The Curse of Salamander Street (7 page)

Taking a candle from the side table, Crane nodded to Kate and Thomas for them to follow. Silently they left Pallium in the dirty scullery to arduously count his coins. He twitched and shuddered with each one, his eyes wide, lips slobbering as he stared at the bright gold.

Kate and Thomas slid by and into the stairway. Crane took the steps two at a time and as he disappeared into the darkness his heavy footsteps swirled the dust about them like a thick fog.

Within a minute they were in a large room that overlooked the dismal street. Crane had kicked open the stiff door with his sea boot and lit the two candle stubs that were on the narrow table by the window. He ignored the scurrying of the mice that ran off into the dark corners and said nothing of their presence to Kate and Thomas.

‘I’ll leave you to it …’ He smiled and stepped into the passageway that ran the length of the house. He stopped abruptly in front of a black door that was double-bolted. ‘Sleep, and then we’ll eat,’ Crane said as he took the light.

Kate and Thomas stared at each other for a moment and then looked about them. In the corner of the room was an old mouse-eaten leather chair and to one side a
Fortbien
magichord. It was propped against the wall like a gigantic flat pyramid with four octaves of ivory keys that had tainted with the years. The magichord looked like a grand piano stood on its end. Above it, an elaborate candelabrum hung, webbed and wax-dripped, like the tangled roost of a dawn rook. At the far side, by the narrow window was a small bed, neatly made with fresh but tattered linen, whilst at the fireplace was a day-bed that had been turned down ready for sleep.

Kate smiled as she saw a neat bundle of fire-sticks and a tinderbox. ‘He made ready for us,’ she said in a whisper as she tiptoed across the wooden floor and sat upon the bed. ‘Do you really think he knew we were coming?’ she asked.

‘He’s mad,’ Thomas said quietly as he looked at the magichord, eager to press the keys. ‘Did you see him? Looked as if he’d shrunk away to almost nothing, and all that money hanging about – just asking to be robbed, if you ask me.’

‘Thomas …’ Kate said unhurriedly as she looked at him. ‘I keep thinking of going back. I can’t get the thought from my head. It’s like something’s pulling at my insides and telling me to go home.’

‘Back? Not now. It’s all changed, Kate. The world’s gone mad. Have you forgotten what we saw – the creatures in the wood, and the night at Finnesterre’s house? I’ve seen too much to go
back
, my life is away from that place. Anyway – we are villains. Go back now and Demurral would have us dead. Wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t planning to come and find us as we speak.’

‘What about your mother?’ Kate asked as she lay back on the bed.

‘You saw what I saw. That thing was a monster, tried to kill
us. Whatever it was is now long gone and my mother with it. That’s all I could think of on the ship. All I could see was my mother’s face and then that demon coming from her mouth. I couldn’t rid my wits of the vision.’

Thomas knelt by the fire and, picking up the kindling, angrily snapped each stick and placed them in the hearth. He felt as if he was breaking every memory of his life – kneeling to abjure his past and renounce who he was. Carefully he placed each thick splinter against the others until they were stacked neatly in the back of the blackened grate. With one hand he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the torn hankersniff given to him by his mother. It had been the greatest gift he had ever had, longed-for and loved and never used for its purpose. For three years he had carried it with him every day, always the ever-present memory of one close by. Thomas thumbed the darned initials before he screwed it up in his hand. He pushed it quickly into the grate and in his heart whispered goodbye to her. Taking the tinderbox, he sparked the glintings against the hankersniff and watched the fire take hold. It burnt brightly and quickly, crackling from stick to stick as the flames lit the room and warmed his face.

‘Not too bad with the fire lit,’ he said, wiping his face with the cuff of his jacket to take the fresh glint from his eye. ‘If we stick with Crane, things will be right, Kate. What else have we got?’

Kate had been smiling as she watched him light the fire, but now a sombreness had crept through her mind like the chill wind. As the flames took hold she remembered another room only days before where she had slept in a deep dream and been woken with joyful laughter and the calling of children. There had been warmth, comfort and an open hearth in that place. It had proclaimed hope and love and was something she had wanted all of her life.

‘Do you think we’ll see Rueben Wayfoot again?’ Kate asked, remembering his bright whiskered chin and the warm fire of Boggle Mill.

‘Not I, Kate. I’m for going on. When I hear that Demurral is dead, then I will return, and not until,’ Thomas said, his words determined and edged with hate.

‘On that day, will you take me back?’ she asked. The thought of again seeing Boggle Mill with its smoking pots and glistening windows was fixed in her mind.

‘On that day, I will dance on his grave,’ he said sharply, curling his hands into tight fists as he stood and looked at her shadow-lit face. ‘He put my mother in that place and conjured that demon. Something in my bones tells me he’s not finished with us. He wanted all three of us dead. Raphah’s gone and it leaves you and me.’

‘I thought that too,’ Kate replied with a hint of hesitation in her voice. ‘Every time I shut my eyes I see him. Sometimes I think I can hear him whispering to me, calling me back. On the ship, in the night I was sure I heard Demurral calling out. I went on deck and all I could hear was Jacob shouting at the crew to raise the sails and the wind whistling through the rigging.’

‘So what’s it to be?’ Thomas asked brusquely. He opened the top of the battered metal box by the fire, picked out two dried oak logs and placed them on the flames. ‘Are we going to see this through?’ His voice was dry and harsh and had broken since the coming of the sky-quake. Then he sat upon the daybed and looked into the flames. Listening to the crackling of the fire, he waited before he spoke again. ‘I have you, Kate, and no other. I realised that for the first time when we sailed from Whitby. It never meant anything before, but with every rise and fall of that ship it came to me. I had no one else. No father, mother …’

‘Then we’ll stay together till death parts us,’ Kate said. She leant against the bolster and closed her eyes as the room warmed.

‘Do you mean that?’ Thomas asked. He turned to her and in disappointment realised she had slipped into sleep. ‘
Do
you mean that?’ he asked her again in a voice lower than a breath, hoping she would hear him in her dreaming.

Taking more logs from the firebox, Thomas stacked the grate and then leant back in the lounge chair. From a darkened corner he could hear the scurrying of mice. The fire crackled in the hearth and the dancing flames warmed his feet as the dusty, whitewashed panels shimmered in the light. Pulling the old blanket up to his neck, he rested against the back of the chair. A growing sense of unease kept him from sleep, even though his eyes sagged with bleary tiredness.

Thomas twisted back and forth, hoping to find a comfortable place to rest himself against the prickling threads that bit at his skin. As he drifted from the world, he tried to keep an open eye, fearful that Demurral stalked his dreams. He rubbed the black powder away from his eyes with the back of his hand and snuggled in the warm blanket. As Thomas dozed he looked into the flames, which leapt from the grate to the mouth of the chimney.

Suddenly the flames flickered and then faded. Thomas blinked hard to rid his mind of what he now saw. It was as if every strand of fire had come together and just for a moment were frozen in time, and there looking at him from within the flames was the outline of a gaunt, twisted head – lines and contours that in the light looked almost human, eyes that opened with every flicker. Then, as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

B
EADLE was shaken from his sleep as Raphah leapt hurriedly from the bed to the floor of the kitchen below. As Beadle had dreamt fitfully of the sea, so the house had been whipped into a storm. The clock had struck the fourth hour; every traveller had been pulled from their beds and now clustered by the fire in search of enough food to break the night fast.

A cook flustered by the scullery pot as she strangled the last drops of blood from the neck of a dead chicken with one hand, whilst with the other she showered the floor with fresh feathers. All about her ran the skullers, carrying sizzling trays of roast meat and hot bread, screaming at each other as they went. A steaming pot bubbled upon the open fire, filling the whole inn with the smell of boiled cabbage.

Raphah looked up at Beadle, who peered upon the scene through a crusted eye and moaned to himself that he had only found true sleep moments before being woken. From outside came the jangling of a horse harness and the clatter of hooves. It was like the preparation for war as the carriages were made ready and wicker baskets stacked with journey food and wire-corked beer in pot jars. Every corner of the inn shuddered with
the sounds of making ready. Coats were warmed by the kitchen fire and hot stones were rag-wrapped for the coachman's feet. Men shouted a morning's welcome as maids bustled back and forth from hearth to table. The clamber was that of a city street or summer fayre, and laughter echoed along the passageway as the joy and trepidation of the coming journey filled all with its excitement.

Standing in the shadows, Raphah listened enviously for a moment. To him, such homeliness had been a stranger since his leaving Africa. Now, all around was the sound of contentment, as all was made ready. Even the candles appeared to burn brightly in their stands as they awaited the dawn and the call of the bugler. No one gave him a bye or leave as he stepped from the kitchen unnoticed and walked the three paces across the passageway and into the parlour.

A long oak table was stretched across the room and covered with pewter serving plates and jugs of warmed beer. They steamed like early morning cowpats, the mist from the porridge, meat and bread quickly disappearing in the growing heat of the fire. A cooked hog's head stared at him as he stepped towards the large fireplace that ran the length of one wall. Quickly the room filled with people, many lost in their own thoughts, some fumbling with small bags that they stowed beneath the long benches.

No one looked at Raphah or bade him any welcome – it was as if he had no shape or form and could not be seen. They gave their welcomes to one another but none spoke to him. He waited by the fire as the seats were taken and the breakfast eaten. Everyone had a place but him. A china plate of rich cooked meat was handed along and as Raphah reached forth his hand, the plate was pulled away by the innkeeper.

He tried to catch the eye of a rotund traveller with a tight golden waistcoat and puffed cotton sleeves. The man instantly
looked to his plate and filled his mouth as if he were a starving urchin. Seven men sat upon the bench and ate their vitals. Each one kept their eye to the fire, speaking warmly to their neighbour of the journey ahead.

‘Good breakfast,' snorted the fat man as he undid the collar of his shirt and lifted out a flap of skin that had somehow trapped itself beneath. ‘The journey will be fine to Peveril. Heard they have hanged the highwayman – now we have nothing to fear.'

There was a rumble of approval as heads nodded on both sides of the table. Raphah looked on, thinking it would be best to keep silent. He leant against the fireplace as the conversation gathered pace, then looked for a place to sit at table.

The fat man caught his eye and gave him a slight smile, curling the corner of his lip and allowing a dribble of meat juice to scurry across his chin.

‘Where are our manners?' he said mockingly as he saw Raphah looking for a place to eat. ‘The Ethio has travelled a long way to eat with us and we have not made him welcome.'

The gathering bristled silently, spreading out along the benches so there was no room for Raphah to sit.

‘Gentlemen, we have a foreign guest who would like to sit with us. How can we make him welcome?' The man spoke between slurps of red wine that he held in a silver flagon by his side. ‘Surely there must be one seat in which he can take his meal in such pleasant company?'

Raphah edged his way towards the gap on the long bench between the coachman and the bugler, who was dressed in a leather apron and heavy tunic. As he approached they snuggled together so he could not be seated.

‘Sit, my dear friend,' the fat man scolded as he smiled with his piggy eyes and wobbled his jowls. ‘I know, gentlemen,' he said quietly. ‘There is always Vackan's chair by the fire?'

The bugler shook his head in deep disapproval and whispered to the fat man. ‘That would not be a good thing, Mister Bragg, not a good thing.'

‘But we could test the chair, see if what is said about it is true,' Mister Bragg replied equally as quietly.

Raphah noticed the large oak chair at the far side of the brazier. It was coated in fire dust and looked as if it had never been a place of rest for many years, or that a hand had touched or cleaned it in all that time. It was unlike any chair he had seen before. Two spindle front legs were turned in dark wood and capped with lion's claws. A large third leg the width of a man's arm followed the line of the chair back to the floor. It was old and ugly, rudely made and dog-gnawed.

‘Would you like to seat yourself there?' Mister Bragg asked as he filled his mouth again with food. ‘Ord Vackan loved to sit in that place – was taken from it on the last night of his life. Loved it, he did, loved it.'

‘And all who …' The bugler tried to speak.

‘Reserved for special guests, that's what he would like to say, special like you – a friend from far away,' Bragg said, sipping his wine from the flask. ‘Please be seated and we will serve you. It is tradition to eat a hearty breakfast before …'

Raphah slipped quietly into the inglenook chair that rested on the hearth by the brazier.

All was suddenly silent. Words stopped half-spoken as every head turned and stared. Raphah became aware that all who were gathered were glaring at him. He looked away quickly, staring into the shimmering flames that sucked at a holly log. Everyone glanced at each other, urging with sharp eyes for someone to speak. Silence prevailed, thick, uncomfortable and brimming with anticipation.

With a ruffle of his long black cloak, Barghast walked through the doorway and saw Raphah sat in the Ord Vackan's oak chair.

‘Did no one tell him?' he shouted loudly.

‘What?' Raphah asked as his eyes went to the faces of the gathering.

‘You let him sit in the chair and not one of you came to the lad's aid?' Barghast bellowed again, his white face reddening for a moment.

‘We never saw,' muttered a small, shrew-like man with a thin face and jagged front teeth sticking from his mouth.

‘Rumour, legend …Nothing is for certain, they could have all died by coincidence,' said Mister Bragg feebly as he chewed a slither of liver and sipped the dregs of fine chianti that he had hoarded from the night before.

‘What do they speak of?' Raphah asked, unsure as to what he had done and why it should cause such a commotion.

‘Vackan's chair,' said Barghast solemnly. ‘There is a legend that it is cursed. Whoever sits upon it meets an untimely death. Vackan was a villain of these parts, a cut-throat and a murderer. On the night that Ord Vackan was dragged from here and hanged, he cursed the chair on which he had been sat and said that whoever rested in it would come to an end worse than his.'

‘A curse upon a chair? Should I be worried by that?' Raphah laughed.

‘Such a thing cannot be shaken from you by laughter. It is well known in these parts and has become more than legend. Too many coincidences have taken place and I am saddened that your fellow travellers should play such a trick,' Barghast said.

‘Brevity at breakfast, Mister Barghast,' Bragg snorted as if pleased with himself. ‘I never thought for a moment he would take the seat.'

‘Perhaps Raphah offended you in some way?' Barghast asked of him.

‘I am not easily offended – and was not Church and State
built on the backs of the Ethio? Perhaps I would find it easier to share my vitals with pigs than the likes of him. But we live in a
modern
world and things have changed. One day we might find one as the Minster bishop – and hell shall freeze.' He belched as he spoke, cow-cudding a mouthful of food and picking some pieces of liver from his teeth.

‘I have a spell that will break the curse on you, lad,' the shrew-man said above the babble of voices, and he held out his hand clutching a folded piece of linen. ‘Take it and it will stop the evil befalling you.'

‘I need no magic to break the curse, for that was done for me in ages past – I fear not wooden chairs nor the curse of those who sat in them, nor what lies in a man's heart.' Raphah stood from the chair and brushed the dust for his breeches. ‘I will eat my vitals with those who are not afraid of my company and can understand I am a free man.'

‘Then sit with me,' said a soft voice in the darkened corner of the room by a far-off window. ‘I travel alone and have no concern for curses or Ord Vacken.'

Raphah looked across the room to where the voice had heralded a welcome. In the shadows by the shuttered window, he saw the outline of a figure edged in a dark cloak, the hood shrouding about the head as if to keep the wearer from the draught.

‘And I too,' said Barghast as he snatched bread and meat from the table and followed Raphah across the room.

Together they sat and in the half-light Raphah saw that his welcomer was a young woman of his own age. She smiled at him as he sat in a high-backed chair and then nodded politely as Barghast joined them.

‘Do you travel together?' she asked as Barghast offered Raphah some meat and then poured some beer from the table jug.

‘As of last night, this fine fellow is my companion upon the road. Never a finer fellow to share a journey,' Barghast boasted as he peered at the girl. ‘Are you going far?' he continued, an eyebrow raised to top a smug smile.

‘Does not everyone travel to Peveril and then to London?' she asked as she looked at Raphah. ‘But such a journey will be a trifle to you. For what reason do you travel – friendship or skirmish?'

‘Or just the joy of the wayfarer?' interrupted Barghast. ‘We could ask the same of you and our enquiry could be unwelcome.'

‘That you could, Mister Barghast, and it most probably would.'

Raphah smiled as the candlelight flickered upon her face. ‘I travel to London with Beadle,' he said quietly. ‘I search for some other friends who have gone ahead of me.'

‘Then we share the same journey. I too search for someone. My sister went to the city on
business
and has not been heard of since.' Her voice trembled slightly. ‘Some with whom I have shared the journey have not been the politest of company.' She nodded towards Bragg, who continued to fill his face and chomp upon the minced liver as if the meal would be his last. ‘He joined the coach with me at Lindisfarne and has been an oaf of a companion along every winding road.'

‘Then I will make you my ward for the coach and tell you of the world and all of its complications,' Barghast jested as he held out his hand and smiled benignly.

‘That would be a fine thing, Mister Barghast, at least to Peveril. They say that since the sky-quake the coach to London has been stopped as the horses all went mad in the city and had to be shot. I don't know if we shall have a coach to take us on from there.'

‘Then I will walk with you all the way and my cloak shall be
a bridge to whatever we have to cross.' Barghast smiled again.

‘Mister Barghast, I am weary of beer and wonder if you would bring me some milk?' she asked quickly as she coughed.

‘A fine pleasure, warmed like a mother cat?' he asked as he stood from the table and walked to the kitchen, scowling at Bragg as he went by.

The woman leant forward and spoke quickly. ‘Don't travel with this man. I heard Mister Bragg speak of him this morning and he is not what he appears to be. I have heard much of him and he's not to be trusted.'

‘And you are?' Raphah asked.

‘More than you may think. My name is Lady Tanville Chilnham.'

With that, Beadle appeared muttering to himself. ‘
He
sent me with some milk.
He
said I had to bring it. Beadle do this now,
he
said … Take it to Raphah,
he
said, I'm off to pack,
he
said …' Beadle scoffed loudly as he came to the table clutching a pot jug of steaming milk. ‘Gone off to pack,
he
said, and thrusts this in my hand for the
Lady
…' Beadle stopped and stared, his eyes darting back and forth from the cloaked figure to Raphah. ‘It's you,' he said without thinking, believing her to be the nocturnal visitor to the kitchen.