The House of Doctor Dee

THE CHAMBER OF DEMONSTRATION

'HAVE YOU PURIFIED yourself, Mr Kelley? You know well that whosoever attempts this and is not pure shall bring upon himself the judgement.'

'I have abstained from coitus for one day and one night. I have refrained from gluttony. I have washed all, and I have cut my nails.'

'Go forward then, and enter. This place is holy.' And so we proceeded into our secret study, our scrying room or chamber of demonstration, bearing with us the crystal, which with all due reverence I placed upon the silken cloth. 'Sit down at the table of practice,' I said, 'and hold yourself in readiness for anything that might be seen or heard.'

'No harder task is there, Doctor Dee. This work consumes me.'

'Well, you are whole yet.' I stood beside him in my customary place, since it has not been given to me to have visions in crystallo. 'Is there anything that you see as yet?'

'Nothing. Nothing appears in the stone, not even the golden curtain.'

'The stone is its natural diaphanite?'

'It is so.'

'Then we must wait faithfully, knowing ourselves to be entrusted with a great power. We have learned much and will learn yet more.'

'I see the golden curtain now,' Kelley whispered after a little time. 'It hangs very still within the stone. No, it moves. It seems to be far backwards, and the stone is clear between the curtain and the forepart. Under the curtain I see the legs of men up to the knees. Now all remains still.'

'Possess your soul in patience, Mr Kelley, for these things are wonderful.'

So once more we began our course. Each action takes a day, yet since there is much care and trembling anxiety in this pursuit we enter the chamber of demonstration once upon a week only. There is much matter to be interpreted also, and I am compelled to pore over my books for the meanings of all we see: these truths are not to be snatched up greedily, as a dog takes a bear by the ears in Paris Garden.

It is a full twelve months since Edward Kelley entered my service, on that day when we first travelled to the drained marsh of Wapping in search of the ancient city of London. Yet the mists of time were not to be so easily dispersed: we journeyed back several times to the same ground, but found nothing further beyond the mound and the piece of old stone. On a winter's evening when all was quiet (much to Edward Kelley's misliking), I even went so far as to set up a table upon the mound and to place there the vessels of oil, wine and water: it is reported by Agricola in his De re metallica that the candle's ray, when reflected by some polished metal upon the surface of these liquids, will reveal the shape of forgotten things. But there was nothing within the beam to aid us, and all remained concealed. We might have dug deeper into the ground itself, but only at the risk of our plans being discovered. 'I feel myself to have been born out of my time,' I said to Edward Kelley as we rode back that night from the Wapping marsh. 'It is as if I had been given sight of a wooden globe, when I long to behold the entire sky.' Indeed I was then close to despairing, when suddenly I found the arrow which might hit our target by another way. 'But then again,' I said to him, 'why should you not see for me?'

'Which is to say?'

'We must turn our eyes back to the stone. You know well how the parabolic speculum, or burning mirror, will employ the rays of the sun. Why should our holy crystal, our principal stone, not magnify and objectify the world of spirits which surrounds us? Where could we find better guides into the buried city?'

'Certainly,' he replied, 'there is a mystery within it, for already I have obtained sight of wonderful things. But I am not sure —'

'This is no time for a faint heart, Edward. If indeed it does contain mysteries, then surely they must be preserved and guarded. I will furnish a little room beyond my laboratory, which will be closed and locked to all comers — no, not even my wife will dare enter. And there, in this reserved chamber, we will consult the stone with many very constant and diligent enquiries. It is the only course now open to us.'

And so it was that the scrying room was perfected, which work I began on the very next day. Upon the ground I inscribed the magical circles, characters and invocations made known to me by Cornelius Agrippa in his De mysteria mysteriorum. Then with the aid of the Mutus Liber I made a crystalline table which was round like a cartwheel and painted upon it certain characters and names in yellow and blue; its sides were also adorned with signs, written in red, and placed beneath each foot was the waxen seal of Hermes Trismegistus. A great seal was placed upon the centre of the table, bearing the impress of holy names; this and the table were then covered in red silk, with the crystal stone set upon them. Nor were our careful preparations in vain since, laus Deo, it has proved a true angelical stone which opens up at Edward Kelley's sight; very many objects, or species of objects, have been gathered through this glass, which I have no doubt were conveyed to us by God and his messengers.

The first visitation came upon us within a week of our laborious preparation and beginning. 'There is a curtain,' said Kelley, who was bowed over the crystal, 'and now it is being lifted up as if by a hand.' I was all on fire with curiosity and amazement, and earnestly entreated him to tell everything exactly as it happened. 'Now I see a young boy. He brings a little book out of his pocket. He looks upon a picture in the book.'

'Do you see what picture it is?'

'No. He turns the leaves of the book. There seems to be someone calling him, whom I cannot hear. His own garments cast a light around the stone. Now he seems to put the air over him, and so to enter into a cloud of invisibility. Now he is gone.'

The second visitation came on the following week. 'The curtain moves,' he said. 'I have something here, but I cannot come upon it yet. Yes, it is a man walking upon a white road. He is a tall and aged creature, without a hat upon his head.'

'Can this be real?'

'I see into the stone with my external eye, Doctor Dee, not with my imagination. And look, now, he walks close to the house here. He has come up to the old well.'

'As close as that?'

'He approaches the house. He makes as if to knock upon the door. But now he stops and laughs.' Kelley then moved back with a sudden jolt. 'He throws dust out of the stone towards my eyes.'

'Look back into the stone,' I entreated him. 'He is so near to us.'

'Now he has plucked the curtain, as if he had pulled it round the stone, and I can see no more.'

He fell back into his chair, trembling, and I might have joined him in his fever fit: what spirit, or demon, was about to beat upon my door? And then I recalled my father. 'Did this aged man have a grey beard, forked?' I asked Kelley, who was now leaning upon the table of practice and looking upon the stone like one in a dream.

'He had no beard. He was dressed in strange fashion.' Then his back arched, and he sat upright. 'But now I see another who is all in flame. Yes, he is divided into a great many pieces of fire. Now he is become like a great wheel of fire, like a wagon wheel, which turns within the stone. Now it is gone. Now all that show has vanished away.' He was sweating mightily, and passed his hand across his face. 'I can do no more today. These things are not granted to mortal men, except at great cost.'

'Why talk of cost,' I said, trying to revive his spirits, 'when there is a richer prize than all to be gained? There is treasure here within the stone.'

'You do not mean the secret of gold?' He seemed suddenly in a sweat again. 'I thought you knew of that.'

'No, not gold, but greater riches by far. If these spirits are sent by God, as I am firmly persuaded that they are, then they may assist us in our search for the contents of time itself.'

'But the secret of gold is known to you? You need no other assistance in that matter?'

'I know many secrets and mysteries, Mr Kelley, about which I shall speak at some later date. But now we are approaching a greater mystery, so I beg you keep to your employment. If you wish for gold or jewels or any precious thing, fix your gaze within the holy crystal.'

Two weeks following this discourse, there was a change about the table of practice. I had entered a little after Edward Kelley, being delayed by some high words with my servant for leaving my close-stool uncleansed, and found him sitting back in the chair as one amazed. 'Do you hear any noise?' he asked me.

'Where?'

'Where but in the stone? There are sounds in the stone. Can you hear them?'

I took a step back in fright, but then there came upon me a great curiosity; I approached the crystal and a very few seconds after I heard it creaking or crackling, although no hand touched it and no mortal or worldly thing seemed to move it. 'I hear something,' I whispered to him, 'like the sound of a bunch of keys, as if they had been quickly and strongly shaken.'

'You wished to hear voices, sir, but these are mere sounds.'

'Who knows what might follow? This may be the first note of an entire air.'

And so it proved in the weeks following, when Edward Kelley huddled over the stone and, through his scrying, I found myself able to talk to spirits. The first who came to us was a little girl no more than seven or eight years: he saw her clearly, sitting upon a rock in a desert place, and he questioned her as to who she might be. I could see and hear nothing, but he told all.

'I am the first but one of my mother's children,' she said to him. 'I have little baby children at home.'

'Ask her where that is, Mr Kelley.'

And she replied thus, after he had put the question to her. 'I dare not tell you where I dwell. I shall be beaten.' But then she put out both arms to him, saying, 'I pray you let me play with you a little, and I will tell you who I am.'

'Is she an angel,' I asked him, 'or some lesser spirit come to entertain us?' But at that she vanished away.

I knelt down and began to pray, while he put out the candles one by one. 'If you are interceding with the author of these beings,' he said to me as he snuffed the last of them, 'be sure that you are not deceived.'

The chamber of practice was now quite dark, since I kept a tapestry before the window and made sure that the doors were all perfectly locked. 'And what deception may that be?'

'The Devil takes strange shapes, Doctor Dee, and before we trust these spirits within the stone we must question them further.'

In the following week we were at a loss, with nothing appearing in crystallo, and we were about to quit the chamber when I heard a very great noise about the stone, as though men were beating down mud walls. Pretty soon it became a thumping and a clattering which seemed to shake the whole house. We stopped our devotions, and looked at one another in fright; then the noise ceased, and all was still.

Another week passed before we entered the chamber of presence, and immediately upon sitting down before the table of practice Edward Kelley saw a movement in the stone. 'I see two men,' he said, 'conversing with one another.'

'Can you hear their words?'

'One says that he saw the other in Harlot Street or Charlotte Street.'

'There is no such street.'

'The other groans. Now both are vanished away.'

This was marvellous indeed, but a yet greater marvel was to follow when we returned to the chamber the next week. 'It thunders in the stone,' Kelley said to me as he approached the table of practice. 'And there is something like a confused light in which I see a figure.'

'Is it one we know of?'

'It is a man,' he said. 'He has a black satin doublet, slashed.'

'What manner of creature is it? Has he been waiting for us all week long?'

Kelley repeated my questions and seemed to be listening intently to a reply. 'He that speaks to us is to be asked no such matters,' he said.

'Can he tell us his name?'

'He says that his name is Zalpor, one of the Elohim. Now I see him clearly. He has a ruff about his neck. It is a long one, edged with black or blue.'

'It will be black. Speak to him, lest he should disappear.'

'Be patient, for he approaches. Now he laughs, ha, ha, ha! a great laugh. Now he says, Dee, Dee, I know a privy enemy of yours.'

This made my heart to jump. 'Who?'

'Mankind.'

'Oh,' I replied, 'he has hit the mark with his jest!' Then I added, more quietly, 'So be it. He says only what is true.'

'Dee, Dee, such has God's mercy been in suffering wicked men to prevail against you that they have made a scorn of you in this your native country.'

I thought then of certain men who had stood against me — Oastler, Rushton, Dundas and the rest — and all my rage entered the chamber of presence. 'Yes,' I replied, 'I give losers leave to talk while they prosper. But the fattest goose comes soonest to the spit, and I will draw their fortunes to their last date.'

Kelley motioned me to be silent. 'He speaks again,' he whispered. 'But I cannot make out the words. Oh. Now I do. I hear all. He says you must rejoice to think how these silly flies play with the fire that will burn them. Now he shakes. Oh God. Now he seems to turn his head about his shoulders.' Kelley continued to watch the stone, and spoke these words to me as one under direction. 'Dee, Dee, have an ear to my foretelling. Run that run can.'

He departed from the stone after that, and Edward Kelley was sorely troubled in his mind by this apparition — for, as he said, how are we to know from what sphere he comes or whether he be an angel or something else? 'I am contented to see and to make true report of what he will show,' he said to me, 'but my heart stands against him.'

I had recovered myself pretty well, and told him there was nothing at all to fear and much to gain. 'There is a world of learning through which these spirits may guide us,' I continued. 'If they be good or evil, and I would willingly swear now that they are good, they bring us news from elsewhere. Remember that you and I may only inhabit the region under the moon, and have the thick air assigned to us a prison. Should we stop our ears to these voices from another sphere, or close our eyes to such wondrous apparitions? What else can we do but aspire to knowledge of the higher regions? I have consumed my whole life and labour in the pursuit of a great truth, quite apart from the common practices of mankind, and there is nothing in the world that now can change my course. I know that you wish to win money by distillation and alchemical conclusion —'

'No sir…'

I put up my hand. 'So you do. And so do I. But I see a light more refulgent than any gold, and it is one that leads me forward even to the very edge of this crystal stone. So no more talk of devils. We must go on.'

He agreed to this after much discontent, but my resolution was well rewarded during the next action in the chamber.

'There is a noise around the stone,' he told me on that day, 'a great noise of many voices. Now the sound is of pillars falling.'

'Does anything appear to you?'

'Here is a young man coming, and he is smiling upon me. He stands as though he were behind a desk, and preached or taught.'

'What else do you see?'

'He wears a strange robe, without wide sleeves. He has no hose or breeches but some kind of cloth around his legs. Now I see another man without a doublet, in his shirt, and with the same cloth upon his legs. They have some little discourse or conference together.'

'Can you hear what they say?'

'They speak softly, like the murmuring of the wind, but now I think I hear somewhat. They are named Matthew and Daniel.'

'Holy names.'

'Now they talk of you with much laughter.'

'Of me?' At that I was mightily afraid, but yet more curious than all.

'Now they have gone. Now another comes forward. He is a man having a velvet gown, all furred with white, and he makes motions as if to address you. I will speak it as I hear it.' Then Kelley proceeded with the following discourse.

'John Dee, John Dee, have you been turned off the ladder of life?'

'Yes, I have,' I replied, with much trembling. 'Many times, and wrongfully so.'

'And has the highway to preferment therefore been barred to you?'

'Indeed it has.'

'Well, John Dee, there is little friendship in your world. But take heart: no other passion prevails among your enemies except that of fear. Do you know one Richard Poynter, known as well-arrayed Richard?'

'Yes, an arrant knave, a thief, and a cozener.'

'He lives yet to spread false reports about you, but his time is likely to be short.'

'Ah, your will is sweet.'

'Not my will but your own. John Dee, John Dee, be familiar with all but trust none. I know the height of your ambition and your unrest, but it is given to you to encompass all your ends. Remember that no moss may stick to the stone of Sisyphus, no, nor grass hang upon the heels of Mercury: so aspire further than you think you may reach, seek the knowledge of the whole world, and mint gold both material and spiritual. I tell you this, John Dee, you shall have time and days to live that, when you die, you shall depart this world with fame and memory to the end. And remember this: your little man will lead you far beyond the glass in which he dwells. Now farewell.' And at that Edward Kelley fainted away. I was amazed to hear him speak of my homunculus, which even then was no more than my dream and my hope, with no certain substance; but I had forgotten that from their sphere they can see all, even the secrets lodged within my own breast.

The gates of eternity had opened wide and, in the weeks following upon this last visitation, various mysteries and shows were performed in the chamber of presence. There came a time when it seemed to Kelley that the spirits left the stone and flew about the room, and he was sorely vexed by their mischief. There were sounds about his head — nothing appearing to the eye — and a mighty weight or invisible burden came upon his right shoulder as he sat in the green chair by the holy table. It seemed to him that something was writing upon him, but I saw no words. Then on the same day in the next week, Friday being always our day of scrying, in the afternoon as he sat by me he felt on his head some strange moving. After this a spiritual creature seemed to him to be heavy again on his right shoulder, and it was very warm where it lighted upon him.

But there were more wonders still: pretty soon after that, while I stood by the table, there appeared to Kelley a round globe of white smoke over my head. Then there came about his own face little things of smoke, round and about as big as a pin's head, and he had great trouble in putting them from him. 'These spirits have power indeed,' I said after, as we sat in my study considering these latest actions. 'They have become visible in the world, not only in the stone, and they are able to affect us by their material agency. So why should they not, like the bees, furnish both wax and honey?'

'How so?'

'I wish to know all and yet, too, I wish to perform all. Only then will I reach the topmost rung of my ambition. Shall I tell you more about the ancient city that we seek?'

'I am always ready for learning, as you have cause to know.'

'I have by me narratives of ancient times, more than three thousand years before our present age, when there was such power upon the earth that all men were like gods. This was the race before the Flood, who — if I am not in error — founded the mystical city of London. Buried within those ruins, somewhere under the earth, may be tokens and emblems of that sacred generation whose authority was such that they were termed giants — not giants of physical but of spiritual power. And who knows what strength might not be ours if we found their relics and memorials, just like this crystal stone dug up at Glastonbury? Could we not move the spheres, and reach out to touch the fixed stars?'

'You have schemed farther than ever I thought, Doctor Dee. Why did you not tell me of these matters before?'

'I would have mentioned them then, if you could have understood me.' He was about to say more, and I brushed his words aside. 'But it is not enough to scheme and plan. It is for us to act upon such knowledge as we now possess. It was prettily devised of Aesop that the fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot wheel and said, what a dust do I raise. We must not be like the fly. We must turn the wheel with our own strength.'

'I do not see your meaning.'

'We must raise up our spirits in the stone, as we have done, but now we must question them clearly about these matters. We must ask them to guide our steps to the very treasures of the ancient city. We must approach them with prayer and trembling, so that one day they may lead us under the ground to find our forefathers. If they are our navigators, then we will need no other compass.' He seemed to recoil at my words, and began pacing up and down the study before breaking into a great storm of doubting and misliking of the spirits.

'They can be our instructors,' I replied.

'I do not trust them.'

'But you cannot condemn them out of hand, without having heard what they may say.'

'I have heard them already, have I not? Who knows if they will lead us to some place of night and terror?'

'Be more cheerful, Edward. They are our arrows. Do you consider we should not try to hit the mark with their aid?' I paused for a moment. 'It will make you rich.'

'I do not care for gold, sir, if it comes from devils.'

'Very well. I will make you rich. Depend upon me, and not upon these spiritual creatures.'

'Truly?'

'Truly. I will preserve you from their words and actions if you so desire it. Only do as you have done and act for me as their translator. I will expect no more. I will not set your house on fire to roast my own eggs.' This soothed him a little and, after more debate, he promised to question them at the time of our next action.

So it was with a trembling spirit that I approached the table of practice on that day. 'The noise is marvellous great coming through the stone,' he said, 'as if a thousand water-mills were going together.'

'Do you see anything?'

'I see two things, or spirits, I do not know what to call them now. There is a tall fellow on a horse; he has a cut beard and wears a sky-coloured cloak. I cannot see what road he follows, yet it is familiar: yes, he rides down Charing Cross. There is another man on horseback, a lean-visaged man with a short cloak and a gilt rapier.'

'Ask them where they are going. Perhaps they have the news that we seek.'

He repeated my question, and then listened intently with his ear close to the stone. 'They are going in no certain direction,' he replied. 'But now they are coming closer to me. The tall man holds a little stick with his fingers crooked and on his left hand he has the scar of a cut. The lean-visaged man has on a pair of boots, which come straight on his legs and very close. He lifts his stick and points to you from the stone.'

At this I was very much afraid, and felt myself turn pale as a cloth. 'Are they willing to do my bidding?'

'I believe so.'

'Then tell them to ride to the ancient city. Tell them to guide us to all that buried glory.'

'They hear you, and they begin to laugh. Now a young woman comes forward, covered all with a white robe; she takes the horses and leads them away from Charing Cross towards the city.'

'Perhaps she has heard my plea, and directs us the proper way.' I was eagerly on the chase now. 'What more do you see?'

'They are riding furiously, while the young woman still goes on ahead with her arms spread abroad and her feet not touching the ground by a yard in height. They seem to be passing through those fields behind St Botolph and just beyond Aldgate.'

'They are making their way to the site of the old city.'

'They come to a halt beside the drained land —'

'We have stood there ourselves many times.'

'Now they point to the foundation of an old building, as it were of a church or temple.'

'Has it something to do with the stone which we found lying there?'

He took no notice of me, but continued staring in crystallo. 'But now all is changed. All is bright. They are in the middle of a city, where the houses are of stone and very stately.'

'Is it possible? Is it the ancient city itself, as if seen in a vision?'

'It is not like the sight vouchsafed to me in Glastonbury, but I will ask them.' Then he listened again at the stone. 'Its name they will not tell me, or do not know.'

'What else do they say?'

'The lean-visaged man approaches and calls for you.'

'Tell him I am here to do whatever he commands.'

'He hears you and says thus. Dee, John Dee, I am here to instruct and inform you according to the doctrines delivered, which are contained in thirteen dwellings or callings. There are four natural keys to open five gates of the city (for one gate is never to be opened), and by their means will the secret of this place be righteously and wisely granted to you.' These were dark words, and I could not as yet puzzle out their meaning. Mr Kelley was gazing eagerly into the stone, and now continued. 'He approaches a broad open part of the city, like our Smith Field. There is a great stone in the middle of it, of about eighty inches square in mortal reckoning, and there is a fire in that stone. Now he takes out a casket, opens it, and there is within a waxen image of a pale colour like candle wax. Now his companion with the cut beard holds something like a glass vessel over the image, yet I still can see that it is marvellously scratched. Or perhaps it has been very rudely made with dents and knobs in the legs of it. I cannot tell. Now they pour blood out of a basin upon the fire, which springs ever higher in the middle of the stone, and now they cast the waxen image upon it where it seems to grow.'

I knew well enough the story here, since the spirits were acting in dumb show the very birth of the homunculus. 'What more now?' I asked him eagerly.

'Now all that spectacle is vanished away.' Kelley rubbed his eyes, before bending once more over the stone. 'The two spirits are looking out over the drained land where lately we walked. Both are sighing, and one points with his stick to the ground. Oh God, now he grows big and swells up within the stone. Now I see only his mouth, which gapes at me. Oh Jesus, protect me from this sight!'

At that he fell back from the table of practice, and had tremorem cordis for a while. But I was very glad and well pleased — not only to have had intercourse with the spirits through which they obeyed my commands, but also to have been strengthened and confirmed in my siting of the city. 'Make an end for today,' I told him. 'Give over. We have seen enough, and now we must make ourselves ready for tomorrow's action.'

'Tomorrow? Why change the order of our proceedings now?'

'We must warm our hands, Mr Kelley, while the fire is still high.'

'I had thought to rest myself, sir, for these things are terrible to behold. Yet now, so soon again…'

'We cannot rest now. We must march on.'

Soon after that he left me, pleading once more the great fatigue of the scrying, and I walked into my study for the better contemplation of all that had occurred. I will confess here that my mind was still troubled, so I took down and opened Of Wicked Spirits by the learned Abbot Fludd, in which he counselled against the calling-up of any apparitions whatsoever they might be. I did not follow him in this, however. If these spirits have knowledge greater than our own and if, as the commentators agree, all knowledge is virtue — why, then, where is the fault in acquiring virtue? The breath of the lion engenders the dove as well as the serpent, but for fear of serpents, are we to have no doves? I was meditating upon this when I heard my wife's foot upon my study stairs, and I counterfeited the reading of my book as she entered.

'I have given Mr Kelley's boots to be cleaned,' she said, without wishing me good day or any such thing.

'It is well done,' I replied without looking up from my book. Thereupon she sat down in the chair by my table and, softly humming to herself, took up in her hand one of the other volumes I had left there. 'Do not lose my place, mistress.'

'Do not worry about that. These pages are so stiff I can hardly turn them.' It was my copy of Maleficia Maleficiorum. 'It makes my head ache merely to look upon these words,' she continued. 'What is that, husband?'

I saw her looking upon a symbol of the star demon, much used by certain good scholars of Prague and Hamburg. 'It is part of the kabbalah. Take care that it does not burn you.'

'I have seen Mr Kelley examine your books eagerly enough, and he was never scalded.'

'Edward Kelley here?'

'He is often among your papers when you are away from the house. I wonder he has not told you.'

'Well, he needs no permission to use my library.'

'If it be so, it is good. For I have often heard him murmuring words into the air, as if he were trying to learn them by rote.' This caused me a little disquietness of mind; in spite of my calm words to my wife, there were papers here that I wished no one to see without my leave or well-liking — no, not even my wife herself, for who knows what may be blabbed out without doing any good by it? I knew well enough that I had left here certain notes on the preparation of new life, which were for no eyes but my own. But what were these words that Kelley had by heart?

'Why do you frown,' she asked me now, 'is there something amiss?'

'Nothing. Nothing at all.' I looked steadily at her. 'Have you any more that you would say to me?'

'No.'

'But you seem in disturbed sort.'

At that she got up from her chair, and began walking up and down as she spoke. 'Mr Kelley has stayed with us in this house for many months, and yet we know no more of him than any citizen passing in the street. He slips in and out of his chamber as if he were not willing to be seen, and looks with such scorn upon Philip and Audrey that you would think they had crawled out of some kennel.'

'These words are very large, mistress, but I think there is nothing within them.'

'Nothing? Is it nothing that he has the key to your private chambers, and goes among your books and papers when you are away from home? That he takes volumes from your study and pores over them with the light of a candle?'

'He is a scholar, Mrs Dee, and has a great thirst for knowledge.' She laughed at that. 'A thirst for everything, sir. I have seen him drink so much wine that he must have a quagmire in his belly.'

'He has an elevated mind, and it is said that those who see furthest drink most.'

'And what does he see, sir?'

'I cannot speak of these things today.' I was angry with her, and was unwilling to let her go without a bite in her arse. 'I tell you this, mistress. I would sooner bequeath all my papers to the privy, leaf by leaf, than have them examined by a fool or a thief. But Edward Kelley is not of that mould. He is semper fidelis, and I demand that you afford him as much trust and reverence as I do.'

'If that is your wish, then so be it.' She rose, curtsied and was about to leave the chamber. 'Far be it from me,' she added, in a low voice, 'to mention that a plaster may be small amends for a broken head.' I did not understand her words, but before I could question her further she turned like a little whirlwind and was gone.

In the following week, although he and I came each day into the scrying room, all about the stone was quiet; on having conference together, we agreed that the sudden change in our practice had perturbed or angered the spirits. So we agreed, further, that no more was to be done for the space of seven days.

In the meantime Mrs Dee had taken my words to her heart, and conversed in all civility with Edward Kelley when they sat together at the table. In the gallery, too, she bestowed kind and amiable words upon him. 'Tell me, sir,' she asked one afternoon when we all sat together, 'do you prefer to work by means of memory or inspiration?'

'That is a nice question,' Edward Kelley replied. 'Suffice it to say that memory without inspiration is barren indeed, while inspiration without memory is like the horse that gallops without a rider. Does that answer you?'

'Very well, sir. It is what I would expect from a scholar such as you are, who knows in which direction he must ride.'

This was merry talk indeed, and yet two days later she came suddenly into my study. She seemed to be in a marvellous great fury and rage, and held up her hand as if she were willing to strike someone. 'My bracelet and rings have gone,' she said. 'All of them clean gone.' She was in such a great rush of words that I asked her to calm herself. 'I was looking for my bodkin,' she continued, 'because the eyelet holes of your hose were broken, and so I went into my closet where I keep my boxes of stuff. And it was gone.'

'What was gone?'

'The wooden casket where I keep my rings. Good God, what a short memory you have! Did you not buy it for me last year, in Poor Jewry? The very intricate carved box, with the figure of the mermaid upon it? Well, it is gone! Conveyed away, with my rings and bracelet!'

'You mean that you cannot find it. Where did you set it yesterday?'

'I did not have it yesterday. It sits where it always sits, and I mean that it is stolen.'

'But who would do such a thing? Philip? Audrey? We have no other strangers in the house.'

'Philip and Audrey are no more strangers to you than I am. You have forgotten your Mr Kelley —'

'Katherine!'

'Did he not tell you of his friendship with that jeweller in Cheapside? And I have heard him discourse on the virtuous properties of natural stones.' I thought then, as she talked, that he spoke only what he had learned from me. 'How do we know that he has not secretly bereaved me of my goods, and carried them into the city?'

'Katherine. Mrs Dee. There is no more honest man living than Mr Kelley. Has he not worked by me, and assisted me, these last twelve months?'

'You are as blind as a mole when you are buried within your books. Have you not seen, by diverse actions and express words, that he is a hollow friend to you? All his dreams are of gold, all his hopes are for advancement and the Devil take the hindmost. I cannot abide him. No, I abhor him. And here, in my own house, I am misliked by you because I favour him no better.'

Her words were spoken in great pangs and disquietness of mind, and I tried to soothe her. 'It is not so, wife. It is not so. Has the loss of your rings meant that you have lost your wits as well?'

'I tell you this, Doctor Dee.' She went over to my window, and looked out on to the garden. 'Audrey has observed him by the path there, muttering to someone over by the wicket-gate. She swears to me that she has heard slanders against you and all your work.'

I was amazed at that, but even in my first alarm I could not believe any such abominable misusing me behind my back: it was the knavery of Audrey, I knew well, and I was about to bring her up in order to examine her when Kelley himself came indiscreetly upon us. I thought that my study door had been shut, and I greatly feared his rash opinion of such words as he might have overheard. My wife stepped back, and put her hand to her mouth. 'The woman Audrey,' he said, 'is a brazen-faced liar. Bring her here, and see if she is ashamed to affirm so apparent a falsehood before my very face!'

My wife's words were of more smarting efficacy than she could have known and, being heard by him, had that steel and metal in them which pierced and stung him to the quick. 'What is the cause,' he said to my wife now, 'what is the cause that you will not be better acquainted with my feelings for you and for your husband?'

'I know your feelings very well,' she replied. 'Like the ravening crocodile, you have pity for no man other than yourself.' Whereupon he declared that she did fable, and she was so moved that she called him 'hypocrite' and 'conniver'. I told her then to remove all spitefulness, and tried quietly to pacify them, but it was all to no avail. 'Well, I have forewarned you,' she said, turning to me with the fire still in her eyes. 'I have done the part of a wife. It had been better for you not to have changed an old friend for a new.' Then with an angry look she walked away, and shut the door of the study upon us.

I arose and went after her, and took her by the shoulders to keep her from the stairs. 'My opinion of you, mistress, is clean changed. How could you spin such fantasies and wild words?'

She said nothing for a moment, but looked steadily at me. 'You speak of spinning, but I know of one who spins lies better than any man. And remember this, sir. There is no wool so white but the dyer can make it black. I have no more to say.'

'Then go to your duties. And call Audrey to me.'

I went back to my study, and with all levity I tried to entertain Edward Kelley. 'There never was such a shrew as my wife,' I said. 'But words are mere words, and she means no harm.'

'I forgive her. She has been tricked by her brain-sick maid into false witness against me.'

After a few minutes up came that slattern, shaking like an aspen leaf. 'Why is it,' I asked her, 'that you have spread false reports and malicious slanders against Mr Kelley, who has done you no harm in the world?' The water stood in her eyes, and she was not able to answer one word until she had well wept. 'When did you enter the year of your service?' Still she stood, weeping, and said nothing. 'Was it not on Michaelmas Day? You have from me three pounds a year in wages, and a gown cloth of russet. Is this how you repay me? What do I get by this expense but mischief?'

'I meant nothing by it, sir. Only —'

'Nothing? Do you call it nothing to condemn my guest as a thief and a malicious backbiter?'

'I heard him in the garden, sir.'

'Yes, and where were you? Close under a hedge, playing at jack-in-the-box? Or was it something worse? Well, you are discharged. Do not come near my house again.'

At that Kelley stepped forward, smiling upon her now. 'Do not be so harsh, Doctor Dee, I entreat you. I see from her tears that she is in a state of contrition. Can we not play the priest and shrive her?'

'Do you hear, Audrey? What do you say to that?'

'I would humbly thank you, sir, if I were forgiven.'

'No. Do not thank me. Go down on your knees now and bless this gentleman for preserving you.' She did so, with a few broken words, and then left us weeping as hard as if she had been burned through the ear. 'You were kind,' I said, 'to one who was less than kin.'

'I do not blame her wholly.' He went after her, and firmly closed the door to my chamber. 'There is something else. There is something in this house which is more busy than any bee that I know.'

'How is that?'

'What melancholy conceit is it that pesters their brains, so that your wife is turned against me and her servant sees nothing but phantasms? Who whispered those abominable words to that errant strumpet, Audrey, and who devised those most unhonest and devilish dealings against the property of your wife?'

'How did you know about the property?'

'Audrey told me of the theft.' And then he went on, more quickly than before. 'Do you not understand that these spirits we have raised within the chamber of practice, and have seen within the holy crystal stone, have not returned to their habitation (wherever that might be) but have entered the walls, the floors, the very frame of this house? Upon what black shore of mischief have we sailed, to take on such passengers?'

I was amazed at this. 'Surely you put a false construction upon words which signify no more than a fart? Do the spirits haunt my privy?'

I could not help but smile, despite the cause of my ill-humour, but this provoked him all the more. All at once he damned and condemned anything that had been heard or seen in the chamber of presence. 'Our teachers are deluders,' he said, 'and are not good or sufficient instructors.'

I told him that he did err in so saying, and that there lay before us a world of knowledge and of power. 'What does it profit us now to turn our backs upon that golden city, the first of Albion, when lying under the ground are treasures beyond dreaming? We must recover that which has been lost to our country for many thousands of years. It is too late for us to consider what we should have done, in addressing these spirits or apparitions, and it rests only for us to determine what we must do. It would be the worse for me if I lose my labour in this, Mr Kelley, and I mean to make my chance and prove my destiny.'

'Do you call it destiny? It is the maddest destiny that ever I heard, but if you wish it, then so let it be. I make only one condition for going forward with you.'

'Which would be?'

'That you no longer conceal from me any mysteries of your craft, even to the highest, and that you share with me all secrets contained in your studies or in your alchemical practice.'

I could see which way the wind blew. 'You wish to approach the philosopher's stone? You wish for gold?'

'Yes, in fit time.'

'Or is it more? Is there other knowledge you wish for?'

'All in time.'

'Well then, so be it. I can deny you nothing.'

He put out his hand. 'I shall not forsake you, not now or ever.'

'You are one with me?'

'One with you, Doctor Dee.'

It was the week following this, our latest compact, that my wife fell ill of a fever. At first she had nothing more than some wambling in her stomach, but when she tried to break her fast with sugar sops, she vomited them up speedily enough; a hot sweat then came upon her, so I put a poultice of eggs and honey, blended with the nuts of a pine tree, upon her breast. Yet I knew very well that this sickness was her fantasy, a fond foolishness brought on by the loss of her rings and by our hard words together. So I went to work as eagerly as before, and was in a great study at my desk while she kept to her bed. 'How does my wife?' I said, entering her chamber two nights after she was first despatched there.

'Well, sir, I feel some grievous pangs and pains.' She was still in a sweat, and moved her head from side to side.

'It is the rheum,' I replied. 'Be patient, and take the mineral physic I have prepared for you. It is no dangerous sickness.' Then I went out of her closet with a light heart, and spoke with Kelley about the next day's scrying.

It was arduous work indeed, with the action of that day, and on the following night I sat in my chamber and studied the responses which had come out of the stone. It was my practice to note down everything as it occurred, so that I had a full record of each week's proceedings, and I was bent over my papers half the night long.

Thus:

Spirit. 4723 is called the mystical root in the highest ascendant of transmutation.

Dee. These phrases are dark.

Spirit. It is the square of the philosopher's work.

Dee. You said it was the root.

Spirit. So it is a root square, the square thereof is 22306729. And the words are, by interpretation, Ignis vera mater.

Dee. What does this signify?

Spirit. Enough. It is at an end.

I was puzzling out the meaning of this within my chamber, when I heard a strange noise of knocking; and then there was a voice, ten times repeated, somewhat like the shriek of a man in pain but softer and more long-drawn. I was strangely troubled at that — and yet more so, yes, close to fainting away, when I thought I saw a spiritual creature standing upright in the corner, with its hands stretched out towards me. Very quickly it stepped across my chamber until it came to a halt, its back to me, in the corner opposite. Then it turned its face to me with the same long call of pain: it was my father, dead more than a year since, as fully drawn and delineated from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head as if he wer