By Royal Command (8 page)
I
had barely one hour’s sleep that night and wished I had not bothered to lay my head down at all, for I’m sure I felt the worse for it. Rising reluctantly, I went about my early morning duties in the usual way: cleaning the grates, lighting the fires, heating the washing water and simmering a pottage for Merryl and Beth’s breakfast, wondering all the time what was happening at the Mucklow household and thinking how overjoyed Miss Charity’s mother and father must be to have her home. My reveries about this happy scene, however, were tempered with the thought of how Dr Dee and Mr Kelly would react when they discovered that their little bird had flown the nest. How often they had checked on Miss Mucklow I didn’t know, but seeing as the trapdoor to the secret passage was in such a prominent position, I thought it likely to have only been once a day – and then probably when the household was a bed. If this was so, then they might not discover her disappearance until much later that night.
When I went in to light the fire in the library I had a close look about me and discovered some dried herbs in a pestle and mortar, ready for crushing. I sniffed these and thought they were the flowers of scented mayweed, which, made into an infusion, is a well-known sleeping draught. These, I supposed, together with some poppy juice, would have ensured that Charity was always too sleepy to try to escape.
It was a particularly trying morning, for Tom-fool the monkey started a high-pitched screeching which went right through our heads, this noise being accompanied by him leaping along the cupboards in the kitchen and dislodging dishes and platters. Merryl suggested that he might be feeling the cold – for there had been another very hard frost – and, thinking this the case, we found some old baby clothes and dressed him in them, which only maddened him the more, so much so that he bit me on the arm and drew blood. We shut him in the kitchen cellar as punishment for this, where he continued to squawk, scream, rattle at the latch and generally show his temper, so that when Mistress Midge announced that she had started thinking of our Christmas fare and dictated a list of provisions she needed from the market, I was only too pleased at the thought of getting out of the house.
I dressed Merryl and Beth in their warmest clothes and we’d just set off when a maidservant wearing a thick knitted hood, bundled in shawls against the cold, came hurrying along the river path towards us.
‘Can you tell me where the magician’s house is?’ she asked, and then gave a start of surprise. ‘You are his servant, are you not?’
I nodded that I was, and when she pushed back her hood a little to reveal her face, I realised it was the maid I’d spoken to at the Mucklow house. ‘You came to my master’s house to deliver a letter, and now I’m bringing you the reply,’ she said.
I regarded her rather warily, wondering what the letter might contain and hoping that Miss Charity had not given any hints to her father of where she’d been.
I pointed behind us. ‘There. Dr Dee’s house is the one we’ve just left.’
She brought out a parchment from under her shawl. ‘Would you be good enough to take this in for me?’ she asked, and added in a low voice, ‘For I’ve heard many tales about what goes on inside that place, and to tell the truth I’m afeared to cross its threshold.’
I smiled. ‘I can assure you that nothing will happen if you go in,’ I said. ‘You won’t be changed into a Christmas goose!’
‘That’s what you say.’ She bit her lip nervously. ‘I
would
go, indeed I would, but I’m in a hurry, for my young lady’s returned and there’s much to do.’
‘Miss Charity’s back?’ I asked, assuming surprise.
‘She is – and because of it the whole household is set to make merry. Which is not the habitual state of affairs in a Puritan household,’ she added in an undertone.
‘Then she didn’t elope.’ I affected a look of polite enquiry. ‘But where did she go?’
‘Someone took her – but she says she doesn’t know who, or where she was kept,’ said the girl. She pulled a wry face. ‘Or perhaps she did elope but didn’t find the man to her liking!’
I laughed and, glancing at the letter and seeing that it bore no seal, agreed to take it in. I called the girls, telling them not to go too near the river, then hurried back into the house and along to the library, knowing that Dr Dee was not yet down. As I carried in the letter, I shook it slightly so that the topmost edge slipped out of its cut niche, the paper unfolded and the message was revealed. I own this was dishonest of me, but, having done what I had, I needed to assure myself that there was nothing in the letter which might lay the blame on me.
It was written in very plain print, was short and to the point:
Sir,
We are beholden to you for your offer to seek our daughter
by magickal means and your so-called ‘scrying stone’. We have to inform you, however, that by the Grace of God
and without resource to witchcraft or supernatural methods
she has returned to us safely.
Praise be the Name of the Lord!
I am, Sir, your servant,
William Mucklow
.
I breathed out deeply, much relieved, and carefully folding the letter back into its creases, laid it on the table. I was only just in time, for as I put it down and turned towards the door I heard footsteps coming along the corridor and recognised the slow, slippered tread of Dr Dee.
My heart thumped. All was in order, but I would rather not have come face to face with him just then. He bade me the most cursory of good mornings, then, glancing at the fire to ensure it was burning as high as he liked it, asked me to remind Mistress Midge to lay in a good supply of sea-coal for the winter.
I assured him that I would. ‘I’m just off to market with Beth and Merryl, Sir,’ I added, hurrying towards the door. ‘May I get you anything from there?’
He was about to answer me when his attention was caught by the parchment on his desk. ‘What’s this?’
I was so nervous that my voice caught in my throat, but I cleared it and gave a little extra cough or two, so that he’d think I merely had a winter chill. ‘I believe it must be a message from Mr Mucklow,’ I said, ‘for one of his housemaids has just delivered it.’
Not quite a smile – for he rarely smiled – but a look of satisfaction crossed his face. ‘Is the girl waiting for a reply?’
‘I’m not sure, Sir.’
‘Then you may have to run after her. Wait a moment, will you . . .’
I did not want to wait, but had no option other than to stand there while he unfolded the parchment. He scanned it, gave a cry and unsteadily backed himself into a chair. ‘This cannot be!’
I assumed an expression of concern. ‘Are you all right, Sir?’
‘Fetch . . . fetch . . .’
‘Some water, Sir?’
‘Mr Kelly. Send a boy for Mr Kelly straightaway!’
I hurried to the kitchen to get a coin from Mistress Midge, then gave this to one of the small boys who perpetually hung around the big houses hoping to earn a halfpenny or a crust of bread, telling him to go to Mr Kelly’s lodgings and request that he attend on Dr Dee with all haste.
Just a few minutes later (for he was already on his way to us, apparently) Mr Kelly arrived, whistling, full of himself, a scarlet velveteen cape swinging around his shoulders. ‘He’s sent the money, has he?’ I heard him say to Dr Dee before he was even through the library door.
‘No, he hasn’t!’ Dr Dee said. ‘And do you ask why? Then I’ll tell you:
because the girl’s back with her father!
’
Well, there was no need for me to stand in the hall with my ear to the library wall, for you could hear the row that ensued as far off as the kitchen. First Mr Kelly said it couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible, then Dr Dee said ‘the package’ as he called Miss Charity, couldn’t have been properly bound. This led to Mr Kelly asserting that the knots had been most carefully tied, and the correct herbs and simples administered, to which Dr Dee replied that the only other explanation was that Mr Kelly had captured the wrong package, and someone else remained below.
They went into the hall and, obviously no longer caring about being seen, lifted the trapdoor. Mr Kelly went down and when he came up (I was very nervous then, fearing I had left some means whereby I might have been discovered) he declared that she had indeed vanished, and the only explanation was that there was an evil spirit in the house who wished them ill, and who had freed the girl to thwart their plans. Hearing this I could not but smile a little to myself, grateful that they believed in the existence of such beings.
They went back into the library, still cursing, each trying to blame the other for the loss of Miss Charity.
‘Well,’ I said to Mistress Midge as their voices died away. ‘What can all that have been about? What do you think was in that package they referred to?’
Mistress Midge was endeavouring to knead egg yolks into ground almonds and sugar to make a marchpane cake, which is a task to frustrate the most even-tempered of women. ‘I don’t know and Lord knows I don’t care,’ she said. She thumped the mixture in the bowl furiously with her knuckles, trying to get it to come together. ‘Lord above! How is it that the daintiest of sweetmeats needs the heaviest of hands?’
‘But didn’t you hear? Dr Dee and Mr Kelly were monstrous angry with each other.’
‘Not as angry as I with this!’ she said, giving the mixture such a blow with her fist that the china bowl went skidding on to the floor and broke in two, depositing almond paste on to the floor. She roared with rage – and I thought it best to slip quietly away and continue my errand.
The girls and I walked beside the river into the village, discovering that the puddles along the towpath had frozen hard and that the village boys had made one into a very long slide. We queued up to use this in turn (I, too, for I was feeling very light-hearted knowing that Miss Charity was safely back home with no blame to me) and took great delight in sliding its length, occasionally ending up on our backsides with ice and frozen earth all over our clothes. There was much laughter from the village lads when this happened, for most of them had tied bundles of rags over their shoes to aid their slipping and sliding, and this made them far more able on the ice than we were. Some didn’t feel the cold (or perhaps did not own any warm clothing) and did not seem to mind being hurt, either, for they were sliding and playing wearing short, ragged trousers, their legs sore and blue-mottled. All seemed to know the names of my little charges and, on Merryl falling over once again and being about to cry, set up a clapping and a chant of ‘Bravo, Merryl!’ until she smiled again. I was touched at this, but then heard one small boy say to his companion, ‘They are the magician’s children and we do well to speak to them civil.’
‘And what if we don’t?’ came the question.
The answer was a shrug and a muttered, ‘If you cross them it could be very bad.’
At length Merryl pleaded with her sister that they should go down the ice slide together, carriage-horse fashion, and crossing their arms behind them they ran two-by-two on to the ice, only to end up skidding and tumbling into a shallow ditch, laughing all the while.
Several housewives on their way to market had stopped to see the children’s fun, and one of these spoke to me as I went over to help the girls out of the ditch.
‘We are set for days more of this harsh weather,’ she said, ‘for the moon is as clear as silver in the sky a’night.’
I nodded, looking across the Thames. ‘There are great chunks of ice floating in the river, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen their like before.’
‘Nor I,’ said the woman. I set Merryl upon her feet again, recrossed her shawl around her body where it had come loose and tied it at the back. ‘Have you heard that near Kingston the river has almost frozen over,’ the woman went on, ‘and today a man is set to walk on it from one side to the other?’
‘Really? He will step across on the frozen water?’
She nodded. ‘’Tis one of the ferrymen, and he’s doing it for a bet.’
‘Never!’ I said. I pulled Beth from the ditch and began to rub her hands between my own to warm them.
‘Aye,’ said the woman. ‘’Tis wondrous what men will do for a silver florin, is it not?’
We both laughed. ‘If he gets across, others will try it,’ she said. ‘There’s even talk of a frost fair on the ice.’
This, we agreed, would be most exciting.
She went off towards the market and I asked the girls if they’d done enough sliding and tumbling into ditches for one day, but they pleaded for just one more slide and ran off to join the others before I could persuade them otherwise.
I was about to go to the end of the slide to wait for them when there came a voice from behind which asked sternly, ‘Are those the magician’s children?’
I turned to see who’d spoken so, for though I’d heard this question oft enough before, it was not usually uttered in such educated and mature tones. Looking at the speaker, however, I realised that the man in question was younger than his voice suggested, being perhaps only twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. He was tall with a neatly trimmed beard, had gingery hair under a high-brimmed hat, and was dressed like a man of fashion in doublet and padded hose, with a slashed leather jerkin atop and a cape over all.