But was it right, was it just, to keep John from joining this ethereal divinity? She refused to entertain the thought that her pursuit to save John was a selfish one. She could no more think of continuing life without him than she could face that his fate, whether he lived or died, was not hers to determine. She refused to consider the notion. She must do everything she could to save him.
Bianca untied the satchel’s flap and removed Ferris Stannum’s book of alchemy. She cleared a space on the table and opened the journal to his final experiment.
The first page of the process was an elaborate drawing of what Stannum hoped to achieve. Bianca interpreted the symbols, determining what the first step entailed and what equipment she needed. She read aloud from the second page, committing the verse to memory and repeating it until she thoroughly understood the direction of the projection.
“Our bodies be likened to the sea,
And shall lose their first form,
Awash in a liquid that must be bound.
Contained in flask bottom round.”
Eager to begin, Bianca collected the ingredients and set up her table with clean mortars and bowls. She filled a jug with rainwater from the cistern and washed several flasks. Though the night was still uncomfortably warm, she would need a fire for the first stage. She gathered kindling and dung patties to stoke her furnace.
Once she had ground the gentian root and zedoary, she searched her shelves for stibium, which she had nabbed from her father years before. He had once performed a process similar to the one she was about to try. The result had seemed like magic, and she had stolen some ore as a reminder of what she had seen and to someday create her own “magic.”
The first step required calcinating the ore until she obtained “the wolf of amber glass”—the transformation she had witnessed as a girl. She lit a fire in her furnace and pulled a stool next to it. The process required constant stirring and attention to heat until the ore melted. Once the ore melted it would go through a transformation and solidify.
Day began to break and Bianca’s arms tired from stirring. John had not moved the entire night, and the black tiger slept curled against him. Fatigue tempted her to abandon the experiment and take a quick nap, but she fought the seductive lure of sleep. She kept herself awake by reading aloud snippets from Stannum’s alchemy journal . . .
“The wheel is now near turned about
Through air flies earth,
And fire slain by water.
Of element’s nature there is no doubt
Begin thy process
This circulation begin you in the west
Then into the south ’til they come to rest.”
A rooster crowed from across the way and London began to wake. Bleary-eyed from reading in the dim light, Bianca recited whatever came to mind—her father’s discourse about alchemy, Meddybemps’s street patter. She kept dogged attention to the process, to her stirring, and suppressed her weariness and dread of failure.
Hours of work seemed to have produced nothing, and she wondered if the calcination had failed. As she pondered what she had done wrong, her enthusiasm waned. Should she start over? She glanced at John, worried.
How long would John stay in that deep sleep? The sweat usually killed its victims quickly. But the deep sleep was a different matter. She had heard people could linger insensible for days. Even weeks. Finally, the afflicted withered from lack of drink and starved. But if she stopped the process and accepted failure, John would surely die.
The thought of losing him spurred her on. Bianca stubbornly kept on stirring.
Again she turned her thoughts to Ferris Stannum.
It seemed entirely possible that the alchemist had been murdered by someone wanting his alchemy journal. Bianca envisioned the murderer creeping into his room while he slept and smothering him with his pillow. She wondered if Stannum had heard his murderer approach. But there was no indication that he had put up a struggle. In her mind, the hidden bloodstained pillow she had found was proof of treachery. Though John thought Stannum could have slept on his stomach and caused the stains, there were three facts that ran counter to his theory. One, the pillow was far from Stannum’s bed, and two, the pillow had two perfectly spaced stains. Three, the journal was missing the next day.
But why had she been given the journal? Was it given to her for safekeeping or because someone believed she might be able to interpret it?
Bianca gazed over at John. It occurred to her that she had not followed up on her experiment with the rat, testing Hughes’s tincture to see if it had been poison. Originally, when she had checked the cage, she had found the rat unresponsive. It had appeared dead. Bianca stopped stirring the solution and found the cage under the table. She slid it out and lifted the cage onto the table. The rat was alive.
So Barnabas Hughes had not poisoned Mrs. Tenbrook.
Bianca set the cage back on the shelf with the others. Perhaps the coroner had been right in his diagnosis. After all, she had no direct knowledge of the sweat or its process. Like other diseases she had seen, the sickness could probably manifest differently in its victims. The coroner had been quick in his decision, declaring the landlady succumbed to the disease without giving it a second thought. But a swift diagnosis did not always guarantee a correct diagnosis.
What if Goodwife Tenbrook had not died of the sweat? Both she and Stannum had unusually red eyes. It was a symptom not associated with the disease. Bianca returned to her furnace and took up the stir rod.
If the landlady had smothered Stannum, the mischief would have ended with her. But the arrival of the book of alchemy in Bianca’s room of Medicinals and Physickes and the attack on her near Burley House contradicted that.
So who gave her the book and how did that person first get it?
Bianca dipped the rod back into the flask. As she began to stir, Amice and her husband, Gilley, came to mind. She wondered if he had married Amice for love. Or did he marry expecting a dowry that he believed was his right? Bianca sniffed. Anyone marrying an alchemist’s daughter should know that the reward for doing so is paltry at best. Unless he expected to benefit in some other way. Bianca gave some thought to this. Perhaps he wanted the journal but had been prevented from acquiring it. Bianca’s face darkened. Perhaps he had been the man who had attacked her.
Bianca dropped her arms to give them a rest. She rubbed the back of her neck and threw another dung patty in the stove. The fire snapped, throwing sparks in the firebox.
She had just gone over to check on John when the transformation she had been hoping for began.
The ore passed through a stage of hardened grayness and began to dissolve. Transfixed, Bianca gaped at the inexplicable magic happening before her. In a moment, a brown fluid covered the bottom of the flask. Bianca resumed stirring. The liquid thickened around the iron rod, solidifying into a deep yellow, brittle-looking glass. It was the “glass” that Stannum had written of.
Thrilled by her success, Bianca cackled in delight. The black tiger lifted its head and eyed her suspiciously.
“At last! The moon of perfection!” Bianca clapped her hands together and brought them to her lips.
She removed the flask from the heat and hurried to the front door to examine the glass in the early morning light. “I have never seen a more beautiful wolf,” she cried.
Her neighbor, throwing handfuls of grain to his chickens, looked over his shoulder in alarm. “Wolf?” he exclaimed. “Where? Where is wolf?”
Bianca waved the flask over her head and smiled. She disappeared into her rent and shut the door, leaving her neighbor gawping after her as if she had lost her mind.
In a way, she had lost her sense. Her mind was in a haze from lack of sleep, and her concern for John had left her nerves frayed. She consulted Stannum’s journal of alchemy to see what stage was next.
Grind thy livered wolf into a fine, flower dust,
That blown by puff of air, into it would float,
But look thee to element three
,
Must in dissolution of red most soured.
And then in sublimation lives.
The fellowship knows the stone which we seek,
Is of red man and white of wife,
Fools follow but Philosophers find.
Bianca closed her eyes, concentrating. “Grind thy livered wolf” was simple enough. She fished the yellow solid out of the flask and pulverized it in a mortar.
“But look thee to element three, must in dissolution of red most soured.” She read the line over and sat back in thought. “Element three,” she mused. The four elements were air, water, earth, and fire, but which one was the third? Bianca considered the riddle. She read over the second half of the sentence, “must in dissolution of red most soured.”
Dissolution was a liquid process. The third element must be water. “Dissolve the livered wolf in a liquid that is red and sour.” The only liquid that came to mind was a bottle of wine that had turned to vinegar. Bianca retrieved the bottle and poured the soured spirits in a flask. Next, she shook the ground “wolf” into it.
The particles of powder disappeared into the liquid. Bianca swirled the solution and the liquid became cloudy. She ran her finger under the next line of text, understanding what she must do, but a lump settled in her stomach at the thought of it—
“And then in sublimation lives.”
Sublimation—the method she had yet to perfect. Her failure being the reason for seeking Ferris Stannum in the first place. She looked over her new retorts and wondered if she should chance using them. She had no more stibium to repeat the process if she failed. She also had no kerotakis. The hard-earned amber wolf sat at the bottom of the flask. She had one opportunity to make it work.
She froze, demoralized. Perhaps her father, with his years of alchemical expertise, was right in saying she could not produce the elixir of life. According to him she had not been given that destiny. Nor did she have the correct apparatus—the kerotakis—to even attempt the next step.
Should she take the risk of sublimating using her inferior alembics? Bianca set down the flask and went to John. She stood quietly by, following his breath, wondering how many he had left. How long could he stay in the deep sleep? Another day? Another hour? She didn’t know. But she felt the press of time against her.
CHAPTER 23
For what felt like the twentieth time in three hours, Joseph Tait unlaced his codpiece and strained to pass his water. He thought if he stood in his patch of lavender, the scent might relax him enough to help. Only a trickle dribbled from his pizzle, and most of that was blood. His entire body felt puny, and this included his knees. He braced an arm against the stone wall that separated his yard from his neighbor’s.
If he did not pass the gravel in his bladder, he would surely die. Or his bladder would burst and then he would die. Neither outcome provided much solace. He’d never seen a physician manage the condition with any success. It was a circumstance left for God to decide.
Tired of fumbling about with his codpiece and hose, he removed the former’s ties and threw the elaborate contrivance against the wall in frustration. It was better to let his member dangle than constantly lace and unlace the thing.
He’d suffered from stones before and had always passed them. But this one seemed damnably different. It felt the size of a bean and was probably spiked like a mace. Another wave of nausea cowed him and he vomited in the bergamot. Luckily he had abandoned his damask in favor of his shirt, which was soaked now from perspiration.
He attempted to straighten but thought better of it when another stabbing pain coursed through his back. Consumed with agony, he doubled over, holding his sides and taking tiny steps in an attempt to go back inside.
If he weren’t so miserable he would curse. Instead, the condition made him cry. He barely got inside before he dropped to his knees and blubbered like a baby.
He wanted to shake his fist at his God, but he could barely lift it. “Take me now, damn you. I want to die.”
But, as it had been earlier in the night with Thomas Plumbum, God wasn’t answering calls.
Joseph Tait would be forced to suffer.
And why shouldn’t he?
Had he not caused untold misery to another? So it was that Joseph Tait wallowed in self-pity, and no one, including God, heard his anguished plea.
Another wave of pain and the usurer curled like a fetus fresh out of the womb. He whimpered and shook, tasted the salt of sweat coursing into his mouth.
Shouldn’t the force of so much piss against the pebble push the confounded thing out? He knew nothing of his anatomy, but he’d seen how dams could be breached. The pressure of a river was too much for a single boulder. Was this not the same? Joseph Tait rolled onto his back as the latest wave of torture started to subside. He stared up at the ceiling, panting.
What made the whole affair more wretched was the sweltering heat. It had not cooled much from the height of day. He longed to drink but dared not add to his already inflated bladder. Instead, he clawed his way up the leg of his elegant table and staggered to his feet. A ewer filled with ale sat on the edge. With a weak arm he seized the flagon and poured it over his head. So what if it stank and was sticky? He lapped at the brew running down his face, hoping to quench his parched tongue and cool his feverish skin.
Tait had a brief respite before yet another contraction started. Woozy and exhausted, he wondered if childbirth was easier than passing pebbles. Perhaps this was man’s punishment for causing women such trials.
But this cramp felt different from the others. He felt a great urge to aim his pipe at his pot. He spread his legs as much as he was able and pointed his bloody member at the jordan. With a great rush of excruciating pain and relief, his water gushed forth, spraying the pot and splattering the floor. Joseph Tait sighed in ecstasy. He felt as if he had just experienced the most sublime fuck of his entire life.
And indeed he was completely spent.
The pain he felt as he collapsed and hit the chair was nothing compared to what had come before.
CHAPTER 24
The next morning, Bianca kissed John, hoping that when their lips touched, he would return the gesture. She would have sooner kissed a wall. His lips did not answer. He gave no clue that he even knew she was near.
Her hand went to her heart as if steadying it. John lay in bed, his chin tipped to the ceiling, his skin flushed. His breath was shallow, but at least it was even. Bianca pulled the sheet to his chin and left a mug of ale next to the bed.
“Watch over him,” she told the black tiger and gave its jaw a scratch.
Bianca found the rucksack and stuffed Stannum’s journal into it. She would keep the book on her person rather than risk having it stolen while she was gone. Whoever wanted it seemed to know more about her than she knew of him—if even the book was what was wanted. At least with day’s light she would have a better chance of keeping it.
She hoped she could secure the kerotakis from Amice for modest coin. Bianca regretted not buying the part when she had the opportunity, but at the time it had seemed more of a curiosity than a crucial piece of equipment.
The air was thick with humidity. The sky had lost its blue and was the color of mollusk shells. Rain would settle the dust that kicked up on the hem of her kirtle. Bianca longed for a change of season. A change in weather. The summer heat had been unremitting. Plants withered; people were short of temper.
From the dock at St. Mary Overie, a low-lying haze bathed the London skyline, masking the steeple of St. Paul’s. The whole town seemed to bear the stultifying air with sullen resentment. Heat had a way of stretching time, of making it slow. Perhaps it was only one’s doleful reaction that made it appear that way. Fortunately, Bianca did not have long to wait before a ferrier poled his skiff alongside the pier.
Bianca stepped aboard and had just settled when a man came running down the dock calling for them to wait. Dressed in a rough canvas jerkin of the country, he turned to yell at two children lagging behind,
a small boy of around eight and his younger sister.
The father waved his arm, trying to hurry them along, but the two children ignored his impatient gestures, advancing at their own tentative pace. When the girl was within a few feet, he pulled her roughly toward him and lifted her into the boat. The boy shirked from his father’s reach. Uncertain, the boy stepped back, gaping at the river as if he had never seen it before. The man swore. He lunged for the boy, but the child was quick. He escaped up the dock.
“Ach,” cried the ferrier, as the man gave chase. “ ’Od rabbit it! Does he expect me to sit all day while he runs after his bootless, ill-bred spawn?”
The little girl’s eyes grew round with alarm and she started to scramble out of the boat, reaching for the dock and trying to pull herself up onto it. The ferrier had already lifted his pole and the skiff had begun to separate from the dock.
Bianca caught the girl by her middle and pulled her back in. “Now, child. That is not so wise.” Bianca sat her in her lap, speaking both to the girl and to the ferrier. “Wait, give him leave. He must be back. He cannot leave his daughter to strangers.”
“Paa!” said the boatman, looking up the length of the dock and not seeing either man or boy. “I’ve seen it before,” he said. “The man is overwhelmed and canno’ take care of them. Heed my words. He will leave them on the streets to fend for themselves like abandoned dogs.”
“It is not for sure,” said Bianca. “Do you know the man’s mind?”
The ferrier spat into the Thames. “It is double the fare if we leave without ’im, and you will have to pay it.”
“I should put her out now so she can wait for her father to return.”
“Nay, he will not. That is what I am telling ye,” said the ferrier. “It is a trick that a man of his sort plays. Find an unsuspecting, able woman and leave a child with her while running off for the other. It works artfully well most of the time.”
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