“I need remedies, medicines,” she said, and her voice faded into a complaining whine. She touched the jeweled headdress that sat atop her sallow rat’s face. “I have headaches, terrible headaches. I go nearly blind with them. You holy pilgrims, you must help me. And my digestion, it’s so poor. I suffer in my digestion. Pains, pains, you understand? I’m weak. And my son—look—he needs strengthening. He never leaves this chamber. He can only travel in the heat of summertime. Find him a remedy, or cure him with your prayers, and I’ll beg my husband to reward you richly. You’ll ride to the Holy Land—no, Compostela, is it?—mounted like queens. Hounds, men at arms, money. I’ll get anything, if you make him strong, like other children.”
“You know the cause, Mother Hilde?” I asked in English.
“Look at her coat of arms on the wall, Margaret. I can’t read arms, but I see at least four quarterings with very much the same emblems. Weak blood is the first cause. Great families can afford to get papal exemptions from the forbidden degrees of kinship in marriage—they marry their own kin too much and weaken their blood while they strengthen their purses. The other cause is the evil of the house. It sucks the strength of these innocents, though they have been kept in ignorance.”
“And tell her,” whispered the Countess in French to me, so her maids would not overhear, “I cannot get another child. My lord would love me again if I had another child. He loved me once. He gave me gifts and made a poem in my honor before we married. If he loved me again, he wouldn’t leave me alone like this. All locked up in these rooms, never going outside. We never travel with him anymore. And when my lord resides in this castle, he never speaks to me, save at the table, when company is present. Always his own business, night after night. No time for me. Not a word, a visit, or a sign of favor. His son—look at him! He sneers at the child. If you cannot mend this one, get me a stronger one, I pray you. I don’t care by what means—I must have my lord’s favor again.”
As I translated, Mother Hilde inspected the child, making clucking noises, as he went on playing chess, appearing not to hear. I suppose people had clucked at him all his life.
“I need to seek the right herbs,” said Mother Hilde, “tell her that they don’t all grow in her garden, and that we need to go outside the walls into the mountains with a boy to show us the way.” The little rat face looked terrorized. But that is how, the very next day, with two armed footmen, we got to wander beyond the walls above the village and into the blustery mountain passes. Mother Hilde brews several wonderful headache remedies, though the best, which requires willow bark, could not be made here for lack of ingredients. We learned the lay of the land, but never got any closer to finding Gregory, though I was sure he was there somewhere.
In the meanwhile, some of the other pilgrims chafed at not being able to cross the mountains before the heavy winter snows set in, and sent a delegation to the Count, who rebuffed them with a brutal hint about how lordly hospitality was far finer than crossing the mountains naked in wintertime.
Malachi returned each evening with more news from the concealed alchemical laboratorium.
“Oh, I cannot tell you how wearying it is, doing nothing. You have the benefit of fresh air, but I, where am I? Underground, trapped with the foulest of stinks, and nothing but that king of fools, Messer Guglielmo, and a bunch of mute dullards, stripped like executioners, for conversation. ‘My God,’ I tell them, ‘how could you possibly undertake the Great Work with copper vessels? They contaminate the Dragon. Throw them out. I want glass, all glass. Yours isn’t heavy enough.’ Then Messer Guglielmo fusses like an old lady, and the glassblower acts injured, and it takes a couple of days to get the stuff right. Then I took the biggest aludel in the place and made spirits of wine. I got them so drunk they couldn’t stand. ‘The Elixir of Life,’ I said, ‘just tell my lord to take a portion of it like this every evening before sleep, and it will prolong his life by one hundred years.’ So they did that. He came down to watch me. ‘Ugh, impossible equipment,’ I tell him. ‘I need orpiment; I can’t work without it.’ He got nasty. I think he must be deep in debt and need the money. ‘My equipment is the best in six kingdoms,’ he says, shaking those menacing jowls of his at me, ‘and as for orpiment, if you can’t work without it, I’ll pluck your fingernails out one by one until you can.’ Ugh. Cultured, ptah!” Brother Malachi spat on the floor. “And at dinner I’m supposed to enjoy my food while those minstrels sing those monstrosities he calls verses. Why, Gilbert dead drunk could turn a better verse than that. Gilbert asleep could do it.”
“Gregory wrote verses drunk?”
“Of course, silly Margaret. He was the toast of every tavern from Paris to London. He could compose extemporaneously in any style. Rondels, sonnets, anything! He was as full of them as a tun is of wine! And nearly all satirical. By Saint Dunstan’s beard, some of them were funny! One time, some highborn troubador sent several hired ruffians to have him horsewhipped, but we snuck him out the back door, where, in the alley, he composed a verse commemorating the event. I hear it’s still sung in the lower sort of student places. ‘Why Poets Need Winged Feet,’ it’s called. Then he decided he’d make his mark on scholarship—but as it turned out, scholarship made its mark on him, instead. Finding that discouraging, he decided he was destined to see God, and converted himself into a bore of the first order. Now, how he got involved with you is beyond me—I can’t feature any man of sense, let alone him, copying your memoirs for you. I can’t imagine, if you’ll pardon me, that you’d have any ideas worth writing about.”
“That’s exactly what he said.”
“And you, of course, told him he was wrong.”
“Yes, naturally.”
“Of course, naturally,” sighed Brother Malachi. “So it’s made in heaven.”
“Malachi, when you rattle on like that, you’re leading up to something. Just what is it?” Mother Hilde interrupted.
“Well, I don’t think he’s under the donjon.”
“Then you’ve found him!” My heart leapt with hope.
“Not quite. But I finally got myself under the Old Tower today, and what they’ve got there is salt meat, mostly, and some other supplies. I told them I needed the mold off cheeses. But then I found they’ve got another basement under us in the athanor room in the New Tower. It’s got—oh, goodness—a torture chamber, I heard some poor wretch screaming is how I found out—and a couple of big cells chock-full with ugly equipment and several nasty little oubliettes. They’re set up so that water runs through them constantly, and he breeds toads, scorpions, and that sort of thing inside. They’re very deep, with grilles at the top—he just strips his prisoners and dumps them in with the vermin. There’s a sort of pulley for that, and, I suppose, getting them out as well, although he doesn’t seem to have done that within anyone’s memory. They say they’re very deep, but not so very wide—perhaps four feet across, according to Messer Guglielmo. I got him drunk, and there was no end to the talking he did. It seems the screams spoil his concentration, and he believes that an artiste such as himself deserves greater consideration and a more salubrious location for his labors.”
“Oh, Malachi, you’re marvelous; he’s found!” exclaimed Mother Hilde. But I started to cry.
“Oh, Malachi, that awful place. And so cold. He must be dead. We’ve come too late.”
“Now, now, Margaret, take heart. That’s the part I saved for last. It seems that once a week, Fridays, I hear, the Comte makes him a personal visit to see how he’s doing. Dumps things through the grille and shouts insults, I suppose. Goes down all full of airs, sniffing a pomander, and comes back so furious that he screams at Messer Guglielmo on the way up. This past Friday, he threw the pomander at him, and threatened to cut off his hands and feet if he didn’t make faster progress.”
“Friday? But that’s only four days ago.”
“Exactly, my dear. But now we must lay plans. I have no idea how to get to him, and I am at the end of all my tricks but one. Once I’ve made gold, w
e’re doomed unless we are far from here that very night. I’ll tell him it needs to be done at the full moon—that will give us light to travel by at night, and put him off a while more.”
“Make gold? All these years, Malachi, and you always knew how to make gold anyway?” Mother Hilde was shocked.
“Well, after a fashion, my love. There are always complexities.”
“But—when we needed money to mend the roof, and when—”
“Ah, Hilde, my precious. The pursuit of the Green Lion is not for the mere mending of roofs. It is a higher spiritual force.”
“A higher force?” Mother Hilde spluttered.
“Oh, my love, I’ll explain it all to you afterward. It’s a great secret I’ve kept for years, and you certainly deserve to know it. But if I fail—well, I’d rather you retain your faith in my powers.”
“Malachi, you’re up to something.”
“Of course. When have I said I wasn’t? Prepare for flight at the full moon, my treasure, even if we have to scale the walls with a grappling hook.”
“THE FULL MOON, you say? But that’s a week away. Messer Guglielmo, do you know anything about this full moon business? I swear he’s stalling.” The Count’s deep voice sounded suspicious. Messer Guglielmo had already abandoned the athanor to the mutes, leaving them to supervise the process of calcination of a batch of duck’s eggs while he attended his lord. The fading winter light in the long, tile-floored laboratorium had already been supplemented by smoking torches mounted in iron brackets the length of the bare stone walls. Brother Malachi looked wan as he knelt on the cold floor at the Count’s feet. He had been losing weight in Sieur d’Aigremont’s hidden alchemical workshop, and it wasn’t just because of the smell. Messer Guglielmo’s eyes flicked back and forth from his patron to his rival, and he combed his rough, grayish-black beard with his fingers as he weighed what he would say.
“Well, I can’t deny he’s gotten results. Preliminary results, of course. But this method from Leyden, it’s very primitive in some ways. He doesn’t use the classical method for congealing the dragon’s sister to the silver. It seems unsound to me—yes, quite unsound.”
“Unsound?”
“Yes. Definitely. He won’t use the proper fixative, and the quicksilver stays liquid. And he relies on—hmm—unassisted methods.”
“Unassisted? You mean I’ve let this fool dillydally unassisted? And how, pray tell,” he addressed the alchemist at his feet, “do you expect to achieve the Secret without supernatural power? With the puny powers of the human mind?”
“My lord, the powers of observation and rationality, applied to the study of nature, can achieve mighty transformations,” Brother Malachi answered simply.
“Ha! So you confess all! You’ve made no sacrifices! Used no powerful fixatives! Theophilus of Rotterdam, you’ve been toying with me. I want you to finish the process tonight, moon or no moon, with the correct fixative.” The rage in the Count’s voice rumbled with menace.
Brother Malachi’s eyes were like those of a trapped hare.
“Most high lord, that is poor stuff.”
“Poor stuff? Poor? It’s the freshest to be had. You squeamish little bastard, I’m going to cut out your tongue for that.”
Brother Malachi trembled, but his voice was firm.
“I have the proper fixative with me, but it requires a full moon—”
“Where? Show me.” The Count’s face loomed over Malachi like the face in a nightmare. Somewhere nearby, he could sense the nervous quiver of Messer Guglielmo’s beard, as he pushed his narrow face closer to get a better view. His knees were aching and frozen. You’d think at least they’d let me stand up for a great moment like this, he thought as he opened his pilgrim’s wallet to remove a tiny leather sack.
“Don’t breathe on it. You mustn’t lose a grain. And the heat of your breath may spoil it.” Deep within the little sack, an opalescent pinkish powder gleamed.
“My God, he has it. The Red Powder!” Even the waspish Messer Guglielmo was briefly awestruck.
“You’ve had it all along. Use it tonight, or you’ll wish you were dead.”
“But my part of the bargain? How do I know you’ve got him still?”
“Do you doubt my word?”
“Oh, never, never. Me? A poor humble Seeker after Truth, doubt the word of a nobleman? Oh, impossible.”
“Don’t try me,” the Count growled. “I despise humor. And especially satire. The refuge of clowns and human garbage. Want to see what I’ll do to you if you’re being humorous with me?”
“—um, not just now. Later, perhaps?”
“Now is just right. After all, I have a sense of humor too. The proper kind. I think it will be very funny to see your face.” And with a snap of his fingers, he had called two of the huge mute assistants, who grabbed Brother Malachi by both elbows, practically suspending him from the floor.
“Messer Guglielmo, I want you to come too. Let me show you what happens to people who fool with me. It will give wings to your mind.” With a gesture, Brother Malachi was frog-marched down a shadowy stone staircase into a realm of perpetual darkness. Two torchbearers lit the way before them, and two more followed the party. Brother Malachi could not help looking up at the smoke-stained ceiling of the narrow passage, and wonder how many trips the dripping soot represented.
The passage soon opened out into a low, vaulted room, lit primarily by the flickering embers that burned perpetually beneath a cauldron of rancid oil. Beside the fire stood a rack of iron implements suitable for heating: pinchers, rods, and branding irons. A little brazier, like a low box on legs about the height of a footstool, caught Brother Malachi’s eye. That one, he’d seen before. A favorite of the Inquisition. He flinched, almost invisibly.
“Why did you come with women, Theophilus? And you so squeamish.” The Count’s voice was smooth and menacing. Malachi looked about him at the nasty objects in the room: pulleys on the ceiling, a rack, the boot, and a number of other things whose purpose was all too clear. He’d never felt queasier.
“Yes, squeamish. Take a look at this. Nice and sharp, aren’t they?” The Count paused before an open iron maiden, dark with the stains of old blood. “Put his hand on the spikes—not too hard, mind you. He needs it to make gold tonight.” Brother Malachi was lugged to the apparatus and his right hand forced onto the spikes. “What do you think of it, you soft, cowardly little worm?”
“It—it would be very bad for my complexion.”
“Ah, yes—your tender skin, which you have preserved by wandering all over Europe. Still humorous, aren’t you? My Master despises humor. And tonight, you’ll make the sacrifice and call him to assist you, won’t you?” Brother Malachi turned ashen, and slumped between his captors.
“Fresh eyes and heart, right, Messer Guglielmo? I have a new little one from the last hunt. I’ve nearly finished playing with it—it bores me now. What are you muttering, Theophilus? Prayers? They don’t work here. Oh, yes—your bargain. I’m saving the best for last.”
The mutes picked their torches out of the brackets, and the little party wound down a deep passage that seemed hollowed out of the solid rock. Brother Malachi could feel drops of icy water splashing from the ceiling onto his face, and hear them hiss as they touched the torches. The corridor ended in a wide spot. Here they paused before several grilles set into the floor. The stench of decay rose from them. The Count took a torch and walked to the farthest one, holding it down to the grille. With his free hand, he took a pomander from the wallet at his belt and held it to his nose. A hoarse voice rose from the grille.
“Back again, are you, you verse-mangler? What new obscenity have you come with this time?”
“I’m going to recite to you my ‘Ode to Summer.’”
“The theme’s overworked. Face facts—you have a banal imagination.”
“Just say it’s good, and you’re as free as a bird.”
“Impossible. You’ve never written a line yet that isn’t trite.”
“Trite? Me? Trite? Do you realize where you are, you verminous street sweeping?”
“How can I forget? In your oubliette—where you come to drop in the contents of your chamber pot or the results of your fits of versification. Pretty much the same stuff—they obviously come from the same end. Pull me out and face me like a man, you coward.”
“I’m not pulling you out until you’re ready to crawl on your stomach like a worm, and kiss my feet, and weep, and say my verse is the best you’ve ever heard.”
“Pull me up, then. You’ve got enough equipment up there to make a priest sign himself over to the Devil. Making a poet weep shouldn’t be half as hard.”
“I want you to say it from the heart.”
“Impossible.”
“Impossible? I don’t think so.” Striking out like a snake, the Count gave Brother Malachi an immense backhanded blow across the face. As Brother Malachi cried out, he had him flung onto the grille.
“Who’s up there?”
“Gilbert, it’s me.”
“Theophilus? You? What in the hell are you doing here? You’re dripping on me—hmm. Blood.”
“Just a nosebleed, Gilbert. Don’t worry.”
“He’s come to buy your freedom. Isn’t that thoughtful? But that’s not the best part, Gilbert l’Escolier—”
“De Vilers, cucumber head.”
“You persist in the masquerade, you villein? That is the worst crime of all—impersonating a gentleman.”
“You ought to know.” The voice sounded raspier, weaker, but still defiant. The sound of coughing echoed from the pit. In the half dark Brother Malachi could feel the Count’s rage growing and swelling like a wave of heat radiating from the huge body.
He whispered despairingly down into the pit: “For God’s sake, Gilbert, tell him you like his bloody poetry and get out.”
“Et tu, Theophilus? But it’s not true, and that’s why I won’t.”
“You idiot—I can’t believe I’m giving him the Secret of Transmutation in exchange for a hammerhead like you.”
In Pursuit of the Green Lion Page 29