The Alchemist's Daughter

by Mary Lawrence

  When John arrived at Bianca’s moldering front door, he hesitated, uncertain whether he should knock or just peep through the window and leave her alone. But the decision was made for him when he found the window still boarded. He’d have to risk her anger by knocking. This he did, to no response.

  “Bianca,” he called, trying the door.

  John circled around to the alley, knowing the back door and lock were probably still broken. After budging the door, he managed to push his face in the wedge and called her name.

  Still, no response.

  He kicked the spongy wood slats and loosened the flimsy rope securing it. Once he was inside, the only light came from the dying embers in her calcinatory furnace. He scanned the room, checking between the tables to be sure she wasn’t on the floor again, then found a tallow in a basket near the front door. He lit it in the stove and waved it about. Definitely no Bianca.

  Where was she? Had Patch arrested her? He refused to believe it. She was too wily to let that happen—at least not without a fight. He studied the room for signs of struggle and found none. Just the normal jumbled mess of her experiments.

  He scratched his ear, puzzling where she might have gone, when he saw lengths of grass reeds spread upon the table and a half-woven basket. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand. This wasn’t a basket; it was a cage. The uneasy feeling in his stomach doubled. He knew what animal a cage this size was meant for. And he knew where she’d go to get it.

  CHAPTER 28

  If there was one thing Meddybemps enjoyed more than swiving, it was intelligencing. He was as happy as a pig in mud to combine the two. And for such good cause. He’d hate to see Bianca dangle at Newgate. Knowing her was far too fun.

  He knew nearly every Southwark stew and proprietor thereof. Most were past bloom and preferred running the business, leaving the more physical exertions to their bawds. They were nearly all like walnuts to crack, but Meddybemps had a way about him.

  So it was that he had encouraged the attention of Maude Manstyn off a twisting lane near the Clink. Her house did a good business, being one of the first stops for freed felons on their way to making more mischief. Meddybemps figured she had seen it all and any gossip worth knowing she would have heard about. And, as an older but still desirable woman, Maude was not averse to the occasional romp with a worthy pizzle.

  It was hard to say what information he could wheedle out of her. The secrets kept between sister proprietors often remained that way. No one wanted to end in prison for any reason—the time and lost income was too inconvenient. These women were shrewd, and they knew how to survive. And that usually meant keeping their counsel and that of their neighbors.

  Plied with a little Spanish port, Maude’s tongue loosened, and before long she was responding favorably to Meddybemps’s expert handling. Not only did she coo at his ministrations like a plump pigeon, she also enthusiastically answered his questions while kneading his bare bum.

  “Meddy, don’t tease me so.”

  “Luv, I’ve no mind to tease.” Meddybemps twirled a finger where it counted.

  She raised her hips, pushing his head between her legs. “Then torture me!”

  Meddybemps grabbed her hips and tilted her pelvis, his wandering eye no longer freewheeling. “You’ve known Jane Beldam for as long as you’ve been in Southwark.”

  “Aye, that,” she agreed.

  “And she was once a trull herself?”

  “Oh, aye!”

  “At the same stew as yourself?”

  “Nay!” Maude placed her hands on either side of Meddybemps’s head and pulled him toward her, but his head popped up to peer over her smooth belly.

  “Then where?” he asked.

  Maude frowned. “Jane was at Barke House first and last. She rose through the ranks, as they say.” She shoved the crown of his head down with the heel of her hand, but he popped up again like a rabbit from its burrow.

  “How did she become a madam of the games?”

  “Fool man, like anyone does. She outlasted them all.” Maude boxed his ears and pushed him down again. “Meddy, I’m losing my patience.”

  The storied streetseller rewarded her with just enough attention to keep her interested. “Do you know Robert Wynders?”

  “Aye!” she responded, with unbridled enthusiasm.

  “What is the connection between Jane Beldam and him?”

  “Meddy!” she shouted in exasperation.

  “Maude!” replied Meddybemps. He resisted her moony eyes until she answered him.

  “He was her daughter’s lover!”

  “What is the crime in that?” he mused, absently running a finger along her inner thigh. It was not atypical for a man to take pleasure. “Ahh,” he said, as a thought occurred to him. “Was he married?”

  “Oh, AYE!” she shrieked.

  Now they were getting somewhere, though, he had to admit, she made it difficult for him to keep drilling her—with questions. For the moment, one of his objectives would have to suffer, and never one for letting business get in the way of pleasure, Meddybemps dispensed with the interrogation.

  The two of them bounced on the bed in wild abandon. Maude slapped his bum like the flank of a spirited stallion, ignoring concerned inquiries at the door. The denizens had never heard such caterwauling from Maude. It was enough to make seasoned whores turn pink about the ears.

  But they ignored everyone. They whooped and howled, shrieked and growled. And when finally Meddybemps rolled off Maude in utter exhaustion, he, the bed and even the house itself sighed in relief that that was finally over and done with.

  Meddybemps lay with his arms splayed, gasping and staring at the ceiling, his mind empty and his body spent. He should get up and take a hard piss, though it was only a rumored preventive for the French pox (alas, too late for him anyway) and the itch. Instead, he resigned his “health” as a lost cause and enjoyed the tranquility of the moment. Slowly, as he regained his senses, his visit’s other purpose crowded out his feelings of bliss and demanded attention.

  “That a married man takes a lover is not unusual, nor is it so shocking,” said Meddybemps, returning to the subject.

  Maude lay beside him, her eyes closed. “True. But Wynders had cause to keep it quiet.”

  Meddybemps turned to face her. “And the cause being?”

  “Methinks it’s my turn to be coy.”

  “Maude!”

  “Meddy?”

  “Don’t torture me!”

  Maude’s eyes opened, and she smiled archly, turning to look at him. “It’ll cost you, luv.”

  Meddybemps hadn’t an ounce of vigor left to pluck. Surely she couldn’t be serious. But the look in her eye spoke otherwise. “Have pity,” he said. “I am not the stuff I once was.”

  “Nor I. But be cheered you’ll leave with no fewer coins.”

  With a moan of appreciation and exhaustion, Meddybemps accommodated. It was a bit of a struggle, but once he got past a slow start, they were once again shaking dust from the rafters.

  This time, Meddybemps didn’t wait to question her. “What of this scandal?” he asked as he teetered over her.

  “Meddy!” she shouted.

  “Maude!” Meddybemps retreated, a man expert in the taunt and touché.

  Maude squirmed. “It is rumored she was with child,” she said in exasperation.

  “Wynders’s child?”

  “AYE!”

  Meddybemps rewarded her while he pondered, splitting his wits between the two. He stopped to catch his breath. “What became of the girl and her child?”

  “Disappeared.”

  “No one disappears never to be found. They might leave and go somewhere. Surely that is the explanation.”

  Maude pulled him toward her, and they took up where they had left off. “Supposedly he forced Jane to send her daughter away to France to wait out the child’s birth. Perhaps she serves the nuns that took her in. No one has seen or heard of her since. She’s long since been forgotten
.”

  “Indiscretion comes at a price—both for Wynders and Jane Beldam.”

  “It would have been dangerous to let the girl stay at Barke House.”

  “Dangerous?” asked Meddybemps, thinking of his overtaxed genitories. “How so?”

  “Jane’s daughter was a bug of Bedlam, they say. Discretion was at issue. Best to keep the pregnancy and birth a secret. You see, Wynders’s money did not come from his earnings in business.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He married it, silly man.”

  “But how could he force her to leave?”

  “For coin, what wouldn’t a person do? And for Jane it was an opportunity. Not only could she rid herself of a troubled child, she could make money doing it.”

  “So, the girl never returned?”

  “It is not my interest. I trouble myself no more over it. Jane’s conscience is her own concern.”

  Meddybemps stopped in distraction. “Yet Wynders still frequents Barke House.”

  Maude reminded him of his task. Her stamina was truly a source of wonder. “Perchance Jane Beldam still has sway,” she mused. “They are like two bulls squaring off. They circle and move with their eyes fixed on each other. Neither dares to step first.”

  The information gave Meddybemps something to ponder, and while his brain was occupied with that puzzle, his pizzle was occupied with another. He rocked and galloped to the finish, then fell off Maude and rolled from the bed, grabbing his pants. “Well, no one gossips about a man’s virtues.”

  Maude smiled knowingly. “They do here.”

  CHAPTER 29

  John wasn’t about to search for Bianca. He knew she sought rats for her experiment, and while part of him thought he should help her, the repulsed part of him knew that he couldn’t. Nor would he try to stop her. Bianca would do as she pleased, and it was useless to try to convince her otherwise. His stomach complained. It protested as much from hunger as from the thought of Bianca on the waterfront, trapping rats.

  Finding little comfort in these thoughts, he resolved, instead, to settle his hunger at the Dim Dragon Inn with a detour of food and swill. The fog was settling, and a meal would give him a chance to warm himself and think.

  He pushed open the door beneath a sign of a blue beast and stepped into a wall of cheap smoke and stale air. A few patrons lifted their gaze, but most continued their business, unconcerned. John found a space within sight of the door and settled between two bleary-eyed patrons.

  “A tankard, luv?” asked the tavern wench when she got to him.

  “Aye, and stew.” John watched her saunter off, and saw the blocky rogue he recognized as the muckraker who’d caught Bianca’s interest at Cross Bones. He eyed him suspiciously and decided to speak with him after he’d polished off a draught.

  John couldn’t have chosen a better post from which to watch the sullen brute. From his vantage he observed the muckraker shovel mash and gravy into his mouth and down a pottle pot of ale. Then down a second one. Conversation burred around him, but he remained uninterested and insular, averse to camaraderie or social revelry. John felt no stab of jealousy. The rascal was purely business.

  After John filled his gut and slaked his thirst, he squeezed his way over to Henley, who was now intent on devouring his second plate of food. After standing for what seemed an awkward length of time with no acknowledgment, not even a simple lift of the eyelid, John spoke.

  “You are the muckraker Henley.”

  The muckraker responded with a twitch of the eye before speaking. “Is that a question or a statement?” He continued eating without glancing up.

  John wedged himself in between two men sitting opposite and stared intently at the hulk until he stopped chewing and returned the stare. “I don’t suppose you might tell me what it was you wanted from Jolyn Carmichael.”

  Henley snorted and dug into his dinner for another bite. “I don’t suppose I would,” he said with his mouth full.

  “Methinks it might be important to someone who could be taking the noose for a murder she didn’t commit.”

  Henley chewed with his mouth open, studying John as he did so. He swallowed, then wiped his lips on his wrist. “Not my concern.”

  “I could make it yours,” replied John, congenially. He patted a breast coat pocket as if a groat nestled there with his name on it.

  Henley’s gaze dropped to the pocket, then rode back up. “Show me.”

  John was not about to remove what lay in his pocket, certainly not in a public venue. The apprentice might have lived a less dastardly life under Boisvert’s tutelage, but it didn’t quash his cunning. He ticked his head. “We can finish talking outside.”

  An eyebrow lifted as Henley considered him. Without a word, he laid his fork beside his platter and rose from the bench. John felt suddenly puny by comparison but led the way to the back alley.

  When the tavern door closed behind them, John turned.

  A look of surprise, then mild amusement spread across Henley’s face. It wasn’t a coin in John’s pocket. His eyes fell to a dagger, its point now firmly against his stomach.

  “I would like you to answer my questions,” suggested John. He would not have undertaken such a risk if he hadn’t judged his odds favorable on its success. He had watched Henley down the second ale laced with sleeping philter he’d bribed the tavern wench to dispense. He could see the brute’s eyelids grow heavy with befuddlement and hear his voice begin to slur.

  John shoved him up against the wall and pricked the buttons off of Henley’s jerkin, the better to encourage cooperation. He cut the cloth beneath and poked the knife into the paunch of gut, drawing a line of blood.

  “Mrs. Beldam of Barke House wanted something from Jolyn Carmichael. If you want that mash to stay put, you’d best tell me what that something was.”

  Henley wobbled unsteadily. He’d already lost the strength in his arms. They hung useless at his sides like two timbers waiting to be moved. He fought to control his legs to keep from falling into the muck and piss of the alley.

  But John was persistent. He flicked his wrist enough to make Henley yowl at the burn of blood.

  Henley drew in a sharp breath, his sense dulling by the second.

  “Tell me! It’d be a shame to take a nap in this squalid bed.” Henley’s head was beginning to swim—John could see it dip on the muckraker’s thick neck. He’d soon lose his chance to get an answer. “Say it!” John abandoned the soft gut and drew the blade under Henley’s chin. He pressed the metal against his windpipe, effectively collapsing it.

  This got Henley’s attention. His eyes flew open, rolled down at the blade, then over to John leaning into him. But his strength was at an end. He started to crumple, and his legs buckled from his great bulk. John rode down with him, not wanting to slit the rascal’s windpipe before getting an answer. He released the pressure off Henley’s throat.

  “A ring!” Henley wheezed. He gulped and, with a final breath, gasped, “Wynders’s ring!”

  CHAPTER 30

  Bianca threw herself against the chained door and screamed loud enough to set every dog in Romeland barking. Perhaps the commotion might draw notice—she hoped so. At this point, she didn’t care if she was arrested for trespass; she just wanted out. The nightmarish sight and smell had thoroughly unnerved her, and she rattled the door like a madwoman. Exhausted, she slid down the implacable door to her haunches.

  “Now what?” she asked the dark. She relit the stump of rushlight and peered back into the gloom. At least Constable Patch couldn’t throw her in gaol if he didn’t know where to find her. She sniggered. But no one else knew where to find her, either.

  Times like this required resourcefulness and calm. Unfortunately, both had escaped her. The thought of rats chewing her apart renewed her calls for help, and she banged and kicked the door until her thin leather boot wore through and her toes ached. She considered setting the door on fire, but what if it asphyxiated her before it burnt down? Well, at least she’d be dead wh
en the rats gnawed her bones.

  Bianca slumped against the door. Which would she prefer? Death by rats—or noose?

  She waved the rushlight in a wide arc and wondered how long it was before daylight. Maybe her chances of being rescued might improve if she waited. She shook her head. She had no choice but to wait. Surely someone would pass the warehouse or even open it. But what if that person was Wynders?

  Aye, what if?

  Realistically, he had no quarrel with her—well, aside from the trespassing. He probably had no idea she was accused of his betrothed’s death. He only knew her as a chemiste. After all, she’d sold him rat poison for his ship. She winced, thinking of this man’s problem with rats. For as many as there were in this warehouse, one could assume he was importing them.

  But why stow bodies in a warehouse? Why not dispose of them at sea? Unless he couldn’t. Unless they died in port. Was he hiding them? Hiding them to get through quarantine and skirt the custom authority’s health inspector?

  The rushlight flickered, then smoldered and died. She tossed it on the floor and pressed her heel into it. Utter darkness. She felt her way atop a crate and drew her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She would renew her shouting with the day’s first light. For all of her desire to slow time down the past few days, morning now couldn’t come fast enough. She buried her nose in her scarf and forced herself to think on other things.

  She thought back to Wool’s Key and pondered Wynders sending a man out to a ship. A man toting soaked rags that blazed even in the fog. The smell had not been unlike the one here. Only that smell had been acrid with the reek of charred flesh. The smell here was of dead bodies. Dead, decomposing bodies.

  Whatever stores or goods that ship held in its hold, Wynders wanted them out. He probably had taxes to settle, debts to pay. Not to mention the lost income having goods sitting in port, moldering and losing value.

  So, what had been his attraction to Jolyn? She was beautiful and clever—what man wouldn’t take notice? Did he feel the only way to bed her was to wed her? Bianca sniffed. The lengths men would go in order to have a woman. But perhaps he never planned to wed her. What if his motive was only to get close enough to poison her? Bianca shook her head and began talking out loud to drown out the sound of the feeding rats. “Why did you promise marriage? Why did you raise her hopes?” Bianca could think of no worthy cause besides love. She closed her eyes and thought. Did he plan to marry or to murder her? Bianca rubbed her temples. Two extremes, but there was one thing they both required: intimacy. “So why would you want to marry, then possibly murder Jolyn?” Bianca asked the dark. And then a thought occurred to her. “Unless Jolyn had something that you wanted. Something that you valued more than her.”