The Alchemist's Daughter (13 page)
“But soon you will be well again. Are you good at solving conundrums, Sidonie Quince?”
“My lady?”
“My brother brought me a message. But he spoke in riddles, as they say the dead do.”
“He spoke, my lady?”
“Nay, rather, he wrote.” Mary Gilbert took something out of her pocket and held it out to Sidonie. It was a velvet-bound journal, richly decorated with pearls. A cold fist squeezed Sidonie's heart. She seen that journal before, in her fever-dream. And in that dream she had watched the shade of Sir Philip Sidney take up a pen, and write.
But
, thought Sidonie, with a chill prickling along her spine,
the spirits who come to us in dreams leave no mark upon
the waking world
.
“Read for yourself,” said the Countess.
Sidonie opened the book, flipped through pages covered with Lady Mary's small neat script, and then stared at the words scrawled hastily across an empty sheet.
Quaere ubi pisces silentia servant.
Your answer, sir, is enigmatical.
â William Shakespeare,
Much Ado About Nothing
Sidonie had managed this morning to eat a little stewed fruit and a morsel of manchet bread. When Kit looked in after an early ramble, she was sitting up in a fur-trimmed dressing-gown, a book open on her lap, gazing through the open window.
“Sidonie?”
She turned at the sound of his voice. He was flushed from his exercise, and brought with him an autumnal smell of woodsmoke.
“Kit. I have a riddle for you.”
“I was never good at riddles,” he reminded her.
Wordlessly she handed him a sheet of paper.
Kit read the copied Latin inscription and glanced up, bemused. “Seek where fish keep silence?”
“Yes. I know it sounds like nonsense, but that is the nature of riddles, is it not?”
“And who has posed this riddle?”
She hesitated, fearing Kit's skepticism, or worse, his laughter. Should she reveal a truth she scarcely believed herself? “It came to me in a fever-dream. I imagined I saw a wandering spirit, a ghost, and he wrote these words in a book.”
Kit gave her a narrow look. “A message from the grave? Sidonie, do you believe in such things?”
“Mayhap I do. I know my father does. He spoke sometimes of necromancy â though mercifully he never dared to practise it. He said that ghosts know where treasure is hid, and can be summoned to reveal their secrets.”
“Methinks if I were summoning ghosts, I would look for a plainer speaking one.”
“Kit, you must not scoff. When the dead come to us in our dreams, they speak the language of dreams, and we needs must listen. Think, Kit. Where do fish keep silence?”
“Why, everywhere,” said Kit. He added solemnly, “I believe it is one of the great virtues of fish.”
“Pray be serious, Kit.”
“Then tell me â where is silence kept?”
“In a convent,” Sidonie said. “Or â she stared at Kit in sudden surmise â in a monastery! Surely it must mean Glastonbury. The treasure that was not accounted for â that Lady Mary believes was hidden by the monks.”
“How then do you explain the fish?”
“I cannot explain the fish. But see, now at least we have half the message.”
“If message it is,” said Kit, “and not just a fever-fancy. But I must go â I have yet to break my fast.” He smiled down at her as he took his leave. “You were always fonder of conundrums than I.”
But, thought Sidonie, for Lady Mary, who had risked her immortal soul to summon her brother from the grave, this was no mere game of wits, no puzzle to fill an idle hour. She, more than most, understood that the fate of England could hang on one galleon built with Glastonbury gold.
In the afternoon Alice brought in a jug of mint tea, some almond cakes and a pot of citron marmalade â “nothing better to strengthen your stomach, mistress.” As she poured the tea for Sidonie, she said, “Lady Mary would like to sit with you awhile, if you are well enough.”
“But of course,” said Sidonie. She was weary of her four bedroom walls and eager for company.
“I have good reports from Dr. Moffett,” said the Countess, as she settled her heavy dark skirt around her. “He tells me your fever is quite gone.”
“Entirely, my lady. Tomorrow, if the weather is warm, he says I may go sit in the garden for a little.”
“Then perhaps I will join you. But in the meantime, I must ask â have you thought upon the words I showed you?” Though Lady Mary's gaze was level and serene, her hands, clasped in her lap, twisted nervously one upon the other.
“I have, my lady. And I think I have puzzled out a part of the riddle.” Sidonie drew a long breath. “If in truth ghosts can show the way to hidden treasure, then you must seek at Glastonbury.”
Lady Mary's broad, pale brow furrowed. “So we have always believed. But where, Sidonie? Treasure-hunters have sought out hidden passages, searched in the crypt beneath the Lady Chapel . . . all to no avail.
“I think,” said Sidonie, “that Sir Philip has offered you the missing clue.”
“But you cannot say where the gold is hidden?”
“Forgive me, my lady â I have half the solution, not the whole.”
“But if you were to look into the crystal? Sidonie, will you scry for me again?”
“Scry, my lady? But I failed before.”
“Surely this time you will succeed. My brother's message was meant for you, Sidonie.”
Sidonie stared at her, dismayed. “That cannot be, my lady. It is you who binds him to this world, you who summoned him.” She unfolded the paper she had shown Kit and held it out to the Countess. “See, he wrote the singular,
quaere
, as though for your eyes alone.”
“Yes,” said the Countess. “But he looked straight at you, Sidonie, as you stood in the doorway thinking you were unobserved.”
“What must I do, my lady?”
“When you are strong again, I would have you go to Glastonbury. I have faith in your powers, Sidonie Quince. God does not ask more of us than we are capable of doing.” Then, as though reading Sidonie's silence for refusal, she went on, “There is much at stake. While wars rage across Europe, while darkness surrounds us, Queen Elizabeth has given us prosperity and peace. We are fairly taxed, and lightly ruled. To be a subject nation, to see English streets awash with Protestant blood . . . under Spanish rule, Sidonie, have you thought what would become of you and me? Of all our kind?”
We would burn as witches
, Sidonie answered silently.
She thought of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre â one more horror in a century of horrors, a tale kept alive by old men around the fire. The blood of countless innocent souls ran in the gutters of Antwerp and Paris, but Sidonie could not weep for them. There were too many, they were faceless and nameless, for such enormity the task of grieving had no beginning and no end. You would go mad if you were to dwell on such things. You would go mad if you thought about the good and honourable men who lost their heads in King Henry's time, whose only crime was their stubborn faith; and if you imagined the torment of those who died in Mary's fires.
Sidonie grieved for her mother; that was as much sorrow as her heart could bear. Must she grieve also for the old monk who, faithful to his last breath, guarded the lost treasures of Glastonbury?
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
and that craves wary walking.
â William Shakespeare,
Julius Caesar
For their return to Glastonbury, Lady Mary lent them horses from her stables â a nimble white gelding for Kit, and for Sidonie, riding nervously sidesaddle, a placid chestnut mare. They set out on a day of hazy sunshine, clattering along the narrow road amid fields so intensely green that even now, in autumn, they seemed suffused with light. Sidonie remembered that in the days of Arthur's Camelot these were the flooded Summer Lands, and Glastonbury was Ynys-witrin, The Isle of Glass, a holy island encircled by lagoons and interlacing streams. Perhaps, she thought, it was those waters still lying close beneath the surface that kept the pasturelands so lush and green. Or was it the ancient magic that clung to Glastonbury's meadows like October mist?
A chill wind blew among the ruins of the Abbey. Oak leaves, scattered across the paths, promised an early winter. They found the grounds deserted, save for a boy of twelve or so who half-dozed under a sunny wall while his flock grazed among the tumbled stones.
Lifting her skirts and treading carefully through the long wet grass, Sidonie approached the shepherd. “Have you seen the old monk who comes here?” she asked.
“Oh aye,” said the boy, gazing up at her with sleepy eyes. “A fortnight ago, he drove my sheep out of the Lady Chapel. though they did no harm.”
“But today?”
“Not today, mistress, nor I hope any day hereafter.”
Sidonie felt a chill of premonition. “And why is that?”
“He died, mistress.”
In the midst of surprise and sadness, Sidonie felt a half-guilty relief. Am I so wicked, she wondered, to think it a blessing, that the old man will never know what I have come to do?
“How came he to die?” she asked the boy.
“Why, in his bed, mistress. He was old, you see, and wore out from praying.” The boy was wide awake now, and anxious to share his special knowledge. “He showed me a gold cross once, that he swore held a relic of Christ, a nail from the crucifixion. They say that the day before he died he crawled on his knees all the way up Wearyall Hill, dragging that cross behind him.”
For Sidonie, relief gave way to a terrible pity. For what sin could God have demanded from that good old man such heavy penance? Or maybe it was not penance at all, but merely one more test of his life-long devotion.
The boy added, “When they found him dead, he still held the cross in his arms. There was a great argument as to what should become of it, for I think there are some in the village who cling to the old faith, and they wanted him buried with it.”
“And was he?”
The boy shook his head and grinned. “Nay, mistress, it was gold, you see, and studded with gems, and my father thinks they took it away to Wells Cathedral.”
“Perchance,” asked Kit, strolling up behind them, “did the old man raise fish?”
Sidonie guessed at once the reason for his question. If the old monk had saved a gold cross from the Abbey, what other treasure might he have hidden in his cottage garden?
The boy gave him a blank look. “Raise fish? Not that I ever knew.” He added helpfully, “There are fish aplenty in the River Brue, all free for the taking.”
Sidonie and Kit glanced at each other, sharing the same thought.
Is there Abbey gold at the bottom of the River Brue?
But, decided Sidonie, if the monks had thrown their treasures into the river, what hope would they have of recovering it?
“Where fish keep silence,” Sir Philip had written. Surely he did not mean the river or the village. Aloud, she said, “I remember no fish pond in the Abbey grounds.”
“Is it the Abbey pond you mean?” said the shepherd. “Why did you not say so before? Not enough fish in it now to bother with â though I still see the little lads from the village going up the path with their pails and nets.”
“Prithee, will you show us the path?” asked Sidonie.
“It starts there, by the Abbey cloister.” The lad gestured, without getting up.
“Do you mind our horses, then,” said Kit, and handed him tuppence.
They found the way after some searching: an overgrown footpath winding among ancient yews and hawthorn thickets. They pushed through the tangle of brambles and hazel saplings that half-hid the entrance, and started single-file along the narrow track.
Sidonie, walking after Kit, stopped suddenly and half-turned. Was that rustling in the bracken only a fox, or something heavier-footed?