The Kingdom of Bones Read Free Page A

boy?”
    Sebastian immediately assumed a stooge, but the young man pushing his way to the front of the crowd was surrounded by friends of a similar age and seemed to be a legitimate member of the local public. “Henry Keenan,” the young man shouted back, handing his hat to somebody and beginning to struggle out of his jacket as he moved.
    “Come on up, then, Henry Keenan,” the barker called. At the first sign of a contender, the Masked Champion had lowered his head and disappeared back through the flaps of the tent. “Take your seats inside, folks. No spitting, no gambling, no climbing into the ring. No children, sonny.”
    Elisabeth was still looking at Sebastian, still daring him. All around them people were starting to push their way toward the entrance to the booth, buffeting them like a passing flood.
    Sebastian had seen something of life. He was fairly certain that the experience would not be as she imagined it. But how to explain that to her, without seeming to treat her like a child?
    So he inclined his head slightly as if to say, Why not? And they gave in and went with the flow.
             
    On the inside, the boxing booth was like a grimy circus tent over a cattle auction ring. There were shaky-looking wooden bleachers on all sides around the fight area. The place had almost filled up as Sebastian and Elisabeth found seats in the middle of a row. Sebastian had worried that his wife might be the only woman to join the audience, but she was far from alone.
    The young challenger, now in shirtsleeves, had been given a well-used pair of gloves and was being laced into them by his companions. In the opposite corner of the ring, the Masked Champion was alone and taking off his robe. He had no second; all available hands were out among the crowd, moving along the rows and taking money.
    As the robe came off it revealed high boots, long johns, and a woolen undershirt, with baggy trunks over. This closer look confirmed Sebastian’s first impression. The man’s body was powerful looking, but neglected and past its prime. There was something touchingly domestic about the way that he clumsily straightened the creases out of the robe before hanging it outside the ring, as if he had no other and it needed care. Sebastian wondered if he had just the one knitted mask, as well. It covered his entire head, showing only his eyes and his mouth.
    In the middle of the arena the showman paced and swung around, favoring every corner of the tent with a commentary. He was there to keep the sense of a show alive for as long as the necessary business took.
    “The man in the mask has fought before presidents and the crowned heads of Europe,” he declaimed. “He has traveled the world and he has never been beaten. He has a special contempt for the males of Pennsylvania, who he says are the weakest-looking bunch of old women that he’s ever come upon.”
    The males of Pennsylvania responded exactly as they were meant to, loudly and angrily, and the atmosphere became even more charged. It was a strange sight, the Philadelphia middle classes hooting and hollering like farmhands at a cockfight. Sebastian looked at his wife. She was slightly flushed, and he could sense the tension in her; she was glancing all around and missing nothing.
    He reckoned he had a fair idea of how it would go. The professional went through this every day of his life, several times a day. A young blood in gloves was unlikely to trouble him much, however full of vim. He’d keep it going, giving the crowd their money’s worth, making it look as if there was a real chance of an outcome, and then probably put the boy down midway through the third. The boy would be carried off with honor, bearing some manly damage and a tale to be told, and the Masked Champion would go back out front to the platform and do it all over again.
    That was unless the boy showed some skill, or presented a genuine danger to the professional. Then it would be in the professional’s