I, Coriander (21 page)

When everyone had gone to bed I dressed once more in the clothes of a young lad and wrapped up my silver shoes and put them away inside my doublet. I was taking them with me in the hope that somehow they would allow me back into my mother’s kingdom.

Finally, when the watchman called in midnight, I went softly down the stairs. All was quiet, all heavy with that yeasty smell of sleep. I looked round the shop once more before letting myself out, and thought that this would still be here after I was gone, and it made me feel braver to think of it.

I was glad of the moon for my house lay in utter darkness. No lantern was lit outside. The sign of the mulberry tree that once had swung proud over the gate was now faded, the paint peeling.

I wrapped my cloak around me and looked up and down the street to make sure that no one was around. There is a way of opening the garden gate without a key. I had watched Danes do it many times and when I was small would try it myself, though then I did not have the strength needed. Tonight it was easy. I slipped my index finger into the lock and, pulling back the catch, opened the gate. In the moonlight the garden looked dry and tired, withered from lack of water and care.

All was deadly still as I made my way into the house. The hall, as on my last visit, was unlit. In the gloom I could make out a higgledy-piggledy tower of tables and chairs, piled up against the door that led to the water gate. I wondered if this strange maypole was intended to keep out the alligator, for I could see no other reason for it. Then I felt a small pudgy hand grab me from behind.

‘I got her, Arise,’ Maud shouted up the stairs. ‘She’s dressed as a boy, but I smelt her out.’ There was no answer. ‘Arise!’ she shrieked. ‘Do you hear me? She’s come, just as you said she would.’

I pulled my arm free.

‘Not so fast,’ she said. ‘You shall not get away this time.’

She looked quite wild, her eyes opened wide. She wore no cap. Instead, her long thin hair hung down in greasy rat’s tails so that patches of her bald skull could be seen. Her breath smelled of rancid butter and her clothes looked unwashed.

Suddenly a light shone from the top of the stairs and there stood Arise holding a lantern, the light of which was reflected in his insect green glasses.

‘Ann,’ he said, ‘you have come back to us.’

Just for one moment I felt my old fear of him, but I took all my courage and said, ‘Ann? That is not my name and you know it.’

‘How dare you talk so to a man of God!’ said Maud, striking out at me. I saw her doing it and nearly let myself be a child again. Then I heard a voice in my head say calmly, ‘You are taller than she, you are a grown woman. You can stop this.’

I pushed her hard away and said, ‘You touch me, Maud Jarret, and you will much regret it.’ My voice sounded strong, stronger than I felt.

To my surprise she backed away.

‘Arise,’ she said, ‘kill her so that at least we have something to show -’

‘Quiet, woman,’ said Arise, walking down the stairs towards me. I stood as tall as I could. I would rather die, I thought, than flinch from this crooked man. He came near, smelling much of drink, and I comforted myself by thinking he was not as tall as I remembered. ‘What have you come for?’ he asked.

‘The same thing you seek,’ I replied.

‘And what might that be?’ he said mockingly.

‘Fairy silver,’ I replied.

‘Do not listen to her,’ said Maud. ‘She is the Devil, trying to trick us.’

‘No I am not,’ I said, and I said it clear. I said it for Hester, for Joan and for Danes. I said it for my father and I said it for me, Coriander.

‘It is you who have been listening to the Devil’s words. It is you who have murdered and deceived in the name of your own greed.’

Arise laughed, a hollow unpleasant laugh, and lifted his hand.

I stood firm. I said, ‘You are the only devil here.’

At that moment the pile of furniture gave a lurch and fell crashing to the floor. The river door swung open. Arise’s hand dropped to his side and he took several steps back towards the stairs and held on to the banister. For out of the muddle of tables and chairs came the snout of a monstrous large alligator. I stayed where I was as Maud rushed to Arise and clung to him, begging him to do something.

He brought his hand of wrath hard down on her. Still she would not let go.

‘Save me!’ she screamed, but the hand of salvation still held tight to the lantern that swung back and forth, light and dark across their terrified faces.

I looked at them both standing there and felt such loathing. I knew that I had nothing to fear from the alligator. He came into the hall and stopped by my side as if he had been looking for me.

‘Go on then,’ shouted Arise. ‘Kill her, kill her like you did Tarbett Purman.’

The alligator slowly turned his head towards me. I knew what he was thinking and I nodded. The beast moved with great speed towards the stairs.

Maud pushed Arise down in her haste to get past him and safely out of reach on the first landing.

‘No!’ shouted Arise. ‘The girl!’ He pointed a long-nailed finger in my direction. The alligator advanced towards him. I followed.

The alligator took hold of his ankle.

Arise let out a terrifying scream and tried hard to pull his leg away. ‘Come here and help me!’ he shouted up the stairs.

The alligator let go. Arise’s stockings were soaked with blood. He hobbled up the stairs and, pushing past Maud, made for my father’s old bedchamber, where he fumbled desperately for his ring of keys. Maud lurched after him, but Arise closed the door in her face and locked it.

‘Let me in!’ shouted Maud, banging her fists on the door.

‘No, woman,’ said Arise. ‘I care not what happens to you.’

Maud turned to me and whimpered, ‘Rosmore will be here any moment and that will be the end of both of you.’

The alligator slithered towards her. Maud stood frozen on the landing.

It only took one knock from the alligator’s scaly claws for the door to give way. The bedchamber was empty save for the lantern. Arise had climbed up on to the windowsill, his hand of wrath out before him, the hand of salvation holding on to the window latch.

‘Stay away from me, you fairy child. Stay away!’

‘What is my name?’ I said.

‘Ann,’ he said.

The alligator opened his jaw. His teeth glimmered in the moonlight, sharp as knives.

‘What is my name?’ I said again.

‘Coriander,’ screamed Arise, letting the ring of keys fall to the floor. He pushed back hard against the fretted glass that cracked under his weight. With a splintering sound the window gave way and the preacher fell into the river below.

I ran to the window and looked down. There was nothing to see in the dark river water. I hoped with all my heart that that was the last of the preacher.

I picked up the lantern and the keys, following the alligator back down the stairs towards the study. I unlocked the door. The room was completely bare like the bedchamber above it.

The alligator stood in front of the ebony cabinet and once more opened his enormous jaws. I looked at those sharp teeth, that creamy mouth, and I remembered well the time when I had put my hand inside to get the key to open the cabinet so that I could wear a pair of silver shoes.

I knew what I had to do. I knelt down and as the lantern light flickered then waned, I felt the sharp wind of the raven’s wings as it flew into the room, followed by Rosmore. I stood up. The alligator shut his mouth tight.

‘Well, Coriander, we meet again.’ She was dressed in a long dusty cloak that looked as if it was made of spiders’ webs. Her face was cruel and sharp. Cronus landed on her outstretched arm.

‘Well, my beauty, what have we here?’

‘A princess, no less,’ the raven answered.

‘Who does this princess resemble?’ she asked.

‘Why,’ said the raven, ‘Princess Eleanor, your stepdaughter.’

‘Oh clever bird,’ she whispered. ‘And tell me, what thought I of Princess Eleanor?’

‘That she disobeyed you to run away with a mere human.’

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘it saddens me to remember it. But now the wrong she did can be put right through the daughter. Come, girl, give me what is mine.’

While she was speaking, half to the raven, half to me, I had been watching a figure behind her. Like some giant rat emerging from the door that led to the river came the wet and watery figure of Arise, his green glasses gone, his pale eyes the colour of fish scales.

The raven let out a loud squawk as Rosmore spun round. Arise fell to his knees as green light flashed from her hands.

‘You failed to keep your promise,’ said Rosmore. ‘Avarice and greed overcame you.’

‘I was not to know that being in the chest would not kill her.’

‘You fool!’ she laughed. ‘You displeased me at your peril. You thought that you were clever enough to outwit a Fairy Queen. I warned you not to meddle in things you did not understand.’

Another flash of green light snaked across towards him, lifting him off his feet to spin round and round in the air, river water dripping from his black shiny coat.

Maud tried to slip away and creep up the stairs to the attic. Seeing her Rosmore laughed again.

‘No, please,’ whimpered Maud, ‘not me.’

It was then that the alligator opened his mouth to smile. I knelt down and quickly pulled through his teeth the silver gossamer of my mother’s shadow.

‘Good girl,’ said Rosmore, seeing what I held in my hands.

‘Let him down,’ pleaded Maud, coming closer to Rosmore and pulling at her spidery cloak. ‘We do not deserve this. Let him down and we will both be gone.’

‘Quiet,’ commanded Rosmore. ‘I am not to be played with. I told you what would happen if you disobeyed me.’

‘All I wish is that you do not break his bones,’ said Maud again.

‘Another wish! Oh, what a pleasure! Have I not told you to be careful what you wish for?’ Rosmore laughed again. ‘It might just happen. You want the crooked man’s bones unbroken? You may have them.’

‘No,’ shouted Arise. ‘She does not wish it.’

Green light danced from Rosmore’s hand, looping and coiling, up to where Arise hung suspended. His hands grabbed the rope of light and then he fell as if he were in the hangman’s noose at Tyburn, his body twitching and twisting in space. At last he was still.

I knew that Arise Fell was truly dead.

Maud screamed and screamed.

‘Silence, you babbling jade,’ shouted Rosmore, ‘silence, unless you want to join him.’

Maud stood looking at the pile of bones on the floor and stuffed her chubby hands in her mouth.

Rosmore turned to me and whispered to Cronus, ‘Tell her, my beauty, tell her to give it to me. Tell her.’

I looked at the shadow in my hands and watched as the silver sank into my skin and disappeared. I saw the raven slowly flap his broad wings and I saw a tiny stuffed alligator sitting on the floor.

I said, though my voice seemed to come from far away, ‘This is my mother’s shadow. It belongs to me.’

The room began to fade, Rosmore becoming a thin veil. Her voice was all I could hear. She hissed, ‘I will kill you. There will be no escaping.’

Her words trailed away and then she was gone. I felt as a bird in flight must do when looking at a city from a great height, as first the house on Thames Street and then London itself disappeared and I knew where I was.

A
nd so the fifth part of my tale is told, and with it another candle goes out.

PART SIX