by Peter Tonkin
‘Oh, sir! You mean goblins, hobgoblins and sprites? Country spirits?’
‘Like that rogue Robin Goodfellow! Yes indeed. And I have a way of calling upon them that is certain sure!’ He frowned, doing his best to appear reliable, poured himself more wine and took a swig.
‘And this other woman whose chart you showed me, sir,’ probed Rosalind, hot on Mistress Kate’s trail. ‘Did she call on Robin Goodfellow and his friends for guidance as you suggest?’
‘She was a little more… ah… desperate than you, perhaps,’ allowed Forman. ‘She called on spirits that were darker and more powerful. But she called them in the same way you would call on Robin Goodfellow and his friends - and she plans to do so again soon!’
‘Did she not succeed in getting the guidance she sought, then?’
‘On the contrary! She gained such potent insight that she wishes to commune with her guiding spirits once more and learn even more about her heart’s desire and how it might be achieved!’
‘Oh sir, take me wherever this lady went and show me what to do as well.’
‘I shall, my dear. We must mount to my occult chamber which is on the next storey up above us.’
‘Occult chamber! What is that? It sounds like a place of danger!’ she trembled once again - but this time did her best to force an unmissable thrill of sexual excitement into it.
And, as she had planned for him to do, Forman ran out of patience with her vapid country bumpkin hesitation. He emptied his glass, thrust out his hand, took hers and led her out into the corridor. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘and you shall see everything.’
*
Rosalind would have hesitated in the corridor outside Forman’s library but he didn’t give her the chance. She was able to orientate herself however. Immediately behind her the library door was swinging closed. Behind and to her left, the next door led, she knew, into his bedroom - the spider’s parlour to many a lust-drugged female fly. Away on her right, the corridor ended in the bath chamber where she had used the chamber pot on her last visit and discovered the ribbon-bound curl of hair; that strange little room which was filled with steam this time, as though Forman was preparing to bathe as soon as she left.
And, straight ahead, with Forman already on the lower steps, the rickety staircase where Tom deduced that Hal had fallen to his death. She shivered again but this time it was no act. As she stepped onto the lower stairs, her eyes were busy examining the broken balusters as she calculated how best to get a closer look at them without Forman nearby. A rudimentary attempt had been made to repair them by binding the broken ends together with rope, the tightly wrapped coils reminding her of the knot above a hangman’s noose or the rope-work on a ship. Even so, they didn’t look all that safe and so, although she examined them as she passed, she stayed well clear of them, rubbing her left shoulder against the wall opposite. Just like Tom’s imagination, she guessed, her head filled with images of the young apprentice tumbling backwards, reaching out in a vain attempt to save himself.
Forman reached the door at the top of the stair and threw it wide, stepping up and pulling her in, all in one fluid movement. His grip on her hand tightened as she too stepped into the room. One long glance revealed a tall stand on her right with a cage at the top of it even larger than the one outside the kitchen. But it only had one occupant. The colourful bird put its head on one side, observing her with bright eyes astride a black, fearsomely hooked bill. ‘Don’t be fearful my lady,’ it said in a voice disturbingly similar to Forman’s own.
‘Don’t be fearful,’ echoed Forman, pulling her clear of the door before she could step back - though, pre-warned by Tom, she was not actually frightened by the bird and its ability to speak. Nor by the circles on the floor - nor by the five-pointed star at their heart. Nor, in fact, was she scared by the huge crocodile and the massive serpent wrapped around it; by the candle-crested skull, the mummified corpses of the jackal, the monkey and the much abused cat. But her carefully calculated performance continued. ‘Oh, Lord, sir, what monstrous creatures are these?’
‘’They are familiars of great age and almost limitless power,’ he assured her, releasing her hand and crossing to the wardrobe at the far side of the room. While she gawped like a hayseed, he pulled on long black robes edged with strange symbols in silver, put on a square hat such as she had seen doctors wearing, and took out a long staff with a silver skull at its head.
‘Now,’ he said, his slurred voice ringing with authority, ‘before I release the puissant powers to do your bidding, I must ensure that you are both protected and positioned so as to command them. You see the star in the midst of the circles?’
‘I do sir,’ she breathed, apparently awestruck.
‘You must enter that star. More, to gain the greatest possible benefit, you must lie down in it with your head and your limbs reaching toward each of its points.’
‘Lie down, sir! But the floor is mortal dirty! I cannot afford to soil my dress so…’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I had not considered that. Though now you mention it, the lady whose chart I showed you was also solicitous of her dress.’
‘What then, sir?’
‘Why, she took it off! And her underclothing. Even to her shift - then, after the magic was done, she bathed.’
‘A lady did this?’
‘A lady indeed! And one, I might tell you, who is well-known at court, at one time even as playfellow with the Queen.’ Having delivered himself of this, the magician turned and rummaged in the wardrobe once again.
Rosalind paused, nonplussed. This was not quite what she had expected. Perhaps it was fortunate that the simple, gullible country maiden she was playing would also have hesitated in the face of a situation in which, it seemed Lady Katherine Sheldon had charged ahead regardless. And naked - or nearly so.
*
‘Help me unloose the strings of my dress,’ said the parrot. Forman turned, apparently believing Rosalind had spoken.
‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘And, look! Here is something to hang your clothing from to guarantee its cleanliness.’
The combination of the situation, the apparent error arising from the parrot’s words and a belly-full of saffron - spiced wine would surely have overcome everyone other than a nun, thought Rosalind as she began to loosen her clothing. Within a moment, Forman was behind her, helping. And a few moments after that, Rosalind was standing shivering in her shift. The room was cold. This, combined with the lingering effects of the saffron, made various parts of her flagrantly visible through the sheer linen garment and, she realised at once, if she followed his directions and lay spread in the star shape on the floor, she might as well have been naked in any case. A vision popped into her head of the poor girl in the Tower spread on one of Topcliffe’s racks convenient to his lust. Would she be in any better case? Especially were she really a maiden fresh from the country full of Forman’s aphrodisiacal saffron wine.
On the other hand, she wondered, what more could she learn by proceeding? Little or nothing, except, perhaps, close acquaintance with his bedroom. Unless she could find a way of wringing a few more drops of unguarded revelation courtesy of John Gerard’s distillate of fly agaric.
‘And is it only great ladies who come to you for guidance?’ she asked, as she crouched, ready to sit at the very heart of the star.
‘Of course not! Have I not said? Great men of the court, great men of business and of politics, soldiers and sailors, all come to me for assurance that their various businesses will proceed.’
She sat. Through the flimsy tissue of her linen shift, the floor was icy against the heat of her buttocks and those places nearest to them. She found that she was breathless - either with shock or nervousness.
‘And do men as well as women come here, to your occult chamber, to lie within the magic star seeking to know their heart’s desire?’
‘It is a pentacle, not a star. But it is certainly magic. And yes. Men have sat where you sit now. Great men - though not so many perhaps.
’
‘Courtiers? For I know many such men have great matters in hand in Ireland and the New World as well as at court. I can hardly imagine Secretary Cecil relying on such things from what little I know of him. But surely there might be others: men who look beyond the commonplaces of everyday philosophy; beyond the Good Book even. Explorerateurs, brave soldiers and fearless sailors perhaps, men who have voyaged far afield to the honour and benefit of their country and returned to establish great positions at Her Majesty’s side, who hold great estates and great ambitions to accompany them, who might yet need to know how secure their situation is and how future ventures might fare…’
This was far beyond anything a mere country girl might want to know, thought Rosalind, her heart pounding even faster as Forman stood silently looking down at her, his figure strangely inverted as she looked up at him in turn from the floor in front of his toecaps; seeing his strange eyes shining in the shadow beneath his magician’s headgear. She spread her arms, feeling her breasts moving on the arches of her ribs. She spread her legs.
‘Indeed,’ said Forman, his voice strangely constricted, ‘men such as you describe have come to seek guidance from the spirits just as you are doing. Three such men within the week that followed Twelfth Night.’
Rosalind wondered whether the drugged and lust-driven sorcerer realised that she had just, in careful detail, described not only Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex but also the red-headed Fox Sir Walter Raleigh and wrung from him clear conformation that one of them - perhaps both of them - had lain where she was lying now. But there had been a third man. Who under Heaven could the third man be?
Chapter 15: The Cunning Fox
i
‘I can’t see Essex submitting to such a ritual,’ said Tom. ‘No matter how desperate he is to learn about his heart’s desire and the best way to achieve it. To begin with, I think he sees his future clearly. He will take an army to Ireland, defeat Hugh O’Neil and the Irish rebels then return like a modern Henry V to the adulation of London, the thanks of the Queen and limitless addition to his power and standing in the face of the near-destruction of his enemies, especially Secretary Cecil and Sir Walter Raleigh. He’s far too proud to go lying on a dirty floor reaching into the points of a star with head, hands and feet; and the idea that he might remove any of his clothing while doing so goes far beyond anything I can conceive of.’
‘He might send Gelly Meyrick or Francis Bacon, though,’ suggested Ugo. ‘Particularly as there are elements of the future you say he sees that are nowhere near as clear as he would like. When will he be commissioned as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland? How large and powerful an army will he be able to assemble? How will the campaign against O’Neal actually go? What will Cecil, Raleigh and their coteries have done to destroy him in the Queen’s favour while he’s away? You know that all of them can rise or fall on a royal whim; one wrong move and they’re banished from her court, company and favour. What will he find when he returns, whenever or however he finally does so? Essex or his representative must be one of the three men who visited Forman.’
‘I agree. Francis Bacon’s more likely to be sent than Essex to come himself,’ said Will. ‘The intelligencer Anthony Bacon is too unwell, though he would be the best man to give a glimpse of the future to. Francis Bacon’s a pragmatist; he doesn’t stand on his dignity like his master does. Besides, he’s at least willing to explore beyond the bounds of the everyday; perhaps even of the Bible though I take your point about the clothes, particularly as he follows Tom here in his taste for fashionable black.’
‘You know very well,’ said Tom, ‘that removal of clothes is something Forman reserves for his female clients; the colour of the clothing in question is absolutely irrelevant.’
‘The problem is, surely,’ added Rosalind, ‘that whoever lies in the star - the pentacle as Forman called it - is likely to see their own future rather than that of their master, unless, of course, the two are inextricably intertwined. To the extent that he sees anything in particular at all,’ she added as the only person present who had undergone the experience. ‘I certainly saw nothing in my future beyond the likelihood of immediate ravishment.’
‘Walter Raleigh,’ said Tom, ‘Walter Raleigh is a different proposition altogether.’
‘What,’ chuckled Will, ‘do you suppose that because he so famously laid his cloak over a puddle so the Queen would not soil her shoes that he would be willing to remove the rest of his clothing in order to see his future?’
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Rosalind is right. Forman has no interest in causing his male clients to remove one stitch of clothing. It is the women he’s after. But, as you mention Raleigh’s cloak, would he not happily lay it down in the midst of the pentacle and lie on it himself if some powerful good was promised him because of it? And logic suggests that, men or women, someone must have seen - or believed they have seen - some future good promised to them. If no-one had seen anything Forman would not have such a bustling business with women in particular lining up to have their charts drawn, their potions distilled, their charms blessed or cursed and to take part in his occult practices.’
*
‘But again I agree. Raleigh is our second man. Then who’s the third?’ added Will. ‘’Tis a shame he did not let more information slip before he moved on with his attempted seduction. Or ravishment, rather. Rosalind was lucky to escape him.’
‘It’s a wonder,’ said Rosalind, ‘what can be achieved - even at the door into his bedroom - by a woman suddenly going frantic.’
‘You said frenetic, when you first got back to us,’ observed Ugo.
‘Indeed,’ she answered cheerfully. ‘There was a sizeable amount of both conditions. When I fell to the floor and started screaming as though in a fit, I thought the man would faint. Clearly all the other poor fools he has conducted through that particular portal either went willingly - addled by wine and saffron or not - or they were too nervous to refuse him at the last moment.’
In the instant of silence that followed, Rosalind took a sip of the fresh water that Will had bought from a local water-seller to celebrate her return and meet the overpowering thirst generated by the concoctions she had been consuming. Tom, meanwhile, filled the silence with wondering whether Kate had followed Forman into his bedroom after her sessions in the occult pentacle and, if so, whether she had done so of her own free will or because she had been entranced by his saffron wine. He could not envisage her submitting to Forman through nervousness at the final moment. On the other hand, Heaven alone knew what she might be willing to do were she acting under orders from Thomas Walsingham or even Robert Poley. Her loyalty, once won, was truly fearsome.
Rosalind cleared her throat then continued, ‘He almost fell over himself retrieving my clothing, then he helped me into it with more alacrity every time my screaming quietened, until at last I was dressed and silent, except for the occasional sob. Then he showed me to the door and issued me into Billingsgate as though I had only just popped in as the saying goes, for an elixir or potion. But Will is right, there was no further mention of the third visitor.’
ii
It was late afternoon on that same busy Monday. When Rosalind had returned safely from Forman’s, Tom and the others had left the Dean’s men to take care of the infested body that had miraculously appeared in Queen Katherine’s marble tomb. They were all seated round the table in Will and Rosalind’s lodgings. Will was more relaxed than Tom had seen him in a while. Not only had Rosalind returned from Forman’s safely but his play of Henry was now out at the copyist’s being put into the character sections and prompt-books that the cast would use as the basis of their rehearsals and performance. He would not become tense and short-tempered again until the actors from Dick Burbage down the cast-list began to suggest improvements to their lines, additions to their importance and augmentations to their parts. But the rehearsal process was still some days off and the mentally exhausted dramatist was content to bask in the glory of a job well done and a woman
willing to indulge him. Once, that is, the friends and colleagues gathered here finished talking and left - hopefully before all the effects of John Gerard’s saffron potion Rosalind had consumed wore off altogether.
But Tom was not quite ready to let Will and Rosalind have their way with each other yet. ‘How did you describe the men whose identities you sought?’ he said to her, then answered on her behalf as she was looking longingly at Will, momentarily distracted: ‘Brave soldiers, men who hold great estates and great ambitions to accompany them, who might yet need to know how secure their situation is and how future ventures might fare…’
‘Indeed,’ she confirmed turning back to face him. ‘But surely such a description could refer to many men at court and I got no impression that Forman was flooded out with worried courtiers. Men of business yes: men of war, explorers - people whose futures might contain ruin or death on the flip of a coin all seemed to come to have their futures read. But no courtiers apart from the three he failed to name.’
‘So we need to look for someone who has either recently arrived at court or someone who has suddenly found themselves in a desperate situation.’
‘Or both,’ nodded Rosalind.
‘Someone recently arrived at court seeking to redress their desperate situation?’ suggested Ugo.
‘Could it be that obvious?’ wondered Will.
‘Indeed it could,’ said Tom. ‘Now how can we establish with some certainty that Edmund Spenser was visiting Simon Forman in the weeks before his death? He visited me often enough, but only for lessons and although we saw a good deal of each-other, he had ample time alone to do whatever he pleased when we had parted.’
‘Forman will know,’ said Ugo, ‘and there’s more than one rack in London if he’s hesitant to tell us.’
‘But Forman, like my Kate Shelton, is protected,’ said Tom, ‘not least by Walter Raleigh but probably by others of similar power. Else he would need to have no fear of King James the Witch finder assuming the throne because he’d have gone to the stake already like half of the occultists in Europe or be rotting in jail like Giordano Bruno.’