Tersias the Oracle

by G. P. Taylor

  Tara ran to Maggot, pistol in her hand. The dog quickly ran into the market shadows.

  Without hesitation Tara picked up Maggot and carried him to the inn, laying him by the fire. Jonah didn’t move; he stared into the moonlit night as the baying of the brute shouted out from distant streets. All he could see were the bloodstained wrappings and his mother’s shawl as she picked him from the dirt, wiping the drool from his face as she remorselessly placed him by the fire and went back to her trade. Jonah was left in the night alone, tears filling his wide eyes. No one to comfort him, no hand of kindness, as the mad staring glare of the wild dog burrowed in his mind.

  “You staying out there?” whispered the voice of Old Bunce as he rattled the door to the inn. “The madness isn’t over yet. Come inside, Jonah.”

  Jonah turned and walked wearily to the inn. Old Bunce stepped to one side as Jonah pulled himself through the doorway and looked for Maggot.

  Tara had thrown an old overcoat to the floor and laid Maggot upon it. She looked up as Jonah made his way to her, rubbing his face with his hand as if to wipe away the vision that had plagued his mind.

  “It could have killed him, Jonah, and you did nothing—nothing!” she shouted as she held the boy in her arms.

  Maggot looked up, trying to smile. “I fell from the scaffolding. Something . . . something made it fall down. They’ve gone to Cheapside.”

  Jonah looked at Tara. She stared at him, her face etched in anger. “We can’t leave him. He’s broken his leg.”

  He didn’t reply. His eyes flashed around the room, his face burning red in the glow of the fire. Maggot squeezed Tara’s hand.

  “You have to go, Tara,” he said as he tried to lift himself up. “Old Bunce’ll take care of me. You said it once—whatever happens, we carry on. It’s all we’ve got.” He paused and looked at Jonah. “I heard them say that Tersias has a silver spoon in his pocket, slipped in unaware by Lord Malpas. They will declare he is a thief and have Malachi hanged.”

  VIII

  POCULUM CARITATIS

  The turning metal wheels of Malachi’s handcart sung out into the night, keeping tune with his crooning. He stomped against the slight incline of the road like a horse dragging a dray the last few yards to the safety of the stable. Tersias gripped the cage with both hands, holding fast to the cold metal bars that kept the world at bay.

  “Blast it!” said Malachi. “Not fifteen yards until my home fire and now this plague.” He jigged as he spoke, turning around and dancing from foot to foot. The leather on his shoe had split, spilling his bare, callused toes into the mud.

  He pulled at his boot, dragging the muddied leather over his throbbing toes. “Oh, Tersias, if those blind eyes could see the travesty of my life, your heart would never want to leave old Malachi,” he sighed. He was tired to the bone.

  The boy held stiffly to the bars of his cage, rocking back and forth, his small head jerking from side to side as he repeated, “Sa-comin . . . sa-comin . . . sa-comin.”

  “Coming? Who’s coming?” Malachi asked quickly, looking around the street to see if they were being followed.

  “Sa-comin for me, sa-comin for you, Malachi—the puppet on a Fleet tree.” Tersias barked like a deck-hound as he frantically rattled the cage. “Biting . . . biting as they fly. Eating everything that walks in their way . . .”

  “What you talking of, boy? Cold sent you mad? Speak to me with sense on your tongue and not in your dreaming.” Malachi pressed himself into the shadows and looked back to St. Paul’s. “Are we being pursued—is that what you can see?”

  “Sa-comin, Mister Malachi . . . You have to go, leave me in the street, don’t go back,” Tersias said urgently as he stared at him.

  “Bodgepigs and poppycock,” he snarled. “You are a feckwit. I have nothing to fear from what you say, you’re ranting. I’ve starved you for too long and you’ve gone mad.”

  Malachi grabbed the handles of the cart and hobbled quickly towards the entrance of the alley that led to the stable yard. The houses edged in over his head, coming together in a tall arch as shutter met shutter high above. They formed a high, vaulted cave that dangled with long strands of dirty cobwebs. Tersias ranted on as he rattled the cage and shook himself from side to side. In the distance a single candle feebly lit the window of the house that clung to the stable.

  “See, Tersias, you were wrong,” said Malachi merrily as he pushed the cart deeper into the darkness. “We have nothing to fear—a light to be a lamp to our feet, to welcome home the weary traveller and be a salutation to its hearth.”

  “But we got here first!” The sudden words were spoken by a shadowy figure, and two dark shapes stepped before Malachi.

  “Again?” Malachi asked as he saw the outline of the hessian masks. “What more do you want from me? Robbed twice by the same villains, and they even break their promises.”

  “I have come for the boy,” Jonah said, pushing Malachi out of the way.

  “You take a great chance, boy,” Malachi said as he looked up from where he had fallen. “I could have sold your hide to Lord Malpas. The dagger you carry belongs to him. I kept my mouth shut and the secret to myself and this, this is how you repay me?”

  “Then we are equal in our debt, for I shall save you from a hanging. If the boy looks in his pocket, even his blind eyes will see that which would have you dangle like a Fleet doll.”

  Tersias rummaged with his small hands and grasped the crested silver spoon. He flashed it before Malachi.

  “The crest of Lord Malpas, the wolf-head and dagger, slipped into his pocket so that you would be found and hanged and the boy would become his.” Jonah grabbed the spoon from the boy and slipped it into his own pocket.

  “How did you know of this—did you put it there?”

  “Not I, fool, but Malpas. To indict you as a thief and have one of his black-capped friends judge you as guilty,” Jonah said as he helped Malachi from the mud and gestured to Tara to unlock the cage and free the boy.

  “You never steal alone?” Malachi shrugged in rage as he was pushed against the wall.

  “Never. Safety in numbers and a lookout at all times,” he replied quietly as Tara slipped the catch and pulled the boy free. “One more thing, Malachi—the money.”

  “You took my last guinea, everything I have ever had,” he barked back.

  “Then you won’t mind if my friend searches the cage?”

  Tara quickly pulled the blanket from the carriage. A black felt bag fell to the ground at her feet with the familiar jingle of bright coins.

  “That is all I have. You would take the boy and every penny to my name?” Malachi said as he swung out to grab at the moneybag.

  “Give him the first five coins from the bag and we’ll take the rest. Is that fair, Malachi?”

  “FAIR? I’ll take every penny back from your soul, boy. You will dread the day that you ever heard of Malachi. Lord Malpas will search you out and with one cut of his dagger turn you from a cockerel to a hen.”

  “Then I will learn to cluck and lay eggs. But first we shall live well, and I await the day he has the guts to stand spur and scrap with me.” Jonah turned to Tara. “Give him what he is worth and we’ll be off. Let’s hope the boy can run.”

  Tara silently threw five coins into the mud at Malachi’s feet and dragged the boy into the shadows of the alleyway.

  Tersias couldn’t protest. He looked back to Malachi and smiled a thin smile, as if his eyes could see him grovelling in the mud, looking for the money that had sunk into the dirt. He plodded on into the blackness behind Tara, and a thought stirred in him like a fleeting pleasure as he remembered the smell of the fire that filled the grate of Vamana House. Tersias turned in his mind the planted silver spoon and deep within he knew he had momentarily hoped that they would be captured and he returned to the promised soft bed.

  Then, before Tara had time to cry out or make a sound, a large dirty hand suddenly fired from the alley and grabbed her, covering her entire face. For a
brief moment, Tersias stood alone, aware that his companion had gone. He patted his hand outwards, feeling for her coat.

  Jonah turned and looked towards the street, not knowing where she had vanished. “Tara!” he whispered. “Stop hiding and come out!”

  Malachi chortled. “Given away the name of your accomplice—a girl . . . You shouldn’t be hard to find now, boy. Maybe she’s run off with someone else, the stink of your treachery too much for her pretty white nostrils.”

  “Shut up, Malachi,” Jonah shouted at the old man. “Maybe you won’t live to tell her name to anyone. I still have—”

  His words were cut short as Tersias screamed.

  Jonah instinctively grabbed for the knife that he kept strapped to his belt. He held out the blade to ward off any unseen hands. A little way ahead, in the darkest part of the alley, he could hear Tara’s muffled call.

  Malachi turned and tried to find Tersias. “What tricks do you play on me?” he asked as he shook the dirt from his hands as he got to his feet. “Where is the boy? He’s mine.” He stepped towards Jonah.

  Without warning Jonah lashed out at Malachi, slashing the front of his coat with the knife. Its blade shone in his hand as if each grain of steel was made of moonstone. “Not one more step!” Jonah said ferociously. “We are not alone in this place and I want no trouble from you,” he said as the sound of footsteps closed in on his words.

  “We are surrounded,” Malachi muttered as he stepped back into the shadows, hoping they would cover his fear. “They are ahead and to the side . . . LOOK!” he gasped as a giant shadow filled the entrance to the alleyway, blocking their escape to the street.

  The outline of a gigantic figure seemed to fill the entire space, rising up from the mud to the height of the window lintels and silhouetted in deepest black by the moonlight that filtered in from Cheapside. Jonah looked back towards the stables. Several men swelled out of the gloom and walked towards them as if they had risen up like corpses from the mud. In the half-light he could make out the tight caps pulled over their heads, the stiff brims jutting out like curled bacon. Each one carried a double cosh linked by a short length of metal chain that jangled with each step. From this he knew they were Solomon’s disciples.

  Malachi edged his way closer to Jonah as the silent, ominous figures got nearer. A sea of half-faces danced before them—each was wearing a gold opera mask that glowed eerily. Jonah backed against the wall as the men formed a solid rank. The giant shadow of Campion ambled towards them, puffing and panting with each step as he dragged Tara behind him on a long lead tied around her neck. Jonah could see that her hands were bound and a gag wrapped tightly around her mouth. Not far behind, Solomon pulled Tersias, his hands tied and mouth gagged.

  The giant got closer and closer, his bright eyes staring through the slits in the opera mask that was pressed tightly against his eyes, held by two lengths of thin black cord. He smiled a bright smile, laughing through his pointed, filed teeth. “You will come with us,” he said. “Put the knife away or I’ll snap off your hand.”

  “Leave them to me,” Solomon croaked as he dragged Tersias along behind. “They cannot run, they are outnumbered and know they are completely overwhelmed.” He giggled as he spoke, then turned to Malachi. “You are Magnus Malachi, the magician?” he said, and smiled. “I am taking the boy. I will be his father. This child was foretold to me in a dream. He will bring London to its knees. All of you will either come with us and be my disciples . . . or we will bury you in this mud and no one will ever know or mourn your tragic passing.”

  “You can get away and take the girl,” Malachi tried to whisper to Jonah, his voice trembling like a lark.

  “There is no point or chance of escaping,” Solomon said. “We would only find you and in the dead of night sneak into your lodging and cut your throat. Come with us, become one with us. It is the only way you will see your friend and you, Malachi, your blind oracle.”

  Jonah looked at Tara. Her mask was stripped from her head, her hair was messed in strands across her face and tangled in the swath of material that gagged her voice. He tried to catch his breath as his heart leapt up his throat, and his fingers curled tighter around the handle of the knife. He could feel a reassuring, pulsating glow coming from the dagger. It warmed his hand and spread slowly up his arm like new blood being pumped through his veins.

  “What will your answer be?” Solomon said as he stepped closer, dragging Tersias behind. “Freedom with us or the captivity of the grave?”

  “Run, boy, run!” Malachi whispered again as he allowed the tattered spell-bag to fall from his shoulders. He grabbed the long strap and swung the sack back and forth. “If you’re going to take me, then you’ll take me dead,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Dead or alive is of no concern to me,” Solomon replied sternly, nodding to his small band of disciples.

  At his command they began to swing the wooden chain-linked coshes around and around their heads. The sound of the spinning wood and twisting metal buzzed back and forth in the dark alley, faster and faster. Whirring and whirling through the night air, the noise grew to a deafening pitch.

  “There will be no second chance, Malachi,” Solomon said. “Not for you or your hooded friend. If you come with us, he will have his crime put to good use and you will find all that your soul has cried out for. You can drink from our loving cup and be made immortal.”

  It was then that the giant stepped forward and lashed out with one hand as he tried to swipe the hood from Jonah’s head. The knife sprang to life, taking Jonah by surprise as it lifted his hand into the air and slashed the giant’s palm, sparking blue moonstone flashes as it sliced across the flesh. Campion cried out and recoiled as if bitten by a viper.

  The disciples stepped back and looked to Solomon for a signal. Campion held his slashed hand to his chest, still clutching tightly to the leash fixed on Tara’s neck. “YOU!” he shouted with such force that it rattled the glass of the windows above them. “You will pay for that!” Anger spilled from him as he put his hand to his mouth and licked the dripping blood, sucking it through his filed teeth.

  “One more step and I’ll take you as well,” Jonah said to Solomon before he could say a word. “Give me back the girl and you can have Tersias, he’s nothing but a blind fool.” He flashed the blade back and forth.

  “I don’t make deals with boys in raggy masks or old men who live in hovels,” Solomon said calmly above the noise of the whirring batons. “TAKE HIM!” he shouted.

  Malachi dashed forward, head down, and dived into the throng that stepped towards them. “RUN!” he shouted as he pushed against three disciples who, taken by surprise, dropped their weapons to the ground. Solomon jumped quickly out of the way into the shadow of Campion and pushed him towards Jonah.

  “NOOOOO!” screamed the giant as he lunged towards Jonah’s neck. He grabbed the sack mask and pulled it viciously away. Jonah turned and saw Malachi being beaten to the ground.

  “Run! Get away!” Malachi called feebly to Jonah as the blows beat upon his back.

  Jonah grabbed for Tara, his hand grasping the long lead that tied her to her captor. Campion pulled the lead, jerking the boy towards him, and with a blow from his clenched, bleeding fist, smashed Jonah in the face as Tara tried to kick herself free.

  Jonah reeled from the blow, his head swimming with pain. Towering above him was Campion, who took on the appearance of a large bear that was about to pull him limb from limb. Instinctively, Jonah stabbed the knife into the beast as hard as he could. He was able to withdraw it easily, then took to his heels and ran towards Cheapside.

  IX

  MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO

  The long line of purple-clad pilgrims edged its way through the empty streets of Covent Garden, dragging Tara and Tersias along with them. Campion sauntered ahead, checking each alleyway for signs of the night militia. All was quiet.

  Solomon pulled Tara on a short lead and with every few steps he turned to her and grinned. “S
oon be at your new home.” He drooled as he spoke. “I have something for you . . . something special. I have kept it for a long time for one such as you.” Solomon stuttered. “A bridal gown of fine purple—rich and perfect, fit for a queen. Will you be my queen?”

  Tara turned her face from him and stared at the dirt. She thought of Jonah, hoping that he lurked somewhere in the gloom and would burst forth and slice her captor from ear to ear. She remembered the first day they met, when he had barged his way through the doors of the Bull and Mouth and stood before her. In his belt was an old pistol; it forced its way from his torn waistcoat for all to see. Tara knew his name; his reputation had slithered ahead of him. He was the son of the hangman Jack Ketch and was dressed from head to foot in the discarded clothes of those dispatched by the gallows.

  His first words had been in mockery, chiding her for wearing riding breeches and boots and saying how he needed a new boy to carry his pack from town to town. He had boasted as he always boasted of crimes he had never committed. Recounting the stories told to him by his father, he gave his own name as the scoundrel and embellished the achievements of his imaginary villainy. Yet there had been an ounce of charm that had bonded her as a friend. Her eyes had been taken in by his warm smile and the strength of his voice that filled the room.

  It was nearly a year ago to the day, on St. Martin’s Eve, when they had gone to Piccadilly as the moon had set. Together they had waited by the entrance to the park and as a fat man bade farewell to his carriage, they had leapt from the darkness to rob him of his gold spectacles, wallet and watch. It had been the most exciting thing she had ever done. Her whole body had pounded with excitement as they ran through the streets, chased by the night-watch who coughed his way far behind them.

  Solomon’s tug on her leash pulled her from her daydream.