The Curse of Salamander Street

by G. P. Taylor

  From the dark bowels of the house came the babbling of what sounded like a madman.

  ‘Who wants me?’ asked the croaking voice from within. ‘No one has called on me before at this hour, it’s the middle of the night and I am one for sleep.’

  ‘Pallium?’ Crane asked, scarcely believing the frailness of his friend’s voice. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Who should want to know such a thing?’ came the reply. A small wooden slat was slid open and two feeble silver eyes stared out into the gloom. ‘Crane – Jacob Crane? He said you’d be coming. All’s made ready, all ready. What an amazing thing …’

  Feebly, the bolts were pulled and the door slowly opened. A frail hand came from within and was held out towards Crane in greeting. Thomas could see that the fingers were covered in sores, and long, uncut nails curled about them.

  ‘Pallium,’ said Crane softly in greeting to his friend, looking at his shrivelled body that wore the clothes of a man thrice its size. ‘You have changed, my friend. I was telling my companions …’

  ‘Changed?’ argued the voice as he snapped back his hand. ‘I am as I have always have been. Never in finer health and a more robust creature in London will you never find. I didn’t expect such an argument in the middle of the night.’

  ‘We seek rest and not discontent, Pallium. My friends and I are in need of a bed. I am without a ship and I do not wish to be without a friend. This is Kate and Thomas, we have travelled from Whitby.’ Crane smiled as he spoke, hoping to calm his friend.

  Pallium rolled a worn gold coin in his hand as he looked at Thomas and Kate and gave them a slight grin. His mouth was filled with jagged teeth that appeared from the darkness like sharp rocks in a night storm. The man rubbed his chin as he surveyed them both warily.

  ‘Suppose we could find you a straw mattress … somewhere. Things are not as easy as they once were Jacob, money doesn’t grow on trees and I am sure someone has been helping themselves to mine. You never know when you will need all you have. Always death and always taxes, nothing so certain as those two creatures.’

  ‘Since when has concern for the future been a thought for Gimcrack Pallium?’ Crane asked as he looked about the cobwebbed hallway with its rotting drapes and tattered rugs. ‘The man I once knew wouldn’t give a thought for the morrow. Weren’t you the one who would tell me never to worry for the morrow, as this day has enough troubles of its own?’

  ‘That was then,’ snapped Pallium, pulling his baggy coat about himself as if it were a blanket. ‘A year ago I would have agreed, but things change, people change, lives change and with each day in Salamander Street …’ Pallium stopped short and looked at them all through a screwed-up eye. ‘Not short of money, are you? Not here to take what I have, are you, Jacob?’

  ‘If it’s money you want I have plenty for us all,’ Crane bellowed, his temper growing shorter. ‘I may be a thief, but I have honour for my friends and from you would I take nothing. If you want me to pay for our lodging then very well, but don’t think I’m a thief.’

  Pallium shook his head, as if he tried to rouse himself from a dream only to be sucked back into his waking slumber. He stared at Crane and sniffed the dew from his nose, wiping it on his silvered sleeve that looked as though it had been garlanded with mercurial slugs.

  ‘A shilling for the lodge and find your own food?’ he offered, slobbering over the amount. ‘Each?’

  Crane looked at the dust-covered panelling and smiled. ‘It would be a pleasure, Pallium. I take it you would then burn some wood to warm this place through?’

  ‘Only enough to take the chill from your breath. Can’t have Galphus thinking I am being wasteful.’

  ‘Galphus?’ Crane asked as Pallium led them through the long hall and into the scullery. ‘I have not heard his name before.’

  ‘A fine man. And my landlord. He has a word for every season and if I’ll be blown, it is as if he knows everything. Owns the whole street and deserves every glorious brick and beam. This is the finest place to live in the whole of the city. Never been happier and it’s such a place. I’m honoured to live here, honoured, Jacob, and you will be too when you meet Galphus.’

  ‘Where do we eat?’ Kate asked, looking around with eyes that spoke of her discontent.

  ‘The Inn, of course,’ replied Pallium amazed that such a question should be asked. ‘The Salamander by Potter’s Yard. No finer place to eat in London, and Galphus dines there.’

  ‘Then that will suit us well for we could eat a whole ox,’ Crane said as he stepped into the scullery. ‘In fact you will join us and we will all eat together.’

  ‘Can’t leave Pallium’s Palace,’ Pallium sniggered as he held out his arms as if to show them the finery of the scullery. ‘Well, that’s what I like to call it … Never know when someone will come. There’s always work to do and so little time and so much to count.’

  The three looked about the room. Its cold stone floor echoed the sound of their steps. An empty fireplace stared back at them like a golem’s eye, caked in black soot. In the centre of the room was a long candle-lit table that was stacked with neat piles of gold and silver coins. The wood was worn with many times of counting and recounting. By the table was a solitary chair.

  ‘Don’t get out much,’ Pallium said wearily as he looked at the coins. ‘They need so much work, so much consideration. Just like children, they have to be kept safe. I know each one as if it were my own. I look after them for Galphus and he would not be best pleased if I were to lose a farthing or halfpenny.’

  ‘We’ll need a bed, Pallium. Sleep has been a stranger to us these last days,’ Crane said as he eyed the sparseness of the room.

  ‘You’ll have to share,’ Pallium said briskly to Thomas and Kate as they looked nervously about them. ‘I have a room for you Jacob, all ready. Fit for a king, some would say an emperor, with a sea-hammock and not a bed. Was told you’d want it like that. Prepared it all yesterday when I knew you were coming.’ Pallium rolled the coin in his hands as he spoke.

  ‘Knew we were coming?’ Crane asked, his sharp eyes searching Pallium’s face.

  ‘Yes, Galphus told me yesterday,’ Pallium said in a matter-of-fact way as he edged his way closer to his precious coins. ‘Came especially … Said he had heard that Jacob Crane would come and stay at Pallium’s Palace. Never thought he’d be right, but as with everything, Galphus is astounding.’

  ‘I would love to meet a man who knows my thoughts a day before they come to mind,’ Crane said suspiciously.

  ‘Galphus is a seer and prophet beyond doubt. He has made me a happy man since I came here. For years I had a melancholy that would never leave me. Galphus soon fixed that – for not only is he a seer, but also a physician. When Galphus said you were coming I didn’t question his word. I made up the beds and strung up the hammock. Didn’t sweep the rooms. I find dust keeps the place warm and then you don’t waste on a fire.’ Pallium spoke quickly, pulling on his long brown whiskers and frowning like a cheated cat. ‘Didn’t tell me why you were coming … Don’t want any trouble, Jacob, can’t be having any trouble …’

  ‘The last thing I would want,’ Crane said as he eyed Kate and Thomas to be silent on all that had happened. ‘Just a few days’ rest until I get the Magenta back and then we’ll be to sea.’

  ‘Then,’ Pallium grumbled reluctantly and with much chagrin, ‘my home is your home.’ His eyes flickered from one to the other and back again as if he were a cornered animal.

  Thomas stared at the man, wondering why his melancholy gripped him like a tight glove. Pallium appeared to be nervous of their presence, as if he were hiding some deep secret that he could share with no one. As they stood in a long and uncomfortable silence, Thomas looked him up and down. He thought Pallium to be a ragged man in dead men’s clothes. The collar of his shirt was stiffened with neck grease and draped about him like a forlorn noose of grimed cotton. His jacket and waistcoat hung from his body like a horse blanket, his breeches sagged like sash curtains about his
spindly legs.

  The one thing that gave Pallium an ounce of glory was his shoes. Thomas widened his eyes as he stared at their beauty – never had he seen foot coverings so fine. In the dust and the murk they glimmered and shone like burnished jet-stones. Large silver clasps held them to his socked feet. Thomas could not help but gasp as they glinted in the candlelight.

  ‘A lad who appreciates the finer things?’ Pallium asked propitiously, breaking the long silence.

  Thomas nodded, and glanced to Kate and then to Crane and back to Pallium’s feet.

  ‘Made by Galphus and never taken from my feet in the last year. Prosperous shoes, boots of providence and a charm against the world,’ Pallium said, suddenly sparked to life. ‘Blessed me with them he did – the finest, most assiduous shoemaker in the country. Italian leather, fine silver and Mandarin cloth. Warm and soft, lad. Restful for the feet.’ Pallium sighed and sat at the chair by the table as he raised a foot in the air for all to see. ‘I never take them from my feet. Far too precious to be left for anyone to pick them up. Look but never touch.’

  ‘Shoes are shoes, Pallium. You speak of them as if they have a life of their own.’ Crane scoffed, his words tired and angry. ‘Does this hammock have a life of its own? Will it be decked in finest Mandarin cloth?’

  ‘No – hemp, and found in the room above,’ Pallium snapped as a cloud of gloom enfolded him again. Slowly, his thin smile slipped from his face. ‘If you follow the stairs you’ll find where you sleep. I won’t walk with you. I have to be about my counting. All these interruptions keep taking my mind from the task. If I were lonesome for a year and a day it wouldn’t be long enough.’ With that, Pallium turned from them and looked to the table and the neatly stacked piles of coins. Ignoring Crane, he picked a stack and began to count each coin slowly and precisely.

  Without the touch of human hand, the door to the stairway suddenly jumped from the latch and opened. It blew cobwebs and a cloud of dust from the rafters, showering the room with a crepuscular mist. Pallium nodded as he grunted and cuzzled his words like an old and wizened dog. It was if he had been expecting the door to open as an invitation for them to leave his presence and depart to their rooms.

  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 pla
ced 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.