The Bones of Avalon

by Ormond House

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘your cold is better then?’

  The high nose, the wide-spaced eyes. The hand had fallen away. Above her, the weak sun was trembling like the yolk of a fresh-cracked egg.

  ‘Um… cold?’

  ‘The ailment’ – her voice firmer now, the mouth suddenly resembling her father’s fleshy bud, but all I could think of was a knife-slash in wax – ‘which prevented you joining us last weekend.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Better, yes, thank you, madam. Yes… much better.’

  ‘So worrying, a cold.’ The Queen wore a fur cloak over riding apparel, and a fur hat. ‘Especially when we perceive the long winter grinding to its end.’

  ‘Certainly best kept within one’s own walls,’ I said carefully. ‘That is… rather than taken out and, um, given to other people.’

  ‘Or bears,’ said the Queen.

  Her dark grey eyes half-lidded. Shuttered rooms, and I thought, Oh dear God.

  My friend, Robert Dudley, mocks me for it.

  Merely what happens in the wild, John. Bears, dogs, they’re all killers, and so are we. Part of us. What we are. We’re a fighting race, everything we have we’ve fought for and killed for. Sometimes we’re the bear and sometimes the dogs, depending upon whether we’re fighting to keep what we have or to grab more.

  I point out to him that successful warfare is, and always has been, about cunning, intelligence and invention rather than blind savagery. Reminding him of the machinery I’ve fashioned to this end, the navigational aids to speed our supremacy on the seas. I insist, with a passion, that we have nothing to gain from observing the conflict of bears and dogs and only our humanity to lose. In war, I say, we fight to get it over, not to prolong agony in the cause of amusement.

  Dudley shrugs.

  Admit the truth, John. You’re a man of books, you simply have no stomach for it.

  Well, yes: the anguished roaring and the frenzied yelps, those pitiful echoes from the ante-chambers of Hades… such barbarity I can live without.

  But then, with a benign, faintly sorrowful smile, my friend and former student chooses his spot and inserts his blade.

  You should see the Queen, John. Clapping her little hands and bobbing in her chair at each snap of the bloodied jaws. Oh my, the Queen has ever loved a bear-baiting…

  Let no-one forget, in other words, whose daughter this was. The feelings of pity and distaste, I can cope with those, suppress them when necessary. But some involuntary disclosure of contempt… who dares risk that?

  Thus, when invited to a banquet, to be attended by Her Majesty and followed by bear-baiting, I’d swiftly developed a cold.

  Her perfume coloured the air. Always roses, as if the wave of a royal hand could alter the seasons. I saw my older cousin, Blanche Parry, the Queen’s First Gentlewoman, staying well back amongst the company of guards and courtiers and smirking hangers-on. Watching us, like to a white owl in a tree. Blanche had ever mistrusted me.

  ‘I’m afraid that, with a cold, I wasn’t a pretty sight,’ I said lamely. ‘My nose-’

  ‘-was in a book, as usual, I expect,’ the Queen said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, humbled. ‘I expect it was.’

  A hanging moment.

  And then the Queen tilted her head back and laughed, and it was like to a flock of skylarks upon the air. After a breath, the whole company erupted, as if everyone’s throat had been released from some social ligature. Only Blanche Parry kept on watching me, unsmiling, as the Queen laid a gloved hand on my arm and steered me meaningfully away from her train.

  ‘I shouldn’t tease you, John.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That’s what it was.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she said, as we passed into the orchard, ‘I think you know me – through your art, no doubt – better than anyone.’

  My art? Dear God.

  ‘Though also,’ she said quickly, ‘through experiences of adversity which are common to us.’

  I nodded, grateful for that. Her father’s daughter and her sister’s sister, and yet, unlike either of them, Elizabeth had heard the key turning from the other side. All too aware, at the time, of the black cards dealt to the Lady Jane Grey, at just sixteen. Awakening to the swish of the phantom axe, just as I would roll from the flames’ roar. How secure was she feeling, even now? Did she even know about the wax doll?

  ‘John, you invited me once, as I recall, to see your library.’

  ‘Um… yes, I believe I did… yes.’

  Thinking at the time that she’d taken it the wrong way, or at least feigned as much. At twenty-six, she was only a few years younger than I.

  ‘The truth of it is,’ she murmured, ‘I had been most strongly advised to avoid your library.’

  ‘Avoid my… books?

  Because of their heretical content?

  ‘Advised by someone who was recalling your efforts to persuade my late sister of the benefits of a national library.’

  ‘Oh…’

  Breathing again. So that was it. The cost. It hadn’t worked on Mary, and I could certainly think of members of the present Privy Council for whom the provision and maintenance of a Library of England would be regarded as good money down the jakes.

  ‘It just seemed to me a tragedy,’ I said, ‘how many valuable works have disappeared in the years since the Reform. Many of them secretly sold by unscrupulous abbots and the like. But there’s no doubt that the, um, the founder of a national library would forever be remembered as the greatest patron of learning that this country had ever-’

  ‘ Tush, John-’ The Queen punched me on the upper arm. Her eyes dancing with merriment, a modest cluster of red-gold curls escaping from the fur hat. ‘It will happen. When we have sufficient funds to spare to do it properly. Meanwhile, we applaud your private efforts… how many books is it now?’

  ‘Nine hundred… and twelve.’

  ‘And twelve, ’ the Queen said solemnly. ‘A goodly collection.’

  I may have blushed. It seemed ridiculous that I could remember the exact number. Most of them were scattered all over my mother’s house and my aim, when I could raise the money, was to build an extension to accommodate thousands more essential volumes.

  ‘John -’ the Queen, her moods ever mercurial, was looking into my eyes now with a sudden concern – ‘you seem tired.’

  ‘Working long hours, Your Highness, that’s all.’

  ‘To what end? May I ask?’

  The Queen had long been fascinated by matters of the hidden, and we were well out of the hearing of her company. She and I alone in my mother’s high-walled orchard, not more than twenty yards from the riverbank, the sun making pin-lights among the ice-pearled apple-tree boughs.

  Idyllic, except for the pikemen guarding its entrance. You could never lose the bloody pikemen.

  ‘John, last year we spoke of the Cabala. You gave me to think that the old mysticism of the Jews… that this would help us penetrate the innermost chambers of the heavens.’

  I hesitated. My present work did, in part, have its origins in that rich and complex Hebrew mechanism for communion with higher realms. And, yes, my aim – never a secret – was to discover the levels to which the essence of earthly things, the composition and structure of all terrestrial matter, is ordered by the heavens. I was now in search of a code, maybe a single symbol which would explain and define this relationship. But many a score of candles would burn through the night before I was ready to publish my findings and formally inscribe the mystical glyph upon the frontispiece.

  ‘Your Highness-’

  ‘Are you yet equipped to call upon the angels, John?’

  After the religious turbulence of the past two decades, it would be of prime importance to the Queen that any intercourse with a spiritual hierarchy should be firmly under her control. I played this one carefully.

  ‘Any of us can call upon them. I think, however, for the Cabala to work for us, it will be necessary to interpret it in such a way that it will be seen as part of the
Christian tradition.’

  ‘Oh yes, that’s a very good point, but -’ the Queen had clasped her long fingers together and now shook them as if attempting to dislodge some essential thought – ‘is there not an English tradition, John?’

  ‘For communion with angels?’

  ‘Well -’ a quick, impatient shake of the head, a parting of the hands – ‘yes.’

  An interesting question from an educated woman, but the answer would not be a safe one.

  ‘Christianity, as Your Highness is obviously aware… is not of English origin, and so-’

  ‘Well, then, should I say British, rather than English, you and I being both of Welsh stock?’

  Born and bred in England, I’d never, to be honest, thought of myself as particularly Welsh, although my father would forever prate at me – and anyone else who’d listen – about our great linguistic and cultural heritage. Which, having learned some Welsh to please him, I had planned to spend some time investigating, in case he should be right. However…

  ‘All the evidence suggests, Your Highness, that the Welsh religious tradition – which is to say the bardic or Druidic tradition – was not, in its essence, a Christian one.’

  ‘But did it not change when the Christian message was brought to these shores? Or when, as it is said, Our Saviour himself came to England?’

  ‘Um… mercy?’

  ‘With Joseph the Arimathean. His uncle.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You do know of this-’

  ‘Of course. That is, I’ve read of it.’

  ‘So you have books dealing with it… in your library?’

  ‘Um… it’s possible. That is… Yes, I do.’

  ‘And Arthur? What of him?’

  ‘Arth-?’

  ‘ King Arthur?’ A smile. ‘Our royal ancestor?’

  ‘Oh him, certainly. Several.’

  ‘I should like to see these books,’ the Queen said.

  ‘Of course. It would be my-’

  There was a sudden, sharp movement in her body, as if in response to a twinge of pain. I thought she was staring at me, but no, it was at something beyond me, her eyes grown still. I didn’t like to turn, and so waited for her to speak again. She didn’t.

  I coughed lightly.

  ‘Your Highness…?’

  The Queen blinked.

  ‘Do you have hares,’ she said, ‘in your orchard?’

  ‘I… no. At least…’ Dear God, who had she been talking to? ‘Your Highness has seen a hare?’

  ‘I don’t… know,’ the Queen said.

  I grew tense, for I had not seen a hare here. Not this year, nor last. And where she was looking… there was nothing.

  The Queen smiled – and yet it was a smile like a wafer moon in a cold and smoky dawn. And the hare…

  The hare, as you know, because of its curious behaviour, the way it sometimes stands on hind legs to fight with another, as men use their fists, the way it seems to respond to the moon… the hare might be seen as ominous.

  The Queen shook her head lightly, swallowed.

  ‘The books,’ she said briskly. ‘You must-’

  Breaking off again, for Mistress Blanche Parry was upon us, her nose wrinkled in distaste at the pervading stench of fermenting hops from the building where ale is brewed, not a hundred long paces from my mother’s house. Blanche, who must have been lurking closer than either the Queen or I had known.

  ‘Not now, John,’ the Queen said quickly. ‘You must bring the books to me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’ll sup together. Soon.’ She found a brittle laugh. ‘ If your health permits it.’

  ‘Madam…’ Blanche Parry at her elbow. ‘ If I may remind you, you have an appointment for discussion with Sir William Cecil at three.’ Blanche nodding curtly at me. ‘Dr Dee.’

  ‘Good morning,’ I said, ‘cousin.’

  Blanche frowned. The Queen tutted. I said nothing, recognising the interruption for what it was.

  ‘What a shame.’ The Queen smiled. ‘I was only just saying to Dr Dee that I’d hoped to visit the school before we left.’

  On her previous visit, she’d spoken of inspecting the nuns’ school for poor children, later expressing regret that there would be insufficient time. She glanced at me with half-closed eyes, tacitly confirming that I’d be sent for, and then turning sharply away. Blanche Parry, however, remained for a moment longer, a spindle of a woman, past fifty now, grey-haired and severe.

  ‘Dr Dee, Sir William also wishes to speak with you.’ Not even looking at me. ‘Tomorrow at ten in the morning, at his town house on the Strand. If that is convenient.’

  As if there was the remotest possibility, despite my workload, that it would not be. I nodded, wondering if this could be linked to the discovery of the encoffined effigy of the Queen. Of which, never a mention since. Maybe they’d managed, after all, to keep it from her. I’d made discreet inquiries about Walsingham, but nobody knew if he was in Cecil’s employ.

  Hoar frost was glittering upon the spidery winter branches of the apple trees, and I felt the movement of hidden tides.

  Made no move until the last wherry in the royal fleet had rounded the bend in the Thames, and then I went into the house. A fire of fragrant applewood was ablaze in the entrance hall. I’d built the fire myself, my mother adding more logs, in case we should be honoured. I passed by the pastries, all untouched, and found her sitting forlorn in the small parlour, watching the Thames through the poor, milky glass which in summer would protect us from the river’s stink.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  Throwing my coat over a chair, tired and more than a little cast down.

  ‘There was a time when Mistress Blanche Parry would have made time for me.’ My mother turned away from the grey-brown water, arose and patted her skirts. ‘Not any more, apparently.’

  ‘Blanche is jealous of her position at court. It’s not your fault. It’s me she doesn’t trust.’

  ‘Being protective of the Queen’s interests and welfare,’ my mother said, ‘is how she would see it.’

  ‘Also more than a little apprehensive of the advance of the sciences.’

  My mother, Jane Dee, looked as if she’d bitten into a onion.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Would Mistress Blanche call it science, do you think?’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  Avoiding my mother’s eyes, I noticed that the panelling on the walls was flaking for want of varnish, while the red-brocaded fabric of my mother’s chair looked all tired and worn. I noticed also that a sleeve of her dark brown dress had been patched in two places.

  She had asked nothing about what the Queen had said or the reason for the visit. I could have told her that Elizabeth, already renowned as a demanding and expensive guest at the finest homes, would be unlikely to enter one that was conspicuously more lowly. In this case, I was sure, mindful and considerate of our poverty.

  And thus I felt ashamed. Inadequate. I should have done better; I was my mother’s only child. My father had determined that I should receive the best education their money could buy. I might have become a bishop or even a lawyer, for which I had qualification, instead of… whatever I am become.

  The river shone dully, full of animal and doubtless many human carcasses embedded in a city’s shit. The sun was pale and hard-looking, like marble.

  Conjurer, I was called by some, when my back was turned, and by others even when it was not.

  III

  His Second Coming

  Rather than a crude summoner of spirits, a conjurer may, as you know, be seen in these more enlightened times as one who deals in illusion. And I’ve done that and found much delight there. Once, at college, for a piece of theatre, I fabricated a gigantic beetle which, through a system of pulleys and the employment of light and shadow, was seen to fly through the air. Spent many days in the making of it and many hours basking in the awe and mystification it inspired.

  Nothing wrong with that. I
was only a boy, and the beetle did not fly. Not as a bird flies, or an angel.

  But now I am a man and more exercised by the true nature of angels. Fully accepting, however, that men like Sir William Cecil feel happier with what they know to be illusion, even if they know not how it’s done.

  No frost today, only a sour sporadic rain as I boarded a wherry by Mortlake pier for my appointment. Low cloud stained with smoke and pricked by a hundred spires, the highest of them St Paul’s in the west.

  We entered the city past the steaming midden of Southwark with its low-life amusements: bear-pits, cock-pits, whorehouses, gambling and theatre. I no longer noticed the impaled heads of criminals and traitors on London bridge; now that executions of the higher orders had become less commonplace, these crow-picked noddles were more of a grotesque attraction for visitors than a dread warning for the inhabitants.

  As for Cecil’s new town house… all I understood was that it was on the Strand, where high-powered clergy once lived. But a wherrymen is a floating gazetteer, and mine knew precisely when to steer us to the bank, pulling in his oars by the footings of a new-built stone stairway.

  ‘Ain’t the biggest house inner row,’ he said. ‘But he got plans.’

  ‘The Secretary’s a personal friend of yours that you know of his plans?’

  Hating at once, the way this must have sounded. Although I’d travelled with this same man seven times or more, I ever find difficulty in the exchange of common pleasantries.

  The wherryman only grinned. At least I thought it was a grin, all his top teeth being gone – a fight, perchance, or he’d sold them to a maker of false sets, and I should have liked to ask, but…

  ‘One of his builder’s men’s marrying my youngest girl,’ the wherryman said. ‘They gets detailed orders, how he wants it done. Inspects every sodding brick.’

  Cecil’s pastime, fashioning houses. I knew that. The tide had been with us, and when I found the house, three storeys high, behind a cage of builders’ wooden scaffolding, I was more than an hour early. Going in now would convey either over-eagerness or anxiety.