Mariah Mundi (25 page)

The bird looked like a pure white swan with an eagle’s wings and the claws of some great auk. It shimmered in the firelight as it cropped and gawked, then opened its golden eyes. Staring at Mariah it slowly edged to the door of the cage and stuck out its long neck. The feathers shimmered bright white and in an instant turned to silver as if they were liquid mercury. It looked at the Kraken, then turned its face away and glared at the roof of the vault. With one wingbeat it took flight, flying round and round above their heads, cawing and hooping. It then landed between the Kraken and the fire, shuddering every feather. It stared at the creature as it shook its great silver wings. The Kraken looked back, the skin peeling from his face, his hands blistering and breaking open as his fingernails fell to the floor.

‘Caladrius,’ the Kraken said as new skin covered his old bones and hair sprouted upon his head.

‘He’s healed,’ Mariah said quietly. He watched the silver wings of the Caladrius begin to tarnish and age as feather after feather dropped from the bird, piling about its feet. ‘The bird’s dying.’

‘It’s dead,’ Sacha said as the Caladrius dropped to the floor by the fire.

‘Not death …’ the Kraken mumbled. ‘It brings life.’

‘You can speak,’ Mariah said as he stood back from the beast.

‘And laugh and eat and do many things now that new life has come to me.’ The Kraken smiled at them. ‘Am I sad and old?’ he asked Sacha.

She looked to the floor shame-faced and then turned to Mariah.

‘Sacha never meant it,’ he said as he stepped to the Kraken. ‘They say you’re a murderer, that you steal children and leave money behind.’

‘I look for Scratty. I killed no one. I have seen who does these things, always at night, always with a three-bladed knife. I am a Kraken and the one you seek is like you. He carries a cane with a silver tip.’ The Kraken got to his feet, opening his webbed hands and gazing on the covering of fresh skin. ‘The Caladrius was on a ship. I saved it from the sea and kept it for her, to bring Scratty to life. Now I can’t find her.’ The Kraken picked the bird from the floor and placed it in the bottom of the silver cage.

‘We’ve seen her, we know where she is. She’s in the Prince Regent,’ Sacha said, trying to smile at him. ‘Bizmillah uses her in his act – he’s a magician.’

‘And a woman with him?’ the Kraken asked. ‘Tall, thin, elegant, with a painted face?’

‘Monica!’ Mariah blurted out.

‘Monecka Carpova. More than a magician – a sorcerer – a temple master – a witch of the ocean. It was she who took Scratty from me, turned her from flesh to wood and gave her the face of a puppet.’

‘Then we will find her for you and bring her back,’ Sacha said as she held out her hand. Then she hesitated. ‘We’ve a slight problem … We can’t go back yet as we are being pursued by a man who can see through the ground and follow us even though we are in the sewer.’

‘We need to find a man called Captain Charity. The night
you followed us I saw you in the mirror of his restaurant by the quayside. We have to find that man,’ Mariah insisted.

‘I am from the sea. I cannot go in the light of day. Look how I was before – the sun melted my flesh as if it were wax. I looked for Scratty at sunrise and it took my skin from me.’ The Kraken thought for a moment, his eyes looking around the room. ‘I remember the place. There is another way, a dark way.’

T
HEY waited out the hour. The Caladrius lay in the cage, its long limp neck wrapped around its body. The Kraken had left the pile of discarded feathers by the fire. As they talked of his life, he picked them one by one and dropped them into the flames that were surrounded by a neat frame of rocks. Each time a silver feather touched the blaze, it sparkled and glowed. The deep black that had sullied it upon the healing of the Kraken was banished and it burnt pure and white.

Mariah was eager to hear the stories of where the creature had come from. The Kraken spoke with tears and laughter; then he looked at his hands, got to his feet, crossed the vault and stared at himself in a looking-glass that hung lopsided from the wall.

‘Am I not beautiful?’ he asked, half laughing. ‘If I was born this way then it could be understood. Strange what life does to you.’

‘You speak as if you have not always been like that?’ Sacha asked.

‘If you but knew of what I have endured,’ the Kraken said as he brushed his long coat with his hand. ‘If you but knew …’

‘And this place,’ she said as she looked at the finery that decked the room. ‘Do you wreck the ships from which you steal?’

‘I salvage what I can, but the wrecking I leave to wind and storm and the deceitful hearts of men with their false lamps strung from cliff tops.’

‘Who would wreck a ship?’ Mariah asked.

‘You’d be surprised what man would do if there was a shekel to be made. Isn’t that so, Sacha?’ the Kraken asked.

She shrugged her shoulders and looked to the ground, not wanting to make reply.

‘What does he mean?’ Mariah asked her.

‘Expect he’s been skulking and listening to conversations he shouldn’t,’ Sacha replied.

‘I came here to search for someone,’ the Kraken said. ‘Listening to drunkards plotting was not of my making. I am glad my life is in the sea – there is too much death in this harbour.’

‘How many people have been murdered, Sacha?’ Mariah asked

‘Eleven, could be twelve … they said it was the Kraken. Started when he turned up. He was seen running away and into the sea.’

‘I saw the one who did it. I would recognise him again,’ he protested. ‘But would you stay, looking like me, as twenty men with burning torches and swords come a-chasing you?’ he asked. Sacha was silent. ‘Very well … I have lived in this place to find her and then we will go back.’

‘So why do they think you’re the murderer?’ Mariah asked again.

‘Blame that which is different – the outsider, the ghoul. It is easier for them to look for me than believe it could be one of their own,’ he replied quietly.

‘And
what
are you?’ Sacha asked as she looked him up and down through narrow, screwed-up eyes.

‘I am whatever you want me to be. A phantom, a vampire, a ghost seen with the corner of your eye, a sea monster. Take your choice and make stories of it. Isn’t that what they all do? I am a Kraken and that is all I know.’ The creature stopped and looked at the flames. Sacha saw the reflection of the fire burn in his eyes. ‘There was something far away, a thought, a dream that often comes to me and then it’s gone. It is as if I should remember but cannot. Perhaps if I could recall what it was I would know more.’ The Kraken looked at Mariah. ‘When did you find Scratty?’ he asked.

‘She found us. Turned up in my room at the top of the hotel. It was as if she just appeared from nowhere – she left a key.’

‘Then there is still life left in her,’ he said as he stood up and paced the room. Then he looked up to the ceiling of the vault and bid them all to be silent. ‘This is the time, they are nearby,’ he said. He took the Caladrius from the cage and folded it under his arm, its dangling head hanging by his side, and without saying another word he set off from the vault.

Sacha picked up the lamp and followed. Mariah plucked a tall candle from the stand and shielded it from the draught as they snaked through the tunnel back to the entrance and across the plank. The Kraken went on ahead in the pitch blackness; each time he turned his eyes blazed as if they were fire. He turned sideways and slipped through a small entrance that they had not noticed as they fled the Emporium. He waited for them on the other side, pulling Mariah through the narrow brick-built slit.

‘Your
friends
wait for you at the harbour mouth. They make enough noise to wake the dead. Soon there will be just a foot of water and they will come looking for you. This way they will never find you.’

‘They can see where we’ve been,’ Mariah said. ‘It’s as if we leave our footprints in bold ink across the land.’

‘Even if they can see you, they will never come this way, not unless they cut off their stomachs and fat rumps. When I have seen you to the one you seek I will come back and wait for them.’ The Kraken grinned, his long green tongue falling from his mouth as it rolled over his sharp fish-like teeth.

For a quarter of an hour they walked through a maze of passages, each one growing narrower. Finally they reached a long metal ladder that was loosely cemented into the intricate brickwork that spiralled to the surface. The Kraken carried the Caladrius, pushing it into his jacket. He climbed quickly. Sacha left the lamp behind and followed on. Soon they sat beneath a grating in the surface of the street, the sound of seagulls cawing above.

‘This will take you to your friend. It is near where I first met you,’ the Kraken said to Mariah, and he took a golden coin from his pocket and gave it to him. ‘Take this, give it to the man. I have been stealing his fish and this should cover all that I have taken. Now go. Push upon the plate and it will give way.’

‘What about Old Scratty?’ Sacha asked as the Kraken slipped down the ladder.

‘I will go for her tonight and then we shall be gone. When the Caladrius sees the moon it will live and Scratty will be well.’

‘Then will we see you again?’ Mariah asked.

‘You would want to be in the presence of a sea monster again?’

‘Only if they were like you,’ he said as he smiled at the creature that slipped away into the darkness of the tunnels.

They sat together in the narrow shaft of light that slipped through the grate above their heads. ‘You stink,’ Mariah said to Sacha as he pretended to retch at the smell.

‘And you’re no rose. Bizmillah will want to know where you’ve been in those shoes,’ Sacha replied as she looked at his muddied feet.

‘I’m not going back to work for him. It’s over for me, Sacha. When we’ve set Felix free I’m going back to London.’

‘And leave me here?’ she asked.

‘You’ll not be alone for long. There’ll be some fool to take over this friendship.’

‘That’s what Felix said and look what happened to me … You turned up on a stormy night and stood the world on its head.’

Mariah pushed on the metal grate above him. It slipped easily from its mounting and he peered out into the alleyway. All he could see was the white-painted wall of the Golden Kipper and the shiny black door with its brass knocking plate. To the right was a small ice-house cut into the stone with two bent hooks hanging from a piece of flax.

‘Come,’ he said as he pushed himself from the sewer flap, stood on his feet and then pulled Sacha from the hole. He looked about him, stepped a pace back and knocked briskly against the door.

Sacha slid the metal grate back into place and jumped towards him as the door was opened a slat and a large eye peered out at them.

‘Yes?’ came the weary voice.

‘Come to see Captain Charity,’ Mariah said, as the eye looked him up and down.

‘Not here,’ the voice replied, irritated that it should be disturbed at such a time in the day.

‘But he must be,’ Mariah insisted, feeling a growing sense of unease.

‘Gone away – business – left me in charge and even though I have only one leg I still know what to do. You’re not the physic, are you?’ the voice asked, the tension growing in its throat and rasping like an old branch. ‘I may be eighty but I know today is Wednesday and Napoleon is the King of France.’

‘It’s not Wednesday and Napoleon’s dead,’ Sacha interrupted as a clatter of feet came from far away down the alley.

‘Died? Napoleon? What will the Duke do now?’ he asked as if his world had come to and end. ‘You
are
the physic, aren’t you? Come to take me to Saint Mary’s workhouse? Well, I’ll tell thee this for now’t – I’m not going.’ The door was slammed, leaving Mariah to listen to several bolts being slid quickly across the entrance.

Mariah stood with Sacha at the front of the alley that led to the quayside. Far away he could see Grimm and Grendel standing by the mouth of the sewer and waiting for the tide to subside. Grimm fiddled impatiently with his divining spectacles as Grendel looked about him, nervous of the cawing gulls that swooped above his head.

‘This way,’ Mariah said, and he turned to the half-glass door of the salon. It opened to his turn of the handle. ‘He has to be here, he said he’d be in.’

The Golden Kipper was empty. All the tables were neatly dressed in white covers and silver cutlery. The wooden floor had been freshly swept and the steps to the upper tables and kitchen had been freshly waxed. Mariah could hear a fumbling of the lock at the back door. Taking Sacha by the hand he sneaked through the long corridor and watched as a small man with one leg, a bushy white beard and curly hair slid a bolt back and forth.

‘Open or closed, open or closed?’ he asked himself as he tried to understand what he was doing and where he was. ‘Can never remember how new-fangled things work out …’

‘Captain Charity, where is he?’ Mariah asked as he startled the man from his dreaming.

The old man jumped back, his wooden leg slipping on the waxed boards as he fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. ‘Who wants him?’ he asked as he gurgled in his own spit.

‘Mariah Mundi – an old friend,’ Mariah replied, holding out his hand to pick the man from the floor.

‘Old friend? Codswallop, never heard such rubbish in all my life. Captain’s friends are all young – he doesn’t have any old friends – except me and I’m not that old …’ The man appeared to mutter his words into his beard as his deep blue eyes, set in the finest whites ever seen, glared about him. They flickered quickly from one side to the other, spying the room as if he looked upon the place for the first time. ‘Monday, did you say?’

‘Mariah Mundi,’ Sacha chipped in.

‘He mentioned something was happening on Monday – but never said what it was.’ The old man went back to sliding the brass bolt in and out of its keeper as if they weren’t there. His wooden stump scraped against the floor. It was carved with several small mice that appeared to run back and forth, their long tails entwined in sprigs of holly etched in the stump.

‘We’ll be going,’ Mariah said as he left the old man in his slobbering. ‘But first, you don’t mind if we take a seat for some food?’

‘Take what you want. I’ve counted the cutlery so no pinching the spoons … It’s always the spoons, they never take anything else.’

‘Cuba about?’ Mariah asked.

‘That’s it, that’s it – he’s taken that beast for a walk. Bit my leg clean off it did. Couldn’t walk for a week, had to sit and carve a new one. Fancy keeping such a thing as a pet, and it’s me who gets to look after it when he goes jaunting about the world fighting for Queen and country.’ He spoke as if he was almost in his right mind, his eyes fixed on Mariah. ‘Go on then, up you go, better get seated before the rush.’

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.