Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (118 page)

This was the first thing that Mr Norrell had said that seemed in any way to mollify the Prime Minister. He inclined his head slightly. "But if it is not your doing, whose is it?"

This question seemed to strike at some particularly vulnerable spot in Mr Norrell's soul. He stood, eyes staring, mouth opening and closing, entirely unable to answer.

Lascelles, however, was in complete command of himself. He had not the least idea in the world whose magic it was, nor did he care. But he did know precisely what answer would serve his and Mr Norrell's interest best. "Frankly I am surprized that your lordship need put the question," he said, coolly. "Surely the wickedness of the magic proclaims its author; it is Strange."

"Strange!" Lord Liverpool blinked. "But Strange is in Venice!"

"Mr Norrell believes that Strange is no longer the master of his own desires," said Lascelles. "He has done all sorts of wicked magic; he has trafficked with creatures that are enemies of Great Britain, of Christianity, of Mankind itself ! This catastrophe may be some sort of experiment of his, which has gone awry. Or it may be that he has done it deliberately. I feel it only right to remind your lordship that Mr Norrell has warned the Government on several occasions of the great danger to the Nation from Strange's present researches. We have sent your lordship urgent messages, but we have received no replies. Fortunately for us all Mr Norrell is what he always was: firm and resolute and watchful." As he spoke, Lascelles's glance fell upon Mr Norrell, who was at the moment the very picture of everything which was dismayed, defeated and im- potent.

Lord Liverpool turned to Mr Norrell. "Is this your opinion also, sir?"

Mr Norrell was lost in thought, murmuring over and over, "This is my doing. This is my doing." Although he spoke to himself, it was just loud enough for everyone else in the room to hear.

Lascelles's eyes widened; but he was master of himself in an instant. "It is only natural that you feel that now, sir," he said quickly, "but in a while you will realize that nothing could be further from the truth. When you taught Mr Strange magic, you could not have known that it would end like this. No one could have known."

Lord Liverpool looked more than a little irritated at this attempt to make Mr Norrell appear in the character of a victim. For years and years Mr Norrell had set himself up as the chief magician in England and if magic had been done in England then Lord Liverpool considered him partly responsible at least. "I ask you again, Mr Norrell. Answer me plainly, if you please. Is it your opinion that this was done by Strange?"

Mr Norrell looked at each gentleman in turn. "Yes," he said in a frightened voice.

Lord Liverpool gave him a long, hard look. Then he said, "The matter shall not rest here, Mr Norrell. But whether it is Strange or not, one thing is clear. Great Britain already has a mad King; a mad magician would be the outside of enough. You have repeat- edly asked for commissions; well, here is one. Prevent your pupil from returning to England!"

"But . . ." began Mr Norrell. Then he caught sight of Lascelles's warning glance and fell silent.

Mr Norrell and Lascelles returned to Hanover-square. Mr Norrell went immediately to the library. Childermass was working at the table as before.

"Quick!" cried Mr Norrell, "I need a spell which no longer works!"

Childermass shrugged. "There are thousands. Chauntlucet;
⁴
Daedalus's Rose;
⁵
the Unrobed Ladies;
⁶
Stokesey's Vitrification
⁷
. . ."

"Stokesey's Vitrification! Yes! I have a description of that!"

Mr Norrell rushed to a shelf and pulled out a book. He searched for a page, found it and looked hurriedly around the room. On a table near the fireside stood a vase of mistletoe, ivy, red-berried holly and some sprays of a winter-flowering shrub. He fixed his eye upon the vase and began to mutter to himself.

All the shadows in the room did something odd, something not easy to describe or explain. It was as if they all turned and faced another way. Even when they were motionless again Childermass and Lascelles would have been hard pressed to say whether they were the same as they had been or not.

Something fell out of the vase and shattered upon the table with a tinkling sound.

Lascelles went over to the table and examined it. One of the branches of holly had been turned into glass. The glass branch had been too heavy for the vase and so it had toppled out; two or three unbroken holly leaves lay on the table.

"That spell has not worked for almost four hundred years," said Mr Norrell. "Watershippe specifically mentions it in
A Faire Wood Withering
as one of the spells which worked in his youth and was entirely ineffective by the time he was twenty!"

"Your superior skill . . ." began Lascelles.

"My superior skill has nothing to do with it!" snapped Mr Norrell. "I cannot do magic that is not there. Magic is returning to England. Strange has found a way to bring it back."

"Then I was right, was I not?" said Lascelles. "And our first task is to prevent him returning to England. Succeed in that and Lord Liverpool will forgive a great many other things."

Mr Norrell thought for a moment. "I can prevent him arriving by sea," he said.

"Excellent!" said Lascelles. Then something in the way Mr Norrell had phrased this last statement gave him pause. "Well, he is scarcely likely to come any other way. He cannot fly!" He gave a light laugh at the idea. Then another thought struck him. "Can he?"

Childermass shrugged.

"I do not know what Strange might be capable of by now," said Mr Norrell. "But I was not thinking of that. I was thinking of the King's Roads."

"I thought the King's Roads led to Faerie," said Lascelles.

"Yes, they do. But not only Faerie. The King's Roads lead everywhere. Heaven. Hell. The Houses of Parliament . . . They were built by magic. Every mirror, every puddle, every shadow in England is a gate to those roads. I cannot set a lock upon all of them. No body could. It would be a monstrous task! If Strange comes by the King's Roads then I know nothing to prevent him."

"But . . ." began Lascelles.

"I cannot prevent him!" cried Mr Norrell, wringing his hands. "Do not ask me! But . . ." He made a great effort to calm himself. ". . . I
can
be ready to receive him. The Greatest Magician of the Age. Well, soon we shall see, shall we not?"

"If he comes to England," said Lascelles, "where will he go first?"

"Hurtfew Abbey," said Childermass. "Where else?"

Mr Norrell and Lascelles were both about to answer him, but at that moment Lucas entered the room with a silver tray upon which lay a letter. He offered it to Lascelles. Lascelles broke the seal and read it rapidly.

"Drawlight is back," he said. "Wait for me here. I will return within a day."

1 See Chapter 3, footnote 1.

2 Restoration and Rectification was a spell which reversed the effects of a recent calamity.

3 Teilo's Hand was an ancient fairy spell which halted all sorts of things: rain, fire, wind, coursing water or blood. It presumably was named after the fairy who had first taught it to an English magician.

4 Chauntlucet: a mysterious and ancient spell which encourages the moon to sing. The song the moon knows is apparently very beautiful and can cure leprosy or madness in any who hear it.

5 Daedalus's Rose: a fairly complicated procedure devised by Martin Pale for preserving emotions, vices and virtues in amber or honey or beeswax. When the preserving medium is warmed, the imprisoned qualities are released. The Rose has - or rather had - a huge number of applications. It could be used to dispense courage to oneself or inflict cowardice on one's enemy; it could provoke love, lust, nobility of purpose, anger, jealousy, ambition, self-sacri- fice, etc., etc.

6 Like many spells with unusual names, the Unrobed Ladies was a great deal less exciting than it sounded. The ladies of the title were only a kind of woodland flower which was used in a spell to bind a fairy's powers. The flower was required to be stripped of leaves and petals - hence the "unrobing".

7 Stokesey's Vitrification turns objects - and people - to glass.

62
I came to them in a cry
that broke the silence of a winter wood

Early February 1817

F
IRST LIGHT IN early February: a crossroads in the middle of a wood. The space between the trees was misty and indis- tinct; the darkness of the trees seeped into it. Neither of the two roads was of any importance. They were rutted and ill-main- tained; one was scarcely more than a cart-track. It was an out-of- the-way place, marked on no map. It did not even have a name.

Drawlight was waiting at the crossroads. There was no horse standing nearby, no groom with a trap or cart, nothing to explain how he had come there. Yet clearly he had been standing at the crossroads for some time; his coat-sleeves were white with frost. A faint click behind him made him spin round. But there was nothing: only the same stretch of silent trees.

"No, no," he muttered to himself. "It was nothing. A dry leaf fell - that is all." There was a sharp snap, as ice cracked wood or stone. He stared again, with eyes addled by fear. "It was only a dry leaf," he murmured.

There was a new sound. For a moment he was all in a panic, uncertain where it was coming from; until he recognized it for what it was: horses' hooves. He peered up the road. A dim, grey smudge in the mist shewed where a horse and rider were approaching.

"He is here at last. He is here," muttered Drawlight and hastened forward. "Where have you been?" he cried. "I have been waiting here for hours."

"So?" said Lascelles's voice. "You have nothing else to do."

"Oh! But you are wrong! You could not be more wrong. You must take me to London as quickly as possible!"

"All in good time." Lascelles emerged from the mist and reined in his horse. His fine clothes and hat were beaded with a silvery dusting of dew.

Drawlight regarded him for a moment and then, with some- thing of his old character, said sulkily, "How nicely you are dressed! But really, you know, it is not very clever of you to parade your wealth like that. Are not you afraid of robbers? This is a very horrid spot. I dare say there are all sorts of desperate characters close at hand."

"You are probably right. But you see I have my pistols with me, and am quite as desperate as any of them."

Drawlight was struck by a sudden thought. "Where is the other horse?" he asked.

"What?"

"The other horse! The one that is to take me to London! Oh, Lascelles, you noodlehead! How am I to get to London without a horse?"

Lascelles laughed. "I would have thought you would be glad to avoid it. Your debts may have been paid off -
I
have paid them - but London is still full of people who hate you and will do you an ill turn if they can."

Drawlight stared as if he had understood none of this. In a shrill, excited voice, he cried, "But I have instructions from the magi- cian! He has given me messages to deliver to all sorts of people! I must begin immediately! I must not delay a single hour!"

Lascelles frowned. "Are you drunk? Are you dreaming? Norrell has not asked you to do any thing. If he had tasks for you, he would convey them through me, and besides . . ."

"Not Norrell. Strange!"

Lascelles sat stock still upon his horse. The horse shifted and fidgeted, but Lascelles moved not at all. Then, in a softer, more dangerous voice, he said, "What in the world are you talking about? Strange? How dare you talk to me of Strange? I advise you to think very carefully before you speak again. I am already seriously displeased. Your instructions were quite plain, I think. You were to remain at Venice until Strange left. But here you are. And there he is."

"I could not help it! I had to leave! You do not understand. I saw him and he told me . . ."

Lascelles held up his hand. "I have no wish to conduct this conversation in the open. We will go a little way into the trees."

"Into the trees!" The little colour that was left in Drawlight's face drained away. "Oh, no! Not for the world! I will not go there! Do not ask me!"

"What do you mean?" Lascelles looked round, a little less comfortable than before. "Has Strange set the trees to spy on us?"

"No, no. That is not it. I cannot explain it. They are waiting for me. They know me! I cannot go in there!" Drawlight had no words for what had happened to him. He held out his arms for a moment as if he thought he could shew Lascelles the rivers that had curled about his feet, the trees that had pierced him, the stones that had been his heart and lungs and guts.

Lascelles raised his riding-whip. "I have no idea what you are talking about." He urged his horse at Drawlight and flourished the whip. Poor Drawlight had never possessed the least physical courage and he was driven, whimpering, into the trees. A briar caught the edge of his sleeve and he screamed.

"Oh, do be quiet!" said Lascelles. "Any one would think there is murder going on."

They walked on until they came to a small clearing. Lascelles got down from his horse and tethered him to a tree. He removed the two pistols from the saddle-holsters and stuck them in the pockets of his great coat. Then he turned to Drawlight. "So you actually saw Strange? Good. Excellent, in fact. I was sure you were too cowardly to face him."

"I thought he would change me into something horrible."

Lascelles surveyed Drawlight's stained clothing and haunted face with some distaste. "Are you sure he did not do it?"

"What?" said Drawlight.

"Why did you not simply kill him? There, in the Darkness? You were alone, I presume? No one would have known."

"Oh, yes. That is very likely, is it not? He is tall and clever and quick and cruel. I am none of those things."