The Alchemist's Daughter (17 page)
Sidonie stared down at it, a great ache of shame and disappointment swelling in her throat.
I am my father's
daughter indeed
, she thought.
How else could I have put such
foolish trust in shadows?
Kit had come to stand beside her. His hand gripped hers. Sidonie looked up at him, blinking back tears. “How can they forgive me,” she whispered, “for sending them on such a fool's errand?”
“Sidonie,” said Kit, “has the glass ever yet played you false? Look there!”
And Sidonie watched with held breath as another workman freed a muddy cup-shaped object from the claws of the grapnel and rubbed his sleeve across it, leaving a wide, gleaming streak of gold.
In fading afternoon light the Glastonbury treasures lay spread across the grass. Mud-spattered and exultant, Adrian Gilbert told Sidonie, “Once it's all cleaned and assessed we'll know better what we have. Still, I'll warrant it will buy our good Queen Bess a galleon or two.”
Glinting yellow under a coating of mud and pond slime were chalices, candlesticks, plate, jewelled reliquaries, chests full of coins â gold to build ships for the Queen, to preserve her sovereignty over the seas, to keep England at peace. And gold to keep Sidonie's father safe from harm.
. . . with a monarch's voice,
Cry âHavoc!' and let slip the dogs of war.
â William Shakespeare,
Julius Caesar
“Mistress Quince, such news!” Alice was fairly dancing with excitement. Sidonie sat up in bed and reached for her dressing gown. There was an wintry chill in the room this morning.
“Tell me, Alice, I pray you, before you burst.”
Alice set down the breakfast tray. “The word is all round the estate this morning, Mistress Sidonie. I have it from one of the cooks, who had it from the butler, who had it from the steward, who has it from Lady Mary's waiting-woman. The Queen herself is to come to Wilton House! If the weather holds she will be here in a fortnight!”
“So late in the year?” asked Sidonie, around a mouthful of bread and honey.
“Oh, but the Queen has long promised to pay another visit to Wilton House. Lady Mary was once at court, and Lady Mary's mother nursed Her Majesty through the pox, at much risk to her own life, so you see the Queen has much affection for the family, and the steward says that by next summer we may be at war with Spain, and then Her Majesty must bide in London . . . ”
“Softly, softly, Alice,” said Sidonie. She took a sip of hot milk. “If you go on at such a pace you will run out of breath entirely.”
But Alice was not to be subdued. “My mother was a chambermaid,” she chattered on, “when the Queen's Progress came to Wilton House, and she speaks of it still. Queen Elizabeth came with four hundred six-horse wagons to carry all the beds and furniture for her retinue, and five hundred officers and servants in her train. All the master's gentlemen and servants were lined up in the gatehouse courtyard thick as could be, and when the Queen arrived there was a great noise of guns fired off in salute, and then Lady Mary came out with all her divers ladies and gentlemen to greet the Queen.”
Talking all the while, she fetched Sidonie a clean smock and underbodice and dropped a pair of lace-trimmed petticoats over her head. “What a time that was, my mother said, with the whole household turned topsy-turvy for months, cleaning and polishing and airing to get ready for the visit, and then the laying in of supplies, and hiring musicians, and borrowing Turkey carpets and extra silver plate from other houses. And then every day there were banquets and masques and entertainments, and hunting, and boating on the river, and fireworks at night.”
Sidonie sat on the edge of the bed to pull on her stockings. “And for this visit, as well?” she asked with some alarm.
“Alas, no,” sighed Alice, “as you point out, it is late in the year, and they say in the kitchen it is to be a modest affair, to spare expense to our house, and the Queen's coffers as well . . . ” She threw open the wardrobe doors and peered inside. “No doubt,” she observed, as she gathered up a set of embroidered sleeves and a kirtle of heavy russet silk, “Lady Mary will have more to tell you, for when you have broken your fast she awaits you in her parlour.”
Sidonie found the Countess sitting in a high-backed chair with her prayer book in her lap, a piece of needlework spilling across a table at her side. The early sun, flooding through stained glass windows, scattered shards of emerald-green and vermilion across the rushmats.
“My dear Sidonie, come in. I have some news for you. You will have heard, I'm sure, that we were to expect a visit from the Queen.”
“Alice mentioned something of the sort,” said Sidonie, with tactful understatement.
“I have no doubt,” said Lady Mary with a faint smile. “I understand Her Majesty wished to take possession of the Abbey treasure, and express her gratitude in person. However, word came this morning that she has been unwell, and her physicians have advised her not to travel.”
“It is nothing serious, I hope?”
“A minor indisposition, we are told. But needless to say, it is disappointing.”
“Indeed,” said Sidonie â though in truth, Lady Mary seemed more relieved than disappointed.
“The real reason, I suspect, is not ill health, but rumour of an imminent attack by Spain. It's no secret that all shipping has been stayed, and the fleet fully mobilized.”
Sidonie felt a chill at those words, so matter-of-factly spoken. On this tranquil October morning, with a lark outside the window and the sound of shepherd's pipes across the fields, could war be so near at hand? These past months all of England had held its breath, waiting for the Spanish ships, yet Sidonie still was unprepared.
“You have turned quite pale, my child. Forgive me, have I frightened you?”
“A little,” Sidonie said.
The Countess reached for Sidonie's hand and held it in a firm, warm grasp. “Be of good heart, Sidonie. War is coming, none but a fool would deny it. But if Philip does not launch his ships before winter closes in, he needs must wait till spring. And remember this: the English fleet still rules the seas. Plymouth and London are filled with English fighting men, eager for the first sight of Spanish sails.”
But Sidonie was only half attending to those brave words. “My lady, if there is to be war, I should be at home with my father, someone must see to his safety . . . ”
Lady Mary's brows lifted. “And should he not instead be seeing to your safety?”
Sidonie hesitated, at a loss to explain, but Lady Mary seemed content to let the question rest.
“Sidonie, I did not send for you to speak of war, but only to say this: though the Queen must bide in London, we are nonetheless to entertain a distinguished visitor. Her Majesty is sending Lord Burleigh to fetch the gold, and he has asked to speak with you.”
“What, I, my lady?” said Sidonie, flustered, her mind still elsewhere.
“And does that surprise you?” Lady Mary's voice was amused. “It is you who have earned the Queen's gratitude, you who have helped protect her throne. Have you so soon forgotten the prophecy â that when the Abbey treasure is discovered, peace will be assured in England?”
But Sidonie was remembering that other, darker prophecy of Regiomontanus: of catastrophe and ruin, of empires crumbling and lamentation across the land.
The corners and straits of the earth shall be measured in
depth. And strange shall be the wonders that are creeping
into new worlds. Time shall be altered, with the difference
of day and night.
â The spirit Madimi, to Doctor John Dee.
The day had dawned wet and blustery. Kit was in the library exploring the Earl of Pembroke's rare botanical texts, and after one glance at the drenched gardens, Sidonie decided to take her exercise in the Long Gallery. Seemingly unoccupied now that the gold had been recovered, Adrian Gilbert came to join her. Though fires had been lit at either end of the room the air was chilly, and they kept up a brisk pace as they marched the length of the gallery and back.
Gilbert appeared in high spirits after the success of his Glastonbury expedition.
“It was a happy stroke of fate that brought you to Wilton House,” he told Sidonie.
Not so happy at first
, thought Sidonie, remembering the cruel blow to Kit's head and her own terror, at the hands of the Counterfeit Crank. Still, she smiled in polite agreement.
“But perhaps not altogether an accident? You have not told me what it was you lost, on the road to Salisbury.”
Sidonie hesitated. What
had
she lost? The red elixir â or a handful of mud?
“Nay, you need not tell me, I have put together the halves of the equation. An alchemist is employed by the Queen to make gold for her coffers. His daughter, in the face of all wisdom and common sense, makes a journey to Glastonbury. It is no secret what Dr. Dee and his cohort Edward Kelley claim to have discovered in the Abbey ruins.”
“All that is true enough,” Sidonie admitted. “I greatly feared for my father's life, if he could not fulfill his contract. When I went to the scrying glass for help it showed me a vision of Glastonbury. Then I thought I had found Dr. Dee's elixir, but in the end it came to naught.”
“But the glass did not lie, it was only that you misinterpreted its message. The Queen has her gold â you have fulfilled your father's obligation.”
They came to the end of the gallery, turned and retraced their steps. “You needs must have more faith in your talent, Mistress Quince. The world is full of mountebanks who would deceive us with their tricks. And you, who have the true God-given gift of vision, choose to hide your light under a bushel. Would I had known of you five years earlier.”
Wherefore this talk of mountebanks? wondered Sidonie in sudden alarm. Surely he did not speak of her father? “What mean you, Master Gilbert?”
“Are you a patient listener, Mistress Quince? It is a tale long in the telling.”
Rain lashed the roofs of Wilton House; a rising gale howled round the walls. “Since we are housebound,” said Sidonie, “it seems as good a way to pass the time, as any other. Come, let us sit.” She gestured to a cushioned bench close the by fire.
“So then,” said Gilbert obligingly. “Imagine a seance at Mortlake, in the library of the famous Dr. Dee. There am I, with my good friend, the navigator John Davis. Sir Francis Walsingham by chance is there also. The arch-wizard Dr. Dee is in attendance, along with that lopped-eared charlatan Edward Kelley.”
“Lopped-eared?” interrupted Sidonie.
“He had his ears cut off â they say for communicating with graveyard ghosts.”
“Mercy!” said Sidonie with a shiver. “But do you continue, Master Gilbert.”
“Kelley is kneeling in front of his scrying crystal, while Dee in his chair looks on. And then Kelley tells us that an angel spirit he calls “Madimi” has emerged from the crystal, bearing prophecies. But only Kelley can see and hear this chimera, and Dee must translate her words, for she speaks only in Greek, Arabic or Syrian.”
“Indeed!” said Sidonie, stifling an urge to laugh. “And pray tell what prognostications did this apparition make?”
“Well, it may be that something was lost in the translation. But she spoke of strange wonders in new worlds, where time itself was altered, and of a northwest passage that would take us to Cathay. âLet darkness go behind thee,' she was supposed to have said â and according to Dee, this signified the Midnight Sun.”
“The polar sun, that in summer never sets?”
“The very one. And on the strength of these predictions, John Davis and I laid plans to mount a new expedition in search of this passage, in partnership with Dr. Dee. He named our little company “Colleagues or Fellowship of New Navigations Atlantical and Septentrional.”
“A name to conjure with,” observed Sidonie.
“Indeed. And it was Dee's conjuring that deceived us.
John Davis is a brave and virtuous man, a peerless navigator, and my dearest friend; but the very sweetness of his nature made him gullible. As I was also, to my great regret. We knew John Dee as a mathematician and geographer, mapmaker to the Queen. And so we trusted him when he drew up a chart dictated by the spirit angel â though it showed that to reach Cathay we must cross a polar region of infinite ice.”
“Marry, but this is a strange tale, Master Gilbert.”
“And it grows stranger still. To my brother Humphrey, who like us had fallen under the wizard's spell, Dee had given a map that showed a great river cutting straight across the New World to the western ocean, from whence he could sail to Cathay. In gratitude, my brother granted Dee the rights to all lands in the New World north of fifty degrees. And then Dee came forward with a shipwrecked sailor, who spoke of lands in the New World with elephants and pepper trees, trees that poured forth wine, broad streets lined with silver mansions, gold nuggets as big as eggs in every stream, and savage kings bedecked with precious jewels.