He scowled and tucked the letter into his purse.
Cottages dotted the land up ahead, placid and pastoral, with a modest church spire rising above them. Had he reached the right village? Deven had given both his servants a day’s liberty and ridden out alone; Colsey would not approve of him coming here. So he himself had to flag down a fellow trudging along the riverside towpath with a basket on his back and ask, “Is this the village of Mortlake?”
The man took in his taffeta doublet, the velvet cap on his head, and bowed as much as the weight of the basket would allow. “Even so, sir. Can I direct you?”
“I seek the astrologer Dee.”
He half-expected his words to wipe the pleasant look from the man’s face, but no such thing; the fellow nodded, as if the scholar were an ordinary citizen, not a man suspected of black magic. “Keep along this road, sir, and you’ll find him. There’s a cluster of houses, but the one you want is the largest, with the extra bits built on.”
The villager caught the penny Deven tossed, then quickly sidestepped to regain control of his burden as it slipped.
Deven soon saw what the man had meant. The “extra bits” were extensions easily as large as the house to which they had been added, making for a lopsided, rambling structure that encroached on the cottages around it. Flagstone paths connected that building to several nearby ones, as if they were all part of the same complex. And none of it was what Deven expected; nothing about the exterior suggested necromancy and devilish conjurations.
He dismounted, looped his horse’s reins around a fence post, and knocked at the door. It was opened a moment later by a maidservant, who promptly curtsied when she found a gentleman on the step.
A twinkling later he was in the parlor, surreptitiously eyeing the unremarkable furnishings. But he did not have long to look; soon an older man with a pointed, snow-white beard entered.
“Doctor Dee?” Deven offered him a polite bow. “I am Michael Deven, of the Queen’s Gentlemen Pensioners, and formerly in service to Master Secretary Walsingham. I beg your pardon for the imposition — I should have sent a letter in advance — but I have heard much of you from my master, and I hoped I might beg assistance from such a learned man.”
His nerves hummed as he spoke. If his suspicions were correct, he was foolish to come here, to expose himself thus to his quarry. But he had not been able to talk himself out of this journey; the best he could do was to deliberately omit to send a letter, so that Dee would have no warning of his coming.
But what did he expect to find? There were no mystic circles on the floor, no effigies of courtiers awaiting burial at a crossroads or beneath a tree. And Dee did not flinch at Walsingham’s name. The man might be the hidden player, but it was increasingly difficult for Deven to believe he might have killed Walsingham by foul magic.
“Assistance?” Dee said, gesturing for Deven to take a seat.
Deven contrived to look embarrassed; he might as well put his flush to use. “-I — I have heard, sir, that you are as able an astrologer as dwells in England. I am sure your time is much occupied by working on behalf of the Queen’s grace, but if you might spare a moment to help a young man in need….”
Dee’s alert, focused eyes narrowed slightly at this. “You wish me to draw up a horoscope? To what end?”
Glancing away, Deven permitted himself a nervous, self-deprecating laugh. “-I — well, that is — you see, there’s a young woman.”
“Master Deven,” the astrologer said in unpromising tones,“I do occasionally calculate on behalf of some of her Majesty’s court, but not often. I am no street corner prophet, predicting marriage, prosperity, and the weather for any who pass by.”
“Certainly not!” Deven hastened to reassure the man. “I would not even ask, were it simply a matter of ‘will she or won’t she.’ But I have run into difficulty, and having tried everything at my disposal, I am at a loss as to how to proceed.” He had to skirt that part carefully; he did not want to give Dee any more information than necessary. Assuming the man had not already heard his name from Anne. “I am sure you have many more important researches to occupy your time — I would be more than happy to fund them in some small part.”
The words were perfectly chosen. Dee would have taken offense at the suggestion of being paid for his work; no doubt the man wanted to distinguish himself as no common magician. But an offer of patronage, no matter how fleeting and minor, did not go amiss, especially given the astrologer’s financial difficulties.
Dee’s consideration did not take long. “A horary chart is simple enough to draw up. I imagine, by your flushed complexion, that the matter is of some urgency to you?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Then come with me; we can answer your question directly.”
Deven followed his host through the cottage and into one of the extensions, where he stopped dead on the threshold, awed into silence by the sight that greeted him. The room was lined with shelves, a great library that dwarfed those held by even the most learned of Deven’s own acquaintances. Yet it had an air of recent abuse, that called to mind what Anne had said about Dee’s troubles; there were blank stretches of shelving, scars on the woodwork, and a conspicuous lack of reading podiums or other accoutrements he expected of a library.
Dee invited him over to the one table the room still held, with a stool on either side of it and a slew of paper on top. The papers were swept away before Deven could attempt to read them, and fresh sheets brought out, with an inkwell and a battered quill.
“First,” Dee said, “we pray.”
Startled, Deven nodded. The two men knelt on the floor, and Dee began to speak. His words were English, but they did not come from the Book of Common Prayer; Deven listened with sharp interest. Not Catholic, but perhaps not entirely Church of England either. Yet the man apparently considered prayer a requisite precursor to any kind of mystical work.
None of it was what he had expected.
When the prayer was done, they sat, and Dee sharpened his quill with a penknife. “Now. What is the question you wish answered?”
Deven had not formulated its precise wording in his mind. He said, choosing his words with care, “As I said, there’s a young gentlewoman. She and I have had difficulties, that I wish to smoothe over, but she has gone away, and despite my best efforts I cannot locate her. What…” He reconsidered the question before it even came out of his mouth. “How may I find her again?”
Dee sat with his eyes closed, listening to this, then nodded briskly and began marking out a square on the paper that lay before him.
After watching the astrologer work for a few minutes, Deven said hesitantly, “Do you not wish to know my date of birth?”
“’Tis not necessary.” Dee did not even look up. “For a horary chart, what matters is the moment at which the question was formulated.” He selected a book from a stack on the floor behind him and consulted it; Deven glimpsed orderly charts of numbers and strange symbols, some of them marked in red ink.
He waited, and tried not to show his relief. That had worried him the most, the prospect of giving Dee such information about himself. A magician might do a great deal with that knowledge. As it stood now, he might be any ordinary gentleman, asking after any ordinary woman; he had not even mentioned Anne’s name.
But had she mentioned his?
Dee worked in silence for several minutes, examining the chart in the book, making calculations, then noting the results on the square horoscope he sketched out. It did not take long. Soon Dee leaned back on his stool and studied the paper, one hand idly stroking his pointed white beard.