Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (87 page)

“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 Englishmen — 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!”

66
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Mid February 1817

Mr 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.

“To thwart you?” said Strange, in astonishment. “No! I have done this to save my wife!”

There was a short silence during which time Mr Norrell found it impossible to meet Strange’s eye. “What do you want from me?” he asked in a low voice.

“Only what I have always wanted — your help.”

“To break the enchantments?”

“Yes.”

Mr Norrell considered this for a moment. “The hundredth anniversary of an enchantment is often most auspicious,” he said. “There are several rites and procedures …”

“Thank you,” said Strange, with more than a tinge of his old sarcastic manner, “but I believe I was hoping for something a little more immediate in its effect.”

“The death of the enchanter puts an end to all such contracts and enchantments, but …”

“Ah, yes! Quite!” interrupted Strange, eagerly. “The death of the enchanter! I thought of it often in Venice. With all of English magic at my disposal there were so many ways I could have killed him. Sent him hurtling down from great heights. Burned him with bolts of lightning. Raised up mountains and crushed him beneath them. Had it been my freedom at stake, I would have certainly attempted it. But it was not my freedom — it was Arabella’s — and if I had tried and failed — if I had been killed — then her fate would have been sealed forever. So I set to thinking some more. And I thought how there was one man in all the world — in all the worlds that ever were — who would know how to defeat my enemy. One man who could advise me what I ought to do. I realized the time had come to speak to him.”

Mr Norrell looked more alarmed than ever. “Oh! But I must tell you that I no longer regard myself as your superior. My reading has been a great deal more extensive than yours, it is true, and I will give you what help I can, but I can offer you no security that I will be any more successful than you.”

Strange frowned. “What? What are you talking about? I do not mean you! I mean John Uskglass. I want your help in summoning John Uskglass.”

Mr Norrell breathed hard. The very air seemed to quiver as if a deep note had been sounded. He was aware, to an almost painful degree, of the darkness surrounding them, of the new stars above them and of the silence of the stopt clocks. It was one Great Black Moment going on for ever, pressing down upon him, suffocating him. And in that Moment it cost no effort to believe that John Uskglass was near — a mere spell away; the deep shadows in the far corners of the room were the folds of his robe; the smoke from the guttering candles was the raven mantling of his helm.

Strange, however, seemed oppressed by no such immortal fears. He leant forward a little, with an eager half-smile. “Come, Mr Norrell,” he whispered. “It is very dull working for Lord Liverpool. You must feel it so? Let other magicians cast protection spells over cliffs and beaches. There will be plenty of them to do it soon! Let you and me do something extraordinary!”

Another silence.

“You are afraid,” said Strange, drawing back displeased.

“Afraid!” burst out Norrell. “Of course I am afraid! It would be madness — absolute madness — to be any thing else! But that is not my objection. It will not work. Whatever you hope to gain by it, it will not work. Even if we succeeded in bringing him forth — which we might very well do, you and I together — he will not help you in the way you imagine. Kings do not satisfy idle curiosity — this King least of all.”

“You call it idle curiosity … ?” began Strange.

“No, no!” said Norrell, interrupting hastily. “
I
do not. I merely represent to you how it will appear to
him
. What will he care about two lost women? You are thinking of John Uskglass as if he were an ordinary man. I mean a man like you or me. He was brought up and educated in Faerie. The ways of the
brugh
were natural to him — and most
brughs
contained captive Christians — he was one himself. It will not seem so extraordinary to him. He will not understand.”

“Then I will explain it to him. Mr Norrell, I have changed England to save my wife. I have changed the world. I shall not flinch from summoning up one man; let him be as tremendous as he may. Come, sir! There is very little sense in arguing about it. The first thing is to bring him here. How do we begin?”

Mr Norrell sighed. “It is not like summoning any one else. There are difficulties peculiar to any magic involving John Uskglass.”

“Such as?”

“Well, for one thing we do not know what to call him. Spells of summoning require the magician to be most particular about names. None of the names by which we call John Uskglass were really his own. He was, as the histories tell, stolen away into Faerie, before he could be christened — and so he became the nameless child in the
brugh
. ‘The nameless slave’ was one of the ways in which he referred to himself. Of course the fairies gave him a name after their own fashion, but he cast that off when he returned to England. As for all his titles — the Raven King, the Black King, the King of the North — these are what other people called him, not what he called himself.”

“Yes, yes!” declared Strange, impatiently. “I know all that! But surely John Uskglass was his true name?”

“Oh! By no means. That was the name of a young Norman aristocrat who died, I believe, in the summer of 1097. The King — our John Uskglass — claimed that man as his father, but many people have disputed whether they were really related at all. I do not suppose that this muddle of names and titles is accidental. The King knew that he would always draw the eyes of other magicians to him and so he protected himself from the nuisance of their magic by deliberately confusing their spells.”

“So what ought I to do?” Strange snapped his fingers. “Advise me!”

Mr Norrell blinked his small eyes. He was unaccustomed to think so rapidly. “If we use an ordinary English spell of summoning — and I strongly advise that we do, as they cannot be bettered — then we can make the elements of the spell do the work of identification for us. We will need an envoy, a path and a handsel.
¹
If we chuse tools that already know the King, and know him well, then it will not matter that we cannot name him properly, they will find him, bring him and bind him, without our help! Do you see?”

In spite of all his terror, he was growing more animated at the prospect of magic — new magic! — to be performed with Mr Strange.

“No,” said Strange. “I do not see at all.”

“This house is built upon the King’s land, with stones from the King’s abbey. A river runs by it — not more than two hundred yards from this room; that river has often borne the King in his royal barge upon its waters. In my kitchen-garden are a pear-tree and an apple-tree — the direct descendants of some pips spat out by the King when he sat one summer’s evening in the Abbot’s garden. Let the old abbey stones be our envoy; let the river be our path; let next year’s apples and pears from those trees be our handsel. Then we may name him simply ‘The King’. These stones, this river, those trees know none other!”

“Good,” said Strange. “And what spell do you recommend? Are there any in Belasis?”

“Yes, three.”

“Are they worth trying?”

“No, not really.” Mr Norrell opened a drawer and drew out a piece of paper. “This is the best I know. I am not in the habit of using summoning spells — but if I were, this is the one I would use.” He passed it to Strange.

It was covered with Mr Norrell’s small, meticulous handwriting. At the top was written, “Mr Strange’s spell of summoning.”

“It is the one you used to summon Maria Absalom,”
²
explained Norrell. “I have made some amendments. I have omitted the
florilegium
which you copied word for word from Ormskirk. I have, as you know, no opinion of
florilegia
in general and this one seems particularly nonsensical. I have added an epitome of preservation and deliverance, and a skimmer of supplication — though I doubt that either will help us much in this case.”
³

“It is as much your work as mine now,” observed Strange. There was no trace of rivalry or resentment in his voice.

“No, no,” said Norrell. “All the fabric of it is yours. I have merely neatened the edges.”

“Good! Then we are ready, are we not?”

“There is one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“There are certain precautions that are necessary to secure Mrs Strange’s safety,” explained Mr Norrell.

Strange cast a glance at him as if he thought it a little late in the day for Mr Norrell to be thinking of Arabella’s safety, but Mr Norrell had hurried to a bookshelf and was busy delving in a large volume and did not notice.

“The spell is written in Chaston’s
Liber Novus
. Ah, yes! Here it is! We must build a magical road and make a door so that Mrs Strange may come safely out of Faerie. Otherwise she might be trapped there for ever. It might take us centuries to find her.”

“Oh, that!” said Strange. “I have done it already. And appointed a doorkeeper to meet her when she comes out. All is in readiness.”

He took the merest stub of a candle, placed it in a candlestick and lit it.
⁴
Then he began to recite the spell. He named the abbeystones as the envoy sent to seek the King. He named the river as the path the King was to come. He named next year’s apples and pears from Mr Norrell’s trees as the handsel the King was to receive. He named the moment of the flame’s dying as the time when the King was to appear.