Jeri Westerson - Shadow of the Alchemist

“I understand murder, sir. And the abduction of an innocent woman. Would you shield these crimes behind your guild’s need for secrecy? Loyalty should only take you so far.”

“I … I had no idea…”

“If I thought you did, I would haul you before the hangman myself.” He smiled unpleasantly. “What do you know of the murder of the apprentice of Nicholas Flamel?”

“Why, nothing! I never even knew Master Flamel was in London until you told me. Neither did I know of the man’s murder until you also related that information.”

“Why would his servant bring me to you, then?”

“How should I know that! You said yourself that she is deaf and dumb. And mad, most likely.”

He could tell Jack was about to agree, but he interrupted. “I do not think her mad. The way about her, perhaps, but I am of a mind that she is cannier than anyone thus far has given her credit for.”

Crispin knew that he was allowing his sentiments to get the better of him. “Be that as it may, I believe she drew me here for your help. Not just with telling us of the Philosopher’s Stone, of which the old alchemist did not tell us, but with the symbols that have been cropping up all over the city.”

“Eh? Symbols? What are you talking about?”

“Have you not seen them?”

“I do not leave the confines of my shop very often, Master Guest. I am at my own Great Work, you understand.” He tapped a leather-bound volume sitting on his table. A symbol was etched on its cover.

“I will show you if you will come.”

The alchemist nodded and followed Crispin out the door.

“It is only this way,” said Crispin. “There are many more throughout London. I have no idea how many.” They arrived at the house on the corner, and Crispin pointed. The symbols were scratched over hastily but still easily read. The light was fading, but they were clear enough when the sun breached the low swag of clouds. “There. What do you make of it?”

The man’s eyes grew fearful and he tugged his cap low over his head. He pushed Crispin aside and marched back to his shop.

“Master Bartholomew!”

He waved his fist over his shoulder. Crispin and Jack exchanged a look before they trotted after. The alchemist met him at the doorway, blocking it. “I cannot help you, Master Guest. I pray that you go elsewhere for your information from now on. Please. Do not trouble me again. I have my own work to do.” He slammed the door and bolted it for good measure, leaving Crispin staring at the worn wood.

“God’s blood. What ails the man?”

“It meant something to him,” Jack pointed out.

“Indeed it did. But what? Jack, there may be other alchemists in the city. He said as much. They are a guild. Perhaps we can reason with their leaders, come to some mutual agreement.”

“What if they are all scared of them markings?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps we can persuade Master Flamel-”

A boy dragging a priest through the street was shoving people out of the way and making a ruckus.

“Slow down, boy,” said the old cleric.

“But my lord, my sister is dying. She can’t die without the sacraments!”

“God will help us, child.”

“Can I help?” said Crispin, trotting forward.

The cleric looked him up and down. “Oh! Well, perhaps you can clear a path. Where are we off to, boy?”

“Down on Thames Street. Hurry, my lord, by the grace of God!”

Crispin and Jack pushed the passersby out of the way and led them, by the boy’s guidance, to the house in mourning.

Crispin didn’t know why he followed them in, but he was ushered along with some of the other neighbors and they all found themselves squeezed through the door of the humble dwelling and watching the priest administer the bread of Christ to the dying girl.

She was thin and wan, lying on a pallet bed. She could be little more than eight or nine. Breathing shallowly, she could barely take the Host between her lips, but a woman Crispin took to be her mother propped the lolling head on her thigh and with great gentleness brushed back the lank hair from her perspiring forehead. Her body was convulsing, and foam pooled at the corners of her mouth. When her eyes rolled back and her body gave a great heave, she suddenly stilled and the woman sitting above the girl, head cradled in her lap, began to weep.

“She went with Christ,” the priest declared. “She took the Host and renounced Satan. She squeezed my hand to tell me so.” He signed a benediction over her sunken form and then another over the weeping mother and sad-eyed father. The boy who had brought the priest gave the cleric a cup of ale and a coin and thanked him wearily for coming. He did not look well himself, with dark circles around his eyes and a yellow pallor to his skin. His thin fingers clutched at his belly as if it pained him.

The old man drank the proffered ale, bowed to them, and set the beaker aside before he shuffled toward the door, shaking his head.

“Such sadness,” he said as he passed under the lintel. Crispin met him outside, allowing more neighbors to crowd in. They offered bread and jugs of ale to the family. “It was only yesterday that I offered the last sacraments for their little boy.”

“Two deaths in two days?” asked Crispin.

“It is the way of it sometimes,” he said, pocketing his coin. “Tragedy often compounds upon tragedy.”

“The boy in there, he does not look well. What illness is it that has taken their children?”

“I do not know. It is not like any illness I have seen before. Usually, there are signs. But these came on suddenly. Much as the others in the parish.”

“Others?”

“Yes. Yesterday it was an old woman and an old man. And the day before a young boy and his grandfather in another parish. Little signs of illness in the rest of the family, though some were briefly ill. But by my Lady, I know what a plague is and this looks nothing like it. They died very quickly after feeling weak and unwell. But very painfully.”

“Odd. And what of the sick families? Did they succumb?”

“No, they said that they dosed themselves with garlic and thick pottage.”

“Only the very young and the old died? Any in swaddling?”

“No, none, thank the Virgin. I have seen plenty in all my years, Master. Many ways that men die.”

“But this does strike you strangely.”

The priest put up his hood and shivered when a cold wind swept down the lane. “Yes. It has the foul stench of the demon’s work about it. Witchcraft, striking the innocent. There is a preacher that has been going about the city proclaiming loudly of the sin and corruption of the soul. He says that witchcraft and the works of Satan are nigh. Those foul symbols. They should be scratched off when they are discovered.”

“Symbols? Do you think they have to do with these illnesses? How can that be?”

“It is the way of God’s mystery that is beyond our ken, good Master. If I see another of those foul Devil’s marks, I shall eradicate them!”

“I wish you would not.”

“Eh? What? Preserve the signs of Satan himself? Let him get a foothold in our city, smiting the young and the old?”

“I am investigating something, my lord. Something equally heinous. They might help me. They might be a clue to what I need to discover and who I need to bring to justice.”

His eyes scanned Crispin and then fell on Jack. “Are you … are you by any chance that fellow they call the Tracker?”

“Yes, my lord. Crispin Guest.”

“Blessed Mother. I have heard strange tales of you. A onetime traitor who purges himself by serving the people of England. A new Robin Hood. Strange tales indeed.… I’ve also heard that you were the friend of the abbot of Westminster.”