A Medieval Alien Saint: Chapter 17

A man stole a bone from a church. He took it home and stuck it on his shelf.

Only, the bone’s existence fretted him. When he left the house, he wondered if the bone was safe or whether it had been carried off by one of the household’s pets. When he returned, he checked its position. Sometimes, he was convinced it had moved. Sometimes, he was convinced that a shadow lay across the bone, a shadow from no obvious source.

He moved the bone—to the back of the shelf, to another room, to the attic and then to the basement.

Finally, he determined to return the bone to the church. He wrapped it in a cotton towel, then stuck it in a gift box he pulled from the back of a closet. He placed the box on the passenger seat of his car and drove into town. Reaching town, he parked and dashed into a local shop to buy a card to write a note and stick on the box.

When he came out, he found that thieves had smashed the passenger-side window. The gift box containing the bone was gone.

 * * *

“It’s an urban legend,” Phillipe nearly snarled. “Part ghost story, part I can tell you exactly what happened with my excessive detail baloney. A worn-out trope. People wrapping up dead pets and grandmothers and stool samples in pretty paper and what do you know, the item gets stolen by thieves.”

“Thieves would surely go after the unwrapped items in the car,” Victor agreed solemnly.

“Dynas. Carjacks. Leather seat covers. Air compressors,” Justin murmured.

He and Victor grinned. Phillipe grimaced and bobbed his head in a move that reminded Frankie of Xavier, but he added, “The family is just trying to excuse their jerk ancestor for not returning the bone.”

In the world of moral meaning, Phillipe would send a man who stole from a dig straight to hell. No doubt Xavier would agree with him.

Xavier wasn’t there. “You have contributed,” Frankie told him. “But you aren’t an official member of the Congregation. You know that.”

He hunched, ears flattening, a cat in a corner. It was the first time Frankie had seen him look stricken.

“You really shouldn’t be there either,” she told Will.

She didn’t bother to pause, to argue. Cubi, incorporeal Cubi, could go where they wished. What was the use of arguing?

She didn’t think Will was present. She looked around the abbey’s warming room or calefactory. It was centrally heated, of course, or would be in winter. They sat at a small table beneath high, arched windows. The historical stone fireplace stood at their backs. They were together in-person, so Frankie could smell Victor’s piney aftershave—a gift from his daughter—and hear the click of Justin’s fingers on the table and feel the vibration of Phillipe’s tapping foot.

She said, “What happened to the bone?”

“It was given to the local museum,” Victor said. “According to Farage family records.”

“Is it still there?”

“I sent Xavier to check,” Phillipe said. “Why not?” he added as Justin and Victor exchanged glances. “He follows through.”

“He truly isn’t working for the Cardinals?” Justin said. “He really is a Cubus attached to Phillipe.”

Phillipe drew in a breath and opened his mouth—to expostulate, no doubt. Frankie quelled him with a level glare.   

“Not attached to either the Cardinals or His Holiness,” she said. “That’s a relief?” she added as Justin leaned back, shoulders relaxing.

“I hate politics,” he said simply.

Victor said, “It is a bit of a cheek, making himself part of our group without warning. Why didn’t you say something?”

He was speaking to Phillipe, and his tone was curious rather than combative. Phillipe shrugged.

“He’s a good researcher,” he muttered to the table top though his eyes flicked up, the way Xavier’s did when he was gauging Frankie’s reactions.

Did Xavier learn the mannerism from Phillipe or Phillipe from Xavier?

Justin and Victor were grinning. Good researcher was high praise from Phillipe, practically an encomium.

“Cubi leaders don’t want a fuss,” she said.

“Would a fuss put our Congregation in jeopardy?” Justin said.

Probably not. But political reactions could be incalculable. And Frankie needed to protect her people, which likely meant acknowledging Xavier’s identity quietly and letting the matter drop.

I ought to be furious. But Frankie never lied to herself. She squashed the vague sense of relief. This matter isn’t closed, she told herself. Not yet.

She said, “So if we retrieve the bone, if it proves to have Siphon origins, if we can claim it for Lady Margaret—”

Phillipe stirred but Justin and Victor handled relics and miracles and they both nodded. They were as aware as Phillipe and Frankie that a gap existed between historical DNA and a positive ID. But they were both more willing to dismiss the odds, to say, “Hey, why not? Close enough!”

Was Frankie equally willing?

She wasn’t sure. She continued anyway:

“—which narrative about Lady Margaret do we back here? Officially?”

“I think we connect her to the Holy Well,” Victor said. “That means connecting her to the Isle of Man, doesn’t it? Or, at least, the Siphon records from the Island.”

Justin said softly, “That version would appease the applicants.”

Justin may not like politics. He understood them. Siphon Catholics wanted a Siphon saint. A Siphon who conferred with King Manannan, who directly influenced human history through Edwin of Northumbria—that was a Siphon saint with weight.

“The Manx records are easier to check,” Phillipe said. “Not more reliable, just more available.”

Frankie nodded and glanced at Victor. He said, “I’ll contact the Lady Margaret Society, collect their stories. I’m not sure about the Child Without a Name—”

Phillipe snorted.

“It’s a nice story,” Victor continued without acknowledging the snort but clearly in answer to it. “But the tale of Lady Margaret intervening for the knight might make more impact.”

“People will go on believing all the stories,” Phillipe said, which was a remarkably even-handed comment—for Phillipe.

“Our job to present a single narrative. Revlin from Bamburgh Castle—is he on-board?”

“Oh, sure, Victor said easily. “He always favored the Lady Margaret who ended up on the Island. And we can use most of his positio.”

“I suppose we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Frankie said. “We don’t have the relic yet. But even without it—”

“Stick a bone in a box,” Phillipe muttered, but he glanced at his plastic sheets as if anticipating a message from Xavier.

“The priory and the museum are willing to, uh, claim Lady Margaret,” Victor said. “They feel that circumstantial evidence warrants establishing a shrine at Norton Priory.”

“Bamburgh Castle won’t like that.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Victor said, who was never troubled by Phillipe’s contentious remarks. “It establishes a potential pilgrimage: from the north to the center of the ancient English kingdoms.”

Phillipe nodded absently. His mind was no doubt focused on equally ancient documents. Frankie wasn’t a believer in long meetings in any case. She looked at each of her people and rapped her knuckle to catch Phillipe’s notice.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for your work.”

Phillipe ducked his head, glanced at his sheets and went out followed by a beaming Victor. Justin lingered, standing as Frankie did.

He said, “Maryann was a Cubus.”

“Maryann?”

Maryann was Justin’s girlfriend, a fellow lab technician from Justin’s previous job. She was a quiet young woman who easily moved between her criminal justice teaching position and her local parish. She was devout.

Justin said, “She was one of those who joined with a kid. It isn’t sexual, you know—not until the hormones arrive in adolescence. It’s more about the exuberance of the growing body. And they don’t replace the child. The two become companions. But the girl, the human girl, was killed in a car accident—ran out in the road. So Maryann became the girl. The parents knew. They were actually quite objective about it. They accepted her, gave her a name of her own. I guess she is still technically a Cubus, but she can’t hear or see them anymore. It’s been almost twenty years years.”

“Did you guess about Xavier?”

“No. I honestly thought he was a spy—uh, informer.”

“Do you think he should stay?”

Justin grinned then. “If Phillipe wanted him to go, he’d be gone already.”

Which wasn’t exactly Frankie’s question.

But kind of was.