Death of an Alchemist (15 page)

Ferris Stannum's empty bottle of wine lay on the table, and Bianca picked it up and ran it under her nose. Bianca tipped back her head and closed her eyes. Spirits were always difficult for her to evaluate. The alcohol often dissolved and masked any questionable additions—such as ground apple seed or rat poison. She turned the bottle upside down and a single drop landed in her palm. She sniffed it. No notable smell hinted that it was off. She touched it with the tip of her tongue. Nothing. If someone had laced the bottle with poison and given it to Ferris Stannum as a gift, she could not detect the offending substance. It did not mean that it was not there, but she could not tell what it was.

But who would do such a deed? Bianca tsked. Smile and give a gift that kills. Several had reason to wish ill on Stannum—Tenbrook, Tait the lender, Amice, or rather her husband, Gilley. And there was Thomas Plumbum. But why would Plumbum want his old friend dead? To steal his journal of alchemy and claim glory as the discoverer of the elixir of life? Given his unscrupulous manner, it was entirely possible. Which led Bianca back to the question—where or from whom did Ferris Stannum get the bottle of wine? And when?

John rustled in bed and settled. Bianca poured herself some ale and settled on a stool next to the board. She watched John while she sipped, resting her chin on her fist.

Ferris Stannum and Goodwife Tenbrook could have died from ingesting something in common. They had both partaken of the wine. But so had Thomas Plumbum, she remembered. He had taken a hearty swig from the bottle. Unless, perhaps, it only appeared that he had taken a drink.

If the wine was laced, Stannum's death could have been planned, but Goodwife Tenbrook's death appeared accidental. Bianca pondered the similarities, but there were a couple of differences in their deaths that troubled her.

Bianca had found dried blood that had run down each temple from the corners of Goodwife Tenbrook's eyes. Weeping eyes was not a symptom mentioned by Barnabas Hughes when asked about the sweat. However, Ferris Stannum did not have dried blood on his face. It was on his pillow, indicating to Bianca that Ferris Stannum had been smothered.

If Goodwife Tenbrook had died from tainted drink, say, perhaps the wine, and if Ferris Stannum had not been smothered, would he have eventually died from poisoning, too? But neither of them showed overt signs of poisoning. There was no vomiting, no inflammation of Tenbrook's mouth. Bianca took another sip of ale. Perhaps it was a subtle poison. One she was unfamiliar with. But if the wine was not tainted, what did Tenbrook die of? Was the coroner correct in his diagnosis of sweating sickness?

Finding the tumbler with the blue glaze, Bianca tipped it toward the light to examine the remnants of tincture stuck to the bottom like dried sap. She recalled the physician's quip when Tenbrook asked if he was poisoning her. “I would not be so obvious,” he had said.

Bianca pursed her lips. “Indeed,” she said cynically.

A pan of water sat on the table and she stuck her fingers in and dribbled a few drops in the cup, swirling the tincture until it dissolved. She found a small dropper and rinsed it clean. Drawing up the residue, she held the dropper to the side of a cage, allowing a rat to lap it dry. She set the cage on the table and waited for the rat to react.

The lousy ale made her sleepy and she fought the urge to lay her head in her arm. She forced herself to think of another remedy for the sweating sickness. The only way to know if the tea would work was if John came down with the disease.

Of course, if Meddybemps came by, she could make more tea and send him off to sell it at market. Bianca propped her fist against her cheek and watched the rat push its nose against the cage. She stood and stretched her arms over her head, noting John's snores filling the room. The black tiger cat leapt to the windowsill.

Bianca wandered beneath the sprigs of herbs hanging from the beams. The sprays took up a large portion of the room and were unlabeled, but she knew what each of them was and where she had gotten it. She gazed up at the hyssop and goldenseal. Both were possible ingredients for a remedy. She snapped off a sprig of meadowsweet and ran it under her nose. The fragrant herb was another possibility. They all had varying effects on lung secretions. Bianca gazed up at the dangling display. She strolled along the herbs, running her hands under them. She was pondering what combinations might work when her toe stubbed on a lump in the rush.

A bound package wrapped in linen lay directly in front of the window. Bianca went to the opening and looked out. The lane was empty of anyone who might have just tossed it through without her noticing.

“Sudden do you sneak up on me,” said Bianca, bending over to pick up the parcel. “What are you?” She turned it over, running her hand over a slash in its linen covering.

Thinking she was addressing it, the black tiger leapt down from the windowsill and strode over. It followed her back to the table and jumped up to investigate the curiosity along with its mistress.

Bianca unwound the linen from the parcel. She sat down and blew out a long breath. “You never made it to Cairo.”

C
HAPTER
18

Bianca ran her hand along the binding, sniffing the leather imbued with fifty years of experiments. She slid her fingers under the cover, noted a thin slit, and opened to the first page, knowing even before she'd read his signature that this was Ferris Stannum's alchemy journal. He had not hidden the book from her when he had mentored her, nor had he chided her for studying a page as it lay open on his dais. In fact, he had shown her his
Decknamen
for gold. The reverence she felt to have his entire life's work at her disposal, in her hands, left her momentarily awed.

She carefully turned over the pages. Pages filled with his
Decknamens,
his drawings and methods. Some she recognized, and followed his process through putrefaction and calcination—stages she had grown familiar with as a child watching her father. Occasionally, Stannum had taken the time to create drawings using inks and paint to color the figures. She marveled at the fanciful renderings of mythical green lions devouring blood red hearts, the animated moons with sleepy expressions. The suns with wise faces sprouting dagger-sharp rays.

With no consideration, the black tiger walked across the treasured pages. It ran its back under Bianca's nose, waiting for her attention. Petting or scolding, either would be fine.

Bianca pushed the shameless egoist off and kept the little nuisance at bay as she hefted the pages over to the end, where she believed Stannum's latest and greatest work must be. She was not disappointed.

The final page showed a glass vesicle shaped like an onion bulb. Within the vesicle stood a woman with her arms outstretched. A gesture of disclosure. The woman could be Eve, the giver of life. From her waist down she was submerged in water—symbolic of amniotic fluid. A drawing of a peacock rich in hues of green and blue stood to the side, its head turned toward the woman in the flask. Bianca knew from her father that peacocks represented immortality. She stared across the room. This was Stannum's visual interpretation of the philter of life. The more she thought about it, the more she was certain. This drawing represented the elixir of immortality.

She turned back a page and studied the drawings, interpreting them to be about congelation. She turned back another few, trying to find the beginning of his final experiment—the beginning of the process to create the elusive elixir.

As she scanned the carefully written text, her fascination with the noble art displaced her long-seated contempt for it. For years she had denied its validity. She blamed her father and his obsession for her family's financial strife. For all the rancor and resentment, she could not deny alchemy's occasional usefulness.

And now she was presented with the recipe for concocting the elixir of life. She sat back and contemplated what that meant. Death was the end of a person's physical existence. But was it the end of that person's spirit? At the moment of death, some people claimed to have seen the spirit leave a body, though Bianca had never seen it happen.

Faith in God was no different from believing in the spirit. There was no physical proof of either. You could not touch God like you could a flower. You could not touch the spirit. Some argued that God was everywhere, that God was the flower. Then was it true for the spirit?

What was spirit? Was it simply—life? Or the memory of it? After a person died, his spirit remained with the living in memories. But as time reached into the future, the memories diminished. With each succeeding generation moments were forgotten, stories were lost, until finally, the memory was extinguished. And, if someone was remembered, that memory was reduced to a name. But was there eternal life elsewhere for that soul?

If the soul was immortal, why can't our physical bodies last forever?

Bianca wanted to believe that the soul was immortal. There was no proof for believing it so. It was not based on any rational proof. But if life, if existence, consisted only of the time we had on earth, what was the use in following a moral path? If there was no reward at the end of it, was life itself irrelevant?

Bianca shook her head. “Life has relevance
because
we die.”

John turned over in bed. He kicked off the sheet, complaining again of the heat. Bianca left the journal along with her thoughts about alchemy and immortality and went to him. Halfway there she smelled the putrid stink of sweat.

Her first thought was a plea that this could not be the sweat. But she knew it served no purpose to hope that it wasn't.

“John,” she said, shaking his shoulder. “You must sit up. If you become short of breath, you must stay upright.” But he did not seem to hear or care. His hair stuck to his scalp and his skin was drenched with an unnatural, offensive smell. She stood over him, holding the brewed tea.

Would he become suddenly short of breath? She had never seen the characteristic symptom of the disease. A symptom rarely overcome. The sweat chose its victims randomly, and who could say why some were spared while others were not?

She thought how she might give him the brew when suddenly John's eyes shot open. He opened his mouth for a sudden gasp of air. Bianca set down the tea and jammed a pillow behind his back to help him sit. He gripped her arm, his eyes wide with panic.

“John,” she said, bending over him. “Take small breaths.” But she had no idea what he should do. She could only encourage him to keep trying for breath.

John gulped. His eyes rolled. Surrounded by air that could save him, he struggled, unable to take what he needed. Bianca regretted his not drinking the tea infusion earlier. It might not have prevented the dyspnea, but she worried that if his lungs filled with mucus, he would suffocate. He held his sides and tipped his chin up and down as if nodding, but it was only an effort to fill his lungs with life-giving air.

Forcing him to take the tea now could result in his drowning from it. Helpless, she stood by his side, unable to think what to do or how to comfort him.

His struggle to breathe went on for hours. She thought he would have fainted, but finally his panic and short breaths slowed. Bianca lit a wall sconce and tallow and paced the length of the room. His breaths grew longer, but with them came a disconcerting rattle. His lungs were filling with mucus.

The moment she felt he might be able, Bianca encouraged him to down the tea infusion. “John, drink this.” She held the cup to his lips. His eyes found hers and she gently tipped the drink into his mouth. He settled back against his pillows.

Bianca returned to pacing, thinking what to do. She gazed up at the herbs, racking her memory for possible healing combinations. But with the sound of each labored breath, the rattle of congestion further unnerved her.

Bianca could think of nothing else to do. No poultice, no syrup, eased his pain or struggling. If his humours were unbalanced, she knew not how to balance them. The only possible way to restore his health would be to bleed him. With no alternative, she caved to protocol. She sought her neighbor across the way to summon Barnabas Hughes, the physician.

As she waited for Hughes's arrival, Bianca returned to the alchemy journal. Mostly she wanted to occupy her mind and distract herself. Perhaps the book might contain enough information to make a healing tincture without going through the entire process of creating the elixir of life.

Eventually she found the beginning of Stannum's last experiment. He did not make a notation of when he began the process. Dates were conspicuously missing in his journal, making it difficult to gauge the length of any one stage in the process. She was familiar enough with alchemical methods to deduce the time required for some of the stages; however, the journal kept its secrets. Stannum had never worried that anyone else might confiscate his work, probably because only a handful of experienced alchemists could correctly interpret it.

Bianca had no idea how long she had been studying the journal when Barnabas Hughes arrived. She heard a gentle rapping and inquiry and looked up from her reading. “Sir,” she said, standing and crossing the room to greet him. “I fear my husband may have the sweat.” She led him to their bed. John was oblivious to their presence.

“I have given him mulberry root bark tea and silverweed to help him breathe.”

Barnabas Hughes set his satchel on the edge of the bed. “I will need a bowl.” Withdrawing a bottle from his satchel, Hughes removed the rag stuffed in its opening.

Bianca went to the table and rummaged about for a bowl with dried ingredients that she could dump. In her concern for John she had forgotten about the rat she had given Hughes's tincture to. She lifted its cage and peered in. The rat lay unresponsive. True, he had said it was a sleeping philter, but even after a vigorous shake, the rat slid about, lifeless. Bianca set the cage under the table. She looked over at Barnabas Hughes, her stomach churning. Her hand shook as she poured the contents of the bowl into a jar, spilling most of it on the table.

Hughes didn't notice her difficulty holding the bowl still as he tipped the bottle's contents into it. Out slithered several leeches. Their flat bodies undulated gracefully as they swam in clear liquid. Unfolding a worn leather wallet, Hughes removed a polished lancet. He touched a thumb to the blade, producing a small drop of blood. Approving of its sharpness, Barnabas Hughes ran a finger along John's neck.

“Must you bleed him there?” asked Bianca, alarmed.

“Your husband is delirious from an accumulation of blood in his skull. This is the quickest and most effective way to release that pressure. I must ask that you turn his head and hold it still.”

Bianca set the bowl next to Hughes and moved to the front of the bed. In spite of John's protest, she placed her hands on either side of his face and turned his head toward the wall. He had been unaware of the doctor's presence until that moment. “What?” he exclaimed, catching a glimpse of the lancet near his face. His eyes wild, he began to struggle.

“You must hold him still,” said Hughes. He located the vein he would puncture and pressed his finger firmly against John's throat.

Bianca bent close and murmured in John's ear. Her reassurance worked, for the tension in John's body drained and he lay still, though likely he may have exhausted himself.

Her eyes welled as Barnabas Hughes pressed the lancet into John's flesh, causing John to flinch. A crimson ribbon of blood trickled down his neck. Hughes reached into the bowl and picked out a leech. He held it between his thumb and first finger. Carefully, the physician touched its mouth to John's wound.

“Couldn't you collect the fluid in a bowl? Why must you attach those?”

Hughes answered in a reassuring tone. “They prevent the blood from clotting.”

Bianca could barely watch as it gloried to the taste of her husband's blood. Once it had secured its mouth against John's skin, its body began to constrict and pulse as it fed. Hughes attached a second leech to John's neck.

John kept his eyes tightly closed, placing his full faith in Bianca. She touched her lips to his ear, whispering words of comfort. Struggling to calm her growing unease, she laid her cheek against his and shut her eyes until the leeches were removed.

“I've done all I can,” said Barnabas Hughes as he dressed John's wound with a plaster of herbs. “He is in God's hands now.” He wiped the lancet on the bedsheet.

Bianca stared at the leeches floating in the bowl, lethargic from their meal.

“You may throw them in the stream,” said Hughes, noticing her reticence. “There is no short supply. I have no more use for them.” He packed his leather satchel, closed his bag. “If that is all, I shall bid you well.” He rose, laying his hand across John's forehead for a moment. He took up his limp wrist to feel John's pulse. Hughes looked over at Bianca. He read the fear on her face, so like his own. So like that of anyone about to lose a loved one. Hughes felt the urge to assure her, to comfort her. Youth was so blissfully ignorant of life's painful misfortunes.

“Time moves slowly for those waiting to see what it has in mind,” he said. He wasn't sure what he saw in her reaction. Was it gratitude? Or the naïve refusal to accept her husband's inevitable death? Bianca Goddard was especially difficult to comprehend. He started for the door. Halfway there, he paused at the table where the alchemy journal lay open. “You now dabble in the noble art?”

Still spent from what had just taken place, Bianca shook her head, distracted. She was holding the bowl of leeches and staring at them. “Should I not kill them first?” she asked, glancing up.

Barnabas Hughes studied her before answering. “If it should please you. Then certainly.”