Death of an Alchemist (16 page)

C
HAPTER
19

Dusk settled over London, painting the sky vermilion. Though night had not yet fallen, Bianca couldn't shake an unsettled feeling as she hurried down the bridge's center. The lane was always dimly lit from the stately merchants' homes and shops lining the span. Every merchant or haberdasher worth a groat wanted his address to be Tower Bridge. And while some natural light seeped through the gaps between buildings, it was not enough to put her mind at ease. Bianca wished she had either left earlier or perhaps waited until the shopkeepers and residents had lit their lanterns.

After hours of trying to make sense of Stannum's final process, Bianca determined she needed the wisdom of the one person she knew who might be able to decipher some of Stannum's elusive
Decknamens
.

Her father.

She did not relish having to convince him to help her, but she knew it was futile to try to re-create Stannum's process without his advice.

So while John rested from his bloodletting, Bianca wrapped the alchemy journal in its linen cloth and dropped it in a satchel she slung over her shoulder. She considered asking her neighbor to check in on him, then worried he would be exposed to the contagion. Deciding she would not be gone long, she kissed John's forehead before leaving him in the care of the black tiger, which had groomed itself and was turning circles next to John's legs, finding a suitable spot to nap.

It had been months since Bianca had last seen her parents.

Albern Goddard worked in an abandoned warehouse near the Thames. She expected her father to have heard of the accomplished Ferris Stannum. Stannum had to have been one of the oldest practitioners in London. Alchemists, while feigning disinterest, were quite aware (sometimes painfully so), of other alchemists' achievements and purported wealth. But whether rumors of Stannum's elixir of life and his sudden death had reached her father, she did not know.

Bianca kept a hand on the shoulder strap of the satchel and met the eye of every pedestrian and loiterer she passed. Only a few gave her pause, but the feeling she was being followed never waned. As she neared the drawbridge, she found it difficult to shake an eerie sensation. It was not usual for her to feel apprehensive walking across the exposed span. She tentatively stepped onto its iron grate. Shaking off her fears, she dashed across.

On the other side, Bianca kept a lively pace until she emerged onto Thames Street and into the bustle of London. Even in the fading twilight she could see better than she had on the bridge. Relieved to be out in the open, she followed the road paralleling the river until it intersected with Lambeth Hill.

Her parents' rent was one of several lining the slightly inclined neighborhood, known for its tawdry cluster of residences. She turned onto the lane and noticed the small changes only those once intimately familiar with the neighborhood would see. Mrs. Templeton's front door had rotted through near the bottom, and a shutter that once hung squarely over the family Dodd's window now drooped, held by a single hinge. Bianca had forgotten how the fusty smell of moldering thatch roofs permeated the air. A twinge of apprehension settled in her stomach as she wondered what kind of reception she would receive. Hopefully her mother would be home, as she balanced her father's cynical disposition. Besides, Bianca missed spending time with her.

The timbers between the sorrel daub had darkened from mildew, almost black in some areas. A spreading mat of moss grew at the bottom of her parents' door from the perpetual shade and damp. The window shutter was open and Bianca stood back a distance to peer inside.

All was as she remembered, unadorned walls and an interior simply furnished. Her mother worked at a table tying bunches of herbs, tossing them into a pile to be hung overhead later. Bianca scanned the room for her father but did not see him. Perhaps he was in his room of alchemy. She decided to visit anyway.

She knocked, calling for her mother as she cracked the door open.

“Bianca, my child,” said her mother, looking up from her collection of herbs. “Help me gather this mint.” She pushed a mound of cuttings toward Bianca.

It would have been unusual for her mother to have acted surprised or even pleased to see Bianca. It simply was not her way. Instead, she treated Bianca as if she had merely stepped out for a moment. Their relationship continued where it had left off. The passage of time had not changed her mother, nor did her mother seem to think the passage of time had changed her daughter.

“How do you fare?” Bianca asked, ducking under a structural beam. She set her satchel on the table. Inquiring out of consideration was not a lesson she had learned from her mother. She snipped off a length of string.

“What do you mean, how do I fare?” Her mother looked up from tying off a thick bunch of rue. She pushed her wavy hair off her face with her upper arm. “I fare as I always do. I manage. I make my salves. I take care of my people.”

By “people” she meant a group of neighbors who regularly sought her remedies and medical advice. Her mother's old-world mentality served her well. She could spout all kinds of nonsense and her patients believed every word. As a child, Bianca had been fascinated by her mother's outlandish cures, but more so with her clients' reactions. She recalled her mother had treated a plantar wart by cutting a dead mouse in half and binding its torso to the bottom of the man's foot. Once the mouse was in place the man's entire demeanor changed. He happily paid her mother and hobbled out the door. Bianca had never forgotten how pleased he had been to have a dead mouse tied to his foot.

It was that sort of appreciation that inspired Bianca to make her own remedies. But to her credit Bianca was able to discern between the strange and what could be thought of as reasonable.

Bianca ignored her mother's defensive response. She collected some peppermint and wound it with twine. “Some time has passed since I have seen you. How are you managing in the heat?”

“As long as I have the rain barrel to stand in when I get wilted, I can cope. The heat cannot last forever.” Her mother tossed the bound bunch on a pile. “I only see you when you've got some news of importance or need help.” She tipped her head back and looked down her nose at Bianca. “You with child?”

“Nay, do I look to be?”

Her mother tilted her head to one side. “I don't suppose you do. You're too thin.” She gathered another handful of herbs and arranged them with their stems in one direction. “Last time you visited, you told us you married that John.”

“Mother, ‘that John' is now my husband. You may call him simply John.”

“Well then. How is simply John? It doesn't look as though he feeds you.”

“John is ill. I believe he has the sweat.”

Her mother laid down the sprigs and put her fists on her hips. “Then what are you doing here? You should be with him.”

“He is sleeping. There is nothing I can do for him at the moment.” Bianca glanced around, avoiding her mother's disapproving stare. “I am looking for Father. Is he here?”

“You're looking for your father?” her mother repeated, surprised. She searched Bianca's eyes, puzzling over her daughter's unspoken intentions. Still watching Bianca, she gathered another bunch of herbs and motioned to the alley. “He is standing out back in the rain barrel.”

Bianca had not spoken to her father since she announced her marriage to John. She had thought he would show at least a little joy having one less body to provide for, but she had been wrong. Her father met the news with typical disinterest.

His apathy no longer fomented her resentment. It was simply what she expected. Dismay served no purpose. However, she did believe she was entitled, on occasion, to seek his help, since she had once given him hers.

Bianca knew she would be received coldly, but she also knew her father would be unable to resist looking at another alchemist's journal. Especially Ferris Stannum's.

She walked through the rent, past where her pallet had once been—the space was now taken up by a cupboard. The door to the back alley was open. Her father did not immediately see her, which gave Bianca a moment to brace herself for his cool indifference.

He looked like a stork wading in a pool. His long, thin legs were bare and he stood in the barrel, which came up to his thighs. He wore a linen shirt that reached his knees and a straw basket on his head to protect his thinning pate from the sun. Even half-dressed and wearing unconventional headgear he looked forbiddingly unapproachable. He must have sensed his being watched, for he turned his head regally to look on her.

“Father.” Bianca tucked her chin in respect.

His gray eyes ran down her person and up again. He returned his gaze back to his previous view, which seemed to be a fissure in the building opposite.

“Father, I've come to ask your assistance.” She detected a subtle lift of an eyebrow as the basket slightly wobbled. Appealing to his sense of humanity, his sympathy, would be useless, so Bianca did not mention John's illness or her desire to cure him. Instead, she solicited her father's help by interesting him in the journal.

And interested he was. He removed the straw basket and placed it on the ground beside the barrel. Lifting one leg to his chest and then the other, he stepped out of the cistern, reinforcing Bianca's comparison to a stork. She followed him inside.

“Where is this book?” he asked, glowering at the table piled in herbs.

Bianca's mother returned his glare and maneuvered a stool under a beam to hang the sprigs of herbs. She snapped up an armful of sprays and endeavored to teeter upon the stool.

Bianca removed the swaddled tome from her satchel and laid it before her father. He stared at the journal for an extended moment before speaking. “Do you plan to remove the cloth, or do you expect me to first comment on the wrapping?”

Bianca bit her tongue and pulled the covering off the book. Her patience nearly drained, she opened the journal to Ferris Stannum's final experiment—his recipe for the elixir of life. “I was able to decipher most of his symbols and
Decknamens,
but I am confounded by this final process.”

Albern Goddard scoured the elaborate illustrations, the brilliant colors, the inspired and fanciful drawings depicting his beloved science. Not only was the text filled with ingenious combinations of base metals with minerals, but the presentation of Stannum's methods, his detailed yet subtle drawings, was a work of art. Albern dropped onto the bench and moved the book closer to better study it.

“Find my spectacles and bring me that light.” Albern waved his hand in the direction of an unlit candle.

Bianca's mother cheerfully ignored her husband's requests, allowing Bianca to answer them. She continued to hang her bunches of herbs, stepping down from the stool and collecting more armfuls from the table while being sure to dispense a withering look at her husband before returning to her task.

Luckily Bianca found her father's magnifiers without too much trouble but spent more time searching for a working flint to light the candle. She set it beside him.

Albern ran his finger along the page, muttering to himself. He chuckled intermittently, enjoying some private jape only alchemists would find humorous. He nodded; he scowled; his eyebrows lifted; his eyebrows furrowed. His wife could have fallen off the rickety stool and broken a leg, Bianca could have jumped on the table and danced in front of him, and he would never have noticed.

He ignored Bianca's request that he look at Ferris Stannum's final experiment and turned back the pages to some other process that seemed to be interesting him more. Unable to wait for her father to meander through the journal, Bianca boldly reminded him that her question concerned the final experiment.

Albern Goddard froze. His eyes widened with annoyance, sliding sideways before he turned his head.

Bianca expected a snide retort. However, none was forthcoming. Without comment, he returned his gaze to the book. He heaved the pages back to the final process and began to study it.

The longer Albern read, the more intense his interest in Ferris Stannum's final accomplishment. As the candle was about to burn out, he looked up. “He has created the elixir of life.”

Bianca had remembered seeing him this excited only once when she was a young girl assisting him in his alchemy room. Such zeal was reserved for that extraordinary moment of grasping some truth, some kernel of sublime understanding that made every sacrifice, every tortured moment of self-doubt, suddenly worthwhile.

“Aye.” She nodded. “He was about to send the journal to Cairo for verification. Unfortunately, he was murdered before he could send it off.”

“And the journal mysteriously appeared in your rent?”

“It did.”

Albern could have questioned her on its inexplicable arrival, which sounded suspicious at best, but chose to leave his daughter to her own dangers. After all, she was his child and as such was predestined to travel an unconventional if not difficult path in life. Instead, he concentrated on the elixir.

“So you are trying to re-create the elixir of life?”

Bianca refrained from telling him why she was interested and distorted her explanation by avoiding the topic of John's potentially fatal illness. “I merely wish to glean useful information from his recipe. Perhaps I can find a remedy that might help those suffering from painful disease.”

“Do you wish to grant these sufferers immortal life?”

“I only wish to ease their suffering.”

“But if you were to impart immortality—how would you answer to God?”

Bianca refrained from arguing. She had never understood why a higher entity did not intervene on behalf of His creation. God stopped Abraham from murdering his only son, but where was He when her parents' neighbor Mallon was accused of witchcraft simply for being old and keeping a cat? The parish constable set her in a dunking stool, and if she had not drowned she would have been burned alive. Where was He to prevent such a grievous miscarriage of justice? It seemed to Bianca creating a little bit of immortality might not matter to such an unreliable God.