By Royal Command (2 page)

Isabelle’s eyes widened, then her attention was taken by the shaped copper moulds on a shelf above her. She reached up to take one down and see it the better, but as she did so there was a high peal of devilish laughter and one of the moulds moved before our eyes. She gave a scream and jumped backwards. ‘Magick!’

I began to laugh. ‘No, it’s only the monkey,’ I said. ‘Today’s visit was too grand for him to attend, so he’s been left with me.’

Isabelle had gone very pale.

‘You needn’t be frightened of Tom-fool,’ I said – for so the monkey was called, being named after the queen’s jester. ‘And you needn’t be afeared of being in this house, either, for there is nothing to harm you.’

‘As long as the magician doesn’t come back before he is due.’

‘He won’t!’

‘Or Mr Kelly,’ she said, referring to Dr Dee’s partner in alchemy.

‘Mr Kelly has gone to London to look for treasure in the Thames,’ I said. I lowered my voice, although there was no one about but us, adding, ‘He said an angel had told him where it was hid.’

‘Is that really true?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s true that he’s gone to dig around in Thames mud, but whether he was instructed to go by an angel, I don’t know.’

She hesitated. ‘So you’re sure there isn’t any magick lingering about this place? No demons concealed in the chimney nor small folk in the skimming pans?’

‘Not that I’ve ever seen!’ Smiling, I took the kettle from the fire and poured hot water into two glasses which I’d previously prepared with grated cinnamon, peppercorns and bay leaves, then added a small amount of claret wine, which I’d discovered left over from supper the previous night. ‘This will warm you,’ I said, handing it to her.

She took some sips of it, then put it on to the table and reached up to take Tom-fool. Chattering, the little creature ran up her arms and settled himself on her shoulders, then began to pull out her hairpins one by one and throw them on to the kitchen floor, where they immediately got lost in the rushes. ‘He has a very pretty face,’ she said. ‘Is he trained around the house?’

I shook my head, turning up my nose at the same time. ‘Monkeys aren’t as dainty as cats. In fact, they aren’t dainty at all,’ I added, giggling, as Tom-fool ran down Isabelle’s arm and hung by his tail from her elbow, then proceeded to pass water.

She gave a scream and shook him off, whereupon the monkey ran up the centre of the table and disappeared inside a large earthenware bowl. Isabelle brushed down her gown with a sigh of vexation, then continued her tour of the kitchen. ‘So vast . . . so much fine plate and pewter . . .’

‘And there is even more of it on show in the dining room,’ I said, ‘for Dr Dee has had the room opened up so that he may entertain more.’ I took a sip of my drink. ‘Mistress Midge says he’s doing it in order to attract more wealthy patrons.’

‘And what type of services will he perform for them?’ Isabelle asked.

‘They will ask him all sorts of questions – about their health and their lovers and their money, and he will tell them what they want to hear.’

‘Will he do magick?’

I shrugged. ‘He’ll divine the meaning of their dreams, tell what a comet in the sky predicts, cast charts to tell the most auspicious days to carry out a certain task or look into the future and tell them if they will marry a certain person – but I don’t know if these things are magick.’

‘And does he still converse with the dead?’ she asked fearfully.

‘So people say.’

‘They say he speaks with angels, as well.’

I nodded. ‘But only through Mr Kelly. It’s he who sees and hears them. Or says he does,’ I added thoughtfully.

‘So
you’ve
never seen any spirits about the place?’

I shook my head. ‘No, though I’ve heard Mr Kelly speak to them and ask them questions . . .’

‘How was this?’ she gasped. ‘Were you invited to watch?’

‘No!’ I said, laughing. She already knew of my great curiosity about these matters, so I had no hesitation in adding, ‘’Twas by standing with my ear pressed to the door!’

‘Then was he counterfeiting?’

‘Perhaps.’ For though, listening at the door, I’d heard Mr Kelly ask the angel many questions, I’d never heard a single reply. ‘But Dr Dee believes in the truth of it, for he writes down every angelic word that Mr Kelly says he receives.’

She shivered. ‘I should not like to speak to ghosts or angels . . . or to live in a house where one might be seen.’

I thought it best to move on to another subject before she took fright and ran home. ‘Do you want to look at the fine things in the house?’ I asked, for that was one of the reasons she was here.

She pushed back long strands of her hair, which, deprived of pins by Tom-fool, had fallen loose again. ‘I’m not sure . . .’

‘I will tell the ghosts not to show themselves,’ I teased.

She smiled a little at this. ‘You think I’m foolish, but you should hear the tales our neighbours tell about this house. Why, they say that Dr Dee is a dabbler in dead bodies and that the devil comes to supper twice a week!’

‘I am quite sure he does
not
come to supper,’ I said firmly. ‘Mistress Midge wouldn’t allow it.’

I showed her into the dining room first, for this had been freshly hung with tapestries and had a carved fireplace, new cupboard and an oak coffer. This latter I opened so that we could shake out the fine linen within, for these damask tablecloths and napkins had, so Mistress Midge told me, come all the way from Holland. The patterned turkey carpet and vast looking glass from Venice were also admired in their turn, as were the crystal glasses and shining pewter, and then we replaced everything just as we’d found it and went along the dark passageways towards the library, for I had a mind to show Isabelle the real treasures of the house.

The door of Dr Dee’s library was black and hard enamelled to keep any house fires from the valuable books within, and I pushed it open and went through first to light the room’s candles. I then had to tug Isabelle’s gown to encourage her to come through the doorway, for she was standing there, jaw dropped, gazing about the library like a country booby at a wedding feast.

I giggled, knowing that I, too, had been just the same when I’d first gone into the room. She pointed around at the shelves and shelves of books, at the coloured glass window, at the stuffed birds and animals, at the shells and roots and strange vials with coloured liquids and did not say a word, but only gasped. And then she spotted the ally-gators dangling from chains above us and screamed.

‘They’re perfectly safe,’ I quickly assured her. ‘They’re dead, and have been so since before they arrived in this country.’

‘But . . . but . . . such things as I’ve never seen before,’ she said, gazing upwards in wonder. ‘And these creatures have lived?’

I assured her that they had, and at length she lowered her sight and, approaching a wall of books, stared up at them and touched some of the gold-lettering on the spines, then ran her fingers along a whole line of them as if she was playing a spinet. Moving on from these, she gazed for some time at an emerald-green bird, stuffed and poised on a branch, felt the inside of a pearly shell and stepped back in horror from the grinning skull Dr Dee always kept close by.

She pointed at the collection of glass bottles, tubes and burners which had been set up on a bench. ‘What are all those things for?’

‘Those are but newly arrived,’ I said, ‘and I think – so Beth told me – they are to enable liquids to be separated and then mixed again with certain others.’ I lowered my voice again, for whether or not anyone else was present, the contents of the library had this effect. ‘With the use of these, Dr Dee and Mr Kelly seek to change base metal into gold,’ I whispered.

Isabelle was beyond wonder at this. ‘If they can do this, then they will become immensely rich.’

‘
If
they can,’ I echoed, for I’d oft heard Dr Dee and Mr Kelly speak of the difficulties of performing such a feat.

I crossed the library floor to pick up the chest: the small, brass-banded chest which, I knew, held my employer’s two most treasured possessions. ‘Look,’ I said, and my voice was hushed and respectful, for though I wasn’t sure of Dr Dee’s capabilities as a magician, I knew from past experience that this chest contained two precious objects with mysterious and unfathomable qualities.

‘What’s inside?’ Isabelle asked. ‘Treasure?’

‘More than that:
this
box holds the show-stone and the dark mirror.’

Isabelle tiptoed over towards me and tentatively laid her fingers upon the chest.

‘’Tis locked,’ I said.

‘And if it wasn’t . . . ?’

‘Even if it wasn’t,’ I said, ‘I would not turn the key and take out what’s inside.’ For I’d looked in the show-stone before, and what I’d seen there had led me into danger.

I was still holding the chest when there came a long, low sigh from outside the room and Isabelle snatched her fingers back and clutched my arm in fright. ‘What was
that
?’

We stood listening as the sigh slowly dissolved into the sound of whispering in the yew trees in the churchyard. ‘’Twas probably just . . . the wind,’ I said, for I knew where her thoughts were heading.

‘The wind it was not!’ she exclaimed. ‘It was more like the sigh of a wraith or . . . or the moaning of ghosts set by Dr Dee to guard his library from the curious.’

I shook my head. ‘It never was! ‘Twas but a wind dispersing the fog, or a boat horn sounding on the river.’ I tried to speak with assurance, although in all the times I’d heard the wind gusting across the river or the hoots of the ferry boats they’d never sounded like that.

Isabelle gave a shudder and pulled her shawl more tightly around her. ‘I should be going home now, Lucy,’ she said, ‘for I must be at market by six in the morning to secure my pitch.’

I own I was disappointed, for I’d hoped she might stay the whole evening with me. ‘Do you really have to leave so soon?’

She nodded. ‘I must be a-bed early.’

‘But when will I see you again?’ I asked, for my family were not living nearby and I had no other friend but her.

‘Very soon! Whenever you come to market.’ She went to the library door and, after looking anxiously up and down the passageway and tilting her head to listen for any sounds, stepped outside.

I doused the candles in the library and we walked back towards the kitchen, with me heartily trying to persuade her to stay a little longer, and she just as heartily refusing. At the back door she spoke to me, her face serious. ‘While you’re alone in the house you must take two crossed rowan twigs as a guard against magick and keep them beside you until your cook comes home, for now I’ve been in this house I fear for you.’

‘There is nothing to be frightened of!’ I assured her, but she took up her cloak and left very briskly indeed, and before we’d even tried to clean her gown.

When she’d gone I made up the fire in the kitchen and sat before it thinking of my life, wondering about Ma and my family and how they were all faring, and also when I might see the queen’s fool again, for he’d been merry and charming to me – and besides, had silvery-grey eyes – and I’d liked him very much. Thinking on him, I naturally thought of Her Grace, and felt for the little token that I always wore on a ribband around my neck. This was but a forged coin, worthless in itself, but bearing the queen’s image and therefore very precious to me, for I had long held our queen in the highest regard and, as a child, it had been my one desire to serve her.

I closed my eyes, allowing my thoughts to drift and settle (which was a great luxury, for my life did not usually offer such a time) and not long after there was thumping and swearing in the outside passageway which told me that Mistress Midge had arrived back from seeing her sister.

She flung open the back door: large, red-faced and furious, crying, ‘Would you ever believe such robbery?’

I looked at her expectantly, not a bit surprised at her manner, for Mistress Midge was a woman prone to tempers and tantrums.

‘That knavish no-good ferryman charged me three pence to bring me across the river in the fog! Three pence! And then he had the gall to hold out his scurvy hand for a tip, telling me that the weather was so bad he shouldn’t have been out at all.’

‘It
is
horrid . . .’ I began.

‘Horrid? Lord above, I’ve known it ten times worse than this. My father was a ferryman and he went out in gales so fierce they could lift a body off her feet! Tonight? Pah!’ She spat into the fire. ‘’Tis nothing!’

I hid a smile as she stamped around the kitchen, swearing to herself, scratching and muttering, at length finding a piece of cake in her pocket and stuffing it in her mouth. After a few moments of this she went to the barrel and poured herself a glass of small beer, then pulled up another stool in front of the fire.

‘Is your sister in good health?’ I now felt it safe to enquire.

She nodded. ‘As fine and sprightly as ever she was. And she sixty years old and more!’

‘And has she set eyes on the queen of late?’ I asked, for her sister was a washerwoman at Syon House, a noble household where the queen was sometimes a visitor.

‘Not lately – but what do you think?’ She paused and took another mouthful of beer. ‘Her Grace has another suitor, and he’s a Frenchman and Catholic to boot!’

I gasped at this, knowing there would be much dissent amongst the people if she should marry a Catholic.

‘They say he’s a short man with a pock-marked face, but has won the queen’s heart with his elegant conversation and a bag of pearls.’

‘Never! But what of the other suitors?’ I asked eagerly, for the queen’s romantic associations were a great conversation piece amongst us all. ‘What about the Earl of Leicester?’

‘Exactly.
What
about the Earl of Leicester?’ Mistress Midge said. ‘They say he’s broken-hearted and hasn’t been at Court for days. And what of Francis Drake, back from his travels and set to woo the queen? And young Oxford?’

‘And Walter Ralegh?’ I reminded her.

‘Indeed!’

We made ourselves comfortable in front of the fire while we waited for the Dee family to return, looking forward to an evening spent talking of Her Grace, of whom she might marry and whether or not it was too late for her to provide the country with an heir. And, that night at least, I didn’t think any more about the strange noise I’d heard.