40

4th October 1580

Fine hat for your daughter Mary in London ten shillings To joiner for two stools of elm wood for the dairy nine shillings

Accounts of Banstock Manor, 1576–1582

My Lady Flora is at ease in her chamber and Viola sits reading to her, poetry I judge from the rhythm of it, in French as well as English. Sometimes Viola is found writing poetry as well. She has not seen her prospective bridegroom for some days. My Lord Anthonie has yet to make his ruling on the wedding, and the man stays at Well House with his experiments. Still unsettled by the discovery at the abbey, I ride over to see him.

I find him not in the house but behind it, beside the old well with Kelley. Men still labour to finish the new one at the front of the house, their shouts ringing around the hedged garden.

‘What do you do with the old well?’ I say. ‘It was always brackish.’

He stands from kneeling beside the uncovered ring of stones. ‘I am constructing a circle that will summon a spirit to help me in my work.’

I step away. ‘Is that safe?’

He laughs up at me, looking younger in his shirtsleeves. ‘It will be when I construct a container for it.’ He stands, wipes his hands on his hose, and bows politely. I bow back.

‘What teachers have instructed you in summoning spirits?’

He opens the door for me to step ahead of him, into the house. ‘I have been taught by the queen’s astrologer and adviser himself, sir, and others of his circle. Edward, fetch wine for Master Garland.’ He lifts from a shelf a tome so heavy it takes two hands, and all the sinews in his wrists stand out. It thuds onto the table. ‘This is the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, the book of Johannus Weyer, who describes the demon Berith most vividly. He holds the key to the transmutation and elevation of base metals into precious ones.’

‘Daemonum? Ungodly monsters of Satan?’

He pushes the book towards me. ‘The creatures from the lower reaches, demons as we call them, are created like by God, like all beings.’ He opens the book and begins to read. ‘Vere de præsentibus, præteritis et futuris respondet.’ He translates for me, though my Latin is rusty I can see it for myself. ‘He answers truly of things present, past, and to come.’

Kelley enters with a tray and two fine gilded goblets.

I read on. ‘Virtute divina per annulum magicae artis ad horam scilicet cogitur. He is compelled at a certain hour – through divine virtue, by a ring of magic arts. Mendax etiam est. In aurum cuncta metallorum genera mutat. He is also a liar, but he turns all metals into gold.’

Seabourne looks at me, smiling, as if all is explained.

‘I cannot believe that summoning a demon is anything but foolhardy.’ I was torn between disbelief and a natural horror of things demonic. ‘If such creatures exist, they must be dangerous.’

‘I assure you, the summoning circle will contain Berith’s conscious essence if drawn correctly. I have devised a special snare should he prove worrisome. I can draw him into the well, where his energy will diffuse into the earth.’ He pulls down a parchment covered in symbols. ‘We are inscribing these symbols in a spiral path, into the stones of the old well. My men empty out the water, and Kelley and I climb down a ladder to carve the sigils within.’

I can see the shapes are arranged in a spiral but unlike any I have seen before. ‘And this will draw this Berith in?’

‘It will.’ He hands me a cup of wine. ‘We were given the power to mutate one form into another, one substance into another by Enoch’s ascent into heaven to speak to the angels. I seek the wisdom of the transmutation of base metals into gold.’

I do not know what to say. It seems like a child’s dream. I take my satchel from my shoulder and draw out the doll the Reverend Waldren found amongst his sister’s linens. I place it upon his table. ‘Here is the doll I described.’

Seabourne frowns as he examines it. ‘This is definitely meant to be Isabeau.’

‘I believe so.’

‘This is witchcraft. The basest of all magics. This is the Devil’s work.’

‘The evil lies in the rumours and accusations that will fly from that thing if it is not destroyed,’ I say.

He walks to the fireplace and sits upon the bench there. He rubs his hand through his hair. ‘And this was in the room of the rector’s sister?’

‘If Agness were not a great comfort to Lady Banstock in her distress we would banish her to a relative on the mainland.’

‘At first I thought her a servant. It seems the sin is in this woman, Agness. I cannot see that Isabeau would have had much opportunity to so offend her.’

I shake my head, sitting heavily in his good chair, my knees stiff. ‘She has never caused any concern before. This year has brought much disruption to Banstock, and much misfortune.’ The dead heir, I think, and sweet Elizabeth sleeping in her tomb. ‘Perhaps it is madness. I have no doubt she desecrated the abbey to cast suspicion on Isabeau. I shall speak to her myself, and ask the rector to have his sister supervised at all times.’

‘No one should suspect Isabeau of witchcraft,’ Seabourne says, his gaze lowered. ‘She has been almost under guard since the summer. I myself have not been able to get word to her, nor see her. Beside that, she is devout. In her own way.’

‘I know that.’ I pity the man, in a mire of his own creation. ‘But rumour is inclined to be more interesting than truth.’

‘Viola has spoken to her,’ he says. ‘I must advise that she does not speak further, lest she too is tainted by unfounded suspicions.’

I sigh heavily, remembering Viola’s words. ‘She wishes for the marriage, still.’

‘I am glad.’ Some of the tension seems to ease from his body. ‘I would be honoured to husband her.’

‘What of your love for the seamstress?’

He spreads his fingers out and stares at them. ‘That was spring madness, Master Vincent. I was newly betrothed to a woman I did not know, though she seemed a gentle, kind girl. But Elizabeth did not look kindly upon me, either, so much her senior, and I the youngest son.’

‘So, Isabeau—?’

‘You have seen her.’ He shrugged. ‘She was there, and like sunlight she drowned out the stars.’

‘But you no longer love her.’ I pressed for an answer, for Viola’s sake.

‘I love her as a dream, a fairy princess that I can never have. My love for Viola is that of a man who takes a woman to wife.’

‘She is young, still,’ I say. He looks back at me.

‘She is intelligent, she thinks like a scholar. She understands my books, nay, she takes them further than I have. She writes elegantly and maturely. She is young, yes, and perhaps unready for the full duties of a wife, but a woman withal.’ He smiles a little sadly. ‘Perhaps she loves Isabeau too, as the heroine of a story.’

‘A sordid tale, perhaps.’ I stand, and he stands also. ‘I shall speak to my brother, but I doubt he will consent to a marriage until Isabeau has borne the child and gone away to the mainland.’

‘Can you tell him I beg to be allowed to speak with Viola? I am happy to be chaperoned.’

‘I will ask. And will you destroy this… thing?’ I nudge the doll forward.

‘I shall.’

I sigh, and stretch my aching knees. ‘In my turn I shall confine Agness to her duties.’

‘I know she is an enemy to Isabeau, and would accuse her of witchcraft. If she condemns—’

‘There are always those who will say there is no smoke without fire,’ I say, remembering that I thought that myself. A plague upon clucking tattlers.

Vincent Garland, Steward to Lord Banstock, His Memoir