Excerpt from Nicked by M.T. Anderson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I

The monk heard that a ship had arrived carrying one of the dog-headed people whom travelers speak of when they tell tall tales of the one-eyed and the winged, and he went out to the docks to see if it was true. This is how he first laid eyes on the relic thief; this is how the voyage to steal the corpse of Saint Nicholas began.


In an age of sickness; in a time of rage; in an epoch when tyrants take their seats beneath the white domes of capitals—I call upon Saint Nicholas, gift giver, light bringer, wonder worker, who saved the living from drowning and pasted together the dead from their pickling jars, who even after death gave of himself in medicinal ooze; I ask Saint Nicholas to tell us a tale to pass a winter night, so that when we rise in the morning, we may feel resolute in the new dawn.

I will tell the story of the heist of St. Nicholas's body from its tomb. I will tell it as it was told to me by musicians and drunkards and guidebooks and lovers.

Though I am an unbeliever, I pray for faith.


There was a pox in Bari, and half the town had fevers. The countryside shunned the city and its narrow streets for fear of sickness. The monks of Saint Benedict's stayed locked within their walls, singing troped Kyries to ask God for clemency.

"Christ—who removed the blemishes from the sick man and banished demons in the hogs—have mercy upon us." Farmers who passed outside their sanctuary heard the echo of their chants and looked up to the sky to see if any of it was helping.

Word came down from the Archbishop of Bari that the monks should keep vigil each night for a week, praying to St. Nicholas for healing and guidance. They knelt in the cold chapel without sleep. Eventually, one, Nicephorus, fell asleep and was visited with a sacred dream.

When he woke, he said he wanted to go out and minister to the sick in the city, taking them food and water, despite all dangers. Nicephorus had an irritatingly pure and generous heart.

"In the dream, the saint told me we cannot wait," said

Nicephorus. "We must leave our nest."

"You are sure?" said the Abbot. "The Blessed Nicholas?"

Nicephorus was uneasy. "He was dead. It has been six centuries. All the people in the dream were made of clay. But Saint Nicholas chanted and I heard. I will take it as a personal calling."

He went out with a basket of barley cakes and a ewer and visited the sick and drew water for them.

One said to him, "Put me in a wheelbarrow."

"You're not ready for the graveyard," said Nicephorus.

"You're hale."

"I want to go over to the docks."

Nicephorus did not understand. He looked to the man's wife, who was leaning against the wellhead. She shrugged. "I'm already better," she said. "If he wants to die in a wheelbarrow, that's the kind of thing his father did."

"There's a dog-headed man on a ship. They're talking about it next door. I want to see it before I'm dead."

"You are not likely to die soon," said Nicephorus.

"I am not likely to see another dog-headed man who can trim a lateen sail," the man said, and so he stood up roughly and shambled to the wheelbarrow and sat down in it.

Nicephorus rolled him through the tall, muddy streets and passageways toward the port.

The man said, to make conversation, "So you've had a sacred dream from the Blessed Nicholas."

"I cannot say that. We had sung hymns and sequences to St. Nicholas for a week. He was in my thoughts when I fell

asleep. I do not know he sent the dream himself from his cloud."

"How did he seem?"

"Dead. Seven centuries."

"Did he seem discontented?"

"With us? He did."

"With death. He knows what it's like, now. Did he have advice? The weighing of souls?"

Nicephorus smiled. "What do you expect?"

"He might recommend we take ballast up with us. To tip the balances in our favor. He is a friend to sailors and knows the value of weight in the hold."

Excerpted from NICKED by M.T. Anderson. Reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2024 by M.T. Anderson.