Prophecy - Страница 44

He nods and reaches his little hand up to mine; we leave Johanna Kelley, if that is her name, replacing the items in her husband’s chest with a face like storm clouds.

‘I don’t like her,’ Arthur confides as we descend, in a whisper guaranteed to carry through the house. ‘She struck me once and my mama called her a witch.’ I try to stifle a laugh.

‘I imagine the slattern was not best pleased to find you going through her husband’s things,’ Jane says, when I rejoin her in the parlour. She looks as if the thought pleases her. ‘If husband he is.’

‘She is short on civility, that much is certain.’

Jane nods. ‘You wouldn’t think she was once in service to one of the noble families. I’ll bet she minded her manners a lot better then. Or maybe she didn’t,’ she adds, signific antly.

I stop, midway through pulling on my cloak.

‘Really? Which family?’

‘She used to be a maid in the Earl of Arundel’s household, up at Arundel House on the Strand. Won’t say why she left, but it’s my guess she was thrown out in disgrace. There’s a child, you know, a little daughter no more than Arthur’s age, she leaves it with some widow out Hammersmith way. And it’s not by Kelley,’ she says, with a nod full of meaning. ‘She only took up with him a year ago, from what I gather. It’s my bet they’re not even properly married.’

‘You think she got the child at Arundel House?’ I stare at her, disbelieving. Another Howard connection. Could it be — I am still gaping at Jane as this new idea forms — that Kelley is working for Henry Howard or his nephew, perhaps introduced to them by his wife? My mind rushes back to my curious conversation with Howard after the concert and his oblique threat; he had specifically mentioned Dee conjuring spirits in a showing-stone. Was that a lucky hit, or did he have such a detail from a first-hand report?

‘I wouldn’t be surprised. But she must have money from somewhere to keep it. Her clothes are good cloth too — better quality than you’d expect of her sort. Anyway, since my husband in his folly gives lodging to her so-called husband, I insisted she give us some labour in return. Don’t know why I bothered. This babe’d be more use with the housework.’ She bounces the baby gently on her shoulder and it hiccups. ‘And she is stealing food from my kitchen, I’m sure of it.’

I raise an eyebrow at this; perhaps, then, Ned Kelley has not run so far away after all. I do not say so to Jane; she would hardly sleep easier in Dee’s absence to think of the scryer hiding in the garden.

‘Do not open the door to anyone until your husband returns,’ I tell her at the door, patting my chest where I have hidden away Kelley’s papers. ‘I have matter here that will vindicate John the moment it is seen by the right people, and make Ned Kelley a wanted man.’

Jane snorts. ‘As if he wasn’t that already. Don’t worry about us, Doctor Bruno, we shall manage fine as we always do. It was a kindness of you to visit,’ she adds, with an effortful smile, pushing her hair back from her face. I catch the tiredness in her voice again. ‘It’s dreadfully wet out there still — are you sure you must leave? You are welcome to stay if you’d rather.’

I sense that she would be glad of the company, or at least the reassurance of a man’s presence, but now that I have Kelley’s papers, I feel I must get them to Walsingham as quickly as possible.

‘I had better go. But if Kelley shows his face, or if she —‘ I nod towards the stairs — ‘gives any sign she knows where he is, send word to Walsingham at Barn Elms immediately. In the meantime, I will see if he can spare a man to keep an eye on the house until John returns.’

‘Thank you, Bruno. Here, you cannot go into the night without a lantern. Johanna!’ she calls into the darkness of the stairwell. ‘Fetch a lantern for our guest!’

There is no response. Tutting heavily, Jane stomps away with the baby towards the back of the house. Arthur and I are left looking solemnly at one another in the hallway.

‘You be sure and take good care of your mother until your father comes home,’ I say, bending to ruffle his soft hair. He has his mother’s looks, but Dee’s penetrating eyes.

The boy nods. Jane returns and hands me a lantern with a new candle.

‘Return it when you can,’ she says. ‘Now go with God.’

My cloak is no less damp than when I arrived, in spite of its stint by the fire, and the evening air when I step outside whips through it with a chill that pierces straight to my bones, though the rain has eased for the moment. I shiver, but make a cheerful farewell to Jane. Little Arthur remains on the doorstep waving until I am at their gate. I glance at the upper storey and am almost sure I see a figure standing at the window, silently watching, wrapped in shadow.

It is less than a mile across the spur of land that juts out, making the river loop around Barnes and Mortlake; clouds scud across the face of the moon, driven by the wind, but there is only one main road, little more than a track, that runs along by the water then cuts across. Even in the dark, it would be hard to lose my way between here and Barn Elms. Despite Walsingham’s instructions to send my intelligence through Fowler, the papers I have pressing against my chest are so urgent that it would be folly to delay; I can deliver them into his hands or Sidney’s and be on my way without anyone knowing I was there. The lantern held before me, its light fractured in the standing water collected in ruts on the path, I pull the cloak tighter and close the gate behind me.

I feel rather than hear him, almost the moment I step out on to the muddy lane that will lead me to the river path. He — or perhaps she — is no more than a movement out beyond the edge of sight, a stirring of the air, the soft plash of water disturbed in a puddle. I turn, slowly at first, widening the circle of the lantern’s poor light as I hold my arm out, but whoever he is remains hidden. Yet I know I am not alone, and part of me curses my own recklessness as I quicken my step. What was I thinking, coming so far from the city at night, and especially since there can be no doubt that someone has been following me? But with every step I feel Kelley’s papers scratch against my chest and try to ignore the rush of fear in my blood; we are one step away from discovering who killed Cecily Ashe and Abigail Morley, and I am now convinced that Ned Kelley is the evidence that ties the Howards to the murder plot. I am all but running now, fired by the thought that this might soon be resolved, but he keeps pace with me in the dark, whoever he is; I catch echoes of my own footfalls in the mud but I no longer turn. Instead I keep my eyes to my course, one hand on my knife, the lantern held in front with the other, telling myself that every step brings me nearer to Barn Elms and Walsingham. Once my pursuer sees where I am headed, surely he will drop back out of sight. Walsingham keeps armed guards at his gate; he is obliged to, given how many Catholics would like to send him early to his judgement day.

The damp breath of the night; the solid outlines of the wet trees to either side; the presence that I sense without seeing, who becomes a kind of companion in the silence. I almost begin to believe that he does not mean me harm, that he is only keeping an eye on me, tracing my path. An owl’s shrill cry rips the air overhead and I gasp aloud, startled, my foot briefly stumbling in a rut; from somewhere behind or to the side I think I hear a matching intake of breath. I have run perhaps half a mile when there is a distinct human sound; not quite a word, more of a grunt, the noise of some physical effort. I wheel around, holding up the light, drawing the knife from my belt with my right hand, and as I do, I hear his movement, there comes a faint whistling in the air and some blind instinct tells me to duck; the hand with the knife flies up to my face, just before the blow catches me and knocks me to the ground.

Through the blurring shadows I can just make out the form of him as he looms over me, before the world turns to black.

Chapter Twelve

Barn Elms, south-west London

1st October, Year of Our Lord 1583, Night.

When the light reappears the first thing I see against the swimming shapes is his outline, still bent over me; I struggle and hear a strangled cry escape my lips, but he has me pinned down somehow and a blade of pain is slowly sawing across my forehead from the blackness where my left eye should be. My waterlogged limbs protest and give up. I seem to be sinking into the ground but I can’t move to stop myself.

‘He’s awake.’ The voice seems to come from the man peering into my face; it sounds familiar but I can’t open one eye and the other won’t focus. I wonder in passing if he means to kill me. With some effort, I find I can stretch out my palms flat on either side of me and the ground feels smooth and cool. Then something cold and wet lands on my face and I splutter back into awareness, battling to push myself up on one elbow.

‘Christ alive, Bruno, you gave us the fright of our lives there,’ says the man, and as the crusted blood is sponged from my good eye, he solidifies into the shape of Philip Sidney. I can’t comprehend how he came to be here, so I decide not to try, though I can’t deny I have not been so glad to see him since he rescued me in Oxford.

‘I think you take delight in making me act as your nurse-maid,’ he says cheerfully, as if he is reliving the same memory. ‘So what in God’s name happened to you this time? Do you remember any of it?’