing press. As he approached it, his nose went up into the air, twitching with excitement. When he reached the spilled type, he stopped and began to whine. “Good, Dagda,” Gorta said. “What is it?” The dog barked two times. She nodded. “Just as I thought.”

The Abbot, caught halfway between irony and curiosity, struggled to reassert himself. “Well, woman,” he began, then stopped, and started again, his voice ingratiating. “Gorta, I believe you are called. Please, do not keep us in the dark. What have you learned? What has the dog—uh, told you?”

“The printing press killed him, sir.”

“Ah, you see!” Before anyone could say a word, Brother Phillip began to rave. “He was destroyed by his own evil, and the saint who watches over us set him before the people so they might be warned what happens when . . .”

“Hold your tongue!” The Abbot came abruptly to his feet, shook his secretary like a terrier with a rat and added viciously, “You could lose it as easily as the printer lost his eyes.” Then, brushing off his robes, he grandly reseated himself and turned back to Gorta. “Explain what you mean.”

Wat tried to signal her to be careful, but Gorta, ever unafraid, was caught up in helping solve the mystery.

“There was poison on the type. Nightshade, it was. Some give it the name ‘dwale' or ‘Devil's cherries'. But whatever it's called, it's deadly.”

“How do you know what it was?”

“As you said, sir, Dagda told me. He can nose out poisons when we humans can't even get a whiff of them, and I've trained him to tell me what he smells. One bark is for Monkshood, two for Nightshade. There are others, but I don't suppose you want to know them all.”

“You amaze me, Gorta.” Did Wat hear menace in the Abbot's voice? “However, I think you suspected something before you sent the dog on his search.”

“Aye, that I did. The eyes, you see, were so dilated I could hardly tell what colour they might have been in life. Nightshade does that. And Wat's question about the state of the room made me wonder. A man who has taken Nightshade becomes wildly agitated before he dies. In his delirium, he might have caused just such disorder as we see here.”

Wat broke in, hoping to deflect the Abbot's fierce focus from Gorta. “How could he be poisoned by what was on the type?”

“It would take time, but the juice from the roots can enter the body through even the smallest opening in the skin. Poor Thomas's hands were covered with cuts.”

For perhaps the first time since the body was discovered, they looked at it and remembered it was once a man. “But he was such a quiet, gentle fellow,” Wat said. “Who, why—”

Their individual thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, laboured footsteps. Then a bleary-eyed monk appeared in the doorway.

“Ah, Brother Aengus, come in,” said Wallingford.

“My lord Abbot, pray forgive me. I took a sleeping draught yestereve. I have only just been wakened.”

“How interesting. Have you been unwell?”

“Nay, but barely able to close my eyes of late. Brother Phillip heard of my trouble and made a wee dram for me. I thank you, Brother, but I am afraid it worked over-well.”

“How kind of you to succour your fellow monk, Phillip. It seems your scant knowledge of potions is occasionally useful.”

The Abbot's voice had changed again. It was sly and speculative, his gaze piercing as he looked at them all. We are
like chess pieces about to be moved around a board, Wat thought,

“So,” said Wallingford, “let us return to the schoolmaster's last questions. Who? And why? Supposing, as perhaps we now must, the act was a human one, why would a person—or persons—want the printer dead? What do you think, Phillip?”

The monk was clearly loathe to give up his miracle and follow this line of thought. “Revenge?”

“Ah yes, revenge. Always a good reason. But for what? Can you shed light on this, Schoolmaster?”

“As far as I know, Thomas never did anything, nor wanted to do anything, but practice his craft,” Wat began cautiously. Then he took a deep breath and went on with more courage. “But I cannot see a cause for vengeance in that. Nor could it have been some sudden anger. Not only would he not elicit that, but poisoning doesn't take place in a moment of passion. It requires planning. Perhaps then he had come by knowledge that was dangerous, or someone wanted to stop him from doing something. Not this new edition of my book, for his decision regarding that was recent, but something over the long term.”

“Clever thinking, but perhaps all are true. Perhaps it was a matter of stopping him from spreading this knowledge and of revenge. So now we must ask, whom did he damage by knowing what he knew, being what he was, and doing what he did?”

“All of us! The town, the abbey, even Saint Alban himself.” Brother Phillip was so agitated he could scarcely get his words out. “This printing . . . this thing he did here . . . with this . . . this Devil's apparatus? This is the wicked fall!” He started wildly across the room. “I will not stay here any longer. I will put an end to this. I will tell everyone the miracle is being defiled!”

“Wait, Phillip. Stop!” The Abbot was on his feet again. Gorta started after the fleeing monk. But Dagda was faster
than either of them. He planted himself in the narrow doorway that led to the stairs. Brother Phillip halted on the spot, edged away from the looming creature that blocked his escape, and turned to face the others: Brother Aengus, still dazed; Wat, helpless on his stool; Gorta, terrifying as her dog; and the Abbot, all pretence, all urbanity gone.

Imagining pity in his master's face, the overwrought monk pleaded: “Father, dear Father, can you not see? Our blessed saint was trying to save us all. He needed a messenger, someone to be his hands. And his eyes.”

Seeing no nodding head, no responding light of understanding, he became more frenzied. “How can you take the word of this ignorant woman, this witch with her hellhound at her heels, over that of your faithful servant? Aye, your servant who laboured in the very storehouse of learning, the scriptorium where we kept knowledge safe. Then there came this wretched Thomas, and all those like him.” He directed a strange wide-eyed glare at Wat.

“They destroyed what we had there. They stole our precious knowledge and dispersed it far and wide. Like Eve offering the apple. This man,” he pointed erratically at the body, “this instrument of evil, had to be stopped. They must all be stopped!” His voice rose to a mad shriek. Maniacally, he began to sing: “From this wicked fall, rose a martyr brave and tall.” Suddenly he reached into his pouch, the sharp glint of his quill knife flashed in his hand, and he rushed at Wat.

The moment was frozen in time. Brother Phillip raised his stabbing arm high. Brother Aengus stumbled stupidly aside. Gorta turned in horror. Abbot Wallingford made a gesture of futility. Dagda leapt from his place by the door. And Wat held up his one good hand to defend himself. Then the monk fell dead at his feet.

They knew he was dead because he convulsed violently, his eyes rolled back in his head, though they did not fall out, and then he was still. Gorta stooped to feel the life point under his jaw, but there was no pulsing in his neck. The shocked silence grew until at last Abbot Wallingford asked, “Is this then our miracle?”

“Nay, it was the Nightshade. He, too, has a cut on his hand.”

Wallingford's voice was kindly now, perhaps even a little sad. “It is a common mishap with scribes as well as printers. Poor Phillip, he did not even know enough to protect himself.”

Gorta got slowly to her feet. “Perhaps he did not want to.”

“You are, indeed, a wise woman.” The Abbot reached down and closed the eyes of his former secretary. “He did not understand that printing may be its own kind of miracle. And he truly feared a future where all men might own a book and read it themselves.”

“And all women,” said Wat.

Kathryne Finn
has turned her sharpened quill to ad copy, novels and practically everything in between, though this is her first published short story. She escaped from Toronto to New York for many years but now is back in Nova Scotia. Though truthfully, through the medium of imagination, she lives mostly in the Middle Ages. Wat, Gorta and Dagda will reappear in her trilogy
, The Julyana Chronicles,
which is presently searching for “its own kind of miracle”
.