Gloriana

was obsessed with maps. I have yet, gracious Majesty, to map the geography of any other spheres.” He let Patch roll up this last map and take it to place it with the others. “However, from reports brought to me I can produce a scheme-a broad plan of the positions of these spheres and how they might relate to our own. We are at the centre (again for argument’s purpose) of a pool. Our activities produce ripples and eddies throughout this pool. We are for the most part unaware of these movements, save when, by fluke, a backwash, a momentary current, brings us evidence. This evidence was feared by our ancestors. Devils, angels, poltergeists, pixies, elves, gods and their works were held to be the cause of these disruptions to our ordered world. Why, there are those who still call that noble musician Lord Caudolon a demon, because he came so suddenly to our sphere, speaking of strange lands and works and wondering of everything he found (Lady, I would your lips would touch this pounding prick), yet soon he calmed and judged himself recovered from our enchantments-or a dream. As I said, some spheres are not dissimmilar. Their histories, even, have resemblances- there are other Glorianas, other Dees, other Lords Chancellors, no doubt-shadows, sometimes faint, sometimes distorted, of our own selves.”

Gloriana eyed the distance. “Doctor Dee, think you we shall one day travel between these spheres?”

“I work, intermittently, upon that very problem, madam (your lips and then your legs shall part for me), and hope one day to effect the means of moving freely from sphere to sphere, as a pike crosses beneath the surface of his pond.”

“Sorcery!” grunted Lord Montfallcon. “Is this not always where your mathematick leads? Now you see, great Majesty, why I’d abolish such studies-though I blame not the misguided scholar.” A sidelong glance of malice. Doctor Dee shrugged it back.

“It is our wish,” murmured the Queen, “that all arts shall be studied at our Court.”

“Then let the Queen look to the security of her Realm, lest she find it torn asunder by warring demons admitted to our sphere by Doctor Dee’s experiments.” Lord Montfallcon spoke without a great deal of conviction.

“My sovereign,” a wincing bow from Dee, “the Science of Cabalism…”

Her foot moved. “You think this diversion likely, Doctor Dee?”

He bowed again, sucked in a breath or two. (Blood of Zeus! These pantaloons will make a eunuch of me yet!) “I fear not, my sovereign. Devils are the name we give to beings whose origins are obscure to us. Those few travellers who have passed between the spheres are men and women like ourselves. Sometimes they think they are reincarnated, in past or future; sometimes they find our sphere Heaven, sometimes Hell. Doubtless, if we visited them unwillingly, we should think of their worlds in a similar way (I swear it-your breasts shall bloom to the heat of my tongue)”.’

“Look to your soul, madam!” The Chancellor’s words were actually addressed to his rival. A warning. “The Pit lies, inevitably, at the end of Doctor Dee’s dark road.”

Dee was evidently astonished by this expression of a previous century’s superstition-words which might have come from Montfallcon’s famous witch-seeking grandfather. He decided diplomacy: “The Universe, madam, is not our concern, perhaps. (To have her arse in love and pain!) This planet and its facets, its shadows, is complex enough, without our needing to discourse on the question of rival spheres. (Oh, she is the universe, mother of galaxies-I would grasp her tits until she gave voice to the Last Trump!) If my lord the Chancellor cautions discretion…”

“It is my duty to protect the whole Realm-including you, Doctor Dee-as best I can.” Frowning, Montfallcon drew a fold or two of heavy cloth about him.

“I respect your sincerity, my lord.” Dee’s tone showed puzzlement. “However, you seem unusually disturbed by what is, after all, no more than a discussion of possibilities.”

Montfallcon snorted. “My business is with possibilities. I have many to consider at this moment.”

“You are agitated, my lord, because we keep you from your Duty.” Gloriana became placatory, impressed by Montfallcon’s manner, at last. “You may go to it.”

“I am grateful, madam.” A bow, a swift, disapproving glance at Dee, and Montfallcon fled for his mysterious rooms.

“I had no intention…” began Dee, biting his lip a little, his white beard flat against his chest.

“Lord Montfallcon is distracted. Matters of State, as you know. I am to blame. It was capricious of me. You’ll need finance for further experiments, I take it, Doctor Dee?”

“Madam, I did not come-”

“Neither did I. But you’ll need gold. It will have to be extracted from the Privy Purse, I think, for the Council will never agree-why should it? — to patronise your Science. I shall speak to Sir Amadis and you shall tell him of your needs.”

“I thank thee, madam. (Needs, needs! Ah, if she knew!) If I could find two people, for instance, from the mad houses, who independently raved the same logic, then I could test them. The Thane of Hermiston has offered his help.”

“But all believe him a clownish boaster!” The Countess of Scaith stroked the velvet of her chair’s arm. “These claims of adventurings in fairy realms! Isn’t he, at best, a mediocre poet and a poor liar?”

“I think not, your ladyship. There are his prisoners. His trophies.”

“We have had them at Court. Mindless savages. Lunatics. Nothing more.” She smiled. “They make bad sport. He is vulgar, the Thane, in guessing his victims will amuse the Queen.”

Doctor Dee thought he detected more than mere scepticism in the Countess of Scaith’s voice. It was almost as if she tested him.

“There was the magus who came and went,” said Dee carefully, his voice soft, “called Cagliostro. He appeared suddenly, vanished as quickly. He was one who controlled his own journeys through the spheres. I conversed with him. I learned from him. There was the woman, Montez-”

“She was not at all coherent, Doctor Dee,” said Queen Gloriana. “We interviewed her. The poor creature was completely deranged. And those clothes! The work of some addlepated designer of masques who had escaped the same hospital!”

“I did not disbelieve her, Your Majesty, though I would agree she seemed very ordinarily crazed. Her claims and notions were familiar delusions.”

“Where is she now?” asked the Countess of Scaith.

“She joined a travelling mummer’s show, I think, but died near Lincoln.”

Una leaned her face in her palm.

“And this German Emperor of yours?” Queen Gloriana signed for Patch to seat himself on the steps of the dais. “Is he still with us?”

“Adolphus Hiddler, Your Majesty? A suicide. I liked him the best. A splendid barbarian, much interested in alchemy, as well as geography. Apparently his alchemical experiments brought him here. A scholar, in his own way, he claimed to have conquered the world.”

Queen Gloriana put a finger to smiling lips. “Hush, Doctor Dee, lest Lord Montfallcon hear. You’ll keep us informed of your experiments?”

“I shall, madam (Ah, the pressure! There is only one experiment I must perform before I die! One instrument to play. I’ll make

you sing like Orphues’ harp…), and I thank you for your interest.”

“We are always interested in investigations which can increase our knowledge of the natural world, but you must be careful, Doctor Dee. There could be truth in Lord Montfallcon’s warnings. A demon could be summoned from one of these other worlds whom we could not control.”

“Do not venture too far into fairyland without letting us know where you go, sir,” added the Countess of Scaith with a friendly smile, “and do not trust yourself too readily to the Thane of Hermiston’s ramshackle contraptions.”

“Or the mechanical dragons of his friend Master Tolcharde!” Gloriana was laughing. “Poor Tolcharde! He works so hard on his toys. I have had to devote several rooms to their storage. And he makes more and more! You saw the telescope, did you not, Doctor Dee, that Tolcharde made for studying the inhabitants of the Moon? Their behavior was extraordinary and, I’ll admit, entertaining for a while, but such things pall all too quickly. Since then, I’ve heard he plans to make a ship which will carry him there.”

“To be fair to Master Tolcharde,” said Dee, “he has been of help to me in certain matters. He has