At the House of the Magician (7 page)

Dismissing these weighty thoughts, for I was hungry, I looked into the pot simmering over the fire. Not seeing a rabbit or any meat there, however, and the liquid being strangely pale, I asked Mistress Midge what she was cooking.

She sniffed. ‘We are reduced to vegetables for dinner,’ she said, ‘for the household is very needy. Why, Dr Dee has not paid his butcher in three months.’

I gazed around me in surprise. ‘This house is so well stocked with costly things, though – with paintings and hangings and tapestries,’ I said. ‘Can’t some of them be sold?’

She shook her head. ‘That’s not the way the nobility conduct themselves,’ she said. ‘There’s no food because Dr Dee spends most of his money on books. He has more books than almost anyone in the world!’

But, my stomach rumbling, I didn’t want to speak of books. ‘But what vegetables are those in the pot?’

She threw a handful of herbs into the water. ‘They are called potatoes,’ she said, and thought me ignorant when I said I hadn’t ever heard of such things. I was rather doubtful about eating them, for while they were cooking they didn’t look at all appetising, but beaten up with cream and butter they tasted very well. We also had some radishes, sliced and eaten with a tiny amount of salt, which latter thing was another new
experience for me and which gave a strange shiver to my tongue which I couldn’t have described. As I cleared away, Mistress Midge said that we might not even have had these meagre amounts to eat, except that some of those who’d consulted Dr Dee recently had paid him in kind.

While we ate, finding space amid the trenchers and untidy mess upon the table, cook told us of meals she’d had at Mistress Dee’s family home, for they were very rich and had, so it seemed, dined every day on herb-crusted capons, soused larks, roast quails, fried salmon, lobsters and prawns marinated in brandy. Even more delightful to hear of were the dainty foodstuffs that would follow: cream custards, crystallised fruits in spun-sugar nests, gooseberry syllabubs, rose-water creams and frosted violets.

‘Oh, do stop!’ I begged Mistress Midge after hearing of these delicacies. ‘For you make me long to taste such elegant fare and I’m sure I never shall.’

She winked. ‘Perhaps you will,’ she said, ‘for if our master pleases Her Grace and gives her what she wants, then we’ll be dining on these very things every day of our lives.’

‘What is it that Her Grace wants, then?’ I asked, eager for any information about the queen.

But Mistress Midge turned away. ‘That’s not for the likes of you and me to enquire,’ she said, for magick was one matter she would not speak of.

‘Lord above!’ Mistress Midge shouted, throwing her apron up over her head. ‘However am I supposed to run this house with no other servants? ’Tis more than an old body can stand! It’s Mistress Midge this, Mistress Midge that from morn to night. And now, if you please, the master has taken a fancy to having a jug of posset and some sweet biscuits brought to him.’

‘I’ll take them in,’ I offered.

‘But there are no biscuits! There’s no time to make biscuits and no sugar if there
were
time. There will be no biscuits of any sort made until he’s paid the grocer’s bill! Tell him that, will you?’

I looked at her uncertainly. How could I ever do such a thing?

‘Oh, ’tis past all endurance!’ Mistress Midge stamped across the kitchen, causing Beth, Merryl and Tom-fool to
skitter out of her way, and lifted a trapdoor in the floor. She went down a dozen steps then came up, puffing with effort, holding a dusty, dark bottle. ‘Make him the posset, and he’ll have to be content with that!’

I took the bottle from her and the children and I exchanged a smile, for I was fast becoming used to cook’s temper and hardly jumped at all when she shouted now.

I’d spent most of that morning – the third of my employ – scouring, cleaning and putting away the last of the trenchers and bowls which had been cluttering the table, and following this I’d scrubbed down the shelves, swept up the soiled rushes and generally tried to put the kitchen in better order. Mistress Midge, who was overworked but also somewhat lazy, I soon discovered was only too happy for me to do this. As I’d worked, the children had gone backwards and forwards bearing messages from members of the household, who would ring bells to summon them and then variously request food, hot water to wash, that a fire be lit against the sudden cold weather or (this for Mistress Dee) that a sleeping draught be prepared. Tradesmen and cryers also arrived at the kitchen door at frequent intervals, selling foodstuffs, demanding money for past services or offering to buy or sell pots and pans, and throughout all this Mistress Midge kept up a fruitful flow of words: scolding, complaining, shouting or berating everyone in turn. It was fortunate, perhaps, that we didn’t also have to answer the door to those
who came to consult with Dr Dee, for the cook told me that if someone wanted his services – needed a horoscope cast, had lost something valuable or required a talisman – then they’d tap on the long window in the library. If he was at home he’d usher them in.

Beth and Merryl, of course, were so used to Mistress Midge that they were unperturbed by her chiding and reprimands, and, despite the irregularity of the household, were good and obedient children. When they weren’t conveying messages from one end of the house to the other, they walked solemnly around the place playing a game they called Queens and Courtiers, or sat with their horn books, practising their letters. They showed me how their names looked, and wrote mine for me, then insisted that I try writing it for myself, so that very soon I knew how to pen ‘LUCY’.

‘Get a tray! No, a silver one,’ Mistress Midge instructed me. ‘And two silver goblets. Warm a pottle of sweet cream with six egg yolks …’ I hastened to find these things in the kitchen, ‘… set them a-warming on the fire. Stir continually!’ she added, as I left the pot for a moment to add more wood to the fire. ‘Throw in some cinnamon sticks and the bottle of claret and heat together with some … no! There’s no sugar to add, so let that be an end of it.’

I lifted the pan and sniffed at the mixture, pleased with my attempt, for the mixture smelled appetising and had thickened well. ‘Pour it into a jug, cover it and take it through to the library.’

I’d not heard this last word before. ‘Take it where?’

‘The library,’ Merryl called. ‘It’s the place with lots of books.’ I smiled at her gratefully. The room I’d found myself in that first night, then.

I’d not yet come face to face with Dr Dee, but if he challenged me I was ready prepared with a reason for being seen wandering that first night. I’d explain that, being new to the house and its noises, I’d heard something strange and had gone to investigate. I’d then beg his humble apology for being abroad like a felon in the dark, and all would be well.

I put a clean kerchief about my head, asked Beth to check over my appearance and, setting the jug and goblets on the tray, set off for the library. Reaching the black door I tapped lightly and pushed it open, then stopped on the threshold and nearly dropped the tray in horror, for floating in the air close to the ceiling were two great dragons; dragons with scaled skin, gaping jaws, monstrous teeth and clawed feet.

Had I the gentility to do so, I might have fainted, but instead I cowered backwards, whilst making sure that I kept the tray and its contents upright. I uttered some small sounds of distress, however, and the two gentlemen seated within the room cast me quick glances.

‘Oh, ’tis just a new maid,’ said the old white-bearded one I’d seen in the night. ‘Come in, do.’

‘There’s nothing here to be affrighted of,’ called the
other man, who was somewhat younger and with a short, neat beard. ‘All these are merely part of Dr Dee’s collection of rare species from around the world. And they –’ he motioned with his hand up to the ceiling – ‘are named ally-gators.’

At first I was too terrified to look again, but then, seeing as the two gentlemen seemed so unperplexed by the dragons –
ally-gators
– that they hadn’t stopped studying the papers before them, I dared to glance up. What I saw alleviated my fears slightly, in that the creatures did not seem to be alive and floating in the air, but were dead and suspended from the ceiling by means of chains, fore and aft. In the darkness of the night their presence must have escaped me.

I carried the tray to the table and, my fears eased and my curiosity roused, could not stop marvelling at all that surrounded me, for considerably more of the room’s contents were now revealed in the light. A large window at the far end of the room bore a majestic coat of arms in coloured glass, and amber, blue and green light filtered through this on to the floor. On the shelves and tables, books by the cartload jostled for space with roots, urns, corals and the many strange things – including the skull – I’d seen that first night. Indeed, there was so much for an inquisitive person to look at that I knew that my eyes must be as round as porringers.

‘Pour out our drinks,’ the younger man said rather sharply.

I hastily did so. ‘Mistress Midge conveys her compliments and apologises for the fact that she doesn’t have any biscuits to hand,’ I said, bobbing a curtsey.

But I don’t think either of the men heard me, for both were staring at the paper before them, which I could see bore various diagrams and figures as well as some writing. I’d just put down the jug and had turned to go when my attention was caught by a large and bulbous fish, quite still, enclosed in a glass tank and set in waving coral fronds. I gazed at it in wonder, for its scales shone with all colours of the rainbow and it was a thing of great beauty.

‘I tell you that I drew up the pentacle and used the incantation exactly as written here,’ Dr Dee was saying to the younger man, seemingly oblivious of my presence.

‘And you are quite sure you were not asleep and dreaming?’ came the reply, with some disbelief in the tone.

‘Of course I was not. Do you doubt my word?’

‘By no means,’ came the reply. ‘I merely think it strange that apparitions usually appear to me, and me alone.’

‘I tell you that I saw the wraith as clear as day!’ Dr Dee went on, his voice rising with excitement. ‘She was clothed all in white samite, and had her hair about her shoulders like a virgin. She seemed about to speak to me, and then she clutched her hand to her breast and all at once the heavenly glow which seemed to surround her went out.’

‘A miracle indeed!’ said the younger man, somewhat briskly. ‘But I am still at a loss to understand – if you spoke the necessary incantations in this room and within the pentacle, then why did the spirit appear to you in the passageway outside?’

Hearing these last words, I suddenly felt myself growing hot.

Dr Dee reached for his goblet and both men looked towards me. ‘You may go,’ he said.

I moved away quickly, then closed the door behind me and stood for some moments in the dark hall, my heart thumping. It was obvious to me what had happened: Dr Dee had seen me in the night and thought I was a spirit; someone he’d conjured from the dead!

Should I go back in there and tell him the truth? I hesitated, wondering what to do for the best, for he’d seemed so pleased to have seen the vision that he might be angry, perhaps even strike me, if I informed him that he’d only set eyes on his new maid. After I’d thought about the matter for a moment I went on my way, resolved to say no more about it.

‘I take no interest in the master’s magickings and neither should you,’ Mistress Midge said, sniffing. We were preparing supper and I’d ventured to ask her about Dr Dee’s work and the seeing of spirits. ‘I’ve enough to do with the wants and needs of people who’re alive, without bothering with the other sort.’

A shiver ran down my backbone. ‘Is it
there
, then, that Dr Dee’s interests lie?’ I asked in a low voice. ‘He seeks to raise people from the dead and speak with them?’

‘Some say so.’ Mistress Midge turned away and bent over the fire to baste a small duck given by someone whose horoscope Dr Dee had cast. The duck skin crackled and spat, giving off delicious aromas.

I sniffed the air. ‘Will there be anything left of that for us to pick at tomorrow?’