Jeri Westerson - Shadow of the Alchemist

Frustrated, he turned to Flamel. “Did she write that?”

“No.” Flamel tried to peer over her shoulder, even dancing on the balls of his feet. “She cannot read or write. More’s the pity, for we have never quite understood each other.”

“Then what the hell is she-”

She stopped examining it and waved it frantically at Flamel, who tried to snatch it back from her fingers.

Crispin plucked it from her at last, and she didn’t seem disposed to grab it back. She merely watched him and waited. “She doesn’t appear to think this is yours.”

“Nonsense!” And he tried unsuccessfully to snatch it again.

“Do you know the meaning of this?”

Flamel sucked in his lips, his mustache drawing down over them both. “I- No.”

“Then it is a cypher of some kind. I will examine it later. It might help. You are certain this means nothing to you?” Flamel seemed to school his face into bland regard and shrugged. Crispin didn’t believe it. He stuffed the parchment fragment into his scrip, measuring Flamel’s eyes as he watched its progress. “In the meantime,” he went on, “I suppose I’d best allow your assistant to lead me to the Cornhill house.” He strode to the door. When Avelyn noticed, she scrambled forward and edged him out of the way. She put her hood up as she stepped into the street and motioned for him to follow.

He and Jack threw their hoods up over their heads. Snow had begun to fall in thick, lacy sheets. Her footsteps nearly disappeared the moment she made them. Crispin shivered. He could scarce recall a November so cold, and the month had barely begun. He drew his hood low over his face and tried to hide his chin in the folds of the leather cape at his throat, but it didn’t help. Neither did his drunkenness help. It lingered just at the edges of his senses. The cold to his cheeks served to sober him, but the snow was making it difficult to even see the street.

Avelyn hurried ahead, heedless of them. In fact, she was moving too fast for Crispin’s slower gait. “Wait,” he called, and then remembered she couldn’t hear him. He trotted ahead and grabbed her shoulder.

Instantly, she whirled around, a dagger in her hand. “Hold, damosel!” He took several steps back, bumping into Jack.

“Not a good idea to startle her,” said the boy.

“I can see that.” He placated with a gesture, and she gave him a smirk and sheathed her weapon before she turned and hurried up the avenue just as fast as before.

Crispin shrugged. “Best keep up,” he said to Tucker.

She turned down lane after lane, until she finally stopped. She pointed to a house in front of her.

“I think she means this is it,” said Jack.

Crispin gave his apprentice a withering look. “Yes, Jack. I’ve made that out for myself.”

He approached the door and knocked. A man with a red chaperon hood framing his round face opened the door. “Who is it?” he said.

Crispin bowed. “Forgive the intrusion, good Master. My name is Crispin Guest, and I am looking for your son, Thomas Cornhill. Is he at home?”

The man glanced at Avelyn, who curtseyed to him. He smiled. “Ah. Have you come from Master Flamel?”

“Yes. He was wondering if your son, Thomas, was here.”

The man scratched his head over his hood. “Master Flamel knows well that Thomas wouldn’t be here. He is apprenticing with Master Flamel. He lives there now. One less mouth to feed here, I daresay.”

“And you have not seen him?”

“Eh? Is he missing?”

“Well … er … Master Flamel merely needed his assistance forthwith. Perhaps he is attending to Madam Flamel. Shopping.”

“Cold day for it, isn’t it?” He peered out the door past Crispin. The snow filled the lane, and none of the broken cobblestones were visible. Other passersby hurried into doorways and there were few on the road. “He’s a good boy, is Thomas. That’s it, no doubt. Shopping. He gets sent for the oddest ingredients, or so he tells me. Alchemy. It’s mysterious, isn’t it? Beyond my ken, I can tell you. Thomas has the knack, so they say. Master Flamel is good to him, but he is a strange one. French, you know.”

“Yes.” Crispin assessed the man, his red nose and open face, and bowed. “Sorry to have disturbed you, sir.”

“God’s blessings on you, Master Guest. Give my good opinion to Master Flamel.” He gestured to Avelyn and enunciated loudly, “AND GOOD DAY TO YOU!”

Avelyn laughed and bowed to him. Her laughter was strange, like a braying mule. She gazed at Crispin expectantly. Dark hood peppered with snowflakes, it kept her face in shadow.

He watched the door close again and frowned. “He is not here,” he said to her. She cocked her head at him like a dog, and very like a dog she could understand only little. He cast up his arms in exasperation. “Go home,” he said, gesturing.

Affronted, or so she looked, she folded her arms over her chest and raised her chin insolently at him. But she did not move.

“Here now,” tried Jack. “Go on. WE HAVE NO FURTHER NEED FOR YOU!”

“She isn’t hard of hearing, Jack. She can’t hear you at all. There’s little use in shouting.”

“Oh.” He sagged and stared at the stubborn servant. He gestured again. “Shoo! Begone!” He beseeched helplessly to Crispin, but Crispin merely turned on his heel and began walking back toward the Shambles.

Side by side, he and Jack proceeded through the streets. After a few paces, Jack looked over his shoulder. “She’s following us,” he whispered.

Crispin rolled his eyes and nearly stumbled into Jack. “You don’t have to whisper. She’ll understand in a moment. Just keep walking.”

But even as they trudged through the deepening snow in street after street, Avelyn continued to track them a few paces behind.

“She’s still following, Master.”

“Ignore her.”

Several streets later, they turned the corner at the Shambles and made their way up the avenue toward the tinker shop ahead, and when they finally stopped at the bottom of the staircase leading up to their lodgings, she stopped as well.

Crispin turned to glare at her.

“What does she want, Master?” asked Jack, still whispering. “Maybe if we give her a coin?”

Crispin reached into his scrip and pulled out his money pouch. He plucked a precious farthing from the bag and stretched out his hand, offering it. Her face, speckled and damp from snowflakes, glowed with a sudden bright smile. She snatched the coin from his hand, turned it over and over in her fingers, and finally closed it in her reddened fist. Turning her face up toward Crispin, she continued her enigmatic smile but didn’t move.

Jack sighed. “Now what?”

“Now we leave her to her own devices.” He spun toward the stairs, steadied himself by clutching the railing, and started up. Jack followed … but so did the woman.

“Master!”

“I know, Jack. Just ignore her.”

They reached the landing and Crispin fitted his key in the lock. He gave her a glance and a nod, and she seemed to finally take note. She bowed to him once and bounded down the treacherously icy steps like a nimble-footed goat.

Crispin blew a cloud of breath. He hadn’t realized how uncomfortable she had made him until her departure. Why Flamel kept a simple-minded servant was beyond his ken.

Concentrating on the key in the lock, he discovered that the door was not locked. He shot an accusatory glance at the oblivious Tucker before pushing the door open … and stopped in his tracks.

Leaning back on Crispin’s chair before the fire-a fire burning unusually bright and hot with oak logs-sat Henry of Derby, the son of the duke of Lancaster.

Startled, Crispin nearly fell over the threshold. “Your grace!”