The Heresy of Dr Dee by Phil Rickman Read Free Book Online

long been in her mind. ‘By the end of the summer, I’d rather
expected you to have been… favoured.’
    There could be no happy reply to this. I suppose I also had expected… well,
something
, by now. Not necessarily a knighthood – Sir William Cecil, as the Queen’s chief
minister, inevitably would advise against the ennoblement of a man still considered by many to be a common conjurer.
    What I needed, far more than social status, was a secure supply of money. Oft-times, the Queen had sent for me and would receive me pleasantly, and we’d talk for two or more hours about
the nature of things. If she truly valued what I provided, both as an astrologer and a cabalist, then surely something with a moderate income would not be out of order… something to replace
the rectorate of Upton-upon-Severn, awarded by the short-lived King Edward only be to taken away in Mary’s time.
    More than a year and a half had passed since Elizabeth’s coronation, held on a day calculed by me, according to the stars, as heralding a rewarding reign. And such, for the most part, it
had been.
    Until the death of Amy, wife of Dudley.
    I rose, brushing a few crumbs from my fresh doublet and the ridiculous Venetian breeches my mother had had made by a woman in the village. There was nearly an hour to spare before
Blanche’s barge was due, but, almost certainly, she’d be early. A severe and efficient woman, my cousin, and usually disapproving of me.
    Until she wanted something.

    My mother had insisted I should be at the riverside over half an hour before the royal barge was due to arrive from Richmond Palace. But, as I had no wish to draw attention to
what I guessed would be a discreet visit, I used the time to go to the inn to leave a letter for the post rider.
    My dream of Nel had reminded me of the journeyman mapper, John Leland, who might have been her father, and I’d gone into my library early this morning and taken down his
Itinerary
to confirm that Wigmore Abbey was within a few miles of my tad’s birth-home, Nant-y-groes. With this in mind, it had seemed worth writing to my cousin, Nicholas Meredith, who lived in the
nearest small town.
    I’d never been to the town or met Nicholas Meredith but had received a letter of congratulation from him after the Queen’s coronation on the date calculed by me – this being
widely spoken of at the time. We’d exchanged a few letters since, so I felt able to ask him, in confidence, if he knew anything of the present whereabouts of the former Abbot of Wigmore, whom
I wished to consult on a matter of antiquarian interest.
    It had been madness to lie to the Queen about owning a shewstone and the only fortuitous aspect of the current turbulence at court was that she hadn’t asked me to bring it to her. Yet.
    I hear the French king consults one owned by the seer, Nostradamus.
    Hmm. It seemed unlikely that the crystal consulted by the well-favoured and undoubtedly wealthy Nostradamus would be the kind of minuscule, flawed mineral that
I
could afford. I’d
wondered if I might see Brother Elias at the inn and if it might be worth revealing my identity in hope of learning more about the Wigmore stone. It was a relief, I suppose, to find he’d gone
at first light. Which left only one other man in London who might know of the stone or at least be able to direct me to someone who did. Maybe I could see him tomorrow – for at least I knew
where
he
was.
    The river lay brown and morose under dour cloud, wherries busy, as I waited at the top of the stone steps. A black barge was moored where the beer had been loaded yesterday, several men sitting
in it as if waiting for cargo. But the river traffic was nearly all London-bound. No sign of flags or the glint of helm and pike blade. Nor, I guessed, would there be.
    My poor mother. I looked back towards the house, my only home now, and thought I marked her face, all blurred in the window of her parlour. River water lay in shallow pools around