Death of an Alchemist (2 page)

The physician looked to the neighbor for assistance and saw the back side of him leaving. He sighed, taking up the patient's legs and lifting with the collector to remove the body. It wasn't the first time he had been left to move a corpse. Perhaps because he did not balk at such humble tasks, God saw fit to preserve him to tend another ailing wretch in the future.

As they emerged from the rent, the gathering of onlookers—with cloths pressed to their noses—stepped back, giving them room. Not everyone thought to wrap the unfortunate, and it bothered the physician to see the dead unswaddled, heaped one atop the other in the cart, some in late-stage rigor mortis and decomposition. The physician held his breath, and though blackened arms and legs were askew and seemed alive with maggots, he did not think on what he saw. They laid the body atop the others, disturbing a swarm of flies.

He crossed himself and returned to the stoop. Across the way, a few neighbors peeked from doors and windows. Pedestrians gave wide berth to the bearer, hurrying past and averting their eyes.

By now, thought the doctor, he should be used to death. Shouldn't some immunity, or rather, some sense of monotony, come with this practice?

But he was a rare doctor who always did as much as he could, with no thought to his patient's station in life. He attended the sick even if he knew he would not be paid. Even if he knew he might be placing himself in the midst of contagion. He never refused a person in need. He still possessed the one quality that other physicians eventually lost with time—compassion.

The bearer retrieved the paint pot and wedged it against the bodies. He took up the handles and the doctor watched him push the cart down the lane until he turned the corner. Another day, another dead. The doctor went back inside to collect his satchel.

Surely there must be something he could take in payment for his trouble. He worked a half-burned taper from a wall sconce and took the candle on the table. Two water urns sat against a wall, but he had no need for the bulky vessels. Looking about for any cheese or fruit, he realized that the patient, Walter, hadn't even a crumb to eat. As he took up the bowl of leeches to throw into the lane, the rustling of wings reminded him of the bird in the corner. Perhaps the landlord might sell it for profit. He had no interest in the fowl, though he did admire its colorful plumage. With the bowl in hand, he picked up his bag and started for the door.

But his inability to save Walter bothered him. Unable to prevent his death, he had failed to deliver even a mote of comfort to his patient. Did he not owe this tormented soul some measure of rest, some compensation for his failure?

He dumped the leeches in the lane and, turning to pull the door shut, hesitated. The cat and the macaw must have been a comfort to the old man. It would be cruel to leave them to starve. At the very least they might make interesting companions.

The physician set down his medical bag and crossed the room to the bird. He untied its tether, urging the macaw onto his shoulder. The bird flapped its wings, settling on its new perch. Pleased, the doctor wrapped the leather strap around his wrist.

Tucking the cat under his arm, the physician collected his satchel and headed home.

For the first time in his life, the physician strayed from accepted convention.

C
HAPTER
2

 

In the bowels of a dank hovel off Ivy Lane, an alchemist marveled at the brilliant white elixir glowing in the bottom of a vessel. The albification marked months of work. After ten stages of chemical process, here was his reward. The white elixir brought him within grasp of projecting the philosopher's stone—a substance capable of transmuting base metals into gold.

But projecting gold was not his desire.

Ferris Stannum had spent years perfecting the process that led him to this moment. He held the flask up to the light streaming through his one window. The elixir was a most beautiful and satisfying sight. If he wanted, he could continue the sublimation and use the resultant “white stone” to transmute any base metal into silver.

But even that was not his desire.

It would be prudent to set a portion aside to pay off his debts. First he would pay his back rent to the widowed Mrs. Tenbrook, whose sour expression grew more rancid every time he saw her. He longed for her to cease pounding upon his door every day at noon. The bells of St. Paul's called the pious to prayer, but for Mrs. Tenbrook, they reminded her to harass his door.

There were others who would appreciate his financial attention. He owed money for equipment and ingredients. He owed money at market. He owed money . . . but for the moment, Stannum basked in a rarified light of possibilities instead of the harsh beacon of responsibilities. And why not?

The elixir was the culmination of weeks of maintaining a brood warmth in the calcinatory furnace. Every night he woke at regular intervals to add a goose egg–sized lump of charcoal to the fire and adjust the air vents. Eventually, the black head of the crow, the
caput corvi,
yielded to the changing colors of the peacock's tail. Over the course of weeks, the brew grew lighter in color and more iridescent, until finally, the brilliant white elixir emerged. The elixir he now held in his hand.

Incredibly, he had avoided a mishap in the early stages with the philosophical egg, a propitious event in itself. The bulbous glass vessel possessed a belly for giving birth and a tapered neck that he carefully sealed to prevent escape of precious volatiles—the sighs of angels. If a heat was too intense, the vessel would shatter or, worse, explode. The pile of broken glass in the corner attested to years of failed attempts. Now his technique was at its most perfect.

If he wanted, he could incubate this elixir until it turned yellow, then darkened to scarlet. At that point he could break open the flask and ferment the stone with a speck of real gold, priming it for the final projection. While many alchemists strove to project the philosopher's stone, Ferris Stannum stopped shy of projecting even the lesser white one.

Besides, the tenth and eleventh gates were fraught with obstacles. And now in his feeble health and old age, he hadn't the patience for endless days of watching a stone sublimate over and over. Especially when so much could go wrong.

If silver were a noble metal, then should it not possess gifts of its own? He thought of silver as the queen, the feminine counterpart to her masculine partner, gold. Besides, a woman's nature is to bestow life. Within her womb grew the secrets of the cosmos. It seemed natural to conclude that within her realm lay the desire for life and creation. Why, then, did alchemists believe “king gold” held ultimate power?

“Because gold is the father of perfection,” he said aloud. “Nay, I am not so convinced,” he told the parrot watching him from its roost near the still warm furnace. “Gold is masculine and with male comes submission. Destruction. Tell me where I fault,” said Stannum, shaking his head. “It is faith in the perfection of gold that has thwarted others. They have forgotten what kindness there is in noble silver.” He swirled the flask of liquid, its color luminous like the mantle of a polished shell.

The parrot ticked its head as if it, too, pondered such differences. Ferris Stannum withdrew a sweetmeat from his pocket and held the morsel out for the bird. “I would want a woman; however, animals are a better lenitive for an old man's broken heart.” Stannum looked fondly on his bird and ailing cat. He'd already grown too attached to them. It grieved him to see the black tiger in failing health.

At first, the cat had been full of life and mischief, investigating every crevice in the alchemist's room, knocking bowls of minerals off the shelves. However, the cat had earned its keep in the number of mice it killed and in the affection it had shown the old man. Ferris Stannum had never thought to keep animals, but when Barnabas Hughes suggested they might amuse him, he agreed to take them until the physician could find them a suitable home. Now he was as dependent on them as they were on him.

“Aw, fellow,” he said, gently stroking the cat. The sick creature barely lifted its head. “Our time grows short.” He set the flask down and drew a stool next to it. “Blessed be,” he whispered in its ear. “I shall not watch you suffer.” Lifting the cat into his lap, he cradled it close to his heart. “Blessed be. Blessed be.”

The old alchemist took the flask of elixir and, holding the cat's mouth open, poured the fluid down its throat. He whispered and kissed its ear.

The cat did not struggle. It hadn't the strength to fight. It accepted its master's will. It would not question.

 

Across the river Thames, an experiment of a different kind had reached a disappointing end.

“I'll not stay a moment longer.” John gathered his wheaten hair into a tail that lay between his shoulder blades. He whisked his hose off a chair. “Appalling is far too soft a word,” he said, balancing on one foot as he stepped into a leg.

“It should come as no surprise,” said Bianca, searching for a pair of tongs. She moved purposely, mindful not to escalate John's temper. She, too, had reached
her
limit.

“All this and to no purpose. It has been an epic waste of time. A stinking failure worse than a bucket of rotten eggs.” John stalked to the door and threw it open.

“It is no worse than living in a barrel behind the Tern's Tempest. Remember your humble beginnings?” Bianca gripped the flask's neck with the tongs and pushed past her husband, who was standing on the threshold. She walked to the drainage ditch and poured out the contents.

“You will kill every carp in the Thames if it makes it there.”

“All the better,” said Bianca. “I've never liked carp.”

“But others do,” said John, trying to snatch her by the waist.

Bianca skirted past.

“Why are you so resistant?” John followed her back inside, unable to let the matter drop. “It would be better for both of us if we moved to a place that had more windows. Even one more window would be an improvement. You could crack it open and let some of these vapors escape so it wouldn't be so overwhelming.”

“The air is not as foul as you say.” Bianca removed the bain-marie from the furnace and closed the damper.

“You're immune to it,” said John. “Between your father's alchemy and your mother's herbal remedies, your sense of smell is ruined. You don't seem to notice how rank it is.”

On the contrary, Bianca's sense of smell was so acute, she could pick out individual scents and name them from nearly any combination of herbs. Her ability extended even to the strange amalgamations alchemists conjured. What she was able to do, and what John could not, was ignore less than pleasing odors—for the most part.

John buttoned his shirt, still standing near the door. “Besides, we hardly get a breeze in here. What little we get either smells of chicken manure or the river. There is a reason this area is called Gull Hole.”

“We can afford living here. Until you finish your apprenticeship it makes little sense to move.”

“We could move into London,” said John. “It would be closer to Boisvert's and . . . your parents.”

Bianca tossed the iron tongs onto the table, rattling the crockery. “Thank you, but I shall keep my distance.”

More than a year had passed and Bianca still had not mended her relationship with her father. At sixteen, she had uncovered his dangerous liaison with Sir George Howard, member of King Henry's privy chamber and older brother of the now beheaded Catherine Howard. Sir George had witnessed Albern Goddard's humiliation and expulsion as a favored alchemist to the king. Granted, Goddard's favored status was short-lived, but when a younger, more cunning alchemist replaced him and he lost his royal stipend, Albern Goddard grew indignant. Sir George capitalized on her father's bruised ego and easily enlisted his help to prevent Catherine's ruin. The whole convoluted imbroglio resulted in his being accused of trying to poison the king, which resulted in Bianca risking her life to prove his innocence. For that not so small gesture, Albern Goddard had dismissed her bravery as simply a daughter's duty. He had resumed his life with nary another thought about it. Furthermore, Bianca's marriage to John had met with an icy reception.

 

A few months ago, John and Bianca had signed a marriage bond, swearing that there were no precontracts preventing them from matrimony. John had no living relatives that he knew of, except a brother he rarely saw. Because she was the daughter of an alchemist, there was no money for a dowry and, in Bianca's mind, no reason for her parents to have a say in the matter one way or the other.

The two had waited for a warm spring day when the field beyond the Paris Garden Manor was blooming with white clover. Bianca had washed her finest, a pale blue linen kirtle with a rust stain she could not remove. Meddybemps, their streetseller friend, had given her a new apron embroidered with flowers that acceptably covered the blotch. The morning of, she had picked violets and tucked them into her wavy hair, which hung loose, as was the tradition and a sign of purity.

John had worn a thin wool jerkin the color of a baked biscuit, with deep cream hose and a dashing flat cap of scarlet damask. Bianca wondered from where he'd gotten the hat, but decided that was a discussion to have another day. His hair was pulled into a tail and he had shaved and slapped his cheeks with rose water.

Meddybemps arrived outside her door and emptied his pushcart of talismans and salves, affording Bianca and John room to sit. He steered them through the streets of Southwark, to the occasional shouts of well wishes from passersby. Indeed they were a peculiar sight, all of them grinning as if they'd lost their good sense.

At the field, John leapt from the cart and lifted Bianca into the air over his head, whirling around twice before setting her down. When they had all stopped teasing one another, Meddybemps held up the blue satin ribbon that would bind their hands and their promise.

Bianca vowed her love solemnly, as did John. They had come to an agreement, while perhaps unconventional, that she would not be considered his property. She would give his opinion the respect of an equal and she expected due consideration in return. They were friends first, and as such, John saw her as his partner, cherishing and promising to preserve her happiness no more and no less than his own.

There would be times of discord; Bianca expected that. John conceded to let her work her chemistries unfettered, though he couldn't resist complaining when she completely ignored him.

But John could not imagine life without her. They had come to depend on each other. True, she was the daughter of a man consumed with the dark art. And she had inherited his single-minded focus. It was John's hope that in time, she might lose some of her passion for medicinals and learn, instead, to cook a decent meal.

John knew her history and circumstances, but he never shied from needling Bianca about her parents. He'd never known his own father, and he thought anyone with the good fortune to have one should do what they could to reconcile their differences. In that regard, Bianca thought John naïve.

On his urging, Bianca had visited her parents afterward and told them of her marriage to John. Her mother had been surprised but embraced Bianca in a rare show of affection.

“You could have done worse,” she said, when she heard it was John. “He's a good enough lad.” She leaned in close. “I suppose you married for love?” She pulled back to look in Bianca's eyes, then whispered in her ear, “Be careful, that.”

Her father had said not a word. Bianca had expected a sharp rebuke, a comment to the effect that she had displeased him by not waiting for an arrangement that could have benefited the family. But she had risked much to save him and because of this, he realized, though he would never admit it openly, that he must forfeit that claim on her.

 

Bianca took apart the alembic and peered into the beak-shaped head. Perhaps some sort of debris or leftover precipitate had contaminated her sample. She wrapped a strip of linen around a rod and swabbed out the inside. It had not been the first time her experiment had failed.

This was her fifteenth attempt at sublimation. Her father used sublimation to purify dross. All alchemists knew the process was a vital step in projecting the philosopher's stone. “Raise up the Son of God from the earth into the air and ascend thee upon the cross in purity,” her father would often say. “A body must be made spiritual. Its soul must be separated from its filthy original. Then it shall become clean.”

While Bianca did not embrace all of alchemy's theories, she did find some usefulness in its methods. If sublimation worked correctly, she could place ground material in the base of a cucurbit, place an alembic on top, and seal the juncture. When the device was heated, a purified sediment would collect in the upper vessel, which she could scrape off after it cooled. The sediment often took the form of crystals that she used in her medicinals, the most recent of which she hoped would cure the sweat.