Shadow of the Alchemist: A Medieval Noir

by Westerson, Jeri

  Forget her and live on. It was his only true advice, but men seldom wished to take it. It was a point of honor and a slap in the face for one’s wife to walk away, or so he imagined.

  The conversation was sobering him by the moment. He glanced at the man’s untouched wine bowl with a bit of longing.

  Jack leaned forward. “Should we not go looking for her first, Master Crispin?”

  Crispin rested an elbow on the table, twisted his head, and glared at his impetuous assistant. Jack gazed mildly back at him, clenching his hands and holding his own at first. But as Crispin continued to meet his gaze, the youth seemed to back down and he soon looked quickly away.

  “Yes, yes,” Flamel insisted, oblivious to the silent war going on before him. “We must find her. I … I will gladly take her back.”

  “Are you certain?” said Crispin with a glance back at Jack, daring him to interfere. “Once she is—” Tainted goods, he was going to say, but even his sluggish mind thought better of it. “Once she has been gone from you for an amount of time, might it be best to simply … er…”

  “No! No, our work, you understand? We are very close. Close to a breakthrough. I need her. Not simply because she is my wife and belongs to me. But because our work is so important. She is more than my wife. She has been my work assistant for many years. I believed we worked in tandem, heart, soul, and mind. But perhaps—” His voice cracked at last. “Perhaps I have been mistaken.”

  Crispin pushed himself upright again. “And perhaps you are making more of this than there is. How long has she been gone?”

  “Since this morning—”

  “What?” Damn these timid men! “It is midafternoon. You waste my time for the absence of a few hours? Perhaps she has a lengthy shopping list, nothing more than that.”

  “But my assistant is gone as well—”

  “And he’s carrying the baggage. Good God, man. You’re making a fool of yourself.”

  “I tell you it is more than that. I know it is!”

  “Was there a note, anything telltale, like a sum of funds missing?”

  “No, nothing as that.”

  “No? If she intended to run away, then surely she would need the funds to do so. Master Flamel, I believe you are worrying needlessly.” He rose and lurched around the table. He lifted the man by the elbow and steered him toward the door. “Go home. I’m certain they are both there waiting for you.”

  With sudden vehemence, he shook Crispin off. “No! I know what I know, Maître. The alchemical sciences breach the world that we know with that of another far from our imaginings. It is not Heaven nor is it Hell but somewhere in between in the ether. I have crossed the paths between, Maître, and it has given me an insight that I cannot easily explain.”

  Crispin recoiled. “What you speak of, sir, is sorcery.”

  “No, I assure you. I work within God’s good grace. Come with me and I will show you. I’ll prove it to you.”

  Crispin sighed again and caught Jack’s glance. The knave was making motions that seemed to express “It couldn’t hurt to try.”

  “Very well,” he huffed. He moved toward the peg on the wall to retrieve his cloak but noticed that he was still wearing it. Jack pulled his own from the peg and buttoned it up.

  “Shall we go, then?” Crispin gestured to the door. Flamel went first and Crispin went after, followed by Jack, whom he trusted to lock the door. At least the boy could act like an apprentice.

  * * *

  THEY TRUDGED OVER THE mud and stomped through icy puddles toward the Fleet Ditch. Skirting down a narrow alley beside a dung cart, Crispin held his nose, recalling the days when he was first cast from court—years ago now, thankfully—and was forced into pushing one of those carts and mucking out the privies along the Thames, one of many disagreeable positions that forced him to come up with something better.

  The mud was churned so badly at the “T” of the road that it nearly sucked in Crispin’s boots. He grasped Jack’s shoulder before he fell over, and Jack’s strong arm pulled him free. The lad continued to grasp his upper arm and helped Crispin along, as he was still a bit unsteady on his feet.

  Flamel led them down darker and dimmer streets, streets of less repute than even the Shambles. Were they mistaken about the alchemist? Were his clothes not fine? Did the man have money or not? Or was it some sort of ruse to get Crispin into a situation he could not get out of?

  He pulled back on Jack’s steadying arm and the boy looked him in the eye questioningly. “Where are you taking us?” he asked, directing his scowl to the alchemist.

  The man stopped and turned to Crispin, eyeing first him and then Jack. “It is just this way,” he said, gesturing.

  “What is this? Some French trap?”

  His look of shock seemed genuine. “Sainte Mère! Of course not!”

  Crispin stepped forward and glared nose to nose. “I’m warning you. If this is a trap, you will find yourself extremely repentant.”

  “On my honor, Maître Guest. I swear by the Virgin’s heart. It is simply that I must live in these humble surroundings so as not to bring spies upon me. In this way I stay hidden and so do my secrets.”

  “What is so secret in an alchemist’s lair that he must hide in such filthy surrounds?”

  He tilted his head, staring off to the side. “I … I cannot say, Maître Guest. My livelihood depends on these secrets. I am sure you are a man who understands.”

  Crispin stepped back with a huff and straightened his coat. “Very well. Is it much farther?”

  “No. Only this way.”

  At last, Flamel led them to a mud-spattered door under an overhanging eave that sagged in the middle. The man took a ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the door. Crispin noted that the lock was new.

  The man pushed through and let out a gasp.

  Instinct propelled Crispin forward and he pushed Flamel aside to enter under the low lintel and into the dim surrounds.

  The first thing that caught Crispin’s attention was the gleam of brass above his head. He sucked in a breath as he beheld the huge spheres slowly encircling one another, all balancing on metal arms. Around and around they went, revolving, spinning. One sphere had rays emanating from it, and Crispin suddenly realized that this was the sun and the rest must be the planets orbiting the central globe, the Earth, in a monstrous display of brass and wire. It was indiscernible what made it move. Possibly the wind. He blinked in amazement.

  An elbow to his gut made him turn to Tucker. The boy cocked his head toward the room, and Crispin tore his attention away from the astronomical display long enough to realize that this was not what he was supposed to be paying attention to. The room itself was in utter chaos. Glass flasks were shattered upon the floor. Clay jars, oozing strange substances, had been tossed about. Furniture overturned and broken. Parchment flung everywhere and fragments were stuck to the plank floor on puddles of some spilled sludge from a pot or canister.

  He turned back to look at Flamel. “Was this how you left it?”

  The man shook his head. It was plain that he was holding himself together by a thread. Something clearly was not right.

  A sound.

  Crispin pulled his dagger. All his attention directed to the far corner behind a disrupted pile of books and stools. A shadow, and then a figure emerged.

  She looked like a waif, thin arms and a long, slim neck on which perched a faery face of wide blue eyes and a long cascade of silvery blond hair caught in a long braid snaking down her back. She stared at Crispin with incomprehension, until those eyes settled on Flamel.

  “Oh, ma chère!” he said, and rushed to her.

  Crispin lowered his knife. “Well. That’s settled, then.”

  “Do not be a fool,” said Flamel, drawing the woman into the light from the doorway. “She is not my wife. This is my servant, Avelyn.”

  Once he was able to look more clearly under the falling light from the open door, Crispin noted the smudge of dirt on her cheek, the ragged
hem of her skirt, and the filthy apron her bony hands clutched.

  It was then that Flamel began the strange motions of his hands and fingers before her face, as if he were playing the strings of an unseen harp. But when she replied silently with the same sorts of motions, Crispin’s skin tingled with unease.

  “Here! What are you doing?”

  Flamel patted the girl on the shoulder wearily. He seemed satisfied. “She can neither hear nor speak. I was asking her what happened.”

  Crispin looked her over again. A deaf-mute, eh? “Well? What did she say?”

  “Alas. All of this,” he said, taking in the surrounds with the expanse of his gesture. “She does not know.”

  3

  DEAF, MUTE, AND NO doubt simple, thought Crispin. “She does not know or does not know how to say?”

  Flamel clutched at the lapels of his gown, spotted hands tensing over the dark material. “She can express herself very well, Maître. She simply does not know what has transpired.”

  Crispin frowned. “Ask her if she saw anyone or anything. Are your wife’s clothes gone? Jewelry? And ask her where she was during this mayhem.”

  Crispin watched as Flamel began his finger dance, but she didn’t seem to be paying attention to him. Her eyes lingered on Crispin and she even moved Flamel aside to walk forward, striding right up to him. She stood almost toe to toe with Crispin and looked up at his face searchingly. She was the height of a child, the top of her head coming only up to his chest. And though not a child, she was perhaps little older than Jack. She studied his face and even raised a tentative finger to touch it. He shied away and glared at the alchemist. “What is she doing?”

  “Learning. About you, I suspect. She has a way about her unlike any other.”

  “Tell her to stop.” His hand captured her wrist before her fingers could reach his face and squeezed it once, hard, before pushing her hand away and letting it go.

  She raised a silken brow at him but didn’t seem at all perturbed, blinking white-tipped lashes. At last, she turned back to Flamel. He spoke in the finger language and she responded in kind. When she was finished, she crossed her arms over her chest and fixed her unnerving gaze on Crispin.

  “Well?” he asked.

  Flamel shook his head. “She had only just returned and found it this way. There is nothing missing. Our money is still here. Now do you see that something is amiss?”

  “Why would your wife ransack your rooms and then take nothing? It makes no sense.”

  “I … I do not know.” He grasped his hair again and shook his head. Avelyn swooped forward, picked up an upended stool, and shoved it nearly beneath him. He slumped into it without looking behind him. It looked to be a well-practiced gesture. “I do not know what to make of it.”

  “Mind if I look around?” asked Crispin, already moving toward the far wall.

  Flamel waved his hand and Crispin examined the disorder. Jack was suddenly at his shoulder.

  “It’s a mess, right enough,” he murmured. He kept glancing up nervously at the slowly turning brass planets.

  “Yes. But why?”

  “Aye,” Jack said quietly, so only Crispin could hear. He looked back at Flamel and sent a long gaze raking over the silent assistant. “If the apprentice ran off with his master’s wife—and no man deserves a whipping more if he done it—then why did they leave their goods behind?”

  Crispin cast his gaze about the room. And though it was in complete disarray, he couldn’t help noticing the finery. The carved tables and benches; the dark walnut ambry; bolts of fine cloth unwound and snaking across the floor. Above beside the brass planetary display perched a loft open to the floor below. He made out the shape of a bed in the gloom. Bedding lay over the railing, dipping into the space below like a frozen waterfall.

  Clearly Flamel wasn’t lying about his status. But the missing wife was another matter.

  He swiveled a little too sharply and nearly lost his footing, forgetting that he was still in his cups. “Just when was it again that you felt your wife was gone too long?”

  “It must have been about midafternoon, around None. I was working all morning and had sent Avelyn out on an errand. When I heard the church bells, I remember being startled that it was so late. And that Perenelle hadn’t returned. And my apprentice, Thomas Cornhill, was not here at all. It was Avelyn who stoked the fire and prepared my flasks and jars early this morning.”

  “Cornhill? Is he English?”

  “Yes. He came highly recommended and has a head for alchemy.”

  “So this servant—” He waved a hand at Avelyn. “She stoked the fire and did the apprentice’s tasks. And you thought nothing of this inconsistency?”

  “Well, sometimes Thomas is … away.”

  “Away?”

  Flamel passed a hand over his face. His hair was wild, sticking up out of his cap. “The lad is—how you say—beau. Comely. He catches the eye of many a maid.” Pointedly, he looked at Avelyn, but she was unaware of what he was saying and was busy sweeping the broken crockery into a corner with the noisy upstroke of her broom.

  Crispin followed his gaze, but Flamel shook his head. “Oh no, Maître. Avelyn is very particular. She does not allow liberties. I think she has cuffed Thomas rather well a time or two. But…” He sank again. “My wife … she might not be above his charms. She is … older than I, but handsome.”

  “Any idea where they might have gone? Does your apprentice, this Thomas Cornhill, does he have other lodgings, family?”

  “Family, yes.”

  “Then we must go there first.”

  “Avelyn will take you. I cannot leave my shop. I mustn’t. I have much work to do.”

  Crispin turned to the girl again and watched as Flamel gestured to her. Before he was halfway done, she looked up at Crispin with a smile. He sneered back. He didn’t like the idea of her, this deaf-mute leading him about.

  She made quickly for the door and waited under the lintel, staring at him.

  “She’s a right comely lass, Master,” said Jack at his elbow. The boy was grinning. “Wouldn’t mind too much following her about, if you know my meaning.”

  “All too well. Might I suggest you keep your cod laced and your eyes open?”

  Looking back at Flamel, he could see the man was already busily sweeping parchments into his arms. He bent and retrieved a small folded piece under a jar and his eyes widened in shock.

  “Master Flamel?” Crispin approached. The alchemist straightened and hid it behind his back. Rocking on his heels, Crispin waited. “Did you find something?”

  “Oh, no. No, I—”

  Though his reflexes were slowed by drink, Crispin was still able to feint in one direction and lean in the other, plucking the parchment from the man’s hand. He raised it to the cloudy sunlight from a narrow casement window. It fell across its buff surface. The inked lines were a string of several letters, nothing more.

  “What is this?” asked Crispin.

  “I—it is nothing,” Flamel insisted, and tried to grasp the parchment from Crispin’s hand. Crispin pulled it away.

  “Nothing? Then why does it vex you so?”

  “It is possibly part of one of my important papers.”

  “It is merely a fragment.”

  Suddenly the parchment was yanked from his fingers and Avelyn was there beside him, examining it, turning it this way and that. Damn the woman!

  “Give that back,” he snarled, and grabbed it, but she wrestled with him and managed to tear it away, holding it close to her body as one holds a candle to protect its flame.

  Frustrated, he turned to Flamel. “Did she write that?”

  “No.” Flamel tried to peer over her shoulder, even dancing on the balls of his feet. “She cannot read or write. More’s the pity, for we have never quite understood each other.”

  “Then what the hell is she—”

  She stopped examining it and waved it frantically at Flamel, who tried to snatch it back from her fingers.

/>   Crispin plucked it from her at last, and she didn’t seem disposed to grab it back. She merely watched him and waited. “She doesn’t appear to think this is yours.”

  “Nonsense!” And he tried unsuccessfully to snatch it again.

  “Do you know the meaning of this?”

  Flamel sucked in his lips, his mustache drawing down over them both. “I— No.”

  “Then it is a cypher of some kind. I will examine it later. It might help. You are certain this means nothing to you?” Flamel seemed to school his face into bland regard and shrugged. Crispin didn’t believe it. He stuffed the parchment fragment into his scrip, measuring Flamel’s eyes as he watched its progress. “In the meantime,” he went on, “I suppose I’d best allow your assistant to lead me to the Cornhill house.” He strode to the door. When Avelyn noticed, she scrambled forward and edged him out of the way. She put her hood up as she stepped into the street and motioned for him to follow.

  He and Jack threw their hoods up over their heads. Snow had begun to fall in thick, lacy sheets. Her footsteps nearly disappeared the moment she made them. Crispin shivered. He could scarce recall a November so cold, and the month had barely begun. He drew his hood low over his face and tried to hide his chin in the folds of the leather cape at his throat, but it didn’t help. Neither did his drunkenness help. It lingered just at the edges of his senses. The cold to his cheeks served to sober him, but the snow was making it difficult to even see the street.

  Avelyn hurried ahead, heedless of them. In fact, she was moving too fast for Crispin’s slower gait. “Wait,” he called, and then remembered she couldn’t hear him. He trotted ahead and grabbed her shoulder.

  Instantly, she whirled around, a dagger in her hand. “Hold, damosel!” He took several steps back, bumping into Jack.

  “Not a good idea to startle her,” said the boy.

  “I can see that.” He placated with a gesture, and she gave him a smirk and sheathed her weapon before she turned and hurried up the avenue just as fast as before.

  Crispin shrugged. “Best keep up,” he said to Tucker.