The Great Phoenix of London by Lindsay Galvin

Author:Lindsay Galvin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicken House

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I couldn’t think what my education had to do with our predicament, as it hadn’t helped me so far. But I found myself answering the little scholar, as we huddled together in the gloom of the best cell in Poultry Compter debtors’ gaol.

‘I am at a grammar school, my family are in trade, but my father insisted I have an education. I have been learning Latin for three years and have a fair hand.’

‘What about your Greek, gliko?’

‘I will begin that next year,’ I said, thinking of Master Hartwell at our table with a pang. If he were to arrive to collect me now, I wouldn’t complain.

I wondered how my language skills could possibly help us.

‘No matter. I have Greek enough for us both,’ said Papouli. ‘The poet Hesiod wrote of the wise centaur Chiron—’

My interest was piqued. ‘My father told me some of the myths,’ I said, unable to keep the enthusiasm from my hushed voice. ‘Chiron was half horse and looked after the hero Achilles when he was a child, because he had to be hidden. And then he taught him about … medicine?’

I trailed off, unable to remember more. It wasn’t my favourite of the Greek myth stories; usually I had made my father repeat the trials of Heracles over and over.

Papouli whispered a verse, glancing around the cell to check we weren’t being overheard. A minor disagreement had broken out at the central table where a card game was in full flow.

The old man spoke in what I recognized as Greek.

When I wrinkled my brow he translated.

‘A stag’s life is four time a crow’s, and a raven’s life makes three stags old, while the phoenix outlives nine ravens.’

I waited for more. It didn’t make any sense. There was no way my bird could be a crow, or a raven; even nine squashed together into one might not be big enough.

Then my brain caught on phoenix.

I flicked my chin up to meet the old man’s eyes, very black and very bright, framed with sprays of wrinkled leathery skin. His voice was so low I had to crane forward to hear it.

‘According to myth, the phoenix may originate from Egypt, Persia or Arabia. Living up to five hundred years, when it dies, a new bird rises from its ashes,’ he said, ‘so in truth, it never dies at all.’

I shook my head. ‘But everything dies. That’s a myth, like Pegasus the flying horse, or the Minotaur with the bull’s head—’

‘Very good, gliko. But myths are always rooted in reality.’

I sighed, beginning to think the old man was talking in riddles. I offered my arm to the bird and then transferred him to my knee. Deep-red feathers and gold-flecked eyes. The way he gulped at the fire drops and lunged at sparks, ate wax and tar and grew, and then grew some more.

But a phoenix? What did that mean for him, and for me?

‘Well, there were no ashes; he hatched like any other bird,’ I said.

The old man raised his eyebrows.

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