"The magic mirror is in the other room," Dee said. "And I don't see what you're so cross about."

"Me, cross?" Kelly said, scowling. "What makes you think I'm cross?"

"Well, you look cross."

"Why should I look cross," Kelly asked, "when I have nothing to complain about? Didn't I follow you and your psychic circus across Europe? Am I not the star act in your dog-and-pony show? Do I not do all the work, the better to give you the energy to enjoy all the credit?"

"Now, Edward," Dee said. "We've been over this ground before. Go see to the arrivals."

Thus grumbling, Kelly went to the door. The servant was never around when you wanted him to do something like this. It didn't take much prognostication to know that the servant was in his room under the eaves, nursing the old war wound he'd got under the Black Prince, or so he told the tale. Kelly thought about Ireland as he walked to the door, Ireland green and boggy, with the young girls who used to walk by him on their way to sheep flocks they tended on the downs beside the cold and glittering sea.

He shook his head irritably. Stop speaking, Memory.

He opened the door.

"Hi," Mack said. "We'd like to speak to Dr. Dee, if you don't mind."

"What do you want to see the doctor about?"

"That's for his ears."

"Give it to my ears or his ears will never hear."

"It's for his ears alone," Mack said.

Kelly shrugged and led them to the sitting room.

"Something secret and important, so he says," Kelly told Dee.

Mack nodded to the doctor and smiled.

"We are interested in buying your magic mirror," he told him. Dee raised his heavy eyebrows.

"Sell you my magic mirror? Sir, you must be daft! A mirror with the power and foresightedness of mine is not sold like a bag of horse feed. This mirror of mine, my dear sir, has been the object of covetousness in royal circles throughout Europe. The king of Poland offered me an estate for it on the Wladiwil, complete with servile peasants and wild boars, and the title of duke to go along with it, and to sweeten the deal he threw in the favors of the beautiful young countess of Radzivill whose callipygian accomplishments have caused restlessness and social upset as far west as the Weser. I turned him down with a laugh, a laugh of scorn, my dear sir, for to offer mere worldly goods for my mirror, which presents a view into the unseen kingdom, and can prognosticate future events, is to offer dross for gold." "I realize that," Mack said. "But I come to you with an offer you can't refuse."

"Can I not, now? Let's hear your offer." Mack produced the scarlet silk handkerchief Mephistopheles had given him, still enfolding its mysterious prize. History fails to tell us what was involved, or its precise effect on the vain and supercilious Dr. Dee. Only one thing is certain. Some ten minutes later, Mack and Marguerite left Dee's house and were on their way to Southwark, the magic mirror under Mack's arm, nestled in a form-fitting case of chamois.

CHAPTER 5

At the theater, the crowd was coming in slowly. Although the theater held somewhat less than three hundred persons, thousands were seeking entry, drawn from all parts of the kingdom. These theatergoers were dressed in all their finery. Men and women alike wore long cloaks, since there was a chill in the air even on this fine May afternoon. The audience was a motley bunch. There were many nobles from the court, among them Lord Salisbury, Lord Dunkirk, Lord Cornwallis, the Lord High Executioner, and Lord Faversham. Some had come with their wives, others with their mistresses, pert in their paste diamonds, and still others, the very young ones, like Lord Dover, who was only eight, with their parents, or tutors, or, as in the case of Viscount Delville, seven years old and sickly, with their bodyguard-doctors. These were the notables; but most of the audience was made up of common people: heavyset cloth merchants from Meaching Row, tall, thin apothecaries from Pall Mall and Cheapside, angular feed merchants from Piccadilly, and the even commoner son, sturdy vagabonds who had cadged a ticket and called no man master, soldiers on leave from the Netherlandish wars with their fantastical plumed caps and deep-cut sleeves. There were more than a few clerics in the crowd, who had come not to amuse themselves but out of a serious purpose, because Faustus was supposed to be a sacrilegious play, and they expected to get good material out of it for their Sunday sermons. They all trooped in, jostling and hawking and spitting and buying oranges and little bags of candy from the wenches who provided such things, and they gawked around at the theater, which was small and oval-shaped with a row of boxes to either side, and a raised stage that extended out over the foremost ranks of the audience.

Flambeaux flickered in the din of loud English voices calling to one another. "I say, Harry!"

"Look, here come Melisande and Cuddles!" And the like.

The admission at the door for those without passes was threepence ha'penny, for the Earl of Netting'

ham's men didn't do this for free. But they paid anyway and no demurs were raised in that free-spending, easy-thinking crowd, for this was a day of celebration, and the future was uncertain, for if the Spanish Armada landed, as some predicted, and prevailed over the naval forces of the red-haired queen, your money wouldn't be worth boo anyway. Down near the candled floodlights, the groundlings had assembled in their best piebald hose and multicolored jerkins to talk and carouse and make japes at the actors.

To a flourish of trumpets, Edward Alleyn came out upon the stage. Young Will Shakespeare, already balding, noted for his future use how the chattering young fops and their loud-laughing ladies quieted for a moment. The houselights of magnesia and naphtha were set alight in pewter bowls set on top of three-legged standards. They had recently replaced the adamantage, the old rush stage lighting in a copper pot that had served well enough in pretheater days. Sparks were applied to them and they flared up, calling the audience to attention. The hautboys in the small ensemble took up the Faustus theme.

The setting on the stage represented the town of Wittenberg in the previous century. It was quite realistic except for the fact that the Draken watchtower where Faustus would later meet the Spirit of Earth was leaning somewhat precariously to the left, for stage design was still in its infancy and proper bracing for the sets would only be achieved in the early eighteenth century. As the curtain went up there was a prolonged clearing of throats, this being the height of the phlegm season, and a rustling of feet covered in many different substances, but most of them consisting of an irregular and scratchy surface, the only sort you'd expect in this day of preindustrial handicrafts. Their roughness accounted for the annoying sounds they made when dragged back and forth through the eggshells and orange peels and the peanut hulls covering the floor in that year of plague when the populace was mad for amusements and willing to pay any price for them.

Just as the performance was beginning Mack hurried in late, and slid along a row of seats with murmured sorrys and oh-excuse-mes and took his seat somewhat breathlessly, the magic mirror, safe in the chamois case, clutched to his side. Marguerite followed, and took her seat beside him with a giggle of girlish anticipation.

"I've never seen a play before," she confided. "Is it like sitting around telling stories?"

"Very similar," Mack said. "Except that people act out the story instead of someone telling it."

"Or sometimes both," a man sitting beside him remarked.

Mack turned. A man of middle years was sitting beside him, robust of form and ruddy of face, with piercing dark eyes and a look of hawklike intelligence.