‘It scared me,’ said Alyce truthfully. ‘I just wanted to get rid of it. So I put it in the fire. I know it’s forbidden.’ And then she lied. ‘I didn’t use it.’
‘Good.’ Elizabeth took the book back, and stared at her long and hard. ‘You wouldn’t need it, though, I suspect.’
Alyce sensed things beginning to unravel. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You can do things, can’t you? Without the book. I saw it in the play. And I saw it in the Tower. You can call upon the dead. You can make them influence the things around you.’
The boat creaked in the pause.
‘I don’t know . . .’ said Alyce. ‘Yes. Sometimes. I’m sorry.’ She didn’t know why she was apologizing. ‘I don’t mean to. I don’t know how I do it.’
‘It is a gift,’ said Elizabeth, and although she smiled, her face seemed full of pity. ‘But it is one you must use with the utmost respect. Do you remember what I said to Mary? At the Tower?’
Alyce nodded.
‘There is nothing wrong with speaking to the dead. But allowing them back into our lives is dangerous. Every time it is done, the boundaries between this world and the next are weakened. And at a certain point, those boundaries will cease to exist, and the Other Side will overwhelm us. This is what Mary would do – flood our world with the restless dead, and all the other strange creatures that come with them.’ Alyce swallowed dryly. ‘Besides, the dead are not our slaves. We cannot force them to do our bidding. They only desire—’
‘Our company. I remember.’
‘Did Ellen tell you that?’
‘Yes.’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘She brought you up well. Better than I could have.’ Her eyes shone for a moment, and she blinked hard a couple of times. ‘Remember what she taught you, Alyce. And remember to listen. To the great pulse of the world. Sunrise and sunset, summer and winter. Everything living and dying, always and for ever.’
There was a chorus of shouting from outside the cabin.
‘I must go, my love. If this ship sets sail with me on board, the consequences do not bear thinking about.’ She kissed her daughter on the cheek, and embraced her tightly.
Alyce didn’t know what to feel. She tried so hard to imagine it was her mother holding her, but it still didn’t come easily. Her face flushed, but she was unsure whether it was from embarrassment, or sadness, or affection, or some strange mixture of the three.
‘Is there no way you could come with us?’ she heard herself saying.
‘No way in the world,’ said Elizabeth, smiling sadly. ‘Mary is still alive, if not hale and healthy. Doctor Dee will no doubt try his luck again at some point in the future. There is too much to be done here.’ She paused, and tears welled in her eyes. ‘Forgive me,’ she said once more. ‘I hope we shall see each other again. In the meantime, I know you cannot love me. But think better of me.’
And then she was gone, and Alyce was left alone with all the questions she knew she should have asked. She waited a few minutes, thinking, swaying gently with the ship.
Her father. She hadn’t asked about her father.
Alyce ran out of the sterncastle and out on to the deck, hoping she could still catch her, perhaps on the quayside.
There was no sign of her. Only the crew, and Solomon, waiting under the mainmast.
‘The captain just left the ship,’ he said, a baffled expression on his face.
‘The captain? Oh . . .’ So her mother had managed to fool him. ‘That wasn’t the captain.’
Together they walked to the front of the ship, as the gangplank was removed, the mooring ropes cast off, and the sails unfurled. The sailors bellowed to each other, and Alyce and Solomon spoke in quiet voices about what had taken place in the cabin.
Soon the Gloriana sailed out of the bay, gulls circling her topmast, bow cleaving the black waves.
‘You know those books you gave me?’ said Alyce, when they were clear of the harbour.
Solomon frowned. ‘Yes . . .’
Alyce thought about telling him everything, but changed her mind at the last second. ‘Well . . . I lost them.’
‘Oh. That’s fine.’
‘Is it? They weren’t mine, really.’
‘What are you talking about? They were a gift. No matter. That reminds me, I’ve got you something else . . .’ He looked over his shoulder to see if any of the crew was watching, then rummaged in the satchel that hung from one shoulder. From it he produced another little straw doll. ‘I made this when you went back to say farewell to Mrs Thomson. From memory. I know you lost yours.’ He fiddled with his ruff. ‘I had to take a piece of your hair to make it. You were asleep. Sorry.’
Alyce took the mommet very gently. ‘Thank you, Solly,’ she said. She looked down at it in the palm of her hand and remembered the last time he had handed her a straw figure, back at The Swan, a lifetime ago. ‘It does still look a bit like a worm.’
‘Well, I tried my best.’ He smiled sadly, and she kissed him.
The wind was picking up now, and swept their laughter all the way to the back of the ship. They huddled a little closer together for warmth, and fell into contented silence. Pecke flew down from the crow’s nest, and perched right on the tip of the ship’s bowsprit. England disappeared behind them, and with it the shouts of the crew, until it felt as though they were completely alone on the prow.
Neither looked back as they were borne, hand in hand, over the deep.
HISTORICAL NOTE
Alyce’s story takes place at a moment of huge change and upheaval in the history of Europe. Turmoil in the Christian church, advances in science, mysterious corners of the globe discovered and mapped and brought to order: all these things prompted more and more people to question the truth of the world and their place in it. The witch-hunts were at the centre of this uncertainty and anxiety. European societies needed someone to blame, and witches fitted the bill – in many ways the sufferings of women at the hands of witchfinders were the birth pangs of our modern, ‘enlightened’ Western world. This was a time before magic, science and religion could be easily defined as separate things.
Witchborn is the story of what might have been happening in the background. Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, as powerful women, were both subjected to accusations of witchcraft, as were their mothers. Elizabeth really was advised by Doctor John Dee – astronomer, astrologer, alchemist, philosopher and mathematician extraordinaire, who claimed to be able to speak with angels and the dead. Even Sir Walter Raleigh (not yet a ‘Sir’ at the time of this book) was implicated in the ‘School of Night’, a supposed secret society of atheists and occultists. Did Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, really have an illegitimate daughter? Well, there is no evidence to suggest as much, and it would be very difficult for her to hide the truth both during and after her pregnancy. But then, if she were a witch – and a witch queen, at that – she would no doubt be able to cover her tracks in ways we couldn’t imagine . . .
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to the following, and apologies to all those I have inevitably missed out:
Alice Glover, who started all of this; Julian Dickson, the first person to think the thing was worth reading, and the only reason I carried on writing; my agent Jane Willis, for her wisdom, support and kindness; Naomi Colthurst for invaluable editorial advice in the very early stages; all the Chickens for their enthusiasm and faith in the project, but in particular Barry and Rachel, for taking a chance on me, and my editor Kesia, for getting all my Star Wars references and being more in tune with the book than I ever could have hoped for; Tuulevi, Sandra and Andrew, Titus and Carrie, who all let me write in their houses; readers and general supporters Joelle, Vic (sorry you nearly went blind), Ben, Anna, Emerald, Chris, Will L, the Bunhill Massive (Will D, Mary, Dave, Sarah) and the brothers Bowling for their thoughts, ideas and camaraderie; and Steph, the world’s greatest critic and proofreader, who read it more than anyone and was there in good times and bad.
Writers and other
clever people who I have drawn upon for the historical side of things are too numerous to mention, but constant companions have been Catherine Arnold, Antonia Fraser, Ian Mortimer, Liza Picard and Anne Somerset. This book would have been impossible without their (much more scholarly) work.
Text © Nicholas Bowling 2017
Illustration © Erica Williams 2017
First paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2017
This electronic edition published in 2017
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