The Armor of Light

by Melissa Scott

  Sidney bowed again, this time in genuine apology. “True, my lord. I’d be grateful for your advice.” His smile was rueful, and filled with very real regret. Can I help it, my lord, if your candor makes me uneasy? his eyes asked.

  Despite his mild annoyance, Burleigh found himself smiling back at the younger man, once again charmed by the graceful flattery. And Sidney was a master of theapt gesture, the minister added silently, there was no mistaking that. He cleared his throat, putting aside such considerations. “In 1590 and in 1591, a coven of hedge-witches, as you call them, attempted first to drown the Scots king’s bride as she sailed back from Norway, and then, more directly, attempted to destroy the king himself by means of their witchcraft. That is undisputed. What is less clear is precisely how the factions at the court were using these witches, or their supposed master, the Earl of Bothwell.” Sidney frowned—the name was familiar. Burleigh shook his head.

  “A distant cousin of the one Queen Mary married, but no less troublesome.” He paused, ordering his thoughts. “There are three great parties at the Scottish court—or perhaps I should say that there are two factions, and the king’s party. First, and still most powerful, are the ultra-Protestants—lowland gentry, most of them, with the preachers and the presbyters and, of course, most of the king’s own kinsmen, who would like to see his powers restricted.” Burleigh broke off, to eye Sidney warily. He knew perfectly well that the younger man’s puritan views were in large part based on the logic of a scholar, and shared none of the excesses of Geneva, but in Sidney’s present mood, the younger man might well choose to champion his supposed co-religionists. “Bothwell—and his kin—have always sided with that faction, or so it’s rumored.”

  To the minister’s pleased surprise, however, Sidney nodded thoughtfully. “Odd bedfellows—but that’s what they say of politics, isn’t it? Still, I’m surprised the preachers—presbyters, you called them?—would countenance traffic with the dark powers.”

  “They don’t,” Burleigh answered, ignoring the question. He felt certain Sidney, of all men, understood the theological distinction between the preachers, who would accept Luther’s view of the church as subordinate to the secular authority, and the presbyters, who sought to make the church’s council of the elect the supreme political authority as well. “They merely share the same ends: to wit, the destruction of the royal authority. Should they win, of course, there would be quite a falling-out, what with the nobles wishing to use the presbyters, and the presbyters wishing to tame the nobles.” He smiled dryly. “It would be something of a revelation to all concerned.”

  Sidney snorted. “So there we have the ultra-Protestants,” he said, after a moment. “You spoke of other factions—the Papists?”

  Burleigh nodded. “They have a finger in most things. There’s the Spanish, of course—still looking to make trouble here—and then the French have always had strong ties with Scotland.” He frowned thoughtfully, tugging at his beard. “Of the two, I’ve always thought we stood in more danger from the French, what with Queen Mary’s pretended claim to the English throne, but the French are still weak, thank God, and they still hate the Spanish. James will not risk an open alliance there, for fear of losing his French support, or his English gold.”

  “English gold?” Sidney asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Burleigh tugged at his beard again, smiling now. “We’ve given young James four thousand pounds a year for nine years now, and it’s proved a worthwhile investment.” He seemed to become aware for the first time of Sidney’s slightly shocked expression, and shrugged slightly. “It’s kept him out of the Spanish king’s pay, certainly, and was cheaper than maintaining an army on the northern borders when we needed all our men at home. In any case, as I said, it’s not the foreign Catholics that worry me. A goodly number of the northern earldoms are Catholic still—and that’s mountain land, hard to subdue even if James dared move against them openly. They’d like to manage the king, too, just like their Protestant cousins.”

  “I see,” Sidney said, “or at least I’m beginning to.” Catholic against Protestant, king against noble, faction against faction: he had seen that sort of civil warfare before, had seen its ugliest manifestation one August night in Paris, when the streets had literally run with blood, and any man’s life was forfeit at the cry of “Huguenot.” The English ambassador and his household had barred their doors and knelt in helpless, angry prayer, unable to do anything to help their murdered brethren. In the morning, the Seine had been over its banks, the bridges choked with corpses. Sidney shivered at the memory.

  Burleigh smiled thinly. “Nothing so subtle, Philip—and I use the word advisedly—or so all-encompassing. The commonalty are hardly involved at all; this is a matter between the king and his nobles, nothing more.”

  “Except faith,” Sidney said.

  “Which is entangled with a much older quarrel,” Burleigh answered. Sidney nodded slowly, accepting the other’s judgment, and Burleigh went on, “Since the king has come of age, there’s been a third party in the realm, though it’s by far the weakest because James is weak.”

  “His favorites,” Sidney said.

  Burleigh smiled thinly. “Quite. Though it’s been ten years since James picked his councillors solely for their beauty.”

  That did not fit all the stories Sidney had heard of the Scottish court, but he said nothing, and waited for the minister to continue.

  After a moment, Burleigh sighed. “It’s a pity,” he said, “that they drove Maitland out of office. He was a man we could rely on—and he would have helped you, it would have paid him to help you. Why in God’s name did he have to meddle with that Moray nonsense?”

  A snatch of music sounded in Sidney’s mind, a ballad he had heard from a wandering musician whom Fulke Greville had briefly housed the last time Sidney had visited Warwickshire.

  Ye highlands and ye lowlands

  Oh where hae ye been?

  They have slain the Earl of Moray

  And have laid him on the green

  “The Earl of Moray was murdered,” he said aloud, frowning slightly. “Wasn’t he? And by treachery.”

  “Yes.” Burleigh fixed the younger man with another of his sudden glares. “It’s a good object lesson in the manner in which things are done in Scotland, Philip. The earl of Bothwell attacked the royal palace of Holyrood, attempting to break through to the king’s apartments. He was driven off, but the first nobleman whom James commissioned to capture him—such commissions are called letters of fire and sword, by the way—promptly joined the rebels. As this seemed to be a typical move on the part of the ultra-Protestants, James made his usual response. He turned to the Catholics, to the earl of Huntly, to be precise, and gave him letters of fire and sword against Bothwell. Huntly promptly used those letters to murder his old enemy Moray.”

  “Good God,” Sidney said. It was beginning to be borne in on him that court life in Scotland was nothing like the courts of the rest of Europe. Perhaps only in Poland were the nobles still so disrespectful of a monarch’s rights—and I, he thought, with an inward smile, turned down my opportunity to learn from them. “And was this Maitland involved?”

  Burleigh shrugged. “Possibly. Had I been in his shoes, I would have wanted Moray dead. But, more to the point, the removal of the most competent of James’s councillors was the price the Scottish Parliament asked for acting against the Catholic earls.”

  “I see.”

  “I hope so,” Burleigh said. Startlingly, his acid tone shifted, modulating into something more kindly—and that, Sidney thought, worries me the most of all. The sordid story of Moray’s death is bad enough, but I think what led up to it bothers me more. Bothwell—who may or may not be a witch himself, but who certainly employs witches—storming a royal palace and getting away with it . . .

  “Philip, I don’t deny that you know far more than I’ll ever learn about matters arcane. However, the court of Scotland is another thing entirely—nothing like England, thank God, or France
even at its worst, or even Germany. I couldn’t let you go without trying to make you understand that difference.”

  Sidney nodded slowly. “I am grateful to you, my lord, I promise you. I’ll try to bear it all in mind while I thread my way through the swamps of Scottish politics. There is one thing I’d like to know, however.”

  Burleigh spread his hands. “Whatever I can tell you, my boy.”

  “Bothwell. Is he a wizard?”

  Burleigh’s answer came very slowly. “I don’t know. It is whispered that he is, of course, but he may merely employ them, the way he employed the witches. My guess would be that he is not—what Scot of noble birth would take the trouble to learn something that a hireling could do as well?—but I don’t really know. I’m afraid —I’ll have to leave you to answer that question, Philip.”

  Sidney made a face, but nodded. He had not really expected Burleigh to be able to give him a definite answer. For a moment, the memory of the presence he had felt at Penshurst swam in his mind. It could have been Bothwell, he supposed, but the malevolence had felt wider, concerned with more than politics. “I’ll do my best,” he said. “And again, thank you, my lord, for your advice.”

  “I could hardly let you go north in your present state of ignorance,” Burleigh said tartly. His voice softened again. “But God go with you, Philip. You’ll be in my prayers.”

  “Thank you,” Sidney said again, and added silently, I may need them.

  The minister pushed himself to his feet, wincing a little as the movement jarred old bones. Sidney rose with him, wishing he dared offer a supporting hand. “Will you be returning to your brother’s house?”

  Sidney shook his head. “Not just yet. I thought—or, to be more precise, her Majesty strongly suggested—that I visit Dr. Dee.”

  Burleigh nodded. “A wise decision. You will forgive me, Philip, if I don’t walk with you to the dock.”

  It was dismissal, though a polite one. Sidney bowed. “Of course, my lord.”

  Another page was waiting at the entrance to the garden. He bowed as Sidney approached, then led the older man back toward the long dock, his brocaded back stiff with self-importance. Sidney managed to suppress the desire to slap him into a more modest carriage, but handed him the shilling tip with the acid comment, “Good manners are cheap enough, boy. Should suffice.”

  Chapter Three

  Charming is in as great request as physic, and charmers more sought unto than physicians in time of need.

  William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft

  The barge-master made no comment on the long pull upriver to Mortlake, and even the oarsmen seemed surprisingly content. Sidney leaned back against the fancy cushions, trying to make sense of everything he had been told. Scottish politics … They were in essence depressingly familiar, revolving around issues that he knew only too well, though their manifestations seemed cruder than the methods to which he was used. He tried briefly to imagine a courtier breaking into the queen’s chambers with sword drawn, and failed completely. Elizabeth would—no, the idea was too absurd to be contemplated for more than a moment. And yet such incidents seemed to be a normal part of Scottish politics, he thought, and our next king will be used to that. On the other hand, James has survived it. I trust that’s some indication of his abilities.

  Scottish witchcraft, though … Sidney sighed deeply. That was another matter entirely, and one that made him thoroughly uneasy. After all, he was primarily a theoretician—the practice of the art had always seemed of less importance than an understanding of the laws that constrained and compelled its workings. If he was to be of any use to James—and to Elizabeth, and England—he would have to overcome that handicap very quickly. At least Dee will be able to advise me there, he thought, and found the idea newly comforting.

  Dee’s house lay along the river bend, with a long tree-lined park that stretched down to the river’s edge. The barge-master brought the unwieldy boat up against the little dock—the barge, court length, was too long for it by almost a yard—and the forward oarsman leaped out to secure the mooring ropes. Sidney disembarked more slowly, grateful for the barge-master’s support.

  The barge’s arrival had been observed from the house —probably, Sidney thought, Dee’s family had been watching its stately progress from the moment it came around the gentle curve—and a little procession was already corning across the park to meet him, led by Dee’s wife. She moved slowly now, supported by her stepdaughter, the child of Dee’s first wife, and Sidney hurried forward to meet her, taking both her hands in an impulsive greeting. “Madam, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  Jane Dee smiled, dropping an awkward curtsey. She had never quite recovered from the poverty-stricken years in which she had followed her husband across Europe, seeking the philosopher’s stone. “We’re always glad to see you, Sir Philip.” Her son, Arthur, murmured a shy greeting from his mother’s side. “John wishes you to go in to him at once, and not stand on ceremony.”

  “Of course, ma’am,” Sidney answered, but matched his pace to her own. They made polite conversation as they crossed the lawn: there were new grandchildren to be mentioned; Arthur had begun his studies at the university, and there was a suitor for the youngest of the daughters, a respectable young man with a decent living. Then they had reached the doorway, and Dee himself came forward, smiling.

  He welcomed his guest eagerly; with the long grey gown hanging loose on his thin body, he reminded Sidney incongruously of a nervous ferret—harmless looking, easy to underestimate. Certainly he was undervalued, Sidney thought, but gave no sign of that ancient discontent.

  “Forgive this intrusion, Doctor,” he began, and followed Dee down the paneled hallway toward the library at the back of the house.

  “Intrusion? I won’t have you use that word, Sir Philip, not in my house.”

  Sidney reached out and plucked at the old man’s sleeve. Dee stopped obediently, turning a blandly curious face to his former student.

  “I fear I’ve displeased you, doctor,” Sidney said. “Why else this sudden formality?”

  “You come from her majesty, my son,” Dee answered. “I feared it might be Sir Philip who came to me.”

  Sidney’s mouth twisted. As a rebuke, it was the gentlest imaginable, and more than a little deserved. Twenty years ago, he had pursued success at court much as Apollo had pursued Daphne. Then he had learned that both he and the queen found it more amusing, every now and then, not to run with or even against the popular currents, but across them. From that time, he had achieved success, but not precisely in the form he had once sought it. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t presume so far—particularly when I need your help.”

  “You’re her champion.” It was not clear whether Dee intended that as dismissal or reassurance.

  Sidney bent his head. “A great honor that intrigues and terrifies me, doctor. I am her champion in the Accession Day lists. This is something more. She told me somewhat—but I would like to hear from you precisely what you saw, and what you think of this assignment.”

  Dee sighed, and opened the door to his study. “Incredible, Philip. Burleigh thought so, completely incredible, but, God be thanked, her majesty believes, and recognized in you the man to deal with this horror.”

  Sidney felt a chill touch him, and sank gratefully into the waiting chair at Dee’s absent invitation. Everything he had sensed so far had been vague, disturbing, but not actively threatening. Horror was not a word he had yet applied to it—but then, he was not John Dee. “She said something about a king of England slain by the people of England. Is this so?”

  “It may be so. It is what the spirits showed me. A king Of England, a Stuart king, executed in a mockery of law, and by Parliament.”

  Sidney shook his head, massaging the residual stiffness from his leg. The dull pain was almost comfortable, compared with the images both Dee and Elizabeth had conjured for him. “And I?” he asked carefully.

  Dee smiled across at his former
pupil. “The ceremonies commemorating Gloriana’s accession are no mere pomp, Philip, as you well know. Therefore the champion of those lists must be no mere knight, but a knight versed in ceremonies and actions, symbols and realities. Such a one as yourself, in fact—why else would Sir Henry have chosen you to follow him as Champion? When he asked my advice, I told him so, speaking of course as your teacher.” His smile grew rather wistful. “Though you had long passed that point. Nor would I trust even the dearest of my pupils with this.”

  He rose, and moved along the rows of books until he found the one he wanted, then drew it from its place. He turned to Sidney, holding out the squat volume. “Take it, Philip,” he said. “Scotland is a land in the grip of a dark hand. Great though Virgil was, he was not completely brought into the light. And even though this is not so great a text as that—you may use it in complete peace of your soul.”

  Sidney, wondering, took the book offered him. It was only a few hundred years old, but far more fragile that the exquisitely preserved scrolls at Penshurst; the foxed pages still carried the faint pen-lines of some scribe’s exuberant embellishments, scrolls and flowers and tiny creatures decorating the faded margins. “The Book of Saint Dunstan,” he said softly. He looked up at Dee. “It’s a gift I’m unworthy of, doctor.”

  Dee’s long face twisted. “Don’t do me that injustice, Philip. I know I’m still appallingly naive in many matters dealing with mankind. But in you, I’m not mistaken. I know what I do. Take it with my blessings, and carry them with you to Scotland.”

  Sidney looked down at the book, his fingers gently stroking the worn wooden cover. It was almost indelicate, the feeling within him at holding this almost legendary book. It was primarily an alchemical treatise, though it contained far more; Sidney had thought it among the many books that had been lost, or had never existed. All talent is a form of alchemy, he thought. Lord, how much more I can learn … He looked up, controlling his pleasure. “I shall bring it back to you, doctor.”