Witchrise

by Victoria Lamb

  The heavy-set bishop walked straight through me, and I shuddered, even after such a ghostly contact. Then I noticed how the others waited with downcast faces until the bishop had gone, their silence conspicuous.

  John Dee clicked his fingers to the one servant still remaining. ‘Go see if his lordship still has a cask of that good Kentish ale in his cellars, would you? I have a thirst tonight this Spanish wine will not quench.’

  Once they were alone, Dee leaned swiftly across the table. ‘We may talk freely for a few moments, until Bonner returns. Only keep your voice down, Robbie. You never know who may be secretly listening.’

  Indeed not, I thought drily.

  ‘A strange reunion, this,’ Robert Dudley said wryly. ‘At dinner with a man who would condemn us all to the bonfire if he could read our hearts. But seriously now, what news of the Queen’s health? Is she indeed recovered?’

  ‘I fear so, yes. The Queen is often confined to bed these days, but we cannot hope for her death just yet.’ Master Dee shrugged. ‘Still, Mary has long suspected the Lady Elizabeth of having put a curse on her. Her return to health should quash that rumour, at least.’

  Robert grinned. ‘If any woman could curse her own sister and make it stick, it would be Elizabeth.’

  ‘Then perhaps you are not so well acquainted with the Lady Elizabeth as you suggested in your last letter. I have always found her a most regal and even-tempered lady.’

  ‘Or perhaps I am better acquainted with her than you.’ Robert glanced at his wife, then sat back in his chair, looking at Dee through narrowed eyes. ‘But enough of that. In truth, what do your charts say of the succession? Will the Spanish king succeed in getting himself an heir?’

  ‘The charts suggest there will be no further pregnancies. Unless Queen Mary should die, and Elizabeth take her place as his wife.’

  Robert’s teeth were bared. ‘That will never happen. I would kill the Spanish king before he could force her into marriage.’

  ‘A trifle drastic,’ Dee commented without heat, and sipped at his wine.

  ‘Tell me, Master Dee, how are you finding the daily arrests and burnings?’ Robert asked tightly. ‘I must admit to some surprise on hearing of your new post with Bonner. You make an unlikely sniffer-out of heretics.’

  ‘I agree. Yet what else could I do? Ignore the bishop’s offer of employment and face death myself?’ He shrugged, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. ‘In a cruel climate, one must bend or be broken.

  ‘But you must have learned that lesson yourself, Robert,’ Dee continued more softly, ‘for you spent long enough in the Tower after your family’s rebellion. Your father executed, your poor brother Guildford too. Yet here you sit, with your head still on your shoulders.’

  Robert said nothing, watching him intently.

  ‘I am not happy with the work Bishop Bonner gives me. But at least this way I may survive to serve the Lady Elizabeth when her time comes to ascend the throne.’ Master Dee crossed himself delicately. ‘Until then, may Heaven forgive my sins, past, present and future.’

  ‘Amen.’ Robert glanced briefly at the door, then lowered his voice. ‘Have you heard from the princess? You keep a boy in her household, I believe. Your apprentice?’

  ‘Yes, Richard is loyal to me and sends me word of the Lady Elizabeth from time to time. And of her maid, Meg Lytton, who has some minor power in the dark arts.’

  I glared at him, unseen. Some minor power?

  But in my irritation I had missed something. Some brief look and whisper had passed between the other two at the table. Suddenly Robert Dudley was on his feet, following his wife to the door. She turned at once, speaking sharply under her breath. Robert tried to steer her back to her seat, and her eyes flashed fire at him.

  ‘Sit down, Amy,’ Robert said angrily. ‘Don’t make a fool out of me at Bonner’s table.’

  ‘You are in love with her!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Not here, in God’s name. Not here.’

  Glancing back at his former tutor, Robert Dudley bustled his wife out of the room, and I heard the couple arguing in the passageway beyond, still keeping their voices down even in anger as though such caution had become a habit.

  So all was not well between Robert Dudley and his wife Amy. This was news the princess would embrace. But what had caused their quarrel?

  You are in love with her!

  Had Amy guessed the reason for his interest in Elizabeth?

  ‘Meg? Is that you, Meg?’

  I turned, startled at the sound of my name.

  John Dee was standing too. I looked back at the fair-haired conjuror, baffled. He had turned some old parchment out of his pocket, a torn scrap on which I could see his own black spidery handwriting, and was unfolding it as though to show Robert when he returned.

  But to my amazement Dee’s eyes were on my face.

  ‘Meg Lytton?’ he whispered, then his strange gaze shifted and he looked past me, then around the room. ‘I sense a strange presence here. If there is a spirit with me, knock on the table to let me know you understand.’

  I raised my eyebrows. Knock on the table? I attempted to do as he asked, but my hand passed straight through, making no sound.

  ‘So much for that,’ I muttered, and was taken aback when he turned at once in my direction again, his handsome face questing.

  Could he hear me?

  ‘Meg,’ he whispered, fumbling with the paper in his hand. ‘If it is indeed you that I sense in this room, I received Richard’s letter – thank him for me – and have news in return for you.’ He tapped on it, waving the scrap in the air as though inviting me to take it. ‘Invictus. You see?’

  Invictus?

  I leaned over and looked at what he was waving. There was a drawing on the scrap of paper. A sketch of a ring, and beneath it the Latin word Invictus, underlined several times as if that was the ring’s name. He was tapping this word, and staring about the room.

  ‘Invictus,’ he repeated. His whisper became hoarse. ‘Only you must beware, it can be dangerous. If you begin to feel—’

  But I missed the rest.

  Something hit me hard on the side of the head, violently enough to turn the world black.

  ELEVEN

  Possession

  My eyes opened slowly. The world was blurred now, instead of black. That was an improvement at least. I was lying on the floor, back in the Lady Elizabeth’s bedchamber at Hatfield House. Everything appeared to be sideways, but when I attempted to right myself, my head throbbed like the Devil himself had struck it with his trident.

  I winced at the thunderclap of pain across my temples. My tongue felt like a dry piece of cloth rolled up inside my mouth, and when I tried to speak, the words came out wrong. ‘What . . . what juth happened?’

  ‘Don’t try to get up. Or speak.’

  Richard was kneeling before me, his face very pale. Gently he brushed the hair back from my forehead, dragged up my eyelids one by one, then examined my face with an intensity that frightened me.

  ‘Thank God,’ he muttered. ‘You are properly awake at last. I thought we would never get you back.’

  ‘So you hit me to make sure of it?’ I demanded indignantly.

  The Lady Elizabeth appeared behind him. She handed me a white handkerchief drenched in rosewater. ‘Richard did not strike you. We could not rouse you from your trance, though it has been nearly an hour since you last spoke. Your eyes were closed, and you were so still . . . then quite suddenly you fell over and woke up. That is all we know.’

  I looked at the floorboards accusingly. ‘So I did this to myself? I lost my balance and hit my head on the floor?’

  ‘You did.’ Richard leaned back with a strange expression. ‘But at least the shock brought you back. I had begun to worry we might lose you again. How do you feel? You look feverish.’

  The rosewater smelled wonderfully refreshing. ‘I’ll live,’ I managed, and lifted the damp handkerchief to my face, cooling my skin.

  To my surprise, I
found Richard was right. I was burning hot. There was a fine sheen of sweat on my forehead and neck, as though I had been sitting too close to a fire, and my cheeks were glowing. Yet one glance told me the fire in Elizabeth’s chamber had long since gone out.

  The tallow candle had also burned low in my absence, the chamber quiet and gloomy. I looked at it assessingly. Had I truly been ‘gone’ nearly an hour? My head was spinning, my heart thudding, and I felt sick. So this was what happened to the body after journeying too far in the mind.

  Elizabeth was impatient to hear my news. ‘Did you manage to see Robert? To speak with him, perhaps?’

  ‘I did not speak with Master Dudley,’ I muttered, and saw her face fall. ‘But I saw him, yes. And I also saw . . .’ I hesitated, glancing up at Richard. It felt strange to be here at Hatfield again, when seconds ago I had been standing in an unknown house many miles away. ‘Your master, John Dee. He says thank you for the letter, by the way.’

  ‘Does he now?’ he said drily.

  I almost smiled, but my head was hurting too much. ‘He was dining with Bishop Bonner tonight. The other guests were Master Robert Dudley and his wife.’

  Richard’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.

  ‘With his wife? And Bishop Bonner, you say?’ The princess crouched beside me in a rustle of heavy skirts, her face intent. ‘Are you sure it was he?’

  ‘Yes, the bishop was their host. It was a very fine house. Like a palace. I saw John Dee, Master and Mistress Dudley, and Bonner himself at the dinner table. They were discussing the Queen’s health.’

  She drew a sharp breath. ‘So my sister is unwell.’

  ‘Not any more, Dee said. She was sick, but has recovered. Then they talked of . . . of Master Cranmer’s burning.’ I glanced at Richard. My throat was parched. ‘Is there any wine? My mouth is like dust.’

  ‘Yes, poor Thomas Cranmer.’ The princess crossed herself, her voice cracking with pain. ‘I knew him all my life; he was a great churchman. Such a terrible death, burning. But my sister hated him, of course, so his arrest became inevitable once she took the throne.’ She saw my puzzled expression. ‘Thomas Cranmer was one of those who negotiated my father’s divorce from her mother.’

  Behind her, Richard was pouring me a cup of wine. I remembered the servant pouring wine for the bishop’s guests. My teeming brain seemed to jerk, and for an instant it felt as though I were back in that other space, watching them. Then I looked at the cup in my hand and could not recall how it got there.

  Richard, kneeling beside me, frowned. ‘Meg, your eyes went all blurred again. Are you still here with us?’

  I nodded, though the world was tilting slightly. I had lost time for a moment there. Gone somewhere else in my mind and not been able to control it.

  ‘Invictus,’ I muttered, remembering Master Dee’s warning.

  ‘Pardon?’

  It can be dangerous.

  I shook my head, struggling to put my thoughts together. What had I been saying?

  ‘Master Dudley did speak of you, my lady,’ I said huskily, and the princess sat down to listen, her face eager.

  Briefly I covered what the two men had discussed once Bishop Bonner had left the room. Then I attempted to describe, carefully prompted by Elizabeth, Robert Dudley’s clothes, how he had been wearing his hair, his voice, what he said, his expression at every point in the conversation, and in particular his questions about the princess.

  Finally I outlined Robert’s sudden argument with his wife. ‘She seemed very angry, as though she already knew about your . . . your friendship with her husband.’

  ‘But he denied it?’

  ‘I do not know. They spoke too quietly.’

  She nodded, looking pained, then abruptly hid her face in her hands. ‘Oh, this business is so awful. Master Dudley is a married man! I love him with all my heart, God knows that I do. But it is a most unnatural love, an impossible love, and I wish that I could rid myself of it.’

  I knew only too well how she felt.

  Elizabeth looked at me through the cage of her fingers, her eyes red-rimmed. ‘Oh, leave me. Go, both of you. It’s late and I need to be alone.’

  As we left, Elizabeth was picking up the miniature portrait from the floor where I had left it, her face pale and determined. I wondered if she would burn it, and the letter too, ridding herself of all possessions which reminded her of Robert Dudley.

  But of course she would not.

  In her position, would I burn a portrait of Alejandro just because he could never be mine?

  Richard squeezed my arm when we reached the small chamber I shared with Alice, stopping me when I would have gone inside.

  ‘Invictus,’ he said, repeating the word I had muttered in the princess’s chamber. ‘What did you mean by that?’

  ‘John Dee said it. There was a picture of my mother’s ring on a spare parchment, and he had written Invictus beneath it. He also said “It can be dangerous”, but I heard no more.’ I felt my sore head gingerly; there was a lump developing under my hair. ‘It’s Latin, of course. You know the word?’

  He nodded. ‘Unconquered.’

  ‘He said it to me, Richard. Master Dudley was not in the room at the time.’

  Richard stared at me, incredulous. ‘Master Dee saw you, you mean? He knew you were there and spoke to you?’

  ‘It sounds mad, I know. But it’s true.’

  ‘Or perhaps that bump on the head has affected your brain.’

  ‘So little faith in my magick. When your master’s next letter arrives, you will owe me an apology.’ But I touched his cheek lightly. I did not want him to think me ungrateful for his help. ‘You are a good friend, Richard. Thank you for being there tonight. I needed you.’

  His gaze became intense. ‘Any time, Meg. You only have to ask.’ He paused. ‘We will wait till tomorrow to set the new protective spells. You will need your wits about you for the work.’

  I looked along the dark corridor to Alejandro’s room. The door was closed but I had the feeling he was still awake, listening to our whispered conversation.

  ‘We’ll talk more in the morning. Right now I seem to be growing an egg on the side of my head. Goodnight, Richard.’

  The weather had changed, I realized, slipping quietly into the bedchamber I shared with Alice. It was a blustery night outside, the wind moaning around the house like a soul in torment. I kindled a candle, moving softly about the room.

  Gazing out through the gap in the shutters, I reached behind to loosen the lacings of my bodice. The moon was high. Clouds scudded across its white face, some smudged a dirty black, almost menacing.

  Unconquered.

  I frowned, the word worrying at me.

  I slipped out of my bodice, then removed my foreskirt, hanging it carefully over the back of the chair. There might be another meaning to Invictus, of course. Perhaps Alejandro would know; his Latin was superb.

  Still in my undershift, I knelt by my mother’s chest to put away the hazel wand, then felt for the ring in my pouch. That should go back into the chest too. I should not be carrying it about with me like this – it could too easily be lost . . . and Master Dee clearly thought it held some special significance. Invictus. For some reason I thought of my champion, Alejandro de Castillo, his sword drawn against the powers of evil.

  Before I could pull the ring out, a rustle behind me brought me round sharply. Alice was sitting up in bed, staring at me.

  ‘Did I wake you?’ I whispered, smiling. ‘Forgive me, Alice. It’s been a long evening. I will only be a moment.’

  My heart was thumping like a scared rabbit’s. God’s blood! I was so nervous these days, I was seeing attackers in every shadow. Wearily I dropped the ring back into my mother’s casket, closed the lid, then began to cast a slow protective circle about it. Tomorrow Richard and I would set a new circle around the house and grounds, and despite my misgivings I would still feel safer . . .

  Suddenly I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder, and turned, stari
ng into Alice’s white face.

  ‘You cannot hide from me,’ she told me coldly, her empty eyes boring into mine.

  Only it was not Alice’s voice.

  My body shook violently as I realized the trap I had walked into. I pushed the demon-creature away, stumbling backwards in my haste and knocking over the candle.

  The flame guttered on the rushes and was extinguished. Now we were standing in the pitch-black together, listening to the moan of the wind, this nameless fiend and I.

  In the silence, my breathing sounded loud and harsh to my ears. I clamped a hand over my mouth, struggling to breathe quietly, to listen for her breathing.

  I thought of escape, perhaps shouting for Richard or Alejandro. But I dismissed the idea. Alejandro was already wounded, and I did not want anyone else to be hurt on my account. Besides, she might be standing between me and the door. And instinct told me not to let her touch me again.

  My eyes adjusting to the dark, I caught a faint glimmer: Alice’s white nightgown moving as she turned her head, trying to locate me.

  Now was my chance.

  But even as I raised my hand to strike her down, I realized it could not be done. Not without hurting Alice. My friend was not my enemy. She was possessed. Just as Blanche had been in the old shepherd’s hut. And now I knew why. Because Richard had lowered the barrier of protective spells about this house, now it lay wide open to whatever evil spirit or fiend from Hell cared to enter it. And chief amongst my suspects must be Marcus Dent, a man who would stop at nothing to destroy me – before I could destroy him. Richard’s actions would have been as a gift to him. An invitation.

  Abruptly I changed my mind. And the spell with it.

  ‘Banish!’ I shouted in Latin instead, clapping my hands as loudly as I could.

  Alice dropped like a stone to the floor, a white flash in the darkness.

  I thought the thud must have been heard throughout the house, and waited in expectation of running feet along the corridor. But none came.

  I was on my own, it seemed.