The Curse of Salamander Street by G.P. Taylor

thick and crumbling plaster was engrained with dirt and the taint of wood smoke. Nailed into the broad oak panel was a lion’s head that had once heralded the call of visitors but now its jaws were rusted shut.
    ‘This must be the place,’ Crane said as he rapped his fingers against the wood and pulled at a flake of paint. ‘Wonder if Gimcrack Pallium is here?’ There was unexpected warmth in Crane’s voice. His eyes glinted, suggesting he had shared much with Pallium and remembered him as an old friend. ‘The most generous man in the kingdom – he came here but a year ago and never a nicer man you would want to meet. If it is within Pallium’s power he will get it and if it’s in his benefit he will give it to you. But beware – he is the fattest and most gluttonous man in the kingdom. My own age but the size of a whale. Eats like several horses and will pinch the food from your plate.’
    Crane banged on the door again as he leant against the wall and looked back and forth along the empty street.
    ‘No people,’ Kate said as she followed his eyes. ‘Strange for the time of day, it’s morning and every house looks as if they still sleep.’
    There was no reply to Crane’s banging. He rapped again upon the door and, taking the dagger from his belt, punched the panel once more. ‘PALLIUM! PALLIUM!’ Crane shouted.
    From the dark bowels of the house came the babbling of what sounded like a madman.
    ‘Who wants me?’ asked the croaking voice from within. ‘No one has called on me before at this hour, it’s the middle of the night and I am one for sleep.’
    ‘Pallium?’ Crane asked, scarcely believing the frailness of his friend’s voice. ‘Is that you?’
    ‘Who should want to know such a thing?’ came the reply. A small wooden slat was slid open and two feeble silver eyes stared out into the gloom. ‘Crane – Jacob Crane? He said you’d be coming. All’s made ready, all ready. What an amazing thing …’
    Feebly, the bolts were pulled and the door slowly opened. A frail hand came from within and was held out towards Crane in greeting. Thomas could see that the fingers were covered in sores, and long, uncut nails curled about them.
    ‘Pallium,’ said Crane softly in greeting to his friend, looking at his shrivelled body that wore the clothes of a man thrice its size. ‘You have changed, my friend. I was telling my companions …’
    ‘Changed?’ argued the voice as he snapped back his hand. ‘I am as I have always have been. Never in finer health and a more robust creature in London will you never find. I didn’t expect such an argument in the middle of the night.’
    ‘We seek rest and not discontent, Pallium. My friends and I are in need of a bed. I am without a ship and I do not wish to be without a friend. This is Kate and Thomas, we have travelled from Whitby.’ Crane smiled as he spoke, hoping to calm his friend.
    Pallium rolled a worn gold coin in his hand as he looked at Thomas and Kate and gave them a slight grin. His mouth was filled with jagged teeth that appeared from the darkness like sharp rocks in a night storm. The man rubbed his chin as he surveyed them both warily.
    ‘ Suppose we could find you a straw mattress … somewhere. Things are not as easy as they once were Jacob, money doesn’t grow on trees and I am sure someone has been helping themselvesto mine. You never know when you will need all you have. Always death and always taxes, nothing so certain as those two creatures.’
    ‘Since when has concern for the future been a thought for Gimcrack Pallium?’ Crane asked as he looked about the cobwebbed hallway with its rotting drapes and tattered rugs. ‘The man I once knew wouldn’t give a thought for the morrow. Weren’t you the one who would tell me never to worry for the morrow, as this day has enough troubles of its own?’
    ‘That was then,’ snapped Pallium, pulling his baggy coat about himself as if it were a blanket. ‘A year ago I would have agreed,