House Of Shadows. Nicola Cornick

about the Sistrin.’

      ‘The Sistrin,’ Holly said, and as she said the name she felt something shift inside her like the faintest of echoes, as though she had heard the word before. ‘That is the name of the pearl,’ she said softly.

      ‘It is,’ Shurmer said. ‘But before I tell you about it, Miss Ansell, we must go back a little.’ He gestured to her to sit beside him on one of the museum’s wide leather benches. ‘You will humour an old man, I hope.’

      It felt something of a royal edict. Holly sat.

      Espen Shurmer waved a hand towards the cabinet that was closest to them. ‘You see the crystal mirror, here? What do you think of it?’

      Holly followed his gaze. The same display case that held the rose-coloured engraved glass also held a number of other objects, but amongst all the gorgeously extravagant glassware they had been all but invisible to her. Now she saw them: a signet ring, a sapphire necklace set in dull gold, and a small mirror in a wooden frame that was studded with diamonds. It was shaped like a teardrop with a worn handle at the base. It was beautiful, a piece of workmanship so delicate it looked as though it would be too fragile to hold. The glass shone with a milky bluish radiance. Yet there was something about it that Holly did not like.

      ‘It’s a stunning piece of work,’ she said carefully.

      ‘It is Murano crystal,’ Shurmer said, ‘and was a gift to Mary, Queen of Scots when she wed Francois II of France. It is pretty, is it not?’

      That was something of an understatement, Holly thought. The mirror was exquisite. Yet there was also something malevolent about it. She did not want to look into it though she was not exactly sure what it was about it that scared her.

      ‘Mary was Elizabeth’s grandmother, wasn’t she?’ she asked. ‘Did she bequeath it to her?’

      The lines deepened about Shurmer’s eyes as he smiled. ‘After a fashion,’ he said. ‘It was stolen by Elizabeth I of England when she had Mary put to death. Later Elizabeth sent it back to Scotland as a christening gift for Elizabeth Stuart, who was her goddaughter. It was, however, something of a cursed gift.’

      ‘Cursed?’ Holly said. She didn’t believe in the supernatural. She had never liked things she could not explain: ghosts, the Loch Ness monster, even the placebo effect. Even so, she felt the goosebumps creep along the back of her neck.

      ‘The mirror became a tool for necromancy,’ Shurmer said. ‘Soothsaying,’ he added, in response to Holly’s enquiring glance. ‘After Frederick lost his throne he became obsessed with the need to know whether he would ever regain his patrimony. He was a member of the Order of Knights of the Rosy Cross. They were said to have the power of foretelling the future and they used the crystal mirror in their magic.’

      ‘I remember reading about the Knights of the Rosy Cross years ago,’ Holly said. ‘Some people thought them healers rather than magicians. And some said they were charlatans in league with the devil.’

      ‘Very good, Miss Ansell.’ Shurmer was nodding his approval. ‘The Knights of the Rosy Cross were many things to many men.’ Then as she smiled, he said: ‘Forgive me. I sound like a teacher, I know, but it is rare to meet someone who has heard of the Order of the Rosy Cross.’ He sighed. ‘Legend has it that the Knights used a number of tools in their scrying, but that the jewelled mirror was the most important because it had the power to reflect the future. It had been forged in fire, you see, and it was said that as from fire it had come, so into fire it would lead its enemies.’

      Holly gave a little involuntary shiver. She found she did not want to look directly at the mirror now, but paradoxically it almost felt as though it was willing her to turn, beckoning her gaze. Very deliberately she shifted so that her back was towards it.

      ‘The mirror was said to have caused the death of Henry, Lord Darnley, in an explosion and fire,’ Shurmer said. ‘It was also rumoured to have foretold the Gunpowder Plot. On the very day of the Princess Elizabeth’s christening, her nurse saw a vision of hellfire and flame in the mirror and the child upon the throne of England.’

      ‘I know that the plotters planned to set Princess Elizabeth up as a puppet queen,’ Holly said, ‘but since the Gunpowder Plot didn’t actually succeed, technically it can’t be said that the mirror predicted the future.’

      Shurmer’s eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘I see that you are a most logical person, Miss Ansell.’

      ‘I try to be,’ Holly said.

      Shurmer’s smile deepened. ‘Then I doubt you will believe for a moment the tales of the Knights and their soothsaying,’ he said. ‘Or a mirror that can destroy its enemies through fire.’

      ‘It’s certainly a great story,’ Holly said. ‘How did the mirror come into your collection?’

      ‘That was by fortunate chance,’ Shurmer said. The bright white lights of the exhibition cases threw the shadows of his face into stark relief. Suddenly he looked frail, the skin stretched too taut across his cheekbones, his eyes tired.

      ‘For many years the mirror was missing,’ he said. ‘It was believed buried with Frederick, but Frederick’s tomb was lost during the Thirty Years War. Then the mirror miraculously reappeared in the late twentieth century at a car boot sale in Corby in Northamptonshire.’

      Holly almost choked. ‘Forgive me,’ she said, ‘but you do not strike me as the sort of man who spends his time attending car boot sales.’

      Shurmer laughed. ‘What I should have said is that I was alerted to the fact that there was a very old, very fine mirror for sale. An … associate of mine bought it and mentioned it to me. He knew that I was interested in seventeenth-century artefacts, particularly those from the Bohemian court.’

      ‘I suppose it had no provenance?’ Holly said.

      Shurmer shook his head. ‘Naturally not. But it matches the known descriptions and pictures of the Murano crystal mirror.’

      ‘Did you have it authenticated?’ Holly asked. It would be the natural thing to do; call in a group of experts to assess the mirror and confirm its age and origin. Yet Espen Shurmer was shaking his head again and she sensed that his belief in the mirror and its myth was so strong that either he believed it absolutely without the need for proof or he did not want to question it too closely in case he destroyed the legend.

      Of course he might be right. It could indeed be the very mirror that the Winter King had used to foresee the future. Holly glanced at it again and felt the same disturbing pull. A breath of wind seemed to ripple through the still air of the gallery. The lights seemed to shimmer and the mirror glowed in its case as though it were alive. She shuddered, closing her eyes. When she reopened them the gallery swam back into her vision, all bright lights and clean modern lines. It looked normal, just an empty room with old objects in display cases.

      ‘That brings us to the Sistrin pearl,’ Shurmer said, ‘for the crystal mirror was not the only gift bequeathed to Elizabeth by her grandmother. It was matched with a jewel of rare beauty and price.’ He waved a hand towards the miniature of young Elizabeth that was displayed in the glass cabinet. Holly saw that she was wearing a string of pearls with one huge drop pearl in the centre. The simplicity of the necklace and the radiance of the jewels suited the innocence of the portrait. Curiously though, the big pearl was shaped exactly like the crystal mirror. It was a pear shape, or teardrop.

      ‘The Sistrin pearl was also said to hold great magic.’ Shurmer, too, was looking towards the cabinet where the pearl gleamed at Elizabeth’s neck. ‘It was supposedly a powerful talisman for good, but like the mirror it also possessed the power to wreak destruction if it was misused.’

      ‘Old pearls almost always have some sort of legend attached to them, though, don’t they?’ Holly said. ‘I mean, usually they have belonged to pirates or they are cursed or something. It was a very superstitious age.’

      ‘That is true,’ Shurmer said. ‘Certainly the Knights of the Rosy Cross believed