The Alchemist's Daughter

by Mary Lawrence

  Banes knew the constables and coroners were as lawless and lazy as the citizens they were supposed to protect. He could think of no official who wasn’t tarnished in some way, be it by bribes, laziness, or indifference. It was a rare person in London who possessed any kind of sense of justice, and certainly no one in Southwark was a model of morality. Still, Banes felt sorry that Bianca should find herself so grievously wronged. Not that he could do much about it. Someone had to swing. It might as well be her.

  Bianca stared absently at the smashed beakers and heap of copper coils. She dropped her hand to the flask that held the tonic she’d made to soothe Jolyn’s flux.

  “Are you sure you gave me the right jar?” she asked John, holding up the empty vesicle at eye level.

  “I gave you what you wanted,” he said. “Peptic . . .” His face colored from confusion. “I don’t remember the names you give these foolish concoctions.”

  “These ‘foolish concoctions,’ as you call them, are made of ingredients. Herbs, tinctures, and powders ground from seeds and ores. They are important to me and to the people whom I help. I’ll thank you not to speak ill of it.”

  “I’m not speaking ill.”

  “I think that you are.”

  “I think you are blaming me, Bianca.”

  Banes cheered to hear them quarrel. A visit to Bianca’s room of Medicinals and Physickes was proving more entertaining than the bickering women at Barke House.

  “I am not blaming you. Just show me what you gave me to put in Jolyn’s tonic.”

  “It was your responsibility to make sure it was the right . . . ingredient,” said John, being careful not to make the same mistake twice.

  “I was distracted. Just show me the jar.”

  “I don’t know where it is. It probably got smashed when the apparatus fell.”

  Bianca started to search through the shards of glass. She moved copper tubes and set alembics aside to right overturned crockery in the hope of finding the missing jar.

  Banes was riveted. He forgot the purpose of his visit until Bianca reminded him.

  “You never told me why you came, Banes.”

  The question felt like a dunk in cold water. He was sorry to have the attention turn to him. “I am to fetch purgative,” he said, remembering the shilling in his pocket and digging it out.

  Bianca’s brows furrowed.

  Banes hoped to avoid another long discourse about why she hated to dispense the concoction, but Bianca never sold the powerful powder without having something to say about it.

  “I don’t know who is more to blame,” she said, “women or men.” She sniffed with annoyance. “Such cleansings are harsh. If men had to endure such purging, I’m sure there’d be less need of them.” She retrieved one of the candles next to Jolyn’s body, then situated a stool that would let her reach into the recess of a high shelf.

  John watched the stool wobbling and offered to find the jar for her.

  “I can manage,” she said, shortly.

  Banes and John exchanged looks as Bianca fumbled around, clinking bottles and jars until she found what she wanted. She brought the candle close to the label, squinting at her nearly illegible writing.

  John’s temper flared. “Well, I suppose you can manage well enough without me then.” He didn’t wait for an answer but turned on his heel and stalked toward the door.

  Untroubled, Bianca stepped down from her stool. With a final glance over his shoulder, John flung open the door. He slammed it behind him, rattling a human skull off a shelf and sending it crashing to the floor.

  Banes’s eyes grew wide. He admired her composure. Either she was truly engrossed in her work and didn’t care what this John did, or she was a good actor.

  “Here you are,” she said, handing him a stoppered jar. “I don’t need to tell you how to use this. Mrs. Beldam knows.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Bianca saw Banes to the door and, once she had closed it behind him, slumped against it. She stared across the room at her friend lying motionless on the board, surrounded by candles. How could this have happened? She loved Jolyn like a sister. She would have done anything for her. The grief she had tried to contain now overwhelmed her, and she unleashed its fury, sobbing uncontrollably as she sank to the floor. What if the tonic she had given Jolyn had killed her? Could she have unknowingly poisoned her own friend? She could barely think on it. She cried inconsolably, feeling her loss. Never again would she hear Jolyn’s laughter or share her deepest thoughts. Her misery consumed her—and she let it. Eventually, her stuttering sobs slowed and her breathing calmed. She drew herself up and angrily dashed away her tears, determining to find the cause of Jolyn’s sudden demise.

  Constable Patch and the coroner believed she was responsible, and it wouldn’t be long before Patch dragged her away to gaol and an uncertain fate. She cringed, imagining her head displayed on a pike overlooking London Bridge, greeting townsfolk and visitors with its silent, grim warning: Caveat, quisquis hic am-bulat. Mind, ye who tread here.

  She would prove her innocence. She held little hope that the coroner or Constable Patch would consider other suspects or possibilities, not when they could point a finger at her and be done with it. Only she had a vested interest in discovering the truth.

  The thought of being accused of killing Jolyn or anyone dismayed her. Her sole intention, her reason behind all this experimentation, all this obsession with tinctures, was to help people. To willfully and meditatively harm someone was inconceivable. Though once, she had been forced to stab a man. And she had had hate in her heart when she did it—but that was long ago, and the memory she quickly suppressed.

  Proving her innocence would not be easy. But the second, more difficult part must be her first focus. If Jolyn was poisoned, who poisoned her? And with what?

  Bianca crossed the room and stood over her friend’s body. She thought of what John had said once when they had come upon the corpse of a man in Denby Alley one morning. The man had suffered the mortal slash of metal between his ribs and had died where he lay. His doublet was sodden with blood. They had crouched beside him to check for a pulse; then, not finding one, Bianca had asked the body, “How did you meet such a fate?”

  John, accustomed to fortune’s fickle hand, had answered, “Bianca, the dead don’t speak.” He rifled through the man’s pockets and filched a pence and an ivory toothpick. “And for that we can be glad,” he said, setting the pick between his teeth in a saucy gesture.

  But if there was one thing Bianca had learned in her years of observing the sick and dying, it was that the dead do speak.

  It wasn’t so long ago that she spent her mornings collecting herbs along the bank of the Thames on the way to her father’s room of alchemy. She had often witnessed some poor wretch struggle in the throes of disease. She’d watch him at a respectful distance and study how he met his final breath. Was he thin with disease? Did he clutch his chest or sides? Did he gasp for breath or writhe in pain? Once he had died, she’d kneel over the body and note the coloration of the skin, whether he exhibited buboes or a rash, whether his eyes had dulled and yellowed. All this and more, she committed to memory.

  So with this catalog of symptoms and maladies in mind, she concocted her salves and balms for the awful afflictions that plagued the citizens of London and Southwark.

  But Bianca was not interested in being a piss prophet or in balancing humours. Prescribing remedies with no basis in anything but imagination did not interest her. She’d seen plenty of that with her mother.

  Although her mother was knowledgeable in herbal remedies from the old country, she was often unsuccessful with concoctions she made from plants gathered nearby. Her mother would dispense old-world wisdom that rendered no relief for the patient, except for the loss of a few eggs or a hen in barter. Her mother’s most unorthodox advice was to rub one’s gums with a rusty nail for a toothache, then drive it into the ground outside of St. Paul’s for continued relief.

  Nor did Bianca believe
her father’s pursuit of the philosopher’s stone, or the “elixir of life,” would amount to anything more than years wasted in convoluted alchemical methodology and subservience to the vagaries of metal. As far as she could tell, his search had gotten him nowhere.

  What she did believe was that plants had their own healing powers. Plants could yield a world of effects, some subtle, some not, and Bianca was consumed with learning their silent language.

  She leaned over Jolyn and opened an eyelid. The pupil was dilated, a possible indication of poisoning. But Bianca had often seen pupils as large as the iris in the recently dead.

  She then pried open Jolyn’s mouth. Taking a candle from a holder, she leaned close to look for redness or sores on her tongue and palate. She looked for signs of swelling. Finding neither, she lowered herself on the bench and jammed a fist under her chin in thought. The tonic she had given Jolyn was a simple infusion of ginger, fennel leaves, and meadowsweet—a soothing carminative for restless stomachs. If a poison had been in the brew, it would have burned her mouth and inflamed the skin.

  Instead, the tea had set in motion a fatal reaction. Jolyn had responded violently. Thinking she must help purge Jolyn of the drink, Bianca had poured rancid goat milk down her friend’s throat. But why had she assumed Jolyn needed an emetic? Bianca thought back to her friend’s complaint of an upset stomach. She had eaten food that had not agreed with her. Was it something her suitor had given her? Something she had eaten at the Dim Dragon Inn? Whatever it was, it had lain in wait. Something had required the tea to cause the reaction that led to death.

  Bianca pushed the dwindling tallow back into its holder, then massaged her temples. Her head throbbed from fatigue, and she fought the urge to lay her head on her arm. Precious time would be lost in slumber, and she didn’t know how long she had before Constable Patch showed his sniveling self and dragged her away.

  Then, buried in the rush, Bianca spied the jar John had fetched for Jolyn’s remedy. The label had been lost, but the contents still smelled of the familiar mix. Bianca inhaled, scrutinizing the scent of each ingredient, noting exact proportions of each. She knew these smells by heart and could detect when one ingredient overwhelmed another. With incorrect proportions, the medicinal could have the wrong effect and thereby be rendered useless.

  The mixture smelled as it should. Bianca shook the contents. Enough remained so she would be able to test it. At least she would know if her brew had been to blame.

  She found a clean bowl and, just to be sure nothing would skew her results, wiped the inside clean with the hem of her kirtle. Embers still glowed in her furnace, and she threw several dung patties on the fire and gave it a few pokes. As she stared at the sparking glow, Bianca tried to remember the smell of the mixture before she gave it to Jolyn. But the sequence of preparing and pouring the tea had been second nature, and she couldn’t recall the smell or whether she had noticed anything wrong. She could barely even remember preparing the brew. With Jolyn and John talking and laughing, she had been distracted. Bianca thought back to the moment and her confidence faltered. She might have made a fatal mistake not checking the brew before handing it over.

  Bianca pondered her error and went to the alley for a bucket of water. Fog had settled, and the air was thick with the smell of earth and moss. The cistern’s slimy lid slipped from her grasp as she lifted it off to dip her bucket, and she longed for the warmth of late-spring days. They’d been in a cool, dank damp for weeks.

  Just as she shut the alley door, an insistent knocking came at the front. Dreading the return of Constable Patch, she slowed near the front window and peeked through its smoke-grimed pane. Relieved to see a woman at the door, Bianca readily opened it.

  “Ye must be Bianca.” The woman leveled her eyes on her.

  Before Bianca could utter a word, the woman pushed past and, once inside, stopped and scanned the room. Her face was void of expression. Bianca wondered if this was someone referred to her by Meddybemps, or perhaps someone who had learned of her remedies through word on the street. Bianca was in no mood to cater to a customer and was about to ask the woman her business when the woman drew in an audible, sharp breath. Her eyes had found Jolyn.

  She immediately crossed the room to Jolyn. After a moment of peering down at her in silence, she drew a hand to her heart, then lightly touched Jolyn’s forehead. Bianca waited for the woman to speak. Eventually, she did.

  “What ’appened?” she asked.

  Bianca was not about to explain anything to someone who just showed up, uninvited and unknown. She minced no words of her own. “Who are you, and why are you here?”

  “Ah, forgive me,” she said. “It’s a bit o’ a shock. I’m Mrs. Beldam. Of Barke House.” Her eyes flicked over Bianca’s face, then settled back on Jolyn’s. “Constable Patch told me what ’appened. I came as soon as I coulds. Poor, dear girl . . .”

  So this was the matron of Barke House. Bianca had sold her concoctions but had never met her. She wasn’t as she had imagined. Somehow she expected the woman to resemble a bulldog rather than the statuesque housemother who stood before her. Bianca took a breath and began to explain Jolyn’s visit. She left out the part about Jolyn’s stomach complaints, preferring instead to tell Mrs. Beldam that Jolyn had suddenly been gripped with convulsions that she had been helpless to stop. She saw no need to have yet another person think her complicit.

  “Maybe demons was battlin’ for her soul,” Mrs. Beldam said, in earnest.

  That demons had anything to do with mysterious behavior was an explanation that Bianca believed convenient for those too lazy to think otherwise. Granted, Bianca had witnessed plenty of strange behavior that probably could be attributed to demons. However, Jolyn was not weak in spirit and Bianca didn’t believe a demon would suddenly decide to use Jolyn for a battlefield. Still, it might be best to be sure. “Had Jolyn suffered convulsions before?”

  Mrs. Beldam did not answer. Instead, she asked a question of her own. “ ’As the Coroner pronounced a cause of death?”

  “It is not proven.” Bianca snuffed out a sputtering candle and hesitated. She looked up to find Mrs. Beldam studying her. “The coroner believes she was poisoned.”

  Astonished, Mrs. Beldam sucked in her breath and stared at Bianca. “But ye ’ave ye doubts,” she said, watching the young woman’s face.

  “I’m not saying she wasn’t poisoned. I just have to eliminate other possibilities.”

  Mrs. Beldam gazed around the room, her eyes settling on the pear-shaped retorts that looked like birds with long beaks made of clay. The skeletal remains of mice sat in a bowl on a table in front of her. She scrunched her nose at the peculiar mishmash of sharp and musty odors. “I’ve sent Banes to fetch me purgatives and rat poisons from ye.”

  “Aye. He left not long ago.”

  If the accoutrements of Bianca’s profession puzzled Mrs. Beldam, she didn’t let on. She refocused her gaze on Jolyn’s body. “Seems I might recall her havin’ one of them fits before.”

  “Do you remember when?”

  Mrs. Beldam shook her head. “I can’t say for sures.”

  “A week ago, longer?”

  Mrs. Beldam frowned. “Maybes a week ago or so,” she mumbled, staring down at Jolyn.

  “Did anyone else see it?”

  After some consideration she spoke. “I don’t thinks anyone else was around.” Mrs. Beldam’s eyes wandered beyond Jolyn to the table and shelves.

  “What did you do when it happened?”

  “Wells, nothin’. I was in the kitchen, and I heards the thumpin’ and carryin’ on from her room. Then it stopped. I didn’t think nothin’s of it really.”

  “But weren’t you concerned?”

  Mrs. Beldam looked pointedly at Bianca. “It’s a home full of women. If I ran after every sound I heard in Barke House, I’d never rest.” She shook her head again and returned her gaze to Jolyn. “She ’as a good person. A right carin’ young girl. Sad she ended this ways. Sos young.”

 
“The burial is at Cross Bones tomorrow,” said Bianca.

  Mrs. Beldam tsked. “Shame that is. Shame the reputation that goes with bein’ buried there. Shouldn’t be like that. Some of the best girls I know beens put to rest there.”

  “Does her suitor know?” asked Bianca.

  “No, naws,” said Mrs. Beldam. “’Aven’t seen him in some whiles.” She smirked.

  “Jolyn told me she expected him any day.”

  Mrs. Beldam didn’t answer, but then shook her head dismissively.

  “You don’t think much of him?”

  “Men come round. They find a willing love, promise the moon. Come and goes as they please. Never amounts to much. Shame this ’un fell for that. Thought she was wiser than that.”

  The fire in the furnace crackled, and Bianca was reminded of her task from before Mrs. Beldam arrived. She dipped a bowl into the bucket of water and set about readying the steam bath, fiddling with the damper. “I understand her suitor’s name is Wynders,” she said, making conversation as she worked. When Mrs. Beldam didn’t respond, Bianca looked over her shoulder. The woman was stooping over Jolyn, inches from the girl’s face.

  “Is something wrong?” Bianca asked.

  Mrs. Beldam straightened, and her eyes jumped. “Na, no,” she said, shrugging.

  Bianca thought her odd but turned back to the steam bath, setting a flask of water in the middle to boil.

  “Well, I needs to return to Barke House,” said Mrs. Beldam. She started for the door, then stopped a few feet before it. “You’ll be at Cross Bones tomorrow?”

  “Aye.”

  Mrs. Beldam flashed a quick smile. Her eyes ran around Bianca’s room as if taking it all in one last time. With a final nod she saw herself out the door.

  CHAPTER 9

  Like a predator to prey, the Rat Man knew where to go for the easiest pickings. He was a student of habit, even if it had only been one night of plenty.