She stepped into the room, lit by only one green brassica lamp. Astrophil was perfectly still and silent. She had the impression that he did not dare speak to her in the company of John Dee. She, too, felt uneasy that this foreigner knew her name, had plucked her out of hundreds of servants, and had steered her past the guards onto the fourth floor.
He moved in the shadows. He lit several candles by two velvet chairs. “Would you care to sit down?”
Petra sat. So did he. His robes blended into the chair. Petra couldn’t tell where the chair stopped and the man began. He waited for her to speak.
She looked around the room. John Dee was a lover of games. There was a chessboard, an open box with a red felt interior and two sets of dice, and an odd board covered with black and white disks. The only game she could play decently was cards, and even then Tomik often beat her. Still, she decided to try bluffing. In a voice strong with all the confidence that she didn’t feel, she said, “What do you want from me? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
She wasn’t sure what effect she hoped for, but amusement wasn’t it. As Dee laughed, Petra suspected that he had noticed her eyeing his games (maybe he had, in fact, left them out deliberately) and guessed her feeble attempt at strategy. It was even possible, she thought with dawning fear, that he was able to read her mind. She remembered Astrophil’s silence, and realized that this had already occurred to the spider.
“My dear,” Dee said, “the question you should be asking is this: ‘Do we want the same thing?’”
Petra folded her arms. “Fine. Do we?”
“Look in the box on my writing table.”
“Which box?” For there were several, of all sizes and made of different kinds of wood. The man was clearly fascinated by boxes—or, at least, he wanted people who entered his room to believe he was.
“The long, flat one made of mahogany,” Dee said.
She paused.
“Mahogany is a red wood, harvested in a tropical land where everyone is born as a twin,” he told her.
Petra gave Dee an odd look. Did he know that she had been a twin? She walked toward the escritoire, making sure not to turn her back on him. She selected the box and opened it. Inside was a small oil painting of a woman with red hair piled on her head in elaborate twists. She was wearing a full yellow dress studded with jewels. But as Petra looked more closely, she saw that they were not jewels but dozens of eyes and ears. She slammed the box shut.
“She is the queen of my country,” said Dee. “I am Her Majesty’s most valued eyes and ears. I suppose you could call me a ‘spy,’ though I think that word hardly suits my skills. Your prince may think I am here on a purely ambassadorial visit, to amuse him with fireworks and stories about places he has never seen. I hope, however, that he does not think this, for that would belie the intelligence I know he has.”
“I don’t see what I have to do with anything you’re talking about. I’m just a servant girl.”
“If you are a servant, then you will obey my commands. You will obey me when I suggest that you do not pretend to be ignorant. It wastes my time and yours.”
She was silent.
“Let us play a quick game. It is a game of deduction. If I know who you are, then does it not stand to reason that I know a little more about you? What would Petra Kronos, daughter of Mikal Kronos, be doing miles away from her home in the sleepy village of Okno?”
“How do you know who I am?”
“I have my ways.” Dee noted her frustrated expression with a small smile. “Being the daughter of an artisan, you won’t blame me for keeping my trade secrets, I’m sure. If you would like to know what they are, why, then, you would have to come work for me.”
Petra snorted. She forgot the nervousness she had felt when she first walked into the room. Strangely, the fact that this man knew her identity made her feel free. No matter what she said or did, her fate was now in John Dee’s hands. There was only one thing left for her to do: despise him for it.
“I would like to share some information with you,” Dee continued. “I would like to tell you that more things are at stake here than your little plot. England knows about the prince’s weapon. I am speaking, of course, about the clock your father built. We know that the prince does not yet understand how to use it. But it is only a matter of time before he does, or finds someone who can. He would have done better to keep your father close at hand, locked up and easily accessible for information. But the prince is young and proud of his own skills. He also has a fatal weakness for beauty and those who produce it. No doubt he thought that by sending your father home, he was honoring both him and his own ability to eventually master the thing your father created. But what if the prince gives up trying to prove that he is just as talented as Mikal Kronos? It may not be long before the prince admits his mistake and sends your father an invitation to the castle. But will it be an invitation mounted on rich cloth and tied with a ribbon? Or will it perhaps be one accompanied by armor and swords and pikes?
“What? Silent, Petra? I would have thought that this was a topic close to your heart. But, well, if you do not feel it is important enough to discuss, we can move on.
“I wonder: have you ever considered why the symbol of Bohemian royalty is a salamander?”
She said nothing, but glared.
“A salamander loves fire. It lives in it, breathes in it, survives in spite of—because of—the heat that would kill you or me. The choice of symbols is never random. The princes of Bohemia have never been afraid of trouble. They have invited it. They have encouraged anger between the rich and poor to split the people into classes that despise each other. They have pushed their people to the brink of starvation. They have courted war. Prince Rodolfo is not afraid of, shall we say, a little heat. Because heat is what gives him power.
“It is one political view. It is not for me to say whether it is bad or good. It is a strategy, and certainly the princes of Bohemia have profited by it. We English, however, are rather cold fish. Ours is a chilly climate. It rains enough to make a person feel perpetually damp. Our patron saint is George the Dragon Slayer. The symbol we have chosen shows a battle against a fire-breathing beast. It shows the death of fire.
“Obviously international politics interests you very little. Those … unusual silver eyes of yours turn away as if you were listening to a boring school lesson. You do not see much beyond a horizon of yellow hills and your petty familial problems. But I assure you that Europe hangs in the balance. And I will make you care about it.