The Printer's Devil (19 page)

-And I felt a shiver like unto cold water tipped down my back.

-Whom doth it summon? I asked.

-Those whom I call, replied Roger.

-Demons? I asked; he shook his head.

-Not demons, Fabian; I have no truck with such;
Magia naturalis licita est, atque nonprohibita.
⁶

-Natural magic, you name it? quoth I; there was never a thing natural about this affair, and well you know it.

-I but quote the words of the philosopher
Mirandola,
replied Roger. Now mark you this, for each several demon there is an opposing angel; do you but know what angel is appurtenant to that demon, he can be banished. Or she, indeed.

⁶
It is natural magic, and not prohibited

-Do you say there is an angel that will banish your creature? I asked.

-Maybe not, replied Roger; I would not name her demon, being a thing created.

-Would you not, I said; you have not seen her of late, how then can you know?

Roger pounced on these words like a cat with a mouse.

-You have seen her? how? when?

-Ohe, iam satis
,
¹
1 said, I dreamed her without my casement and did feel her hunger; yet she did not come within nor feed that night; yet Catherine did dream her also.

A slow smile did come to Roger’s countenance then, although I saw naught to smile on.

-I begin to see a solution, he said. Will you look in the glass, Fabian?

I looked at the thing in his hand, then at his face again.

-Tell me wherefore I should do such a thing, I said.

-To discover the antithesis of this creature, he replied; doubt you not, I’ll set wards that naught evil can pass.

-I am not afeard, I said.

-You should be, answered Roger; I shrugged my shoulders.

-Very well, I said, make your charms and I’ll do it.

-Then wear this talisman about your neck, he said, and gave to me a waxen seal upon a riband that he took up from his work-bench; I did look at the thing without love, for I could believe:
Timeo
Rog. Southwell
et dona ferentes
;
⁸
but I put it over my head so the charm hanged at my breast.

-Now do you sit there and move not; and he gave me the glass to hold.

What Roger’s protective rituals were I do not remember well; he inscribed circles, figures, Greek and other lettering (mayhap these were Hebrew); speaking the while in a soft voice words which I could almost, but not quite, make out; slowly I began to feel and sense the magic, the sparkle of it in the air, the tingle on my skin, the sharp and spiced scent of it; perchance all my other senses sang with it too.

When he was done he gave me a paper with a prayer on it to read, the which I did without protest.

-Now think on the creature, he said; Look i’th’glass, and consider her.

I looked into the deeps of the glass that I held in my two hands, that were in my lap; and slowly the air seemed to condense and to curdle; to change its own nature into something other, that was not air; and yet it was. I could see naught but the glass; in my thoughts I imagined the creature in her different guises: the childlike figure she had first worn, and the pallid floating sprite that did come to my window; unbidden I saw too Catherine’s face, as she sate at her desk with the account-books: She raised her head and stared out the casement, an she had truly been present in the room. I heard Roger draw in his breath, but it did seem a very long way away and I took no heed on’t. Then, strange to relate, I beheld a countenance I knew not; a boy’s face I thought it at first, yet gray lay in his hair; a bemused look in the eye. I do think that I lost my senses for a brief space of time; certes I have no recollection of any thing more until I saw Roger’s face nigh unto mine.

-Soft now, said he, this is a very great thing; I do believe I know how we may banish this creature, but both you and your Catherine must needs play a part.

-But she knows naught of this matter, I said.

¹
Hold, enough

⁸
I
fear Roger even when he comes bearing gifts
(cf
Mneid, Greeks
bearing gifts)

-Do you then not trust her, Fabian? quoth Roger.

And then I grew shamed that I had not spoken to her.

-I believe, said he further, that just as the creature was given life by Catherine, so too can she destroy it. Nay, hear me out (as I did make to speak); she is its anti-thesis; who better to act as its adversary? But it must be you that guides and ensnares it. Just as Catherine is your lode-star, so it seeks to cleave to you; you must be the bait, to entice it to its destruction.

And these words sank into my thoughts like fish in a lake seeking their proper home; so the truth of them spake to me. And within my breast my heart did quail.

-O Roger, I said, Roger, what have you done?

But indeed a certainty was with me, that Catherine was not to be kept in Ignorance of events as I in my vanity had thought to keep her; and that very night (for I did return at a late hour) I had long speech with her about all these matters.

And she did shake her head and sigh, -Ah men, ah men. You are so sure and so forward, yet you think not, ever, upon the consequences of your actions.

Which were, indeed, the words that I had spoken to Roger; but I did know better wisdom than to say so. Instead I did but hold her two hands in mine and beg forgiveness.

-I know thy Roger too well, for all I have never met him, she said; thy words give him more life than any homunculus; there is no blame to thee, whom I do love; and I will dare it, this adventure; and I was terrible proud of my Catherine then, truly she hath a lions heart.

-Now Fabian, she said then, on the morrow you must come with me for to see a very strange thing.

-What thing can that be? I asked, but she would say no more.

So on the morrow I did walk with her unto the shop of Rafe Eaton, that did sell pamphlets and wood-cut-pictures and chap-books and such by Paul’s-churchyard; and Catherine did speak to this Rafe Eaton, which was an ill-made man of some xl years but so hairless as he might be an egg, a pilgarlic for sooth, desiring him to fetch out some thing from the back of the shop; the which he did.

The packet he laid on the table was tied up in a cloth, and he unwrapped it with care to reveal a small painted panel of wood, may be xii inches tall and a span in breadth. And when that I did see what was pictured on this panel I did swear an oath that I’d liefer Catherine had not heard, for all that she’s gone dressed as a boy and come to ringing (ringers not being known for moderate language); but I believe I may be excused my wonder, for the picture was as like unto her as a twin; yet it was not Catherine, for there was that in those painted eyes that I liked not.

-I am not so full of awe as I was yester-day, she said to me, because now I think I do know who this may
be.

-Master Eaton, I said, who did paint this picture? for there was no signing that I could see.

-’Twas a man that is now dead, instiled Humphrey Hope.

-Humphrey Hope that was murdered in Fleet-street? I asked, and Rafe Eaton scowled a right grim countenance.

-I’ll make no sale do you noise that abroad, said he, hold your peace.

-You’ll make your sale, said Catherine, for I’ll buy it from you my-self. Mark you I’ll not pay more nor
ten shillings.

-Would you make me a bankrupt? he exclaimed, I’ll not part with it for under a guinea.

-Why then keep it; I am not so enamoured of it, said Catherine carelessly .

-xv shillings, for your fathers sake, then, he said.

-Ten, replied Catherine.

-Ah very well, I suppose I am well rid on’t, ’tis yours.

Ten shillings,
thought I, but lately that was more than the cost of my lodgings, mean enough though they were.

Catherine gave the man the money and we bore the picture away in his cloth.

-And now, said I, what meanst thou to do with it?

-Marry, said Catherine, the thought comes to me that dost thou and Roger Southwell wish to do battle with the succubus, her image may prove a potent weapon. Now, there is work to be done, and today ’tis ringing-day at Bow, so we must shift to be done in good time.

And seeing her thus, with the wind in her hair and laughing in the face of peril, I did love her the more.

-When shall we be wed then? said I.

And she replied, -By God, as soon as may be; I’ve buried my father and mourned him full well; now I can do as I please.

So I swung her up in my arms and kissed her in the street. And we were wed in Bow-church in May-time, and made as merry as we could, the times being what they are: Yet there was an abundance of oil of barley and clary and burnt claret, and pies and tanzeys to eat.

But it also befell that on that tide (being in that season when that the sun was in the sign of Gemini, that they also call the Twins) I had intelligence from Roger that the time was come that we must act.

And truly the Impact of this Zodiacal sign was not lost upon me for I had long thought of the creature as being Catherine’s dark twin.

At this time Catherine and I were embarked upon the printing of a number of bell-ringing peals, each one to his own pamphlet, with divers methods to lengthen or shorten the number of changes (such as extremes), she having a skill in the figure-work of this art; this did consume a terrible amount of time for proof-reading of the changes pricked out and I have gone cross-eyed doing so, because none but we two could, the men in the shop knowing naught of Ringing.
Vox audita perit, littera scripta manet.
⁹

Aboy did deliver Roger’s message sealed in a paper and I gave him a penny. Roger wrote briefly,
I’ll come to you this night.

Had the paper contained a poisonous serpent I had not been more apprehensive; I did show it to Catherine, who said merely, -So be it.

-Aut vinceremus aut moriemus
,
¹⁰
1 said.

But she shook her head: -None shall die, she said.

-Is this a prophecy? I asked.

-God will aid us in this good adventure, she replied, so we cannot fail.

But I could not be so sanguine, being not so confident in the motives of God nor in the powers of Roger
Southwell neither.

⁹
The spoken word is lost, the letter written down will survive

¹⁰
We’ll either win or die trying

O
lente, lente, currite noctis equi
,
¹¹
thought I to my-self.

On occasion I do envy those folk who do trust unquestioningly in God, but such beliefs are not a part of mine own nature: I do not see God’s hand in every thing; I do not see it in the visits of the plague, nor in the rule of the Puritans, nor in the death of Ann Pakeman, nor in the beggars in the gutter; lord of misrule, mayhap; not God. An he is not able to prevent such things, why then he is not omnipotent; an he chooseth not to prevent them, then I have no more words to say.

Roger came by at a late hour; dusk stood in the sky and the stars were begun to shine: Fire-folk sitting in the air, a pretty fancy. But on occasion I do conjecture, like that Jordanus Brunus Nolanus of whom I have read, that an all these stars be suns like unto our own, would they not also have planets which go around them; and what manner of creatures would Inhabit such planets; men like us, or beasts, or creatures wondrous strange and like unto neither men nor beasts; nor demons nor angels neither. And how it doth confound the imagination to think how faraway must those suns and planets be.

Still men be clever and in an hundred centuries or more, perchance will have found a way to journey thither; when that they have discovered and understood all things on the earth. What will a man be like in the xxvii century, or even the xx? Very like unto us, I do expect; I do not think that man’s nature shall change; nor do

I anticipate that he will be the wiser than we, for all his learning, for ’tis a part of that nature which is ours that we do not heed the lessons of history: neither our own, nor the world’s.

We did choose to make our experimentation in that room which had been the bedchamber of Catherine’s father (and in which he had died); Catherine and I did not use it but for a store-room; -And besides, Roger said, she hath been here before.

Now it was empty save for two chairs which Roger had bidden us place in’t. he would stand, he said, for his conjuring, and did caution us that ’twould be perilous to move lest we erase some of his magical marks. And he took the painting that Humphrey Hope had made and leaned it gainst the wall.

-Now you must both do precisely as I say, he said; sit you down each in a chair (he had moved the chairs to certain places in the room the which he said were significant); You may speak to one another but do you not distract my attention. Fabian do you hold the scrying-glass, but regard it not until I give the word.

I had told Catherine of this glass but I do not think she was impressed; and indeed when I recall looking in it that other time, there was not much happened.

Roger then did draw a circle with chalk around each of us, saying, This is the circle of
Solomon:
Nothing evil may pass over’t; but you must rest without moving, and not break the circle.