Jeri Westerson - Shadow of the Alchemist

They looked at one another.

“Perched. Does he mean a bird, like a crow?”

“No,” said Crispin. “Listen to the words. A tongue have I, but do not speak. Until I’m moved I must be meek. Perched on a peak,” he muttered. “Has a silent tongue … until moved. What has a tongue but is silent until it is moved?”

“People have tongues,” said Jack. “And animals. A donkey? They will not move and then bray when forced.”

Crispin shook his head. “Too literal.”

“Something with a tongue that speaks when moved,” Jack muttered. “But not a true tongue … Ah!” His face brightened. “A bell, of course.”

As one, their gaze rose directly above their heads into the darkened tower with its set of bells.

“Do we have to go up there ?” wailed Jack.

Crispin sighed. “It would seem so.”

Jack stared up into the gloom of the tower and whistled. “I hope you haven’t seen fit to offend the bishop of London, Master Crispin. We might need his help.”

Crispin tried to think. He could not recall ever offending Bishop Braybrooke. At least not lately. In fact, he might even be on the bishop’s good side for helping him stop some boys from using bows and arrows to take down the pigeons that had gotten inside and roosted in the vaulted arches above Paul’s Walk. But it was just as likely that the bishop would choose not to remember him.

“We must wait, at any rate, for Avelyn’s return.” Avelyn. Her name slipped so easily off his tongue. His face warmed as he thought of her. She had certainly gotten under his skin.

They decided to wait outside under the shelter of the porch, even as the last of the light dimmed from the pink-streaked sky. The church’s arched doorway gleamed gold and then gray as clouds covered the retreating sun. The cathedral loured above the nearby lanes already set in the gloom of their own chasm of shadows. As the night fell, the city drew quiet, as if drawing a blanket over itself, ready for sleep. Candlelight flickered behind shutters and cooking smells fluttered over the rooftops, and there was, perhaps, the gentle murmur from behind closed doors and little else but the occasional barking dog or mewl from a stray cat.

Crispin spied a light jogging along between the houses on Bowyers Row, and soon the figure of Avelyn appeared in the gloom, carrying her dented lantern. She marched up the steps right up to Crispin and smiled her devilish grin before looking to her master, whom she should have greeted first. Crispin was beginning to wonder how he was to tell her that theirs was a brief affair and that nothing whatever would come of it. Surely she did not expect anything. He had told her the truth about himself.

Still, her unbridled cheer and boldness did appeal to him. He wouldn’t mind another night in her company.

After exchanging their finger language, she pushed past Flamel and led the way through the arch and inside to Paul’s Walk. A few cressets burned within, lighting the path, but the columns threw the long nave into inky gloom. Avelyn’s little lantern helped, but it was a small circle of light, and the four of them clung to it like moths around a flame.

They arrived at the crossing and looked up high into the dark bell tower again.

“Maybe it’s not up there,” Jack said hopefully. “Maybe it’s somewhere directly below the bell?” He looked around on the tiled floor, directing Avelyn’s arm with the lantern to shine where he searched. She didn’t seem happy about it and tried to snatch the lantern away. “Master Crispin, make her help!” he cried.

“Avelyn,” he said, voice stern, though surely she could not tell the tenor of his voice. Nonetheless, she seemed chastened, at least as chastened as she ever looked.

Whatever accomplished it, Avelyn assisted Jack, but by the sighing sounds from the lad, Crispin could tell they had no luck.

Avelyn handed over the lantern to Jack without any fuss. “So now you give it to me,” he muttered. He looked up once at Crispin. “I’ll go up into the tower, sir. Which way?”

Crispin pointed toward a door. “Mind that no one sees you.” He directed the others to wait alongside a column. If the monks should come through after Vespers, it might serve as a good hiding place while at the same time offering a position to keep an eye on the bell tower’s stairs. And just as he thought it, he spotted the little light slowly climbing within the tower, making its careful way upward. He knew Jack would be checking the walls all along the stairwell, but if Crispin knew this abductor, the message would be situated as close to the bell as possible, for that would be the most out of the way, the most troublesome to get to, and wasn’t that what this abductor was hoping for?

But what was this leading to? This hunt was all well and good, but what was its ultimate purpose? Crispin kept his eyes on Jack, or at least on the little light. He feared that Perenelle might be in graver danger than he had originally thought. Murder was not foremost on the mind of most abductors. Their goal was the ransom. In this case, it was the Stone. But what if he wanted something else? For this was more than a simple ransom for a hostage. If that had been the case, he would have instructed Flamel to leave the Stone someplace else. No, instead he sent them on this insane chase all over London. And Crispin feared that they would find Madam Perenelle’s lifeless body at the end of it. Maybe he should tell the sheriffs of this crime … but he rejected the notion almost the moment he thought it. They would do nothing. Nothing would be accomplished by bringing them into it, and wisely, Flamel had seen that from the start. Not only would they be useless, but they would most likely get in the way. And if Perenelle was not in danger now-though Crispin was fairly certain that she was-the sheriffs, through their bumbling course, would make certain that she did fall into danger’s path.

No, there was no help from the king’s anointed. It was up to him and Jack. As usual.

He looked up again and found the little light had climbed higher, almost as high as it could go … and stopped. It seemed to sway for a moment, seemed unsteady, when all at once, it fell. The light streaked downward through the widest part of the tower, never touching the stair. It lit the walls as it went, until it crashed to the floor.

Crispin stifled his cry and ran. His heart beat a triple measure as he arrived at the crossing of the transepts. He raced up the quire steps and slammed into the locked gate. But instead of the lifeless form he expected to see lying on the floor, a crumpled bit of metal lay there. The extinguished candle from the ruined lantern sent up a wisp of smoke.

Crispin looked up.

“Master!” hissed the distant voice of his apprentice from above, and never had he been so relieved to hear it. “I found it. But I dropped the lantern.”

“Forget the lantern. Just get down here, you knave.”

He heard Jack’s hurried steps along the stairwell and waited, his breath and heartbeat returning to normal. The fool and his slippery fingers. The boy could cut a purse as nimble as you pleased, but he could not keep hold of a simple lantern?

Jack jumped through the stairwell door and landed on the tiled floor. He ran up to Crispin and looked up at his face. “What’s the matter with you? You’re white as a winding sheet,” he said.

Crispin straightened. “Never mind me. Where’s the parchment?”

“I was reaching up and I slipped. It was almost me going over the side, and no mistaking.” Jack looked back at the ruined lantern. “Blind me.”

“Where is the parchment?” Crispin asked again. He took Jack by the arm and steered him over to the column where Flamel and Avelyn awaited them.