The Alchemist's Daughter (11 page)

“Indeed,” said her companion with enthusiasm, “he was the finest poet that ever was. None of us here will ever hold a candle to him. And you, Mistress Quince, do you also write poetry?” His high scholar's forehead and piercing hazel eyes gave him an air of earnest inquiry. Sidonie realized that for Will of Warwickshire, this was no idle question, but a matter of serious importance.

She blushed and shook her head. In such company, she felt awkward and tongue-tied as a milkmaid sitting down to dine with princes.

“I fear I am no scholar, sir. I have read a little mathematics, that is all.”

“Then, Mistress, do not say you are no scholar. To study mathematics takes a keener mind than to write a pretty sentiment and make it scan. Pray, what attracts you to so exacting a discipline?”

Now Sidonie felt on safer ground. She thought a moment. “Its clarity,” she said. She hesitated. “Its lack of ambiguity. An equation has not many possible solutions, but only one. And no matter how complex the question, if one persists long enough, an answer may be found.”

“I think,” said her companion, “that you speak not just of mathematics, but of truth. That is what we poets seek all our lives to discover, and some of us lose our souls in the attempt. And you, Mistress Sidonie, who swear you are no scholar and no poet, have already found the secret.” He raised his goblet of delicate Venetian glass, and declared with great solemnity, “Sidonie Quince, I drink to you, and to mathematics, to beauty, and to truth!” He slurred her name a little, and she realized that he was slightly drunk.

Just then the young man who sat across the table, a student of theology at Oxford, began to praise Lady Mary's translations of the Psalms into English verse; and Sidonie, relieved, lapsed into attentive silence.

Later, as they were eating spiced figs and almond cakes, and sipping sweet Spanish alicante, there was music: some of the guests had put together a broken consort of lute, cittern, bandora, viol and flute, and others of the company sang Italian madrigals, their woven voices rising into the fragrant dark. Presently the rest of the dinner guests were invited to perform, and Adrian Gilbert sang “Robin is to the Greenwood gone” in a clear, accomplished tenor, accompanying himself on the lute.

Sidonie wondered if Lady Mary, so lately bereaved, might take offence at all this gaiety; but sitting quietly at the head of the banquet table, the Countess paid close heed to the conversation flowing about her, joining in from time to time, and listening to the music with grave appreciation.

Afterwards some of the company sat over cards and claret, while others drifted away in couples to wander the moonlit paths. And as conversation faded and the moon rode high over the walls of Wilton House, the Countess herself took up the lute and began to play: a slow and wistful melody.

O my heart and O my heart!

My heart it is so sore,

Since I must needs from my love depart

and know no cause wherefore.

Sidonie felt her throat tighten, tears sting her eyes; she could only guess from what depths of sorrow rose that bittersweet song.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

'Tis now the very witching time of night.

—William Shakespeare,
Hamlet

Still wakeful after midnight, Sidonie got out of bed and threw wide the casement, leaning out into the cool September dark. She felt hot and irritable, and her back ached.
I'm stiff from the journey
, she persuaded herself;
tomorrow I will stay long abed, and rest
.

But — and the thought brought her wide awake, every muscle tensed — tomorrow she must scry for the Countess. Surely that was the reason her thoughts were all a-jumble and her limbs would not lie still.

Clearly, if there was hidden gold at Glastonbury, it was Sidonie's duty as an Englishwoman to discover it. And yet . . . there rose before her the face of the old monk, faithfully guarding the last of the treasures he held so dear.

To serve England and the Queen, she must betray him.

Alice had spread a red silk cloth on the library table, and pulled up a cushioned chair for Sidonie. Drawn curtains shut out the morning sun. Sidonie unwrapped the crystal, set it in the centre of the cloth. Then she asked Alice, who was hovering attentively, to light a single candle.

“Thank you, Alice,” Sidonie said, when all was ready. She took her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her forehead, which, in spite of the shadowy coolness of the room, was sheened with sweat. “Do you leave me now, and close the door.”

Alice gave her a conspiratorial look and tiptoed out. Sidonie heard the creak of the heavy oak door as it swung shut.

She sat for a long time in the half-lit room, comforted a little by the familiar smells of beeswax and old leather. Her head hurt, and her breakfast sat in the pit of her stomach like a leaden weight. Too much rich food at supper, she thought.

She rested her elbows on the table, cupped her chin in her hands, tried hard to concentrate. This morning her head seemed full of darting, disconnected thoughts. For a long time she could see nothing in the crystal but a flicker of candle flame. Once or twice she thought she glimpsed the gaunt walls of Glastonbury Abbey, or the thrusting shape of the Tor, but before she could make sense of the images they dissolved like mist in sunlight.

Mostly she was aware of the pain behind her eyes and in the base of her skull. What had begun as a dull, annoying ache was sharpening into agony. She felt as though claws were digging into her brain.

She straightened, pressing her hands into the small of her back, which had begun to hurt intolerably. More sweat had sprung out on her brow, soaking her hair under the front of her velvet cap, and running into her eyes.

Standing, she felt giddy and sick.
I must lie down
, she thought.
I will sleep awhile, and it will pass off.
With a great effort she made her way to the door of the library, and realized that she no longer had any idea where, in this labyrinth of halls and corridors, she should search for her bedchamber.

“Alice,” she tried to call out, but she seemed to have lost her voice along with her wits.

In a daze she set out at random along a corridor. She came to a flight of stairs, but stopped, exhausted, on the third step, her heart hammering and sweat pouring down her face.

“Mistress, whatever ails you?” An anxious voice, and then an arm around her waist, steadying her as she swayed.

“Alice, thank heaven . . . I am come over all queer, Alice, I think I must lie down.”

“Indeed you must, mistress. The sooner the better.”

“Where is my bedchamber, Alice?” The words came out in a gasp.

“Oh mistress, it is the other side of the house, you will never walk so far. Do you hang on tight to the baluster, while I fetch Alfred. Never fear, I will be back in a trice.”

Sidonie clung to the handrail while the world spun sickeningly round her. After a moment she heard running feet.

“I will fetch Dr. Moffett.” Alice's voice, sounding frightened. “Do you take her to the Blue Room.” A murmured response. And then Sidonie felt herself lifted in strong arms and carried along passageways, up a flight of stairs, along another passage. She had only the vaguest memory, later, of being undressed and put to bed; of figures hovering over her, someone laying a cool cloth on her forehead, someone else holding a cup of something bitter-tasting to her lips.

Sidonie woke alone, in darkness. Her head felt as though an iron band girdled it, and a deep relentless ache gnawed at her bones. She had thrown back all her bed covers, and now lay with chattering teeth in her thin, sweat-soaked shift.

There was a midwinter chill in the air. She turned her head, saw a thin grey light seeping through the window.
It
is past time I was out of bed
, she thought.
Emma has overslept
again and no one has lit the fire.

She put her bare feet to the floor. A shaft of pain speared through the base of her skull, and she staggered, almost falling. She clutched hold of a bedpost and drew herself upright, then, as the dizziness receded a little, made her way by the wan light to the open door. She could see the dim outlines of furniture, but nothing seemed to be in its usual place. The windows looked all wrong. The ceiling of her dormer room, that should have been low and slanting, soared high overhead, and where was the curtained corner where lazy Emma slept?

Sidonie reached with both hands for the door frame and stepped through into the passage where the top of the staircase ought to be. But there was no staircase, and the passage itself seemed to stretch away for an impossible distance.

Now utterly disoriented, she stumbled down the hallway. Where doors stood open, she glimpsed tall, elegant rooms with canopied beds and opulent hangings.

How strange
, she thought confusedly.
Our cottage seemed
so small . . . how peculiar that I never came upon these rooms
before . . .

At the end of the passage, a strip of light glimmered under a closed door. Sidonie could hear a woman's voice rising and falling in a measured cadence.
It is my mother at
her prayers
, she thought, her heart racing with a feverish joy. She lifted the latch, pushed open the door. “Mother . . . ” she cried out. “Mother, it is me, it is Sidonie!”

The words froze in her throat. It was not her mother who knelt there, but Lady Mary. She was clad in a thin white shift with a wreath of vervain upon her brow, her russet hair flowing loose upon her shoulders, and candlelight flickering on her upturned face. Before her, on a low chest, was an open book and a small enamelled case; beside the chest, a brazier from which there rose a pungent column of smoke. Sidonie recognized, from long familiarity, the mingled scents of burning hemlock, aloes wood, poppy juice and mandrake. Surrounding all was a wide circle drawn in charcoal.

The room was filled with shadow, and candle flame, and eddying smoke, and incense. Everything had the shifting, elusive quality of dreams, and yet Sidonie was sure she was not sleeping. The edge of the door, as she gripped it, felt solid under her hand. Her bones ached, her breath felt tight in her chest, her heart pounded, as they never did in dreams.

Intent upon her ritual, Lady Mary neither stirred nor looked round. It was no Christian prayer she chanted, but an invocation to older, darker gods.

. . . Cerberus opens his triple jaw, and fire chants the praises
of God with the three tongues of the lightning. The soul revisits the
tombs, the magical lamps are lighted . . .
Lady Mary's voice rose, and fell, and rose again. From time to time she reached out to drop more twigs into the brazier, and white smoke billowed up.

A clammy sweat had broken out all over Sidonie's body; her head thrummed with pain. Dizzy and sick but unable to draw her eyes away, she leaned unnoticed against the door frame.

And then, in the swirling smoke, a shape began to form.

In the beginning there was only a clotting of shadow against the candlelit wall, the vague suggestion of a human form. Then gradually, as Sidonie stared, it gathered substance.

There was detail now, and texture — the rich nap of the black velvet doublet, the wide silver-edged ruff, the long face with its full-lipped mouth, the dark eyes that gazed at them with gentle melancholy. And the crimson stain blossoming on the black-clad thigh.

In the hush of midnight came Mary Herbert's cry of love and anguish. The tracks of tears shone on her upturned face. She held out her arms, and soundlessly her brother moved toward her, formless spirit clothed in a semblance of flesh. He bent as though to kiss Lady Mary's brow; then painfully straightening, turned towards Sidonie. For an instant his eyes looked directly into hers. She saw his lips move, but without sound. She saw the muscles of his throat and jaw tense, as though in an attempt to speak.
But the dead cannot speak
, Sidonie thought; and wondered where she had acquired that certain knowledge.