The house of the wizard

Superstition works its own miracles, and strangely enough, even in the Tower of London, its spell took effect. The royal officers had secured the person of the wizard and had suffered no harm from the contact. It was true that one young man had fallen in a fit at some strange vision in the wizard’s house, but the others were unscathed. Yet the power of the little man’s strange eyes and stranger manner worked upon them, and no prisoner in the Tower was better treated or with more reverence. The warder locked him in with shaking hands, his knees knocking together, and but for the sharper terror of the rope at Tyburn, he might have failed to turn the key upon his captive. The sentinels within the Traitor’s Gate declared that at midnight the small man in a russet cloak passed between them, not in natural shape, but floating past them like a vapor, going through the close-barred wicket to the river and returning again at dawn. Of food, the wizard had an abundance; he had but to express the wish for some new viand, accompanying it with a gruesome prophecy in regard to his keeper’s future, and the dish was immediately forthcoming. They denied him nothing; when other prisoners shivered, he had a fire; when better men languished in the dark, he had twenty tall tapers burning around his room. He was freely supplied with pen and paper, and he filled the sheets with cabalistic signs which froze the blood of his attendants. One of the bolder warders refused to tend his fire for him; the wizard looked up with a strange face and passed his hands before his eyes.

“Thy wife has a fit,” he said calmly; “the baby is born dead.”

The man hurried from the room, grumbling at the prisoner as an evil croaker, and at the door he heard the news confirmed. After that he almost grovelled in his anxiety to serve the evil little man who only laughed and mocked his terror. Nothing but a wholesome fear of Cromwell’s anger kept such a prisoner in the Tower; a thousand times he could have escaped, but that, at the last moment, the thought of the privy seal stayed the hands of his would-be liberators. Cromwell could not be trifled with; his arm was long, his vengeance swift, his eye that of a hawk looking for prey. Between the two, the magician and the king’s minister, the warders of the Tower lived as men do between the devil and the deep sea.

It was the day after Prince Edward’s great christening, and the wizard sat in his prison watching the blaze leap from the logs piled in his chimney. The wind was chill without, but he was warm, thanks to the terror of his jailers. He sat on a low stool, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, gazing at the flames as if he loved them; the red glow of the fire flaring on his wizened face and in his wonderful eyes. He was dressed in russet-colored damask, a cape of Flanders lace about his neck, and on his head a pointed scarlet cap with an opal in the front, clasping the one stiff feather. He wore velvet shoes, scarlet like his cap, and on his thin, long-fingered hands were some curious rings, all strangely wrought and fantastic in design. He had but recently stirred the fire, and the blaze leaped up the chimney with a merry roar and crackle. So intent was he in his study of it that he never turned his head when the warder opened his door and admitted two closely muffled women. The visitors came in a little way and stopped, looking at him without speaking, while the warder, after staring in with wide-mouthed curiosity, retreated in fear of provoking the wizard’s displeasure. When he had closed the door, the scene remained for some moments unchanged; the two women standing together, evidently watching the magician, though their mantles concealed their faces, and he still gazing fixedly at the blaze as if he read some story in it. There was no sound but the sharp crackle of the wood, and there was something unpleasantly awe-inspiring in the stillness of the gloomy place, where no light shone but the red one of the flames. Presently the wizard broke the silence. He had not shown by any sign or movement that he had seen his visitors, but he addressed them now, though without turning his head or glancing in their direction.

“My Lady Crabtree and Mistress Carew, you are welcome,” he said calmly; “come to the fire and be seated.”

Old Madam laughed harshly.

“What is the use to wear a mask?” she said; “the creature hath eyes in the back of his head like a spider.”

As she spoke, she drew nearer the fire and seated herself on a settle opposite the astrologer, and Betty came over and stood beside her, looking eagerly at the weird figure before them.

“You came from Hampton Court,” remarked the wizard composedly, for the first time looking at them attentively, “with the king’s warrant to visit the Tower in the matter of my Lord Raby.”

“We came to see you, sir,” Betty said earnestly, “to learn the truth. We are convinced that you can clear him if you will. In common charity, I pray you, help us untangle this conspiracy against an innocent man.”

“Ay, I know the truth,” retorted the magician; “’tis my business; but why should I make my Lord Raby’s affairs mine?”

“Tush, Sanders!” exclaimed Lady Crabtree, who was unmoved by any awe of him, “do not play the innocent. We all know that you are knee-deep and elbow-deep in this conspiracy and like to hang at Tyburn.”

“Nay, I will never hang,” replied the wizard coldly, fixing his large and marvellously radiant eyes upon her, “nor will the prince baptized last night live to manhood.”

“Pshaw!” said Lady Crabtree, with a laugh, “it takes no magician to predict danger to the baby with the rumpus they are making over it; any old wife can beat you there as a prophet!”

The strong-minded old woman had thrown back her wraps and sat by the fire, her hawk-like nose and square chin sharply outlined in the red light, and her great frame contrasting strangely with the diminutive one of the prisoner. The two natures, naturally defiant and antagonistic, recognized the qualities which made them so, and they eyed each other in mutual dislike and suspicion. But Betty Carew had only the one object and hope, and something in her beauty perhaps appealed to Sanders, for he treated her with more consideration than usual; he had, too, his own reasons for aiding her. She came a step nearer now and stood looking at him; her hood had fallen back and revealed her head, with its black hair uncovered, framing her pale but handsome face; her hands hung loosely clasped before her, and the firelight played in her deep brown eyes.

“I pray you,” she said eagerly, “consider that he who so entangled Raby by placing that packet on his person,—in some marvellous manner,—he also must have betrayed you. Your cause is therefore identical with ours. Surely you can think of some one who had the means to compass this—and the will.”

The wizard looked at her thoughtfully; not a change of expression denoted that he felt any interest in what she said.

“Lord Raby had a servant,” he replied, deliberately stirring the fire; “he can tell you all you wish to know.”

“We thought of that,” cried Betty; “but it is judged impossible that so ignorant a man could have had access to the papers which are now in the hands of Cromwell.”

“Nevertheless, I tell you, find him,” returned the wizard, calmly.

“He hath been already interrogated,” replied Betty, sadly, “and now we know not where he is—since Lord Raby dismissed him.”

“He is in a house in Cheapside,” said the astrologer. “You may find it easily; the door is painted green and hath a rat-hole in the lower left-hand corner; there are three windows in the front of the house, each different in size and shape. He sleeps in the attic.”

“He will tell us nothing,” Betty answered in despair; “we have tried, and my Lord Raby is sure he knows nothing.”

The wizard laughed, not mirthfully, but as if he relished some grim joke.

“He is in that attic,” he said dryly; “take him and he will tell you all.”

“I tell you,” cried Betty, with impatience, “he will tell us nothing.”

“Singe him,” retorted the wizard, with a grin; “my lord privy seal can teach you how to entreat a prisoner to speak.”

Betty recoiled with horror, but old Madam caught at the idea.

“The man is right,” she remarked calmly; “’tis easy enough to screw out the truth. But verily, Sir Wizard, is there not more to tell?”

The little magician shrugged his shoulders.

“I have told enough,” he said; “a woman who is near fourscore should know the rest without telling.”

This reference to Lady Crabtree’s age brought the angry blood to her face; she never admitted it to any one, and to find that this strange creature knew it, moved her to wrath. She rose and gathered her mantle about her.

“Come Betty,” she said sharply, “we but waste time on this fool. Let us begone.”

The wizard sat laughing silently, his sinister face lighted up with malicious enjoyment.

Betty lingered a moment, while Lady Crabtree hurried to the door.

“Is there nothing else?” she asked earnestly; “no other way?”

“If you follow my instructions,” replied the wizard, “all will be well; if not—” He shrugged his shoulders.