Deliver us from Evil (50 page)

Lightborn smiled faintly. 'He was a most celebrated man.'

'And his copy
...
his transcription
...
of Rabbi Loew's book?'

Lightborn's smile faded, and his gaze grew distant once again. 'Doubtless,' he asked at length, 'the
mummia
arriving from Amsterdam - it is intended for the Marquise?'

'Some of it, yes.'

'Then
I
suggest, when you make your journey to Mortlake, that you direct your questioning to her.'

'So
I
shall,' Robert answered, 'when
I
visit her. But
I
was intending first to attempt Milady's cure.'

'With the
mummia?'
Lightborn frowned. 'Why should it work on her?'

'Because it appears to counter the poison of the Spirit of Death. The plague in Milady's veins - it was brought originally from Woodton, so might the
mummia
not serve to cure her sickness too?'

Lightborn stared at him in silence for a moment then he shrugged faintly and rose to his feet. 'Let us hope you are right.' He crossed to the door; then paused and turned. 'And while you tend to Milady,' he said, his smile suddenly very cruel, 'why not direct your questioning to her?'

He left before Robert could ask him any more, and was gone from the house as though vanished into air. Robert was left alone with Milady; and for the next couple of days nothing disturbed them, save for the arrival from the docks of the travelling trunk. Within it were several flasks of
mummia,
one of which Robert used to tend to Milady; and as he did so, he could almost see the sickness being purged from her veins. By the time that Lightborn reappeared, with further garnerings from the plague pits in tow, Milady had grown well enough to rise from her cushions and to request Robert not to watch her as she drank. For her thirst and pleasure seemed intermingled with guilt, such as he had never seen in her before; and he wondered, as he left her, what its origin could be.

Soon, though, with health came her composure once again; and on the night when she first left her room and hunted for herself, Robert chose to tell her of his travels, and then to ask her what she knew of Dr Dee. She stared at him strangely. 'Why?' she murmured. 'What has Lightborn told you?'

'Nothing, save to imply that you once knew him - and perhaps as well that you knew of his book.'

Milady began to play with her curls, sweeping them backwards off her naked shoulders. 'Then
I
shall not deny it,' she murmured at last.

'Why did you not tell me?'

'You never asked.'

Robert gazed at her in frustration. 'You surprise me, Milady.' indeed?'

'Surely you can see how important the book might be?'

Sh
e shook her head, it is no long
er in Mortlake. Why do you think the Marquise has been living there, if not to ransack every corner and lift up every board? However' - she tossed out her curls again - 'if you do not trust me, Lovelace, you should ask the Marquise yourself.'

At once, Robert reached out to hold Milady's slim hand. 'Please. You know it is not a question of that - only of my desperation to rediscover the book.'

Milady laughed. 'And you think you are the only one, Lovelace, to feel such a desperation?'

Robert frowned at her and she laughed again; then she rose to her feet, still holding his hand. 'We should go,' she said. 'It is time we took the Pasha's gift to the Marquise. And on the way -
I
shall tell you what
I
can of the book, and of Dr Dee.'

'All my past life is mine no more;

The flying hours are gone Like transitory dreams given o'er, Whose images are kept in store

By memory alone.'

The Earl of Rochester, Song

T
hey left in the coach-and-six. The few people on the streets gazed at them in amazement, and Robert wondered when the last nobleman's carriage had been seen abroad in London. By the camp in Hyde Park, it slowed down briefly, but a single glance into Milady's eyes was sufficient to persuade the guards to raise their barriers; and the coach continued on its way towards Mortlake. Milady leaned out from the window to make certain of their progress, then sat back again in her seat; but she had begun to fidget and could not compose herself. Robert remembered how uneasy she had been before, on their very first journey to visit the Marquise; and he wondered what memories the Mortlake house aroused.

'
I
was never closely acquainted with Dr Dee,' Milady said suddenly. Her voice seemed altered, almost imperceptibly so: yet it was clear to Robert, who knew her so well, that her accent had indeed slipped, as it had once or twice slipped before. 'It was Lightborn who mingled in such circles,' she continued, 'and had done for several years before
I
met him, so that he had grown a friend of heretics and spies - a dangerous man. That was why
I
loved him - for
I
was very young - and he seemed to promise me a world of infinite excitement.' Milady paused, and laughed bitterly. 'Infinite indeed!'

'How had you met him?' Robert asked.

‘I
n a Southwark tavern,' she answered, 'or a brothel,
I
should say -for
I
was far from being titled Milady then. My mother had been a whore. She had died when
I
was very young. The mistress of the brothel, rather than throwing me out into the streets, had kept me to wait upon the other whores, to scrub their rooms and mend their clothes.
I
had thought she did this out of love for my mother - and it was only later that
I
realised what her true motive was.
I
..
.' Milady paused, and flicked out her fan; she raised it to her face, as though to cool the flush that had risen in her cheeks,
I
shall never forget,' she continued at last, 'the first time.
I
was not even certain what was happening to me.
I
was only a child.
I
had not appreciated, for all that
I
had lived my life in a brothel, the tastes - the strange tastes - that some men can have

Robert gazed into the deep gold of her eyes. They were perfectly clear now, but he remembered how there had been tears in them before - that first time he saw them, when she nursed him in her lap as they rode from Stonehenge - and he felt a sudden sense of shame that he had never once thought to ask her since why she had cried. Yet even now, gazing at her, he could not believe it, that Milady, the beautiful, wondrous Milady, could have truly understood what it was that he had suffered . . .

She smiled at him quizzically. 'You find it so hard to imagine?' she asked, as though reading his thoughts. She reached across to hold his hand. 'When
I
was a tiny child,' she laughed, as though almost in tears,
I
could never believe that the whores had once been children too.'

Robert nodded slowly. 'And so it has been with me,' he whispered, 'looking at you.' And so it was even now, he realised suddenly; for still he could not imagine Milady as a mortal, despite what she had told him, for she was too altered, too remote from what she had been, for him to glimpse the little girl in her face. He leaned forward, and clasped her other hand. 'What happened, then?' he asked her. 'How did things change?'

'Lightborn,' she answered distantly, 'came one evening with friends.
I
had not seen him before - as
I
was later to discover, his tastes did not run greatly to girls. He had come to the brothel,
I
suppose, merely for a drink. It was
I
who served it to him. And yet something -
I
saw it in his eye - something about me interested him. It may be that he saw the child's face beneath my woman's paint, and was intrigued by it, for he was ever a connoisseur of suffering, and my fear and shame must have been clear to such a man. But whatever the reason
...
he came back the next night, and the night after that, and then the following day he took me from the brothel. He was a poet, he explained to me; and was staging an entertainment in the house of a patron.
I
was to play the role of Venus.
I
asked him why he had chosen me. He kissed my hand, then answered me without any apparent mockery, that my beauty made me worthy to play the Goddess of Love - for
I
had the face and the form of a true immortal.

I
learned my lines, and played my role; and when it was finished,
I
was taken back to the brothel. The following week Lightborn came for me again. This time
I
was to play Hero, a lovesick Grecian maid.
I
had thought that he would laugh as he told me this, that he had cast a whore in a virgin's part; but again he did nothing but kiss my hand -and
I
felt what it might be not to be despised, and beaten and forced. This time, when the masque was finished,
I
did not return to the brothel but was taken by Lightborn back to his own rooms. He told me that
I
was now to work for him.
I
knew that he must have paid for me; and indeed,
I
served him with an almost slave-like devotion, for he was never cruel to me, never vicious; and although he would sometimes kiss me and caress me through my gown, he never forced his attentions any further.
I
continued to perform in his various masques; and sometimes, too,
I
would play a quite different part. For it increasingly pleased Lightborn to have me accompany him even to those houses where he was not to stage his entertainments; and in such gatherings,
I
learned to behave as though
I
were his mistress or wife, for he would settle me upon his lap and, as he talked, he would play with my curls or follow with his finger the curve of my face.'

'And it was at such a gathering,' Robert asked, 'that you met with Dr Dee?'

Milady nodded. 'Yes - and with the Marquise as well - in the very house we are coming to now. There was much discussion that night of perilous matters - of magic, of spirits, of selling one's soul. Lightborn in particular seemed obsessed by immortality; by the delights it could offer - and also the threats. For it was loneliness he spoke of most - of being immortal and loveless, eternally alone.
I
suddenly realised that he was not jesting, as was his usual custom, but truly believed that he might indeed never die; and
I
felt my blood run cold, as
I
wondered what my own role in such a fantasy was to be.
I
shrank, and tried to slip from Lightborn's arms; but he would not let me go, and he stared into my eyes for a long while and said nothing at all. Then at last
I
felt him shudder; an
d he whispered in my ear that
I
should not be afraid, that he would remain a mortal and be tempted no more. And indeed,
I
was to discover later that the Marquise had offered to transform him that very same night; and he had done as he had promised me, and refused her gift.'

'What altered, then?' Robert asked. 'For something must have done.'

'A great reckoning,' Milady smiled, 'in a little room.' 'A reckoning?'

Milady nodded slowly and glanced out through the window. The carriage was slowing now; as it juddered to a halt, she sat perfectly still, gazing at the silver of the moon upon the Thames, it happened that same day,' she said at last. 'He had been cold with me during all the journey back from Mortlake - brooding, and distant, and contemptuous - as though it had been my fault he had chosen to reject the Marquise. Returned to his rooms, he ordered me to prepare his trunk, for he was leaving, he told me, the next day for France -and leaving alone.

'He did not tell me what his business was - but
I
already knew.
I
have mentioned that Lightborn mingled with spies; not surprisingly -for
I
had soon come to realise that he had been one himself. It was not only his muse which his patrons had been sponsoring, for many times - while
I
had been performing in his masques, reciting his lines - he had been busy with less elevated matters. And that was how
I
knew that a fresh plot had been brewing - and that Lightborn, having abandoned his dream of immortality, was now preparing to abandon me as well.

'He had slept briefly on our return, then left that same morning. Some hours later there came a servant from Deptford, ordering me to deliver up the trunk. There was no other message - no token, no farewell. So
I
sent the trunk - and went with it myself. We were delivered together to a tavern on the Green. You have seen it for yourself. Lightborn was upstairs there in a private room, with three other men. There were maps and papers spread across a table, and
I
knew the men at once to be notorious spies. Their business together was clear enough; but there were bottles as well as maps upon the table, and all of the men seemed ragingly drunk. Their eyes had lit up as
I
entered the room; and one of them leered and rose to his feet. He tried to grab me by my arm, but he missed and staggered, and then Lightborn pushed him backwards so that he fell against the wall. Lightborn kicked him hard, and smashed his head against the floor;