Witchfall (8 page)

Everyone knew the story, of course. The Queen’s mother had been married to King Henry for years, with Mary their beloved daughter, until the day that Henry fell in love with one of the court ladies, Anne Boleyn. Then he had split from the Holy Roman Catholic Church because they would not dissolve his first marriage, divorced his Spanish Queen himself, allowed poor little Mary to be neglected and forgotten, and married the beautiful Anne instead.

Before long, the Lady Elizabeth was born – though she was called Princess Elizabeth in those days. But King Henry grew weary of Anne, and soon fell in love with another woman, Jane Seymour. He caused charges of adultery and witchcraft to be brought against Elizabeth’s mother, and had the unfortunate Queen executed at Tower Hill.

‘Hush, my lady,’ I whispered, glancing over my shoulder. The door was shut, but instinct warned me not to speak too loudly. ‘Why not try to get some sleep first? There are guards on the outer doors. King’s men, Spaniards. It is not safe to speak of this here. When you are back on your feet and can walk unaccompanied in the gardens, we will talk then.’

‘No, it must be tonight.’ It was clear that Elizabeth was determined. She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Fetch whatever you need. Work your spell and bring her back to me. If you do not obey me, Meg Lytton, you will leave my service tomorrow morning and return to Oxfordshire.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘You understand?’

If I was sent home in disgrace, I would never see Alejandro again. But to call forth an unquiet spirit of this magnitude might endanger all our souls. I clutched the linen, trying to stare her ladyship down, then finally capitulated. The anger of a Tudor is not an easy thing to bear, I thought grimly.

I had no wish to call forth the spirit of an executed Queen. Yet I could see that the Lady Elizabeth would fret herself to death if I did not at least try to call her mother’s spirit to that place. I did not have the power to succeed in such a spell, so it could cause little harm. I held out no hope of making so much as the shadows quiver.

‘Very well, my lady,’ I said quietly. ‘Since you command me to do it, I will try my best. But if the spell goes wrong, remember that I warned you of the danger.’

‘I have been warned,’ she agreed, then lay back against her pillows with a faint smile of triumph on her lips. ‘Quick, the hour is already late. If you are to perform the spell before dawn, you had best go to work.’

Returning to the little room I shared with Blanche and now also with Alice, I lit a tallow candle and slipped my hand down between two loose floorboards, searching about in the narrow space until my fingers hit leather.

The book was thin and the ink barely legible, it had faded so badly, but I knew my old book of shadows contained what I would need tonight: a spell to make manifest that which is
lost or absent. It was not quite a spell for raising the dead, but it would have to do. My aunt had often said that no spell was perfect for every occasion, but must be made to fit the witch’s need. And this was the closest spell I had to the one Master Dee had used to conjure my aunt in his cell.

My conscience pricked me as I flicked through the pages of spells copied out in a childish hand when I was still young and under the discreet tutelage of my aunt. Was this too dangerous even to contemplate? If we were discovered in the act of summoning the dead, my own death would be nothing compared to the public humiliation and execution of the Lady Elizabeth for witchcraft. By summoning her mother, Elizabeth might end up suffering the same terrible death as Queen Anne.

Yet the princess’s mind was made up, and I could not entirely blame her curiosity. Before I was forced to burn them to avoid discovery, I had often looked at such spells in my aunt’s books and wondered how it would be to call up my own dead mother from the world of shadows. But something had always held me back. A fear of what I might meet in her eyes, perhaps. Or a more secret fear that my power would not be strong enough to contain the spirit once conjured.

I needed very little by way of magickal instruments. The spell called simply for a candle, a black cloth for a blindfold, and a few sprigs of rosemary, which I sent an unsuspecting Alice to collect from the herb gardens. These I took back to the princess’s bedchamber, the only room where we could be
reasonably sure of not being disturbed during the ritual, and began to cast the circle.

I had to admit to some lightheadness, excited to be working magick at last. I had known it would be difficult to practise my craft at court, but I had not realized how painful it would be for me to stifle my talents in this way, for fear of being caught. Lighting a candle and arranging the rosemary sprigs now seemed acts of such significance they elevated this spell to some great feat of magick. Which, I thought with some trepidation, it would be if I was indeed able to conjure the spirit of a long-dead Queen.

Alice came to me as I prepared the ritual in the closeted darkness of the Lady Elizabeth’s chamber, her face pale. It seemed the girl had been thinking while I was gone, and had come to a natural-enough conclusion.

‘Meg, are you . . . are you a witch?’

I looked at her sharply. ‘What answer will get me hanged?’

‘No, no.’ Hurriedly, Alice shook her head, her eyes very wide. ‘I will say nothing. My grandmother knew a little of the old ways, though she was not a witch. But I saw her work a few spells when I was a child . . . Just to heal my grandfather when he was sick, and once so my older sister would bear a son instead of a daughter. I would never tell anyone such secrets. You can trust me.’

‘I am glad to hear it.’

‘You must forgive me though, for I do not wish to stay to
see whatever it is you and the Lady Elizabeth are doing,’ Alice muttered uneasily. She looked at the array of strange implements I had gathered, the open book with its crabbed lettering. ‘We could hang for this. It looks like black magick.’

‘Then go,’ I told her. ‘It makes no odds whether you stay or go. You are not needed here.’

I glanced at the Lady Elizabeth for confirmation that Alice could leave. But her ladyship was too absorbed to have noticed our whispered discussion, bent over a locket which I guessed must contain a miniature portrait of her mother. I smiled at Alice and gestured her towards the door. I bore her no ill will for wishing to be absent during this ritual; I did not wish to be here myself, though a certain curiosity drove me to see how much power I truly possessed.

‘But at least watch the door for us, would you?’ I asked as Alice left. ‘If we are interrupted, stamp your foot three times as a warning to clear the circle.’

Alice nodded, curtseyed to her ladyship and hurriedly withdrew. She had a stout heart, I had to give her that. It was clear she disapproved of this summoning. Yet now she was in the Lady Elizabeth’s service, her loyalty lay with the princess, and I had no fear she would betray us.

I turned to the princess. ‘You will need to come into the circle too,’ I told her, lighting the candle that stood in the centre. ‘There is no other way.’

Elizabeth nodded and slipped out of bed, throwing a shawl about her shoulders against the night air.

‘Bring the locket,’ I said, noticing its silver chain still lying on the covers. ‘It bears a portrait of your mother, doesn’t it?’

Nodding, Elizabeth fetched the locket.

I pointed to the cushion I had positioned safely within the circle. ‘Sit there, my lady, and place the opened locket in front of you. That’s it.’

She put down the locket and settled herself cross-legged, staring up at me, wide-eyed. Her face had lost its colour now, as though she had finally grasped the dangerousness of the spell I was about to perform. Yet she made no move to stop me.

I tilted the lit candle until the tallow began to drip, then walked around the edge of my circle, dripping hot tallow among the rushes and whispering in Latin beneath my breath, ‘
Claudite, claudite contra malum
,’ meaning ‘close the door to evil’.

I knew the charm against evil would not hold, not without better preparation. But I hoped an additional barrier of tallow would ward off any malevolent influences until the ritual was over.

I turned to the princess, the black cloth dangling from my hand. ‘My lady,’ I said haltingly, ‘this spell calls for the summoner to be blindfolded. This will make it easier for you to reach out to those who have died and are in darkness.’

But she did not explode with temper as I had expected. Instead, Elizabeth stared at the black cloth and shuddered. ‘A
blindfold? That is what my mother would have worn to her execution.’

‘Forgive me,’ I muttered, and tied it about her head, giving the black cloth one last tug to make sure the knot was secure and her eyes were completely covered.

I knelt opposite the princess and held out a small green sprig of rosemary to the candle, watching as it caught light and began to burn, its sweet fragrance swirling in the smoke above us.

‘If you have any memories of Queen Anne, call them to mind now and let them fill you,’ I murmured, lowering my gaze to the candle flame. It beat steadily against the darkness, casting its soft yellowish glow about the circle. ‘When you are ready, stretch out your hands towards the locket and call your mother to you. Whatever happens after that, my lady, you must on no account leave the circle. You understand?’

‘Yes,’ she said huskily, and bent her head as though in remembrance of her dead mother.

It seemed to take for ever. The sprig of rosemary burnt out while I waited and turned to smouldering ashes in my hand. I dropped it to the floor, my fingers tingling, and wondered if Elizabeth had changed her mind. But at last the princess stirred and stretched out her pale long-fingered hands to where the locket lay.

‘Mother,’ she whispered first, like a child in pain, and I heard her voice begin to tremble. ‘Queen Anne, Anne Boleyn, mother to Elizabeth, wife to King Henry, I summon thee to my side!’

‘Again,’ I instructed her.

She repeated her summons, more forcefully this time, and I looked at the candle as its flame suddenly dipped almost to nothing, then flickered back into life.

Someone – or something – had heard Elizabeth’s call and had answered. But who?

I encouraged the princess to continue. ‘Again,’ I said faintly, lifting the larger sprig of rosemary to the flame. It soon caught alight, and the fragrant smoke filled my senses until I could hardly breathe.

‘Anne Boleyn! Anne Boleyn! Anne Boleyn!’ she repeated breathlessly. ‘I, thy child Elizabeth, do call on thee in death. Appear before the living, Anne Boleyn, and speak thy mind!’

In the deathly stillness that followed, I found myself unable to move. My eyes were caught and held by the candle, its flame standing tall and bright now, unnaturally bright in the shadowy chamber. Above our heads, I heard the roof timbers shift and creak, like the timbers of a ship in sail, yet dared not look up. I knew that if I moved, the spell would be broken. Then the full weight of Hampton Court, all its tapestried halls and bedchambers and the great pomp of its red brick battlements and towers, seemed to come down on my back and shoulders like a burden I would be forced to bear until the ritual was over.

I knelt before the princess and struggled with the terrifying weight of it, sweat running down my forehead and into my eyes, seaming the court gown under my arms and breasts.
It felt as though I was supporting the palace roof itself with nothing but sheer nerve and the light of a candle.

The Lady Elizabeth gasped and shuddered. ‘I am so cold, so very cold,’ she whispered. ‘And someone is looking at me. I just know it!’

Before I could stop her, she had tugged down the blindfold. There was both fear and joy in her face as she pointed towards the fireplace. ‘Look,’ she breathed, and crossed herself in wonder. ‘My mother!’

Barely daring to turn my head in case I broke the spell, I managed to strain my eyes round to look in the direction of her pointing finger.

The silver woman hovering beside the hearth turned and stared back at us, perhaps responding to the sound of Elizabeth’s voice. This was no figure like my aunt, her body strong, her face blank. No doubt I lacked the power of Master Dee to make his summoned spirits look human again. The Anne Boleyn we had conjured between us was more spirit than apparition. I could see the bricks of the fireplace through her floating robes, and her feet did not seem to touch the floor.

Even in death she was beautiful, a slender but elegant lady in a rich, courtly gown such as a Queen might wear. Yet her face was wrenched with terror and hopelessness, and her eyes were the saddest I had ever seen.

She looked at me. Instantly the room lightened and the candle flame seemed to swell, burning steadily and strong. I
felt sorry for her and my heart clenched in sorrow, certain that a great wrong had been done to this woman. Then I remembered what my aunt had told me about the spirits of the dead, how they could secretly manipulate the minds of the living and were not to be trusted.

As though sensing my sudden distrust, her silver-eyed gaze passed from me to the princess. At once I felt the weight of the spell on my back again, a terrible force crushing me to the floor so that I could neither move nor speak, and I knew that we were in danger.

‘Elizabeth,’ the spirit of Anne Boleyn said mournfully, and held out her hand to the princess. Her voice was like the rustle of dead leaves in the winter. ‘Come to me, my daughter. You must come to me.’

Staring back at her mother’s ghost in a kind of trance, the Lady Elizabeth stirred, gathering her skirts as though to rise.

Frantically, I sought her gaze, struggling to say the word ‘No!’, but all I could manage was a muffled groan from behind enchantment-sealed lips. I knew Elizabeth must not leave the circle I had marked out with hot tallow or she would no longer be protected. Yet she seemed oblivious to my warning.

Elizabeth stood up, swaying, and walked to the edge of the circle. As though in a trance, she took one step towards the conjured spirit, then another, and stood at last outside the circle.

The candle blew out as though a window had been
thrown open in a wind, plunging the chamber into darkness. The fire was little more than glowing embers by which I could still see the floating silver ghost of Anne Boleyn, hands outstretched, waiting for her daughter.