Shadow of the Alchemist

14

Crispin stood in the lane, a sense of helplessness dragging at his limbs. How could he stop such a horrific scheme? To whom could he go?

He thought of Henry but did not know how to find him. The sheriffs, then. His only hope in the matter.

He trotted toward Newgate, weaving in and out among the people along the busy avenue and up and around alleyways. When he arrived at last to the stone gate, he straightened his clothes and dusted the snow from his shoulders. His feet were wet and cold, but there was nothing to be done. He approached the two guards and nodded to them. “Are the sheriffs in?”

One of the serjeants, Tom Merton, cocked back his kettle helm. He looked Crispin insolently up and down. He well knew that the majority of the sheriffs that passed through these doors did not favor Crispin’s presence.

“Why do you want to know, Guest?”

“Because I have important information to impart to them. Why else would I ever have cause to be here?”

“Well, you never know,” he said, picking his teeth with his dagger. “You are known to be a man to cause mischief.”

Crispin let the matter slide. He knew better than to engage the sheriffs’ henchmen. They were more brawn than brain.

“Are they in?” he tried again.

“To you? Not likely.” He sheathed his dagger and spit on the ground before Crispin’s boots. Stubbornly, he leaned on his pike and blocked the entrance. The other, Wendell Smythe, just as blunt-faced as his companion and standing by the brazier, laughed behind Crispin’s back.

“Masters, may I please pass? It is urgent that I speak with them.”

“Urgent, he says, like we are supposed to wait on him,” said Tom to the other.

“I am not asking you to wait on me or even announce me. I merely ask for permission to pass.”

Wendell joined Tom at the entrance. “But it is our duty to guard the way,” he said, elbowing Tom. “We can’t let just any knave through, scumming up the place.”

Crispin eyed the both of them with a sneer. “Too late.”

As soon as he said it, he knew it had been a bad idea. Tom growled and swung his fist. Crispin ducked but jabbed upward into the man’s belly. Tom doubled over, but his companion tried to grab Crispin and managed to shove him up against the wall. Wendell tried for a gut punch, but Crispin rolled out of the way in time for the serjeant to deliver his blow to the stone wall. He yowled and spun away, clutching his injured hand.

By then, Tom had recovered and remembered he had a weapon. He grabbed the pike and aimed the point at Crispin’s midsection, drawing it back to strike. The spear point jabbed and Crispin jumped out of the way at the last moment. The iron point clanged against a stone column instead. Recovering, he stabbed toward Crispin again, but Crispin sidestepped nimbly out of the way.

Crispin grabbed the pike’s staff and swung it wide, while Tom, still clutching it, slammed against the wall. Tom tried to wrestle it from Crispin’s grasp … and kept getting smashed into the wall for his trouble.

“By all the saints, what is going on here?”

Tom froze, with Crispin holding tight to the pointed end of the pike. “Crispin Guest,” Tom snarled in explanation, as if that were all the reason anyone needed for violence.

Sheriff William Venour made a sound of disgust. “Guest. I should have known. God’s wounds! Why do you vex us? What sin have we committed to be so abused by you?”

“Call off your serjeant, my lord. I merely come for your help. It is your duty.”

The sheriff did not look as if he would comply, but after a moment that went on far too long, he finally motioned for Tom to put away his weapon. Crispin released his hold of it. Venour glared at the other serjeant, who was still nursing his hand. “What happened to you?”

Wendell motioned with a jerk of his head toward Crispin.

“Fools and incompetents. I am surrounded by fools and incompetents. Come, Guest.” The sheriff turned up the stairs and didn’t look back.

Crispin kept a careful eye on Tom, who had lowered his spear but did not relinquish it. He followed the sheriff upward to the parlor, past a wizened clerk scratching on a parchment by lantern light, and into the warm room.

Sheriff William took a seat behind a large table, with bulky round legs carved and scrolled with leaves and vines. Sheriff Hugh was nowhere in sight.

He did not offer Crispin a chair as he folded his hands over his pouched belly and looked down his long nose, ginger mustache twitching. “Well?”

Crispin took a breath. “My Lord Sheriff, I have discovered a plot that has left twenty-five of London’s citizens dead.”

He jolted to his feet. “What?”

“Twenty-five at last count, my lord. I do not know how many more there might have been or might be in the future if you do not act.”

“Me? What can I do?”

“You must close the cistern at the Tun. It is poisoned.”

“Poisoned? What utter nonsense is this, Guest?” He passed a hand over his face and sat again. “God’s toes, you had me worried for a moment. Poisoned indeed! Is this another ploy to extort a fee from this office? I have heard of your tricks. This is foul, even for you.”

Hands on the table, Crispin leaned in toward the man, much closer than he would have liked. “I am not lying. The cistern is poisoned and children have died. More will die unless you shut the cistern.”

“Your imagination astounds me. What next, I wonder? French spies creeping into our houses to slit our throats? I suppose it’s the French poisoning the wells, then, correct? I receive reports all the time from hysterical fishwives, thinking a Frenchman is hiding in their cellars. They blame the French now for souring their milk or when their horse goes lame. The French are the new boggart. Begone, Guest. I’m sick of you.”

“Lord Sheriff, I entreat you. Do not dismiss me. More people will die. I don’t know whether it is a French plot or not, but it is there nonetheless.”

“Where’s your proof, Guest?”

“I have spoken to Father Edmund of St. Aelred’s parish, and he had ministered to the families of these children. They died suddenly and hideously. No one else in the house was affected. Don’t you see? Only children who regularly drank water were affected. Not babes that suckled, and not older ones who drank ale.”

“Children, you say? What of it? Children die with great frequency in London. No one has bothered about it before.”

“They have not been murdered and in these numbers before.”

He shook his head. “Look at you. You believe your own tales, Guest. A murderer behind every shadow. I haven’t time for you. Begone, I say!”

He stood fast, fisting his hands. “If I bring you proof, Lord Sheriff, will you close the cistern?”

The sheriff rubbed his eyes wearily. “Oh, for the love of the Holy Ghost. You are a thorn in my side, do you know that? Yes, damn you. Bring me proof and I will consider it. Only consider it, mind.”

Tight-lipped, Crispin bowed and turned on his heel. Proof, eh? What could he do to bring the man proof? He’d have to think of something.

Down the steps he went. He paused near the bottom, looking out for Tom and Wendell. He saw them by the brazier. Wendell was still nursing his hand. He probably broke it. Crispin smiled. He trotted the rest of the way down and passed them by through the arch. They jeered at him but did not approach.

Proof, he thought, striding down Newgate Market. Perhaps the waters could be tested. Perhaps Nicholas Flamel, with all his alchemical craft, could detect a poison if it was present. It would help the man take his mind off his troubles. As for Crispin, Perenelle was no nearer to being saved. But if the key to her freedom lay with those symbols, he would have to get to work on deciphering those with all haste.

Crispin arrived at the Tun early in the afternoon and surveyed the round stone structure. Looking like the lower portion of a castle’s tower, it captured sweet rainwater and quenched a thirsty city. But now it looked to be a tower of disaster, dealing death to the weakest within its shadow. Who was doing it? Had the sheriff stumbled upon the truth in his flippant remarks? Was it French spies? He suddenly thought of the shadow men who had followed him earlier. If these miscreants could get to the water, what else could they poison? Grain? Livestock? While Lancaster and the chivalry of England were off to Spain, was an insidious plot being concocted by England’s enemies in France?

He watched with growing anxiety as maids and young children came to the cistern, filled their buckets and bougets, and trotted away, bringing the befouled water into their homes.

He stopped a boy with a bucket. “Boy, I will give you two pence for your bucket.”

The boy’s openmouthed shock muted him until he came to his senses and tentatively asked, “For the whole bucket?”

Crispin smiled kindly. “Yes, the whole bucket. Along with its water.”

“Aye, sir. As you will.”

Crispin handed over the coins and the boy presented him with the full bucket. But then his small face furrowed with worry. “Shall I carry it for you, sir? Where are you bound?”

“For another farthing, lad, we’re headed to Fleet Ditch.”

“I can do that!” said the boy, brightening. He took the bucket back from Crispin and walked, swaying from side to side with the weight of it, sloshing the water onto the snow.

Enough water remained in the bucket when they finally arrived to Flamel’s shop. Crispin thanked the boy, gave him a farthing, and, before the boy left, stopped him with the lifting of his hand. “And boy, promise me you will not get water from the Tun for some days.”

“Eh? Not the Tun? But it is the closest cistern.”

“I know that. But promise me you will not.” He handed over yet another coin to seal the bargain, kicking himself for the mawkish fool that he was. He couldn’t very well pay all the urchins in London not to take water from the Tun.

The boy whooped as he sprinted away, surely to relate to his family how a strange and foolish man had paid an exorbitant price for their leaky old bucket.

He knocked on the alchemist’s door and Avelyn opened it. She looked as fresh as if she had gotten a full night’s sleep, but he seemed to expect no less from her. She looked puzzled at the bucket he carried inside but didn’t question it when Crispin set it on a table still chalked with sigils.

Flamel, heavy dark bags under his eyes, was slowly climbing down the ladder from his upper loft. He seemed to pay no heed to the whirling planets mere inches from him. “What have you brought, Maître. More clues?”

“Something else, sir. Perhaps it will distract you from your troubles while doing this good deed for others.”

“Eh? What good deed?” He eyed the bucket. He looked smaller dressed as he was in his long shift with a loose unbuttoned gown thrown over it.

“I have reason to believe that this water has been poisoned.”

“Poisoned? But why?”

Crispin shook his head. Avelyn was suddenly there, offering him a chair. A good thing. He was exhausted and fell into it. “I know not why, Master Flamel. But I only hope that you can discover the poison from this sample and tell me what it is and how to counteract it. If poisoned it is.”

“But how do you know it is poisoned?”

“Because many have died from consuming it. I have surmised that much.”

“Died, have they?” It had indeed served as a distraction, for Flamel was hitching up his sleeves and scooping up some of the water into a beaker. He poured it into a retort and set the glass object over a trivet in his fire.

“Yes,” Crispin said wearily. “Young children, mostly. Some old people as well.”

“Weaklings?”

“I suppose.”

“Ah,” he said, and set quietly to work.

Crispin watched him grab different canisters from his shelves, peer inside them, and either use a wooden spoon to remove some of the powdered contents or put the canister back untouched on his shelf, muttering all the while.

After a time, Crispin rose. He could see no sense in spending the day there. He told the man he was leaving, though he doubted he heard. Avelyn’s eyes tracked him as he strode out the door, and she followed. He stopped on the step outside and turned to her.

She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down toward her. Face very close to his, he felt her breath on his lips. It was tempting. She licked her lips, knowing he was looking at them.

“You are a seductress, do you know that?” He reached up to his neck and disengaged her arms, holding them a long time. “I have work to do,” he said.

She made the sign for “kiss,” but he shook his head. She pouted and made the sign again. “No,” he said firmly, and turned away, striding down the lane. But when he looked back, she was stalking right behind him.

He stopped and glared at her. “What do you think you are doing?”

Her lips formed that elfin smile and she licked them yet again, tongue trailing over them slowly. Sighing with just a bit of a quickened heart, he glanced quickly around the street, grabbed her by her cloak, and dragged her forward. “I’m beginning to think that you have bewitched me,” he said to her lips before he kissed them, exploring the shape and fullness of her mouth for a long time. When he finally drew back, it was to the whistles and guffaws of the men passing by.

He smirked at her and walked away. And when he looked over his shoulder, he was satisfied that she had retreated back to her master’s shop.

It took little time to return to the Shambles. Crispin bade good day to the tinker Martin Kemp, who was rearranging his wares on his display table, before Crispin stumped up the stairs to his lodgings. He closed the door once inside. After stoking the dying fire, he lit the candles in their sconces along the walls and kept his cloak on as he sat at the table, eyes traveling over the discarded chessboard.

He picked up a bishop and turned it in his fingers. The carvings had always intrigued him. The design depicted each piece as its model was in life, only fatter and squatter. Easy to put in one’s hand. The abbot had told him it was an old set, possibly had been in his family for a generation. It was an expensive behest. He was certain that Abbot William would have rather sold it or gifted it to some other noble for a favor. But a behest was a behest. Crispin was glad to have it.

With a grunt, he wrapped himself tightly in his cloak. Those were treasured days. He did not realize how much he had relied on the old man for advice and counsel. He wished the old abbot were here now to talk to. He supposed, in a way, the abbot had been a substitute for Lancaster, whom he had started speaking to again only a few years ago.

And now Lancaster’s son. He closed his eyes. His mind drifted along, snapping up memories of those long-ago days, when Crispin was a household knight and had been given the privilege of training young Henry, just as Lancaster had trained Crispin. He had taken the lad hawking and riding, had trained him in archery. They had discussed warfare and strategy and, yes, had played many games of chess and tables together. But gone were those carefree days. So much had changed. Richard was a man now and so was Henry. The old abbot was dead, and Lancaster was far away in Spain. And Crispin was left with a dead apprentice, a missing wife, poisoned water, and … what? Strange clues etched on the streets and alleys of London? Shadowy men following him for some unknown reason? It seemed absurd, beyond the realm of reality. And yet over the years, he had encountered far stranger things.

Still, this abduction seemed particularly insidious. Someone was playing games, relishing the confusion it elicited. But did it have to do with Perenelle Flamel or something else? Something worse? Something … like a poisoned cistern?

Crispin turned his head, staring at his own bucket in the corner by the door. Such a simple thing. Water. One needed it for one’s stews and pottage. To clean. To drink, when there was no ale or wine about. A necessity of life. It was worse than poisoning bread. What foul demon would do such a thing? To what end?

And what had Henry to do with it? For he could not put out of his head the possibility that Henry was somehow involved. The man had ambition. Impatience. No wonder Lancaster had left him at home. Of course, the public excuse was that he needed him to watch the estates, but if Henry was anything like Crispin at that age, it was because of his impetuosity. If Henry believed he needed this Stone or believed in its power, then he would have no qualms about taking it.…

Wait.

Crispin felt like the biggest fool. It couldn’t be Henry. Derby would never stoop to this waiting game, not that impatient youth. He would simply go to Flamel himself and force him to give over the Stone. He wouldn’t have time to play these games.

That meant Henry was innocent.

Crispin sat back, feeling relieved. He had not wanted his young lord to be the cause of this crime or of any other. Henry might be a dupe, but he was not an instigator.

Which did beg the question as to why he was there in the cathedral. Had he been sent? And if so, by whom? If he could couch it in this way, Henry might be persuaded to answer. Henry was involved in some way whether Crispin liked it or not.

He pushed it all aside. It didn’t matter. As long as Crispin stopped the plot, prevented more deaths, that was what mattered.

He glanced out the window. The sun had moved and the bells had recently rung for None. He picked up the parchment fragment again. You shall never see her return unless you play fairly. You had best begin at the beginning.

Play fairly. Begin at the beginning. There was something he was missing, but his mind wouldn’t work on it. For now, he had to know how Flamel fared with testing the water. He had to go back and see what the man had discovered.