Library of the Dead (12 page)

"It is perhaps inauspicious."

"The Lord will protect us, Prior Josephus. Of this, you can be assured."

"Yes, Father. I was wondering, nevertheless, whether I should venture to the village."

"Toward what end?" Oswyn asked sharply.

"In the event a minister is required," Josephus said meekly.

"You know my views on leaving the cloisters. We are servants of Christ, Josephus, not servants of man."

"Yes, Father."

"Have the villagers sought us out?"

"No, Father."

"Then I would discourage your involvement." He pushed his bent body up from the chair. "Now, let us go to Sext and let us join with our brothers and sisters to praise the Lord."

Vespers, the sunset Evening Office, was Josephus's dearest of the day since the abbot allowed Sister Magdalena to play the psaltery as accompaniment to their prayers. Her long fingers plucked the lute's ten strings, and the perfection of pitch and precision of cadence were testament, he was sure, to the magnificence of Christ Almighty.

After the service, the brothers and sisters filed out of the Sanctuary and made toward their respective dormitories, past the blocks of stone, rubble, and the scaffolding left for the day by the Italians. In his cell, Josephus tried to clear his mind for a period of contemplation but was distracted by small sounds in the distance. Was someone approaching the walls? Was news of the birth forthcoming? At any moment he half expected the guest bell to be rung.

Before he knew it, Compline was upon him and it was time to reconvene in the church for the last service of the day. Because of his preoccupations, his meditation had been unsuccessful, and for this transgression he prayed for forgiveness. When the last strains of the last chant were uttered, he watched the abbot carefully descending from the high altar and thought that Oswyn had never appeared older or more frail.

Josephus slept fitfully, roiled by disturbing dreams of bloodred comets and infants with glowing red eyes. In his dream, people were gathering in a village square, summoned by a bell ringer with one strong arm and one withered one. The bell ringer was distraught and sobbing, and then, in a start, Josephus awoke and realized the man was Oswyn.

Someone was thumping at his door.

"Yes?"

From the other side of the door he heard a young voice. "Prior Josephus, I am sorry to wake you."

"Enter."

It was Theodore, a novice who was charged this night with attending the gatehouse.

"Julianus, the son of Ubertus the stonecutter, has come. He pleads that you go with him to his father's cottage. His mother is having a hard labor and may not survive."

"The child has not yet been born?"

"No, Father."

"What hour is it, my son?" Josephus swung his feet onto the floor and rubbed his eyes.

"The eleventh."

"Then it will soon be the seventh day."

The path to the village was rutted from the wheels of ox-carts, and in the moonless dark Josephus almost turned his ankles. He labored to keep up with the long sure strides of Julianus so he could more readily follow the lad's hulking black shape and stay on the path. The cool light wind carried the sounds of chirping crickets and calling gulls. Ordinarily, Josephus would have relished this night music, but tonight he hardly noticed.

As they neared the first cottage of the stonecutters' village, Josephus heard the bell ringing back at the abbey, the call for the Night Office.

Midnight.

Oswyn would be told of his foray, and Josephus was quite sure he would not be pleased.

Being the middle of the night, the village was eerily active. In the distance Josephus could see oil lamps glowing from open doors of tiny thatched cottages and torches moving up and down the lane, signs of people out and about. As he drew closer it was clear that the center of activity was Ubertus's cottage. Villagers milled outside it, their torches casting fantastic elongated shadows. Three men were crowding the door, peering in, their backs forming a phalanx blocking the entrance. Josephus overheard feverish chattering in Italian and snippets of Latin prayer the stonecutters had overheard in the church and stolen like magpies.

"Make way, the Prior of Vectis is here," Julianus declared, and the men withdrew, crossing themselves and bowing.

A scream erupted from inside, a woman in agony, a curdling horrible cry that almost pierced the flesh. Josephus felt his legs weaken and uttered, "Merciful God!" before forcing himself to cross the threshold.

The cottage was crowded with family and villagers, so packed that for Josephus to enter two had to leave to make room. Seated by the hearth was Ubertus, a man as hard as the limestone he cut, slumped, his head in his hands.

The stonecutter cried out, his voice thin from exhaustion, "Prior Josephus, thank God you have come. Please, pray for Santesa! Pray for us all!"

Santesa was lying in the best bed surrounded by women. She was on her side, her knees up against her bulging belly, her shift pulled high, exposing mottled thighs. Her face was the color of sugar beets, contorted and almost lacking humanity.

There was something animalistic about her, Josephus thought. Perhaps the Devil had already taken her for his own.

A plump woman he recognized as the wife of Marcus, the foreman of the cementarii, seemed to be in charge of the birthing. She was positioned at the foot of the bed, her head darting in and out from under Santesa's shift, blathering in Italian and barking orders to Santesa. The woman's hair was braided and bobbed to keep it out of her eyes, her hands and smock covered in pink, gelatinous material. Josephus noted that Santesa's belly was glistening from reddish ointment and that the bloody foot of a crane was on the bed. Witchcraft. This, he could not condone.

The midwife turned to acknowledge the presence of the minister and simply said, "It is breeched."

Josephus edged up behind her, and the midwife suddenly lifted the shift to let him see a tiny purple foot dangling from Santesa's body.

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

The woman lowered the shift. "A boy."

Josephus gulped, made the sign of the cross and fell to his knees.

"In nomine patre, et filii, et spiritus sancti..."

But as he prayed, he wished with all his might for a stillbirth.

On a raw November night, nine months earlier, a gale blew outside the stonecutter's cottage. Ubertus stoked the fire for the last time and went from cot to cot checking on his offspring, two or three to a mattress except for Julianus, who was old enough for his own pallet of straw. Then he crawled into the master's bed beside his wife. She was on the verge of sleep, drained after another long day of heavy toils.

Ubertus tugged the heavy woolen coverlet to his chin. He had carried the cloth with him from Umbria in a chest of cedarwood, and it served him well in these harsh climes. He felt Santesa's warm body beside him and laid a hand on her softly heaving chest. The urge was there and his hardness would have to be satisfied. By God, he deserved some pleasure in this difficult, earthly world. He slid his hand down and pulled her legs apart.

Santesa was no longer beautiful. Thirty-four years and nine children had taken their toll. She was puffy and haggard and she chronically scowled from the pain of rotting molars. But she was nothing if not dutiful, so when she became aware of her husband's intentions, she sighed and whispered only, "It is the time of the month to take note of the consequences."

He knew precisely what she meant.

Ubertus's mother had borne thirteen children; eight boys and five girls. Only nine of them had survived to adulthood. Ubertus was the seventh son, and as he grew he carried this mantle. If ever he had a seventh son, that boy, by legend, would be a sorcerer, a conjurer of dark forces: a warlock, some said. Everyone in their hillside village knew about the lore of a seventh son of a seventh son, but no one, truth be told, had ever met one.

In his youth, Ubertus had been a lady's man and exploited the dangerous image of the potential locked within his loins. Perhaps he had used his status to bait Santesa, the prettiest girl in the village. Indeed, he and Santesa had teased each other over the years, but after the birth of their sixth son, Lucius, the teasing stopped and their sexual unions took on an air of gravity. Each of the next three births was the source of considerable trepidation. Santesa sought to foretell the sex of the babies by pricking her finger with a thorn and letting a drop of her blood fall into a bowl of spring-water. A sinking drop indicated a boy, but sometimes the drop sank and sometimes it floated. Blessedly, each child had been a girl.

Ubertus rammed himself in. She caught her breath and whispered, "I pray it will be another girl."

At her bedside, deep into the night, the situation was becoming more grave despite Josephus's urgent prayers. Santesa was too weak to scream and her breathing was shallow. The tiny protruding foot was getting darker, the color of the deep blue clay the abbey potters favored.

Finally, the midwife declared that something must be done or all would be lost. There was heated debate, then a consensus: the baby must be forcibly extracted. The midwife would reach in with both hands, grab each leg and pull as hard as was necessary. This maneuver would in all likelihood destroy the baby, but the mother might be spared. To do nothing would condemn both to certain death.

The midwife turned to Josephus for his blessing.

He nodded. It must be done.

Ubertus stood beside the bed, looking down on this catastrophe. His hugely muscled arms hung weakly at his side. "I beseech you, Lord!" he cried out, but no one was sure whether he was praying for his wife or his son.

The midwife began her traction. It was apparent by the strain on her face that she was exerting great effort. Santesa muttered something unintelligible but she was beyond pain.

The midwife loosened her grip and withdrew her hands to wipe them dry on her smock and catch her breath. She regripped the legs and began again.

This time there was movement. It emerged slowly. Knees, thighs, a penis, buttocks. Then suddenly it was free. The birth canal yielded to the large head, and the boy was wholly in the hands of the midwife.

It was a large baby, well-proportioned, but clay-blue and lifeless. As every man, woman, and child in the room watched in awe, the placenta squirted out and thudded onto the ground. With that, the baby's chest spasmed and it inhaled. Then another breath. And within moments the blue boy was pink and squealing like a piglet.

At the moment life came to the boy, death came to his mother. She took her last breath and her body went still.

Ubertus roared in grief and grabbed the infant from the midwife.

"This is not my son!" he screamed. "It is the Devil's!"

He moved fast, dragging the placenta along the dirt floor, using his shoulders to force his way through the crowd and out the door. Josephus was too stunned to react. He sputtered but no words came out of his mouth.

Ubertus stood in the road holding his son in his stonehard hands and he wailed like an animal. Then, as torch-bearing villagers looked on, he grabbed the umbilical cord and swung the baby high over his head as if he were wielding a sling.

He brought the small body crashing down hard onto the earth.

"One!" he shouted.

He swung it over his head and smashed it down again.

"Two!"

And over and over: "Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven!"

Then he dropped the bloody broken carcass onto the lane and numbly shuffled back into the cottage.

"It is done. I have killed it."

He couldn't fathom why no one was paying him any mind.

Instead, all eyes were on the midwife, who was hunched over the lifeless Santesa, frantically groping between her legs.

There was a shock of ginger hair showing.

Then a forehead.

And a nose.

Josephus watched in amazement, scarcely believing his eyes. Another child was springing from a lifeless womb.

"Mirabile dictu!"
he muttered.

The midwife grimaced and pulled the chin free, then a shoulder and a long thin body. It was another boy, and without any prodding it instantly began breathing, strong, clear breaths.

"A miracle!" a man said, and this was repeated by everyone.

Ubertus stumbled forward and glassily took in the spectacle.

"This is my
eighth
son!" he cried. "Oh, Santesa, you made twins!" He warily touched its cheek as one might touch a boiling pot.

The infant squirmed in the hands of the midwife but did not cry.

Nine months earlier, when Ubertus had finished planting his seed, his spray had shot through Santesa's womb. That month, she had produced not one but two eggs.

The second egg fertilized became the baby who now lay shattered on a cart path.

The first egg fertilized, the seventh son, became the ginger-haired boy who now held every soul in the room spellbound.

A
s an only child growing up in Lexington, Massachusetts, Mark Shackleton was rarely frustrated. His doting middle-class parents satisfied every whim and he grew up with only a passing relationship with the word no. Nor was his inner life disturbed by feelings of frustration, since his quick, analytical mind sliced through problems with an efficiency that made learning nearly effortless.

Dennis Shackleton, an aerospace engineer at Raytheon, was proud that he'd passed on math genes to his son. At Mark's fifth birthday party, a family affair in their tidy split-level, Dennis produced a clean sheet of tracing paper and announced, "Pythagorean Theorem!" The skinny boy grabbed a fat crayon and felt the eyes of his grandparents, aunts, and uncles follow him as he approached the dining room table, drew a big triangle and underneath it wrote:
a
²
+ b
²
= c
²
. "Good!" his father exclaimed, pushing his heavy black glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Now what's this?" he asked, jabbing a finger at the long leg of the triangle. The grandfathers chuckled as the boy screwed up his face for a moment then exploded with: "The hippopotamus!"

Mark's earliest frustrations came as a teenager when he became aware that his body had not developed as robustly as his mind. He felt superior--no, he
was
superior--to the jocks and the goofballs who populated his high school, but the girls couldn't see beyond skinny legs and a pigeon chest to the inner Mark, a soaring intellect, scintillating conversationalist, and budding writer who constructed elaborate science fiction stories about alien races conquering their adversaries with superior intelligence rather than brute strength. If only the cute girls with pillowy chests would talk to him instead of giggling when he gangled through the halls or eagerly pumped his hand into the air from the front row of class.

The first time a girl said no to him, he vowed it would be the last. In his sophomore year, when he finally mustered the courage to ask Nancy Kislik to a movie, she looked at him strangely and coldly said, "No," so he shut down that part of himself for years. He threw himself into the parallel universe of Math Club and Computer Club, where he was coolest of the uncool, first among equals. Numbers never said no to him. Or lines of software code. Not until well after grad school at MIT, when he was a young employee at a database security company, flush with stock options and a convertible, and dated a plain Jane systems analyst, did he mercifully score for the first time.

Now, Mark paced nervously in his kitchen, kinetically transforming himself into his alter ego and nom de plume, Peter Benedict, man about town, gambler extraordinaire, Hollywood screenwriter. An entirely different sort of man than Mark Shackleton, government employee, computer geek. He took a few deep breaths and knocked back the last of his lukewarm coffee.
Today's the day, today's the day, today's the day.
He psyched himself up, praying almost, until his reverie was halted by the hated reflection in the glass of the deck sliders. Mark, Peter, it didn't make a difference. He was slight, balding, and bony-nosed. He tried to shake it but an unpleasant word crept in: pathetic.

He had begun work on his screenplay,
Counters,
shortly after his meeting at ATI. The thought of Bernie Schwartz and his African masks made him queasy but the man had virtually commissioned a script about card counters, hadn't he? The ATI experience had been gut-wrenching. He loved his rejected script with the kind of affection lavished on a firstborn but had a new plan now: he'd sell the second script then use it as leverage to resurrect the old one. He swore he would never let it die on the vine.

So he threw himself into the project. Every evening when he got home from work and every weekend he pecked out the action sequences and the lines of dialogue, and in three months it was done--and he thought it was more than good, that it was maybe even great.

As he conceived it, the film would be first and foremost a vehicle for major stars who, he imagined, would approach him on the set--the Constellation?--and tell him how much they loved the lines he had put on their lips. The story had it all: intrigue, drama, sex appeal, all set in the high-stakes world of casino gambling and cheating. ATI would sell it for millions and he would trade his life in an underground lab in the middle of the desert, with his life savings of about 130 grand, for the glittering world of a screenwriter, living in a grand house high in the Hollywood Hills, taking calls from directors, attending premiers, klieg lights sweeping the horizon. He wasn't fifty yet. He still had a future.

But first Bernie Schwartz had to say yes. Even the simple act of calling the man was complicated. Mark left for work too early and returned too late to connect with Bernie's office from home. Outside calls from work were impossible. When you worked deep underground in a bunker, there was no concept of popping outside to make a call on a cell phone, even if mobiles were permitted, which they weren't. That meant he literally had to take sick days to remain in Las Vegas to phone L.A. Too many more absences and his superiors were bound to ask questions and force him to get evaluated by the medical department.

He dialed the phone and waited till he heard the chant, "ATI, how may I direct your call?"

"Bernard Schwartz, please."

"One moment, please."

For the past couple of weeks the music on hold had been a Bach harpsichord work, soothing in a mathematical sort of way. Mark saw the musical patterns in his head and it helped relieve the stress of calling this loathsome but essential little man.

The music stopped. "This is Roz."

"Hi, Roz, this is Peter Benedict. Is Mr. Schwartz there?"

A pregnant pause, then, frostily, "Hello, Peter, no, he's away from his desk."

Frustration. "I've called seven times, Roz!"

"I'm aware of that, Peter. I've talked to you seven times."

"Do you know if he's read my script yet?"

"I'm not sure if he's gotten to it."

"You said you were going to check when I called last week."

"As of last week he hadn't."

"Do you think he'll read it this week?" he pleaded.

There was silence on the line. He thought he could hear the rapid-fire clicking of a ballpoint pen. Finally, "Look, Peter, you're a nice guy. I'm not supposed to say this, but we got the coverage of
Counters
from our readers and it wasn't good. It's a waste of your time to keep calling here. Mr. Schwartz is a very busy man and he's not going to represent this project."

Mark gulped and squeezed the phone so hard it hurt his hand.

"Peter?"

His throat was tight and it burned. "Thank you, Roz. I'm sorry I bothered you."

He hung up and let his knees buckle him onto the nearest chair.

It started as a tear from his left eye, then his right. As he wiped away the moisture, the pressure rose from below his diaphragm reached his chest and escaped his larynx as a single low rumbling sob. Then another and another until his shoulders were heaving and he was crying uncontrollably. Like a child, like a baby. No.
No
.

The desert sky turned coronation purple as Mark numbly walked into the Constellation, his right hand curled around a wad of cash in his pants. He plowed through the crowded lobby with a tunnel vision that blurred the periphery and set a clear path toward the Grand Astro Casino. As he crossed the threshold he hardly noticed the din of voices, the clanging and goofy musical tones of the slots and video poker machines. Instead, he heard blood throbbing in his ears, like a pulsing, heavy surf. Uncharacteristically, he paid no attention to the points of light on the planetary dome, with Taurus, Perseus, and Auriga directly overhead. He bore left through the valley of the slots and passed beneath Orion and Gemini on his way to Ursus Major, the Great Bear, where the high-stakes blackjack room beckoned.

There were a half-dozen $5,000 tables to choose from, and he picked the one where Marty, one of his favorite dealers, was working. Marty was a New Jersey transplant, his wavy brown hair pulled back into a neat little ponytail. Marty's eyes lit up when he saw him approaching. "Hey, Mr. Benedict! I got a nice chair for you!" Mark sat down and mumbled hello to the four other players, all men, all deadly serious. He pulled out his wad and traded it for $8,500 in chips. The stake was the largest Marty had ever seen from him. "Okay!" he said loudly, catching the ear of the pit boss nearby. "I hope you do real well tonight, Mr. B."

Mark stacked his chips and stared at them stupidly, his mind gummy. He bet the $500 minimum and played automatically for a few minutes, breaking even until Marty reshuffled and started a fresh deal. Then his head cleared as if he'd taken a whiff of smelling salts and he began to hear numbers pinging in his head like an audible beacon in the fog.

Plus three, minus two, plus one, plus four.

The count was calling out to him, and hypnotically he allowed himself for once to link the count to his bets. For the next hour he ebbed and flowed, retreating to the minimum bet on low counts and jacking the wager on high counts. His stack grew to $13,000, then $31,000, and he played on, hardly noticing that Marty was gone, replaced by some sourface named Sandra with nicotine-stained fingertips. A half hour later he hardly noticed that Sandra was shuffling more frequently. He hardly noticed that his stack had grown to over $60,000. He hardly noticed that his beer hadn't been refreshed. And he hardly noticed when the pit boss sidled up behind him with two security guards.

"Mr. Benedict," the pit boss said. "I wonder if you could come with us?"

Gil Flores moved back and forth with quick little steps like one of the Siberian tigers in Siegfried and Roy's old act. The meek humiliated man sitting before him could almost feel plumes of hot breath on his bald pate.

"What the fuck were you thinking of," Flores demanded. "Did you think we wouldn't spot this, Peter?"

Mark didn't answer.

"You're not talking to me? This isn't a fucking court of law. It's not like you're innocent till proven guilty. You are guilty, my friend. You basically fucked me up the ass and I do not like my sex that way."

A blank, mute stare.

"I think you should answer me. I really think you'd fucking better answer me."

Mark swallowed hard, a dry, difficult swallow that produced a comical
gulp
. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I did it."

Gil ran his hand through his thick black hair, mussing himself in exasperation. "How can an intelligent man say 'I don't know why I did something'? To me, that doesn't make any sense. Of course you know why you did it. Why did you do this?"

Mark looked at him finally and started to cry.

"Don't be crying at me," Flores warned. "I'm not your fucking mother." That said, he tossed a box of tissues into Mark's lap.

He dabbed his eyes. "I had a disappointment today. I was angry. I felt angry and this is how I reacted. It was stupid and I apologize. You can keep the money."

Flores had almost been mollified until the last concept, which threw him into a tizzy. "I can keep the money? You mean the money you stole from me? This is your solution? To let me keep that which already fucking belongs to me!"

Mark winced at the shouting and needed another tissue.

The desk phone rang.

Flores picked it up and listened for a while. "You sure about this?" After a pause, he continued, "Of course. Absolutely."

He put the phone down and moved in front of Mark, making him crane his neck. "Okay, Peter, this is how we're going to handle this."

"Please don't report this to the police," Mark begged. "I'll lose my job."

"Would you please shut your mouth and listen to me. This is not a conversation. I'm going to talk and you're going to listen. That's the asymmetry that your actions have brought upon you."

A whisper. "Okay."

"Number one: you're permanently banned from the Constellation. If you walk into this casino again you will be arrested and we will seek your prosecution for criminal trespass. Number two: you are leaving with the $8,500 you walked in with. Not a penny more, not a penny less. Number three: you violated a trust and a friendship so I want you to get the fuck out of my office and out of my casino right now."

Mark blinked at him.

"Why are you still here?"

"You're not going to call the police?"

"Were you not listening to me?"

"And you're not going to have me banned at other casinos?"

Flores shook his head in amazement. "Are you giving me ideas? Believe me, I could think of a lot of things I'd like to do to you including sending you to an orthopedic surgeon. Get lost, Peter Benedict." He spit out the last words: "You are persona non grata."

From the penthouse, Victor Kemp watched the stoop-shouldered man push himself out of a chair and shuffle out the door, and on other video feeds he followed him, accompanied by security as he made his way back into the casino, where he scanned the planetarium dome a final time in a last-ditch effort to spot Coma Berineces, through the lobby, and out into the parking lot and the authentic night sky.

Kemp freshened his drink and spoke out loud in a rich tenor to the colossal empty living room: "Victor, you will never make a buck trusting people."

Mark slowly drove his Corvette down the Strip in stop-and-go traffic. It was three hours till midnight and the town was getting busy as people were settling on the evening's entertainment. He was heading south, the Constellation in his rearview mirror, but he had no particular destination. He tried not to think about what had just happened. He was cast out. Banished. The Constellation was his home away from home and he could never return. What had he done?

He didn't want to be alone in his house, he wanted to be in a casino bar, with giddy action and loopy slot-machine jingles to distract him. Thank God Flores hadn't put the word out and blasted his photo to every casino in the state. He had caught a break. So, the question he mulled as he jerked down the Strip was: where should he go? He could drink anywhere. He could play blackjack anywhere. What he needed was a place with the right atmosphere to suit his peculiar temperament--a place like the Constellation, which had an intellectual component, albeit a token one.