The Apothecary's Curse

by Barbara Barnett

  The work went easier from there as barely remembered bits of knowledge were restored to memory, a new lock unfastened at every page, leading to the next and the next. Breathlessly, Gaelan navigated page to page toward some unknown horizon, feeling the breeze at his back. Each turn revealed a new discovery. Through a twenty-first century prism, the sophistication of the science in this ancient tome was breathtaking.

  Viruses, bacterial infections, immunological disorders, cancers . . . impossibly described in detail within metaphorical images by now plainly readable to him, each accompanied by recommended treatments. Every bit of practical knowledge and understanding Gaelan had acquired over several lifetimes of study had become clues to the puzzle, from his earliest childhood tutoring sessions with his father and grandfather, to online coursework so extensive he could have by now earned at least two or three PhDs. Exhilarating. Intoxicating.

  Then there were the references to chromosomes and genes: configurations of twenty-threes and forty-sixes in images hiding in plain sight among double helices that could only have been read as artistic motifs, alchemical markings—perhaps magic.

  More peculiar still were the numerous references to Airmid and the Tuatha de Danann, images and heroic tales scattered throughout, antithetical to what was obviously a scientific text. But what if the legends and early histories were correct, and the Tuatha de Danann really were a far more advanced civilization than any other on earth at the time? Had they been exiled long ago, their knowledge deemed witchcraft in the tumult of the Dark Ages? Their enlightened understanding a gift refused . . . then rebuked?

  Gaelan rubbed his weary eyes, stealing a glance at his watch. It was late, nearly five. He’d been at it for ten hours already. He looked up to see Anne sitting nearby, her iPad out, reading. He vaguely recalled sandwiches and coffee placed near his hand. And did not recall eating or drinking, though only crumbs remained in the dish and the cup was empty. He smiled at her thoughtfulness. Perhaps she wasn’t the dire threat he’d imagined.

  Remarkably, he’d made it nearly through the entire manuscript, and in one sitting. It was time to go back to Diana’s tree and test his theory. He was ready.

  And then he saw it as his eyes settled on an elaborate heather tree wound with infinite knots. Text braided itself in and out, twisting between the turns and loops. He placed a finger gently on what he believed to be the origin letter, and followed it, only to be directed five pages ahead. There he found another instruction, this one sending him ten pages backward, and then another. Back and forth through the pages as though he himself were weaving the words together. Finally, a fragment that led to a page toward the end of the book: “Ag teastáil i ngach oideas de an mheascadh ar rud breise—eilimint enhancer.”

  Bloody hell. “A catalyst!”

  “What?” Anne called from her perch.

  “Nothing. I think . . . no, best not to say. Not yet. Give me some time.” Fuck. He didn’t need her hanging about his shoulder. Not now, not when he was so close. He watched as she went back to her reading. But she was no longer in repose. She would be waiting now for him to speak again. He brushed off concern and returned to the work. Deciphering this new business about a catalyst.

  Of course. There was nothing straightforward about the book, so why would the recipes themselves be explicit? Each required a unique catalyst in order to work exactly right. But where? And how were they concealed?

  He continued his scrutiny, squinting through parched eyes. Yes. Yes! There it was. Keyed not to this page, but to another—a multiple of five: two plus three. Another twenty-three reference. The enhancer—the catalyst—was, like all other necessary elements, embedded in the illuminations, but never on the same page as the recipe. But without the correct catalyst, the book warned, the resulting medication would be too potent, entirely ineffective, or unstable.

  So that was what he had missed, what he’d never realized, and why in his case—and Simon’s—the elixir had gone wrong. Was that what his grandfather had written into that scroll? Or what his father hadn’t the opportunity to teach him before he’d been executed? Gaelan shook his head. “Bloody hell! It’s brilliant.”

  “Let me in on the discovery?” In an instant, she was at his side.

  Fuck. “Sorry. I . . .” What could he tell Anne that would not give him away? “It is a recipe book—”

  Anne shook her head. “A what?”

  “A pharmacopeia—a medical book, but much older than that Culpeper edition you had in your hands the other night. The inks, those within the illuminations . . .” He again explained his theory about the embedded inks.

  “But would they still work? I mean this book is hundreds of years old—”

  “I don’t know. But I think, yes . . . I mean, why not? The book looks to be in fine enough condition—”

  “And you got that all from the manuscript?”

  Gaelan paused, breathless with the discovery. “Yes. It is all there. And not at all easy to get to. Each page is an enigma, and the key to the enigma is another enigma, but wrapped in a paradox, wrapped in another secret.” He was grateful she had no bloody idea at all that, yes, it might well be all there in the text and illuminations, but it was incomprehensible without the essential body of knowledge he possessed in his head: ancient medicine, chemistry, alchemy, language, mythology.

  “It’s genius,” Anne said, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “And you, sir, are brilliant! I cannot believe this book is mine, even if I might never completely understand it. Incredible!”

  “Yours.” He’d almost forgotten. Of course it was bloody hers. And there was nothing he could do to alter that. She would leave and take it with her, and again it would be lost to him, and now, when he finally understood. And what if she gave it to her colleagues at Transdiff? What would they do with its knowledge? If they could get to it. And that was one very big “if”—without him. And that was never going to happen. Never.

  What good this book and its medicines might have done in its day had the world not been mired in fear and intimidation, inquisition and burnings. Had the Dark Ages not destroyed all sense of wonder and the fairy folk—the Tuatha de Danann and their kindred in all parts of the isles—might the Black Death never have plagued Europe, might all the great pandemics have been avoided? Enlightenment had been in humanity’s hands, and humanity refused it, tossed it onto the pyre and lit the flame.

  “I believe,” he said finally, solemnly, “that the knowledge contained in this book—a millennium old if I am right—reflects a scientific wisdom long ago lost and only just now being reclaimed, bit by bit, by modern science.”

  “Whose wisdom?”

  Gaelan laughed. “You’d be hard-pressed to think me sane if you . . . heard my theory. But trust my experience as an expert in my field; the value of this manuscript is beyond price. It is . . .” He hesitated, certain he would trip on his own excitement and confess it all if he didn’t stop now.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I am. Yes. Fine. But for now, it is all slightly wild speculation. I need to confirm that I can properly read at least one of these recipes well enough to gauge the amounts, mix the right reagents, and create the intended formulation.”

  Gaelan opened to a page near the front of the manuscript. “This one appears less complicated than most. The required ingredients are fairly simple, and I believe I have all the needed solvents in my workroom, and the chemicals . . . in case I’m not correct about the inks or they are past their . . . shelf life.”

  Anne looked at him dubiously. “You’re a bookseller, not a chemist—”

  “Antiquities dealer, you forget.” He smiled. “My dear Dr. Shawe, I have an entire chemist’s arsenal. Never know when you might need a spot of nitric acid.” He sprang from his chair, swept aside a curtain, and opened the door to his backroom, where he brought her to his workbench. His gaze swept the room, scanning it for anything potentially incriminating. “I also blend custom teas here . . . that spice tea you so enjoyed the other d
ay.” Could it have been only yesterday? He hoped she’d miss the crop of small marijuana plants sprouting beneath a growing lamp in the corner.

  “I’m impressed, Mr. Erceldoune. This bench would fit nicely in any scientist’s lab.”

  “Ah, here we are,” he said, turning her attention to the work at hand: nitric acid, distilled water. “And if I am correct, the mercury and silver are embedded into the page. The classical method of creating a Diana’s tree takes days, perhaps a week, but the text implies only a few minutes, so . . . you never know.” He pointed out a passage in the middle of the page.

  She shrugged.

  Of course she’d have no clue. She cannot see it. He would make certain to keep it that way.

  He mixed the solutions and carefully scraped away small amounts of the inks, placing them into a beaker. “Now,” he said, taking a small scraping from a purplish ink on a different page, “the catalyst, or as they called it, the enhancing element.”

  They waited, perhaps only a minute or two before a tree materialized from the bottom of the beaker. Gaelan held his breath, quite spellbound, as the crystals formed and created the fragile and exquisite arborescent structure. Gaelan relished the unabashed delight in Anne’s eyes as she observed the experiment. She reminded him in that instant of Eleanor that night so long ago, gazing at the stars—if only a little. She caught him staring and blushed, but did not turn away; instead she smiled with such radiance, he nearly forgot himself—and who she was—as he stood there transfixed, robbed of all ability to think or speak.

  Simon’s warning tugged at him. But this . . . this was like a chemical reaction, churning in a crucible as it raced toward equilibrium. It astonished him, even as he tried to ignore it, even as he warned himself that she meant only danger to him, perhaps his ruin. The mantra. Remember that bloody mantra: professional distance. He muttered it under his breath, hopefully too quiet for her to hear.

  They needed a real test of the book. Not the simple magic trick of a Diana’s tree, but a genuine medical recipe. He showed her a complex drawing, another ouroboros design. “This is to create a pain medication, on its face, a simple formulation by today’s standards, yet here it is, in a book hundreds of years old. But here”—he pointed to another part of the page, a text boxed in blue ink—“here, it refers back to an image on an earlier page, a flower, something I would have missed had I not already translated that page. The specific elements I need to create the painkiller are on a different page. And the catalyst on yet another. But it is not consistent. That is why it is so important to follow it through step-by-step in proper sequence.”

  “Show me.” Anne tried to follow his reasoning as he translated on the fly, asking questions about everything. “Salicylic acid!” she said, finally. “The properties of this formulation, taken together . . . aspirin! But how?” She shook her head, looking completely flummoxed and amazed.

  The book proved something to Gaelan he had long believed about the alchemists in the family and why they always worked their trade as apothecaries. This was less a text on the alchemists’ dream of making gold from lead or discovering some holy grail of life eternal, and much more about healing sickness. It was as Paracelsus said. “Many have said of alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines.”

  The next page described what seemed to be the symptoms of a Streptococcus infection. Anne, peering over Gaelan’s shoulder, pointed to a series of small brightly colored circles within an elaborate rendering of fairies and gryphons. “Have I been so transported by all this that I can only conclude that those small circles represent cocci-shaped bacteria? Yet, it isn’t possible for a centuries-old book to contain such images, not when microbiology was literally unknown until van Leeuwenhoek in the seventeenth century? I must be imagining it, yes?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know any more.” Gaelan rubbed at his eyes and absently reached for a mostly empty beaker of solvent and missed, nearly tipping it over. Anne grabbed it before it fell to the floor. “I must be bloody exhausted. I could’ve sworn that was my coffee mug. And I could do with some caffeine, to be honest.”

  “Oh dear, we have been working at this for hours—you have been at this for hours; I have been a spectator in the cheap seats.”

  “No. You have been a help. My knowledge of medicine is limited at best—”

  “Still, the tireless translations; you are exhausted. I can see it. Your hands are shaking. I must let you get some rest. Look. It is half five now; let’s stop for the day. We can resume in the morning—”

  “No. Please. I feel an urgency to do this right now . . . that I am close to—” He stopped himself.

  “To what that can’t wait until you’ve rested? Look. I’ll take the book and your notes and type them into the computer—”

  “No. Please. Do not take it from me.” Gaelan had not meant to plead. “I’m sorry. I . . . I could not sleep even if I wanted to. The idea that I am so close—” He’d been good so far, not revealing much, despite his exhaustion and the thrill of rediscovery.

  “Fine. Then I have a proposition for you. I shall stay here whilst you rest. Your flat is upstairs?”

  “It is.”

  “Then let’s go up there, and you can nap. I shall order us some dinner and type up the notes. I have my laptop right here. And then we can resume once you’ve had some rest—whether that’s later this evening or tomorrow. You, sir, are on the verge of collapse, and that is my opinion as a physician.”

  “Very well.” He stood too quickly, and the room spun. Too much coffee, not enough to eat, and no alcohol for two days had driven him right to the edge. Anne helped him catch his balance as he led the way to the stairs.

  Finally, in the flat, Anne settled Gaelan onto the sofa. “What happened here?” she asked.

  “I suppose it wouldn’t do to tell you it’s meant to be like that—organized chaos? An experiment in entropy?” She didn’t look convinced. Or amused. He shrugged.

  He’d had neither the time nor energy to tidy the mess from that horrible night. Papers and folders, books and electronics still lay scattered all over the living room floor: small piles, large hills . . . a disaster. He had no inclination to explain the outburst that caused it. “You might find my library interesting,” he said, trying to divert her attention. “And I could use some coffee.”

  “Coffee is the last thing you need.”

  He watched her peruse the bookshelves. Good. “My personal collection. None of these are ever for sale.” He stood, stretching his arms, before going into the kitchen. “I have an excellent selection of small batch beans from a local roasters,” he called from behind the pass-through counter as he rummaged in the cabinet above it. “What do you like? Guatemala Fair Trade? Perhaps Sumatra—the beans are already ground.” Sumatra it is. He tapped several spoonsful of the grounds into a large capsule and set the pot on in place. Five cups, I think. He pushed the brew button and waited for the machine to do its magic as he watched Dr. Shawe continue to ogle his collection.

  “Bloody hell!” she said finally, turning around and joining him at the counter. “Newton, Galen, Boyle, Huxley, H. G. Wells, Paracelsus! What an incredible . . . Where on earth . . . ?” She beamed excitement at the discovery. “I had no idea that H. G. Wells wrote anything other than science fiction.”

  “Wells wrote several biology texts. I have three of them—two of them unpublished manuscripts.”

  “How did you acquire this incredible collection? It must be worth a fortune!”

  “One at a time. Can’t remember, not really. I suppose over a period of years,” he said evasively. How could he admit that each of the volumes had been a gift, a few autographed to him personally? Perhaps this was not such a keen idea, after all.

  Gaelan poured two mugs of the aromatic brew, offering one to Dr. Shawe. She waved him off.

  “And you definitely do not need any more caffeine, Mr. Erceldoune.”

>   Ignoring her, Gaelan took two sips and thought better of the idea, leaving the mugs on the counter. She was probably right.

  He propped himself on one elbow as he lay on the sofa, vowing not to sleep as he watched Anne discover his collection. He’d never had a woman up in the flat—or any flat, for that matter. Not since Caitrin. Decades upon decades living like a monk. Too complicated to get involved, too easy to fall in love and . . . what then? Much better to remain aloof. Keep his distance. Yes, keep your bloody distance, Erceldoune! Do not let her get under your skin. It was Simon’s voice in his ear. God, he was tired.

  “I find it incredibly hard to believe you’re single,” she said, again refocusing the direction of their conversation.

  “I’m . . . I’m a widower.” He hadn’t meant to disclose that bit of information. Fuck. He was drifting, growing too comfortable with her up here.

  “Oh. Sorry. I mean . . .” She looked stricken.

  “Don’t worry. It was . . . She’s been gone for many years now.”

  Anne looked completely bewildered but didn’t, fortunately, press the issue. “I should order dinner. But you should try to rest awhile, until the food arrives at any rate.”

  “Pizza place . . . number’s on the fridge.” He was nearly asleep when he heard the distant ringing of a phone.

  CHAPTER 47

  It was Paul Gilles.

  “It’s him, Annie. It’s that Miracle Man bloke. From the accident. I have proof. Did you ever find him?” His voice was a sickening sing-song; she could visualize the Cheshire Cat grin plastered across his face.

  “What are you talking about, ‘It’s him’?” Her heart sank.

  “There’s a daguerreotype, luv. Stuffed into one of the diaries.”

  “A what?”

  “One of those old-fashioned sepia rotogravure things. And I’m holding it up right next to his photograph—Miracle Man’s photograph. It’s the same person; I’d swear to it in court.”