KATE SEGER
The Darkling Dispatch
— From the Liturgies Before the Cathedrals —
The Reliquary Duet · Book Two
BONE SACRAMENT
The seal holds. The bones do not. Bone Sacrament
England, the winter of 1349. The plague's second wave is rolling through Wessex. The cold has not broken since Christmas. And beneath the chapel above Ashenmere — the chapel Else has been climbing to every Tuesday since the Pyre — the bones the bargain was made with are turning to powder.
The seal still holds. The new moon rites buy time. The community bleeds. But time is what the ancient thing has more of than anything alive, and the rite has begun to do its own quiet work to the bleeders. Aldric is slipping. Cotter will be next. The leak is reaching past Ashenmere, past Stoneford, past the chapel hill — and the only line that knows where the original bargain was made runs south to a cave under a Provençal monastery.
Rome has not forgotten Ashenmere. A letter sealed with the Bishop's ring has reached Avignon, and the curia has sent Father Crispin — a man more dangerous than Prior Benedict because he is brilliant, faithful, and genuinely afraid of being wrong. He does not come with soldiers. He comes with questions. And his questions are harder to survive than swords.
Else must answer the question the ancient thing asked, and she refused.
For the women who carried the work that did not survive into the record.
And for the ones who chose to keep what the institutions chose to forget.
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— I —
A note from the cottage
Two weeks until the duet ends.
This last week has been a strange one. I have been proofing audio on one screen and finishing Bone Sacrament's last passes on the other — hearing Else's voice in someone else's mouth while writing her future. The book in the past tense and the book in the present tense, both alive at once. I cried at Tirzah's first chapter. I have to be honest about that. Reading the rite words on the page is one thing — hearing a narrator find the weight of them, the slow breath between we remember and we are here, the way sleep drops like a stone into still water — that is another thing entirely.
Bone Sacrament ends in a cave under a Provençal monastery, in the chapel above Ashenmere, and in the small dark cottage where four people who decided to stay finish the work they started. The duet's central question — what is the bargain you make for the people you love, and what part of yourself does the bargain take — gets answered. The answer was always going to require somebody to give something. I have known that since the first new moon. The book has known it since long before I wrote it. Else has known since the morning she crawled out of the grave.
For the readers who have been with me since Bone Covenant — particularly those who reached the end of that book in late summer of last year and have been waiting through autumn and winter and the back half of spring — thank you for staying. The duet would not exist without you. The bones in the chapel held because the community held. The book holds because its readers held.
I will say more about Bone Sacrament closer to the day. For now, a gift.
— Kate
Writing from the cottage at the lane's end, with the kettle on and the fire built up against the late May damp
— II · BONUS SCENE —
The January Rite
A scene that takes place between Books One and Two —
the second new moon since the Pyre, four weeks before Bone Sacrament opens.
The cold had not broken in three weeks.
Else stood at the cottage door in her cloak and watched the village come up the lane. They came in twos and threes, with lanterns. They came at the second hour past dark, the new moon rite's hour, the hour they had agreed on at the Christmas rite five weeks ago and were keeping again tonight. The lane was a line of small lights. The frost on the lane caught each light and gave it back doubled.
Twenty-three souls.
She had counted them at her own hearth on the morning of the rite, the way she had counted them at the Christmas rite. Twenty-three willing to bleed. Twenty-three who had stood in the cottage in the days after the Pyre and had said, in their own ways: I will be at the rite. I will give a drop. I will help hold what we have decided to hold.
Callum came up beside her with his cloak in his hand.
"Cotter is at the chapel," he said. "He went up at first dark to break the path."
"Anna?"
"With Agnes. She is bringing the candles."
"Margery."
"Margery is the door."
The door was the chapel door — the doorless frame Margery had been calling the door since November the way Margery named things when she had decided to name them. She had walked up at the first hour. She would be there until the rite was done.
Else had not, this morning, slept past first light. She had spent the day with the herbs that needed dividing for winter, with the bandage cloths Anna had been folding, with the small ordinary work that she had done since she was twelve and would be doing the rest of her life if the rest of her life held. The rest of her life was a question this night was asking and not answering.
Callum took her hand. He did not say anything. He had said, on the eighth day after the Pyre, that the rite was hers — that he would be at her elbow but the rite was not his to lead — and he had not pressed since. The hand at the door was the hand she had counted on since the autumn without saying she had been counting on it.
✦ ✦ ✦
The line of lanterns reached the cottage.
Cotter was at the front, the lantern in his free hand, the other hand at the shoulder of his second son, a boy of ten who had not bled before tonight. The boy would not bleed at the rite — Else had told Cotter that she would not take a child's blood at the rite while the rite was still finding its shape — but the boy would be at the chapel because the boy had asked.
Else stepped down from the cottage door. She took her own lantern from the bench. Anna had trimmed the wick. She lit it from the hearth. She walked out into the lane.
The line opened to let her in.
She walked at the front. Callum walked at her shoulder. Behind them the twenty-three willing souls of Ashenmere walked up the lane in the cold, the lanterns on the lane making a small moving light that the village had not had at this hour for any other reason in any other year of any of their lives.
The path up the chapel hill was the path. The frozen grass crunched. The bones of the autumn brambles caught at her cloak. Halfway up, the lane went out below her — the village's lights had stopped following because the village's lights had reached the foot of the hill — and the line on the path was its own small constellation now, twenty-three lanterns at twenty-three small careful paces, climbing.
At the threshold, Margery was waiting.
She had a knife at her hip and a knife in her hand. She did not, in the seeing of the line, do anything with her face. Margery's face was Margery's face. She had been at the door since the first hour. She would be at the door until the rite was done.
Else stopped at the threshold. She turned. She looked at the twenty-three behind her. She looked at Callum. She looked at Aldric, who had walked at the back the way Aldric had been walking at the back of any procession the parish had had since the Pyre — not at the head, no longer claiming the head, the priest who had stripped his certainty and had been learning to live with what was left.
She crossed the threshold.
The change was immediate. The cold of the air remained — December did not stop being December because of a stone — but a different warmth took its place beneath her feet. The floor of the chapel was warmer than the path had been. The slab, at the eastern end, was warmer still.
✦ ✦ ✦
She walked to it. She set her own lantern at the slab's western edge. She turned to the parish.
She had not, at the Christmas rite or in the planning of this one, become a woman who made speeches at the rite. The words were the words. The community spoke them with her. The slab took the blood. The carvings glowed. The ancient thing settled. The parish walked home.
She said: Come in.
They came in. They came in in the order they had come up — Cotter first, his son at his side; then Bess; then Wat; then the Marsh brothers; then Joan and her cousin's daughter who had moved to Ashenmere in November; then Hewitt; then the rest. Aldric came last. He carried the small cup he had been carrying at the rite since November — the cup that had been his communion cup for thirty-one years and was now the rite's cup, the small change of use that Aldric had made without consulting any Bishop because no Bishop was available to be consulted and because Aldric had decided.
Aldric stood at the slab's southern edge.
Else stood at the western edge with her hand above the stone.
The community made a half-circle behind her. The lanterns at the threshold lit the half-circle from the back. The half-circle's faces were the faces of twenty-three Ashenmere souls who had walked up a chapel hill in the cold of January in the year of plague and had not, by their faces, decided to be anywhere else.
Aldric raised his cup.
He did not speak. He had not, since the Pyre, spoken at the opening of the rite. The opening was Else's, in the plain English the line of women had always used.
Else cut at the base of her thumb. She let the blood fall onto the slab. The blood was a drop.
She said: We see you.
The community said: We see you.
She said: We remember.
The community said: We remember.
She said: We are here.
The community said: We are here.
She said: Sleep.
The community said: Sleep.
Cotter cut next. His blood fell. Then his son — the boy did not cut; the boy held the bowl Anna had given him; the boy was there as a witness, not as a bleeder, and the witnessing was the work the boy had asked to do. Then Bess. Then Wat. Then the rest. Each cut was small. Each drop fell. The carvings beneath each drop pulsed.
By the eighteenth cut, the carvings were not dim.
The carvings glowed a steady warm glow, the gold-orange of fire seen through linen. The chapel air had thickened. The cold remained but the cold was now a cold inside a warmth, the way the wind moves over an open hearth and is the wind but does not become the hearth's air.
Aldric cut at the seventeenth and bled with the parish. He had bled at the Christmas rite, deeply and last. He bled again tonight.
Margery cut at the twenty-second. Else watched her. Margery cut at the base of her thumb without ceremony — the small precise motion of a woman who had cut a great deal in her life and did not, in the cutting of herself, treat herself differently than she treated anything else. Margery's blood fell. The carvings, beneath, pulsed.
Hewitt was twenty-third. He cut his palm — the small careful cut of a messenger whose hands were his trade and who had decided, in November, that bleeding at the rite was part of the trade now. His blood fell. The carvings pulsed.
Anna was twenty-fourth.
She held out her hand. Else looked at Aldric. Aldric nodded. Else looked at Margery. Margery nodded. Else looked at Anna's hand — the small careful hand of a child who had decided, by some judgment of her own, that the rite would not be the rite if Anna had not bled with the rest — and Else took Margery's smaller knife and made the smallest cut Margery's smaller knife could make at the base of Anna's small thumb.
Anna did not flinch. She did not cry. She held her hand above the slab. The drop fell.
The carvings, at Anna's drop, pulsed brightly.
Aldric closed his eyes.
He said, in the voice he had been using for prayer since the Pyre — the voice he had said, in the cottage on the morning after the Pyre, was the only voice he had left: I do not understand. Help me understand. I do not understand and I do not need to. Just help me be here.
The community held.
✦ ✦ ✦
Else set her palm flat on the slab.
The warmth came up to meet her — the warmth she had learned to call the resting in her own mind, the warmth that meant the ancient thing beneath had received what the community had offered. The resting was strong. The carvings, around her palm, glowed the gold-orange of fire seen through linen.
The seal pulsed. The ancient thing beneath settled the way a heavy animal settles when fed.
Else held her palm on the slab.
She held it longer than she had held it at the Christmas rite. She held it because the resting was strong and she wanted, in the strong resting, to listen for the thing she had been not-asking herself about since the Christmas rite. The thing she had been not-asking was whether the resting was the whole of what was beneath. The Christmas rite had given her the resting and she had taken the resting and she had not asked the next question. The January rite was the rite she had decided, in the days leading up to it, to ask the next question at.
She listened.
The resting was the resting. The warmth was the warmth. The pulse was the pulse.
Beneath the resting — beneath the warmth — beneath the pulse —
A faint dry rhythm.
She lifted her palm.
She did not, by her face, do anything with the lifting. The community was at the half-circle behind her; the lanterns at the threshold lit her back; her face, in the carvings' gold-orange, was not visible to any of them.
She turned to the community.
She said: Sleep.
The community said: Sleep.
She picked up her lantern. She walked out.
The community came out behind her. The carvings, behind, faded back to dim. The cold of the path met them. The walk down was slower than the walk up because the walk down was always slower than the walk up. The lanterns went down the hill in the order they had come up. The village's lights, at the foot of the hill, were waiting for them. The village, this night, was still standing.
✦ ✦ ✦
At the cottage, Callum took the lantern from her hand. He set it on the bench. He did not, in the setting, ask. He had read her face on the path down. He had read her face the way Callum had been reading her face since November.
Margery came in behind them with her knives. She set the knives on the bench by the door.
Anna came in last. Anna had a small wrap of linen around her thumb. The linen was the small careful wrap of a girl who had bandaged her own hand at the slab from the cloth she had brought up in her own pouch. Anna walked to the fire. Anna sat down at her place by the hearth. Anna did not say anything.
Else sat down at the table. She set her hands on the wood.
She did not, this night, tell Callum what she had heard beneath the resting. She did not, this night, tell Margery. She did not, this night, tell Aldric. She would tell them — the telling was a telling she would do when the telling was the telling — but the night of the January rite was not the night.
The night of the January rite was the night the community had held.
She put her hand on Callum's where his hand was on the table. He turned his under hers. They sat that way for a long time, with the fire spat and the kettle settled and Anna's small steady breathing at the hearth, while the parish in the cottages along the lane settled into their own beds in the cold of January and the chapel on the hill went back, behind them, to ruin.
Beneath the chapel, by grain, something old fell apart.
⁂
— III · BONUS ARTIFACT —
The Reliquary Codex
An unofficial scholarly fragment on the Latin of the rite,
the line of women who carried the bargain, and the rules of the seal.
The kind of document that would have lived in a vestry desk for a very long time.
The Reliquary Codex
An unofficial compendium of the Ashenmere Covenant
and its attendant practices
Confidential — for the line of women, and for the men who would learn the rules without seeking to govern them.
This document is unauthorised by any ecclesiastical office and likely to remain so.
I. THE WORDS
The rite is in English. It has always been in English. The line has been deliberate, for ten generations, in its refusal of any other language — no Latin, no invocations, no syllables taught by any priest who came up from the south with a book in his hand.
The old stories say the bone women spoke plain.
The line teaches its daughters this sentence the way a midwife teaches a daughter to wash her hands: as a thing not to be argued with. What the bone woman offers the thing beneath the stone is the language the community already uses in its own kitchens. The Church's Latin, the Roman Office's address — those have their work elsewhere. The rite's work is older, and the language of older things is the language of the people who carry them.
The line does not invoke. The line does not call in any tongue it had to be taught. The line stands at the slab in the language it was born to.
II. THE FOUR WORDS
After the Latin, the bone woman cuts and the parish responds in English, in a four-line address that is the rite's address to the thing beneath:
We see you.
We remember.
We are here.
Sleep.
The four lines are not a prayer. They are a contract — said by witnesses to a sleeping party, said in the present tense and the imperative, the only kind of speech the thing beneath the stone is known to honour. We see you is the acknowledgement. We remember is the continuity. We are here is the standing. Sleep is the request.
III. THE TWO LINES OF WOMEN
The line that carries the bargain is not one line, but two — separate, parallel, neither subordinate to the other.
The bone women. The ones who carry the blood and the listening — the body's faculty and the channel between the body and the stone. The bone women come once in a few hundred years per seal. They lie under the slab when their work is done. Their bones are the seal, until they wear, and then the seal is renewed with bones offered by the next.
The tellers. The women between the bone women — the midwives, the wise women, the ones who carry the oral history because the Church did not want it written down. The tellers do not put their hands on the slab. They put their hands on the bone woman's wrist. They are the ones who remember what the bone woman is. They are the ones who tell her, when she is ready to be told, that her work is also a line.
IV. THE BONES BENEATH
The bones in the Ashenmere chapel are not the first bone woman's bones. The first bone woman lies elsewhere — south, in a country whose carvings on a different stone are older than the country's name. The Ashenmere bones are renewals: the third set, by Agnes the midwife's count, given by Ashenmere's own line of bone women, generations old, kept living by the rite, kept alive by the community.
Bone wears. The rite slows the wear but does not stop it. The bargain at the original cave is what holds; everything north of that cave is an echo. The echoes weaken. The line of tellers knows this. The line of bone women, when they are ready to be told, learn it from the tellers.
What happens when an echo fails entirely is a question the line has answered only once before, and that answer is not in any vestry desk in Wessex.
V. ON THE QUESTION OF WHO IT WAS
The thing the seal holds has no name in any language a parish priest would have been taught, and the tellers have never used a name for it because using a name for it would be the kind of presumption the line was formed in order to refuse.
The thing is older than Christ. The thing is older than Rome. The thing was here before the Romans came up from their southern country, and the Romans came up from their southern country knowing it was here, and the Romans did not name it either. The thing speaks, when it speaks, in three-beat patterns. It speaks rarely. It has spoken once in this generation, on the morning a woman crawled out of her own grave.
The line has decided, for ten generations, that the not-naming is the closest thing to respect the line can offer.
End of fragment.
The rest of the codex is in the hands of the line, and the line has not, in this generation, written it down.
— Compiled from the oral knowledge of the Ashenmere tellers,
and from the rite as practiced from October 1348 to the present new moon.
— V —