by Glenn Cooper
‘Have we not been obedient?’ Dee asked.
‘The angel points his staff toward me,’ Kelley said. ‘He sayeth, “Therefore thou shalt have the womb thou hast barren and fruitless unto thee because thou hast transgressed that which I commanded thee.”’
Dee understood the meaning perfectly well. Before Kelley took Jane Cooper to be his wife, the angels had told him not to join her in marriage. But he had defied the order. It was little surprise, then, that these years later, the couple remained childless. Dee asked what else the angel was saying.
Kelley responded, ‘That we must participate one with another.’
Dee frowned deeply. He took the meaning exactly as Kelley had intended.
They should share each other’s wives.
Dee angrily halted the proceedings and retired for the night. The next day he announced that his son, Arthur, would be his scryer for the time, but a fortnight later when little, if anything, appeared in the novice’s showstone, he begged for Kelley’s return to the table. At their first session following the brief schism, Kelley persisted in his scheme, this time describing the angel, Madimi, showing herself naked and revealing four pillars topped with four heads, ‘like our two heads and our two wives’ heads.’ Then he announced that Madimi proclaimed that they would be resisting God and encouraging Satan if they did not have unity amongst themselves.
Dee urgently sought clarification, hoping that by unity, the angel was speaking now of a spiritual unity. But no, Kelley told him. Madimi repeated her command, this time explicitly referring to unity via matrimonial acts. And then Kelley told him that another angel called Ben had appeared and further warned that unless they obeyed the sexual injunction forthwith, they would never receive from the angels the powers to transmute substances into gold.
It was late when Dee noisily crawled into his bed. Jane awoke. She could tell by his tossing and turning that something was troubling him.
He told her about the celestial demands.
She sat bolt upright and protested, ‘Surely, husband, this cannot be so. Why would the angels wish you to have carnal relations with Jane Kelley and me to have relations with Edward Kelley?’
Dee sounded deflated and powerless when he said, ‘I know not the divine plan but far be it for a mere mortal such as myself to doubt the wisdom of their commandments for the angels speak on behalf of God Almighty.’
‘Nevertheless, husband, I beseech you to seek further guidance and clarification.’
Dee did so two days later. This time the angel Rafael himself appeared and made it crystal clear to Kelley that unless they formed a marital pact and obeyed the directive to swap wives that they would have to prepare for God’s plague to fall upon them.
The next morning, Dee and Kelley left the house and went for a walk in a nearby wood. They took a well-worn path on account of Kelley’s infirmity. The younger man’s walking staff sank into the wet earth with each labored step.
‘I remain deeply troubled, Edward,’ Dee said. ‘Our marital vows are sacred and yet the angels command us to break them.’
‘I too am troubled,’ Kelley lied, ‘but we could receive no clearer a pronouncement than the one rendered.’
‘Nevertheless, I feel I cannot comply. I do not wish to have carnal relations with your wife and I am sure you do not wish to have carnal relations with mine.’
Kelley had to smile at that. ‘Truer words were never spoken, Doctor Dee, but I am loath to suffer the consequences of defying an angelic order.’
‘I am not saying this lightly, Edward, but I fear we must take our chances.’
Kelley lifted his staff and angrily plunged it into the forest floor, as if planting a flag.
‘I cannot take such a chance with my mortal life and my immortal soul!’ Kelley shouted. ‘I hesitate to take such a position with a man who is my elder, my mentor, and my employer, but I must threaten dire consequences should you refuse to comply with the angels.’
Dee looked shocked. ‘What consequences, sir?’
‘Does the name Throckmorton mean anything to you?’
He knew full well that Dee knew of Throckmorton. And not only Dee. There were few men among the denizens of Europe’s universities, salons, and cafes who did not know the juicy details of the Throckmorton plot. Four years earlier, shortly before Dee joined with Count Laski to travel to Poland, Sir Francis Throckmorton, in Paris, hatched a treacherous plot with several co-conspirators, including his brother, Thomas, Bernardino de Mendoza, Philip II of Spain’s ambassador in London, and Queen Elizabeth’s main rival, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, her first cousin. The plan called for the assassination of Elizabeth and the simultaneous invasion of England by the Frenchman, Henry I, Duke of Guise, with an army paid for by King Philip.
Elizabeth’s spymaster Walsingham intercepted key communiques between Throckmorton and Queen Mary, rolled up most of the conspirators, and expelled Mendoza. Francis Throckmorton was hung, drawn, and quartered in 1584 at the Tower of London and Mary languished under house arrest until her beheading at Fotheringhay Castle only four months earlier, in February 1587.
‘I do know of the Throckmortons,’ Dee said, hands on hips. ‘What of it?’
‘I believe you had a relationship with the gentlemen that included a business transaction,’ Kelley said. ‘I believe you did cast a horoscope for them regarding suitable dates for an action of theirs.’
Dee exploded. ‘How know you this?’
‘I have ears, Doctor Dee, and I have eyes.’
‘What of it? How does that matter bear upon our present conundrum?’
‘This is how,’ Kelley said, leaning heavily on his stick, sinking it even further into the ground. ‘I do so fear an act of angel defiance that as God is my witness, I will make Elizabeth’s Privy Council aware of your business with Throckmorton and Mendoza. Perhaps they will believe you had innocent intents. Perhaps they will believe otherwise.’
‘Good Heavens, man. You would threaten me with venom and malice?’
‘For the sake of my immortal soul, I have no choice.’
Under the pressure of blackmail, Dee relented, and when his decision was presented to the two Janes, the women fell into a silent despondence. To Jane Kelley, Dee was a shriveled old man. To Jane Dee, Kelley was an unctuous and morally despicable cripple. Nevertheless, this was an obedient household and when Doctor Dee told them he would draw up a matrimonial pact, they bit their lips and said nothing against the plan. A week later, no lesser entity than the archangel Michael appeared to Kelley and confirmed the new doctrine. The next day, Dee, Kelley, and the two Janes solemnly affixed their signatures to the document.
The women were given a week of preparation and on the appointed night, Jane Kelley and Jane Dee, with tears in their eyes, left their bedchambers dressed in their nightshifts and changed rooms.
Edward Kelley was lying under the blankets trying to look somber and dutiful, but in truth, he had the appearance of a cat who had cornered a vole. Jane Dee blew out the candle and slid herself under the blanket.
‘Well, Jane, it has come to this,’ he said. ‘Our obligation unto God is to consummate our pact.’
‘I am here because I am an obedient wife to my husband, sir. That is the only reason, of that you can be sure. Do what needs to be done and let me be gone.’
He felt for her nearest thigh. It was half the size of his wife’s and firm. Then, rolling onto his side, he pulled up her shift and climbed on top of her. She felt his withered leg against hers and shuddered. When he rammed his way inside she gasped, not in pleasure, but in pain and distress, and that seemed to spur him on. He continued to furiously drive into her, all the while grunting like a rutting farm animal.
His sounds of pleasure intensified and in a panicked tone she cried out, ‘Pull out, sir, pull out! It is a poor time of month!’
He ignored her and kept going to climax before rolling onto his back, wheezing and coughing. All she could do was to dash out of bed and stand, with the hope that
being upright might prevent a calamity. She left him and waited outside her own bedchamber door until Jane Kelley emerged. When she did, flushed in the face, her hair tousled, the two women could not bear to look at one another.
The atmosphere in the household, already clouded over money issues, deteriorated further. There was little to no conversation over the supper table, except for admonishing the Dee children for this or that, and husbands and wives spoke little in private. Dee carried on with his university work, Kelley with his failed attempts at alchemy. When they passed each other in a hallway, Dee glowered at his assistant, increasingly resentful how he had been threatened over his work with the Throckmortons. The two men scryed infrequently now. When they did, Dee’s questions were perfunctory, and the angels offered little in the way of profundity. From time to time, according to Kelley, the naked angel Madimi did reappear to reaffirm the necessity of honoring their command of matrimonial unity, and buttressed by these commandments, Kelley demanded sexual congress with Jane Dee once or twice a week. Kelley raised the 49th Call with Dee twice more. The first time, Dee turned around and simply walked away. The second, he exploded in rage and warned Kelley never to mention it again.
Some two months later, the Dees said their nightly prayers and crawled under the blankets. He was surprised when Jane addressed him for during these last weeks she had rarely initiated a bedchamber conversation.
‘Husband,’ she said with a quaver to her voice, ‘I am with child. My time has passed twice.’
Despite Dee’s copious intellect, he was momentarily befuddled as they had not had recent relations. ‘But—’ Then the realization settled in. ‘My God.’
He rolled to face the closest wall and she did the same.
The next morning Dee was waiting for Kelley in the sitting room and accosted him as he was about to walk out the door.
‘Master Kelley, I would have a word.’
Kelley frowned at the greeting. It had been years since Dee called him anything but Edward.
‘Doctor Dee, what seems to be the matter?’
‘The matter, sir, is that it is my wish, nay, my demand, that you leave this house forthwith. When I return from the university this evening I expect that you and your wife and all your belongings will be gone.’
Kelley had to steady himself on his stick. ‘Pray tell, why this damnable action?’
‘It is because I tire of your threats, I tire of your inclinations toward black magic, and—’
‘And what else?’
Dee looked away. ‘Nothing else. See to it that you vacate, or I will petition the courts for your removal.’
Kelley seethed back, ‘Perhaps I will petition the courts for wages not paid.’
‘Do so and I will make a demand for recompense of your lodgings and foodstuffs these past years.’
With that, Dee angrily rose from his chair and left.
The sun had set hours earlier.
Through the closed door, Kelley could hear his wife crying into her pillow. The two rooms he had managed to secure in short order from a merchant friend were meager at best. Apart from a bed with a mattress stuffed with very old straw, one table, and three unsteady chairs, there was no other furniture – not a chest, not a wardrobe. Their possessions were laid out on the rough floorboards. A baby was shrieking in a nearby apartment. The communal privy served God knows how many dwellers in the tenement. To make matters worse, there was a leather tannery on the street and the smell of tanning urine was overwhelming.
Kelley tried to put all these distractions from his mind. He did not know how much time he had before his crime was discovered. Well, partial crime perhaps, because the obsidian showstone he took from Doctor Dee’s study originally belonged to him. The same, however, could not be said of Dee’s spiritual table, his red silk cloth, the Sigillum Dei Aemeth, and the companion wax seals.
He began his scrying session with a general prayer then proceeded apace to the call that unlocked the gate of the fourth Aethyr. There in the shiny showstone he found Selaphiel. Immediately he began beseeching the angel to reveal the 49th Call.
‘Why do you wish it?’
‘I am at the end of my tether,’ Kelley said. ‘I must possess it and discover what powers might accrue to my person.’
‘The path you seek is fraught with danger.’
‘Am I not a powerful enough magician to penetrate this veil of yours and harness the powers within?’
‘There has only been one more powerful magician since time began. His name was Daniel.’
‘Did Daniel receive the 49th Call?’
‘He did.’
‘Then I too should have it.’
‘The heavens shuddered when Daniel received it and they will surely shudder again this night.’
Kelley had taken writing implements from Dee’s study and he used the doctor’s quills, ink, and parchment to record the long chant that Selaphiel vocalized. When the angel was finished, he angrily stepped off his throne and disappeared in a ball of fire.
Kelley wasted not a second. He immediately read aloud the new call as carefully as he could to assure the correct pronunciations, and waited for something, anything to appear in the black mirror.
When the visage did appear, it sent a chill up his back. The angel he saw was perched on a dark throne, wearing the simplest of gray robes. It was his eyes that froze Kelley to the marrow, as black and cold a pair as he had ever seen.
‘I am Satanail. Why have you summoned me?’
Kelley bowed to the stone, unsure how he should react and what he should say. He had been warned that the 49th Call might invoke fallen angels but this one? The Prince of the fallen? Satanail? When he found his voice, he addressed him in angel language as Telocvovim, he who has fallen. The angel seemed pleased at the appellation and showed his yellow teeth. Emboldened, Kelley asked him if he could impart unto him the secret of the philosopher’s stone.
But Satanail showed little interest in the subject and said, ‘My interests lie elsewhere and so should yours.’
‘Where, my lord?’ Kelley asked.
‘Sowing the seeds of discord, that is where. There is no better way to stir men to barbarism than to wave banners of religion before their faces. Today there is a schism in your lands among Christians. You are an acolyte of the Catholic Church and yet you wear a Protestant cloak. You live and breathe the schism. Yet, the discord could be far, far greater.’
Kelley knew the dark angel spoke the truth but he asked, ‘Why would you need my puny soul to aid a great lord such as yourself to sow seeds of discord, Telocvovim?’
‘Because I reside in my realm and men reside in yours. I can only act on Earth through men. If it is your will then I will be the instrument of evil. Chaos and death will reign supreme.’
‘Tell me, Telocvovim, how will this profit me?’
The angel’s laugh was curiously high-pitched and Kelley found it deeply unsettling.
‘Cunning men have always been able to profit from discord. You will know what lies ahead. You will find ways to profit.’
‘Then tell me what I must do,’ Kelley said, nodding to the bargain.
‘Who is the Catholic king with the power to make war against the Protestant queen?’
Kelley immediately answered, ‘King Philip of Spain.’
‘Would you have me enter the heart of King Philip?’
‘I would, my lord.’
‘Then this I tell you: King Philip will gather a great armada and he will launch it against England to defeat the Protestant Queen.’
‘How will it end, Telocvovim?’
‘You will not have long to wait to know the outcome. All I can promise is that on account of strife a great many men will die on that day and in years to come, many, many more.’ He waved a bony hand. ‘Now leave me to my work.’
The stone went dark and the angel was gone.
There was a loud bang against the hallway door and then another. Jane had cried herself to sleep but he heard her wake to the n
oise and call out. When he opened up he saw three Polish men, one of whom he recognized as a ruffian often in Count Laski’s retinue.
The man pushed his way in and said, ‘Laski sent us to get what you stole from Doctor Dee. Where is it?’
Kelley backed off and glanced at the magic apparatus in the center of the room.
The ruffian instructed his men to bag it up.
‘Not the black mirror,’ Kelley insisted. ‘That belongs to me.’
‘No more it don’t,’ the man said, giving Kelley’s face the back of his hand. Kelley’s crippled leg buckled and down he went. When he was on his belly, the man kicked him in the ribs and legs.
Jane came in as the men were leaving and bent to help her husband to his feet.
‘Leave me!’ he hissed. ‘Go to bed.’
As he lay on the floor sucking air in pain he noticed that his pointer finger was involuntarily tapping against a floorboard. He watched his own finger in fascination and soon was able to discern a pattern.
Seven taps then a pause. Then seven more taps. Another longer pause, and the pattern repeated.
Seven sevens, he thought, makes forty-nine.
The 49th Call was loose upon the world.
TWENTY-FOUR
The museum guard at the entrance to the restricted staff area seemed interested to see that Cal and Eve were pouring with sweat. But their visitor passes were valid, and their passports confirmed their identities. He let them through.
Inside the Papyrus Laboratory they tried to act as casually as possible. Cal carefully taped the edges of the glass sheets that held the matching pairs and triplets of papyrus fragments. When he was done, he slipped the glass into the Rasouly folder and did the same with the rest of the unmatched pieces. The folder went into his bag.
He asked Eve to put some supplies – glue, tape, backing paper, tweezers, and one of the magnifying loupes – into her bag.
One of the conservators at a nearby desk had been looking at them suspiciously. He made eye contact, smiled, and told her they were off to a lunch with Dr Nawal. She nodded and smiled back.