“I understand your motives, sir.”
“Then my thanks to you, Countess of Scaith.”
Doctor Dee entered the passage, looking right and left, as if uncertain of his direction. Then he set off back towards his own apartments, through Hern’s Throne Room, in the East Wing. It was true, as the Countess of Scaith had guessed, that he only half-believed the Thane’s story of a mysterious barbarian, but he fully believed Sir Tancred innocent and his mission had been to make certain that the Queen knew of this. Now he was reassured and could return to his experiments, wondering if the ancient art of necromancy might be employed to raise Lady Mary from the dead, if only for a moment, and learn her murderer’s name from her own lips. However, he did not maintain much faith in such practices. He believed that there were better, alchemical means of producing the effects claimed by the old sorcerers of Hern’s time, whom he, Dee, had helped discredit.
Yet, he thought, if the dead could be raised, by whatever means, what knowledge might be gained! All the lost knowledge of the ancients, of those distant pre-Classical ages, the previous Gold and Silver Ages of the world’s youth. The secrets of the stars, of transmutation, of navigation…
Thus, by hopeful reverie, did Doctor Dee distract his thoughts from gloom, until he came into his chambers, wading through paper, to hesitate at his bedroom.
He had made up his mind to enter when he noticed, with mild surprise, that he had a visitor.
The figure sat at Doctor Dee’s desk, inspecting a half-constructed star-glass, trying to fit into it the lens which Doctor Dee had not yet finished grinding to his satisfaction.
Dee frowned. “Sir?”
“Sir,” said the visitor, a flat echo. A doppelganger?
“Do I know you?” Dee enquired. “Are you one of Murdoch’s acquaintances?” He felt a thrill as if, at last, he confronted a true demon face to face.
“I know you, sir, and I know your deepest desires.”
“Indeed!” Dee was amused.
“Indeed.” Another echo.
The figure rose, remaining in shadow as it moved the length of the wall, coming closer to where Dee stood with a palm upon the handle of his bedchamber.
“Shall we enter, Doctor Dee?”
“Why so?” Dee had too often confronted both the peculiarities of Nature and the various manifestations of the Supernatural to feel any real perturbation, but his bedchamber contained the one secret he refused to share.
“Because,” said the figure slowly, “I would offer you a bargain. I know what you have in there. I know the problems you have experienced. I can solve them.”
Dee hesitated. He heard his heart begin to thump. “You know, you say?”
“And I can give you what you have sought for so long.”
“The price?”
A shrug.
Doctor Dee laughed as he turned the handle and flung open the door, to let his guest precede him.
“You’ve come to purchase my soul, have you?” His eyes flamed.
“No, sir. I’ve come to sell you one-or, lat least, grant you the means of obtaining one.”
The door closed on the pair. The papers stirred for a moment, in the draught, and then settled. A black rat, which had hidden itself on Doctor Dee’s entering, re-emerged and ran across the room to a bench and began to climb. On the bench was a cage. In the cage sat another rat, a white female, staring with wary fascination at her wild visitor, her whiskers twitching, her heart pulsing.
The black rat reached the bars, sniffing at her as she squatted in the corner of her cage. The black rat squeaked an order. Slowly, compulsively, the white rat began to move towards him until at last they were nose to nose.
From within the bedroom there came a sudden shout and the black rat looked up, ready to run.
“It is not possible!”
“Oh, it is, sir, I assure you.”
“In which case, my friend, I would give you anything at all!”
The black rat returned to its nuzzling.
THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER
There should,” said Lord Rhoone, taking the last of the beef from the salver presented by the servant, “have been a trial, my dear.”
They broke fast in their own over-furnished apartments, warmed by the early June sunshine. Lady Rhoone, on the other side of the table, put her large red chin upon her hand and laid down a knife, picked up a piece of bread at which she stared rather dully. “Of Tancred?”
“He is innocent, I’ll swear.”
“He seems happy, in Bran’s Tower. He believes himself a knight of Chivalry, imprisoned by an ogre. He awaits the coming of some warrior-maid, some Clorinda, to rescue him. Innocent or guilty, my dear heart, he is mad and therefore must be held somewhere. The Queen visits him. Others do.” She bit at the bread.
“But he should have been proved innocent and a greater effort made to discover the real murderer.” Lord Rhoone dabbed at his black beard with a napkin and sniffed. “This way, there still remains suspicion that the murderer’s abroad and might kill again. No trial-no ceremony-no resolution. That’s what set Sir Thomas to stalking.”
“Lord Montfallcon has made all efforts, Bramandil. None but Tancred was seen in Lady Mary’s apartments. For a month Montfallcon searched and investigated. He still pursues his inquisitions, as best he can.”
“Aye-and reassures no one. Look how strangely Doctor Dee acts-can there be something on his conscience? Or Sir Orlando Hawes, become stern and ferocious. Or Sir Amadis Cornfield, who has conceived a hatred of Lord Gorius Ransley-or Master Florestan Walis, who makes excuse upon excuse to be free of duties and who was, until recently, the most conscientious of the Queen’s servants. All since Lady Mary’s death. While Sir Thomas Perrott comes to Court with all his sons, swearing to cut Tancred to pieces and then, after an interview, also claiming Tancred innocent and haunting the palace night and day in his quest for the true murderer.” Lord Rhoone lowered his voice. “Then vanishing. Vanishing, my dear, in the night. And none can find him. Who saw him last? It must be the murderer himself. And killed the father as he killed the daughter, but this time hiding the corpse. And his sons maintain the search, then leave, in a pack, claiming the Saracens as culprits and refusing to name their informant.”
“Why Arabia?” She chewed.
“In revenge for the murder of one Lord Ibram-you recall?”
“Lady Mary was Ibram’s slayer, then?” Lady Rhoone shook. “Oh, my dear heart!”
“The story goes that Ibram loved her and insulted her:
that she was avenged, perhaps by that faceless spy of Montfallcon’s, and that, in turn, she was slain.”
“But where’s the spy?”
“Dead. Killed by the Saracens.”
“You are sure?”
“It’s common knowledge.”
“So the Perrott brothers now seek the Moor who did the deed.”
“Rumoured to be Lord Shahryar, the ambassador, who has temporarily returned to his homeland.”
“The Perrotts pursue him to Arabia?”
“They would not say. But they are one of the greatest of ship-owning families. They’ve many noble kin. They’ve a large enough fleet to threaten war and seem serious.”
