The Alchemist's Daughter (14 page)

“What is it?” asked Kit, glancing back.

Sidonie shook her head, unable to explain the faint tingling on the nape of her neck that warned her they were not alone, that they were being watched.

“Sidonie, did you hear something?”

“No,” she said. “It was nothing. Only I have these foolish fancies sometime, that someone is there, that there are eyes upon me.”

Kit came back along the path, and they stood together, listening. There was nothing on the path behind them, no sound now but the wind stirring the leaves.

They went on a little further, and came to the edge of a large round pond. Beyond, to the north-east, they could see the Tor, with mist clinging to its slopes.

In the great days of the Abbey the pond must have been well kept and teeming with fish, but now the water, low at this time of year, was scummed with algae, fouled with rotting leaves. Rank grass and water weeds grew over the encircling wall of stones, and moss-furred tree limbs, felled by the wind, lay half-submerged among the lily pads. There was a rich damp smell of decaying vegetation.

Kit found a long branch and kneeling at the pond's edge, felt for the bottom. The stick sank deep.

“I've no mind to go wading in that,” he remarked. “You must look into your scrying ball, Sidonie. If indeed there is gold down there, under fifty years or more of mud, the Countess will have to drain the pool.”

Sidonie took the crystal from her pocket and laid it at the edge of the pool on its felt wrapping. The slanting afternoon sun filled the glass with shards of light. Turning away from the dazzle, Sidonie spoke her thoughts aloud. “Kit, are we mad, do you think?”

“No more than the rest of the world,” replied Kit with good humour. He settled down on the grass beside her. “But why do you ask me that now?”

“Because I fear we are seeking a chimera — the phantasy of a wishful mind. Maybe there was never any hidden gold, or maybe it was discovered half a century ago. And we have strayed far from our purpose. Should we not collect more of the red elixir, and take it to my father so that he can make gold for the Queen?”

Kit said, with more than a hint of irony, “I applaud your faith in your father's skills.” Sidonie answered him with a rueful smile.

Kit added, soberly, “Whatever we choose to do, Sidonie, we are chasing will o' the wisps. The red earth may be the alchemist's elixir — or it may be rust-coloured mud. There may be a fortune in gold at the bottom of the fish pond, or there may be nothing but weeds and kitchen refuse. But all things considered, your best chance of saving your father's neck from the noose is to present the Queen with Glastonbury gold.”

“How sensible you are,” sighed Sidonie. “Go then, see to the horses, and leave me do what I must.” She watched as Kit disappeared down the Abbey path, and after a moment turned reluctantly back to the crystal.

The sun, now low on the horizon, was at the wrong angle, she decided, and she moved into the shade of a thorn tree. How to begin?

She tried to focus, conjuring up images of gold candlesticks, censers, chalices. Clouds swirled in the glass, hinted at shapes, dissolved into nothing.

Somewhere close by a twig snapped. “Kit?” she murmured, half in trance. There was no answer, only the faint sound of breathing.

The hair stirred on the back of her neck. She snatched up the crystal and thrust it into her pocket, then turned to look over her shoulder, her gaze meeting cold grey eyes under a wide-brimmed hat. Rough hands gripped her arms and twisted them behind her. A voice said, “An' you value your life, Mistress Quince, you will not cry out.”

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

It is the treasure of treasures, the supreme philosophical
potion, the divine secret of the ancients. Blessed is he that
finds such a thing.

—
The
Alchemical Mass
of Nicholas Melchior

Sidonie choked back a scream. What could he want with her, this grim-faced stranger who had stepped from the shadow of the trees? And how could he know her name? Before Sidonie had time to gather her wits, her hands were bound behind her, and a gag was thrust into her mouth so that she could not cry out. The harder she squirmed and struggled, the more the rope chafed her wrists. The sour taste of the rag in her mouth made her stomach heave.

Then he blindfolded her and tossed her like an awkward bundle over his shoulder. Through the loose-woven fabric across her eyes she had a sense that they were passing through shade, and sun, and then shade again. Sometimes tree branches brushed against her. They went down some steps, and crossed what she guessed, from the sound of the man's boots, was an uneven stone floor. Then abruptly she was set upon her feet.

“There is a knife at your ribs, mistress,” the man cautioned her. “If you are wise, you will do exactly as I say.”

Blood pounded in her ears; she could feel her heart drumming against her ribs.

“Stoop down,” the man said. With one hand on the top of her head, the other at her waist, he guided her through some sort of low opening.

The air felt cold, and there was a dank smell of earth and stone. She stood quiet while her captor removed the gag from her mouth, the blindfold from her eyes. Still she could see nothing; a thick stale blackness pressed against her.

Presently a candle flared. In the wavering circle of its flame she saw a long, dour face, deeply furrowed at mouth and brow, framed by lank pale hair. A harsh face, with no hint of pity in it. Behind him was a rough stone wall, stretching away into darkness. She realized they were in a passageway or tunnel.

Her legs trembled; for a moment she feared they would give way. She drew a long shuddering breath. “Where are we?” she said. And then, when there was no answer, “What do you want with me?”

“Summat that will make me richer, and leave you no poorer,” said the man, and in the flickering light he gave her a wolfish grin.

Sidonie's heart lurched. Her belly cramped with dread.

“I have naught to give you,” she whispered, knowing full well she did, and praying that she mistook his intent.

“Come to that, you have what every woman has,” he said. “Nay, don't flatter yourself, Mistress Quince, that's not what I need from you. Nor the gold in your purse, either.” He reached up to set the candle in an iron sconce on the wall.

“We both have secrets, mistress. Mine is where to find this tunnel under Glastonbury; and yours is where to find the magic elixir that will change base metal into gold. Share your secret with me, and you will go free. Keep it, and I fear it must die with you in this unwholesome place.”

“We found no elixir,” Sidonie told him. “I have no more notion than you where it may be hid.”

The anger in his face made her throat go dry. “Mistress, do not trifle with me. You are the daughter of an alchemist, and you have come to Glastonbury, where by Dr. Dee's own account he and Kelley found the Red Lion. Would you have me believe you came here for a lover's tryst? Or maybe to gather wormy apples in the Abbey orchard?”

“We came to visit the old monk, who had been kind to us. We did not know he was dead.” She knew he could hear the terror in her voice. Her teeth were beginning to chatter, from cold as well as fright.

“So you say. But I know it for a pretext. Tell me no more lies, my girl. I know what you keep in your skirt pocket, and I know what a scryer does. Edward Kelley is a scryer, and it was he who found the alchemist's stone at Glastonbury.”

“I cannot scry with my hands fastened,” she said. For answer he moved behind her, and she felt him fumbling at her bonds. She pulled her hands free, shook the stiffness out of them.

She took the crystal from her pocket. There was nowhere to set it down, so she held it on her outstretched palm. “I need more light.”

He lit another candle, raised it between them. “What do you see?”

“Prithee have patience. I must wait for the glass to clear.”

She kept him waiting long enough for the candle to burn down, and he had to dig in his pack for another.

Finally, she said, “Lower the light a little.” And then, “It may be that I see something.”

She could feel his breath hot on her cheek as he leaned over her shoulder, trying to look into the crystal.

She turned her head, said irritably, “I can do nothing if you hang over me like that.”

He mumbled something, and moved back.

“There,” she said at last. “But I see no treasure. I see a tower.”

“A tower?” he prompted her impatiently. “Is it the broken tower on the Tor?”

She shook her head. “I see a tower on a bridge. Methinks it is London Bridge.”

He said, with a new note of menace in his voice, “Play no games with me, mistress. It is here the elixir is hid, not in London City.”

“It is not the elixir I see. There is a kind of whimsy in this glass — like a flaw in the crystal. Sometimes, if it has a mind to obey, it reveals the thing you are seeking. But other times it shows the future, whether or not you wish to know it.”

“Whose future, then?” She could sense, beneath his impatience and mistrust, a growing uncertainty.

“Why, England's, sometimes. Or it may show what lies ahead for the one who consults it. Like yourself.”

She had him now. He said, “Mayhap it shows me returning to London with the elixir.”

“Mayhap. If that were destined to happen. But that is not what the crystal shows.”

“Then tell me.”

“I see a tower on a bridge,” she repeated. “And on that tower I see a head, impaled on a traitor's pole.”

In the silence she could hear the sharp intake of his breath.

“Whose head?” he asked at last.

Sidonie turned away from the crystal, looked calmly into his eyes. “Yours,” she said.

His mouth twisted. “The glass lies.”

“Does it? Glastonbury belongs to the Crown, and so the elixir you wish to steal is the rightful property of the Queen. Whether you seek it for your own ends, or for the King of Spain, that makes you a thief and a traitor. It was one of your henchmen, was it not, who tricked my father into employing him, and so was privy to his secrets?” She took the man's silence for answer. “He must have read the message I left for my father, and told you where to find me. One of your agents followed me to the inn at Salisbury. Another attacked me on the road and stole my purse. My steps have been dogged every mile of the way. To me, that stinks of conspiracy.”

He scowled down at her, jaw set, holding back his anger. He was a tall man, broad in the chest and shoulders. She could not hope to overpower him, though perhaps she could outrun him. But could she outwit him? Therein, she thought, lay her best hope. How many plots and conspiracies, how many threats to the throne had Good Queen Bess survived, through guile and deviousness? Elizabeth had never hesitated to use her women's weapons, and they had served her well. If Sidonie could not manage to defeat her enemies by simple cunning, then she was not as clever as her father believed.

“But what will you do with the elixir if you find it? Are you an alchemist, then?”

“There are those I know who practise the craft.”

“Practise it, perhaps — but have they the knowledge to succeed, where so many have failed? Have you the knowledge to tell who is a charlatan, and who is not? Remember too, that no one can succeed in making gold unless he is of a pure and blameless heart. Surely if you obtain the elixir by force, all its power will be lost.”

“You argue like a Jesuit,” the man said. She could hear a certain grudging admiration in his voice.

“And,” she said, seizing her slight advantage, “you have only the account of Dee and Kelley, that they found the elixir at Glastonbury. What profits them, to reveal such a secret to the world? Mayhap even now in Bohemia they are laughing up their sleeves, that they have sent so many English fools on a wild goose chase.”

He half-raised his hand, and she winced away, fearing that he meant to strike her.

She said, quickly, “If I am to scry, I must have some reason to believe in what I do, some hope of success.”

His hand had dropped to his side. She held her gaze steady under his cold, assessing stare. Did he realize that she was trying to buy time through sheer confusion?

Finally he said, “Very well, Mistress Quince. I will give you a reason to believe. Do you know the tale of Parzival?”

She nodded.

“So mayhap you recall these words. ‘There is a stone of purest kind. By the power of that stone the phoenix burns to ashes, but the ashes give him life again. And such power does the stone give a man that flesh and bones are made young again. And the name of the stone is
lapsit exillis
.'”

He saw her puzzled look. “And I was told you were a scholar, Mistress Quince. That may sound dog Latin to you, but let me pronounce it otherwise. What means
lapis
elixir
?”

“Elixir stone? You speak of the alchemist's elixir, the Red Lion?”

“Now you have it. But in the story of Parzival it is given another name, this substance that can turn the seas to molten gold, can bring the phoenix back to life, and give a man eternal youth. It is called the Holy Grail.”

Sidonie gave a gasp of startled laughter. “You would have me believe that you are searching for the Grail? That the elixir and the Grail are one and the same? How can that be, when the Grail is the chalice of the Last Supper?”

“As some would have it,” he said. “The chalice from which Christ drank, and which caught his blood as he hung on the cross. But the Grail is a mystery, holding secrets of which mortal man cannot conceive. Mysteries take many forms, so that their true nature may not be revealed to the unworthy. To some it may be a golden cup, a chalice . . . to others it may appear as a stone, no different from any stone at the side of the path.”