The Secrets of Life and Death

by Rebecca Alexander

  ‘You believe that because Jack has told you—’

  ‘I know that. You do, too, if you stop to think about it. Look at what happened to Carla.’ Sadie held out her hand to Jack. ‘You can unlock this now. You won’t need to chain me up again.’

  Jack searched her pocket for her house keys. She tried to stand, the room rolling around her in a nauseating manner, and she sat down again. ‘Felix?’

  ‘What do you need?’ The anger had gone from his voice, and concern had replaced it.

  ‘The bottle, it’s in my bag. And my keys, they’re still in the door.’ She leaned back until he returned.

  The handcuff key was on the set. She unlocked the manacle from Sadie’s wrist and opened the bottle.

  ‘Oh, not that stuff! I don’t need it.’

  ‘I do.’ Jack took a swig, wincing, then wiped off the top. ‘And so do you. I have an idea.’

  Sadie took the bottle, screwed up her face, and took a couple of sips. ‘I hate this stuff.’ She scowled at Jack. ‘I don’t know why I need it now, I feel OK.’

  ‘Because with a bit of help, and half a bottle of potion, I may be able to get you upstairs to the bathroom.’ Jack started picking over the rubbish on the floor, looking for the contents of the shattered pen pot. ‘Aha.’ She picked up a marker pen, which seemed unharmed, then turned to Felix.

  He was staring at Sadie, then his eyes met Jack’s. For a long moment, she waited for him to speak, but he just gazed at her.

  ‘Felix,’ she said. He jumped a little, as if shaken out of whatever he was thinking. ‘I couldn’t tell you the whole truth,’ she continued, ‘because you would never have believed it. And I had to look after Sadie. If we make one mistake, she could die. Are you going to help us, or not?’

  She waited for a long moment, before he stepped towards her. ‘If you do anything to put that child in danger, I will call the police.’ Ignoring a protest from Sadie he continued, stepping close to Jack, until she staggered back half a step. ‘And I don’t think it’s just Sadie who is in danger. You are being attacked by witches in your car, and in the street by this Pierce. Not to mention the police are already looking into Carla’s death, and this art detective is looking for forgeries he thinks you sold. There’s a big picture here, and I don’t think any of us see it yet. But somehow, it’s all to do with Dee and those documents. That’s the common link.’

  ‘And Sadie.’ Jack looked at the girl, seeing her wide eyes. ‘She isn’t just a pawn in all this, she’s central. So, you’re in, are you, Professor?’

  He looked at Sadie, then back at Jack, one corner of his mouth sliding up in a smile. ‘I suppose I am.’

  Felix followed Jack upstairs and held the stepladder as she drew symbols on the bathroom tiles in permanent marker.

  ‘You do realise I could probably draw these better than you could?’ he said. ‘I’ve been studying them off the medals as well as the girl … the one who died.’

  She paused, looking down at him. ‘Carla. That must be a horrible job. I mean, looking at dead bodies.’ She inscribed another sigil on a tile by the ceiling. The upper floor was disturbed, but less wrecked than downstairs.

  ‘How did she die?’ he asked.

  ‘She got out of the circle after four months. It was too early. I only went out to walk the dog. When I got back, the door was open, and money was gone from my purse. She must have run to the station. I tried to catch her, but was caught behind the level crossing. The train was already pulling out.’ She swallowed hard, and Felix stepped closer.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She could feel the warmth from his body.

  ‘She was dead by the time I caught up with her at the last station. I thought, if I could just get her between the circles in the car … but it was too late.’ She looked down at him, her face tight with the effort of not crying. ‘I tried to explain it to her, but she wouldn’t listen.’ She closed her eyes, the face against the window vivid in her mind. ‘She was just dead.’

  ‘I know.’ His baritone was soft, as if it rumbled straight into her brain. ‘She died a very gentle death, you know. Just fell asleep. If she was dying when you found her, she had four extra months, good months, off the streets.’

  She opened her eyes, looked at his face, and stepped down from the ladder, close to him. This time the emotion was unmistakeable, she could feel the attraction between them pulling him, as he glanced at her mouth.

  ‘I’m going to run Sadie a bath.’ She felt uncertain, unsettled. She bent to turn the hot tap on. ‘Then I’ll draw the sigils on the floor.’

  ‘Jack …’

  She straightened up, as he put one hand on her waist, as if to steady her. He bent slowly. She stood still as his lips brushed hers. She didn’t respond, but felt every nerve ending come to life where he touched her.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know …’ He stepped back.

  A clatter from downstairs broke the spell, and Jack stepped away, hands up.

  ‘I can’t …’ She slid around him so she didn’t touch him, and turned off the tap. ‘Could you carry Sadie upstairs? You’ll have to be quick, although the stairs are sigilled.’

  ‘Of course.’ His voice was soft, and he stepped onto the landing, taking the stepladder with him.

  Jack tipped in a good slug of bubble bath, before she knelt to inscribe each floor tile, enveloped in a fog of lavender. The imprint of his lips and fingers seemed to linger on her skin.

  Chapter 34

  ‘Within the citadel are many chambers and towers. As I explored within the main wall, I saw women and servants doing their work about the castle. They seemed strangely fearful of me, crossing and blessing themselves in mangled Latin and their own cursed tongue. I can only think they fear my master, and his reputation spills onto me.

  The castle is filled with children, grave-faced, going about their business. It seems the countess prefers them as maid servants, and they drift around the castle like ghosts, as pale-faced as owls and almost as silent.’

  Edward Kelley

  3 December 1585

  Csejte Castle

  The castle was built on grey rock, with a number of stone towers surrounding a central fortress. The servants scurried past me without speaking or even looking at me, as if I was dangerous in some way. I finally found a chamber where the captain of our abduction was seated. He was in close conversation with a small, twisted man, who had a scar that ran from the corner of his eye down to his neck.

  ‘Master Kelley.’ The captain bowed, while grinning, his white teeth flashing against his black beard like a hunting dog. ‘I trust you are … ?’ I did not recognise the word, so he tried again. ‘Well? Without injury?’

  ‘Indeed. Well. But Doctor Dee is ill. He has a fever and a cough. How may I address you, sir?’

  The man frowned over my Latin, then his brow cleared again. ‘I am the Lord Asztalnokmester János Báthory of Somlyó.’ He nodded to the scarred man. ‘This is Tarnokmester László Báthory of Ecsed. Understand, yes?’

  Lord László looked at me from dark eyes. ‘Sickness, you say?’

  ‘He needs a physician.’

  Blackbeard – Lord János – launched into a flood of tongue-twisting dialect, the scarred man nodding, staring at me from his brown face. Then he turned back to me.

  ‘We have a cure for this cough. It is common in the mountains, yes? We will get one of the …’ I didn’t catch the rest of his words, as his Latin was heavily accented and some words unfamiliar. ‘I will send for help. Medicine, yes?’

  ‘Thank you. Yes.’ I watched as the twisted man limped from the room.

  ‘The count commanded that I show you the library,’ said Lord János. ‘From these books you will be able to help the lady, the Countess Báthory, yes?’

  The ‘library’ turned out to be a small room off the family quarters, lined with books. I was much impressed with the selection, many were botanicals and astrologies that would help us. The alcove opposite had a door with a carving of a cross on it, and when I was
alone, I pushed the door open. Inside was a chapel, plainly appointed as appropriate for a Protestant family, but made with fine polished woods and blue velvet cushions. I returned to the volumes, selecting three that I thought might be useful. I summoned a passing servant, and with much gesturing, conveyed a message that he was to get someone who would unlock them. He disappeared, returning with a fat steward or chamberlain, much flustered, who unlocked the chains that secured the books to the shelves, and carried them back to our rooms himself.

  Dee seemed much revived by the new tomes, and spent a few hours hunched in his bed turning pages and reading me passages. Towards evening, he started to doze, and I found his head very hot and his breathing laboured.

  ‘Jane?’ he murmured, then opened his eyes. ‘Oh, Edward. Was I asleep?’

  I took the papers away, and compelled him to lie down again. ‘It is late. Rest now.’ But I was worried. I had found nothing that might help the countess, and Dee seemed more feverish. I signalled that I needed help to a servant girl, and within a few minutes, the scarred Count László arrived.

  ‘The healer is here,’ he told me, in a soft voice. ‘She will not treat him with a man in the room.’

  ‘What? I don’t want some drab from the country …’ I recalled that I was speaking in English and changed to Latin. ‘Dee needs a physician. A doctor of medicine.’

  He did not respond, but took my arm. ‘Come. She will help your master.’

  I would have resisted, but the strength in his fingers gripped painfully and carried me away into the corridor. The woman, dressed in a green dress and brown headscarf, was ushered into our rooms by a servant. I was swept towards the main hall.

  I noticed, as I passed, the child standing behind her. I judged her to be perhaps eight or nine years old, and clad in a simple grey kirtle. She stared back at me, her face as pale as the countess’s had been. A low word from the woman, and she took one step towards the door. When she turned to me, her face was creased with fear, her eyes so wide they looked black. Her lips trembled but a hand grasped hers, and pulled her out of sight into Dee’s room. The heavy door swung shut.

  ‘We shall dine.’ Lord László bowed to me and held out a hand towards the keep staircase. ‘We shall entertain you with stories of the Báthorys. And you will tell us of your many battles and adventures.’

  The viands served at the castle were of high quality, and I was feasted like a king. It appeared that some of our abductors were a group of noble cousins, or brothers-in-arms, that had served the Báthorys and the Nádasdy family for generations. They drank toasts until my head spun and their speech was slurred, and laughter flew about the chamber. I kept my wits about me, and sipped my wine slowly, watching the strange men. They boasted incessantly. Then they settled down, as far as I understood, to tell the tallest tales.

  Claims from each were greeted with jeers and groans of disbelief, but as I didn’t speak Hungarian I was free to watch their faces and antics. They acted unsophisticated, but I discerned some learning about them, and most spoke reasonable bastardised Latin when they had to, as well as some German. One of them, a great fellow with a reddish beard, turned to me.

  ‘Hey, you,’ he called in Latin. ‘Is it true your master is a sorcerer?’

  ‘My master is a scholar.’ I shrugged. ‘To a peasant, gunpowder is sorcery. What we understand is science, what we don’t, we call magic.’

  ‘The fire he threw around the wolves on the road.’ The scarred Lord László sat at the end of the table, running a finger around a goblet. I noticed he had lost two fingers, and part of his hand. ‘Was that science?’

  ‘Indeed,’ I lied.

  ‘A useful trick. I could have used it.’ He held up his arm for my inspection. ‘I was caught by a wolf pack in my youth, boar hunting with some of these ruffians. A single bitch did this.’

  ‘Then Pál ran it through with his spear.’ Another man raised his goblet once more. ‘Pál!’

  Another round of drinking deep, though I noticed the hunched László sipped, as I did, his dark eyes less clouded than his companions.

  Redbeard thumped the table. ‘You are a noble, back in your England?’ he asked.

  I answered simply, shrugging to make the lie more convincing. ‘My father is a baron, but I am a younger son. May I have the honour of knowing your lordship’s name?’

  ‘I am Mihály Báthory of Ecsed, captain of guards of this castle.’

  This released a battle cry that almost deafened me, from half the men around the table. ‘Ecsed, Ecsed!’

  I laughed nervously, as they thumped their fists upon the table. A roar came back at them: ‘Somlyó! Báthory Somlyó!’ to be answered with a wall of bellowing and stamping that dissolved into raucous laughter.

  I raised my goblet, and the men fell silent, watching my movements much as the wolves had done.

  ‘Báthory!’ I shouted, and a storm of repeated battle shouts came back. As I lifted the goblet to my lips, the sound died down, and they drank deep. Except László, who instead raised his drink to me, as if he understood what I was doing. I smacked my lips, calling to the manservant for more wine, though in truth my cup was almost full.

  ‘Tell me, what is this division of the Báthorys?’ I asked.

  Lord László leaned back in his chair. ‘It is simple,’ he replied. ‘But you must go back to the very first Báthory. The story tells of a great dragon. No man could kill it, and it grew fat on the bodies of knights and heroes sent to slay it. Then a man, his name was Vitus, took up the quest. He offered to slay the dragon if the people gave him a swamp called Ecsed, at the heart of the dragon’s domain. The people laughed at him, as no one wanted the swamp anyway, and the land around was barren and stony.’

  László ran his finger around his cup as before. ‘He went into the swamp, and fought the dragon for three days and three nights. At the end of it, the dragon’s tail and wings had cut great dykes into the Ecsed swamp, and its breath had burned away all the rushes and trees. Then Vitus went into the lair of the foul worm itself, and the dragon took him by the leg, its teeth piercing his thigh through his chainmail. At that very moment, Vitus hacked off the dragon’s head.’

  ‘A great hero, indeed,’ I said, nodding.

  ‘But three teeth had lodged themselves in the bones of the man, and he was lame for ever. The swamp, drained by the dragon’s thrashing and enriched by its blood, became the most fertile land for many leagues. The peasants named Vitus, his sons and his grandsons “Bator”, Hungarian for brave. Vitus married Orsolya, the heiress to the great estate of Somlyó.’ He drained his cup, and grimaced at the dregs. ‘That dragon left its teeth in all the Báthory descendants. They fight like a litter of wolf cubs, until a weaker prey comes along. Sometimes the Ecseds have been overlord, sometimes Somlyó, but always Báthory.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘She,’ he said, waving at the hall around him, ‘is Somlyó and Ecsed. She has two cups of the dragon’s blood in her veins.’ He held up his mutilated hand. ‘Remember this when you approach her. Cross her, and she will bite. If you do not make her well enough to bear a child, the countess, her husband, and every Báthory in this castle will fight over your bones like the wolves we are.’

  Chapter 35

  By the time dawn blued the sky, the worst of the wreckage in the cottage was either bagged up for the tip, or awaiting repair. Jack rubbed sore eyes that prickled with tears at all the destruction. The body of the hedgehog, its neck broken, was discovered under a three-legged chair in the kitchen.

  Jack found herself staggering, as if she was dozing on her feet. Sadie was in Jack’s bed, safe between two circles, and hopefully sleeping. Now and then, Felix would press another chipped mug of tea into Jack’s hand, and stand over her until she drank it. She’d also finished the last of the decoction, and knew she should be brewing more. She leaned against the re-lit range as she measured out the herbs she could find. The ones in glass jars had been scattered but the most important ones were safe in batter
ed biscuit tins. She rested in the rocking chair, and closed her eyes for a moment, soothed by the rhythmic sound of sweeping in the front room.

  The sound of vigorous knocking woke her up. It seemed to be coming from the front of the house, from the barely used porch. She could hear Felix shifting boxes, and the sound of his deep voice. She called the growling Ches to her, and locked him in the kitchen with a handful of biscuits. Standing at the bottom of the steps, she couldn’t hear any sound from upstairs, but couldn’t believe Sadie hadn’t heard the commotion. Please be quiet, don’t look out the front window. Jack rubbed damp hands down her jeans, and tried to straighten her mop of hair. She walked through the front room and into the porch. Felix was speaking to a female police officer, in uniform.

  ‘No, I’m just visiting a friend. Uh … yes, well, I’m helping her decorate.’

  Jack took a deep breath, and joined Felix in the porch. ‘Can I help?’

  The officer looked past her into the wreckage beyond.

  ‘Could we talk inside? It’s cold out here.’ She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. When Felix fell back, the officer followed, brushing past Jack, followed by a young man with a clipboard.

  Jack looked around the room. Felix had rolled the carpet back down, stacked boxes of presumably salvageable books against the wall, and restored the one intact bookcase to its usual place. It was half full with the books that had survived. There were a dozen black bags ready for the tip, but the furniture was upright and apart from a smell of disinfectant wafting from the priest hole, the door propped open, the room felt clean. The draught from the smashed window, despite cardboard wedged in the frame, made her shiver.

  ‘How can we help you, officers?’ He sounded calm, as if there was nothing unusual going on.

  ‘Well, Mr … ?’

  ‘Guichard. Professor Felix Guichard, and this is my friend, Jack Hammond. It’s her house, really.’ He smiled down at her, put an arm around her waist, and her mind went blank.

  ‘Decorating?’ The officer looked at Jack, huddled against Felix.