Una, however, crawled further back, to another square of light, and Gloriana was tempted to follow. Here they could see into John Dee’s bedchamber. It was as littered with charts and books and pieces of alchemical apparatus as the other room. Only the bed, draped with black curtains bearing a variety of mystical and astrological symbols as befitted the couch of a follower of Prometheus, was free of paper. Gloriana frowned a question, but Una’s hand begged her to be patient and to continue looking. Very soon Doctor Dee paced in, his robe sailing back from his bare body, his manhood now much huger in his sensitive hand. Gloriana gasped.
“Oh,” they heard him groan, “if only there were an antidote for love. This exquisite poison! It fills my being. Some philtre which robbed the body of lust but left the mind clear. There is none. To dampen such desires is to extinguish the higher investigations of the brain. I must have both! I must have both! Ah, madam! Madam!”
Gloriana creased an unbelieving brow.
He drew the curtains of the bed gently and it seemed that there lay in shadow a figure, tall and giving off a very faint lustre, as a putrefying corpse might shine. They saw John Dee begin to stroke the object. He murmured to it. He lay down beside it and he flung his arms around it, flung a leg across it-twitch. “Oh, my beauty! Oh, my love. Soon your loins shall live-and throb to my pounding dork! Ah! Ah!”
Gloriana pulled at Una, retreating.
Eventually they stood upright upon the stair, their lanterns held loosely in their hands. Gloriana was leaning heavily against the wall, her mouth hanging open. “Una!”
“It shows us a mortal sage, eh?”
“We should not have watched! That thing he has-what is it? Is he in love with a dead creature? Is it human or animal? Or a demon, even? Perhaps it is a demon, Una. Or a corpse, waiting for the demon to inhabit it.” The rustle and murmur from the walls had begun to disturb her now. “Does my Dee dabble in necromancy?”
“Not at all.” Una began to lead the way down the stair. “That thing’s probably no more than a wax effigy of someone. No one. He loves you, Your Majesty, don’t you see?”
“I thought so. But then I denied it.”
“I’ve spied on him before. He speaks of you constantly. He is in a fever of wanting you.”
“But he has never hinted…”
“He cannot. He loves you. He fears-well, many things. He fears you will laugh at him. That you will be shocked by him. That you will become afraid of him. He is constantly in a quandary. And, it appears, he is incapable of satisfying himself with any other woman.”
“He seemed confident with that…”
“He pretended it was you.”
Gloriana began to smile broadly. “Oh, poor Dee. Should I-?”
“It would be poor politics, Your Majesty.”
“But excellent sport. And it would make him happy. After all, he has given so much to me and done so much for the Realm. He should be rewarded. There are few who could understand his pain as I understand it.”
“He does not suffer as you suffer.”
“To a degree, Una.”
“But not to the same degree. Be cautious, Your Majesty. Montfallcon…”
“You think it would be destructive. And so it would. It’s four years since I entertained a courtier. They grow ambitious, or melancholy, or wild, then strange humours fill the palace. There are jealousies.”
“And expenses,” said the Countess of Scaith. “You have had to marry so many of them off, bestow estates. Your kindness to those who have loved you…”
“My guilt.” Gloriana nodded to agree with Una. “But you’re right, dear heart. Dee must burn on and I must do my best to continue to treat him as I have always treated him.”
“You still maintain respect, surely.”
“Of course. But it will be harder to milk humour from him, knowing his pain, by setting Montfallcon off against him, as I love to do. It’s poor sport for me and none at all for Dee.”
They crossed a low-ceilinged room and found a broken door through which to enter the tunnel they had left, but, as they stooped, torchlight flared from another door, to their right, and they turned, straightening, afraid.
A small man peered from beneath his upraised hand. He seemed to have a humpback or some other growth upon his shoulder. He wore a leather jerkin and britches and a dark shirt, its collar folded at the neck. He had large eyes and a wide mouth, giving him something of the appearance of an intelligent frog. They raised their own lanterns, assuming the poses suitable to their disguise.
“What’s this?” Una, lounging on the wall, was arrogant. “The dungeon keeper, left behind?”
She saw now that the man’s shoulder carried a small black-and-white cat which sat very straight and still and looked at her with yellow, candid eyes.
“What’s this?” echoed Jephraim Tallow, mocking her. “Two play-actors who’ve lost their way?”
“We’re gentlemen, sir,” said Gloriana boldly. “And might resent your insult.”
Tallow opened his huge mouth and laughed. Una believed in her heart that she and the Queen had been recognised, but such thoughts were scarcely logical here. She stepped forward. “We’re exploring these tunnels on Lord Montfallcon’s business. Looking for traitors, renegades, vagabonds.”
“Aha. Well, you’ve caught one, gentlemen.” Tallow’s smile was insinuating. “Or two, if you like. Me and Tom. Vagabonds the pair of us. Confirmed rogues. Scavengers. But not traitors, nor are we renegades, for we serve no one and therefore can turn against no one. We live on our own account, Tom and myself.” He bowed. The cat clung on. “You’ll see I’m swordless, sir, so cannot offer you the duel you desire.”
“I spoke hastily.” In return Una made a short bow. “We were startled by your sudden appearance here.”
“And I by yours.” Tallow found a stone bench in the darkness and seated himself, crossing arms and legs and staring up at them. “Well?”
“You know these passages, then?”
“They’re my home for the moment. Until I grow tired of them and move on. But I’ve a poor understanding of the real world, which is why I prefer to be separated from it, as one is, of necessity, here. Though I’m fascinated by it, also. This is the ideal habitat for a fellow of my persuasion. And you are Lord Montfallcon’s men, eh? On the Queen’s business, then?”
“Indeed,” said Gloriana with an irony Una felt was dangerously obvious.
“I guessed you to be some of the large palace beasts at first,” said Tallow. Una suspected this remark to be pointed failure to sense Gloriana’s meaning.
“Beasts?” said the Queen.
“They hibernate in the winter. A few of them are beginning to rouse. Creatures of all sorts. They make life dangerous for the rest of us. Now, tell me the truth, gentlemen. Montfallcon will have no one in the walls. It does not suit him. You are escaped from some imprisonment, or threat of it, and seeking a hiding place, I’d guess.”
“Montfallcon knows…?” Gloriana hesitated.
“Of the darker places of the palace? Oh, aye. Some of ’em, at least. But Tallow knows ’em all. Shall we be friends? You’ll have me for your guide.”
“Aye,” said Gloriana, rather too readily in Una’s opinion. “Friends it is-and a guide, Master Tallow.”
“These rooms go down deeper and deeper,” Tallow told them. “To natural caverns where blind, white beasts blunder and devour one another. To halls so ancient they were hewn from living rock before the first Golden Age. To strange cloisters inhabited by dwarfish men who were here before true men walked the Earth. All this lies below the palace which lies below the palace. These haunts are modern in comparison, a few hundred years old. The true antiquity is so alien to us that it plays tricks upon our minds should we merely be witness to it. And yet, I know, there are those who dwell there, no longer sane, in our eyes, though eminently sane in their own-men and women, once. They breed, some of them, I think.”