Servant of the Bones Read Online Free Page A

chairs touching. I made a movement to clasp his hand and he didn’t draw back; his handshake was firm and warm. And when he smiled again, the little dip of his brows made him look almost playful. But it was only the way his face was made—brows that curve down in the middle to make a frown, and then curve gently up and out from the nose. They give a face a look of peering from a secret vantage point, and they make its smile all the more radiant.
    He took a drink of the water, a long deep drink.
    “Does the fire feel good to you, too?” I asked.
    He nodded. “But it looks ever so much better.”
    Then he looked at me. “There will be times when I’ll forgetmyself. I’ll speak to you in Aramaic, or in Hebrew. Sometimes in Persian. I may speak Greek or Latin. You bring me back to English, bring me back to your tongue quickly.”
    “I will,” I said, “but never have I so deeply regretted my own lack of education in languages. The Hebrew I would understand, the Latin too, the Persian never.”
    “Don’t regret,” he said. “Perhaps you spent that time looking at the stars or the fall of the snow, or making love. My language should be that of a ghost—the language of you and your people. A genii speaks the language of the Master he must serve and of those among whom he must move to do his Master’s bidding. I am Master here. I know that now. I have chosen your language for us. That is sufficient.”
    We were ready. If this house had ever been warmer and sweeter, if I had ever enjoyed the company of someone else more than I did then, I didn’t recall it. I wanted only to be with him and talk to him, and I had a small, painful feeling in my heart, that when he finished his tale, when somehow or other this closeness between us had come to an end, nothing would ever be the same for me.
    Nothing was ever the same afterwards.
    He began.

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    I   didn’t remember Jerusalem,” he said. “I wasn’t born there. My mother was carried off as a child by Nebuchadnezzar along with our whole family, and our tribe, and I was born a Hebrew in Babylon, in a rich house—full of aunts and uncles and cousins—rich merchants, scribes, sometime prophets, and occasional dancers and singers and pages at court.
    “Of course,” he smiled. “Every day of my life, I wept for Jerusalem.” He smiled. “I sang the song: ‘If I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem, may my right hand wither.’ And at night prayers we begged the Lord to return us to our land, and at morning prayers as well.
    “But what I’m trying to say is that Babylon was my whole life. At twenty, when my life came to its first—shall we say—great tragedy, I knew the songs and gods of Babylon as well as I knew my Hebrew and the Psalms of David that I copied daily, or the book of Samuel, or whatever other texts we were constantly studying as a family.
    “It was a grand life. But before I describe myself further, my circumstances, so to speak, let me just talk of Babylon.
    “Let me sing the song of Babylon in a strange land. I am not pleasing in the eyes of the Lord or I wouldn’t be here, so I think now I can sing the songs I want, what do you think?”
    “I want to hear it,” I said gravely. “Shape it the way you would. Let the words spill. You don’t want to be careful with your language, do you? Are you talking to the Lord God now, or are you simply telling your tale?”
    “Good question. I’m talking to you so that you will tell the story for me in my words. Yes. I’ll rave and cry andblaspheme when I want. I’ll let my words come in a torrent. They always did, you know. Keeping Azriel quiet was a family obsession.”
    This was the first time I’d seen him really laugh, and it was a light heartfelt laugh that came up as easily as breath, nothing strangled or self-conscious in it.
    He studied me.
    “My laugh surprises you, Jonathan?” he asked. “I believe laughter is one of the common traits of ghosts, spirits, and even powerful spirits like me.