Green Darkness

  “Thank you, Maggie,” said Ursula briskly, “Celia and I will fend for ourselves. You were good to bring us.” She put her hand on Celia’s arm, understanding the embarrassment Magdalen’s invitation had caused, and appreciative of the girl’s good heart. She pulled Celia away.

  “Not over there . . .” said Celia in a toneless voice.

  Then Ursula saw Julian standing with the Allens.

  “Yet, why not?” added Celia suddenly. She raised her chin, her voice hardened. “No use milling around amongst the peacocks like a couple o’ draggle-tail sparrows, and at least, they’ll be somebody to talk to.”

  Ursula nodded, relieved by a show of spirit, and glad that the girl had conquered her aversion to Mistress Allen.

  But when they had threaded their way through the horde of chattering strangers, the Allens had drifted off in pursuit of more interesting company, and Julian was alone with Dr. Dee.

  “Benvenuto . . .” cried Julian, kissing Ursula’s hand. “We meet always by chance, fortunate chance.”

  “Evidently,” said Ursula, removing her hand coldly, though the touch of his lips had sent a tingle through her, “since you do not choose to visit us, even after an urgent summons.”

  Julian started, then laughed. “Dear Lady Southwell, my apologies—Wat said there was no need, and I see that Celia has recovered, a trifle pale and thin, perhaps . . .”

  “We might give the young mistress a sample of our elixer vitae,” interrupted John Dee bowing sedately towards Celia. “’Twould be wise before we try it—elsewhere.”

  Celia stared, suppressing a desire to giggle, her first in weeks. She saw a lean man in his late twenties, he had a long hooked nose, gaunt cheekbones and a straggling sparse beard. He had lost much of his hair, and wore a black skullcap embroidered with mystical symbols. His eyes were brown, solemn and completely lacked the sardonic twinkle which always lurked behind Julian’s gaze.

  “What do you want to try on me, sir?” she asked. “It sounds fearsome.”

  Julian laughed. “Elixer vitae, little one—‘water of life’—Dr. Dee and I have been concocting it—in our spare moments. We now share a laboratory on Paternoster Row. You and Lady Southwell must visit it; you’d be amazed at the retorts and crucibles and the ‘shew stone’ where Master John can see angelic beings floating in the crystal.”

  “Magic . . .?” whispered Ursula, her eyes lighting up. “But surely . . .”

  Julian answered her unfinished question. “White magic, Lady, no hint of witchcraft. Alchemy’s but an extended part of medicine.”

  “Aye, to be sure,” Ursula agreed quickly. “Would I knew more of those arts. Can you gentlemen tell me if my brimstone purge should be distilled i’ the full o’ the moon, and should I put in egg white? I’ve no luck with it, ’twon’t come clear.”

  John Dee answered her thoughtfully. He always gave serious attention to such queries. He was indeed a serious man.

  Julian respected him. He was grateful for the new friendship between them, and the invitation to share Dee’s lodgings. He had moved in by Christmas, glad to have found a companion who had traveled widely on the Continent, whose scholastic background was sound, and—more important—a man whom Queen Mary respected for his astrological skills, which Julian admitted were superior to his own. Dee had cast the Queen’s horoscope. He had, however, also cast that of the banished Princess Elizabeth, who had known him from childhood—his cousin Blanche Parry had been Elizabeth’s nurse and was now confidential maid of honor to the Princess. Julian had examined the forecasts, which confirmed his own opinion that of the two royal sisters the younger was the one to support. Not an opinion to be voiced in any quarter. Neither Dee nor he discussed it even privately. Elizabeth had quickly fallen from favor and retired to Ashbridge. By December, Mary’s brief warmth had chilled to suspicion and jealousy of the brilliant, fascinating rival.

  Celia listened vaguely to her aunt’s animated questions. Her head throbbed again, she wished they had not come. She wished that she had not worn the red and yellow gown. It seemed to bring ill luck. Fleetingly, she wondered what had happened to Simkin. He had disappeared from Cowdray before they came to London, just vanished one night, and Wat now turned surly at the mention of his son’s name. But I’m here, at Court, amongst the greatest in the land, Celia said to herself. I should be happy. Yet she felt neglected and forlorn.

  A man touched her arm, saying, “Mistress de Bohun?”

  She turned and looked up at Sir John Hutchinson. “Blessed Jesu!” she said. “By the Mass, sir, you startled me,” and she smiled. Celia’s smile with the dimple at one corner of her lips and the little teeth like daisy petals was so radiant that the stout knight inhaled quickly. He thought the gladness was for him, his heart thumped. Whereas Celia smiled only in relief at the sight of a familiar face who approached her with obvious admiration.

  “I m-meant to see you sooner,” said Hutchinson, stammering like a lad. “I’ve thought o’ ye so much, Mistress Celia, but I fell ill after the n-night I met ye . . .” He paused. Actually, he had been laid up with a ferocious attack of gout which had spread from his right great toe to all his joints, but he did not wish to admit to a disease of the elderly.

  “Did ye think at all o’ me?” he added, touching her cheek.

  “Once and again,” she said, lying kindly. “I’ve been ill, too.” The reminder brought on a brief spasm of coughing.

  “Ye shouldn’t be abroad in this weather,” cried the knight, instantly alarmed. “Ye should be cared for, cosseted . . . your Lady Aunt’s neglectful.” He looked angrily at Ursula, who was by now aware of the addition to their group, though quite unable to remember Hutchinson, except that he had been at the priory.

  “My aunt’s not neglectful,” Celia cried. “She’s kind and careful of me always!”

  “What’s all this?” Ursula came forward. “Have you need to defend me, sweeting? Sir, I know we’ve met, but confess I’ve not your name.”

  “John Hutchinson, knight, from Boston i’ Lincolnshire, widower, clothier, member o’ the Merchant Adventurers’ Company, kin by m’late wife to Lord Clinton, worth about ten thousand pounds, even at the present sorry rate if more o’ my cargoes to Calais don’t sink.”

  “Welladay . . . God-a-mercy—” said Ursula. “Whate’er you be, Sir John, you’ve enough breath in your lungs.”

  “I never beat ’round the bush,” he said. “Waste o’ time.” His shrewd blue eyes looked directly into Ursula’s, and she had little doubt of his meaning, as she saw him glance at Celia, and the yearning softness in his square heavy-jowled face. She also saw that Celia was unaware. The girl merely looked amused, a bit puzzled.

  “Can’t talk now, not i’ this hurly-burly,” said Sir John. “I’ll stop by the priory tomorrow morn. Take her home to bed, my lady, mind she keeps out o’ drafts.” He bowed and swung away, limping slightly, through the crowd.

  Ursula flushed and bit her lips. Her immediate response was anger. How dared a fat, rustic old clothier tell her how to treat Celia! How dared he covet her treasure! The man was nothing but a tradesman and as old as she. He’d not get past the porter when he came straddling up to the priory.

  “Ah, you are perturbed, poor Lady Southwell,” said Julian softly. He had watched all the by-play, and as had sometimes happened to him in regard to Ursula and Celia, the present slipped out of focus. The noisy courtiers, the music, the bright-lit palace halls wavered and dissolved. It seemed that he stood alone with the women in a place of shadows, and he was tied to them by poignant silvery threads of sympathy—or no, though there was sympathy, it was more that they were all entangled in a cobweb from which he might free them—if—si voglio veramente—if I truly want to—yet if that cobweb were not flimsy stuff? If they were all enmeshed in fine steel filaments, what then? And I’m no classic hero with a battle-axe to hack through, Julian thought, sharply derisive. Still, as he looked pityingly at Ursula, her face seemed to alter. The raw-boned Anglo-Saxon features, the wrink
les, the gray hair became transparent, behind them was another younger face with olive skin, and wistful dark eyes, a face he had once loved and grievously hurt—sometime before the bounds of memory began.

  He bent near to Ursula. “You must leave London,” he whispered. “Take Celia quickly, go home to Cowdray! Tomorrow!”

  “Cowdray!” Ursula recoiled. “Why, Master Julian, the ways are frozen, they’re hip-deep in snow. Sir Anthony would never permit it. Besides . . .” she added, her voice trembling, “he needs me here to regulate the maids, and sometimes act as his hostess. There’s naught for us at Cowdray.”

  “There is safety,” said Julian below his breath, “for Celia, then?”

  She stared at him in disbelief and resentment. “And since when are you so concerned for our safety? You’ve twice shown us to be a bother.”

  Julian sighed. His foreboding vanished. “Da vero . . .” he said shrugging, “that may be so. I’ve become infected by Dr. Dee’s visions, his necromancies. I, Guiliano di Ridolfi, Master Physician, should not maunder of omens and warnings like a gypsy crone. My apologies, Lady—’tis stifling in here. I see that the Queen’s Grace and her nobles have left for the banqueting hall. Shall we all seek supper, too?”

  Ursula had no need to confront Sir John Hutchinson the next morning. He did not come to the priory because the impatient and infatuated knight had waylaid Sir Anthony after supper in Whitehall Palace. Anthony told Ursula about it when he summoned her to his privy closet.

  “The old clothier is besotted over your Celia,” said Anthony, laughing. “He wishes to wed her at once. He cares naught for dowry, he’d take her in her shift. He seems to think she loves him. What has that maiden been up to?”

  “Nothing,” said Ursula sharply. “Until last night she’s not seen him since the puppet show. Sir Anthony . . . such a match would be preposterous . . . I hope . . . hope you didn’t encourage him.”

  “No, I sent him packing—though, mind you, Hutchinson’s a stalwart man and a knight well-thought-of in merchant circles—rich, too. To be sure, he’s near old enough to be her grandfather, but Celia soon widowed and possessed of respectable estates—even though they be in Lincolnshire—would then have wider choice. One must be sensible.”

  Ursula caught her breath. Her eyes stung. “Why then did you send him off?” she whispered.

  Anthony was astonished. “My dear Lady Ursula—the man’s a Protestant! He’s of that stiff-necked canting lot the eastern counties seem to breed. The lot we’ve just stifled forever . . . I pray. Oh, I’ve no doubt in his mooncalf state he’d overlook her faith, but she’d be undermined—a wife obeys her husband.”

  “Blessed Jesu . . .” breathed Ursula on a long sigh of relief. “Then the matter is closed. Sir Anthony . . .” She paused, and went on with a rush, “We’re not too much burden for you? Someone has said we should go back to Cowdray. I try . . . we both try to be of use . . .”

  Anthony pulled some letters towards him, and began to read. “You are—you’re most useful,” he said absently, frowning at a Latin missive from Ambassador Renard. “The devil take it,” he said, “the man might be writing in cipher for all I understand of his dark hints and allusions—where’s Stephen? Pull the bellrope, Lady. I pray he can make sense of this. He’s an able Latinist. God’s body, where is that monk; he’s forever running over to my Lord Bishop’s palace—gaggle o’ his brethren there. Skimps his duty to me, and I fear there’s trouble a-coming.”

  “Trouble . . .?” said Ursula timidly. “What trouble could there be, sir, now the rightful Queen’s safe on her throne?”

  Anthony made an exasperated noise, but his face cleared as Stephen walked in. “High time,” Anthony said. “You’d think us plague-ridden here, the way you avoid us. What’s this drivel mean?” He pushed Renard’s letter at Stephen who scanned it rapidly.

  “I gather,” said Stephen, “that the ambassador sniffs a serious rebellion; that we must prepare. His spies daily report alarming news. He suspects that the rebels might attack London from here—from Southwark. He asks you to rally and arm all your men.”

  Anthony stared at his chaplain. “I don’t believe it . . . oh, we had indications here on All Saints’ Day, but things’ve died down, and that hothead, Thomas Wyatt, has gone home like a lamb to Kent.”

  “The lamb is mustering an army in Kent,” said Stephen drily. “We too have our spies reporting at the Bishop’s palace, and ’tis not only Wyatt—Courtenay’s gathering forces in the South under Sir Peter Carewe, and the old Duke of Suffolk—he’s up to no good, either. He’d his daughter on the throne for nine days, and no doubt’d like her back there again. Though I’d say that poor little chit isn’t apt to rouse the country. The other one may.”

  “What other one? What rebellion?” cried Ursula, who had been standing bewildered near the fireplace.

  Both young men turned. They had forgotten her. Anthony smiled. “No need to fret, Lady Ursula,” he said kindly. “It’ll all blow over.”

  “What will?” asked Ursula, drawing herself up, her eyes stern.

  She had never asserted herself with Anthony and he was surprised. His instinct was to put her off with vague phrases, as he would have his late wife. Ladies—unless they were royal, of course—should take no part in men’s affairs. Women had their special functions, they might be courteously deferred to if they were of noble blood like Lady Jane, they should be fondled in bed, bear the necessary heirs, they should supervise certain of the servants in domestic matters—but otherwise . . .

  “I’m not stupid as I sometimes seem,” said Ursula. “If we are to be endangered here in Southwark, I demand to know precisely why.”

  “And you should, Lady,” said Stephen suddenly, as Anthony continued to look startled. “I’ll tuck the answer in a nutshell. Did you not understand the puppet show we had here in November?”

  Ursula hesitated. “It seemed to mimic the Queen’s forthcoming marriage to Prince Philip o’ Spain. And what of that? Seems very suitable.”

  “Aye,” said Stephen, “you think like Her Majesty. Most of England does not. They think we’ll become a Spanish vassal; they think that we’ll be subjects of His Holiness the Pope. To prevent such an outcome a great many Englishmen are itching to revolt. They are about to do so. Is that clear?”

  She nodded, gazing in surprise at the monk. Even in the confessional she had never heard him so forceful.

  “Since I know your discretion,” Stephen went on, “I’ll answer your second question. The other one—who, if she is not active in plotting is at least the darling hope of the Protestant factions—is the Princess Elizabeth.”

  “I see . . .” said Ursula, after a moment. She did not say how much else she saw. How much was at stake for all of them here. Not only the free observance of their religion, but Anthony’s future, his revenues, his promised peerage. “Thank you, Brother Stephen,” she said quietly. “Thank you, Sir Anthony, for your forbearance—and your handling of Celia’s matter.”

  Stephen jerked his head up and frowned. “Celia? What of her?”

  “Oh . . .” said Anthony, shrugging, “she’s enchanted that gouty old lobcock from Boston, John Hutchinson, remember? I suppose he wants to beget a son while he can; his wife was barren.”

  Stephen made a quick gesture. “Plenty of girls besides Celia for that!” His tone was curiously muffled.

  “Aye, to be sure,” said Anthony dipping his quill pen in the silver inkwell, “but the fellow wants Celia. He’s crazily desirous of her. Autumn lust.”

  “It’s indecent . . .” said Stephen in the same muffled voice.

  “Nay, quite honorable. Sorry for the poor old goat, pity he’s a heretic. As I was saying to Lady Ursula, it will be hard to find Celia as good a match.”

  “Wi’ her wanton tricks, she’ll find someone to bed her,” said Stephen. “I doubt you can guard her maidenhead long, Lady, she has le diable au corps.”

  “Whatever that means,” Ursula snapped, “I mislike it! Monk or not,
you’ve no right to slander Celia. You’ve grown hard, Brother Stephen. I no longer see the gentle godliness you often showed at Cowdray.”

  The dark flush deepened on his lean face. His hand went to the golden crucifix given to him by the Bishop of Winchester. “I serve God better than I did then,” he said angrily.

  “I trust He thinks so,” Ursula retorted, and swept out, her skirts twitching.

  “Tush, tush—costamaree—” Anthony chuckled at the sight of his chaplain’s face. “Ye should know better than insult her jewel, and you spoke undue harsh. Cease glowering, and help me with the list o’ my retainers. Pity I’ve so few here. Must send Wat for those at Cowdray and Battle Abbey. ’Twill take time to get ’em along with all the weapons and armor in this bloody weather.”

  “What have you in store at Byfleet?” asked Stephen in his normal tone, referring to the neglected little manor house in nearby Surrey, where Anthony’s father had died.

  “Not much, I fear, a few suits o’ rusty mail, some pikes and halberds. The inventories’re in that coffer—will ye fetch ’em?”

  “So you believe now there’ll be a revolt?” said Stephen as he complied.

  “Aye . . . Renard’s no fool, and I’ve just remembered Courte-nay’s behavior at the Palace last night, his meaning whispers behind his hand to Ambassador de Noailles and the Duke o’ Suffolk, transparent as a child, so callow and overbearing I can’t stomach him. Yet, I see the danger.”

  “And welcome it?” asked Stephen, lifting his brows.

  Anthony made a rueful sound of assent. He had never known battle, as had his father, old Sir Anthony, who constantly recounted his exploits against the Scots, and at the sieges of Morlaix and Boulogne under King Henry. Real fighting, not the chivalric games of tournaments and jousts which had amused King Edward. Never consciously, yet deep in Anthony was the awareness that all his inheritance—the manors, the revenues, were due entirely to the various exploits of his powerful father, whom he had respected and feared.