The Daylight Gate Page 4

  ‘And what of the men who buy? Tom Peeper rapes nine-year-old Jennet Device on a Saturday night and stands in church on Sunday morning.’

  ‘You rarely stand in church yourself,’ said Roger Nowell.

  ‘If you cannot try me as a witch perhaps you will charge me as a papist. Is that it?’

  ‘Your family is Catholic,’ said Roger Nowell,

  ‘And every family in England till King Henry left the Church of Rome. The Church of England is not yet a hundred years old and you wonder that many still follow the old religion?’

  ‘I do not wonder about that,’ said Roger Nowell. ‘But I wonder about you.’

  They were both silent for a time.

  ‘You are stubborn,’ said Roger Nowell.

  ‘I am not tame,’ said Alice Nutter.

  He stood up and came over to her chair. She could smell him; male, tobacco, pine. He was so close she could see the grey beginning in his beard. He took her hand. He held it up to the light, looking at it as he spoke softly. ‘You mistake me if you imagine I believe in no dark power. I believe in God and therefore I believe in the Devil.’

  ‘Who surely has better things to do than help the Demdike dry up cattle, steal sheep and bewitch pedlars?’

  ‘Indeed. At the Berwick witch trials many of the women were poor and ignorant, deluded by a pretence of power. Yet their leader was a man who would risk anything to kill a king. Suppose our Lancashire witches have found such a leader? Someone whose knowledge of the magick arts is directly from the Devil himself? Faust was a man who made such a pact. But a woman? Where beauty met with wealth and power. What might she not accomplish?’

  ‘I have no special power.’

  ‘Like Faust you have strange youthfulness. Many wonder at you, undiminished by time.’

  ‘I am skilled in herbs and ointments.’

  Roger Nowell nodded. ‘Will you give evidence against the Demdike?’

  ‘I have no evidence to give.’

  He stood up, stretching. He smiled. ‘Then, perhaps you will attend the trial yourself in a different capacity. That is not my wish, though it may become my duty. But for now, I should like to invite you to a play.’

  Alice was utterly bewildered.

  ‘We ride at dawn to Hoghton Tower. There is a new play to be put on, written by William Shakespeare who has had great success in London. He was a tutor for a time at Hoghton Tower and, by gracious request, his play is to be performed there.’

  ‘I have seen some of his plays in London,’ said Alice. ‘What play is this?’

  ‘The Tempest. I am told it is a play about magick.

  Before Alice could answer a servant ran into the room. Roger Nowell followed him at once into the square hall. The front door was open. There were dogs barking outside.

  Alice went forward. In the hall were two men she had never seen before. They were dirt-spattered and sweat-stained. One was wiping his face with a wet cloth.

  ‘Where did you lose him?’ said Roger Nowell. ‘Salmsbury Hall?’

  One of the men looked back towards Alice. Roger Nowell turned, gesturing with his hand as though all this were nothing of any importance. ‘A fugitive. Unexpected. One of my men will ride with you to the Rough Lee as you have brought no servant.’

  Alice was escorted to her horse. In the courtyard were half a dozen men carrying wild and burning flares. Stag-hounds ran about, some with their noses to the ground, others sniffing the air as though they were hunting ghosts.

  As she rode the short distance to the Rough Lee she watched the flares dipping and darting between the trees as the men ran following the dogs. The dark forest looked on fire. The trees were lit up like funeral pyres. She thought she saw bodies strapped to the trees, burning, burning, burning.

  She spurred her horse.

  The men were moving away from the direction of her house, towards the river. The moon came up, shining down. Her horse shied. On the path directly in front of the horse’s hooves stood a huge hare, all eyes, ears and startle.

  The hare had a look she knew. But that was foolish. It was a hare.

  She rode on, and dismissed Roger Nowell’s servant at her gate.

  She was already unbuttoning her riding habit as she climbed the staircase to bed. She was in her shift when she opened the door from her dressing room into her bedroom.

  Ghristopher Southworth was lying on her bed.

  Christopher Southworth

  HIS EYES WERE blue like forming crystals. There was a scar across his face from his left eyebrow to his right lip.

  Alice had not seen him for six years. She had never expected to see him again. There was a knock at the bedroom door. Alice threw a cover over Christopher and opened the door to take in the chicken pie and wine she had asked for. She locked the door and pulled the heavy curtains across the window.

  ‘Is it you they are hunting, Kit?’

  ‘Give me food first.’

  They were like children; eating quickly, laughing, her heart beating too fast, his face smiling all the time as he ate. He had got into the house after dark and taken the little staircase to her study, and crept through the secret corridor that joined her bedroom. Alice ran her hand over the ridge of scars under his eyes and kissed his eyelids where the skin was thick like leather.

  When he had been captured after the Gunpowder Plot his torturers had cut his face with a hot iron. They had blinded him by dripping wax into his pinned-back eyeballs. The curious blue of his eyes was due to the elixir that had saved his sight. But nothing could hide the scars.

  ‘You should not have come back to England, Kit. They will hang you this time.’

  Christopher Southworth nodded and drank more wine. ‘I had to come. Jane has been arrested on charges of witchcraft.’

  ‘Jane? Jane is a Protestant! The only member of your family to receive the Anglican Communion.’

  ‘It is a trap, I know.’

  ‘Do they want your head so badly?’

  ‘They will not stop till all of the Gunpowder Plotters are dead.’

  ‘King James has set his sights on Lancashire, Alice. He believes that this is the county of England where he has the most to fear – from Catholic traitors or from witching hags.’

  ‘Demdike and Chattox have been taken for trial at Lancaster Castle.’

  ‘I know. Jane is in there with them. They are in the Well Dungeon until the August Assizes. She will not survive that ordeal – instant death would be more merciful.’

  ‘I have just come from Roger Nowell. He said nothing to me of this.’

  Alice told Christopher about the matter at the Malkin Tower. He was listening carefully, restless, tapping his fingers on the bedpost.

  ‘None of this is coincidence or chance. There is danger here. Alice. Listen to me. Withdraw. Apologise. Equivocate. Do not risk yourself for that broken family of vagrants and thieves they call the Demdike.’

  Alice drew away from him. ‘Are you like all other men after all? The poor should have no justice, just as they have no food, no decent shelter, no regular livelihood? Is that how your saviour Jesus treated the poor?’

  Southworth was ashamed. Only Alice Nutter talked to him like this. He was used to high theological arguments, great causes, single-minded passions, and she reminded him that every day poor people suffer for no better reason than that they are poor.

  ‘You are right’ he said, ‘but there will be no justice.’

  Alice shook her head. ‘All the more reason that there should be love.’

  ‘Love? For the Demdike?’

  Alice said, ‘You have a god to forgive you your past. I carry mine with me every day.’

  ‘Why do you call Him my God? Who is yours?’

  Alice did not answer. She was standing up, looking out of the window into the dark and empty courtyard. She said, ‘I will tell you the story of Elizabeth Southern.’

  Elizabeth Southern

  HER FAMILY WERE from Pendle Forest as mine are, but separated by the hill. We did not know e
ach other. Her family had a reputation for witchcraft but I had no interest in that.

  I was married early to Richard Nutter and when he died just as early I was left to fend for myself. That is when I went to work in Manchester, at the Cloth Fair, trading some of my dyes and stuffs.

  I was at my stall one morning when a grave and distinguished gentleman came to me and asked me the date of my birth. I told him, with some surprise, and he quickly made a calculation, nodding his head all the time. Satisfied, he asked me if I would meet him at an address that night. He told me to have no fear – it was in connection with the Great Work, he said. Alchemy, he said. ‘My name is Doctor John Dee.’

  I went to the house at the appointed hour. There were two other people in the room besides John Dee: a man called Edward Kelley and the woman Elizabeth Southern.

  This woman had been working for John Dee for over a year. She had a flair for mathematics and he had taught her how to work out the astrological computations he needed for his work. He used the lunar calendar of thirteen months.

  Edward Kelley was a medium. He claimed he could summon angels and other spirits.

  John Dee asked me if I would be the fourth of the group. He said he had seen it in my face and confirmed it by my nativity.

  I asked him what he had seen but all he said was that I would be suitable for the Work.

  He offered me a sum of money and proposed that we should pursue the Work in Manchester until such time as we would leave for London.

  I had no reason to go home to Pendle and no reason to stay in Lancashire and so I agreed.

  Several months later I was making a preparation of mercury when Edward Kelley came in and announced that Saturn was favourable for the double-coupling. He brought John Dee into the chamber and asked that we all make ourselves naked and invoke the higher power.

  John Dee did not want to do this but Edward told him that an angel had appeared to him in a dream to say that our bodies should be shared in common. The Great Work was to dissolve all boundaries. The Great Work was to transform one substance into another – one self into another. We would merge. We would be transformed.

  I was shy and modest. Elizabeth Southern was not. She asked Edward Kelley to take the long bellows and billow up the flames in the furnace and warm the room. While he was about it, she took thick sheep fleeces from the cupboard and spread them over the floor. Then she undressed.

  I have never seen a more beautiful body on a man or a woman. She was slender, full, creamy, dark, rich, open, luxurious. In her clothes she was like any other well-formed woman, but naked she seemed like something other than, or more than, human. I do not say like a goddess but like an animal and a spirit combined into human form. An angel, Edward Kelley said.

  Both men were erect. They moved to touch her and she kissed them both equally. She had no shame, no fear. What did I feel? I did not feel desire or fear. I felt proud. Does that seem odd to you? I was proud of her.

  John Dee and Edward Kelley had intercourse with her in turn. When it was done John Dee went back to his books, for he was never comfortable with much that was not a book. Edward Kelley fell asleep. They had forgotten me and I had not minded.

  It was evening and the room was hot now and the fire was red in the furnace and we had drunk wine. I was naked but covered.

  Elizabeth leaned up on one arm smiling at me. Looking into her eyes was like looking into another life. She kissed me on the lips. She put her hand between my legs and stroked me until I had nothing in my mind but the colour of magenta.

  ‘This is our love,’ she said.

  Another year passed and all four of us moved to London where John Dee had a laboratory at Mortlake. Then Edward Kelley and John Dee went for a time to Poland. For almost a year Elizabeth and I were alone.

  We rented a warehouse at Bankside where we proceeded with the alchemical work, and where I discovered, quite by chance, the secrets of the dye that has been the foundation of my fortune.

  That year 1582 was the happiest year of my life. Elizabeth and I were lovers and we lived as lovers, sharing one bed and one body. I worshipped her. Where I was shy, she was bold, and where I was hesitant, she was sure. I learned life from her and I learned love from her as surely as I learned astrology and mathematics from John Dee and necromancy from Edward Kelley.

  One night there was a performance at the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch, a mean and riotous place, but a place we enjoyed. I do not remember what we saw, but the Queen herself was there.

  It so happened that I had perfected my magenta dye and I had a dress made that I had dyed myself. I wore it to the performance and every head in the theatre turned to stare at me, such was the shimmer and depth of the hue.

  The next day the Queen sent for me.

  And that was the beginning of my fortune and the beginning of my trials.

  Elizabeth was jealous. She was a jealous woman by nature, and she was jealous of my success and of my money. I was at fault because I did not share everything equally with her. As I grew wealthier I invested my money. I bought her anything she wanted but I would not make her equal.

  And I was no longer interested in the Great Work. What did I care about turning lead into gold when I could turn gold into gold?

  My wealth increased.

  And then the dark came.

  *

  I was at my labour one day when I heard terrible noises coming from the lower laboratory where Elizabeth worked. I ran to the door; it was locked. I begged her to open it, but she would not. I went upstairs, took an axe and broke down the door. Elizabeth was there, slumped at the table, blood streaming down her arm. There was a smell of burning.

  I ran to her – my loved one, my lover, my love – and saw a parchment and paper on the desk. She was still and quiet. I did not know if she was faint or dead. I took some water and roused her.

  ‘I have sold my Soul,’ she said. ‘I have signed in blood.’

  The following day she left the house on Bankside and took a splendid lodging in Vauxhall by the Pleasure Gardens. She had a number of young men and women living there with her. Every night there were parties and revels. Every day the house was closed and silent.

  I called on her many times but her servants had been instructed not to admit me. I had no idea where her money had come from and I assumed she had become the mistress of a lord or a duke.

  I never believed what she had said about her Soul.

  And then John Dee came briefly back to London.

  By this time the laboratory had been left empty. We had both abandoned the Great Work. John Dee came to see me and it is true I felt ashamed because all of this was through him – my chance at life had been through him.

  ‘Do you suppose,’ he said, ‘that the work was about gold, that it was about fancy stuffs such as magenta dyes? Do you not suppose it was about the Soul?’

  ‘I do not know about the Soul,’ I said. ‘We are required to live as we must while we can.’

  ‘Do you believe in God?’

  ‘I don’t think I do.’

  John Dee nodded. ‘Do you believe in the life to come?’

  ‘I don’t think I do.’

  ‘Yet you have seen many strange things with me, have you not? Apparitions, spectres, unaccountable sights not of human form?’

  ‘I think these things are the magick of our own minds, not visitations from elsewhere.’

  ‘Then our minds must be multitudes indeed.’

  ‘I think we are worlds compressed into human form.’

  John Dee looked at me and smiled. ‘Worlds compressed into human form. I like it that you say that. Whatever you are you are not the pragmatist I feared. And I believe that you will guard the secrets that you know – our secrets of alchemy and great intent?’

  I told him I was trustworthy and he said he had always thought it so. Then his face clouded. ‘Elizabeth. I cannot save her. She has taken the Left-Hand Path.’

  ‘Do you say that there is a Devil – pitchfork, hooves, Hell –
who has taken her Soul? Do you say that?’

  ‘The Dark Gentleman has neither pitchfork nor hooves but he is Lord of Hell.’

  That night I wrote a letter to Elizabeth begging her to see me.

  The Net

  CHRISTOPHER SOUTHWORTH WAS on his feet. There was a commotion in the courtyard outside the window. Alice looked out. She could see Harry Hargreaves talking angrily to her groom. His men had caught someone.

  Christopher was pulling on his boots and fastening his dagger. She gave him a key. ‘My study is locked. Stay out of sight until I come for you.’

  Alice tied up her hair, put on a dressing gown, took up a candle.

  As she was about to go, Christopher caught her arm. ‘You said that time was 1582. That was thirty years ago, Alice. How old are you?’

  She said nothing. She opened the door and went downstairs. Her servants were in the hall. There was Constable Hargreaves and James Device.

  ‘James! Have they caught you for poaching on my land?’

  ‘He escaped armed guard at Malkin Tower,’ said Hargreaves.

  ‘I dreamed I was a hare and as a hare I ran away.’

  ‘And what are you doing here, Jem?’ said Alice.

  Jem looked at Alice and said nothing. Hargreaves punched him in the stomach, He doubled up, winded. ‘Looking for a place to hide.’

  ‘And so you came to the Rough Lee?’ said Hargreaves.

  ‘Mistress Nutter will protect me.’

  ‘And why would she protect the likes of you, you ditch-scum?’

  Alice said, ‘Constable Hargreaves, it is late at night. I am not responsible for your drunken guards who let this man escape, nor for his decision to come here. I have barns and stables where he thought he might hide, and I am patron in charity to the Demdike. That is all. Now leave.’

  ‘He came to you …’ repeated Hargreaves. ‘He might have gone anywhere to hide, but he came to you.’ He punched Jem again.

  Jem turned to Alice, hunted as the hare he dreamed himself to be. ‘Help me,’ he said.

  ‘I cannot help you, Jem,’ said Alice.