Tersias the Oracle

by G. P. Taylor

  The fire glowed and several candles flickered on the fireplace. In the far corner an old man slumped into an empty plate, his long grey beard soaking up the remnants of a spilt beer. The warmth of the fire eased Jonah’s heartache. Sleep filled the inn—restful, drunken sleep.

  Then, looking through the glow to the dark, eerie shadows that encircled the room, Jonah smiled to see Maggot. He was curled up on a fresh mound of sawdust under the table by the fire. His face was covered in an old cloth, his hands curled around his head, knees to chin. Maggot was a small boy with a weathered face and wise eyes that had seen sufficient misery for thrice his eleven years. He slept fitfully, warm-backed and cold-fronted, unaware of the visitor who stared at his slumber and slumped against the window seat, resting the case beside him and carefully pulling back the curtain to look into the street.

  A sudden sharp dart of pain brought Jonah to his senses. “Maggot, wake up, you little dirtbag,” he said quietly.

  “Call me by my proper name,” Maggot said as he stirred, unsure if he was dreaming. “You never call me by my proper name.”

  “There’s only one name for a Maggot. Now wake up and bolt the doors, and whatever happens, don’t let anyone in here.”

  Maggot crawled out from his nest and wiped away the sleep from his eyes as he peered around the inn. He looked at the old man slumped across the table. “He’ll be sad today, Jonah. Old Bunce thought the world was going to end, so he gave all his gin and beer away. Said he’d never enter heaven the landlord of a liquor palace.” The old man snored heavily as he spoke. “He’ll have a gin head and be mad as Hades when he wakes up. He was calling you a coward for running away.”

  “This place will be looted if you don’t bolt that door,” Jonah interrupted.

  “What’s stopping you doing it?” Maggot shouted back. “Got the devil after you?”

  “More like a madman from Lock’s Hospital. He’s followed me like a dog for the last mile, crawling and sniffing like a blood-hound. And if he gets in here, he’ll eat you up, Maggot.”

  The boy ran to the door and slid the thick bolts quickly into the grimy frame. Old Bunce stirred from his plate and sleepily stroked his greasy beard. He slowly opened his eyes and looked about the inn. Without saying a single word he yawned and fell again into a deep snorting sleep.

  “How much did he drink?” Jonah asked as he peered through the chink in the curtain into the night.

  “A gallon of ale and a bottle of gin, then he ate a whole bottle of vinegared eggs and drank the sups from every flagon left on the tables.” Maggot gestured with his hands and pretended to stagger about the room. “I tried to stop him. It was enough to kill a man half his age.” He looked at Jonah, and for the first time he saw the hilt of the dagger sticking out from the cover of his coat. “So they got you?”

  “A lucky blow . . . from behind,” Jonah replied painfully.

  “And he follows you?”

  “Not he, but something or someone else. I left him facedown in Conduit mud. Picked up this tail in Bloomsbury Square, thought it was some kind of dog. . . .” Jonah spoke nervously. He had always got clean away before, melted into the dark of night, but something told him that this pursuer was in some way a consort of Lord Malpas and that his escape had not been complete.

  “Did you bring anything back for Maggot?” the boy asked hopefully, his eyes devouring the luscious snakeskin case.

  Jonah reached into his pocket and threw the two bags of coins to the floor. “Take your pick, right or left. One’s gold, the other’s lead. Choose.”

  Maggot stared at the bags of coins, his eyes trying to pierce the leather to see which contained the false money. He waited for a signal from Jonah.

  “Go on, Maggot, take your pick. You can have a third of what you choose—then some for me, some for Tara,” Jonah said as he thought of her. “Go wake her, tell her I’m here. I’ll keep an eye out for the watchdog. And you can take ’em both, I wouldn’t want you to go away empty-handed and turn me in to the Justice.”

  Maggot ran in his heavy boots across the stained wood floor and through the kitchen door that led to the stairway and the rooms above the inn. Jonah smiled to himself, and a feeling of satisfaction rushed through him. His mind danced back to the day he had stolen those boots at a Tyburn execution. When the man had dropped, Jonah had rushed to be a hanger-on and speed the work of the rope, for which he had been paid a sparkling shilling. As he had gripped the wet, kicking legs, he had slowly slipped the fine black boots from the dangling man and stuffed them one by one into his frock coat. Maggot had worn them from that day. He packed the toes with old paper and hobbled around, showing the world what a fine gentleman he was.

  The clatter of feet on the bare boards turned Jonah’s head to the kitchen door, which swung open with the force of an October gale. It had been a day since Jonah had last seen Tara, but there in the glow from the fire she gave nothing of herself but a thin wry smile.

  “They stuck you?” she asked as she crossed the room, carrying a small bundle of torn cloth and a pot jar of thick, green nettle salve. “Maggot tells me it was a knife. Rich man or poor man? A rich man’s knife is always sharper and cleaner and leaves a better wound. I may be able to save your arm . . .”

  “Would I rob the poor?” he asked.

  “You would rob your mother, if you had one, and—”

  “Tara would share in the takings as she always does,” he said, finishing the sentence. “Anyway, I wasn’t got. The man I was robbing sneaked up like a coward and got in a lucky blow. I can’t get the knife out, though, every time I try, it digs itself deeper.” Tara took hold of the knife by the hilt and bathed the end of the blade in nettle salve.

  “This’ll hurt . . . and you deserve it,” she said. Then she smiled at him before pulling the dagger as hard as she could.

  There was a tearing pain that electrified Jonah’s arm and burnt through the muscles of his face, standing his hair on end. He let out a long, deep groan as blackness fell around him, fading the fire’s glow and plunging him into another world. Slowly, Jonah became aware that he was resting on a large, warm rock that towered above him and cradled him like a cupped hand. Far in the distance he could hear Tara calling his name over and over. In his mind he could see her long red hair, pale face and bright lips. Jonah looked up, as if swimming upwards from the depths of dark water to the light of the sky. He slowly opened his eyes as the door to the inn was rattled frantically from outside.

  “Leave it be,” he said in a whisper. “It’s the man who followed me.”

  Tara looked at Maggot and made a sign with her bloodstained fingers covering her lips for him to be quiet. The three sat in the light of the fire and waited. The rattling came again and Old Bunce stirred in his sleep. Maggot quietly got to his feet, stepped the four paces to the chink in the curtain and peered out. The creature sniffed a drop of blood that had fallen on the doorstep. He then slowly dipped a crooked finger into the blood, lifted its tip to his nose and sniffed it again before slowly licking the drip from his finger like the lees of a fine old burgundy wine. Maggot was deathly still as the man’s red eyes searched every inch of the inn, looking for some hidden way of slipping inside. Suddenly, as if called from far away, he turned and walked away into the night.

  “He’s gone,” Maggot said quietly as he returned to the fire, placing a seasoned elm log on the flames. “Never seen the likes of him before, never want to again.”

  Tara wiped the blade of the dagger on a ragged piece of cloth, then turned the sharp steel in the light of the fire. “Sharp blade, sharp as anything I have ever seen,” she said, looking closely at the dark engravings that ran along the blade. “Your man had a taste for fine things. Who was he?”

  “Best you didn’t know. There was something about him that wasn’t . . . normal. He was as quick as the devil . . . and he spoke to himself in the carriage as if he were talking to someone else. He picked on the wrong man when he tried to kill Jonah Ketch.”

  “Man?�
�� she asked, almost laughing. “You’re a boy, two years younger than me, so that makes you fifteen.”

  “You’re a man when your father’s dead, no matter what age you are,” he snapped back.

  “That makes Maggot a man, too, and he’s younger than you,” Tara replied, flicking her long strands of hair over her shoulder. “You’ll soon be like Uncle Bunce, running an inn and getting drunk.”

  “When I’m healed, I’m getting out of London. Should have kept on running and not stopped at Mary’s Well. I could have been in Highgate by now. I could’ve walked to Lincoln or York, stole myself a horse and been a highwayman.”

  “And be hanged by the side of the road, and someone would steal your boots.”

  Jonah didn’t reply. He looked sullenly into the fire and stared at the sparking embers. Tara continued to stare at the knife blade, trying to understand the runic scribbles that covered the steel. Her fingers traced the outline of a setting sun and a coiled snake.

  “This is a fine thing. All that gold, he must have been quite a dandy.”

  “Now he’s a dandy who sucks mud, a dandy robbed of both purses, his fancy case and a knife to replace the one I lost in Conduit Fields.”

  “So we’ll be going three ways on all you’ve got?” she asked him as she tightly bandaged his arm.

  “What would life be if you didn’t have friends to share it with? I may even give some to your uncle Bunce to replace the gin he gave away last night. End of the world? This is just the beginning. I can feel it in my bones, something special will happen and we, dear friends, will be the beneficiaries of London’s wealth.”

  Maggot toyed with the leather case, rubbing the gold catch and the soft black leather with his grubby fingers. “Have you seen inside, Jonah?” he asked, his voice trembling at the thought of what such a fancy case could contain.

  “You’re the best lock thief in London, see if you can get into it. See if you can lift the catch in the time it takes Tara to get me a drop of hot-pokered beer.”

  Maggot rummaged in his pocket for a broken hatpin and with it fumbled at the lock. “Ain’t nothing I can’t break in the whole of town, and this one’s nearly gone. . . .” Tara took three steps to the door and Maggot let out a squeal of satisfaction as the hatpin twitched the crude spring and the lock snapped open. “Done it,” he cried triumphantly, smiling at Jonah, looking for approval.

  “That’s my Maggot. Look inside and tell me what was worth him trying to kill me for.”

  Maggot slowly opened the case and it released a strong musty smell. He lifted the lid on its stiff hinges, and as he did so, all around him began to be drawn into a deep iciness, as if the hands of winter wafted against their legs.

  Jonah shuddered with the sudden draught. A shiver ran down his spine as Tara walked back with a pot mug of warm beer.

  “Another log for the fire,” he said. “What have you found in that box, Maggot?”

  The boy stared into the case, his eyes searching every inch of the glistening stone that lay framed in the black velvet lining. “It’s . . . It’s a green stone,” he said in a whisper.

  “Then bring the stone by the fire before Old Bunce sobers up and we’ll see what it’s worth. Could be a piece of solid topaz or an emerald. We could be rich.”

  Maggot carried the case to Jonah. He lifted the slab of stone from the case and turned it around in his hands as he looked at each polished surface. “Knew it wasn’t papers. The lying old dog had me believing it was papers. Nothing of value, he said. . . . Told me I’d regret taking it. Now I know it’s worth something, but what it is, I have no mind.”

  Tara reached out and took it from Jonah. She ran her hand quickly around the edge, the cold stone chilling her hands. On one side was a thin slit edged in solid gold. She held the slab of stone in front of the fire; the light penetrated it, casting her fingers in an opaque outline against the glow. Inside the gold band she could see the outline of a lock.

  “This is a box,” Tara said. “An empty box, and it’s made of alabaster. I have seen this before. Best get rid, it’ll do us no good to keep it.” There was a sound of concern in her voice as she quickly handed the box to Maggot. “I met a man who had an alabaster ring. He told me every time he wore the ring, he felt as if a cold hand were gripping his throat. He gave it to a girl in Covent Garden . . . they found her dead, the veins in her neck frozen. The man got the ring back from the Justice and gave it to the priest at St. Clements. He wore it to Mass and as he supped from the chalice, the wine turned to ice and choked the breath from him. They buried the priest and hung the ring around the neck of the Virgin and Child statue—only safe place, they say. Alabaster—devil’s fingernail, I call it.”

  “A story to frighten children,” Jonah said. “It’s worth money and tomorrow we sell it and dine out on the profit. I’ll take you to The Beggar’s Opera at the Haymarket. We can sit with the swells and throw eggs at MacHeath as he starts to sing.”

  Maggot wasn’t listening, as his mind was cocooned in the task of opening the box. With nimble fingers he felt the lock and eyed the gold band that clung to the opaque alabaster. He picked up the dagger and dug at the gold band. “No use,” he said, and placed the stone box on the table by the fire. But when he lightly slipped the tip of the blade between the band of gold and the cold stone, the box began to open by itself. The room chilled again as Jonah got to his feet and looked on as the two sides separated like the opening of a Billingsgate oyster.

  “This is a spectacular trick,” he said as he giggled to himself. “No wonder that the man didn’t want me to take it from him. What else will it do?”

  They looked on, transfixed, as the green box opened to its fullest extent and laid itself out on the table before them. It had been cut to the thinness of a host. Inside, the two halves shimmered as if coated with the crispest of mercury.

  “A looking-glass,” Tara said as she pressed her face closer. Her reflection glowed, her red hair and lips shining brighter than ever as the coldness grew around her. “See how my face moves in the glass, I flicker and gleam . . .”

  “Already mad with the mercury, are you, Tara?” Jonah asked. “This is a late hour and we have much to do in the morning. Put the box away and hide the case in your room. Maggot and I will sleep by the fire with Old Bunce.”

  Tara didn’t reply. Her mind was engrossed in what she could see.

  “Put the box away and get some sleep,” Jonah said again, pulling harshly on her sleeve.

  “I have slept enough. Stack the fire and rest your wound. It’s you who need to sleep and in your dreaming find some manners. I want to think. This is such a beautiful thing, the best gift you have ever brought to me.”

  Maggot crawled under the table and curled up in the pile of shavings, and Jonah hunched himself against the warm hearth. “It’s to sell, not to keep,” he said as he closed his eyes and cradled his wounded arm.

  “Well, for one night it is mine. A looking-glass for the soul.”

  “Thought you said it should be got rid of?” Maggot mumbled as he curled tightly into his coat and stretched his toes to the end of his boots.

  “That was a ring; this is the most curious thing I have ever seen, and tomorrow it’ll be gone forever,” Tara said fretfully. “So tonight I will rest with it close by.” She sat at the table and stared into the glistening mercury as she held her face in her hands and closed her eyes.

  All was quiet as sleep filled the room. The mercury began to tremble and from the box a moon-silver hand broke free, reached up and lightly stroked Tara’s face like the touch of a fly. Without waking, Tara brushed it away. The box slowly closed and sealed itself from prying eyes.

  IV

  THE PROPHET

  In the murky half-light of dawn, a long procession crossed the square, threading through a crowd of those who had not fled from the comet. As he strode out two yards at a time, the leader of this procession pushed passersby out of the way. He looked around, towering two feet above the head of the tallest
man. A small thin smile showed he had filed his teeth into a row of sharp brown fangs. He was a giant, orphaned at birth, who was named after the flowers that filled the wicker basket in which he was found. Now Campion, the “Human Bear,” was known for his large size and the thick brown hair that covered him like a winter coat.

  “This way, Mister Solomon,” he said gruffly as he knocked down a man who stood before him. “The steps are here. . . . You can speak to the people.”

  In his wake waddled a small man dressed from head to foot in a rough purple coat and tight breeches. On his head sat a squat round hat with tassels that clung to the white tufts of hair that sprouted from the side of his balding head. The man didn’t reply as he stepped onto the back of Campion’s victim, wiping a sod of horse muck from his shoe as he paused and looked around him. In a long file, a following of men and women snaked their way through the crowds, eyes fixed on Solomon as if they were unable or unwilling to remove their gaze from him.

  Solomon’s appearance in the square had silenced the mob, and everyone turned to watch the trailing procession wind its way across Covent Garden market to the white steps of the church that rooted itself by King Street corner.

  Campion hobbled breathlessly to the top step. As he turned, the first light of the dawn sun broke across the city. Solomon, followed by his disciples, stood before him. Together they turned to face the east, slowly bowing their heads as the light fell upon them.

  Campion raised his hand to the crowd and beckoned them to draw closer. “People of London . . . we have survived the coming of the comet and the wrath of the powers of the universe. . . . Mister Solomon has a word for all of you. Given to him are the secrets of what is to come. LISTEN—or die in your ignorance.”

  The crowd gawked at the array of purple-clad devotees clustered around the prophet.

  “Do a trick for us, Solomon,” a stableman shouted scornfully from the mass, and he tossed an old dried bread loaf at the gathering. “We want to hear what will happen to us now that the comet has gone.”