Doctor Illuminatus by Martin Booth Read Free Book Online Page A

you present at the trial?” Pip asked tentatively, wiping a finger across her cheek to smooth away the first tear to escape.
    “I was, for my father’s accusers wanted me to see the wages of his sins. They knew that he would have been instructing me in his knowledge and they wished to discourage me from furthering his researches.” He patted down the earth of the molehill with his foot and started to walk slowly on towards the river. “The trial was a short proceeding, lasting but a day. When it was over, and the sentence pronounced, my father was taken in chains and locked into your room, Tim. It was there I was brought to him, to make my farewells.”
    He paused as if recalling the event. At that moment, it occurred to Tim that, so far as Sebastian’s waking time was concerned, all this had happened only two years before. The pain, he thought, must still be there.
    “My father had known they would come for him eventually,” Sebastian continued. “He had told me often before that he was playing a dangerous game, one that he must win.” Reaching out, he touched Pip’s hand. “There is no need to cry,” he comforted her. “It was a long time ago and I do not grieve.”
    They reached the river, where Sebastian sat down on the bank beside a clump of willow. The warm breeze blowing along the water whispered gently in the upright withy stems, tickling the long, thin leaves. Upstream, a mute swan was riding the current, accompanied by four gray, fluff-feathered cygnets.
    “Have you lived here . . . .” Tim began — he wanted to say, all your life — “. . . since you were born?”
    “Yes,” Sebastian answered, “and there is good reason, for here is much wickedness which must be fought.”
    “Wickedness?” Tim said.
    Pip was alarmed and asked hesitantly, “You mean — in our house?”
    “No, but hereabouts. In the countryside.” Sebastian leaned back on his elbows while Pip and Tim squatted on the riverbank. “The night before they came for my father,” he went on, “he took me aside into his chamber, the one that you have visited. Here, he charged me with continuing his mission. But to understand this, you must know something of history.”
    “Not my favorite subject,” Tim announced. Sebastian looked around, as if to ensure they were not being overheard, then spoke in a subdued voice.
    “King Henry the Fifth was a great monarch, the most powerful ruler in Europe. He won the famous battle against the French at Agincourt and captured Normandy. Then he made peace with the King of France and married his daughter. Soon, they had a son, named after his father; yet he was but an infant of nine months when his father died and he was proclaimed King Henry the Sixth. Immediately, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, claimed to be regent, ruling in the infant’s stead. He was a man who much wanted power. However, the council of those in control did not wish this and appointed Gloucester’s older brother, John, Duke of Bedford, as regent.”
    “So the second king your father served was only a baby,” Pip said.
    “Yes,” Sebastian replied, “yet he was still the rightful monarch and it was to him and his throne my father owed his allegiance.”
    “And,” Tim said, “because your father was a king’s man, he got caught up in the struggle between these two brothers. Right?”
    “You are almost correct,” Sebastian replied. “The struggle was not so much between Gloucester and Bedford as between Gloucester and his uncle, Henry Beaufort, who was the wealthiest man in England, a power behind many thrones and my father’s friend and patron. He was Chancellor of England, a cardinal of the Pope in Rome and Bishop of Winchester. He was also interested in alchemy.”
    “Hang on!” Tim interjected. “He was a cardinal and a bishop but he believed in alchemy?”
    “Pope Leo III gave the emperor, Charlemagne, a book on alchemy called the
Enchiridion
,” Sebastian said, “and Pope Sylvester II is said to have