Master of the Revels

by Nicole Galland

  “Fuck off out of my head,” I snapped, startling back to sense again. “I’m not falling for some lame-ass psy-ops.”

  She was taken aback, but then she smiled again, although more steely than sparkly now. “I was trying to be friendly-like, but we can be going about it other ways if you insist. What’s your poison, then? ’Fraid of the dark, might you be?”

  She flung her arms up, all fingers outstretched and taut—and all the light went out of the world. I don’t know if she was blocking my vision or blacking out the windows or what. I could not see a fucking thing. Which could have been fun if I’d been expecting it. But this did not at all jibe with my understanding of magic.

  “I love the dark,” I said loudly. “Can you take away sound too? Sensory deprivation is the best.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” came her voice, and suddenly—I don’t know how to describe this really—but suddenly there was so much light, bouncing off objects so vibrantly the light itself had mass and made noise; but then so did everything else. Like every molecule in the room had its own personal mike and she had turned all the speakers to 11. A mouse’s breathing in the corner was loud as a trumpet, floating dust particles scraped against air currents, my heartbeat was louder than a disco, and the candle flame’s flutter was a full-spectrum strobe. I am not good with overstimulation, and after about three seconds I was whimpering in a fetal position on the floor.

  Immediately, normalcy returned.

  “Now that be lame-ass psy-ops,” said Gráinne with satisfaction. “Stand up. It’s intelligence I’m after.”

  I was back on my feet in a moment but immediately turned my attention to the piles of papers. “I’m not at liberty to discuss Master Tilney’s books—”

  “So you’re an eejit after all?” she said crossly, and back came the strobe and the disco and the chuntering of my own eyelashes rubbing against each other. I lasted maybe four seconds this time before caving.

  She erased the chaos. Exhausted, I got to my feet. “It’s good behavior I’m expecting,” she said in a chatty tone. “Just up until the last. And then out of regard for your kinsman Tristan, I’ll make the end of you painless as possible.”

  LETTER FROM

  GRÁINNE to CARA SAMUELS

  County Dublin, Vernal Equinox 1606

  Auspiciousness and prosperity to you, my friend!

  In the moments I cross paths with you four hundred years from now, sure even the briefest exchanges seem promising, and I continue to hope you’ll pledge yourself fast to my cause.

  I’d thought the whole scenario with Macbeth was all set, now Tilney had licenced my charms into the script. Anticipating that the Lyons brat would try to restore the original lines herself, I put a spell of protection on the manuscript, and so while she did attempt to rewrite the spells, it magically reverted to what I’d set. So the spell itself was safe.

  But since I’d found myself with an “enemy agent” outside the ken of any of the Fuggers, sure it seemed a convenient time, and a wise one, to blast her from the world. I was eager to do it quickly and turn my attentions then to another, far more potent project involving an isle in the Mediterranean.

  I did a bit of scrying, which told me the Lyons whelp was still in London, in a tavern on Fleet Street. I hied myself there and (on a hunch, given she’s passing herself off as his kin) asked if Mr. William Shakespeare was imbibing there. The landlord told me, sure enough, the playwright was in a private room upstairs with friends. Maybe they’re just having a fuck, I thought, but probably not. Probably they were doing something I care about.

  Now as you yourself are learning with your witching skills, magic’s a powerful tool, but don’t be thinking it makes us all-powerful. ’Tisn’t a perfect tool for all needs. I cannot safely make myself something else from which I cannot retrieve myself. So to get upstairs, I could not render myself as a moonbeam or any such fanciful thing as that, but I was able to charm the staircase to receive my weight in silence. So I got up the stairs without a creak and rested on the landing, listening in. And what was the occupation of the folk on the other side of the door but—mark this!—the rehearsing of Macbeth witch scenes! With Shakespeare’s original words. So now I was truly eager to dispatch the Lyons bitch, for clearly she would be making a nuisance of herself until she was gone.

  My intention was to lure her downstairs away from Shakespeare and kill her magically, which should have been an easy thing. But in my exasperation I let my excitement get the better of me—a cultural weakness, so ’tis—and didn’t I create a fanciful plan that had little to recommend it in hindsight. I determined to charm myself temporarily into a bear and then just murder her right then and there as she came down the stairs. If I made the charm to last but a few minutes, then none could stop me for the fear they’d have of me, and by the time everyone had recovered from their amazement, I would no longer be a bear. The bear would have seemed to vanish, and in the chaotic frenzy that would follow, I could slip away undetected. Everyone would be sauced, so nobody’s word could be accounted accurate, and this way I did not have to bother about the collective memory, ’twould be dismissed by all authorities. Also, I could tear her to bits beyond possible recognition.

  So I rushed down the stairs, making enough noise to lure her (forgetting, in my enthusiasm, that ’twasn’t just her up there), and then ’twas enough to cast the spell and wash the memory of my presence clean from the landlord’s mind, and all the rest of them were in the back.

  But once I was a bear, I was a bit foggy, not unlike as can happen after diachronic travel. This was made worse by my bodice and shift—infinitely too small for a bear, and so I was instantly in terrible bearlike agitations that put me into foul-tempered distraction as I ripped the bodice apart at the seams.

  In my bear-state I knew only that I wanted to kill my enemy who would take the form of a human coming down the steps, and unfortunately it was Mr. William Shakespeare doing the descending. My bear-self grabbed him and rushed him into the back room—the murder wanted to be as public as possible—and I was just about to chomp into his head when my human-self realised the folly of it. To prevent my bear-self from eating him, I chucked him clear across the room, but instinctually that made my bear-self chase after him! Luckily—as the very hordes were running out—the charm’s time ended and I was back to being a human only, meaning a mostly naked woman with ripped underwear clinging to me in patches. The masses had cleared out with such urgency, someone had left a cloak behind, and I even found a small money purse on the floor! So mercifully, I hadn’t fucked with history too much, and I ran out of the tavern with just the cloak around me, unnoticed, in the frenzy. I cast a spell that would undo the bodily damage done to poxy Will Shakespeare over the course of some hours. And then (getting tired now, for as you may know, some spells are a powerful lot of work, so they are) being as how I was on the street with unexpected dosh, I bribed a young fella to wait with me until Ned Shakespeare and the young Lyons bitch exited the tavern—and then I paid the lad well to follow them and, under pretence of armed robbery, cut the girl’s throat.

  I rested well that night.

  But come morning I determined to alert Tilney that the witch-players were defying him unlawfully behind his back. Thus didn’t I go to Tilney’s . . . and who did I find there in the office? ’Tis herself, Tristan’s feckin’ kinswoman! Working for Tilney in his very office, still dressed badly as a boy and handling private papers, and still fecking alive, thank you! What does it take to hire a decent cutthroat in London, I ask you?

  So I determined to work her for some intelligence and then just snap her neck. I secured her attention, which took a bit, I’ll give her that. Just as I was about to interrogate her, in comes these two fluffy-headed dandelion stalks of ribboned vanity, tittering and curtseying and blushing as to how they couldn’t seem to find their way, they’d even lost their chaperone now, and could the young lad please show them to Tilney’s presence directly?

  I had a speedy thought about it and
realised: to kill her now would cause more trouble than her death was worth. She, seizing the reprieve, offered to show them the way her own self, and just like that the opportunity was gone.

  I waited in hopes she might return without him, but ’twas quite the opposite: I stayed alone in the room for some six or seven minutes, and then Tilney himself appeared alone. My pleasure at seeing his cold hard self was dampened by the absence of the girl.

  “Pardon, sir, but you have hired the spy,” I said quietly, as he entered.

  He frowned at seeing me, for I had not been announced. “What concern is it of yours whom I hire?” he asked.

  “But you know he is a spy,” I protested. “Why would you be trusting him?”

  “He is adept at every task I give him and more orderly than any of my other scriveners. You claim he is an agent for his cousin regarding Macbeth, and I do not doubt it, but I have approved the inert version, with your rhymes in it, rather than the one with real magic in it, so that is all behind us now. He remains my best hire in years. Your presumption is extraordinary, and I’ve no time for it, so you will remove yourself at once.”

  “But it is not behind us, sir,” I protested again. “’Tis still very much in play, for Macbeth, though licenced, is yet to be performed. Are you very sure they are rehearsing the lines you approved of?”

  “Of course. We have had our quarrels, but Mr. Shakespeare will not risk my censure.”

  “He will risk it if a witch has put a spell on him to risk it,” said I. “Were you as close as brothers, he might still cross you if a witch charmed him to do so.”

  He gave me a stern look then. “You have an obsession with this topic that exceeds reason.”

  “If there be witchcraft recited before King James, ’twill—”

  “I have already prevented that,” said Tilney, cross. “Let that go. If you do not leave my offices immediately, I will have you removed by force.”

  I did not like the look he gave me as I went. ’Twasn’t the delectable standoffishness of earlier days. This worried me fierce, so it did, and I feared my influence on him was being undone somehow. I must needs resort to using magic on him after all, to secure my needed ends.

  And, surely, I must resort to a subtler magic to be rid of the girl. Can’t be having hungry bears roving the streets, now, can I? But can’t be having her roving them either.

  I am full of wonder that Tristan would send a kinswoman against me. Why came he not himself? Or is’t possible he is around as well, but hiding? Perhaps my next step must be to scry for him.

  Do you not see how valuable a thing it would be to have another witch working beside me on such projects?

  Handwritten letter on Revels Office stationery from Edmund Tilney to Lady Emilia Lanier

  To the Right Worshipful Lady Emilia Lanier, my humble duty remembered, hoping in the Almighty of your health and prosperity, which on my knees I beseech Him to long continue.

  I pray you forgive me for setting my poor penmanship before your eyes again, after so many years. ’Tis of an urgent matter I write.

  As many of your circle have discussed for weeks now, there is a play under consideration for the court, pertaining to both Scottish royalty and also the traitorous menace of witchcraft. Your esteemed self being an articulate and honourable woman, it is my fondest hope you will receive me without prejudice, that I might ask your wisdom to shine upon my benighted self, regarding a particular concern relating to the aforementioned play.

  Please be so kind as to inform me if you will receive me, and at what hour pleases you, or if it is your ladyship’s pleasure instead to come to the Revels Office. Should the latter please you, I will consider it an honour to give you a tour of the workshops, where we humbly strive to attain some measure of nice effects for the theatrical events we have the honour of staging for Their Majesties.

  Your ladyship’s most dutiful bound obedient servant,

  EDMUND TILNEY, MASTER OF THE REVELS

  LETTER FROM

  GRÁINNE to CARA SAMUELS

  (cont.)

  SO BACK I went the next day to see Tilney and work some magic on him as need be. But I was told that himself was busy speaking with another. And I sensed right off it was another witch he spoke to—I can always smell a sister witch, and I’m sure that’s a skill you have as well.

  Then I grasped the meaning of his comment the time before. My zeal had distressed him, and so never mind about the Lyons spy-bitch now . . . he was no longer of a mind to trust me. He had gone straight to the Court Witch herself!

  This is notable for several reasons, chief being: Recall the Matter of the Sonnets? ’Twas Lady Emilia her own self they duelled over with their pens, himself and Shakespeare. Be keeping that in mind as I describe the rest.

  Also notable: consider how perfectly this action of Tilney’s must suit her. For ’twas her duty now to King James to reveal witchcraft when she encountered it. It seemed a fair way to possible that here, in the privacy of the Revels Office, Lady Emilia would reveal my spells to Tilney and undo my endeavours.

  I excused myself from the lad who had ordered me to wait and exited the main building. But rather than going out the gate, I walked through the courtyard at a good clip, until I approached the kitchens. I put upon myself the spell of being unnoticeable, and then, having entered through the kitchen, it’s to Tilney’s office I hied myself, using servants’ corridors and stairways and making the occasional false turn. Finally I was several stories up and came to the shallow minstrel gallery atop the main office. Standing in the shadows and peering down, didn’t I see Master Tilney at his table. With him was the one I knew to be Lady Emilia, just for the quality she had about her. Her gown was textured ivory over a slate-grey kirtle, at once striking and demure. She had thick black hair peeking out of a very nice headdress, the hair with the odd wisp of silver in it. A known witch, and yet a valued member of the court of King James the Witch Hunter: this woman literally works her magic to her advantage! And sure she was at the top of the witch heap now, and she would not be wanting complications to endanger her position.

  Nor competition, neither.

  In other words, my scheme was right fecked. Tilney—no longer trusting me—would ask her if my words were real magic, and she’d say yes, of course. She would tell him how powerful dangerous they were, and that would be the end of it. I would have to flee this DTAP, my plans in shambles. (At this point I was thinking of yourself, of course, Cara, as my need for a helpmeet was so acute.)

  ’Twas awkward between them as they spoke, so it seemed to me; excessively polite they were. Given the history of the lady sending her please shag me, Mr. Shakespeare note accidentally to Tilney, it must have been awkward when they first greeted each other, and I was disappointed to have missed it. ’Twould be fine entertainment to see Tilney blush, I told myself. But by the time I arrived they were past the niceties.

  On the table were two leafs of paper, each with writing I could not make out from this distance.

  “These,” Tilney was saying, gesturing, “are variations of a single verse. One of them contains an authentic spell, but I know not which. I pray you, identify it.”

  She read them over. I could almost feel her amusement.

  “Whence came these verses?” she asked.

  “The source is of no import to the question.”

  “Perhaps you wrote one,” she said, sounding as if she were smiling.

  His entire body tensed, I could see it from above. “I no longer write poetry, madam,” he said in a quiet, awkward voice.

  She seemed not to have heard him, but kept re-reading the two pages.

  His lower jaw was jutting out to keep his voice steady, then he continued, with dignity: “But I would have your ladyship know, ’tis the greatest honour of my life that my prose work was favoured by Queen Elizabeth.”

  With a polite smile, she said, “How very glad I am to hear that,” and if she’d sounded any more gracious, I’d have lobbed a rock at her my own self.
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  Then very sudden doesn’t she turn and look straight up at me in the shadows of the loft. I dared not shrink back, for the movement would make me more obvious.

  A lovely dark-eyed woman she was, dipping her toe into the second half of life. She knew she had power, yet felt no need to show it off. After a heartbeat, she returned her gaze to Tilney’s hawkish face.

  “This is to appear in Mr. Shakespeare’s new play about the Scottish king?” She glanced back up towards me. Then turned she again to him. “And your aim is to prevent witchcraft from being performed at court.”

  “Of course.”

  “’Tis wise of you. And very naughty of Mr. Shakespeare to put such mischief in his script.”

  “I am not the one familiar with Mr. Shakespeare’s naughtiness,” said Tilney loftily, not deigning to look at her, so that now they stood near together but looking in opposite directions, like an old married couple having a spat.

  There was a pause.

  “Neither am I, I assure you,” she said, and wasn’t her tone suddenly a wee bit arch? Enough for Tilney to take note of it and turn his head sharply towards her.

  “I would not presume to know anything about that, milady,” he said, still with affected loftiness.

  “It is presumptuous of you to believe that there is anything to be presumptuous about,” she said. Tilney glanced her way again, bemused, but she in turn glanced even farther away from him. “Certain poets use language simply to prove how well they can use language.”