The Astrologer's Daughter. Paula Marshall

rained for weeks.

      Kit’s man brought his guitar, Mistress Hart the wine and goblets. Adam was proud that his possessions were so fine. The yeoman’s cottage where he had begun his days seemed far away. The steward came and a man following him in the Duke’s colours handed the wine about. Kit tuned his guitar, bent his head over it, looked up and this time collected Celia’s eyes.

      ‘A song for you, mistress, seeing that you have been a good and obedient clerk. It is one of the late Will Shakespeare’s and is a favourite of George’s. The cherubim will envy this.’ It was the longest speech he had yet made. His musician’s hands plucked the strings. He sang, and his voice was so soft and tender that the tears started in Celia’s eyes.

      O mistress mine! where are you roaming?

      O! stay and hear; your true love’s coming,

      That can sing both high and low.

      Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

      Journey’s end in lovers’ meeting,

      Every wise man’s son doth know…

      What is love? ’tis not hereafter;

      Present mirth hath present laughter;

      What’s to come is still unsure:

      In delay there lies no plenty;

      Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,

      Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

      Kit had kept his eyes on Celia while he sang and, when all was silent at the end, repeated, ‘Youth’s a stuff will not endure,’ not in his singing mode but low, breathily, as if he were giving her a message and they were alone in the garden, Adam and Eve together. But the serpent—where was he?

      Buckingham spoke. It was to quote from Twelfth Night, the play from which the song was taken. ‘“A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.” Well sung, Kit. Thy singing matches the wine. Matchless, Master Antiquis, like your talent—and your daughter. A toast to thee, Mistress Celia. A fairer face never adorned the court.’

      There was mockery in his tone, but Adam was deaf to it. He took all as his due. This was his zenith, his apogee, to have a Duke in his garden, one of the King’s favourites singing to his daughter—for he knew of Kit Carlyon if Celia did not—wine before them and a meal waiting in his parlour, for the steward was at the garden door summoning them to eat.

      Celia heard the Duke’s mockery, saw his knowing eye on her, and thought how much she preferred his friend, who had behaved so quietly, who had noted her earlier distemper, but had not refined on it to distress her. So, when Buckingham said to the steward, ‘In with you, man; Master Antiquis will accompany me and Sir Kit will take a turn around the garden with Mistress Celia before he brings her in to dine with us, for he hath a great interest in posies as well as poesies,’ she felt no fear of Kit.

      She allowed him to take her arm after he had handed his guitar to his waiting servant, whose grin after Celia had walked away from him, her hand on Kit’s arm, was as knowingly insolent as only a servant’s could be.

      Kit had not known what to expect when Buckingham had collected him at Whitehall. He had watched the Duke order the hampers of food to be loaded into the barge. He had laughingly told Kit to take his guitar with him to old Antiquis’s home, ‘For music undoes more ribbons and buttons than fingers do—as well you know.’

      He had passed the house on the Strand many times. It was a decent place with its own curtilage. Many of the dwellings had gardens at the back. He had not accompanied the Duke to the astrologer’s before. Kit had grave doubts about astrology—he thought it a fraud and those who practised it mere tricksters.

      Adam and his home had impressed him. There was a decency about it, a plainness, nothing tawdry. He had expected toads, perhaps, dried and pinned to the walls, mystic cabala—all the trappings of the charlatan—but nothing to that. Master Antiquis’s home was as grave as an Oxford scholar’s, like the rooms he remembered being tutored in that last year before the world fell in and he became a penniless rover around the principalities of Europe and the Turkish dominions.

      Celia was a surprise, too. She was quite unlike Buckingham’s usual fancies. He had supposed her to be a knowing lass, sure of herself—George had told him that she was her father’s clerk. He had also called her a chaste Diana—but anyone who held him off was a chaste Diana, until she became the Whore of Babylon in his arms. Once the girl was conquered, George moved on. One day, however, Fate would play one of her tricks on him and cause him to fall desperately in love with someone quite unworthy, and leave him unable to move on—but that day lay in the future. For the present, he enjoyed life and defied it to rule him.

      Yes, that grave face, the cleanly dress, the modest deportment—for there was nothing tawdry about the astrologer’s daughter; she matched his home—came as a surprise. But she was a woman and therefore to be won. What lay behind that demure mask? Could Kit Carlyon transform her to desire itself, writhing in his arms? To win her would be to win a trophy worth having, but only a cur would despoil her innocence.

      Almost he cancelled the bet, handed George the ring he coveted. And then, why then, she showed the cloven hoof! Belial had laid his mark on her. The coy trance into which she had fallen was there to fetch him—or the Duke—was it not? Why, if Buckingham had but continued to pursue her, he could have had the sweet cheat for himself. Her tricks, like her father’s, were not obvious ones, but tricks they were.

      What was it that Shakespeare had said? ‘Springes to catch woodcocks.’ He, Kit Carlyon, would not be a woodcock. She had given him her blind grey look and he had refused to answer it. Oh, she had known that he was there and had refused to look further. Another sweet trick.

      He had sung to her and for a moment their eyes had met again. When she rose to accompany him on the Duke’s order, all in one fluid movement, her body was momentarily outlined beneath the concealing gown and he caught his breath at the sight of it. It was as purely lovely as her face with its classic profile.

      But oh, he must go carefully with her. He had spoken little. To win her would need all his arts for, were he to be clumsy, as Buckingham had been, sure in his power to woo and win, he would lose her. Never underestimate a clever woman—and the astrologer’s daughter was clever.

      He put out his arm for her to hold and, when she took it, there was the sweet smell of her—lavender, a country perfume for a town girl—and he led her along her garden path—to perdition and surrender, he hoped.

       Chapter Two

       ‘A fine garden, Mistress Celia. Are you the gardener?’

      Celia shook her head and said a little timidly, which was most unlike her, for she was usually controlled where the opposite sex was concerned. ‘I tend the herbs only, Sir Christopher. Our handyman, Willem, cares for the rest.’

      ‘The herbs?’ Kit looked about him but saw no herbs. Celia gestured towards a wicker arch, with climbing plants wreathed about it, through which a further garden could be seen.

      ‘If you are interested in herbs, Sir Christopher, then mine lie through there.’

      ‘Then I would visit them, Mistress Celia.’ And he led her through the arch to find himself in a knot garden where, instead of flowers, herbs were arranged. Along the brick wall which divided them from the next property stood terracotta urns, filled with more plants whose scents perfumed the air.

      Kit bent down to pluck a sprig of thyme and sniff it before handing it to Celia. ‘You use herbs in your mysteries, Mistress Celia?’

      Celia crushed the thyme in her hands before smelling it and answered him. ‘I have no mysteries, Sir Christopher, but yes, I use the herbs. Like Mistress Ginner, of whom you may have heard, I serve those women among us who need help in their sicknesses. Culpepper hath shown us the virtues herbs possess, and both my father and I believe that they possess others, yet unknown. Since the willow gives us surcease from pain and mould from many plants aids in healing wounds, may it not