“Which house is it, Henry?”
“I believe it is the next door there, my lady. Stone House.”
She smiled her condescending smile once again. She had met the celebrated Dr. Forman on occasion but never, until now, had cause to use his services and certainly not visit his house. His magic tricks and bedtime services were, however, famed among her friends, the ladies of the royal court. She nodded and the coachman beat with the pommel of his whip at the oaken door.
I NSIDE THE HOUSE, Simon Forman had recently finished a late lunch and was enjoying his third swiving of the day with his new mistress, Annis Noke. He liked to call this pleasant occupation a halek, for he kept a record of his daily doings, his alchemy and his experimentations, and wrote in cipher so that none should steal his secrets or ideas. The word halek, which he had invented, seemed as good a code for intercourse as any and appeared many times in his diaries.
Above him, her eyes closed in bliss, Mistress Noke suddenly screamed in ecstasy and he chose that moment to reach his own heady pitch of excitement. She collapsed, shuddering, onto his hair-matted chest and kissed his yellow-red beard and freckled face all over. Panting heavily, she clenched her sweat-glistening thighs about his waist and shuddered once more, grinding her plump body down onto him. She smiled at him, satisfied in a way she had only ever found in this bed, with this strange, squat, and hairy man. For his part, he knew that this giving of pleasure was a gift to him from God, and one he was happy to dispense liberally to any woman who cared to know what heaven was like without dying.
There was a hammering at the door. With a last kiss, he disengaged himself from Mistress Noke, swung his legs off the bed, scratched his member and his balls, and stood up. The infernal sores were still there; the herbal tincture he had devised for the clap was not working. Still scratching, he ambled to the window, then pressed his naked body against the glass panes to get a better view of the street below. A maid in the house on the other side of Fylpot Lane chose just that moment to look up and got a clear view of his diminishing-but still extraordinarily well-sized-tumescence. Forman waved to her cheerily and she met his eye with an immodest gaze. She would make a pleasant repast one day soon. He looked away from her and his eyes turned down to the street below, where he saw a neatly coiffed head of fair, wavy hair that he recognized instantly. “God’s teeth, it’s the She-wolf’s daughter!” he said. “And she has a blackamoor with her. What’s she doing here? Get yourself dressed, Mistress Noke.”
Hurriedly grabbing a shirt and breeches, he stumbled downstairs to the door, fastening hooks and ties as he went. As he opened the door with a disheveled flourish, she swept past him into his antechamber. She stood for a moment looking about her. Lady Penelope Rich. The most beautiful young woman in England; wife to the fabulously wealthy Robert, third Lord Rich; sister to the great Earl of Essex; daughter to Lettice Knollys; stepdaughter to the great Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; believed by many to be great-granddaughter to Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary.
“Well, Dr. Forman,” she said at last. “I seem to have found you quite deshabille, if not to say in flagrante delicto. ”
He bowed low to her, then looked nervously at her servant. “A thousand pardons, my lady. I was merely couching a hogshead away from the afternoon sun. I had not expected you.”
“Couching a hogshead, Dr. Forman?”
“A little afternoon sleep, my lady.”
“Ah. Well, no, of course you were not expecting me, for that would have spoiled the surprise. I wished to see how you lived, Dr. Forman. And I now know. I have certain friends, ladies of breeding, who speak very highly of your… prowess.”
“My lady?”
“But that is not why I am here, Dr. Forman. I am here because I wish you to prepare a chart for me.”
“Ah, charts, my lady,” Forman said warily in his deep Wiltshire drawl. “Charts are dangerous things. Perhaps some refreshment would be in order while we discuss the matter.” He clapped his hands. “Mistress Noke, would you come, please. We have an honored guest.”
Annis Noke appeared at the bottom of the stairs, took one look at Penelope Rich, and curtsied as low as a penitent at a shrine.
“A flagon of our finest claret, please, Mistress Noke-and some ale for the manservant.”
Forman led Penelope upstairs to his chambers and through to the hall where he did his work. It was a chaos of books and papers, charts and instruments, glass vials and powders-all the strange clutter of an alchemist and astrologer. “My humble hall, my lady. Please accommodate yourself on the settle. You are most welcome. Most welcome, indeed. Shall I fetch cushions?”
Penelope Rich did not sit down. “So this is where you do your work, Dr. Forman. This is where you cast your spells.” Her gaze lighted on a pentacle drawn on parchment and pinned to the wall above a coffer.
“My lady, there is no witchcraft here. I deal only in the ancient and honorable sciences of astrology and alchemy.”
“And what, pray, are you working on at the present time?”
“A cure for the plague. Soon there will be much call for it and it will make my fortune. As well as saving many good Christian lives, of course.”
“And charts?”
“I am wary of charts, my lady. No good tends to come of charts.”
“But I know that you make astrological charts, Dr. Forman. And I am certain that you are just the man to make one for me.”
He bowed. No one denied the She-wolf’s daughter. “As you wish, my lady. I will, of course, require a few details. Let me make a few notes, if I may.” Among the rubble of books and papers, he found a quill, which he proceeded to sharpen. Then he scrabbled around until he found an inkhorn. At last he dipped the quill tip into the ink and smiled ingratiatingly at his aristocratic visitor.
“Is it a new-born babe, my lady? Might I have the birth date?”
“The birth date was September the seventh, Dr. Forman.”
“And the year?”
“Fifteen thirty-three.”
Forman looked up at her from his parchment again. This time, his expression was inquisitive yet fearful. “Do you know what date this is, my lady?”
“Indeed, Dr. Forman, I do. It is the date for which I require a chart. I can also tell you the time of birth, which was a little after three of the clock in the afternoon. And I am sure you needs must have the place, too, which was Greenwich.”
“My lady, I cannot do this thing for you.”
“Cannot, Dr. Forman? Do you say ‘cannot’ to me?”
“I mean I would rather not do it.”
“And if I insist?”
“Then I would have to ask you for a great deal of money. A man might lose his liberty, perchance even his head, for divining such a chart.”
“Shall we say three gold sovereigns, Dr. Forman?”
Forman rubbed his throat beneath his dark, bushy beard and grimaced. “I have great reservations. My neck, my head… I feel the sharp edge of the axe and the rough edge of the rope. This is not the thing for those among us who would sleep well in our beds at night.”
“My information, Dr. Forman, is that you do very little sleeping when you are abed. I hear tell of exceeding energetic nights with much cavorting.”
“My lady, you flatter me. There is much gossip and rumor about in these troubled days. The broadsheets, madam, they print calumnies.”
Penelope threw back her head of blonde curls and let out a great laugh. “It is not the broadsheets, sir, it is my friends that tell me this. Now, let us say five sovereigns and be done with it. You will take this offer, or you are like to have a visit from the sheriff, who may wish to lay a charge against you of necromancy.”