By Royal Command Read online

  I laughed and, glancing at the letter and seeing that it bore no seal, agreed to take it in. I called the girls, telling them not to go too near the river, then hurried back into the house and along to the library, knowing that Dr Dee was not yet down. As I carried in the letter, I shook it slightly so that the topmost edge slipped out of its cut niche, the paper unfolded and the message was revealed. I own this was dishonest of me, but, having done what I had, I needed to assure myself that there was nothing in the letter which might lay the blame on me.

  It was written in very plain print, was short and to the point:

  Sir,

  We are beholden to you for your offer to seek our daughter by magickal means and your so-called ‘scrying stone’. We have to inform you, however, that by the Grace of God and without resource to witchcraft or supernatural methods she has returned to us safely.

  Praise be the Name of the Lord!

  I am, Sir, your servant,

  William Mucklow.

  I breathed out deeply, much relieved, and carefully folding the letter back into its creases, laid it on the table. I was only just in time, for as I put it down and turned towards the door I heard footsteps coming along the corridor and recognised the slow, slippered tread of Dr Dee.

  My heart thumped. All was in order, but I would rather not have come face to face with him just then. He bade me the most cursory of good mornings, then, glancing at the fire to ensure it was burning as high as he liked it, asked me to remind Mistress Midge to lay in a good supply of sea-coal for the winter.

  I assured him that I would. ‘I’m just off to market with Beth and Merryl, Sir,’ I added, hurrying towards the door. ‘May I get you anything from there?’

  He was about to answer me when his attention was caught by the parchment on his desk. ‘What’s this?’

  I was so nervous that my voice caught in my throat, but I cleared it and gave a little extra cough or two, so that he’d think I merely had a winter chill. ‘I believe it must be a message from Mr Mucklow,’ I said, ‘for one of his housemaids has just delivered it.’

  Not quite a smile – for he rarely smiled – but a look of satisfaction crossed his face. ‘Is the girl waiting for a reply?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Sir.’

  ‘Then you may have to run after her. Wait a moment, will you . . .’

  I did not want to wait, but had no option other than to stand there while he unfolded the parchment. He scanned it, gave a cry and unsteadily backed himself into a chair. ‘This cannot be!’

  I assumed an expression of concern. ‘Are you all right, Sir?’

  ‘Fetch . . . fetch . . .’

  ‘Some water, Sir?’

  ‘Mr Kelly. Send a boy for Mr Kelly straightaway!’

  I hurried to the kitchen to get a coin from Mistress Midge, then gave this to one of the small boys who perpetually hung around the big houses hoping to earn a halfpenny or a crust of bread, telling him to go to Mr Kelly’s lodgings and request that he attend on Dr Dee with all haste.

  Just a few minutes later (for he was already on his way to us, apparently) Mr Kelly arrived, whistling, full of himself, a scarlet velveteen cape swinging around his shoulders. ‘He’s sent the money, has he?’ I heard him say to Dr Dee before he was even through the library door.

  ‘No, he hasn’t!’ Dr Dee said. ‘And do you ask why? Then I’ll tell you: because the girl’s back with her father!’

  Well, there was no need for me to stand in the hall with my ear to the library wall, for you could hear the row that ensued as far off as the kitchen. First Mr Kelly said it couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible, then Dr Dee said ‘the package’ as he called Miss Charity, couldn’t have been properly bound. This led to Mr Kelly asserting that the knots had been most carefully tied, and the correct herbs and simples administered, to which Dr Dee replied that the only other explanation was that Mr Kelly had captured the wrong package, and someone else remained below.

  They went into the hall and, obviously no longer caring about being seen, lifted the trapdoor. Mr Kelly went down and when he came up (I was very nervous then, fearing I had left some means whereby I might have been discovered) he declared that she had indeed vanished, and the only explanation was that there was an evil spirit in the house who wished them ill, and who had freed the girl to thwart their plans. Hearing this I could not but smile a little to myself, grateful that they believed in the existence of such beings.

  They went back into the library, still cursing, each trying to blame the other for the loss of Miss Charity.

  ‘Well,’ I said to Mistress Midge as their voices died away. ‘What can all that have been about? What do you think was in that package they referred to?’

  Mistress Midge was endeavouring to knead egg yolks into ground almonds and sugar to make a marchpane cake, which is a task to frustrate the most even-tempered of women. ‘I don’t know and Lord knows I don’t care,’ she said. She thumped the mixture in the bowl furiously with her knuckles, trying to get it to come together. ‘Lord above! How is it that the daintiest of sweetmeats needs the heaviest of hands?’

  ‘But didn’t you hear? Dr Dee and Mr Kelly were monstrous angry with each other.’

  ‘Not as angry as I with this!’ she said, giving the mixture such a blow with her fist that the china bowl went skidding on to the floor and broke in two, depositing almond paste on to the floor. She roared with rage – and I thought it best to slip quietly away and continue my errand.

  The girls and I walked beside the river into the village, discovering that the puddles along the towpath had frozen hard and that the village boys had made one into a very long slide. We queued up to use this in turn (I, too, for I was feeling very light-hearted knowing that Miss Charity was safely back home with no blame to me) and took great delight in sliding its length, occasionally ending up on our backsides with ice and frozen earth all over our clothes. There was much laughter from the village lads when this happened, for most of them had tied bundles of rags over their shoes to aid their slipping and sliding, and this made them far more able on the ice than we were. Some didn’t feel the cold (or perhaps did not own any warm clothing) and did not seem to mind being hurt, either, for they were sliding and playing wearing short, ragged trousers, their legs sore and blue-mottled. All seemed to know the names of my little charges and, on Merryl falling over once again and being about to cry, set up a clapping and a chant of ‘Bravo, Merryl!’ until she smiled again. I was touched at this, but then heard one small boy say to his companion, ‘They are the magician’s children and we do well to speak to them civil.’

  ‘And what if we don’t?’ came the question.

  The answer was a shrug and a muttered, ‘If you cross them it could be very bad.’

  At length Merryl pleaded with her sister that they should go down the ice slide together, carriage-horse fashion, and crossing their arms behind them they ran two-by-two on to the ice, only to end up skidding and tumbling into a shallow ditch, laughing all the while.

  Several housewives on their way to market had stopped to see the children’s fun, and one of these spoke to me as I went over to help the girls out of the ditch.

  ‘We are set for days more of this harsh weather,’ she said, ‘for the moon is as clear as silver in the sky a’night.’

  I nodded, looking across the Thames. ‘There are great chunks of ice floating in the river, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen their like before.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said the woman. I set Merryl upon her feet again, recrossed her shawl around her body where it had come loose and tied it at the back. ‘Have you heard that near Kingston the river has almost frozen over,’ the woman went on, ‘and today a man is set to walk on it from one side to the other?’

  ‘Really? He will step across on the frozen water?’

  She nodded. ‘’Tis one of the ferrymen, and he’s doing it for a bet.’

  ‘Never!’ I said. I pulled Beth from the ditch and began to rub her hands between my own to warm them.


  ‘Aye,’ said the woman. ‘’Tis wondrous what men will do for a silver florin, is it not?’

  We both laughed. ‘If he gets across, others will try it,’ she said. ‘There’s even talk of a frost fair on the ice.’

  This, we agreed, would be most exciting.

  She went off towards the market and I asked the girls if they’d done enough sliding and tumbling into ditches for one day, but they pleaded for just one more slide and ran off to join the others before I could persuade them otherwise.

  I was about to go to the end of the slide to wait for them when there came a voice from behind which asked sternly, ‘Are those the magician’s children?’

  I turned to see who’d spoken so, for though I’d heard this question oft enough before, it was not usually uttered in such educated and mature tones. Looking at the speaker, however, I realised that the man in question was younger than his voice suggested, being perhaps only twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. He was tall with a neatly trimmed beard, had gingery hair under a high-brimmed hat, and was dressed like a man of fashion in doublet and padded hose, with a slashed leather jerkin atop and a cape over all.

  I looked at the man and returned a frown for his frown, for I felt that this question was vulgar from one such as he. I dipped a very small curtsey. ‘And who is it who asks, Sir?’

  He faced me out rudely, and did not remove his hat before speaking. ‘I believe it was I who put the first question.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, Sir,’ I replied, ‘but I don’t give information about my charges to just anyone.’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘Your charges – yes! Yet you let them roll about in the dirt like beggars’ brats. What sort of a nursemaid are you? Did your maid bring you up so?’

  I felt my face turn red. I’d had a humble upbringing, ‘twas true, but I’d never questioned whether my two girls should be raised and treated any differently from the way my ma had raised me. ‘They are merely enjoying one of the few blessings of this harsh weather,’ I said with some indignation. I looked him up and down. ‘Maybe you are a Puritan gentleman, Sir, if you think to stop little children enjoying themselves.’

  ‘I am not a Puritan,’ he said (and indeed I already knew this from the decorated band of his hat and his brightly coloured boots). ‘But if these are Dr Dee’s children, then they should not be mixing with the common children of the village.’

  I gave a scornful laugh. ‘And who are you to say such a thing, and whether they should or no?’

  There was a moment’s silence before he gave a short bow and announced with some pomposity, ‘I am their new tutor, Madam.’

  Incredulous, I wanted to stand and gape at this, but doing my best to act with dignity, merely said, ‘Then I am your servant, Sir.’

  ‘Yours, Madam,’ he returned, before I gave the most meagre curtsey and turned away.

  Without more ado, I called Beth and Merryl from the slide and we set off down the road to market. I was seething with rage, and also embarrassed and indignant. How dare he presume to tell me how to care for my own two charges!

  ‘Why aren’t you speaking to us?’ Beth asked after a while, looking up at me.

  ‘And why is your face all pink?’

  ‘That is, it’s pink where it isn’t muddy!’ Beth said.

  ‘Is it muddy?’ I asked crossly.

  Merryl began giggling. ‘Yes! You look like Tom-fool the monkey the time he got loose in the boot blacking box.’

  ‘Oh!’ I said. I got out a kerchief to scrub at my face. So I hadn’t even achieved a dignified leave-taking. The children’s tutor! How ever was I going to tolerate being under the same roof – and perhaps take instruction – from such a man?

  Scowling, I tucked my kerchief into my pocket and set off once more, very anxious to see Isabelle and tell everything that had happened.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Bring jugs of hot water!’ Mr Kelly demanded when I answered the ringing of the bell in the library next morning. ‘And two bowls, scissors, washing cloths and towels.’

  I stared at him in surprise, wondering if he had gone a little vacant in the head. He clapped his hands. ‘Now. At once.’

  ‘As he says,’ Dr Dee said, and I saw to my great surprise that Dr Dee had partly disrobed, and was standing by the fireplace wearing nothing but a loose cotton night smock.

  Turning away from this alarming sight, I went to boil water and also inform Mistress Midge that the master and Mr Kelly had lost their senses. ‘Either that, or they plan to set up as barber-surgeons, for they want me to bring them hot water, scissors and towels.’

  ‘Oh, ‘tis nothing but a cleansing ritual,’ said Mistress Midge. ‘They do them on occasion.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘It means that one of their schemes has gone awry.’

  ‘One of their schemes . . .’ I repeated. The Miss Charity one, no doubt.

  ‘The cleansing ritual is to rid the house of any evil spirits which might have caused such a thing.’

  ‘But why do they need washing water?’

  Merryl, who was grooming Tom-fool, patiently explained, as if I were the child and she the adult: ‘Father and Mr Kelly have to wash themselves thoroughly and clip their nails so that no amount of dirt is attached to their bodies. And then they must make an invocation five times to the east and five times to the west.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Then they light brimstone, and the smoke from this drives any remaining evil spirits away from the house.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, and trusted they would never find that it was I, in fact, who had caused the collapse of their plan, and not an evil spirit at all.

  The children’s tutor, by name Mister Leopold Sylvester, began his tutorage of the children two days later. A small room off the hallway was designated the school room and I had been instructed to clean this and make it ready with a table, chair and stools and so on, then light a fire ready for the first lesson. You can imagine that I was extremely thorough in the dusting of this room, the washing of the window, the polishing of the table and the sweeping up and relaying of rushes on the floor. I was determined that Mr Sylvester should not discover me in any way negligent.

  The fire was troublesome, however, for the chimney was unused and damp, and sent smoke into the room, and I was trying to deal with this when Dr Dee brought in Mr Sylvester to commence his lessons. Both men immediately started coughing and Dr Dee ran to throw open a window. This only made things worse, as it let icy cold air into the room and caused smoke to billow out of the fireplace in great gusts. At least this incident helped to cover the embarrassment I felt on seeing the tutor again, for by the time order was restored my cheeks had cooled. I was even able to appear unperturbed when, in response to Dr Dee’s introduction, the tutor told him that we had already met. I lowered my eyes at this point, curtseyed to him very formally and said I hoped he’d find my young ladies studious and diligent in their work.

  ‘And so do I,’ he said before moving the table slightly, seating himself on the chair and taking out some books. He was dressed more in the manner of a scholar on this day, I noticed, for he wore a dark furred gown and cap and had exchanged his coloured leather boots for plain velvet slippers.

  Once the fire was burning well, I took Beth and Merryl along to the school room, tapped on the door and ushered them in.

  ‘This is Beth,’ I began, propelling her forward, ‘and this Merryl.’

  ‘Good morning, young ladies,’ Mr Sylvester said, inclining his head, and the girls returned his greeting and seated themselves on the stools. They were looking at him rather nervously, but this, I discovered later, was because they were fearful about what he might set them to do, not because they’d recognised him as the man on the riverbank.

  I was about to leave the room, thankful that he’d not reproached me about the manner of our first meeting, when he suddenly addressed me, saying, ‘Perhaps, Lucy, we should forget that we have met before and begin our acquaintance from t
his day.’

  I looked at him, very surprised. ‘Yes. Thank you, Sir.’

  He nodded. ‘That will be all, then,’ he said, and I left the room and went back to the kitchen to report that Mr Sylvester might not, perhaps, be as niggardly a scullion as I’d first supposed.

  That afternoon Mistress Midge and I were at the kitchen sink, dealing with the pots and pans from dinner, when we noticed the large numbers of people walking along the riverbank. Some of these were gathering holly and ivy for Christmastide and consequently were laden with greenery, but there were many others about, well wrapped against the weather, walking purposefully and all going the same way: upriver towards Richmond.

  ‘It seems like a party to which everyone has been invited except us!’ Beth remarked, and on the bellman going past and calling something which we didn’t quite catch, she was straightaway despatched to run and ask him what he’d said. She came back to report that he was calling with news of a frost fair. ‘It’s on the river just before Kingston, and will be held each afternoon until the ice melts!’ she added with some excitement.

  ‘Lord above. Whatever next?’ Mistress Midge muttered.

  ‘We must go!’ I responded. ‘Won’t you come with us?’

  ‘To slide about on ice, to fall over and crack my head?’ said that lady. ‘Certainly not.’

  But Merryl and Beth were fair dancing with excitement already, so I gained permission from Mistress Dee, sent them to get their warmest cloaks, boots and gloves, and we set off.

  If I’d known how long the walk would take I may not have attempted the journey, but luckily I managed to get the girls a lift in a baker’s handcart and walked briskly alongside them, trying to keep pace. I’ve said that the girls were excited, but I was equally so, for frost fairs were as rare as pig’s eggs. Ma had once told me of one that she’d been to in her youth, but I’d never visited one before.

  At every town and village we passed – Twickenham, Teddington, Richmond – more people joined the river walk, and all were happy, sometimes singing as they walked along, sharing slabs of gingerbread, squares of biscuit-bread or whatever victuals they had with them.