At the House of the Magician (5 page)

‘I may stay, then?’ I asked Mistress Midge. ‘I may stay just for tonight?’

‘You’ve settled yourself into that space by the fire, so it looks as if you already are,’ she said tartly. ‘Besides, I could hardly turn you out of here naked as Eve, could I?’

I hugged a blanket around me. It was old, scratchy and like to be rich with fleas, but it would keep me from catching chill while my clothes dried on the line above the fire.

Mistress Midge and I had bathed the children and made them ready for bed, then she’d taken them upstairs in the house to say goodnight to their mother. While they were gone I’d washed my legs and arms as best I could in the tepid water, which was now a pale and sluggish brown, then sponged down the bodice and skirt I’d been wearing. When Mistress Midge came
back we’d lugged the heavy wine cooler out to the river’s edge, where we’d upturned it, then she’d poured me a small glass of beer, cut some chunks from a loaf of bread and we’d sat in front of the fire while she’d told me of some of her life and – when I was given time to speak – I’d told her mine. It was not, of course, as though I had much to tell, for, apart from going upriver to Richmond with my brother, I’d never been out of the parish where I was born. I had no sweetheart to boast about, had scarce any schooling and had taken no other work but glove-making and bird-scaring. How dull and country-mouse-like my story had sounded in the telling, especially compared to that of Mistress Midge’s in the magician’s house.

The dwelling in which we sat, she told me, was ancient and considerably larger than it appeared, consisting of about twenty rooms (she could not say how many exactly, as many were not used), and sprawled between the parish church and the river. In all this house, however, there were now but three staff: Mistress Dee’s lady’s maid, who thought herself very grand and hardly lowered herself to appear in the kitchens, a manservant, who lived out and attended on Dr Dee on occasions and Mistress Midge herself.

‘At one time we also had a footman, a kitchen girl, a farrier to look after the horses, a nurserymaid, a pot boy and a dairymaid,’ she said, counting them off on her fingers. ‘But we’ve none of those now. I daresay the master’ll get more servants at a hiring fair, but the next
of those is not until the spring.’ She sniffed. ‘He hasn’t the money to pay their wages, anyway.’

I was ready to offer myself for work and board, wages or no wages, but was a little apprehensive about what might go on within these walls. What was it, exactly, that magicians did? Some, I’d heard, charted the stars in the sky in order to judge others’ fortunes, some concocted potions so they could live for ever, others conversed with spirits. Was it safe to be in the house of such a man?

‘You said that servants wouldn’t stay here because of the master,’ I began.

She snorted with derision. ‘Aye. They would see something strange or hear unfamiliar noises in the night and they’d be off. No staying power, these milk-livered lads and simpering lassies. They’d take fright at a sheep’s baa.’

‘Then does Dr Dee conjure spirits?’ I asked in awe. ‘Does he make gold from metal?’

‘I don’t believe he can make gold,’ she said, spitting into the fire, ‘or we’d see a little more vittles and have a few more servants around the house. And as for spirits and angels – well, some say he do conjure them, and some say he don’t. What I say is, as long as he don’t conjure one up in my bedroom, then he can do whatever he likes.’

I thought on her words and wondered what it would be like to work in such a household. I could manage the children well enough, and life here would
certainly be more exciting than spending my days sewing gloves. In many ways, too, it would suit me well to stay here, twixt home and London, for Ma was not too far away and I might, on occasion, be able to go back and see her.

‘I’m very good with little ones,’ I said when Mistress Midge paused to take a breath from telling me of her trials and tribulations. ‘I’ve often looked after my sisters’ children.’

‘Indeed,’ she said, sopping bread into her beer and eating it with relish.

‘I’ve always been considered very responsible.’

She nodded, mopping under her chin with a crust.

‘For I’ve already saved Merryl’s life!’ I went on, warming to this. ‘And I can work hard and diligently and do whatever I am bidden.’

There was a long silence. ‘So you’d stay on, would you? And you’d not be scared by anything you might see?’

I wondered what manner of thing this might be, but felt intrigued rather than frightened. ‘No, indeed I would not.’

‘Very well,’ she said then. ‘If you’re still here in the morning, I shall ask the mistress if you may be hired, for there’s certainly too much work for a tired old body like mine.’

She found me a big old nightshirt of hers to wear, then went to her bed, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I’d promised her that I’d keep the fire alive and I got
more logs from outside the door and, after dampening them so they’d burn more slowly, stacked up the grate. I then visited the privy in the courtyard (which was grandly appointed and must have dated from when the family had money, for it had a velvet seat and was studded all over with brass nails), pulled a stool close to the warmth of the fire and, resting my head against the chimney piece, tried to sleep. But of course I could not, for my head kept slipping down the wall. I missed my ma, too, and everything felt very strange and unfamiliar to me, for it was the first time I’d slept away from home.

Sleeping upright proving impossible, I found two wooden benches and fashioned a bed for myself by laying them together, placing the blanket on top and wrapping it around me. In this way, despite the strangeness of my situation, I managed to sleep for a short while.

I awoke suddenly some time later, though, and not remembering where I was, slid off the benches and on to the floor. I sat there quietly for a moment, wondering what it was that had woken me, then went to the kitchen door, opened it a fraction and heard, very faintly, a voice chanting as in a church and the light tinkling of some bells.

I’d not heard a bellman so had no way of knowing the hour, only knew that it was still dark, not yet dawn. Outside I could hear the river high up and close, lapping against the bank, so it must be high tide. Eight
hours or so had gone by since I’d been down on the river bed with the children, so it was, perhaps, three o’clock in the morning.

The noise which had woken me must have marked the end of the ceremony, for in another moment all noise had ceased and everything fell to silence. I found, however, that I was no longer sleepy but instead filled with a great curiosity about my present surroundings. What happened in this house? What magick was accomplished within these ancient walls?

This curiosity, refusing to be quelled, fired up my senses so much that I knew I’d not sleep again. I therefore lit the scrap end of a candle in the fire and crept towards the kitchen door, for I had a mind to explore my surroundings.

This curiosity is a failing of mine, for since I’ve been a very little girl I’ve got into trouble by asking too many questions or doing what I shouldn’t. I ate a black beetle once because I wanted to know how it tasted, and another time, much younger, I picked a red coal out of the fire because it was glowing so prettily and badly burned my hand. In spite of all these things, though, I’d always felt – and still do – that it’s best to know the worst, and that if I was going to stay at this house then I ought to know a little of what went on within it.

Not that I wasn’t terribly afraid of what I might find, and as I walked through the house the hand which held the candle shook so much that light flickered and juddered across the walls, and my stomach
felt as it did when Father came home late from the tavern and lurched about looking for someone he could give a leathering to.

At the bottom of the corridor was the courtyard I’d been in earlier, and here I turned left and carried on further into the house, passing many more closed doors. Dusty tapestries lined the walls and portraits in ornate frames hung here and there. Lifting my candle in order to see their subjects better, I recognised our good Queen Elizabeth, and a portrait of her father, named Henry, who had six wives, and a line of other old people I took to be members of the family I now lodged with, for there was a strong similarity between the vivid blue eyes and pointed noses of these, and those of Beth and Merryl. The last of these portraits was a man looking to be about a hundred years old, with snowy white hair beneath a black skullcap. He had a long grey beard, which was forked at the ends, and he was wearing some sort of ceremonial robes, black and furred like a scholar’s. He was standing beside a table, on which rested a brass-banded chest, and a sign on the outer frame showed his name. Though I couldn’t read this, it was a short word and I recognised the letter D at the start, so was certain that it was my employer who was depicted. I stared at him, shivered, and walked on, and all the while the house was so deathly quiet about me that I began to think that I’d dreamed up the chanting and the tinkling of bells.

The flooring beneath my feet changed as I went further into the house, for it had been stamped-earth close to the kitchen, then it changed to herringbone brickwork, then to a fine mosaic patterned with stones which glittered in the candlelight. I went under an archway where the masonry was so badly cracked that shiny green ivy had crept through a gap and grown in a tangle across it, then through a hallway which was perhaps at the very front of the house, with an elaborate curving staircase leading upwards. After this came another passage, then a small and twisted staircase made of stone, then more doors. The house was such a size that our cottage in Hazelgrove would have fitted in thirty times over.

Reaching a dead end, I began to walk back, and just by the big, curved staircase noticed a large and important-looking door, enamelled black, with ornate fire torches to each side, both of these smoking as if they’d only recently been put out. After hesitating a moment, I put my ear to the door, but there was not a sound to be heard within. I cautiously pushed it open – I just could not help myself – and found the room beyond it in almost total darkness, with just one brand of wood glowing in the fireplace.

I stepped in and as my eyes got used to the dark saw that there were full heavy drapes at the windows and that the room was as big as a barn, so that the dim light thrown by my candle was not able to illuminate the far end. I could see across to the opposite wall, however,
where there was a regular patterning which I took to be a wall painting, but on going closer found was shelves holding great numbers of books,
huge
numbers of books, more than I’d ever known or dreamed existed in the world, for we don’t possess one at home, and the only one I’d ever seen before had been the Bible in church.

An owl hooted from somewhere, making me start, and I stood still and listened in fear, for one hoot is a sure harbinger of death. I heard two more, however, and relieved, moved back from the books, marvelling, hardly able to believe their extent. I bumped into a round table and, casting candlelight upon it, recognised a chest there as being the one in the portrait. Behind this table was another, larger one bearing many strange things: an instrument having glass tubes coming from it, a small cauldron, some wood and pewter boxes, an array of strangely shaped roots and pearly shells, half of a very large eggshell, a timepiece, and other strange and mysterious objects which I had no names for.

The Devil’s work
. These words came to my head, unbidden, and I couldn’t tell why, for I’d hardly thought of the Devil before, nor what his work might be. I didn’t like the room, though, for I was both apprehensive and fearful of the great numbers of books and all the words, knowledge and secrets these must contain. Secrets of which, being unable to read, I could know nothing.

The light from my candle suddenly caught something
on the edge of the table, and looking closer I barely suppressed a scream, for it was a human skull, bone white and gleaming, its teeth bared in an idiot’s smile, its eye sockets dark and hollowed.

There’s something about the appearance of a human skull – perhaps knowing that it was once as alive as I am, but now is not – which drives fear into my heart, and I backed away from it in horror and left the room. Walking swiftly down the corridor towards the kitchen, I felt I had satisfied my curiosity quite enough for one night.

As I reached the ivy-clad archway, though, I heard a noise behind me, looked around and almost screamed to see the figure from the portrait standing there: the white-bearded man wearing a long cassock. He was not pursuing me, but staring after me with his candle aloft in one hand, as if he could not believe what he saw.

I began to murmur an apology for being about at that hour, but my candle guttered and went out, and I fled back to the kitchen as fast as I could, my smock and blanket billowing behind me.

I’d come face to face with Dr John Dee a little sooner than I’d expected, but was not going to stay and make my addresses to him.