Prophecy

Chapter Six

Mortlake, London

29th September, Year of Our Lord 1583

Doctor Dee’s library is, to me, one of the uncelebrated wonders of this rainy island. His entire house is a sprawling hotch-potch of extensions, additions, new wings and secret rooms, so that it is impossible from the outside to tell the shape of the original cottage that once belonged to his mother, buried somewhere deep within the labyrinth. All these addenda were designed by his own hand according to his own esoteric precepts, to serve some particular purpose of his work, and the library is the culmination of his achievement. His collection of books and manuscripts, and indeed the room itself, is grander than the college libraries I saw in Oxford; at vast expense he has had built the new vertical shelving popular in the European universities rather than the old-style lecterns, so that the books may be displayed to better advantage from floor to ceiling, around the walls. This does not necessarily help the visiting scholar, since there appears to be no obvious method to cataloguing the works, unless it is some arcane system that exists purely in Dee’s own head, for he can put his hand immediately on any work you care to name, and remembers exactly where to replace it.

There are shelves crammed with ancient maps and charts rolled on wooden spindles and stacked horizontally; cases with ancient manuscripts of vellum and gilt illumination, saved from the destruction of England’s monastic libraries; there are books that Dee crossed a continent to find, books which cost him a year’s income, books bound in calfskin of rich brown with brass bindings, books which in another country would see him burned at the stake. Here you can find the De Occulta Philosophia of Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, the Liber Experimentorum of the mystic Ramon Lull, Burgo’s Treatise on Magic, the writings of Nicolaus Copernicus and Abbot Trithemius’s studies of cryptography; you can, if the subject interests you, find books on mathematics, metallurgy, divination, botany, navigation, music, astronomy, tides, rhetoric or indeed any branch of knowledge that at some time has been committed to pen and ink. In one corner of the room, he keeps a pair of painted globes mounted on brass stands, one showing the Earth and the other the heavens, a gift from the great cartographer Gerard Mercator; in another, a quadrant five feet tall, and other devices of his own construction for measuring the movements of the planets.

Beyond this cavernous library, with its vaulted wooden ceiling, where you often encounter travel-weary scholars and writers who have crossed seas or ridden for days to consult some book of which Dee owns the only known copy, lie the inner rooms, where only his most trusted friends and associates are admitted: his alchemical laboratory and his private study, his sanctum.

‘Some sort of poison, you think?’ Dee murmurs, canted over the work bench in his laboratory. He holds up the glass perfume bottle to an oil lamp that hangs from a hook above him, so that its facets reflect fragments of light as he turns it curiously from side to side. Outside, the weather is still bright with the last warmth of summer, but in this room the shutters are always closed. Standing in Dee’s laboratory gives you the sense of being trapped in the belly of a great beast, with the dark and the heat from the several fires continually burning, and the fact that the room seems to pulse with autonomous life: six stills of various sizes, with vast interconnected vessels and flasks of clay, glass or copper, puff and bubble constantly, as if engaged in an ongoing conversation with one another. Clouds of steam float across the ceiling and disperse in clammy rivulets down the peeling walls. Today there is a filthy smell in the room, a decaying, barnyard stink.

‘Oh, that,’ Dee says, grinning mischievously like a small boy caught out, when he sees me wrinkling my nose. ‘I am experimenting with distilling horse dung.’

‘For what purpose?’

‘I won’t know that till I see what we get from it. Now.’

He unstops the perfume bottle and sniffs the liquid with the practised nose of a vintner assessing a new wine. I am amazed he can smell anything over the boiling horse dung.

‘Hm. They’ve mixed it with rosewater. But you’re right — there’s something else in there. Acrid. Show me the finger again.’

He draws my hand into the light. Though the redness has faded where I touched the perfume, a small blister has risen. Dee nods thoughtfully. ‘Any number of common plants or berries might have that effect, if the sap was concentrated. Could cause considerable discomfort if it was rubbed over delicate skin, as perfume is. It’s a spiteful trick, if nothing else.’

‘And if someone drank it? Could it be poisonous?’

He frowns. ‘Depends on what the base substance is. But why would he imagine the girl would take it into her head to drink the perfume?’

‘Perhaps it was not intended for the girl.’

‘But why would anyone drink perfume?’

‘They wouldn’t. Unless they were unaware that it had been added to their food or cup. Which would be an easy thing if you came into contact with them every day.’

Dee’s eyes gape and he stares at me, appalled, as he understands my meaning. ‘The queen?’ His voice comes as barely a whisper. ‘You’re suggesting that girl intended to poison the queen?’

‘I don’t know. It’s only a theory.’ I pace about between the stills, trying to breathe through my mouth as I talk, to avoid the manure fumes. ‘It seems, as you say, oddly spiteful and pointless to give a woman poisoned perfume that will make welts rise on her skin. But what if Cecily knew that the perfume was never meant to be worn, if her suitor gave her the bottle for another purpose? Think, Dee — there are any number of desperate men ready to assassinate the queen for the liberation of the Catholic Church.’

Dee nods, sanguine. ‘They arrested a fellow only last month on the road from York with two loaded pistols, boasting to all and sundry that he was going to kill Elizabeth to restore England. He was obviously mad, poor devil. They hung and quartered him anyway, to make an example.’

‘But not everyone is so hot-headed. A sharper man might reason that a better way to get to the queen is by turning someone she trusts to his cause. A maid of honour like Cecily Ashe would have had ample opportunity to slip something into the queen’s wine, if she was provided with it.’

I can tell he is not convinced.

‘Well, Bruno — before we run away with these theories, let us have a better idea of what is in this bottle.’ He hands me the perfume and crosses to a wooden crate tucked into a corner of the room, behind a vast belching conical pot half the height of a man, suspended on a brass frame above a fire. When he lifts the lid of the crate there is a sudden scratching and scuffling, accompanied by furious squeaks. Dee reaches in and pulls out his hand clasped around a struggling brown mouse. ‘Now then.’ He looks up and catches sight of my expression. ‘They multiply like the plague in the outhouses — I have the kitchen boy catch me a supply for the laboratory. You’d be surprised how varied their uses can be. What, Bruno?’

‘It seems a little cruel.’ I shrug.

‘The pursuit of knowledge is often brutal,’ he says blithely. ‘But that is science. And you would hardly want me to test it on a servant, now, would you? Hold the mouse.’ He passes the lithe, wriggling body into my hands. I feel the tiny heart pattering against my fingers, the warmth of its frantic life. The tail whips back and forth as Dee moves unhurriedly from bench to bench, gathering pieces of apparatus — a glass tube, a funnel, a small box with a hinged lid. He instructs me to hold the creature on its back. It likes this even less and nips me sharply; I curse and almost drop it as a bead of blood swells on my finger.

‘Keep it still,’ Dee says impatiently, as if I were the one playing up. With some difficulty, he inserts the tube into the mouse’s mouth, which the poor animal resists with all its meagre force, squealing pitifully, until I am afraid I will crush the life out of it in my attempts to subdue it. Dee attaches the funnel to the neck and pours in some liquid from the perfume bottle. A considerable amount of it spills out; it is questionable whether the mouse has swallowed any, but Dee opens the lid of the little box and tells me to put the creature inside.

‘And now we wait,’ he says happily, as if he had just put a batch of cakes in the oven. ‘In the meantime, Bruno, I too am troubled by something that I must share with you. Come.’

He leads me through the door at the back of the laboratory into his private study, where I had last joined him and Kelley for their seance. I am relieved to see that Kelley is not there.

‘She has summoned me to Whitehall this very evening,’ he says, motioning me to a chair with one hand and worrying at the point of his beard with the other. ‘I do not think this is good news. Walsingham rode over to see me yesterday. He showed me this.’ He crosses to his desk and holds up a copy of the same pamphlet I had bought for a penny in St Paul’s courtyard, with the signs of Jupiter and Saturn printed boldly on its front page. ‘Francis wanted to warn me,’ he continues, quietly. ‘What with the girl’s murder at Richmond, it seems the world is gone quite mad with talk of prophecies and apocalypse, Fiery Trigons and Great Conjunctions. This sort of thing —‘ he slaps the paper with the back of his hand — ‘abounds, fuelling the common people’s fear and unrest. The Privy Council feels it is getting out of hand and must be stopped.’ He sighs, with a rattled dignity, and lays the paper back face down on the desk.

‘But none of that is your doing.’

‘Quite right. I am only the messenger.’ He spreads his hands wide in a gesture of humility. ‘But apparently Lord Burghley talks of introducing new legislation that would make it illegal to cast the queen’s horoscope. He thinks that will put an end to these feverish predictions of her death. I don’t see that it will help — already a man stands to lose a hand for writing that kind of filth, and still they print them, and fools read them.’

He sits heavily and leans forward over his knees, clasping his hands together, prayer-like, and staring intently into the near distance as if he saw someone there who was trying to speak to him. I adopt the same position in silent sympathy; I can see his predicament. Poor Dee: if it is against the law to cast the queen’s horoscope, she can hardly go on employing a private astrologer, and royal patronage is almost his only source of income. He has a wife and two young children to support, not to mention that idler Ned Kelley, who has attached himself to Dee’s household; on top of that, alchemy and book collecting are not cheap pursuits. He needs a reliable flow of money to fund his experiments and maintain his library, and he also needs the queen’s protection from those who whisper against him.

‘Henry Howard is behind this,’ Dee mutters darkly, as if he has followed my own thoughts, his gaze still fixed on the same spot. ‘He will not rest until he sees me banished from court and out of the light of her favour altogether.’

‘Henry Howard?’ I look at him, puzzled. ‘He has something to do with these pamphlets?’

‘No — it is he who leads the charge against them!’ Dee cries, leaping from his chair and striding again to the desk, where he picks up a small, leather-bound book which he waves at me as if in evidence. ‘He rails against all forms of knowledge that he has not the capacity to understand, he talks of summoning demons, he argues that it is the queen’s toleration of astrologers like me that has led to the present frenzy of prophets and fortune-tellers sowing fear and dis belief up and down the land. No one at court wants to be seen disagreeing with his book. But the idea that Henry Howard should set himself up as the champion of cool reason! Listen to this, Bruno.’ He flicks through a few pages, clears his throat and reads. ‘“Certain busy-bodies in the commonwealth, who with limned papers, painted books, figures of wild beasts and birds, carry men from present duties into future hopes.” He means me, of course. Or this — “the froth of folly, the scum of pride, the shipwreck of honour and the poison of nobility.” All of it aimed at me, you see, and there is much more I could read you.’

I reach out for the book quickly before he can carry out this threat. The title is stamped in gold on the front: A Defensative Against the Poison of Supposed Prophecies. ‘Why does Henry Howard hate you so much?’

Dee sits down again and folds his hands.

‘He was my pupil once,’ he says, with a trace of sadness. ‘He came to me secretly, hungry for the kind of knowledge that you and I know can be dangerous in the wrong hands. This would have been ten years ago, just after his brother was executed — he was about your age then. A fearsomely clever young man, he was, and on his travels he had encountered philosophers and magi who had shown him the writings of Hermes Trismegistus. He desired to become an adept.’

‘And you agreed?’

‘He was a talented scholar, and he paid generously, perhaps because he wanted it well hidden that he was coming to me. But …’ Dee spreads his hands in a gesture of regret. ‘The great mysteries of the ancient philosophies must be approached with humility. I soon saw that Henry Howard’s ambition far outstripped his wisdom.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘He became obsessed by the lost book of Hermes. Ah, I see you smiling, Bruno. Aren’t we all, you are thinking? But I ask you — that lost fifteenth book, what do you understand it to contain?’

‘No one knows for certain,’ I say. ‘That is its irresistible lure. We know only that the great philosopher and astrologer, Marsilio Ficino, refused to translate it for Cosimo de’ Medici because he was afraid of the consequences for Christendom.’

‘Precisely. Because the lost book is believed to set forth the mystery of man’s divinity. It is the culmination of the Hermetic magic.’

‘They say it holds the secret of becoming equal to God,’ I whisper, picturing Howard’s pointed face, his beady eyes.

‘But where you and I understand that to mean through enlightenment or gnosis, Howard’s interpretation was much more literal,’ Dee says, leaning further in with a meaningful nod. ‘That was what troubled me.’

‘Literal, in what way?’

‘It was not divine knowledge Howard aspired to.’ He lowers his voice. ‘It was divine immortality.’

We fall silent for a moment, watching one another. Twice I open my mouth to say this is impossible, but each time something about Dee’s earnest grey stare deters me. His faith in magic, if by that we mean a world that lies beyond the bounds of our present knowledge or philosophy, is simpler and more trusting than my own. If the universe is infinite, as I believe, then it must surely contain an infinite number of possibilities that we have not yet imagined or attempted to harness, but the more I consider this, the more I discover in myself an instinctive scepticism towards the easy claims of alchemists and mountebanks and those who perform tricks of mind-reading from the backs of carts to a willing crowd. Could a man truly achieve immortality? And could one book really contain the key to open that door? Rumours and mythologies grow around lost books; they acquire extraordinary powers in their absence. But the lure of immortality — I can see how that would draw a man like Henry Howard.

‘So what happened?’

Dee sucks in his cheeks.

‘It was not just the Hermes book. It became increasingly clear that Howard’s interest in magic was not about knowledge but about power.’

‘Does the one not lead to the other?’ I say, with a sly smile.

‘For those who have the wisdom to use both judiciously. But not in the simplistic way he imagined. His elder brother had just been executed, don’t forget — the Howards had lost the best part of their lands and titles. He wanted a means of controlling and manipulating his way back to eminence. I glimpsed in him a ruthlessness that made me deeply uneasy. In the end, I told him that I could not go on teaching him.’

‘I imagine he took that badly.’

‘Oh yes. The Howards do not like to be thwarted. First, he offered more money. When I continued to refuse, he threatened me.’

‘With violence?’

Dee tugs at his beard and raises his head towards the window, a weight of great sorrow in his eyes.

‘Nothing so crude. He simply said he would destroy me. He said he would work against me like a subtle poison, so that not even those I counted my friends would acknowledge me. He dared me to put him to the test.’

‘But that was ten years ago,’ I say, meaning to be reassuring.

‘Yes, and here I still am. Oh, there has been much muttering against me over the years by the ignorant and the envious — that I conjure demons, speak with the dead, perform any number of forbidden and grisly rituals at dead of night with mummified corpses or stillborn children or I know not what. Thus far, Her Majesty has never paid attention to such foolishness.’ He lays a hand on my arm. ‘But I have never imagined that Henry Howard forgot his hatred or his threat. People like you and me, Bruno — we walk as if on fragile ice. We work at the very edge of knowledge, and that frightens many people. We can never know when the ground might fall away beneath our feet.’

He looks so melancholy that I press my hand over his and clasp it for a moment.

‘So, Howard’s response was to turn violently against all forms of occult knowledge?’ I say, indicating the book. Dee frowns.

‘Publicly, yes. But I have always wondered if he hasn’t secretly pursued his desire, using his piety against it as a cover. Henry Howard is nothing if not tenacious. Some fourteen years ago, it was thought that a copy of the lost manuscript of Hermes had been found. This part of the story you know, Bruno, from that rogue Jenkes.’

I nod, with feeling; Rowland Jenkes, the dealer in esoteric and forbidden books who had tried to kill me in Oxford.

‘Well, then,’ he continues, ‘you remember that Jenkes thought he had found the book buried in an Oxford college library. He wrote to me, knowing of my collection, and I travelled to Oxford to meet him. From what he let me see of the manuscript, I was sufficiently convinced to pay him a high price for it.’

‘You read it, then?’ I sit forward eagerly.

‘Only a small part of it,’ he says. ‘I can’t say for certain, but I believed it was by Hermes Trismegistus. My plan was to bring it back to London and immediately make a translation. Only I never had the chance. As you know, my servant and I were brutally set upon and robbed on the road the moment we left Oxford, and the book was taken.’

‘Jenkes told me about that,’ I say, nodding. ‘But he swore the theft was not his doing.’

‘At first I assumed it must have been, so that he could sell the book again,’ Dee says, absently rubbing at the back of his head as if the tale has opened the old wound. ‘I returned to Oxford to recover — I was quite badly injured in the attack — and confronted him, though of course he denied everything. But as time passed, it occurred to me that there were others besides Jenkes who wanted that book, and who would have had the means to pay spies in my household and villains to steal it from me on the road.’

‘Henry Howard?’ I look down at the book in my hands.

‘I have no proof. It is only a suspicion. But for years afterwards I asked everyone I knew, every collector and dealer in antiquities and manuscripts in England and all those I knew in Europe, and no one had heard any further word of the Hermes book. You can bet that if Jenkes had hired thieves to get it back, he would have attempted to trade it on for more profit. Which makes me believe it was stolen from me by someone who had no interest in selling it, but who wanted to keep it, to study its content.’

‘I suppose the only way to be certain is to try and kill Henry Howard,’ I say, keeping my expression serious. ‘If he proves to be immortal, we may reasonably assume he took the book and found it to be authentic.’

Dee chuckles softly. ‘Don’t tempt me, Bruno. In any case, this brings us no nearer to solving my dilemma.’

‘I thought that was your dilemma?’

‘I’m afraid it is more specific. Yesterday —‘ he hesitates, glances at the door — ‘Ned Kelley had a horrifying vision. He fears that the spirits have granted him sight of what will come to pass, and I must decide whether to warn the queen.’

I want to tell him not to be a fool; my cynicism about Kelley tightens in my chest like a hard bud, but Dee’s eyes are wide and his lips trembling slightly. More gently, I lean in towards him.

‘Go on.’

He takes a deep breath.

‘In the showing-stone, much as it was the time you observed, a spirit appeared to Ned as a red-haired woman in a white gown, with the symbols of the planets and all the signs of the zodiac embroidered on it. In her right hand she held a book and in her left a golden key.’

Kelley’s figures are always holding a book, I think to myself. Perhaps his imagination is running dry. ‘This is no figure I recognise,’ I say, shortly, though the moment he mentioned a red-haired woman my mind snapped instantly to Abigail Morley.

‘But there is more. She did not speak, but in the vision she unlaced her bodice and opened it for him —‘

‘I bet she did.’

‘Don’t mock, Bruno,’ he says, hurt. ‘Wait until you hear. On her breast she had a symbol engraved in blood …’

‘Was it the sign of Jupiter, by any chance?’ I say, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice. But Dee looks stricken.

‘Sweet Jesus. No — but you are close. It was the sign of Saturn. How on earth could you know?’

I rise, infuriated, cross to the window and turn sharply back to him.

‘He has plucked this detail straight from the murder at court! Come, John — the man is a charlatan. He is playing you like a harp — can you not see it?’

‘But Ned goes nowhere near the court or those circles. How would he learn of a detail like that?’

‘It is the talk of London!’ I cry, exasperated. ‘He only has to step out of doors to hear people gossiping about it in the streets. He has picked up a handbill from somewhere, read the lurid descriptions and thought it would make a neat picture for his next invention! Do not lose sleep over it, for heaven’s sake.’

‘Now, Bruno.’ He looks weary. ‘I know you do not like Ned, but really — he is a very gifted scryer and you insult me to suggest otherwise. He speaks with the spirits in their own heavenly language. I have heard him.’

‘He is a criminal! Have you not seen his ears? That’s what they do to those who forge coins, is it not? And if he can counterfeit money, why not visions, and languages?’

‘Ned has led a hard life and has made his mistakes, but all that is in the past. He is an honest fellow now, Bruno. It is not for us to judge.’

I run my hands through my hair, grasping at handfuls; there will be no reasoning with him. ‘Christ’s body, John! You are entitled to make some judgement of a man if he is living off you. You are too soft-hearted.’

Dee smiles fondly. ‘This from the man who could not bear to hurt a mouse.’

We stare at each other, the mouse suddenly remembered. Dee rouses himself with surprising speed from his chair and hurries back through to the laboratory, his robe whipping behind him; I follow at a clip. Here among the stills, with their soft, intestinal murmurings, the atmosphere is more humid now, and more fetid. The room smells like a farm in a midsummer thunderstorm.

Dee lifts the lid and holds the small wooden box up to the lamp. The mouse lies motionless, its tiny feet splayed outwards. A pool of thin, watery shit spreads around its tail, a similar one of a reddish liquid around its head. Its eyes bulge unnaturally, like the glass eyes of a stuffed creature.

‘Interesting,’ Dee muses, nodding as if pleased with this result, his head almost touching mine as we lean in. ‘The substance has worked quickly — see, where it has voided its stomach from both ends. I must confess I was not persuaded by your theory, Bruno, but it seems you were right.’

‘What substance would have this effect?’ I ask, peering closer, half-hoping to see the mouse convulse or twitch.

‘Hard to say. Something like yew, or black bryony possibly, both easy to come by at this time of year, easy to extract.’

‘And would it work in the same way on a person?’

‘Not so quickly, especially if it was diluted with rosewater. But in essentials, I should think so, in a large enough dose. It’s clearly had a violent purgative effect. I’ll cut this creature up and have a close look at the innards, although I won’t have time before I go this evening. But Bruno —‘ he turns to me, his eyes wide again with dawning fear — ‘if your guess is correct, someone must warn the queen immediately.’

‘No!’ It comes out more sharply than I intended. ‘I mean to say — all we know for certain is that a bottle of poison was given to one of the queen’s maids in the guise of perfume. That girl is now dead, but we know nothing of who gave it to her or why. Until we have some definite ideas, it is best the queen should not be alarmed and the court thrown into uproar. She is already heavily guarded. Besides,’ I add, ‘the person who gave me the perfume might be compromised.’

‘You don’t understand, Bruno.’ He clasps my shoulders and gives them a little shake. ‘Ned’s vision, the red-haired woman, her downfall. It all fits. I fear Her Majesty is in terrible danger.’

I do not want to ask, but know I must. ‘What was the end of the vision?’

‘After she revealed her breast with the sign of Saturn carved into her flesh, she held the book and key aloft and opened her mouth as if to give a great speech, but before she could utter a word, she was pierced through the heart by a sword and then swept away by a raging torrent.’ His grip tightens and his eyes wildly search mine; clearly he expects a better response.

‘Well, he certainly has a sense of drama. Where is Kelley, by the way?’ I glance around the laboratory, as if the scryer might be hiding behind one of the larger stills.

‘Oh, I have not seen him since yesterday evening. He was so shaken by the vision that he needed to go away for a while to recover.’ He sees my eyes narrow. ‘He has done it before, Bruno. If the session with the spirits has taxed him too hard, he will disappear for a few days so that he can come back refreshed.’

‘Really. It must be exhausting for him.’ I frown. ‘And he never tells you where he goes?’

‘I never ask.’

I place my hands on his shoulders in return; we stand for a moment locked in this half-embrace while I look into those melancholy grey eyes, so full of wisdom and yet, in some ways, so blind.

‘Do not, under any circumstances, try to tell the queen about this vision this evening,’ I say gently, as if admonishing a child. ‘If any harm really were to befall her, they would say you foresaw it by the power of the Devil, and in the much more likely event that nothing happens, you will be taken for a false prophet, no better than these pamphleteers. I do not pretend to understand Kelley’s motives, but we do better to concentrate on what we know of real dangers to the queen —‘ I nod towards the perfume bottle on the work bench — ‘than on whatever dreams he may or may not see in the stone.’

Dee is about to protest, but suddenly it seems a great weariness comes on him, and he hangs his head instead.

‘Perhaps you are right, Bruno. Better not to give my enemies more arrows to aim at me.’

I glance sideways at the stiff little body of the brown mouse in the box, remembering its pulse in the palm of my hand. How quickly a life is snuffed out, I think. If only we could catch the soul as it took flight, follow its journey and return to chart the territory, like the adventurers to the New World, like Mercator with his globes. But the mouse has not been sacrificed in vain. It has proved, if nothing else, that the queen’s enemies almost managed to reach into her bedchamber. But how to begin to find them?

As I am taking my leave at his front door, I suddenly remember a question that Dee, if anyone, might be able to answer.

‘The seventeenth day of November — has it some astrological significance? I have tried to think, but I don’t have charts with enough detail here to calculate whether it will be the occasion for anything of note in the heavens.’

Dee chuckles. ‘I don’t know about the heavens, but any Englishman will tell you that here on the ground it is Accession Day. The anniversary of Her Majesty’s accession to the throne, you know — since 1570 she has declared it a public holiday, with pageants and processions to celebrate her glorious reign. Street parties and so on. It should be a sight worth seeing this year, being the twenty-fifth since her coronation. Why do you ask?’

I hesitate, wondering if I should tell him about the paper hidden inside Cecily Ashe’s mirror, but I fear he would come instantly to the same conclusion as I, except that he would tie it to Kelley’s ridiculous invention and feel compelled to warn the queen, in that slightly hysterical way he sometimes has. My mind turns over quickly, even as Dee looks at me expectantly. Did whoever gave Cecily a vial of poison disguised as perfume also send her the date on which he intended her to use it? Was Elizabeth’s twenty-fifth Accession Day supposed to be the day of her death? The uproar this suggestion would cause at court would create such noise and smoke as to obscure any trace of the real plot; besides, something had obviously gone badly wrong if that was the intention. Cecily Ashe was dead, and the poison safe in Dee’s laboratory. Did this mean the would-be assassin would find another means to strike at the queen on Accession Day? There is no doubt in my mind now that Cecily was killed by the man who gave her those gifts, who had involved her in a plot to poison the queen and then left her corpse holding an effigy of Elizabeth stabbed, a reminder of the task she had somehow failed to carry out.

‘Bruno? You look troubled.’ Dee’s frown grows fatherly with concern. ‘Is something the matter?’

‘No, no — I heard the date mentioned by one of the embassy servants and wondered why it was important.’ I search his face and am seized by a sudden affection for him; impetuously, I grip him by the shoulders and kiss him on both cheeks. He looks surprised, but pleased. ‘Remember — no mention to the queen of any visions,’ I add over my shoulder, as I turn to go.

I had paid the boatman who brought me to Mortlake to wait, since wherries are harder to come by this far upriver. We have progressed perhaps twenty minutes on our journey back towards London, when I notice another small boat keeping pace with ours at a distance of about fifty yards. It has only one passenger, a man, as far as I can tell, wearing a travelling cloak and a hat pulled down around his face, but they are too far away for me to see him clearly.

‘Has that boat been behind us all the way from Mortlake?’ I ask the boatman, who squints at it from under his cap.

‘That one? Yes, sir — it was moored up just along the bank from where you come down.’

‘All the time I was on shore?’

He shrugs.

‘Couldn’t rightly say, sir. A good part of the time, at least.’

‘With that same passenger? Or did he get on at Mortlake?’

‘Didn’t notice.’

‘But it left at the same time as us?’

‘Must ‘a done, if it’s behind us now.’

‘Slow your pace,’ I instructed. ‘Let them catch us up.’

The boatman obeys me and eases off his oars; the boat behind us appears to do the same, so that the distance remains. I tell my boatman to stop rowing altogether; he complains that the current is too strong and we will be brought into the bank. The other boat moves closer to the opposite side, away from us. The further we travel downriver, the busier the water becomes, but our two boats continue to follow the same course; I crane over the side but still cannot get a good view of the passenger who I am now certain is following me. At Putney, the other ferryman suddenly weaves his craft across the river and pulls it in at the landing stairs; my boatman pulls doggedly onwards, and I can only see the man in silhouette as he disembarks. There is nothing to distinguish him; he appears to be of average height and build, and he keeps his hat pulled down as he climbs the stairs and disappears. Clearly someone was interested in my visit to Dee. I recall the sensation I had of being followed yesterday at Whitehall; could it be the same person? But who would have an interest in my movements, to spend that much time tailing me to Mortlake? A cold shiver prickles at my neck. Unless it is someone who saw me talking to Abigail yesterday and is following me precisely because he fears that she has passed on to me something that she knew. And if that is the case, it means the man I have just seen stepping lightly up the stairs at Putney could only be the killer of Cecily Ashe. If it is so, I think grimly, Abigail may be in immediate danger — as may I, for that matter, though I am probably better equipped to look after myself. Perhaps I should warn her — but how am I to get a message to her at court without arousing further suspicion? I have no means of contacting the kitchen boy who brought her message last time — and no means of knowing whether he might have alerted anyone else to her meeting with me in the first place, intentionally or otherwise.

When the boat has finally delivered me back to Buckhurst Stairs, and I have paid the boatman his considerable fee for the long journey, I return to find Salisbury Court silent, its halls and galleries unaccountably empty. This suits me; I manage to reach my room without being detained by Castelnau’s summons or his wife’s aggressive flirting. But even before I insert the key into the lock, I am struck by a feeling of unease, as vivid as if I had glimpsed a presence in the corridor; I whip around to right and left, but the landing remains as unnaturally still as the rest of the house. Chiding myself for growing skittish, I attempt to turn the key and it will not move. I turn the latch; the door is already open. Every muscle in my body tenses; the hairs stand up on my skin and my hand goes instinctively to the knife I carry at my belt. I left this door locked, I would swear to it on everything I hold dear; I am diligent to the point of obsession in this matter. I have never, in six months, gone out and left my chamber unlocked — there are books and writings in my chest that would not be regarded sympathetically by anyone in this devoutly Catholic household. How naive I have been not to have considered that someone in the house must have a duplicate set of keys for all the rooms. Silently cursing my own stupidity, I slowly ease the door back and then kick it violently, springing over the threshold with my knife drawn.

But the room is empty, untouched, just as I left it, the bed sheets folded back neatly, some papers arranged in two separ ate piles on the writing desk where I had been working, the quills, inkpot and penknife scattered beside them. For a moment, I doubt myself; perhaps in my haste to get to Dee this morning, I really did forget to lock the door. Still the sense of unease persists; I turn slowly, taking in the room, the details of its sparse furnishings, racking my brain to see if anything looks out of place, half expecting some movement out of the shadows. It is only when I cross to the desk that I notice immediately that the papers are out of sequence. Clearly, whoever has been in my room failed to consider that I am famous in France for my prodigious memory as well as my heresy. Quickly I sift through the notes; there is nothing here that is too contentious, some mathematical calculations on the motions of the Moon and the Earth, and a series of diagrams measuring how the heavenly bodies reflect light, but nothing that could have me arrested. Nevertheless, the topmost papers are not the ones I was working on recently. This thought leads me to check the carved wooden chest where I keep my more inflammatory books. The padlock that holds its iron clasps is intact, but there are tiny scuff marks in the dust around it that suggest it has been moved a fraction. Someone has given it some attention very recently.

At the far end of the room there is another chest, somewhat larger, where I keep my clothes. It emits a faint gust of amber when I lift the lid, from the pomander I keep in there to discourage moths. Here too, I see subtle evidence of interference. My clothes have been taken out and replaced, hastily folded. I lift up a fine wool doublet and smooth it down, refolding it carefully. Nothing appears to be missing, but the chest has clearly been searched. This is even stranger; I can see that there might be some among the embassy’s household — Courcelles, for one — who feel they have a right to sneak in and investigate what I read and write under their roof, but I cannot imagine any reason why anyone here would have the slightest interest in looking through my clothes. Only someone who was looking for something very particular would bother to search there.

At least, I think with some relief, as I tuck the doublet back into the chest, I had taken the velvet bag containing Cecily Ashe’s love-tokens with me. This thought makes me freeze for a moment; but that is impossible, clearly. No one in the household could know anything about my presence at Richmond Palace on the night of the murder, nor about my contact with Abigail Morley. Standing, I brush myself down and shake my head briskly, to dislodge such foolish thoughts as if they were flies. The encounter with the man in the boat has made me see shadows where there are none, and even there I have no firm proof that I was followed. Still, I think, as I step out on to the landing and make doubly sure that I lock the door behind me — I have not imagined the intruder in my room, and someone in the embassy knows who it was.

The silence persists throughout the house; it is as if the apocalypse has occurred while I was out, the other inhabitants of Salisbury Court gathered up and only I left behind. I do not encounter another soul or hear so much as a footfall on my way to Castelnau’s private office at the back of the house, and when I knock on his door, the only sound is the echo of my knuckles on the wood.

When I push open the door, however, I see a figure outlined against the window; he starts and turns, expectant, and I recognise him as the young man Throckmorton, the courier. When he sees me, his elfin face tightens, wary.

‘Good day, Master Throckmorton. My lord ambassador is out?’ I keep my voice light. I see his eyes flicker for the merest instant to Castelnau’s desk. He bows slightly, and clasps his hands behind his back.

‘The household is hearing Mass at present. I am waiting for him to return.’

‘Ah. You do not join them?’

‘I have only just now arrived,’ he says, and again his gaze strays almost unconsciously to the ambassador’s desk. ‘I was not expected today, so I did not like to interrupt.’ He smiles, but it appears strained.

‘I had thought you on the road to Sheffield,’ I say; our haste in delivering the letters two days ago was, I believed, because Throckmorton rode for Sheffield the following morning. What has happened to delay him — some concern over the correspondence, perhaps?

‘I had to postpone my journey. Unforeseen circumstances. I ride on the second.’ He is cautious with me in his turn. Even here in the embassy, it is wise not to speak too openly. I decide to take a chance.

‘Because of Mendoza’s news?’

‘You know of that?’ He looks immediately suspicious.

‘I was here when he visited Castelnau yesterday.’ I affect a lack of concern, picking up a quill from the ambassador’s desk, turning it between my fingers and replacing it, all the while not looking at him. ‘Interesting developments.’

I glance at Throckmorton; he seems relieved, and visibly relaxes.

‘Yes, indeed,’ he says. ‘With Spanish troops and money, we have a real chance of success. I had not expected King Philip to agree so quickly.’

So my speculation was correct. Throckmorton has the same gleam in his eyes that I observed in Marie de Castelnau when she talked of the glorious enterprise of restoring England to Catholic rule. His smooth face with its clear, wide-set eyes is lit with a boy’s excitement at the prospect of some adventure, his enthusiasm clearly undampened by any personal experience of war or massacre. Where does a young man like this, with his cultured accent, his well-cut doublet of dark green wool and his expensive leather boots, acquire a taste for enforcing his religion with Spanish warships?

‘Your family has suffered a great deal, then, I suppose?’ I lift the lid of an enamelled inkwell and affect to give it all my attention.

‘My family?’ He sounds bemused. ‘Why would you say that?’

I turn to look at him.

‘Only that I imagined all Englishmen who conspire against their queen must have reason to resent the Protestants. Like my lord Howard.’

Throckmorton tilts his head to one side.

‘You don’t think a man would want to fight for his beliefs alone? For what he holds to be true?’

I shrug.

‘It is possible. But revenge or gain are stronger motives, from what I have observed.’

He regards me with suspicion for a moment.

‘Perhaps you have never believed anything with enough passion to fight for it.’

I smile, ignoring the implied slight. It is true, I would like to tell him, that I have never considered the lives of innocent people a price worth paying for any belief of mine, but I must maintain my fiction.

‘I do, of course, or I would not be here. But then I was raised a Catholic. I was only curious as to what makes a young Englishman turn against his own country.’

He looks a little abashed at this; I sense I have touched a sensitive area.

‘My family were all loyal Protestants, Doctor Bruno,’ he says, with a hint of defiance. ‘My uncle, Sir Nicholas, was a diplomat for Elizabeth, in France and Scotland, where he became a friend of Mary Stuart. Though he never shared her faith, he supported her right to succeed Elizabeth and publicly opposed her imprisonment.’

I nod, as if impressed.

‘I studied in France after Oxford,’ he continues, ‘and there I met many Englishmen in exile who favoured the cause of Queen Mary. Through them I was introduced to Madame de Castelnau.’ You might have missed it, if you were not paying close attention, the almost imperceptible softening of his voice. Perhaps he is driven not by revenge, but by subtler motives. I want to smile, but I keep my face earnest and attentive. He would not be the first man — or woman — to change his religion for the sake of desire. Presumably Marie used her considerable powers to draw him into the embassy cabal.

‘So you converted to the Catholic faith in France?’ These seminaries of Rheims and Paris are the thorn in Walsingham’s side, cauldrons of Catholic missionary zeal brewing up plots and conspiracies heated by the youthful rage of English students craving a taste of rebellion. First Fowler, now Throckmorton; both sons of good families, both resisting the prosperous but uninspiring course mapped for them. One becomes a spy, the other a traitor, all in the name of adventure, the desire to prove themselves. I was about this Throckmorton’s age when I defied the Inquisition and fled my monastery in Naples; I cannot pretend that the prospect of risk doesn’t quicken the blood.

‘God by his grace showed me the way to the true Church.’ Throckmorton says this as if it is a phrase he has carefully learned from another language. ‘I came back to England to be of what service I could to Queen Mary’s cause. Madame de Castelnau recommended me to her husband.’ Again, the slight change in tone when he mentions her, the lowering of the eyes, the faint spread of a blush.

‘Do your family suspect?’

‘My father and uncle are both dead. I wish my uncle in particular could have lived to see these times.’ His voice grows wistful. ‘He was suspected of involvement in the Duke of Norfolk’s plans to marry Queen Mary, in ‘69, you know.’

‘Henry Howard’s brother? Really?’ I forget for an instant to disguise my interest, but he is less guarded now that he has warmed to his theme.

‘He was their go-between for a while, I understand. The whole family fell under suspicion for it, but they never found any evidence to charge him. I was fifteen at the time, but I remember it well.’ His face tightens again at the memory.

‘A family tradition, then.’ I smile, to put him at ease, but he barely notices, glancing anxiously past me to the door.

‘If Mendoza does not replace me.’

‘Replace you?’

Throckmorton scowls.

‘He fears my face will become too familiar around Sheffield Castle. He says he’s worried I’ll be searched and the correspondence discovered, so he talks of using one of his own couriers. But they don’t know the terrain like I do, and they don’t know how to get the messages to Mary’s women.’ He bridles at the suggestion; I see he fears being deprived of his role.

‘Perhaps he also wishes to keep his correspondence separate from the French?’ I offer. ‘Maybe he doesn’t trust this embassy, and thinks you are too much Castelnau’s man?’

Again his eyes slide inadvertently to the desk, but he reins them quickly back and begins to pick at a loose thread on his sleeve.

‘This is why I need to speak to the ambassador. There is bad blood between him and Mendoza, as I’m sure you know, but that must not be allowed to infect these plans. I am Mary’s man, if I am anyone’s.’

Mary’s or Marie’s, I wonder.

‘Well, then, I shall leave you in peace to wait for him,’ I say, moving towards the door.

‘What about you, Doctor Bruno?’

‘Me?’ The question stops me as I reach for the latch, and the roots of my hair prickle; I turn to find his pale eyes fixed on me, questioning.

‘Yes. Whose man are you?’

‘King Henri of France,’ I say, as lightly as I can. ‘He is my patron while I live in England, and I will give myself to whatever cause his ambassador believes to be in France’s best interest.’

He studies me for a moment through narrowed eyes.

‘Then for you it is a matter of politics, not religion? Restoring Mary to her throne, I mean?’

I smile.

‘If there are men whose religion is free of politics, Throckmorton, they are not to be found in the embassies of Europe. They are probably in a desert cave somewhere, praying and wearing animal skins.’

He laughs at this, and gives a little bow as I take my leave, hoping that I have assuaged any doubts he might have harboured about me, at least for the moment. I retrace my steps through empty corridors towards the back of the house, to the small annexe that Castelnau’s predecessor converted into the embassy’s private chapel. Queen Elizabeth permits the celebration of Mass within the embassies of those countries who still cleave to Rome, but participation is strictly limited to embassy staff and servants, and foreign nationals baptised in the Catholic faith. In practise, the embassy chapels are crowded with those English Catholics, friends of the ambassadors, for whom taking the sacrament in their own houses would be punishable by imprisonment or death.

I take up a position in a window seat opposite the door of the chapel and wait so that I can observe them leave. Among my duties for Walsingham I am expected to note who attends Mass here and pass on any unexpected visitors. A slow monotone is just audible from inside, the words indistinct, punctuated at intervals by the muffled responses of the communicants. A fly buzzes idly against the glass, lemon-coloured light pours through in oblique lines, illuminating the rushes on the floor.

Minutes pass, I lose track of how many, the intonations continue, then silence falls and finally the door opens and they pour out, whispering among themselves with a slightly frantic relief like children released from school: the butler, the housekeeper, the cook, the rest of the household servants. Then those who were sitting nearer the altar: Courcelles, Archibald Douglas (which surprises me; I had not known he attended Mass), Lord Henry Howard, naturally, and behind him, a tall young man with a long, equine face and high forehead, then Castelnau and his wife, followed by a diffident Spanish priest, who scuttles by with his head lowered and his hands clasped before him. Though Mass is legal for those who live here, they all carry themselves as if they have been caught out in some immorality, glancing sidelong at me and scurrying past with downcast eyes; all except Marie, who flashes me a coquettish smile.

‘Ah, Bruno — I’m afraid you’ve missed Mass today,’ the ambassador says, pausing with an apologetic smile, as if it were his fault; Courcelles offers a derisive snort.

‘My apologies — I have only just come in,’ I say, with a brief bow. ‘Throckmorton is waiting in your office, my lord.’

‘Throckmorton?’ Castelnau stops abruptly and exchanges a look with Howard. ‘What on earth?’

I only shrug and shake my head.

‘He has some urgent matter to discuss, I suppose.’

‘Then I had better hear it.’ Castelnau quickens his pace.

Howard pauses to glower at me, his gaze scanning me from head to foot with his now-familiar contempt. I meet his eye, because I want him to know that I am not intimidated either by his person or his position, and as I do so a sudden anger burns in me at the idea of this man coolly hiring thugs to attack Doctor Dee and his servant on the road from Oxford, the idea of him poring over the stolen book by the light of a candle, intent on the pursuit of immortality. But this, too, is only speculation; I compose my expression. Howard looks away and my attention shifts to the young man with him. He appears in his mid-twenties, expensively dressed in a velvet doublet with a wide starched ruff like any other courtier of his age, but there is something unexpectedly familiar about his face, with its thin moustache that looks as if it has been painted on with a fine brush.

‘Haven’t we met?’ I ask him, when he turns and meets my stare with his dark eyes. He seems surprised to be so bluntly addressed; behind him, Howard draws a sharp breath at my breach of etiquette. The young man’s hesitation is so slight as to almost go unnoticed, except that he bites his lip and his eyes flit away from mine for the space of a blink.

‘I don’t think we have had the pleasure of being introduced,’ he replies. His voice is politely bland.

‘My nephew Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel,’ Howard says brusquely; then, gesturing to me, ‘this is the ambassador’s house guest, Giordano Bruno, the Neapolitan.’ He says ‘house guest’ as if he were presenting me as Castelnau’s whore. The young man nods and offers an expressionless smile, and it is then that I place him: he was one of the two young courtiers that shoved past me and Abigail yesterday at the Holbein Gate. Not the one who called me a Spanish whoreson, but the tall friend who stopped him from coming back and adding injury to his insult. I am certain that the young earl recognises me too; maybe he denies it out of embarrassment at his friend’s behaviour. Englishmen love to abuse foreigners in the street, as I have learned more times than I can count since I arrived, but here, as the guest of a foreign embassy, perhaps he prefers not to be associated with such bravado. I only bow, and say nothing.

‘Oh, Bruno — I almost forgot,’ Castelnau says, turning back as he reaches the end of the corridor. ‘Tomorrow there is to be a grand concert at the Palace of Whitehall, with new music by Master Byrd sung by the choir of the Chapel Royal. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth has graciously invited all the ambassadors of the countries of Catholic Europe, perhaps in order to demonstrate that while she retains such a prominent Catholic as her court Master of Music, she cannot be regarded as an enemy of the faith.’

He smiles; Howard grunts his disdain.

‘In any case,’ Castelnau continues, flapping a hand to show he is in a hurry, ‘Marie and I would be glad if you would accompany us. I have been remiss in not presenting you at court sooner.’

I open my mouth to thank him, but he is already sweeping on his way to Throckmorton. I lean against the wall. To be officially introduced to the court of Elizabeth, perhaps even to the queen herself — what might this mean for me? In the end, I reflect, I am no different from any of the young courtiers Fowler described, hanging about vainly hoping for that source of all patronage and benefit to shine the beams of her favour in my direction. But there is also the possibility that I could make contact with Abigail, warn her of what Dee found in the vial of perfume, press her again for anything more she might remember. The key to this mystery lies at the heart of Elizabeth’s court, in its most intimate chambers, and now I have the chance to take at least one step closer to that inner sanctum.