The Beatryce Prophecy Read online

  So far, Beatryce had consumed a moon and a leaf.

  Answelica had eaten the people.

  “In a moment,” said Brother Edik. He leaned toward her. He smelled of maple sugar, and the room smelled of dust and straw. And goat.

  Brother Edik cleared his throat. He said, “The world is not always a kind place.”

  “No,” she agreed.

  “But there are sweet things to be had,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I’m cutting your hair so you will be safe.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Beatryce.

  Brother Edik sighed. “My mother,” he said, “had a brush in the shape of a mermaid. The mermaid’s tail and her hair were encrusted with jewels. The brush was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I wanted something impossible from it: to have the mermaid turn and look at me.”

  “And did she ever?” said Beatryce.

  “She did not.”

  Beatryce closed her eyes. She imagined the mermaid. She could see her face. It was beautiful and sad.

  She opened her eyes again. “What do you suppose the mermaid’s name was?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think it would be important to know her name,” she said.

  “Maybe you will somehow learn it,” said Brother Edik. “I never did.”

  The sun shone into the room. The odors of goat and maple candy intensified.

  Beatryce watched her hair fall to the ground, and she was suddenly filled with a terrible desolation.

  “Of one thing I am certain,” she said to Brother Edik, “and that is that the mermaid did not get her hair cut off.”

  “No,” he said. “I suppose not. But then, she lived in a different world.”

  Brother Edik bent down and put his face close to hers.

  His wandering eye danced around the room, considering everything, while the other eye—bright and steady—looked right at her.

  “Beatryce,” he said, “when first you told me that you could read and write, you hesitated. You said you felt it was something you should not say.”

  Beatryce felt the breath of the dark abyss on her neck. She shivered.

  “And that was right,” said Brother Edik. “It is true that it is something you should not say. In this world we live in, there is a law that states that no girl, no woman, can read or write. You must know this—for your own protection, you must know this.”

  Beatryce felt herself tip sideways. She took hold of the goat’s ear.

  “It is very dangerous for you to be who you are,” said Brother Edik. “And so you must pretend to be someone you are not.”

  “But how can I pretend to be someone I am not when I don’t know who I am?”

  “You are Beatryce,” said Brother Edik. “You know that. You can read and write, and you know that. And this, you must know, too: that you have a true friend named Brother Edik.”

  Beatryce nodded. “And also a true friend named Answelica,” she said. She tugged on Answelica’s ear.

  “Yes,” said Brother Edik. “That, too. So that is who you are: someone with friends in the world. The rest we will figure out as we go along. I have a plan, and the plan begins with the removal of your hair, even if the mermaid did get to keep hers. Will you trust me?”

  She nodded. Her throat felt tight.

  Brother Edik nodded in return, and then he went back to work.

  Beatryce watched her hair fall to the floor.

  She kept hold of Answelica’s ear.

  She thought: I am Beatryce. I have friends in the world. I no longer have hair. But I have friends.

  The day after her fever broke and all the hair was cut from her head, the brothers of the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing gathered and watched Beatryce—clothed in a monk’s robe, her head shaved, a goat at her side—take a quill in her hand and bend over a piece of parchment.

  The brothers watched her write.

  They watched her form letter after letter.

  When she was done, Brother Edik held up the parchment so that every brother could see.

  There was a deep and sustained murmuring among the monks.

  “How could a girl do such a thing? It must be some sort of bewitching,” said Brother Antoine.

  “The letters are perfect,” said Brother Adell, “as if an angel had formed them.”

  “Consider the goat,” said Brother Frederik. “The goat is always with her. Does that demon have something to do with this?”

  “I would have you all listen,” said Father Caddis. “This child endangers us. The castle of the king regularly sends its envoys to study the Chronicles of Sorrowing. What if they discover her? What then?”

  “She is but a child,” said Brother Edik.

  “She is a very dangerous child,” said Father Caddis. “And surely, someone is looking for her.”

  “But we can keep her hidden in plain sight,” said Brother Edik. “We will say she is mute. We will say she is a young boy of the nobility come to learn his letters, a brother in training. And in the meantime, she can help us. She can write of the happenings of the world. There are never enough of us for this work. Let her help. This will give her a chance to return to her full health and strength before we send her away. Let us show her some mercy.”

  Never in his life had Brother Edik made such a long, impassioned speech.

  Never before had he stood before his brethren and made such an outrageous request.

  But then, never before had anyone mattered so much to him.

  Beatryce squared her shoulders. She laid her hand on Answelica’s head.

  “Just for a short time,” said Brother Edik. “Until she is well.”

  Answelica slowly moved her head, looking each of the monks in the eye.

  The goat terrified them all into silence.

  She terrified them into agreeing that Beatryce could stay.

  And what, you may well wonder, had Beatryce written?

  What words had she put down upon the parchment?

  These:

  When they were alone, Brother Edik asked Beatryce where the words she had written had come from, what text they belonged to.

  “I do not know,” said Beatryce. “They were in my head, and I wrote them down. That is all I know.”

  The lines of text were a mystery to her, something hidden inside of her. As she was writing, she had felt the words unfurl from within her one by one and land, bright and beautiful, on the page.

  When she had held the quill in her hand, Beatryce still did not know who her people were or where she had come from, but she knew who she was.

  “Read me the words as they are written in that great book,” said the king.

  The counselor bent his head to a piece of parchment. He said, “These words are written in the Chronicles of Sorrowing. I have copied them just as they appear. ‘There will one day come a girl child who will unseat a king.’”

  “Read it entire,” said the king.

  “‘There will one day come a girl child who will unseat a king and bring about a great change.’”

  “Yes,” said the king. “But it is a prophecy. Does that not mean it is destined to come true? Should we interfere with fate?”

  “Do not doubt,” said the counselor. “Small men doubt. Kings do not doubt. And you are a king.”

  “I will question this child when she is found. For I am king. And that is a thing also written in the Chronicles of Sorrowing—that I was destined to be king.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” said the counselor. “That is exactly right.”

  The counselor allowed himself a small, twisted smile.

  His dark robes gave off an oily sheen in the light from the candles that flickered around the throne of the king.

  Jack Dory belonged to no one.

  He had come from the dark woods when he was very young.

  This, of course, was during a time of war.

  The boy had walked into the village alone and said his name to
the first person he encountered.

  That person was Granny Bibspeak. She was sitting on a stool with her back against her hut and her ancient face turned up to the sun.

  Bees hummed. The grass was high and the sky was very blue, blue enough to break your heart in two.

  Granny Bibspeak had been in the world long enough that her own heart had been broken in two any number of times, and she was tired of it. She intended, in the little time that was left to her, to protect her heart.

  And so she kept her eyes closed to the beautiful blue and concentrated on the warmth of the sun, the hum of the bees.

  When the boy spoke to her, she did not move.

  “I am Jack Dory!” the boy said.

  “What if you are?” said Granny Bibspeak without lowering her head or opening her eyes.

  “There are robbers in the woods,” said Jack Dory.

  “’Course there are,” said Granny Bibspeak. “Them is the dark woods. Filled with robbers, is the dark woods.”

  “We were going from Highflint to Throttletown,” said Jack Dory. “My father did not want to fight in the war, and so we were going from Highflint to Throttletown to avoid the king’s men.”

  To this, Granny Bibspeak said nothing. That people went from one place to another to avoid the wars and the king’s men was not news to her, and it was not interesting. In fact, it made her weary to consider it—the constant need of people to run from one thing to another, thinking that they would avoid some sorrow, when sorrow was waiting for them no matter where they went.

  Granny Bibspeak was done with such foolishness. She had given up all her illusions. There was no way to be safe in this world, and Granny Bibspeak knew it. She was staying where she was. Let the sorrow come. Let it go past her.

  “They stopped us,” said Jack Dory, “and the biggest of them had a black beard and a bright knife, and he kept the knife between his teeth, and he growled when he spoke. He sounded like the devil himself.”

  “So you say,” said Granny Bibspeak.

  “He took everything from us. He took my mother’s cloak. He took my father’s hat.”

  “That’s robbers for you,” said Granny Bibspeak, still with her eyes closed. “They rob.”

  “But my father did not like it. He fought them and they killed him. The man with the black beard killed my father.”

  Granny Bibspeak felt a pinch in her heart. She wanted to forget the terrible things humans could do to one another. She wanted to sit in the sunshine and listen to the bees and forget.

  She did not want to care.

  Granny Bibspeak sighed. She opened her eyes. She lowered her head.

  She looked at the boy.

  Jack Dory.

  He was very small. His hair was dark.

  “And your mother?” she said, asking the question she did not want to ask.

  “She told me to run,” said Jack Dory. “She shouted at me that I should run.”

  “And you did run,” said Granny Bibspeak.

  “I did. I ran as fast as I have ever run, and I am a very fast runner. I did not look behind me even when I heard her scream, and now I am lost. I do not know where I am, and I do not know where my mother is, and she screamed and I did not turn back.”

  “Come,” said Granny Bibspeak. She held out her hands.

  The boy stepped closer to her. Granny Bibspeak put her palms on either side of his face.

  “Say your name to me again,” she said.

  “Jack Dory.”

  “Aye,” said Granny Bibspeak. “Say it again.”

  “Jack Dory.”

  “Tell me again who you are.”

  “I am Jack Dory.”

  The boy stood with the old woman in the bright sun under the blue sky.

  The bees hummed, and Granny Bibspeak made him say his name until he understood somewhere deep inside of him what she was trying to tell him—that his parents were gone, dead, but that he himself still lived.

  “I am Jack Dory,” he said.

  “Aye,” said Granny Bibspeak. “You are.”

  Granny Bibspeak called him Jack-of-the-Door and Jack-of-the-Wisp. She called him her brave boy. She called him the light of her heart, the river of her soul, her beloved.

  She lived for four more years, until Jack Dory was twelve years old, and then she died, and he stayed on in the hut alone. He cared for himself.

  He was fast, and because no one had a horse, someone who was fast was prized. He carried parcels. He carried messages.

  His memory was prodigious. You could tell Jack Dory something once and it was in his head word for word, just as you had said it to him. In a world where people could not read or write, this memory was a precious thing.

  In addition, he had a talent for mimicry. He could make the sound of a wolf calling for another wolf or a raven announcing that it had found food. He could walk like the innkeeper’s wife and laugh the same as the blacksmith laughed—before the man had been called to war.

  The villagers asked him to tell the old stories, because he could do the voices of all the characters, and it was like watching a play. It was as if they were hearing the story anew.

  Because of these talents—because he was fleet of foot and prodigious of memory and a great mimic—Jack Dory wanted for nothing. He was given food and warm clothes. He belonged to no one and was loved by all.

  And yet, at night, he dreamed terrible dreams. He dreamed of the bearded robber who had killed his father and his mother. The robber grinned, the knife held between his teeth.

  In his dreams, Jack Dory heard his mother scream.

  And he awoke, sweating, with one thought in his head: I want that knife. I will someday have that knife from between the robber’s teeth.

  In the same village as Jack Dory, not far from where the boy dreamed of a knife and revenge, there was a soldier of the king who was abed at the inn.

  The soldier was not a young man, nor was he old, and he was terribly feverish, extremely unwell. In the depth of his sickness, at the height of his suffering, it happened that he was visited by an angel—a terrible angel, an angel with dark and ragged wings.

  The angel hovered at the foot of the soldier’s bed and flapped her black wings. A foul odor rose from the feathers.

  “I know who you are,” said the soldier. “I have seen you many times on the field of battle. I know that I am now going to die. I want to die! I cannot bear to live anymore.”

  The angel opened her mouth and closed it again. Her teeth were hideous—crooked, snaggled, and stained.

  “What?” shouted the soldier. “What is it that you want to say?”

  “You must,” said the angel. And then she fell silent.

  “I must? I must? I must what?”

  “It must be written down,” said the angel. “If it is written, then there will be a chance of forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness?” said the soldier. “How could I ever be forgiven?”

  “See that it is written,” said the angel, and then she flapped her malodorous wings and rose up and disappeared through the roof of the inn.

  The soldier tried to forget the angel, tried to make himself believe that he had only imagined her, but he could not, and so he got out of the bed and made his way down the dark, crooked, and extremely treacherous stairs of the inn.

  At the bottom of the stairs, by the great stone fireplace, the soldier stood as straight as he was able and addressed the innkeeper’s wife.

  He said, “I am in need of a brother from the monastery.”

  “You are, are you?” said the innkeeper’s wife.

  “The angel says it must be written down,” said the soldier.

  The woman turned from tending the fire to stare at him. “The angel says it?”

  “Aye,” said the soldier. “If it is written down, I will be forgiven.”

  “Ha,” said the innkeeper’s wife. “Forgiveness!” She turned back to the fire.

  “Send me a monk!” said the soldier.

  “I’m not s
ending you nothing, am I? But Jack Dory would take a message to them, if you was to pay him.”

  “Find me Jack Dory, then,” said the soldier. “I am ready for this to end. I can bear it no more.”

  “It will all end soon enough, I reckon,” said the innkeeper’s wife.

  The soldier suddenly felt too weak to stand.

  “I must sit,” he said.

  “Well, sit, then,” said the innkeeper’s wife.

  “There is no chair,” said the soldier. But even as he voiced this protest, his legs buckled and he was on the floor.

  The innkeeper’s wife went to the door and shouted, “Jack Dory! I have a job for you!”

  In no time at all, a young boy appeared in the kitchen. He had a great shock of dark hair, and he was smiling.

  “This one,” said the innkeeper’s wife, “this one, sitting on the floor—this one says that he is receiving visits from angels. He wants things written down.”

  “I do not want them written down,” said the soldier. “The angel wants them written.”

  “Take him up to his room,” said the innkeeper’s wife.

  “I can walk,” said the soldier. He tried to stand but could not.

  “Should I carry you, then?” said the boy.

  “You should not,” said the soldier. “You could not.”

  “Aye, sure I can,” said Jack Dory. He bent and gathered the man in his arms and made his way up the stairs. He held the soldier as if he weighed no more than a bag of turnips.

  The man wished suddenly that he were a bag of turnips, for that way he would have no soul to account for, no sins for which to atone. Turnips were blameless, guilty of nothing but being turnips.

  No angel of death would bother to visit a turnip and speak of forgiveness and the need to write things down.

  “I wish I were a turnip,” said the soldier.

  “Ah, now, it’s not as bad as that,” said the boy. He started to whistle a happy tune.

  “I have been promised forgiveness,” said the soldier.

  “Forgiveness?” said the boy. “That’s a nice promise.”

  And then he went back to whistling.