Chapter Text
It had fallen to him to provide the blood of course, as Norrell would not - Strange wasn’t even certain the older magician could physically bring himself to do such a thing. Whilst Strange was not exactly accustomed to bleeding himself for the sake of a spell, he had done it before and wasn’t about to baulk at the idea now.
Norrell had fretted incessantly for two weeks that the spell was not right - that it could be refined further - that they should study further. This current argument was simply the latest in an endless line of spell-related obstacles that Strange had not only had to navigate, but coax or encourage Norrell through. Finicky, stubborn old scholar, Strange had thought at the start. Anyone would have thought he wanted to remain in the darkness…
(This wasn’t true, but it is fair to say that the darkness had never grated upon the older magician as it sometimes did upon the younger. And why should it? Norrell was like a small owl, blinking his eyes from the comfort and security of his own dark little nest.)
Strange quirked an eyebrow at the shelves of Hurtfew’s library: they were not at their full strength but they had been replenished remarkably. A dozen were actual volumes that they had found (bought, bartered and in one case stolen) in their travels through the Other Lands. But aside from that, the other space on the shelves was occupied solely with notebooks and papers - all full of the magicians’ own writings. They recorded faithfully the spells they had practiced in England (Norrell’s often adorned with precise, dull footnotes of excruciating detail) and they also recorded the places they had visited, the encounters they had there and what they had learnt. (It was well that Norrell had quite quickly overcome his old fear of setting imperfect thought to paper, or else Strange’s hand would have become irreparably cramped around his quill.)
The younger magician dryly remarked that from where he stood, it seemed they had done quite enough study already.
“That is not so - as well you are aware. There is still the matter of where we shall return to once the curse is broken. Of course one assumes it is England, but there is nothing in the particulars to suggest such a thing. You were in Venice when the curse first affected you - who is to say we shall not arrive in Venice? Or Lost Hope? Or Africa? Or in a mountain or at the bottom of the ocean…”
“Add a skimmer of Gwent’s - whatsit - Verum Loci Locus,” he offered, off the cuff. Strange was excellent when it came to remembering the magician who had first used or set down the spell in the old histories, but he could have a devil of a time remembering the specific names (many of which were fanciful and had nothing to do with the spell’s actual purpose.) “Put it between the Path and the First Key.”
“Gwent never used it in that way. You are forever bending spells to tasks they were not made for sir! I am very surprised that it hasn’t landed you…” Here Norrell tried to think of an awful and dire predicament, but his imagination was slow to furnish him with one.
“In a pillar of endless night?” Strange asked mildly, at exactly the same time Norrell finished, “In - in a mountain before now.”
Both men regarded one another for several moments. Neither spoke.
Strange sighed. “I understand your reserve, believe me sir, I do. However I wish you’d stop going on about mountains and oceans! You know as well as I that the nagrienne within the Third Key prohibits such misfortune - it’s what it’s there for.”
Mr Norrell was perfectly aware of it, but as a child he had often had nightmares of being dropped down a well and buried by some malicious person: being stuck in a cave or buried by something held a particular horror for him. As soon as he realised there was a nagrienne in the Third Key preventing such a thing, he realised that should the spell go wrong such a thing was possible. It had haunted his thoughts regularly ever since. He shuddered. “It is a capital mistake to act when one’s data is both untried and suspect! It may be incorrect or simply not up to the task it’s called upon to…”
“Mr Norrell!” Strange snapped, his voice strained. “Might I remind you sir that we bow our heads to a schedule? Whilst I have enjoyed the past century I believe stomaching another three would be quite beyond me.”
(For breaking a curse, the auspicious times are: a year and a day, one hundred years, four hundred, one thousand six hundred, and four thousand. There is no record even in the Other Lands of anyone surviving and breaking a curse older than that.)
The other gentleman had startled, and then looked fidgety which was the closest countenance he ever gave towards expressing contrition. “There is,” he offered quietly, “the matter of the vitae.”
Mr Strange’s eyes still showed a flicker of exasperation, but his smile was reassuring. “I have already told you that I am happy to oblige in...”
Mr Norrell’s voice was not raised, but his interruption had the sort of stubborn bluntness more commonly found in dry-stone walls. “Heart’s blood, Mr Strange - heart’s blood!” He rocked forward as he said it as if he could foist some sense onto his former pupil. “This is not a mere cut of the finger!”
“I quite agree,” said Strange with infuriating calmness. “But as you have frequently pointed out, Faery magic is imprecise - and it is exactly those imprecisions that we are seeking to take advantage of. The spell calls for a silver bowl of heart’s blood. Every drop within a man is ‘heart’s blood’ - what else should it possibly be? - but there’s no indication the bowl need be a large one. This means I merely make an incision on the inner-side of my arm and fill that little silver punch cup from the dinning-room cabinet…” A moment later, Strange’s face made a mild expression of distaste without him seeming to be aware of it. “My father insisted on being bled once a season by his doctor - did it all his life. It never afforded him any harm.” A touch of wormwood lurking in his tone suggested he’d rather wished it had.
Strange remembered seeing the procedure several times in his boyhood: the doctor had held a thumb over the crook of the man’s elbow where the skin was pale and tender, and pressed down until the blue traceries that hid beneath the flesh swelled closer to the surface. Then Dr Braidwood had plucked up a knife with a tiny blade and made a precise and flicking motion against that spot of skin. Instantly a neat spring of red pulsed forth into the basin waiting beneath it on the table. The doctor had watched the blood until the puddle of red was deep enough to reach a specific indentation on the inside of the pottery. Then he’d pinched the little crimson mouth closed and bound a compress against it.
Then entire process took - Strange remembered - exactly the time it took to eat an apple. (Although he’d been a boy when he’d marvelled at that fact and had never thought to wonder whether he might still eat an apple at quite the same rate…) He supposed it wasn’t important; the blood was the seventh and final Key in the spell, after that there was a phrase to utter and one’s will to exert and the magic was done. That, he felt certain, took less time than eating an apple - or even a hardboiled egg. “I really do not see the harm in it,” he concluded.
Mr Norrell saw a very great deal of harm in it for a great many reasons. He did not like ‘untamed’ Faery magic. Of course most of the spells that Mr Norrell had employed in his life had come from Faeries originally; yet he considered them ‘tamed and corrected’ by centuries of study, use and refinement by English magicians.
To faeries, magic was a wild wood of all seasons, it was grassland and moor, bog, fen and crag. To Norrell, magic was a perfectly tended garden: the flowers and trees had come from the wilderness once upon a time, but now they had been pruned and shaped to please an Englishman and be - as was right - subservient to his will. (That Strange treated magic as a once well-tended garden he frequently encouraged to go to seed, still vexed his former tutor.)
There was also the issue of the blood itself; Norrell was not keen on blood - he felt it ought keep to its proper place inside a person so that no fuss need be made about it. Blood got upon things - like books or clothes or floorboards - and then refused to come out again. It became an affront - an unwanted momento mori when it stained and reminded one of the fragility of life and how easily - in a visceral moment - it blossomed into death.
Norrell re-set his posture as he had a thousand times before when he’d had dealings with the Admiralty or when he’d had to attend some society function and could not put it off. It was a slight stiffening of the shoulders and a raising of the head; it was not the rigid bearing of a soldier, it was more that of an unhappy swan who had one direction in mind and planned to reach it no matter who stood in the way. “You know, that the word used was itself imprecise? The spell calls for the blood of the heart, that is perfectly clear - the words…” here Mr Norrell voiced a phrase in Sidhe, “are explicit in that requirement. But as we have noted time and again in our travels, faeries have a wealth of metaphor and poetry within their language. The oldest tree in a wood is named the…” he said the phrase again - or something very like, “which we were told means Crowned Heart. And what of the unicorn or the white stag, they are commonly called…”
“Yes, yes,” Strange waved his hand, hoping to forestall the entire lecture. They both spoke a smattering of the Sidhe language, in the most common dialect at least. The language was very beautiful but incredibly vexing to learn, and the words they had each sought to commit to memory were very different. Strange strove for practicality, just as he had in the Peninsula. Learn to greet, swear, ask for shelter or food or directions, and know when someone is swindling you or means you harm. The rest will come in time.
Norrell on the other hand was always interested in specific words. He couldn’t converse nor understand much spoken Sidhe, but write it down for him, or tell him a phrase that sounded like a poorly-cast skimmer and his ears pricked and his mind worked fast enough to shame a cat.
Three years ago, they had - as they frequently did - come to a new land: it was an island, perhaps half the size of southern England. It was ruled over by three separate monarchs who kept an uneasy truce due to their odd number and their unlikely situation. They all claimed dominion over the lost, forgotten and drowned to a greater or lesser extent; of the three, two were lords and one a lady. Of those two lords, one was old and one was young - and both desired the lady as their queen. Neither one of the three was strong enough to claim the isle on their own. The lords couldn’t join forces to kill their lady as it would leave them with only a rival and no queen. Nor could they war with each other, for the lady would be drawn to their weakness like a lioness to the kill. Had the lady herself professed a preference of one lord above the other, the stalemate might have ended, but for her own reasons she chose not to do so. It appeared she liked the older lord for his wit and joviality, and the younger for his poetry and face - and saw that pledging herself to either would be a disaster. So she remained the tireless diplomat and fulcrum that stopped their kingdoms tearing one another apart.
Strange met her upon the cliffs; she had walked into the darkness quite purposefully. Indeed, during their broken conversation both in Sidhe and English, it seemed the faery did not see the darkness nor the curse, she saw only Hurtfew Abbey. (It was because she primarily held dominion over the lost that she did not perceive the darkness as you or I might.)
She wore a ragged dress of cloud grey; her crown was spiked silver interwoven with soft feathers and dried sprigs of rosemary and juniper. Her hair was as silver as her crown, yet her face was young and her eyes clear.
“Who is this - and what is here?
Upon this blessed isle appear
Stands a man of royal cheer!
(Two they cross'd themselves for fear,
The lords I’d most wish forgot!)
But soft, I mused a little space;
I said, "He has a charming face;
King in his mercy lend him grace,
This magi I have caught."
The faery’s Sidhe name readily translated as ‘Caught’ in English, which explained her wordplay, although much has been made by scholars of the possibility of her name also meaning ‘Court’ and how that might change the connotation of her words in the last line. Strange however makes no mention either within his personal notes nor within any of the Hurtfew Records of having being ‘courted’ by the faery; he notes only the meeting, the fact it was cordial, and her verve for poetry.
The Lady Caught seemed to be taken with Strange and was very interested in his circumstance and asked to be told more. She was introduced to Norrell whom she found amusing in the extreme and treated (much to the gentleman’s discomfiture) like a child or favoured pet. Since she held dominion over the lost, all manner of things came to her and her kingdom like flotsam on a tide: she delighted in exploring them for herself - both for pleasure and as a way to evade her two suitors. Many years ago, she had found the ruins of a small chapel, which once must have been very finely crafted but now was worn and broken.
Two things amongst all the ruins had remained: a beautiful stained-glass window, and a lengthy inscription carved beneath it. The glass depicted a Joan-of-Arc sort of figure: a maid with long dark hair and alarmingly flashing eyes, dressed in a blood red surcoat and silvered armour. She held a fine sword and stood triumphant upon a remarkably ugly beast she had just slain, but all about her the sky darkened and shadows swarmed. The inscription named her as ‘Black Keziah Agrace & Her Demon Blade Malaal’. She was a knight of the Raven King’s company who was cursed to eternal darkness after slaying one of the King’s enemies. She remained in the darkness for one hundred years before being freed by the King with the use of seven Keys. Around the inscription, intricately carved and ordered, were seven words and seven sigils.
Norrell’s furious scribbling and Strange’s strangled utterance of, “Good God!” delighted the faery lady extremely and she clapped her hands together in glee. In truth she kept very little company save for the two faery lords Leyth and Surjed, and they were often so busy being flawlessly polite to one another or attentive to her that they quite forgot to show any other emotion. It was refreshing to have such naïvely open company.
The two magicians stayed on the isle for several weeks, Norrell scouring the chapel and making note of every detail, taking rubbings and sketching diagrams of all he saw. Strange spent much of his time with Lady Caught, allowing her to show him some of the marvels that had washed up or otherwise appeared in her kingdom. (Strange could not roam far without disrupting Norrell, so the lady simply ordered the fallen chapel to follow them at ninety paces, thereby keeping them all within the confines of the curse.)
Strange was particularly taken with one of her favourite haunts: a singed and broken corner of what had once been a vast library. Strange’s enthusiasm wavered when he discovered the scrolls were predominantly in Greek or Persian, as Greek had baffled him when taught and Persian he knew not at all. The faery lady of course understood neither of these languages, and her chief pursuit was looking at the scrolls and imagining the stories they told based on the shapes the writing suggested to her. Strange proved adept at this game and they passed several very pleasant days there. At sundown Lady Caught gifted him a scroll to keep - without claim or obligation. It was, when Strange remembered to look at it back in Hurtfew, an essay by Hypatia on the relevance of certain numbers and the significance of their resonance within the world. It made a handsome addition to their library.
“You will not take it amiss madam,” Strange said when they came to take their leave, “but whilst you have been kindness itself and the most charming of company any gentleman might wish for, I hope very much that I shall not see you again.” Here he looked across the isle’s coast and towards the endless sea: beneath the darkness to him it was the bruise-red colour of regret. “I am in truth so very tired of being lost,” he uttered quietly. “I wish to go home.” The view of that ocean was too much, for several moments Strange turned his head away and blinked his eyes; his right hand tremored and without thinking he curled it into a fist. Home was England and Ashfair and Arabella, and after over ninety years only one of those and a gravestone was a certainty.
Lady Caught smiled gently. “Seasons turn and time runs hither:
Thoughts and longings dance and shiver.
We are to our course set ever,
So tides the ocean, so flows the river -
Lost but not forgot…”
She took up his hand and pressed a vial into it with an utterance of the Sidhe word that means ‘freely given’. “There is a cave some miles from here: the rocks hang like narrow teeth and glint like teeth too. The way is hard-won with blood and pain for any who make the journey. The walls of that cave glisten with the dew of hope thought lost. I gather it - and often it evaporates at my touch. Hope is easily lost, but often found again.” She looked at him and it was difficult to gauge her meaning; perhaps it was best described as the look of someone who was deciding whether to tell the linnet that its cage was open or whether to try to close the door again before the song-bird noticed.
She sighed and looked at the hem of her gown. “Were you truly lost, it would be within my power to keep you here.” A rueful smile. “Instead I gave you the key to your freedom - seven keys in fact!” Another smile that began in sorrow but ended in triumph. “I am not sorry for it, Merileon.” (Whilst Norrell introduced himself as ‘Mr North-Sorrel’, Strange always introduced himself as ‘Merlin’ in the Other Lands. Lady Caught’s accent or perhaps some whim of pronunciation rendered it a little more unfamiliar.) “In time, should you ever wish it, you know you have only to lose yourself to find me.” For a moment it looked as if she might lean upon tiptoe to kiss his cheek… But she thought better of it, and instead turned upon her heel and walked away along the cliffs, her silver hair and her grey gown making her look like a stray wisp of cloud.
The time since then had almost entirely been spent upon understanding the exact purpose of the Seven Keys gifted by the Raven King that had freed Keziah Agrace from her solitude of darkness.
(There were, although it was not realised at the time, mentions of Keziah in the notes in the new Hurtfew library. She is the Dark Maiden, referenced in ‘The King’s Company’, the Knight of the Flowing Locks from the poem ‘Lord Mag Merrog of the South’, and the Knight of the Demon Sword in two other fragments of song. It appeared that in Agrace at least, Keziah was a very prominent member of the King’s coterie and a knight well-known for her loyalty, ferocity, and hatred of those hell-born.)