The Secrets of Life and Death (8 page)

‘Well, OK,’ she responded, eventually. ‘I just can’t see how I can help.’

‘Would you prefer me to visit you at home, or perhaps you could come to the university?’ He tapped his pen on the paper with her number on it.

‘I’m, uh, working in town this week. Perhaps we could meet at a pub? Do you know Princesshay at all?’

‘Fairly well.’ It was an area of shops near the cathedral.

‘There’s a pub, the Keg and Apple. Could you meet me there?’

‘How about tomorrow? I’m teaching until six, I could make it by six-thirty. It should be quiet.’

Another silence. He started counting. She seemed strangely hesitant. He had just got to seventeen when she replied. ‘I’ll be there.’ Then her voice lightened a little. ‘I’m five foot six, blonde and will be wearing a green jacket.’

He smiled. ‘Thank you, Ms Hammond.’

‘Jack. My name is Jack.’

‘Felix. So – six-thirty tomorrow.’

Felix turned to write the time of the meeting on the calendar, before he remembered Marianne had taken that, too. He made a note of it on his mobile phone instead.

He walked around the kitchen for something – anything – for dinner. The fridge was almost empty. He had no idea how much of his life had been organised by Marianne. Food, laundry, messages, somehow all accomplished while she worked teaching music fulltime. As he stood in the kitchen he glanced out towards the street. It was empty, but he felt a strange uneasiness. The face of the girl against the glass was haunting him.

A sound behind his back made him jump. He swung around to see Tycho, Marianne’s fat tabby, pushing the cat flap open with his nose.

‘Why are you back again? Don’t like Heinrich, eh?’ At least Marianne had left the kitchen phone. He sat on one of the remaining chairs.

He keyed in Marianne’s new number as Tycho, rasping a purr, settled on his lap.

‘The cat’s back,’ he said, the second she picked up.

‘Well, he’s used to living there. I don’t think that’s surprising after twelve years. I’ll pick him up tomorrow.’ Marianne’s low voice was still sexy.

‘I haven’t got any cat food.’

She sighed. ‘Felix, don’t be childish. I’m not coming over, and it wouldn’t do any good if I did.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’ It was cheap, and he knew it. He did want her to come over. ‘I’ve been working, that’s all. I’m consulting on a case for the police. I don’t have time to cat-sit.’

‘Oh, God, not like that child in the Thames?’ Her voice got more husky.

‘Not that bad, no.’ The cat rubbed its face over Felix’s hand.

‘Look, there are a few tins of tuna in the cupboard. Just drain off the brine for him, and I’ll pick him up tomorrow.’ He could almost see her, curled up in her favourite wing chair, running her hand through her long hair.

‘I really miss you, you know?’ His voice was a growl, and he regretted saying it almost immediately.

He could hear her sigh down the phone.

‘I miss you too, Felix. But I’m in love with Heinrich, and that’s where my future is.’ There was a long gap, which she might once have filled with some comment like ‘love you’ or ‘bye darling’, in her slight Swedish accent. Instead, she said, ‘goodbye, Felix.’ Before he could answer, the phone clicked in his ear.

He sat for a long moment, letting the sadness settle on him as he remembered the easy affection they had had, the passion of the early years. It all seemed a long time ago, yet until Heinrich came along, he would have said they were just as happy. Just more … separate as their careers took them to different places. When she left she said her love had just faded away, which was fine for her, but he didn’t feel any different. He shook off the melancholy and put some music on in the study. He checked his university email account. Two excuses why assignments would be late, one reminder about a budget meeting, and an email from Mackenzie at the British Museum. He opened it.

Hi Felix,

I’ve done a detailed pic for you of each side of the medals. The curator of the collection said someone else was looking at them a few weeks ago. She wanted to know the vendor too; I’m not sure if they gave the information to her. Then, last week, a man from some police task force asked who sold them and they gave the info out. Let me know when you solve the murder and catch the bad guy.

All the best,
MM

He looked at the images Mackenzie had attached to the email. They were much better quality than the quick scans Rose had done. Mackenzie had also included files of every one of the sixty or so sheets of paper and vellum that had been auctioned. The folded and damaged paper, hatched with Kelley’s illegible script, was much clearer in the museum’s scans. He opened them, one at a time, on the screen. Kelley’s spellings were inconsistent as well as archaic, and he switched into Latin frequently. Felix started to see whole phrases. Far from being notes of experiments or alchemical formulae, the pages seemed to be in journal form. A sentence unravelled itself from loops and blotches.

Her mother gave byrthe to a chyld – when she had been ded fulle five yeares …

‘It is said in Poland that nowhere is the line between alive and dead finer, than in Transylvania. Only when a corpse is bloated and festering, or entirely beheaded, is it believed dead.’

Edward Kelley
17 November 1585
Niepolomice

Her mother gave birth to a child – when she had been dead fully five years? It filled my mind with horrid possibilities.

I looked at Dee, whose hair was already standing on end from being asleep, and back to the long face of the king.

‘You do not believe me. What rational being could? I was just a small child when my parents were ambushed on the road to Buda.’ Istvan looked troubled, his face reddened by the glow from the fire as it brightened. A tendril of smoke stretched out and caught in my throat.

‘We have seen many things that have defied belief, your Majesty,’ Dee conceded. ‘Yet they were found to be true.’

The king stretched back in his chair, looking first at me, then at Dee, as if looking for signs of disbelief or deception. I gathered myself in my cloak, which I had hung upon the end of the bed to dry. I shall tell you the story in his words, for to relate it makes me shiver.

‘My father, the Voivode of Transylvania, was attacked by rebels. He managed to get my mother, Katalin, safely to the citadel at Poenari before he died of his wounds. But she had been gored in the side by a pike, and her women could not staunch the bleeding. They feared, not just for her life but that of her unborn child. They called upon a woman, known to the local peasants as Zsuzsanna, who was reputed to be skilled in herbs and midwifery, to save their mistress.

‘She sent my mother’s servants away, then demanded faggots of firewood, as many as the castle held. She barricaded the door to the tower where my mother lay, close to death. All night the people of the castle heard the terrible screams and moans of my mother, as if she was being tortured by the Turks, and smoke hung over the stronghold.

‘My mother’s servants tried to break into the tower, but the soldiers were afraid and stopped them. The castle guards confessed that Zsuzsanna was a notorious sorceress. After a night of terrible suffering, the door was unlocked and my mother’s retainers rushed to her aid.

‘Their lady, though deathly pale and weak, still breathed. She commanded that the witch Zsuzsanna be placed in charge, as only she could keep my mother alive with her herbs and potions.

‘They had to defer to the witch in all matters concerning the countess, including her virtual imprisonment within that one chamber. She could not step outside the room for a whole year, during which her belly swelled with her living child, but very slowly. At the end of that time I and my brothers and sisters were taken to see her, but although she knew us, all affection seemed gone. Instead, her love was focused on the child inside her.

‘By the following year, the Lady Katalin could walk slowly within the confines of the tower. Her strength grew, but she was attended only by Zsuzsanna, who held her own peasants’ court in the castle’s yard, doing her devilish work. Although the palace servants loathed her and distrusted her entirely, the local people revered her and claimed she had saved many of their lives with her medicines and spells. The story of the lady with the baby forever trapped inside her womb spread, and there were those in the church who even said my mother – my own, gentle mother – was a witch, or else some dead creature, kept alive by evil spirits and carrying a dragon inside her.

‘She lived for five years inside the castle, getting stronger each year, until the time when the pains came to birth her child. The labour was cruel and lasted two nights, and it was said that the servants took out sheet after sheet soaked in Katalin’s blood, before a huge scream shook the castle and the baby was born. It was a girl – not a monster, not a dragon – and except for being born with a full head of curls and a few teeth, the baby was as other babies.

‘My mother did not survive, slipping away after her child was shown to her, but blessed her and named her Anna. The child weakened over the day and many prayed that it would also die. At Zsuzsanna’s insistence the baby was put to the breast of a fearful peasant woman, who had been chosen to nurse the child, but when suckling, the innocent babe bit the woman and blood mingled with the milk. She seemed to strengthen, and suckled fiercely while the woman cried for help, but Zsuzsanna made her feed the baby until she was strong and pink.

‘This was the beginning of the legend of Anna, which haunted my family for many years. It was only as they prepared the body of my mother that her servants saw the scars upon her skin, and realised why she had screamed on that first night. There were burns, strange shapes and letters branded into her skin, a little like your angelic alphabets, Master Dee.

‘Anna grew up attended, as her mother had been, by Zsuzsanna. And in her time, she married my Ecsed cousin, György Báthory, and had children. She was, in many ways, like other women, though weakened by her unusual birth.’

The king leaned back in the chair, as if exhausted.

‘Now Anna’s daughter Erzsébet is ill, close to death, in the way her mother and grandmother were. Zsuzsanna died last year. Her daughter Zsófia does what she can, but if you … if you understand these magics, then you must help her.’

‘When did this illness start, your Majesty?’ Dee’s eyes glittered in the low light, and I knew his interest was caught.

‘My niece was a wild girl in her youth. She was betrothed at the age of eleven to one of my most trusted lieutenants, Count Ferenc Nádasdy, although they barely knew each other. Three years later she disgraced her name when she bore a daughter to a groom. The pregnancy weakened her, and after her marriage she could not conceive again. She is now five-and-twenty and suffers bouts of weakness that only the witch seems able to treat. But she is worsening and, as her uncle, I have sworn to try and help her.’

Dee looked at me, and I saw a strange expression in his eyes. ‘I would need to consult the witch’s daughter about the symbols. But, your Majesty, if these are demonic interventions, I cannot in any conscience interfere with God’s purpose.’

Istvan’s hand was like his face: big, square, and battle-scarred. He ran his fingers through his bushy hair.

‘My niece is now as devout a young woman as you could hope to meet, Master Dee, even though she is Protestant. As my sister Anna was.’ He reached into his clothes and brought out a folded parchment square. ‘These were drawn by my mother’s priest, after her death. They are some of the brands she suffered.’ His hand was shaking when he passed the paper to Dee.

Dee got off the bed, opened the note and spread it on the table. ‘Edward. Get me Bacon’s
Demonica
.’ He rummaged through the pack for vellum and pens. ‘Do you know what the other symbols look like? Does anyone know what any of them mean?’

The king spoke. ‘There is one who does. Zsuzsanna’s daughter, Zsófia Draskovich. She knows them.’

Dee pulled out half the books in the pack. ‘And more lamps. I need light. Edward, clear the table.’

King Istvan stood up, easing his back. Even in the light of the lantern I could see that he wore his years heavily. ‘I will send her to you.’ He paused for a moment, a frown creasing his heavy forehead. ‘Zsófia is one of the gypsies from the mountains of my homeland, Transylvania. Beware her trickeries.’

I wondered what misfortune and wickedness this hag would bring to us.

Between spasms of dry heaves, Sadie hunched over a bowl. She no longer fought Jack’s help to leave the dungeon, although she hated the feel of the woman touching her. Jack’s hands were cold and dry, cracked like an old woman’s, even though she seemed quite young. She was strong, though, and not unkind. Sadie looked across at the woman, bent over what looked like an accounts book.

Sadie looked around. The room reminded her of old people’s houses. Saggy sofas, patterned carpets, books everywhere. The walls were covered with wood, painted some dingy white.

Jack looked up, rubbing one temple in gentle circles. ‘God, I hate numbers.’

Sadie stared at her, trying to understand how Jack could kidnap someone and chain them up, but then chat to them like they were friends. Sadie choked on a mouthful of sick. It was happening less often, and wasn’t so bad now, but it was still a problem. She sipped some water. She brushed her long fringe out of her eyes. She had dyed it jet black from its natural chestnut, and got it cut short before … Mum had been furious.

‘Do you think you can have dyslexia just for numbers?’ Jack crossed something out, and wrote above it carefully.

Sadie pushed the bowl away and picked up her drink. ‘I’m missing school.’

Jack shrugged, keeping one finger on her page and closing the book around it. ‘School won’t be much use to you if you’re dead.’

‘You can’t believe that!’ It burst out of Sadie, and she flung the empty cup across the room, where it bounced off one of the bookcases and thudded to the floor. The dog started growling, lifting himself off the ground, his lips pulled back away from his long teeth and red tongue.