No reaction. My words lost in the chittering. I called out louder.
‘You work for Dr Dee?’
‘For many years, friend.’
Speaking from out of the side of his mouth. He wasn’t looking at me, handing over a pamplet with one hand, taking the money with the other. The pamphlet was displaying a smudged engraving of a dark-robed man with a beard to his chest, his hands raised to the planets aswirl about his wide-brimmed hat. I ask you!
‘What sort of man is he?’
‘What?’
‘This Dr Dee.’
‘A man of deepest learning and erudition.’
‘Does he resemble this picture?’
‘It’s a fair likeness. I’d-’
The pamphlet-seller broke off, turning to observe me. His skin was oily-sallow and he had a stubbly black mole on one unbarbered cheek. He clearly did not know me and seemed quickly to lose interest in a man in plain clothing and no hat.
‘So,’ I ran a hand across my fresh-shaven jaw, ‘he’d be an old man, would he, with that long beard?’
‘If you don’t have the money to buy, my friend, then pray clear the way for those who do. Life – as you may read within – is too short for wasters of time.’
‘You haven’t yet answered the question. How do we know that these… stories are come from Dee?’
‘And how do you know that they are not?’
‘Because I didn’t-’
It just happened that no-one else spoke, a random hush.
‘-write them,’ I said.
Speaking quietly, but in that moment I might as well have bawled it from the rooftops.
‘Who are you, cocker?’ the pamphlet-seller said.
I would have walked away but was tight-pressed now, on all sides. I’d seen this before. Warnings of the end of time could produce a near-riot in the street, fear filling the air like a choking smoke.
‘Who are you?’
‘Says he is Dr Dee,’ someone said.
It had begun to rain again, and the high buildings echoed the clitter-clatter of horses’ hooves. The only space was in front of me, and the pamphlet-seller was leaning into it, a fat forefinger levelled at my chest.
‘Harken to the scoundrel! “ I am John Dee! ”’
Some laughter, but it was flittery and uncertain. I said nothing, looking quickly among the circle of faces. There seemed to be nobody here I knew. I brought out a handful of small coins.
‘I’ll take a pamphlet, then.’
The seller leaned towards me, holding out a pamphlet but then, as I reached for it, pulled it sharply back, his eyes alight with an energy of malice and glee.
‘If you’re Dr Dee,’ he said, ‘you’ll already know what’s in here.’
Someone laughed. I held fast to the sneery gaze.
‘Dee’s a common conjurer, anyway,’ a man said to my left.
‘Give us a prophecy.’ The pamphlet man smiling crookedly. ‘Go on then. Make us a prediction.’
I saw then that he was not alone. Two boys of fourteen or fifteen were each carrying a stack of his publication. They’d been moving among the audience and now stopped, a hand of one moving to his belt.
‘Beware the criminal element!’ The pamphlet man whirling himself in triumph to the crowd. ‘A beardless youth what dares posture as the Queen’s seer. Go on! Tell us the future, boy!’
The mood of the crowd had begun to turn like a great mill-wheel. Someone began slowly to clap, the pamphlet man joining in with his flabby butter-pat hands. And then came another man’s loud voice, cold as cracking stonework.
‘Prophecy is blasphemy!’
Something wet hit me on the cheek and I flinched. Saw that both of the boy assistants had put down their pamphlets and were glancing towards me and then at their master, as if awaiting instructions to stab me and run.
‘Dr Dee trades with demons!’ a woman shrilled.
‘I’ve heard that.’ Another woman, older. ‘He spits upon the Holy Bible.’
Someone pressed against me and, as ever in a tangle, my body tensed, anticipating the fleet fingers of pickpockets, a glint of daggers. Some gentlemen, I noticed, were guiding their ladies away. I glanced behind me, looking for a way out of here.
Staring into a bearded face all too close. The beard splitting into a gap-toothed grin. Now the press of hard bodies, the stench of ale-breath. Before me, the pamphlet man was bloating into a near-frenzy, and the eyes of his peacock feathers were vibrating either side of his head.
‘Go on!’ he screamed. ‘Prophesy! Tell us of the coming of your dark master!’
I froze, watching the feathers wave.
A wild fury shook me. ‘All right…’ Barely aware of my words coming out. ‘I prophesy that before the week’s out you’ll be banged up in the lowest dungeon in the Fleet, you-’
A forearm was wrapped across my throat. My head jerked back, both arms seized, wrenched stiff behind me. Hard rain slashing my face.
Then a leathered hand across my mouth, and I was spun around to behold a man with a black velvet hat pulled down over his eyes. His dark cape failing to conceal the golden glow of a doublet that was like to a treasure chest split open.
‘Take this fucking impostor away,’ he said.
IV
Stability of the Realm
Even on such a day as this, the light was everywhere in the room. Windows you could ride a horse through.
He had his back to them. He was sitting behind a trestle of wide oaken boards, which faced a modest coal fire.
‘This is merely a humble cottage, I tell everyone that. Plea for privacy.’ He poured wine for me, a little less of it for himself. ‘And, of course, they all fail to understand. Especially the Queen.’
There was a hanging smell of linseed and beeswax around the empty shelves. It seemed the house, at present, had room only for himself, his wife, two daughters and a mere fourteen servants. But he was already acquiring substantial properties on either side and, by the spring, it would be more than twice its size. In the meantime, I could see it would have its limitations for a man of the eminence of Sir William Cecil.
Who now turned limpid, mournful eyes upon me.
‘I do greatly love that young woman, Dee. And shall serve her, God willing, for the rest of my working days. But she does, dear Lord, require constant diversion. Oh, I shall come to sup with you, William. Soon! Everything must be soon. ’
‘It’s only the newness of it,’ I said. ‘The limitless power of monarchy is an intoxication. And she, more than most, knows how short life is. That is, um… some lives.’
‘She came through.’ Cecil’s eyes hardening fractionally, but he didn’t move. ‘And now she’s protected. For ever.’
He wore a black robe over a cloud-grey doublet. Hard to believe he was not yet forty; it was as if a certain tiredness had become part of his nature. Illusion, I knew. The weariness and the drabness of his attire was theatre. He loved what he did and was unfailingly good at it. So good, so efficient and so blessed by fortune that he was now serving his third monarch. How many could say that?
‘And you had a good meeting with Her Majesty yesterday?’
