Death of an Alchemist

by Mary Lawrence

  While they argued about burial and such, Bianca took the opportunity to look around again. She returned to Ferris Stannum’s body and studied his face, though it saddened her to do so. Perhaps the old alchemist had died of natural cause. She remembered his trembling hands and how he kept mopping his forehead. Perhaps the heat had caused a strain on his feeble body. No doubt, his health had been in decline.

  As she considered his vigor, she thought it odd that he slept with no pillow. She remembered seeing one on his pallet the day before. Why would he choose to go without a bolster last night? Even if one were uncomfortable from the heat, one would throw off a coverlet but not toss away one’s pillow. She began to search around his pallet.

  Barnabas Hughes disengaged himself from the bickering and walked over to Bianca. “You seem to be searching for something?”

  “Aye, his pillow.”

  “I don’t believe he used one,” said Barnabas Hughes.

  “I’m certain I saw one on his pallet yesterday.”

  “Perhaps it may have been his rolled nightshirt.”

  The arguing between Mrs. Tenbrook and Ferris Stannum’s daughter pitched ever louder. Constable Patch looked on, smirking, enjoying the histrionics and doing his part to escalate them.

  “I’ve no use for any of ye,” bellowed the landlady. She pointed a finger at Amice. “I expect this cleared away in two days’ time. If not, I’ll sell it meself.” Her face flushed to near purple, Tenbrook defiantly looked round at them. She spied Ferris Stannum’s bottle of wine and snatched it off the table. Dramatically tromping to the door, she stopped just shy of exiting. “I’ll write that alchemist friend of his and see if he will buy any of this,” she said. “But the money goes to me first. For all me troubles.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed in her wake. A door slammed from above, punctuating the end of her tirade.

  Barnabas Hughes was the first to speak. “I believe my duty here is done,” he said. He went to his friend’s body, paused to cross himself. Turning to Amice, he said, “I am sorry for your loss, Amice. Your father loved you so.” He bowed his head and bid farewell to Constable Patch and Bianca.

  “I shall summon the bearer post hates,” said Constable Patch, waving the flies off Stannum’s body. “Ye must say yer good-byes.” He turned to Bianca. “I hope it is not a president, finding ye here at the rent of a dead alchemist,” he said. He straightened his doublet and gave a curt bow.

  The two alchemists’ daughters watched him leave, then looked at each other. Amice did not ask, but Bianca felt compelled to explain herself.

  “I only met your father yesterday. He helped me with my chemistries.”

  “What do you mean—your chemistries? Are you an alchemist?”

  “I make balms and remedies for the sick. Transmuting lead into gold is not important to me.”

  “I don’t see why not. I should think it would earn your fortune faster than selling cures.”

  “My father has spent his life working the noble art and he has never made gold.”

  Amice listened distractedly as she wandered through her father’s belongings. Her manner reminded Bianca of Mrs. Tenbrook before Amice had arrived. “It’s gone!” the girl suddenly exclaimed.

  “What is gone?”

  “My father’s bag of silver.” Amice felt behind a shelf, then turned an accusatory eye on Bianca.

  “That is not the only thing missing. Your father had an alchemy journal. He believed he had discovered how to create the elixir of life.”

  A look of puzzlement came over Amice’s face. “What is this elixir? Of what do you speak?”

  Bianca explained. “His intention was to send the book to a colleague in Cairo for confirmation. Perhaps he managed to send it off last night. I was here yesterday, and the last time I saw the journal, it was on his writing desk.”

  “So his journal and a bag of silver are missing,” said Amice. “It sounds like thievery.”

  “I am not certain the journal was stolen,” said Bianca. “But I know nothing about his missing bag of silver.”

  Amice went over to the parrot pruning its feathers. “I think Mrs. Tenbrook probably took the silver.” She stroked the parrot’s head. “She took advantage of my father’s passing and stole his silver before summoning the physician and constable.”

  “It is possible,” said Bianca. “But we don’t know that for sure.”

  “If my father had discovered the elixir of life, why didn’t he partake of it?”

  “He said he did not want to live forever.” Bianca looked up from searching around the writing desk. “Nor did he want to die before he was ready.”

  Amice gazed around her father’s room of alchemy, then sighed. “What shall I do with all of this? I am not surprised he should leave me with this muddle.” She picked up an alembic resembling the head of a bird with an overly long beak. “Do you want any of this?”

  “I could use a few retorts.”

  “How much would you give me for them?”

  Bianca suggested an amount that seemed fair to both of them.

  Amice set down the alembic, then found a sheet and shook it out over her father. It floated down, covering his body, and she carelessly tucked in its edges. “I can’t bear to see his eyes staring up at me.” The parrot clacked its beak, and she looked over. “Now I have a bird and a cat to feed.”

  “I can take the cat,” offered Bianca. “A bird of this kind should fetch a good amount.” Bianca found the black tiger sleeping in a dark corner behind a stash of still heads. It had curled into a tight ball and looked up at her. After some urging, it stood, then stretched, and wound its way through the maze of crockery to rub against her legs. “What is this?” Bianca reached behind the pile and pulled out a pillow. “Why was this in the corner?”

  She carried the pillow into the light for a better look. The beige linen was dingy from use, but there was little mistaking the stains. Two red stains, probably blood.

  “May I keep this?” asked Bianca. “The cat seems to like sleeping on it.”

  “Take it. It is one less thing I must clear away.”

  Bianca tucked the pillow under her arm and set aside the retorts. “I’ll have to leave these for now. I’ll return tomorrow.”

  “That is fine,” said Amice, glancing up from a stack of papers she was going through. “None of this is going anywhere soon.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The black tiger climbed up Bianca’s back and balanced with its front paws draped over her shoulder, digging into her bodice. The cat didn’t scare during the walk back to Southwark, and it rode with its face next to her cheek, both of them focused on the road ahead. Bianca stopped at the market, buying milk and oats, and then headed home.

  She had just enough time to start a new experiment before John returned from Boisvert’s. The cat settled in with a bowl of milk and Bianca began to mince dried mullein leaves. She thought about the stains on Ferris Stannum’s pillow and, after setting up a pot of water to boil, sat on a stool next to the open door, where she could study the spots in better light.

  In life as in death, Ferris Stannum’s eyes had been bloodshot. Bianca thought it unusual and didn’t know what to make of the condition. Perhaps he, more than most alchemists, could not tolerate the fumes from his science. She remembered the square of linen and pulled it out of her pocket. Comparing its stains to the pillow’s, she noted that they were of equal intensity, both tinged with blood. The difference being that the pillow had only two stains, while the linen was dotted with them.

  Bianca scrutinized the cushion more closely. An idea dawned on her. She pressed the pillow against her face. The stains were separated by the width of a nose.

  “Is there a reason you have your face buried in an old pillow?”

  Bianca jumped and dropped the bolster. “John, why must you startle me?”

  “Why are you sitting by the door sniffing pillows?” He picked it up and took a whiff. “It is not because you miss the scent of me. This sme
lls worse than a dead fish. I never find you behaving like a normal wife.” He handed it back.

  “If I behaved like a normal wife, you would grow bored.”

  John kissed her forehead. “True, that.” He looked past her into their rent and saw the interior in the same disarray as when he had left. Unfortunately, the room did not smell of roast goose or of a hearty beef stew. Instead, he caught a whiff of musty leaves, reminiscent of hay.

  “I didn’t expect you for a while. You are early.”

  “It is too hot to do anything of purpose. Boisvert didn’t want to start the forge, and I’m grateful. This heat has stolen my ambition.” He walked over to the pan. “So what is this?”

  “I am infusing mullein leaves for my next salve.”

  John knew better than to ask about dinner. If Bianca was in the middle of her chemistries, then meals and sleep—the circadian clock by which most humans danced—were ignored, even derided as intrusive. He pulled off a pair of shoes and laid them aside.

  “Where did you get those?” asked Bianca.

  “I carried a woman’s water jugs to the conduit and back and she gave me her husband’s shoes.”

  “He won’t be happy about that.”

  “He won’t care. He’s dead.” John removed his damp shirt and hung it on a nail, then went outside to the cistern to splash water on his face. “Hello. What is this?” he asked when he returned. The black tiger had finished its bowl of milk and was grooming its face when John spotted him.

  “It was Ferris Stannum’s.” Bianca picked up the cat and introduced it to John.

  “Stannum didn’t want it?” He looked into the cat’s green eyes and rubbed its cheek.

  “Stannum is dead.”

  “You just met the man.”

  “I returned today, with more questions, and found him surrounded by his landlady, his friend Barnabas Hughes, Constable Patch, and a coroner.”

  “Constable Patch.” John whistled. “I was hoping never to see the little squit again. You must have been surprised.”

  “He was just as surprised to see me.”

  “He didn’t accuse you of murder, did he? I don’t think I can take the excitement of rescuing you from the Clink again.”

  “I can’t begin to fathom what he thinks in that funny skull of his. But the coroner pronounced Stannum’s death of natural cause. He died in his sleep.”

  John looked at Bianca, sensing the doubt in her voice. “You don’t believe Stannum died in his sleep, do you?”

  “Stannum had just discovered the elixir of life. After decades of work, he had finally reached the brink of greatness.”

  “He was an old man,” said John. “Old men die in their sleep. If they are lucky.”

  Bianca stirred the leaves in her pot of boiling water. “Granted, he was not in the best of health. I just think his death was rather sudden. I find it sad that he would die so soon after achieving success.”

  “Perhaps it is God’s will,” said John. “If the elixir of life is as you say, then having such a potion could bollocks up the whole works.” John searched for a clean pan. Bianca might not be interested in eating, but he was.

  “And there God saw the infidel alchemist asleep in his bedchamber and He smote ruin upon his blasphemous heart.”

  John held up a pot. “Aye, something like that. Can I use this?”

  Bianca took the pot and wiped it out with the hem of her dress. “I believe there is more to this than an old man dying in his sleep.” She handed it back.

  John searched through a cupboard, finding jars of dried herbs and crockery. “Have we any food? Usually this is where most people put edibles.”

  Bianca held up a sack of oats. While not the capon of which John dreamed, it would suffice.

  “Dare I ask—are you pondering that someone murdered your alchemist?”

  Bianca snatched away the pot to ladle in some water from their cistern. When she returned she found her pan of boiling mullein leaves sitting on the table.

  “That can wait,” said John, reading her irritated expression. “I need to eat.” He took the pot from Bianca and set it on the tripod.

  “I’ve discovered a few peculiarities. The thought has occurred to me.” She didn’t wait for John to ask what those peculiarities were. “For one, his alchemy journal is missing.”

  “You said last evening he was sending it to an alchemist in Cairo. Perhaps it is on its way, sailing across the Mediterranean.”

  “It was late when I left, and he looked weary. I thought he would have waited until today to send it.”

  “So you admit he was tired.”

  Bianca sat on a bench and pulled the cat onto her lap. “John.” She gave him a look and he knew to keep quiet. “Amice, his daughter, said a bag of silver was missing.”

  “He may have used it to send the alchemy journal on its voyage.”

  “Possibly.” Bianca scratched under the black tiger’s chin. The cat closed its eyes and lifted its head, purring roughly. “It seems Stannum had a lot of debt. Mrs. Tenbrook, his landlady, claims he owes back rent. And before I left yesterday, a lender named Tait came by to collect. I didn’t linger to hear the outcome of that, but the man was not pleased that his payment would be delayed, yet again.”

  “All perfectly legitimate reasons for bitter disappointment. It sounds as if Stannum was frittering away people’s money.”

  “I suppose when one is on the verge of discovery, obligations, even one’s own health, suffer.” Bianca bent her head and the cat gave her a smeary rub on her cheek. “I also met an alchemist by the name of Thomas Plumbum. He was friends with Stannum, but he became furious when Stannum said he preferred to send the results to a colleague in Cairo.”

  “Why should that anger him?”

  “He wanted to verify the results himself. He thought it a waste of time to send the journal to Cairo.”

  John dumped the oats into the boiling water and wiped a wooden spoon on his hose. He hoped whatever was clinging to it wouldn’t eat through the fabric. “I hope you are not thinking of involving yourself in this.”

  Bianca ignored his warning. “One more thing troubles me.”

  John shook his head. Bianca was beginning to obsess over Ferris Stannum’s death. It did not bode well for a calm, lazy end to the summer.

  “I discovered his pillow.” She shooed the cat off her lap to retrieve the dingy bolster, pointing to the two stains.

  John glanced over to humor her. “Lots of people sleep with pillows.”

  “Nay, look!” Bianca thrust it under his eyes. “Look on these two stains.”

  John irritably pushed the sour-smelling cushion away. “Aye. Two stains.”

  “Two stains separated by the width of a nose.” Bianca brought the pillow up to her face to demonstrate.

  “Are you saying he slept on his stomach?”

  “I am saying he could have been smothered!”

  “Well, he could have slept on his stomach.”

  “The pillow was nowhere near his bed.”

  John shrugged and searched for some spice to add to the porridge.

  “I found it later behind a stack of still heads. The cat was sleeping on it.”

  “He may have given it to the cat to sleep on.”

  Bianca plopped onto the bench. “I think someone tossed it there to hide it.”

  “Perhaps, but it is just as likely that he gave the old pillow to his cat.” John found a jar of a sweet-smelling herb. He wasn’t sure what it was, but if it didn’t burn his nose, then it was probably edible. Just to make sure, he held it up for Bianca’s approval.

  “He gave the elixir to the cat.”

  John sprinkled in the spice and eyed the black tiger. “So, is this cat going to live forever?”

  “I won’t live long enough to know.”

  “Well, if it plans on staying here, I’m glad it likes me. Eternity is a long time to spend with a cat that despises you.”

  John knew Bianca wasn’t listening. His warnings t
o stay out of Ferris Stannum’s death turned into pleas, but he stopped shy of arguing and threatening to leave if she ignored him. They both knew he would never do that. So he abandoned his cause for a new one.

  He would not mention the subject of moving before he had had his pleasure that night. He convinced Bianca to abandon the mullein leaf physicke for a bath scented with rose petals and lemon balm. The evening was warm and he did not have to heat much water to make her comfortable. John sipped wine as she dropped her kirtle and smock to the floor in a heap around her ankles. Boisvert had gifted him the French vintage in gratitude for slicing a footpad lurking in an alcove one night. The sight of his wife naked, combined with the spirits, successfully lifted his.

  She stepped into their tub, a barrel sawed in half and caulked with waxed twine, and sat with her knees drawn up, obscuring her breasts from view. But the curve of her shoulders, the curve of her neck and knees, hinted at more. John wished they had a tub long enough for her to stretch out, but he did not lack imagination and enjoyed filling in what he could not overtly see.

  He even helped her wash that unruly head of black hair, pouring buckets full of softened water to rinse away the peppermint mash she used to scrub her scalp. It always surprised him to see her hair wet and clinging against her skull. He thought the shape of her head was lovely. When dry, her hair obscured that delicate feature; its heavy, thick waves seemed to double the size of her head. Bianca finished bathing and beckoned John to join her. But the tiny tub was no place for their exuberant passion. He held out his hand for her, and when she stood, he smoothed melted wool grease and beeswax over her skin.

  He kissed her neck, so fragrant and soft that he fancied his nose would disappear into her bone. She responded in kind and twined around his body like ivy. Lifting her in his arms, he navigated the stacks of crockery and carried her to their bed. It wasn’t until after St. Mary Overie’s midnight tolling that their sighs gave way to deep puffs of blissful slumber.

  But John’s peaceful respite was short-lived. The question that pestered him awake, that compelled him to win her affections that night, begged to be asked.