Read Snow White and Rose Red Online
Authors: Patricia Wrede
Snow White and Rose Red (29 page)
“‘Tis possible,” Kelly said. “Oh, ’tis quite possible. What would you?”
Joan licked lips which had gone dry, and glanced quickly around to make certain no one was within hearing. This was the tricky part; until now the conversation had been overtly innocent, without mention of spells or magic. “There is a man,” she said carefully.
“Ah.” Kelly studied her, his eyes bright and calculating below his black skullcap. “And do you want his name, his fortune, his liver, or his bed?”
Somewhat taken aback by Kelly’s bluntness, and by his willingness to be so open in the middle of the street even if no one was near enough to overhear, Joan could at first do no more than stare. Then her imagination formed a picture of John helpless to deny her anything while the Widow and her daughters, equally helpless, looked on. “All that, and more,” she said recklessly.
“It can be done,” Kelly said, stroking his beard. “But ‘twould be best if ’twere not done in Mortlak.”
“An you’ll grant me this, I’ll meet you when and where you will,” Joan promised. “A message to Joan Bowes at Master Rundel’s house will find me.”
“I’ll send it in a day or two, when I’ve had time to prepare the means of achieving thy desire,” Kelly said, and with that they parted.
Three days later, Joan met Kelly in a small copse of trees on the far side of the Thames, well hidden from the gossiping tongues of the townsfolk and the eyes of passersby. There she rendered Kelly the payment she had promised, and received in return a vial of dark liquid and a white cloth. “Add three of the man’s hairs to the vial and leave it in the light of the moon for three nights,” Kelly told her. “Then take a quill made from the feather of a swan’s wing, and write his name and yours together on this cloth three times with this liquid as the ink. Fold the cloth and put it between two flat stones beneath your bed, and leave it there two nights. On the third night at midnight, take the cloth out and hold it above your head while you say his name and yours three times. Do this for two more nights, then burn the cloth. Can you remember all of it?”
“Aye, and do it, too,” Joan said, and hesitated. “But ‘twould be best, I think, an you’d show me how to shape the letters for the names.”
Kelly showed her. “An you do as I’ve said, this man will be your slave, unless he is himself a great magician.”
“‘Tis not possible,” Joan said, laughing. A few moments later, they left the copse in opposite directions. Joan headed for Chipping Norton just downriver, her mind occupied with strategies for obtaining three of John’s hairs. Kelly returned to Mortlak, to make another trial of the crystal. His interlude with Joan Bowes had given him an idea, and he planned to see whether certain letters written with ink aged in moonlight would persuade the spirits of the crystal to make real gold for him once more.
The rumors of devils and black magic in the forest outside Mortlak were not confined to the town. Word of the strange events of Master Kirton’s hunt had come to London almost before the hunt itself was over, but a single incident, however sinister, was not sufficient to draw more than a thoughtful nod from those whose business it was to investigate such things. But when stories continued to circulate throughout the spring, the witch-hunters began to take notice.
“The town of Mortlak’s uneasy,” a slender man in a black scholar’s robe said to the heavyset man seated across the table from him. “Would it bear looking into, do you think?”
“An I were certain what ‘uneasy’ meant, I could perhaps make some answer,” the second man replied smoothly.
“There was some talk of phantoms in the woods nearby, and a most unnatural bear, but that was in the winter, and there’s been no report since,” the slender man said, tapping a folded sheet of paper that lay on top of the pile in front of him. “I am inclined to think no more of the phantoms. But these persistent rumors of sorcery—”
“In the town itself?” the heavyset man interrupted. His companion nodded, and the heavy man shook his head. “Doctor Dee lives in Mortlak; I’ll wager he’s the root of all this talk.”
“The Queen’s Astrologer,” the slender man said in a thoughtful tone. “He hath powerful friends at court.”
“Exactly.”
“But he’s been accused before.”
“He has,” the heavy man replied with visible reluctance. “‘Twas claimed that he did murder a young boy by sorcery, but ’twas not proven. ”
The first man frowned at the paper-covered table. “This talk’s gone on too long to be ignored,” he said at last. “We must proceed, but not with haste. Send someone to speak with Doctor Dee; if more than that’s required, we’ll decide it later.”
“As you wish,” the heavy man answered. “Now, as to the woman in Kent who hath bewitched her neighbor’s cow ...”
Bochad-Bec and Furgen had found Madini’s arrogance irritating from the very beginning of their association, and they were nearing the end of their patience. Inevitably, once it became clear that Madini’s efforts to obtain the crystal were showing no results, each of them asked to be included in her spell-casting. Equally inevitably, Madini refused.
This slight brought Furgen and Bochad-Bec to their usual meeting place under the oak by the border of Faerie, but this time they did not mention the meeting to their contemptuous partner. They began by comparing the responses they had each received from Madini when they offered to assist her.
“She called me a bumbler because I brought her the lamp and not this crystal that she claims holds Hugh’s power,” Bochad-Bec told Furgen, all but beside himself with rage. “She said she did not want a bumbler by while she worked!” The oakman spat violently, nearly dislodging his red cap, and looked suspiciously at his companion. “Hadst thou better luck?”
“No,” Furgen answered. The water creature’s face, usually so impassive, betrayed traces of a cold anger that was no less strong than Bochad-Bec’s. “She told me the spells she wove to link the lamp and crystal were too delicate to trust to a lesser magician than herself. ”
The oakman snorted, but his shoulders relaxed slightly. “Madini insulted us both, then. We should stop her, I think.”
“‘Tis time for that, and past time,” Furgen agreed. It stroked one long, grey finger across the points of its teeth. “And I know how to do it, if I can come at the lamp when she’s not near.”
“In three days she’ll be at court, serving the Queen,” Bochad-Bec said. “She cannot take the lamp with her.”
“That will do very well.”
“What wouldst thou do?” Bochad-Bec said. A breeze rustled the leaves of the oak above him, sending dappled shadows dancing across the ground below.
“Succeed where she’s failed,” Furgen answered shortly. “She’s tried to make the humans let us in; I’ll work otherwise, and draw them out to us. And we’ll see how Madini talks then.”
“It’s not the humans we want,” the dwarf pointed out.
“They’ll bring the crystal with them,” Furgen said. “I’ll see to that, never fear. ”
“And what’s my part in this?” Bochad-Bec said truculently.
“Why, to be by John Dee’s house to snatch the crystal once I’ve made him bring it forth,” Furgen answered.
“Ah.” The oakman considered this proposal for a moment, then waggled his beard in agreement. “I’ll do it.”
“I’m grateful,” Furgen said with a touch of sarcasm that passed completely by the dwarf. “Now come, and I’ll show thee how to come at the house unseen. The river’s best, and thou mayest hide in the kitchen garden. ” The fay departed to inspect the exterior of John Dee’s house in Mortlak.
While the Faerie folk were at their work, Dee and Kelly were in the throes of yet another argument. Their money was running short, and the crystal still refused to make anything but Faerie gold, despite Madini’s comforting appearances. The proposed genealogy had satisfied Prince Laski for the moment, but it was clear to both the wizards that sooner or later the Polish envoy would request a demonstration of more immediately useful magic. Dee, to his partner’s annoyance, refused to consider any of Kelly’s suggestions, and instead expressed with some frequency his willingness to leave the matter in the hands of God. This stubbornness at last drove Kelly from the house, to pace the flat bank above the water stairs, while from the shadows by the wall Furgen and Bochad-Bec watched with glittering eyes, then slipped away.
CHAPTER · EIGHTEEN
“The fish was stronger than the dwarf, and though the little man tried to catch hold of the reeds to pull himself back, it did him little good. The reeds bent and the rushes broke, and the dwarf was in great danger of being dragged into the water.“The two girls arrived just in time. They caught hold of him and pulled him back, but though they tried their best to untangle his beard from the fishing line, they could not do it. In the end, Snow White had to bring out her scissors once again and cut off another piece of the dwarf’s beard. ”
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