19

Wednesday 3rd April

Sage spent a good night at her hotel and wasted an hour shopping in Exeter, treating herself to a baggy T-shirt and a tiny outfit for the baby. She walked up to the university and spent an hour or so looking at the books in Felix’s office, a copy of odd pages of what seemed to be magical potions and a sketchbook of Solomon Seabourne’s. His research assistant, a mature student called Rose, showed her a number of references from people like Robert Fludd and others, as they attempted to control an unseen world of good and evil influences and beings.

‘Before you go home to the Isle of Wight,’ Rose said, ‘it might be worth looking into his wife’s work too.’

‘You mean Viola Banstock?’

Rose ran her finger over a photocopy of the front page, badly damaged, of a manuscript titled Philosophy of Man and the Natural Science of Light and Darkness, by S. Seabourne. ‘I typed up a transcript of the first few pages of each of the fragments and the copies we have. This dedication just caught my eye. I wondered if we could find out more about it.’

The dedication was written, by hand, under the main title, with strong, slashing letters. ‘To Lady Viola Banstock, thatt shynes a light upon the mysterys of grate darkness, thatt almost had me enthralled and destroyed by madness.’

Sage sat back. ‘Viola again. I hadn’t thought about looking at her writing, though now I think about it, the historian at Banstock Manor did tell me that she was a celebrated poetess.’

‘There are three books of her poetry in the British Library, and a few pamphlets.’ Rose, a motherly-looking woman in her late forties or so, frowned. ‘It’s so horrible, a baby in a well. Do you think it was someone from the manor?’

Sage shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. I doubt someone from the manor could have gone missing or been buried so ignominiously without there being a fuss at the time, and local knowledge of it.’

Rose sat back in her chair and nodded. ‘Anyway, Seabourne might have been quite a bit older than Viola.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘It wasn’t unusual. He was born about 1551 and died in 1604, but she lived for much longer. She published some poems on the birth of Prince Charles, who became Charles the Second, in 1630, under the name Viola Banstock, not Seabourne.’ Rose shuffled a pile of papers into some sort of order. ‘I’d love to find out more. It’s a real mystery, isn’t it?’

Sage examined the folders lining one wall of the room. Death Curses, Weather Spells, Water Witches. ‘This is a weird subject to study. Does Felix believe any of this stuff? I mean, does he actually have any evidence?’

Rose’s smile was more of a wince.

Sage grinned. ‘I bet you get asked that a lot.’

‘All the time. The answer is, I started out completely sceptical. I think he did, too.’

‘And now?’

Rose shrugged. ‘Now… I’m not so sure.’ She started writing on a notepad. ‘You heard his lecture. Belief in magic is still ingrained in us from early childhood: tooth fairies, Father Christmas, ghosts and goblins, witches and wolves. It’s hard to completely shift it. When strange things happen, we interpret what we see through layers of beliefs. Take ghosts. Nearly half of all westerners claim to have seen or heard a ghost of someone they loved.’

‘It’s strange but—’ Sage hesitated, reluctant to give credence to Maeve Rowland’s story. ‘The cottage, where the well is. The owners think it may be haunted, they’ve heard wailing noises.’

‘Wails are common, so are babies crying.’ Rose tore off the paper and handed it to her. ‘These are the names of books by Solomon that you might like to look up. You can find them at the British Library. And Viola’s.’

‘Seabourne was quite well known, then?’

‘Yes, but the real occult stars like John Dee didn’t agree with some of his work. They were looking for a unifying glimpse of heaven, to heal the fragmentation of Christianity. Seabourne was much more interested in the dark arts and alchemy. He may have been consulted by Christopher Marlowe before he wrote Doctor Faustus. They probably knew each other.’

Sage read the titles on the list. The Nature of the Elements. The Deep Realms. The Invocation of Spirits and Binding of Souls, and the book Felix had mentioned, Casting Out Devils leading Good Women to Witchcraft. ‘I know it’s a horrible thought, but would he ever have used sacrifices in his rituals?’

‘It’s possible,’ Rose said. ‘Human sacrifice is supposed to be the most potent. Nowadays, murder in magical rituals is actually on the increase in places like Uganda and Namibia. Felix has consulted with government agencies and NGOs in several African countries about it. Dozens of cases of people mutilated or killed for their body parts. Some of the victims are just babies, some are disabled people.’

Sage looked around at the crowded bookshelves lining the room. ‘I had no idea it was that serious.’

‘You’d be surprised. Hundreds of people are killed each year in India alone because they are suspected of witchcraft. I don’t know if Seabourne ever did dabble in sacrifices, but there are texts that suggest it was possible.’

Sage tucked the paper into her messenger bag. ‘Human sacrifice,’ she said, only half joking. ‘That was one possibility I hadn’t considered when I was digging.’

Rose pulled a face. ‘Welcome to my world.’