Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (125 page)

"Oh!" said Stephen.

"I took the pearls, let the miserable corpse fall to the ground and passed on. Next I turned my attention to your mother's pretty rose-coloured gown. The sailor who had acquired it, kept it among his things for a year or two until he happened to find himself in a cold, miserable little hamlet on the eastern coast of America called Piper's Grave. There he met a tall, thin woman and, wishing to impress her, he gave her the gown as a present. The gown did not fit this woman (your mother, Stephen, had a sweetly rounded, feminine figure), but she liked the colour and so she cut it up and sewed the pieces into a counterpane with some other cheap materials. The rest of this woman's history is not very interesting — she married several husbands and buried them all, and by the time I found her she was old and withered. I plucked the counter- pane off her bed as she slept."

"You did not kill her, did you, sir?" asked Stephen, anxiously.

"No, Stephen. Why would I? Of course it was a bitter night with four feet of snow and a raging north wind outside. She may have died of the cold. I do not know. So we come at last to the kiss and the captain who stole it from her."

"Did you kill him, sir?"

"No, Stephen — though I would certainly have done so to punish him for his insult to your esteemed mother, but he was hanged in the town of Valletta twenty-nine years ago. Fortunately he had kissed a great many other young women before he died and the virtue and strength of your mother's kiss had been conveyed to them. So all I had to do was to find them and extract what was left of your mother's kiss."

"And how did you do that, sir?" asked Stephen, though he feared that he knew the answer all too well.

"Oh! It is easy enough once the women are dead."

"So many people dead, just to find my name," sighed Stephen.

"And I would gladly have killed twice that number — nay, a hundred times — nay, a hundred thousand times or more! — so great is the love I bear you, Stephen. With the ashes that were her screams and the pearls that were her bones and the counterpane that was her gown and the magical essence of her kiss, I was able to divine your name — which I, your truest friend and most noble benefactor, will now . . . Oh, but here is our enemy! As soon as we have killed him, I will bestow your name upon you. Beware, Stephen! There will probably be a magical combat of some sort. I dare say I shall have to take on different forms — cockatrices, raw head and bloody bones, rains of fire, etc., etc. You may wish to stand back a little!"

The unknown person drew closer. He was as thin as a Banbury cheese, with a hawk-like, disreputable-looking face. His coat and shirt were in rags and his boots were broken and full of holes.

"Well!" said the gentleman after a moment. "I could not be more astonished! Have you ever seen this person before, Stephen?"

"Yes, sir. I must confess that I have. This is the man I told you about. The one with the strange disfiguration who told me the prophecy. His name is Vinculus."

"Good day to you, King!" said Vinculus to Stephen. "Did I not tell you the hour was almost come? And now it has! The rain shall make a door for you and you shall go through it! The stones shall make a throne for you and you shall sit upon it!" He surveyed Stephen with a mysterious satisfaction, as if the crown, orb and sceptre were somehow all his doing.

Stephen said to the gentleman, "Perhaps the Venerable Beings to whom you applied are mistaken, sir. Perhaps they have brought us to the wrong person."

"Nothing seems more likely," agreed the gentleman. "This vagabond is scarcely any threat to any one. To me least of all. But as the North Wind and the Dawn have taken the trouble to point him out to us, it would be most disrespectful to them not to kill him."

Vinculus seemed curiously unmoved by this proposal. He gave a laugh. "Try if you can do it, Fairy! You will discover that I am very hard to kill!"

"Are you indeed?" said the gentleman. "For I must confess that it looks to me as if nothing would be easier! But then you see I am very adept at killing all sorts of things! I have slain dragons, drowned armies and persuaded the earthquakes and tempests to devour cities! You are a man. You are all alone — as all men are. I am surrounded by ancient friends and allies. Rogue, what do you have to counter that?"

Vinculus thrust out his dirty chin at the gentleman in a gesture of the utmost contempt. "A book!" he said.

It was an odd thing to say. Stephen could not help thinking that if Vinculus had indeed possessed a book he would have been well advised to sell it and buy a better coat.

The gentleman turned his head to gaze with sudden intensity at a distant line of white hills. "Oh!" he exclaimed with as much violence as if he had been struck. "Oh! They have stolen her from me! Thieves! Thieves! English thieves!"

"Who, sir?"

"Lady Pole! Someone has broken the enchantment!"

"The magic of Englishmen, Fairy!" cried Vinculus. "The magic of Englishmen is coming back!"

"Now you see their arrogance, Stephen!" cried the gentleman, spinning round to bestow a look of vivid fury upon Vinculus. "Now you see the malice of our enemies! Stephen, procure me some rope!"

"Rope, sir? There is none for miles around, I am sure. Let you and I . . ."

"No rope, Fairy!" jeered Vinculus.

But something was happening in the air above them. The lines of sleet and snow were somehow twisting together. They snaked across the sky towards Stephen. Without warning a length of strong rope fell into his hand.

"There!" cried the gentleman, triumphantly. "Stephen, look! Here is a tree! One tree in all this desolate waste, exactly where we need it! But England has always been my friend. She has always served me well. Throw the rope over a branch and let us hang this rogue!"

Stephen hesitated, uncertain for the moment how to prevent this new disaster. The rope in his hand seemed to grow impatient with him; it jumped away and divided itself neatly into two lengths. One snaked across the ground to Vinculus and trussed him tight and the other quickly formed itself into a well-made noose and hung itself neatly over a branch.

The gentleman was in high glee, his spirits quite restored at the prospect of a hanging. "Do you dance, rogue?" he asked Vinculus. "I shall teach you some new steps!"

Everything took on the character of a nightmare. Events happened quickly and seamlessly, and Stephen never found the right moment to intervene or the right words to say. As for Vinculus himself, he behaved very oddly throughout his entire execution. He never appeared to understand what was happening to him. He said not another word, but he did make several exclamations of exasperation as if he was being put to some serious inconvenience and it was putting him out of temper.

Without any appearance of exertion the gentleman took hold of Vinculus and placed him beneath the noose. The noose draped itself about his neck and hoisted him abruptly into the air; at the same time the other rope unwound itself from his body and folded itself neatly on the ground.

Vinculus kicked his feet uselessly in the empty air; his body jerked and spun. For all his boast of being hard to kill, his neck broke very easily — the snapping sound could be clearly heard on the empty moor. A jerk or two more and he was finished.

Stephen — forgetting that he had determined to hate all English- men — covered his face with his hands and wept.

The gentleman danced round and sang to himself, as a child will when something has pleased it particularly; and when he was done he said in a conversational tone, "Well, that was disappointing! He did not struggle at all. I wonder who he was?"

"I told you, sir," said Stephen, wiping his eyes. "He is the man who told me that prophecy. He has a strange disfiguration upon his body. Like writing."

The gentleman pulled off Vinculus's coat, shirt and neckcloth. "Yes, there it is!" he said in mild surprize. He scratched with one nail at a little circle on Vinculus's right shoulder to see if it would come off. Finding it did not, he lost interest.

"Now!" he said. "Let us go and cast a spell upon Lady Pole."

"A spell, sir!" said Stephen. "But why would we wish to do that?"

"Oh! So that she will die within a month or two. It is — apart from any thing else — very traditional. It is very rare that any one released from an enchantment is permitted to live long — certainly not if I have enchanted them! Lady Pole is not far away and the magicians must be taught that they may not oppose us with impunity! Come, Stephen!"

1 It is all very well in fairy-tales to ask, "Who is the fairest of them all?" But in reality no magic, fairy or human, could ever be persuaded to answer such an imprecise question.

2 St Anthony of Padua. Several of his miracles involve preserving from rain congregations to whom he was preaching, or maid-servants with whom he was friendly. He also helps people find things they have lost.

3 Penlaw is the name of the place in Northumbria where John Uskglass and his fairy army first appeared in England.

66
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Mid February 1817

M
R NORRELL TURNED and looked back along the corridor which had once led from the library to the rest of the house. If he had had any confidence that it could take him back to Lascelles and the servants, he would have gone down it. But he was quite certain that Strange's magic would simply return him to this spot.

There was a sound from within the library and he gave a start of terror. He waited, but no one appeared. After a moment he realized that he knew what the sound was. He had heard it a thousand times before — it was the sound of Strange exclaiming in exasperation over some passage in a book. It was such a very familiar sound — and so closely connected in Mr Norrell's mind with the happiest period of his existence — that it gave him the courage to open the door and go inside.

The first thing that struck him was the immense quantity of candles. The room was full of light. Strange had not troubled to find candlesticks; he had simply stuck the candles to tables or to bookshelves. He had even stuck them to piles of books. The library was in imminent danger of catching fire. There were books everywhere — scattered over tables, tumbled on the floor. Many had been laid face-down on the floor, so that Strange should not lose his place.

Strange was standing at the far end of the room. He was a much thinner person than Mr Norrell remembered. He had shaved himself with no extraordinary degree of perfection and his hair was ragged. He did not look up at Mr Norrell's approach.

"Seven people from Norwich in 1124," he said, reading from the book in his hand. "Four from Aysgarth in Yorkshire at Christmas in 1151, twenty-three at Exeter in 1201, one from Hathersage in Derbyshire in 1243 — all enchanted and stolen away into Faerie. It was a problem he never solved."

He spoke with such calm that Mr Norrell — who was rather expecting to be blasted with a bolt of magic at any moment — looked round to see if someone else was in the room. "I beg your pardon?" he asked.

"John Uskglass," said Strange, still not troubling to turn around. "He could not prevent fairies stealing away Christian men and women. Why should I suppose that I might be capable of something he was not?" He read a little further. "I like your labyrinth," he said conversationally. "Did you use Hickman?"

"What? No. De Chepe."

"De Chepe! Really?" For the first time Strange looked directly at his master. "I had always supposed him to be a very minor scholar without an original thought in his head."

"He was never much to the taste of people who like the showier sorts of magic," said Mr Norrell, nervously, uncertain of how long this civil mood of Strange's might last. "He was interested in labyrinths, magical pathways, spells which may be effected by following certain steps and turns — things of that sort. There is a long description of his magic in Belasis's
instructions
. . ." He paused. ". . . which you have never seen. The only copy is here. It is on the third shelf by the window." He pointed and discovered that the shelf had been emptied. "Or it might be on the floor," he offered. "In that pile."

"I shall look in a moment," Strange assured him.

"Your own labyrinth was quite remarkable," said Mr Norrell. "I have been half the night trying to escape it."

"Oh, I did what I usually do in such circumstances," said Strange, carelessly. "I copied you and added some refinements. How long has it been?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"How long have I been in the Darkness?"

"Since the beginning of December."

"And what month is it now?"

"February."

"Three months!" exclaimed Strange. "Three months! I thought it had been years!"

Mr Norrell had imagined this conversation many times. Each time he had pictured Strange angry and vengeful, and himself putting forth powerful arguments of self-justification. Now that they had finally met, Strange's unconcern was utterly bewildering. The distant pains Mr Norrell had long felt in his small, shrivelled soul awakened. They grew claws and rent at him. His hands began to shake.

"I have been your enemy!" he burst out. "I destroyed your book — all except my own copy! I have slandered your name and plotted against you! Lascelles and Drawlight have told everyone that you murdered your wife! I have let them believe it!"

"Yes," said Strange.

"But these are terrible crimes! Why are you not angry?"

Strange seemed to concede that this was a reasonable question. He thought for a moment. "I suppose it is because I have been many things since last we met. I have been trees and rivers and hills and stones. I have spoken to stars and earth and wind. One cannot be the conduit through which all English magic flows and still be oneself. I would have been angry, you say?"

Mr Norrell nodded.

Strange smiled his old, ironic smile. "Then be comforted! I dare say I shall be so again. In time."

"And you have done all this just to thwart me?" asked Mr Norrell.