By Royal Command Read online

  By Royal Command

  MARY HOOPER

  For the Twyford Soirée Group,

  who are all within these pages

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Some Historical Notes from the Author

  Mistress Midge’s Favourite Recipes

  Glossary

  Bibliography

  Chapter One

  The first half of December was a weary time when drizzle fell continually and it never seemed to get fully light, but on the fifteenth of the month it finally stopped raining. Damp still seemed to pervade everything, however: my clothes, my hair and whatever I touched, and all along the riverside at Mortlake lay thick grey mud which had been churned up by passing horses. In the afternoon, when I looked out of the kitchen window to see if I could spy Isabelle, I noticed that a dingy, opaque fog had rolled off the river and was now enclosed by the overhanging trees. These were clammy with mist, their bare twigs dripping with moisture.

  Such a dreary day was not, perhaps, the best time for anyone to come a-visiting, especially someone like Isabelle, who was extreme nervous about coming to the magician’s house and had hardly set foot inside the door before. I’d invited her on this day, however, knowing that the family were all going to be out. This did not happen often, for Dr Dee, my employer, was fully occupied in his library most of the time and hardly went abroad at all unless his presence at Court was requested by the queen.

  On this day, however, which was a Sunday, the whole family, including the two little girls I was nursemaid to, Beth and Merryl, had been invited to the home of a near-neighbour in Barn Elms on the occasion of his birthday. Mistress Allen, Mistress Dee’s maid, had gone with them, and Mistress Midge, our cook and housekeeper, had taken herself off to see her aged sister, who lived a ferry ride away across the river in Chiswyck.

  I set the kettle on the fire and leaned over the big stone sink again to see if Isabelle was coming. She and I had become friends shortly after I’d begun to live in Mortlake and had much in common – although she didn’t make her living as a housemaid, but bought and sold goods at the market.

  As I stared into the mist, longing for her to arrive, a shape gradually emerged, which a moment later resolved itself into Isabelle, treading carefully, holding her skirts high and wearing high wooden pattens over her shoes to raise herself above the mire.

  I ran into the outside passageway to meet her, carrying a candle to light her in.

  ‘’Tis horrid out, the lanes are thick with muck,’ she said, shaking off her pattens at the door and hanging her cloak, ‘and as I passed through the marketplace a cart went by at such a pace that it covered me from head to toe in muddy water!’

  I looked at her and couldn’t help but laugh, for not only had her gown been splashed all down the front, but her face had mud-coloured freckles all over.

  ‘Leave your gown to dry and we’ll brush it clean before you go,’ I said. I handed her a clean piece of rag. ‘And here’s a cloth to wipe your face.’

  She dampened the cloth in a bucket of icy water and dabbed it across cheeks already pink with cold, then found her reflection in a copper saucepan and, peering in it, rubbed harder. Her face being cleaned satisfactorily, she fastened back strands of her long dark hair which had come out of the coil at the nape of her neck. As she did so, she glanced anxiously over her shoulder. ‘You are quite sure no one is home?’

  ‘I am certain,’ I assured her. ‘We all went to church as usual this morning, then I made Beth and Merryl tidy and the family went off in a carriage.’

  ‘A carriage!’ she said in admiration, for carriages were still somewhat rare in our part of the world. ‘I should like to have seen that. Was it very grand?’

  I shook my head. ‘Dr Dee called it a carriage, but I should have said it was a hired cart.’

  ‘And they won’t come back unexpectedly?’

  ‘They will not,’ I assured her. ‘Indeed, Mistress Midge said that Dr Dee was so pleased to get an invitation to dine from such a noble source that he’ll likely stay until midnight – or his host shows him the door.’

  ‘Who is his host?’

  ‘Well,’ I said with some import, ‘’tis Sir Francis Walsingham.’

  ‘He!’ Isabelle’s face lightened with interest. ‘There is much talk of the queen’s spymaster. Have you ever seen him?’

  ‘Never,’ I said. ‘But I have seen Lady Walsingham, because she has been here three or more times to pay her respects to the mistress following her confinement.’

  ‘And does she dress very fine?’

  ‘Extreme fine,’ I said, remembering the last time Lady Walsingham had called, and the shot-silk gown in brightest sapphire blue and matching cape with pink lining.

  ‘Was she pleasant?’

  ‘I can hardly tell,’ I had to admit, ‘for though I ushered her into Mistress Dee’s chamber and curtseyed to her very low and respectful, she barely noticed my presence.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Isabelle, shrugging her shoulders, ‘that’s always the way. Who notices the likes of us?’

  ‘Though I may meet with her again one day . . .’ I said with some meaning.

  ‘Of course!’ said Isabelle. ‘But you still haven’t heard anything?’

  I shook my head somewhat despondently. I’d carried out a certain service for Her Grace, Queen Elizabeth, and that exalted lady had sent a message through her fool, Tomas, to say that she was most grateful and that I might be called on to serve her again. When I’d first heard these words, I’d thought she’d meant that I was to attend Court and become one of her ladies-in-waiting, but that was not to be, for Tomas had told me quite frankly that only titled and educated young ladies might take up these positions and attend on the queen. Instead, however, I was to be ready to carry out certain duties for the queen as and when they might occur . . . duties which might involve working covertly for Sir Thomas Walsingham, who managed the queen’s secret network of spies.

  ‘I suppose it has only been a matter of a few weeks,’ I said, though indeed I was burning with impatience and fair desperate to begin serving the queen, for I revered her highly and would have done anything for her.

  Isabelle was rubbing her hands together to try to warm them, all the while looking about her. ‘Such a well-equipped kitchen . . . so many skimmers and pans and cooking tools,’ she said. ‘And that huge table – why, our bedchamber at home could easily fit on to such a thing.’

  I nodded, knowing that Isabelle’s family lived in a cottage so poor that the living room barely contained more than a fire with a stew pot over. ‘Dr Dee has more money to spend now,’ I said – for he’d recently carried out a service for a nobleman and been richly rewarded. ‘We’ve had meat to eat every day of these two weeks past. Even on fish days,’ I added.

  Isabelle’s eyes widened, then her attention was taken by the shaped copper moulds on a shelf above her. She reached up to take one down and see it the better, but as she did so there was a high peal of devilish laughter and one of the moulds moved before our eyes. She gave a scream and jumped backwards. ‘Magick!’

  I began to laugh. ‘No, it’s only the monkey,’ I said. ‘Today’s visit was too grand for him to attend, so he’s been left with me.’

  Isabelle
had gone very pale.

  ‘You needn’t be frightened of Tom-fool,’ I said – for so the monkey was called, being named after the queen’s jester. ‘And you needn’t be afeared of being in this house, either, for there is nothing to harm you.’

  ‘As long as the magician doesn’t come back before he is due.’

  ‘He won’t!’

  ‘Or Mr Kelly,’ she said, referring to Dr Dee’s partner in alchemy.

  ‘Mr Kelly has gone to London to look for treasure in the Thames,’ I said. I lowered my voice, although there was no one about but us, adding, ‘He said an angel had told him where it was hid.’

  ‘Is that really true?’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s true that he’s gone to dig around in Thames mud, but whether he was instructed to go by an angel, I don’t know.’

  She hesitated. ‘So you’re sure there isn’t any magick lingering about this place? No demons concealed in the chimney nor small folk in the skimming pans?’

  ‘Not that I’ve ever seen!’ Smiling, I took the kettle from the fire and poured hot water into two glasses which I’d previously prepared with grated cinnamon, peppercorns and bay leaves, then added a small amount of claret wine, which I’d discovered left over from supper the previous night. ‘This will warm you,’ I said, handing it to her.

  She took some sips of it, then put it on to the table and reached up to take Tom-fool. Chattering, the little creature ran up her arms and settled himself on her shoulders, then began to pull out her hairpins one by one and throw them on to the kitchen floor, where they immediately got lost in the rushes. ‘He has a very pretty face,’ she said. ‘Is he trained around the house?’

  I shook my head, turning up my nose at the same time. ‘Monkeys aren’t as dainty as cats. In fact, they aren’t dainty at all,’ I added, giggling, as Tom-fool ran down Isabelle’s arm and hung by his tail from her elbow, then proceeded to pass water.

  She gave a scream and shook him off, whereupon the monkey ran up the centre of the table and disappeared inside a large earthenware bowl. Isabelle brushed down her gown with a sigh of vexation, then continued her tour of the kitchen. ‘So vast . . . so much fine plate and pewter . . .’

  ‘And there is even more of it on show in the dining room,’ I said, ‘for Dr Dee has had the room opened up so that he may entertain more.’ I took a sip of my drink. ‘Mistress Midge says he’s doing it in order to attract more wealthy patrons.’

  ‘And what type of services will he perform for them?’ Isabelle asked.

  ‘They will ask him all sorts of questions – about their health and their lovers and their money, and he will tell them what they want to hear.’

  ‘Will he do magick?’

  I shrugged. ‘He’ll divine the meaning of their dreams, tell what a comet in the sky predicts, cast charts to tell the most auspicious days to carry out a certain task or look into the future and tell them if they will marry a certain person – but I don’t know if these things are magick.’

  ‘And does he still converse with the dead?’ she asked fearfully.

  ‘So people say.’

  ‘They say he speaks with angels, as well.’

  I nodded. ‘But only through Mr Kelly. It’s he who sees and hears them. Or says he does,’ I added thoughtfully.

  ‘So you’ve never seen any spirits about the place?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, though I’ve heard Mr Kelly speak to them and ask them questions . . .’

  ‘How was this?’ she gasped. ‘Were you invited to watch?’

  ‘No!’ I said, laughing. She already knew of my great curiosity about these matters, so I had no hesitation in adding, ‘’Twas by standing with my ear pressed to the door!’

  ‘Then was he counterfeiting?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ For though, listening at the door, I’d heard Mr Kelly ask the angel many questions, I’d never heard a single reply. ‘But Dr Dee believes in the truth of it, for he writes down every angelic word that Mr Kelly says he receives.’

  She shivered. ‘I should not like to speak to ghosts or angels . . . or to live in a house where one might be seen.’

  I thought it best to move on to another subject before she took fright and ran home. ‘Do you want to look at the fine things in the house?’ I asked, for that was one of the reasons she was here.

  She pushed back long strands of her hair, which, deprived of pins by Tom-fool, had fallen loose again. ‘I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘I will tell the ghosts not to show themselves,’ I teased.

  She smiled a little at this. ‘You think I’m foolish, but you should hear the tales our neighbours tell about this house. Why, they say that Dr Dee is a dabbler in dead bodies and that the devil comes to supper twice a week!’

  ‘I am quite sure he does not come to supper,’ I said firmly. ‘Mistress Midge wouldn’t allow it.’

  I showed her into the dining room first, for this had been freshly hung with tapestries and had a carved fireplace, new cupboard and an oak coffer. This latter I opened so that we could shake out the fine linen within, for these damask tablecloths and napkins had, so Mistress Midge told me, come all the way from Holland. The patterned turkey carpet and vast looking glass from Venice were also admired in their turn, as were the crystal glasses and shining pewter, and then we replaced everything just as we’d found it and went along the dark passageways towards the library, for I had a mind to show Isabelle the real treasures of the house.

  The door of Dr Dee’s library was black and hard enamelled to keep any house fires from the valuable books within, and I pushed it open and went through first to light the room’s candles. I then had to tug Isabelle’s gown to encourage her to come through the doorway, for she was standing there, jaw dropped, gazing about the library like a country booby at a wedding feast.

  I giggled, knowing that I, too, had been just the same when I’d first gone into the room. She pointed around at the shelves and shelves of books, at the coloured glass window, at the stuffed birds and animals, at the shells and roots and strange vials with coloured liquids and did not say a word, but only gasped. And then she spotted the ally-gators dangling from chains above us and screamed.

  ‘They’re perfectly safe,’ I quickly assured her. ‘They’re dead, and have been so since before they arrived in this country.’

  ‘But . . . but . . . such things as I’ve never seen before,’ she said, gazing upwards in wonder. ‘And these creatures have lived?’

  I assured her that they had, and at length she lowered her sight and, approaching a wall of books, stared up at them and touched some of the gold-lettering on the spines, then ran her fingers along a whole line of them as if she was playing a spinet. Moving on from these, she gazed for some time at an emerald-green bird, stuffed and poised on a branch, felt the inside of a pearly shell and stepped back in horror from the grinning skull Dr Dee always kept close by.

  She pointed at the collection of glass bottles, tubes and burners which had been set up on a bench. ‘What are all those things for?’

  ‘Those are but newly arrived,’ I said, ‘and I think – so Beth told me – they are to enable liquids to be separated and then mixed again with certain others.’ I lowered my voice again, for whether or not anyone else was present, the contents of the library had this effect. ‘With the use of these, Dr Dee and Mr Kelly seek to change base metal into gold,’ I whispered.

  Isabelle was beyond wonder at this. ‘If they can do this, then they will become immensely rich.’

  ‘If they can,’ I echoed, for I’d oft heard Dr Dee and Mr Kelly speak of the difficulties of performing such a feat.

  I crossed the library floor to pick up the chest: the small, brass-banded chest which, I knew, held my employer’s two most treasured possessions. ‘Look,’ I said, and my voice was hushed and respectful, for though I wasn’t sure of Dr Dee’s capabilities as a magician, I knew from past experience that this chest contained two precious objects with mysterious and unfathomable qualities.

  ‘What
’s inside?’ Isabelle asked. ‘Treasure?’

  ‘More than that: this box holds the show-stone and the dark mirror.’

  Isabelle tiptoed over towards me and tentatively laid her fingers upon the chest.

  ‘’Tis locked,’ I said.

  ‘And if it wasn’t . . . ?’

  ‘Even if it wasn’t,’ I said, ‘I would not turn the key and take out what’s inside.’ For I’d looked in the show-stone before, and what I’d seen there had led me into danger.

  I was still holding the chest when there came a long, low sigh from outside the room and Isabelle snatched her fingers back and clutched my arm in fright. ‘What was that?’

  We stood listening as the sigh slowly dissolved into the sound of whispering in the yew trees in the churchyard. ‘’Twas probably just . . . the wind,’ I said, for I knew where her thoughts were heading.

  ‘The wind it was not!’ she exclaimed. ‘It was more like the sigh of a wraith or . . . or the moaning of ghosts set by Dr Dee to guard his library from the curious.’

  I shook my head. ‘It never was! ‘Twas but a wind dispersing the fog, or a boat horn sounding on the river.’ I tried to speak with assurance, although in all the times I’d heard the wind gusting across the river or the hoots of the ferry boats they’d never sounded like that.

  Isabelle gave a shudder and pulled her shawl more tightly around her. ‘I should be going home now, Lucy,’ she said, ‘for I must be at market by six in the morning to secure my pitch.’

  I own I was disappointed, for I’d hoped she might stay the whole evening with me. ‘Do you really have to leave so soon?’

  She nodded. ‘I must be a-bed early.’

  ‘But when will I see you again?’ I asked, for my family were not living nearby and I had no other friend but her.

  ‘Very soon! Whenever you come to market.’ She went to the library door and, after looking anxiously up and down the passageway and tilting her head to listen for any sounds, stepped outside.

  I doused the candles in the library and we walked back towards the kitchen, with me heartily trying to persuade her to stay a little longer, and she just as heartily refusing. At the back door she spoke to me, her face serious. ‘While you’re alone in the house you must take two crossed rowan twigs as a guard against magick and keep them beside you until your cook comes home, for now I’ve been in this house I fear for you.’