by J. C. Hanna
Chapter Fourteen: The Face of Evil
Hatfield Palace, 17th November 1558
Dee edged lightly towards Heath and the Queen. As he neared the pair he was suddenly aware of footsteps from somewhere nearby. He glanced over his shoulder to find two demon men standing poised for action on the inside of the doorway. Dee and his Queen were well and truly trapped. He dragged a chair awkwardly towards the fireplace as he stalled for precious time in which to conjure a plan—the piece of furniture snagged a rug as Dee pressed down firmly on its low back as he pulled it into position. The delaying tactic was obvious, and it annoyed Heath greatly. The demon archbishop scowled disapprovingly.
Dee positioned the seat between the queen and Heath. He observed in a glance that the queen was gripping the coronation sceptre and orb. He had only ever seen the two objects in grand paintings of previous monarchs. A second glance offered more colour to his initial sketch. The hand about the sceptre was white with tension as she held the royal relic with the full extent of her might.
“My Lord Heath thought that it would be fun to hold a coronation, here and now. A macabre spectacle, to be sure,” explained the queen. “It would not be a proper royal execution, otherwise. If you have some anointing oil in your little bag, John, that would be most agreeable to our guest?”
“I can understand the need to follow protocol,” Dee said, contemptuously. “But let us not be too harried by thoughts of execution. There must surely be room for negotiation, my Lord?”
Dee turned to Heath. The vampire smiled coldly. The pale skin of the once holy man made his thin lips look even more black and bloody. Thin black veins beneath the pallid complexion twisted in a serpentine dance.
“Not even the great John Dee can talk his queen out of this destiny,” said Heath. “My Master has commanded the execution, and the execution will be carried out. The executions will be carried out. To dispatch both birds it was only ever necessary to trap one. And might I add, the task was disappointingly simple.”
Dee stood up with quiet confidence. Heath looked on with surprise, and with a small measure of alarm. The demon moved in a flash; from the seat to a position tight in behind the queen. He held a hand firmly to her throat.
“Dee,” said the queen, in an elevated tone of mild alarm. “I like this not.”
“Majesty,” Dee started. “I most humbly beg your pardon and your indulgence. This thing has come here to murder you; and it means to murder me into the bargain, for reasons that remain hidden. Why drag it out? Heath, the man, was an insufferable blowhard, and if this pale reflection now before us has as much to say for itself, I would prefer to meet my end sooner rather than later. I say, get on with your bloody business, man. Death is one thing, but torture by boredom would surely mark the highest point of cruelty? Even your master would be averse to such an unnecessary torment.”
“You would test me, sir?” Heath barked. “Would you force my hand? If that be your game, then I shall surely play.”
Heath’s facial features contorted and rippled into an unnatural horror. He moved swiftly to sink his teeth into the queen’s exposed neck.
“Wait!” Dee cried. “I know how to kill you, yet I have let you live. Surely such kindness and mercy deserve a moment of your time? I have shown you compassion. And death by boredom has suddenly taken on a much more pleasing aspect.”
Heath slowly moved away from the neck of the queen. The magician’s words had pricked the demon’s mind, inducing a moment of muddle. Some remnant of the human remained—the clever, scheming mind could not resist Dee’s words.
“I have already killed four of your kind this very night. If you do not step away from Her Majesty at an instant, that count shall rise to five. And then to seven,” Dee added, as he glanced towards the two vampires standing by the doorway.
Heath let out a sickly chortle.
“Your weapons are beyond reach,” Heath mocked. “I am the master of this game, from start to finish.”
“My sword is beyond reach,” Dee explained. “The holy water is beyond reach. But there are other weapons. Other means to your destruction.”
“Such as?” taunted Heath.
“Sunlight,” Dee said.
Heath smirked.
“And how do you propose to keep me occupied, and your queen alive, until the dawn?” Heath mocked. “Would you entertain us, hour after hour, with your tiresome parlour tricks until the coming of the sun?”
“I do not propose to keep you entertained until the dawn. I propose to bring the dawn to you.”
Dee closed his eyes. Through a barely audible mumble, he incanted. Eight orbs of light appeared in the room. The glass spheres quickly took up position in the air around the vampires. Heath looked at the glowing balls of light with amusement.
“A pretty illusion,” Heath said. “But of no consequence. Sunlight, not trick light, does for our kind. Your efforts have fallen short. For a man renowned for his formidable intellect, that must surely smart?”
Two orbs floating next to the vampires by the doorway exploded. The brilliant light from the explosions caused the creatures to instantly vanish in a flash of flame. Heath instinctively released the queen and he took shelter behind a nearby chair. When he stood clear of his hiding place, four orbs were hovering in the air about his head. His dark eyes observed the orbs with fixed terror.
“Silver, holy water, and sunlight,” said Dee, as he recalled, and then added to his list. “Is there anything that doesn’t kill vampires? As agents of evil, you are uniquely fragile. Perhaps your master would have been better served if he had sent a small child with a sharp stick to poke at my ankles?”
The queen stood up. She moved towards Heath at speed. Elizabeth wore a look of quiet determination as she acted. The coronation orb smashed into the side of the creature’s head with a nauseating, dull thud. Heath fell to the floor. Dee walked across to the fallen demon.
“No flames,” Dee mused. “It would appear that the furious retribution of a queen merely wounds the creatures.”
“When I am safely installed as monarch, I will do more than wound,” Elizabeth purred, with icy satisfaction.
Dee smiled warmly.
“Shall we send him to The Tower?” Elizabeth asked.
“I believe it would be safer to hold him here, away from the capital. We can say that he has been struck by the sweating sickness. Only a fool would come here to seek the truth in that lie.”
“And what of others? Vampires, I mean.”
“I take your meaning, Bess,” Dee said, through a smile.
“I see no humour in the matter, John,” said the Queen, in calm rebuke.
Dee continued to smile.
“John Dee, if I did not know better I would be inclined to suppose that you draw some pleasure from this deadly sport. Against the grain of your normal sensibilities, methinks. You have never once accepted an invitation to join me on the hunt for deer, yet these things have dragged your bloodlust kicking and screaming to the surface. I must confess to being a little impressed, and perhaps a little frightened? You simply must join me for some sport when we reach London.”
“If you propose a method by which hinds and stags are disposed to fight back, I will give your invitation serious consideration. As for the vampires; they are more easily dispatched than a half-drilled solider. I have no fear of them, and I am not a brave man. You should trust in that, Bess. I will keep you safe.”
“And if that bold promise should falter?”
“I will be by your side, always. If you die, then so do I. At least dead I will not have to face your ire for my failure. A fate worse than death.”
“And what of your family, John? The soon to be Lady Dee might devise a scheme for my demise if I take her husband from her, to act as my protector.”
“I will bring them to me. Young Arthur has taken to the sport of brick throwing in the walled garden of our home. His skills will be more than a match for these feeble foes.”
The Queen smiled.
“And how goes his mastery of the brick?”
“Not well, I fear. On the Sabbath past, he injured his head by the wanton throwing of a brick high up into the air, and not well avoiding the falling of it.”
Bess chuckled.
“He is a clever boy, John. Even with half the sense knocked from his head, he has twice the sense of most. Do send for your wife and all the little Dees. It will do no harm to show them off to your detractors. They can hardly call you devil-man while your happy brood plays about your feet.”
“When they are introduced to the brood they may call me much worse than devil. I look forward to presenting them to you, as their new queen, as well as to my ill-wishers. For now, ‘tis time for bed. Tomorrow my Princess steps onto the world stage as Queen of England. If you are unveiled refreshed and serene it will surely send out a clear signal to all those who would seek to attack you? Especially to the perverse mind that sent these creatures to your door?”
The queen retired to her bedchamber. Dee set about securing Heath with rope and chains in a subterranean pantry—the vampire floated on incanted wings of air to its temporary prison.
On the night that she became queen, and thanks to the murderous command of an unknown evil, there was not another living soul in the palace protecting Elizabeth, save her loyal sorcerer. Dee and the queen rested little, despite their good intentions to the contrary. By morning the palace was transformed. One hundred people, then two hundred, then five hundred—and so the throng grew until over one thousand courtiers, men at arms and dignitaries surrounded the royal person. Any one of them could have been a fresh assassin, but with so many others gifting her nothing but love and goodwill, their murderous task would have been all but impossible.
On the 23rd of November, 1558, Elizabeth and her court left Hatfield to begin the journey to London. The royal procession was heading towards more danger. The queen had acknowledged that danger, but with so many of her countrymen cheering her on as she travelled, she did feel more secure with each mile that passed.
Dee had tried every method open to him to get Heath to talk, including the threat to walk him into the sunlight; but the fiend remained mute on the matter of who his master was. Dee kept his deep concern regarding the anonymous intelligence behind the plot hidden from his queen.
As enthusiastic crowds lined the roads all the way to London, John Dee could not be found. A lonely crow kept watch over its queen from high up in the snow-laden sky.
Chapter Fifteen: Touched by Magic
England, 418 A.D.
Patrick’s grandfather, Rufus, was a well-respected, and much feared, priest of the church. The expectation was that one day Patrick would also enter the faith as a holy leader, and divinely appointed judge. The young Patrick had other ideas. Devotion to the faith seemed like a lot of hard work to Patrick, and it completely lacked all joy and adventure.
He longed for something less regimented. In the family home, there were many small statues of gods and goddesses of ancient Rome. His father viewed them as ornate relics of a foolish past—artistically intriguing, but spiritually bereft. Patrick knew the legend behind each of the figures and he was often to be found surrounded by a small group of companions, with a statue in hand, recounting a fantastical tale. It was a gigantic world in every sense—the buildings, the cities, the schools of high and mystical learning, and the heroes—they were all larger and better than anything that followed.
Patrick saw no adventure in the land of his birth, or in the religion that dominated it. That belief dramatically changed when he was a child. When on a pilgrimage to London with his grandfather, Patrick had an experience that turned all his indolent beliefs on their heads. The pair had made camp ten miles north of the great city. His grandfather set off to gather deadwood from a nearby forest. Patrick was left to unpack and arrange deerskins for their shelter. As the young Patrick stood back to admire the completed work he noticed something moving by the edge of the forest. It was a tiny streak of silver—stopping and starting, and never staying in one place long enough for Patrick to bring his eyes into proper focus on the source of the light. A slight shiver of fear ran through Patrick as he stood perfectly still and waited for the silvery object to return to his field of view. After a time, the fear lifted and Patrick drew on enough courage to venture into the woods in search of the tiny source of the illumination.
For almost an hour, and with the growing menace of the approaching night weighing heavily on his young mind, Patrick came to a large clearing. He took in a sharp breath—he did not know why, but he felt certain that the end to his quest was in that otherworldly looking place. Vindication quickly followed. Sitting in the clearing, partially hidden by a thicket of thorns, was the most beautiful little thing that he had ever laid eyes on.
The little thing took no notice of Patrick for the better part of ten minutes. When it finally turned its little head in Patrick’s direction, it appeared terrified. In a dazzling flash, the fairy vanished. Patrick’s heart sank—he feared the creature, yet he was compelled to see it again.
He hurried back through the forest as best he could, picking through, around and over the dangers hiding in the undergrowth, and cloaked by the failing light. He stumbled several times when his best was not good enough. As he reached the campsite the first thing that greeted him was the setting sun—it appeared from behind the clouds of a distant, summer thunderstorm, where it had been hiding for most of the late evening. Patrick turned his eyes to the orange-red fireball in the sky.
“Helius,” said Patrick, instinctively, and with a tone of devotion.
“What?” his Grandfather asked.
Patrick had not noticed the old man standing by the deerskin shelter when he first stumbled into the camp.
“Nothing, Grandfather,” Patrick replied. “I just… I just noticed the sun. Isn’t it beautiful?”
The old man looked towards the setting sun. He smiled, slightly.
“It is all that, my son. The Lord has truly blessed us. If only He would do something for my blistered feet, then my prayers this night would be fully answered.”
Patrick smiled as he nodded his head in agreement. The old man placed a hand on Patrick’s shoulder.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” his Grandfather asked.
“Grandfather?”
“In the forest?”
“Yes,” said Patrick, simply.
Patrick knew that if he told the old man what he had witnessed then his grandfather would be on his guard for the creature—all night, if weariness did not overcome him. The youth intuitively knew that the escapade had some way to go. He knew that he could learn much. He knew that there might be some risk. He knew that he simply had to find out more.
Chapter Sixteen: London
Tower of London, 14th January 1559
Elizabeth and her hundreds strong coronation court was installed at The Tower complex two days before she was to be anointed Queen at Westminster Abbey. As a royal palace, The Tower left a great deal to be desired—Elizabeth’s recently acquired, and rapidly increasing taste for the finer things of the princely world did not think highly of the brutal plainness of the castle fortress.
As a princess, she had spent some time at the palace-prison; incarcerated by order of her older sister—victim to Mary’s paranoid fears regarding Elizabeth’s intentions. The royal apartments that she occupied on the eve of her coronation were much more comfortable than the cold, meanly furnished room that she had to endure as a prisoner. Her change in circumstances and the fawning treatment that she now received did little to quell the unease that the fortress instilled in her. It was a place of suffering, and of lies, and of death; and around every corner lurked the spirits of the wrongly condemned, and of the justly punished.
On the eve of her coronation, before arriving at The Tower for the final time as un-anointed Queen, she had spent the day touring the city to the sound of cheering crowds, trumpets, and celebratory gunfire. Dressed in purple velvet fro
m head to toe, and wearing the crown of a princess, she met with the great, and with the not so great, with equal kindness and acceptance.
By the time she returned to her apartments she was exhausted. The night had closed in quickly and a fine, cold rain was falling. A roaring fire was waiting for her in the room that was temporarily transformed into a study. State papers awaited her attention on a desk that was much too large for the room. In an anteroom, an unseen musician plucked merrily on a harp. She had given instructions that she was not to be disturbed until she had finished with the papers—the last thing that she needed following such an exhausting day was the men of the Privy Council trying to pull her mind this way and that over the most mundane matters.
As she sat down behind the desk, she sighed. She mistrusted so many of her officials that she had given instructions that all state papers had to be approved by her. It was an easy command to issue, but it was a command that was blind to the complex reality of the task. Six stout piles of unread documents awaited her consideration. A dozen blocks of red wax sat in a neat pile next to the papers; and next to the wax, her newly carved seal sat passively, awaiting fruitful employment.
She sighed again. Her eyes alighted on a single sheet of parchment that was carefully laid out on the centre of the desk. John Dee’s astrological chart had been commissioned to ensure the selection of the most auspicious date for her coronation; according to the celestial bodies, and not the will of men—from high cleric to chief counsel, all urged a date that suited their purpose, and none matched the date offered by Dee. She trusted her magician above the others.
She understood, or at least recognised, some of the zodiac symbols and other signs on the page; but the perfectly straight lines that crisscrossed the chart seemed so random that she wondered how Dee could discern any meaning from the chaos. That he could see some sense in the chart was enough for her.
She leaned back into the chair. Regretting in that moment the order to view all state papers, she found great comfort in the fact that now, as queen, she could change her mind, and change her order, at whim. A sense of quiet contentment settled upon her. The mild euphoria drained instantly when the musician began to play Greensleeves. The song had been written by her father, Henry when he was courting her mother.