Silent Court Read online

  What she heard was unexpected. Her husband was speaking to one person only, and he was keeping him strictly on the other side of the door.

  ‘No,’ she heard him say. ‘You can not come in here. You left me and I was glad to see you go. It has taken me a good while to undo the damage that you did and you will not come in and start it all again. I will not have it!’

  From the other side of the door, kept open just a crack to keep the frosty morning out, she heard a voice in protest, but she couldn’t hear what it was saying. It was angry, and that was all she could discern. Then, the door started to shake, pushed inwards by whoever – or, in this household, perfectly likely whatever – was outside. Dee was not as frail as he looked, but even so he was having trouble with the power on the other side of the thick oak planks. Calling for Bowes to come from his kitchen fastness, she hurried forward to help her husband. As she got nearer, she recognized the voice, which was now hurling imprecations and ill-remembered incantations at Dee. In her surprise, she spoke aloud.

  ‘Ned?’ she said, and Dee stepped back at the sound of her voice.

  Edward Kelly, clipped ears blue with cold, stepped suddenly into the Hall, with the pressure from within removed and stumbled on the uneven flagged floor. He looked older than she remembered him, meaner and tight of lip.

  ‘Nell!’ he said, and moved to hug her, but she stepped back, behind her husband. ‘Oh, so that’s the way of it, is it?’ he said, with a sneer. ‘She did marry you after all.’ Contempt oozed from every pore.

  ‘In church, before God and the priest,’ she said. ‘Not some jump over the stick or any of your nonsense. I am Mistress Dee all right and as such I don’t want you in my house.’

  Dee was proud of her in that moment. He had never been quite sure how much of a wife she thought herself. Theirs was not a conventional coupling in any sense of the word and even after all these years she could have the marriage annulled for reasons of non-consummation, but he loved her all the same and realized in that moment that she loved him too. It was as if a fire had been lit in his heart and he reached behind him and fumbled for her hand. She grabbed his and squeezed it tight. They were in this together, the Dees, for better or worse.

  Edward Kelly looked at them and nodded. ‘Well, I can’t argue with that, then, Nell. But it is cold outside and I am newly come from Holland. I have ridden for days to find you and if I could just come in for a warm by your fire and a sup at your table, I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘If you have come lately from Holland,’ Dee said, ‘how did you know to find us here? We have been moving around since the fire.’

  Kelly narrowed his eyes and said, ‘The spirits told me, John.’

  Dee laughed. ‘Edward, don’t forget who you are speaking to, now. I taught you the tricks of that particular trade and I know you can no more raise a spirit than you can fly. Or is the flying coming on better these days?’

  Kelly gave a bark of laughter, but there was no humour in it. ‘I don’t bother with the flying lately, John, thank you. And you are right. On this occasion, it was not the spirits, but a contact of mine in Holland. He had heard from a contact of his at court that you were wintering in Ely. I admit I have been to two other houses this morning; this was my last possibility, so I claim no special powers. In this case only, of course.’ Even though he was speaking to people who knew his limitations only too well, he still couldn’t help but keep his options open.

  ‘Wheels within wheels, Ned, as ever,’ Dee said. He had still not moved back any further and Kelly was still more or less on the doorstep. ‘Have you ever been honest?’

  Kelly looked upwards, thinking hard. ‘No, not as I remember,’ he said. ‘But let me change all that and be honest with you now, John. I am destitute as I have never been before. The Dutch are a pragmatic people, damn their eyes, and a poor seeker after the truth has slim pickings in the court of William the Silent. The Spanish are worse – I was threatened with the Inquisition whenever I strayed south into their lands. At least the Dutch just mocked me; they didn’t seem to want to set me on fire.’

  ‘Another of your best tricks, as I recall,’ Helene said, still standing behind Dee and holding his hand. This man had nearly ruined her husband before and she mistrusted him, with his big innocent eyes and his honeyed voice. She raised her voice again and called over her shoulder, ‘Bowes! Come here, now!’

  Down in the kitchen, the cook kicked Samuel Bowes on the ankle as he dozed before the fire. ‘Nell is calling you,’ she said, as he opened one lazy eye. ‘There’s somebody at the door.’

  ‘Can’t she open it, then?’ he asked, closing the eye again. ‘Got legs, hasn’t she?’

  The cook gave him another kick and turned over her piece of toast. ‘Go and see what she wants. It might be them Egyptians, here to give trouble.’

  ‘They’d come round the back, surely,’ he said, but grumbled himself to his feet and climbed the stone steps out of the kitchen and opened the door, which he slammed to again immediately.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ the cook said, turning round in alarm and dropping her toast in the ashes. ‘Who is it?’ The woman could turn milk on the best of occasions, but when she was frightened, her blubbery lips hung loose and her chins wobbled. Not a pretty sight, except that Sam Bowes was used to it.

  ‘It’s only that Kelly,’ Bowes whispered. ‘Standing in the doorway and trying to talk round the Master.’

  ‘Is Nell there?’ the cook said, in alarm, wobbling more than ever.

  ‘She is. Standing behind the Master and holding his hand fast. I’m not going out there, not for a ransom.’

  The cook stood up, her ruined toast forgotten. ‘Go out there, you craven bastard. We nearly lost our positions last time that Kelly was in the household. If we all stand together against him, we can get rid of him. I’d rather have a dozen Egyptians than him.’

  Together, they climbed the stairs, the cook wiping her hands anxiously down her apron and tucking her elf locks up under her cap. She had memories of Edward Kelly that she wasn’t prepared to share with anyone and although she didn’t want him back in her Master’s house, a woman wanted to look her best. Just to show him she hadn’t let herself go.

  In the Hall, little had changed, at first glance. But Balthasar Gerard would have immediately seen the difference. Kelly was now further into the room and the Dees, though still hand in hand, had less of the tiger-at-bay look about them; their bodies were more relaxed, they now seemed to think that the danger had passed. But Kelly had been waiting for just this change and he took his chance. Before Bowes and the cook were in earshot, he leaned forward and whispered something in Dee’s ear.

  The magus drew back and dropped his wife’s hand. He turned to Bowes. ‘Make up a bed for Master Kelly, would you, Sam?’ he said, in his best host’s tone. ‘He is staying the night. Just one night,’ he repeated, almost a statement, almost a question, almost a plea.

  ‘One night is ample,’ Kelly said, with a smile. ‘Just for old time’s sake.’ He stepped in, closing the door behind him with a finality that sounded like a coffin lid being closed. ‘Just to warm my old bones at the fire.’ He looked round and caught the cook’s eye. ‘Or something warmer, if you have it.’ She hoped no one saw her blush.

  ‘Hell fire,’ Dee said, crisply. ‘You can warm yourself in Hell fire whenever you want to Ned, but just until tomorrow at first light, you may use my hearth instead.’

  SIX

  Marlowe was anxious to help pack up the camp that morning, if only to work off the effects of the oatmeal, which had formed a lining to his stomach of which any alchemist would have been proud. He felt that he might never be hungry again. But wherever he turned, someone was already doing the work; the yurt was down in a matter of minutes, and folded into the wagon he had slept in the night before, the pole broken down into three sections and stowed along the side in special brackets. The fire had been kicked out and covered with the sods which had been cut and carefully set aside the night before. Th
e horses were in the traces and the dogs tethered behind, the children stowed in neat and relatively silent lines behind Hern, who drove the first wagon. The Wasp had been rubbed down and fed, and she seemed remarkably docile. Hern had obviously had a word in her ear.

  Almost before he knew it, they were on the Ely road through the desolation that was Wicken Fen and, looking back, Marlowe could see hardly a sign that seventeen humans and many animals had spent the night there. The flattened grass where the tent had been would soon spring back and the Egyptians would once more have disappeared into the mists. Only the secret visitors of the night before would remember their passage; how kindly they would remember them would depend on how well the potions had worked, how well their futures matched their dreams, whether the charms to foretell the name of their husband to be showed that it was to be handsome Hal, from the inn, with prospects and a winning smile, or gawky Harry, the tanner, who smelt of dog shit all the time and had a stammer and five teeth missing from the front.

  They passed one village girl on the road, who was trying, on this icy morning, to collect dew to make her love potion work. Hern turned to Marlowe, riding at his side. ‘If there’s one thing I have learned on the road, Master Marlowe, it is that there is one born every minute.’

  Marlowe looked behind him, at the bemused girl standing there with her bottle. ‘She will catch her death of cold if she isn’t careful,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it rather cruel?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Hern said. ‘In the winter we don’t tell them to go barefoot and sky clad, although the summer charm does tend to bring them a man sooner rather than later. In the winter charm, she may well catch a cold, and the man who brings her hot soup and brandy is probably a better prospect than the one who finds her out at dawn naked on a summer morning.’

  ‘So . . .’ Marlowe spoke as he thought things through. ‘Your charms are just a way of helping nature along a little.’

  ‘Smartly said, Master Marlowe.’ Balthasar Gerard had drawn up on his other side, riding a beautiful piebald horse, hung with bells and ribbons on its bridle. ‘We will have you thinking like an Egyptian yet. Although, I must warn you, some of our charms are more than words. And when you can tell them apart, you will truly be one of us.’

  A tousled head poked out from behind Hern. ‘Is that Master Marlowe?’ Starshine asked. ‘When can we have another story, Master Marlowe?’

  Hern pushed her back, not unkindly. ‘Leave the man alone, Star,’ he said. ‘We’ll have more stories tonight, when we have met Master Dee. He may have wonders for us that will give Master Marlowe even more stories for us. Isn’t that right, Master Marlowe?’

  ‘Doctor Dee has many wonders to share, it’s true,’ Marlowe conceded. ‘But if they are suitable for children, I doubt.’

  ‘No children here,’ Hern said. ‘Just very small people. If we don’t let them see wonders, how will we find out which of them has the skill? Think of the many children in great houses who never find that they are musicians, conjurors, magicians or something even more wonderful because they spend their young lives learning Latin and Greek. Everyone should try everything at least once.’

  Marlowe thought of the Shelley girls, Jane and little Bessie, children in a great house, he hoped, but not their own. Children whose father was probably dead by now. But Marlowe the scholar put his head over the parapet. ‘I can speak Latin and Greek,’ he said. ‘As well as French, a touch of Italian, some Flemish . . .’

  ‘You speak Flemish?’ Balthasar asked, reining in his horse.

  ‘A bit. Mostly childish stuff which I learned at home from the weavers. But I can certainly get by. And where my Flemish won’t serve, there’s always French, or Latin at a pinch.’

  Hern looked at him from the corner of his eye. ‘What a very surprising man you are, Master Marlowe,’ he said. ‘Do you have yet more surprises in store for us? Can you, for example, juggle?’

  Marlowe laughed. ‘I can juggle with a total of one orange,’ he said.

  ‘Tumble?’

  ‘Over, if necessary, after a hard night drinking.’

  Hern and Gerard exchanged glances. ‘You might be hard to hide, then,’ Hern said. ‘But Simon isn’t very good at the physical stuff either. Perhaps we can work out some kind of strong man act between you. He is a head taller than you and muscular. It’s been a waste using Ernesto as his partner; he is a fine tumbler and we can do with him in the show.’

  ‘Not muscular. Fat,’ said Gerard, waspishly.

  ‘A little fat, perhaps, but still quite strong. Hmm . . . I think we can work something out.’ Hern fell silent and something in his demeanour told Marlowe he was dismissed. He fell back and rode for a while alongside the women’s wagon, but the only conversation there was giggling. He fell back further still and when he ended up riding behind the dogs, he spent his time wondering how he would find his old friend, Doctor Dee.

  As the caravanserai made its slow way to Ely, Marlowe was increasingly glad of his oatmeal breakfast. As a scholar on short commons, he had often gone without the odd meal, but his midday luncheon was the one he tried never to go without. His head was hungry, even though his stomach had only nibbled at the sides of the solid mass inside. He clicked his tongue to the Wasp and went back to the head of the column.

  ‘Hern?’ he said, ‘are we to stop for luncheon today?’

  Hern looked at him askance. ‘Luncheon, Master Marlowe?’ he said, in a mocking, cultured tone. ‘What would Egyptians on the road have to do with luncheon? If your oatmeal is not still satisfying you, go back to the women. They may have an apple or two to share, or a slice of cold oatmeal if you still have an appetite for it. But you’ll have to get used to eating when there is food, not just because of the position of the sun in the sky.’

  Marlowe looked up at the unending low grey sky, with not even a faint white glow to tell where the sun might be. ‘It’s my guts which tell me it’s time for luncheon,’ he said plaintively. ‘How do you know where the sun is on such a day?’

  ‘We all know where the sun is,’ Balthasar said, coming alongside him with his usually unerring timing. How could a horse walk so quietly, Marlowe wondered. He himself was known to be flannel-footed, but his horses made the same noise as anyone else’s. ‘Even the children could tell you the position of the sun, and at night, they can tell the time by the moon, even when there is no moon to see.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ Marlowe said.

  ‘No trick,’ Balthasar said. ‘I will tell you one of our secrets if you like.’

  Hern looked at him with flinty eyes, as grey as his hair and beard. ‘Be careful, Balthasar,’ he said. ‘We have not known Master Marlowe long.’

  ‘I know Master Marlowe as well as he knows himself,’ the soothsayer said, ‘but this secret is one that any man could know if he thought for a moment about it.’ He turned to Marlowe. ‘Imagine the moon at the full,’ he said. ‘Come on, now, Master Marlowe. Let me see you imagining. Close your inner eyes and see the sky at night. Choose a good frosty one, so that you can see the stars clearly.’ He watched as Marlowe’s eyes moved from side to side, seeing the picture in his mind’s eye, high above the rickety roofs of Canterbury or the turreted splendour of Cambridge. ‘Can you see the moon?’

  Marlowe found his arm lifting involuntarily an inch or two, to point to the imaginary world above his head.

  ‘You are a good subject, Master Marlowe,’ Hern observed. ‘If I can give you some advice, don’t let Balthasar speak quietly to you in the dark. Before you know it you will be telling him all your secrets and you won’t even know you have done it. Beware!’

  Balthasar laughed softly and patted Marlowe’s arm. ‘You have nothing to fear from me, Kit,’ he said. ‘We all have secrets here and which of us would want them shared around? So . . . can you see the moon?’

  Marlowe nodded his head. He was ‘Kit’ now or was this all part of the soothsayer’s guile?

  ‘Now, still looking at the moon, but keeping the stars in view, wipe out the moo
n’s face. Start from the middle or the edge, it doesn’t matter, but imagine a cloth wiping out the moon.’ He waited a few heartbeats. ‘Is it gone?’

  Marlowe nodded again.

  ‘So,’ Balthasar said, leaning back in his saddle, ‘what is there to see where the moon once was?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Good. Now, let your eyes wander across the sky. Can you see any other patches of nothing of that size? Use your eyes. Don’t just see the twinkling stars, but look and see the stardust too. Can you see another dark patch that size?’

  Marlowe’s eyes wandered about again, raking the celestial landscape in his head and eventually he shook his head.

  Balthasar shook his bridle, setting the bells jingling and the ribbons flying. ‘So, on a moonless night, look for the moon, Kit, and you will never be lost, not for place or time.’

  Marlowe smiled slowly. ‘That is so obvious, I don’t know why I didn’t know that already,’ he said.

  ‘You did, once,’ Hern said, as Balthasar rode back down the column again, checking, always checking. ‘We children of the moon remember things we knew at our birth. The rest of the world begins to forget as they draw their first breath. We begin to remember.’ He looked slyly at Marlowe. ‘Has Balthasar’s lesson made you less hungry, Master Marlowe?’

  Marlowe listened to his stomach, which said he was full and then to his head, which said it was definitely time for luncheon. ‘Not less hungry, Hern,’ he said, ‘but it may be that I am learning not to be.’

  ‘Then you must remember today as your first step to being a child of the moon.’ Hern laughed. He reached behind him and foraged in the dark wagon. When he pulled his arm free, there was a child on the end of it. ‘Here,’ he said to Marlowe, ‘take –’ he twisted the child round and looked into its face – ‘Lukas here and tell him some stories. He might tell you some in return; we have hopes of him as a storyteller when he is older.’ He stood the child, who was somewhere around six years old, on the edge of the seat and gave him a push in the small of his back. The child leapt across Marlowe’s saddle and snuggled back against his chest.