Jeri Westerson - Shadow of the Alchemist

Mute, Crispin stared at her and her jutting chin. He saw now the hurt written on her face and deep in her wounded eyes.

“I trust her, Maître, ” said the alchemist. His voice was as soft as the water of the rushing Thames. “I have known her too long not to.”

Crispin swallowed and cleared his throat. Flamel stared at him expectantly, as did Jack. Perhaps it was not a good precedent to apologize to a pretentious servant, but of course, he had already lost that battle long ago with Jack.

He took her hand, ignoring the men beside him. “Avelyn, I do apologize most humbly. I … spoke before thinking. Can you forgive me? And not because … because we lay together. But because I was wrong in accusing you.”

She lowered her eyes for a long time before she brought his hand up to her cheek and used it to caress its smoothness. She kissed his scarred knuckles and fingertips before lowering his captured hand, swinging it in her own. When she looked up again, her mouth had spread into a wide smile.

Crispin felt like the biggest fool, especially when he released her hand and looked at Tucker, twisting his lips as if trying to keep from bursting out with a laugh. It was bad enough he indulged his apprentice with an unusual amount of camaraderie, but it was much worse to treat a servant girl like a lover. He didn’t know why he did it, except that the hurt on her face ached his heart and her smile gladdened it.

This is what comes of loneliness, Crispin. Abbot Nicholas may have been right; ’tis better to marry than to burn.

Jack placed a neutral expression on his face and cleared his throat. “Er … Master … did you find anything?”

“Hadn’t had time to look yet,” he muttered, and then moved toward the piers revealed by the low tide.

The smell of wet, sandy riverbed and fish was strong in the air. River plants and reeds lay exposed and pungent on the shore, and the smell of the privies downstream made his eyes water.

They all searched, and it was Tucker who cried out, calling them over.

Crispin trotted toward him, followed by Flamel and Avelyn. She was holding the alchemist’s elbow, unmindful of her skirts trailing in the mud.

Crispin arrived and looked where Jack pointed. More symbols. Crispin searched against the wall, hands reaching and feeling. He reached well above his head when he found it. He pulled the parchment out, heart pounding with the thrill of discovery.

He opened the damp kidskin and held it up to the fading light of late afternoon. This time there were no sigils, just carefully penned Latin.

And here you are, having found the second parchment. You are clever to have found it. The game proceeds.

Crispin turned it over and held it to the light, searching for shadow writing, but there was nothing there. “He tells us we are right, but he leaves no clue.” He shoved it into Jack’s hands. The boy turned it over and over.

“But that’s … that’s not playing fair!”

Crispin shook his head, thinking. “No, he is playing. And so it will be fair. That is the game he wants to play.” He scrambled back to the place they’d found the symbols and searched the stones. There! A tile. The other stones were worn and mossy, but this was new. A tile with the raised image of a lion’s head.

“Look here.” He ran his fingers over it. The tile was definitely new. The mortar for it was clean and unblemished by the rot from the river. This had been recently set and for no discernible reason.

Jack came up beside him and peered at the tile. Crispin continued to explore it with his fingers. He took out his knife and pried it loose. The mortar was still fresh and hadn’t had time to set properly. Crispin fished around behind it but found nothing. With his knife, he scraped the mortar from the back of the tile, but there was nothing there, not even a tiler’s mark. He turned it over and over in his hands.

“A lion’s head,” said Jack. “What could that mean?”

“It must be the message, for there is no place beside it or behind it to hide a parchment.” He came out from under the bridge and joined the others as they helped one another up the embankment. When they reached the street again, meeting the curious looks from the others still waiting to pass through the gate, they huddled together out of the wind near an alehouse, looking at the tile.

“A lion’s head,” said Crispin. “Something in London that has to do with a lion.”

Jack threw up his hands. “That could be anything, sir, from the king to … to…”

“Yes. It is ambiguous. Thoughts?”

“The Lion Tower at the Tower of London,” said Jack.

“Impossible to get to. He wouldn’t make it that difficult.”

Jack snapped his fingers. “The Lion’s Head Inn!”

“Better. Simple. Let us go there now.”

Crispin and his entourage arrived at Thames Street, where the Lion’s Head Inn overlooked the river. Merchants with heavy cloaks milled in the courtyard, watching as young boys stabled their horses. They passed bored glances over Crispin and his fellow travelers before they entered the inn.

Crispin looked up at the sign hanging over the street. A painted lion’s head, mouth opened in a silent roar. “Everyone search,” he admonished them, and Jack went with Crispin while Avelyn followed Flamel. They searched the walls with their fingers and eyes, by the stone foundation and up into the lime-washed plaster of the walls.

Avelyn clapped her hands for their attention. Crispin trotted over and looked where she pointed. A niche above the lintel had a small carving of an alchemical symbol. “Give me a boost, Jack,” said Crispin. The boy steadied his back against the wall and made a step with his interlaced fingers. Up Crispin went, stepping as lightly as he could into his apprentice’s hands. He eyed the sigil and then poked his fingers into the niche. They touched parchment and his heart flared with excitement. He pulled it out at the same time he jumped down.

But once he’d unfolded it, his heart, which had so leapt with anticipation, suddenly chilled.

Alas. So close, but wrong. Choose again.

Crispin had been forming a plan before they had reached the inn. If the clues were always by the symbols, why not simply search all of them? But now he saw the futility of that. For not all of them were clues to the next venture; some were warnings and taunts such as this. They had made the wrong decision. He crumpled the parchment in his fist and let it fall to the mud.

“Bastard,” he muttered. “It was a good guess, Jack. But it was wrong. Now what?”

“He wants to be clever,” said Jack, pacing. “He don’t want it that simple.”

“No, he doesn’t. But it does have to do with a lion. What do we know of lions?”

“I still say the Lion Tower where the king’s menagerie is. There are lions kept there, so they say.”

“Possibly. But still. We cannot enter there. Does that mean he can?” That brought him back to thinking about Henry … no. Suffolk, perhaps. But if the abductor was playing fair, then he would know that Flamel could not enter the Tower precincts. “Lion, lion. Lion … el. Lionel of Antwerp. The duke of Clarence. Richard’s uncle.”

“But he’s dead, sir.”

“And buried at Canterbury. Too far. Lion … heart. King Richard I.”

Flamel shook his head. “But he is buried at Anjou, at Abbaye de Fontevraud. ”

“Yes,” Crispin agreed. “Much too far.”

“I still say it’s the Tower,” muttered Jack, kicking at the crumpled parchment in the dirty snow.

“The lion is the symbol of the monarchy. It is on the king’s arms. A lion passant. What else is it the symbol for?”