S Parris - Prophecy

Reaching back into the chest, I lift out the two books hidden beneath the papers. The first is a bound edition of The Book of Soyga , copied by hand, a book of names and invocations believed to contain the original language spoken between God and Adam, a language of great power uncorrupted by man’s fall. I had seen a manuscript of this book in Paris and was sceptical about its authenticity, though I knew Dee owned one and still kept faith that it contained some hidden power. When I had asked to see his copy some while ago, he had told me that it was missing. Apparently his household scryer was light-fingered as well as treacherous.

The second book takes me by surprise, for it is my own: On the Shadows of Ideas , the book I published in Paris last year. Turning its leaves slowly, I find Kelley has underscored the passages in which I describe the images of the decans. What Dee has taken as the scryer’s divine revelations from the Egyptian gods of time is nothing more than the ability to parrot back the words he has read — words of mine, no less. When Dee is returned, I will show him this copy with its folded back pages and notes as proof that Kelley has no more of a seer’s gift than the housemaid. Perhaps this will finally persuade him that he has been deceived.

I tuck the book inside my doublet with the papers, as furious with myself as with Dee this time; I should have guessed at this the moment I first heard Kelley describing his ‘vision’ of the decan of Aries in the showing-stone. Kelley knows nothing of the writings of Hermes, any more than he speaks with spirits; his revelations are pure invention, cobbled together from scraps he has pilfered from Dee’s own library.

‘Those are my husband’s books.’

I start, almost knocking over the candle; lost in these thoughts, among the shadows, I have not heard her footsteps and her sharp voice out of the darkness sends my heart almost leaping into my throat. I turn and the Dees’ housemaid is standing in the doorway, holding a small candle.

‘Christ, woman, you scared the life out of me.’ So startled am I that it takes me a moment to register what she has said. ‘Your husband ?’

‘You have no right to look in those papers. Those books are nothing to do with you.’

‘You are wrong there, madam — this one has my name on the title page.’ I hold it up for her.

She only narrows her eyes and continues to glare at me, as if this might eventually wear me down.

‘So Ned Kelley is your husband. Where is he, then?’

She shrugs. In the candlelight I see that she is older than I first thought, perhaps nearer forty than thirty, with the last vestiges of something that is not quite beauty but a bolder appeal.

‘Away. But he will be back, and then you will be sorry.’

‘Will I? Tell me, when he returns, does he plan to continue cozening the man who feeds and houses him? What does he get out of this charade? Has someone put him up to it?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she says, looking away. ‘I don’t pry into my husband’s business.’

‘Just as well, since his business is murdering young girls.’

I have her there; she turns to me, mouth open, eyes wide just for a moment, though she pulls herself together quickly enough.

‘My husband never harmed anyone, you wicked slanderer — he has his gifts from God. But who would expect anything else from a filthy foreigner. Your eyes are black as a Moor’s,’ she adds, for good measure.

‘Perhaps my great-grandmother had herself a Moor, who knows?’ I say, picking up the candle and rising to my feet. These English have so little imagination. I notice her looking at the book tucked under my arm.

‘Where is your husband?’ I ask again. ‘I know some people who are very keen to talk to him about his gifts .’ I bring the candle up close to her face, but she is a tall woman, as tall as me, and sturdy; she will not be cowed. She merely looks me in the eye, insolent as a Southwark whore.

‘You can’t walk away with that book, you have no right —‘ she begins again. My patience breaks.

‘Don’t talk to me about rights, mistress,’ I say, grasping her by the upper arm and pushing her back against the door frame, ‘when you and your husband feed off the generosity of a good-hearted man and his wife for your own profit. Tell me where he is.’ I shake her brusquely and she bares her teeth at me. I am gratified to see that she looks at least a little scared before the brazen face returns.

‘Generosity, you call it? Credulity, I say. I don’t know where Ned is, but I’ll wager somewhere a sorcerer like you nor a fool like John Dee won’t find him.’

‘Lucky, then, that the queen’s men are better trained for searching. Especially when a man is wanted for murder.’

This punctures her bluster somewhat; she tries to wrest her arm away from me but as we are both holding candles her movements are limited.

‘Ned hasn’t murdered anyone. That was never —‘

‘Never what?’ I rattle her arm harder. ‘Never part of the deal? Maybe your husband and his paymaster have changed the deal. Well, no doubt they will get that out of him one way or another.’

‘Why are you hurting Johanna?’ says a small voice from somewhere around my knees. I glance down and there at the top of the stairs is Arthur Dee, his earnest eyes upturned and swivelling from me to Kelley’s wife. Reluctantly, I let go of her arm. She flashes me a look of triumph and makes a great fuss of smoothing down her skirts, rubbing the flesh of her arm ostentatiously as if she has been ravished. She should be so lucky, I think, with a last glance of disgust.

‘Is everything all right up there, Doctor Bruno?’ Jane Dee calls from the foot of the stairs.

‘All is well.’ I bend down to the boy. ‘No one is hurt, Arthur. Shall we go down to your mother?’

He nods and reaches his little hand up to mine; we leave Johanna Kelley, if that is her name, replacing the items in her husband’s chest with a face like storm clouds.

‘I don’t like her,’ Arthur confides as we descend, in a whisper guaranteed to carry through the house. ‘She struck me once and my mama called her a witch.’ I try to stifle a laugh.

‘I imagine the slattern was not best pleased to find you going through her husband’s things,’ Jane says, when I rejoin her in the parlour. She looks as if the thought pleases her. ‘If husband he is.’

‘She is short on civility, that much is certain.’

Jane nods. ‘You wouldn’t think she was once in service to one of the noble families. I’ll bet she minded her manners a lot better then. Or maybe she didn’t,’ she adds, signific antly.

I stop, midway through pulling on my cloak.

‘Really? Which family?’

‘She used to be a maid in the Earl of Arundel’s household, up at Arundel House on the Strand. Won’t say why she left, but it’s my guess she was thrown out in disgrace. There’s a child, you know, a little daughter no more than Arthur’s age, she leaves it with some widow out Hammersmith way. And it’s not by Kelley,’ she says, with a nod full of meaning. ‘She only took up with him a year ago, from what I gather. It’s my bet they’re not even properly married.’

‘You think she got the child at Arundel House?’ I stare at her, disbelieving. Another Howard connection. Could it be — I am still gaping at Jane as this new idea forms — that Kelley is working for Henry Howard or his nephew, perhaps introduced to them by his wife? My mind rushes back to my curious conversation with Howard after the concert and his oblique threat; he had specifically mentioned Dee conjuring spirits in a showing-stone. Was that a lucky hit, or did he have such a detail from a first-hand report?