The Alchemist's Daughter

by Mary Lawrence

  The Rat Man steadied his wherry near the Cristofur for a second night, keeping her within his sights, and licked his lips with anticipation. Perhaps more delectable vermin would be released when the holds were opened to off-load goods. Fog had settled in, muting the few lamps that still glowed on shore.

  The first day in port had not gone well for the owner of the Cristofur and her crew. When the customs authority rowed out to her mooring, he noticed only a few mates manned the decks. Perhaps the owner had purposely employed a small crew to save money on payroll. Maybe the captain had had to deal with insubordination at sea. But perhaps something else had thinned the ranks. Sickness? Disease? The customs authority cursed the doctor who usually accompanied him; he had been unable to find the piss sniffer in his usual haunts and had not cared to spend the energy or time to hunt him down. So the added burden of fishing out disease would fall on his already stooped shoulders.

  Permission to board was granted, and the customs authority grimaced as he climbed the tenuous rope ladder to the deck. He was getting too old for this job, and his joints protested every time he had to scale the primitive devices, but until he married a rich widow, he was doomed to his life of drudgery.

  The captain was eager to off-load the goods and that was typical, but his skittish manner and darting eyes roused the customs officer’s suspicions. The captain was not one for small talk and shoved the manifest at him before he’d even set foot on deck. He offered nothing in the way of greetings or cordialities.

  The customs authority studied the manifest, noted the port of trade and that ivory and silk filled the hold. He eyed the captain and looked over his shoulder at the sparsely manned vessel. “The Cristofur has been to Africa. Have you engaged in human trade?” asked the weary clerk.

  “Nay. It’s damned hard keeping a crew fed, much less fifty extra gullets.” The captain excused himself to piss in the Thames. He returned with a sly, despondent smirk. “How much longer do you expect this to take? I have goods to be rid of and a crew to pay.”

  The authority studied the listing and dates scrawled thereon, and while he scrutinized and calculated, he glimpsed a rat scurry by in broad daylight, disappearing into the dark recess of the hold. His stomach rolled in distaste. Checking the cargo with the manifest would not be pleasant.

  As he gripped the lantern he had appropriated from the first mate, he left the captain above deck and followed the officer down a flimsy set of stairs into the hold. The brush of something against his calf as he stood still letting his eyes adjust to the dark was just an appetizer.

  The bolts of silks and textiles were stacked high, cramming every available cranny. He got a rough number of how high and deep and set about calculating the store, then jotted down his findings. The officer moved him to another section of the hold, separate from the other. Here, he swung the lantern over his head, illuminating several rows of ivory tusks. He checked the manifest for the reported number and found it at three hundred and fifty. Poor beasts from whence they came, but the king would be glad to collect the tax and even gladder to buy the baubles and carvings from royal artisans once they had been worked into pieces of art. He estimated the tax on the entire haul, and when he looked up finally from his arithmetic, the first officer led him hurriedly past a closed door and toward the waiting stairs to above.

  But the customs authority was a seasoned emissary and knew when something didn’t seem right. “What is behind that door?” he asked, stopping in front of it.

  “Sleeping quarters for the men.” The first mate wavered, then added, “Some are still sleeping off a rough voyage before offloading.”

  The authority made a move to open the door, but the officer slid his body in between. “I wouldn’t disturb a sleeping crew if I was you.”

  “Sir, I might as well disturb them now and save them the irritation of coming above deck. I have no medic, and I will have to check them myself before you are allowed to dock.”

  Perspiration sprang from the temples of the first mate, and the customs officer noticed.

  “Is there something you rather I not see?”

  The officer grumbled and seemed at a loss for words.

  “Stand aside,” announced the customs officer. He pushed past the mate and shouldered open the door.

  True, it had been a sleeping berth. Hammocks swung from posts, and unlit lamps dangled from beams. But the vile smell of putrefaction and decay struck him as heavily as if he had been bludgeoned with a mast. In horror, he slammed the door, but not before he had seen several decomposing bodies being gnawed apart by rats.

  He fled for the stairs and escaped to the upper deck, gasping and heaving, bending over the gunwale to lose the contents of his stomach. “Sir,” he said, turning back to face the captain and wiping his mouth on his sleeve, “this ship is hereby quarantined until further notice.” He gulped in fresh air before speaking. “Remove the Cristofur to the yellow buoy forthwith and await my directive.”

  Uninterested in the captain’s reply, he stuffed the manifest into his doublet and nearly ran to the rope ladder suspended over his skiff. He flung his leg over the side and descended the unsteady contraption as quickly as his overweight, arthritic body would allow. He had gotten halfway down before he saw what was waiting for him in his rowboat below. Choking down what was left of his undigested meat pie, he drew his anlace and speared seven rats eagerly waiting for a ride to shore.

  After disposing their furry bodies into the Thames, he hollered to the ship’s captain, “Do not presume to off-load or dock anytime soon. You must await orders from the king’s ministry or else feel the effect of the king’s guard, sir.” With that, he hastily sat himself in the middle of his skiff and rowed like hell for shore.

  But all this was unknown to the ferrier.

  He merely saw that the Cristofur had changed her mooring from the night before. The yellow buoy bobbed nearby, appearing from out of the fog, and he duly noted its portent.

  Two hundred years ago, the Black Death had raged across the king’s isle, claiming half the population. The symptoms of the disease were always the same. What began as a small lump swelled to the size of an apple and turned as red. Maybe a man noticed one near his groin when he loosened his trousers to relieve himself. Perhaps he would notice an egg-sized tumor on his lover’s neck when he bent to kiss her there. The swelling was disconcerting, but what followed was even more so.

  Inevitably the bubo would darken to a deep bruised purple, then black. It spawned. Other buboes sprang from once smooth skin. Joints ached until it became difficult to fetch water or even eat. Fever and delirium took the victim beyond his conscious world. If a leech was attached to rid the patient of his ill humour, the exuded blood would be black and vile in smell. One can’t bleed a man dry, can one? Nothing could be done for the victim except to make the sign of the cross and get away posthaste.

  Since that dark time the scourge had wreaked havoc but did not devastate the populace as it once had. But like a demon, its evil intent was well known and feared by all. Rarely spoken of except in hushed tones and never completely forgotten, it patiently hunted its prey like a cat watching a mouse hole. And so it lay in wait.

  The Rat Man cruised the circumference of the Cristofur, scanning for an errant rodent treading water for shore. He gave chase to one determined creature that had managed to dodge the ferryman’s first attempt by diving under the hull of his boat but was assuredly snatched up when it surfaced for air on the other side. It took the Rat Man two whacks to dispense with what usually only took one.

  The windfall he’d experienced earlier was not to be his fortune tonight. Well, no matter, this one was fat enough for two. He ripped off its head with his pointed teeth and spat it into the water, then sucked long on its marrow. But as he savored the creature’s vital blood, he discovered this one had a disagreeable aftertaste. It was tainted.

  He tossed the carcass into the water and watched it disappear below the fog-kissed surface of the Thames. “Nos omnes perimus, s
ed non sine pugna,” he muttered under his breath. We all die, but not without a fight.

  CHAPTER 10

  Beneath a dreary sky, a contingent of Jolyn’s acquaintances gathered at the cemetery to see her body laid to rest. Or, as in this case, unrest. That so many had collected to see her interred should have given pause to the sexton. Perhaps he should have sought a holy person to spout a couple of “ashes to ashes and dust to dusts” just to be sure he wouldn’t get any grief for his unenviable task. Instead, he continued his digging at the single women’s cemetery, grumbling his displeasure with an audience while flinging shovelfuls of Thames river bottom over his shoulder.

  Out of sight of the nearest parish church, the lumpy land of Cross Bones was within sight of the Clink, a prison harboring those who had offended the king’s religion. That it should be overwrought with skeletons was testament to London’s preference to dispose of the dispossessed within the confines of its shady sister, Southwark. This had been going on for hundreds of years, but the current coterie of onlookers did not know, much less care, what had gone on before they took their first gulp of British air.

  Mrs. Beldam was present along with Pandy and Kara, Jolyn’s most familiar housemates. Banes stood to their side and a little behind, content to be ignored, and studied their figures at leisure.

  Bianca stood opposite the women of Barke House. She had abandoned testing the contents of the tea when a parishioner arrived to take the corpse. Bianca had pleaded with him to let her cleanse her friend’s body and anoint it with hyssop and cistus oils for burial. She had filled Jolyn’s mouth with dried lavender and rosemary to drive away bad vapors and then found a rough woven cloth to wrap her. That night, Bianca had not slept well. Her mind could not rest. She kept hearing the accusations and pondering the symptoms of Jolyn’s last moments.

  Bianca found it difficult to watch the sexton finish his digging. Each scrape of the shovel seemed louder than the one before. A group of muckrakers arrived at the gate, laughing and joking, their voices intruding on the solemnity of the graveyard. They ambled across the grounds toward the small gathering, lowering their voices when faced with the indignant stares of those already waiting. Bianca had never met any of them, but could put names to faces just by their appearances, which Jolyn had been expert in describing.

  There was Becket, a toothless codger, bony and reeking of the mud and stray pigs he pleasured in. Then there was Smythe, lanky and lithe, a “diver” working in tandem with Mackney, who was too old and pudgy to wiggle through windows anymore. The two ingratiated themselves with the watch in the borough so long as they gave him a share of their pickings. A few other muckrakers or desperate sorts milled about, shifty-eyed and restless, though intent to bid Jolyn farewell. But there was one who stood apart from the others. He caught Bianca’s eye because he was the beneficiary of Mrs. Beldam’s evil one. Bianca didn’t know who he could be; he fit no character that Jolyn had described.

  He moved away from the gathering and withdrew a small flask to take a swig. Bianca moved to observe him better and continued to survey the contingent of rascals and lowlifes. She was surprised when John appeared at the cemetery gate and crossed the grounds, finding her in the gathering, then averting his eyes as if he were there for a casual stroll. He came and stood next to her. Neither said a word. They each shifted their weight from one leg to the other and cast sidelong glances.

  At last the sexton stabbed his shovel in the pile of dirt next to the grave. He leaned out of the pit and started to tug Jolyn’s shroud toward its edge.

  “Shouldn’t someone say something?” said John.

  Bianca agreed but was unable to think what would be worthy of her dear friend. Finally, as the sexton pulled Jolyn’s body into the grave with a grunt and thud, she spoke out.

  “ ‘For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.’ ” She wasn’t sure if she had remembered the verses correctly, but she thought them appropriate and fitting.

  The onlookers “hear, heared” their assents as if she had offered them another round of drinks. The women of Barke House stared fixedly across at her as if trying to figure out what manner of nonsense she had just spouted.

  “May God have mercy on her soul,” finished Bianca. She stared down at her friend as the sextant threw a shovelful of dirt on her shroud. Unable to watch him roll other bodies on top, Bianca stepped back and observed the characters around her.

  “Sees, he never gave a piss for her, else he would have been here. ’E should have seen to it she didn’t end up in a community grave of wanton women. Jus’ proves to ye, he didn’t really care.” Pandy pulled her shawl up over her exposed shoulders, for her bodice exposed more skin than was sensible given the chill in the air.

  “Aws, shuts your flap,” said Kara. “Just because he didn’t show don’t mean nothin’s. He may still be away.”

  “Oh, I bet he knows,” said Pandy. “Anyways, we’ll soon see what his true feelings are.”

  “Enough of you twos,” said Mrs. Beldam. “Ye thinks this is about you?” She shot them a harsh look, then settled her eyes back on the lone rascal standing apart from the others. He was solid and blocky in build, filthy with dried clay on his face and clothes. Perhaps a muckraker, he had the appearance of one.

  Bianca watched as Mrs. Beldam hastily crossed herself and pushed past the two girls. She pursued the young man, who had turned and sauntered off.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” said John, offering to bridge the silent gulf that had grown between him and Bianca.

  Bianca shrugged. “No matter,” she mumbled. She was more concerned with watching Mrs. Beldam. The matron caught the young man’s arm, but they were enough out of earshot that Bianca could not hear what was being said. Pandy and Kara still quarreled, and if she was to hear what concerned the owner of Barke House, she would have to abandon John and his efforts to make amends. Without another word to John, she drifted away and ranged closer.

  “I’m trying to apologize,” said John, following after her. “You can at least acknowledge I’m here, couldn’t you?” His voice rose in frustration, and Bianca shushed him harshly. She turned back to try to hear what the pair were saying.

  John followed her gaze to a young rogue, rugged and coarse in looks but possessing a certain allure for women who liked dangerous men. Not exactly the kind of fellow who’d typically attract Bianca’s eye, he thought, but then, he could never be sure.

  “I get the feeling you don’t care if I was here or not. You would be just as happy if I left you alone!”

  Bianca focused on Mrs. Beldam and tried to read her lips. The rogue shook his head in response.

  “I’m talking to you,” John insisted.

  “John, can’t you keep quiet just this once?” Bianca hissed. She was trying to appear nonchalant, but it didn’t matter to Mrs. Beldam and the young man. Mrs. Beldam looked to be harshly questioning him about something to which he claimed ignorance.

  “If it’s silence you want from me, I’ll give you plenty!” John stalked off, brushing past the conspicuous pair, who looked up, saw Bianca watching them, then broke away from each other.

  Bianca sighed in exasperation. John had a flair for the dramatic, probably learned from years observing the clientele at the Tern’s Tempest. Drink and turmoil made terrible bedfellows, but it was the norm for a young man who’d known no family but the characters who frequented the seedy boozing ken. Bianca watched him march out of the cemetery. He didn’t even glance back at her. She’d smooth over his wounded feelings and set them right, but first, she had more pressing matters.

  Bianca’s aggravation was replaced by something even more dismal, and it came in the form of Constable Patch strolling through the gate. Bianca fell in behind Pandy and Kara, hoping she could slip by witho
ut his notice. But apparently the constable had arrived with the sole intent of finding her.

  “Bianca Goddard. I’ve been looking for ye.” Constable Patch stepped in front of her, practically twitching with delight at having caught her trying to sneak out. “I see ye have successfully made your friend to rest.” Patch nodded at the sexton leaning against a heap of dirt and swigging from a flask.

  Bianca kept her silence, knowing her mockery could end in worse than what she already feared.

  “The coroner has ruled Jolyn Carmichael’s death a poisoning, and since the deceased expired in your presence, ye is the likely culprit. I must, with the power vested in me by the just and honorable citizens of Southwark,” said Patch, playing to the gawping onlookers, “and by the power of His Majesty, King Henry of the Eighth, noble and wise liege of our gentle isle, prolific maker of wives and taker of lives, religious reformer and papal scourge, arrest ye for the murder of the most regrettable death of Jolyn Carmichael.”

  “How does a person dying in the presence of another make one guilty?” argued Bianca. “Poisons can take days, even weeks to kill. Jolyn was with me when the poison finally overcame her, but I did not poison her.”

  If there was a benefit to living in Southwark, it was that its residents knew criminal malfeasance when they saw it and weren’t timid to voice their dissent. Before Patch could even reach for his scraggly beard, an unruly mob was shouting and barking displeasure.

  Mackney, well schooled in the vagaries of enforcement officers, spoke movingly of a brother wrongly accused of purse snatching, for which his hand was lopped off. Unable to work, he took to begging outside of St. Paul’s and was later thrown in the Fleet Prison for not having a license to beg. There he perished from starvation, a slow, painful death, unable to fight for the paltry scraps of food they tossed in his cell.

  This further incensed the crowd, and they grew increasingly contentious, to the point of Patch fearing for his own person. His ill-timed public condemnation was his own undoing. Who would have thought a cemetery would be fertile ground for a riot?