Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (58 page)

Strange frowned. "I do not know him. What is his name?"

But Arabella did not know. "I have always supposed him to be a relation of Sir Walter or Lady Pole. How queer it is that I never thought to ask him his name. I have had, oh! hours of conversation with him!"

"Have you indeed? I am not sure that I approve of that. Is he handsome?"

"Oh, yes! Very! How odd that I do not know his name! He is very entertaining. Quite unlike most people one meets."

"And what do you talk of?"

"Oh, everything! But it always ends in him wishing to give me presents. On Monday last he wanted to fetch me a tiger from Bengal. On Wednesday he wished to bring me the Queen of Naples — because, he said, she and I are so much alike that we were sure to be the best of friends and on Friday he wished to send a servant to bring me a music-tree . . ."

"A music-tree?"

Arabella laughed. "A music-tree! He says that somewhere on a mountain with a storybook name there grows a tree which bears sheet music instead of fruit and the music is far superior to any other. I can never quite tell whether he believes his own tales or not. Indeed, there have been occasions when I have wondered if he is mad. I always make some excuse or other for not accepting his presents."

"I am glad. I should not at all have cared to come home and find the house full of tigers and queens and music-trees. Have you heard from Mr Norrell recently?"

"Not recently, no."

"Why are you smiling?" asked Strange.

"Was I? I did not know. Well then, I will tell you. He once sent me a message and that is all."

"Once? In three years?"

"Yes. About a year ago there was a rumour that you had been killed at Vitoria and Mr Norrell sent Childermass to ask if it was true. I knew no more than he did. But that evening Captain Moulthrop arrived. He had landed at Portsmouth not two days before and had come straight here to tell me that there was not a word of truth in it. I shall never forget his kindness! Poor young man! His arm had been amputated only a month or so before and he was still suffering very much. But there is a letter for you from Mr Norrell on the table. Childermass brought it yesterday."

Strange got up and went to the table. He picked up the letter and turned it over in his hands. "Well, I suppose I shall have to go," he said doubtfully.

The truth was that he was not looking forward to meeting his old tutor with any very great enthusiasm. He had become accustomed to independence of thought and action. In Spain he had had his instructions from the Duke of Wellington but what magic he did to fulfil those instructions had been entirely his own decision. The prospect of doing magic under Mr Norrell's direction again was not an appealing one; and after months spent in the company of Wellington's bold, dashing young officers, the thought of long hours with only Mr Norrell to talk to was a little grim.

Yet in spite of his misgivings it was a very cordial meeting. Mr Norrell was so delighted to see him, so full of questions about the precise nature of the spells he had employed in Spain, so full of praise for all that had been achieved, that Strange almost began to feel he had misjudged his tutor.

Naturally enough Mr Norrell would not hear of Strange's giving up his role as Mr Norrell's pupil. "No, no, no! You must return here! We have a great deal to do. Now the war is over, all the real work is ahead of us. We must establish magic for the Modern Age! I have had the most gratifying assurances from several Ministers who were anxious to assure me of the utter impossibility of their continuing to govern the country without the aid of our magic! And despite everything that you and I have done there are misconceptions! Why! Only the other day I overheard Lord Castlereagh tell someone that you had, at the Duke of Wellington's insistence, employed Black Magic in Spain! I was swift to assure his lordship that you had employed nothing but the most modern methods."

Strange paused and then inclined his head slightly in a manner which Mr Norrell certainly took for acquiescence. "But we were speaking of whether or not I should continue as your pupil. I have mastered all the sorts of magic on the list you made four years ago. You told me, sir, before I went to the Peninsula, that you were entirely delighted with my progress — as I dare say you remember."

"Oh! But that was barely a beginning. I have made another list while you were in Spain. I shall ring for Lucas to fetch it from the library. Besides, there are
other
books
, you know, which I wish you to read." He blinked his little blue eyes nervously at Strange.

Strange hesitated. This was a reference to the library at Hurtfew Abbey which Strange had still not seen.

"Oh, Mr Strange!" exclaimed Mr Norrell. "I am very glad that you have come home, sir. I am very glad to see you! I hope we may have many hours of conversation. Mr Lascelles and Mr Drawlight have been here a great deal . . ."

Strange said he was sure of it.

". . . but there is no talking to them about magic. Come back tomorrow. Come early. Come to breakfast!"

1
Guerrilla
— a Spanish word meaning "little war".
Guerrilla
bands were groups of Spaniards numbering between dozens and thousands who fought and harassed the French armies. Some were led by ex-soldiers and maintained an impressive degree of military discipline. Others were little more than bandits and devoted as much of their energies to terrifying their own unfortunate countrymen as they did to fighting the French.

2
Jonathan
Strange
to
John
Segundus
, Madrid, Aug. 20th, 1812.

"Whenever someone or something needs to be found, Lord Wellington is sure to ask me to conjure up a vision. It never works. The Raven King and the other
Aureates
had a sort of magic for finding things and persons. As I understand it they began with a silver basin of water. They divided the surface of the water into quarters with glittering lines of light. (By the by, John, I really cannot believe that you are having as much difficulty as you say in creating these lines. I
cannot
describe the magic any more clearly. They are the simplest things in the world!) The quarters represent Heaven, Hell, Earth and Faerie. It seems that you employ a spell of election to establish in which of these realms the person or thing you seek is to be found – but how it goes on from there I have not the least idea, and neither does Norrell. If I only had this magic! Wellington or his staff is forever giving me tasks which I cannot do or which I must leave half-completed because I do not have it. I feel the lack of it almost daily. Yet I have no time for experiment. And so, John, I would be infinitely obliged to you if you could spend a little time attempting this spell and let me know
immediately
if you have the least success."

There is nothing in any of John Segundus's surviving papers to suggest that he had any success in his attempts to retrieve this magic. However in the autumn of 1814 Strange realised that a passage in Paris Ormskirk's
Revelations
f
Thirty-Six
Other
Worlds
– long thought to be a description of a shepherd's counting rhyme — was in fact a somewhat garbled version of precisely this spell. By late 1814 both Strange and Mr Norrell were performing this magic with confidence.

3 Strange knew of it as a piece of magic done by the Raven King. Most of the King's magic was mysterious, beautiful, subtle, and so it comes as some surprize to us to learn that he should have employed any spell so brutal.

In the mid-thirteenth century several of the King's enemies were attempting to form an alliance against him. Most of its members were known to him: the King of France was one, the King of Scotland another, and there were several disaffected fairies who gave themselves grandiose titles and who may, or may not, have governed the vast territories they claimed. There were also other personages more mysterious, but even greater. The King had for most of his reign been on good terms with most angels and demons, but now it was rumoured that he had quarrelled with two: Zadkiel who governs mercy and Alrinach who governs shipwreck.

The King does not seem to have been greatly worried by the activities of the alliance. But he became more interested when certain magical portents seemed to shew that one of his own noblemen had joined with them and was plotting against him. The man he suspected was Robert Barbatus, Earl of Wharfdale, a man so known for his cunning and manipulative ways that he was nicknamed the Fox. In the King's eyes there was no greater crime than betrayal.

When the Fox's eldest son, Henry Barbatus, died of a fever, the Raven King had his body taken out of its grave and he brought him back to life to tell what he knew. Thomas of Dundale and William Lanchester both had a deep disgust for this particular sort of magic and pleaded with the King to employ some other means. But the King was bitterly angry and they could not dissuade him. There were a hundred other forms of magic he could have used, but none were so quick or so direct and, like most great magicians, the Raven King was nothing if not practical.

It was said that in his fury the Raven King beat Henry Barbatus. In life Henry had been a splendid young man, much admired for his handsome face and graceful manners, much feared for his knightly prowess. That such a noble knight should have been reduced to a cowering, whimpering doll by the King's magic made William Lanchester very angry and was the cause of a bitter quarrel between the two of them which lasted several years.

4 To end the "lives" of the corpses you cut out their eyes, tongues and hearts.

5 "Concerning the dead Italian soldiers I can only say that we greatly regretted such cruelty to men who had already suffered a great deal. But we were obliged to act as we did. They could not be persuaded to leave the magician alone. If they had not killed him, then they would have certainly driven him mad. We were obliged to set two men to watch him while he slept to keep the dead men from touching him and waking him up. They had been so battered about since their deaths. They were not, poor fellows, a sight any one wished to see upon waking. In the end we made a bonfire and threw them on it."

Lord
Fitzroy
Somerset
to
his
brother
, 2nd Sept., 1812.

6 Colonel Vickery had reconnoitred the wood and discovered it to be full of French soldiers waiting to shoot at the British Army. His officers were just discussing what to do about it when Lord Wellington rode up. "We could go round it, I suppose," said Wellington, "but that will take time and I am in a hurry. Where is the magician?"

Someone went and fetched Strange.

"Mr Strange!" said Lord Wellington. "I can scarcely believe that it will be much trouble to you to move these trees! A great deal less, I am sure, than to make four thousand men walk seven miles out of their way. Move the wood, if you please!"

So Strange did as he was asked and moved the wood to the opposite side of the valley. The French soldiers were left cowering on a barren hillside and very quickly surrendered to the British.

7 Owing to a mistake in Wellington's maps of Spain the city of Pamplona was not exactly where the British had supposed it to be. Wellington was deeply disappointed when, after the Army had marched twenty miles in one day, they did
not
reach Pamplona which was discovered to be ten miles further north. After swift discussion of the problem it was found to be more convenient to have Mr Strange move the city, rather than change all the maps.

8 The churches in St Jean de Luz were something of an embarrassment. There was no reason whatsoever to move them. The fact of the matter was that one Sunday morning Strange was drinking brandy for breakfast at a hotel in St Jean de Luz with three Captains and two lieutenants of the 16th Light Dragoons. He was explaining to these gentlemen the theory behind the magical transportation of various objects. It was an entirely futile under-taking: they would not have understood him very well had they been sober and neither they nor Strange had been entirely sober for two days. By way of an illustration Strange swapped the positions of the two churches with the congregations still inside them. He fully intended to change them round again before the people came out, but shortly afterwards he was called away to a game of billiards and never thought of it again. Indeed despite Strange's many assurances he never found the time or inclination to replace river, wood, city, or indeed any thing at all in its original position.

9 The British Government made Lord Wellington a Duke. At the same time there was a great deal of talk of ennobling Strange. "A baronetcy is the least he will expect," said Lord Liverpool to Sir Walter, "and we would be perfectly justified in doing something more – what would you say to a viscountcy?" The reason that none of this ever happened was because, as Sir Walter pointed out, it was entirely impossible to bestow a title on Strange without doing something for Norrell and somehow no one in the Government liked Norrell well enough to wish to do it. The thought of having to address Mr Norrell as "Sir Gilbert" or "my lord" was somehow rather depressing.

32
The King

November 1814

E
ARLY IN NOVEMBER 1814 Mr Norrell was honoured by a visit from some very noble gentlemen — an earl, a duke and two baronets — who came, they said, to speak to him upon a matter of the utmost delicacy and were so discreet themselves that half an hour after they had begun talking Mr Norrell was still entirely ignorant of what they wished him to do.