Murder by Magic

by Rosemary Edghill

  “Yet the other two gave no indication of this exalted status. In fact, they were also surprised when we told them how clean you were.” On those last two words, Danthres turned to the chair. “In fact, the couch opined that that was why your poor, lovesick boy stuck around after Efrak’s death. And why you two were talking.”

  “That’s—that’s ridiculous,” the chair stammered. “I would never lie like that.”

  “Unless you had good reason,” Torin said.

  “Or a shallow one,” Danthres added. “Like a promise to clean you up in exchange for lying to us about how Efrak died.”

  “Shallow?” The chair now sounded indignant. “You think it’s shallow to ask for once—just once—to be treated with respect? To actually scrape off the food that dates back to the reign of Chalmraik the Foul? To not leave eight pounds of scrolls on top of my cushions? To maybe sit on me every once in a while instead of treating me no different than the table? I’m a chair—my function is to be sat on, not used as a receptacle for some stupid old man’s garbage.”

  “So the boy did kill him?” Torin asked.

  “It was an accident, but yes. They got into a shoving match, and Efrak fell down and broke his fool neck. And you know what? I’m glad that old fool’s dead! The man had no respect for us! None! And it wasn’t just me, you know—but those other two were just so grateful to be animated they let him walk all over them. How he treated the poor lantern—a disgrace, an absolute disgrace, keeping a lantern in the dark like that.”

  “We’re going to need a full description of the boy,” Torin said after a moment. “Then I’m afraid we’ll have to turn you over to the Brotherhood of Wizards.”

  At that, Danthres turned to Torin. “What for? Why not just put him in a cell here? He did cover up a crime.”

  “Yes,” the chair said in a panic, “why not in a cell here? The Brotherhood’ll probably deanimate me or something. I don’t want to die!”

  “Besides, the Brotherhood gave us jurisdiction,” Danthres said. “So it’s up to our magistrate, not them, to decide what to do with him.”

  “I’ll be a model prisoner!” the chair put in. “In fact, it’ll be heavenly—people will actually use me to sit on for once.”

  Torin shook his head and smiled. “Fine, we won’t turn him over.”

  “Oh,” the chair said, “and the boy’s name is Brant. He lives a few blocks from Efrak’s house. He came by a few times, actually, and always talked to me. Very nice boy—short blond hair in a ponytail, brown eyes, and a thick full beard.”

  Torin gazed at the chair, then turned to Danthres. “So much for our accurate description.”

  “I’ll have Garis pick him up,” Danthres said. Then she sighed deeply. “I really hate magic.”

  PART V

  Murder Most Historical

  The Necromancer’s Apprentice

  Lillian Stewart Carl

  Lillian Stewart Carl finds herself inventing her own genre, mystery/fantasy/romance with historical underpinnings. Her work often features paranormal themes. It always features plots based on history and archaeology. She enjoys exploring the way the past lingers on in the present, especially in the British Isles, where she’s visited many times.

  Lillian has lived for many years in North Texas, in a book-lined cloister cleverly disguised as a tract house. She is a member of SFWA, Sisters in Crime, Novelists Inc., and the Authors Guild. Her Web site is http://www.lillianstewartcarl.com.

  Robert Dudley, master of the Queen’s horses, was a fine figure of a man, as long of limb and imperious of eye as one of his equine charges. And like one of his charges, his wrath was likely to leave an innocent passerby with a shattered skull.

  Dudley reached the end of the gallery, turned, and stamped back again, the rich fabrics of his clothing rustling an accompaniment to the thump of his boots. Erasmus Pilbeam shrank into the window recess. But he was no longer an innocent passerby, not now that Lord Robert had summoned him.

  “You beetle-headed varlet!” His Lordship exclaimed. “What do you mean he cannot be recalled?”

  Soft answers turn away wrath, Pilbeam reminded himself. “Dr. Dee is perhaps in Louvain, perhaps in Prague, researching the wisdom of the ancients. The difficulty lies not only in discovering his whereabouts but also in convincing him to return to England.”

  “He is my old tutor. He would return at my request.” Again Lord Robert marched away down the gallery, the floor creaking a protest at each step. “The greatness and suddenness of this misfortune so perplexes me that I shall take no rest until the truth is known.”

  “The inquest declared your lady wife’s death an accident, my lord. At the exact hour she was found deceased in Oxfordshire, you were waiting upon the Queen at Windsor. You could have had no hand—”

  “Fact has never deterred malicious gossip. Why, I have now been accused of bribing the jurors. God’s teeth! I cannot let this evil slander rest upon my head. The Queen has sent me from the court on the strength of it!” Robert dashed his fist against the padded back of a chair, raising a small cloud of dust, tenuous as a ghost.

  A young queen like Elizabeth could not be too careful what familiar demonstrations she made. And yet, this last year and a half, Lord Robert had come so much into her favor, it was said that Her Majesty visited him in his chamber day and night . . . No, Pilbeam assured himself, that rumor was noised about only by those who were in the employ of Spain. And he did not for one moment believe that the Queen herself had ordered the disposal of Amy Robsart, no matter how many wagging tongues said that she had done so. Still, Lord Robert could hardly be surprised that the malicious world now gossiped about Amy’s death, when he had so neglected her life.

  “I must find proof that my wife’s death was either chance or evil design on the part of my enemies. The Queen’s enemies.”

  Or, Pilbeam told himself, Amy’s death might have been caused by someone who fancied himself the Queen’s friend.

  Lord Robert stalked back up the gallery and scrutinized Pilbeam’s black robes and close-fitting cap. “You have studied with Dr. Dee. You are keeping his books safe whilst he pursues his researches in heretical lands.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “How well have you learned your lessons, I wonder?”

  The look in Lord Robert’s eye, compounded of shrewd calculation and ruthless pride, made Pilbeam’s heart sink. “He has taught me how to heal illness. How to read the stars. The rudiments of the alchemical sciences.”

  “Did he also teach you how to call and converse with spirits?”

  “He—ah—mentioned to me that such conversation is possible.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Formerly, it was held that apparitions must be spirits from purgatory, but now that we know purgatory to be only papist myth, it must be that apparitions are demonic, angelic, or illusory. The devil may deceive man into thinking he sees ghosts or . . .” Pilbeam gulped. The bile in his throat tasted of the burning flesh of witches.

  “An illusion or deception will not serve me at all. Be she demon or angel, it is Amy herself who is my best witness.”

  “My—my—my lord . . .”

  Robert’s voice softened, velvet covering his iron fist. “I shall place my special trust in you, Dr. Pilbeam. You will employ all the devices and means you can possibly use for learning the truth. Do you understand me?”

  Only too well. Pilbeam groped for an out. “My lord, whilst the laws regarding the practice of magic are a bit uncertain just now, still Dr. Dee himself, as pious a cleric as he may be, has been suspected of fraternizing with evil spirits. My lord Robert, if you intend such a, er, perilous course of action as, well, necromancy . . . ah, may I recommend either Edward Cosyn or John Prestall, who are well known in the city of London.”

  “Ill-nurtured cozeners, the both of them! Their loyalty is suspect, their motives impure. No. If I cannot have Dr. Dee, I will have his apprentice.”

  For a moment Pilbeam considered a sudden change in pr
ofession. His beard was still brown, his step firm—he could apprentice himself to a cobbler or a baker and make an honest living without dabbling in the affairs of noblemen, who were more capricious than any spirit. He made one more attempt to save himself. “I am honored, my lord. But I doubt that it is within my powers to raise your . . . er, speak with your wife’s shade.”

  “Then consult Dr. Dee’s books, you malmsey-nosed knave, and follow your instructions.”

  “But, but . . . there is the possibility, my lord, that her death was neither chance nor villainy, but caused by disease.”

  “Nonsense. I was her husband. If she had been ill, I’d have known.”

  Not when you were not there to be informed, Pilbeam answered silently. Aloud he said, “Perhaps, then, she was ill in her senses, driven to, to . . .”

  “To self-murder? Think, varlet! A fall down the stairs could no more be relied upon by a suicide than by a murderer. She was found at the foot of the staircase, her neck broken but her headdress still secure upon her head. That is hardly a scene of violence.”

  Pilbeam found it furtively comforting that Lord Robert wanted to protect his wife’s reputation from hints of suicide . . . Well, her reputation was his as well. The sacrifice of a humble practitioner of the magical sciences—now, that would matter nothing to him. Pilbeam imagined His Lordship’s face amongst those watching the mounting flames, a face contemptuous of his failure.

  “Have no fear, Dr. Pilbeam, I shall reward you well for services rendered.” Lord Robert spun about and walked away. “Amy was buried at St. Mary’s, Oxford. Give her my respects.”

  Pilbeam opened his mouth, shut it, swallowed, and managed a weak “Yes, my lord,” which bounced unheeded from Robert’s departing back.

  The spire of St. Mary’s, Oxford, rose into the nighttime murk like an admonitory finger pointing to heaven. Pilbeam had no quarrel with that admonition. He hoped its author would find no quarrel with his present endeavor.

  He withdrew into the dark, fetid alley and willed his stomach to stop grumbling. He’d followed Dr. Dee’s instructions explicitly, preparing himself with abstinence, continence, and prayer made all the more fervid for the peril in which he found himself. And surely, the journey on the muddy November roads had sufficiently mortified his flesh. He was ready to summon spirits, be they demons or angels.

  The black lump beside him was no demon. Martin Molesworth, his apprentice, held the lantern and the bag of implements. Pilbeam heard no stomach rumblings from the lad, but he could enforce Dr. Dee’s directions only so far as his own admonitory fist could reach. “Come along,” he whispered. “Step lively.”

  Man and boy scurried across the street and gained the porch of the church. The door squealed open and thudded shut behind them. “Light,” ordered Pilbeam.

  Martin slid aside the shutter concealing the candle and lifted the lantern. Its hot-metal tang dispelled the usual odors of a sanctified site—incense, mildew, and decaying mortality. Pilbeam pushed Martin toward the chancel. Their steps echoed, drawing uneasy shiftings and mutterings from amongst the roof beams. Bats or swallows, Pilbeam hoped.

  Amy Robsart had been buried with such pomp, circumstance, and controversy that only a few well-placed questions had established her exact resting place. Now Pilbeam contemplated the flagstones laid close together behind the altar of the church, and extended his hand for his bag.

  Martin was gazing upward, to where the columns met overhead in a thicket of stone tracery, his mouth hanging open. “You mewling knotty-pated scullion!” Pilbeam hissed, and snatched the bag from his limp hands. “Pay attention!”

  “Yes, master.” Martin held the lantern whilst Pilbeam arranged the charms, the herbs, and the candles he dare not light. With a bit of charcoal he drew a circle with four divisions and four crosses. Then, his tongue clamped securely between his teeth, he opened the book he’d dared bring from Dr. Dee’s collection and began to sketch the incantatory words and signs.

  If he interpreted Dee’s writings correctly—the man set no examples in penmanship—Pilbeam did not need to raise Amy’s physical remains. A full necromantic apparition was summoned for consultation about the future, whereas what he wished was to consult about the past. Surely, this would not be as difficult a task. “Laudetur Deus Trinus et unus,” he muttered, “nunc et in sempiterna seculorum secula . . .”

  Martin shifted, and a drop of hot wax fell onto Pilbeam’s wrist. “Beslubbering gudgeon!”

  “Sorry, master.”

  Squinting in the dim light, Pilbeam wiped away one of his drawings with the hem of his robe and tried again. There. For a moment he gazed appreciatively at his handiwork, then took a deep breath. His stomach gurgled.

  Pilbeam dragged the lad into the center of the circle and jerked his arm upward so the lantern would illuminate the page of his book. He raised his magical rod and began to speak the words of the ritual. “I conjure thee by the authority of God Almighty, by the virtue of heaven and the stars, by the virtue of the angels, by that of the elements. Domine, Deus meus, in te speravi. Damahil, Pancia, Mitraton . . .”

  He was surprised and gratified to see a sparkling mist begin to stream upward from between the flat stones just outside the circle. Encouraged, he spoke the words even faster.

  “. . . to receive such virtue herein that we may obtain by thee the perfect issue of all our desires, without evil, without deception, by God, the creator of the sun and the angels. Lamineck. Caldulech. Abracadabra.”

  The mist wavered. A woman’s voice sighed, desolate.

  “Amy Robsart, Lady Robert Dudley, I conjure thee.”

  Martin’s eyes bulged and the lantern swung in his hand, making the shadows of column and choir stall surge sickeningly back and forth. “Master . . .”

  “Shut your mouth, hedgepig!” Pilbeam ordered. “Amy Robsart, I conjure thee. I beseech thee for God his sake, et per viscera misericordiae Altissimi, that thou wouldst declare unto us misericordiae Dei sint super nos.”

  “Amen,” said Martin helpfully. His voice leaped upward an octave.

  The mist swirled and solidified into the figure of a woman. Even in the dim light of the lantern Pilbeam could see every detail of the revenant’s dress, the puffed sleeves, the stiffened stomacher, the embroidered slippers. The angled wings of her headdress framed a thin, pale face, its dark eyes too big, its mouth too small, as though Amy Robsart had spent her short life observing many things but fearing to speak of them. A fragile voice issued from those ashen lips. “Ah, woe. Woe.”

  Pilbeam’s heart was pounding. Every nerve strained toward the doors of the church and through the walls to the street outside. “Tell me what happened during your last hours on earth, Lady Robert.”

  “My last hours?” She dissolved and solidified again, wringing her frail hands. “I fell. I was walking down the stairs and I fell.”

  “Why did you fall, my lady?”

  “I was weak. I must have stumbled.”

  “Did someone push you?” Martin asked, and received the end of Pilbeam’s rod in his ribs.

  Amy’s voice wavered like a set of ill-tempered bagpipes. “I walked doubled over in pain. The stairs are narrow. I fell.”

  “Pain? You were ill?”

  “A spear through my heart and my head so heavy I could barely hold it erect.”

  A light flashed in the window, accompanied by a clash of weaponry. The night watch. Had someone seen the glow from the solitary lantern? Perhaps the watchmen were simply making their rounds and contemplating the virtues of bread and ale. Perhaps they were searching for miscreants.

  With one convulsive jerk of his scrawny limbs, Martin scooped the herbs, the charms, the candles, even the mite of charcoal, back into the bag. He seized the book and cast it after the other items. Pilbeam had never seen him move with such speed and economy of action. “Stop,” he whispered urgently. “Give me the book. I have to . . .”

  Martin was already wiping away the charcoaled marks. Pilbeam brought his rod down on the l
ad’s arm, but it was too late. The circle was broken. A sickly-sweet breath of putrefaction made the candle gutter. The woman-shape, the ghost, the revenant, ripped itself into pennons of color and shadow. With an anguished moan those tatters of humanity streamed across the chancel and disappeared down the nave of the church.

  Pulling on the convenient handle of Martin’s ear, Pilbeam dragged the lad across the chancel. His hoarse whisper repeated a profane litany: “Earth-vexing dewberry, spongy rump-fed skainsmate, misbegotten tickle-brained whey-faced whoreson, you prevented me from laying the ghost back in its grave!”

  “Sorry, master, ow, ow . . .”

  The necromancer and his apprentice fled through the door of the sacristy and into the black alleys of Oxford.

  Cumnor Place belonged not to Lord Robert Dudley, but to one of his cronies. If Pilbeam ever wished to render his own wife out of sight and therefore out of mind, an isolated country house such as Cumnor, with its air of respectable disintegration, would serve very well. Save that his own wife’s wrath ran a close second to Lord Robert’s.

  What a shame that Amy Robsart’s meek spirit had proved to be of only middling assistance to Lord Robert’s—and therefore Pilbeam’s—quest. No, no hired bravo had broken Amy’s neck and arranged her body at the foot of the stairs. Nor had she hurled herself down those same stairs in a paroxysm of despair. Her death might indeed have been an accident.

  But how could he prove such a subtle accident? And worse, how could he report such ambiguous findings to Lord Robert? Of only one thing was Pilbeam certain: he was not going to inform His Lordship that his wife’s ghost had been freed from its corporeal wrappings and carelessly not put back again.

  Shooting a malevolent glare at Martin, Pilbeam led the way into the courtyard of the house. Rain streaked the stones and timber of the facade. Windows turned a blind eye to the chill gray afternoon. The odors of smoke and offal hung in the air.