The Triple Goddess (29 page)

‘He made the boldest of farewell speeches at the block. It is part of his fame.’

‘His bravery and proud spirit were never in doubt.’

‘Mr Carew, can you really be expecting me to believe that Sir Walter Ralegh is still alive, and living in the Bloody tower?’

‘Whether you believe it or not, it’s true.’

‘How might that be possible?’

‘You’ll recall, being as up on your history as you are, that my father concocted a cordial, an elixir.’

‘Yes, his so-called Balsam of Guiana, or Great Cordial. This gentleman mentioned it to me yesterday, though not the key ingredients.’

‘That former chicken house in the Lieutenant’s private garden was the chemical laboratory where Sir Walter Ralegh made that cordial from a compound of plants and other things that he brought back from the Caribbean. It wasn’t a random selection, for he had talked to the Inca medicine men about the therapeutic properties of each ingredient.

‘He tried it out on his manservant first, Grammaticus, to make sure it wasn’t poisonous—that’s the sort of man my father is—then on Bess my mother, in the hope that it might at least give her a bad stomach ache. He told Bess that he had made it especially for her, like a designer perfume, in an attempt to preserve her youth and beauty for ever…and she was vain enough to believe him.

‘When Lord Henry Percy arrived at my father’s lodgings one day while Papa was still out walking on the terrace, I poured the Earl and myself glasses of it under the impression that it was Madeira—which was understandable, because my father had decanted it into a Madeira bottle and put it at the back of the drinks cabinet.

‘Papa told us what it was when he came back, and forbade me to touch it again because his supply was very limited. Being a frightful hypochondriac, he intended it as a health drink, to aid recovery from sickness and to promote healing after injury. He never aspired to cure the mortally sick or dying with it, any more than he was searching for the Philosopher’s Stone, as many believed, that would transmute base metal into gold. Though he could spend money profusely, my father has never been a greedy man for anything but knowledge.

‘There was no evidence of the formula’s strength until the day of my father’s execution. Grammaticus, the Wiz, and I had permission to bear his remains back to his apartment in the Bloody tower to have the body prepared for removal and burial at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster.

‘After we had reassembled…laid him out in the bed chamber and withdrawn to the main room to steady our nerves with a liquid restorative, not Madeira this time, we had been there fifteen minutes or so when my father, Sir Walter Ralegh, barged in as large as life with his head intact and demanding a flagon of wine to soothe his throat. He said it was exceeding sore, worse than all the sore throats he had ever suffered together—which would have been a grievous malady indeed if one could believe they had all been genuine.

‘That’s unfair of me to say, considering what he had been through. He complained bitterly about what a terrible job the headsman had done, which was galling, he said, after his victim had been be so nice and reassuring to him beforehand. It took two strokes of the axe, as you know. My mother said later that she was surprised it wasn’t more, he had such a stiff neck, but she doubted that hanging would have been any more effective in shutting him up.’

Arbella was open-mouthed again as Carew continued.

‘Understandably he was very confused, and hadn’t yet been able to fully comprehend what had happened, let alone consider the implications for the rest of us who had also drunk the elixir: my mother, me, the Earl, and Grammaticus. But as time went on the Great Cordial proved itself to be a great deal more cordial than any ordinary restorative before or since in civilization. Sanatogen tonic wine it was not. I cannot say that it contains the secret to eternal life, because we still do not know.

‘Obviously not, because in addition to the one whose head had briefly been detached from his body, the remaining four of us are still alive. From the effect that the cordial has had upon the five of us it became clear that anyone dosed with the stuff was immune to dying any time sooner or later—the expiry date of “later” remains to be defined—from natural or unnatural causes, whether it be from otherwise terminal illness, disease, old age, or the blade of a headsman’s axe.

‘Yet I cannot call the elixir therapeutic, because therapeutic means pertaining to the healing art, and it proved powerless to heal the mortally sick or wounded, or to revive the dead, who had not partaken of it before their illness and injury. Post-medication was ineffectual in saving the three people Papa cared about most in the world, who did not drink it until it was administered in a desperate attempt to revive them: my brother Wat, when he was pierced by Spanish lances in Guiana; Wat’s captain Lawrence Kemys, who committed suicide; and Papa’s great friend Prince Henry, King James’s son, a charming youth who no more resembled his father in character than he did in person, after he was stricken by typhoid.

‘We cannot rule out the possibility of there being an antidote, if one can call a cure for immortality an antidote, or a period of time after which its preservative effect ceases to be prophylactic. But should there be either, the Wizard Earl is no further forward now than he was at the outset of his research in ascertaining the elixir’s proof and potency.

‘He has never let up trying, however. All we know is that it is an “elixir”: not a panacea or remedy in the sense of the word’s Arabic derivation from
al-’iksïr
, meaning a dessicative powder for wounds, but of
elixir vitae
or elixir of life, a drug or essence capable of prolonging life indefinitely.

‘During which indeterminate period Grammaticus at present continues to attend my father, and the Earl to occupy his same apartment in the Tower. The last time I saw my mother she was living with a neurosurgeon in Putney; but the men in her life rarely last more than a year.’

Arbella surrendered herself to an interim suspension of disbelief. ‘That’s incredible. I mean, extraordinary, amazing. Could not Sir Walter himself be of any assistance? After all, he created the Balsam of Guiana.’

‘My father long ago gave up, saying that his production of the formula was fortuitous, arrived at haphazardly, and that he lacked the skill and knowledge to analyse it. Unlike the Earl, Papa was never more than an amateur scientist.’

‘Do you hope that Lord Henry will come up with some greater understanding, or solution, or that the effect might wear off? Do you wish to remain forever as you are?’

‘I cannot answer for the others, but my feeling on the subject is that, when one has lived as long as I have, dying can seem as desirable as falling asleep. One can only tie so many fishing flies.’ Carew drew a hand across his brow. ‘Look, would you mind if we didn’t talk about this any more today? Frankly I’m rather disturbed, knowing that you’ve met the old man. Come back tomorrow if you like and we can continue the discussion.’

‘Of course. Thank you. And…you know, I’d very much like to go back to see Sir Walter…your father again sometime—with you. Might that be possible?’

Carew raised a tired eyebrow at Arbella. ‘I don’t know. I will give it my consideration.’

Chapter Twenty-One

In that room the air always will be still;

The sun will always be sliding down its beams

On motes of dust, and the colours will be the green

Of your clothes, and gold on your auburn hair.

There was some polite conversation

For a minute or two, before you had to go.

But the circumstances of that room, that day, that scene,

The garden and the people who arrived—

Though altered, passed, and changed; dug up, and dead;

Through freezes, storms, eclipses, power cuts,

Through fallings out of sight and of like minds—

In that same room today or any day

Nothing has changed nor ever will for him;

And, because it happened, neither has it for you.

*

‘I apologize for being so inquisitive, but...’

It was the next day, and Arbella was back at the box. Carew seemed to have recovered his equanimity, she thought, looking at him from the seat across the desk.

‘Ask away.’

‘I’m not psychic, but I have an aunt who is, and she tells me stories about ghosts and spirits. So please excuse me, but if you’re his son…’

Carew reached out, took Arbella’s hand and placed it on his arm. ‘There. And he’s as solid as I am. Try shaking his hand when we go and see him together. By which I mean that I’ve decided you may accompany me when I next visit. If you are still up for it, that is.’

‘Oh, that’s wonderful! Thank you very much.’

‘It will not be an easy encounter. Since my father’s execution, nobody has seen him except his Cordial-imbibing contemporaries: me, my mother, the Earl of Northumberland, and Grammaticus. Although there are tourists traipsing through his apartment in the Bloody tower all day long, for some reason—I can’t explain it how or why—they don’t see us, nor we them.

‘To us, the place remains furnished exactly as it was before his execution. It’s as if we’re in a sort of time warp, or that the tectonic plates of Time have shifted and we’ve fallen into a crack.’

Considering this, Arbella said, ‘The Tower has been there for so many centuries, perhaps the usual temporal rules do not apply.’

‘I cannot guarantee that you will be able to see him. There is no Cordial in you.’

‘We were real enough to each other in the garden-house.’

‘This time we’ll be in his inner sanctum at the Bloody tower.’

‘Remember my heritage: I am descended from Arbella Stuart.’

Carew looked uneasy. ‘There’s no telling what his reaction will be.’

‘We parted on decent enough terms, and he got to know me a bit.’

‘Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out. Now, tell me more about what you thought of my father. Was he as you might have expected from your knowledge of the historical figure?’

‘The circumstances were not the best to make an evaluation. For one whose knowledge of Sir Walter Ralegh is as such a public and adventurous figure, it will be strange to encounter him as a three-dimensional person in confinement.’

‘My father has always lived as freely in his imagination as he did abroad, so the transition was not so difficult. As the poet Lovelace wrote, in
To Althea, From Prison
,

‘

Stone walls do not a prison make;

Nor iron bars a cage…

Angels alone, that soar above,

Enjoy such liberty.

‘In that sense the Tower of London became his refuge, a place where his inner being emerged like a snail from its shell and roamed freely in a way that it might never have done in a natural environment.

‘Plus he had a lot of writing to get done, for which the fewer the distractions the better. His
History of the World
, which was written in the Tower, was a massive undertaking. Ben Jonson, who was also for a short time imprisoned in the Tower, eulogized it; Oliver Cromwell recommended it to his son, Richard; King James begged to differ and tried to suppress it, saying it was “too saucy in censuring Princes”.’

Arbella nodded. ‘When King James gave him the opportunity to redeem himself with a successful venture to Guiana, and the expedition failed, he did not take the opportunity to remain at large and avoid the fate that awaited him upon his return. He would never consider breaking his word and making a craven escape, and the Tower of London and the Bloody tower, the tower within the Tower, reclaimed him. In the life that he led…leads…in the Tower each day is alike, and every moment forms part of an unbroken chain of timelessness with no befores and afters and thens and nows. When time is suspended the shortest period can seem long and vice-versa.’

Carew cleared his throat. ’You sound, Arbella, as if you’re talking from personal experience.’

‘When I was about twelve years old, I was seized with the desire not to be seen around the house by my father’s cronies or my mother’s friends. When my parents were away on a round-the-world business trip, I was sent to stay with my aunt and uncle at their mansion in the country. They pretty much ignored me, and didn’t even notice if I wasn’t present for meals. I took the opportunity to conduct some experiments, by taking a leap of faith and accepting the notion that it was possible to make oneself invisible, on the principle that belief is half of what it takes to realize an objective.’

‘That’s…’

‘…a grand way of putting it, and I was too young to think in such terms, but it’s what it amounted to. I spent a whole day blindfolded, while trying to continue to do all the things I normally would. I stopped my ears with wax and didn’t speak, making myself understood by the servants with gestures.