The Alchemist's Daughter (21 page)
A ring. A bowl.
And Sidonie knew that the moment Queen Elizabeth drank from her glass, England's fate would be decided.
She watched the Chief Steward fill the Queen's cup with a silver ladle, and, bowing, set it before her. No one would drink until the Queen herself, on this contrary night, proposed the toast.
“Drink wassail!” said the Queen. And she raised the goblet to her lips.
Sidonie felt a great cry tearing its way out of her chest. It pierced the babble of voices like a swordthrust, exploded into the hot, crowded room.
“Your Majesty, I pray you, do not drink!”
Startled, the Queen set down her goblet. Her expression was at once furious and disconcerted. Every face in the room had turned toward Sidonie with a look of shocked expectancy.
“Who speaks to me thus?” asked the Queen. Her voice was composed, and icy cold.
All Sidonie could manage now was a hoarse whisper. “Your Majesty, I am Sidonie Quince, the scryer. I have looked into the crystal, and have seen disaster â for you, for England.”
Lord Burleigh and several of the court dignitaries had stepped forward, but the Queen waved them back.
“What manner of danger, Sidonie Quince?”
“The wassail bowl, Your Majesty. The danger is in the wassail.”
Now it was Sir Francis Walsingham who spoke. Sidonie had not forgotten that stern, sombre face. “You talk of poison, Mistress Quince? Her Majesty's taster has already drunk from the wassail bowl, and suffered no ill effects.”
“I fear, sir, that it was done these few minutes past.”
“Think carefully what you say, Mistress Quince. Who do you suspect? A servant?”
Someone, a courtier, observed, “The wine is served in Florentine glass. It is well known that Florentine glass will explode if it comes in contact with poison.”
“And on the strength of that, would you risk Her Majesty's life?” demanded Walsingham. His tone was scathing.
From the corner of her eye, Sidonie saw the man in the sorcerer's robe sidling quietly towards the door. All uncertainty vanished.
“No servant, Your Majesty. That man.” And she pointed.
“Seize him,” said the Queen. At once half a dozen court officials has surrounded the man, and held him fast.
“If it please you, sir,” said Sidonie, looking at Walsingham. Her legs felt too weak to support her; her mouth was so dry it seemed that her words must surely catch upon her tongue. Kit, standing quietly beside her, took hold of her hand. She gained courage from that firm, warm grasp. “If you would bid him unmask?”
“Do as she says,” said the Queen, before Walsingham had a chance to respond.
One of the guards reached out and snatched away the mask. The pale, lank hair, the dour, deep-furrowed face: there was no shade of doubt.
“Sir Francis,” she said, “if you would have him stretch forth his hand?”
The assassin stood stone-still and unsubmitting in his captors' grasp. His cold, remorseless gaze was levelled at the Queen.
The guard seized the man roughly by his wrist, lifted his arm, flung back the drooping black sleeve.
A jewelled ring, large and many-faceted, glittered ruby-red in the candlelight.
“Send for an apothecary.” Walsingham said.
“If it please you, sir . . . my brother has trained as an apothecary.” As Sidonie spoke, she sent a wordless plea in Kit's direction; and Kit â unquestioning, unhesitating â stepped forward. At Walsingham's nod he approached the assassin and examined the ring.
After a moment he looked up. “The crown of the ring is hinged, and underneath is a secret compartment. There are still traces of oil, and a smell of bitter almonds.”
The Queen's eyes narrowed; whether or not her face paled, there was no telling, under that smooth egg-white mask.
“Cyanide, then?” said Walsingham.
“I'd stake my life on it,” said Kit. Those words, unthinkingly spoken, sent a chill through Sidonie. “And other ingredients, I think. Belladonna, mayhap; hensbane, monkshood, black hellebore. With so potent a mix a few drops could suffice.”
“Fill a cup from the bowl,” the Queen told one of the servers. “Give it to this man to drink.”
There was deathly silence in the room as the server ladled a cupful of the hot brew into a cup. When he held it out to the assassin, the man flinched, and held up one hand as though to refuse it. His face had gone the colour of ashes. Kit, returning to Sidonie's side, gripped her hand hard.
Walsingham had stepped forward, as if about to protest. It would suit him ill, to forfeit the chance of interrogation. But clearly, the Queen would brook no interference by her spymaster.
“Drink,” she said, her voice low-pitched and steely.
The man's fingers closed around the cup. For an instant Sidonie thought he meant to dash it to the ground. Then, in one swift, defiant motion he lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and drank.
Still no one stirred, or spoke. It was as though, for those first waiting moments, time had stopped. Sidonie, watching with held breath, thought, have I accused him for naught? Then, abruptly, the man's hands flew up to his throat. Sidonie could see all the cords standing out in his neck, hear the rasping wheeze of his breath. His face had turned the colour of beetroot. Foam flecked the corners of his mouth.
His knees buckled, and still clutching his throat, he sprawled full-length on the rush-strewn floor. His arms flailed; wrenched by convulsions, his back arched like a bow.
I have made this happen
, was Sidonie's first horrified thought.
Is this the revenge I wanted?
And then, shuddering:
was it thus my mother died?
She buried her face in Kit's shoulder. His arms went round her and he held her fast.
There was a great, collective sigh, as though everyone in the room â courtiers, guards, servants, the Queen herself, let out their breath at once. Sidonie raised her head and summoned the courage to look. The assassin's body lay motionless. “Take him away,” she heard someone â Walsingham? â say. “It's over,” Kit said, amid a rising hum of voices.
“How horrible.” It was all Sidonie could think to say. “How horrible.”
“It was the better choice,” Kit said, “and quickly done. More merciful than Walsingham's questioners, and a traitor's execution.” All the same, the colour had drained from his cheeks.
But now one of the Queen's ladies was approaching through the crowd. “Mistress Quince, the Queen would speak with you in private.”
Sidonie gave Kit an anxious look; then, meekly, she followed the brisk swish-swish of the lady-in-waiting's voluminous skirts.
The winds command me away. Our ship is under sail. God
grant we may live in His Fear as the enemy have cause to
say that God doth fight for Her Majesty as well abroad as
at home.”
â Letter from Sir Francis Drake to
Sir Francis Walsingham, April 2nd, 1588.
The Queen, with several of her ladies, had withdrawn to a small tapestried, pillow-strewn chamber. Her face, under the bright auburn wig, seemed thinner and older than Sidonie remembered. Seen close-up, through the chalky mask, there were deep lines etched around her mouth and eyes.
“Leave us,” said the Queen to her ladies. Then, fondly: “All but you, Thomasina. I have no secrets from you, my poppet.”
Thomasina smiled and reached up to pat her mistress's hand. How like a doll she is, thought Sidonie, with her childlike body in its ornate gown, her clever, impudent woman's face.
The Queen turned to Sidonie. “Mistress Quince, it seems that once again I am in your debt.”
Sidonie could only think to dip a curtsey.
“Once before you scried for me, but then it was mere pretext. I knew well enough what the glass would show. But now it seems my enemies are everywhere. Do you scry for me now, Mistress Quince, for I will sleep easier, knowing what is in store.”
Sidonie felt her stomach clench, her heart begin to race. What had she expected from the Queen? Gifts, gratitude, security for her father? Willing or not, a place at court? But not this. This was greater peril than she had bargained for. Suppose what she saw in the glass was the death of the Queen? Under the law, such a prophecy was treason.
But the Queen was waiting.
If I tax her patience
, Sidonie thought unhappily,
it will only make things worse.
She found her voice. “Your Majesty, you have bidden me always to speak truth when I look into the crystal. But what if that truth offends you?”
“My child, I have never yet risen in the morning, knowing what the day might bring. Traitors in the palace, assassins in the crowd, Spanish galleons in the Channel . . . It is best to be forewarned.”
Once again Sidonie took out the crystal. The Queen sat down in a rustling of pearl-encrusted satin, with Thomasina, eyes wide and attentive, on a cushion at her feet.
In the glass, a swirling, eddying blackness.
“What do you see, Sidonie Quince?”
“Only darkness, your Majesty. Storm clouds, mayhap.”
“As one might expect,” the Queen said wryly. “Tempest, flood, eclipses of the moon and convulsions of the earth . . . Did you know, Sidonie, that such are the predictions for the coming year?”
“So I have been told, your Majesty.”
“Then prithee continue. Darkness, still?”
In the depths of the crystal, shapes emerged. “I see ships, your Majesty. A great multitude of ships, like a black floating wall, abristle with turrets.”
“How many ships, Mistress Quince?”
“Too many to count, Majesty. A hundred or more.”
“Spanish ships?”
The image was clearer now. Sidonie could make out the Spanish colours snapping in the wind. She glanced round at the Queen. “Yes, your Majesty.”
“Nay, do not look away from the glass. Tell me what else you see.”
“I see the line of English ships, and the Spanish ships in a great curving half-moon, standing fast against the English guns.”
“This does not bode well for England, Sidonie Quince.”
“Marry, it does not, your Majesty. But wait . . . now I see ships with fire running up their rigging. Eight tall vessels, all in a line with their sails ablaze, carried by wind and tide towards the Spanish fleet.”
“Fireships,” said the Queen. “The engineer Giambelli's infernal device. Hellburners, they called them in Antwerp, and they put God's fear into the Spanish. And now?”
Where there had been darkness in the glass, there was suddenly incandescence. Sidonie shielded her eyes against the glare.
“Fountains of sparks shooting up. Flames gusting, billowing. It is as though the sea is on fire.”
“That will be the guns exploding,” said the Queen. There was as much excitement in her voice as apprehension. “God willing, Master Giambelli's fireships could save the day.”
As Sidonie watched, the red-hot furnace-glow faded. There was darkness again, lit up by erratic bursts of flame. Through dense black smoke, Sidonie glimpsed toppled masts and ragged topsails foundering in heavy seas.
And at the last, she saw the great crescent-shaped line of Spanish galleons scattering in disorder before the English fleet.
Sidonie tore her gaze from the crystal, and looked up at the Queen. Her throat was dry, her eyes burned; pain like an iron vice gripped her skull. “By wind and fire and tide, your Majesty. That is my prognostication. By wind and fire and tide will the Spanish be defeated, and England saved.”
“And by the will of God,” said Queen Elizabeth. And Sidonie, obediently, echoed: “By the will of God.” If either voice was lacking in conviction, only Thomasina was there to overhear.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
â Edmund Spenser,
Prothalamion
Blackfriars Theatre, 1612
The tallow candles sputtered, burning low. On Prospero's island Ariel sang, Ferdinand and Miranda were joyfully betrothed and the monstrous Caliban set free. Prospero announced his intention to give up the arts of magic and retire quietly to Milan.
The patrons who had bought expensive seats on the long Blackfriars stage stretched luxuriously to show off their even more extravagant garments. In pit and gallery, the audience stirred from its waking dream, and prepared to go out into the autumn night.
Sidonie lingered on her bench in the twopenny gallery, still lost in the magic of the play. Kit, more practicalminded, had gone to buy fruit and nuts to sustain them on the journey home.
“Mistress Quince, well met!”
Sidonie looked round with a start.
“I trust you have not forgotten me? Though it's half a lifetime since we dined together at Wilton House.”
The auburn hair was thinner now and flecked with grey, the high forehead etched with lines. But his was a face one did not easily forget. Sidonie said with astonishment and delight, “It
is
Will of Warwickshire, is it not?”
“One and the same. Though older, and I fear a deal more care-worn. And it
is
Sidonie Quince?”
Sidonie laughed. “Sidonie, still â but Mistress Aubrey now.”
“Ah yes, the young man you told us was your foster-brother â a ruse we all saw through at once. And you were the alchemist's daughter â Miranda to your father's Prospero.”
“No match, methinks, for your Prospero . . . though he tinkers still with his vials and alembics. Unlike Prospero, he is not wise enough, or content enough, to give over the Great Work and doze in his slippers by the fire.”
“And you, Mistress Aubrey? I remember you had more taste for mathematics than for poetry.”
“I amuse myself a little, still, with numbers,” Sidonie told him.
“I have seen your translations of Hypatia of Alexandria,” he said, surprising her.