The Aylesford Skull

by James P. Blaylock

  “Water and oats,” Hasbro said to the ostler. “We leave in ten minutes sharp.”

  The man nodded and led the horse and wagon in out of the sunlight. St. Ives and Hasbro entered the inn, the public house smelling heavily of hops and baking bread. Two men sat at a table with glasses of beer and a plate of cheese and pickled eggs in front of them. One of them was dark and had chiseled features – handsome, no doubt, in his day. But he had been horribly wounded some time in the past, and was missing an ear and had a long scar from his brow to his mouth, the blade having split open his nostril, which had been badly repaired. He would have been handsome otherwise. The other man, who moments ago had been standing in the doorway, was hatless now. He had a large round head, bald but for a dark halo of curls. He nodded again cheerfully at St. Ives, who forced himself to smile and nod a greeting back. The man was perhaps a bit dense, St. Ives thought, and yet his jolly demeanor improved the general quality of the morning – a useful lesson about the underrated duty of conveying an air of contentment.

  The publican came out from the kitchen and at Hasbro’s bidding drew two glasses of bitter from the tap, setting them down on the bar top. To Hasbro’s question of food, he replied, “I have a cold saddle of mutton, gentlemen, turned out in curry and figs, in the Indian style, and a pasty of mushroom and chicken as can be put up quick and eaten in hand.”

  “The pasties, I should think,” said Hasbro, “and bottled ale, if you’ve got it.”

  “They’ve brought us the new screw-cap bottles, sir, just a week back. Would you like six, or would a round half a dozen suit you?” With that the man burst into laughter with such enthusiasm that St. Ives abruptly felt improved yet again, and he found that he was grateful for his glass of bitter, from which he drank deeply now, his ears fixed on the conversation at the table behind him.

  “He was a rum cove if ever I’ve seen one,” one of the two men said loudly enough to be overheard, sounding like the cheerful man with the bald-pate. “I don’t trust a bleeding hunchback, Fred.”

  “It’s not the poor sod’s fault that he’s got the hunch, George. And who are you to be calling names, an ugly bloke like you with a head like a melon?”

  “It was his face what told the tale, not the hump,” George replied. “I half pity the boy, having an uncle with a face like that. Better to be an orphan than to fall in with Old Poger.”

  “You gentlemen speak of a boy and a hunchback,” St. Ives said, turning around anxiously. “I don’t mean to come it the Grand Inquisitor, but did you see these two recently?”

  “An hour, perhaps, weren’t it Fred?”

  “Thereabouts. Not more. Below Wrothamhill, it was, if you know it, sir.”

  “On the Greenwich road?” asked St. Ives.

  “No, sir. Gravesend road,” George said. “There was a bridge out – what they call the Trelawney Bridge, after the old squire, built before your grandfather was born, sir. Shattered by an infernal device a week past. Your man the hunchback was set to go roundabout through Stanstead, a considerable delay, but we put him right – showed him the tail end of the old Pilgrims Road. He could fetch the highway again at Hook Green by way of Harvel. Beautiful country, sir, out that way, and a tolerably quick route to Gravesend, although it would surprise you to hear it.”

  “Describe the boy, if you please,” St. Ives said. He found that his heart was racing, and it suddenly seemed as if the publican was taking an unfathomably long time.

  “Small little fellow,” George told him. “Four years old, roundabout. Dark hair. Needed feeding up. Not at all happy, says I when I saw him. He wore a nightshirt with a vest over top and a cap. The man was his uncle, like we said, taking him into London, and they’d set out early, when the boy was still abed.”

  “London by way of Gravesend, do you say?”

  “Boat, sir,” Fred told him. “Quick enough when the tide is making.”

  “You know the gentleman, perhaps?” asked George. “I beg your honor’s pardon for scandalizing the man. I meant no disrespect.”

  “Then what did you mean, you dim-witted sod?” Fred asked him. “You talk out of turn and insult this gentleman’s friend without so much as a by-your-leave. That’s what I’ve been a-telling you. Measure twice, cut once, as the sawyer put it.”

  George looked at the table, considerably abashed.

  “I am indeed acquainted with the gentleman,” St. Ives told them. “I owe him a debt of some consequence, and I hoped to find him here at the inn.”

  “You might catch him yet, if you hurry,” said George. He bit a pickled egg in half and chewed it up heartily. “The man’s wagon had a wheel that was rickety-like. We told him it wanted grease, and to have it seen to before setting out, but he told us to see to our own damned business and let him see to his, begging your honor’s pardon. Like as not he’s sitting by the roadside as we speak, waiting on the kindness of strangers, which would serve him right.”

  “And the Pilgrims Road, it’s nearby?” St. Ives asked, his heart leaping again. The publican returned at that moment with the hamper of food and drink, and suddenly time was galloping.

  “Easiest way is to catch it before you get into Wrotham proper, sir, on your right-hand side,” Fred told him. “Marked on a stone, it is. It’s not much to look at, a path more than a road, but it soon opens up, and you’ll find no one to impede you if it’s speed you want.”

  “Another glass of mild for our two friends here,” St. Ives said to the publican, “and a glass of something for you.” He dropped several shillings on the bar top, snatched up the box of bottled ale, and followed Hasbro out the door, where the stable boy held the horse’s reins. Within moments they were on their way again, double quick, not slowing until they were within hailing distance of Wrotham.

  “There it is,” said St. Ives, pointing at the road sign, which looked more than a little like a gravestone. “Pilgrims Road. It’s long odds against running them down unless they’ve thrown a wheel, but we’ve got to try, by God. Stumbling upon Fred and George was a bit of luck. Not the last of our luck, I hope.”

  THIRTEEN

  LOST OBJECTS FOUND

  Mother Laswell labored across London Bridge in the pitiless sun, shaded by a silk and bamboo parasol, which, she was certain, was the only thing that kept her from dropping dead from the monumental heat. She wondered whether the press of people on either side of her would buoy her up and carry her along if she fell, or whether she would be trampled underfoot and kicked into the Thames. She had heard that thousands of people crossed the bridge every hour, a human river flowing north to south and south to north, the current ebbing at night but flowing heavily again before dawn. The water of the Thames moved west to east beneath the granite pillars, stodgy and filthy now at the turn of the tide. There was a low roar of human voices roundabout her, ships’ bells clanging, a constant shouting from men on hundreds of busy decks, masts like a forest of leafless trees against the backdrop of waterfront buildings and docks, black smoke rising from the steam packets passing under the bridge, so that the still air was very nearly as murky as the water beneath it.

  Mother Laswell had spent the better part of her life at war with the filth and clamor of industry, but she feared that it was merely another tide that couldn’t be turned back or spanned by a bridge. Coming into London felt like a defeat, and so she rarely made the journey from Aylesford, where Hereafter Farm was a sort of ark, riding above the turmoil, and indeed she sometimes felt as old and exhausted as Noah. No wonder the old ark-builder had been a drunkard, she thought.

  And then she thought suddenly of poor Bill Kraken, who was a good man, as true and constant as the pole star, but with a mind given over to tolerably strange ideas. She regretted not having left him a note this morning, although it was true that he couldn’t read. Still, the absence of a message must have left him miserable. But her business wasn’t his affair; indeed, it was beyond his understanding. The debacle was hers and hers alone to deal with. It was she who had brought it about, a
nd she who would finish it and fetch the remains of her boy Edward home again. She couldn’t abide the idea of Bill coming to harm trying to lend a hand.

  Her discussion with Professor St. Ives had called up fragments of unhappy memory that she had studiously kept buried over the long years. After he had taken his leave, she had lain sleepless atop her bed as the slow hours had passed away, afraid to close her eyes lest sleep conjure long-interred recollections in even more vivid forms. Sometime in the early morning she had fallen asleep, only to be visited by a nightmare.

  In her dream she arose from her bed and went outside into the windy night, drawn to the moonlit pasture beyond which lay the deep wood that sheltered her husband’s laboratory. She climbed the stile over the low wall and struck out across the pasture, intent on recovering the severed skull of her beloved Edward, but she saw that her way was hindered by a distant high wall of black stone. As she approached, an arched door in the wall swung open, revealing a room illuminated by a flickering, orange glow. A hooded figure, more a shadow than a thing of substance, moved out through the doorway and was silhouetted for an instant against the orange light. There was the smell of mown grass on the wind, and the sound of chimes as if from a thousand small bells. The figure beckoned to her, and then rose into the night like black smoke and disappeared into the branches of the trees overhead.

  Despite a rising terror, she was drawn to the door. She entered the room, where a stairway led downward, the darkness of the passage illuminated by the light of leaping orange flames glowing in nether regions below. The sound of voices reached her, wafted upward from deep pits, voices murmuring and crying out, snatches of mad laughter, the urgent murmuring of unspeakable regret, damnation, and suffering. She descended the stairs despite the black horror that filled her chest. She saw a shadow rising to meet her – something or someone ascending the stairs. She thought of the shadow figure that had opened the door and beckoned to her. But it wasn’t he, at least not in that guise; it was a black goat, ancient as the grave, its eyes glowing, its matted hair smelling of must and decay and brimstone. She had turned and fled, sensing pursuit, hearing the cloven hooves clattering on the stones. She was too terrified to look back, but ran back up the stairs until she emerged again into the night wind blowing across the pasture. The door creaked shut behind her, closing a door on the dream, and she found herself sitting upright on her divan, her heart hammering, the sounds and the sheer terror of the vision filling her mind.

  She had arisen and roused out Simonides the scullery boy, who could drive the cart to the station. She would catch the first train into London. Simonides would ask no questions, unlike Bill Kraken, who would both ask and answer them. She couldn’t afford to be hindered, although she realized now, caught up in her trek across the bridge, that she was happy that someone feared for her, that another human being on this vast, crawling planet had Mother Laswell’s interests in his heart.

  If somehow she won through and found her way back to Aylesford, she would marry Bill, if he would still have her. The real possibility of it had come into her mind just this past moment, when she had recalled the dream. She had already turned him down twice – she was too old, had always been unlucky in marriage, was used to living alone, and more such excuses – but it had been like trying to reason with Ned Ludd, the mule. Her words went into the man’s ears – God knows they were capacious ears – but they didn’t take hold. They blew through like autumn leaves and out the other side. She smiled at the thought. Bill had become the pilot of Hereafter Farm, as if he were born to it, as if the farm had been waiting these long years for his arrival. If she were called upon to descend into Hell, she thought, there was no one else she would rather have by her side than Bill Kraken. Leaving him in ignorance this morning made her feel shabby and low.

  She was jostled hard, two swaggering young men pushing past her and down toward Pudding Lane. She was across the river now, and into the shadows of the buildings, the tremendous flow of people disappearing into the great city as a river into the sea. She stood quite still for a moment, out of the way of foot traffic, and listened carefully to the sounds within her mind – sounds, as it were, of another sort. Edward’s presence had slipped into her consciousness as through an open door, and she knew that she heard his voice now, small and distant, like murmuring from a closed room. She was quite certain he was no great distance away, and that he sensed her presence in return.

  She set out again at a determined pace, the Monument coming into view, its gilt summit aflame in the sunlight. She bought a meat pie from a down-at-heel coster-lad dressed in a heavy coat two sizes too large for him, no doubt intolerably hot, and he with no safe place to hang it save around his shoulders. He was just about Edward’s age when Edward had…

  She gave the boy two crowns and felt guilty for not giving him more and at the same time foolish to be so completely at the mercy of sentiment. She walked on, eating the miserable, gristly pie, leaving the boy happily stupefied on the footpath. The bells of St. Clement’s Church chimed out the story of the oranges and lemons, and she recalled from her childhood that St. Clement himself had been pitched into the sea with an anchor knotted around his neck. Well, she thought, there’s worse things than being Harriet Laswell abroad in London, and she reminded herself that it was better to look outward than inward. “It’s a poor heart that never rejoices,” she said out loud, and set her sights on Lime Street now, where her old friend Mabel Morningstar lived near the Ship Tavern. The thought of the tavern reminded her that she would want something refreshing before long, a pint, perhaps, in order to restore her blood to its natural fluidity, now that the sun had thickened it.

  When she turned the corner, her destination in sight at last, she saw Mabel herself on the pavement beyond the door of the tavern, dressed in the Robe of the Starry Firmament, which Mother Laswell had given her these many years past. It was Mabel’s summoning robe, scarcely the sort of thing to wear abroad. Three centuries back and she’d have been burnt as a witch at Smithfield for appearing in daylight in a summoning robe.

  Mabel knows I’ve come, Mother Laswell thought suddenly, and a chill of relief came upon her. She needed Mabel’s powers, and her need was so great that Mabel had sensed her approach, and had caparisoned herself in anticipation.

  “You look done up, Harriet,” Mabel said to her. “Like a banger in a hot pan. I’ve got a high window that’s catching the breeze just now, and something to wet your whistle – a nice shandy, if you’ve a mind for it. We’ll go up.”

  “I’d be most grateful,” Mother Laswell told her. “I’m parched as a desert.” She followed her friend through the street door, past a small sign that read, “Fortunes Told, Clairvoyance, Necromancy, Lost Objects Found.” They exchanged pleasantries, catching each other up as they climbed the dim, narrow stairs, one flight after another, around a corner into a long hallway lit with gaslight, with doors on either side. There was another set of stairs beyond that, the last, but Mother Laswell stopped for a moment to catch her breath. “I’m fairly knackered,” she said. “The tramp from Tooley Street just about finished me. I took heart just now, though, because it came to me that you knew I was coming; I can see that, Mabel. You’ve put on your robe.”

  “I felt you a way off, Harriet. I had the sure presentiment of a sail billowing overhead, carrying you toward me like a boat on a river, so I made ready. I knew this wasn’t a pleasure call. Your mind is full of dread and hope in equal measure. That much is plain. I came down to the street when you drew near, and there you were, your umbrella unfurled on the mast.”

  Her tone was cheery but there was deep concern in her smile. She had the homely appearance of a solidly built innkeeper or cook, hearty rather than dumpy, with a frazzle of brown hair, not yet showing any gray despite her sixty-odd years. Mother Laswell found that her mind was growing easier now that she wasn’t alone, her step more sure as they climbed the last flight of stairs and entered Mabel’s quarters. The two of them, both with considerable powers, would
see to this together, and would prevail.

  A long row of windows in the surprisingly large room looked down onto Fenchurch Street, the casements standing open, letting in air and sunlight both, just as Mabel had promised. There were books in age-darkened bookcases against the walls and more books and manuscripts heaped on the floor. A long, low cabinet stood against one wall, with turned legs and a medieval scene painted in the arts-and-crafts style on the four hinged doors. A pitcher and basin sat atop it.

  As she sipped her shandy Mother Laswell studied a framed photograph of Mabel’s dead husband. He wore a morning coat and looked quite young and distinguished, despite his eyes being crossed on account of holding still for the photograph. He had been dead these ten years past. Mother Laswell had always been a little jealous of Mabel and the luck she’d had finding a husband who wasn’t some variety of husk. Now he was simply another memory hung on the wall, all things having the sad habit of passing away.

  She thought of Bill Kraken again and realized that she wanted his company badly. She had been a fool to come into London alone. It was a sin to be always doing for others but not letting others do for her – a kind of betrayal, a pig-headed pride dressed up like a saint, useful for self-deception but not much else.

  Mabel pulled open a curtain, revealing a dim, closeted space in one corner of the room, its opposite walls affixed with long mirrors in plain, dark frames. The third wall of the small room had a candle sconce hung above a small, oak wardrobe cabinet, the doors carved with the image of a face peering out from a cluster of leaves. On top of the cabinet sat a crystal ball on a copper ring, and next to that a barometer. There were two chairs at a square table, one covered in satin that was woven with stars and symbols, the other plain. Small spring-clamps were affixed to the four corners of the tabletop. The room was otherwise unadorned, no frippery at all. Mabel Morningstar was a purely practical woman when it came to the magical arts.