‘Such things never cross our minds. Our craft, Wicca, is entirely benign. We are dedicated to the development of our inner selves. Only when that is done can you attain the advanced skills of healing, clairvoyance and, the ultimate, astral projection.’
Astral projection?’
‘We all have an astral body as well as a physical one, Ms Green, which we inhabit in dreams. The trained adept can enter the dreams of others and learn from them, or advise and often heal.’
‘And how do you train?’
‘You train yourself by persistence, working and working until you get a breakthrough.’
‘But that doesn’t tell me how.’
‘There are several ways. They all require concentration. One is to sit in an upright chair with arms in the Egyptian position you see in statues and pictures of the pharaohs and their gods. Then, taking a part of the body at a time, often over many months, you concentrate on its astral counterpart until you can project it and control it. Eventually it will become possible for you to make your astral body stand up and move about, leaving the physical body behind, seemingly asleep or in a trance. When witches flew to their sabbats in accounts of their trials it was their astral bodies that travelled while they were sleeping.’
‘And Amyntas could do this?’
‘Amyntas wasn’t a witch. A physician, an alchemist perhaps like her father but not a witch.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘You’ve read the memorial, Ms Green. There’s no evidence of any attempt to develop spiritual powers. It’s all depressingly physical: herbs and minerals for the earthly body.’
‘How do your beliefs differ from the eastern mysticism of, say, Aurobindo, the sort of thing the Beatles went for, ashrams and Hare Krishna?’
‘Wicca is our native British tradition for spiritual development through the exercise of ritual and imagination.’
‘Imagination?’
‘Of course. It is a vital faculty too often neglected in these times which focus on physical consumption, on goods and chattels. Ours is a pre-Christian belief which goes back at least to the Celts.’
‘The gods you mentioned. What are they?’
‘They are essentially the fertility gods of the Celts. Cernunnos, the horned god, appears in carvings and on the Gundestrup cauldron. The goddess you will find everywhere in Irish and Welsh literature. She has many names and manifestations but she is essentially the fertile earth. She is also Eostre, the Celtic Venus Anodyamene. They put us in touch with the ancient powers of the earth and all elemental things: the seasons, the moon and stars. The Christians of course turned her into the black witch and him into the devil.’
‘You don’t like Christianity very much.’
‘People must believe what they can. Christianity as we see it in modern times is very physical, descended from a belief in the god of a small desert nation with which he had a special relationship. It can’t substitute for the principle of the spiritual fertility of all things and the earth itself. And in the Bible, they did say or write, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”’
‘And Christ?’
‘His teaching is that of a politician, a socialist or even a social worker: prison visiting, hospitality for the homeless, charity, feeding the poor. It has almost nothing to do with developing the spiritual talents of the individual although the Gnostics and some of the saints achieved a degree of clairvoyance through asceticism and mysticism. Wicca of course rejects ascetism.’
I wanted to ask him how Wicca differed from what I’d seen in the chapel at Wessex. To me it seemed only another way of inducing hypnosis. Not necessarily bad in itself. It depended on how it was exploited. After all humans have always used drugs and ritual to tap into altered states of consciousness, all sorts of booze, tobacco, coca leaves, and art, and sex, riding away like the witch on her broomstick in a really great orgasm.
‘I think that’s probably all we can do today. I’ll get on with the paperwork and contact the police to see if they’re going ahead with charges.’
‘And the other matter?’
‘The matter of Wessex?’
‘You won’t let that drop because of this?’
‘The two are intertwined. At least that’s what I think. So no. I won’t let it drop.’
My lady herself sent for me to London at the beginning of March for there was again great sickness abroad of rheums and fluxes brought on by the harsh months of winter. Yet because the pestilence itself had abated his majesty would proceed to his entry to the city of London which had not yet taken place. So my lady required that all her servants should be physicked, as she herself, to be fit for so great an occasion.
Again then I found myself in the city whither it seemed all mankind was hurrying, for the streets were ever more stinking and crowded, and men and women and even little children ran about their business as if the devil was at their heels. Baynard’s Castle itself was crowded with the servants of two noble households, my lady and her younger son, for there was still a coldness between my lady and the young earl who kept himself at court and in his majesty’s eye. The Lady Anne attended on the queen at Whitehall or we should have been yet more.
I was able to lie alone and near my lady for there was a closet that had once housed a guard to the bedchamber where my lady gave me leave to put a pallet. And although it was as dark and stifling as this cell it made me private and close to her I loved and served, and perhaps hardened me for what has now come upon me.
I had brought many medicines from Ramsbury on a pack-horse for I always preferred to prescribe my own, knowing how the ingredients had been gathered and prepared for the greatest purity and efficacy. So I assisted in the laboratory where I was obliged to work alongside and at the command of Dr Adrian Gilbert, he claiming the seniority of a licence from the archbishop, that he had been at the university, was of long acquaintance with my lady and a gentleman. So I was forced to hold my tongue and become for a time his apprentice.
When I found fault with his methods of working in the preparation of such medicines as we needed I would silently take the work upon myself, and likewise the diagnostic of patients’ sicknesses for I saw that I was more accustomed to treat with these as they presented themselves whereas his interests lay elsewhere in the production of fantastical theories from his own head. I saw also that he was glad to be freed of such base work and therefore would not envy me for it.
One cold morning when I was busy at the small furnace in distilling of cordials he came into the laboratory and picking up my book of receipts, where I was accustomed to write down all new medicines as I devised and tried them, as well as many old and proved, he began to read, turning the pages carefully one by one.
‘You have a great many receipts entered in here for one so young. Did you read them in other men’s books and make these fair copies?’
‘No sir. Some of them are of my father. Others of my devising.’
‘I shall make copies of them for my own use. Since you may not be long with us to give us all the benefit of them.’ And he left the laboratory with my book.
One morning my lady called to me from her bedchamber where she lay propped upon her bed breaking her fast.
‘Amyntas I shall ride in a chariot in their majesties’ procession to the city and I wish you to ride behind me as my page as being younger and more handsome than Evan.’
Truly I thought I was older than Evan, a boy she had brought out of her castle of Cardiff to learn the ways of a groom or postilion and indeed I had been a little troubled for that he had a beautiful voice to sing in the Welsh tongue and my lady would send for him in the evenings and make much of him, for she said of all tongues it was the sweetest for singing. He was at an age when in boys the face often flares into a multitude of red pimples and although I had prescribed camphire dissolved in vinegar mixed with celandine water to cleanse them with, and verbena ointment to cover them, I feared they would remain until nature herself chose their cure, for though some beli
eve they proceed from filthy vapours ascending from the stomach and therefore apply purges, in the very young, especially boys, such methods have little effect but only time will clear the skin.
So early in the morning I was dressed in a livery of white satin sewn with pearls and got up before my lady who most resembled Venus in her gilded chariot with white feathers about the sides as if it was indeed drawn by swans as the goddess her own, and we set off to join the procession at the Tower. By eleven o’clock all were assembled and the company set forward. First came the king’s household and his ministers, then his majesty himself riding under a white canopy borne by the gentlemen of the privy chamber.
Next was the queen’s procession. First her household with the Lady Anne, then her majesty, followed by ladies according to their degree, the countess coming fourteenth. We passed by the seats of the city guilds where were hung ensigns, streamers and banners with the blazons of their crafts. Behind a rail the multitude were held back and cheered as we passed until we were stopped at Fenchurch before the first ceremonial arch signifying Londinium. It showed the city itself adorned with houses, towers and steeples, set off in prospective. Upon the battlements were writ in Latin the city’s tides and then a tableau of personages, foremost among them Britannia richly attired in cloth of gold and tissue, holding a sceptre in her hand, and at her feet Divine Wisdom in white. Then came the Genius of the City, an ancient with white hair all in purple, the river of Thames in a skin coat made like flesh, naked and blue, his mantle of sea green, leaning upon an earthen pot out of which water with live fishes was seen to run forth and play about him. He pointed to the six daughters of Genius, all fair ladies descending the arch, among them Euphrosyne or Gladness and Agape: Loving Affection. Then came speeches of gratulation from Genius and Thames, which done and all cheering the procession moved on to Temple Bar.
After Temple Bar which was dressed as a temple to peace filled with personages representing peace, plenty and liberty and their opposites, as tumult, danger and misery, we continued to the Strand where we were stopped by two pyramids over ten times a tall man in height and binding them a rainbow with sun, moon and stars, and among them Electra, hanging in the air in figure of a comet, with a speech promising to be an augury of peace and justice and splendour to his majesty. So we left the city passing under the arch of the rainbow and entered in to Westminster city, the seat of kings.
All along the way music played and banners streamed in the wind. Among the musicians at the first arch of Londinium was Signor Ferrabosco who had been in my lady’s employ when first I came to her and had since removed to London where he was engaged in composing for masques and other entertainments, sometimes sending a fair copy of a new song for the countess her pleasure.
The court and nobility proceeded to a banquet in Whitehall for it was now five o’clock of the afternoon and although the speeches were cut short, as we saw later by the printed version not to weary his majesty, yet all were tired and eager to dine. And this ceremony was first devised for his majesty’s coronation but could not then take place on account of the plague when the multitude were forbidden to assemble for fear of spreading the sickness.
I returned with the chariot to Baynard’s Castle. My lady told me after on her coming home, that there had been masking, dancing and making merry at the banquet and many had gone drunk to bed. She was driven back in her coach a little tipsy herself and when her ladies had undressed her, fell into bed saying she had no need of a sleeping draught for she was so weary, and contented with all, that she should sleep with ease. From this I understood that she had received that respect that was her due as one of the noblest in all the realm. Indeed as I watched by her bedside until she slept I heard her murmur: ‘The name of Sidney is still potent in the land.’
The next day all others slept late. Myself was restless and rose early. It was in my mind that Knightrider Street was but a step from the dark bulk of Baynard’s which lay like a vast ship wrecked upon the shore of Thames and that I could walk up from the castle towards Paul’s by Godliman Street and be at the College of Physicians in but a few moments. This I determined to do. So after a breakfast of bread, stew from the pot and small beer, I left the household sleeping, apart from the cooks who had served me in the kitchen. I knew I must be back before the countess woke and called for me. And was this expedition in itself not a little betrayal for what was I about but looking to secure my future if my present employment should fail? Therefore I slunk through the gate as one guilty but when I stood upon the road outside and saw it rising up towards Paul’s with a little mist coming off the river, for although it was but March yet the sun shone and the many boats at anchor at Queenhithe Wharf bobbed on the smiling water as symbols of freedom and adventure, I felt my heart lift and set off uphill accompanied by the mist that was like a benediction from another world although I knew it was but a common vapour.
Turning into Knightrider Street itself I soon stood before the College of Physicians where so lately Dr Gilbard had lived when busy with his duties as secretary in London but it was all shut up, perhaps on account of the holiday. I stood before it wondering what I should have done had it been open. Would I have been brave enough to enter and look for the doctor’s assistant? But that was foolishness. He would be still in Colchester at the doctor’s house there or already removed in pursuit of his own business. Now there must be a new secretary to the College who would know nothing of my father or the experiments with electrics, so quickly do a man’s concerns fade from sight after his death. My dream of freedom and a way to earn my bread if cast away was only that, a fantasy from a head heated with wine, risen like the vapour that accompanied me here, now dissolving as the morning advanced. Had I indeed been what I seemed I could have looked for an apprenticeship to a practising physician but such a course was too dangerous for that, inhabiting the same house as I should, it would be hard if not impossible to prevent discovery. In this only my lady could protect me.
And now I longed again for my father in whose house I could have worked and learnt without deception and yet it was in that same house that my confusion had begun if not in my mother’s womb itself. Again I could not see how to make my way in the world except to abandon my nature and future happiness which I knew lay among my experiments and in the laboratory, for only great ladies can mix such pursuit with marriage, unless I could find one with like interests whose helper I could remain. Yet even such a one must mean a subjection to the desires of another for which I was all unready.
As I cast around in my mind for some passage through my difficulties it came to me that if I could make a book of some of my receipts and experiments and find one to publish it I might by this means earn my bread. I determined to have again and soon my book which Dr Adrian Gilbert had taken away and to try to make acquaintance through my lady with a printer who might issue such a book and pay me for it. Then I thought that she might be suspicious of such a desire and that I must be careful to find some way to present it that would not offend or alarm her and bring about the very thing I feared most, to be put away from her presence.
Looking up at the College I made a vow that when I had my book printed I would return again with a copy so that at least my name should be known among the learned. I made my way quickly downhill towards the river and found the castle beginning to stir although I had been away but a little while. My lady was calling for me and taking a silver tray I loaded it with a cup of wine and fine white bread thinking that after the surfeit excitements of the day and night before she would need some sustenance easy of digestion and a draught of liverwort bruised and boiled in small beer to calm and cleanse her stomach.
She declined the draught saying she felt exceeding well. ‘We are bidden to a play in her majesty’s private apartments given by the king’s servants. It does not please his majesty to be present but to make ready for the progress that he intends. And indeed I observe that he thinks such toys are principally to amuse women and young courtiers and therefore he leaves
such presentations to the queen while seeing their use in the entertaining of foreigners as ambassadors and the like. It may be that the coldness of Scotland both of their clime and their religion makes men less susceptible to poetry than is the custom among the nobility of England. It might be expected that the Danes being on the same cold sea would be of the like temper but they say the queen’s brother keeps musicians always around him, as indeed some from England who could not stomach our religion being that of her late majesty and could get no preferment under her. And our actors went there in the reign of Queen Anne’s father to the palace at Elsinore during a time of plague before the Spanish invasion. So her majesty delights in plays, masques and all manner of entertainment and has taken a poet, my son’s old tutor Master Daniel, to be groom of her Privy Chamber. You will attend me again as my page Amyntas. The Lady Anne is still asleep and will not be present. I must excuse her to the queen.’
That afternoon we rode to Whitehall again but this time through no cheering crowds. Already the seven arches began to appear the things of paint, cloth and wood that was their nature stripped of illusion. On our entry to the queen’s apartments we found new magic however. A stage had been set up as before at Wilton but with more lifelike scenes painted in prospective on flat screens so that we looked into a little world within our world as if we had passed through the hill of the fairies as some old wives tell, or the old song of True Thomas, and could perceive their realm with our mortal eyes.
The ladies and Prince Henry took their seats while I placed myself behind the countess her chair. This time I was prepared for the players’ illusion and was not to be deceived by their rich silks and air of command to think them other than they were. I looked about me at the courtiers lounging at ease, gossiping among themselves. My Lady Bedford leant to whisper in the queen’s ear, she sitting close as the favourite since she brought her majesty out of Scotland.
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