The Poison Master by Liz Williams

Author:Liz Williams [Williams, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48963-0
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2003-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

CORRUPTION

Elizabeth gave Dee warrant… “to do what I would in philosophy and alchemy, and none should check, control or molest me…”

DR. JOHN DEE, diary

Chapter I

MORTLAKE 1564

Summer was drawing to a close now, and the September sunlight lay low over rosemary and henbane, parsley and hellebore and rue. Dee regarded the garden with satisfaction: it had taken most of the spring to set in order, patiently following moon to moon to ensure that the most auspicious planting times were achieved. The parsley seeds that he had put in on the eve of Good Friday had produced a particularly fine crop.

As it is with my garden, Dee thought, so it is with my life. The last few years had been turbulant ones, akin to sailing a small ship upon uncharted seas, with many changes in season and climate. Dee had been lucky to navigate through such inclement political weather. It still seemed miraculous that he was standing here in this silent summer garden, listening to the humming of the bees and the lapping of the Thames against the water- stairs, rather than reduced to a pile of ash and bones in the flames of Smithfield.

But Dee's compromises had left a stain, nonetheless. Dee might be the Royal Astrologer, called upon to advise on such matters as the wax effigy of the Queen, bristling with hog hairs and found in Lincoln's Inn Fields, or the blazing star that had recently appeared in the heavens, but there had been no ensuing promotion as Court Philosopher. In a way, this was no bad thing. It left Dee a poorer man, but with more time to study those most burning questions: the issue of the colony, of taking Niclaes and his Family of Love to the new world of Meta Incognita.

“John!” He could hear Katherine crying out from the kitchen, and turned. His wife came flying up the path, her skirts flapping around her like wings. Immediately, Dee feared the worst.

“Is it my mother?” The old lady had already fallen once, tumbling down the long staircase. Fortunately, she had broken no more than her wrist, but it was an ill precedent.

“No. It's the Queen.”

“She's dead?” The garden spun around him, the sound of the bees a roaring in his head.

“No, John,” Katherine said, losing patience. “Really, you are the most morbid man—the Queen is here. She's come to see you.”

After a gaping moment, Dee followed his wife down the path to the house with all speed. As he pushed open the twisted oak slab of the front door, the sun slid behind a cloud. Yet Elizabeth, standing among the lavender bushes in Dee's garden, seemed to shine with a light of her own. No doubt this was a function of the pearl- stitched cloth-of-gold of her gown, but the effect was dazzling. Dee bowed.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “is indeed the sun around which all else turns.” Flattery never went amiss, but the strange thing was that he could not help but mean it; the Queen had that effect on people.

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