Elaine Knighton - The Alchemist's Daughter

“Aye, I know. Just be careful, eh? Come get some rest, now. You have a long journey to East Ainsley tomorrow.” Raymond cuffed him good-naturedly. “But mind you, I shall be sending Squire Wace to visit whilst the year is yet new, and take measure of your progress toward a wedded state.”

“I look forward to it, Beauchamp.”

Lucien sighed and lay down by the fire, cocooned in blankets of both wool and the pleasant haze of mead. He hoped, as he did every night to little avail, that his dreams did not take him back to Acre, to the nightmare of the dungeon and the inexplicable, nagging sense of something left undone whenever he thought of Isidora….

Acre

With tears streaming down her face, Isidora knelt at her father’s bedside, holding his blue-veined, wasted hand. There was so much she needed to tell him, so much she needed to hear from him, and so little time.

Since Lucien’s departure, Deogal’s illness had worsened day by day, for months and years until she despaired of him ever getting well. He had the flux, could hold nothing down; he often did not recognize her and sometimes he raved.

But now, at the end, by the grace of God, he looked at her and spoke her name.

“Isidora…the Work…”

Even at the moment of his death, he spoke of the Work but not how he felt about her?

“My daughter, you must take the scrolls to Britain, to Lucien. My notes. And the small bundle, there, on the shelf behind the antimony…it is imperative. Promise me you will do this.”

She squeezed his trembling hand but said nothing. Even had she a way to find Lucien, she could not face his mild, brotherly regard again, nor deliver into his hands a fresh obsession that would undoubtedly drive him to death and madness as it had her father.

Deogal returned her grasp and pulled himself up to face her, his eyes burning with feeling. “You must, Isidora. Please…I beseech you. It is the Key, at long last…of all my students, he alone will understand its significance and bring the Work to a magnificent conclusion…”

“Why have you never shared your knowledge with me, Father? I—I might have been closer to you that way.”

“Nay, it is not for lasses such as yourself. Besides, your mother, God rest her soul, made me promise not to involve you. In order to protect you. But now, I have no choice. I beg this of you, before it is too late.”

Her mother made him promise? To protect her? Such isolation had not felt like protection! And now he would burden her with these dark arts, when all she wanted was to burn the texts in the athanor!

He loves me, even though he hurts me. Yet again Isidora felt the heat of shame for her ingratitude.

Deogal lay back, as if the effort of his entreaty was too much. “You are the only one I can trust, Isidora. This must be removed from Acre, taken as far from FitzMalheury as it can be.”

Despite the tearing of her own heart, Isidora could not bear the anguish in his eyes. She could not nay-say him, whatever the consequences. She took a deep breath.

“Of course, Father. I will see it done.” She pulled out the small, gilt Maltese cross she wore and kissed it. “I swear upon the Holy Cross and upon the grave of my adored mother, Ayshka Binte Amir, and upon the love I hold for you, my dear father, that I will complete the task you have set me, or die in the attempt.”

He smiled. “Good girl…” He sighed. His eyes closed and his fingers relaxed completely. Irrevocably.

“Father?” Disbelief, fear, grief, rage and desolation all competed for dominance within her. She fought to breathe, fought not to weep all over again.

He was gone! Leaving her nothing of himself but an errand. Not a word of love, only his habitual, “Good girl.” Just as one said, “Good dog.”

Isidora wailed and embraced his body in death as he had never allowed her to do in life. The overburdened moment froze for an instant. The scent of mint rose from a bowl of water she had used to bathe him as a warm, dry breeze wafted through the small window. But it did not stir Deogal’s sweat-dampened hair. Nothing could touch him now.

He was safe, beyond suffering.

Kalle FitzMalheury hurled his goblet against the sandstone wall of the castle’s refectory and rounded on the bearer of bad news. “What do you mean, Deogal is dead?”

The knight, a member of Salah al-Din’s own extended family, nodded gravely. “A few days ago, effendi. He was buried this morning.”

“Then where is the book, the material? The stone?”

The knight shrugged. “There was nothing but broken glass and crockery to be found. It looked as though a whirlwind had passed through the place.”

Kalle approached the man and sneered, his pale hair hanging in greasy wisps about his face. “And the girl? The half-breed?”

The knight did not retreat by even a fraction of an inch. He met Kalle’s chilly gaze. “She is gone, as well, effendi.”

“Her father had the protection of the Templars, but I doubt that she does. So find her, Faris al-Rashid. Bring her back and I will see to the rest.”

Faris bowed to Kalle, even as his fingers longed to grasp the hilt of his dagger. La—nay. Jesus Christ frowned upon cold-blooded murder even as did the Prophet. And, Faris had the feeling, even though newly baptized, that by his forbearance he himself would prove a better Christian than Kalle FitzMalheury.

He would seek out Isidora Binte Deogal, for he had his own reasons to find her.

Her head down, Isidora crept warily along the docks, avoiding the gaze of passersby. Sailors, merchants, thieves and beggars. Strangers, and dirty, dangerous ones at that.

Her heart thumped erratically in her chest. She had managed to smash what crucibles remained before she’d slipped out of her father’s house—just ahead of the man who had come searching—for what?

She did not know if he was a robber or an assassin—but Lucien had been taken once, by Kalle FitzMalheury, so it was not so unlikely to think they might be after her.

Especially if they thought her father had passed on his secrets to her. Which, apparently, was exactly what he had done.

Not for the first time, she cursed the Work. She needed a way to get on a vessel bound for England, or even France. In truth, she had little idea of how to go about it. Lucien’s voyage had been made possible with the aid of her father’s mysterious and invisible Templar allies.

But she had no idea how to contact them for help for herself. Her father’s wretched Work had eaten up what remained of their resources. All but a few pieces of silver and the items she had been charged to deliver to Lucien.

Seabirds screeched and the scents of tar and the briny low tide filled her nostrils, along with rotting fish entrails. Despite that, she was hungry and soon it would be dark. What could she do?

If she managed to get aboard some galley in secret, and was caught, the ship’s master might sell her into slavery to obtain his payment for her passage. Nay, she needed a better way. Perhaps one of them could use a cook or a washerwoman— A hand on her shoulder made her shriek, even as a gull cried out.

“Be not afraid—I mean thee no harm.”

She whirled about and looked into the deep brown eyes of a man—one clad in a contradictory mixture of eastern and western garb. A Franj surcoat over doubled links of the finest Persian mail. A modest turban crowned his head, but he was clean-shaven. His sword was not curved, but his dagger was, the hilt crusted with jewels, as well.

She found her voice at last. “Who are you?”

“I am here to help you. I am known as Faris al-Rashid. Kalle FitzMalheury sent me— Nay, wait!” His hand restrained her instant attempt at flight. “But my mother…my mother was Ayshka Binte Amir.”