Childermass and Vinculus sat down at a table in a corner. A shadowy girl brought a cheap tallow candle and two pewter tankards of hot spiced ale. Childermass paid.
They drank in silence a while and then Vinculus looked up at Childermass. “What was all that nonsense about bonnets and princesses?”
Childermass laughed. “Oh, that was just a notion I had. Ever since the day you appeared in his library my master has been petitioning all his great friends to help him destroy you. He asked Lord Hawkesbury and Sir Walter Pole to complain to the King on his behalf. I believe he had an idea that His Majesty might send the Army to make war upon you, but Lord Hawkesbury and Sir Walter said that the King was unlikely to put himself to a great deal of trouble over one yellow-curtained, ragged-arsed sorcerer. But it occurred to me that if His Majesty were to learn that you had somehow threatened the virgin state of his daughters, he might take a different view of the matter.”1 Childermass took another draught of his spiced ale. “But tell me, Vinculus, don’t you tire of fake spells and pretend oracles? Half your customers come to laugh at you. They no more believe in your magic than you do. Your day is over. There is a real magician in England now.”
Vinculus gave a little snort of disgust. “The magician of Hanover-square! All the great men in London sit telling one another that they never saw a man so honest. But I know magicians and I know magic and I say this: all magicians lie and this one more than most.”
Childermass shrugged as if he would not trouble to deny it.
Vinculus leaned forward across the table. “Magic shall be written on the faces of the stony hills, but their minds shall not be able to contain it. In winter the barren trees shall be a black writing but they shall not understand it.”
“Trees and hills, Vinculus? When did you last see a tree or a hill? Why don’t you say that magic is written on the faces of the dirty houses or that the smoke writes magic in the sky?”
“It is not my prophecy!”
“Ah, yes. Of course. You claim it as a prophecy of the Raven King. Well there is nothing unusual in that. Every charlatan I ever met was the bearer of a message from the Raven King.”
“I sit upon a black throne in the shadows,” muttered Vinculus, “but they shall not see me. The rain shall make a door for me and I shall pass through it.”
“Quite. So, since you did not write this prophecy yourself, where did you find it?”
For a moment Vinculus looked as if he would not answer, but then he said, “It is written in a book.”
“A book? What book? My master’s library is extensive. He knows of no such prophecy.”
Vinculus said nothing.
“Is it your book?” asked Childermass.
“It is in my keeping.”
“And where did you get a book? Where did you steal it?”
“I did not steal it. It is my inheritance. It is the greatest glory and the greatest burden that has been given to any man in this Age.”
“If it is really valuable then you can sell it to Norrell. He has paid great prices for books before now.”
“The magician of Hanover-square will never own this book. He will never even see it.”
“And where do you keep such a great treasure?”
Vinculus laughed coldly as if to say it was not very likely that he would tell that to the servant of his enemy.
Childermass called to the girl to bring them some more ale. She brought it and they drank for a while longer in silence. Then Childermass took a pack of cards from the breast of his coat and shewed them to Vinculus. “The cards of Marseilles. Did you ever see their like before?”
“Often,” said Vinculus, “but yours are different.”
“They are copies of a set belonging to a sailor I met in Whitby. He bought them in Genoa with the intention of using them to discover the hiding places of pirates’ gold, but when he came to look at them, he found that he could not understand them. He offered to sell them to me, but I was poor and could not pay the price he asked. So we struck a bargain: I would tell him his fortune and in return he would lend me the cards long enough to make copies. Unfortunately his ship set sail before I was able to complete the drawings and so half are done from memory.”
“And what fortune did you tell him?”
“His true one. That he would be drowned dead before the year was out.”
Vinculus laughed approvingly.
It seemed that when Childermass had made the bargain with the dead sailor he had been too poor even to afford paper and so the cards were drawn upon the backs of ale-house bills, laundry lists, letters, old accounts and playbills. At a later date he had pasted the papers on to coloured cardboard, but in several instances the printing or writing on the other side shewed through, giving them an odd look.
Childermass laid out nine cards in a line. He turned over the first card.
Beneath the picture was a number and a name: VIIII. L’Ermite. It shewed an old man in a monkish robe with a monkish hood. He carried a lantern and walked with a stick as if he had come near to losing the use of his limbs through too much sitting and studying. His face was pinched and suspicious. A dry atmosphere seemed to rise up and envelop the observer as if the card itself were peppery with dust.
“Hmm!” said Childermass. “For the present your actions are governed by a hermit. Well, we knew that already.”
The next card was Le Mat, which is the only picture card to remain numberless, as if the character it depicts is in some sense outside the story. Childermass’s card shewed a man walking along a road beneath a summer tree. He had a stick to lean upon and another stick over his shoulder with a handkerchief bundle hanging from it. A little dog skipped after him. The figure was intended to represent the fool or jester of ancient times. He had a bell in his hat and ribbons at his knees which Childermass had coloured red and green. It appeared that Childermass did not know quite how to interpret this card. He considered a while and then turned over the next two cards: VIII. La Justice, a crowned woman holding a sword and a pair of scales; and The Two of Wands. The wands were crossed and might among other things be thought to represent a crossroads.
Childermass let out a brief burst of laughter. “Well, well!” he said, crossing his arms and regarding Vinculus with some amusement. “This card here,” he tapped La Justice, “tells me you have weighed your choices and come to a decision. And this one,” he indicated The Two of Wands. “tells me what your decision is: you are going wandering. It seems I have wasted my time. You have already made up your mind to leave London. So many protestations, Vinculus, and yet you always intended to go!”
Vinculus shrugged, as if to say, what did Childermass expect?
The fifth card was the Valet de Coupe, the Page of Cups. One naturally thinks of a page as being a youthful person, but the picture shewed a mature man with bowed head. His hair was shaggy and his beard was thick. In his left hand he carried a heavy cup, yet it could not be that which gave such an odd, strained expression to his countenance – not unless it were the heaviest cup in the world. No, it must be some other burden, not immediately apparent. Owing to the materials which Childermass had been compelled to use to construct his cards this picture had a most peculiar look. It had been drawn upon the back of a letter and the writing shewed through the paper. The man’s clothes were a mass of scribble and even his face and hands bore parts of letters.
Vinculus laughed when he saw it as though he recognized it. He gave the card three taps in friendly greeting. Perhaps it was this that made Childermass less certain than he had been before. “You have a message to deliver to someone,” he said in an uncertain tone.
Vinculus nodded. “And will the next card shew me this person?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Vinculus and turned over the sixth card himself.
The sixth card was the Cavalier de Baton. The Knight of Wands. A man in a broad-brimmed hat sat upon a horse of a pale colour. The countryside through which he rode was indicated by a few rock
s and tufts of grass at his horse’s hooves. His clothes were well-made and expensive-looking, but for some inexplicable reason he was carrying a heavy club. Even to call it a club was to make it sounder grander than it was. It was scarcely more than a thick branch torn from a tree or hedge; there were still twigs and leaves protruding from it.
Vinculus picked up the card and studied it carefully.
The seventh card was The Two of Swords. Childermass said nothing but immediately turned over the eighth card – Le Pendv, The Hanged Man. The ninth card was Le Monde, The World. It shewed a naked female figure dancing; in the four corners of the card were an angel, an eagle, a winged bull and a winged lion – the symbols of the evangelists.
“You may expect a meeting,” said Childermass, “leading to an ordeal of some sort, perhaps even death. The cards do not say whether you survive or not, but whatever happens, this,” he touched the last card, “says that you will achieve your purpose.”
“And do you know what I am now?” asked Vinculus.
“Not exactly, but I know more of you than I did.”
“You see that I am not like the others,” said Vinculus.
“There is nothing here that says you are anything more than a charlatan,” said Childermass and he began to collect his cards.
“Wait,” said Vinculus, “I will tell your fortune.”
Vinculus took the cards and laid out nine. Then he turned them over one by one: XVIII La Lune, XVI La Maison Dieu reversed, The Nine of Swords, Valet de Baton, The Ten of Batons reversed, II La Papesse, X La Rove de Fortvne, The Two of Coins, The King of Cups. Vinculus looked at them. He picked up La Maison Dieu and examined it, but he said nothing at all.
Childermass laughed. “You are right, Vinculus. You are not like the others. That is my life – there on the table. But you cannot read it. You are a strange creature – the very reverse of all the magicians of the last centuries. They were full of learning but had no talent. You have talent and no knowledge. You cannot profit by what you see.”
Vinculus scratched his long, sallow cheek with his unclean fingernails.
Childermass began again to gather up his cards, but once again Vinculus prevented him and indicated that they should lay out the cards again.
“What?” asked Childermass in surprize. “I have told you your fortune. You have failed to tell me mine. What more is there?”
“I am going to tell his fortune.”
“Whose? Norrell’s? But you will not understand it.”
“Shuffle the cards,” said Vinculus, stubbornly.
So Childermass shuffled the cards and Vinculus took nine and laid them out. Then he turned over the first card. IIII. L’Emperevr. It shewed a king seated upon a throne in the open air with all the customary kingly accoutrements of crown and sceptre. Childermass leaned forward and examined it.
“What is it?” asked Vinculus.
“I do not seem to have copied this card very well. I never noticed before. The inking is badly done. The lines are thick and smudged so that the Emperor’s hair and robe appear almost black. And someone has left a dirty thumbprint over the eagle. The Emperor should be an older man than this. I have drawn a young man. Are you going to hazard an interpretation?”
“No,” said Vinculus and indicated by a contemptuous thrust of his chin that Childermass should turn the next card.
IIII. L’Emperevr.
There was a short silence.
“That is not possible,” said Childermass. “There are not two Emperors in this pack. I know there are not.”
If anything the king was younger and fiercer than before. His hair and robes were black and the crown upon his head had become a thin band of pale metal. There was no trace of the thumbprint upon the card, but the great bird in the corner was now decidedly black and it had cast off its eagle-like aspects and settled itself into a shape altogether more English: it had become a raven.
Childermass turned over the third card. IIII. L’Emperevr. And the fourth. IIII. L’Emperevr. By the fifth the number and name of the card had disappeared, but the picture remained the same: a young, dark-haired king at whose feet strutted a great, black bird. Childermass turned over each and every card. He even examined the remainder of the pack, but in his anxiety to see he fumbled and the cards somehow fell everywhere. Black Kings crowded about Childermass, spinning in the cold, grey air. Upon each card was the same figure with the same pale, unforgiving gaze.
“There!” said Vinculus softly. “That is what you may tell the magician of Hanover-square! That is his past and his present and his future!”
Needless to say when Childermass returned to Hanover-square and told Mr Norrell what had occurred, Mr Norrell was very angry. That Vinculus should continue to defy Mr Norrell was bad enough; that he should claim to have a book and Mr Norrell not be able read it was considerably worse; but that he should pretend to tell Mr Norrell’s fortune and threaten him with pictures of Black Kings was absolutely unbearable.
“He tricked you!” declared Mr Norrell, angrily. “He hid your own cards and supplanted them with a deck of his own. I am amazed you were so taken in!”
“Quite,” agreed Mr Lascelles, regarding Childermass coldly.
“Oh, to be sure, Vinculus is nothing but conjuring tricks,” agreed Drawlight. “But still I should have liked to have seen it. I am as fond as any thing of Vinculus. I wish you had told me, Mr Childermass, that you were going to see him. I would have come with you.”
Childermass ignored Lascelles and Drawlight and addressed Mr Norrell. “Even supposing that he is an able enough conjuror to perform such a trick – which I am very far from allowing – how was he to know I possessed such a thing as a pack of Marseilles cards? How was he to know when you did not?”
“Aye, and it was as well for you that I did not know! Telling fortunes with picture cards – it is everything I despise! Oh, it has been a very ill-managed business from start to finish!”
“And what of this book that the sorcerer claims to have?” asked Lascelles.
“Yes, indeed,” said Mr Norrell. “That odd prophecy. I dare say it is nothing, yet there were one or two expressions which suggested great antiquity. I believe it would be best if I examined that book.”
“Well, Mr Childermass?” asked Lascelles.
“I do not know where he keeps it.”
“Then we suggest you find out.”
So Childermass set spies to follow Vinculus and the first and most surprizing discovery they made was that Vinculus was married. Indeed he was a great deal more married than most people. His wives were five in number and they were scattered throughout the various parishes of London and the surrounding towns and villages. The eldest was forty-five and the youngest fifteen and each was entirely ignorant of the existence of the other four. Childermass contrived to meet with each of them in turn. To two of them he appeared in the character of the unlikely milliner; to another he presented himself as a customs officer; for the benefit of the fourth he became a drunken, gambling rogue; and he told the fifth that, though he appeared to the world to be a servant of the great Mr Norrell of Hanover-square, he was in secret a magician himself. Two tried to rob him; one said she would tell him any thing he wanted to know as long as he paid for her gin; one tried to make him go with her to a Methodist prayer meeting; and the fifth, much to everyone’s surprize, fell in love with him. But in the end all his playacting was for nothing because none of them were even aware that Vinculus possessed such a thing as a book, let alone where he kept it.
Mr Norrell refused to believe this and in his private study on the second floor he cast spells and peered into a silver dish of water, examining the lodgings of Vinculus’s five wives, but nowhere was there any thing resembling a book.
Meanwhile on the floor above, in a little room set aside for his own particular use, Childermass laid out his cards. The cards had all returned to their original form, except for The Emperevr who had not shaken off his Raven-Kingish look. Certain cards appeared over and over ag
ain, among them The Ace of Cups – an ecclesiastical-looking chalice of such elaborate design that it more resembled a walled city on a stalk – and II. La Papesse. According to Childermass’s way of thinking both these cards stood for something hidden. The suit of Wands also appeared with quite unwonted frequency, but they were always in the higher numbers, the Seven, the Eight, the Nine and Ten. The more Childermass gazed at these rows of wands the more they appeared to him to be lines of writing. Yet at the same time they were a barrier, an obstacle to understanding, and so Childermass came to believe that Vinculus’s book, whatever it was, was in an unknown language.
22
The Knight of Wands
February 1808
Jonathan Strange was a very different sort of person from his father. He was not avaricious; he was not proud; he was not ill-tempered and disagreeable. But though he had no striking vices, his virtues were perhaps almost as hard to define. At the pleasure parties of Weymouth and in the drawing-rooms of Bath he was regularly declared to be “the most charming man in the world” by the fashionable people he met there, but all that they meant by this was that he talked well, danced well, and hunted and gambled as much as a gentleman should.
In person he was rather tall and his figure was considered good. Some people thought him handsome, but this was not by any means the universal opinion. His face had two faults: a long nose and an ironic expression. It is also true that his hair had a reddish tinge and, as everybody knows, no one with red hair can ever truly be said to be handsome.
At the time of his father’s death he was much taken up with a scheme to persuade a certain young lady to marry him. When he arrived home from Shrewsbury on the day of his father’s death and the servants told him the news, his first thoughts were to wonder how his suit would be affected. Was she more likely to say yes now? Or less?
This marriage ought to have been the easiest matter in the world to arrange. Their friends all approved the match and the lady’s brother – her only relation – was scarcely less ardent in wishing for it than Jonathan Strange himself. True, Laurence Strange had objected strongly to the lady’s poverty, but he had put it out of his power to make any serious difficulty when he froze himself to death.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Page 23