Download The Relic Master PDF By Chistopher Buckley
The Relic Master For one, his asking price was far too low. A relic of the finger that had probed the spear wound in Christ’s side after his resurrection would fetch as much as forty or fifty gulden. And he was asking only fifteen. More troubling was the absence of fragrant odor when Dismas held it to his nostrils. A genuine relic was always pleasant to the nose. Finally, there was the variety of items the fellow had for sale: the tongue (entire) of St. Anthony of Padua; an ampulla of the Virgin’s breast milk; a stone from the scala santa, the steps of Pilate’s palace; a few pieces of straw from the sacra incunabulum, the holy manger in Bethlehem; and shavings from the chains of St. Peter. A suspiciously vast array of goods.
Experience inclined Dismas to trust more in dealers who concentrated in specific fields. Say, relics of the Diocletian persecution. Or brandea, items that had been in physical contact with the Holy Family. Relics of St. Anne, mother of the Virgin, a category at the moment in huge demand.
A shame, Dismas thought, for what a splendid centerpiece it would make in the courtyard of the castle church in Wittenberg. Or the cathedral cloister at Mainz. Someone would buy it, perhaps a recently ennobled Bohemian, who’d paint it in garish colors and put it in his moat. In time he’d grow bored of it and allow his children to reenact famous sea battles in it. And finally it would rot and sink, and the nobleman would say that he’d always had his doubts about it. By Chistopher Buckley
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