The House of Doctor Dee (24 page)

'So
you see something which may be of use to us? As for me, I cannot puzzle out the secret.'

I had been examining the smallest piece of parchment, and was bowed in contemplation over it for some minutes after he had spoken. 'There is no secret here,' I said at last. 'Not to the light of understanding. Do you see these marks like the figures of algebra, these squares and rounds? Someone has laboured diligently to set out buildings upon a portion or circuit of ground. This is geometria, which, according to the very etymology of the word, signifies land-measuring.' I looked upon it a little longer. 'Let us concur that this is the ancient city of London. Well, then, do you see here the serpentine line? Without doubt it is that river we call the Thames. And do you see how it bends somewhat at this place?' I put my finger upon a portion. 'There is no other spot like it, but the one just by the Wapping stairs where the river curves around into the Shadwell fields.' I paused, and carefully placed the sheet back in the coffer. 'So if this is a faithful image fetched up from the old world, then we must look to the east for our lost city.'

'There is nothing in that quarter but low and rambling tenements.'

'Yes, Mr Kelley. Is, not was. You have seen what is visible in the upper air, but there are always things under the ground.'

'Were those the sights I viewed?' In my hot haste to be gone to the ancient places, I had almost forgot the stone. But now he took it from the coffer with much reverence. 'When I looked
in crystallo,
I saw the foundations of old things. And corridors between place and place, as it were for secret passageways.'

'I recall everything you said, Mr Kelley.' All the while I was gazing upon the stone, which was as clear as day but with a curious lightness about it as if it were hollow within and contained nothing but bright air. 'There is a saying of any rare and precious thing,' I continued, 'that it is older than anything Merlin ever wrought. And truly if the glass has lain here for all these centuries past and has not lost its brightness, then it is more ancient and more wonderful than anything Merlin devised. You have seen, whereas as yet I have not; therefore you must become my berrylisticus.'

'I would be honoured, sir, if I knew of what you spoke.'

'You must be the scryer, the watcher in the stone, the observer of marvels. And now we must carry it with us everywhere, well wrapped in leather against the frost of this season, for it is known that in crystals, as in mirrors or the surfaces of water, it is possible to see most excellently and certainly the emblems of the past world. Come. Shall we go back to Clerkenwell for our horses, and make way while the sun stays in the sky?'

And so we returned to my rambling house where, with great care and discretion, I made a full copy of the parchment map before entrusting those ancient papers to the safe-keeping of my locked laboratory. I placed the crystal stone within a very commodious leather satchel and, now that our horses had been made ready, we returned by Cheapside into Leadenhall before passing out of the city at Aldgate. We came up to St Botolph's and then crossed over Goodman's Fields towards the Thames: I knew a track there just before the river bank which led eastwards into the hamlet of Wapping, and so we rode that way. 'If this great original city is to be found,' I called to Mr Kelley, who rode a little behind me where the track was but narrow, 'it will become the foundation for all our hopes. We will discover marvels which are not registered in chronicles or annals.' We had come up now by some mean and straggling tenements and, consulting the marks upon the map I had copied, I passed further on. 'If we could look back clearly into those old times, in the very first years of the world when our ancestors walked upon this ground, then might many great secrets be revealed.'

'What secrets are those, sir?' He had rode up now beside me, where the path had grown more broad.

'There are some who say that Arthur is not dead but sleeps – I cannot recall the authorities now – and yet what greater awakening would there be if the entire mystical city of London were to emerge from the night of forgotten things? Here we must turn north a little – ' We had now come some way from the waterside, amidst a jumble of wooden buildings with nothing around us save mean and dismal sheds or outhouses. It was still day, yet the sun was so low in the sky that I could look at it without winking. 'This is the area of the ground that conforms to the markings,' I told him. 'Look and see if you can find any notable or odd signs of pits, or passages, or suchlike. We might have had the use of a gauging rod, if we had prepared ourselves the better.'

'But you know other arts, Doctor Dee.'

'There are those who practise
ars sintrilla
with vessels of wine, water and oil in which the beams of the sun or the rays of the moon and stars may be reflected. Yet we have something more certain than divination by candlelight or by the smoke glare of the sun: we have the crystal stone, do we not?' I took it from my leather satchel, and handed it to him with care. 'You are the scryer. See if there is anything within which will inform us if we are on the right path.'

'I thought you said we had found the proper place.'

'Yet it is good to ask it. Do.'

So he took the crystal stone from my hands and held it up to his face, as if it were a chalice to be blessed, when suddenly I noticed how the long rays of the sun entered the stone and were refracted out of their proper path.

'Here!' I cried out. 'Do you see it here? Do not move yourself, but keep the stone high. There is a line of light coming from out of the crystal and pointing that way.' I rode ahead eagerly, and found that the beam of light had led me to a straight and narrow track so overgrown with briars and brambles that there was almost no passage left. Yet I thrust forward, Edward Kelley now following, and found that we were being led towards a portion of old ground where there was no sign of life or cultivation. 'I think I know this place,' I said after a moment of contemplation. 'It is called the Field of Folly, where nothing can be made to grow or prosper. It is said by the common people to be the abode of spirits, which is the reason why we see no tenements or buildings.'

'I did not tell you this before, but when I first looked into the crystal at Glastonbury I saw something very like.'

I dismounted, and began to walk quickly towards a mound of earth a little way ahead. 'Do you see the stone there?' I cried out. 'That vast bulk there upon the side of the mound? It is like a piece of old causeway that in times past might have been some street or by-lane.' Oh, what was here in time past but the most wonderful city on the face of the earthly globe, a mystical city universal, containing the race before the Flood! Wherefore did I know that the city was once here? Because in my mind's eye I could clearly see it, with its fair buildings and gardens, its stone passageways and temples, now rising all around me on the cold Wapping marsh. I had read of it in the old chronicles, this city of giants, but now with the power of the place around me I conjured it in my imagination – all compact, and shining more than the rays of the sun.

Edward Kelley came running up behind me, but he was so far out of breath that he was not able to speak. So for a minute I let him bluster and blow, as I surveyed the marshland.

'The sun is going down,' he said at last. 'I am afraid we will not ride back by daylight.'

'Are you weary?'

'Not so much weary as afraid, since this is no place to be left by night. Let us make haste, Doctor Dee, I pray you, for they will soon close the gates.'

'Well, I have seen enough for this one day.' The gates of London may close upon me, but the gates of this ancient city will ever be open for those who have eyes to see, yes, even now as I look upon the drained marsh and hold my face against the chill wind.

He went on before me, in his yellow doublet and blue cloak, and I saw him walk nimbly across the dark earth like one whose feet were scorched. 'We will return,' I said to him, when we came up to our horses. 'There is work for us here. Buried now beneath us are the ancient seeds of London, but they have not lost their force. And if it were possible to raise this lost city above the ground, what then?'

'Then there would be riches.'

'Yes, riches. But also glory and everlasting renown. So you are still with me, Mr Kelley?'

'Yes, sir, I am with you.'

I will be with you always.
Did he speak those words, or were they brought to me in the wind from some other place? I looked back upon the marsh, and thought I saw there a figure all white and naked with its hands crossed upon its breast.

 
FIGURE, ALL in white, was standing outside the churchyard. When I pissed on the grave and stamped on the ground beside it, I had been watched by a woman; she was wearing a white leather coat, and when I walked over to her, I could see that she was quite young. There was a violet light around her, and for a moment I believed that it was emanating from her like some shadow of the soul; then I realized that it was coming from a place behind her. There was a confused noise of music, beating somewhere beneath the surface of the pavement: it was a nightclub, on the other side of the Green, much larger and louder than the one I had passed in Charlotte Street. Its presence here was somehow appropriate; it was as if it had always belonged in this particular spot, even before it existed. But how could I have neglected to notice it? Was I so concerned with the history of this place that I could not see what was, literally, before my eyes? It had been fear that held me back, that blinded me. And now I was afraid no longer. I walked away from the churchyard, and approached the woman who had been watching me. She did not move, but looked at me curiously and cautiously as I came up to her. 'Don't be frightened of me,' I said.

'I'm not frightened of anyone.'

'What are you doing here?'

'What do you think?' I remembered the three women of Turnmill Street, who had been taken away in a police van. 'And what are you doing? Dancing on your mother's grave?'

'Something like that. Where are you going now?'

'Nowhere. Just looking for some action.' She had a pretty but slightly unformed face, as if her true character were still waiting to emerge; her eyes were brown, her nose briefly sculpted, her lips very full and, for a moment in the half-light, she looked a little like a mannequin. 'Where are you going, then?'

Ever since I left the restaurant I had been filled with a strong sense of sexual desire; something about the relationship between Daniel Moore and my father must have excited me, I suppose, and I could hardly restrain my eagerness. 'Oh, I'm hanging around.'

'Chilling out?'

'Yes, that's it. I'm chilling out. What's your name?'

'Mary.'

'And where do you live, Mary?'

She tossed back her head. 'Over the river.'

'Over the river is half-way home.'

'What?'

'I was just saying that it's a nice place to have a home.'

She had a peculiar laugh; it was like a sudden expulsion of breath. 'Not when you're on an estate it's not. Where do you live, then?'

'Around the corner.'

'Is that so?' We started walking together past the church, and surreptitiously I cupped my hand across my mouth to smell my breath; the wine had washed down the last traces of vomit. She kept her hands deep in the pockets of her white leather coat, and did not look at me at all; she stared down at the pavement, and seemed to be going in the right direction without any guidance. We arrived at the entrance to Cloak Lane, and she glanced around for a moment. 'I've got a confession to make,' she said. I stared at her, but gave no reply. 'I'm a bit short of money, you see. I'm out of work for the moment.'

I had expected this. 'That's fine, Mary. I'll give you something. Don't worry.' In fact it did not displease me at all; it excited me even more, and I put my arm round her as we walked towards the old house.

'Is this yours?'

She sounded very interested, even eager; it may have been my own guilty imagination, but I did not want her to know that I lived alone in this house.

'No,' I replied. 'I live with someone. I live with my dad.'

'I thought I saw someone.'

'You couldn't have seen him.' I put my hand on her shoulder. 'He's out. He won't be back for a while.'

'Where is he, then?'

'He's at the bingo.'

'Don't talk to me about the bingo. My mum loves it.'

She did not resist as I pulled her closer to me and, kissing her on the neck, almost dragged her up the path. As soon as I opened the door, I knew what I wanted to do. 'Let's go down to the basement, Mary. No one will see us there.'

'Suits me. But I need my money first.'

'You'll get your money.' I wanted to hit her across the face, just as my father might have done, but instead I went upstairs and took some five-pound notes from an envelope I kept in my bedroom. I picked up a bottle of whisky, too, and then came down to her: I knew that I could not do what I really wanted until I was quite drunk. I led her down into the basement without putting on the light, but a few rays from the lamp in the hall penetrated the gloom and seemed to cluster around the outline of the sealed door. I took her across to it and, propping her against the wall, began to take off my clothes. Then I undressed her, and poured whisky over her breasts before licking it off greedily.

'Mind my tits,' she said. 'Don't leave any marks.' But she gave a little yell of delight as I bit deeply into her.

This must have been the corner where Daniel and my father performed their own rituals and, as I grew rougher with Mary, I knew that it had been used for the same purpose in much earlier times; it was a strong house of sex, and we were its latest inhabitants. I do not know how long we remained in that basement, but while we stayed there I felt I was not in the world at all: there was no reality beyond this pleasure given and this pleasure received. There were no ordinary laws of behaviour, no responsibilities, no beliefs, no cause and no effect; I understood, too, that with such fury and excitement anything could be conjured into existence. Mary lay on the floor, bruised, dirty, stinking of the whisky I had poured over her. 'When my father made me,' I said, 'he made me strong.'