‘Please, don’t feel at all unsure of telling your tale in front of Mistress Dee.’ He gave her waist an extra squeeze and she kissed him fondly on the ear. ‘She has been used to horrors of all kinds ever since she came to this house. And before, I fancy.’ Helene gave a small and rather theatrical shudder and closed her eyes briefly, but continued to smile.
Marlowe looked concerned and bowed his head. ‘Where did Mistress Dee live before?’ he asked. ‘That she saw horrors.’
Dee answered briskly, ‘Here and there, Master Marlowe. Here and there. But, wait. I can see that you are diffident about sharing your tale.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Run along now, my dear. We will see you later perhaps, at dinner, when Master Marlowe has shared his troubles with me.’
Helene Dee bowed her head politely to Marlowe and left the room. It was only later that Marlowe was to remember that she had not spoken a single word.
Down in the kitchen in the bowels of Dee’s house, the cook was toasting bread. Her hair hung in elf locks on either side of her face. Dee had chosen her specifically because of her unspeakable ugliness, much as he had chosen Helene for her beauty and little more. The manservant was sitting on the other side of the fire, his nose in a tankard. He looked up as the woman entered.
‘Oh, Nell,’ he said, in a friendly way. ‘Pull up a chair. Drink?’ He reached down and picked up the jug.
‘Ooh, ta,’ the girl said. ‘I’m parched. Got any more toast?’ The cook tossed her a piece, which she dunked in her ale.
‘Woss going on upstairs, then?’ the manservant asked, around a mouthful of bread.
‘Oh, he’s in the old mystery mode,’ the girl said. ‘I come from here and there, horrors, that sort of thing. The usual.’
‘Love him,’ said the cook. ‘He’s bored, that’s what it is. He ain’t had nothing in the showstone for so long, he’s wond’rin if he ain’t lost the skill for it.’
‘No, no,’ said the girl. ‘Only yesterday, he saw a black man cutting a woman’s head off.’
‘And what does that mean, then?’ the cook asked, turning another piece of bread.
‘I don’t know,’ the girl replied. ‘That’s the thing with telling the future, innit? It’s the future.’
‘He didn’t predict this Marley bloke, though, did he?’ the manservant observed, with blunt accuracy.
‘No,’ Nell said. ‘That’s true. But he’s just a wandering scholar, I think. He is a bit handsome to be much of a thinker. In my experience, most people are one or the other.’
The cook and the manservant looked at each other. Nell had, for once, hit the nail right on the head.
John Dee sat back in his chair, rereading the letter which Manwood had sent, by hand with Master Marlowe, of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It seemed quite straightforward, just an introduction really, wrapped around an invitation to stay at Madingley while Manwood was there, but the mention of a horrible murder had piqued his interest.
‘So, Master Marlowe,’ he said. ‘Your friend, one -’ he looked down at the letter – ‘Ralph Whitingside, has died, murdered, you think. And that’s why you have ridden for two days to come to me?’
‘Sir Roger Manwood was sure that you would be able to help me,’ Marlowe said, although what he had experienced in this house so far was beginning to make him wonder.
‘I’m sure I will,’ Dee said. There was an unhealthy gleam in his eye. ‘I haven’t done this for a while, but I think we could have a crack at raising Master Whitingside and asking him what happened.’
For a moment, Marlowe thought that perhaps his two days riding and then the rather bizarre setting had upset his hearing, or his understanding, or even both. ‘I beg your pardon, Doctor Dee,’ he said. ‘Did you say “raising”?’
‘Yes.’ Dee looked at Marlowe as if nothing untoward had been said, except perhaps his questioning of it. ‘I have had some success in raising the dead, you know, Master Marlowe. Indeed, I am quite well known for it. In the right circles.’
Marlowe suddenly felt it was quite important to keep this man happy. Who knew how a madman might react if crossed? He smiled accordingly and nodded, whilst looking covertly for ways of escape.
Dee was going on. ‘The Queen consults me regularly and wouldn’t dream of doing anything important without speaking to me first. My spirits tell me whether a proposed course of action will be successful or not. If they say not, then the Queen would not dream of carrying it through.’
‘Are they ever wrong?’ Marlowe ventured to ask.
‘No, never!’ Dee shut his mouth with a snap. ‘Although of course, sometimes evil spirits speak as friends and give false advice.’
‘So the Queen does the wrong thing,’ Marlowe said.
Dee leaned forward. ‘Never say such a thing,’ he said. ‘And especially not in front of him.’ He pointed to a large toad that appeared to be dozing on the hearthstone. It reminded Marlowe of the portraits he had seen of Cardinal Wolsey. ‘He misses nothing.’
Marlowe’s smile was by now a complete rictus. Had Manwood gone mad, to send him to this place?
‘But I can see that you are doubting, Master Marlowe. Test me this way. Tell me one thing about your friend’s death and I will tell you the cause of it.’ He sat back, with his hands clasped on his chest and his head thrown back, so he appeared to be examining the ceiling. Stuffed birds hung there, an owl in full flight, a goshawk plunging on its prey.
Marlowe thought through what he had seen in the flickering candle flame that early dawn in Whitingside’s rooms. It was hard to revisit, but he forced himself. If by describing what he saw he could make Dee forget his plans to raise the dead, then he would rack his brain until it hurt. ‘He . . . he had . . . his back was arched, his fingers were clenched and . . .’
Dee held up a hand. ‘No, no. That is ample. Now, let me think . . .’ His head snapped back up so that his amazing eyes bored into Marlowe’s. ‘I will ask you some questions. Answer me truthfully. Try no tricks, now, Master Marlowe. Now, then . . . he had vomited?’
Marlowe nodded. Not too clever a guess, when all was said and done.
‘The vomit was green -’ Dee was getting into his stride now – ‘like grass. His bed was disordered. The room looked as though there had been a fight. Umm . . . let me think . . . no one had seen him for a few days. Tell me, did Master Whitingside have a wife?’
Marlowe shook his head.
‘A woman of any kind in his life?’
He thought of Meg, not the purest woman who ever lived perhaps, but certainly in love with Ralph. He nodded. ‘A girl loved him, yes.’
Dee narrowed his eyes. ‘Then he had something some of us never have,’ he said. ‘Do you know this wench?’ he said. On Marlowe’s nod, he continued, ‘Could you find out whether Master Whitingside could . . . perform in his last days?’
‘Perf . . . oh, I see. Yes, I dare say she would tell me if I asked her.’
‘Because if it was found that he could not . . . perform . . . then that would make the diagnosis certain.’
‘Diagnosis of what?’
Dee looked smug. ‘That your friend was poisoned by a tincture of foxglove. Easily obtained and deadly.’
‘Would he have taken it himself? Do people do such things?’ Marlowe suddenly had a sickening feeling that he was chasing the wrong hare.
Dee reached forward to a pestle on the table in front of him and began to grind something inside it with a brass mortar. ‘The Scots,’ he said, ‘call the foxglove bloody fingers or dead man’s bells.’ His eyes flicked upwards to glance at Marlowe, who was watching him, fascinated. ‘Apt, eh, in the case of your friend? The Welsh -’ he carried on with his dark stirring, leaning in to his task and twisting the mortar widdershins – ‘always of a gentler disposition, know it as fairy-folks’ fingers or lambs-tongue leaves. Quite poetic, don’t you think?’
The poet-to-be did.
‘Dr Fuchs, late of Tubingen gave the plant its real name – digitabulum.’