by G. P. Taylor
The old man ushered them to the ornate staircase that ran from the bow-windowed salon that overlooked the harbour to the dining room above. Sacha rushed ahead and darted to the window seat, pulling the curtain so that she was hidden from the crowds of out-walkers below.
It was low tide and the street on the quayside was packed with people in their finest coats taking the air. They watched the fishermen scraping upturned boats and mending torn nets. Grimm and Grendel could be seen looking into the emptying harbour, waiting for the water to go before they finally took it upon themselves to dance nervously through the mud and search the sewer.
Mariah pulled up a chair next to Sacha and sat in the window as they waited for Captain Charity to return. There was a simmering smell of cooking fish and the slosh of buckets of fresh batter being hand-mixed in the back kitchen. Looking along the narrow promenade that led to the Prince Regent, Mariah could make out the form of Captain Charity walking in the roadway, leash in hand. Cuba strutted proudly at his side, snapping at the passers-by as if they were titbits to be chewed upon. Charity paid no attention to this; his eyes were fixed upon the sea and the shimmering mist that filtered from the wet sand. By the harbour wall, a small brig was beached and a caravan of donkey-carts hauled coal up to the road.
Grimm and Grendel waited ever more impatiently. A whelk-woman in a long and tattered frock pestered them with a tray of whelks and vinegar, thrusting the stinking lumps of gristle into Grimm’s face and laughing as he baulked. Grendel was far fiercer of heart. He quickly pulled a shilling from his pocket and forced it into her hand, snatching from her a cone-bag and small fork and dowsing the contents in a sea of vinegar. Without hesitation he fed the whelks one by one into his mouth and chewed.
Even from such a distance, Sacha and Mariah could see the muscles flexing in Grendel’s long antelopian neck. He swallowed each mucus-like creature with a perceptible gulp, to which Grimm visibly recoiled further and further; when all had been eaten he tipped the cone and supped the liquor, crushing the paper in his hand and throwing it into the ebbing tide.
Grimm slapped him in the chest, chastising him with a short waggy finger and much gesticulation. Then he turned from him and looked at the slowly disappearing water and the long pole that waited for Saint Stephens’s day.
The door to the Golden Kipper slammed briskly, and heavy boots and scampering claws were heard upon the stairs. There was a boisterous shouting from the old man, who screamed that it was Monday who waited for him and that never before had he been visited by a mad man who thought he was a day of the week. Charity laughed as he held on to Cuba, who tried to race ahead, sniffing each step as if she could smell the sewage upon their feet.
‘Aha!’ Charity laughed, a broad smile spreading across his wind-reddened face. ‘Both of you villains stinking out my restaurant, eh?’ He gave another laugh as he loosened Cuba and let her run free.
The crocogon leapt towards them, fussing around their feet and biting the leather soles.
‘Thinks you’re supper,’ Charity said. ‘And so you could be – about the size of a good meal, the pair of you put together.’ Charity stopped and looked at Sacha. ‘My dear girl, haven’t seen you in ages. My, how you have grown. Father still up to his usual tricks?’
Sacha nodded and gave a shy grunt.
‘He’ll learn. One day they’ll all get caught – can’t go on for too long. So what’s new in the land of misadventure?’
‘I have this and we’re being followed and –’ Mariah blurted.
‘One thing at a time,’ Charity said as he looked at the gold coin, which Mariah held towards him.
‘The Kraken gave this for you – he stole fish and said you should take the money to cover the cost.’
‘Kraken? Fish? Where did you learn such a tale?’ Charity took off his large overcoat and threw it to the horned stand that captured it upon a curled prong.
‘He lives in –’ Mariah said before Charity finished his words.
‘He lives in the sewer and has done for a while. His room is decked like a fine lodging house and he has the Caladrius,’ the Captain said as if it were known to the whole world.
‘You knew?’ Sacha asked.
‘I have visited the room on several occasions – took him some bread and left it for him. I thought it was the Kraken that was taking the fish. The heat of the water has moved all the cod away. The beast would starve in an empty sea.’
‘And this causes you no concern?’ Mariah asked.
‘Far from it. I am concerned the creature is sick and that the Caladrius was not used for the task it was born into the world for. Had I found the Kraken upon his lounge then I would have set the bird free and seen him healed.’
Mariah handed Charity the golden coin and quickly garbled all that had occurred since he last ate at the Golden Kipper. The Captain strutted up and down, and Cuba curled herself tightly in the corner of the room and went to sleep, leaving one large eye open.
‘At last you have done something of great worth,’ Charity said as he pulled back the curtain and peered down to the harbour. ‘What I would have given to see that bird in flight. I have heard so much of its power, followed its creator for so long and dreamt to stand in its presence – and you two wretches get there before me.’ Charity shrugged, then stared out to see Grimm and Grendel as they cautiously climbed down the old ladder to the sewer mouth. ‘Your two friends are about to come searching for you,’ he said.
Mariah looked on as Grimm disappeared over the harbour wall, his powder-splattered silk hat slowly bobbing from view. ‘What if they find the Kraken?’ Mariah asked Charity.
‘I have a good mind to take Cuba for a walk – into the sewer. She hasn’t had sport for such a long time.’ Charity laughed again, his mind musing on the sight of Grimm and Grendel scurrying like frightened rats from the chomping jaws of the crocogon. ‘There is one thing,’ he said. ‘What of Otto Luger and all you have found?’
Mariah looked at Sacha, wanting her to speak for him. She remained deathly silent, her eyes cast down to the table. He realised he would have to speak for himself and that something had struck her dumb.
‘I also found this,’ he said, and pulled the wax hand from his jacket. ‘It was on a manikin, it was made to look like me in every way. There was one of Felix. Luger has them hanging from the roof.’
Charity took the hand and held it to the light. ‘French wax,’ he said as he sniffed the fingers. ‘Looks like there is something inside.’
With that he put the wax hand on the table and went to the kitchen. Moments later he returned, a metal bowl of bubbling water in his hands and a soup ladle wedged in his pocket. Charity placed the bowl on the floor and then dropped the hand into the water. They all stared into the water as if looking into an old leaky cauldron.
‘What’s it doing?’ asked Sacha as she tapped her fingers nervously on the table.
‘Melting,’ replied Charity as the wax began to liquefy before them. ‘Look,’ he said as the fingers began to break from the hand and float to the surface.
Within the hand they could see small pea-sized droplets. As the wax melted they all began to fall to the bottom of the pan.
‘I thought as much,’ Charity said with a smile on his face. ‘Pearls!’
[ 26 ]
Smutch
THE day’s light had faded as the lamplighter made his way along the empty seafront, pulling his coat against the wind and rattling the gas tap of every light. As he tipped his flame to the lanterns they slowly burst into life. Mariah stood by the large brass telescope and watched from the window of the Golden Kipper as the man walked by. The lamplighter looked up at the boy and smiled, touching the tip of his grubby oilskin hat, and then walked on.
Sacha sat with Captain Charity, engrossed in conversation. She had chattered through the afternoon hours until dusk had begun to fall and Charity had lit the table candles. He had pulled the red velvet rope across the stairs, keeping away the customers that had trickled in from the col
d wind. There had been a constant gabble from the chef as the fish had sizzled and crisped, filling the room with the most luscious odours that Mariah knew would hang upon their clothes for days.
In all that time, Sacha had told of what she knew. She had no reason to doubt the Captain; his eyes told her that there would be no betrayal. He was a man who listened deeply and intently to all that she had to say. Sacha enjoyed talking, but she enjoyed his listening even more. Through the hours, Mariah had chipped in here and there, filling in the missing details so as not to leave anything out. He told of finding the stripped bones of Otto Luger and his thoughts of who had murdered him, but Sacha dismissed him with a wave of the hand as if this were her story and one in which only she took part. Like the wind she would change course and opinion, her mind fleeting like a dancing butterfly.
Mariah had finished his fourth mug of chocolate and had left them to talk as he stared from the window towards the darkening mass of the Prince Regent.
‘How far will this look out to sea?’ he asked as he stared through the eyepiece of the telescope to the distant summit of a grey, mountainous wave.
‘To the very limits,’ Charity replied, turned towards him. ‘You can see a ship on the horizon as if it were sat in the harbour.’
Mariah scanned the murky water for the starboard light of a ship. The ocean looked cold and empty, the white crests of the swell glowing in the moonlight. He thought of the Kraken scavenging from the wrecks on the far Brig. He searched the distant cliffs for lamplighters hanging lanterns to lure ships upon Cornelian Rocks. Mariah followed the line of the coast, peeking through the windows of the large select houses of the Esplanade overlooking the bay until he finally spied the very top of the Prince Regent. It was as if he could reach out and touch each pane of glass with his hand. He felt a shudder of excitement run through his bones as he gawped into a gas-lit room and spied a man plucking the hairs from his nostrils with a fine pair of silver tweezers, then adjusting a ginger rug of curls upon his head to cover a bald pate.
Mariah giggled to himself and a knot in his stomach coiled with deep exhilaration as he went from window to window, peeping inside and looking at the guests. He tried to make out what the guests spoke of as he viewed them from afar, the telescope transporting him to within an arm’s length of each room. It was like standing and peeping from the outside balcony, watching the inhabitant of the room without being seen.
Everything was exposed to the view of the telescope. From his vantage point he could see Rhamses barking orders as the service began for early supper. His tall white hat flashed by the open window of the fourth-floor restaurant as he ran through the parlour palms and into the kitchen. A floor below Mariah could see the windows of the water-spa and, swinging the telescope higher, he tried to pick out the casement of his tower room. He searched the slate roof of the first tower looking for the white porthole that overlooked the town.
It was as he alighted on the high tower that he saw the face of Perfidious Albion. He was pale and drawn, pinched at the cheeks, with dark bruising around one eye. The man stared down upon the harbour from a high window lit by a single candle that flickered against his face. He was speaking, as if there was someone in the room with him, listening from the shadows. Albion closed his eyes and continued to speak; he lifted his manacled hands and touched his forehead, then lowered them and touched his heart and each shoulder. He mouthed one final word, as if he had said the name of someone he loved.
‘Captain, Captain!’ Mariah shouted. ‘I’ve seen Albion! He’s in the east tower and his hands are chained.’
Within the second, Captain Charity had pushed him from the telescope and stared through the lens. ‘You’re right, my lad, I can see the man and another behind him. Looks like … looks like Bizmillah, the old scoundrel,’ Charity exclaimed as if he was the first to see a new planet. ‘Then we have a chase. Not only will we rescue Felix, but we’ll have Albion as well.’
‘We’ll go alone,’ Sacha said as she stood from the table, her sharp voice stirring Cuba from her dreams.
‘You’ll not go at all if you speak to me like that, will they, Cuba?’ Charity said quickly, his voice sabre-sharp as the crocogon got to its feet and snapped the air.
‘But this is our business,’ she replied angrily. ‘We got into this and we’ll get out of it.’
‘Not since my foot stepped from the train the night Mariah arrived,’ Charity said. ‘Do you think I have idled my time frying fish and listening to old wives’ tales since I was back? I was called home, a letter sent from the Prince Regent a year ago begging me to return. It was signed by Otto Luger.’ Charity pulled a crumpled note from the pocket of his trousers and laid it on the table in front of them. ‘On my very first morning I went to the hotel and saw Otto Luger. The man denied ever writing it to me or knowing who I was. I showed Luger the note and he nearly choked on his fat cigar. He had me thrown from the building and told never to return.’ Charity banged the table with his fist. ‘You, my friends, have done work for me and now together it will be completed. Luger is dead and an impostor is in his place. As an officer of the Crown I will have the murderer and you shall have your friend, and Mariah – Mariah will have that which is rightfully his.’
Sacha chuntered to herself, knowing there could be no other way. It would be futile to argue with Jack Charity.
‘What do you mean?’ Mariah asked, but his question was ignored completely by Charity.
‘Smutch!’ Charity shouted as loud as his lungs would bellow. ‘Smutch, come hither – I have a plan of merit of which you will play your part.’
There was a stomping against the wooden boards as from below came the hobbling sound of the old man. His peg leg tapped against the floor like a stick on tight drumskin as he slowly climbed the stairs. The man sang to himself in a voice that sounded like a groaning pig. With one hand he clutched the thick leather strap around his waist as if it held his innards together, and with the other he pulled on his wiry beard.
‘Captain?’ he asked as he turned the landing and looked about the gallery in search of Charity.
‘Going hunting, Smutch. You and this young Sacha have the task of keeping watch.’
‘Keeping watch?’ Sacha remonstrated in the voice of a fishwife. ‘You’ll take Mariah and leave me behind? Why do I have to keep watch with some old codger?’
‘Only for this part of the game, my dear,’ Charity said quietly as he leant towards her as if to take her into his confidence. ‘Come tonight and we all shall have our tasks as we storm the Prince Regent.’
‘Storm? Prince Regent?’ muttered Smutch, unaware of the world around him. In his head the cannon of Napoleon rattled his distant thoughts, clouding his eyes to the night. ‘Sea looks fair to me, just a few white tops and nothing more,’ he muttered as he sat down at the long table and looked at Charity.
‘I want you to keep watch on the sewer. Mariah and I will take Cuba and see what we can find. Should be less than an hour. Stay here until we return and then we shall take on Otto Luger – or whoever he may be.’
Sacha attempted a faint smile as Smutch snuggled into the window seat and stared out to the quayside. He twitched with every breath he took, the long hairs of his brow trembling like a wind-blown hedge. ‘Keeping watch,’ he said to Sacha as Charity and Mariah slipped from the room, taking the crocogon on its long leash.
Within the minute they heard the door slam behind them. Mariah looked up to the bay window and smiled at Sacha. Smutch waved a white handkerchief and then mopped his brow as he nodded his head back and forth in time to the marching music that danced his wits.
‘Frightened?’ Charity asked as they walked down the slipway and along a wet causeway clogged with bladderwrack.
‘Should I be?’ Mariah replied as Cuba dived from her leash and into the slowly filling harbour.
Charity looked each way then stepped closer to him. ‘There was once a drummer boy like you. The master of the castle found a hidden tunnel. On the inside of a door
that had not been opened for two hundred years was a writ. It told of a curse that would be on anyone who entered in. Not wanting to suffer the curse for themselves, they sent in the drummer boy. The master told him to bang the beat every yard he walked until he discovered where the passage led. A whole brigade waited above ground. They listened to the bang, bang, bang coming from far below. Suddenly there was a brief cry and the drumming stopped. The boy was never seen again. When they summoned the courage to follow on, they discovered the tunnel from the castle went under the Three Mariners and came out in the sewer. They never found the boy. He was a brave lad, just like you. Ever thought this may end the same way?’
‘I’ve nothing to lose, Captain. Anyway, we’ve got Cuba, surely nothing will harm her?’ Mariah said, gleaning a sense of threat from Charity’s voice.
‘And I have this,’ he replied as he brushed his cape to one side and pulled a three-bladed knife from his belt. ‘Cuts with every side and slices through any meat.’
A sudden chill blew through Mariah’s coat. It slithered down his back and stood the hairs on his neck. This was the third knife he had seen with a triple blade.
‘Why does it have three blades?’ he asked. ‘I have seen the likes of that before, the Kraken has one just the same and –’
‘So he should, so he should,’ Charity said as he walked along the causeway that was slowly being overwhelmed by a rising tide. ‘A triple blade for a triple death. Not only kills the body but the soul and spirit, a blade for each, and will keep even the most fearful ghoul in its tomb for eternity.’
‘That’s how they killed the real Otto Luger. The body in the foundations had the mark of that knife upon it.’
