S Parris - Prophecy

‘I don’t know.’ Dee passes the back of his hand across his forehead. His earlier cheer seems to have evaporated and he sounds weary and confused. ‘Put them on the desk, Ned, I will go through them in a moment. Perhaps you could leave us for now?’

Kelley bobs his head and scurries away with a last triumphant smile at me. I stare at Dee.

‘You are not taking him with you?’

‘I am. Oh, do not roll your eyes at me like that, Bruno. Ned has a volatile temperament — it goes with his gift. But he has confessed his deception and cut all ties with Howard and Johanna. Now he is determined to continue our previous work. He says he feels he is channelling a renewed energy from the spirits. They are eager to communicate.’

‘The only thing he is channelling is an eagerness to leave England before he is picked up by the constables for his debts,’ I say, with venom.

‘Oh, my dear Bruno. I know we shall never agree on Ned, but let us not part like this,’ he says, and I see he will not be turned from his course. ‘I have a gift for you.’ He rummages on his desk among the papers and emerges with a volume beautifully bound in tawny calfskin, which he passes to me, almost bashfully. I open it to examine the flyleaf and discover that it is a copy of the Commentaries of Erasmus, the same book I was obliged to throw into the privy on the night I had to flee my monastery in Naples, seven years ago. Dee had always enjoyed that story and asked me to tell it repeatedly.

‘I thought you should have your own edition,’ he says, not quite meeting my eye. ‘It is not forbidden here. Mind you don’t drop it in the privy.’

‘It’s beautiful.’ I stroke the cover and this time I have to look away, to hide the fact that I am blinking back tears. At the door I turn and watch him there, among the implements of his magic, his long beard illuminated in the sunlight streaming through the window, and I wish I had the gift of painting; I would capture him like this, as he stands now — stubborn, perplexed, a little sad and wiser than most — just in case I do not see him again in this life.

In the hallway, Jane embraces me again. Little Arthur clings to her skirt.

‘I must love him, Bruno, or why would I put up with it?’

‘Maybe Kelley will fall overboard on the journey,’ I say.

She laughs, and rubs away a tear with the back of her hand before it has a chance to spill.

‘He might if I have anything to do with it.’ She pauses, twisting her apron in her hands. ‘Go with God, Bruno. You’re a good man. Christ knows there are few enough of those.’

‘Look after the one in your care, then,’ I say, with a bow. ‘And raise up another.’ I ruffle Arthur’s hair and he ducks behind his mother, giggling.

‘And mind you keep yourself out of trouble.’

‘If only I knew how to do that. I do not seek danger, Jane — it follows me.’ As I say this, I recall Fowler’s warning about Douglas, as I recall it every night when I lie down to sleep. The murders are solved and the invasion averted — for now, but the danger has not passed. I wonder if I will ever know what it is to live without fear of the knife at my throat — but I tell myself not even the Queen of England knows that peace. This is the nature of our age, and it needs no ancient prophecy nor conjunction of planets to explain it.

Epilogue

Palace of Whitehall, London

17th November, Year of Our Lord 1583,

Twenty-fifth Year of the Accession of Her Majesty Elizabeth

Regina to the Throne of England

The royal standard is raised aloft; for a moment it ripples sharply in the breeze, crimson and gold against the watery blue of the sky, and the crowd audibly draws breath together. Time seems suspended, fates hang in the balance — until the standard falls and from either end of the tiltyard comes a crescendo of hooves and a blur of primary colours as the contestants gallop towards one another full pelt, the elaborate plumage on their helmets and harnesses coursing out behind them. I brace myself for the moment of impact; I have never learned to like this as a sport, though today of all days I am willing to be swept up in the collective celebration, the pageantry, the near-hysterical atmosphere of adulation for the woman who sits high above the skirmish in her gallery overlooking the Tiltyard, her head dwarfed by an enormous stiff lace collar. From our seats in the stands, her every movement is a scattering of light as her jewels wink in the sun.

Beside me, Castelnau also tenses; the rider nearest us, his horse decked out in an azure-and-white chequered costume, raises his shield expertly to deflect his opponent’s lance; there is a sickening crack as the other is caught squarely in the shoulder; he tries, for agonising moments, to hold his seat but the momentum is too strong and he topples back, landing with a crunch of metal in the sand. A roar of applause breaks out; we the spectators rise to our feet, whooping and stamping, so that the wooden stands shake precariously beneath us. The victorious rider slows his horse and reins it around, trotting casually back up the field before removing his helmet and bowing deeply to the queen in his saddle. From somewhere further east a peal of church bells joins the cacophony.

I glance up at the gallery window. We are too far away to see the royal party in any great detail, though as a foreign dignitary Castelnau has been given advantageous seats for the tournament. But I can make out Elizabeth in the centre, surrounded by her maids of honour, all dressed in white. I lower my head for a moment and close my eyes, not in prayer but in silent tribute to Cecily Ashe. If her conscience had not triumphed over her infatuation with the man she believed to be the Earl of Ormond, the Tudor line might have ended this very morning. And if she had never met Fowler, I think, if she had not harboured a girl’s passing grudge against the queen, if he had been less persuasive or she more guarded, she might have been sitting at Elizabeth’s side now in her white dress. Abigail Morley, too; if she had not been Cecily’s confidante, if she had never met me or passed on the ring, she might be clapping her hands and shrieking with delight in the gallery with the rest of the girls. If, always if.

Glancing around the great crowd in the Tiltyard, I wonder if anyone else has noticed the number of armed guards amid the heralds, the guildsmen in their liveries, the aldermen and lawyers in their gowns of office, the bishops and nobles arrayed behind the queen, wreathed in gold chains. In the past month, the searchers at every port along the south coast have been kept busy picking up young Englishmen and Scots coming out of France or the Low Countries; one who was caught trying to bring a loaded pistol through customs at Rye also carried Catholic relics concealed in his belongings, but Fowler’s stubborn silence persists even in the Tower, so there is no way to be certain whether he was bluffing about finding a replacement assassin or whether, even now, some shadowy figure might be moving among the thousands of spectators or waiting patiently among the thousands more Londoners gathered behind the barriers that have been erected all along Whitehall and the Strand, where the queen will process after the jousts to hear a sermon at St Paul’s. She may carry herself as gracious and poised as ever, but for Walsingham, Burghley and Leicester, until she is safely delivered to her chamber this evening, this day will be one of the most fraught they have known. Walsingham pleaded with her to abandon the public procession, but she insisted her people must see her, radiant, proud and strong, undaunted by threats either from planets or Catholics.

We climb down from the stands, a laborious business among so many guests, all vying to take their places along the route by the Holbein Gate for a better view of the queen as she begins her procession.