Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (41 page)

Mr Norrell was, as ever, delighted to see the other magician and he was eager to hear all about Strange’s visit to the King.

Strange told him how the King was kept a solitary prisoner in his own palace, and he listed the spells he had done. But of the drenching of the Willises, the enchanted wood and the invisible flute-player he said not a word.

“I am not at all surprized that you could not help His Majesty,” said Mr Norrell. “I do not believe that even the
Aureate
magicians could cure madness. In fact I am not sure that they tried. They seem to have considered madness in quite a different light. They held madmen in a sort of reverence and thought they knew things sane men did not — things which might be useful to a magician. There are stories of both Ralph Stokesey and Catherine of Winchester consulting with madmen.”

“But it was not only magicians, surely?” said Strange. “Fairies too had a strong interest in madmen. I am sure I remember reading that somewhere.”

“Yes, indeed! Some of our most important writers have remarked upon the strong resemblance between madmen and fairies. Both are well known for talking without sense or connexion — I dare say you noticed something of the sort with the King. But there are other similarities. Chaston, as I remember, has several things to say upon the subject. He gives the example of a lunatic in Bristol who each morning told his family of his intention to take his walk in company with one of the dining chairs. The man was quite devoted to this article of furniture, considered it one of his closest friends, and held imaginary conversations with it in which they discussed the walk they would take and the likelihood of meeting other tables and chairs. Apparently, the man became quite distressed whenever any one proposed sitting upon the chair. Clearly the man was mad, but Chaston says that fairies would not consider his behaviour as ridiculous as we do. Fairies do not make a strong distinction between the animate and the inanimate. They believe that stones, doors, trees, fire, clouds and so forth all have souls and desires, and are either masculine or feminine. Perhaps this explains the extraordinary sympathy for madness which fairies exhibit. For example, it used to be well known that when fairies hid themselves from general sight, lunatics were often able to perceive them. The most celebrated instance which I can recall was of a mad boy called Duffy in Chesterfield in Derbyshire in the fourteenth century, who was the favourite of a mischievous fairy-spirit which had tormented the town for years. The fairy took a great fancy to this boy and made him extravagant presents — most of which would have scarcely been of any use to him in his right mind and were certainly no use to him in his madness — a sailing boat encrusted with diamonds, a pair of silver boots, a singing pig …”

“But why did the fairy pay Duffy all these attentions?”

“Oh! He told Duffy they were brothers in adversity. I do not know why. Chaston wrote that a great many fairies harboured a vague sense of having been treated badly by the English. Though it was a mystery to Chaston — as it is to me — why they should have thought so. In the houses of the great English magicians fairies were the first among the servants and sat in the best places after the magician and his lady. Chaston has a great many interesting things to say upon the subject. His best work is the
Liber Novus
.” Mr Norrell frowned at his pupil. “I am sure I have recommended it to you half a dozen times,” he said. “Have you not read it yet?”

Unfortunately, Mr Norrell did not always recall with absolute precision which books he wished Strange to read and which books he had sent to Yorkshire for the express purpose of keeping them out of Strange’s reach. The
Liber Novus
was safe on a shelf in the library at Hurtfew Abbey. Strange sighed and remarked that the moment Mr Norrell put the book into his hand he would be very glad to read it. “But in the meantime, sir, perhaps you would be so good as to finish the tale of the fairy of Chesterfield.”

“Oh, yes! Now where was I? Well, for a number of years nothing went wrong for Duffy and nothing went right for the town. A wood grew up in the market square and the townspeople could not conduct their business. Their goats and swine grew wings and flew away. The fairy turned the stones of the half-built parish church into sugar loaves. The sugar grew hot and sticky under the sun and part of the church melted. The town smelt like a giant pastry-cook’s. Worse still dogs and cats came and licked at the church, and birds, rats and mice came and nibbled at it. So the townspeople were left with a half-eaten, misshapen church — which was not at all the effect that they had in mind. They were obliged to apply to Duffy and beg him to plead with the fairy on their behalf. But he was sullen and would not help them because he remembered how they had mocked him in the past. So they were obliged to pay the poor, mad wretch all sorts of compliments on his cleverness and handsomeness. So then Duffy pleaded with the fairy and, ah!, what a difference then! The fairy stopped tormenting them and he turned the sugar church back into stone. The townspeople cut down the wood in the market place and bought new animals. But they could never get the church quite right again. Even today there is something odd about the church in Chesterfield. It is not quite like other churches.”

Strange was silent a moment. Then he said, “Is it your opinion, Mr Norrell, that fairies have left England completely?”

“I do not know. There are many stories of Englishmen and women meeting with fairies in out-of-the-way places in the last three or four hundred years, but as none of these people were scholars or magicians their evidence cannot be said to be worth a great deal. When you and I summon fairies — I mean,” he added hastily, “if we were so ill-advised as to do such a thing — then, providing we cast our spells correctly, the fairies will appear promptly. But where they come from or by what paths they travel is uncertain. In John Uskglass’s day very plain roads were built that led out of England into Faerie — wide green roads between high green hedges or stone walls. Those roads still exist, but I do not think fairies use them nowadays any more than Christians. The roads are all overgrown and ruined. They have a lonely look and I am told that people avoid them.”

“People believe that fairy roads are unlucky,” said Strange.

“They are foolish,” said Norrell. “Fairy roads cannot hurt them. Fairy roads lead nowhere at all.”
³

“And what of the half-human descendants of fairies? Do they inherit their forefathers’ knowledge and powers?” asked Strange.

“Oh! That is quite another question. Many people nowadays have surnames that reveal their ancestors’ fairy origins. Otherlander and Fairchild are two. Elfick is another. And Fairey, obviously. I remember there was a Tom Otherlander who worked upon one of our farms when I was a child. But it is quite rare for any of these descendants of fairies to exhibit the least magical talent. Indeed more often than not they have a reputation for malice, pride and laziness — all vices for which their fairy-ancestors were well known.”

The next day Strange met with the Royal Dukes and told them how much he regretted that he had been unable to alleviate the King’s madness. Their Royal Highnesses were sorry to hear it, but they were not at all surprized. It was the outcome they had expected and they assured Strange that they did not blame him in the least. In fact they were pleased with all he had done and they particularly liked that he had not charged them a fee. As a reward they granted him their Royal Warrants. This meant that he could, if he wished, put gilt and plaster images of all their five coats of arms above his door in Soho-square, and he was at liberty to tell any one he liked that he was Magician to the Royal Dukes by appointment.

Strange did not tell the Dukes that he deserved their gratitude more than they knew. He was quite certain he had saved the King from some horrible fate or other. He simply did not know what it was.

34
On the edge of the desert

November 1814

Stephen and the gentleman with the thistle-down hair were walking through the streets of a strange town.

“Are you not growing weary, sir?” asked Stephen. “I know that I am. We have been walking here for hours.”

The gentleman let out a burst of high-pitched laughter. “My dear Stephen! You have only just this instant arrived! A moment ago you were at Lady Pole’s house, being forced to perform some menial task at the bidding of her wicked husband!”

“Oh!” said Stephen. He realized that the last thing he remembered was cleaning the silver in his little room near the kitchen, but that seemed like, oh!, years ago.

He looked around him. There was nothing here he recognized. Even the smell of the place, a mixture of spices, coffee, rotting vegetables and roasting meats, was new to him.

He sighed. “It is this magic, sir. It is so very confusing.”

The gentleman squeezed his arm affectionately.

The town appeared to be built upon a steep hillside. There did not seem to be any proper streets, but only narrow alleyways composed mainly of steps that wound up and down between the houses. The houses themselves were of the utmost simplicity; one might say severity. The walls were made of earth or clay, painted white, the doorways had plain wooden doors and the windows had plain wooden shutters. The steps of the alleys were also painted white. In all the town there did not seem to be so much as a spot of colour anywhere to relieve the eye: no flower in a flowerpot upon a windowsill, no painted toy left where a child had abandoned it in a doorway. Walking through these narrow streets was, thought Stephen, rather like losing oneself in the folds of an enormous linen napkin.

It was eerily silent. As they went up and down the narrow steps they heard the murmur of grave conversation coming from the houses, but there was no laughter, no song, no child’s voice raised in excitement. From time to time they met an inhabitant of the town; a solemn, dark-faced man dressed in a white robe and pantaloons with a white turban upon his head. All carried walking-sticks — even the young men — though in truth none of them seemed to be very young; the inhabitants of this town had been born old.

They saw only one woman (at least the gentleman with the thistle-down hair said it was a woman). She stood at her husband’s side robed from the crown of her head to the tip of her toe in a single garment the colour of shadows. When Stephen first saw her she had her back to him and it seemed in keeping with the dreamlike atmosphere of the place that as she turned slowly towards him, he saw that her face was not a face at all, but a panel of densely embroidered cloth of the same dusky hue as the rest of her garment.

“These people are very strange,” whispered Stephen. “But they do not appear to be surprized to find us here.”

“Oh!” said the gentleman. “It is part of the magic I have done that you and I should appear to them as two of their number. They are quite convinced that they have known us since childhood. Moreover you will find that you understand them perfectly and they will understand you — in spite of the obscurity of their language which is scarcely comprehensible to their own countrymen twenty-five miles away!”

Presumably, Stephen thought, it was also part of the magic that the town’s inhabitants should not notice how loud the gentleman spoke and how his words echoed from every white-washed corner.

The street they were descending turned a corner and ended abruptly at a low wall that had been put there to prevent unwary pedestrians from tumbling off the hill. From this spot the surrounding country could be viewed. A desolate valley of white rock lay before them under a cloudless sky. A hot wind blew across it. It was a world from which all flesh had been stripped, leaving only the bones.

Stephen would have supposed that this place was a dream or part of his enchantment, had not the gentleman with the thistle-down hair informed him excitedly that this was, “… Africa! Your ancestral soil, my dear Stephen!”

“But,” thought Stephen, “my ancestors did not live here, I am sure. These people are darker than Englishmen, but they are far fairer than me. They are Arabs, I suppose.” Out loud he said, “Are we going anywhere in particular, sir?”

“To see the market, Stephen!”

Stephen was glad to hear it. The silence and emptiness were oppressive. The market presumably would have some noise, some bustle.

But the market of this town proved to be of a very curious character. It was situated close to the high town walls just by a great wooden gate. There were no stalls, no crowds of eager people going about to view the wares. Instead everyone who felt at all inclined to buy any thing sat silently upon the ground with his hands folded while a market official — a sort of auctioneer — carried the goods about and shewed them to the prospective buyers. The auctioneer named the last price he had been offered and the buyer either shook his head or offered a higher one. There was not a great deal of variety in the goods — there were some bales of fine cloth and some embroidered articles, but mostly it was carpets. When Stephen remarked upon this to his companion, the gentleman replied, “Their religion is of the strictest sort, Stephen. Almost everything is forbidden to them except carpets.”

Stephen watched them as they went mournfully about the market, these men whose mouths were perpetually closed lest they spoke some forbidden word, whose eyes were perpetually averted from forbidden sights, whose hands refrained at every moment from some forbidden act. It seemed to him that they did little more than half-exist. They might as well have been dreams or ghosts. In the silent town and the silent countryside only the hot wind seemed to have any real substance. Stephen felt he would not be surprized if one day the wind blew the town and its inhabitants entirely away.

Stephen and the gentleman seated themselves in a corner of the market beneath a tattered brown awning.

“Why are we here, sir?” asked Stephen.

“So that we may have some quiet conversation, Stephen. A most serious matter has arisen. I am sorry to have to tell you that all our wonderful plans have been rudely overturned and once again it is the magicians who thwart us! Never was there such a rascally pair of men! Their only pleasure, I think, is in demonstrating their contempt of us! But one day, I believe …”

The gentleman was a great deal more interested in abusing the magicians than he was in making his meaning clear and so it was some time before Stephen was able to understand what had happened. It seemed that Jonathan Strange had paid a visit to the King of England — for what reason the gentleman did not explain — and the gentleman had gone too with the idea first of seeing what the magician did and secondly of looking at the King of England.

“… and I do not know how it is, but for some reason I never paid my respects to His Majesty before. I discovered him to be a most delightful old person! Very respectful to me! We had a great deal of conversation! He has suffered much from the cruel treatment of his subjects. The English take great pleasure in humbling the great and the noble. A great many Worthies throughout history have suffered from their vicious persecutions — people such as Charles I, Julius Caesar and, above all, you and me!”

“I beg your pardon, sir. But you mentioned plans. What plans are these?”

“Why, our plans to make you King of England, of course! You had not forgotten?”

“No, indeed! But …”

“Well! I do not know what may be your opinion, dearest Stephen,” declared the gentleman, not waiting to find out, “but I confess I grow weary of waiting for your wonderful destiny to happen of its own accord. I am very much inclined to anticipate the tardy Fates and make you King myself. Who knows? Perhaps I am meant to be the noble instrument that raises you to the lofty position that is yours by right! Nothing seems so likely! Well! While the King and I were talking, it occurred to me that the first step to making you King was to get rid of him! Observe! I meant the old man no harm. Upon the contrary! I wrapped his soul in sweetness and made him happier than he has been in many a long year. But this would not do for the magician! I had barely begun to weave an enchantment when the magician began to work against me. He employed ancient fairy magic of immense power. I was never more surprized in my life! Who could have supposed that he would have known how to do such a thing?”

The gentleman paused in his tirade long enough for Stephen to say, “Grateful as I am for your care of me, sir, I feel obliged to observe that the present King has thirteen sons and daughters, the eldest of whom is already governing the country. Even if the King were dead, the Crown would certainly pass to one of them.”

“Yes, yes! But the King’s children are all fat and stupid. Who wishes to be governed by such frights? When the people of England understand that they might instead be governed by you, Stephen — who are all elegance and charm and whose noble countenance would look so well upon a coin — why! they must be very dull indeed if they are not immediately delighted and rush to support your cause!”

The gentleman, thought Stephen, understood the character of Englishmen a great deal less than he supposed.

At that moment their conversation was interrupted by a most barbaric sound — a great horn was being blown. A number of men rushed forward and heaved the great town gates shut. Thinking that perhaps some danger threatened the town, Stephen looked round in alarm. “Sir, what is happening?”

“Oh, it is these people’s custom to shut the gate every night against the wicked heathen,” said the gentleman, languidly, “by which they mean everyone except themselves. But tell me your opinion, Stephen? What should we do?”

“Do, sir? About what?”

“The magicians, Stephen! The magicians! It is clear to me now that as soon as your wonderful destiny begins to unfold, they are certain to interfere. Though why it should matter to them who is King of England, I cannot tell. I suppose being ugly and stupid themselves, they prefer to have a king the same. No, they are our enemies and consequently it behoves us to seek a way to destroy them utterly. Poison? Knives? Pistols? …”

The auctioneer approached, holding out yet another carpet. “Twenty silver pennies,” he said in a slow, deliberate tone as if he were pronouncing a righteous doom upon all the world.

The gentleman with the thistle-down hair regarded the carpet thoughtfully. “It is possible, of course,” he said, “to imprison someone within the pattern of a carpet for a thousand years or so. That is a particularly horrible fate which I always reserve for people who have offended me deeply — as have these magicians! The endless repetition of colour and pattern — not to mention the irritation of the dust and the humiliation of stains — never fails to render the prisoner completely mad! The prisoner always emerges from the carpet determined to wreak revenge upon all the world and then the magicians and heroes of that Age must join together to kill him or, more usually, imprison him a second time for yet more thousands of years in some even more ghastly prison. And so he goes on growing in madness and evil as the millennia pass. Yes, carpets! Perhaps …”

“Thank you,” said Stephen to the auctioneer, quickly, “but we have no wish to buy this carpet. Pray, sir, pass on.”

“You are right, Stephen,” said the gentleman. “Whatever their faults these magicians have proved themselves most adept at avoiding enchantments. We must find some other way to crush their spirits so that they no longer have the will to oppose us! We must make them wish they had never taken up the practice of magic!”