The Curse of Salamander Street (21 page)

‘I was so much like Crane, then I changed. I found the meaning of life and pursued it with vengeance. Within the hour, Kate, you will be crawling upon the walls and begging me for another dose. That is the way of
Gaudium-auctus
. I intend to give it to the world. First it shall be free for everyone and then, when it takes hold, it shall be like a pearl of great price – impossible to find. Men will sell their children, priests will steal and murder, the Monarch himself will hand over the kingdom. There will be no surprise in the depths they will plummet to have one drop. Good will be called evil and evil good. Look at
Pallium – once as fat as a pig. Now his only desire is to count what little money he has left and give me whatever I want. I once found him trying to work out how long he could live and still pay me for the
Gaudium-auctus
. I intend to charge him a penny more each day and see his life shrink even more.’ Galphus laughed.

‘Then I would rather die,’ Kate said.

‘And that you will – or should I say, and
that
you’ll fear. For that is the price you pay.
Gaudium
keeps away the fear – without it the slightest object becomes an obsession. You could no more kill yourself than I set you free. I surprise myself … Found it by accident. I wanted to make glue for the leather that would not rot. I took some Persian poppies and boiled the seeds. Within the day all who used it were singing merrily. Sadly they also died singing – they didn’t seem to mind at all. One moment in the midst of a tavern aria, the next dead upon their anvils.’ He laughed and Kate laughed with him. ‘You, dear Kate, are blessed. For you are the first one to take part in my experiment. The
Gaudium
I have given you is far stronger than any I have made before and far more addictive.’

‘Then let me die and be with Thomas.’ Kate blurted the words without a trace of joy. She felt a sudden stab in her emotions as her heart missed a beat. A cold thread ran through every vein as if her blood were ice. Within a breath, her lips had tightened, her mouth dried and thirst gripped her like a maddened dog.

‘You shall be with him, but he is not dead. Again a deception for the benefit of Mister Crane. He took it so well – his grief soothed by the promise of money. Thomas is alive. He is my servant, a replacement for young Smutt who had a terrible
accident
.’

‘It was right what she said, the ghost – she told me he was dead before he hit the ground. You murdered him!’ Kate screamed, all joy gone. The floor swiftly crawled with all kinds
of creeping insects. She stared as they ran about her feet and over the boots in which she had been encased. ‘Do something, Galphus!’ She screamed in panic as a large beetle appeared from the crack between the floorboards and the wall and walked towards her. As it came closer it grew in size to that of a small dog and upon its head it appeared to wear a Frenchman’s hat.

‘What troubles you, Kate?’ Galphus asked, as if she had a minor malady.

‘A Frenchman dressed as a beetle. Kill it Galphus, kill it now!’ She screamed as it appeared to come closer.

‘There is nothing there but your dream – the
Gaudium
is leaving you.’

‘Then let it be gone and the Frenchy with it.’

Galphus banged his cane upon the floor three times. The door opened and the Druggles entered and without a word took hold of Kate. She had no strength; whatever she had been given had emptied every bone of fortitude and now she hung like a cloth doll in their arms. Within her wits she could see another dimension where a tragedy played out with herself the only guest.

‘Take her to the upper warehouse and put her in the cell,’ Galphus said. ‘She would like to see Thomas, so bring him as well. Give her what she wants. And leave this outside the door.’ He handed them the pyx of
Gaudium-auctus
. ‘She will want to know it is nearby and I will hear her scream when she would like to try it again. I am expecting a visitor from the north, an old friend, tell me when he arrives.’ He gave a slight wave as he pulled a silkcand dabbed his nose. ‘One more thing,’ he said softly, as if he only wanted her to hear. ‘Kill Thomas – and I’ll let you keep the pyx and the
Gaudium
for yourself …’

L
EAVE me,’ urged Lady Tanville Chilnam as Raphah took the Glory Hand to see where Barghast had gone. Ahead was a narrow tunnel through which came the ferocious roaring of a running torrent of water. ‘I’ll go back,’ she shouted to him, half-wanting to follow.

‘He is just ahead,’ Raphah said. ‘We must get to him before he discovers Ergott, he will kill him.’

‘What is he?’ Tanville asked.

‘A wandering Aramean, cursed to live forever.’

‘Is he human?’

‘And something more …’ Raphah said as he took her by the hand and led her on. ‘What goes on within him is against the authority of nature. Barghast needs our help.’

From somewhere in the dark cavern came the sound of footsteps clattering against the stone. A shovel sounded as it was dragged across the wave-cut rock. Dimly at first, a light came into view.

‘We’re followed,’ whispered Tanville as she and Raphah stooped through the tunnel and into another cavern. They walked up a narrow row of hand-cut steps that led to a high
stone gantry. Each one still bore hurried chisel marks. The steps took them higher, almost to the ceiling. They stood in a large cave, its roof garlanded with stalactites that dripped and dripped cold, echoing water. To one side was a vast heap of rock that looked as if it were a flow of frozen magma spewed from the centre of the earth and then petrified.

Lady Tanville took her cape and shielded the Glory Hand within it as the chamber was plunged into darkness.

‘What if Bragg is found by Barghast?’ Tanville asked as they followed on.

‘Then our job will be done for us. Bragg must know more than he says.’

‘He was the last one to hold the picture of Lady Isabella – sold it to a man named Galphus. I follow Bragg to Salamander Street. I read a letter when I took the money from him. Galphus wrote to Bragg saying it would be good to meet him in person and not by courier. Bragg has an old goblet that Galphus has bought from him.’ She spoke urgently, holding on to Raphah’s coat as they stumbled up the dark passageway. ‘You promised to come with me, Raphah – did you mean that?’

‘I promised,’ Raphah said. ‘That is enough.’

‘Then I will tell you this. On the night the dog attacked me, I had listened at Ergott’s door. I heard him talking to someone, a man. He spoke about the journey. He too spoke of this man, Galphus, and two children. He told the man about Bragg and a chalice.’ Tanville stopped for a moment and then went on, speaking even quieter. ‘Ergott argued with the man in his room about finding children. Ergott had asked the man what he would do with them and he’d said they had to die – I know these are the companions you seek.’

‘How did you know?’ Raphah asked, sure that she could not have discovered this by mortal means.

‘It … It was Beadle. He didn’t want to tell me but …’

‘Beadle?’ Raphah laughed. ‘The first sign of friendship and he cannot control his tongue. Beer and good companions. Did he tell you everything?’

‘For an hour, as we searched the cellar and the edge of the cavern. Beadle told me about your
magic
. He thinks much of you. It was
you
who changed his heart.’

‘I’m a stranger to
magic
. Beadle changed himself. He had lived under the curse of his master and when he was free he found himself,’ Raphah said.

‘You never take praise, always give it to another.’

‘Why seek praise?’ Raphah said.

The sound of the water torrent beat louder as the light of a travel lamp below lit a glow around a pair of feet.

Neither of them spoke as Bragg came into view. He was carrying a shovel and lamp. Strapped around his capacious frame was a linen bag. He muttered as he walked, swinging the lamp back and forth and unaware of their presence. Bragg walked as if he knew the caves well and his stride said that he walked to meet someone.

He left the chamber and continued on through a narrow passageway that led upwards. Raphah and Tanville walked on, close enough to hear the tap of his step but far enough to whisper to each other without being overheard. They followed the light of Bragg’s lantern as it disappeared ahead of them.

They kept three coach lengths from Bragg. The path went on forever. It climbed high and circled a large vault of a cavern. Old ropes hung from the ceiling. Coils of loose hemp were spun on the floor. By the entrance was an old hut built of rocks piled upon old wood. There was a doorway the size of a child. Raphah looked inside and saw the remnants of a fire long since dead and covered in the dust of a hundred years. He thought about who could have lived there. A house in perpetual darkness, in amongst the dripping cold stone.

It was a whole world beneath the ground. Coated with black soot from a thousand fires, the ceiling dribbled the cold drip of limestone water. From the heights above them hung what looked like stone gargoyles, etched through the years by flood water.

The wind gusted stronger as they neared the entrance to another passageway that led from the chamber. The air vibrated and moaned as it was sucked into the narrow opening. Raphah thought it strange that such a storm should blow this far beneath the earth, and wondered if miners had cut some kind of air channel to bring the breeze to the depths. Upon the ground were several footprints: two from passing animals and another from a man.

‘This way,’ Raphah said as they stooped through the entrance of the narrow opening and made their way onwards. From the footprints in the sand he knew it to be where Ergott, Barghast and now Bragg had trod. A little way ahead they heard the sound of digging, of metal clashing with stone.

In the shadow of the lamp, Bragg sweated as he dug at the earth. When the spade was no use he got to his knees and dug with his hands. Raphah couldn’t make out if Bragg was digging something up or burying an item so that it would never be found. Bragg wheezed, golem-like as he slathered his breath, spittle drooling from his jowls. In the shadows of the cave he looked like a dog slobbering over an old bone.

High above him in the arch of the cavern, Raphah crawled to a ledge to gain a better view. Lady Tanville waited in the passageway. She shielded the flickering light of the Glory Hand with her coat. From where he hid, Raphah could see Bragg scrabbling in the dirt, his face lit by the smouldering wick of the old lamp that he had wedged between two large stones. The cave was filled with shadows. Bragg dug even deeper.

Raphah watched as Bragg fumbled with a small chalice that
he was trying to wrap in a black cloth. Bragg wiped the remnants of dirt from its rim and sniffed the cup. He looked about, as if he knew he was being watched. Then he shrugged his shoulders and with one hand pulled the collar of his coat to hide what he was doing. Picking his way through the stones, Raphah climbed higher. Far below at the bottom of the cave, Bragg took the vessel and wrapped it in the black silk.

Without any fuss he took the bag that was wrapped around him and put the cloth within it. Like a pedantic gardener, he placed the bag upon the shovel and then began to fill in the hole he had created by hand. The chalice hung on the handle of the spade, wrapped neatly in its sack. Every now and then he would look up and smile at the hidden cup. Quite neatly, he placed several stones in the hole and then covered them with the fine sand. With a fat hand he then scrubbed out any trace of his presence.

Raphah looked on from the shadows as Bragg turned to face the lamp and pick it from the floor. His face changed: he began to smile, and a word of greeting formed on his lips as if to welcome someone he knew. Bragg’s eyes then changed, widening with disbelief as he took a pace backwards. It looked as if he was about to scream or shout out when …

There was a sudden rush. Something glistened as it flew. A knife spun through the air. Raphah cried out as Bragg clutched his chest. He staggered forward, looking for his bag as if he was quickly losing his sight. Raphah clambered down the rocks as Lady Tanville dashed from the hiding place, her clothes torn as if a beast had set upon her. She screamed as she ran, looking for Raphah.

Bragg stared at her. The smile came back to his face. ‘Capacious Alta … Consanguineous,’ he said as the blood dribbled from his mouth and down his chin.

Bragg fell backwards like a crashing oak, his hand flailing
about him as he desperately tried to hold on to life. Upon his face he carried the grimace of a frightened child. As Raphah scrambled towards him, he could see that the man feared death. Bragg pouted like a dying fish gasping for air.

‘Capacious Alta … Consanguineous,’ Bragg said again as he reached out to Lady Tanville. Without a word, she walked to him and pulled the knife from his chest. Bragg gasped, muttered to himself and then fell, face to stone.

‘He came from the tunnel – I didn’t hear him. He attacked me … Then this,’ she said between each breath. ‘I never saw his face, but it was a man – that’s what I think he was … He threw the knife.’

‘I saw no one, just Bragg, I thought he had seen you and that’s why he smiled.’

‘Smiled at the one who killed him. There are others here. We must leave now,’ she said as she shivered, cold as an arctic monkey.

‘Not without Barghast,’ Raphah said.

‘Then I leave alone and take the Glory Hand.’ Tanville panicked, looking frantically about the cave for some sign of the killer. She held the knife in her hand and dripped the blood to the floor. ‘Why did he kill him?’

‘For this?’ Raphah asked as he picked the bag from the shovel and took out the cup. ‘This is the goblet, hidden here for safekeeping. This is the cup that Galphus wanted.’

‘A pot mug, why should he want that?’ Tanville asked.

‘More than that, much more than that,’ Raphah said. ‘If I am right then this has not been seen for many years.’

‘And should never have been seen at all,’ Barghast said as he limped into the cold chamber holding his arm. ‘Ergott has gone, nowhere to be found,’ he said wearily.

Raphah held the cup in the light of the Glory Hand. The hand dimmed suddenly in the presence of the chalice as if it
demanded reverence. He and Barghast stared at the goblet. It was meagre and bare and quite ordinary. All that set it apart from a fireside drinking pot was the silver rim inlaid into the clay. Years had hardened it to stone that felt as strong as metal in Raphah’s fingers. ‘Do you know of this?’ Raphah asked.

‘I have heard of the Grail Cup,’ Barghast said in awe as he looked at the simple goblet of fire-hardened clay. He reached out and touched the inlaid silver rim. ‘I met a dandy who dined out on telling the tale. Said it was buried beneath a rose by an abbey wall. The entire world was captured by his ramblings. And to think, they have searched the codes and all the time it was here at Peveril, in a cave below the old castle.’ Barghast wanted to laugh; his neck felt too weak to hold his head. ‘I’m weary, Raphah. It is a good feeling,’ he sighed. ‘The beggar is near, I know it. One more road and then I’ll taste the sublime slumber.’

‘What will you do with the goblet?’ Tanville asked as Raphah put the bag around him.

‘It is a morsel to catch a rat,’ he said as he lifted the lamp from the floor and stared at Bragg slumped in the dirt.

‘What of Bragg?’ asked Barghast.

‘Killed by a knife,’ he said.

‘Then whoever did this is not far. In fact they could be in our midst,’ Barghast replied. ‘I will tell the innkeeper. He will not want another death. We’ll put Bragg in the grave with Mister Shrume. There is no reason to lament his loss. He shared a carriage with Julius Shrume – now he can share his grave.’

From somewhere high above came the moaning of an agonised man. Barghast sniffed the air as if to scent from where it came. The sound of the carping echoed through the caves. It was quickly followed by the noise of heavy boots scrambling upon the rocks. It got closer and closer by the second.

Raphah looked to Barghast. ‘Bragg’s assassin?’

Barghast listened intently, his eyes searching the cavern. ‘Ergott,’ he said slowly.

Holding the lamp higher, Raphah looked towards the pathway that led from the floor of the cave, up through the scree of broken rocks to the entrance to a higher chamber. Like a blundering blind man, Ergott stumbled from the pitch black and into the paltry glow of the lamp.

‘Bragg? Is it you?’ he asked. His hand covered his face to shield it from the brightness. ‘I’ve been lost, man, for many hours. Lamp burnt out and have stumbled my way back. Bragg?’ He spoke the last word as he looked down from the path and saw the humped body of Bragg face-down on the dirt. ‘What have you done to him?’ he asked, not daring to come any closer.

‘Not us, but another,’ Raphah said.

‘You stand above him like witches at a cauldron and you expect me to believe your lies?’ Ergott said, not desiring to take another step. ‘Look, that
is
a dagger I see before me … and something is rotten in
this
kingdom.’

‘We didn’t do this, Ergott. It was your disappearance from the inn that brought us to this place,’ Raphah said. ‘What are you doing in the cavern?’

‘I could ask the same as you,’ he snapped. ‘I was lost, went for a walk in the fields and found my way in here. The lantern burnt out and I couldn’t find my way. Why should I explain myself to you?’