A room gleaming with gold and precious stones: the Chapel of the Holy Rood in the ‘Citadel’. Behind the altar, this I know, is the walled-up vault where the imperial insignia are hidden.
Before me is the Emperor, dressed, as ever, in his shabby black cloak; in these surroundings the contrast between the rank and power of this man and his outward appearance appears crazier than ever.
I hand over to Rudolf the records I have kept of the “Actions”, the seances we have had with the Green Angel since the first time in Mortlake. Each set of records is signed and witnessed by the participants. The Emperor scans the signatures. The names of Leicester, Prince Lasky, King Stephen of Poland were the first to come to his notice.
He turned to me irritably:
“And what else? Be quick, Sir; the time and place are not such that I can long talk to you without other ears overhearing. The vipers pursue me, even to the resting place of my ancestors.”
I take out the small quantity of the red powder I have been able to keep out of Kelley’s grasp and hand it to the Emperor. His eyes light up. “Genuine!” the slack, old man’s mouth groans; the bluish lower lip flops weakly onto his chin. The adept’s sharp eye has recognised the great Arcanum he holds in his hands – perhaps for the first time in a life full of deceits and disappointments, insolent and stupid attempts by mountebanks to trick a determined and desperate seeker after truth.
“How do you prepare it?” – there is a tremor in the Emperor’s voice.
“According to the instructions of the sacred book from the grave of St. Dunstan, as Your Majesty heard some time ago from Kelley.”
“Give me the book!”
“The book, Your Majesty ...”
The Emperor’s yellow neck extends, making him look more than ever like a lappet-faced vulture.
“The book! Where is it?”
“I cannot – for the moment – hand the book to Your Majesty, because I have not got it with me. It would not have been very safe in the pocket of an unaccompanied man on foot in the Bohemian Forest.”
The Emperor hisses, “Where is the book?”
I recover my composure as I reflect on my reply.
“The book, Your Majesty – we ourselves are not always able to read it ...” the Emperor scents a trick – – how can I make the Angel’s assistance sound credible? One thing is clear: I cannot, at least not yet ... Rudolf must only be allowed to see the book when ... when we have mastered the mysteries.
“Where is the book?” Rudolf spits out the question and again interrupts my hasty calculations. The eagle eyes glare an unmistakable threat. Have I ensnared myself!? I answer:
“Your Majesty, the book is in safe keeping, but the lock which guards St. Dunstan’s precious gift can only be opened by Kelley and myself together: I have one key, he the other – both keys are necessary to open the iron chest. But if Kelley were here and the two keys at hand and the chest ... Your Majesty, what guarantee would ...
“Vagabond! Rogue! Gallows-meat!” The beak hacks at me.
I summon up all my dignity:
“Then I would ask Your Majesty to return the red powder. It is obviously nothing but worthless dust to Your Majesty, for how could vagabonds, rogues and gallows-meat come into possession of the thrice sacred secret of the lapis transformationis?”
Rudolf stops short, grunts. – I continue:
“Nor do I wish to enjoy the dishonourable security of knowing Your Majesty is protected by the inviolability of Your person from offering me satisfaction for the insult to my honour – the honour of an English gentleman ...”
My overbold words have the desired effect on the Emperor. His fingers clasp the box with the red powder even more tightly; he hesitates, then exclaims:
“Do I have to keep on telling you that I am no thief?! When will the book be in my hands?”
Play for time, is the one thought in my mind. Aloud, I say:
“When Your Majesty commanded my presence, Kelley was about to leave to attend to important affairs. When he returns I will persuade him to make St. Dunstan’s book available to Your Majesty.”
“And when will this Kelley be back?”
I pluck a day out of the air: “In a week’s time, Your Majesty.” (Now it is done.)
“Good. Ten days from today report to my Constable, Prince Rosenberg. I will make all the arrangements myself. But no more excuses!! You have already been excommunicated by the Church. Cardinal Malaspina has excellent eyes. Can you smell the bonfire, Doctor Dee? My power ends at the frontiers of Bohemia – and you will see those frontiers from the other side if I do not see St. Dunstan’s book and receive instructions from you in its use by the agreed day. Is that understood? Good.”
The chapel starts to spin. So this is the end? Within ten days I must learn to read St. Dunstan’s book or we are lost, revealed as charlatans, expelled from the country, a prey to the servants of the Inquisition! – – Within ten days the Angel must come to our aid. Within ten days I must know the meaning of the cryptic lines of the parchment manuscript. Would that the pages had never been stolen from the Bishop’s tomb! Would that my eyes had never seen them! And who was it who despoiled St. Dunstan’s grave. Was it not I who did it when I sent gold to the Ravenheads and encouraged them in their desperate deeds? Guilt will out, judgment comes in the end. Now come to my aid, thou who alone can help, Saviour of my honour, my life, my toil, O Angel of the Lord, thou miracle-worker of the West Window!
One smoky lamp gives off a dim light in the room. After days and nights of studying, waiting, pondering I can scarcely keep my eyes open: they are inflamed and burn, just as my soul burns – for peace ...
Kelley is back. I have told him of my desperate efforts to understand St. Dunstan’s book. I have painted to him in clear colours the terrible fate that awaits us if we cannot satisfy the Emperor’s demands.
Kelley is slouching half asleep in the armchair where I had spent hours torturing my brain. His face has a pinched look, occasionally I feel a tremor of fear as his eyes glint under the half-closed lids: what are the thoughts going through this man’s mind, what plans is he hatching? And what should I do?
My limbs shake with feverish anxiety. My blood runs hot, then cold, and I can hardly stop my teeth from chattering. I say in a hoarse voice:
“Now you know what the situation is, my friend. In three days we must have the recipe for the preparation of the tincture, the secret of the powder from St. Dunstan’s book, otherwise we will be regarded as common tricksters and treated accordingly. We will be handed over to the Inquisition and in a few days we will burn like ... like ...” – the words force themselves out between my lips – “like Bartlett Greene in the Tower.”
“Give His Majesty the book, then.” Kelley’s languid reply is more infuriating than the most cutting mockery.
“I cannot give him the book if I cannot read it, nor even decipher it myself!” – At my exclamation Kelley raises his head a fraction. His eyes fix on me like the stare of a python waiting to pounce.
“If anyone can save us from this rat-trap that you have led us into, it is me – is that not so?”
I just nod silently.
“And what reward did you have in mind for ... for the scum the great Doctor Dee picked up from the London gutter?”
“Edward!” I cry, “Edward, are we not blood brothers?! Have I not shared everything, everything with you like a true brother; more – have I not treated you as my own other half?”
“Not everything”, mumbles Kelley.
A shiver runs over me.
“What do you want of me?”
“I? Want from ... you, brother? Nothing, brother...”
“The reward, the reward! – What is the reward, your reward, Edward?”
Kelley leans forward in his chair: “The mysteries of the Angel are unfathomable. I, who am his mouthpiece, know the true awfulness of his power. I have learnt what fate awaits one who has sworn obedience and witholds it. I will not call up the Angel again ...”
“Edward!” – it is a scream of terror that erupts from me.
“... I will not call up the Angel again, John, unless I am assured that his commands will be followed as ineluctably as day follows night. Will you, my brother John Dee, obey all future commands of the Green Angel of the West Window as I obey them?”
“Have I ever done otherwise!?” I object.
Kelley stretches his hand out to me.
“That is as may be. Swear obedience!”
My oath fills the chamber like drifts of smoke, like the whispering of countless demons, like the rustling of green – yes of green angel’s wings.
It is the Lord High Constable, Prince Rosenberg, who is pacing up and down before me, shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of apology. – Then I suddenly realise where I am: the coloured half-light around us comes from the tall East window of a church. We are standing behind the high altar of the Cathedral of Saint Vitus in the castle.
Another strange meeting place, such as Emperor Rudolf and his emissaries like to choose to avoid the attentions – real or imagined – and passion for denunciation of the Cardinal Legate’s army of spies. Here, in this majestic cathedral, the Emperor’s confidant believes himself unobserved.
Finally he stops, right in front of me, trying to read my thoughts with his earnest gaze, the gaze of a good man with a tendency to somewhat naive enthusiasms. He says:
“Doctor Dee, I trust you completely. You do not have the look of someone trying to snatch a silver Thaler between the stocks and the gallows, like other rogues and vagabonds. It is a genuine zeal to penetrate the mysteries of God and nature that has brought you to Prague and Emperor Rudolf’s castle – a place not without its dangers, mark you. I repeat: the service of the Emperor is no cushion of ease. Not even for his friends, Sir, as I can confide in you. And least of all for the friends of his great passion, for his fellow ... er ... initiates. – But to get to the point: what have you to tell me about the Emperor’s business?”
My bow is a token of my genuine respect for the Constable.
“The Angel who commands us has unfortunately not yet found us worthy of an answer to our fervent prayers. He remains silent. But he will speak when the time is come. He will permit us to act.”
I am astonished at myself, at how easily the lie trips off my tongue.
“So you want me to try to convince my sovereign that it depends on the permission of the ... of your so-called ‘Angel’ alone, whether you can give His Majesty the book of instructions from Saint Dunstan’s tomb? – So be it. But what guarantee does the Emperor have that your ‘Angel’ will ever grant this permission? I must remind you once more, Doctor Dee: the Emperor will not be trifled with!”
“The Angel will allow it, Count, I am certain; I will vouch for it ...” – Gain time! Gain time, that is all that is left for me.
“Your word of honour as a gentleman?”
“My word of honour as an English gentleman!”
“I think I can do it, Sir. I will make every effort to persuade His Majesty to have patience with you. You must realise that I risk my own position in this as well, Sir. But you and your friend have promised to let me share in the revelations the book will bring. You give me your word on that, too?”
“My word, Count.”
“We will see what can be done. – Hey! You there! –” The Constable swings round. Behind him, from the depths of one of the chapels that surround the chancel, a black figure emerges. A black cassock slips past, bowing as it goes. The Constable pales as he watches the figure recede.
“Vipers, wherever you go! When will they clear out that den of treachery? – The Cardinal will have more matter to report ...”
The night air is still trembling from the booming double strike of two o’clock from the Tyn Church. The house of Doctor Hajek, the Emperor’s personal physician, resounds angrily with the echoes of the brazen monster up in the bell-tower.
We stand together before the heavy trapdoor and Kelley turns the key; his face is empty of expression, as it always is when the Angel is about to appear.
Pine torches in our hands, we clamber down an iron ladder that seems to stretch endlessly into a dreadful, yawning abyss. Kelley ahead; above me my wife, Jane. The ladder is attached to the wall with pins as thick as a man’s arm; there is no masonry in the shaft we are descending, it is a stone cavern, perhaps formed by a rushing whirlpool in primaeval days? Doctor Hajek’s house is built above it. The air is dry, not dank and heavy as is usual in grottos. It is as dead and as arid as the desert air and soon our mouths are parched, in spite of the dreadful cold, which intensifies with every step. From the depths to the vaulted roof the cavern is filled with the suffocating smell of the dried herbs and exotic drugs which the physician stores down here, and I am tormented by a dry cough. The walls are dull black stone, worked to a hard smoothness. I have only a vague idea of where we are, the silent darkness seems to swallow up all sound as well as the meagre light of our torches. I feel as if I am descending into the boundless space of the cosmos itself. The cellar floor must be a good thirty feet above us before my foot touches the ground. I sink to the ankles in a soft, black layer of ash that swirls up at every step.
The objects around us loom up out of the thick darkness like pale spectres – a broad table, barrels, sacks of herbs. Something hanging in the air bumps against my forehead – an earthenware lamp; it is dangling from an iron chain which disappears up into the blackness. Kelley lights it; its sparse gleam scarcely reaches down to our waists.
In front of me I gradually discern a grey stone wall about six foot square: we go up to it and see that it encloses a yawning shaft. “Saint Patrick’s Purgatory” is the thought that comes to my mind. Doctor Hajek has told me of this shaft and of the stories that are told about it. Its depths have never been plumbed; it is known throughout Bohemia, and people say that it leads straight down to the middle of the earth where there is a circular, sea-green lake with an island on which Gaia, the mother of darkness lives. Torches which have been dropped down have always gone out after a few fathoms, smothered by the poisonous gases of the darkness.
My foot stumbles on a stone the size of my fist; I pick it up and drop it into the gaping hole. We bend over the parapet and listen – and listen and listen, there is not the slightest noise to tell us the stone has reached the bottom. It has disappeared soundlessly into the depths, as if it has dissolved into thin air.
Suddenly Jane bends so far forward that I grab her by the arm and pull her back.
“What are you doing?” I cry; the air is so incredibly dry that all that comes out is a hoarse croak. Jane does not answer. Her face is distorted.
I sit beside her on a crate at the worm-eaten table and hold her hand, which is as cold as death from the icy air around.
Kelley, with the restlessness which we have learnt to interpret as announcing the advent of the Angel, has climbed up onto a pile of sacks and is sitting there, legs crossed, the pointed beard on his chin jutting out, his head thrown back and his eyes turned inward so that only the whites are visible, gleaming like milky glass. He is so high up that the light from the oil-lamp, the flame of which is stock still, like a ghost-light, illuminates his features from below, and the shadow of his nose is like an upside-down black triangle on his forehead, or a jagged hole deep in his skull.
As has been our practice since the days of Mortlake, I am waiting for his breathing to become deeper, so that I can begin the conjuration.
My eyes are fixed on the darkness before me; an inner voice tells me that there will be an apparition above the wall around the shaft. I am waiting for a green shimmer of light, but it seems as if the darkness there is getting deeper, thicker. Yes, there is no doubt, it is deepening, thickening; it is coagulating into a mass of incredible, inconceivable blackness compared to which total blindness would seem light. In contrast to it the darkness in the room around suddenly seems grey. And the black mass begins to take on the contours of a female form which then starts
to tremble and hover over the abyss of the shaft like flickering smoke. I cannot say: I see it. With my physical eye I cannot see it. I see it with an inner organ which I cannot call my “eye”. It becomes clearer and clearer to my perception, ever more sharply defined, in spite of the fact that not the tiniest ray from the lamp falls on it; I see it more sharply than I have ever seen any earthly object. It is a female figure, obscene and yet with a savage, exotic, disconcerting beauty; its head is that of a gigantic cat: it is no living being, but carved, probably an Egyptian idol, a statue of the goddess Sechmet. I feel paralysis creeping over my limbs, for my brain screams: that is Bartlett Greene’s Black Isaïs! But the feeling of terror runs off me like water from a duck’s back, so complete is the hold the consuming beauty of the statue has on me. I feel the desire to rush up to the demon and throw myself headlong into the bottomless pit at her feet, crazed with ... with ... I have no name for the self-destructive urge which grips me in its talons. Then there is a faint tremor of pale green light somewhere in the cavern; I cannot find the source, the dull glow is all around. – – The figure of the Cat Goddess has disappeared.
Kelley’s breathing has become audible: slow and relaxed. The moment has come to pronounce the conjuration, which was given to me by the spirits so long ago. The words are from an unknown, barbaric language but I know them as well as the Lord’s Prayer. O God, they have been etched on my heart for many years now.
I am about to say them out loud but I am filled with a nameless fear, Does it come from Jane? Her hand is trembling, no, her whole body is quivering. I pull myself together: I must do it! Did Kelley not say this morning that tonight at the second hour the Angel would have a great commandment for us and would ... reveal the ultimate mystery, so greatly yearned for, so hotly prayed for through so many years? I open my mouth to pronounce the first word of the conjuration when I see the figure of Rabbi Löw rise up, as if a great distance away; his hand is raised and in it he holds the sacrificial knife. And then – for the fragment of a second – the figure of the Cat Goddess reappears over the shaft; in her left hand she is holding a small Egyptian mirror and in her right an object in onyx that looks like the tip of a lance or a dagger held upwards. Immediately both figures are swallowed up in a dazzling green radiance which comes from Kelley and falls on me. Blinded, I shut my eyes. It is as if I am closing them for good, never to see the light of the sun again, but I do not fear death, I feel I am already dead: calmly, all passion spent, I say the words of the conjuration out loud.
The Angel of the West Window Page 27