S Parris - Prophecy

I nod, painfully.

‘Good.’ He smiles, but it only lasts an instant. ‘I will arrange a boat, and come with you as far as Whitehall. See if I can persuade Dee to tell me any more.’ He strides to the door, purposeful again, then turns back to me. ‘Do you think there is any truth in it, Bruno? This pursuit of commerce with spirits? It was said in Paris that you knew something of these arts.’

Squinting, I try to focus until I can see his features sharply. His expression is neutral, curious. ‘It is forbidden by every statute of the church,’ I say, eventually. ‘Theirs and yours.’

‘I know it is forbidden, Bruno — I write the laws,’ he says, impatient. ‘This is why no one will admit to it, while the country crawls with these so-called scryers and cunning-men, duping the poor and ignorant. And sometimes the educated,’ he adds, with a wry curl of the lip. ‘But do you believe some men could truly have this gift, to speak with spirits — angels or demons, or whatever you want to call them? Have you ever known such a thing, or are such beliefs only remnants from our benighted past?’ He searches my face, his hand still resting on the door. I can feel Sidney’s eyes on me too, expectant; I know he was drawn to such knowledge when he was a student of Dee’s, but since he assumed his position at court he has kept a politic distance. My poor bruised brain feels ill-equipped for the subtleties such an answer requires.

‘If, as I believe,’ I say, weighing my words, ‘this universe is infinite, then it follows that it must contain more than we can have so far managed to comprehend or write down. The sacred scriptures, not just of our own religion but of others besides, all speak of beings who stand between us and the divinity. Through the ages, right across the world, men have claimed to speak with them, and so to know the future. I can’t judge the truth of their claims, but I am certain of this — if there are men who have such a gift, Ned Kelley is not one of them. And neither is John Dee.’

‘Are you?’ Walsingham asks.

I hear Sidney suck in a breath through his teeth.

‘Not I, your honour.’ I do not add the word ‘yet’, though it echoes in my head.

Walsingham considers me for a moment, then nods brusquely, and sweeps through the door, gesturing for us to follow. Sidney lays a hand on my arm.

‘Careful, Bruno.’ He lowers his voice. ‘Whatever the truth about this Kelley and the murders, Dee will not come out of this business well. What he has been doing is as good as witchcraft, you know that. People burn for less. The queen won’t let that happen, but she will have to distance herself from him, and you could be tainted by association.’

‘Then Howard will have achieved his aim,’ I say, gripping his sleeve. ‘Dee will be disgraced and cast out. We must find some evidence that will tie Howard to this beyond any doubt, or Dee will be destroyed.’

‘You are convinced Howard is behind the murders, then?’

‘I just don’t know. So much points to him, and yet there is so much that doesn’t make sense.’ I pause, remembering Fowler’s warning. ‘But I must guard against persuading myself that it’s Howard just because I want it to be him.’ I raise my hand again to the wound at my temple. ‘God, I am a fool. If I hadn’t lost those papers —‘

‘If this fellow had had a better aim, you’d be dead,’ Sidney reprimands. ‘Forget the papers. Get closer to Howard if you can. At some point he must show his hand.’

‘Or kill me first,’ I say, looking at the smear of blood on my fingertips.

Salisbury Court, London

2nd October, Year of Our Lord 1583

At first I can’t make sense of the sound; an insistent hammering that chips through the cocoon of sleep. I wake to a new burst of pain behind my eyes, though when I reach tentatively to my temple I can feel that the swelling has begun to subside. Fragments of last night drift across the surface of my mind, assembling themselves into a vague memory of Walsingham’s boat dropping me at the end of Water Lane and one of his servants accompanying me as far as the garden door of Salisbury Court. I had hoped to drag myself up the stairs unnoticed, but Courcelles was coming down at the same time; I was almost gratified by how appalled he looked at the state of me. Despite my protests, he led me straight to Castelnau’s office. The ambassador accepted my story of a bar fight with English thugs without question (all we foreigners have suffered some degree of abuse from the Londoners), and could not have been kinder, though I waved aside his fuming threats to involve the law or take it up with the Lord Mayor; all I wanted by then was to collapse into my own bed and close my eyes.

Now I have been woken prematurely — there is barely a glimmer of light through the shutters — by this increasingly urgent knocking. For a moment it falls silent, and I think whoever is there has gone away. ‘Bruno! Let me in, will you?’ comes a whisper, before the tapping begins again, more frantic than before. Cursing under my breath, I struggle out of the bedclothes and unlatch the door to see Leon Dumas shivering in his nightshirt, his eyes bulging like an anxious fish.

‘Quick,’ he says, glancing over his shoulder as he slips inside, though the passageway is empty. ‘God’s blood, what happened to your head?’

‘I was set upon in a tavern. Some London boys didn’t like my accent.’

‘Really?’ He looks even more frightened. ‘I have been spat upon for being French, but this is vicious. Were they drunk?’

‘Very. It got out of hand. I should have ignored them, but I let them get under my skin. It was my own fault.’

‘What were you doing in such a place, Bruno? Were you alone?’ He looks so concerned that I almost want to laugh and reassure him.

‘Yes. I stopped for something to eat on my way back from the library at Mortlake. You know, where I go to work on my book.’

‘It looks terrible.’ He continues to wring his hands, frowning like a helpless mother. ‘Have you seen a physician? I think you ought.’

I shake my head and immediately regret it.

‘It will mend. Was there something you wanted?’

‘Oh. That. Well, it’s —‘ He squeezes his hands together several times, then walks to the window, turns to me with an agonised expression, bites the knuckle of his thumb and walks back. ‘I need your help.’

‘Of course. What’s the matter?’ I ask, striving to sound more patient than I feel.

‘There is something —‘ He rubs the back of his neck and looks away. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but I must. It weighs too hard on my conscience.’ He stops again and fixes those enormous eyes on me as if imploring me to extract his confession without his having to speak it aloud. My heart freezes for a moment; he is going to tell me that he has buckled under the strain of his false front and given us up, told someone at the embassy about Walsingham and the letters. Our betrayal is known — it must be. With my head in such poor shape, I can barely think ahead to the consequences for the invasion plot, and for me.

‘I was sworn to secrecy but I’m afraid I will be found out soon, and then it will go worse for me. But I said to myself — Bruno will know what to do.’

‘What has happened, Leon?’ I ask, trying to sound reassuring, though I fear I already know the answer. He appears so tense that I wonder if he might burst into tears.

‘It’s the ring,’ he blurts, finally. ‘The missing one, that Mary Stuart sent to Henry Howard.’

For a moment, I am nonplussed.

‘What about it?’

‘I know where it is.’

To the best of my knowledge, Mary Stuart’s ring is currently in Walsingham’s care. Dumas cannot possibly know this. I stare at him as he chews his knuckles again.