The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [124]
“What?” Awa squinted at the skeleton, as though she might see what he was about if only it were not so smoky beside the fire.
“It’s like this,” Johan explained, making an obscene gesture at the still chortling Ysabel. “I was something like an entrepreneur, made my coin selling relics and all.”
“Relics?” Awa had not wanted a drink so badly in a very long time. “What kind of relics?”
“The regular kind?” Johan rubbed his palms together.
“The regular kind are made’ve saints, not random old bits of beasts, you cheat!” said Ysabel.
“Says you!” shouted Johan. “I was in the business long enough to set you straight there, and anyone else! When they weren’t stealing’em from one another they were making their own.”
“Who were stealing what?” asked Awa.
“Priests and all, and men what worked for’em,” said Johan, clearly pleased that she had taken an interest. “Like me. I’ll allow I went freelance after a time, but I started off legit as the rest. I was one o the boys what got the saints out’ve Stantinople when we crusaded it.”
“He was slinging chicken bones, trying to pass them off as old Popes!” said Ysabel. “I took pity on him getting run off by the priest, and the thankless fraud got me killed for my trouble.”
“Harsh, Ysabel, very harsh.” Johan crossed his arms. “So much for personal responsibility, eh? And the few times I didn’t have real bones with me they was pigs’, not chickens’, so that’s slander atop o slander.”
“Listen,” said Awa, rubbing her temples. “You can’t lie, so let’s go from the beginning. Starting with you, Johan. You were helping people leave Constantinople?”
“Yessss?” Johan fidgeted. “Well, alright, yes and no. See, people what do real right by God get turned into saints, and the bones them saints leave behind is powerful holy. So over the years Stantinople buys up a load o these saint bones, relics is what they is, and the people pilgrimaged there to pray. And when Constanty was being sacked on direct orders o the Pope, well, my brothers and some others who was there decided to help out this abbot was reclaiming the relics. So we nicked some bones and took’em back to France and all, to where the bones, relics, right, where the relics belonged.”
“Why did they belong in France instead of Constantinople?” asked Awa.
“Cause the priests what paid us for the bones told us so,” said Johan with a shrug. “Not being a priest myself, I couldn’t say. But belong they did—saints wouldn’t let no one move their bones otherwise. Furitive sacrum, they call it.”
“And what happened after that?” said Awa.
“I seen the coin I made off one set o bones, so I thought why not make a little more? I, ah …” The words started falling out, to Johan’s obvious dismay and Ysabel’s delight. “A man died on the way home with the relics so I cut off his hand. After, right, after, but I cut it off and cleaned the meat and little white ropes and all and got the bones out, and ah, rubbed’em with sand and filth and all, and got’em cracked a bit, and traded ol’ Saint James a left for a left. So after we got the coin in France I took the show to the road, selling his finger bones.”
“Oh,” said Awa. “Selling them to other priests?”
“Exactly! And the random noble what’d stay at the sort o inns I did. Got myself a monk robe, made a box for the bones, and that was that. Thing is, not everyone believed I was the last brother o this order or that trying to find a proper reliquary for beloved James’s hand in exchange for some funds to save the abbey. Some uncharitable souls, and I’m talking clergy’s well as gentry here, didn’t believe the hand was even his.”
“Imagine that!” said Ysabel. “I wish you’d seen him with his skin on, mistress, the old villain looked like Reynard himself, red as the devil and twice as shifty.”
“I was handsome, is what she’s getting at,” said Johan.
“Is that so?” Now Ysabel crossed her arms.
“Sooo.” Johan turned back to Awa. “You see where my mind started going next?”
“I do?”
“You don’t.” Johan sighed.
“Sinning don’t come natural