Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (61 page)

“Means?” said Stephen. “That is an odd word to use. Yet it is true — skin can mean a great deal. Mine means that any man may strike me in a public place and never fear the consequences. It means that my friends do not always like to be seen with me in the street. It means that no matter how many books I read, or languages I master, I will never be any thing but a curiosity — like a talking pig or a mathematical horse.”

Vinculus grinned. “And mine means the opposite of yours. It means you will be raised up on high, Nameless King. It means your kingdom is waiting for you and your enemy shall be destroyed. It means the hour is almost come.
The nameless slave shall wear a silver crown
;
the nameless slave shall be a king in a strange country
…”

Then, keeping tight hold of Stephen’s hand, Vinculus recited the whole of his prophecy. “There,” he said when he was done, “now I have told it to the two magicians and I have told it to you. The first part of my task is done.”

“But I am not a magician,” said Stephen.

“I never said you were,” answered Vinculus. Without warning he released Stephen’s arm, pulled his ragged coat tight around him, plunged into the darkness beyond the glow of the lanterns and was gone.

A few days later the gentleman with the thistle-down hair expressed a sudden desire to see a wolf hunt, something he had apparently not done for several centuries.

There happened to be one going on in southern Sweden just then and so he instantly transported himself and Stephen to the place. Stephen found himself standing upon a great branch that belonged to an ancient oak in the midst of a snowy forest. From here he had an excellent view of a little clearing where a tall wooden pole had been planted in the ground. On top of the pole was an old wooden cartwheel, and on top of the cartwheel a young goat was securely tied. It bleated miserably.

A family of wolves crept out of the trees, with frost and snow clogging their fur, their gaze fixed hungrily upon the goat. No sooner had they appeared, than dogs could be heard in every part of the forest and riders could be glimpsed approaching at great speed. A pack of hounds came pouring into the clearing; the two foremost dogs leapt upon a wolf and together the three creatures became a single snapping, snarling, biting, thrashing knot of bodies, legs and teeth. The hunters galloped up and shot the wolf. The other wolves went streaming into the dark trees, and the dogs and hunters followed.

As soon as the sport waned in one place, the gentleman carried himself and Stephen through the air by magic, to wherever it was likely to be better. In this fashion they progressed from treetop to treetop, from hill to rocky outcrop. Once they travelled to the top of a church tower in a village of wooden houses, where the windows and doors were made in quaint, fairy-tale shapes and the roofs were dusted with powdery snow that glittered in the sunlight.

They were waiting in a quiet part of the wood for the hunters to appear, when a single wolf passed by their tree. He was the handsomest of his kind, with fine, dark eyes and a pelt the colour of wet slate. He looked up into the tree and addressed the gentleman in a language that sounded like the chatter of water over stones and the sighing of wind amongst bare branches and the crackle of fire consuming dead leaves.

The gentleman answered him in the same speech, then gave a careless laugh and waved him away with his hand.

The wolf bestowed one last reproachful glance upon the gentleman and ran on.

“He begs me to save him,” the gentleman explained.

“Oh, could you not do it, sir? I hate to see these noble creatures die!”

“Tender-hearted Stephen!” said the gentleman, fondly. But he did not save the wolf.

Stephen was not enjoying the wolf hunt at all. True, the hunters were brave and their hounds were faithful and eager; but it was too soon after the loss of Firenze for him to take pleasure in the deaths of any creature, especially one as strong and handsome as the wolf. Thinking of Firenze reminded him that he had not yet told the gentleman about his meeting with the blue-skinned man in the cart and the prophecy. He did so now.

“Really? Well, that is most unexpected!” declared the gentleman.

“Have you heard this prophecy before, sir?”

“Yes, indeed! I know it well. All my race do. It is a prophecy of …” Here the gentleman said a word which Stephen did not understand.
²
“Whom you know better by his English name, John Uskglass, the Raven King. But what I do not understand is how it has survived in England. I did not think Englishmen interested themselves in such matters any more.”

“The nameless slave! Well, that is me, sir, is it not? And this prophecy seems to tell how I will be a king!”

“Well, of course you are going to be a king! I have said so, and I am never wrong in these matters. But dearly as I love you, Stephen, this prophecy does not refer to you at all. Most of it is about the restoration of English magic, and the part you have just recited is not really a prophecy at all. The King is remembering how he came into his three kingdoms, one in England, one in Faerie, one in Hell. By the nameless slave he means himself. He was the nameless slave in Faerie, the little Christian child hidden in the
brugh
, brought there by a very wicked fairy who had stolen him away out of England.”

Stephen felt oddly disappointed, though he did not know why he should be. After all he did not wish to be king of anywhere. He was not English; he was not African. He did not belong anywhere. Vinculus’s words had briefly given him the sense of belonging to something, of being part of a pattern and of having a purpose. But it had all been illusory.

48
The Engravings

Late February-March 1816

You are changed. I am quite shocked to see you.”

"Am I? You surprize me. I am perhaps a little thinner, but I am not aware of any other change.”

"No, it is in your face, your air, your … something.”

Strange smiled. Or rather he twisted something in his face and Sir Walter supposed that he was smiling. Sir Walter could not really recall what his smile had looked like before.

“It is these black clothes,” said Strange. “I am like a leftover piece of the funeral, condemned to walk about the Town, frightening people into thinking of their own mortality.”

They were in the Bedford coffee-house in Covent-garden, chosen by Sir Walter as a place where they had often been very merry in the past and which might therefore do something to cheer Strange’s spirits. But on such an evening as this even the Bedford was somewhat deficient in cheerfulness. Outside, a cold black wind was pulling people this way and that, and driving a thick black rain into their eyes. Inside, rooms full of damp, unhappy gentlemen were producing a kind of gloomy, domesticated fog, which the waiters were attempting to dispel by putting extra shovelsful of coals on the fire and getting extra glassesful of hot spiced wine into the gentlemen.

When Sir Walter had come into the room he had discovered Strange writing furiously in a little book. He nodded towards the book and remarked, “You have not given up magic then?”

Strange laughed.

Sir Walter took this to mean he had not — which Sir Walter was glad of, for Sir Walter thought a great deal of a man’s having a profession and believed that useful, steady occupation might cure many things which other remedies could not. Only he did not quite like the laugh — a hard, bitter exclamation which he had never heard from Strange before. “It is just that you said …” he began.

“Oh, I said a great many things! All sorts of odd ideas crept into my brain. Excess of grief may bring on quite as fine a bout of madness as an excess of any thing else. Truth to tell, I was not quite myself for a time. Truth to tell, I was a little wild. But, as you see, that is all past now.”

But — truth to tell — Sir Walter did not see at all.

It was not quite enough to say that Strange had changed. In some senses he was just what he had always been. He smiled as often as before (though it was not quite the same smile). He spoke in the same ironic, superficial tone as he had always done (while giving the impression of scarcely attending to his own words). His words and his face were what all his friends remembered — with this difference: that the man behind them seemed only to be acting a part while his thoughts and his heart were somewhere else entirely. He looked out at them all from behind the sarcastic smile and none of them knew what he was thinking. He was more like a magician than ever before. It was very curious and no one knew what to make of it, but in some ways he was more like Norrell.

He wore a mourning ring on the fourth finger of his left hand with a thin strand of brown hair inside it and Sir Walter noticed that he continually touched it and turned it upon his finger.

They ordered a good dinner consisting of a turtle, three or four beefsteaks, some gravy made with the fat of a green goose, some lampreys, escalloped oysters and a small salad of beet root.

“I am glad to be back,” said Strange. “Now that I am here I intend to make as much mischief as I can. Norrell has had everything his own way for far too long.”

“He is already in agonies whenever your book is mentioned. He is forever inquiring of people if they know what is in it.”

“Oh, but the book is only the beginning! And besides it will not be ready for months. We are to have a new periodical. Murray wishes to bring it forward as quickly as possible. Naturally it will be a very superior production. It is to be called
The Famulus
¹
and is intended to promote
my
views on magic.”

“And these are very different from Norrell’s, are they?”

“But, of course! My chief idea is to examine the subject rationally without any of the restrictions and limitations that Norrell imposes upon it. I am confident that such a re-examination will rapidly open up new avenues worthy of exploration. For, when you consider the matter, what does our so-called restoration of English magic amount to? What have Norrell and I actually done? Some weaving of illusions with clouds, rain, smoke etc. — the easiest things in the world to accomplish! Bestowing life and speech upon inanimate objects — well, I grant you, that is quite sophisticated. Sending storms and bad weather to our enemies — I really cannot emphasize how simple weather-magic is. What else? Summoning up visions — well, that might be impressive if either of us could manage it with any degree of skill, but neither of us can. Now! Compare that sorry reckoning with the magic of the
Aureates
. They persuaded sycamore and oak woods to join with them against their enemies; they made wives and servants for themselves out of flowers; they transformed themselves into mice, foxes, trees, rivers, etc.; they made ships out of cobwebs, houses out of rose-bushes …”

“Yes, yes!” interrupted Sir Walter. “I understand that you are impatient to try all these different sorts of magic. But though I do not much like saying it, it seems to me that Norrell may be right. Not all these sorts of magic will suit us nowadays. Shape-changing and so on were all very well in the past. It makes a vivid incident in a story, I grant you. But surely, Strange, you would not want to practise it? A gentleman cannot change his shape. A gentleman scorns to seem any thing other than what he is. You yourself would never wish to appear in the character of a pastry-cook or a lamplighter …”

Strange laughed.

“Well then,” said Sir Walter, “consider how much worse it would be to appear as a dog or a pig.”
²

“You are deliberately chusing low examples.”

“Am I? A lion, then! Would you like to be a lion?”

“Possibly. Perhaps. Probably not. But that is not the point! I agree that shape-changing is a sort of magic which requires delicate handling, but that is not to say that some useful application might not exist. Ask the Duke of Wellington whether he would have liked to be able to turn his exploring officers into foxes or mice and have them slip about the French camps. I assure you his Grace will not be so full of qualms.”

“I do not think you could have persuaded Colquhoun Grant to become a fox.”
³

“Oh! Grant would not have minded being a fox as long as he could have been a fox in a uniform. No, no, we need to turn our attention to the
Aureates
. A great deal more energy ought to be applied to the study of the life and magic of John Uskglass and when we …”

“That is the one thing you must not do. Do not even think of it.” “What are you talking about?”

“I am serious, Strange. I say nothing against the
Aureates
in general. Indeed, upon the whole, I think you are right. Englishmen take great pride in their ancient magical history -in Godbless, Stokesey, Pale and the rest. They do not like to read in their newspapers that Norrell makes light of their achievements. But you are liable to fall into the opposite mistake. Too much talk of other kings is bound to make the Government nervous. Particularly when we are liable to be overrun by Johannites at any moment.”

“Johannites? Who are the Johannites?”

“What? Good Lord, Strange! Do you never look into a newspaper?”

Strange looked a little put out. “My studies take up a great deal of my time. All of it in fact. And besides, you know, in the past month I can plead distractions of a very particular nature.”

“But we are not speaking of the past month. There have been Johannites in the northern counties for four years.”

“Yes, but who are they?”

“They are craftsmen who creep into mills at dead of night and destroy property. They burn down factory-owners’ houses. They hold pernicious meetings inciting the common people to riotous acts and they loot marketplaces.”
⁴

“Oh,
machine-breakers
. Yes, yes, I understand you now. It is just that you misled me by that odd name. But what have machine-breakers to do with the Raven King?”

“Many of them are, or rather claim to be, his followers. They daub the Raven-in-Flight upon every wall where property is destroyed. Their captains carry letters of commission purporting to come from John Uskglass and they say that he will shortly appear to re-establish his reign in Newcastle.”

“And the Government believes them?” asked Strange in astonishment.

“Of course not! We are not so ridiculous. What we fear is a great deal more mundane — in a word, revolution. John Uskglass’s banner is flying everywhere in the north from Nottingham to Newcastle. Of course we have our spies and informers to tell us what these fellows are doing and thinking. Oh, I do not say that they all believe that John Uskglass is coming back. Most are as rational as you or I. But they know the power of his name among the common people. Rowley Fisher-Drake, the Member for Hampshire, has brought forward a Bill in which he proposes to make it illegal to raise the Raven-in-Flight. But we cannot forbid people to fly their own flag, the flag of their legitimate King.”
⁵
Sir Walter sighed and poked a beefsteak upon his plate with a fork. “Other countries,” he said, “have stories of kings who will return at times of great need. Only in England is it part of the constitution.”

Strange waved a fork impatiently at the Minister. “But all that is politics. It is nothing to do with me. I am not going to call for the re-establishment of John Uskglass’s kingdom. My only wish is to examine, in a calm and rational manner, his accomplishments as a magician. How can we restore English magic until we understand what it is we are supposed to be restoring?”

“Then study the
Aureates
, but leave John Uskglass in the obscurity in which Norrell has placed him.”

Strange shook his head. “Norrell has poisoned your minds against John Uskglass. Norrell has bewitched you all.”

They ate in silence for a while and then Strange said, “Did I ever tell you that there is a portrait of him at Windsor Castle?”

“Who?”

“Uskglass. A fanciful scene painted upon a wall of one of the state rooms by some Italian painter. It shews Edward III and John Uskglass — warrior-king and magician-king seated side by side. It has been almost four hundred years since John Uskglass went out of England and still the English cannot quite make up their minds whether to adore him or hate him.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Sir Walter. “In the north they know exactly what to think of him. They would exchange the rule of Westminster for his rule tomorrow if they could.”
⁶

A week or so later the first issue of
The Famulus
was published and, owing to the sensational nature of one of the articles, the entire run sold out within two days. Mr Murray, who was soon to publish the first volume of Strange’s
The History and Practice of English Magic
, was filled with a happy anticipation of making a very large profit. The article which so thrilled the public was a description of how magicians might summon up dead people for the purposes of learning useful information from them. This shocking (but deeply interesting) subject caused such a sensation that several young ladies were reported to have fainted merely pon learning that
The Famulus
was in the house.
⁷
No one could imagine Mr Norrell ever approving such a publication and so every body who did not like Mr Norrell took a particular pleasure in buying a copy.

In Hanover-square Mr Lascelles read it out loud for the benefit of Mr Norrell. “ ‘… Where the magician is deficient in skill and knowledge — and this must include all modern magicians, our National Genius in such matters being sadly fallen off from what it was in former times — then he or she might be best advised to conjure up the spirit of someone who was in life a magician or had at least some talent for the art. For, if we are uncertain of the path ourselves, it is best to call on someone in possession of a little knowledge and who is able, as it were, to meet us halfway.’ ”

“He will undo every thing!” cried Norrell with a wild passion. “He is determined to destroy me!”

“It is certainly very aggravating,” remarked Lascelles with all the calm in the world, “and after he swore to Sir Walter that he had given up magic when his wife died.”

“Oh! We might all die — half of London might be swept away, but Strange will always do magic — he cannot help himself. He is too much a magician ever to stop now. And the magic that he will do is evil — and I do not know how I shall prevent him!”

“Pray, calm yourself, Mr Norrell,” said Lascelles, “I am sure you will soon think of something.”

“When is his book to be published?”

“Murray’s advertisements say that the first volume will appear in August.”

“The first volume!”

“Oh, yes! Did you not know? It will be a three-volume work. The first volume lays before the public the complete history of English magic. The second volume furnishes them with a precise understanding of its nature and the third provides the foundation for its future practice.”

Mr Norrell groaned aloud, bowed his head and hid his face in his hands.

“Of course,” said Lascelles thoughtfully, “as mischievous as the text undoubtedly will be, what I find even more alarming are the engravings …”

“Engravings?” cried Mr Norrell, aghast. “What engravings are these?”

“Oh,” said Lascelles, “Strange has discovered some emigrant or other who has studied under all the best masters of Italy, France and Spain and he is paying this man a most extravagant amount of money to make the engravings.”

“But what are they of? What is the subject?”

“What indeed?” said Lascelles with a yawn. “I have not the least idea.” He took up
The Famulus
again and began to read silently to himself.

Mr Norrell sat for some time deep in thought, chewing at his fingernails. By and by he rang the bell and sent for Childermass. East of the City of London lies the suburb of Spitalfields, famed far and wide as a place where wonderful silks are made. There is not now, nor ever will be, silk produced any where else in England of so fine a quality as Spitalfields silk. In the past good houses were built to accommodate the silk merchants, master-weavers and dyers who prospered from the trade. But, though the silk that comes out of the weavers’ attics nowadays is every bit as remarkable as ever it was, Spitalfields itself is much fallen off. Its houses have grown dirty and shabby. The wealthy merchants have moved to Islington, Clerkenwell and (if they are very wealthy indeed) to the parish of Mary-le-bone in the west. Today Spitalfields is inhabited by the low and the poor and is much plagued with small boys, thieves and other persons inimicable to the peace of the citizens.