Shadow of the Alchemist

25

Crispin snorted at the man with the blood on his face. “Lovely. Secret society. Damned secrets.” He grabbed the man by his coat again and shoved him hard into the wall. The sound of it made even Crispin wince. His face was smooth and pale. It was hard to tell just how old he and his companion were. “Where is she? Where is he keeping her?”

The man tried to look toward his companion again when Crispin slapped his face, leaving a red mark on the pale cheek. “Don’t look at him when I’m talking to you. Answer me!”

“I … I know not who you are talking about.”

“Don’t you? And what about him?” He thumbed in the direction of the other man, whom Jack had surrounded with his long, wiry limbs. “Does he know? I don’t care if you both take a beating for it. One of you will tell me. One of you might still have teeth with which to tell me.”

The man in front of Crispin held his hands before his face and cringed down, shoulders hunching up to his ears. “Wait! I’m speaking the truth! Please! Blessed Saint Luke preserve me!”

“How do I know you are speaking the truth? You and your ilk have been following me for days. Don’t lie, I saw you. Why were you following me if not working for that foul villain?”

“We don’t know who you mean,” said the other man, trying to jerk away from Jack’s sudden grip on his arm. “As soon as we learned that Nicholas Flamel was here in London, many were chosen to guard him, to follow all who came and went to his shop. We mean you no harm. Nor him. We … we greatly admire his work and wish to allow him the grace in which to do it.”

“Out of the goodness of your hearts, no doubt.”

The man before Crispin lowered his head. “Well, we hoped that he might share some of his secrets with us. However unlikely that was. We thought he might be grateful enough…”

“Good Christians, all. God save Flamel from his saviors.” He released the cowering man and stepped back, loath to continue touching him. “Prove it. Prove to me that you are not lying.”

The man wiped his palm up over his nostrils, trying to stanch the trickle of blood. His hands were now red with it. “But how? How may we prove our sincerity?”

“Tell me, then. How did you discover Flamel was here?”

“His apprentice.” He becrossed himself. “Bless his wretched soul. Someone overheard him talking. And I heard them say it, and … well. We approached him, told him who we were. I told him that to boast of the name Nicholas Flamel was not only dangerous but disingenuous. I questioned him, only wishing to know if his master was the Nicholas Flamel. But he grew suspicious of our interest. Clearly his master did not entrust him with … certain knowledge. After a time he would talk no more with us. It was soon thereafter that it was agreed that we should watch Master Flamel’s comings and goings.”

“Did you see anything of his apprentice’s abduction?”

“No, alas. We saw him leave the shop with the alchemist’s wife. But we were not concerned with them. Only Master Flamel.”

“How convenient.” Crispin rested his hand on his dagger hilt. “What of these other alchemists of your guild? I would meet them.”

The man made a strained sound, halfway between a laugh and a cough. “Perhaps you forgot that we are a secret guild, Master Guest.”

“Oh, well. Quite understandable.” He gave Jack a false smile. Jack did not return it. “Then you would not mind should I decide to announce this secret society on the streets of London?”

“W-what?”

“This secret society,” he said, raising his voice.

The two alchemists shushed him. “Master Guest!” the other cried.

“I’m simply bursting with the need to share what I have learned. A secret society,” he rattled on, raising and lowering his voice. “Fascinating, don’t you agree? The citizens of London would also be fascinated, as would be her sheriffs and aldermen. And the bishop of London, too, I should imagine. I understand how well thought of are alchemists.”

“Master Guest, please. That is very ungracious of you.” He snorted a bubble of blood back up his nose. “We have told you all we can.”

“I don’t think so.” He put his hand on the wall beside the man’s head and leaned in. The man shied back, turning his face away and blinking rapidly. Crispin noticed he was young. He hadn’t expected that. He didn’t think of alchemists as particularly young, though why he didn’t was his own ignorance. Flamel was young once, as was the real Bartholomew of Oxford. Young and successful. As had been this other, this knave who kept them playing this cruel game all over the city.

“Acquainted with a Piers Malemeyns?” asked Crispin, close to the man’s ear. He watched his face for any sign of recognition at the name. There was none.

“No,” he said, voice quivering. “I tell you we know nothing of this other mischief.”

“But you have been following me all over town. Do you have any idea what we have been doing?”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing on his thin, beard-stubbled neck. “You have been following the alchemical symbols etched on the walls of the city. We … we wondered about them. We tried to scratch them out when we found them. We thought that someone was trying to expose us. We had no idea that there were messages hidden near them.”

“We saw you extract the parchments,” said the other, eyes glued to Jack’s stern glare. “And so we, too, investigated. When we saw that they were little more than riddles and taunts, we left them alone.”

“Are you certain of that?” Crispin gritted his teeth. It wasn’t good news at all that they might have tampered with the messages.

“I swear by my Lady, Master Guest. We read them, and knowing that you would come upon them, we replaced them as we found them.”

Crispin toyed with his dagger hilt, raising it slightly from its sheath. The metal gleamed in the dim light. “I’m having difficulty believing you.”

“It is the truth, Master Guest,” pleaded the man he had cornered.

“Prove it, then. Get me into that guildhall.”

The man sucked in a breath. He wiped his nose futilely one last time, smearing blood on his face, before he nodded. “Peter has the key.”

Crispin looked to the other one. “Are you Peter?”

“Me? Oh, no! Not I. I am Damian Fallowell.” He nodded in an abbreviated bow. “And this … er … this-” He gestured to his companion cringing under Crispin’s menacing posture. “This is Cosmas Blusard. We are not the keeper of the keys.”

“Then you had best take me to him.”

“But we can’t do that!” cried Cosmas.

Crispin turned calmly to him. His dagger was in his hand. “Why not?”

The alchemist stared cross-eyed at the dagger in front of his face and slumped down the wall, knees nearly buckling. He licked his blood-smeared lips. “A good question. I truly don’t see why not.”

“Cosmas!”

“You don’t have a dagger in your face, Damian!”

“Oh, very well! We shall be thrown out of the guild for this. And after all the trouble we went through. We’ll take you to Peter.”

Crispin couldn’t help but feel he was getting in deeper than he liked. It was a simple matter for Jack or himself to easily break into the guildhall, but there was obviously more to all of this than he was aware of.

“Lead on,” he said, sheathing his dagger.

The two alchemists took Crispin and Jack down several alleys off of Old Fish. They came to a dead end at a crumbling wall in a narrow close. Crispin drew his dagger and Jack did likewise. “What is this?” Crispin demanded.

Cosmas blinked at him stupidly. Mouth open, face smeared with blood, he was the picture of perplexity. “It is the way in,” he said, indicating some distant point in the darkness.

Crispin stepped between the men and grabbed Cosmas’s arm. Jack followed suit and curled his fingers around Damian’s arm above the elbow, digging so deep that the man winced. “Then we’ll go in together,” said Crispin.

Cosmas stumbled as he tugged Crispin with him. The crumbling wall reminded Crispin of Lenny’s hideaway. Thinking of the thief caused a hollow in his belly. Or was it only part of his earlier nausea that was rearing up again? He felt sweat ripple over him and he swallowed an excess of saliva that had flooded his mouth. Was it guilt he felt at banishing the thief from his presence? The man wasn’t worth the trouble, this he knew. But still. Crispin felt he had let the man down, hadn’t cultivated him enough. Though not every thief could turn out to be a Jack Tucker.

He looked over his shoulder at his apprentice. Face chiseled into a stoic expression, Jack steered his charge forward, his dagger clutched in his other hand.

This illness that had overtaken his belly was making Crispin unsteady, but he tried to mask it by pushing the alchemist forward. The crumbling wall was only a façade, hiding the true entrance to a dark parlor.

Cosmas tried to pull away, but Crispin yanked him back.

“Master Guest, I must … light a candle.”

Crispin released the man and covertly clutched his stomach. “Very well. Make haste.”

He followed the alchemist with his gaze as he stumbled about the room, finding a tinderbox. A spark lit all the points of their faces before flame touched candlewick.

Cosmas held up the lit candle on its silver sconce. The light shone dully on lackluster blond locks that hung to his shoulders. “He is in the next room. I’ll get him.”

“No,” said Crispin, adjusting the grip on his dagger. “I’ll get him.”

He strode to the door. He didn’t bother knocking. He lifted the latch and pushed through.

He beheld a room full of the instruments that were becoming familiar to Crispin, with bubbling cauldrons and foul smells. A man sat at a tall writing table, bent over parchments and books. A quill was poised in his ink-stained fingers. A candle on the desk lit him and his work in a pool of golden light. Perhaps he had not noticed in his industry that the hearth had nearly gone to glowing coals and the room was cold. He did not look up as he said, “Yes?”

“Men to see you, Peter,” said Cosmas. “I tried, but I couldn’t prevent them. It’s … it’s Crispin Guest and his apprentice.”

At that, the man raised his face. He squinted into the darkness, peering at them. He pushed away from the table and hopped off his high stool. “Crispin Guest, you say?” He spied the dagger and the grip Jack still had of the other man. “Yes, I see.” He smiled. His dark hair hung straight down over his ears. He wore a skullcap on the back of his head like a tonsure. His face was long and pale, clean-shaven and sallow. He looked to be a man who seldom left his dark room.

Alchemists, Crispin snorted inwardly. He looked around the room, assessing. Yes, the same smells as Flamel’s shop, the same clutter, similar beakers and retorts. Cobwebs in the corners and an unused broom leaning against a far wall under a shuttered window.

“He wishes to enter the guildhall,” Damian said in a loud whisper.

“Does he? And why is that?”

Crispin sheathed his dagger with one brisk slide. “Because I was led there. Do you know by whom?”

Peter raised his dark brows. “I presume you mean the one who has been leading you about London on a merry chase. No, I don’t know who this puppet master is. And I don’t care to know. I do not approve of his methods.”

“You seem to know quite a lot.”

“Like you, Master Guest, I observe.”

“You didn’t happen to observe the man who abducted Perenelle Flamel, did you? Or who killed the apprentice Thomas Cornhill?”

He gestured toward Damian. “Is that necessary?”

Jack was still holding the man’s arm with one hand and his dagger with another. “Is it?” Jack asked Peter, mimicking Crispin’s tone.

“Perhaps not,” Crispin told him. “You may give the man some relief, Master Tucker. And sheathe your dagger. I’ll tell you if I think you need to withdraw it again.”

Jack quickly complied, showing all and sundry who he believed was in charge.

Crispin smoothed his expression. “And now … Master Peter, is it? I would appreciate your cooperation in this. My first priority is to find Madam Flamel alive and unharmed.”

“And you believe our guildhall is the means to that end?”

“I don’t know what I believe. I only know I was led there. And your peers, here, have told me that your hall is no longer in use.”

“I don’t believe they would have said that precisely, Master Guest. I think that rather, they must have intimated that it has fallen into disrepair. That doesn’t mean we haven’t used it.” He looked down at the ring of keys hanging from his belt. “Now then. I take it you are in a hurry?”

“Yes.”

“Then let us go now.”

They returned quickly to the guildhall as the bells struck Vespers. The blue shadows of twilight lay like ribbons along the street. Most of the snow had been melted by recent rain, but the clouds were heavy again, and the gray surrounding them was more drizzle than mist, which began to fly about in lazy loops like midges in the summer. It was becoming snow again, and each tiny flake winged over Crispin’s head. But their dizzy dance only exacerbated his nausea. He licked his dry lips and tried to ignore it, thinking of anything but how miserable his belly felt.

Peter lifted his keys. Saint Peter, Crispin thought, with the keys to the kingdom.

He unlocked the door and pushed it open. It was warped and scraped along the tiled portico inside, pushing dried leaves with it into a musty pile. The place felt as cold as a tomb and was just as stark. Empty of everything but its checkered tile floor and statues of saints scattered here and there. Crispin walked into the center of the room, uncaring whether these alchemists wanted him to or not. His gaze rose to the vaulted ceiling and its cobwebbed stone. Lancet windows were sealed with cracked glass. Still others were covered with wooden shutters keeping them dark and safe, like closed eyelids.

Crispin turned his head, not looking back entirely over his shoulder. “You say you and your guild have used this place to meet?”

“I said that the place has not been entirely abandoned.”

He pivoted to look at Peter straight on. “Do you play games with me, sir?”

“Me? Not at all.”

Crispin studied him. He was short, wiry, young. “Then what is your meaning?”

“What I mean to say, Master Guest, is that though we meet infrequently, we have been known to meet here. And other places.”

“And where might those other places be?”

“Well, that, I cannot say. Alchemists must be cautious, as surely you can understand.”

“But I am looking for an alchemist, a man who has perpetrated murder, abduction, and perhaps a host of other crimes. Would you shield him?”

“To protect my brethren, I might.”

Cosmos and Damian looked nervous on either side of him, but they did not naysay their apparent leader.

Crispin snorted and pointedly turned away. He made a slow circle about the space, feeling along the walls for secret entrances. All the while, the thrum in his belly made him feel wretched and disconnected.

Jack, though wary of their companions, noticed. He came up alongside Crispin. “Are you well, Master?” he said quietly.

“I feel a little poorly. Maybe it’s time to go home. I see nothing here.”

“Shall I … shall I give it my own inspection first, sir?”

Sensible. He nodded, rubbing his stomach, and watched as the boy made his own perusal. He looked in areas under windows and near pillars that Crispin hadn’t thought of, making him wonder yet again about the extent of the lad’s past criminal experience.

From across the room, Jack looked back at Crispin and shrugged. There was nothing to be gleaned here. Nothing while Crispin was distracted by the pains in his stomach.

“Let us go, Master,” Jack said reluctantly, joining him again.

Crispin turned to the alchemists, standing in the doorway. “I thank you for your hospitality. And I beg that you follow us no more.”

“As you wish,” said Peter, stepping aside for him.

Crispin escaped down the stairs, looking back once they had gotten to the corner of the street.

Peter still stood at the top of the stairs, listening intently as his companions spoke softly to him.

It was a relief to get home at last. And a comfort to see the fire stoked and Avelyn beside it. But the food she had brought made his stomach turn and he flung open the window to breathe the fresh air of a dark London.

“Take the food away. I cannot abide it.”

But he’d said it out the window, and Avelyn had been unable to read it on his lips. He heard the sounds of Jack intercepting her and her bowl of whatever she had cooked.

“He don’t want it,” said the boy, too loudly. “Can’t you see he’s poorly?”

Crispin leaned on the sill, certain he was going to sick up out the window, when he heard Avelyn return the bowl to the pot on the fire. Her light steps came up behind him and soon there was a touch on his arm.

“No,” he whimpered. “Let me be.”

She would not leave him alone-damn the woman! — and turned him instead. Her concern furrowed her brow and she led him and then helped him to the bed, allowing him to lean heavily on her arm.

“I’ll care for him,” said Jack. His voice was more than a little petulant. “He’s my responsibility, not yours.”

But as usual, Avelyn ignored that which she chose. She stuffed the pillow under his head and began unbuttoning his cotehardie. It was a relief, for he had begun to sweat again.

Jack was suddenly leaning over him, too. “Here? What are you doing?”

She elbowed him out of the way, and Crispin heard the boy’s breath whoosh and then a cough. “Sarding woman!”

Crispin closed his eyes, willing the room to stop spinning. It had all the earmarks of a night of binge drinking without the former benefits. “Avelyn, he’s only trying to help, as are you.” He licked dry lips.

He opened his eyes when he heard her gasp.

She was holding the little bundle of herbs sold to him by Bartholomew of Oxford. Only it hadn’t been him, but an impostor. She clutched it in her hand and stared at it, before raising her eyes to Crispin’s. Without hesitation she yanked it from his neck, snapping the knot in the leather thong.

Crispin jerked up to a sitting position and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ow! What the devil? It’s only a sachet.”

She shook her finger at him and her face darkened. She clutched it in her hand, turned, and heaved it into the fire. The hearth flared in bright colors of greens and blues. Crispin stared at it as the smoke curled up to the ceiling. He was about to shout at her, but just as suddenly as the fire had flared, so did the discomfort slip away from him. He no longer had an ache in his belly, nor did the room turn and roll as it had done. He felt better. And hungry.

“God’s blood. What the hell was in that?”

She made a sign with her fingers he did not know, but he did not need to interpret to know instinctively what she meant.

“Poison.”

Jack stood before the fire, mouth hanging ajar. “God blind me! That devil of an alchemist tried to poison you!”

Crispin chuckled from pure relief. “And I even paid him for the privilege. The whoreson.”

Tucker knelt at his feet. “Master, are you well now?”

“Yes. Yes, by God! I feel much better. I could use a dollop of food now. And some wine.” Jack scrambled, even pushed Avelyn aside, to serve it himself. Crispin shook his head at the boy but turned to Avelyn and made the sign for “thank you” at her. She smiled.

Crispin rose and moved to the table, but he glanced back at the fire and devised just how he was going to get his hands around the neck of that knave.

As night fell around them, Crispin cast a glance at their distinctly domestic scene: Avelyn kneeling by the fire, absently pushing the coals around and sending an occasional sparking ember spitting up the chimney; Jack sitting opposite Crispin at the table, his chin on his crossed arms, eyes scouring the chessboard as the pieces slowly made their way across the squares.

For the last two hours, Crispin had taught his apprentice the intricacies of the game, and he was pleased and swollen with pride that Jack was such a quick study. Even so, most of the captured white pieces sat on Crispin’s side of the board, while his own black pieces began crowding round the white king.

Jack sighed. “If I move there, your bishop will get me.”

Crispin nodded.

“And if I move there, the castle will. So in … one, two, three moves, you’ll win anyway.”

“Can you see no way out of it?”

He shook his head and rubbed his nose. “No, sir. I’m defeated. Again.”

“Quite right.”

The boy tilted his king over. “I like this game,” he said, sitting up. “I might even win it someday.” He grinned.

“I daresay you will.” Crispin set about putting the pieces carefully back into their box.

Jack stretched, bones cracking. “I can see why you like chess. It’s a bit like what we do out in the city, isn’t it? Trying to stay one step ahead of the enemy.”

“Exactly. Games of strategy have always intrigued me.” He placed the last piece in its velvet-lined niche and closed the lid. “I’m very pleased you have taken to it so readily.”

Jack raised his chin with a wide grin. “Aye. Well, I’ve a good teacher, don’t I?” He rose and yawned. “I’m for bed, then. Unless there is aught else you need, sir.”

“No, nothing.” He glanced at Avelyn by the fire.

Jack thumbed in her direction. “What of her?” he whispered. “Is she staying? I thought you told her to stay with Master Flamel.”

“She does what she pleases. There’s little I can do about it.” Which was strictly untrue, and Jack well knew it. Crispin saw the tilt of the boy’s brow and the smirk that didn’t quite bloom on his face as he worked to suppress it.

“Well, good night, sir.” Jack retreated to his pile of straw, where he kicked off his shoes, unbuttoned his cotehardie, and laid it carefully aside. Then he slipped onto the straw, pulling his heavy blanket over himself, and curled, settling.

Crispin sat in his chair and watched Avelyn for a while, her slow stirring of the coals soothing and restful. It occurred to him how good it was having a woman about the place, even though Jack kept his lodgings clean and stocked with food and wine. Still, the feminine silhouette before his hearth was a gentle reminder of his childhood and of the safety and warmth it elicited in his heart. But then, like a bucket of cold water, his chest deadened with the idea that Perenelle Flamel was not at her hearth. The fourth day of her abduction had set, and the uncomfortable sensation of time slipping away was making him wonder if he would fail, if she would never return.

He rose and lightly touched Avelyn’s shoulder. Without alarm, as if she’d sensed him beforehand, she turned her face toward his and offered a warm smile. He couldn’t help but offer one in return. “Avelyn,” he said quietly so as not to awaken Jack, who was already snoring softly in the corner, “shouldn’t you be by your master’s side this night? He must be lonely and in fear.”

She made a drinking motion, and by that he understood her to mean that Flamel had found a way to console himself.

“You’re staying, then?”

Her smile grew and she rose, looking up at him under heavy lids.

“You know you shouldn’t be here.” His hands slid over her shoulders and slowly drew her in. She was warm against him. Her little hands stretched around his back, arms enclosing. “I shouldn’t have let you stay. You have a way of bewitching me. I am not so certain you are not a witch.”

She licked her lips, mouth parted in a wicked smile. He cupped her chin and leaned down, kissing her for a moment before drawing back. “Sweet to the taste,” he murmured. “And moist, like a pomegranate. I think you are a witch.”

She shook her head and slipped her arms free of him, only to twine them about his neck, trying to pull his face down again. But he gently took her wrists and lowered them. He wanted to lose himself in her, in her kisses, in the sweet warmth of her body, but his mind was a whirlwind of thoughts. His smile lagged. “I’m thinking too much of where Perenelle Flamel is tonight.”

She sobered, too, and caressed his cheek in sympathy.

“I wish you could speak, could share your thoughts and insights.” He sat again in his chair and scooted it closer to the fire. He watched the mesmerizing flames for a time as Avelyn knelt beside him, petting his thigh until she laid her head upon it. He lifted his hand and caressed her bright hair in slow, even strokes. “I fear for her,” he whispered. “I have never felt so helpless. I almost poisoned myself, I’ve been perplexed by these clues, and taunted by a madman. I can’t remember feeling so … so useless before.”

Her fingers ran gently up and down his calf. He looked down at her and tapped her shoulder. “I must go. And so should you, back to your master tonight.”

She shook her head and looked pointedly at the bed and then up at him again.

He sighed softly. “Well, do as you will. I might be late.”

She didn’t look back as he rose and donned his cloak.

He glanced at her once more before he left. She was kneeling at the fire again, tending to each glowing coal.

Down the quiet streets of London he crept. Crispin followed the sinewy shadow of a cat down Friday Street, thinking it wise of the lone animal to keep to the walls under the shadow of the eaves.

The cat looked over its shoulder at him once before, with a flick of its tail, it disappeared through a hole in a wattle fence.

Only the rustle of vermin in the dead underbrush at the side of the road and a distant soft hoot of an owl in a tree kept him company. He welcomed the silence. It was familiar, like a comfortable shoe. But it gave him time to think of the knave he was pursuing, to anger at the audacity of his trying to murder Crispin with poison. Cowardly. For only a coward would steal women from the streets and hide behind games instead of facing a man eye to eye. His hand went instinctively to his dagger, where he rubbed the palm of his hand over the well-worn pommel.

He slipped down Old Fish Street and made his way again to the alchemists’ guildhall. The building still stood silent and dark, a turtle that had left its shell behind.

But as his eyes took in the dim street and adjusted to the layered darkness, he noticed a shadow figure silhouetted against the stone and plaster, looking up at the same building. Stepping back out of the faint light from distant cressets, Crispin hugged the wall and watched. The man-for he could see it was a man-ascended the stairs of the silent guildhall, stopped on the porch, and tried the door. When that yielded him nothing, he turned to the closest window and peered inside.

He did not notice a second stealthy figure creep around the corner and come up behind him. Crispin saw a flash of a dagger, and the first man turned in time to halt the descending knife.

Crispin darted out into the street. The man with the dagger looked in his direction, slammed his fist into the face of his victim, and took off. The victim fell, tumbling down the steps.

Crispin paused. Should he go after the assailant? Tend to the victim?

The man on the ground groaned, and it was decided. Crispin knelt at the man’s side, listening with regret as the other’s steps receded into the distance.

He touched a shoulder as the man rolled in the mud. “Fear not. He’s gone. I’m not going to hurt you. Are you well? Can you stand?”

“C–Crispin?”

The incredulous voice came from the shrouding hood. Crispin pushed it back and looked into the bruised face of Henry Bolingbroke.