The room was hung with every gruesome evidence of his trade, and as he spoke, he opened a curiously wrought box of silver to show Anne a serpent skin, but her mind was on other matters.
“Sir,” she said abruptly, “are you the wizard who consorted so freely with my lord privy seal when he was in the house of the cardinal?”
Sanders was too keen to be caught in the snare that she had set for him.
“Nay, madam,” he replied coolly, “great men have come to me, but not my lord privy seal. Yonder is the cardinal’s great book,” he added, pointing to a tome upon a cabinet, “and this is a ring he wore. I foretold the day that he would sit upon a mule, with his legs bound under its belly, for his machinations against the queen’s grace; but he heeded me not, and lo, the end was accomplished even as I said. Whose horoscope shall I first cast, fair ladies?” he added, bowing to the group, for the others had gathered eagerly about the queen.
“Mine,” answered Anne, laughing; “’tis I who would discern the future, sir; one, at least, of these good dames is too affrighted to ask her fortune,” she added, with a haughty glance at Lady Rochford.
“Madam, I pray you, think,” protested Mary Wyatt, plucking at her mantle; but the queen withdrew it with an imperious gesture.
“I am happy to serve you,” said the wizard, blandly; and he turned, and ascending the little stairway, opened the door above. “Madam will ascend,” he said, “while I read the stars.”
Without a moment’s hesitation Anne went up the stairs, and her maids would have followed her, but Sanders barred the way.
“But one here,” he said with his odd smile; “more would destroy the spell.”
“I will go with her,” cried Mrs. Wyatt, too alarmed and suspicious to consider her words.