The escort of brutish soldiers rode hard through the damp night and the early morning saw us in Warwick already. But there is no point describing the nights spent in the saddle and the days in guardrooms and towers until we finally reached London and Captain Perkins thrust me into a cell below the ground. From all these and other measures that were taken I could tell that secrecy was paramount and that they went constantly in fear of an attempt to free me by force – though I cannot think who would have undertaken it.
It was the Captain himself who did me the honour of pushing me down the steps of my cell. When the last bolt had thundered shut I found myself in silent, pitch-black darkness; my senses were dazed and my cautious foot slipped on damp, decaying matter.
I would never have imagined how complete a sense of desolation can overtake one after only a few minutes in such a dungeon. The pounding of blood in my ears had previously gone unnoticed; now it overwhelmed me like the crashing of breakers on a deserted shore.
All at once I was startled to hear a fearless mocking voice reverberating round the cell; like a greeting from the depths of darkness, it seemed to come from an invisible wall opposite me:
“Welcome, Master Dee, welcome to the dark realm of the lower gods. That was a pretty trip you took down those steps, my Lord of Gladhill.”
This scoffing welcome was followed by a peal of laughter; at the same time there was the rumble of an approaching storm outside, and straightway the eerie laughter was drowned by a deafening clap of thunder. Immediately the darkness of the cell was lit by a flash of lightning; the brief glimpse afforded by the sulphurous glare sent icy needles round my scalp and down my spine: I was not alone in the dungeon; a man was fastened to the massive blocks of the wall opposite the door through which I had been pushed; heavy shackles kept his arms and legs spread wide apart, like some human St. Andrew’s cross.
Was he really there? I had seen him in the glare of the lightning – the length of a heartbeat and then he was swallowed up by the blackness again. Had I imagined it? Behind my eyelid, burnt onto the retina, I could see the fearful image, as if it had no existence outside myself, as if it had been produced from within my brain, as if it emanated from the depths of my soul and had no corporeal reality. How could a sentient being be stretched out in the awful torture of that cross and still talk calmly, mockingly, and still let his scornful laughter ring out?
Again the lightning flickered; the flashes followed in such quick succession that the dungeon was lit by quivering waves of pallid light. By Our Saviour! there was a man hanging there, there was no doubt of it: a giant of a man, with flowing locks of ginger hair almost concealing his face; above the tangled beard the thin-lipped mouth hung half open, as if he were about to let out another roar of laughter. His features showed no sign of suffering in spite of the excruciating pain the heavy iron rings, into which his wrists and ankles had been forced, must have caused. At the sight of him I could only stammer a few words, “Who are you, hanging on the wall?” when a thunderclap drowned the rest. “You should have recognised me in the dark, my dear Doctor!” came the mocking reply. “It is said that one who has lent money can recognise his debtor from the smell alone.” A dart of icy terror constricted my heart. “Does that mean you are ...?”
“Yes: Bartlett Greene, chief raven of the Ravenheads, Protector of the Faithless at Brederock, victor over St. Dunstan’s empty boast and now mine host here at the Sign of the Iron Ring, ready to receive a benighted traveller such as your Honour, O mighty Patron of the Reformers.”
The mocking speech ended with a wild burst of laughter which, miraculous though it seemed, made his whole, crucified body shake without appearing to feel the slightest pain.
“Then I am lost,” I muttered, and collapsed onto the worm-eaten wooden stool that I now noticed.
The storm reached its thunderous peak. Even if I had wanted to converse with him, the raging elements would have made question and answer inaudible; as it was, I did not feel much like speaking. My death seemed inevitable and in my imagination I saw that it would not be an easy death. Clearly it was public knowledge that I was the wire-puller behind the Ravenheads. I was only too aware of the nature of the measures the Bloody Bishop thought essential “to bring the fallen sinner to a state of penitence, that he might glimpse paradise from afar.”
Fear clawed at my throat. It was not fear of death, of a clean death befitting a gentleman; the fear that unmanned me and left my senses in turmoil was the fear of the slow approach of the inevitable torture, the fear of the fumbling fingers of the executioner as he drew out my lingering death. It is fear of the pain that precedes death that traps us in the net of earthly life; were it not for that pain, man would live free of fear.
The storm raged, but I heard it not. From time to time a shout or a rumble of laughter would reach me from the blackness of the wall opposite; I heeded neither. Terror and reckless plans for my impossible escape were all my mind had room for.
Not for one moment did it occur to
