Wormwood

by G. P. Taylor

  The oppressive darkness jolted Agetta back to a time when she had once found a large black beetle scurrying across her face. In the darkness she had picked it from her skin as it held on tightly with barbed claws, leaving one of its legs stuck into her nose like a black fish-hook. She had kept the creature locked away, imprisoned in a small black box, and had sometimes watched it scuttle and hobble along the floor of her bedchamber. Now, locked in the rumbling carriage, she feverishly idled away the time by twisting curls in her hair and staring through the darkness at the embers of her captor’s hemp pipe. With each breath his mask would be lit by the deep red glow. Agetta knew she had heard his voice before, and although some dark force blocked her mind from knowing who he was, yet deep within her she understood that he was a part of her past and a key to her future.

  The carriage came to a sudden halt. Agetta could hear shouts from the street, and the Diakka gripped her arm to stop her trying to escape. Tegatus fell forwards into the lap of the creature, burying his head in its fat stomach as the Diakka kicked him back to his seat.

  Komos laughed, not caring what was happening. He stoked the pipe with more strands of the thick green tobacco and feverishly sucked on the stem for fear of it losing its light. ‘Morbus Gallicus!’ he shouted. ‘Get this carriage going and to Fish Street Hill, quickly.’ He banged on the roof with his fist.

  There was a muttered reply from the street and the carriage jolted forwards and continued to rattle along the broken road. ‘The man is half blind, half deaf and completely mad,’ Komos said, continuing to giggle to himself as if he was the keeper of some incredible humour that only he should know. ‘He also has only half … a … nose!’ He spluttered out the words in between shrieks of laughter.

  The others sat in the darkness, not knowing why he laughed so. The Diakka grunted to himself as he rubbed his face against Agetta, trumping out loud flatulence accompanied by belches of fish-scented breath.

  ‘How long to this place?’ she asked, trying to hold her breath so as not to take in the creature’s stench and the hemp fumes.

  ‘Not long,’ Komos replied. ‘Don’t wish away what life you have left. Savour each moment, breathe each breath as if it were your last …’ The carriage rocked and twisted over the rotten roads and carcasses of fallen stock left where they died.

  ‘For what purpose are you taking us?’ Tegatus asked.

  ‘That would be telling.’ Komos laughed as he spoke. ‘This is the divine experiment, the gamma draconis, the meeting of time, the coming of the dragon. Call it what you will, but soon your eyes shall see it. In fact, you will be a part of it.’

  Several minutes later and after many churning turns, the carriage stopped and Komos pushed a small spy-hole in the wall of the carriage and pressed his eye against it. ‘Here,’ he said with a relieved expression in his voice. ‘Now to get them inside …’

  Agetta could hear someone scramble from the top of the carriage and drop with a splash into a large puddle by her side. The man let out a long, low moan as he gathered himself from the mud, complaining bitterly.

  ‘Blast, bother,’ the man screamed. There was a crack of a whip. ‘Don’t look at me that way, you broody mare. I’ll get the twitch to your lip and you won’t be so cheery then, will you?’ he said as the whip cracked again.

  ‘Morbus Gallicus,’ Komos shouted above the sound of the fish-market and the shout of traders outside the coach. ‘Get the trap and let us out of here.’

  The man outside ducked under the coach and could be heard scrabbling about, tugging on a large flat stone and pulling it across the cobbles. Again he bobbed under the carriage and with two clicks undid a panel in the floor and slid back the wood.

  Agetta stared down into a deep black hole. At the very bottom she could make out the flickering of a small lamp. Strapped to the side of the hole was a wooden ladder that appeared to grow narrower as it plummeted into the dark depths.

  ‘Who’s first?’ Komos asked, tapping the pipe against his foot and watching the red embers fall away into the chasm like a spray of vanishing stars. ‘It is a dark fall but great beauty awaits us all in the depths of the p-p-pit.’ He giggled and stuttered.

  Rumskin jumped wildly on to the seat next to Agetta and without warning fell into the gaping hole and grabbed the ladder. He vanished into the murk, blocking out the light from the lamp in the narrowing tunnel.

  ‘I th-th-think it should be you two next.’ Komos faltered as he spoke, trying not to laugh. ‘Morbus is waiting with his hood and whip, if you’re thinking of escape. He is not a man to be seen in daylight for he has a face made for darkness.’

  Komos nodded for Agetta to go next, and held out his hand as her feet slipped from the carriage and fell to the top of the ladder.

  ‘You’re next,’ he said to Tegatus, ‘and no trying to fly. Morbus will pick you from the sky like a flea from your face!’

  Tegatus dropped to the floor, using the seat of the carriage to lower himself into the top of the hole. Before he took hold of the ladder and descended further into the deep shaft, he peered into the street. He appeared to be at the base of some large monument surrounded by wooden stalls and set on a small hill. In the distance he could see the river and the bright shafts of light that sparkled on its surface. At the side of the carriage he could see the long leather boots of Morbus. They were black and stained with mud. The hem of his long wax coat brushed the muck, and trailed around his feet was the double tail of his long horsewhip.

  Tegatus blinked in the light and then stepped down the ladder descending into the dark pit. Komos followed, nearly standing on the angel’s hands to make him climb down faster. High above them the light began to fade as the scraping stone was pushed back in place with a solemn thud.

  The sound of running water came from below. Tegatus shuddered as with each step he thought of what might be in his future. He was angry that he had allowed himself to be taken, that he had given in so easily. As he descended deeper and deeper he became urgently aware of how far his life had changed. Once he had carried the standard of the Most High in the Battle of Heaven, when the dragon had been defeated and cast down to earth; now he skulked in an old sewer like some flea-chewed rat. The shame covered his face, and he was glad it was veiled by the darkness of the pit.

  From far below he could hear the grunts of the Diakka as it splashed merrily in the shallow water. Soon he was standing next to Agetta in a few inches of clear spring water in the light from a tallow lamp burning on a small shelf. A tunnel dropped steeply to his left in the direction of the river, and a set of stone steps led up to a wooden door with a large brass lock.

  Komos took a key from his pocket, turned it in the lock and slowly opened the door. ‘You may enter your chamber,’ he said as he filled his pipe yet again, his eyes bulging like two red sores. ‘There is already a guest, one whom I think you know well, my dear girl.’ Komos laughed as he pushed them both towards the door, and Rumskin splashed in the water.

  Agetta lifted her soaked feet from the cool stream. The fast-flowing water had washed away the mud from the street and its coldness had soothed her senses. She stepped into the room, looking at the white marbled walls and large grey stone flags that fitted together like some strange jigsaw. There was no furniture apart from a thick marble shelf that formed a long seat in the far wall, and a large seven-crowned chandelier that dripped hot wax on to the stone floor. At the end of the shelf sat a man, his unconscious body slumped to one side, his head covered in a hemp sack, his hands tied with thick bindings.

  Komos sucked on his clay pipe. ‘You can make yourself comfortable. Morbus will bring you some food and then later the fun will begin.’ He nodded to Rumskin, who slid the two brass bolts into their keepers, then melted through the wooden door and into the tunnel. Agetta gasped as the Diakka vanished. ‘He is not bound by philosophy or physics and can come and go at will. My little pet is an entity not controlled by the rules of this world, only by the voice of his true master.’

  ‘So
what does your lap dog do now?’ she asked as she sat on the long marble shelf.

  ‘He waits and guards the tunnel for intruders and those foolish enough to think they can escape.’

  ‘Where are we?’ she asked urgently.

  ‘Not that it matters to you in your shortened life. You are fifty feet below Fish Street, at the base of the Pillar. We built it to commemorate the Great Fire, the fire we started. The fire that meddlers stopped from completing its purpose. Now we are at the time when the fulfilment of the law will be complete, and you two will help us in that task. Girl unblemished … angel’s wing … eye of toad … and all the usual things that the blind blentish think we put in our rhymes …’ Komos chuckled to himself as he walked from the room. ‘I will let you get acquainted with your old friend. Don’t think of escaping, Rumskin hasn’t been fed.’ He slammed the door behind him, and they were left alone.

  There was a long, loud growl from the tunnel that echoed and faded into the distance. Rumskin pushed his head through the middle of the door as if it wasn’t there; it hovered like some disembodied skull floating in the dark shadows, then vanished before their eyes.

  ‘The creature plays tricks with you,’ Tegatus said, pacing the room in his wet boots.

  ‘Agetta, is that you?’ said the groggy voice of the hooded man.

  It was Thaddeus – he was alive. Agetta rushed across the room and pulled the hood from him. The crown of his head was smeared in blood, he had a short silk noose around his neck, and his feet were wrapped in blue canvas parlour shoes tied with yellow threads.

  ‘What did they do to you?’ she asked as she propped him up against the wall and tried to untie the bindings around his wrist.

  ‘They came for the Nemorensis. They thought I had it. Do you know where it is?’ Thaddeus asked anxiously. ‘It’s all I seem to think about.’ He stopped and looked at Tegatus. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘It’s Tegatus. I found him in the attic of my father’s house.’ Agetta smiled at Thaddeus. ‘He’s an angel.’

  ‘So why is he here? Can’t he escape and fly away?’

  ‘Sarapuk saw to that,’ she replied. ‘He stripped him of every feather and it took away his power. He’s done something wrong, something that makes him nearly one of us.’ She spoke as if he wasn’t in the room. ‘I got the book for you, but it is best that we don’t tell you here. Rumskin may be listening.’

  ‘Never has the darkness given us anything so foul. That was the beast that dragged me here, taken like a kitten from its nest and spat down those stairs. It came again this morning to torment me, brought by its malodorous master, Morbus.’

  ‘What will they do to us?’ Agetta asked.

  ‘They will not say, but you must tell me all that you now know.’

  There was a banging on the door to the stairs and heavy footsteps thudded on the landing outside. A shadowy hooded creature peered through the iron-barred casement in the top of the door.

  ‘Morbus,’ exclaimed Thaddeus as he tried to get to his feet. ‘Stay back, he has a temper that flows from him like a torrent. Stand close behind me, Agetta, he hates children.’ Thaddeus spoke as if he knew the creature well.

  The door was kicked open and in stepped a man dressed in a thick floor-length carriage coat. ‘Food,’ he croaked, his deep hoarse voice rasping like crunching flint. ‘I don’t know why they feed you, waste of good food, ’tis as bad as giving breakfast to a condemned man before the gallows.’ He stepped into the light of the chandelier, carrying a dirty linen sack bulging with bread and cheese.

  Agetta peered from behind Thaddeus and gasped as she saw his face. His lips were blistered and swollen, his eye drooped with large black ulcers, and in the centre of his pock-marked face was a small black fissure partially covered by a flap of skin that blew in and out as he breathed. Never had she seen anyone so grotesque. Morbus looked like a living corpse, a man being eaten slowly by the stink of death. He saw the look on her face and knew her thoughts.

  ‘Never seen the likes of Morbus before, girl? Do I smell as bad as I look?’ He lunged towards her, spitting his words. ‘Bracegirdle won’t always be here to look after you … I may come at night and steal a kiss from your pretty lips and then you can share in my discomfort and carry my christening sickness.’ Morbus stepped back and looked at Tegatus. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said as he walked slowly towards him. ‘If I am right then you must be an angel, marked with lamb’s blood on your right ear. ’Tis a long time since I have seen that mark – a long time, and in a different place to this stink-hole. You must be the one for tonight’s party, the pretty chicken to be dressed and trussed, stuffed and plucked, then fed to Rumskin. This will be a night to remember,’ he croaked.

  Morbus took his cloth cap from his head. A long, thick lock of hair fell to the floor, as if plucked from the root. About his skull were large festering sores that broke through the skin like a field of volcanoes oozing yellow puss. Agetta tried to bury herself in Thaddeus, turning her head from the sight of the pestilence.

  ‘You can’t hide from the likes of me, not when you’re here. This is a place where you are not even safe when you sleep. Even when you dream they can look inside your head. I warn you, Lamian’s child – don’t share your imaginings with anyone.’

  ‘You know who I am?’ Agetta said nervously.

  Morbus looked at Thaddeus and gave him a thin smile as a tear of thick mucus dribbled across his cheek.

  ‘You don’t have an inkling, do you, girl? All that has happened and you still don’t know what is going on.’ Morbus grunted, trying to clear his swollen throat. ‘We’ve been waiting for you for many years, watched you as a child and kept your guardian as far off as we could. All for this time. You forget, girl, ’tis your birthing-day tomorrow, you’ll be the age, the time when belief leaves you and the doubts of adulthood start to cloud the mind. So the rite will take place and you will be transformed before our eyes … with a little help from an angel.’ Morbus laughed, threw the bread sack on to the floor and turned to walk out of the cold marble chamber. He stopped at the wooden door. ‘You have twelve hours of childhood. Use them well, child.’ He looked at the angel. ‘As for you – think of a name for yourself as tonight you become the brother of Rumskin.’

  Morbus slammed the door and double-bolted the thick oak beams. Agetta looked at Thaddeus. His eyes seemed to know more than his mouth would ever speak of.

  ‘What are they going to do to me?’ she asked as she looked for the knot in the bindings that were holding his hands tightly clasped.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry, I don’t think they will harm you. As for the angel, well, for some reason his end has come. He will be transformed into a Diakka – that is the only fate for a creature who would leave the abundance of grace for earthly greed.’

  Tegatus slowly slid down the white marble wall and squatted on the cold stone slabs. It was as if all the life had suddenly drained from his bones. A look of despair was etched across his face.

  ‘I knew that one day it could come to this, but not so soon,’ he said, holding his face in his hands. ‘I found heaven so dreary … I looked at the world and all of its glory and wanted to be a part of it. Then I found her – she was looking in the great river, on the banks of the Euphrates, staring at her own reflection. From that moment I was prepared to leave everything behind.’ Tegatus looked up at them both. ‘What startled me more than anything was that she could see me. I remember her first words – “Staring at your own reflection will never equal looking into the eyes of a Seruvim.”’

  A sudden long, low snarl broke into his story. The door to the chamber began to rattle and judder with each breath of the creature that tried to force its way through the tiny crack between the stone floor and the thick oak beams. The beast jumped and kicked at the wood. Tegatus leapt to his feet and ran to the door to look through the iron-barred casement.

  There was no warning – the beast attacked like a cobra, impaling its victim with two long, fang-like claw
s that pierced the angel’s cheek to the bone. Tegatus was gripped like a toy puppet, then thrown to the floor. He scrambled backwards as the creature pressed its snout through the iron bars. Licking angel blood from its long bone fingers, Rumskin stared into the chamber and sniffed the air, growling and snarling.

  21: Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae

  Grub Street smelt of rotten seaweed, a bitter smell borne on the breeze from the drying mud-banks of the Thames. With every step that Blake had taken from Bloomsbury Square, he had passed clusters of people staring to the sky and looking at the fist-shaped comet high above them. In a strange way he felt proud that he had seen it coming, yet he knew that no one would see it his way – the blentish would look upon it with fear and the rich would care only for themselves and their bellies. In his loneliness he pulled up the collar of his coat against the wind and the words of his fellow man and banged his swordstick into the ground, sparking the metal tip against the cobbles.

  In three quick steps he left the street piled high with bundles of news-sheets and entered the office of the Chronicle. The door was open and the front shop unusually empty. Gone was the old woman who sat at the desk with her one front tooth like a pinnacle of yellow rock jutting from her wizened bloodless lips. No newsboys scampered barefoot in the room, uttering Newgate curses to the passing gents. The house was completely empty and silent.

  Blake picked up a copy of that morning’s Chronicle. There on the front page, under the long reports of yesterday’s hangings and ships lost at sea, was the news of his comet. In a paragraph of nearly impenetrable words the whole of his life’s work was summed up in one line: ‘Scientist discovers new star visible from earth, no danger to city …’

  Blake scanned further. In his reading he could hear the voice of Lord Flamberg reducing his discovery to nothing more than another quack remedy or exhibit at the menagerie. What the readers looked at in the sky would be of no consequence to them, just another star passing a lonely planet, a wonder of the same magnitude as a hanged man.