Tersias the Oracle

by G. P. Taylor

  Solomon coughed and cleared his throat, filling his chest and raising himself to the occasion.

  “None of you, not one, will escape the wrath, for a time is coming when you will all face your end. YOU!” he screamed as he pointed to a thin man with a pox-pitted chin. “Survived one plague to die in another. The pox took your sister and your mother. Didn’t it?” he said, guessing the man’s fate, while his followers shivered and shook and moaned and wailed as if they clung to the precipice of Hades. The man nodded fearfully, shocked that his past was on display at such a time as this.

  “Now look at you, a monster of the London streets, but even one as ugly and pus-festered as you could come and be a part of Solomon’s kingdom. All you have to do is have faith in me. For a time is coming when the earth shall grow cold, black locusts will engulf the city and everything that all of you has held dear will be snatched from your hands!” Solomon shouted out the last words before falling silent. He looked at the crowd and sucked in a deep breath of cold, damp morning air as he drew them closer like flies to his web. “Listen to Father Solomon,” he said quietly, as if he spoke only to each individual. “I am the answer, the way to follow, a path through the rugged mountains. I have seen the heights of heaven and depths of hell.” He raised his voice, then let it drop low. “There is nothing my eyes have not beheld, nothing my ears have not heard, not a word my tongue cannot understand. I can speak in the language of angels and devils. I am the only one who can save you from what is to come.”

  His listeners turned to one another as those that surrounded Solomon on the steps shuddered and moaned. A ripple of panic tremored through the congregation of bystanders. There was a sudden crack high above them like the pounding of a cannon. The sky filled with bright stars that burst from a cluster of sky-crackers and fell to earth, showering the market in fine silver-paper medallions.

  “Look!” Solomon held out his hands for all to see, and there dancing on each palm was a ball of blue flame that flickered over each finger. “Fire that does not burn and a sky that gives forth party charms,” he shouted. Pox-face dropped to his knees, wringing his hands as he looked to heaven.

  “Why do these things come?” a fishmonger shouted as he cowered beneath his stall.

  “As a sign of his power,” Campion replied as he fell to his knees.

  “Firecrackers and circus tricks,” shouted the stableman as he threw yet another stale loaf, hitting Solomon in the chest. “Follow you? I’d rather chase a crack in a louse ladder . . . at least you’d get something at the end of it.”

  The crowd laughed. They had grown bored with the daily spectacle and begun to walk away. Not even the comet had dampened their desire to live their meagre lives. It had come and gone like fire and plague before it.

  The disciples stood their ground, surrounding Solomon as he brushed the rotten crumbs from his chest. Pox-face knelt sobbing in the dirt.

  “You’ve charmed the crowd, Solomon,” the ostler sneered as he rolled up his sleeves and looked around him. “Only that broken wretch from all these people? No one to listen to your ranting and shaking? We’ve seen too much, too many words. Look at me, you merry men—an ostler without a stable or an inn and yet I have more than all of you with your purple coats and quivering lips.”

  “You will have even less than that if Campion tears your arms from their sockets,” Solomon whispered as he walked down the steps, taking Pox-face by the arm and lifting him to his feet. “Here is a man broken by the world, with no hope. I will be all he has. In me can he trust.” Solomon raised his fist and shook it at the sky. “Nothing or no one will stand in my way. I will be the father of the nations and all men will come to me.”

  “Then the man’s a cockle-head with mud for brains . . . just like you,” the ostler said, rubbing his rough hands on his coat front, and he turned his back and walked away.

  “Campion, take our brother to the Citadel and . . .” Solomon paused as he watched the man walking into the distance, the sun glistening on the damp of his coat. “Make sure our ostler friend finds somewhere to rest his head . . . forever.”

  The giant smiled and pulled the fingers of his bearlike hands, clicking and crunching the bones one by one. He pushed through the ranks of disciples and lifted Pox-face from the ground, casually draping the man over his shoulder like a rolled-up blanket. Then he set off to follow the steps of the ostler from the square.

  Solomon nodded his head and he set off at a pace across the cobbles, rubbing his long pointed chin with the tips of his tobacco-stained fingers. A line of dreary disciples fixed their eyes upon him and followed as he picked his way through the barren marketplace of Covent Garden towards the Strand.

  Every street and alley where the pilgrims trod was scattered with the debris and disorder of the comet. Carriages were overturned and horses lay dead like large swollen-bellied flies.

  Solomon pulled his white handkerchief from his pocket and flapped it several times in the breeze before filling it with a handful of dried rose petals and then covering his nose. The stiff November breeze blew the torn canopies that hung over the empty shops. Solomon stopped and looked to the ground at his feet. There before him were the charred remains of a body outlined in grey dust, nothing remaining but the sole of one boot, as if the man had been burnt from the inside out.

  “This,” he said to his followers as they gathered around, “is what I said would come. Look, he has been totally destroyed in his wickedness—ashes to ashes, dust to dust, nothing left but one bad sole.” Solomon laughed feebly as he set off again at a trot. “Come on, come on! You need to keep up. We have work to do and the lost need to be found. We must search them out of every street and lodging house in this city, from the highest to the low, they have to be found.”

  He turned back to the Strand. The sounds of a large crowd cackling and screeching by Charing Cross called to him. Shouts from acrobats and buskers merged with the thrilled squeaks of children who gazed merrily at tumblers throwing themselves into the air, stacking higher and higher on one another to the height of a house.

  Solomon gathered pace and ran ahead of his disciples. All about him people laughed and stared at fire-eaters gripping burning coals and spurting jets of flame from grease-black mouths. A snake charmer sat cross-legged as he played the chanter and mimicked the head of the cobra that reluctantly drew its head over the tip of its wicker basket in the cold morning air.

  From every corner of London had come an impromptu fayre of bedraggled clowns, monster-mongers and actors. Solomon gasped for air as the excitement of all that was around him took his breath and in one moment returned him to his childhood. He could feel his boots shivering as he quivered with joyful anticipation.

  But then, from the centre of the crowd, there rose up the strangest creature he had ever seen. Towering above the people, a wrinkled grey beast the size of a whale reared up on its hind legs. What Solomon thought was a long arm stretched down from its head and swung between two thick, round, gold-tipped teeth that came from the mouth, each the length of half a lance and curved like a dragoon’s sabre. A tiny eye the size of a sparrow peered back at him as a drummer-boy beat out a tune for the beast to hop back and forth to until it dropped to all fours and shook its rump like a fat Drury Lane dancer.

  Solomon was spellbound as his mind raced to find the name of the creature that wafted its immense grey ears back and forth like the flags of a foreign country. Smiling to himself, his mind plucked the name from his memory. He had seen the beast sketched in the London Chronicle. This was Ozymandius—the elephant from Africa. Now it stood before him, king in a hostile land, half mad from the shackles that were clamped to its legs.

  Ozymandius stared at Solomon, rocking its head from side to side and moving from one foot to the other to avoid the cane of the young boy. As their eyes met, the joy drained from Solomon and the dismal purgatory of the world suddenly returned. He looked around for his disciples, feeling strangely aware of his sudden loneliness in the great throng of people th
at swirled about him. He took one final look at the creature and he turned away, leaving it to its chained misery as he pushed through the crowd towards the centre of the circus.

  In the fresh morning breeze he surveyed the crowd, hoping to see the familiar sight of a purple coat and pilgrim face. But it was the glint of gold that first caught his eye, and then the long, flowing black cloak that wafted out behind the tall bearded man who pushed a hand carriage topped with a golden cage.

  The sound of the fayre was silenced in his mind as every thought was concentrated on what he could now see coming along the Strand. Within the cage he could make out the shape of a small boy wrapped in a thick blanket, topped with a fine sprout of bright white hair. The boy held tightly to the bars of the cage. As it approached, the large circus crowd parted like an ancient sea to let them pass, then formed a tight circle as the man rested the cart on its spindle legs, drew out a long staff and stamped it to the ground whilst pulling on his beard.

  “I, Magnus Malachi, magician and seer, bring to you, the people of London—TERSIAS THE BLIND. His eyes may have been rooted from his head, but his sight goes beyond our understanding. For one shilling he will answer any question and tell you the secret of your soul,” Malachi shouted dramatically.

  Solomon squinted though the armpit of a soldier who stubbornly refused to stand aside and let him through. Reaching up, he took the long pin from his tasselled hat and plunged it into the soldier’s rump. There was a loud scream as the soldier looked around, turning to see the face of his attacker and lashing out at a podgy-necked man with red cheeks. Solomon sniggered as he stepped by safely, returning the bloodied pin to its place. In several steps he stood before Malachi and the boy.

  “Think of it,” Malachi cried out, “think of it as the wisest shilling you ever invested. You are not giving your money away but buying a glimpse of the future.” Malachi filled out his chest and knocked his whale staff against a stone. “I need no stooges, this is not a pantomime,” he said as he wagged his long finger under the soldier’s nose. “The gods will speak to you today and all for the price of a shilling.” Malachi looked intently at the gathering. “I will give one free consultation to prove to you all that what I say is the truth and that Tersias of London is the first true oracle this town has seen since the days of Saint Tara. Now, who will that be?”

  A man stepped forward flanked by two tall militiamen and a small squat man in pince-nez glasses. “I will,” said the man, and he stepped closer to Malachi. Solomon watched intently. He had seen these men before and knew their names from the London Chronicle: this was Lord Malpas and his secretary, Mister Skullet. Malpas looked wounded, his face was deeply scraped and at the back of his head he wore a bandage as if it were a small white hat.

  “Ask him what it is I desire back and where it can be found,” Malpas demanded, his voice strained with the pain of his cracked skull.

  “Tersias hears you himself, he will answer,” Malachi replied, hoping to stimulate a quick retort from the boy.

  But Tersias couldn’t feel the presence of the Wretchkin. And all he could hear was the muttering of the mob as it grew in its discontent.

  “Tersias, the man needs an answer.” Malachi spoke strongly, urging him to speak out.

  Then a sudden rushing came, as if the spirit was carried on black wings that beat through the streets from another place. The picture of a dragon came into Tersias’s mind as he felt the Wretchkin growing closer. The creature spoke to Tersias and in some strange way it seemed different—powerful, older, with a hint of hostility in its voice.

  “His name is Malpas,” the spirit said, whispering in his ear, its breath chilling the back of his neck. “Lord Malpas, a politician . . . he has lost a box and a dagger.”

  Tersias cleared his throat. “You have lost a box . . . and a dagger. You are Lord Malpas.”

  The crowd recoiled as Malpas stepped back and turned to Skullet, surprise emblazoned across his face.

  “Is that true?” Malachi asked loudly as he pulled the cap from his head and offered it for filling to the crowd.

  “ ’Tis true,” Malpas replied, staring at Tersias. “I was robbed by a thief on Conduit Fields. There is a reward for his capture. Two hundred pounds.” Malpas paused, allowing the bounty to take effect. “Tell me, Tersias. Where is my property to be found?”

  “That will cost you a shilling,” Malachi shouted as he pushed himself towards Malpas, his cap outstretched, only to be pushed back by the militia.

  Tersias spoke out, relaying the creature’s whispered reply. “It is still in the city.”

  Lord Malpas stared at Malachi. “How much for the boy? I must have the boy. I will make you a wealthy man.”

  “He is not for sale, Lord Malpas. Not for all the gold in the world. He was a gift to a man in his dotage, a pension from the gods to a man of poor means. Tersias is like a son to me.”

  “Then bring him to my chambers tomorrow evening at seven o’clock and we can complete this consultation without prying eyes.” Malpas didn’t wait for a reply. With a bandaged hand he motioned for the militia to force a way through the crowds.

  Solomon watched eagerly as a throng of people pushed forward, babbling their questions to Tersias and filling Malachi’s hat with shillings.

  “Father Solomon,” said the voice of a disciple who pulled on his sleeve. “We had given you up for lost.”

  “Lost?” replied Solomon, half shouting. “I have found what we have been looking for all this time. This was no coincidence, our separation was foretold and planned. I have found him, the one we have been waiting for. He is here, a blind child led to us by a charlatan. To have him as a disciple was ordained. We must do all in our power to encourage Mister Malachi and the child to part company . . . and tomorrow they will be visiting Malpas.”

  Solomon thought on as he and his followers turned their backs on the sun and scurried into the dark alleyway that led to the Citadel. He rubbed his hands as he walked quickly into the ever-growing gloom.

  V

  THIEVING LANE

  The iron-braced wheels of the handcart rattled loudly against the wet cobbles of King Street. Magnus Malachi breathed heavily as he pushed the cart through the night the last mile towards the home of Lord Malpas in Thieving Lane. The streets were ominously empty. Gone were the chestnut carts and braziers, lamplighters and street-sellers that would usually inhabit the streets until the old Warden called the midnight curfew.

  Malachi squinted in the dim light from the lantern strapped to the front of the cart. Thieving Lane took its name from the footpads and vagabonds who would stalk the unwary, cut purses and throats and make off with your money. Here in the dark street, Malachi felt like a sacrificial calf waiting for the wolves to strike.

  Tersias sat in the newly painted cart, holding on to the gold bars of his cage as the cold mist from the river swirled about him. He showed no fear; his world had no day and no night. His new blanket was wrapped tightly around him.

  “How much further?” he asked Malachi quietly as the wheel of the cart dropped into a deep puddle, throwing him from one side to the other. “I hear no people, where are we?”

  “Quiet, lad. Soon be there.” Malachi dug his heels deeper into the mud and strained against the cart, pushing it deeper into the darkness of the street. The cobbles of the road ahead were traced in silver and silhouetted in the light from the Hangman Inn. To the side was a cavernous alleyway. Malachi tried to make sense of the black shapes that danced before his eyes in the darkness of the alleyway. He rested the handcart and rubbed his face with his hands, peering into the night through his fingers.

  “Lord Malpas will pay you for this?” Tersias said, breaking the silence. He wrapped himself in the thick blanket. “He’s a worried man. I don’t trust him.”

  “Trust? You say such as that and he’ll have us hanged. Malpas is the man behind the Crown, everyone knows that. This is my golden opportunity, boy. I could find favour at Court. Find a friend in high places, a man with pow
er and influence. Don’t talk of trust, trust doesn’t matter—what matters now is finding his house before we are robbed by the villains that haunt this street.” Malachi’s words echoed coldly through the alley. “Now bury yourself in that blanket and keep silent, the less sound we make the better our chances. Why a man like Malpas should live here is beyond me—surrounded by thieves and murderers, not a place for a man of reputation.”

  From far behind he heard the stealthy tap, tap, tap of metal shoe plates pitted against the stones. He looked back along the dark street and made out three figures walking slowly towards them in the gloom.

  “Tersias, we are being followed. Hold fast, we will move quickly.” Malachi frantically pushed the handcart in a vain attempt to speed it through the night and down the slope to Thieving Lane. His feet slipped in the muck that washed over the cobbles. Slowly the cart rolled down the slight incline.

  “I have nothing to steal but you, Tersias,” Malachi muttered as he forced the cart on to its destination. “Hide yourself away and say nothing.” He handed Tersias a bag of silver coins wrapped in a silk cloth. “Sit on these, and if you are found, don’t speak.”

  The slamming of the door to the inn broke the sullen silence of the street. Malachi looked back again—the road was empty, the dark figures had departed. He laughed to himself. “Wine-bibbers, Tersias. Inn-lovers desperate for gin, and I thought they were out to rob us.” He snorted as he pressed on through the mud. “When you get to my age, the mind plays tricks with you. But then again, you are a precious gift to an old man and not one to be lost so readily.”

  Tersias didn’t answer. He slowly poked his head out from the blanket. His small hand gripped the cage to steady himself and his head jostled from side to side as he rocked over the mud-covered stones.

  “Soon, Tersias, you can speak for Lord Malpas. Mark you well to answer his every question. He’s a powerful man and not one to be crossed. We could both end up with a week in the stocks or a month in Fleet. Speak well, my blind oracle, and he will favour us kindly.” Malachi wheezed as he spoke, his hands gripping tightly to the cart.