P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

‘Mebbe Heneage was at the coining with this alchemy and yer brother caught him at it.’

‘That’s possible. If you look at it from Heneage’s point of view, you could even see why he might think there was nothing wrong in it. The Queen never gives him enough money to do what he wants. She never gave Walsingham enough either, but he was willing to spend his own fortune on his intelligencing and Heneage doesn’t fancy dying in debt like him. So along comes an alchemist who claims he’s found the Philosopher’s Stone and Heneage either believes it, or sees that it might work well enough to solve his money problems.’

Dodd shook his head sadly. ‘Everyone needs more money,’ he muttered. ‘Where does it a’ go?’

Carey looked irritated. ‘We spend it, Dodd, where do you think? Besides, the Queen never likes her servants to be too rich, she thinks it might make us arrogant. That’s why Father has to be so mean: if she heard how rich he really is, she’d send him to France as an ambassador or put him in command of the troops in Ireland or something ghastly like that.’

‘Why would she hear of it?’

‘The Queen is uncanny the way she finds things out. I’ve never known anybody successfully get something past her, except Walsingham’s protege Davison over the Queen of Scots. Anyway, Edmund’s just the sort of man an ambitious alchemist would take his process to and if Heneage got to hear of it, which he would, then Heneage would want in on the deal. I think Edmund’s precious alchemist transformed pewter blanks to gold which they then used to strike coins. Or at least that’s what Edmund thought.’

Carey was turning the false angel in his long gloved fingers.

‘And ye reckon it was all a load of rubbish?’

‘Of course it was. Poor old Edmund. Always full of ways to make money, and each one is always the one that will finally make him richer than Father. He’s the easiest mark for a coney-catcher I’ve ever met. Ingram Frizer took him for a hundred and seventy pounds on the old brocade-reselling trick.’

‘Whit’s that?’

‘Oh, Edmund wanted to borrow more money off Frizer, but you’re not supposed to charge interest to cover your risk. So Frizer gets Edmund to sign a bond for a hundred and seventy pounds, but Frizer gives him brocade instead of money, worth a little less than the amount Edmund is supposed to repay-theoretically. Then Edmund is supposed to sell the brocades to all his friends and get his money that way and if he makes more on the deal, he can keep it.’

Dodd screwed up his eyes to follow this. ‘And the brocades was bad?’ he asked. Carey smiled.

‘Precisely. The dye wasn’t fixed and the colours ran if you so much as sweated into them. The pile came out in the velvets and the silk weaving was atrocious. Edmund was shocked at it and Father nearly murdered him for being so stupid as to fall for such an ancient trick.’

‘Ay.’

Shakespeare appeared in the doorway, still blinking and looking pale and sweaty. Maybe he had plague too. He was carrying two heavy bags over his shoulder and puffing slightly.

Dodd looked in dismay at the bag Shakespeare gave him. ‘Och, sir, do I have to fancy up again?’

‘Yes.’

Half an hour later, feeling sweaty and uncomfortable in Carey’s tight cramoisie suit, Dodd was scouting Cheapside for bailiffs. Every jeweller’s shop had at least two large men in buff coats standing guard at the door, but none of them looked like bailiffs so far as Dodd could tell. He nodded to Shakespeare, waiting next to the alley where Carey was skulking and a minute later Carey sauntered out with Shakespeare at his heels, looking every inch the court gallant in his blackberry-coloured velvet suit all crusted with pearls and embroidered lilies.

He went to the biggest and brightest jeweller’s shop on the street under the sign of a golden cup and strolled past the heavy-set men on guard who, far from barring his path as they had Dodd’s, actually bowed to him. One of them obsequiously opened the iron-bound door for him.

Inside, surrounded by gold and silver plate ranged on shelves all around the room, Dodd found his breath coming short. Look at it, he thought to himself, just look at it all. One gold dish, just one gold dish, that’s all I need.

Carey drawled a request for the Master Goldsmith to the slender young man who came bowing and scraping up to them and then hitched his pretty padded hose on the edge of the black velvet covered table and whistled through his teeth. Shakespeare stood blank-faced by the door, with his hands tucked behind his back and Dodd rested his itchy fingers on his sword belt and tried to think of something boring, like sheep-shearing.

‘I suppose it’s just as well Barnabus isn’t here,’ said Carey good-humouredly. ‘I’d never be able to take my eyes off him.’

‘Ay, sir,’ croaked Dodd, whose throat had unaccountably gone dry.

The Master Goldsmith swept from his inner sanctum in a long velvet gown of black over a doublet and hose of gold and black brocade.

‘Master van Emden?’ said Carey with an infinitesimal bow. The goldsmith bowed back.

‘Sir Robert. How very kind of you to grace my establishment.’

Was there just the faintest tinge of wariness in Master van Emden’s voice?

‘How may I help you, sir?’

‘To be honest, Master van Emden, I’m not intending to buy today.’

And was that relief flitting across the Master Goldsmith’s face?

‘Oh?’

‘No. I want some information about goldsmithing.’

One eyebrow twitched and the goldsmith’s expression chilled further.

‘Oh? What sort of information?’

‘I’m not quite sure how to put it. Um…let’s say you have something made of a base metal, such as pewter or silver, and you wanted to make it look like gold. How could you do that?’

‘These are mysteries of the goldsmith’s trade, Sir Robert. My guild-brothers would be very offended if I…’

‘I think you can be sure that I have neither the skill nor the inclination to take up the goldsmith’s art.’

‘Nonetheless.’

‘Well, is it possible?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Might the substance called Mercury or quicksilver have anything to do with it?’

Master van Emden’s expression stiffened. ‘It might,’ he allowed. ‘Quicksilver is an essential element in the parcel-gilding process.’

‘Which means?’

‘May I ask to what this is in reference, Sir Robert?’

Carey hesitated for a moment and then came to a decision. ‘Master van Emden, I believe a coney-catcher calling himself an alchemist may have…’

‘Not again,’ sighed the goldsmith. ‘I beg you, sir, have nothing to do with alchemists, they are either ignorant fools or thieves. May we be private?’

Carey bowed extravagantly and the goldsmith ushered him through into the room behind the shop. The slender young man moved up smoothly to bar Dodd’s path. Dodd looked at him consideringly. It would be simplicity itself to knock the man down and then sweep as much gold as he could into a bag, but you had to reckon that the guards outside the door would hear the commotion and come in and you couldn’t know who might be upstairs or in the back room with Carey and the master. No, Dodd thought regretfully, it’s not worth it. You’d have all London to get through with a hue and cry behind you, and the long dusty road north. It simply wasn’t possible.

The young man never took his eyes off either of them and you could swear he didn’t blink either. Twenty minutes later Carey emerged from the back room, followed by the goldsmith, looking delighted with himself.

‘Thank you, Master van Emden,’ he said. ‘You’ve helped me immensely. Perhaps I could suggest that my father come to you when he’s thinking of Her Majesty’s New Year’s present?’