The Heresy of Dr Dee

The whole world was spread before us.

‘How old?’

‘At least three hundred years. Have you ever seen its like before, Dr Dee?’

He held the lantern close, slowly moving the lights around a thousand figures and images, etched in black upon a skin stretched over a wooden frame. I saw what seemed to be biblical figures surrounded by a monstrous bestiary of birds and fishes, serpents and dragons. Horned creatures and haloed men, robed and naked, amid a maze of towers and rivers and seas, hills and islands, all of them neatly labelled in Latin and enclosed by wedges of text.

‘A map… of everything?’

‘Of the world. As it was then known.’

‘Was it made here?’

‘Nobody knows where it was made or who made it or how it came to be in Hereford. Admittedly, a world that’s less than the one known now.’

‘Or more,’ I said, thinking I could spend weeks in study of it. ‘The knowledge we’ve gained is more than equalled by the knowledge we’ve lost.’

I stood transfixed, marking the figures of a mermaid and a lion with a man’s crowned head and symbols I did not understand. Yes, primitive compared with Mercator’s globe, yet I felt in the presence of something far transcending the mapper’s craft. Evidently, the Welsh border had more secrets than I’d imagined.

‘You should know that it does inspire a level of fear, even amongst some of the canons here. They say too much contemplation of it invites madness. I’m told there’ve been attempts over the years to burn it to a crisp. I’d guess there is an element of the occluded here. So for the present, I keep it locked away. Does it speak to you?’

Scory moved the lantern and the shapes on the map seemed to shuffle like playing cards into different patterns.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘I doubt it was made by one man. More likely some closed monastic order. Look.’

I pointed at the centre of the map, where something of evident importance was represented by a cogged wheel.

‘The centre of the world,’ Scory said.

‘Jerusalem.’ I nodded. ‘That could be of significance.’

I stepped back, half-closing my eyes, and new configurations began to form in the candlelight.

‘Bishop, were the, um, Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon… ever active in Hereford?’

‘The Knights Templar?’ Scory’s eyes widened. ‘Well… not in the city itself but, yes, there were several Templar communities within ten miles of here. My God, Dee…’

‘Jerusalem obviously was the centre of the Templar world. They guarded the city against the Saracen for many years, had their headquarters on the site of the Temple and, it’s said, had access to its most ancient secrets. Some of which might well be…’

I glanced at the map.

‘Enciphered here?’

‘I’d put extra locks on this cupboard… and on the door. That’s assuming you do not consider the Templars to have been, um, satanic?’

Scory smiled.

‘Part of my duty here, Dr Dee, is not to condemn but to protect what exists until such time as it might be interpreted. Well…’ He let out a breath. ‘What you say makes remarkable sense. I’d never thought of the Templars. This is, ah, better than papist magic, I think.’

‘Potentially, beyond value,’ I said. ‘Which is why I’d recommend you make it even more secure.’

‘I will. And, ah… some men, if I may say so, might have chosen to keep such a deduction about the map’s origins… to themselves.’

‘Why would they? It’s in the best place.’

He put out his hand.

‘Thank you, Dr Dee,’ he said.

* * *

As we walked back to the palace, Scory’s mood was far more open. He told me he’d once been a Dominican friar. Possibly a reason he’d been given Hereford where, until the Reform, the Blackfriars had been popular residents in the heart of the city.

‘Hereford might seem a lowly post after Chichester. But more important for being on the rim of Wales. The significance of which was made clear to me from the start – the importance of keeping Wales on the Queen’s side.’

‘The Queen’s proud to be a descendent of King Arthur of the old Britons.’

‘A descent beyond dispute, Dr Dee,’ Scory said with what might have been mock gravity. ‘Her grandfather’s progress from out of Wales to the English throne is surely confirmation of the prophecy that Arthur would rise again. And all’s been quiet on the border ever since.’

‘It has?’

‘More or less. Still recovering from the damage inflicted during the Glyndwr wars. And yet now… they’re sending a small army to convict and hang one man. One Welshman. Curious, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know enough about it.’

‘No.’

He stopped, looking out over the river, moonlit now, and then walked down towards its bank.

‘The Wye flows through a strange and individual place, Dr Dee – more so over the border. They have their own beliefs which continue regardless of the Church, whether it be Catholic or Protestant.’

‘Oh?’

‘It seemed to me that one could either respond with a Bonner-like ferocity or with a tolerance bordering on the spiritually lax.’

‘Towards what?’

I followed him down to the edge of the river, a strip of silvery linen unrolled from the hills.

‘I chose tolerance,’ he said. ‘Which is why I suspect that the behaviour of your Abbot Smart reflected no more than his own response to his bucolic situation. He feasted, he hunted, he chased after women. And caught some. Well… I’d be a fool to say that’s not how some of my fellow bishops have behaved.’

‘And the abbey treasures?’

‘Such an extravagant way of life will ever demand a certain wealth,’ Scory said.

‘Do you know what they were, these treasures?’

‘Never gone into it. What’s the treasure you seek?’

‘A gemstone. Said to have been at the abbey.’

‘And you think you’ll find it now?’

‘A gemstone which is now, apparently, for sale.’

‘Ah.’ Scory smiled. ‘Now that sounds like Smart. What kind of gemstone?’

‘We think a beryl.’

‘We?’

‘The friend who’s travelling with me.’

‘And that would be…? Come now, Dr Dee, think yourself into my situation. Here I am, leading my quiet life, learning my Welsh to talk to the neighbours… when, of a sudden, I’m invited to accommodate a company including a prominent judge, the Queen’s astrologer… and another man who, despite his dull apparel, I recognise from my time in the South as none other than the Queen’s Master of the Horse…’ Scory leaned into the candlelight ‘… at the very least.’

I sighed.

‘It is who you think, yes. Not the most popular man in London at the moment, for reasons you’re doubtless aware of. But, I believe, falsely accused.’

Did I believe that? The candle in the lantern had gone out and I was glad of the