The Curse of Salamander Street

by G. P. Taylor

  Within the darkness of the carriage the five passengers sat in a haze of thick smoke. In the deepest, darkest corner, snuggled in the leather seat and wrapped in a velvet scarf, was a young man. In his hand he held a large wooden pipe, filled to the brim with roasting tobacco. It flumed from the rim and rolled about the carriage as if heavier than the air.

  The man listened to Bragg’s moans and complaints as with each rut he was tossed to the side and held his guts as if they were to spill from his pants.

  The man never spoke, but puffed on his pipe, his wide, owllike eyes surveying each person. A weasel-faced man called Mister Shrume picked and plucked thick hairs from his nose one by one. Sat to his right was Barghast. Bragg filled the half of the seat opposite with his fat rump. By his side and pressed into the corner so she could not move was Lady Tanville. Her face was lit by a tallow lamp that jarred back and forth with each roll of the carriage.

  ‘Do you never stop complaining?’ Barghast quizzed Bragg as he moaned yet again and contorted his face even further.

  ‘If only they would slow down and transport us in sedation,’ he complained bitterly.

  ‘Then we would never get to Peveril and never get to London,’ Lady Tanville said quickly.

  ‘I find it delightful, quite delightful,’ said the young man as he slurped upon the pipe and mopped his dribbling chin. ‘It’s as if we are at sea and tossed upon a storm.’

  ‘If I had wanted to be at sea then I would have travelled by ship and not by coach,’ spluttered Bragg as he coughed. ‘Do you seek the pleasures of London too?’

  ‘I travel on business and that business takes me to many places,’ the man said as he tapped the pipe upon his boot then stomped on the burning embers with his foot. From a neat leather bag he filled the bowl with what looked like mouldy dried grain mixed with strings of black seaweed. Without consideration, he leant across the carriage, opened the lamp and lit the brew.

  ‘What is that business, Mister …?’ Lady Tanville asked.

  ‘Ergott, Vitus Ergott. I am a dowser.’

  Barghast leaned forward and smiled. ‘Interesting,’ he said above the rattle of the wheels. ‘And for what do you search?’

  ‘Whatever my wand and I are paid to enquire for. Some would have us look for gold, others water and still more a precious item they have lost. All I need is my clear seeing and diving wand. I express the intention in my mind and allow the spirits to take me to that place. Simple, really, and quite delightful.’

  ‘Do you always find what you seek?’ Lady Tanville asked.

  ‘Is that a request for my services?’ Ergott replied with a raised eyebrow and a smile as he puffed on his pipe through withered lips.

  Lady Tanville didn’t speak, but ruffled herself within her coat as she put a hand to her face.

  ‘Peradventure, Mister Ergott,’ Barghast said as he leant across Shrume and tapped the man on the arm. ‘Does your divination take you to the city?’

  ‘Delightfully, yes. All paid for and a first-class seat. Apparently I am highly recommended.’

  ‘And will you tell us of your quest or does it have to be a secret?’ Tanville asked as she smiled at him.

  ‘I search for lost children. Taken without consent and sold into slavery. With my wand I will find them, for that is sure. My employer has given me an element of each child and therefore I know I will be drawn to them.’ Ergott spoke in a matter-of-fact way as he tapped the side of his pipe and looked at Barghast and then to Lady Tanville. The coach fell silent and even Bragg stopped his moaning as all the inhabitants thought on what he had said.

  ‘And when you find them?’ Tanville asked.

  ‘They will be liberated from their captor and he will be put before the Crown.’

  ‘You speak as if you know who has them,’ Barghast said.

  ‘That is my only clue. I only know the name of the man who I search for. A man so vile and sinister that I would not mention his name in such company. When I took on the adventure I sealed myself never to speak his name until he was fettered and being dragged to Tyburn.’ The look on Ergott’s face changed suddenly as if the quarrelsomeness of his thoughts marred his youthfulness.

  ‘I have met many wicked men, Mister Ergott. Perhaps I could help you in your task?’ Barghast asked, reclining against the leather seat as the coach rocked violently.

  ‘Delightful, and kind. But I work alone. In all my investigations I find it better to keep close counsel. I even try to hide the conclusions from my own thoughts as there are creatures that can listen to whispering wits as if they were shouted from the rooftops.’

  ‘How childish,’ Lady Tanville said, her voice cold.

  ‘Far from it. Who is to say that all we have not said has been eavesdropped by some creature right now,’ Ergott said.

  ‘With the noise of this troublesome carriage they would be driven deaf, Ergott,’ Bragg replied.

  ‘In my dowsing I have seen many things. I once heard of a man who could transform himself into a dog. It could even be you, Mister Bragg.’ Egrott pointed his pipe towards the fat man and smiled.

  ‘Preposterous!’ Bragg squealed like a pig.

  ‘But possible,’ Ergott said, returning comfortably to his pipe as he pulled his velvet scarf about his neck and lifted the collar of his coat against his neck. ‘Tell me Bragg, what is it that takes you to London?’

  ‘I am a collector of fine art and ancient artefacts,’ Bragg replied.

  ‘And you, Barghast?’

  ‘I am just a traveller, always have been.’

  They were the last words spoken within the carriage. It gathered even more speed as they travelled the toll road to Peveril. Within the hour the storm had given way and the clouds parted. The sun rose from behind the hills to the south and lit the long road that wound its way across the country. Each beast settled into its canter. The carriage trundled on and on. The hounds barked and gave chase.

  Beadle peeked from beneath the oilskin where he had slept. From his pocket he took a boiled egg and cracked the shell. Breaking it in half, he shared it with Raphah as they sat upon the high bench and look towards the forthcoming hills that loomed in the distance.

  In the midmorning they stopped at an inn and changed the horses. Raphah watched Barghast and Mister Ergott in deep conversation by an old yew tree. Bragg had stamped and complained as Shrume strutted up and down looking for fungi amongst the blades of sheep grass. For the rest of the day they travelled. Mile faded into mile, each one dull and giving nothing to the memory. By late afternoon the hills to the south loomed above them. With each passing hour they appeared to get no closer, but grew even higher.

  ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ Beadle shouted to the driver.

  ‘Three hours to Peveril,’ he shouted above the rattle of the carriage. ‘Two before we get to …’ The driver stopped as if he didn’t want to say the name of the place. The bugler elbowed him in the ribs and nodded his head to tell him to say no more.

  ‘To where?’ Beadle pressed.

  ‘To a place where we might need this,’ the bugler said, pulling the butt of a blunderbuss from its long leather sleeve and showing it to Beadle and Raphah. ‘The Galilee Rocks. Not a place to be as darkness falls. Full of lepers and madmen. They’ll attack the coach given half the chance.’

  ‘What about the Militia – won’t they protect us?’ asked Raphah.

  The bugler laughed. ‘The Militia are more frightened than we are – see the madman and you’ll know why.’

  ‘See him?’ asked the driver without turning his face from the road. ‘You’ll hear him from three miles. Screams like a dying dog. Why do you think we run with hounds? Only thing that’ll keep him away.’

  ‘But he’s never stopped you?’ asked Beadle as he pulled the oilskin about him.

  The driver laughed warily. ‘Some have gone to Galilee Rocks and never come back.’

  ‘Can’t you rush the horses through and out the other side?’ Raphah asked.

  ‘Only if you could fl
y. Imagine a hill that stands before the entrance of a deep valley. There you’ll find Galilee Rocks. The road takes you to Peveril but it twists down the side so steep that the brakes will hardly keep the carriage from rolling on. It’s as if a knife has cut the hill in two and sliced out the rock. Trouble is, we have to stop the carriage and all walk down the rise as we hand-brake the wheels. Far too dangerous to drive down with passengers. Too steep. That’s where we’ll take our chances.’ The driver tapped the large wooden hand-brake on his left.

  ‘And the madman?’ Beadle enquired nervously.

  ‘Will be somewhere waiting for us. Thinks he owns the place and doesn’t like visitors. Would take an extra day if we went by Casterton. So we face the madman and hope for the best.’ He laughed.

  Beadle watched the sun as it tarried towards the west. He tried to count the hours as he watched the horizon. Raphah seemed unconcerned and slept quietly on, wrapped in his blanket.

  The two hours passed slowly. In the journey they had stopped only once. Beadle was cramped and stiff. His muscles ached and he wished he were in a warm bed having drunk three quarts of beer. He held the thought in his mind and tried to remember what it felt like to be drunk, but the cold wind took whatever warmth he got from his remembering.

  There was no conversation from the carriage for Beadle to be distracted by. All he could hear were his own anxious thoughts as they raced through his mind. If he closed his eyes he could see the face of Demurral peering at him in the darkness. The wind that blew from the hills seemed to whisper to him to return, to go back and face his master.

  Within the mile the carriage began to slow. About them the coach hounds grew anxious and grumbled to each other in low growls. The road twisted up the side of the hill. Far in the distance, Beadle could see Galilee Rocks for the first time. Strewn across the horizon were mounds of outcropped limestone. They had fallen year on year and littered the way with vast upturned boulders that gnarled from the earth like dragon’s teeth. In amongst the stones grazed a herd of thin pigs. They squealed upon the approach of the hounds and disappeared amongst the wizened trees that could barely grow from the ground in the face of the wind that sought to uproot them.

  Raphah woke from his slumbering to the sound of Bragg shouting in discontent. ‘What a man thinks in his heart, so is he,’ Raphah said as the moaning from the carriage went on.

  ‘I’m frightened,’ whispered Beadle as he shuffled closer to his friend. ‘What will become of us?’

  ‘They’re pigs, Beadle, not monsters from hell,’ Raphah joked.

  ‘What of the madman? We have to get from the carriage and walk. What if he attacks?’ he asked, his voice quaking with fear.

  ‘Then the bugler will use the blunderbuss and the hounds will see him off. Fear not,’ Raphah said.

  ‘But we are on the outside,’ he protested.

  ‘So will Barghast and the others be – we will walk together.’

  The carriage slowed to a crawl as the sun set and the shadows grew longer and darker. The wind worked through the spindle rocks and moaned and called across the moor. It wailed like a woman giving birth as it called to the night. The evening was lit by a burning red that edged the rushing clouds with a scarlet hem. The horses’ pace slowed even further as they pulled the carriage higher towards the peak.

  Beadle could see the road vanishing into the gloom. The glow of the carriage lamp lit the thick strands of spartina grass that grew in coarse lumps from the bog at the roadside. Tufts, like the spikes of a strange creature, shadowed themselves in dark patches across the moor, warning the traveller of the mire beneath.

  Then it came – first as a distant sound like the call of a buzzard, then again like the screaming of a child. The bugler slipped the blunderbuss from its case and rested it across his knees as the horses twitched and danced nervously. They clattered their hooves upon the metalled toll road as they passed another milestone.

  ‘Peveril within the hour,’ said the driver hopefully.

  ‘When do we walk?’ Beadle asked as the wailing came again from the high tor.

  ‘As soon as we’ve gone through Galilee Rocks,’ the bugler, pulling the hammer upon the gun.

  ‘Why Galilee?’ Raphah asked as he pushed the oilskin from his knees and looked towards the craggy outcrop that appeared from the gloom.

  ‘In the morrow you’ll see the lake. A man once said it was like the Holy Land. Built his house up there. Nothing but ruins now. Crusader, they said he was. A knight of knights. Carsington’s his name. He brought the sickness. Every generation a Carsington goes mad and ends up living in these rocks. As soon as he has a son it strikes him down. It’s been amongst the people here ever since. The last one was the keeper of the coaching inn.’

  ‘Cursed as a misguided fool,’ Raphah muttered quietly to himself. ‘A war for God and the murder of innocents.’

  ‘Does no one seek to help him?’ Beadle asked as the coach reached the top of the road.

  ‘It carries on from generation to generation,’ the bugler said. ‘Every descendant of the man has one of his kin to take his place. The madness strikes within the hour. One moment they are about their business, the next they are ranting and eating grass. They leave Peveril and come and live amongst the rocks. They can look upon their town but never return.’

  ‘Enough of your legends,’ said the driver as he pushed the braking handle. ‘Time to walk.’

  Beadle looked nervously at Raphah. The sound of screeching and clattering of iron fetters came again from beyond the marsh grass. ‘He’s out there – the madman.’

  ‘And that’s all he is, nothing more,’ Raphah said as they stepped to the road.

  ‘If only it were true, my friend,’ said the bugler as he gathered the hounds about him, feeding them with dried meat. ‘If he were just a madman then we wouldn’t need the hounds. Some say the madness makes him change into a beast. Saw him once upon the rocks and it was no man that I saw.’

  It was then that the screams came again. They echoed from all around as if a legion of creatures joined in the baiting of the travellers.

  The Salamander Inn

  JACOB Crane dragged Pallium from the house. His friend was desperately trying to hold on to the doorknocker as if he were a rogue seeking sanctuary. Kate and Thomas stood and watched as Pallium wrestled with the doorknocker. He double-locked the door and wrapped the keys in his hankersniff, muttering all the while that he would be robbed and laid bare of all he had.

  ‘It must be locked and bolted,’ Pallium protested as he was pulled from his feet towards the Salamander Inn. ‘Who knows what would happen if I were to leave it open?’

  ‘It would be still here when you got back,’ Crane said. He thought that his friend looked like a starved chicken and that under his drooping clothes was a bag of bones. ‘This is the first time in the year you have left the place and it shall not be your last. You need to eat and eat you will.’

  ‘I need to eat,’ said Thomas. ‘Beef, bread and gravy.’

  Crane pulled Pallium across the muddy street to a patch of cobbles that stood like a dry and deserted island in the froth of the sewer. He protested loudly that a venture into the street would dirty his shoes and that they were not to be sullied. He jumped from toe to toe as he tried to keep his precious shoes from the mud.

  Thomas tried to hold back his laughter as Crane lifted Mister Pallium from the cobbles and carried his meagre frame along the street, tucking him neatly under his arm like a roll of French carpet. With every step Pallium would kick and protest and shout so loudly that his words echoed far into the distance.

  There was no one to hear. All was as night. The street was empty. The clock of a far church chimed the hour. In Salamander Street the only light to penetrate the darkness was that of the tallow lamps that hung next to each door. They burnt brightly, each freshly trimmed by an unseen hand. It was as if the place were the seat of some vast cavern and they were setting out to explore its depths.

  As they journeyed on
, Salamander Street began to change. Although darker by the yard it grew cleaner and more polished. The closer they got to the inn the more respectable the road became. Walls were newly painted, timbers oiled and doors garlanded with wreaths of holly and mistletoe. The sound of music came from behind several of the doors. High above, the roofs of the tall houses met to form a continuous arch that blocked out the sky. From each window, lamps like tiny stars flickered and lit the street below.

  Still there was no one to be seen. Ahead, the door of the Salamander Inn stood open. From inside came chattering, it was as if the night had come for some great event to be celebrated.

  ‘Do they spend all their time drunk?’ Crane asked as he carried his friend along the street.

  As they walked on, Kate could only think of what she wanted to eat. She was sure that she could smell the faint aroma of milk pudding, melted cheese and roast apple. It hung about her like a garland and rumbled her guts with longing.

  Pallium did not reply. He moaned as with one leg he tried to hang on to his captor and keep himself from falling.

  ‘You’re a Mackem, Jacob Crane, and may you be eaten by magpies …’

  ‘As long as they serve me with breakfast I shall not complain,’ Crane said as he dumped Pallium on his feet upon the brushed cobbles.

  ‘Is it safe?’ Kate asked as if she sensed something sinister. ‘Won’t we be asked who we are?’ The image of the ghost stuck in her mind, bold as the portrait and haunting as the apparition.

  ‘Tell ’em nowt,’ Crane said as he brushed the dust from his coat. ‘Let me speak – if there is any speaking to be done. We shall eat, drink and then carry Mister Pallium back to his abode so he doesn’t dirty his prize shoes. Tonight will be a good time to decide how to get the Magenta back and find the crew. But first, breakfast.’

  ‘And you’re paying?’ Thomas asked.