SEPTEMBER 19, 2003, CHELSEA, LONDON
LUCY BLINKED IN THE STARK EQUINOX SUNSHINE, WHICH WAS FILTERING through heavy leaves. She was sitting under a mulberry tree of impeccable lineage at the Chelsea Physic Garden, pleased just to be there. The tree was fruiting, and a heavy scent permeated the air. She’d felt better this morning, and her doctors had cautiously agreed she could go for “a gentle walk,” to pass some of the time that they understood seemed so strangely suspended for her, as long as she rested often. She had walked a little too far really; but she wouldn’t tell them that, and anyway, it was so good to get away from the confines of the building, where your feelings and emotions were common property, and just have some private time alone with her thoughts. These days were a miracle, and she planned to be out in them as much as possible.
Patiently awaiting a heart operation too serious and potentially dangerous to think deeply on, and ready for transfer to Harefield at the first sign that it might be possible, she felt today newly alive, thrilled by the beauty of autumn. Keats was right: autumn was the season England did best. She was lulled by the moan of bees and lawn mowers and by a child somewhere, and especially the absence of traffic noise.
And she was contemplative and surprisingly hopeful on this bright September morning, reading from a well-thumbed volume of John Donne’s poems: “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.”
As virtuous men pass mildly away
And whisper to their souls, to goe,
While some of their sad friends doe say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no:
So let us melt, and make no noise…
MARCH 28, 1609, ON A BEND IN THE RIVER, CLOSE TO LONDON
AN OLD MAN IS DYING IN A FINE, RAMBLING HOUSE ON THE THAMES. HE has followed Signor Bruno’s fate carefully. He is a friend—a fellow philosopher and scholar, a man of learning and wisdom. He may be the only other soul alive who is privy to the same extraordinary secrets as Bruno. Elizabeth, the great Queen, had been like his goddaughter and held him in trust for many years, called him her “eyes”—though she too has not very long since gone to her grave. Her successor is the dour Scottish king who is fanatical about ghosts and demons, afraid of anyone who can by any means challenge his authority. The old man has laid low at this, formerly his mother’s house, for several years now.
It is an unusually foggy night just after the March equinox. Lanterns bounce back off the mists as a boat pulls steadily up the river from Chelsea to Mortlake on the rising tide. A shrouded figure stumbles onto the pier in the half-light and makes its way to the door. Ushered in by an upright little woman of uncertain years, the young man flies to the privy chamber of his old master. Candles flicker and almost die from the haste at which he enters.
“Ah, Master Saunders.” His words are spoken softly. “I knew you would come to me, though I was hesitant to demand this task of you. Alas, no one else can be trusted.”
“Your Grace, I am sorry to see you this way. Are you wanting me to help prepare you for this last long journey the angels have spoken of to you?”
The old man manages a grim, ironic laugh. “Journey? Aye, I have lived long enough: I should in truth be on my way. Listen carefully to me, Patrick. I am certainly dying, and time is measured. I cannot answer the questions I know you will wish to ask, but I myself ask that you listen.”
The words come between increasingly short gasps, which only partly reveal the effort they must cost the old man now to speak out.
Slowly he continues: “Next to the three caskets you see here beside me, there is a letter penned by my own hand, which will make clear anything you don’t at present understand. At any moment we will receive three visitors who will perform an operation at my request. Please, do not fear for me, but wait while they are here. When all is ended, they will give you these three chests. Follow my instructions to the letter. Do not deviate, I implore you. It is my last wish, and such a thing is beyond the scope of my dear daughter, Kate. You know it is a lifetime’s thoughts that go with that wish.”
Three silent, cloaked figures enter the chamber and close around the man. A rolled leather case opens, revealing surgical instruments. One fine-gloved hand reaches to the old man’s wrist, measuring his pulse. They wait. At last, she nods.
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move…
The delicate, gloved hand, now bloodied, encloses the still-warm heart of Dr. John Dee in the leaden-topped casket. The other two, one of gold, and the other silver, are gathered up and given to the now bewildered Patrick Saunders, who sweeps them together with the letter and a precious gift of books, departing in shock.
SEPTEMBER 19, 2003, CHELSEA, LONDON
LUCY HEARD THE SOUND OF AN AIRPLANE OVERHEAD AND, LOOKING UP with the trace of a smile, returned from her daydream. The skies had changed suddenly; and what was only a drop of light rain quickly became heavier. She left the tree under the inadequate cover of the poetry book. The muses would hopefully protect her. In the moist air, the fluid movement of her body in her oyster silk skirt and cream lace shirt made it appear as though she’d melted into an impressionist painting, and was about to dissolve.
Her pager rang: it was the Brompton Hospital. She had to get back urgently.