Instead, he seemed even more convinced than I was of my own impending failure.
Richard held out his hand. ‘Come,’ he said brusquely, and there was no sympathy in his face, ‘I’ll see you safely back to the house.’
The path back through the woods showed a glimmer of light above the trees; dawn on its way, in the far east. We walked slowly, for I was cold and tired, and Richard’s limp slowed his progress over the uneven ground. Once or twice he caught me looking at him sideways, though I tried to contain my curiosity. By the time we reached the back of the house, Richard was frowning heavily, a sneer on his lips.
‘Not as fleet of foot as your tame novice, am I?’ Leaning against the wall beside the back door, Richard looked hard at me as though expecting an answer.
I was embarrassed. ‘That wasn’t what I—’
‘Were you wondering if I was born like this?’ His near-black gaze held mine angrily. ‘A cripple with one leg shorter than the other?’
‘Forgive me.’
‘Why? It’s not your fault, but my father’s. Would you like to hear the story?’
I did not know what to say, but waited.
‘My father liked to beat me when I was a child. Once, he got drunk and beat me until my leg was broken, for giving him “black looks”. When he had passed out, my aunt hid me in the cellar. So he beat her too. I lay in the dark there three weeks, barely alive, living off what she could smuggle down to me. By the time my aunt was able to bring help, my leg bone had knitted wrong.’ Richard slapped his right hip, watching me. ‘So now I walk with a limp, like the Devil’s child that I am. That’s what my father used to call me. Said my mother played him false with the Devil one night, and I was the child that came of it. My mother died when I was five years old, so I could not ask her if it was true.’
‘Cruel man,’ I muttered, my face averted.
‘No, for it allowed me to hope he was not my father.’
Instinctively, I touched his hand and was surprised when he flinched, jerking it away.
‘I was not looking for your pity, Meg Lytton,’ he said harshly.
‘You have it, nonetheless.’
His eyes narrowed on my face. ‘Why did you send your novice away like that tonight? He’ll not have you now. They’re arrogant, these Spanish priests. They don’t like a woman telling them what to do.’
‘You know why. It was no place for him.’
‘True, but that won’t stop him trying to save you from our evil ways. I could see it in his face.’
I know he was speaking the truth. Alejandro would not give up easily. Nor did I want him to, for my heart had thrilled at the sight of him bursting through the door to save me tonight. I was in love with Alejandro – what other sign did I need of my feelings for him, when my heart beat faster at the sight of him, and everything else fell away into dust before my need to be with him, to have him at my side for ever?
Yet my head was confused, for our love could only end in disaster. A marriage between a witch and a priest was unnatural, as I had told Alejandro many times before, and a malevolent star would almost certainly darken our sky if we were to wed.
So why could I not let him go?
‘Master Dee said Alejandro was in danger.’ I reminded Richard of his message the day he had ridden into Hatfield. ‘Perhaps he needs my protection.’
‘Or perhaps he is only in danger because of his nearness to you.’
Now he was voicing my own fear. I looked away, unable to hold his gaze any longer, and stiffened in horror.
‘What is it?’ he demanded, turning to follow my stare.
Just for one fleeting instant, as dawn lightened the skies about Hatfield, I had caught a glimpse of something – someone – watching us, half-hidden in the shifting shadows between trees, out there beyond the low wall of the herb garden. Then a soft breeze blew, rustling the dark leaves, and there was nothing between the trees.
‘I thought I saw—’
He turned back, apparently having satisfied himself that no one was there. His eyes searched my face, careful and astute. ‘Your witchfinder?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘My master says this Marcus Dent may be more powerful than he seems. That you should be wary of him.’
‘I am, thank you.’
Richard noted my wry smile, and shrugged. ‘You said that you’d laid spells of protection about this place. So he cannot come at you here.’
‘Hopefully not.’ But I shuddered, remembering the axe Marcus always carried in my dreams. ‘He means to kill me. That much is certain. I have seen it in my visions.’
‘A vision is not a prediction of the future, though it may hold elements of truth.’
‘Now you sound like John Dee.’
I caught a flash of irritation in his face. ‘Then I am proud to do so. Dee is a great man and has saved my life on more than one occasion. Everything that I am, I owe to my master. He found me starving on the streets and near to death when I was nine years old. He took me home with him, nursed me back to strength, and taught me his craft. He said it was in the stars that we should meet.’ Richard looked at me stonily. ‘As it was in the stars that you and Marcus Dent would come to blows.’
The wind blew again, suddenly chill, and the trees beyond the walled herb garden swayed, their branches creaking and rustling in the glimmering darkness. I drew my cloak about my shoulders and put a hand to the door. It had been left unlocked for me. Alejandro?
‘Thank you for walking back with me,’ I murmured.
Richard said nothing, but scowled a little, as though in pain, then turned and limped away towards the trees.
Pushing inside, I made my way silently through the unlit passageways and up the stairs to my chamber, expecting at any moment to see Alejandro waiting for me. But there was no sign of him, and when I passed his room, there was no light under the door. I slipped into my room as quietly as I could. Alice, who often slept there too when she was not tending the princess, was snoring gently on the straw mattress.
I drew back the shutters and undressed by the rosy light of dawn, my fingers fumbling wearily with the fastenings of my gown. I knew I should soon be expected to rise and attend the Lady Elizabeth, but I was too tired to sit up until then. An hour or two of sleep was all I needed . . .
My eye was caught by a movement among the trees surrounding the lawns below. My fingers stilled on my gown, and I stared down, my heart thudding frantically as I tried to make out the cloaked figure slipping between the mossed trunks.
I thought at first it might be Richard, then realized the figure was too painfully stooped, shuffling like an old man as it moved from tree to tree.
As the man turned to look up, staring almost directly at my window as though he had sensed my gaze, his hood fell back a little and I saw the face beneath.
Except there was no face beneath the hood, only darkness.
As I watched, the cloaked figure dwindled away, shrinking to a black smudge roughly the size of a rat. Then even that horrible thing disappeared into the undergrowth, leaving the lawns empty.
I finished undressing with the wooden shutters closed tight, then lay on my back in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling. I wondered if I ought to say a prayer, but soon gave up, struggling to whisper even the daily prayers I knew as well as my own name. Into the dawn, the walls mocked me with their creaks and groans, wind whistling through the shutters. I had been right to hedge this place with protective spells, for I was more under siege here with every day that passed. But how long would my defences last?
FIFTEEN
Burning
I spent the next morning, at the Lady Elizabeth’s imperious command, sitting cross-legged in Dee’s hut, wrinkling my nose at the smell of goat as I leafed through his collection of ancient grimoires and books of conjuring. Some of these he was taking with him to London, discreetly tucked into a saddlebag, but the rest he left behind for Richard to conceal and protect.
‘If you fear they may be discovere
d by the Queen’s men,’ Dee advised Richard later, as the astrologer prepared to depart, once more disguised as a swarthy-faced tinker, ‘have a large hole ready dug outside the hut. Wrap the books in leather or stout cloth, and throw them into the pit, then cover the place with leafy branches. It has taken me many years to assemble this library, and I will not lose more of it to these superstitious fools.’
I frowned, following him out to where his horse stood waiting, tethered to a tree.
Master Dee saw my expression and shot me a nervous half-smile. ‘You must think me over-cautious, young Meg, with all this talk of burying books. But although some of my most valuable books are still hidden at my home, I cannot be sure the Inquisition will not have burnt those they found by now. For they searched my house when I was in prison, and took away many rare parchments and books. It is soul-destroying to think what may have happened to them.’
‘I will take good care of these,’ Richard promised him.
‘Good lad,’ John Dee smiled, then spoke to him privately for a long while before taking his horse and turning it towards the woodland road where few would see him pass. He raised a hand in farewell. ‘Vale, Meg Lytton. Follow my apprentice’s instruction, and you will not go far wrong. I have told him how to guide you safely through the ritual again, so you need not fear my absence. Perhaps this time you will be more successful in laying this troublesome spirit to rest.’
Once his master had disappeared into the woods, Richard walked back with me towards the house. The weather had turned drier, and the leaves were now a brilliant red and orange on the trees, the autumn sunlight dancing amongst them. I did not believe we would be any more successful without Dee there to guide us, but something had to be done. The Lady Elizabeth had woken feverish and unhappy that morning, complaining of another bad dream in the night. Everything seemed to point to my first conjuring of Queen Anne as having been the point of origin for this spirit, the magick which sparked the troubles now afflicting the princess – and indeed her sister Queen Mary, and the whole of England – and if so, it must be me who set the fault to rights.
I only hoped it would be possible to find a remedy for the country’s woes. For all I had to help me were John Dee’s magickal grimoires, his rather difficult apprentice, and my own power. Which, if I admitted the truth, was fast weakening by the day. I could not remember the last time I had laid a simple spell, such as to light the candles without tinder, or open a locked door with only a word.
It was as though the power had been draining out of me for months. Since I had banished Marcus Dent from this world, perhaps. I had summoned Anne Boleyn, it was true, but Elizabeth herself might have influenced that spell, her desire to see her dead mother so powerful that it lent weight to my incantations.
Had some of my skill as a witch gone with Marcus into the void?
‘Is it possible for a witch to lose her power?’ I asked Richard as we wandered towards the sunlit lawns. ‘Or to forget how to work a spell?’
Richard looked at me from under dark brows. ‘You are losing your power?’
‘I didn’t say that!’ But I hesitated, unable to hide much from that piercing gaze. ‘Well, it’s true that I don’t seem to work magick as often as I used to. And when I do make a spell, the words don’t come as easily as before. I just wondered if the two were connected – this spirit haunting us, and my loss of power.’
‘Perhaps,’ he conceded after a moment’s thought, not particularly helpfully.
I could see my brother and Alejandro practising swordplay on the level grass, William struggling to keep up with the Spaniard’s speed and agility. The two young men seemed to get on well together. I wondered if Alejandro was remembering times spent with his own older brother, now dead, when he was with William. He had never spoken to me of his brother’s death though; perhaps they had not been close.
‘How long will you stay here at Hatfield?’ I asked.
‘As long as my master instructs me to, or until the Lady Elizabeth grows weary of having to feed an extra mouth. There is plenty for me to do though. Not least laying this spirit to rest.’
To own the truth, I was a little nervous at the thought of performing magick in front of him, or having to go into a trance while he acted as my guide. It had felt natural enough to allow Dee to be my guide, the astrologer’s power and experience well-known to everyone.
But could I trust this surly apprentice enough to put my life in his hands while I stepped out of my earth-bound body and into the dangerous world of my visions? Would Richard be strong enough a guide to protect me against attack by Marcus Dent?
Alejandro stopped fencing with William as we approached, and turned, his quick frown an indication of how much he disliked seeing me with Dee’s apprentice. Nonetheless, he bowed his head in a courteous gesture. ‘Meg,’ he murmured, and even managed a brusque nod for Richard, who was now inspecting the large sycamore tree that straddled the edge of the upper lawn. ‘Has Master Dee left?’
‘Just,’ Richard agreed.
Alice was sitting on the grass on a cushion, mending a thick winter cloak that was strewn across her lap. Beside her was a basket full of garments waiting to be mended. She looked up and shook her curly head in disapproval. ‘The Lady Elizabeth was very agitated this morning. She could not even bring herself to take breakfast. I do not think she wished Master Dee to return to London. Not with these terrible dreams she’s been having.’
Richard shot her a glance, then pulled himself easily up into the lower branches of the sycamore. ‘The matter is in hand,’ he said tersely. Sliding along one of the thick branches, he made himself comfortable and stared out across the fields. ‘What is that smoke?’
‘Where?’
My brother had come forward to stand under the tree as though to climb it too, but at this he stopped and shielded his eyes against the autumn sunlight.
Even Alejandro had turned. He sounded puzzled. ‘It’s coming from the village, I’d say.’
I stared at the thin coil of black smoke creeping above the trees. Then I shuddered in horror as a sudden realization hit me.
‘It must be the old priest,’ I muttered, then wished I had not spoken when they all turned to stare at me. I stuttered, ‘Father Toms? Bessie said the priest here had been found guilty of heresy for not reading the Mass according to the Queen’s new edict, and was sentenced to death. But then the rain came on, and the floods. They were only waiting for a dry day to . . . to burn him.’
‘Oh, the poor old man!’ Alice exclaimed, and crossed herself. ‘Such a terrible death. And a priest too.’
Alejandro sheathed his sword and came towards me, pity in his face. ‘Meg,’ he said softly.
He knew I was remembering my aunt’s death by burning. My eyes pricked with tears. But I could not crumble now, even though the whole country was going up in flames, it seemed.
‘No,’ I whispered, and held Alejandro off with my hand. I bent my head and willed the tears away. I loved him, but his presence weakened me. I knew he would be hurt by this rejection, but more than ever I must be strong now. Strong for the princess, strong for England.
At dinner that night, the Lady Elizabeth came down from her room, supported by Blanche, her face very pale and her small eyes wide as she surveyed our company around the table. ‘So this is to be our little band,’ she murmured, and settled herself on the high-backed chair at the top of the table. At her signal, we scraped back the benches on either side of the table and sat down too, Alice on my left side and Blanche on the right, the men sitting opposite. ‘I had hoped for more servants here at Hatfield, and a greater company. But we shall be merry together this winter, away from the dangers of the court.’
Blanche set a trencher before her mistress with a low curtsey. ‘More will come in the spring, my lady. You still have many followers. They only keep away for fear of the Queen.’
‘Well, my purse is nearly empty anyway; I have no money to keep a dozen hangers-on or knights at arms,’ Elizabeth said, and shru
gged, pretending to laugh. ‘And if my household grew too large, my sister would no doubt have words to say about it. Words and deeds. Indeed, it is well we are so small a company. I should not wish to find myself at loggerheads with such a fearful Queen, who burns her subjects for failing to lift a dish of bread.’
She meant old Father Toms, I realized.
Blanche looked aghast. ‘My lady, please . . .’
‘I am amongst friends here, am I not?’ Elizabeth hesitated, then sipped at her wine, looking at us all over the rim of her cup. ‘Or is one of you here a traitor, ready to write these heretical words of mine to my sister – and bring your mistress to the flames as well?’
‘Not I,’ swore William fiercely, adding belatedly, ‘my lady.’
‘Nor I,’ muttered Richard.
‘But the servants . . .’ Blanche whispered.
Bessie had just emerged from the kitchen with a vast platter of pork slices glistening in gravy, her face streaked with sweat.
‘My lady,’ she managed breathlessly, setting the heavy platter down before the princess with unsteady hands. Then she curtseyed and slipped away again down the narrow passageway to the servants’ quarters.
The Lady Elizabeth nodded, closing her eyes briefly as though in pain. ‘I shall be careful,’ she agreed quietly, then opened her eyes with a frown as Blanche began to serve her meat. ‘Only one slice, Blanche. No, not the pinkest. Yes, that’s better. I have no appetite tonight.’
Alejandro came round silently to her elbow to replenish her wine cup as though he were one of the hall servants. His voice was pitched very low, so that only those at the table could hear. ‘More bad dreams, my lady?’
The Lady Elizabeth looked at him sharply, as though about to deny it. Then she gave an abrupt nod. ‘It is a terrible shadow on the wall, staring down at me as though about to attack. I wake shaking. Sometimes it is gone. Sometimes—’
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