Jeri Westerson - Shadow of the Alchemist

Crispin and Jack crossed themselves and lowered their heads, each offering a silent prayer for the soul rising to Heaven. They watched as the procession passed them.

“I hate death,” Jack whispered. He sounded more like the uncertain boy Crispin had first encountered nearly four years ago.

“Yes,” Crispin agreed. “And yet death is part of our peddler’s goods.”

“So it would seem. But I never get used to it.”

“I pray that you never do.”

Avelyn stood at the far crown of the road, clapping at them impatiently.

“Don’t she have no respect for the dead?” Jack grumbled.

Crispin set out again, folding his cloak over his chest as the last vestiges of the incense dispersed and the sharp smell of dung and cooking fires returned to fill the lane. “Perhaps she has seen too much of it herself. We all have our pasts.”

Jack said nothing more, and they continued on, even as the snowfall grew heavier. When they arrived at Flamel’s shop, Avelyn sprinted ahead and disappeared through the door. Crispin and Jack walked through just as Flamel was admonishing her to “slow down, fille . I cannot understand.”

“Master Flamel,” said Crispin. The man spun. His exasperation with his servant fled and he almost fell into Crispin’s arms.

“Where have you been? Have you word of my Perenelle?”

“No. I take it you have not heard from our abductor.”

“No. Alas.” He sank to a chair. Avelyn was nearly vibrating with the need to speak.

“Your servant seems to wish to convey information to us. I cannot understand her well. Not as well as you. Please. Could you translate?”

He beckoned the girl to him and she knelt at his feet, still a bundle of unspent energy. He signaled his question to her and she began to gesture furiously. Flamel took it all in. Crispin tried to follow with what little knowledge of her language he had acquired. He saw words hurl by: “apprentice,” “parchment,” “stone,” “signs,” and many more he could not assimilate.

Once or twice during her fluttering fingers, Flamel turned toward Crispin with a narrowed gaze, especially when she signed the word “kiss.” Crispin felt heat rise on his neck, before Avelyn gently touched the alchemist’s face to turn him back to her so she could continue with her tale.

At last she seemed to slow. Her movements looked more like questions than explanations, and Flamel waved them off, face turned away from her.

“Master Flamel. What did she say?”

“Mostly nonsense. She is like to say things that are meaningless. You’d best be aware of that, Maître, if you intend more congress with her.” A whisper of a warning flickered in his eyes. “It is not that she lies, but that the truth is … quelque peu différente pour elle … as you would say, not quite the same to her.”

“Indeed. Perhaps it is a trait of your vocation, for I do not think you value truth quite as I do either.”

He chewed his lip. “My English may not be as good as I thought it. Please forgive any errors.”

Crispin leaned down, pressing his hands to the chair arms and trapping Flamel in place. “Your English is perfectly serviceable. It is the content that is not. Why do you lie to me? Why do you leave out valuable information that I can use to find your wife? I have learned that you are well-known, Master Flamel, even here in England. Why is that so?”

He wriggled, flustered. “Absurd. I have heard how impetuous you are. It is why you are in your present circumstances, no?”

Crispin straightened. “My history is not important. You hired me to help you. Do you want it or not?”

“Yes,” he breathed. “Yes.”

“Then tell me what she said.”

The old man pressed his fingers to his eyes. “You mean well. But you must forget what you think you know. Beware of what you find.”

Crispin snapped his head up and stared at the man. “ What did you say?” He grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. “What did you say?”

“I … I…”

“Master Crispin!” cried Jack. “What are you doing?”

Flamel’s eyes were wide and frightened. There didn’t appear to be any deception there, but his words had sent a chill down Crispin’s spine. Were those not the exact words, the last words, that his old friend Abbot Nicholas uttered to him as he lay dying a year ago? The words that he used, trying to explain why relics and venerated objects came into Crispin’s hands?

Crispin spared a glance at Jack, poised between rising and sitting, hands outstretched, a stunned look upon his face.

Crispin looked down at himself, at his hands on Flamel’s gown. What was he doing?

Slowly, he unwound his fingers. He released Flamel and stepped back, breath gusting from his heaving chest. The alchemist surely meant no harm. He was fairly certain of that. But those words …

“Forgive me,” said Crispin, still breathless. “I … it is just…” He shook his head. “Perhaps … perhaps that is why your servant brought us to another alchemist, for you only wish to speak in riddles where I need facts.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. Was he going mad? Had he heard what he thought he’d heard?

Flamel seemed to have forgotten Crispin’s outburst and straightened from this new revelation. “She took you to another alchemist?” He leapt forward and grabbed the girl’s arm. “You fool! Why did you do that? You know how dangerous it is!” He backed her against a table. She collided with it, knocking over retorts and horn beakers. “You must never do that again, Avelyn. Promise me! Ne me décevez pas! ”

Crispin stepped closer and closed his hand over Flamel’s. It was foolish getting between a man and his servant, but Crispin was helpless to resist, helpless under the repentant eyes of Avelyn. “Master Flamel, I’m certain she meant well.”

“And you!” He turned his anger on Crispin, releasing his servant from his grasp. He pointed at Avelyn. “Why do you defile her? Surely she is beneath your notice. You, who were once a nobleman. Leave her alone!”

But Avelyn, obviously reading the movements of their mouths, pushed forward, hanging on Flamel’s arm and gesturing toward Crispin. Flamel shook her off and postured before her. “You are a servant, not a whore. Try to remember that!”

“Why are you afraid of another alchemist, Master Flamel? She obviously wanted to convey something to me that you would not.”

Flamel clenched his hands into fists and pulled at the disarrayed hair hanging below his cap. “My business is secret . Why do you think I traveled all the way from France to be in England? Do you think I want to be in England? It is very dangerous here for a Français . You toy with me, Maître, when I trusted you. I asked for your help, I paid for it, and so far you have failed me, you have dallied with my servant, and you threaten me when I cannot answer your questions. There is a very good reason I cannot answer as you wish. I am not paying you to wrest this information from me. I am paying you to accomplish your task!”

Opening his mouth to protest, Crispin decided otherwise and closed it again, pressing his lips tight. He bowed. “You are right, of course. I apologize for my rudeness, Master Flamel. My methods may seem unusual, but they get results.”

Flamel drew himself up, clutching his gown. “So do mine.”

They studied each other for some time before Flamel sighed, resigned. “We must try again, Maître . We must leave the ransom again. The false one. Please. Don’t ask why. Trust me that it must be done.” From the pouch at his side, he pulled out the velvet bag. “I will take it again to Saint Paul’s and leave it at the feet of the statue. He will come. He wants it. I can only hope he wants it more than he wants to harm Perenelle.”