Snow White and Rose Red (35 page)

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Authors: Patricia Wrede

BOOK: Snow White and Rose Red
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“Those are not matters for common conversation,” Kelly interrupted. He had paid little attention to Dee’s guest until then, being more interested in watching Dee’s wife as she quietly directed the servants who were bringing in pewter cups and plates to set before the diners.
Sledd, who was a quarrelsome man at best, took exception to Kelly’s tone. “Do you call me common?” he demanded pugnaciously.
“I would not say—” Kelly began, then broke off, staring at the little man beside him. “What means this, John?” he said in quite a different tone.
“Why so fierce, Ned?” Dee asked, bewildered. “And what should it mean, but that I’ve invited Master Sledd to come to dinner with us, as I’ve done with others before?”
“I know you!” Sledd broke in, staring at Kelly. His voice was a snarl of resentment. “I saw you in York some three years past.”
“And I know you!” Kelly retorted. “You’re a renegade, a Papist, and an informer.” He turned to Dee. “What does such a man at your table?”
“And what do you?” Sledd shouted. “Edward Kelly the forger, Edward Kelly the necromancer, Edward Kelly who had his ears—”
“Out!” Kelly roared, leaping up from the table, his face contorted with anger and the fear of revelation. “Out of this house, you pusillanimous maggot! Had I known ‘twas you, I’d ne’er have sat with you. Out, I say!” He reached for Sledd, but the spy dodged too quickly for him.
“You’ll rue those words!” Sledd cried. His face was blotched and purple with rage, and he had unconsciously clenched his hands into fists. Kelly, however, was considerably the larger of the two, and Sledd was not foolhardy enough to strike the first blow where he was almost certain to lose. He hesitated, then turned away. “I know when I’m unwelcome; I’ll go. But mark me well: I say you’ll rue this, and you shall.”
“Threats from such as you do not affright me,” Kelly sneered. “Get you gone! I’ll have none of you.”
Sledd threw Kelly one last furious look before departing, leaving a stunned silence behind him. Kelly’s shoulders twitched, then relaxed. When the door had closed behind the erstwhile visitor, he turned to Dee and his wife, and bowed. “I do crave your pardon, Mistress Dee, and yours too, John, for causing such an uproar at your table. Would you have me leave as well?”
“Nay, Ned, do not go,” Dee answered quickly. “Stay, and explain the meaning of all this.”
“As you will.” Kelly shook out his scholar’s robe and seated himself once more. “The long and short of it is that I have known that wretch, and no word of his is to be trusted. He is a liar and a spy and worse, and I fear his presence means some mischief’s afoot against us.”
Mistress Dee’s complexion turned a shade lighter, and she pressed her lips together. Her husband stroked his beard with one hand, frowning. “I thought him an honest man, but those wild accusations he threw at you give credence to your words.”
“You were too trusting, John,” Kelly said earnestly.
“Belike.” Dee smiled suddenly. “But look you, ‘tis all for the best. For he hath seen all I have to show, and can have found nothing wrong, and may so report to whoever sent him.”
Kelly rolled his eyes. “Have I not said he’s a liar above all else? You heard what he accused me of. He’ll have us charged with witchcraft before the month is out; doubt it not.”
“Then what are we to do?” Mistress Dee put in.
“Poland?” Dee said to Kelly. “Prince Laski—”
“Perhaps, but ‘twould be better discussed elsewhere,” Kelly said, with a meaningful look at the servants who were just bringing in five rabbits boiled in wine. On that unsatisfactory note, the conversation ended and the meal began.
 
CHAPTER · TWENTY-ONE
 
“The girls ran forward and caught hold of the dwarf. The eagle was not strong enough to fly away with all three of them, and at last he let go. The dwarf, once he had recovered a little, began abusing the girls as usual. ‘Why weren’t you more careful, you stupid clumsy creatures! Look at the holes you have torn in my coat!’ He picked up a sack full of jewels, which he had dropped when the eagle caught hold of him, and slipped away into a hole. The girls were used to his ways by this time, and they shrugged and went on toward town to do their shopping.
”
 
WORD OF THE ROW BETWEEN KELLY AND SLEDD WAS soon all over the village. Dee’s manservant told the whole tale to his good friend, Master Townsend’s steward. The steward, knowing his employer was a friend of Dee‘s, mentioned the quarrel at breakfast, in the hearing of both the master and mistress, and that was the end of any hope Dee might have had of keeping the matter quiet.
When the two wizards were not immediately arrested for the practice of black magic, public opinion was outraged. For a fortnight the atmosphere was tense and angry. Master Dee was pelted with moldy bread and wormy green fruit whenever he dared to leave his house, and Master Kelly thought it best to take himself off entirely for a few days.
The initial wave of violence was subdued at last by the necessities of bringing in the harvest, and the town subsided into sullen resentment. By then, the demonstrations of ill-feeling had convinced Dee and Kelly that they would be wise to quit the country altogether, and they began making the arrangements in secret. The Polish Prince, greatly pleased by the genealogy Dee had finally delivered to him, had been urging the two men for some time to bring their skills and knowledge to Poland, where he promised them they would be greatly honored and (more to the point) well paid. Until the quarrel with Sledd, neither Dee nor Kelly had considered the proposal seriously; now, it seemed a quick and effective way of escaping the threat that hung over them. The departure was set for the third week of September, when Laski himself was leaving, and all the plans were carefully kept private so as to avoid interference from Sledd or his employers. Chief among the treasures they planned to bring to Poland with them was the crystal gazing globe that held the Faerie part of Hugh.
 
The uproar in the village gave the Widow Arden yet another opportunity to point out to her daughters the risks of using magic. Her handwritten book of spells had long since been banished back to the bottom of the chest, but she had not tried to stop discussion of methods for disenchanting Hugh. Now even that was forbidden, and the crockery jars of Faerie herbs were hidden at the back of the shelf.
These changes could not have happened at a worse time for Rosamund and Blanche. Their frustration had reached a peak; Rosamund was anxious for action of some kind, any kind, and Blanche worried more and more about the possible effects on Hugh of remaining in bear form for so long. Both of them wanted to know what response John had had to his message, and both of them missed the company and camaraderie of the bear and his brother (though on the rare occasions when the subject arose John’s name crossed Rosamund’s lips most frequently, while Hugh was Blanche’s chief concern). The girls had nearly reached the point of expressing their dissatisfaction to their mother when the rumors began flying around Mortlak and the Widow banned all talk of magic.
Rosamund and Blanche knew better than to argue when their mother spoke in that tone, and for a few days the girls accepted the prohibition. Then one afternoon while they were picking mint and basil, Rosamund pulled one of the basil plants up by the roots and hurled it like a spear at the garden wall.
“‘Tis not fair!” she said.
“I see naught to complain of in it,” Blanche said, retrieving the abused plant and examining it. “Thou shouldst not have uprooted it so hastily; we might have had another harvest or two from it, an thou hadst left it growing.”
“I do not mean the basil, thou feather-brain,” Rosamund replied crossly. “I mean this latest notion our mother’s taken, that we’ll be hung for witches if we so much as speak of Hugh, or John, or Faerie. ”
“Hush! She’ll hear.” Blanche cast a glance over her shoulder at the cottage.
“Nay, she’s gone to Mortlak to fill her ears with yet more reasons why we must shiver in our smocks,” Rosamund said with disgust. “Didst not hear her say so?”
“No,” Blanche said, turning back to the patch of herbs, “but if thou‘rt sure, then ’tis no matter.”
“‘Tis matter enough that she’s so overcautious,” Rosamund muttered. “She behaves as though we’re children, without sense enough to take precautions; yet I’ll be seventeen ere Christmas and thou hast turned eighteen already.”
“She fears for us,” Blanche said, clearly trying to be fair.
“What danger’s in it for us, if Dee and Kelly are accused as witches? And that seems but little likely, or it should have happened ere now.”
“It seems so to me as well,” Blanche admitted, and sighed. “But Mother will not be convinced.”
“Must we abandon John and Hugh because our mother’s fearful?”
“I fear ‘tis so,” Blanche said very softly, and bent over the mint to hide her face. “’Tis hard, but there’s no help for it.”
“There is, an thou‘st the stomach for’t,” Rosamund said, watching her sister closely.
“What’s that?” Blanche asked, and her tone indicated her doubt.
“To work without Mother’s knowledge,” Rosamund said. “We’ve studied all she has to offer; surely we can devise a spell or two without her help.”
Blanche’s head came up and her expression was a combination of hope and disbelief. “Rose! Thou dost not mean it.”
“Do I not? Look thou, in this our mother’s wrong, no matter how it ends. For if her fear’s unwarranted, then we’ve abandoned Hugh and John for naught. If she’s right to fear that the town will soon be seeking witches to hang, ‘tis all the greater reason to work while still we may.”
“My heart agrees with thee,” Blanche said slowly, “yet even so I do not see what’s to be done, since Hugh and John do side with Mother. Nor do we know what’s toward in Faerie.”
“Dee and Kelly know less of Faerie than do we, yet they made the spell that stole Hugh’s shape,” Rosamund said, waving a handful of basil as if to brush away her sister’s objections. “And Hugh was nowhere near them, yet their spell worked. Come, sister; say thou‘lt help me try.”
“Dost doubt it?” Blanche said with unusual determination. “There’s danger in‘t, but I’d dare far worse to be of help to Hugh.”
Something in her voice made Rosamund look sharply at her sister, and what she saw in Blanche’s face caused her to hesitate. “Thou knowest he’s a prince of Faerie,” she said, unsure of how to express her sudden suspicion or her warning.
“I know.” Blanche dropped her eyes. “And if we are successful, he’ll return there,” she added softly. “I know that too; thou needst not say it.”
Rosamund nodded. Unable to find words, she gave Blanche an impulsive hug of sympathy. Blanche smiled shakily and went on, “It matters not, or not in this, at least. But how shall we keep our trials from Mother?”
“‘Twill not be easy,” Rosamund said, frowning. “But if we labor in such secret that even Mother does not know, how will others suspect us?”
“And how shall we do that?”
“We’ll make a beginning now, while she is gone, and after we’ll work and plan in the forest as much as we may,” Rosamund said. “We know the places where no one comes, and we can hang valerian and rue on the bushes to keep away the fay. And we’ll plan so that if someone does come upon us unawares, ‘twill look as though we’re gathering herbs for Mother just as usual. ’Twill not be easy, but it can be done.”

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