“I must beg your pardon but I have a request which, if you see fit to grant, would earn my eternal gratitude,” she said hopefully.
“Forgive me Mistress but how would your gratitude profit me? Can your thanks free me from this cell before I am butchered?” Thomas replied.
“Maybe it can, as you know my father is not without some influence at court and at the very least he can make your stay here more comfortable. It was Lord Boleyn who paid to have your fetters removed and to be lodged here, rather than in a dungeon. Even if he fails to secure your release, my father can have your executioners bribed so your death will be quick and painless,” Anne boasted.
“That’s hardly a great comfort and does Lord Boleyn know I was in your bedchamber the other night?” said Thomas.
“No but it wouldn’t matter if he did. He hates Wolsey and he’ll aid any enemy of the cardinal, even one condemned for sorcery, so your life need not end on the scaffold. My father and I have need of your special talents and if you can cast a certain spell for us we will secure your release and pardon,” she said. Thomas was about to point out if he possessed any magical powers he would have used them weeks ago to aid his escape but he needed friends and if there was the slightest chance the scheming Lord Boleyn could help him, he had to listen to what his youngest daughter had to say.
Much to Thomas’ surprise, Anne confirmed Quintana’s story. She admitted that her older sister now carried the king’s bastard but far from securing the ambitious Lord Boleyn’s position at court Mary’s pregnancy had ruined her father’s plans. Lord Boleyn had intended that his eldest daughter should supplant Catherine of Aragon in both Henry’s bed and on the throne but the king had been happy to keep Mary as his mistress and had steadfastly refused to put aside his Spanish wife. Though Mary’s pregnancy now made it impossible for her to remain at court, Lord Boleyn had a second daughter and he was determined that she should succeed where her sister had failed.
“I’ve already told you, it’s been foretold that I’m to be Henry’s queen and mother of his heir but my father fears that spells have been cast that blind Henry to the will of God. Why else would he remain wedded to a barren Spanish sow? But, if you could break these spells and help me fulfil my destiny, my father’s gratitude would know no bounds. I know it will be difficult to cast such a spell in this dreadful place, but you can teach me the secret knowledge so I may break the curses myself,” said Anne and as she finished speaking Thomas felt the green shoots of his hope wither and die.
The girl was clearly deranged and Thomas tried to tell her that it took years of painstaking study to learn the dark arts of necromancy but Anne held up her hand for silence. She was wearing the same white gloves she’d worn when they’d first met but now she slowly removed them. For a moment Thomas failed to understand the significance of her gesture but his mouth fell open in surprise when he realised that Mistress Anne Boleyn had six fingers on her left hand.
“You have the mark of a witch,” Thomas gasped and he couldn’t help but stare at the extra digit that protruded from the lowest joint of Anne’s little finger. It was short and stubby but it had a fingernail and a knuckle.
“Yes I have the mark of one who’s been chosen by Hecate but not the power and I don’t know why. I’ve studied the famous grimoires till I can recite the incantations in my sleep but I can never cast spells that work. Perhaps with your help I can learn,” Anne replied hopefully.
“Given time I’m sure I could teach you all I know but I’m to be sliced like an Easter ham once Lent is passed, Do you really think you can win the heart of a king in forty days?” said Thomas ruefully.
“Love is a thunderbolt and Henry is a man of passion, both strike quickly,” said Anne with a shrug but Thomas was under no such illusion.
Even if he performed the proper rituals immediately, he knew that any spell was bound to fail and his head would be rotting on a spike long before Anne Boleyn could drag the king to her bed, let alone to the altar. Yet it also occurred to him that possessing a genuine ability to command supernatural forces didn’t matter. As long as Anne believed he was a powerful necromancer, he could bend her actions to his will just as effectively as if he’d cast a spell. Moreover, if he was to stand any chance of escaping The Tower, he needed someone who could enter and leave Henry’s fortress at will.
“Very well, My Lady, you have a bargain. I’ll help you win Henry’s heart and a crown but to secure the love of a king will not be easy. I’ll need certain items and their price will be high,” said Thomas.
“Higher than the cost of the three gold chains missing from my chamber?” Anne said mischievously.
“Consider those a first payment and before I can begin to unlock the gates to a kingdom, I’ll need a second,” Thomas replied and he told Anne that he wouldn’t be able to cast such a momentous spell without the help of his assistants who still languished in The Fleet. When Anne looked at him in confusion, he insisted that for the spell to work he needed his apprentices to bury certain magical amulets in three different places but at exactly the same time. It was all nonsense but a plan was beginning to form in Thomas’ mind and he would need the men in The Fleet to ensure its success.
Despite her claim to have studied magic Anne believed his lie without question, her only concern was how to secure the men’s freedom but Thomas assured her that nothing could be easier if Lord Boleyn was prepared to spend a little money. All her father had to do was bribe the Warden of the Fleet to record in his ledgers that these three prisoners had died of the fever that infected every gaol and no one would mourn, or even notice, the deaths of three insignificant foreigners. Once they were officially ‘dead’ it would be a simple matter to smuggle these men to a discreet inn, such as The Tabard in Southwark, and have them wait there for further instructions.
Clapping her hands in delight, Anne readily agreed to the plan and she listened carefully as Thomas told her all the things he would need in order to cast the spell properly. He also instructed his new acolyte as to which apothecaries could supply the different items and made her repeat the list until she’d memorised everything. When Thomas was satisfied, Anne threw her arms around his neck and kissed him but, just as before, she preferred to play the coquette rather than the courtesan. When Thomas tried to pull her closer, she wriggled free of his arms and scampered to the door.
“Not yet, first you must cast the spell to help me win Henry’s love. Only when I’m queen will you have the reward your proud manhood desires,” she said cryptically and before Thomas could stop her she’d called for the warder to let her out. Thomas watched her leave and noted that she didn’t look back or offer any promise that she’d keep her side of the bargain. In that moment, Thomas knew he was being deceived. As soon as she had the king between her legs, Mistress Boleyn would forget him and his only reward would be to die a hideous death.
Night fell and as the lonely hours passed, Thomas became utterly convinced that the Boleyns’ promise of rescue was a complete fiction and as soon as he’d cast the spell they’d stand by whilst his death sentence was carried out. His reasoning was simple: if by some miracle Anne received a proposal of marriage from Henry, Thomas would have to die to ensure his silence as any suspicion of witchcraft would send Anne and her father to their deaths. If Lord Boleyn was equal to his reputation, he’d probably have Thomas’ tongue cut out so he couldn’t shout any accusations from the steps of the scaffold. On the other hand, if the king refused to take Anne as his bride, the vengeful Boleyns would let Thomas hang as punishment for his failure.
Whichever way he looked, Thomas saw an open grave in front of him but he had no intention of trusting his life to a man prepared to sacrifice his daughters’ virtue on the altar of his own ambition. Provided Lord Boleyn freed the three men he’d met in The Fleet, Thomas could engineer his own escape and in spite of their earlier mockery, he felt sure that Quintana, Prometheus and Bos would feel bound by the rules of honour to help him.
Once his ‘apprentices’
were safely lodged at The Tabard, Thomas could send them details of his escape plan but if he wanted to keep his intentions hidden from Lord Boleyn this wouldn’t be easy. Encoding his message, using a letter or number cipher, would alert Lord Boleyn that Thomas was up to something, moreover, he’d have to send the key to any such code in advance of the letter. He could ask Anne to deliver the key separately from the message but, if the whole purpose of the cipher was to keep Lord Boleyn from knowing Thomas’ plans, entrusting the man’s daughter with the means to decode his encrypted messages would render the entire operation utterly pointless.
The only way Thomas could be sure Anne wouldn’t betray him to her father was to convince her that any letter she carried contained nothing but vital instructions on how to complete the spell, yet Prometheus, Bos and Quintana had to be able to understand the true meaning without the aid of the cipher’s key. The alternative was to find a different messenger but, locked in his cell, he had no hope of finding anyone else to deliver his letters, coded or otherwise. All the next day, Thomas cudgelled his brains in an attempt to unravel this conundrum and he found the solution in what he’d learned from the German magician, cryptographer and Bishop of Wurzburg Johannes Trithemius.
As part of his apprenticeship with Agrippa, Thomas had studied Trithemius’ book Steganographia which described how anyone could conceal secret messages in plain sight. Trithemius had certainly practised what he’d preached and he’d been so successful in applying his principles to his book, it had been banned by the Holy Inquisition. The pope’s pious inquisitors couldn’t see past the ‘magic spells’ that promised to compel demons into carrying secret messages on behalf of the necromancer who’d summoned them but, for those with the wits to understand the book’s hidden meaning, this learned work was actually a complete guide to creating codes and ciphers that didn’t need a key.
The simplest of Trithemius’ devices was to draw an innocent looking picture so Thomas begged to be allowed to have quills, inks and paper. A few days later The Constable of the Tower, in the hope his prisoner might want to write a confession, granted the request and Thomas spent the hours waiting for Anne’s return working on an intricate drawing that combined elements of both The Nativity and The Crucifixion.
Slowly and carefully, he drew the three magi carrying their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the holy stable. He also drew the Rock of Calvary, with its three crosses but added some details that did not appear in the gospels. To the left of the stable, Thomas drew the Tower of London with The Devil imprisoned in a dungeon beneath its stone walls. He also depicted the kings Caspar, Balthazar and Melchior wearing the habits of Christian friars instead of the robes of eastern princes and their faces bore more than a passing resemblance to Bos, Quintana and Prometheus. Finally he added a fourth monk with his cowl raised so his face couldn’t be seen. Thomas was no artist but he became so engrossed in his labours he didn’t hear Sir William Kingston enter his cell.
“What are you doing prisoner,” said Sir William and before Thomas could answer, The Constable of the Tower had snatched up the drawing. Sir William studied the picture closely and demanded an immediate explanation of its meaning or Thomas would be sent to the rack.
“There’s no need for torture My Lord I’ll gladly enlighten you,” said Thomas hurriedly and he quickly explained that because he had no property to speak of, he had nothing to pay for a priest to say a mass for his soul after his execution. He’d therefore drawn this picture in the hope that the Canons of Aldgate could make a woodcut and produce prints that could be sold to pilgrims visiting The Confessor’s tomb in Westminster Abbey.
“It’s my earnest wish that any money raised will be used for the relief of the poor and for a mass to be sung on the anniversary of my death,” Thomas added and he lowered his head to convince The Constable of his contrition. Sir William grunted his acceptance of the story but he continued to study the picture carefully. After an agonising silence, he asked why the magi were dressed as monks rather than as kings of the east and Thomas replied that his intention was to show that the great mendicant orders of Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans and Carmelites were the legitimate descendants of Christ’s apostles but still Sir William wasn’t entirely satisfied.
“And why is Satan imprisoned in my Tower of London? Are you dissatisfied with your lodgings, do you wish to complain of your treatment here?” he snapped.
“Not at all My Lord but it’s not Satan in The Tower of London, it’s King Herod in the Antonia Fortress. I’ve never been to Jerusalem and I don’t know what Herod’s palace looks like so I’ve drawn this royal castle to represent Herod’s abode,” said Thomas, feigning indignance at Sir William’s failure to recognise his artistic talents. Try as he might The Constable couldn’t see any hidden meaning in the picture, and he could hardly object to a condemned prisoner trying to make his peace with God, so he returned the drawing to Thomas.
“Here, continue with your work, but you’d better finish quickly. Holy Week begins soon and when Eastertide has passed, you’ll go to the scaffold,” said Sir William and he strode from the cell.
6
SOUTHWARK
The day after Thomas had completed his picture Anne returned. In truth, he was beginning to doubt he’d ever see her again but it was a measure of the Boleyn family’s desperation that she’d brought everything he’d asked for hidden in special pockets sewn into her voluminous petticoats. Thomas dared not ask what it had cost to bribe the warders not to search her, perhaps her high birth had been enough, all he knew was that he now had everything he needed.
There was a bag of coarse grained saltpetre, a pound of lard, a jar of Spanish syrup, a long length of match cord and three short lengths of ‘black match’, that is strips of paper which had been soaked in an elixir of gunpowder and rolled into fuses. Most importantly of all, Anne had also brought a small cage containing a live bat, a pestle, a mortar and a little wooden jewellery box. Thomas told Anne to place the items on his bed whilst he dragged the chamber’s table into the centre of the room.
“My apprentices, are they safe?” Thomas asked, when he was satisfied the table was aligned with the four cardinal points of the compass.
“It cost my father ten pounds of pepper to bribe the Warden of the Fleet but the world now thinks your men’s souls are with God and their bodies buried in the Smithfield plague pit,” she replied.
“Good, then we can start to guide Cupid’s arrow to King Henry’s heart,” said Thomas happily.
He placed the saltpetre, syrup, lard and the cage containing the bat at the four different corners of the chamber’s table, explaining that each item represented one of the four elements of fire, water earth and air. He then placed the mortar and pestle in the centre of the table and coiled the match cord into a loop. Placing the cord around the mortar’s earthenware bowl, he told Anne that this arrangement represented the alchemical symbol for the female principle, that is to say herself as the subject of the charm. In fact Thomas needed none of these items for the spell but he did require them for his own escape and he’d no intention of revealing their true purpose to anyone.
Fortunately Anne didn’t question his actions and with the table prepared, Thomas opened the jewellery box she’d brought. Inside was a velvet pouch containing a letter B, made from pure gold, with three freshwater pearls, on little gold chains, dangling beneath. On the back of the B, the names ANNE and HENRY had been engraved and the jewel was attached to a long pearl necklace of incalculable value. For a moment Thomas couldn’t speak as he admired the exquisite craftsmanship.
“Will it do? It was made by the goldsmiths of St Pauls, just as you instructed,” Anne asked nervously.
“It’s perfect,” said Thomas. Anne breathed a sigh of relief and listened intently as her teacher told her that the gold represented eternity, as it was the only metal that time couldn’t corrupt, whilst the three pearls stood for obedience, fidelity and modesty, the chief virtues of a wife. Thomas insisted that they wer
e there to remind Anne that she must not take the king to her bed until he’d made her his bride but once again this had nothing to do with the spell. Thomas merely wanted to punish the lustful usurper who’d abandoned him by making him wait as long as possible for his prize.
“And the B is for my name,” said Anne hopefully.
“No, the B stands for Bel, the demon who rules men’s passions, and it’s merely a happy accident that your family name also begins with this letter. Ordinarily, you must inscribe the name of Bel, your name and the name of your desired lover on the shoulder blade of a capon and burn it whilst speaking the spell. However, to win a king’s love, I needed an amulet more suited to royalty than chicken bones so I asked for this jewel to be made. Now we need one more thing before we can begin,” said Thomas and he carefully began to open the seams of his old cloak.
His weeks living as an outlaw had robbed Thomas of the jewelled rings on his fingers, the gold chains around his neck and his father’s sword, but his most valuable possession was still safely hidden in his cloak. When he’d fled from the king’s palace weeks ago, he’d been sure to take his copy of The Munich Handbook of Demonic Magic with him and whilst in hiding he’d sewn its pages into his cloak. The fine vellum on which the book had been printed was as soft as Irish linen and the warder who had searched Thomas on his arrival at The Tower hadn’t detected his garment’s hidden riches.
This grimoire contained everything a sorcerer needed to know about conjuring spirits, casting spells and fashioning charms but it wasn’t particularly rare. Most serious students of Natural Philosophy had a copy in their libraries but Thomas’ edition was unique because it’d once belonged to Leonardo da Vinci and its margins were full of the artist’s designs for new weapons of war. To protect his inventions, Leonardo had described their construction in an impenetrable code, which Thomas had yet to decipher otherwise he’d have sold the secrets years ago, but for the time being this did not matter. All he needed was the original authors’ advice to the lovelorn.
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