Bone Dance (29 page)

The customary pronouncement was issued in a rich, clear voice: “Arise, arise, Saint Alban, and get thee home to thy sanctuary.” There was no response. The statue was stone still, no nodding head, no rolling eyes. The Abbot repeated his command in a louder voice. When this second charge was also ignored, the door in the base of the statue was opened. And there, revealed for all to see, was not—as the people halfexpected—a monk sleeping off early celebrations, but the body of a townsman. Indeed, he might not have been dead at all, for there was no blood, no mark of violence, but beside him, staring vacantly out at the crowd, lay both his eyes. This year, there was surely a miracle.

When England was still the Roman province of Britannia, Saint Alban was its first Christian martyr. A well-respected citizen of the town then called Verulamium, he gave sanctuary to a holy man who preached the new religion and became a convert himself. When Alban's crime against the laws of Rome was discovered, and he refused to repudiate his faith, the future saint was led to a place outside the town walls and his
head was struck from his shoulders. No sooner was the deed done than the executioner's eyes fell from their sockets to the ground, now wet with sacred blood. All this took place in the year 209, and on the hill where the martyr met his fate, an abbey was founded. By 1488, it was one of the most powerful monastic houses in all of England, and its abbot was a peer of the realm called William Wallingford, a sophisticated man who believed in the intellect as much as the spirit and had somewhat cynical ideas about the validity of miracles.

With his first glimpse of the eyeless corpse, the Abbot's own eyes hardened, while all around him were excited whispers of what the saint had wrought. “A terrible sin . . . to be so punished . . . defiled something sacred . . . a wicked fall from grace . . . it is a sign . . . Saint Alban is warning us.” Then there were the practical questions. “Who is it? Can you see? . . . Do you know him? A stranger?” But the dead man was not a stranger to Abbot Wallingford, nor to at least one other present that day. The Abbot saw Wat, the former schoolmaster and printer, perched high above the rest of the crowd. Indeed, it was hard to miss him. So, turning to Brother Phillip, his secretary, Wallingford gave orders to remove the body to the great gatehouse of the abbey and to summon the man on the black horse.

It was Wat and Gorta's first outing since she had arrived at his tumble-down cottage on the end of Fishpool Street half a year and more ago and found him in seriously sorry straits. If Wat was never a man of stature with enough faith or ambition to take final vows and become a monk, at one time he had thought himself useful. He saw innumerable boys at the abbey school through the complexities of arithmetic and grammar,
herding them to Mass every morning, insuring they said their Hail Marys before retiring each night. And in his single shining hour, he convinced the Abbot to import one of the new printing presses from London. By candlelight, during the long hours of night after his teaching duties were done, working from a manuscript he found in the abbey library, Wat took up the exacting, yet satisfying, task of setting type. Then, at last, with the help of a part-time apprentice called Thomas, he printed a singular book.

It was a surprising success, surprising to everyone but Wat, and the first edition of some two hundred copies sold out in weeks. But on the very day when he received permission from the Abbot to do another printing, he was struck down. Perhaps it was punishment for his sin of pride, perhaps it was only that he had worked too long and too hard, but a blood bubble burst in his head. Though he did not die, he could no longer use his right arm or his legs. His teaching duties were assigned to a younger man, his printing press was taken over by his apprentice, and he was reduced to bare existence in a hovel, haphazardly cared for by a neighbourhood slattern. He endured filth and despair for nearly a year. Then one day, when he scarcely had any desire left to live, he looked up and saw the apparition of a large woman, a black horse and a white dog standing in his open doorway.

Gorta's story was both more complex and more mysterious. She was born, and had lived for fifty years, amongst the ruins of a manor that had belonged to her ancestors since the Norman Conquest. But her mother and father had not partaken of the benefits of matrimony—nor, for that matter, had her grandmother and grandfather—so she had no legal claim when a far distant cousin had inherited the manor and simply turfed her out. Until that day, she had enjoyed peace
and a certain level of security, practicing the craft of herbs and simples taught her by her mother, healing one and all who came to her for help. When she suddenly found herself homeless, she was not entirely alone. She had the great horse left her by her father and Dagda, the white dog, who was her intimidating guardian. Nor was she entirely without resources. Her highly regarded skill had provided her with life's necessities and even an occasional handful of coins. In addition, she possessed two family treasures—a book written by her grandmother, a copy of the very one printed so painstakingly by Wat; and an old leather satchel filled with inscribed parchment. There was only one trouble. Gorta could not read. And that had brought her to Wat's door.

She nursed the former schoolmaster and cleaned the cottage. Then, since she had no place else to go, she simply moved in. In return, feeling blessed by her presence, he read to her. Just so, they passed a contented winter and spring enclosed by the old walls, but when summer came round again, she decided it was time for them to venture forth. Ignoring Wat's resistance, she picked him up like a sack of potatoes, settled him on Shadow's back, gathered the reins, whistled to the dog, and off they went. Because Wat was so much higher than the rest of the crowd, when the door in the statue opened, he had a good view of the body. He gasped, as dumbfounded as everyone else—not by thoughts of miracles, but because he knew the dead man. It was his one-time apprentice, Thomas.

Wat looked around the large room he had once occupied with such pleasure. It was on the second floor of the great gatehouse,
above the vaulted entrance. Gorta had carried him up the circular stairs he once had taken two at a time, eager for his evening's work. It was still the same, the fireplaces at either end, the deep ceiling beams resting on their stone corbels, and in the center his printing press. Wat's fingers itched to touch the type again, to select each perfect letter from the racks, to form words and sentences and paragraphs until he had created a whole page that would then be inked and printed. Even his useless hand could remember how it felt to hold a finished book.

But if the room was generally the same, there were also disturbing differences. The press had not been properly “put to bed.” Wat had never left the room, no matter how late it was nor how tired he might be without tidying it, but now there were large inkblots on the floor, and torn, smudged paper. One or two racks containing the precious type had been overturned, and individual letters spilled out. Worst of all, the body of Thomas was laid out on a table beneath the eastern windows.

Then there was Abbot Wallingford who, as far as Wat knew, had never before set foot in this place. He sat with aplomb in a high-backed chair, apparently undaunted by the day's events, while his secretary hovered nearby like an anxious crow. Wat sighed. Whatever difficulties were in store would only be made worse by the presence of Brother Phillip. The monk had always been a source of both secret laughter and irritation at the abbey. He had been elevated from a desk in the scriptorium—where he had laboured year after unimaginative year producing precise manuscript copies—to his present position at the right hand of the Abbot.

Indeed, they seemed an odd pair, but it was Brother Phillip's very precision and lack of imagination that made him useful to the man whose adventurous mind and philosophical bent often carried him into far-flung realms of new thought.
To give credit where it was due, the secretary offered his master both organization and devotion, following the Abbot everywhere with a pouch containing ink, quills, a quill knife and parchment—the tools of a born scribe—tied round his waist. But the man was also obsessive and dogmatic to a fault. Today, for instance, Abbot Wallingford would be disinclined to accept the “miracle” without question, while Brother Phillip would be ravenous in his belief. Wat steeled himself for what lay ahead.

“Ah, Schoolmaster,” the Abbot's tone was welcoming, and Wat remembered he had always used his voice to great effect. “It seems we meet under strange circumstances. But tell me, who—and what—is that you have there?”

Wat hesitated. It was always difficult to explain Gorta, particularly when she was accompanied by Dagda, who had followed them up the stone stairs and now lay quietly at their feet. Finally he fell back on the story he used for his neighbours in Fishpool Street. “She is my cousin, your Grace, come from Essexshire to care for me, and this is her dog. I had to bring her with me. You see, Gorta is my legs.”

Unperturbed, Wallingford nodded. “Good, then. Bring him over here, woman. Brother, get a stool so he may sit while we confer. You had best leave that great beast where he is, though. I am partial to dogs myself, but my secretary is terrified of them. Now, Schoolmaster, tell me what you can about the dead man.”

“Not much, I am afraid. He wasn't one to let people know him. I was told he lived in the English community at Bruges, where he was apprenticed as a lad to a typefounder. He travelled to London in the wake of Caxton when my friend set up his press at Westminster. Caxton, in turn, occasionally lent Thomas to me when I needed help. By the time I had my—
uh, accident—he was ready to take over full responsibility here.”

“How can you say ‘accident'?” Brother Phillip murmured darkly.

The Abbot ignored him. “Almost no one else knew him either. I myself saw him but once or twice. Certainly not as much as I saw you in the days when you convinced me to import this infernal contraption.”

He smiled at his little joke and waved a languid hand at the printing press, but his secretary muttered, “Just so.”

Again Wallingford continued as if no one else had spoken. “Brother Phillip carried any necessary messages back and forth between us. It seems the printer kept much to himself and was deeply involved with his work.”

“Aye, that would be very like him,” Wat agreed. “One thing I do know, he had a passion for the art of printing. He claimed it would carry us into a future where all men might own a book and read it themselves.”

“And all women,” Gorta said.

They turned to stare at her. Then the Abbot laughed. “You must believe the same, Schoolmaster, since your best known book was written by a woman.”

Still watching Gorta, Wat blushed. “I suppose I do.”

Brother Phillip, no longer able to contain himself, began to spit words. “And that is why you were sore afflicted . . . why we have witnessed this very day a miracle. While the people were singing the song to Saint Alban, this man, too, was struck down. You see him before you with not a mark upon him. Yet he is dead, and his wicked eyes have fallen from his head.”