The Heresy of Dr Dee Read Free Page B

that
he’d wished his wife dead.
    And now she was. Found at the foot of some stairs at a house called Cumnor Place in Berkshire where she was ‘staying with friends’. Dumped there by Dudley because the Queen
wouldn’t have wives at court. Least of all, his.
    My hands felt cold.
Bess and me, we’re twin souls
, Dudley had said when he was recovered from the fever. As if convinced that a marriage to the Queen was ordained by the heavens,
though he’d never dared ask me to confirm it through astrology. Dear God, never in all history had there been a better reason for a man to kill his wife.
    ‘And what’s your thinking, Jack?’
    Jack Simm leaned against an ash tree’s bole, smiling faintly.
    ‘
I
fink… if the Angel of the Lord come down on top of the Tower and proclaimed that Lord Dudley never done it and, while he’s here, that Dr John Dee ain’t a
sorcerer… they’d all be waiting for his bleedin’ wings to drop off.’
    ‘Thank you, Jack.’
    ‘Now ask me why the scryer’s had to go back to the inn to warm his crystal.’
    Were a shewstone to be used to reach the angelic, extensive preparation would be needed: days of purity, fasting, abstinence from alcohol. In this instance, I could think of three more practical
reasons for the departure of Elias to the inn.
    ‘He wants to ask what John Dee looks like. What apparel he wears. And if Will Faldo’s brother works at the brewery. But… he’s not quite a rooker, is he?’
    Or, if so, certainly of a higher grade than the lowlifes who hang like ravens around the taverns of Southwark.
    ‘Well,’ Jack said, ‘he did come recommended by a chaplain of the Bishop of London.’
    ‘
Did
he now?’
    A good apothecary is ever well-connected.
    ‘Oh, he’s well-patronised. That’s why he costs. You still want me to ask him if he has a fine crystal to sell?’
    ‘For… an un-named customer of yours?’
    ‘Yea, yea. Dr John, look, he won’t learn noffing at the inn. This is Mortlake and he’s a stranger. They all remember your old man, whatever he done, and they like your mother.
And, as long as you’re welcome at court, they like you.’
    ‘The wizard in his cave?’
    ‘They try not to fink too hard about that. Or the owls what goes
woo woo
. But they ain’t forgot when the Queen come to visit you at Candlemas, and how much the inn raked in,
refreshing all the pikemen and the boys what carried the banners and the rest. Don’t make light of what you done for Mortlake, Dr John.’
    I shook my head, bemused.
    ‘Just don’t bleedin’ ruin it now,’ Jack Simm said.

V
The Ingle
    A WAXING MOON ’ S the best time for it.
    This was what I’d read, and it makes good sense to anyone who has stood on the edge of a tranquil pond and observed moonlight shivering in the water. Even more to those of us who watch and
chart all the bright spheres of the heavens.
    Reflected light. As above, so below. To hold a perfect crystal sphere in your hands is to enclose earth and heaven.
    Dear God… to what level is this the truth?

    The sun’s last stain lay upon the river when the scryer returned with his wood-framed cloth satchel.
    This time, we truly had need of the candle, and I leaned into its halo to watch him unpack his bag, carefully taking out his treasures, all swathed in layers of grey and black cloth.
    ‘Have you eaten, Brother?’ Goodwife Faldo asked.
    ‘Goodwife,’ he said softly, ‘one must
needs fast
before a scrying.’
    Which could be true; fasting prepares the body and keeps the spirit light and permeable. This man’s pomp and solemnity continued to imply a degree of learning I’d not expected. I
watched him laying out his bundles on the board, his back to the empty ingle and the door to the winder-stair.
    Then I stiffened when, from the most shadowed end of our bench, Jack Simm spoke.
    ‘And did you find Dr Dee?’
    All dark in this simple, square farmhouse hall, except for the white of Jack’s beard and the goodwife’s coif. I felt