Deborah Harkness - Shadow of Night

Pierre grabbed my elbow. “Non ,” he hissed in my ear. As this only earned us more human attention, he quickly dropped it again.

The scrivener’s hand rose and pointed east. “You will find him at Paul’s Wharf. Go to the Bishop’s Head and then turn south. But Monsieur Cornu knows the way.”

I glanced back at Pierre, who was staring fixedly at a spot somewhere above my head. “Does he? Thank you.”

“That’s Matthew Roydon’s wife ?” someone said with a chuckle as we stepped out of the throng. “Mon dieu . No wonder he looks exhausted.”

I didn’t move immediately in the direction of the apothecary. Instead, with my eyes fixed on the cathedral, I began a slow circumnavigation of its enormous bulk. It was surprisingly graceful given its size, but that unfortunate lightning strike had ruined its appearance forever.

“This is not the fastest way to the Bishop’s Head.” Pierre was one step behind me instead of his usual three and therefore ran into me when I stopped to look up.

“How tall was the spire?”

“Almost as tall as the building is long. Milord was always fascinated by how they managed to build it so high.” The missing spire would have made the whole building soar, with the slender pinnacle echoing the delicate lines of the buttresses and the tall Gothic windows.

I felt a surge of energy that reminded me of the temple to the goddess near Sept-Tours. Deep under the cathedral, something sensed my presence. It responded with a whisper, a slight stirring beneath my feet, a sigh of acknowledgment—and then it was gone. There was power here—the kind that was irresistible to witches.

Pushing my hood from my face, I slowly surveyed the buyers and sellers in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Daemons, witches, and vampires sent flickers of attention my way, but there was too much activity for me to stand out. I needed a more intimate situation.

I continued past the north side of the cathedral and rounded its eastern end. The noise increased. Here all attention was focused on a man in a raised, open-air pulpit covered by a cross-topped roof. In the absence of an electric public-address system, the man kept his audience engaged by shouting, making dramatic gestures, and conjuring up images of fire and brimstone.

There was no way that one witch could compete with so much hell and damnation. Unless I did something dangerously conspicuous, any witch who spotted me would think I was nothing more than a fellow creature out shopping. I smothered a sigh of frustration. My plan had seemed infallible in its simplicity. In the Blackfriars there were no witches. But here in St. Paul’s, there were too many. And Pierre’s presence would deter any curious creature who might approach me.

“Stay here and don’t move,” I ordered, giving him a stern look. My chances of catching the eye of a friendly witch might increase if he weren’t standing by radiating vampire disapproval. Pierre leaned against the upright support of a bookstall and fixed his eyes on me without comment.

I waded into the crowd at the foot of Paul’s Cross, looking from left to right as if to locate a lost friend. I waited for a witch’s tingle. They were here. I could feel them.

“Mistress Roydon?” a familiar voice called. “What brings you here?”

George Chapman’s ruddy face poked out between the shoulders of two dour-looking gentlemen who were listening to the preacher blame the ills of the world on an unholy cabal of Catholics and merchant adventurers.

There was no witch to be found, but the members of the School of Night were, as usual, everywhere.

“I’m looking for ink. And sealing wax.” The more I repeated this, the more inane it sounded.

“You’ll need an apothecary, then. Come, I’ll take you to my own man.” George held out his elbow. “He is quite reasonable, as well as skilled.”

“It is getting late, Master Chapman,” Pierre said, materializing from nowhere.

“Mistress Roydon should take the air while she has the opportunity. The watermen say the rain will return soon, and they are seldom wrong. Besides, John Chandler’s shop is just outside the walls, on Red Cross Street. It’s not half a mile.”

Meeting up with George now seemed fortuitous rather than exasperating. Surely we would pass a witch on our stroll.

“Matthew would not object to my walking with Master Chapman— especially not with you accompanying me, too,” I told Pierre, taking George’s arm. “Is your apothecary anywhere near Paul’s Wharf?”

“Quite the opposite,” George said. “But you don’t want to shop on Paul’s Wharf. John Hester is the only apothecary there, and his prices are beyond the bounds of good sense. Master Chandler will do you a better service, at half the cost.”

I put John Hester on my to-do list for another day and took George’s arm. We strolled out of St. Paul’s Churchyard to the north, passing grand houses and gardens.

“That’s where Henry’s mother lives,” George said, gesturing at a particularly imposing set of buildings to our left. “He hates the place and lived around the corner from Matt until Mary convinced him that his lodgings were beneath an earl’s dignity. Now he’s moved into a house on the Strand. Mary is pleased, but Henry finds it gloomy, and the damp disagrees with his bones.”

The city walls were just beyond the Percy family house. Built by the Romans to defend Londinium from invaders, they still marked its official boundaries. Once we’d passed through Aldersgate and over a low bridge, there were open fields and houses clustered around churches. My gloved hand rose to my nose at the smell that accompanied this pastoral view.

“The city ditch,” George said apologetically, gesturing at a river of sludge beneath our feet. “It is, alas, the most direct route. We will be in better air soon.” I wiped at my watering eyes and sincerely hoped so.

George steered me along the street, which was broad enough to accommodate passing coaches, wagons full of food, and even a team of oxen. While we walked, he chatted about his visit with his publisher, William Ponsonby. Chapman was crushed that I didn’t recognize the name. I knew little about the nuances of the Elizabethan book trade and so drew him out about the subject. George was happy to gossip about the many playwrights Ponsonby snubbed, including Kit. Ponsonby preferred to work with the serious literary set, and his stable of authors was illustrious indeed: Edmund Spenser, the Countess of Pembroke, Philip Sidney.

“Ponsonby would publish Matt’s poetry as well, but he has refused.” George shook his head, perplexed.

“His poetry?” That brought me to a sudden halt. I knew that Matthew admired poetry, but not that he wrote it.

“Yes. Matt insists his verses are fit only for the eyes of friends. We are all fond of his elegy for Mary’s brother, Philip Sidney. ‘But eies and eares and ev’ry thought / Were with his sweete perfections caught .’” George smiled. “It is marvelous work. But Matthew has little use for the press and complains that it has only resulted in discord and ill-considered opinions.”

In spite of his modern laboratory, Matthew was an old fuddy-duddy with his fondness for antique watches and vintage automobiles. I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling at this latest evidence of his traditionalism. “What are his poems about?”

“Love and friendship for the most part, though recently he and Walter have been exchanging verses about . . . darker subjects. They seem to think out of a single mind these days.”

“Darker?” I frowned.

“He and Walter do not always approve of what happens around them,” George said in a low voice, his eyes darting over the faces of passersby. “They can be prone to impatience—Walter especially—and often give the lie to those in positions of power. It is a dangerous tendency.”