by G. P. Taylor
He shivered as he pulled his feet from the frozen pool and brushed flakes of ice from his soaking boots.
‘Not good,’ he muttered to himself with a shudder of his shoulders as he chomped upon the fusty egg. ‘Can’t be having things like this. Can’t freeze, not now …’
Beadle looked to the trees that edged the high cliff above him and he heard the cry of the beast.
‘Best be off,’ he said to himself in his most reassuring of voices. ‘Long way to York and then to London, and my feet won’t wait for me. Time and tide, time and tide …’ He wrapped the scarf around his head.
And then a sudden and painful desire leapt into his mind. A voice shouted from deep within. ‘Look into the pool … Look again,’ it bellowed time and again as if it would not let him leave until he had peered once more into the icy water.
Like a bristling hedgehog, Beadle slowly edged his way towards the pool. He scanned his reflection inch by inch taking care to enquire with his eyes of every chin wart and nose hair that he surveyed.
‘Getting older and not much wiser,’ he said as his stare fixed gaze-to-gaze, looking dreamily into his own eyes. A warm vapour rose from the pool, misting his reflection and swirling like a newborn cloud about him. Then the reflection of his face suddenly changed. What was once his brow and countenance had in an instant become that of Obadiah Demurral. Gone was the wound to his cheek and blood-covered brow, gone the wrinkled jowls that hung like a mastiff dog. Now, staring back, bold and blue-eyed, was his master. Obadiah had chased him in his imagination and was now before him, a thin smile cast like grim steel across his lips.
Beadle quickly closed his eyes and put his hands across his face for double measure to shield him from what he saw. ‘NO!’ he shouted. ‘I won’t see, can’t be … Not here, not now …’
Slowly he opened his fingers and peered through the cracks. There was Obadiah Demurral glaring up through the water as if he stood on the far side of a glass window.
‘You’ll not go far, Beadle,’ the vision said as it looked upon him. ‘Wherever you go I will find you.’
‘Not never … Not now,’ Beadle shouted back, his face contorted to a grimace as the vision of Demurral’s face slowly disappeared as the wind ruffled the water. ‘Never!’ he screamed. ‘I won’t go back.’
The sun broke through the grey clouds. In his hand was the freshly peeled egg that stuck to his palm like a bald head. He shuddered as he dared to peer again into the glistening water, looking for Demurral’s contorted face.
‘Alchemy, must have been alchemy,’ he croaked as a trickle of spittle rolled over his chin and onto his shirt.
The waves broke lazily upon the shore as if they had to drag themselves from the sea. A green farrago of stinking seaweed had been washed upon the stones in large mounds as if gathered into stacks along the strand. Beadle looked to the distance where the dark sea met a darker sky. There, on the far-off beach, was the wave torn body of a great fish the size of a small ship.
The Magenta
KATE looked from the aft of the ship to the quiet and misty water of the estuary. It swirled in small whirlpools as the Magenta rocked with the powerful incoming tide. Above her head, the sails on three masts, gustless and empty, hung like drying palls against the reddened evening sky. The ship creaked and groaned as it was led on by the flood that rolled up the Thames towards the glow of the city of London. High on the stern mast, Thomas rang the fog bell and called out. The trees of Dog Island reached towards him as long thin fingers, stripped of life. All around the murk grew thicker, then cleared for a time as the vapours danced upon the water. It would then press in, unexpected and cold, like thick ice against the side of the ship.
Pulling her coat about like a warm mantle, Kate thought of Baytown and her father. She had left without a farewell. She knew he would think she was lost for good; his mind always looked that way and saw darkness even in the brightest of dawns. He would fear her gone in the sky-storm that had torn through time and spun the sun around the earth, turning day to night and back again as Kate had counted the chimes on the church clock.
As they sailed on she itched the flea bite upon her leg. It dribbled a single stream of blood to her ankle. It reminded her of home and how she would watch her father pick the nits from the hairs on his arm and crush them with his fingernails. In the time since leaving Whitby, she had seen the comet cross the sky and every night had wanted to return. As she had looked upon the cold waves of the German Ocean, she knew she would never see the town again. In her heart she had said goodbye. Knowing that she could never return as long as Demurral lived was a curse from which she felt there would be no escape.
Kate felt alone. About her the crew busied back and forth. They turned rope, stowed sail, shouted and hollered from the high mast, but it was as if Kate sailed upon a ghost ship, lost on the sea of her wits. The bell chimed again as the slopping water lapped against the wooden hull. To her right, Jacob Crane barked like a sea-dog at the crew, laughing between each command and wiping the sweat from his brow.
‘Hold her fast,’ he bellowed. The tide was pushing them on as if the Magenta was a bobbing cork. ‘Soon have to come about. Can you see the tower?’ he shouted to the lookout high above.
‘Nothing but the dragon’s breath,’ came the dull reply, deadened by the fog that had grown thicker. ‘Tanner’s chimney a mile to port and nothing more.’
‘Take in sail,’ Crane bawled to the crew as they scrambled to run the rigging like giants climbing into the clouds. ‘Keep deep water to the port side and away from the shore.’
Kate half-listened, her mind lost to wistful thoughts. She stared at the black, churning swell that lapped against the ship. Frantically, she searched for some sign of Raphah in the deep and gloomy depths. She ever hoped that he would come from the water, saved, alive.
‘Thomas,’ Crane shouted. ‘Keep a lookout for ships, should be all about us. Tide’s running fast and we would cut them through if we caught one amidships.’ He spoke quickly, his words bold and unfaltering as he paced up and down the deck knowing what each man should do.
Something greater than distance now separated Kate from Thomas Barrick. In the days that had followed their escape from Demurral, Thomas had spoken to her less and less. He had sought out a place far away, sleeping in the crow’s nest high above the deck. He would wrap himself in an old oilskin, twist himself around the mast and sleep on. By day he would look to the far horizon and keep his words to himself. Neither she nor Thomas had spoken of what had happened to Raphah. It was as if his presence in their lives had been a dream and that in the short time they had known him, he had visited them like a ghost and then left for another world.
After the Seloth had attacked the ship, Jacob Crane had rubbed his chin with his hand, turned to her and smiled. ‘Least they didn’t take you,’ he had said in words that brought no comfort. ‘Came from the sea and now the lascar has gone back to it. Can’t be moping over him, life is to be gotten on with.’
Kate had scowled as Crane had walked away. He would have cared more for a dog lost to the waves than Raphah, she had thought as the Magenta had crossed the bay and sailed far out to sea. Days had passed and with each rising moon Thomas had drifted further away. She had watched him change and had reached out in comfort, but was shrugged away with a nod of the head and the sharp glance of an eye. In his grief he had hidden from her and turned his face to the sea. Kate thought there were no words left for him to speak and anything said would be useless. Raphah was gone and so was their old life. Nothing would be the same again. Life would roll on to death and Kate believed in her heart that she would not find its purpose.
‘Ship ahead!’ Thomas hollered, and he rang the fog bell again and again, bringing Kate back from her dream. ‘Off to the portside, I can see the mast and …’ His voice faltered as if he had seen something he couldn’t describe.
‘What is it, lad?’ Crane asked as he held to the rail of the bridge and strained to see what lay ahead in the gro
wing gloom of evening. The mist chilled the air; all was silent but for the running of the tide. The faint glow of the setting sun weaved its way through the fog. It was as if they had suddenly sailed into another world.
There before them, growing out of the mist, was a tall seaship. In fine gold letters, painted next to a figurehead of the wolf, was its name: Lupercal. It had one mast half-rigged with ropes that hung like tattered hair to the deck. It looked as if it were a November hedge webbed in dew, decked for a spider queen and glistening in the fading light.
Crane stood fast and stared as the Magenta drew alongside. Everyone to a man looked up as the two ships sailed slowly by. There, hanging from the yardarm, was the long-forgotten body of a man. In the sullen fog that surrounded the ship he could see that the sails had been torn through and burnt upon the masts. The deck was strewn with smouldering rocks, the remains of the comet that had exploded in the sky. As the ship drew closer, Crane began to smell the scent of death.
‘Make to!’ Crane shouted, as the crew stared on, not wanting to move. ‘The ship’s adrift without a crew and ours for the taking. Salvage, lads, salvage!’
The words brought his men to life. Kate looked at the high yardarm and the dangling corpse on the empty ship that somehow made progress against the tide.
‘How can it go the other way against the sea?’ Kate asked quickly as Crane drew the cutlass from his belt.
‘It can’t, lass, that’s what makes it our quest to find out.’ Crane sniggered, raising one eyebrow and creasing his lips with a thin smile. ‘Heave her to port and tie her on.’
From above her head, two men swung from the mast across the open water, landing upon the other ship. Quickly they threw several ropes back to the Magenta and within minutes the two hulks were strapped together, drawn closer by a bevy of smugglers spinning the capstan.
‘Search it from end to end, every door and cabin. If you find anyone, bring them to me.’ There was the slightest hint of trepidation in his voice. Kate sensed his throat growl upon the words as if even Captain Jacob Crane expected the worst. ‘And cut him from the yardarm – dead men often tell the most tales.’
Thomas went with the crew, clambering from the Magenta over the makeshift ramp that had been strapped across the divide between the two ships.
‘Captain,’ came the voice. ‘Best be seeing this for yourself.’
Crane looked at Kate, sensing she could feel his foreboding. ‘You better stay here, lass. Can’t have you getting yourself into trouble.’ In three strides he had crossed the bridge and jumped from the steps to the other vessel. Kate followed and gawped through the fog at the gathering upon the far deck. She could hear their whispers as they glanced this way and that, unsure as to what could be listening.
‘Search it well,’ she heard Crane mutter as he looked back and forth, cutlass in hand. ‘Go stay with the girl, keep her safe.’
Pulling up the collar of her sea-coat, she held on to the side rail as Crane’s first mate jumped aboard the Magenta and sauntered towards her.
‘What’s the fuss?’ Kate asked as he got near, resenting Crane thinking she couldn’t take care of herself. ‘Don’t need you to nanny me.’
‘If you’d seen what was over there you’d be glad of the company,’ he replied as he took the pistol from his belt and half-cocked the hammer.
‘Then let me look – I’ve seen worse. I once saw a drowned man who’d been dead for a month, crabs had …’ She was stopped short as the man quickly put his hand to her mouth.
‘You’ve never seen death like that,’ he said quickly, in a hushed voice. ‘Whatever killed him wasn’t a man, nor a creature I’ve ever seen. There’s an empty ship in the middle of the Thames, the lamps are lit below and captain’s table set for two and not a soul to be found. You best be keeping your words to yourself and holding on to your breath for as long as you can.’
‘Empty ships don’t sail themselves,’ Kate snapped as she tried to push by him.
‘Don’t be thinking you’re going from here, lass. Crane told me to keep you on the Magenta and that I’ll do.’
‘Then tell me what’s going on,’ Kate protested as she pulled on his coat and kicked her feet against the bulwarks.
‘Let her come, Martin,’ shouted Crane from the deck of the other ship. ‘If she’s a mind to see the state of this man, then let her be. Set three men on watch about the Magenta. Tell them to shoot at anything that comes near. Whatever did this is not far away.’ His voice echoed through the eerie silence. It was as if he stood in the middle of some great, empty hall and whispered his words for all to hear. ‘Come and stare, lass. Gawp at the dead and tell me of what palsy this man died to leave him like a dry canvas and every ounce of juice gone from his veins.’
Kate struggled to cross from the Magenta. The two ships twisted about each other as if in a dance as they slipped in the swell that spun them up the estuary towards the city. With a firm footstep, Kate planted herself upon the deck of the ship and stood beside Crane. She looked for Thomas. Crane saw her glance.
‘Thomas is searching the ship,’ he said in a whisper, without moving his lips. ‘Whatever did this could still be aboard.’ He pointed to a bundle of rags that littered the deck just by the forward hatch. ‘If it’s still on the ship, we’ll soon find the beast.’
Kate glared at what was once a man, lying on the deck empty-eyed and parch dry. He wore a scarlet tunic with gold braid with a large medal pinned to his chest. She could see that the skin of his face hung in jowls as if the fat had been boiled away to leave him like an empty sack.
‘What did this?’ she asked without thinking.
‘Well, he didn’t die of a broken heart,’ Crane snapped as he looked up to the high rigging, then realised he’d spoken tersely and tried to smile. ‘You’ve seen him now, best be back to the Magenta. I don’t have a good feeling for all this, Kate.’
‘Captain,’ came a voice from below, followed by a long groan. ‘There’s one alive.’
Crane stepped into the hatch and quickly went below the corked and polished deck that looked as if a foot had never sullied its gleaming boards. Kate followed, wanting to stay as near as she could, fearing that something stalked the ship and secretly trusting Crane for her protection. Nothing appeared out of place. A row of fine, neatly trimmed oil lamps lit their way, the like of which she had never seen before. Crane led on as the shouts and the mutter of gathered smugglers came again and again, calling them nearer.
They pressed on through a glistening corridor of polished wood and shining brass that stank of whale oil and gunpowder. Small cabins, all neatly trimmed and turned, led off to either side, each one lit by a small lamp pinned to the wall on a searocker. Kate looked as she passed by: upon every bed was the body of a man. Each was dressed for sea, each looked as if he had slept the river of death and had never known of his crossing. All looked the same: bodies dried with folds of skin that hung from their bones as if the fat had been boiled from them.
‘Here, Jacob,’ came the shout again from the midst of the gathering that filled the captain’s cabin. ‘He’s dying.’
Crane barged his way down the long corridor that led from the hatch ladder to the cabin at the back of the ship. It opened into a long galley strung with hammock beds, neatly tied and ready for sea.
‘Aside, lads,’ Crane shouted as he stepped into the room with Kate on his coat tails.
The gathering parted. There before Crane was a young man. He was slumped in the captain’s chair near to death, his head propped against a large table covered in rolled charts with a ship’s clock bolted to the wood. Behind him, two of the cabin’s windows had been smashed open. They hung from threads of wire as they gently swung in the night air. Kate could see that he was not much older than herself. He was dressed in the coat of a junior officer. He slowly raised his head from the table and tried to smile at them. The skin hung from one side of his face, but the other side appeared quite normal. To Kate, it looked as if he were two men in one, the f
irst young and fresh, the other old and sagged.
‘What became of the ship?’ Crane asked, as the lad appeared to struggle for his breath.
‘A comet crashed from the sky. It exploded above us. We had just left the dock. It was as if the world was on fire. I could smell the burning as we were bombarded. I saw them die, one by one. Their flesh fell from them …’ He spoke quietly, then slumped back to the table as if the words had taken from him all his strength.
Crane took hold of him by the mop of thick black hair and held his head to the light. For several moments he looked at the lad’s face; then, taking a handful of skin, he tugged his flesh. ‘What did this to you?’ Crane asked as he pulled a stretch of skin away from the lad’s face.
‘There was a scream – I came in and …’ He gulped his breath, his eyes flickering with each re-lived moment. ‘It was the dust from the sky, it burnt as it came to earth. Everyone it touched melted, the fat dripped from them.’ As he spoke there was a sudden creaking of the deck as if a goat had dropped from the rigging and had run from stem to stern. ‘We will all burn,’ he moaned as Crane let him go and ran to the door.
‘Quickly,’ Crane said. The officer was melting before them, the fat soaking from his ears and trickling across the floor.
No one dared move. Crane stopped and looked back at his men. They stared wide-eyed at the lad and then at Crane. ‘It will kill us too, Captain. The dust is everywhere,’ one said as he stepped back from the door.
‘We will not die from this,’ Crane replied sharply as he raised his cutlass and pulled the pistol from his belt. ‘Leave him, he’s as good as dead. I care for the living and this is a trick of hell. People don’t melt like wax dolls.’ Above his head the ship creaked again as if she would split in two.