Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (89 page)

“But your father did not deliver the book. Instead he ate it in the drinking contest in Sheffield.”

Vinculus took another drink from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Four years later I was born and the King’s Letters were written on my infant body. When I was seventeen, I went to look for the man in the Derbyshire hills — he lived just long enough for me to find him out. That was a night indeed! A starlit, summer night, when the King’s Book and the last Reader of the King’s Letters met and drank wine together! We sat upon the brow of the hill at Bretton, looking out over England, and he read England’s destiny from me.”

“And that was the prophecy which you told to Strange and Norrell?”

Vinculus, who had been seized with a fit of coughing, nodded. When he was able to speak again, he added, “And also to the nameless slave.”

“Who?” said Childermass with a frown. “Who is that?”

“A man,” replied Vinculus. “It has been part of my task to bear his story. He began as a slave. Will soon be a king. His true name was denied him at his birth.”

Childermass pondered this description for a moment or two. “You mean John Uskglass?” he said.

Vinculus made a noise of exasperation. “If I meant John Uskglass, I would say so! No, no. He is not a magician at all. He is a man like any other.” He thought for a moment. “But black,” he added.

“I have never heard of him,” said Childermass.

Vinculus looked at him with amusement. “Of course not. You have lived your life in the Mayfair magician’s pocket. You only know what he knows.”

“So?” said Childermass, stung. “That is not so very trifling, is it? Norrell is a clever man — and Strange another. They have their faults, as other men do, but their achievements are still remarkable. Make no mistake; I am John Uskglass’s man. Or would be, if he were here. But you must admit that the restoration of English magic is their work, not his.”

“Their work!” scoffed Vinculus. “Theirs? Do you still not understand? They
are
the spell John Uskglass is doing. That is all they have ever been. And he is doing it now!”

68
“Yes.”

February 1817

In the silver dish of water the speck of light flickered and disappeared.

“What!” cried Strange. “What has happened? Quickly, Mr Norrell!”

Norrell tapped the water’s surface, redrew the lines of light and whispered a few words, but the water in the dish remained dark and still. “He is gone,” he said.

Strange closed his eyes.

“It is very odd,” continued Norrell, in a tone of wonder. “What do you suppose he was doing in Yorkshire?”

“Oh!” cried Strange. “I dare say he came here on purpose to make me mad!” With a cry of mingled rage and self-pity he demanded, “Why will he not attend to me? After everything I have done, why does he not care enough to look at me? To speak to me?”

“He is an old magician and an old king,” answered Norrell briefly. “Two things that are not easily impressed.”

“All magicians long to astonish their masters. I have certainly astonished
you
. I wanted to do the same to him.”

“But your real purpose is to free Mrs Strange from the enchantment,” Norrell reminded him.

“Yes, yes. That is right,” said Strange, irritably. “Of course it is. Only …” He did not finish his thought.

There was a silence and then Norrell, who had been looking thoughtful, said, “You mentioned magicians always wishing to impress their masters. I am reminded of something which happened in 1156 …”

Strange sighed.

“… In that year John Uskglass suffered some strange malady — as he did from time to time. When he recovered, a celebration was held at his house in Newcastle. Kings and queens brought presents of immense value and splendour — gold, rubies, ivory, rare spices. Magicians brought magical things — clouds of revelation, singing trees, keys to mystical doors and so on — each one trying to outdo the other. The King thanked them all in the same grave manner. Last of all came the magician, Thomas Godbless. His hands were empty. He had no gift. He lifted his head and said, ‘Lord, I bring you the trees and hills. I bring you the wind and the rain.’ The kings and queens, the great lords and ladies and the other magicians were amazed at his impudence. It appeared to them as if he had done nothing at all. But for the first time since he had been ill, the King smiled.”

Strange considered this. “Well,” he said. “I am afraid I am with the kings and queens. I can make nothing of it. Where did you get this tale?”

“It is in Belasis’s
Instructions
. In my youth I studied the
instructions
with a passionate devotion and I found this passage particularly intriguing. I concluded that Godbless had somehow persuaded the trees and the hills and so on to greet John Uskglass in some mystical fashion, to bow down before him as it were. I was pleased to have understood something that Belasis had not, but I thought no more about it — I had no use for such magic. Years later I discovered a spell in Lanchester’s
The Language of Birds
. Lanchester got it from an older book, now lost. He admitted that he did not know what it was for, but I believe it is the spell Godbless used — or one very like it. If you are serious in your intention of talking to John Uskglass, suppose we cast it now? Suppose we ask England to greet him?”

“What will that achieve?” asked Strange.

“Achieve? Nothing! At least, nothing directly. But it will remind John Uskglass of the bonds between him and England. And it will shew a sort of respectfulness on our part, which is surely more in keeping with the behaviour a king expects from his subjects.”

Strange shrugged. “Well,” he said. “I have nothing better to suggest. Where is your copy of
The Language of Birds
?”

He looked about the room. Every book lay where it had fallen the moment it had ceased to be a raven. “How many books are there?” he asked.

“Four or five thousand,” said Norrell.

The magicians took a candle each and began to search.

The gentleman with the thistle-down hair strode rapidly along the walled lane which led to the village of Starecross. Stephen stumbled after him, on his way from one death to another.

England seemed to him to be nothing but horrors and misery now. The very shapes of the trees were like frozen screams. A bunch of dry leaves hung from a branch and rattled in the wind — that was Vinculus upon the hawthorn tree. The corpse of a rabbit ripped apart by a fox lay upon the path — that was Lady Pole, soon to be killed by the gentleman.

Death upon death, horror upon horror; and there was nothing Stephen could do to prevent any of it.

At Starecross Hall Lady Pole was seated at a desk in her sittingroom, writing furiously. The desk was scattered with sheets of paper, all covered with handwriting.

There was a knock and Mr Segundus entered the room. “I beg your pardon!” he said. “Might I inquire? Do you write to Sir Walter?”

She shook her head. “These letters are to Lord Liverpool and the editor of
The Times
!”

“Indeed?” said Mr Segundus. “Well, I have, in fact, just finished a letter of my own — to Sir Walter — but nothing, I am sure, will delight him so much as a line or two in your ladyship’s own hand, assuring him that you are well and disenchanted.”

“But your own letter will do that. I am sorry, Mr Segundus, but while my dear Mrs Strange and poor Stephen remain in the power of that wicked spirit, I can spare no thought for any thing else! You must send these letters off straight away! And when they are done I shall write to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prince Regent!”

“You do not think perhaps that Sir Walter is the proper person to apply to such exalted gentlemen? Surely … ?”

“No, indeed!” she cried, all indignation. “I have no notion of asking people to perform services for me which I can do perfectly well for myself. I do not intend to go, in the space of one hour, from the helplessness of enchantment to another sort of helplessness! Besides, Sir Walter will not be able to explain half so well as me the true hideousness of Mr Norrell’s crimes!”

Just then another person entered the room — Mr Segundus’s manservant, Charles, who came to say that something very odd was happening in the village. The tall black man — the person who had originally brought her ladyship to Starecross — had appeared with a silver diadem upon his head, and with him was a gentleman with thistle-down hair, wearing a bright green coat.

“Stephen! Stephen and the enchanter!” cried Lady Pole. “Quickly, Mr Segundus! Summon up all your powers! We depend upon you to defeat him! You must free Stephen as you freed me!”

“Defeat a fairy!” exclaimed Mr Segundus in horror. “Oh, but no! I could not. It would take a far greater magician …”

“Nonsense!” she cried, with shining eyes. “Remember what Childermass told you. Your years of study have prepared you! You have simply to try!”

“But I do not know …” he began, helplessly.

But it did not much matter what he knew. The moment she finished speaking she ran from the room — and, since he considered himself bound to protect her, he was obliged to run after her.

At Hurtfew the two magicians had found
The Language of Birds
— it lay open on the table at the page where the fairy spell was printed. But the problem of finding a name for John Uskglass remained. Norrell sat crouched over the silver dish of water doing location spells. They had already run through all the titles and names they could think of, and the location spell did not recognize a single one. The water in the silver dish remained dark and featureless.

“What of his fairy name?” said Strange.

“That is lost,” replied Norrell.

“Did we try the King of the North yet?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Strange thought for a moment and then said, “What was that curious appellation you mentioned before? Something you said he called himself? The nameless something?”

“The nameless slave?”

“Yes. Try that.”

Norrell looked very doubtful. But he cast the spell for the nameless slave. Instantly a speck of bluish light appeared. He proceeded and the nameless slave proved to be in Yorkshire — in very much the same place where John Uskglass had appeared before.

“There!” exclaimed Strange, triumphantly. “All our anxiety was quite needless. He is still here.”

“But I do not think that is the same person,” interrupted Norrell. “It looks different somehow.”

“Mr Norrell, do not be fanciful, I beg you! Who else could it be? How many nameless slaves can there possibly be in Yorkshire?”

This was so very reasonable a question that Mr Norrell offered no further objections.

“And now for the magic itself,” said Strange. He picked up the book and began to recite the spell. He addressed the trees of England; the hills of England; the sunlight, water, birds, earth and stones. He addressed them all, one after the other, and exhorted them to place themselves in the hands of the nameless slave.

Stephen and the gentleman came to the packhorse bridge that led into Starecross.

The village was quiet; there was hardly any one to be seen. In a doorway a girl in a print-gown and woollen shawl was tipping milk from wooden pails into cheese-vats. A man in gaiters and a broad-brimmed hat came down a lane at the side of the house; a dog trotted at his side. When the man and the dog rounded the corner, the girl and the man greeted each other smilingly and the dog barked his pleasure. It was the sort of simple, domestic scene that would ordinarily have delighted Stephen, but in his present mood he could only feel a chill; if the man had reached out and struck the girl — or strangled her — he would have felt no surprize.

The gentleman was already on the packhorse bridge. Stephen followed him and …

… and everything changed. The sun came out from behind a cloud; it shone through the winter trees; hundreds of small, bright patches of sunlight appeared. The world became a kind of puzzle or labyrinth. It was like the superstition which says that one must not walk upon lines between flag stones — or the strange magic called the Doncaster Squares which is performed upon a board like a chessboard. Suddenly everything had meaning. Stephen hardly dared take another step. If he did so — if, for example, he stepped into
that
shadow or
that
spot of light, then the world might be forever altered.

“Wait!” he thought, wildly. “I am not ready for this! I have not considered. I do not know what to do!”

But it was too late. He looked up.

The bare branches against the sky were a writing and, though he did not want to, he could read it. He saw that it was a question put to him by the trees.

“Yes,” he answered them.

Their age and their knowledge belonged to him.

Beyond the trees was a high, snow-covered ridge, like a line drawn across the sky. Its shadow was blue upon the snow before it. It embodied all kinds of cold and hardness. It hailed Stephen as a King it had long missed. At a word from Stephen it would tumble down and crush his enemies. It asked Stephen a question.

“Yes,” he told it.

Its scorn and strength were his for the taking.

The black beck beneath the packhorse bridge sang its question to him.

“Yes,” he said.

The earth said …

“Yes,” he said.

The rooks and magpies and redwings and chaffinches said …

“Yes,” he said.

The stones said …

“Yes,” said Stephen. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

Now all of England lay cupped in his black palm. All Englishmen were at his mercy. Now every insult could be revenged. Now every injury to his poor mother could be paid back a thousand-fold. All of England could be laid waste in a moment. He could bring houses crashing down upon the occupants’ heads. He could command hills to fall and valleys to close their lips. He could summon up centaurs, snuff out stars, steal the moon from the sky. Now. Now. Now.

Now came Lady Pole and Mr Segundus, running down from the Hall in the pale winter sunlight. Lady Pole looked at the gentleman with eyes ablaze with hatred. Poor Mr Segundus was all confusion and dismay.

The gentleman turned to Stephen and said something. Stephen could not hear him: the hills and the trees spoke too loud. But, “Yes,” he said.

The gentleman laughed gaily and raised his hands to cast spells on Lady Pole.

Stephen closed his eyes. He spoke a word to the stones of the packhorse bridge.

Yes, said the stones
. The bridge reared up like a raging horse and cast the gentleman into the beck.

Stephen spoke a word to the beck.

Yes, said the beck.
It grasped the gentleman in a grip of iron and bore him swiftly away.

Stephen was aware that Lady Pole spoke to him, that she tried to catch hold of his arm; he saw Mr Segundus’s pale, astonished face, saw him say something; but he had no time to answer them. Who knew how long the world would consent to obey him? He leapt down from the bridge and ran along the bank.

The trees seemed to greet him as he ran past; they spoke of old alliances and reminded him of times gone by. The sunlight called him King and spoke its pleasure at finding him here. He had no time to tell them he was not the person they imagined.

He came to a place where the land rose steeply upon either side of the beck — a deep dale in the moor, a place where millstones were quarried. Scattered around the sides of the dale were great, round, hewn stones, each of them half the height of a man.

The surface of the beck seethed and boiled where the gentleman was imprisoned. Stephen knelt upon a flat stone and leant over the water. “I am sorry,” he said. “You intended nothing but kindness, I know.”

The gentleman’s hair streamed out like silver snakes in the dark water. His face was a terrible sight. In his fury and hatred he began to lose his resemblance to humankind: his eyes grew further apart, there was fur upon his face and his lips rolled back from his teeth in a snarl.

A voice inside Stephen’s mind said: “If you kill me, you will never know your name!”

“I am the nameless slave,” said Stephen. “That is all I have ever been — and today I am content to be nothing more.”

He spoke a word to the millstones. They flew up in the air and flung themselves down upon the gentleman. He spoke to the boulders and rocks; they did the same. The gentleman was old beyond telling, and very strong. Long after his bones and flesh must have been crushed to pieces, Stephen could feel whatever was left of him struggling to bind itself back together by magic. So Stephen spoke to the stony shoulders of the dale and asked them to help him. Earth and rock crumbled; it heaped itself on top of the millstones and the rocks until there was a hill standing there as high as the sides of the dale.