Prophecy gb-2

by S. J. Parris

  The door at the top of the stairs is not locked. It opens on to a generously proportioned room with two casement windows that must overlook the front of the house, towards the river path. Now, against the black sky, they offer only a distorted reflection of my outline with the flickering candle flame. As I turn with it slowly, the room reveals itself as a jumble of objects in the frail light: a wooden truckle-bed, the sheets twisted and thrown back, as if Kelley had only moments ago leapt out of them; two chests, one locked, one spilling with clothes or linen; a table with a few stumps of candle; beside them, a pair of dice and a locket. Their shadows climb up and down the walls as the candle passes them.

  I push the door to behind me and fit my candle to one of the holders from the table; setting it on the floor beside me, I kneel by the closed trunk. Its lock is old and crusted with rust, and when I insert the tip of my little bone-handled knife, it takes only a few moments of easing and jiggling before the mechanism clicks open and I can prise up the lid. My pulse jumps as my fingers brush against paper; sheaves of letters, perhaps, and, further down, the calfskin cover of a book. I bring out a bundle of manuscript pages and examine them in the thin circle of light; what I see makes me gasp.

  Here are pages of notes and drawings in a rough hand: astrological and alchemical symbols and Cabbalistic codes; lists of names in a curious unknown language; geometrical designs that match the table of practice Dee uses in his seances, whose components he said were told to him by spirits via Kelley; there are star charts, and sketches of the images of the decans according to the descriptions given in the writings of Hermes; scraps of magic lore culled from books forbidden throughout Europe, and three recent illegally printed pamphlets, the kind from Paul’s churchyard, decrying the murder of Cecily Ashe as a sign of the end of days, complete with gruesome illustrations. Most disturbing of all, at the bottom I find a series of hand-drawn images, more explicit than those in the pamphlets. They depict a young woman with flowing hair, her arms flung wide and holding in one hand a book, in the other a key, her bodice torn and her breasts thrust out, with a dagger plunged into her heart, some showing the sign of Saturn marked on her chest, others the sign of Jupiter. These pictures vary in their particulars — in one, she is standing in what appears to be a raging river, in another, she is laid out naked on something that looks like an altar, but the ravaged expression on her face remains the same. I find my insides knotted by a peculiar nausea; there is an unmissable relish in these drawings, the expression of a young man’s violent fantasy. You sense that the artist has taken pleasure in illustrating not only the woman’s naked body but her suffering — and Kelley, though his writing is uncultured, is not without talent when it comes to drawing; the pictures are vivid. Assuming that these are his own work, the drafts that would enable him to pronounce his visions to Dee in convincing detail.

  Slowly, I fold away the drawings of the young woman and tuck them inside my doublet. These look like nothing so much as preparatory sketches for the murder of Abigail Morley, and if they can be proved to be by Kelley’s hand, they may be enough to convict him, or certainly to bring him to trial. Even contemplating the possibility that Kelley could have acted out his lascivious fantasies on Abigail makes a fist of anger bunch beneath my ribs and my breath quicken; I close my eyes for a moment, forcing myself to remain calm, to act in the light of reason. But Kelley, if he was a killer, would not have the means to get near the queen’s maids, unless he were the hired hand for someone better connected.

  Reaching back into the chest, I lift out the two books hidden beneath the papers. The first is a bound edition of The Book of Soyga, copied by hand, a book of names and invocations believed to contain the original language spoken between God and Adam, a language of great power uncorrupted by man’s fall. I had seen a manuscript of this book in Paris and was sceptical about its authenticity, though I knew Dee owned one and still kept faith that it contained some hidden power. When I had asked to see his copy some while ago, he had told me that it was missing. Apparently his household scryer was light-fingered as well as treacherous.

  The second book takes me by surprise, for it is my own: On the Shadows of Ideas, the book I published in Paris last year. Turning its leaves slowly, I find Kelley has underscored the passages in which I describe the images of the decans. What Dee has taken as the scryer’s divine revelations from the Egyptian gods of time is nothing more than the ability to parrot back the words he has read — words of mine, no less. When Dee is returned, I will show him this copy with its folded back pages and notes as proof that Kelley has no more of a seer’s gift than the housemaid. Perhaps this will finally persuade him that he has been deceived.

  I tuck the book inside my doublet with the papers, as furious with myself as with Dee this time; I should have guessed at this the moment I first heard Kelley describing his ‘vision’ of the decan of Aries in the showing-stone. Kelley knows nothing of the writings of Hermes, any more than he speaks with spirits; his revelations are pure invention, cobbled together from scraps he has pilfered from Dee’s own library.

  ‘Those are my husband’s books.’

  I start, almost knocking over the candle; lost in these thoughts, among the shadows, I have not heard her footsteps and her sharp voice out of the darkness sends my heart almost leaping into my throat. I turn and the Dees’ housemaid is standing in the doorway, holding a small candle.

  ‘Christ, woman, you scared the life out of me.’ So startled am I that it takes me a moment to register what she has said. ‘Your husband?’

  ‘You have no right to look in those papers. Those books are nothing to do with you.’

  ‘You are wrong there, madam — this one has my name on the title page.’ I hold it up for her.

  She only narrows her eyes and continues to glare at me, as if this might eventually wear me down.

  ‘So Ned Kelley is your husband. Where is he, then?’

  She shrugs. In the candlelight I see that she is older than I first thought, perhaps nearer forty than thirty, with the last vestiges of something that is not quite beauty but a bolder appeal.

  ‘Away. But he will be back, and then you will be sorry.’

  ‘Will I? Tell me, when he returns, does he plan to continue cozening the man who feeds and houses him? What does he get out of this charade? Has someone put him up to it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she says, looking away. ‘I don’t pry into my husband’s business.’

  ‘Just as well, since his business is murdering young girls.’

  I have her there; she turns to me, mouth open, eyes wide just for a moment, though she pulls herself together quickly enough.

  ‘My husband never harmed anyone, you wicked slanderer — he has his gifts from God. But who would expect anything else from a filthy foreigner. Your eyes are black as a Moor’s,’ she adds, for good measure.

  ‘Perhaps my great-grandmother had herself a Moor, who knows?’ I say, picking up the candle and rising to my feet. These English have so little imagination. I notice her looking at the book tucked under my arm.

  ‘Where is your husband?’ I ask again. ‘I know some people who are very keen to talk to him about his gifts.’ I bring the candle up close to her face, but she is a tall woman, as tall as me, and sturdy; she will not be cowed. She merely looks me in the eye, insolent as a Southwark whore.

  ‘You can’t walk away with that book, you have no right —‘ she begins again. My patience breaks.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about rights, mistress,’ I say, grasping her by the upper arm and pushing her back against the door frame, ‘when you and your husband feed off the generosity of a good-hearted man and his wife for your own profit. Tell me where he is.’ I shake her brusquely and she bares her teeth at me. I am gratified to see that she looks at least a little scared before the brazen face returns.

  ‘Generosity, you call it? Credulity, I say. I don’t know where Ned is, but I’ll wager somewhere a sorcerer like you nor a fool like John Dee
won’t find him.’

  ‘Lucky, then, that the queen’s men are better trained for searching. Especially when a man is wanted for murder.’

  This punctures her bluster somewhat; she tries to wrest her arm away from me but as we are both holding candles her movements are limited.

  ‘Ned hasn’t murdered anyone. That was never —‘

  ‘Never what?’ I rattle her arm harder. ‘Never part of the deal? Maybe your husband and his paymaster have changed the deal. Well, no doubt they will get that out of him one way or another.’

  ‘Why are you hurting Johanna?’ says a small voice from somewhere around my knees. I glance down and there at the top of the stairs is Arthur Dee, his earnest eyes upturned and swivelling from me to Kelley’s wife. Reluctantly, I let go of her arm. She flashes me a look of triumph and makes a great fuss of smoothing down her skirts, rubbing the flesh of her arm ostentatiously as if she has been ravished. She should be so lucky, I think, with a last glance of disgust.

  ‘Is everything all right up there, Doctor Bruno?’ Jane Dee calls from the foot of the stairs.

  ‘All is well.’ I bend down to the boy. ‘No one is hurt, Arthur. Shall we go down to your mother?’

  He nods and reaches his little hand up to mine; we leave Johanna Kelley, if that is her name, replacing the items in her husband’s chest with a face like storm clouds.

  ‘I don’t like her,’ Arthur confides as we descend, in a whisper guaranteed to carry through the house. ‘She struck me once and my mama called her a witch.’ I try to stifle a laugh.

  ‘I imagine the slattern was not best pleased to find you going through her husband’s things,’ Jane says, when I rejoin her in the parlour. She looks as if the thought pleases her. ‘If husband he is.’

  ‘She is short on civility, that much is certain.’

  Jane nods. ‘You wouldn’t think she was once in service to one of the noble families. I’ll bet she minded her manners a lot better then. Or maybe she didn’t,’ she adds, signific antly.

  I stop, midway through pulling on my cloak.

  ‘Really? Which family?’

  ‘She used to be a maid in the Earl of Arundel’s household, up at Arundel House on the Strand. Won’t say why she left, but it’s my guess she was thrown out in disgrace. There’s a child, you know, a little daughter no more than Arthur’s age, she leaves it with some widow out Hammersmith way. And it’s not by Kelley,’ she says, with a nod full of meaning. ‘She only took up with him a year ago, from what I gather. It’s my bet they’re not even properly married.’

  ‘You think she got the child at Arundel House?’ I stare at her, disbelieving. Another Howard connection. Could it be — I am still gaping at Jane as this new idea forms — that Kelley is working for Henry Howard or his nephew, perhaps introduced to them by his wife? My mind rushes back to my curious conversation with Howard after the concert and his oblique threat; he had specifically mentioned Dee conjuring spirits in a showing-stone. Was that a lucky hit, or did he have such a detail from a first-hand report?

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. But she must have money from somewhere to keep it. Her clothes are good cloth too — better quality than you’d expect of her sort. Anyway, since my husband in his folly gives lodging to her so-called husband, I insisted she give us some labour in return. Don’t know why I bothered. This babe’d be more use with the housework.’ She bounces the baby gently on her shoulder and it hiccups. ‘And she is stealing food from my kitchen, I’m sure of it.’

  I raise an eyebrow at this; perhaps, then, Ned Kelley has not run so far away after all. I do not say so to Jane; she would hardly sleep easier in Dee’s absence to think of the scryer hiding in the garden.

  ‘Do not open the door to anyone until your husband returns,’ I tell her at the door, patting my chest where I have hidden away Kelley’s papers. ‘I have matter here that will vindicate John the moment it is seen by the right people, and make Ned Kelley a wanted man.’

  Jane snorts. ‘As if he wasn’t that already. Don’t worry about us, Doctor Bruno, we shall manage fine as we always do. It was a kindness of you to visit,’ she adds, with an effortful smile, pushing her hair back from her face. I catch the tiredness in her voice again. ‘It’s dreadfully wet out there still — are you sure you must leave? You are welcome to stay if you’d rather.’

  I sense that she would be glad of the company, or at least the reassurance of a man’s presence, but now that I have Kelley’s papers, I feel I must get them to Walsingham as quickly as possible.

  ‘I had better go. But if Kelley shows his face, or if she —‘ I nod towards the stairs — ‘gives any sign she knows where he is, send word to Walsingham at Barn Elms immediately. In the meantime, I will see if he can spare a man to keep an eye on the house until John returns.’

  ‘Thank you, Bruno. Here, you cannot go into the night without a lantern. Johanna!’ she calls into the darkness of the stairwell. ‘Fetch a lantern for our guest!’

  There is no response. Tutting heavily, Jane stomps away with the baby towards the back of the house. Arthur and I are left looking solemnly at one another in the hallway.

  ‘You be sure and take good care of your mother until your father comes home,’ I say, bending to ruffle his soft hair. He has his mother’s looks, but Dee’s penetrating eyes.

  The boy nods. Jane returns and hands me a lantern with a new candle.

  ‘Return it when you can,’ she says. ‘Now go with God.’

  My cloak is no less damp than when I arrived, in spite of its stint by the fire, and the evening air when I step outside whips through it with a chill that pierces straight to my bones, though the rain has eased for the moment. I shiver, but make a cheerful farewell to Jane. Little Arthur remains on the doorstep waving until I am at their gate. I glance at the upper storey and am almost sure I see a figure standing at the window, silently watching, wrapped in shadow.

  It is less than a mile across the spur of land that juts out, making the river loop around Barnes and Mortlake; clouds scud across the face of the moon, driven by the wind, but there is only one main road, little more than a track, that runs along by the water then cuts across. Even in the dark, it would be hard to lose my way between here and Barn Elms. Despite Walsingham’s instructions to send my intelligence through Fowler, the papers I have pressing against my chest are so urgent that it would be folly to delay; I can deliver them into his hands or Sidney’s and be on my way without anyone knowing I was there. The lantern held before me, its light fractured in the standing water collected in ruts on the path, I pull the cloak tighter and close the gate behind me.

  I feel rather than hear him, almost the moment I step out on to the muddy lane that will lead me to the river path. He — or perhaps she — is no more than a movement out beyond the edge of sight, a stirring of the air, the soft plash of water disturbed in a puddle. I turn, slowly at first, widening the circle of the lantern’s poor light as I hold my arm out, but whoever he is remains hidden. Yet I know I am not alone, and part of me curses my own recklessness as I quicken my step. What was I thinking, coming so far from the city at night, and especially since there can be no doubt that someone has been following me? But with every step I feel Kelley’s papers scratch against my chest and try to ignore the rush of fear in my blood; we are one step away from discovering who killed Cecily Ashe and Abigail Morley, and I am now convinced that Ned Kelley is the evidence that ties the Howards to the murder plot. I am all but running now, fired by the thought that this might soon be resolved, but he keeps pace with me in the dark, whoever he is; I catch echoes of my own footfalls in the mud but I no longer turn. Instead I keep my eyes to my course, one hand on my knife, the lantern held in front with the other, telling myself that every step brings me nearer to Barn Elms and Walsingham. Once my pursuer sees where I am headed, surely he will drop back out of sight. Walsingham keeps armed guards at his gate; he is obliged to, given how many Catholics would like to send him early to his judgement day.

  The damp br
eath of the night; the solid outlines of the wet trees to either side; the presence that I sense without seeing, who becomes a kind of companion in the silence. I almost begin to believe that he does not mean me harm, that he is only keeping an eye on me, tracing my path. An owl’s shrill cry rips the air overhead and I gasp aloud, startled, my foot briefly stumbling in a rut; from somewhere behind or to the side I think I hear a matching intake of breath. I have run perhaps half a mile when there is a distinct human sound; not quite a word, more of a grunt, the noise of some physical effort. I wheel around, holding up the light, drawing the knife from my belt with my right hand, and as I do, I hear his movement, there comes a faint whistling in the air and some blind instinct tells me to duck; the hand with the knife flies up to my face, just before the blow catches me and knocks me to the ground.

  Through the blurring shadows I can just make out the form of him as he looms over me, before the world turns to black.

  Chapter Twelve

  Barn Elms, south-west London

  1st October, Year of Our Lord 1583, Night.

  When the light reappears the first thing I see against the swimming shapes is his outline, still bent over me; I struggle and hear a strangled cry escape my lips, but he has me pinned down somehow and a blade of pain is slowly sawing across my forehead from the blackness where my left eye should be. My waterlogged limbs protest and give up. I seem to be sinking into the ground but I can’t move to stop myself.

  ‘He’s awake.’ The voice seems to come from the man peering into my face; it sounds familiar but I can’t open one eye and the other won’t focus. I wonder in passing if he means to kill me. With some effort, I find I can stretch out my palms flat on either side of me and the ground feels smooth and cool. Then something cold and wet lands on my face and I splutter back into awareness, battling to push myself up on one elbow.

  ‘Christ alive, Bruno, you gave us the fright of our lives there,’ says the man, and as the crusted blood is sponged from my good eye, he solidifies into the shape of Philip Sidney. I can’t comprehend how he came to be here, so I decide not to try, though I can’t deny I have not been so glad to see him since he rescued me in Oxford.