Jeri Westerson - Shadow of the Alchemist

He stepped forward under the creaking wooden sign, feeling a chill as he passed under it, and pushed open the door. A small shop. A curtain covered another doorway. Barring the way stood a sturdy table. More small tables and shelves lined the walls, with canisters and ceramic pots on shelves. A tripod was pushed as far into the hearth as it could go next to the blackened plaster of the wall. On the tripod hung a cauldron on a chain. The contents bubbled with chunks of unidentifiable objects roiling to the surface, only to sink below the shivering liquid. The stench coming from it made him wince. A crucible with dried yellowish matter that smelled of rotten eggs sat on a trivet near a raised hearth that looked more like a forge. Crispin knew it was called an alchemist’s athanor, and beside it, a ceramic retort sat on another trivet.

“Is anyone here?” he asked, standing as far from the fire as possible. Jack stood beside him, eyes wide as they scanned the shelves.

Avelyn seemed at home and poked around at the canisters, opening lids or pulling off their canvas drapes to peer inside, sniffing experimentally.

There was a rustle at the curtained doorway. Steps scraped across the floor. The drapes parted and a man, older than Crispin, peered at them. His dark, greasy hair was covered by a felt cap with ear flaps. A dark beard hung from his jaw, and his nose was noticeably uneven and enlarged by carbuncles. His heavy robes were stained and seemed to weigh him down, or perhaps his stooped shoulders and dragging shuffle came from years bent over a workbench, devising his alchemy.

“Yes?” He eyed them with tiny brown eyes set close together under bushy black brows. He never raised his chin fully, perhaps more interested in his compounds than in faces, and clutched the table, which served as a barrier between him and his customers. “What is it you want?” Then his gaze fell on Avelyn. “You! What are you doing here?” He cast about for something and found it in a corner: a broom. He took it up and brandished it. “Get out before I chase you out.”

Crispin stepped in front of her and frowned down at the crooked man. “There’s no call for that. She led me here to you. For information.”

He scowled at Crispin and rumbled in his gruff voice, “If you know her, then I can scarce trust you.”

“Come, man. If you know her, then you must know her master, Nicholas Flamel.”

“Nicholas Flamel? That is her master?” He stared at her anew. Admiration bloomed on his features, and the broom lowered.

Alarmed, Avelyn looked from one man to the other and rushed to Crispin, covering his lips with her fingers.

“No, Avelyn. Stop. Yes, you’ve heard of Master Flamel, then?”

“Of course! What alchemist of any worth will not have heard of Nicholas Flamel! But I did not know he was in England.” He almost smiled at Avelyn, though it seemed as if his mouth were unused to such an expression. Avelyn was beside herself, trying to get their attention. She banged on the man’s table with the flat of her hand.

Crispin grabbed her and handed her off to Jack. The boy wrapped his large freckled hands around her arms, and though she tried to flail in his grip, he held firm.

“Quit fighting me,” he cried. “Or I shall throw you into that foul pot!”

“Foul pot?” said the alchemist.

“Aye, sir,” said Jack, motioning to the bubbling cauldron with his head. “That. What manner of alchemy are you making there?”

The alchemist raised his bulbous nose indignantly. “My dinner!”

“Oh. Beg pardon.” Jack looked contrite for only a moment … right before Avelyn kicked him in the shin.

He swore and let her loose. Hopping about, he grabbed his leg. “Sarding woman!”

“Yes, I should have warned you,” said Crispin. He gave her a stern look and she quieted immediately, crossing her arms over her chest. She turned a glare on Tucker, daring him to approach. He wisely kept his distance.

“Pray, sir,” said the alchemist, while frowning at Avelyn, “what brings you here? How can I help you?”

“I am assisting Master Flamel with a … well, a discreet task.”

The alchemist’s smug smile seemed to indicate that this was expected.

“I am Crispin Guest. And this servant led me here to-”

“Crispin Guest? No! No, no, no. You must leave at once, do you hear? Leave my property!” He raised the broom once more, but this time he looked reluctant to approach.

“But sir!”

“Out with you! Or I shall call in the law.”

Irritated, Crispin stiffened. “Very well. There will be no need for that.” Though many in London had heard of him and were anxious to assist his course, he knew there were many more that were wary of having anything to do with a traitor to the crown.

He swung toward the door and cast it open, minding not at all as it slammed against the wall. He heard glass breaking behind him with a satisfied smirk.

Crispin heaved a frustrated sigh at the closed door of the alchemist’s shop. Avelyn waited beside him, bouncing on her heels. “This was a useless venture,” he told her. “He would not talk to me.”

She clenched her eyes and shook her head. She kicked the door and bent down, scooped up snow from the porch, and hurled uneven snowballs at it.

He took her arm and pulled her away. “There’s no use in doing that. Take us back to your master.”

With a lilt to her shoulders, she pointed at yet another set of symbols scrawled on a post, hastily scratched out.

He shook his head. “Take us back to your master.”

She kicked the mud with her damp shoe and stomped up the lane, furiously scuffing the dirty snow as she went.

He certainly empathized with her frustration. Perhaps Flamel could translate her petulance. Though he wondered why she had not taken him to Flamel in the first place. Was she trying to hide something from him? And what about Flamel’s supposed fame? Even this fellow, this alchemist, seemed to have heard of the Frenchman. Yet when it was mentioned, she had tried to silence him on the matter. Perhaps she had not wished the man to know she was the servant of Nicholas Flamel. If only he could ask her and get an answer.

They reached the Tun and were stopped by a procession. The three of them backed up against a wall out of the way. The procession took up the width of the road, and it was plainly that of a funeral. A young boy in clerical robes, no more than ten or eleven, swung a smoking censer back and forth before him, filling the street with the aroma of musky incense. He was followed by a priest in a dark cassock, reading aloud in Latin from a small Psalter clutched in his gloved hands. Behind him, a man led a horse pulling a cart decorated in black drapery on which lay a shrouded child, dried rose petals sprinkled on her chest. Behind it, people cried softly, and a man comforted a woman wailing openly, stumbling through the snowy lane. The parents.

Children died in London all the time, this he knew. Its streets were treacherous to the young. Women and children drowned in its waterways. A rushing horse might knock over a wayward child with nary a look back.

He couldn’t help but glance at Jack. The boy had survived against the odds. Orphaned at eight, so he had said, Jack had been on his own for three years before he’d forced his stubborn way into Crispin’s life. He could easily have been just another dead child in the city, another fallen to poverty, to starvation. Crispin shuddered at the thought that such a quick and nimble mind could have been snuffed out, lost to the despair of the streets.

The wail of the mother howled like a wind through the narrow lanes, rising and falling, even as they moved farther on. He supposed this child had succumbed to illness or accident. The occasional eruption of the plague caused panic and fear, though the plague was more likely in the spring, not the dead cold of winter. A terrible waste. A child was always needed to do the work of the household, to learn his father’s business, to be married off to cement alliances. But such was the whim of the Almighty. One never knew when He would send His Angel of Death to his task.