Thomas nodded, and reached inside his pocket. “Here, my good friend. Take this.”

It was a purse, containing three pounds. How can I put this? I was overcome, as much with gratitude for his generosity as I was by disappointment over his limited means. Ten times that much would have been a start; thirty times could have been spent with ease. And yet, sweet man that he was, he gave me all he had and risked his own future in the gift. You see how much I owed him? Remember this; it is important. I take my debts as seriously as my injuries.

“I cannot thank you enough. Not only for the money, but because you are the only person who believes in me.”

Thomas courteously shrugged it aside. “I wish I could do more. Let us turn to business now. Who might you approach to tell you about what happened to your father?”

“There is only a handful who might know something. Sir John Russell was one, Edward Villiers another. And there was Lord Mordaunt, who did so well from helping the king back onto his throne that he gained a barony and a lucrative sinecure at Windsor as part of his reward. Then, of course, there is whatever I might one day persuade Sir William Compton to tell me.”

“Windsor is not far from here,” Thomas pointed out. “Scarcely a day’s journey, and only a couple if you walk. If Lord Mordaunt is to be found there, then it would be the most economical place to start.”

“What if he will not see me?”

“You can only ask. I recommend that you do not write in advance. It is discourteous, but avoids the possibility that he might be forewarned of your arrival. Go and see him. Then we can decide what to do next.”

We. As I say, underneath that clerical exterior, there was a man yearning for the sort of excitement that a little bit of bread and wine could never provide.

4

Well and good; but before I went, I made the acquaintanceship of the Blundys, mother and daughter, who play such a large role in Cola’s story. In doing so, I set in train events which gained me the most terrible enemy, whom it demanded all my ingenuity and strength to defeat.

I do not know who will read this scribbling of mine; possibly no one except Lower, but I realize that in these pages I will be recording some acts in which I can take little pride. Some I feel no need to apologize for; some cannot be rectified now; some can at least be explained. My dealings with Sarah Blundy were due to my innocence and youthful, trusting nature—by no other means could she have entrapped me, and come close to destroying me entirely. For this I must blame my early upbringing. Before the age of six I was raised for a while by a great-aunt on my mother’s side; a pleasant lady, but very much the country woman, forever brewing and planting and serving physick to the entire area. She had a marvelous book, vellum-bound and gray with ages of fingering, handed down from her own grandmother, of herbal receipts which she would make herself and dispense to all and sundry, highborn or low. She was a powerful believer in magic, and despised those modern preachers (such she called them, for she was born when the great Elizabeth was still thought beautiful) who scorned what she believed to be self-evident. Crumpled bits of paper, and cloud reading and divination by key and Bible were part of my upbringing.

Despite the prelates, I must say I have yet to find any man who really disbelieves in spirits, or doubts that they have the most profound influence on our lives. Any man who has lain awake at night has heard the ghosts of the air as they pass by, all men have been tempted by evil, and many have been saved by good inhabitants of that ethereal space which surrounds this world and joins us to Heaven. Even by their own standards, the sour-faced prelates are wrong, for they hold fast to Scripture, and that states clearly that such creatures exist. Does not St. Paul talk of a voluntary worshipping of angels? (Colossians 2:18.) What do they think Christ drove into the Gadarene swine?

Naturally, it is hard to tell angels from evil spirits, for the latter are adept at disguise, and often beguile men (and more frequently women) into believing they are other than they truly are. The greatest caution is required when making contact with such beings, for we put ourselves in their hands, by creating a debt of obligation to them, and just as a lord or master remembers his debts, so do these creatures, good or evil. By going to old Blundy I took risks that, in the maturity of age’s wisdom, I would now shun. Then I was too carefree and too impatient to be cautious.

Old Blundy was a washerwoman, and by reputation a cunning woman, some said even a witch. This I doubt; I smelled no whiff of sulphur in her presence. I had once encountered what was supposed to be a real witch, who was burned nearby in 1654, and a smelly old hag she was. I now believe this poor woman was probably innocent of the charges which brought her to the stake; the devil is too cunning to make his servants so easily identifiable. He makes them young, and beautiful and alluring, so gracious they might never be detected by the eye of man. Like Sarah Blundy, in fact.

Nonetheless, the mother was a strange old crone, Cola’s description of her is wildly off the mark. Of course, she was not at her best when he encountered her, but I never saw any sign of that sympathetic understanding of which he speaks, nor of gentleness and kindness. And constantly asking questions. It was simple enough what I wanted, I told her eventually. Who betrayed my father? Could she help or not?

It all depended, she said. Did I have suspicions? It made a difference to what she did. And to what she would not do.

I asked her to explain. She said that really difficult problems involved conjuring up particularly powerful spirits; it could be done, but it was dangerous. Although I said I would take the risk, she said she did not mean spiritual dangers; she was afraid of being arrested and charged with necromancy. After all, she did not know who I was. How did she know whether I was sent by a magistrate to trap her?

I protested my innocence, but she would not be moved, and repeated instead her question. Did I or did I not know the identity of my target? Even vaguely? I said I did not.

“In that case we cannot roll names in water. We will have to gaze instead.”

“A crystal ball?” I sneered, for I had heard of such baubles, and was on my guard to avoid being duped.

“No,” she replied seriously. “That is just nonsense used by charlatans. There is no virtue in balls of glass. A bowl of water will suffice just as well. Do you want to go ahead?”

I nodded tersely. She shuffled off to get a saucer of water from the well outside, and I put my money on the table, feeling the skin of my palms beginning to prick with sweat.

She did not bother with any of the mummery that some practitioners adopt—no darkened rooms, no incantations or burning herbs. Just put the bowl on the table, asked me to sit in front of it, and close my eyes. I heard her pour the water in, and heard her pray to Peter and Paul—papist words which sounded strange from her lips.

“Now, young man,” she hissed in my ear when she had finished, “open your eyes and gaze at the truth. Be forthright and be fearless, as the chance may not come again. Look into the bowl and see.”

Sweating profusely, I slowly opened my eyes and bent forward, staring intently at the still and placid water on the tabletop. It shimmered slightly, as though some movement had disturbed it, but there was none; then I saw it grow darker and change in its texture, rather as though it was a curtain or hanging of cloth. And I began to see something emerging from behind this cloth. It was a young man with fair hair, whom I had never seen before in my life though he seemed familiar somehow. He was there only for an instant, and then passed from view. But it was enough; his features were embedded in my mind forever.