‘What branch of Talbot are you? Worcestershire?’
Talbot inclined his head.
She smiled. ‘I am told the county grows good pears. I have some property near, or is it Herefordshire – I forget – there’s a moated grange among it, mostly a ruin now, there is some story attached, I recall. I thought it might be a pretty present for you; very pleasant country they tell me, and softer than here. But never mind that. I am told you have rare gifts, Edward Talbot, that you can see things, like the magician of the tower in the story. Is it true?’
‘It is, ma’am.’
‘Is it?’ She craned forwards towards him and her eyes flamed, but perhaps it was borrowed brightness from the burning logs. ‘Tell me how it started. Did a devil come to you? I am dying you know; you must tell me the truth and not waste time.’
She wore a cross about her neck; it was crusted with stones and every now and again the afternoon sun or the fire sparked it; what good is it there on her chest, I thought, where she cannot catch the gleam of it and has only the weight. I noticed that she did not touch it once. Her eyes flitted with a kind of desperate energy, as though she was stood on a brink.
‘There is a cloth before our eyes, that blinds us to the celestial world,’ Talbot said, meeting and steadying her eyes. ‘For ordinary men, only when they dream does it grow so gossamer thin that they see beyond. But I was born with different eyes. Even as a child I sensed at times the air thick with spirits. Standing by a pool or staring in my cup visions grew unasked for from the surface of the water.’
‘Ministers of the Church say these are devils, sent to deceive us and drown our souls in sin.’
‘There are devils madam, it is true – and many times I have had to cast them from me in the shape of rats and monkeys. Other times I’ve known them take on pleasing shapes – a soft young girl offering me a chain of daisies – mild-seeming as the flower, but an adder in your hand. Such visions test me, they rip my soul apart; I call on God and all the angels to take away my eyes, but He has made me a door. I cannot help but look. I become the veil itself, men look through me to the spectral world. But I swear to you on that holy cross you wear at your heart that mine is a holy quest; I help clowns find the coin they dropped or their wandering pig, but I know I can find a greater prize, for I know there is a treasure hid in a field which is of more worth than all else besides.’
‘One precious pearl. Yes.’
No wonder she believed him, I believed him myself. Owl-eyed, stub-thumbed, he looked more suited to manage a bearpit than to discourse with a peer’s daughter, yet there was a power in his words that compelled. His voice, too, was rich and warm, plain but educated. Don’t be afraid, it seemed to say, see how I open your eyes to wonders. I’d told him once that his voice, when he wasn’t crabbed, was his one beauty. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but note how I keep it a notch below gentlemanly when I talk to my betters, so as not to unsettle their pride.’ He was a counterfeiter and a gamester, but he could draw spirits from the air.
‘I confess,’ Lady Elizabeth said, ‘I have been curious for a long time. I have read a little; perhaps you would be surprised a woman would read so much. I know Hermes Trismegistus, who walked the earth with Moses, when God spoke directly to His people. I am persuaded a divine magic is accessible to man.’
‘And a godhead too – as Mirandola has written – our souls are a cluster of seeds and what in our lives we cultivate will grow, whether it be to the state of a cabbage, or a sensual beast or the angel that perceives by intellect – or even greater than this – to withdraw into the unity of our own spirit, one with the solitary darkness of the Maker.’
There was a solemn silence after he spoke. I was afraid he had gone too far – from the corner of my eye I caught a servant, out of his mistress’s eye cross himself – but Lady Stanley was nodding, a hand at her temple, her eyes glistening with tears.
‘I should like you to scry for me, now, Talbot.’
A gentlewoman I had not noted came forward. She must have been seated in a window; she swept past both of us with a look of faint disgust before turning to her mistress.
‘My Lady,’ she said, ‘you are tired. The excitement is not good for you; you must eat now. This can wait until tomorrow, surely?’
Lady Elizabeth sighed and nodded. ‘You are right, as always, Mary, but my husband might return tomorrow and then there would be no scrying for me at all. I am sure Mr Talbot will not vex me. Do you need more candles?’
Mary hovered for a moment, with her mouth full of words, and then pressed her lips together and stepped back, glaring at Talbot as though she would dearly like to kick him.
‘Yes, more candles,’ Talbot said, ‘and begging your leave, madam, I must go apart for some minutes to pray.’
We were led into the chapel. Talbot flung himself before the Virgin and began his mutterings. I bent my head and pressed my palms together, but my soul clammed up and fell to bargaining – lead me to Jacob, Lord, I thought, and I will peel myself open even to the heart, if you desire it.
At last Talbot heaved himself up and we were led back. With the shutters closed one half of the hall was in shadow, but at the further end constellations of lit sconces picked out the gallery. Talbot approached Lady Elizabeth and asked for cushions that they might both kneel. When they had done so he solemnly pulled from his bag the candle coal showstone, placing it on a cloth of velvet before him. She gasped. It was indeed beautiful – smooth as water and black as though it were darkness itself made stone. Talbot called it obsidian stone, forged out of fire. If she knew, I wondered, that a ragged boy had chipped it from the earth near Wigan and sold it for pennies! A little to the side, Lady Elizabeth’s gentlewoman stood, her nose uptilted like a watchful hound. I took up my position behind Talbot likewise.
If I were her, I thought, I should doubt too. I would note how my lady’s hands twitched in yearning and damn Talbot for a parasite, a prowler, a practiser upon the weak. I thought him so myself quite often, but not in this. A solemn magic hung round him and his eyes were lit by spirit fires. We all of us sought God’s ear every day, we looked and found His warnings and blessings in the fields or in the clouds, why should He not send His angels to talk to us directly?
‘In nomine Patris filii et Spiritus Sanctus Amen,’ Talbot said, making the sign of the cross, and uttering the words I had learned to mouth along with him. ‘On, Ell, Eloy, Eley, Messias, Sother, Emmanuel, Sabaoth.’
We waited in silence for him to continue. The room grew very quiet. It seemed to me that the air shimmered. I would not have been surprised to see it part like a curtain and a spirit or a fairy enter. Then all at once the candle flames, each and every one, sputtered and bent low as though from an unseen breath. Even Mistress Mary gasped. Talbot began to speak in a low, chanting tone. ‘I see a spark of fire; it spins and grows; it blazes, it steps free from the stone. It is a man tall and lustrous in a pilgrim’s cloak, with a staff in his hand. Who are you that is called to the crystal?’
‘I am Azarias,’ he answered in a different voice, ‘who travelled with Tobiah, Tobit’s son and you know me as Raphael, who stirred the waters of Bethesda to heal the sick. Look now at what I shall show you.’
Then Talbot leaned back and looked up towards the great rafters of the hall, where shadows cast by the candles dimly flickered. He threw his arms wide. ‘I will,’ he said, and stood, gesturing to Lady Elizabeth to stand with him. He stared into the darkness of the roof space.
‘Behold,’ he said in Azarias’s voice, ‘A wide plain with a long empty road across it that leads to a stretch of shining silver water. It laps a range of mountains like a moat. The dawn begins behind the peaks – look how the cloud flushes pink with welcome. And now there is a multitude upon the road; men and women of every station and degree.’
Talbot paused and looked round at us with unseeing eyes. ‘Do you follow?’ he asked in Azarias’s voice still.
We nodded, struck with the vision which seemed to hang before us like a
cloth, painted out of air and candlelight.
He went on, ‘After the people, although they know it not, trail jewelled serpents on their bellies in the dirt. And soon the serpents reach those who straggle last – the lame and the halt, the old and the very young; but them they pass by. And soon they reach the body of common folk, men and women each with the sign of their trade or manor upon them and some of these glance at the jewel-crusted serpents with desire and are hobbled at the ankle with a bite; but these too are soon passed by. Then the snakes pass among brave fellows – fine ladies in carriages, bishops and princes and these stoop for the gold and the bright gems on the serpents’ backs and pick them up to hang round their necks or twist them into rings about their fingers. Hung about with vipers they dazzle through the afternoon.’
We saw it all, the degrees of men and women, the gentry and nobility with vipers curling at their necks. He paused. Lady Elizabeth was paler than a winding sheet, staring at Talbot with feverish eyes. Her gentlewoman laid a hand upon her shoulder, signalling him to stop, but he went on.
‘In the evening all approach the silver water and plunge in over their heads. And those who the serpents passed by emerge from the water as birds who fly up to the mountain, but those hung about by snakes are held down by the weight of them and their new feathers flap like weeds in the moving depths and cannot help them and the worms begin to writhe and feed upon their flesh.’
Talbot stopped speaking, but we did not move at once, for his eyes had fallen back towards the stone. After a moment he shook himself. ‘Azarias walks away,’ he said, in a voice so quiet I think I alone could hear it, ‘but wait, he pauses, and throws another vision like a coin to a begging man. It is the moon and the devil has built a bridge across it. A lame swan flies through the darkness pecking stars; it crosses the bridge. On the farther side stands a man with a limp, holding a spirit child by the hand. He takes a ring from his hand and throws it to the swan and the bird becomes a woman.’
Then Talbot’s eyes returned to us and he nodded and crumpled to the floor. I thought him in a fit, but when I took his head in my hands he opened his eyes and murmured quietly.
‘All is well,’ I said to Lady Stanley who had started forwards as though she too might fall, ‘It is only that the visions exhaust him.’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said, taking my hand. ‘He must rest. I am moved beyond all thought. Tomorrow we must continue.’
Her eyes looked afraid and lonely. I almost forgot her greatness and squeezed her smooth white hand, but caught myself in time; she was in a tower and locked in velvet. I bowed low and helped Talbot to his feet. With one arm across my shoulders and the other across a servant we half walked, half dragged him out.
‘I hope you weren’t impressed by that charade, Elizabeth,’ I heard the lady Mary say behind me. ‘You should have them whipped.’
‘Peace, Mary,’ her mistress answered. ‘Don’t presume to tell me what I should believe. I don’t care what he is. An angel spoke through him. I’m sure of it.’
It was still only five o’clock. Servants brought meat and pottage and wine to the table but Talbot could not eat. He turned and groaned on his bed, crying out that his spine was being ripped apart and his entrails burned. More than once he commanded me to look and tell him whether or no he was on fire. There was an angel and a devil wrestling for his soul and he would go barefoot and beg his living in a blanket if he could only be rid of their wrangling and this cursed gift. I am sure he meant it, too. If he was a cozener, as the lady Mary said, then it was not only the great ones that he deceived but me, his companion and, as I thought, his friend; I was sure Azarias’s last crumb had been for me. What it meant, however, I had no idea. I bit my tongue and waited.
He slept all evening and into the night. I dined and lay down early, puzzling the story of the bridge and the moon. It made little sense to me. When we had visited the pool he had simply shown me Jacob, smiling with his arms open in welcome. This was another kind of seeing altogether, fraught with riddles.
In the dark middle of the night I took the stone from Talbot’s bedside and taking a candle sat down with it upon my knee. I knew the words to say. If Azarias had spoken to Talbot perhaps he would speak to me. Softly, I began. The candle flame danced on the shining surface of the stone and then, as I watched, it seemed to enter. It was drawing me towards it. A terrible dread engulfed me. I gasped and covered the stone with my nightshirt. Not yet, I thought, not now.
32
The following morning, a bright warm sun clamoured at the shutters; Talbot was not there. At first I was concerned, given his transports the night before, but as soon as I ventured out I heard him, loudly declaiming to a gardener on the pruning of roses. As soon as I can be alone, I thought, looking at the gardener, I shall talk to all the people here to find out what they know. I will pay a boy to tramp to all the villages about. Jacob was near death, he cannot have been taken far.
On seeing me advance Talbot stepped forward and, to my astonishment, grasped my arms and clasped me to him, kissing me on the lips. I released myself as swiftly as I could and studied him for signs of madness, taking in, too, the gardener’s surprise that a master should embrace his servant so heartily.
‘Are you well, sir?’ I asked.
He hesitated, then grinned, and taking me by the elbow, walked me aside among the little paths of the knot garden, pausing however, in full sight of the gardener, to pluck a pink rose and thread it in my shirt.
‘Oh Jabez-Jane,’ he said, ‘I am struck with wonder. You saw it happen. An angel walked with me. This dross earth will turn to gold beneath my feet; it will pour riches upon me. I tell you, it blasted my soul to see the seraphim, flaming red, step out of the stone and open up the mind of God on earth.’
‘You lay on your bed, after, crying that a demon and an angel tussled for your soul. You did not seem so certain then it was a holy vision.’
‘It was holy. I saw nothing against His word, all was in praise of God. I tell you a music flowed through me as I slept which pacified the roaring in my head; it was an angel singing; pearl-soft, pearl-pure, it wrapped a dream of peace round my gritted heart.’
‘I’m glad of it,’ I said.
We passed by a pretty summerhouse and through a gate. Before us reared a hedge maze. I knew of them, there was one at Hampton Court, although I had never approached it. Talbot entered. I paused a moment, then followed after him between hedges that were higher than my head. Talbot turned a corner and the paths branched and I couldn’t see him although I knew that he was near, by the rustle of the leaves. The paths thwarted me; they folded back upon themselves, or turned aside or stopped dead; above me the sun grew high and hot and soon there were no more sounds of Talbot. I began to be a little afraid – at first out of dread that one of the household should chance upon me – that I would turn a corner and see the Lady’s young son and his nurse perhaps, or worse, Mary, the lady-in-waiting. Lord Morley himself might have returned! I began to run, skidding at the turns, taking whatever path I thought was new. I felt foolish to be caught in so silly a trap and more foolish that I was afraid. Why had I not waited among the roses? At the centre was a tower; time and again I came close to it, only a hedge between us, but then I would be thrown back to an outer ring. It was not like being lost in a wood – where the sun and the sound of water and the fall of the land were signs to be read; the maze was the puzzle of a man’s mind, the dead-ends, the frustrations were human-made.
Half an hour, more, had gone by and I had advanced and regressed in turn, now attempting to reason out the pattern, now choosing blindly with panic in my throat. All at once I heard Talbot’s voice above me. I looked up, he was standing on the roof of the central tower, leaning on the balustrade and grinning.
‘How far you have travelled from your village, Jabez-Jane, and to so little purpose.’
‘Damn you Talbot, tell me the way to the centre.’
‘And your tongue grown so rough; it will give you whiskers yet.’
‘Which way?’
‘Do you know the story of the Minotaur, Jabez-Jane? Pasiphae’s bastard son – half man, half bull - that they imprisoned in a labyrinth? Of course you do, it’s in your little book.’
It must have been almost noon; the sun bore down on me and the hedges trapped the heat. I was tired of his games.
‘I think your bumpkin, your hob-clunch husband is probably rather a bull-man, isn’t he, Jabez? Great bull shoulders and hairy arms? That way will lead you nowhere.’
My heart beat in fear that he should broadcast me a woman so publicly. I stopped and glared up at him, took the rose he had given me and ground it under my shoe. He stopped his grinning and glared back at me in turn.
‘Is he hung like a bull, Jabez?’
I swallowed and said nothing.
‘Will you go back to your byre and lie on your back for an unlettered boor? A lobcock, a rustic that chews the cud and spits?’
I reached a choice of ways and turned away from the centre, and found it. Talbot had come down to the foot of the tower. I pushed him aside, but he caught my arms.
‘And when you find him, if ever you do, will either of you have the wit to get out? You’ll be stuck in the labyrinth for ever. Do you think you will be happy, Jabez, buried in a muck-strewn hamlet, with pigs and peas your only conversation?’
‘Enough.’ I said. ‘You have abused me enough. Stop now or I shall hate you.’ I tried to pull myself from him, but he pressed me against the tower wall.
‘Marry me,’ he said. ‘The vision last night. The final one. You are the swan, the bird of the sun, who must cross back over the moon, the male and female conjoined. Only when I, the man with the limp, capture you with a golden ring will you recover your true shape. In union with you I will join what is sundered and conceive the royal child; the devil will be defeated. It is so clear. Last night when you stood behind me I felt a greater power in my sight. You are called to be my wife.’
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