Snow White and Rose Red (32 page)
Read Snow White and Rose Red Online
Authors: Patricia Wrede
Rosamund was disposed to argue this conclusion, but her efforts were foredoomed to failure. The Widow supported John, for while she was not pleased by the thought of still more Faerie involvement in their affairs, she was far more unhappy with Rosamund’s proposed invasion of Dee’s house. Blanche, too, took John’s side; the hint of harm to Hugh had been all that was needed to set her firmly against any precipitate action.
The talk soon turned to ways of discovering what they wanted to know. It was quickly obvious that none of them had any promising ideas, and eventually they agreed to let the matter rest for a day or two. John departed for Mortlak, and the Widow Arden and her daughters returned to their work.
The question of Faerie involvement in the spell that affected Hugh preoccupied John throughout his walk back to the house he had rented in Mortlak. Until very recently, he had assumed (as he had told the Widow on the night they met) that Faerie had no further interest in himself or Hugh. Bochad-Bec’s theft of the lamp had cast some doubt on this assumption, but John had been inclined to believe that the oakman’s interest was in Dee and Kelly rather than himself. The appearance of a water fay in the crystal, and the description Rosamund and Blanche had given of the simultaneous effects on Hugh, severely shook John’s certainty in that regard. He still saw no sign of active Faerie interest in Hugh, but it was beginning to appear that indirect curiosity might well be even worse.
Deep in thought, John followed his usual route through the town, half unconscious of his surroundings, until a low, startled exclamation behind him made him turn, just as hands clutched at the back of his neck and his right shoulder.
Joan Bowes had been trying for over a month to obtain the three hairs Kelly had told her were necessary to the love spell he had given her. It was not, she found, an easy task. John Rimer was not a regular visitor at any household other than the Widow Arden‘s, and there was no easy way for Joan to gain access to his home. She had tried delivering an invented message, but she had not been allowed past the entry hall, much less had any opportunity to search for John’s comb.
Having failed with indirect methods, Joan had determined to try a direct one. She lay in wait for John as he returned from the Widow’s cottage, then deliberately stumbled as he passed her. Her outstretched hands clutched at his back: one on his shoulder, the other in the hair at the nape of his neck.
“Oh, pray pardon me, sir,” she said with wide-eyed innocence as John turned, wincing. “I tripped and lost my balance.”
“‘Tis no great matter, Mistress,” John answered. “You are not hurt, I trust?”
“Nay, I’m a little shaken, that is all.”
“Then I am glad to have been of service to you,” John said. He bowed, and smiled formally, and left, while behind him Joan carefully opened her left hand and counted the strands of fine, dark hair that twined around her fingers, then tucked them carefully into the band of her kirtle.
The stirring events of the morning precipitated yet another argument in the half-timbered house by the river. John Dee had hovered over his friend Kelly until he began to recover somewhat, then proposed once more, and with considerable force, that they cease all experiments with the Faerie crystal.
“What! When we’re so near success?” Kelly exclaimed, sitting bolt upright on his stool beside the dining table.
Dee stared into space, stroking his beard. “Are we?” he said at last.
“We must be,” Kelly said firmly. “How can you doubt it? The renewal of the crystal’s fire—”
“—need not portend success,” Dee said. “It meaneth activity only, and we know not what manner of activity it may be. Indeed, to my mind it seemeth more likely to mean obstruction than success. ”
“Who could oppose us?” Kelly said in tones of dismissal.
“I know not, but someone doth,” Dee answered seriously. “Since the end of winter, when first the light in the crystal failed, we’ve had naught but ill luck in all our doings with it. That spirit which so lately did torment you is but the freshest of these malicious interventions.”
“I do not think ... No, you may be right in this.” Kelly frowned. “But, look you, to cease our work is to retire from the battlefield before the fight’s engaged. We cannot do it. ”
“Yet to continue doth endanger all within these walls,” Dee said. He looked exceedingly unhappy. “How long will these evil spirits be satisfied with tormenting you and me alone? No, Ned, I do not see how we can go on in conscience.”
“A pox on these interfering wights, whate‘er they be!” Kelly said passionately. He slammed his fist down on the oak boards of the tabletop. “Curse them! Curse—” Suddenly his eyes widened and he stared at Dee as if thunderstruck. “That’s it, John!”
“What?” Dee said cautiously, bewildered by his companion’s sudden shift of mood.
“We’ll curse them!” Kelly said triumphantly. “We’ll set a snare upon the crystal, and when they meddle with it again, we’ll catch them and destroy them.”
“Have we the power for that?” Dee asked, his expression troubled.
“Our spells have kept these meddlesome beings from active deeds, have they not?” Kelly said. “These creatures have worked only through the crystal. I think that answers your misgiving.”
“In part. ‘Tis very well to say ’we can,‘ but we’ll not have certain knowledge of it till we put our plans to the test, and then ’twill be too late an we’re mistaken.”
“You fear to take the risk?”
Dee considered. “For myself, no,” he said at last. “The benefit far outweighs the danger, in my mind. But I’ll not risk my books and family, nor my servants and this house, and I fear that’s what this ultimately means.”
“Then we’ll lay our snare so that we’ll not confront the wicked spirits here,” Kelly said dismissively. “We’ll trace them to their lairs, and face them there; an we’re well prepared, it will not matter much. Then if things go awry, your house is safe.”
“Evil spirits have no lairs, Ned,” Dee said.
“But wights of Faerie do, and I am much mistaken if ‘tis not Faerie meddling that we face,” Kelly retorted. “What say you, John?”
“I must think on it,” Dee responded, and that was all the answer Kelly could get from him that day. The following morning, Dee agreed to Kelly’s proposal, but with enough conditions and caveats to make Kelly lose his temper all over again.
In the end, Kelly acceded to Dee’s demand that further experimentation with the crystal should cease, but he was far from happy about it. He had been counting on crystal-made gold to relieve him of some of his more pressing financial embarrassments, and the loss of this potential revenue was hard for him to bear. Dee, who was not insensitive to his friend’s difficulties, did what he could, giving Kelly a small sum of money and a promise of fifty pounds a year (which he could ill afford). With this, Kelly had to be content, and the two wizards began the work of designing spells to trace and trap the beings who had been disrupting their labors.
No outside force interrupted them, and for this there was good reason. The Queen of Faerie had sensed the recoil of power from the breaking of Furgen’s spell of influence, and the Queen was not pleased. She sent some of her most powerful servants to find the source of the disturbance. They returned very quickly with Furgen’s body and the melted remains of the lamp, but they had no way of telling what the water creature had attempted to do. The lump of metal that had been Dee’s lamp was too changed to hold more than the barest hint of magic, and that hint was human, not of Faerie. Further than that, no one would speculate.
In cold anger, the Queen dismissed her ladies and her court and retired to her chambers, and all of Faerie walked very softly for some time thereafter.
Among those who exerted the greatest care to go unremarked were Madini and Bochad-Bec. The oakman had learned of Furgen’s death almost immediately upon his return to Faerie, and had prudently gone into hiding at once, as much from fear of Madini’s reaction as from dread that the Queen would learn of his part in the matter. Then, too, dealing with mortal magic had proven unexpectedly hazardous. Bochad-Bec had no desire to share Furgen’s fate, and in any case he was tired of plots, tired of mortals, and tired to death of Madini’s arrogance. It was only just, he felt, that she should have to do some of the real work—and take some of the risks—herself.
Madini was furiously angry. The primary object of her rage was Furgen, who had dared to steal the lamp and use it, and then escaped into death before she could properly punish it. She was furious, too, with the mortal sorcerers. Not for an instant did she believe that their magic was the cause of Furgen’s death; in her opinion, the water fay had simply overreached itself, and paid the price of its presumption. The sorcerers were, however, the fundamental reason for the whole sorry state of affairs: it was their last-minute change in the timing of their spell that had kept her from guiding it toward John instead of Hugh, their wards that made retrieval of Hugh’s stolen power so difficult, and their stupid, stubborn refusal to cooperate that had made Madini look bad to her fellow conspirators.
Without the lamp, Madini could no longer reach and use the power of the crystal, nor influence Dee and Kelly as she had previously tried to do. Her fellow conspirators were dead or vanished, which limited her access to information about the mortal world. Worst of all, the Queen was angry and suspicious, and would be watching with great care for hints of Furgen’s purpose, and for other, similar spells. It would be some time before Madini could risk making another move against the mortal magicians and their crystal. Fuming inwardly, Madini settled down to wait, and plan.
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