Death of an Alchemist

by Mary Lawrence

  The girl began to cry, which only proved to further aggravate the boatman. Bianca expected he would put them both out. “Now, lass,” she said, rocking her. “Shh, do not waste your time crying. Here, here.” She wiped the girl’s face with the sleeve of her blouse, turning the dust from the girl’s travels into a dirty smear. “You must have been walking a long way.”

  The girl responded with only a shuddering breath.

  Bianca looked at the ferrier, who shook his head. “I am telling ye,” he said. He reached for a flask at his feet and took a long drink. He jammed the cork back into it. “Make up your mind. I am losing fares sitting here.”

  Closing the monasteries had inflicted untold hardship on the poor and destitute of London. The sick and the disabled, the orphans, had nowhere to go. They wandered the streets, begging. And even this humiliating and barely sustainable labor required a license, for it was a punishable offense to beg without one. Orphans roamed the streets, some starving and some forming packs of mischief-makers. Because there was no organized system to collect alms or dispense charity, only the rich benefited from Henry’s decision. They bought church property, dismantled chantries, and sold their stones.

  It was poor luck that Bianca found herself in this predicament, and poor timing. She couldn’t abandon the child on the other side, but she could not afford to linger in Southwark, waiting for the father to return. Time was precious.

  “Well,” said the ferrier, “it looks to me like you have made yeself ward to the brat.” He stuck his pole in the water, turning the bow into the current. Bianca’s choice had been made for her.

  Bianca began to run through possible solutions. She might be able to leave the girl with her mother until she had a chance to tend to the matter. Her mother would not be pleased, but she wouldn’t turn the girl out.

  “Wait!”

  Bianca turned to see the man running down the dock, hailing the ferrier. He carried the boy over his shoulder like a sack of grain and waved his arm.

  “Turn back,” shouted Bianca. “He’s returned.”

  The ferrier lifted his pole out of the water and glanced over his shoulder. “Ye is daft if ever I seen it. He’ll dump the child, then ye’ll have two.”

  “Either way, you’ll get more fare.”

  Encouraged by this idea, the ferrier looked at Bianca. “Al-rights,” he said. “I shall hold ye to it.” He jammed his pole into the still shallow river bottom and swung the bow about, returning to the pier.

  The skiff bumped gently along the wharf and the man dropped the boy into the hull. For a breathless second, Bianca thought he would turn and leave. But, holding on to a bollard, he eased himself in beside the boy. “I was afraids I would find ye gone.” He settled on a seat and pulled his son next to him. “Sits still or I shall throw ye in,” he said into the boy’s face. The boy sat beside him, sullen, avoiding Bianca’s gaze by fixing his to the bottom of the boat.

  Bianca felt the girl squirm and push out of her arms to scramble into the man’s lap. From that vantage point, she stared solemnly across at Bianca, her eyes dark and accusatory.

  “We thought you were abandoning her,” said Bianca to the father after they were on their way.

  The man held her stare and said nothing. He turned his focus on the bridge as the ferrier pointed the skiff into the current. As for Bianca, she continued to study his inscrutable expression. She waited for a reply, hoping her disapproval might shame the man into better behavior. Eventually she looked over her shoulder at the ferrier, who grinned back at her cynically.

  Bianca shifted the satchel, resting it on the seat. The bag caught the children’s interest, but when Bianca met their eyes, their father shot them a disapproving glance, and they dropped their stares to their laps.

  Other ferries trekked across the river from the opposite side, filled with men. There were far more skiffs heading to Southwark than to London. A bear-baiting was on the docket for later that day, and Bianca assumed they were getting an early start on the festivities.

  When they reached the stairs near Three Cranes Lane, the tide was high enough to prevent an attack by the relentless sand flies. Bianca waited for the father and his two children to disembark before stepping out. She could have hurried past, dismissing their fate to the beleaguered father, but his general manner troubled her.

  Carrying the girl upon his hip and taking hold of the young boy’s hand, he struck a course up Thames Street. Bianca trailed behind, feigning interest in a stand of fruit and slowing to allow them to gain some distance ahead of her. The three moved at a creeping pace. Bianca was torn between abandoning this probably futile endeavor and striking out for Stannum’s room of alchemy. Finally, she reasoned this was a waste of time and the father was probably stalling until she passed. She quickened her stride, and as she approached the slowly plodding family, the confusion on the father’s face was impossible for her to ignore.

  “You appear lost, sir,” she said, walking up and touching him on the arm. “I know this town’s twisting lanes. Where are you going?” She realized she was exposing herself to another curt dismissal, but his expression softened.

  “I seek St. Thomas Lane.”

  “I can take you; it is on my way.” It was not. Bianca calculated the distance from Ivy Lane and Ferris Stannum’s room of alchemy, where she hoped to find Amice. Though not overly far, St. Thomas was a detour and a delay nonetheless.

  Bianca fell in step beside them. She hoped to learn his intentions, but the man carefully guarded every word. Apparently his wife had died and he was bringing the children to live with his sister. He fell into silence, and after they cut through alleys and plastered themselves against buildings to let carts pass, Bianca felt a tentative hand touch hers. She looked down into the little boy’s soulful eyes peering up at her. She took his hand.

  “Your sister lives on St. Thomas Lane?” asked Bianca.

  “Aye,” said the man.

  “What is her name?” Bianca asked. “Mayhap I know of her.”

  “Likely you do not. She is just moved here,” he answered.

  “There is no hiding if one lives in London,” said Bianca. “Someone always knows someone who knows another.”

  But the man did not offer his sister’s name. A silent rift grew between them. Bianca named a nearby ordinary where they could buy a reasonable meal if they needed. She was hoping to put him at ease, talking about food and offering a traveler such as he a native’s advice. But the man only grunted in reply. Finally, he let go of the boy’s hand and doffed his cap to Bianca. “Good day. This is where we part.”

  “But I have not seen you to your sister’s,” said Bianca. “Do you know where she lives on St. Thomas?”

  “I can manage,” said the man. “Am I far?”

  Bianca saw no use in arguing. She would make a point to visit St. Thomas Lane another time. She gave him directions.

  “God give you a good day,” he said, taking hold of his son’s hand and pulling him on.

  Bianca watched them walk up the road. The little girl peeked at her from her father’s shoulder. The boy kept glancing at her as his father hurried him along. She couldn’t decide what the father’s intentions were. Perhaps he mentioned a sister in order to put her off. She hoped the children would take to their aunt and that all would end well. Bianca sighed, knowing it was rare that anything ended well, especially the care of children.

  Bianca turned in the direction of Ferris Stannum’s alchemy room, cutting through back alleys to avoid the main thoroughfares as they grew congested. She hurried, making up for lost time, dipping under lines of laundry strung between buildings and maneuvering around dumped kitchen scraps slimy with rot and teeming with flies.

  Emerging at one end of Ivy Lane, Bianca was surprised to see the neighborhood more alive with activity than she had ever seen it. The heat must have driven people out of their rents. The street clamored with voices heard from windows and doors that had been flung open. Passions roused and Bianca passed one tenemen
t, listening to an accusation of adultery, and another, hearing evidence that it housed those possibly committing it.

  Across from Goodwife Tenbrook’s, the boy who had weaseled a penny from her sat on his mother’s stoop. With his chin resting in his hands, he looked the portrait of boredom. At the sight of Bianca he trotted over.

  “Ye be back?” He ran in front of her, skipping backward.

  “So I am,” said Bianca. She stopped in front of Goodwife Tenbrook’s rent. A heavy padlock hung from the latch.

  “They put that on to keep folks out.”

  Bianca stood back and peered up at the second story. “I don’t suppose anyone is here.” The shutter had been nailed closed.

  “Ye suppose right,” said the boy.

  “Has anyone cleared out the old alchemist’s room?”

  “They did that yesterday. A man and a woman came and loaded a cart with all kinds of strange-shaped copper and crockery.”

  “The old man’s daughter?”

  The boy shrugged and nodded. “I suppose.”

  Bianca looked up the street and down it. Rather than go to the Royal Poke to find Amice, she figured she was closer to Thomas Plumbum’s room of alchemy. She wondered if she should trust the man. She had wanted to ask him about Ferris Stannum’s death and watch his face for signs of deceit. But visiting him served a more important need. She could scope his room of alchemy and steal his kerotakis.

  The boy pulled on a board nailed across Ferris Stannum’s small window. His thin fingers were of little use prizing it off.

  “It’s not worth trying,” said Bianca. “It’s a new plank and they didn’t spare any nails securing it.” She considered the little rascal, who seemed curious and exceptionally observant for his age. “You spend a lot of time sitting on your mother’s stoop.”

  “I like it better outside.”

  Bianca began walking up the road, expecting the boy would follow. “You never told me your name,” she said.

  “Fisk,” said the boy, bending down for a stone, then hurrying to catch up to her. “You never told me yours.”

  Bianca obliged. “Mostly you sit outside and watch the street?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Do you sleep well these hot nights?”

  Fisk shrugged, wiping his hair out of his eyes. “Sometimes I get up and bring a blanket out on the stoop. I sleep by the door.” He had no sooner said this when a woman’s shrill voice called after him. Fisk stopped walking and answered. “I’ve got to go, miss. Me mother wants me.”

  Bianca watched him run down the lane and disappear inside his family’s home. She wondered how much he had noticed of the various goings-on at Goodwife Tenbrook’s. A minute passed as she considered this before returning her thoughts to Thomas Plumbum.

  Besides nabbing a kerotakis, she hoped to learn the alchemist’s intentions and in the process find out where he thought the book might be.

  Bianca slowed on the street where Barnabas Hughes had said the alchemist lived, studying each shop front, every door she passed. She followed her nose, but no errant odors of liver of sulfur or putrefaction gave a clue to the alchemist’s whereabouts. Finally, she was forced to rely on a neighbor leaving his rent partway down the lane.

  “Might you know of Thomas Plumbum?” she asked. “I am looking for him.”

  The neighbor’s thin shirt snugged around his thick middle. In the crook of one arm was a blood-spattered apron. He had the thick shoulders of a man accustomed to hefting sides of beef. He screwed up his nose as if reacting to the peculiar smells of the alchemist’s work, or perhaps something more offensive crossed his mind. “Aye, the man lives there.” He pointed to the decrepit exterior of the building opposite his. “The third door, the one with the crooked stoop.”

  All three entrances were far from level, but one slanted markedly worse than the others. Bianca crossed the lane, and in order to stand on the block of stone, she bent one knee and kept the other straight. Balancing on the stoop required some attention, so that she failed to notice the door was unlatched. When she pounded on it, the door swung inward from the force of her knock, pitching her forward into the room.

  “Master Tait,” she said, catching herself up.

  The usurer was on his toes reaching behind a stack of crockery when he heard his name combined with the sound of her stumbling. He whirled about, narrowing his eyes at the sight of her. “It is a matter of courtesy to knock,” he said.

  Bianca recovered and straightened her bodice. “And what courtesy are you exhibiting?” She swept her eyes around the room. “Where is Thomas Plumbum?”

  The usurer’s lips curved in an indulgent smile. “He is not here.”

  “Sir, I question the liberty with which you riffle through alchemists’ belongings when they are not at home.”

  “I am afraid Thomas Plumbum won’t be home anytime soon.” Tait shook his head with regret. “His body was found at the corner. Dead from an abdominal wound, imposed by a dagger, it seems.”

  Bianca’s mouth fell open. “When?”

  “Last night. The time I cannot say.” Tait picked up a flask and sniffed its contents. One eye closed as he registered the smell. Apparently he found it objectionable, as he quickly returned the flask to the table. “I cannot say when it happened, because I was not there.”

  “Then how did you learn of his death?”

  Tait’s dark eyes considered her a moment before answering. “It is a matter of business. The delicacies of which are complicated for a woman to understand.”

  “Sir, you misjudge me.” Bianca stepped forward. “But perhaps you will not say because you have a guilty conscience.”

  “My dear, I assure you it is not my conscience that is tainted with guilt.” His gaze ran over the strap crossing her chest.

  Bianca shifted the satchel behind her back and their eyes met.

  Tait continued. “I would advise you to stay to matters of medicants or whatever it is that you trifle with. These matters are not your concern.”

  “I find it interesting that within hours of Ferris Stannum’s and Thomas Plumbum’s deaths you are busily rummaging through their belongings. It seems too much of a coincidence.”

  “The only coincidence is that they were both alchemists. And as you know, I have made my living lending alchemists money. I am simply collecting my due before word travels of Thomas’s death.”

  “I should think the constable would secure the property pending proper investigation into his creditors, of which you may not be the only one.”

  “One might as well open the door to looters as have a constable secure it. My dear, you are so innocent. I lent money in good faith to support Plumbum in his work. And I seek to recover what he owes. I have no time for incompetent men of law.” Tait turned to a shelf and lifted out a jar. He peered into it. “I can see you are ignorant in matters of business. I shall not waste my time explaining finances to you.” He reached into the vessel, withdrew some powder, and let it trickle through his fingers onto the floor.

  Bianca regarded all moneylenders with skepticism. They spoke of their profession in terms of “service”—supporting individuals in their pursuit of self-sufficiency. But beneath their self-aggrandizing twaddle were men who profited off the hopes and dreams of others.

  “Why would you lend money to an alchemist? Would not a more reliable venture prove more profitable? A wool merchant or a chain-mail maker is a more dependable and needed trade. I would think a man as prudent as yourself would avoid such a risky endeavor.”

  As Bianca was saying this, she noticed the usurer limp as he moved down the shelves, examining Plumbum’s possessions. He had not shown a hitch in his walk the last time she had seen him. She might ask how he came by it. Had he been involved in last night’s skirmish?

  “Such condemnation coming from an alchemist’s daughter. You ridicule the means by which you were fed?” He tutted with disapproval. “It is a well-known adage that risk garners the greatest reward,” he said. “I had a conside
rable amount of faith and money invested in Ferris Stannum. His death was an enormous disappointment to me.”

  Tait grew thoughtful, appearing genuinely contrite.

  “However,” he continued, “Thomas Plumbum was a dabbler by comparison. He was a conniver. Good alchemists often are. I found Plumbum to be a man of his word—at least when it concerned our agreements. He paid me on time and I made a modest sum of money from lending to him. But lately he had been negligent. I had hoped he would curb his less admirable inclinations and get back to the matter of alchemy.”

  “And those less than admirable inclinations were?”

  Tait pinched his lips, appearing coy. “You are venturing into dangerous waters, my dear.” He continued to sort through a collection of bottles, holding them to the light, uncorking them, and cautiously sniffing. After a moment, he continued, “Ferris Stannum believed in Thomas Plumbum’s abilities. The old alchemist must have seen some potential in Plumbum. He would not bestow his attention on just anyone.” He shook a bottle of pickled cow eyes and watched them rearrange themselves in the fluid. “A man had to show merit. They had to prove themselves worthy of his attention. He had to believe in them.” He set the bottle back on the shelf. “And unfortunately, to my detriment, I believed in Stannum.”

  Tait gazed across the room at Bianca. “And how was it that you earned Stannum’s faith?” he asked, his eyebrows lifting. “You only knew him a day.” Tait picked up an alembic, turning it right side up and then flipping it over. “You must have made quite an impression.”

  “I shall not speculate about his interest in me. Perhaps, as you say, he saw some potential.”

  The usurer looked her up and down. “Indeed,” he said.

  Bianca riled at his implication. Unable to keep silent, she said, “You favor your left side. I don’t recall your limping the last time I saw you.” She watched his face.

  Tait continued to feign interest in the copper still head.