Maxie’s Demon (20 page)

The doors boomed back. A lackey bellowed something in my ear,
and we were being more or less shoved forward into the open space beyond.

It was enormous, bigger than the huge hallway, built of some warm yellowish stone with a high, rib-vaulted ceiling, the kind you expect clouds to form in, and vast areas of glass to light it. The sound of our steps on the heavy flagstones echoed away into the distance. All it needed was a voice announcing the departure
of the 8.15 to Philadelphia Suburban. With courtiers, lackeys, ladies and hangers-on, including the local equivalent of peanut and popcorn vendors, it was just about as crowded as Grand Central Station or St Pancras. Probably not a lot safer, either.

But here the crowds parted swiftly before us, and fell in behind. They gave the impression that they weren’t paying any particular attention to
us, or to the great carved and canopied chair beneath the tall window at the end. But the moment I saw its occupant I knew they were faking it. Or rather, the moment he saw me.

It was about then I remembered to be scared again. Funny how it all comes flooding back.

It was
quite a tribute to this Arcimboldo citizen. For a moment I almost did see a heap of greengrocery, he’d caught the look so
exactly. Even without the portrait, though, I’d have known who it was sitting there, or rather perching. No crown, no jewels, nothing ceremonial; in fact he was the only person there who hadn’t even bothered to get dressed. He was a short-arse, maybe a little taller than me, wearing a grey robe whose gold embroidery was at war with a subtle pattern of food and grease-stains. The heavy silk nightshirt
beneath, also stained, was escaping in all directions, and I didn’t blame it. Unkempt sandy-grey hair stuck out from beneath a purple silk nightcap, and his bushy beard and bristling moustaches were stained purple with wine, to match his pendulous lower lip. He sprawled comfortably across the throne cushions, with one leg draped over the arm, leaning on one hand, scratching bits of himself with
the other, and surveying the world through those pouchy, alert eyes.

His actual expression was like the portrait, genial, jolly even. It looked as if his barometer was set to mildly manic today, no worse; but it was the eyes that pinned me. There was nothing very penetrating about that look, but it still put the fear of God into me about as surely as the magistrate in my first juvenile court.
It was sussing me up, not as a human being but a potential receiving end – what of, would come later.

Dee and Kelley went into a sort of contortionist act. I managed a pretty reasonable bow, and left it at that. Rudolph acknowledged Dee with a polite nod, but he had an altogether different sort of look for Kelley, less respectful, more interested. He rubbed his thin hands over the carvings on
the chair, caressing their curves.

‘Also,
Magister! Ihr ist ein neuer Gast gekommen! Mach’ihn dann mir bekannt! ’

Dee did the bobbing and twisting bit again. ‘My noble and most puissant lord, permit your humble servant to make known to you my esteemed colleague the Master Maxie, a young but accomplished student of philosophy who is but this morning arrived from England to assist us in our labours
on your behalf!’

At least that’s the gist; German is even better for gassing than English, and Dee just ran away with the ball. Rudolph listened the way you would to a football commentary, absent-mindedly caressing the carvings in a clutching sort of way. They were the only part of the chair polished bright.

When Dee ran down, he simply said, ‘
Ach so!
’ in such a dry voice the contrast was hysterical.
He hoisted himself on the throne and gave his backside a long and loving scratch, with grunting. Then he turned to me. ‘
Sei gegrusst, im Gottes Name!
’

I bowed again. ‘
Ich danke Sie, Durchlaucht! Es ist mir der grosseste Ehre, in ihre Dienst zu eintreten!
’

Kelley had been standing there like a dumb animal, but now I saw him really taken aback. Dee beamed. The Emperor’s eyes opened a little wider;
they were a kind of cold green, and bloodshot. He smacked his full lips. ‘
Gut, gut!
Not yet perfect, though. You have the strangest accent – like a Netherlander or a Frisian, almost.’

He was
hearing the twenty-first century. ‘I hope to improve it by acquaintance, Highness,’ I said, gravely.

He nodded, chasing an itch around the neck of his robe. ‘You’re welcome, and not only as these learned
fellows’ colleague.’ He was still squinting at me. ‘You are nobly born? You have the look. But no title?’

I was impressed. My grandmother was a Bavarian countess. ‘A younger son, Highness. In England we inherit nothing, neither land nor title.’

He sniffed petulantly, and wiped his nose with a thumb. ‘Would that it were so here. I would not have so many princelings under my feet! So you have
become a scholar. But you are yet young. Do you in truth have the art to assist these gentlemen in their
magnum operem
?’

Testing my Latin? But Maxie’s still the lad. I was quite enjoying myself. I’d been taught court manners as a child, but you don’t get that many chances to use them, even in modern prisons. I bowed again. ‘A great work indeed, Highness. But few could say more truly than I that
I have looked upon another world.’

He snorted evilly and clawed at his groin. ‘Ach, the speaking to angels! All very well, no doubt! But have they told you aught more of worth to
Ritter
Edward’s project? Have they taught you the device of mating the Red Man with the Fair White Woman?’

My jaw
dropped, but not, for once, because I didn’t understand. I understood only too well, and not from my
days down at the peepshow, either. The old swine hadn’t been talking about just any great work – it was
the
Great Work. Alchemy – and I could guess just what kind would interest him most. And that, of course, explained Kelley’s Heath Robinson machine.

‘Indeed, I know of a certain technique for its success, Highness.’
All you’re going to need is a small particle accelerator
…

That bastard Kelley
had promised to make him gold.

Dee was looking at me in restrained surprise; Kelley’s face was poker-blank but tense. I ignored them, and coughed deprecatingly. ‘The, er, achievement is making it in viable quantities.’

The fleshy cheeks puffed out. ‘Hmph! Exactly what Master Kelley is forever telling me. Still, I must say he has kept his word, and given me ample proof of his ability.’

Proof?

Those chilly eyes gleamed. ‘I could hardly have believed it, if I had not operated the engine myself. If I had not passed in those lumps of base metal with my own hands! And to see the precious particles appear within the cauldron of water—’ He gave a luxurious little shiver. It didn’t stop him taking a second to scratch one armpit. Then those eyes nailed me again, and the manic needle began to
climb.

‘Perfect me that process, whether by the angelic wits or any’s, and you will not lack for any reward I can provide! I have estates and provinces enough in my gift already, but with such a resource I shall be able to dispose of thrones, if I wish. Remember that! And remember something else. Another learned alchemist, a man of Greece, swore he would make me the elixir of life. What he offered
me, I put to the test – upon his own young daughter. The maid fell into an envenomed fever, from which she is unlikely to wake. He is presently reconsidering his studies within a private apartment with few if any distractions. Remember that also!’ He fumbled obscenely inside his robe a moment. He had me worried, but what he pulled out was a small purse.

He tossed
it to me. ‘An earnest of what
is to come! Now go about your business, and fail not!’

Getting out involved infinite bowing and scraping, but if I’d had any choice they wouldn’t have seen my arse for dust.

Proof!
I glared at Kelley’s backside as he bobbed up and down in front of me, restraining the urge to boot it, hard. Just one more little game he was playing – and he’d sucked me into this one, too.

T
HE
CLANK-AND-CLATTER
boys escorted us back. An honour, of course, but the kind that keeps you thinking. Dee strode along just as regally as before, but I could tell he was practically skipping like a kid let out of school. Any minute now he’d be twirling his staff majorette-style. When the soldiers left us at our gate he startled me by clapping my shoulder.

‘Well,
young sir! You have acquitted yourself well before His Highness! Has he not, Brother Edward?’

Kelley was as genial as ever, and as opaque. ‘Oh aye, very modest, demure as a girl! But he’s a close-handed fellow indeed. Had he but thought to share what he was saying with us—’

Dee chuckled benevolently. ‘And whose fault’s that, dear brother? Have I not urged you to learn more of the indigenous
tongue? You can tattle with the angelic host, yet scarce command an alejack from mine host!’ Another of Dee’s little jokes. I produced a dutiful smirk. No wonder Shakespeare’s clowns went down big.

‘Anyhow, you had no cause to fear,’ he added. ‘Master Maxie said naught but in proper support of our efforts, in most politic fashion.’

‘They spoke of
my
efforts,’ he riposted. ‘That much was clear.’

‘Of
course they did!’ said Dee. ‘And Master Maxie vowed his help. For which you shall know our lasting gratitude, sir!’ He put a fatherly arm round my shoulder and led us in. ‘You know now what our purpose is, and why we said you would be well rewarded. If we are to establish the new angelic order, we shall have need of temporal power – for the guidance of others, of course. To this the Emperor
is our key! But alas, the key to his purposes is gold. With that he can withstand the power of corrupt Rome, of obdurate Greece and savage Muscovy, and launch his new crusades across the world. So, we must swink to give it him.’

He tapped Kelley’s homage to Rube Goldberg as we passed. ‘Our efforts have staled of late. We need new guidance, and perhaps ’tis through you, sir, we are destined to
find it. Think upon that!’

‘Aye, but not over long!’ said Kelley, slightly less genially. ‘The burden you bear may bring us the wisdom we lack. The sooner we lift it from you, the better for all our sakes!’ He stumped over to the fire and began poking it fiercely.

‘
Festina lente, festina lente!
’ said Dee in gentle reproof. ‘I agree, Brother, naturally. Yet still we must not stint our precautions,
and take solemn auguries and observations to choose a propitious hour.’ He contemplated the ruined notes on his slate. ‘The wisdom of the stars seem a little obscure, for now. Perhaps we should seek a few hours of rest before we recommence.’

I failed to
stifle a yawn. ‘I could use that.’ I slumped down in the best chair at the fireside, kicked off my shoes and set my feet to toast.

Kelley picked
up the obsidian mirror. ‘Maybe. But what if the best, perhaps the only time soon were this coming eve? We should have no time to prepare. I am not so weary I could not still turn my hand and mind to some scrying.’

‘Noble of you, brother!’ exclaimed Dee. ‘There’s much in what you say, alas! But Master Maxie seemed close to some revelation earlier, and it is for him the rite’s to be held. Perhaps,
if he be not too weary, he should be the first to seek what he may see.’

Right then I felt I’d seen more than I ever wanted to; but I could guess what kind of answer that sly bastard Kelley would summon up. I had to have a go first, if only to keep said bastard off my back. He was as genial as ever, but there’d been a dig to that little business about my speaking German – the equivalent of a
tantrum, maybe, in somebody less controlled. I’d nettled him. And I knew damn well why.

He was running the old gold potato routine – as old as the
Canterbury Tales
, at least. Of course, back here that was a lot younger. They do the modern variation with diamonds sometimes, or, if you’re really sophisticated, designer drugs, but the basic principles are the same. Cheap stuff in one end, pricey
stuff out the other by the mysterious process in between.

The Spiral, of course, could make things happen, and we were close enough to it here; I remembered the light from Dee’s staff. So could Kelley really have had some luck? Probably he’d tried. He must have had a hell of a shock when he found that his scrying trick actually worked hereabouts; so maybe he’d confidently assumed that his transmutation
scam would, as well. But somehow I didn’t think it had. The same old question applied, the one the marks never ask – the one Rudolph evidently hadn’t, not yet. Namely, if this process has even a hope in hell of working, why the blazes is this guy bothering to sell it to me?

If Kelley could
ever whip up gold to order, he wouldn’t be sitting around wooing Rudolph, angelic order or no. But that
wouldn’t occur to His Majesty. He’d be convinced because he wanted to be convinced. That’s the secret with born marks; they do half the work themselves. Your job is to soothe them along and get some kind of down-payment. Once they’ve paid out for something, they’re hooked; they’ve got a stake too. They’ll defend you because they’re defending their own judgement, bolstering their dreams. Ask any adman.
Hair restorers, beauty aids, mysterious hifi enhancements – you think they work because you’ve paid for them.

No, dollars to doughnuts this was the classic scam. It had all the hallmarks – such as getting Rudolph to work the process himself. That’s one of the advanced variations, because it gives the mark a big kick and he thinks it proves something.

No it don’t. Have the gold potato gizmo inspected
or sealed or witnessed or anything else the mark wants, no matter. All you need to be is a moderate sleight-of-hand man, and able to keep the process nice and complex and scientific-looking. You stand over the mark muttering about how it’s dangerous and doesn’t always work; you show him how to use the tongs, or ‘save’ him from spilling molten metal, or blind everyone with a bit of magnesium
in the furnace, any one of a thousand conjuror’s distractions. And presto! a pinch of dust or a couple of molten-looking nodules get slipped into the works for the mark to crow over. There are all sorts of wrinkles, such as coating the stuff in low-temperature alloy which looks remarkably like lead but melts off in boiling water under the guise of ‘cooling’. Every generation discovers new ones,
but the game’s the same.