Tersias the Oracle

by G. P. Taylor

  In the distance the silver roof of Strumbelo came into view with its multitude of brick-edged chimneys, white plaster walls and black wood lattices. It rose up from a crown of thick sycamore branches and tall oaks, surrounded by a holly hedge that shimmered in the wind, green and bloodred.

  Two tall iron gates with gold-painted railings stood before them, barring their way. Malachi rested the cart and checked Old Bunce.

  “He’s not got long,” said the magician, looking around him. “We must get him inside. It would not be good for him to leave us here. Better among friends and by the fire than in the lane by the crossroads.”

  To each side of the gate the thick holly hedge stretched into the distance, covering the long stone wall that encircled the estate as far as a lake. Several metal bands formed an intricate lock that tied the portal firmly shut with no visible way of it ever being opened.

  Jonah rattled on the gates, and on the other side there appeared a man dressed from head to foot in black and carrying a small lantern on the pike of a staff. His coat was turned up around his neck and his hat pulled down across his forehead so all that could be seen was the glint of one eye and the half-shadow of his broad lips.

  “We . . . ,” Jonah said slowly, then looked to Malachi to continue.

  “We have a sick man and we need your help. A young friend rests here and we presumed the lady would give us welcome.”

  “Magnus Malachi?” the man asked in a rich dark voice that spoke of a far-distant place.

  “Yes,” Malachi replied in his bewilderment. “And—”

  “Jonah Ketch?” the gateman asked, raising the lamp higher so that it helped the dawn light their faces.

  “It is I, and—”

  “Mister Bunce—bring him quickly. She said you would come and you’re late. We have waited for two long hours.” He lifted the gate from its hold, allowing it to swing open by itself.

  Without a word, the gateman thrust his staff into Jonah’s hand, took hold of the market cart and set off at a pace towards the house with a frantic step. Bunce was rattled along the gravel drive and through the neat flower beds that led to the main door of the house. Behind them the gates swung shut and as Jonah looked back, he saw the lock weave itself together, pulling the metal strands and quickly forming a tight, impenetrable seal.

  Several sheep huddled close as they grazed the lawn that fronted the large Tudor house. Malachi and Jonah trotted behind the gateman as he pushed Old Bunce ever quicker to Strumbelo House.

  Griselda stood in the doorway, her arms wide open as if she welcomed long-lost friends. She was dressed in pants like a man as when Jonah had first seen her, but this time her hair flowed freely, long and scarlet, tinged with flecks of silver, looking every inch a commander of the guard. She smiled, her soft face breaking the trepidation that Jonah had felt with every yard he had trod from the city to Strumbelo.

  “Jonah, Magnus Malachi—we have waited for you. Bring him quickly and we will see what can be done,” Griselda said.

  “My fear is that it is too late,” Malachi said as he pulled the hat from his head and scrunched it to his chest in the presence of the lady. “A cure will be impossible, that I know.”

  “Nothing is impossible for those who trust. There is a time for everything, and this illness will not end in death that I know.”

  “More faith than sense,” Malachi whispered under his breath as he raised an eyebrow.

  “More faith is good,” she said as she turned and followed the gateman, who by now had carried Old Bunce’s limp body through the fine doors and into the large hallway of the house. Jonah and Malachi followed. “Stay here by the fire. Make yourselves comfortable,” Griselda said, pointing to the large brick fireplace fronted with two large leather chairs and a welcome table of porter and meat-cakes.

  “We’ll go no further,” Malachi said as Griselda left them behind, striding purposefully on behind her servant. Malachi saw Jonah looking around the hallway with its dark wood, twisting staircase, panelled walls and fine-weave carpet. “This is Strumbelo—have you not heard of it? One of the finest yet strangest houses in the whole of England,” he said as he walked towards the fireplace and slumped in the chair, picking at the meat-cakes and pouring himself a large glass of porter. “We’ll be safe here. Neither Malpas nor Solomon would ever dare come to this place, she is a charmed woman, a saint that walks the earth and one whose breath, they say, gives new life.”

  “You know much of this woman, Malachi. Until the other day I had heard nothing of her. She dresses like a man and carries a bag like a witch and yet you say she is protected by the King.” Jonah knelt at the table, warming his sore back by the fire.

  “That’s how she would like it to be. Always works in secret, never lets the right know what the left is doing. And yet all the time she is scheming and conjuring. Nobody knows what she is up to. All I know is that she is up to something.”

  “And the King?” Jonah asked as he stuffed a meat-cake into his mouth and gulped the porter.

  “She is said to have taken the Prince from the gates of death and cured him of his bleeding. He was the King’s favourite and Griselda Malpas stepped into the court, spirited him away and brought him back a week later as if he had been born anew. No more sickness, strength in his bones and a jest on his tongue. For that the King will always be grateful,” Malachi said as he looked at the flames and settled back into his comfort.

  “Malpas?” Jonah gulped as the meat stuck with surprise in his crop. “Did you say Griselda Malpas?”

  “She is the wife of Lord Malpas. A lady in her own right, an arranged marriage of course; it was a marriage in name only. Strumbelo is her mother’s house, given to Lady Malpas on the day she died.”

  “The history of my family should be left to those who know and not to the ramblings of some old magician.” Griselda laughed as she jumped up the last few steps of the staircase and stood before them. “What a time you both have had. I hear you have half of London after you and wanting to kill you.” She stopped and looked at Jonah, who sat before her wide-eyed, his mouth full of food. “Don’t listen to Magnus Malachi, he is an alchemist and it is well known that any magician makes up that which he doesn’t know.”

  “Bunce?” Jonah sighed as if she had come to tell them the worst. “Is he—?”

  “BUNCE! COME OUT!” she shouted as the doors to the room opposite the stairs slowly opened. “Your friends are concerned that you are dead.”

  “Don’t joke with us. We brought him here to die. The man had a broken neck,” Malachi said, getting to his feet and stepping towards her.

  “Then you will be grievously disappointed. Bunce, come out!” Griselda commanded as she walked to the door.

  It was then that Old Bunce stepped into the hall, scratching his face and ruffling his whiskers. Malachi held the back of the chair to steady his frame as Jonah got to his feet and ran to the old man.

  “Touch him not!” Griselda shouted as the gateman stepped from the room, picked Jonah from his feet, swung him around and sat him back in the chair in one quick movement. “The healing still goes on. You can make your embrace in the morning when all is truly well.”

  “Is it really you, Bunce?” Jonah asked as he again tried to get to his feet, only to be pressed to the chair by the gateman’s firm hands.

  “It is I, Jonah. It is I and I am well. Oh, if you had seen what beauty I have endured in these last hours! You were wise to bring me here. I have never felt better. What wonder, what glory there has been in my dreaming.”

  “And you will be even better once you have dried out and eaten your first meal in years,” said Griselda. “Man cannot live by beer alone, Mister Bunce. Follow Abel, and he shall show you where you will rest.” The gateman gripped Bunce by the sleeve of his coat and led him up the long flight of stairs in front of a large window of leaded glass that let in the first rays of the November sun. “You’ll be wanting to see Maggot, but you’ll have to wait. I find he cannot wake much before nine, so
I let him rest.”

  “Strumbelo is a very unusual place, Lady Malpas,” the magician said as he picked up the porter and poured himself a small glass.

  “What happens in the world doesn’t happen here and what happens here doesn’t happen in the world—is that what you mean, Magnus?” Griselda asked. She went to the oak panelling, pushed upon a wooden square and waited as the wall slid open before their eyes. “Who has the Alabaster?” she asked as she bent into the darkness and picked up an apothecary’s bag and carried it to the table. The wall slid tightly shut behind her.

  “Campion took it and he will give it to Solomon the prophet,” Malachi answered like a chastised child.

  “And the key? Do you still hide it from the world, thrust in the darkness of your pocket?” she said, looking at Jonah.

  “It is here . . . and as you said, it has brought me much lament.” Jonah couldn’t look at her as he felt the handle of the knife. It was then that he realised it was cold, lifeless, and gave no warmth. The dagger no longer tingled his fingertips with its touch nor gave him the desire to draw it forth and watch it spark through the air.

  “Then keep it, for it still has work to be done and you are the one who will carry it to the place it desires.”

  “You know much of what we do, Lady Malpas. It is as if we are the pawns in your game of chess.” Malachi sipped from the porter, which warmed his gullet and loosened his tongue as the fire blazed contentedly behind him.

  “I am an onlooker to the game you are entangled in. I have no useful part other than my interest in all of your lives. As for chess, then I, too, am a piece played by a larger, wiser hand.” Griselda stopped and looked at them both. Malachi stood proudly, his leg straightened. He looked out of place in his long magician’s coat that he had kept wrapped about him for the past nine years. Jonah sat wide-eyed, rapt in the tranquillity of all that was around him. It was as if the bricks and timbers spoke of peace, as if the house lived and breathed contentment. “The future is in your hands and not mine. See how you have been changed, and in that you will bring change to others.”

  “What must we do?” Malachi asked, taking both of their thoughts and giving them a single voice.

  “Go back to London. Find the girl and the Alabaster. Give it and the dagger to Lord Malpas,” Griselda said.

  “Then you are with him in this?” Jonah snapped.

  “I have been with him for many years and have broken my heart over this man and all he has done. There are those around him who would see me dead, and but for the protection of the King that would have come to pass long ago. What troubles him is not of flesh or blood but of powers and principalities our mortal minds have not beheld.” For the first time, Jonah sensed her deep concern, as if her confidence had some hidden chink. “Malpas has never set foot in this house. He has carried that Alabaster since our wedding day and thought more of it than the covenant we made. In it is his curse, passed from one to the other, father to son. It eats him like the plague and he has turned his back on all that is true. Strumbelo could set him free, but he wants none of its beauty.”

  “I saw his life in a dream,” Jonah said quickly, getting up from the comfort of the chair. “There was a wolf, and the dagger saved the King . . . look!” He held out the sleeve of his bloodstained shirt.

  “More than a dream, a living nightmare—I saw it myself,” Malachi said as he pulled back the sleeve of Jonah’s coat to show the rough bandage that he had wrapped around Jonah’s arm.

  “Then there will be no terrifying chimeras for you. Dread has lodged itself in your heart, and perfect love will cast out all fear.”

  Suddenly Griselda grabbed him by the arm and tore the bandage furiously from his skin. The wound was covered with a thick gore that bubbled and stank as it was exposed to the air. Malachi put his hand to his face. The teeth-marks in Jonah’s flesh quickly festered in the early light of the morning that formed a rainbow in the hallway as it came in through the stained glass. Griselda took the wound and covered it with her hand, squeezing the skin as she spoke words that Malachi had never heard before.

  Jonah’s arm burned, but Griselda kept her grip and twisted his arm back and forth. As he writhed in pain the air around him slowly filled with a green haze that grew thicker and changed in mass as it formed into a strange shape. It seeped from every part of Jonah, flowing from his nostrils like volcanic sulphur. It percolated around their feet as the skin on his arm blistered further, bursting open in thick green wounds as Griselda kept her grip upon him, muttering, her eyes fixed upon his. The cold mist cowered by the fire and piled upon itself, slowly taking the contours of a beast. It began to snarl and growl as it turned into the presence of a translucent wolf.

  Malachi leapt from the creature as it crawled about his feet. He hid behind the leather chair, grabbing his curse bag, looking for a charm to protect him. Two large red eyes formed in what could clearly be seen as the creature’s long, thin head. They peered in the firelight, looking at each one of them in turn as if to judge who would be the best one to possess.

  “You have no place here!” Griselda shouted at the beast as it stepped towards Malachi. “Lycaon, be gone! Your curse is done and time is ended. Go to that place appointed to you and await your judgment!”

  The creature flexed and convulsed with each word. Jonah lurched forward, openmouthed, trying to gasp a morsel of the mist and give it lodging within his breath.

  “It is finished, Jonah—it has no home with you. What started as a child is gone. . . . You have been set free.”

  “Free?” muttered a voice that hung in the room without form and spoke as if it came from several places at once. “He will never be free, his kind never are. Their only hope for sanity is to be my lodging house.” The voice whispered like the wind as it gave a deep childlike sob that sent shivers through Malachi. “Let him take one more breath, he knows he needs my companionship—who else would give him such . . . pleasant . . . dreams?”

  Malachi looked to the fireplace as the beast grew in size and darkened to the deepest purple, the hair on its ridged back standing on end. It bared its teeth and growled, its two long fangs matching the wound on Jonah’s arm, as it flattened its long black ears close to its head and prepared to strike.

  “Jonah, it’s me,” it said, mimicking Tara’s voice. “Don’t make me go away. You shouldn’t listen to this woman, she will stop everything that is planned for your life. Give me sanctuary . . .” From all around them came an echoing sobbing that rang out throughout the house, as if Strumbelo had been filled with a multitude of grieving children.

  “GO NOW!” Griselda shouted as she stepped towards the creature, her arm outstretched as if about to grab hold of its mane.

  It cowered back, settling itself in the flames that burnt through its body as if it were not there. “This is your last chance, Jonah. . . . It’s your mother who speaks,” it said, gin-soaked and careless, just how she would have uttered the words. “You know I never meant you any harm, boy.”

  Jonah threw himself to the floor and covered his ears, hoping never to hear another word from the beast. “Leave me, leave me! I want nothing from you.”

  “BE GONE!” shouted Griselda for the last time. She stepped into the large fireplace and was consumed in the creature’s mist as it gathered about her. “I will invoke the name, so be gone . . .”

  There was an earsplitting call as the creature burst into a thousand pieces, exploding across the room. It knocked Malachi to the floor, tumbling the furniture about it as it spun round before being sucked in upon itself in an ever-greatening darkness. The curse bag pulled tightly around Malachi’s neck, choking the wind from his body as it, too, was sucked into the air towards the black hole. The force lifted the magician from the floor, and he could neither breathe nor speak as he tried to call out to be saved.

  Griselda quickly pulled a thin dagger from the top of her boot and lashed out at the cords that twisted themselves around Malachi’s neck. Instantly they snapped, and the small
leather sack flew through the air and disappeared into the ever-decreasing black hole. There was a sudden gust of wind that shook the house as if it were the voices of a thousand dead souls being dragged to Hades.

  Then in an instant all was calm, the storm had been stilled and the creature gone. Lady Malpas looked down upon Jonah and Malachi as they both lay helpless upon the hearth rug, worn out and dishevelled. Jonah tried to speak, many questions filling his eyes.

  “Now is not the time,” she said softly as she made the sign for silence upon her lips. “This is not the end of your journey, but the beginning.”

  XXI

  THE GREAT REMONSTRANCE

  In the tower of the Citadel, complete blackness filled the room. The disciples had blackwashed the high windows and stripped the chamber of every candle. Sprigs of yew and holly had been placed by each ledge and seven mistletoe berries circled each one. By the high table was placed a square and compass and a white chalk line led away, cutting the room in two precise halves, measured and remeasured by Solomon and several of his disciples.

  From the blackness of the twisted stairwell Campion swaggered up, in his hand a large candelabra holding six crooked red candles that gave off a meagre glow. He walked slowly to the high table between two small stone pillars.

  Solomon walked behind, slowly chanting to himself. He stood in the centre of the room, a piece of fine silk cable noosed around his neck, his shirt cut away on the right side and a black feather mask covering his face. By his feet was the wicker coffin, garlanded with fresh flowers.

  Tersias sat in his chair, the helmet upon his head blinding him from the Wretchkin. Campion had shown the strength of his arm and his disregard for all that the creature had spoken through the boy—there had been no safekeeping, and Campion had doled out his misery with great glee. In his heart Tersias had steeled himself for all that he would have to endure. In his muteness he had decided that he would no longer beg like a dog licking for morsels, and would never again do the will of ungracious men.