The Curse of Salamander Street

by G. P. Taylor

  Ord Vackan’s Chair

  BEADLE 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 ple
ased 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.

  ‘Yes, it is I … Have we met before?’ Tanville asked as she smiled. ‘Perhaps you were asleep and you dreamt of me. It would not be the first time that such a thing has happened. When I was a child I once dreamt that my great aunt leapt from her painting upon the wall and her ghost gamed with us all night. I awoke in the morning to find my room was strewn with everything from the cupboards and her picture upon the floor. Was it a ghost or just a dream? Do you believe in such things?’

  Beadle was silent. He looked at Tanville’s hands and the soft black cotton shroud in which she was wrapped.

  ‘Do you still think you have met me before, Beadle? It is Beadle?’ she said wistfully, her skin glistening like gold in the candlelight.

  ‘Perhaps it was a dream and one in which I thought I was awake,’ Beadle said slowly as he stepped away from the table. ‘Coach is ready, my friend. Barghast has booked us a seat on top with a double rug and an oiled skin. We’ll be snug all the way to Peveril. Barghast travels inside and he’s booked on to London. From what I’ve heard we’d have to wait a night at Peveril before we can go on. Word is that all the horses went mad when the comet struck, only five carriages left in the whole of the country.’

  Beadle turned from the table and walked away, giving neither Raphah nor Tanville any courtesy of his going. He seemed to be in another world, his mind weighted down with concerns for the morrow as he rubbed his temple and pulled nervously upon the hairs of his brow.

  ‘Your companion thinks much of you,’ Tanville said as she poured herself a tip of milk and sipped it slowly.

  ‘Much … And much more as each day passes,’ Raphah said cautiously. ‘Always a good judge of character and always remembers a face.’

  ‘Tell me, Raphah. Do you really not fear Ord Vackan’s curse?’ she asked.

  ‘I fear not curse, spell or spirit.’

  ‘Then by what magic are you protected?’ Tanville asked.

  ‘Not magic, Lady Tanville. Something far more powerful than conjuring tricks with bones …’

  Suddenly shouting in the hallway broke into the eating room. A sharp, sudden draught of cold breeze rushed through the doorway. Ord Vackan’s chair tumbled to one side and fell onto the charring embers of the fire.

  ‘It’s the Ethio, I tell you. Who else would steal our money?’ shouted Mister Bragg as he leant against the doorway, so fat that he looked as if he was a firkin and a half the size he should be. ‘Robbed as I slept – could have cut my throat, to boot!’

  ‘How do you know?’ argued the innkeeper. ‘Could have been his companion as well.’

  ‘Then bring them both here and we can speak to them directly. Two hundred pounds has gone and they will have it,’ wheezed Bragg, red-faced and stricken with anger.

  ‘I am here of my own accord,’ Raphah said as he got from the table.

  ‘Thief, laggard and footpad!’ shouted the barrelous Mister Bragg as he heaved his stomach back into his bulging coat and attempted to keep the buttons from snapping. ‘Give me the money and let’s hang him now!’

  Raphah was grabbed by the arms and dragged before the fire by the coachman and the bugler of hounds.


  ‘It has to be him – who else could be a thief amongst us? By his very nature and birth he is not to be trusted. That in itself would deem him guilty.’

  ‘Guilty? Of what am I guilty?’ Raphah protested.

  ‘Theft, house breaking, robbery,’ slobbered the man in a half-breath snatched from the fireside air as he lunged towards him, then held on to the mantelpiece to steady his frame from falling over. ‘An Ethio will always be a thief as far as I am concerned. Take him and hang him and the dwarf as well.’

  ‘Dwarf?’ protested Beadle as he ran from the hallway to kick Bragg in the shin. ‘Call me a dwarf and a thief? At least my stomach tells my mouth when to stop.’

  ‘What is he accused of now?’ shouted Barghast, arriving in the hallway holding his bag as the room filled with travellers.

  ‘Your companion is a thief. Last night as we slept, he made into my room and stole my purse. Let him be searched and all will be found.’

  ‘I have nothing and would not steal.’

  ‘Is this what you search for?’ Lady Tanville asked, holding out a leather purse and jangling the coins within.

  Bragg looked for a moment. ‘The very same. See, we have found the evidence. Take him and string him to the oak. He can dance from the same tree as Ord Vackan’s ghost – what did I tell you? The curse comes true.’

  Raphah looked into her eyes as she held the money before him and smiled. ‘I’m sorry … It was where you left it,’ she said, looking back at Raphah.

  ‘And Lady Tanville Chilnham as a witness,’ Bragg gloated almost choking on his own spittle with excitement.

  ‘No – where you left it, Mister Bragg. This morning at breakfast before you went about your business. I have just found it upon the bench warmed by your weighty posterior.’

  ‘The case is altered, Mister Bragg, and my companion is free to go?’ Barghast asked as the coachman let go of his grip.