Perhaps it was from dwelling among the dead for so long that I came to care so little for the worth of my own life.
Over the course of those next few years, I slept many nights inside the mausoleum, and in time I came to think of its denizens as my family. I could read a little; my mother had taught me, writing with bits of charcoal on the walls of our niche in rare, peaceful times. Thus I was able to make out some of the inscriptions on the marble crypts.
There was Lord John Gilroy, surely a fatherly figure, stern of face, and demanding of obedience, but kindly in quiet moments. Old Lady Gilroy had lived a generation earlier, to the ripe age of ninety‑two, and so she became my imagined grand‑mother, comforting me when all seemed cold and bleak. Then there was little Jennie Gilroy–deceased at the tender age of nine, according to the writing on her crypt–a little sister whom I would fiercely protect, and in whom I could confide when I was lonely and afraid. Sometimes when I lay down inside the crypt to sleep, I would drape the robber’s cloak over me like a burial shroud, then fold my hands together on my breast and pretend I was dead as they were, and at peace.
Only I was neither. And like some restless and unholy spirit, I would rise from the crypt each day and slip out of the mausoleum to prey upon the world of living men.
I had no name besides that which my mother had given to me–James–for my bastard‑making father the judge had not deigned to lend me his appellation. Nor did it matter. One made one’s own name on the streets of Edinburgh, and I came to be known among the people who dwelled there, in the gutters and in the shadows, as Jimmie Golden–for my fair locks, which were the only inheritance my father had granted me.
Early on I learned that my hair–thick, yellow as wheat, and curling about my thin shoulders–was my greatest asset. Though my clothes were invariably grimy, I kept my golden locks as clean as I could, dunking my head in one of the city’s fountains even on the coldest days and using my fingers to comb through the ringlets. I knew they fancied it–the gentle ladies who fretted over me.
I would stand along High Street, positioning myself in a shaft of sun so that the light would shine upon my hair. As a fine carriage passed by, perhaps on its way from the castle down through Canongate to the palace of Holyrood, I would affect a look at once placid and forlorn–a beatific expression I had copied from cherubs painted inside St. Giles cathedral, which I had seen once when I sneaked in through the doors.
Most of the coaches would clatter on by, but eventually, if I waited long enough, a carriage would stop and a lady would emerge. Sometimes she was young and fresh‑faced, dressed in a gown sewn with ribbons, at other times older and motherly. Either way, while I gazed up with plaintive eyes, the lady would cluck her tongue and fuss over me. She would murmur that she had never seen hair so gold, and how I had the face of an angel, and that surely God had touched this poor, wretched orphan.
Quickly enough, a man–sometimes her husband, sometimes her attendant–would leap from the carriage and race after the lady, gently but forcibly pulling her away from me. The lady would protest, the man would give me an angry look, then he’d pull several coins from his purse, toss them at my feet, and tell me in gruff tones to be off. Not needing to be told twice, I’d snatch up the coins and run.
The men were red‑faced and hard‑eyed–I felt no qualms taking their money–but I liked the ladies, especially the younger ones. They smelled like flowers, their voices as gentle as the calling of doves. I liked that they could imagine God had touched me, even though I knew it wasn’t true.
“It’s the devil in ye, Jimmie, not our Lord, that’s for certain,” Deacon Moody said to me as often as the pretty ladies spoke otherwise, and with greater conviction in his voice.
I could find Deacon Moody almost any day, fair or foul, along the Grassmarket, the hem of his black robe dragging in the muck, speaking the gospel to all who would listen to him, and taking any alms–coin, food, or preferably ale–where it was given. No one seemed to know for sure if Moody had been a real deacon once, but a few times I heard it whispered he indeed had been one, only that he had committed some heinous act, and was ejected from the Church years ago.
Whatever the truth, the folk who lived on Edinburgh’s streets–and in the dark ways below–often came to Deacon Moody, asking him to speak a rite of marriage, or to baptize a newborn babe, or to grant forgiveness when the supplicant feared death drew nigh, for the doors of the city’s churches were closed to folk such as they. Nor did Moody ask for any recompense for these acts, much as he sought handouts at other times, and that was what made me think the stories about him were true.
“Where are you off to, lad?” Deacon Moody said to me one autumn evening as he caught me dashing through the Grassmarket. For nearly four years I had been living on the streets of the city by day and dying by night in Greyfriars cemetery.
“Nowhere,” I said.
It was true enough. It wasn’t where I was running to that concerned me, but rather where I was running from: a stair that linked the Grassmarket to High Street, where I had just lifted a man’s purse. I didn’t usually resort to such brazen thievery, but the purse had been full and heavy, dangling from the man’s belt like a ripe fruit ready to be plucked.
“If it’s nowhere you’re going, then you’ve time to indulge me in a bit of conversation,” Moody said, his voice and breath thick with drink. A falling mist beaded on his black robe and dampened his gray hair. “Now tell me, lad, have you given any further thought to your salvation?”
I gave him a pert grin. “I sleep in a crypt, Deacon, you know that. So you can’t save me, seeing as I’m already dead.”
The deacon’s expression, previously jovial, became grim. “No, you’re not, lad,” he said, laying a rough hand on my shoulder. He gazed around the Grassmarket. “There are many on these streets who are dead indeed. They keep on walking and eating and breathing, but they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be alive, and their hearts have gone cold as iron. All they care for are hard things, like the weight of gold in their pockets, or the feel of a gun in their hands. Beyond grace, they are. But not you, Jimmie Golden. Not yet. Do you hear me, lad?”
I reached into my own pocket, feeling the heavy purse. Perhaps the man I had stolen it from had planned to use the money to settle an account. Perhaps now he would be thrown in debtor’s prison to rot.
Dread grew in me, and my own heart felt cold, but I quickly traded the feeling for anger and directed the full force of it at Moody. They had cast him out of the Church for his sins. What did he know? I was a thief, that was all. Grace was not for the likes of me.
I glared at him, and I know not what he saw upon my face, but he jerked his hand from my shoulder, and a soft word escaped his lips. It might have been, Mercy.
Moody stumbled back against a wall, and I pushed past him, racing down the Grassmarket. I reached the square where witches and criminals were hanged, then veered right, heading down toward Greyfriars.
Dusk was thickening to dark, and the mist clung to my eyelashes; I suppose that was how I did not see him standing before the iron gates of the graveyard. I rounded a corner of the wall and ran into him headlong. He was tall, and solidly built. I glanced off him like a bird striking a window and fell dazed to the cobblestones.
Strong hands picked me up and shook me out, standing me back on my feet.
“Sorry, my lord,” I said, keeping my eyes down, then started to move past him.
His hand touched my shoulder, stopping me. “Perhaps you can help me,” he said, his voice deep and thrumming. “I’m looking for someone.”