Conjuror's Apprentice , livre ebook

Distributed by eBookpartnership - J Williams G

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

175 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Born with the ability to hear thoughts and feelings when there is no sound, Margaretta Morgan's strange gift sees her apprenticed to Doctor John Dee, mathematician, astronomer, and alchemist. Using her secret link with the hidden side and her master's brilliance, Margaretta faces her first murder mystery. In the cruel time of Tudor England, Margaretta and Dee must uncover the evil bound to unravel the court of Bloody Mary.The year is 1555. This is a time ruled by fear. What secrets await to be pulled from the water?

Sujets

Historical fiction

Informations

Publié par	Distributed by eBookpartnership
Date de parution	06 octobre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781839785450
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Conjuror’s Apprentice
The first book in Tudor Rose Murders series
G J Williams

A RedDoor book Published by Ember Press 2022 www.emberpress.co.uk
© 2022 G J Williams
The right of G J Williams to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover design: Kari Brownlie
Typesetting: Jen Parker, Fuzzy Flamingo www.fuzzyflamingo.co.uk
To my dear friends
Contents
Conjuror : One that practises magic arts
Cast of characters
Prologue
Chapter One : May 1555
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Epilogue
Historical Notes
Acknowledgements
Conjuror
One that practises magic arts
D octor John Dee, born in 1527, was described as the Arch Conjuror of England. The reference incensed both him and his supporters. Until this slur he had been seen as the most learned man in England – a scholar whose studies had taken him from Cambridge to Louvain and the other great courts and universities of Europe to work with the most brilliant minds of his time. His studies covered mathematics, astronomy, religion, geography, the great tides of the world, alchemy, and he even drafted the first paper on the English Empire.
But this was not enough for Dee. He craved higher knowledge through magic, the spirit world, communing with angels and the power of crystals and artefacts. It was this wisdom which made him both a favourite of Elizabeth I and yet a dangerous man with whom to be too closely associated. Today his brilliance is clouded in mystique – was he a conjuror of the dark arts or simply a man centuries ahead of his time?
Cast of characters
The Constable household
John Dee – scholar, astronomer, theologian, physician, conjuror
Margaretta Morgan – his apprentice disguised as a maid
Master Constable – merchant
Katherine Constable – his wife
Mam – Margaretta’s mother
Huw – Margaretta’s brother
The Cecil household
William Cecil – lawyer, politician and advisor/friend to Princess Elizabeth
Mildred Cecil – his wife and one of England’s most educated women
Goodwife Barker – housekeeper
Lottie – housemaid
Father Thomas – priest and family friend
The wherrymen
Sam – young wherryman and apprentice
Master Tovey – Sam’s master
Other characters
Robert Meldrew – Architect of the Savoy as it is renovated
Lord Englefield, Thomas Prideaux, George Ferrers – Men of rank at court
Lord Herbert of Pembroke – Courtier, politician, soldier and advisor to monarchs
Susan McFadden – sister to Margaretta, wife to Angus and mother of little Jack
Prologue
T hey dragged the bundle from the small waves lapping detritus at the north shore of the Thames. Robert Meldrew rolled it over and retched. The others ran. In the bloody pulp that had once been a young boy’s face, the broken lips moved with an urgent whisper, but the wind carried the words away.
His finder took a deep breath and bent closer. ‘Say it again, lad.’
The words made no sense, but he could write them later. Behind him, footsteps clattered along the path and then the cry of a nun muffled by the hands she clasped over her face. Meldrew shouted at her to fetch the priest. Then he looked out across the river and screamed, ‘You spleen of Satan! Do not bring your evil here!’ But the wherry was already gone.
Chapter One
May 1555
T he screaming started when the flames licked at their feet. Then the smell of burning flesh. One of the poor wretches screamed to his God to douse the fire. But for these three souls, no one was listening.
Margaretta Morgan turned and ran away; pushing up the thronging street so as not to witness the writhing and begging for mercy, covering her ears to shut out the baying of the crowd and the frightened cries of children. She prayed for the merciful explosion – the sign that someone had the goodness to fill their clothes with gunpowder and blast them to God’s care. It never came. The wretched wailing of burning Protestants still filled the air three streets away. Her head swam with anguish.
Oh God, why did Doctor Dee send me here? He says I am an old soul who may have been on this earth many times. That I have seen too much but that every birth wipes out memory. So I know much and yet recall nothing but this life. So says he. But does being his hidden apprentice make me deserve such lessons?
She bent to be sick in a gutter outside a tavern. Wiping her mouth, there was relief to see a goodwife staring from the battered door. Might she give a little kindness? No. With a screech the tavern woman rushed across the cobbles with a twig broom, yelling that her custom did not want to tread through a weakling’s mess. Margaretta ran. When tears turned to anger she stamped home to the lodging house of Doctor John Dee to tell him that witnessing the horrors of Queen Mary’s venom was no education. It was a cruelty.
As usual the Constables’ house in the parish of St Dunstan’s was in darkness, save a lone candle in her master’s window. John Dee – astronomer, alchemist, mathematician, scryer, all-round optimist in regaining his rank at court and, today, a cruel tutor. She pushed the door and escaped the smell of the foetid River Thames which flowed behind the banking only a patch of grass away from the front wall. One of the mangy hounds ran to her for food. All was quiet. Master Constable would be propped up in a tavern somewhere; Doctor Dee locked in his office preoccupied with numbers, stars and magic; Mam would be sulking in her bed and her brother, Huw, probably still on the riverbank counting wherries. As for Mistress Constable, she never deigned to enter the kitchen since Margaretta, Mam and Huw had arrived, as payment in lieu of Doctor Dee’s lodging rent. ‘As if we were his chattels to lend and loan as he likes,’ she hissed, the horror of the burnings now conflagrating to a general anger with the world.
Margaretta lit a taper from the bread oven cinders and went to the door of John Dee’s room at the top of the stairs. She would speak her mind and say his education was folly, before the passing of the night took the edge off her indignation.
‘Doctor John?’
No answer. He must be sleeping on his desk again. She pushed the door and peeped in. He was bent over, a magnifying glass held close to a paper, his face etched with worry. Fury deserted her.
‘Do you want food, Doctor?’
He grunted and crooked a finger. The desk was a tumult of papers, candles, his measuring implements and a few plates smeared with butter and uneaten breadcrumbs. Manuscripts papered the floor; shelves bowed under books and the room glinted with the objects he had brought from his travels to Louvain, Paris and elsewhere – Mercator’s globes, his treasured magical sigil, brass implements for measuring the stars, all things of magic which still meant little to Margaretta. It smelled of tallow candles and the dried lavender he kept in a silver dish on his mantel. Apparently, angels like sweet smells and will turn their faces from stench. The parchment under inspection was a map of the Thames. He tapped on a bend in the river with the word Savoy next to it.
‘They found him here.’
‘Who, doctor?’
‘A young lad called Jonas Warren. The boatmen pulled him from the water thinking he was a dead seal. Face battered to a pulp. Body broken to pieces.’
Margaretta grimaced. ‘How do you know?’
‘Lord Cecil’s messenger came here this afternoon. He wants me…us…to investigate.’ A pause. ‘Claims an advisor suggested my name.’ The voice was low and bitter. He narrowed his eyes. ‘This might be the chance I have been waiting for.’
‘Chance?’
‘Back to court. Through Cecil.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Dee