No, it was ridiculous. No one so foul-mouthed could possibly be counted righteous.
His stomach growled, reminding him that he had had nothing to eat since breakfast. The conversation at the tavern had been intriguing enough that he had not thought to order a meal for himself. He forced his thoughts away from the alchemists and hurried home, hoping that Jane would have something set out for the midday meal. Poor Jane, he thought, putting up with his comings and goings at odd hours. If anyone was good, and kind, and righteous …
His hunger returned, sharper this time. He thought of the supper Al Salah had promised Magdalena, and he could not help but wish that he had been invited.
THE NEXT DAY KELLEY KNOCKED ON THE DOOR AS DEE AND his family were eating breakfast. “I thought I’d show you my new house,” he said.
“Certainly,” Dee said. He finished eating and followed Kelley. As he went he saw Jane beam with pleasure, thinking, no doubt, that Kelley would now be gone forever.
They went south a long ways. Dee had learned that the section he lived in was called the Old Town and that to the south lay the New Town, new because it had only been built two centuries ago. He had never visited it, though, and now, as he followed Kelley, he saw that the streets were cleaner and broader and that more care had been taken in laying out the squares and boulevards.
He looked longingly at one of the squares, a pleasant green spot with benches and fountains and paths marked out with rose borders. He would have liked to pause, to rest a while, but Kelley hurried on.
They passed a number of shops: a glassblower’s, a tanner’s, a tavern. Each had a door of a different color: butter yellow, grass green, crow black. Suddenly Kelley stopped and peered in a window. “One minute,” he said. He opened a brick red door and went inside, and Dee followed.
He found himself in a dim dusty room; what little light there was came through small leaded glass windows and a few squat candles. As his eyes adjusted to the light he saw that the room was very long and narrow, no more than six feet wide but extending back an unseen distance into the gloom.
Now he could make out clumps of herbs and roots hanging from the ceiling, and shelves along the wall holding bottles of different sizes and colors. A stuffed alligator stood on a pedestal. The room smelled of mold and chemicals, and of the leather hides from the tanner’s down the street.
“Good day, Master Kelley,” someone said.
A man walked toward them from the back of the shop. “Ah, Doctor Dee,” the man said. As he came into the light of one of the candles Dee saw with surprise that it was Mamugna.
“Do you know each other?” he asked Kelley. “Why didn’t you tell me when Rabbi Loew suggested I look for alchemists?”
Kelley said nothing. “I have that sulphur you wanted,” Mamugna said. He took a small red jar from one of the shelves and brought it over; Dee smelled its sharp foul odor. “Did you want anything else? What about you, Doctor Dee? Have you decided you need something after all?”
“No,” Dee said, trying to sort out his confusion. How long had the two men been acquainted? Why had Kelley mentioned Golden Lane; had that been an attempt to confuse Dee as to the whereabouts of the alchemists?
Kelley opened his purse and reached inside; Dee heard the heavy clink of coins. He paid Mamugna for the sulphur and they left the shop, Dee blinking in the sun.
A few minutes later they came to an enormous house, almost a palace. It had three good-sized stories with gabled windows, and on top of that a cupola almost tall enough to comprise a fourth. A giant arched door stood in the center. As they came closer Dee saw that it was made of oak and bound in iron; it looked too heavy for mere humans to open.
“This is—this is your house?” Dee said.
“Yes.”
Now Dee could see a smaller door set into the left-hand side of the larger one. Kelley took out an iron key and opened it, then led him through a marble foyer. They walked through chilly cavernous rooms, all unfurnished. Their steps rang against the floor and echoed back from the walls. Reliefs of gods and angels floated against the ceilings, gazing down on them indifferently.
“Are you cold?” Kelley asked.
Dee realized he was shivering. But he seemed to be shivering all the time now, trying to stay one step ahead of his fears. “No,” he said. “I’m fine.”
They climbed a marble staircase and headed down a long hallway. Finally they came to a room in which Kelley had set up his alchemical equipment. All his retorts and alembics and athenors barely filled one of the corners; they seemed to huddle together against the empty space around them. Two alabaster women stood on either side of a cavernous fireplace, their heads holding up the mantelpiece.
“But how can you afford something like this?” Dee asked.
“Do you know what the best thing about this house is?” Kelley said, placing his new purchase in with a clutter of other bottles. “There is a legend that says it once belonged to Doctor Faust. They say he was carried away by devils through a hole in the ceiling.”
Dee had heard the stories about Doctor Faust, of course; everyone had. Faust had made a pact with the devil in exchange for knowledge, and so had condemned himself to eternal damnation. “The best thing?” Dee said uneasily. “You would not consort with demons the way Faust did, would you?”
“I would not?”
“Master Kelley. Promise me you will not profane your gift, the gift God gave you. You can see angels, man. Promise me you will not use such a talent to speak to demons.”
“But what is the difference, exactly? How can I tell which ones are the good angels and which are evil?”
“Come, you know the answer to that. The ones we called up together were good angels—”
“Were they? Not at the end.”
“Yes, but you did not intend to summon that—that thing. It came uninvited.”
“Not true. It came when it was called, you know that.”
“What are you telling me? That you summoned it intentionally?”
“We summoned it. Remember? You were eager for knowledge, and I called up a spirit that could help us. The knowledge is what is important. It doesn’t matter how we get there, or which angels show us the way.”
The fear inside him uncoiled. The evil spirit felt very near, waiting. So far it had only come when Kelley had looked into the showstone, but what if the passage between worlds had grown easier, as the men in the tavern claimed? What if it could be called simply by Kelley’s blasphemy?
“I had nothing to do with it,” Dee said sharply. “It’s your fault that we had to run, your fault it stalks us now.”
“Is it?”
“I won’t listen to this,” Dee said. “Good day.”
Kelley’s laughter echoed behind him as he walked from the room. He left the vast empty building and headed back slowly to the Old Town, deep in thought.
Kelley had gone over to the evil angels. Dee was reluctant to think such a thing about his associate, but he could find no other way to account for the other man’s wild talk, his strange accusations. And how else had Kelley been able to afford such a palace?
He felt a deep melancholy at the thought. The two of them had worked side by side for so long, had made such thrilling discoveries together … . But Kelley was lost now, seduced away.
The day grew warmer as the sun climbed toward noon, and Dee sweated from his exertions. But he thought of Kelley alone in his large chilly house, and he shivered.
AND THEN IT WAS TUESDAY AGAIN. THE DAY RABBI LOEW HAD no pupils. Dee made his way through the Jewish Quarter easily; he was coming to know the streets and alleyways and shops and houses.
Loew led him back to his study and motioned him to a chair. “You did not bring your friend this time,” he said, sitting behind his desk. He steepled his hands in front of him, as if he were praying, and gazed levelly at Dee.
“No.”
“Who is he? What is he to you?”
“He was—he was my assistant.”
“
More than an assistant, surely.” Loew hesitated. “I do not wish to offend, but—but I think this man studies dark things. Unlawful things.”
“Yes, I’ve come to the same conclusion myself.”
“Good. I’m curious. How did you meet him?”
“A friend of mine introduced us. He showed me—Master Kelley showed me an ancient manuscript and two phials of powder, one red and one white. Well, red and white are the colors of the opposites of alchemy, are they not? Sun and moon, sulphur and mercury. I thought then that Kelley was a learned man, someone who could teach me a great deal.”
“Where did he get these things?”
“He dug them up in Glastonbury,” Dee said. Loew looked puzzled. “Where King Arthur is buried.”
Loew’s expression did not change. Dee heard for himself how extravagant this claim sounded when spoken so matter-of-factly. Somehow in Kelley’s presence these things were easier to believe; the scryer surrounded himself with an aura of mystery that was difficult to challenge. And then Dee remembered something else Kelley had told him: that he had once dug up a newly-buried corpse and made it speak prophecies. At the time Dee had thought that Kelley had renounced such necromantic practices, but apparently he had been wrong.
“Well,” Loew said. “Did you learn anything from the alchemists?”
Before he could answer Loew’s wife Pearl came into the room, carrying a tray with two cups. She set the cups in front of them; they were in the Bohemian style, with flowers etched on the glass. Dee had seen nothing like them before he had come to Prague.
He studied the liquid through the glass suspiciously. It was a dark brown; it looked like something Kelley would use for one of his experiments. “Drink,” Loew said. Pearl left, taking the tray with her.
He sipped cautiously. It was hot and strong and very bitter. “What is it?” he asked.
“Coffee.”
“What on earth’s that?”
Loew smiled. “The Turks drink it,” he said. “We get it from them.”
“They’ve never brought it to England,” Dee said. He was starting to feel more alert, as though he had moved into another, clearer realm. He took another sip.
“The Jews import it, mostly,” Loew said.
“Ah, that explains it, then. We have no Jews in England. One of our kings expelled them, I don’t remember which—”
“Edward the First. In 1290. But it is not true that there are no Jews, you know. There is a small community of Portuguese exiles who fled during the Inquisition, and there are some Italian court musicians. And Queen Elizabeth’s physician, Roderigo Lopez, is a Jew.”
Dee looked at him, surprised; he would not have thought Loew would take such interest in so distant a country.
“We need to know which countries are safe for us and which are not,” Loew said. “We have been forced to leave our homes with only a moment’s notice. With such a small population it appears that England is not safe, at least for now.” He took a sip of his coffee. “So,” he said. “What do you have to tell me?”
“I talked to some of the alchemists,” Dee said. “I’m afraid I did not learn much from them. They have only bits and scraps of knowledge—none of them truly understands alchemy or sorcery or can tell us anything about what is happening here.” He summarized the little he had learned at the tavern.
“I wrote to a friend in Moravia,” Loew said when he had finished. “I was the chief rabbi there, you know, before I moved to Prague to marry Pearl. He too sees signs of something about to happen. He mentioned a door between worlds, just as these men did. And he too thinks that the door is widening.”
“Judah!” Loew’s wife called. “Izak is here!”
“I’m sorry,” Loew said. “It’s important that I talk to him. Do you mind waiting?”
“No,” Dee said. “Not at all.”
Loew left the study. Something like five minutes passed, and then ten. Bells rang out in the city, calling out the hour. Dee became impatient; he stood and began to pace, studying the rows of books as he passed. He was pleased to see that he had not forgotten his Hebrew.
Suddenly he realized that he could hear voices from outside the room; they had been growing louder without his noticing. “And you’re glad, I suppose,” someone said; Dee thought it was Izak. “Glad I couldn’t find anyone else willing to marry us.”
“Not glad, no,” Loew said. “I would truly have liked to perform the ceremony. But God’s will—”
“God’s will,” the other voice said mockingly. “It is God’s will that I be prevented from marrying because of something that is not my fault, something I had nothing to do with. If anyone should be punished it should be my mother—her and that horrible peddler who’s probably my father. I heard he has a child in every town he visits.”
“We must try to find out what God intends for you. Since he does not intend for you to get married—”
“Then to hell with him.”
“What?”
“To hell with him. I shit on him. He’s not my God—no God of mine would be so cruel.”
“I understand how you must feel—”
“Do you? Do you really? How can you possibly? How many children do you have, seven? Imagine having none, imagine living out your days alone, with nothing and no one to comfort you. Imagine your name dying with you. Imagine dying alone. And all for a mistake your mother made years ago.”
“I hope you’ll come to see—”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll convert.”
“Convert?” Loew said. Dee thought he sounded genuinely shocked. “I beg you—please don’t do anything without speaking to me first.”
“I wonder what the Christians say about bastards marrying. Or the Moslems. You can have more than one wife if you’re a Moslem, I think. Maybe I’ll go to Constantinople.”
“Stay here. Please. It’s not as if you’re banned from the synagogue, or cannot be buried in the cemetery—”
“Why would I want to go to the synagogue? Or to the cemetery, for that matter? No, I’m leaving. Nothing you say can change my mind.”
“At least keep to the faith of your fathers—”
“My fathers!” Izak said scornfully. “What do I owe my fathers?”
“You’ll come to understand—”
“I doubt it,” Izak said. Dee heard the sound of a door slamming, and then Loew’s footsteps coming toward him.
“I’m sorry I kept you here for so long,” Loew said, taking a seat. “Where were we? Yes, my friend in Moravia—”
“Why is he so angry?” Dee asked.
“It’s none of your affair.”
“Perhaps I can help.”
“The only one who can help Izak is Izak himself. There’s nothing you can do.”
“How do you know that? At least tell me what’s wrong so I can judge for myself.”
“Very well.” Loew paused a moment and then said, “He wishes to marry.”
“Is the woman unsuitable in some way?”
“No. No, unfortunately she is not, or he might give up this dream of his. He cannot marry her because he is illegitimate.”
“He cannot—I don’t understand. Does she object to his parentage?”
“As far as I can judge these things she loves him very much. Fortunately, she has since been married off to another man, and she may forget him in time. He cannot have her because it is the law. Because the Torah tells us that bastards cannot marry.”
“But—do you mean to tell me he cannot marry anyone? That his life is ruined because of something his parents did, something that’s not his fault? It’s true that bastards are coarser than other people, not as civilized, but if the woman here is willing—”
“I knew you wouldn’t understand. We are sworn to God to keep his commandments—”
“I can’t believe you could be so cruel. My God, if I was that boy I would leave too. And to tell him to keep to the faith of his fathers! His father deserves nothing from him.”
“I couldn’t help but overhear. Your voices were raised.”
“That does not give you the right to lecture me about my religion. Especially in my own home.”
“I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do.”
“That is exactly what you are telling me.” Loew pushed away the remains of his coffee; it was cold now, and looked like mud. “It’s clear that we cannot work together. I feared it would end this way. We should each of us stick to our own people.”
Dee had nothing to say to that. He remembered Doctor Hageck’s advice; it had been nearly identical, and now he wondered if the other man had been right after all.
“Farewell, then,” Dee said, and left Loew’s house.
Halfway to the gate he saw the old woman, Magdalena, unmistakable even from a distance because of the layers of clothing she wore. And there was someone with her, someone who looked like … Izak?
It was Izak, he saw. How did they know each other? What in God’s name had the two of them found to talk about?
He took a different way, not wanting to talk to either of them. When he got to the gate he turned to look back on the close-packed city, the small leaning houses and tangled streets. I will never see Rabbi Loew again, he thought. A pity, in a way—he was obviously a man of great learning. Strange, though. A very odd people, the Jews.
5
DEE WAS GROWING SICK OF PRAGUE. HE HAD not succeeded in winning Rudolf’s patronage; Kelley had taken a dangerous, unlawful path; Loew had proved to be stubborn and irrational; and despite all his efforts the demon still stalked him. Although it was December he decided to go back to Poland to fetch his son Rowland and the nurse.
When he returned he continued to keep busy, as if work were a form of exorcism, holding the spirits at bay. His family had grown too large to impose on Doctor Hageck any longer, and with Jane due in a month or so it would become even larger. And Hageck, his face hard, had mentioned that someone had seen Dee go to the Jewish Quarter once again, and Dee, heartsick at all his failures, had not bothered to tell the other man he had visited the place for the last time.
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