Relic

"Well, Van Helsing," I said, "what do you think of this, then?"

We were standing in the archival rooms belonging to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, a group of people I had no earthly reason to know and even less desire to meet. However, their cellar was actually part of my cellar – or rather, part of the underground workshop of the Order. I just like to call it my cellar, because I invent more than anybody else down there. But anyway –

I had stumbled upon the Congregation's cellar completely by accident. Not literally stumbled, you understand – I'm not that clumsy. I had asked for the assistance of a Buddhist colleague named Chen, to try out my flying-machine (loosely based on the drawings of Da Vinci – the man might have been a heretic, but he was a useful heretic), and the experiment had gone a little awry. The seat of the flying-machine had come unstuck, and with it went Chen. They sailed across the room and hit the wall. Imagine our astonishment when the wall collapsed, knocked through into a different cellar. Of course, Chen complained a lot about his bumps and bruises, but I was more interested in what lay in the room beyond.

It was much darker in there than in our own little world, and I admit that that was part of the excitement. I called for a torch, and when I shone it around I yelled aloud in terror – for there, staring back at me from beyond a veil of dusty glass, was a young woman. When the others crowded in behind me, they all had the same reaction; but by then I'd realised that she was dead, preserved by God's agency – one of the Incorruptibles.

The room was full of them. Some saints lay in their entirety, in coffins of glass or rock crystal. Others were more wizened and fragmentary, a little like Egyptian mummies. There were reliquaries from the humblest to the most extravagant, and I was in the act of taking down from a shelf an object that I suspected might be the spear of Longinus, when a familiar voice called through the hole in the wall and summoned us all back.

This, I thought, was a most interesting place, a veritable cornucopia of saintly relics and treasures! I had heard – who has not? – of saints' bones being used in the fields of alchemy and medicine, and I confess that it did cross my mind that maybe, perhaps, possibly, I could use some of this holy power in my own experiments.

Cardinal Jinette might be a very pious man, but he has no sense of adventure, or even a sense of possibility. Not only did he refuse to listen to my scheme, but he had the wall bricked up as soon as possible, and extracted a promise from all of us not to trespass into the Congregation's cellar again.

I crossed my fingers behind my back when I made my promise, and so with a completely guilt-free conscience I determined to find another way into the cellar. It took me a few days, but with the help of some ancient blueprints I found in the library, along with some surreptitious soundings of the brickwork, I managed to find another adjoining wall.

Of course, I didn't want to waste my time with trying to knock a hole in the wall. Even though the brick was crumbling, I thought it would take me some time to make an aperture wide enough for me to crawl through.

Which was why I had brought Van Helsing with me. By all accounts, he was used to breaking things.

"Van Helsing?" I prompted, nudging him in the ribs. "What do you think?"

He'd been staring around the room for fully five minutes, holding the torch high so he could see every artefact stored in this grisly, but fascinating, little mausoleum.

"Where the hell are we?"

I sighed. "Does it matter?"

He gave me a hard look. "Yes."

"Oh, very well. We're in the storerooms owned by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Sixtus V decreed in 1588 that there should be a body of religious who would examine each and every claim to sainthood before recommending beatification."

He looked around again. "Are these the ones that were accepted, or are they the rejects?"

"Don't be so flippant!"

He turned back the brim of his hat and sighed. "In my day, saints just were. There was no need for all this red tape."

"In your day, in your day… Van Helsing, you don't remember anything about your past, so please don't pass judgement on things you don't understand."

"Oh, and you do?"

I ignored him and went to the closest shelf, where I had already picked out a likely specimen. The reliquary was small, just bigger than my cupped palms, and was made of gold so old and worn that I was pretty sure that nobody would miss it if I borrowed it for a while.

Van Helsing loomed beside me. "Do you even know who it is?"

I sniffed. "Of course. There's a label. It's from Bari."

"Well, that narrows it down," Van Helsing said.

"It does?"

"Sure," he continued, far more cheerfully than I liked. "Bari had no less than four saints: Rufinus, Memorus, Sabinus, and Nicholas. So this toe-nail or whatever it is must belong to one of them."

I tutted. "I don't like your tone, Van Helsing. This is a saintly relic and part of a human being, albeit a very old and dead human being. We should treat it with respect."

I finished my sentence by brandishing the reliquary at him, and we both heard the dry rustle of desiccated something-or-other sliding back and forth within the golden box.

Van Helsing snorted. "Respect? Carl, you're the one who wants to steal this damn thing and grind it up to make miracle powder."

"I do not! I am merely interested in the powers attributed to relics. It could be useful. The fact that so many people are cured by being in the presence of a holy relic leads me to believe that, if utilised in the proper way, then great things could be done in the name of science…"

"And what if God doesn't like science?"

I stuck out my chin and drew myself up to my full height – which is pretty unprepossessing beside a man of Van Helsing's stature. "Of course God likes science! Don't be so ridiculous."

He made a casual, dismissive gesture with his fingers. "Just saying. After all, your lot have been denigrating and burning scientists for centuries."

"My -?" I gaped at him, and then spluttered. "You are part of this, too, may I remind you!"

He glittered at me. "Not by choice. Like a lot of these poor saps, I imagine."

"You really are the most unholy man I've ever met," I told him carelessly, and turned my back on him with what I hoped was disdain.

"Ah, Carl. You haven't been out much, have you?"

Now he was laughing at me, and so I said: "I stand corrected. Oh, very well, have it your way: you really are the most irreligious man I've ever met."

"That's more like it." He slung a heavy arm over my shoulder and poked at the filigree lid. "You know, you're pretty irreligious yourself. For a monk, I mean."

I struggled to shrug him off. He's quite heavy, and the weight of his leather coat and God-knows-what-else he was wearing was making me feel hot in that closely confined cellar.

"I'm not a monk. I'm a friar. How many times must I tell you that! It's a very simple difference. Even you should be able to understand it."

His laughter tickled my neck. "Yes. A monk wouldn't dream of disobeying his Order's orders and sneaking around dark cellars at night, whereas a friar would leap at the opportunity."

"Something like that." I managed to wriggle free and turned around to face him. "Anyway, I'm going to open the reliquary now. I hope you're ready."

"I'm always ready," he assured me cheerfully; and then, when I gave him a black look, he added, "Ready to be struck down by God's wrath for disturbing the bones of His saints."

That gave me pause. I had to admit that the possibility of being struck down wasn't one to which I'd given much thought. I did wonder if I would be immune to heavenly intervention by grace of being a religious, even if I was only a friar and a rather bad example of one at that. But Van Helsing's words made me rather nervous.

"Do you really think we'll be struck down?"

He shrugged. "Depends on whose relic that is. Some of these saints… Well, they'll shower you with miracles one moment and make the ground swallow you up the next."

"Don't be ridiculous."

He looked sombre. "I've seen it happen with my own eyes, Carl. From what I know of the Bari saints, you should be very, very careful."

I handed him the reliquary. "You open it."

He shook his head. "Me? No way. It was your idea, remember?"

Now I wasn't so sure that my idea had been a good idea. I examined the small golden box with care, looking for any viscous materials that might already be seeping out, ready to melt me into a puddle. I saw nothing but the dull shine of the metal and the blackened spaces between the filigree-work.

"So what do you know about the Bari saints, then?" I asked, deciding to open the reliquary only when I had ascertained just how dangerous a group of individuals they might be.

"The first three were a job-lot, returned to the city in 841 AD after the Byzantines evicted the Saracens."

I raised my eyebrows. "Don't tell me. You remember fighting the Saracens."

"No," he said patiently, "I read about it in a book."

"Ah." I looked again at the reliquary. It was less intimidating than Van Helsing. "And the fourth saint?"

"The fourth saint is St Nicholas of Myra."

"St Nicholas," I repeated, and a horrible suspicion seized me. "Oh, no. Van Helsing! You don't mean the St Nicholas, do you?"

He looked bewildered. "How many St Nicholas's are there?"

"Probably dozens. There are at least five St George's. But that's not the point!" I agitated the reliquary again and heard the bone or whatever-it-was rattle inside. "This could be the actual St Nicholas!"

"Or his little finger, at the very least." Van Helsing reached for the reliquary and gave it another shake. "Did you hear that? Maybe it's two fingers. Or it broke in two when you were shaking it."

"Give that back!" I tried to snatch it from him. "If it's St Nicholas then I won't touch it. God forbid that I should do such a thing."

"St Nicholas," Van Helsing said, holding the reliquary high above his head, well out of my reach. "Patron of mariners, merchants, bakers, and travellers… You're none of these things, Carl, so why the sudden change of heart? You were quite happy to mash these poor bones into dust when you thought it was St Nobody. What's so special about St Nicholas?"

"You really don't know?" I stared at him, perplexed. "He's the patron saint of children."

"You don't have any." His eyes narrowed suddenly. "Do you?"

"Of course not! I'm a friar, damn it!" I glared at him in exasperation. Really, I had no idea why I put up with his stupid remarks. "But I was a child, once. Just as you were."

He shrugged. "I don't remember that."

"Probably a good thing. I'll bet you were an awful child."

"That's very likely."

He seemed pleased by the idea, so I said quickly, "And if you were a naughty boy when you were a child, then you would not have been visited by St Nicholas, because he only gives gifts to children who are well-behaved and who know their place."

Van Helsing's smile got even broader. "You can't tell me that you were a good little boy."

I was flustered. "I was - most of the time. And St Nicholas would leave chocolate and sugared almonds and money for me on a pewter plate."

"So let me get this straight," he said slowly, cocking his head to one side and regarding me thoughtfully. "You don't want to touch this relic of St Nicholas because you think, somehow, that St Nicholas won't give you any more presents come December 6th?"

I blinked; pursed my lips, and then said, "Basically… yes."

He shook the reliquary again.

"You make it sound so mercenary," I grumbled. "It's not like that at all. It's more a matter of – of keeping alive tradition. So give it back."

I made another grab for the reliquary, but again he held it away from me. This time his expression was calculating. "Maybe this is a nice moral lesson for you, Carl."

"What? Don't be so – What do you mean?"

He waved the reliquary and the bones rattled. "I mean that here is a puzzle for you to solve. St Nicholas gives you gifts. Here is a piece of St Nicholas. I, a dreadful heathen, am holding that piece of St Nicholas. What happens next?"

I thought about it. "You put the reliquary back on the shelf and we go back into the abbey?" I suggested hopefully.

"Nope. Try again."

Van Helsing shook the reliquary and this time there was an audible snap from inside. I took in a sharp breath of horror. "Very well, um – let me think – er… A gift! Is that it? You want a gift from – from me?"

His eyes gleamed. "Very good, Carl. We make progress."

"Oh, bloody hell," I muttered. "What do you want?"

"A kiss."

I thought about this as well. I thought about it for longer than I'd thought about his silly puzzle, and then before I could change my mind or think better of it, I stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

It was only meant to be a brief, insignificant thing, but somehow – possibly due to some strange physical law of attraction, I suppose - I ended up crushed tight against him, with the slip of leather under my palms and the scent of animal warmth surrounding me. I must say that it was very nice and not at all what I'd been expecting. Expecting from what I'd read about in books on the subject, of course. Not that I read much about kissing and suchlike. I'm a friar, after all.

Anyway. We got rather carried away – or rather, Van Helsing did – for the next moment, the reliquary had dropped to the floor. I made an undignified squeak of shock as Van Helsing stepped away from me and accidentally trod on the holy finger-bone of St Nicholas.

I was almost speechless. "Van Helsing!"

"Don't worry about it," he said, not at all reassuring. "St Nicholas never left Myra, despite what the people of Bari claimed. That's not the little finger of St Nicholas. It's the toe of a Barbary ape."

I looked down at the fragments of bone, and then back up at him. "How do you know?"

He gave me a wicked grin. "I just do."

end