The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase (16 page)

Chapter Fourteen

One Week Later

M
ORTLAKE.
T
HE NAME OF
D
R.
J
OHN
D
EE’S HOUSE
made me feverish with anticipation. Mortlake drew the most discerning scholars in the world, men who sat at tables copying valuable texts until their fingers grew so cramped they could not hold a quill. I would gladly have spent eternity in the rooms where he had gathered together the science of ages, old Moorish texts on healing, illuminated books priests had copied centuries ago, and enchantments said to summon angels.

Now, at the queen’s behest, I was to see it all as a woman, a scholar. I reached into the leather pouch tied to my waist to make certain the queen’s missive to the doctor was still there. I could not stem a sense of self-importance at the waxen royal seal. It was wicked to gloat, but being the queen’s liaison to Dr. Dee was grander than anything I had imagined. I wondered what the note I carried contained. Was there was some matter of great import the queen wished to consult Dr. Dee on? Or was she merely sending word that I was to be trusted with the most precious texts in her name?

The groom who accompanied me plucked me from my musings. He pointed out the building with its mismatched wings tacked on at strange angles. “There it be, Mistress, though why any Christian soul would want to enter there is beyond me. Like to be entering the gates of hell.”

“More like Merlin’s lair in legends of King Arthur.” I dismounted so hastily that my skirts caught on my saddle and nearly pitched me into the mud.

The groom caught me just in time. “Truly, Mistress, there be wicked things in there. There is a room he lets just a few of his wizard friends in. I heard they do dark magic, trying to raise the dead and turn tin into gold. No telling what he might do to a helpless woman.”

“I will be quite safe. The last time I came here I was holding my father’s hand.”

The groom looked as if I might turn him into a toad. I imagined my father’s amusement at the boy’s expression. I could remember Father’s delight showing me things forbidden: The scrying balls for telling the future, astrological charts like the one Robert Dudley would eventually have Dee cast to find a propitious day for Elizabeth Tudor’s coronation. Jars of strange herbs and dried bits of things like batwing for mysterious brews. And page after page of notations, Dee’s effort to find the ancient language Adam used in the Garden of Eden, a pure language that was God’s own.

But Father would never come to Mortlake again, I thought with pain. He would never debate new theories. Blinking back unexpected tears, I blundered into someone crossing my path. I leapt back, begging pardon, but my chagrin turned to pleasure as I saw a face much aged, but familiar.

From the blank look in his eyes I knew he had not recognized me. Not that I had expected him to. “A thousand pardons, Mistress.” Dee straightened his old-fashioned robes. “My wits were gone a-begging.”

“More likely you were listening for angels. Or so my father would have said.”

Dee squinted at me. “Should I know you, Mistress? Who, pray tell, is your father?”

“I cannot imagine why you would remember me. I was but five years old when last we met. You gave me a book on dragons that I treasure still.”

“Dragons? Is it possible you are my Lord Calverley’s little maid?”

“I am! Though how you guessed it is beyond me.”

“You made quite an impression on your visit. For reasons beyond the fact that you wanted to break open my scrying ball to let out all the people I saw inside it.”

I felt my cheeks heat. “I must have made a pest of myself while you and Father were trying to study.”

“You delighted us both. In fact, I told him you were afire with a rare kind of light. I showed him the force reflected in one of my special mirrors. He claimed he had known you were destiny’s child from the first moment he held you in his arms.”

A chill went through me. I remembered the strange flash in the mirror in the haunted gallery. Had that light not been a signal from a queenly ghost? What if it had come from me?

“Dr. Dee, I have a letter from Her Majesty.” I produced the sealed rectangle of parchment. “She sent me to peruse your books, bring her something that will take her mind off of the cares of the throne.”

“I would be honored to loan her my texts, but there are some that must remain behind closed doors because they are so rare or so . . . dangerous. Treasures I stow away in my sanctum sanctorium, if you remember from when you were small. A place only a select few are allowed to enter.”

Clerics still seriously debated whether or not women had souls. Even someone progressive as Dr. Dee would not want a female pawing through priceless texts. “I am certain I can find something for Her Majesty without disturbing your sanctuary.”

“I like to have it disturbed. At least, by the finest intellects I can unearth. Her Majesty is one of few I would welcome there.” Dee’s eyes twinkled as if he had read my mind. “But I would be even more delighted to share my precious texts with you.”

“With me?” I echoed, so stunned I must be gaping.

“I have not forgotten the silvery light that haloed you years ago. And in the midst of all my scientific explorations I have mastered one other valuable gift as well.”

“What is that?”

“I can pick out diamonds lost among coal. You, my dear—you sparkle.” Not since I lost Father had anyone’s praise moved me so much. “There is one condition, however.” He looked stern. “You must not shatter my scrying ball.” His mouth twitched. “The little people trapped inside it are quite happy where they are.”

“Perhaps we could serve them small beer and meat pies then,” I said. He took my arm, and led me through Mortlake’s door. Scholars glanced up from their tables, blinking at the sudden flash of sunlight as we entered, but Dee firmly deflected all questions as he navigated the crowded room. He opened another door and I glimpsed envy on some of the other men’s faces. It pleased me that they were left behind while I was allowed to plunge to the very heart of John Dee’s domain.

“You must forgive me if we are interrupted,” the doctor said as we neared the final portal. “I am expecting a friend of mine who visits Mortlake often to study my texts. He is a formidable scholar like your father, one of the few who can challenge me in the games of strategy I love. We have an appointment to finish a complicated game I designed involving the heavenly spheres. I fear the scoundrel is going to defeat me.”

A man able to triumph over Dr. Dee? I could scarce imagine it possible.

Dee grasped the latch and swung open the portal, revealing the room I remembered from years past. Impressions—just impressions of musty smells, tables piled with instruments I could not name, inventions and experiments half finished. Magical mirrors and books most kings would destroy if they knew a common man possessed them—that was, after they burned the owner at the stake. I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear them. Before they adjusted to the dimness, I heard Dr. Dee’s pleased cry.

“And so you are already here, my friend. What a pleasant chance. There is someone I would like you to meet.” I blinked hard, wanting to make a good impression on whomever Dr. Dee held in such esteem. But when my gaze fixed on the figure stepping from the shadows I felt as if a donkey had kicked me in the chest.

“Sir Gabriel!” I choked in disbelief.

“Mistress de Lacey.” Amusement mingled with the surprise in his gaze. “It does seem that our paths cross again and again. My friend Dr. Dee would say it was fate.”

“You young people know each other?” Dr. Dee exclaimed. “How delightful!”

“I would be surprised if Mistress de Lacey thinks it so. Her opinion of me is far lower than yours.”

“Then perhaps you should leave off teasing her the way you do your other ladies,” Dee scolded. “This is a woman who deserves the highest respect. Why, when she was just five years old she single-handedly attempted a most important prison break. She brought a key to the Princess Elizabeth, so that captive lady could escape from the Tower.”

“It was merely a key meant for the rubbish heap and I was only five years old.”

“Lord Robert had heard something of the story.” I was certain Gabriel’s mirth was pure anticipation over the weapon he had been given to torment me in the future.

“Ah, but I doubt even Lord Robert knows that the rubbish heap in question was my own or that Mistress Nell’s circumspection probably saved the life of both me and the queen?” Dr. Dee turned back to me. “You have met my lord Robert Dudley no doubt. Anyone in the queen’s presence must have. I met Sir Gabriel through that very gentleman. And a more likely mind I had not met since I left Lord Robert in the schoolroom. I was tutor to all the Dudleys, you know.”

“I did not.”

“There are times I think Sir Gabriel surpasses even Lord Robert in wit, although we must not tell his lordship so.”

“Your secret is safe as if it were locked in one of these infernal codes you are forever designing.” Gabriel grimaced. “Dr. Dee likes to keep his most astonishing secrets safe, so he has devised his own code to conceal them. I have been trying to unravel this page for well over an hour with no success. But I confess I have a much more intriguing mystery to solve now. How did this lady come to be a guest in this room? After all, John, you claimed it was an honor to be invited here, that I was one in a most select group.”

“I have come on the queen’s business.” I sounded more self-assured than I felt. “Why are you here?”

“Dr. Dee is intent on exploring the labyrinth of my mind. I have a reputation of unraveling people’s secrets. I plague the good doctor by anticipating his every move in the complex games we play.”

“I suspect you have abilities like Nostradamus, Catherine de Medici’s seer.”

“Dr. Dee only says that to conceal the fact that he is a poor loser,” Gabriel said. “It gives him an excuse whenever I win.”

“That may well be,” Dee allowed, “but you must wait to prove it until Mistress Nell has taken her leave. I dare not leave her unattended.”

“Why?” I asked. “I am perfectly happy to wander among your treasures.”

“That is exactly the difficulty. In our former acquaintance you had a fascination for taking things apart to see how they worked. In fact, I would wager before you leave you will be trying to dismantle that clock.”

Dee gestured to a metal ball small enough to fit in the palm of a man’s hand. Gabriel picked the object up, regarding it. “I collected one much like this when I was a soldier in the Low Countries. I would not trifle with this, Mistress. You cannot afford to replace it.”

“Then perhaps, Sir Gabriel, you can transform it to gold once we decipher the manuscript on alchemy you brought last visit,” Dee said.

Alchemy? That was a dangerous pursuit indeed, one that could land anyone involved in prison or worse. “Turning metal into gold,” I said. “That is a skill I imagine Sir Gabriel would value.”

“You wrong us both,” Dee protested. “Our hope is that we are not only able to refine metal with alchemy’s magic, but also refine souls.”

Gabriel shrugged. “It is my lone hope of ever reaching heaven.”

But all humor was lost on me as I thought of the risk they were taking. “Is it not dangerous to poke about such knowledge?”

“It is a risk I am willing to take,” Dee said. “Discoveries worth making are bought at some kind of price. Your father knew this, Mistress. I think you do, too. In that spirit, let me return something to you.” Dee rummaged in a wooden chest. He pulled out a long instrument. “Do you know what this is?”

“A Saint Jacob’s staff.” My heart tripped as I glimpsed a deep gouge in the wood. I knew how it had gotten there. I had knocked the instrument over when I was playing as a child. It had cracked onto one of Father’s strange rocks with the skeletons of dragon-beasts imprinted upon them.

“Ah. I can see you know who this belonged to,” Dee said, and I made a desperate attempt to hide the vulnerability I knew must show. “Your father and I took this out to the fields the spring you all came to London. I suspect he taught you how to use it.”

“He did.”

“Lord Calverley sent it to me after he lost his sight.” I could not help myself. I reached out to touch the long shafts, ran my thumb over the scar in the wood. I felt Gabriel’s eyes upon me, and I wondered at the Angel’s silence. “You must take it, Nell,” Dee insisted. “Study the heavens in my old friend’s stead.”

“I will.” I gathered the awkward instrument close, my throat tight.

“You think it wise to trust such explorations to a woman?” Wyatt asked.

“In a perfect world all would be able to learn according to their ability,” I insisted.

“Would they use the skills God gave them? And when it came to the fruits of their labor would each person take only what they truly need?” Wyatt turned to Dr. Dee. “I think Mistress Nell has been reading
Utopia
. Has Sir Thomas More’s book shaped your views?”

“There is wisdom in what he says.”

“Indeed. Save for the fact that he left out one vital force in his calculations.”

“What is that?”

“Human greed and ambition.” Wyatt sobered for a moment, then turned to Dr. Dee with a laugh. “What say you, Dee? Am I not a perfect example of both?”

“You and Mistress Nell may debate the subject if you wish. I intend to revel in the pleasure of her entering once again into my life. Nell de Lacey, you have come to Mortlake on the queen’s errand, but you leave as one of my chosen. You are welcome anytime you wish. Avail yourself of whatever texts or instruments will aid you in your studies.”

“You would grant me such an honor?” Tears threatened. But before they could spill free, Gabriel broke in.

“Dr. Dee, are you quite certain it is wise to give Mistress Elinor the run of your library?” Wyatt eyed me as if I were a child with grubby hands. “The lady’s head might explode if you fill it with weighty subjects fit only for a man.”

“I would match my wits against yours anytime, sir!”

John Dee laughed. “I suspect this is one contest the lady might win.” Gabriel protested, but Dee held up his hand. “I told you my mirrors detect light? A sort of energy, if you will?”