Asimov's SF, July 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Although they never moved so fast as to exhaust his legs, Kelley was proud that he only stumbled twice and never fell at all—a better record by far than poor Cuthbert, who had to be dragged back to his feet half a dozen times, and must have bloodied his knees horribly. The leader of the forced march slowed his pace at each catastrophe, but never actually stopped, so there was no rest for his followers, even when the little monk's plaintive voice became so hoarse and agonized that Kelley feared for his life.

  There was a terrible moment when Kelley feared that they might be expected and forced to walk all the way to Mortlake in that fearful mechanical fashion—but then dawn broke ahead of them in the east, and the little procession came abruptly to a halt.

  “I need to leave you now,” their rescuer said to them, in a strangely accented voice. “Make your way to John Dee as fast as you can. Should you get into trouble again, I'll try to help, but can make no promises.” He was still a mere silhouette, devoid of features, but Kelley was sure by then that he had no horns.

  By the time it was light enough to see clearly, the mysterious personage had been completely swallowed up by the retreating shadows—but there was no mistaking the dark mistrust on the Dominican's face.

  “Given that you're charged with sorcery, if only by that maniac Field,” Cuthbert opined, when he had got his breath back, “I think I'd rather not have discovered that your friend and rescuer felt obliged to disappear at cock-crow.”

  Kelley felt free to smile. His head felt clearer now, perhaps because he had been touched by supernatural power once again, or perhaps because elation had crowded out confusion for a while. “There's no turning back now, Brother Cuthbert,” he said. “They might have believed you before when you told them you didn't know me, but now that we've fled together, our fates are linked. You may go your own way if you know a safe place, or come with me, but in either case, they'll be after you as keenly as they're after me.”

  * * * *

  3

  Dragging Brother Cuthbert behind him turned out to have been a good decision. As Kelley had anticipated when he first set eyes on the hem of the little man's habit, the Dominican knew where friends were to be found en route to London. They ate well the day after their release, and caught up on their lost sleep in a comfortable bed after nightfall, in a manor house by the river at Twickenham.

  The manor was the most palatial edifice in which Kelley had ever been received as a guest; although the bed in which he slept was in the servants’ quarters and he ate his meal at the kitchen table, it was still an unexpected luxury, only slightly diminished by the fact that the staff had been reduced to a bare skeleton and there seemed to be no one in residence in the masters’ quarters. The housekeeper who received them did not offer them a tour of the house, but did take them back and forth through the vast dining hall whose walls were hung with tapestries that were only slightly moth-eaten and portraits whose colors had not entirely faded to brown, and which was equipped with a minstrels’ gallery. The housekeeper even offered to spare a groom from the stables to row them down the river to Mortlake, when Cuthbert told him that was their next intended stopping-point, but he accepted Kelley's polite refusal without the slightest protest.

  “We're wanted men,” Kelley reminded the friar, when they were on the road again. “It was bad enough that I inveigled you into sharing my risk—I don't want to imperil your entire underground network.”

  Brother Cuthbert, who must have begun to suspect that Kelley was not a Catholic at all, looked at him rather strangely, but accepted what he said meekly enough.

  “In any case,” Kelley said, “you might, after all, do better to go your own way once we reach Mortlake. I really do not know what kind of welcome I ought to expect from John Dee, even if my wife has contrived to get there ahead of me and shown him the stone.”

  “What stone?” Brother Cuthbert asked, having not yet been let into Kelley's secret.

  “A skrying-stone, which I was instructed to deliver into his care,” Kelley admitted, figuring that it was safe enough to do so.

  “You're a Paracelsian in more way than one, then,” the friar observed, showing no particular surprise. The great physician's reputation as a diviner was almost as great as his reputation as a healer. It even extended as far as rumor that he had had intercourse with angels.

  “Aye,” said Kelley, readily enough. “I'm a magician, of sorts—but I told the truth when I said that I was more victim than master. Such truth as can be obtained by skrying seems to be far less comprehensible than one might hope or expect, and it's not without penalty. I'm no sorcerer, that's for sure—I wish no ill to any man, and I do the bidding of angels, rather than having imps at my beck and call.”

  Yet again, the little man showed no obvious disapproval, nor any particular surprise. He had, after all, seen the wall of Hungerford jail dissolve, and had been led away therefrom by something that was surely not quite human. Some Dominicans might have reacted to that uncanny experience with horror, but Brother Cuthbert seemed more calmly scholarly in his attitude.

  “Perhaps I should go my own way, once you're safe,” the friar said, “But I should like to meet Master Dee, if he is indeed prepared to make you welcome. He's said to be the most knowledgeable man in the realm, in spite of over-reaching his ambition when he tried to breach the bounds of Heaven.”

  Kelley was tempted to tell the little man that Dee's ill-fated ether-ship might have stirred the blissful waters of Paradise far more profoundly than most men presently imagined, but thought it better to maintain a measure of discretion. They walked on in silence for a while, basking in the nascent warmth of spring.

  The afternoon was well advanced by the time they reached Mortlake, but there were still more than two hours in hand of sunset. They obtained directions to John Dee's house without difficulty, and without attracting any apparent suspicion. Once he was in sight of the house, however, Kelley's firm tread faltered, and he paused uncertainly on the other side of the street, facing the building's main door. The river was behind the house, the towpath separated from its rear by a strip of land that accommodated a few fishermen's huts, and was partly divided up into kitchen-gardens.

  Kelley made a show of looking carefully around, as if to excuse his hesitation. There was no evidence, so far as he could see, that the house was under surveillance by John Field's spies. He was still summoning up the courage to cross the street and knock on the front door when the door opened of its own accord. Two men stepped out. One appeared to be younger than Kelley by seven years or so—not long out of his twenties, if at all—while the other, who was a vigorous man in the prime of life, wore a tonsure that he was not making the slightest effort to conceal. Neither, obviously, could be John Dee, who was neither a youth nor a monk—but the monk appeared to be playing the part of a host in bidding a polite farewell to the other, who must have been visiting the house as a guest.

  “Who can that be?” asked Brother Cuthbert, presumably referring to the Romanist rather than the stripling.

  “I don't know,” Kelley said. Before he could say anything more, the little man removed his hat and took a step forward into the roadway, turning slightly to one side and lowering his head, so that his fellow Romanist was able to see the back of it.

  The younger man had already turned his back to march away in the direction of London, but the monk who had seen him off had paused to look carefully around, and he caught sight of Brother Cuthbert almost immediately. The first expression to cross his face was one of suspicion, but Cuthbert made some sort of signal with his hand, which the other obviously recognized.

  After prolonging his pause for a long moment of consideration, the man who wore his tonsure openly moved swiftly across the road, dodging around a cart full of spring turnips on its way to market. “Are you looking for me, Brother?” he asked. His English was heavily accented.

  “My name is Cuthbert,” the little man said. “Order of St. Dominic, late of the second house in Paris.”

&n
bsp; The foreigner's face cleared somewhat, although vestiges of suspicion lingered. “I'm Giordano Bruno, of the same Order,” he replied. “I was in Paris myself until a week ago, although I'm an Italian by birth. Do you have a message for me?”

  “No, Brother,” Cuthbert said. “We're here in search of Dr. Dee. This is my friend Edward ... Talbot.”

  “Actually,” Kelley said, “it's Edward Kelley. Is my wife here?”

  Bruno's face underwent another abrupt transformation. “Kelley!” he said. “Your wife arrived early this morning, with a strange black stone, a packet of powder, and an exceedingly strange story. Master Dee was disturbed by the notion that John Field's men are after you, but he took your wife in regardless—we've been expecting you.”

  “We'd best get off the street, then,” Kelley said. “The Church Militant will be abuzz with annoyance, since we were broken out of Hungerford jail.”

  The Italian did not know quite what to make of that news, but he said: “There were militiamen hereabouts yesterday, but we haven't seen one today.” He turned to cross the street again, but they had to pause to let a cart through, so he continued. “Rumor along the river says that something's brewing on the far side of the city—but Master Dee tells me that London has been a powder-keg for months, and that I've only jumped from an Aristotelian frying-pan to a Puritan fire in coming here. Fortunately, I'm heading westward tomorrow, with a safe destination in view.”

  They had reached Dee's door by now, and Bruno was already opening it. Brother Cuthbert seemed interested by the last remark, and would surely have asked where the Italian had in mind, but another figure appeared in the open doorway before they could cross the threshold, immediately commanding all attention.

  John Dee was older than Brother Cuthbert and taller than Kelley; he wore a long, flowing beard, whose grayness only made it seem more imposing. He was simply dressed, though, with a plain bonnet on his head and a rope girdle round his waist that might have suited a monastic robe better than the elongated jerkin that it was actually securing.

  “Kelley,” said Bruno, briefly, “and a brother Dominican.”

  Dee frowned briefly at Brother Cuthbert, but stood aside swiftly enough to let both his new guests come in. When the door had closed again, leaving the corridor within somewhat ill-lit, he bowed, a trifle stiffly. “I'm glad you had the sense to wait for young Bacon to go before you approached,” he said. “He's a true scholar, and wouldn't dream of betraying Bruno, but his coterie is under increasing pressure from Foxe's schoolmen. Bacon's mentor might not balk at a chance to send the Church Militant to my door, for the sake of scholarly rivalry.”

  “Is my wife here?” Kelley asked abruptly.

  “Yes, she is,” Dee replied. “And your so-called skrying-stone too, although I've peered into it with all the concentration I can muster and can't see a thing. Bruno tried too, and insists that it's naught but a block of polished obsidian.”

  Kelley did not know whether that was good news or bad. The distressing dizziness in his brain was accumulating again, although he had hoped that it might diminish once he was in the same house as the stone again. It seemed that he still had no one with whom to share the most intimate feature of his curse—but at least he had access now to a scholar who might be able to interpret what the angels said to him more fully and more accurately.

  “Obsidian it may be, Doctor,” Kelley said, “but there's magic in it, or I'm a madman fit for Bedlam. You may disregard the messages the angels wanted me to bring you, if you so wish, but I'm ready to convey them and I'm certain that they'll give me no rest until I do.”

  Dee ushered all three of them through a slightly cramped corridor and brought them into a large, high-ceilinged room that was obviously his library and workroom. While Kelley caught his breath at the remarkable sight, Dee put his head around the door again to call for a servant. When the servant appeared, very promptly, the mathematician instructed him to fetch Mistress Kelley. In the meantime, Kelley gawped at the shelves as if thunderstruck.

  Dee's library was reputed to be the biggest in England, and Kelley could not doubt that the reputation was justified; he estimated that there must be at least a thousand printed books here, as well as mountainous piles of manuscripts, as many bound as unbound. The scholar's broad oak table was impressive too, strewn as it was with numerous loose manuscripts, some of them apparently still in the making, although the actual writing-desk was a portable board mounted on two triangular supports, which could be propped up anywhere or balanced on the arms of a chair.

  Was it possible, Kelley wondered, that the world boasted so much discovered wisdom? Was it even possible that there was information enough in the world to be so discovered and contained? No man, he felt certain, could ever read so many words in a lifetime—even a lifetime as extended as John Dee's.

  “We have room enough to accommodate you both tonight, I think,” Dee said to Brother Cuthbert, “provided that Master Bruno does not mind sharing his room.”

  Cuthbert made no objection to that; curiosity, it seemed, had got the better of him, and he wanted nothing more than to stay here for a while. Kelley could not blame him, and was glad of it—the last thing he wanted was for Cuthbert to fall into the hands of the foxes while wandering along the Thames.

  “I should warn you,” Kelley said to his host, dutifully, “that there's a warrant out for my arrest, and I escaped from prison last night. Cuthbert is a fugitive too, alas. If you want me to go, I will. I'd be happy to meet you at some safe rendezvous, in order to look into the stone and relay what the angels want me to say to you there.”

  Dee frowned again, evidently somewhat dubious about the angels that had Kelley in thrall, and whatever message it was they were determined to send him. “I know no safer place than here,” he said. “Certainly not in London, where there seems to be trouble brewing—although trouble always seems to be simmering there. The river's full of talk of Francis Drake's boasts and misdemeanors, but that's often the case, even when he's in the Americas. This time, alas, he's come home to an England far less safe than the one he left.”

  “The angels have made mention of Drake too,” Kelley said, warily. “If there were any chance of inviting him to the parley....”

  “Sir Francis and I have not spoken for some time,” Dee told him, stiffly. “He bears a grudge against me, although I have none against him. Your angels have mentioned his name as well as mine, you say? Have they also mentioned Tom Digges and John Field?” Kelley knew that Digges and Field had both been aboard Dee's ether-ship, along with Drake, Walter Raleigh, and Edward de Vere.

  “Aye sir, they have,” Kelley said—but he had no time to say anything further before Ann came hurrying through the library door. Because she was in a gentleman's house, and had obviously been politely welcomed, she curtsied awkwardly rather than throwing herself gaily into his arms, but he seized her anyway and hugged her with all the force of his delight in seeing her again, safe and sound.

  “Thank God you came safely through,” he said. “I knew you'd be safer on the barge than I was on the road, but...”

  “The stone and the powder are safe,” she told him, although it was not the matter uppermost in his mind. “Shall I fetch them?”

  “Not yet,” said John Dee. “First, I think your husband is in need of food and ale, and time to rest. He may renew his intercourse with the angelic realm this evening, after supper.”

  Ann was still staring into her husband's eyes, gleeful to find him well. “I've half-persuaded the Master that the stone is real,” she said, proudly, “Even though he and Master Bruno could see no more in it than I can myself. When I told him a little of what the angels had said to you, he understood.”

  “I would not go so far as to say that I understood,” Dee said, dubiously, “but I admit to curiosity. There may be no cause for surprise in the fact that what you say echoes Drake's wild fancies, but ... well, I'll hear you out, Master Kelley. I've nothing to lose by that. Mistress Kelley, would you take Brot
her Cuthbert to the kitchen, please, and ask Jane to give him a bite to eat? I'll bring your husband myself in a few minutes.”

  Brother Cuthbert was obviously reluctant to be sent away, but he dared not take offense. Bruno went with him. Kelley sat down in an armchair in response to Dee's gestured invitation, glad of the support. His head still felt impossibly large and light, but his train of thought seemed clear enough.

  “How well do you know Sir Francis Drake?” Dee asked, when the door had closed behind the three.

  “I've never met him, Master,” Kelley said. “The angels seem to be familiar with his exploits, though—especially the one that bade me call him Aristocles. The names the angels use among themselves cannot be couched in human syllables, of course. Some of their voices I can only hear as a foreign tongue I call Enochian, and even though I can translate what Aristocles says intoEnglish, it is somewhat broken. If only he could speak directly to a scholar like you, you might be able to hear him more clearly, or translate his sendings more eloquently.”

  “I've heard the name Aristocles before,” Dee admitted, although his brow was darkly clouded with puzzlement. “How is it that you can see things in your skrying-stone that other men cannot? If ether-dwellers can use such a means of transmission at all, why should they not be audible to anyone? And if the ether-dwellers have a message for me, why could they not find a way of transmitting it to me directly?”

  “I don't know, Master,” Kelley said. “It was likely a matter of chance that I was the one who found the stone and the powder on Northwick Hill, in what I took for the broken shell of a fallen star. Perhaps any man who picked it up might have become their emissary, urged to bring the objects to you—although none but a fortune-teller would likely have been struck by the notion that the stone might make a skrying-glass. I know that my past as a trickster does not engender confidence in what I say, but the last thing I need is to be arrested and questioned by the Church Militant, so you may be confident that I'm telling the truth. I don't know why the foxes are intent on harassing me, although I understand that John Field was aboard your ether-ship, and experienced a vision of Hell in consequence.”