Shadow of Night: A Novel

by Deborah Harkness

  “You beat me to it, Uncle.” Gallowglass had soundlessly entered the room and was unloading parcels. “I’ve got your paper. And your pens. And some tonic for Jack’s throat.”

  “That’s what he gets for spending all his time up towers with Tom, talking about the stars.” Matthew rubbed his face. “We will have to make sure Tom is provided for, Gallowglass. Walter won’t be able to keep him in service much longer. Henry Percy will need to step into the breach—again—but I should contribute something to his upkeep, too.”

  “Speaking of Tom, have you seen his plans for a one-eyed spectacle to view the heavens? He and Jack are calling it a star glass.”

  My scalp tingled as the threads of the room snapped with energy. Time sounded a low protest in the corners.

  “A star glass.” I kept my voice even. “What does it look like?”

  “Ask him yourself,” Gallowglass said, turning his head toward the stairs. Jack and Mop careened into the room. Tom followed absently behind, a pair of broken spectacles in his hand.

  “You will certainly leave a mark on the future if you meddle with this, Diana,” Matthew warned.

  “Look, look, look.” Jack brandished a thick piece of wood. Mop followed its movements and snapped his jaws at the stick as it went by. “Master Harriot said if we hollowed this out and put a spectacle lens in the end, it would make faraway things seem near. Do you know how to carve, Master Roydon? If not, do you think the joiner in St. Dunstan’s might teach me? Are there any more buns? Master Harriot’s stomach has been growling all afternoon.”

  “Let me see that,” I said, holding out my hand for the wooden tube. “The buns are in the cupboard on the landing, Jack, where they always are. Give one to Master Harriot, and take one for yourself. And no,” I said, cutting the child off when he opened his mouth, “Mop doesn’t get to share yours.”

  “Good day, Mistress Roydon,” Tom said dreamily. “If such a simple pair of spectacles can make a man see God’s words in the Bible, surely they could be made more complex to help him see God’s works in the Book of Nature. Thank you, Jack.” Tom absently bit into the bun.

  “And how would you make them more complex?” I wondered aloud, hardly daring to breathe.

  “I would combine convex and concave lenses, as the Neapolitan gentleman Signor della Porta suggested in a book I read last year. My arm cannot hold them apart at the proper distance. So we are trying to extend our arm’s reach with that piece of wood.”

  With those words Thomas Harriot changed the history of science. And I didn’t have to meddle with the past—I only had to see to it that the past was not forgotten.

  “But these are just idle imaginings. I will put these ideas down on paper and think about them later.” Tom sighed.

  This was the problem with early-modern scientists: They didn’t understand the necessity of publishing. In the case of Thomas Harriot, his ideas had definitely perished for want of a publisher.

  “I think you’re right, Tom. But this wooden tube is not long enough.” I smiled at him brightly. “As for the joiner in St. Dunstan’s, Monsieur Vallin might be of more help if a long, hollow tube is what you need. Shall we go and see him?”

  “Yes!” Jack shouted, jumping into the air. “Monsieur Vallin has all sorts of gears and springs, Master Harriot. He gave me one, and it is in my treasure box. Mine is not as big as Mistress Roydon’s, but it holds enough. Can we go now?”

  “What is Auntie up to?” Gallowglass asked Matthew, both mystified and wary.

  “I think she’s getting back at Walter for not paying sufficient attention to the future,” Matthew said mildly.

  “Oh. That’s all right, then. And here I thought I smelled trouble.”

  “There’s always trouble,” Matthew said. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, ma lionne?”

  So much had happened that I could not fix. I couldn’t bring my first child back or save the witches in Scotland. We’d brought Ashmole 782 all the way from Prague, only to discover that it could not be taken safely into the future. We had said good-bye to our fathers and were about to leave our friends. Most of these experiences would vanish without a trace. But I knew exactly how to ensure that Tom’s telescope survived.

  I nodded. “The past has changed us, Matthew. Why should we not change it, too?”

  Matthew caught my hand in his and kissed it. “Go to Monsieur Vallin, then. Have him send me the bill.”

  “Thank you.” I bent and whispered in his ear. “Don’t worry. I’ll take Annie with me. She’ll wear him down on the price. Besides, who knows what to charge for a telescope in 1591?”

  And so a witch, a daemon, two children, and a dog paid a short visit to Monsieur Vallin that afternoon. That evening I sent out invitations to our friends to join us the next night. It would be the last time we saw them. While I dealt with telescopes and supper plans, Matthew delivered Roger Bacon’s Verum Secretum Secretorum to Mortlake. I did not want to see Ashmole 782 pass to Dr. Dee. I knew it had to go back into the alchemist’s enormous library so that Elias Ashmole could acquire it in the seventeenth century. But it was not easy to give the book into someone else’s keeping, any more than it had been to surrender the small figurine of the goddess Diana to Kit when we arrived. The practical details surrounding our departure we left to Gallowglass and Pierre. They packed trunks, emptied coffers, redistributed funds, and sent personal belongings to the Old Lodge with a practiced efficiency that showed how many times they had done this before.

  Our departure was only hours away. I was returning from Monsieur Vallin’s with an awkward package wrapped in soft leather when I was brought up short by the sight of a ten-year-old girl standing on the street outside the pie shop, staring with fascination at the wares in the window. She reminded me of myself at that age, from the unruly straw-blond hair to the arms that were too long for the rest of her frame. The girl stiffened as if she knew she was being watched. When our eyes met, I knew why: She was a witch.

  “Rebecca!” a woman called as she came from inside the shop. My heart leaped at the sight, for she looked like a combination of my mother and Sarah.

  Rebecca said nothing but continued to stare at me as though she had seen a ghost. Her mother looked to see what had captured the girl’s attention and gasped. Her glance tingled over my skin as she took in my face and form. She was a witch, too.

  I forced my feet toward the pie shop. Every step took me closer to the two witches. The mother gathered the child to her skirts, and Rebecca squirmed in protest.

  “She looks like Grand-dame,” Rebecca whispered, trying to get a closer look at me.

  “Hush,” her mother told her. She looked at me apologetically. “You know that your grand-dame is dead, Rebecca.”

  “I am Diana Roydon.” I nodded to the sign over their shoulders. “I live here at the Hart and Crown.”

  “But then you are—” The woman’s eyes widened as she drew Rebecca closer.

  “I am Rebecca White,” the girl said, unconcerned with her mother’s reaction. She bobbed a shallow, teetering curtsy. That looked familiar, too.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you. Are you new to the Blackfriars?” I wanted to make small talk for as long as possible, if only to stare at their familiar-yet-strange faces.

  “No. We live by the hospital near Smithfield Market,” Rebecca explained.

  “I take in patients when their wards are full.” The woman hesitated. “I am Bridget White, and Rebecca is my daughter.”

  Even without the familiar names of Rebecca and Bridget, I recognized these two creatures in the marrow of my bones. Bridget Bishop had been born around 1632, and the first name in the Bishop grimoire was Bridget’s grandmother, Rebecca Davies. Would this ten-year-old girl one day marry and bear that name?

  Rebecca’s attention was caught by something at my neck. I reached up. Ysabeau’s earrings.

  I had used three objects to bring Matthew and me to the past: a manuscript copy of Doctor Faustus, a silver chess piece, and an earr
ing hidden in Bridget Bishop’s poppet. This earring. I reached up and took the fine golden wire out of my ear. Knowing from my experience with Jack that it was wise to make direct eye contact with children if you wanted to leave a lasting impression, I crouched down until we were at an equal level.

  “I need someone to keep this safe for me.” I held out the earring. “One day I will have need of it. Would you keep it close?”

  Rebecca looked at me solemnly and nodded. I took her hand, feeling a current of awareness pass between us, and put the jeweled wires into her palm. She wrapped her fingers tightly around them. “Can I, Mama?” she whispered belatedly to Bridget.

  “I think that would be all right,” her mother replied warily. “Come, Rebecca. We must go.”

  “Thank you,” I said, rising and patting Rebecca on the shoulder while looking Bridget in the eye. “Thank you.”

  I felt a nudging glance. I waited until Rebecca and Bridget were out of sight before I turned to face Christopher Marlowe.

  “Mistress Roydon.” Kit’s voice was hoarse, and he looked like death. “Walter told me you were leaving tonight.”

  “I asked him to tell you.” I forced Kit to meet my eyes through an act of sheer will. This was another thing I could fix: I could make sure that Matthew said a proper good-bye to a man who had once been his closest friend.

  Kit looked down at his feet, hiding his face. “I should never have come.”

  “I forgive you, Kit.”

  Marlowe’s head swung up in surprise at my words. “Why?” he asked, dumbstruck.

  “Because you love him. And because as long as Matthew blames you for what happened to me, a part of him remains with you. Forever,” I said simply. “Come upstairs and say your farewells.”

  Matthew was waiting for us on the landing, having divined that I was bringing someone home. I kissed him softly on the mouth as I went past on the way to our bedroom.

  “Your father forgave you,” I murmured. “Give Kit the same gift in return.”

  Then I left them to patch up what they could in what little time remained.

  ***

  A few hours later, I handed Thomas Harriot a steel tube. “Here is your star glass, Tom.”

  “I fashioned it from a gun barrel—with adjustments, of course,” explained Monsieur Vallin, famous maker of mousetraps and clocks. “And it is engraved, as Mistress Roydon requested.”

  There on the side, set in a lovely little silver banner, was the legend N. VALLIN ME FECIT, T. HARRIOT ME INVENIT, 1591.

  “‘N. Vallin made me, T. Harriot invented me, 1591.’” I smiled warmly at Monsieur Vallin. “It’s perfect.”

  “Can we look at the moon now?” Jack cried, racing for the door. “It already looks bigger than St. Mildred’s clock!”

  And so Thomas Harriot, mathematician and linguist, made scientific history in the courtyard of the Hart and Crown while sitting in a battered wicker garden chair pulled down from our attics. He trained the long metal tube fitted with two spectacle lenses at the full moon and sighed with pleasure.

  “Look, Jack. It is just as Signor della Porta said.” Tom invited the boy into his lap and positioned one end of the tube at his enthusiastic assistant’s eye. “Two lenses, one convex and one concave, are indeed the solution if held at the right distance.”

  After Jack we all took a turn.

  “Well, that is not at all what I expected,” George Chapman said, disappointed. “Did you not think the moon would be more dramatic? I believe I prefer the poet’s mysterious moon to this one, Tom.”

  “Why, it is not perfect at all,” Henry Percy complained, rubbing his eyes and then peering through the tube again.

  “Of course it isn’t perfect. Nothing is,” Kit said. “You cannot believe everything philosophers tell you, Hal. It is a sure way to ruin. You see how little philosophy has done for Tom.”

  I glanced at Matthew and grinned. It had been some time since we’d enjoyed the School of Night’s verbal ripostes.

  “At least Tom can feed himself, which is more than I can say for any of the playwrights of my acquaintance.” Walter peered through the tube and whistled. “I wish you had come up with this notion before we went to Virginia, Tom. It would have been useful for surveying the shore while we were safely aboard ship. Look through this, Gallowglass, and tell me I am wrong.”

  “You’re never wrong, Walter,” Gallowglass said with a wink at Jack. “Mind me well, young Jack. The one who pays your wages is correct in all things.”

  I’d invited Goody Alsop and Susanna to join us, too, and even they took a peek through Tom’s star glass. Neither woman seemed overly impressed with the invention, although they both made enthusiastic noises when prompted.

  “Why do men bother with these trifles?” Susanna whispered to me. “I could have told them the moon is not perfectly smooth, even without this new instrument. Do they not have eyes?”

  After the pleasure of viewing the heavens, only the painful farewells remained. We sent Annie off with Goody Alsop, using the excuse that Susanna needed another set of hands to help the old woman across town. My good-bye was brisk, and Annie looked at me uncertainly.

  “Are you all right, mistress? Shall I stay here instead?”

  “No, Annie. Go with your aunt and Goody Alsop.” I blinked back the tears. How did Matthew bear these repeated farewells?

  Kit, George, and Walter left next, with gruff good-byes and hands clamped on Matthew’s arm to wish him well.

  “Come, Jack. You and Tom will go home with me,” Henry Percy said. “The night is still young.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Jack said. He swung around to Matthew, eyes huge. The boy sensed the impending change.

  Matthew knelt before him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Jack. You know Master Harriot and Lord Northumberland. They won’t let you come to harm.”

  “What if I have a nightmare?” Jack whispered.

  “Nightmares are like Master Harriot’s star glass. They are a trick of the light, one that makes something distant seem closer and larger than it really is.”

  “Oh.” Jack considered Matthew’s response. “So even if I see a monster in my dreams, it cannot reach me?”

  Matthew nodded. “But I will tell you a secret. A dream is a nightmare in reverse. If you dream of someone you love, that person will seem closer, even if far away.” He stood and put his hand on Jack’s head for a moment in a silent blessing.

  Once Jack and his guardians had departed, only Gallowglass remained. I took the cords from my spell box, leaving a few items within: a pebble, a white feather, a bit of the rowan tree, my jewelry, and the note my father had left.

  “I’ll take care of it,” he promised, taking the box from me. It looked oddly small in his huge hand. He wrapped me up in a bear hug.

  “Keep the other Matthew safe, so he can find me one day,” I whispered in his ear, my eyes scrunched tight.

  I released him and stepped aside. The two de Clermonts said their good-byes as all de Clermonts did—briefly but with feeling.

  Pierre was waiting with the horses outside the Cardinal’s Hat. Matthew handed me up into the saddle and climbed into his own.

  “Farewell, madame,” Pierre said, letting go of the reins.

  “Thank you, friend,” I said, my eyes filling once more.

  Pierre handed Matthew a letter. I recognized Philippe’s seal. “Your father’s instructions, milord.”

  “If I don’t turn up in Edinburgh in two days, come looking for me.”

  “I will,” Pierre promised as Matthew clucked to his horse and we turned toward Oxford.

  We changed horses three times and were at the Old Lodge before sunrise. Françoise and Charles had been sent away. We were alone.

  Matthew left the letter from Philippe propped up on his desk, where the sixteenth-century Matthew could not fail to see it. It would send him to Scotland on urgent business. Once there, Matthew Roydon would stay at the court of King James for a time before disappearing to sta
rt a new life in Amsterdam.

  “The king of Scots will be pleased to have me back to my former self,” Matthew commented, touching the letter with his fingertip. “I won’t be making any more attempts to save witches, certainly.”

  “You made a difference here, Matthew,” I said, sliding my arm around his waist. “Now we need to sort things out in our present.”

  We stepped into the bedroom where we’d arrived all those months before.

  “You know I can’t be sure that we’ll slip through the centuries and land in exactly the right time and place,” I warned.

  “You’ve explained it to me, mon coeur. I have faith in you.” Matthew hooked his arm through mine to anchor me. “Let’s go meet our future. Again.”

  “Good-bye, house.” I looked around our first home one last time. Even though I would see it again, it would not be the same as it was on this June morning.

  The blue and amber threads in the corners snapped and keened impatiently, filling the room with light and sound. I took a deep breath and knotted my brown cord, leaving the end hanging free. Apart from Matthew and the clothes on our backs, my weaver’s cords were the only objects we were taking back with us.

  “With knot of one, the spell’s begun,” I whispered. Time’s volume increased with every knot I made until the shrieking and keening was nearly deafening.

  As the ends of the ninth cord fused together, we picked up our feet and our surroundings slowly dissolved.

  40

  All the English papers had some variation of the same headline, but Ysabeau thought the one in the Times was the cleverest.

  English Man Wins Race to See into Space

  30 June 2010

  THE WORLD’S leading expert on early scientific instruments at Oxford University’s Museum of the History of Science, Anthony Carter, confirmed today that a refracting telescope bearing the names of Elizabethan mathematician and astronomer Thomas Harriot and Nicholas Vallin, a Huguenot clockmaker who fled France for religious reasons, is indeed genuine. In addition to the names, the telescope is engraved with the date 1591.