The Book Without Words (14 page)

“What business is it of yours?”

“Alchemy,” proclaimed Bashcroft, “is both unnatural and illegal. Since you do not deny being a practitioner of that nefarious art, you are hereby commanded to provide me with your gold-making secret. If you do not, you’ll suffer grave consequences.
Dura lex, sed lex.
The law is hard, but it is the law. And since I am the law, it therefore follows that I must be hard.” He rapped his staff-of-office down like an exclamation point. “Have I made myself clear?”

“You have.”

“Very well, then, what shall you do?”

Thorston remained still for a moment—considering. The next moment he banged the door shut and replaced the crossbar.

“Stop!” came the reeve’s cry. “You’re committing a crime. Let me in.” He pounded on the door. “The least you shall do is let me have my boy. Do you hear me! I shall hang you all!”

Thorston, ignoring the shouts, retreated up the steps. Sybil and the others followed. When he reached the top room, Thorston started toward his worktable, only to halt halfway. “Sybil!” he cried.

“Yes, Master.”

“I’m plagued with danger. Where are the stones?”

“What is he talking about?” Damian asked Odo.

The raven did not answer.

“I must hurry!” cried Thorston, louder. “I told you to care for them. Fetch them.”

“Yes, Master.” Sybil went to the chest at the foot of the bed, knelt, opened it, pulled out the three green stones and held them out on the flat of her palm. Thorston took the largest and put it into his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. He stood there, as if waiting.

“But how can—” began Damian.

“Shhh!” commanded Sybil.

In a few moments, Thorston said, “I’m weary. Let no one disturb me.” He went to his bed, lay down, composed himself with hands clasped over his chest, and shut his eyes.

After a few moments, Odo fluttered across the room and hopped onto the bed. He studied Thorston’s face intently. Then he turned to the others and said, “He’s dead—again.”

4

“Are you certain?” said Sybil.

The bird jumped onto Thorston’s chest and leaned close enough so that his beak all but touched Thorston’s nose. “Not a breath,” he announced. “He’s as dead as … dead.”

“It’s not normal for a person to die
twice,”
said Damian.

“Mistress,” said Alfric, “you gave him something just before he died. What was it?”

Sybil sighed. “A stone.”

“He ate a
stone?”
cried Damian. “No wonder he died.”

“It doesn’t seem to have changed him,” said Odo.

“But there must be
some
difference between being alive or dead,” said Damian.

Sybil shrugged. “In truth, my life has been a kind of death.”

“And my parents,” offered Alfric, “though they are dead, they still live in my thoughts.”

“You’re just playing with words,” sneered Damian.

“Our lives,” said Odo, “don’t give us much else with which to play.”

“I’d rather play with gold,” said Damian.

Sybil went to the window, leaned on one arm, and looked out. Though the rain was still falling on the courtyard, soldiers had resumed working. She grasped now what they were building with the wooden beams: a gallows. Recalling the reeve’s words, she had little doubt it was meant for them all. When he returned, he would ask to speak to Thorston. What were they to say? What if he discovered what had happened? All would be lost: the book, the stones—and them. She looked at the two stones that remained in her hand. She supposed she could just take them and the book and give them to the monk. But she needed to speak to Odo first, alone.

She turned around to face the others. “We must bury Master again.”

“Why?” asked Alfric.

“To keep the reeve from knowing what has happened.”

“Just don’t tell him” suggested Damian.

“Damian, a gallows has been erected in the courtyard.”

“It has?” cried the boy. He and Alfric rushed to the window and looked out.

“Why is it there?” asked Alfric.

“To take the reeve at his word,” said Odo, “he means to hang Master Thorston.”

“But he’s already dead,” said Damian.

As Sybil put the stones back in the chest she said, “You may be sure that if the reeve learns of Master’s death, he’ll hang us.”

“Us!” cried Damian.

“I fear Sybil is right,” said Odo. “Another burial is necessary.”

“But let us pray that this time he doesn’t fart,” said Damian.

“Or fall down the ladder,” added Alfric.

5

It was both easier and harder to bury Thorston the second time. There were no body noises, and the hefting was done with greater sureness. But Thorston, in becoming younger, had become heavier. Still, once they had carried the body to the basement, they were glad to discover that having previously dug the grave (and Thorston having dug himself out), they had a much easier time putting him back in.

“A used grave is less grave,” suggested Odo.

“But still not gravy,” said Damian, who had joined in the work this time. “Perhaps the first time you didn’t dig deep enough.”

“My fear,” said Sybil, “is that for Master, no grave is deep enough.”

They shoveled the dirt back. When done, Alfric asked, “Please, Mistress, shall I repeat my words?”

“If you would be so good.”

“Rest in peace,” said Alfric.

“And be content to stay this time!” Damian shouted. “I don’t want to do this again.”

“Now,” said Odo, “we must resume our search. And with the reeve sure to return soon, we’d best be fast and thorough.”

The boys started to ascend the ladder. Sybil did not move. “I shall stay a moment longer,” she said.

“Why?” demanded Damian.

“By Saint George, Master Damian, it’s not for you to be always asking my whys and wherefores. I wish to speak to Odo. Be gone with you!”

Damian started to protest, but changed his mind when he took in Sybil’s angry glare. He went up the ladder. Alfric went too.

Odo turned to Sybil. “What is it this time?” he said with a sigh.

6

“Odo,” began Sybil, “it’s those stones. You saw him swallow one. It is they that allow him to come back to life.”

“How could that be?”

“I’m not sure, but the way to make and take them is to be found in the Book Without Words. And since Master swallowed another stone, he’s bound to return.” She considered the grave with discomfort.

“What makes you so certain?”

“A Brother Wilfrid has come to Fulworth. Years ago, Master—when my age—stole the book from him. Odo, the monk wants the book—and the stones—back.”

“How do you know all this?”

“He told me these things when I spoke to him.”

“Spoke to him! When? Where?”

“In the courtyard. Yesterday. And this morning.”

“Where was I?”

“Asleep.”

“Sybil,” said Odo, “if what you say is true, and we give the book or the stones away, Master will surely not live again. If he dies, we’ll never have the chance to learn his gold-making secret. We will have nothing.”

“But the monk told me that if Master lives, I’ll die.”

“Why should that be?”

“It has to do with the making and swallowing of the stones. He said I’ll live only if Master truly dies.”

“And you believe all that?”

“You need to speak with him yourself. Odo, what good is gold if we’re dead?” That said, Sybil hastened up the ladder, leaving Odo alone.

When the raven was quite sure Sybil was gone to the upper room, he hopped close to one of the locked chests. Rising a claw, he started to mutter,
“Ofan, Ofan—
”

“Odo,” came Sybil’s cry from the room. “Come here. Quickly.”

“What is it?” Odo called up.

“It’s Alfric,” said Sybil. “He says he can read the book!”

7

“What has he read?” said an excited Odo when he hopped up to the second floor.

“It’s about the stones,” said Sybil.

As Odo fluttered close, and Damian hovered near, Sybil drew Alfric to the table where the Book Without Words lay open. “Tell us what you saw,” she ordered him.

The boy brushed his red hair away from his eyes and stared hard. “It’s … a list,” he said.

“What kind?” Odo said.

Alfric moved his hand up and down the left side of the page. “Numbers are here,” he began. “Top to bottom: one, two, three, and four.”

“Is there anything about gold?” asked Odo.

“Shhh!” said Sybil.

“Not that I’ve seen yet,” said Alfric. “But over here,” he said, indicating the right-hand page, “there are words.”

“Can you read them?” said Sybil.

Alfric nodded. “They also go from top to bottom. On the top it says, ‘Life.’ Then”—his hand moved down—“‘Thoughts,’ ‘Magic,’ and finally, Time.’”

“Four,” said Sybil, who had been counting on her fingers.

“They’re just words,” scoffed Damian.

Odo, his tail twitching, studied the book intently. “It’s the gold-making formula I want. Look some more.”

Alfric stole a glance toward at Sybil. When she gave a tiny shake of her head, the boy turned some more pages. “I don’t see anything about gold,” he said after a while.

“There were four stones,” Sybil said. “And four words. Odo, do we agree Master
made
those stones?”

“I suppose we must.”

“And that he has already swallowed two. Remember,” she said to Odo, “the time when he first died—or so we thought. He must have swallowed the first stone and come back to life then, too. Which is why I found only three.”

“The first word
is
Life,” said Odo.

“Just so,” agreed Sybil. “Then four in all. Odo, recall what he said before his first death: he spoke about stones. That they contained life. Living again.”

“Something like,” agreed Odo.

“Life stones,’he said. ‘Immortality. Secrets.'”

“Then maybe—each stone,” said Odo with a flap of his wings, “gives one of the things on the list.”

“I must see those stones,” said Damian. “Where are they?”

Sybil went to the chest, took them out, and put the two remaining on the book.

“Are you claiming,” said Damian, “that each of the stones provided one of those things—Life, Thoughts, Magic, or Time?”

“I think so,” said Sybil.