The Bone Magician Read online

  ‘Beag Hickory,’ he said pleasantly, looking Pin right in the eye albeit with his head cocked back at an acute angle. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

  ‘B-yug,’ repeated Pin. ‘How would you spell that?’

  ‘B-E-A-G. It means ‘‘small’’.’

  Pin started to laugh, but when he saw Beag’s archbrowed expression he stopped.

  ‘It makes sense,’ said Pin, listening carefully. Beag had a rather pronounced accent, with rolling r’s; most definitely he was not a native of the City. ‘After all, you are—’

  ‘A dwarf,’ cut in Beag. ‘I am that, but for sure haven’t we all our crosses to bear in this life. Some easier of course than others.’ He looked at Pin, waiting patiently.

  ‘Oh,’ said Pin, suddenly realizing what he wanted. ‘My name is Pin.’

  ‘Just Pin?’

  ‘Pin Carpue,’ said Pin before thinking and then frowned, but Beag said nothing. Perhaps he didn’t know about the disgraced Carpue family.

  ‘It’s short for Crispin.’

  ‘Crispin, eh?’ Beag mulled over the name and looked Pin up and down. ‘Interesting,’ was all he said. Then, nodding in the direction of the Nimble Finger, ‘Have you been in then?’

  ‘I have,’ replied Pin. ‘To see the Bone Magician.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Mr Pantagus,’ said Beag. ‘A strange trade in my book, though some would say mine is no stranger. And what of the Gluttonous Beast?’

  Pin shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

  Beag rubbed his hands together and the sound was like sandpaper. He looked at Pin quizzically. ‘I should think you’ll be off home and out of this cold? Never known a winter like it. ’Tis uncommon without a doubt.’

  ‘I would be off home,’ said Pin, rather more pathetically than he intended, ‘but I lost my room tonight. I suppose I shall be on the street.’

  ‘In this city you won’t be the only one,’ remarked Beag dryly. ‘I’m waiting on a friend myself, or I’d be well gone. Should be here any minute—’

  ‘Hold up, my good man,’ called a voice from behind, and then there was the sound of running footsteps.

  Pin wondered whom Beag might know who spoke in such a way, distinctly northern, and he waited with interest to see who this fellow was. The man who came up to them was tall, significantly so, and his slim frame was accentuated by the long dark coat he wore, which was fastened up to the neck. Pin thought he looked most elegant and strikingly handsome.

  ‘Glad I caught up with you,’ he said, clapping Beag heartily on the back. ‘I don’t fancy being out on my own these nights. Might get thrown into the Foedus by that madman, what is it they call him? The Silver Apple Killer.’

  ‘That’s what Deodonatus Snoad calls him,’ said Beag.

  ‘And who is this young fellow?’ asked the man, as if suddenly realizing that the scruffy boy beside Beag might actually be with him. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’

  ‘Pin,’ said Beag, ‘allow me to present my great friend, Mr Aluph Buncombe.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Pin politely and touched his hat.

  ‘What exquisite manners,’ said Mr Buncombe with a quick smile, looking him up and down. ‘Surely not learned this side of the river?’

  ‘’Twas my mother,’ said Pin. ‘She was from over the river too. She taught me that manners cost little but are worth a lot.’

  ‘A sensible woman,’ replied Aluph, rather pleased that Pin should take him for a northerner. He had spent many hours perfecting his vowels.

  ‘She was,’ said Pin quietly.

  ‘Pin has lost his lodgings,’ said Beag. ‘I wondered if Mrs Hoadswood might be able to help out.’

  ‘Well,’ said Aluph confidently. ‘If there was ever a woman who would try her best to fix you up, it’s Mrs Hoadswood. Certainly at the very least she’ll give you a dinner.’

  Pin’s eyes lit up at the prospect.

  ‘I can’t promise anything else,’ warned Beag.

  Aluph was blowing on his gloved hands, impatient to go, so the three of them set off.

  ‘Tell me, young man,’ asked Aluph conversationally, ‘how did the two of you come upon each other?’

  ‘I tripped over Mr Hickory’s potato.’

  Aluph laughed. ‘You’re lucky it didn’t hit you in the head.’

  Pin looked confused and Aluph glanced at Beag. ‘Have you not told him?’

  ‘Told me what?’ asked Pin.

  Aluph didn’t give Beag time to speak. ‘Why, of his great talents. Beag here may be small in stature, but he is an intellectual giant.’

  Beag smiled and took a bow. ‘Mr Buncombe, sir, you are too kind.’

  ‘What are your talents?’ asked Pin, still wondering where the potato came into it.

  Beag puffed up with pride and spoke as if to a rather larger audience than he actually had.

  ‘I, Beag Hickory, am a son of faraway lands, a poet and bard, a scholar—’

  ‘Oh, we know all that,’ interrupted Aluph. ‘Tell him what you really do.’

  Beag looked a little crestfallen, cut off as he was in full flow, but he obliged. ‘I am a poet, that is true, but Urbs Umidians do not appreciate talents such as that, so I have taken a different course in life. Though it is hardly the future I was promised when I sat on the Cathaoir Feasa.’

  ‘The cathaoir what?’ asked Pin.

  ‘Forget that,’ said Aluph impatiently. ‘Tell him what it is you do.’

  ‘I,’ said Beag, ‘am a potato thrower.’

  For the second time that evening Pin held back his laughter. Beag looked up and down the road and pointed in the distance.

  ‘See that post down there?’

  Pin looked. There was indeed a lamp post further down the street.

  Beag drew a line in the snow and took three paces back. He took the potato from his pocket and brushed away the loose earth. He grasped it by the convenient handle, ran to the line and threw it with a loud expulsion of breath. Pin watched as it flew through the air in a long low arc and hit the post with quite a crack.

  ‘Not bad for a poet,’ said Beag with more than a little pride, and dusted off his hands.

  ‘I suppose, really, you’re a poetato thrower,’ ventured Pin with a grin.

  Beag shook his head and laughed quietly.

  ‘He only uses the best, you know,’ said Aluph helpfully, with the merest hint of a smile. ‘Hickory Reds.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Beag Hickory

  Whether or not Hickory Reds were the preferred choice of a potato thrower, it was certainly true that when it came to projecting medium-sized weighty objects through the air, there was no one to match Beag. It wasn’t just the distance, you understand; it was also the accuracy with which he threw them.

  Beag was a man with many talents and he had left his home village at a young age to see the world, to learn and to seek his fortune. He was not going to let his lack of stature be an obstacle and by the ripe old age of twenty-four he had achieved two out of three of his fine objectives. He had certainly travelled extensively, and had written songs and poems to prove it. Aluph was not wrong in saying he was an intellectual giant. Beag had acquired knowledge that few Urbs Umidians would believe, let alone remember, and he had forgotten more than most could even know. But on the third, the matter of his fortune, Beag had been well and truly thwarted. Of all the facts he had learned, the hardest had to be that there was no money to be made from poetry and singing. But perhaps there was a living to be earned from potato throwing. Certainly it was a talent that appealed to the stunted imaginations of the Urbs Umidians.

  Beag had come to the City two winters ago carrying little more than the clothes on his back, the shoes on his feet and an old leather bag with a wide strap that he wore across his chest. It contained, among other things, his writings: poetry and ballads – in the main lovelorn and unceasingly depressing – that he liked to recite and sing, and for which he hoped one day to win acclaim.

  He arrived at th
e city walls late at night and walked around them until he came to one of the four pairs of guarded entrance gates. Unfortunately for Beag, it was the North Gate which led, naturally, into the northern half of the City. As soon as the guards saw his shabby dress, his wet woollen hat and heard his foreign accent they determined that he should not enter. The pair of them took a step forward in a most aggressive and unfriendly manner and crossed their muskets to block his way. Of course, on account of Beag’s size, the muskets crossed in front of his face, which was not the guards’ intention, so they lowered them and stood rather awkwardly bent over and challenged him to explain himself.

  ‘My name is Beag Hickory,’ he said proudly, ‘and I have come to your fine city to make my fortune.’ He could not understand why this pronouncement caused such hilarity between the guards.

  ‘Oho,’ said the uglier of the two, ‘and how do you intend to do that?’

  Beag drew himself up to his full height by means of rising slyly on to the balls of his feet and pulling a peak in his sodden hat (which sagged almost immediately). ‘I am a poet, a scholar, an entertainer, a teller o’ tales—’

  ‘Then you’re at the wrong gate,’ interrupted the other guard sullenly.

  ‘Is this not Urbs Umida?’ asked Beag.

  ‘Aye, it is. But you’re still at the wrong gate. I suggest you try south of the river,’ said the first guard, not bothering to stifle a yawn. ‘You’ll find more of your sort down there, or should I say, your short.’ Both men laughed heartily at this witticism.

  Beag frowned. ‘What do you mean, my sort?’

  ‘Paupers, chancers, circus acts,’ replied the guard, and his voice had hardened.

  ‘Try the Nimble Finger Inn on the Bridge,’ said the other. ‘Betty Peggotty, the landlady, sometimes she exhibits strange creatures.’ This set the other guard off into such a paroxysm of laughter that he was rendered incapable of speech.

  Beag, who had learned both when to persist and when to yield, rightly concluded that this was one of those times when a person yielded. ‘Very well,’ he said, and he withdrew with his dignity intact and a slight gunpowder stain on his waistcoat where the guard had poked him. ‘You say the Nimble Finger? Perhaps I shall see you anon. I bid you goodnight and good fortune.’

  And so, some time later, Beag made his entrance rather less grandly than he had hoped through the South Gate. The guards there waved him on without a second glance. Beag could not fail to notice almost immediately that the aroma on the south of the Foedus was distinctly unpleasant and by careful elimination he soon realized that it was due to the river. Yes, the streets were sludgy and muddy and scattered about with all sorts of debris, recognizable as vegetable and animal remains, but it was the river that gave off the odour that made his nose wrinkle involuntarily. Beag walked alongside the Foedus, logically assuming that the bridge he sought must be on it somewhere, until he came to the marketplace. The stallholders were packing up for the day, but there were still plenty of people milling around looking for cheap scraps, so Beag took out from his bag a piece of wood, cleverly hinged to create a small podium, upon which he stood.

  ‘Good evening, my fair ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. This generous assessment of the gathered company elicited more than a laugh or two but also drew their attention. ‘Allow me to present myself to you. My name is Beag Hickory and I should like to entertain you with a song.’

  He began to sing in a mournful, though undoubtedly tuneful, tone, but he had hardly reached the first chorus (one of many) when he heard a strange whistling sound. His eyes being closed he had not anticipated the missile, and received a rotten cabbage on the side of his head.

  He opened his eyes to see a second vegetable winging its way towards him, and this time he ducked. The poor fellow behind him took it full in the face. Through all of this Beag continued to sing bravely, or foolishly. Perhaps both.

  ‘Give it a rest,’ shouted someone and then he was hit again.

  ‘But,’ spluttered Beag with righteous indignation through a mouthful of tomato, ‘I have only just begun.’

  ‘No, you ain’t,’ called out a small boy at the back. ‘You’re finished,’ and he and his friends threw a hail of rotten apples.

  Beag was infuriated. Never in his life had he experienced such a hostile reception to his endeavours. ‘You little imp,’ he shouted at the small boy. He jumped down from the podium, picked up the first thing that came to hand, a large putrid potato, and he threw it with such force and accuracy that when it hit the boy it knocked him clean off his feet.

  ‘Oi! That’s my son. Wotcher think yer doing?’

  Beag stood rooted to the spot at the sight of the largest man he had ever seen. This great ape towered over the crowd and was bearing down on Beag, who was actually shaking in his boots.

  By the holy! thought Beag, instantly regaining movement in his legs. He spun on his heel and took off like a streak of lightning. The man and a small baying crowd were still following when he reached the Bridge. He ran on to its cobbled thoroughfare, looking around desperately for somewhere to hide.

  ‘Down here,’ hissed a voice. ‘Quick!’

  Beag turned sharply and saw a long finger beckoning to him from the corner of an alley, and without a second thought he ran towards it.

  ‘This way,’ said the tall man whose finger it was, and he pushed open a door in the wall and dragged Beag in just as the crowd reached the entrance to the alley. Beag followed his rescuer up a short flight of stairs and down again into a crowded, low-ceilinged room filled with smoke and laughter.

  ‘Where are we?’ asked Beag of his nameless companion.

  ‘The Nimble Finger Inn,’ said the man. ‘I don’t know about you, but I fancy a jug of ale.’

  Only minutes later, safely ensconced in a dark corner, Beag and his new-found friend were supping ale from a large jug that had been brought over by the serving maid. Beag was just about to speak when a commotion near the door made his heart pound again. It was the ape man.

  ‘I’m looking for a dwarf,’ he said and the whole tavern fell silent. A fierce-looking woman – the redoubtable Betty Peggotty – glared at him with her hands on her hips. She wore upon her head an exotic hat that had seen far better days.

  ‘There’s no dwarf here, Samuel,’ she said firmly. ‘So either have a jug or be off with you.’

  ‘Bah,’ exclaimed the ape but faced with such a choice opted without question for the ale, and soon he was as merry as the rest of them.

  Beag relaxed and turned to his companion. ‘Might I ask who you are?’

  ‘My name is Aluph Buncombe.’

  ‘Well, Mr Buncombe, I owe you my life,’ said Beag and he shook his hand gratefully.

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ said Aluph with a broad smile. ‘Always ready to help a fellow in trouble, though I can’t imagine how you had such a man as Samuel Lenacre after you.’

  Beag explained his sorry tale and Aluph listened with sympathy.

  ‘You’re looking for work, you say. What skills have you? Do you tumble?’

  Beag laughed and shook his head wryly. ‘I can, of course. Is there a dwarf out there these days who cannot? But I think perhaps you will favour my other talents.’

  Aluph raised an eyebrow. ‘And these are?’

  ‘I am a poet and a balladeer.’

  Aluph wrinkled his brow worriedly. ‘I am sure you are, but if you wish to earn money enough to survive in a city such as this, then you must know your audience. Look around you, my friend, and tell me, do these people want stories or poetry?’

  Beag surveyed the room and felt despair settling in his heart. ‘But poetry is my passion,’ he said. ‘I have been on the Cathaoir Feasa.’

  ‘The what?’

  But Aluph didn’t give Beag a chance to answer, just shook his head and placed a well-manicured hand on his shoulder. ‘Beag, Beag,’ he said softly, ‘look at them. Is there nothing else you can do?’

  Beag looked around the tavern again and he understood. ‘I c
an throw potatoes,’ he said mournfully.

  ‘Aha.’ Aluph’s face lit up. ‘A potato-throwing dwarf. I think we might have something.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Article from

  The Urbs Umida Daily Chronicle

  UNEARTHLY GOINGS ON AT THE NIMBLE FINGER

  by

  Deodonatus Snoad

  My Dear Readers,

  I am sure that by now there are very few of you out there who have not seen, or at the very least heard of, the Bone Magician. It is no surprise to me that once again we have Mrs Peggotty at the Nimble Finger to thank for the opportunity to witness such an intriguing character. Mr Benedict Pantagus, as he is known, and his assistant, his niece I believe, a Miss Juno Pantagus, are currently performing in the upstairs room at the tavern. Let us also not forget that down below, Mrs Peggotty’s cellar contains the Gluttonous Beast. What a feast of entertainment for us all. We are in her debt.

  Bone Magic, the art of corpse raising, has a long history. The same could not be said of potato throwers, one of whom I saw on the Bridge the other day. I fear such a dangerous sport can only end in serious injury. Root vegetables aside, for the benefit of those of you who are not familiar with the practice of corpse raising, I shall gladly pass on what little knowledge I have of it.

  Of all the mysteries life throws at us, Death must be the greatest. In centuries past people had great faith in the power of the dead. Once a person had made the transition from the real world to the unearthly one, it was believed they were endowed with great powers. But only Bone Magicians could tap into these powers and to do that they had to bring the dead back to life. Once rejuvenated, these wise souls were called upon to advise the living and to prophesy the future.

  I have seen Benedict Pantagus and the remarkable Madame de Bona and in all honesty it was not a pretty sight. One hopes she was rather more attractive when she was alive. Regardless of her looks, however, it cannot be denied that she fulfilled her obligations and answered all sorts of questions to the apparent satisfaction of everyone involved. Mr Pantagus must be commended on his ingenuity and his excellent performance. It is certainly a cut above the usual trickery that goes on in this city. Whether Madame de Bona really did revive or not, I can say with certainty that I checked for strings but saw none.