The Alchemist's Daughter (8 page)
They gathered up the last of their provisions, and set out along the high road towards Salisbury. A mile or so farther on they met another pair of vagrants, a man and a woman, who were travelling away from the city. Save for a tattered cloak and sheepskin doublet, the man was naked above the waist. His face was daubed with mud and blood, his head wrapped round with dirty cloths, his beard tied up in rags.
Suddenly, as Sidonie came near, he flung himself headlong across her path. She watched in alarm as his meagre body writhed and jerked in the dust, his arms flailing and his mouth frothing like a rabid dog's.
“Pray help him, mistress,” cried his doxy. “He has the Falling Sickness.”
Sidonie, who had seen a neighbour seized by one of these fits, was already on her knees beside the man, meaning to put a stick under his tongue so he would not bite it off. She turned her head to call out to Kit, who had fallen behind to examine a wayside plant.
All at once the man reached up and clutched Sidonie by the shoulders. Startled, she tried to pull away, but his grip tightened, his fingers digging cruelly into her flesh as he forced her down. Sidonie squirmed and twisted and tried to scream. Her face was pressed into the man's chest, her nose filled with the stench of dirty sheepskin and sweat. She could hear Kit shouting as he raced toward her, and then there was a dull thud and a choked-off cry.
Her captor rolled over then, carrying Sidonie with him. Now she was flat on her back, held fast to the ground by bony knees and pinching hands, and the beggar's woman was waving a knife near her throat. Sidonie cringed, tucked her chin into her chest, tried to curl away from the blade.
Then she felt a hand fumbling at her waist. The beggarwoman, grinning, held up the pouch full of red powder and shook it in Sidonie's face, as though to taunt her. In the other hand, along with the knife, she clutched the purse that held the last of their coins. And then she darted away into the shadow of an oakwood, with her partner at her heels.
Sidonie got shakily to her feet, and looked around for Kit. He was lying by the roadside a few yards away, his head resting in a pool of blood. Choking back tears, she stumbled over to him. Kneeling, she cradled his shoulders and felt for the wound. Blood welled from a long split in his scalp.
He is killed for certain
, she thought, with sick dismay. But after a moment he opened his eyes and struggled to sit up. She let out a long, grateful breath. “Hush, keep still,” she said softly, using her kerchief to wipe away the blood.
“I'll wager you could use some help.”
Sidonie glanced up, saw a stranger approaching on an elegant grey mare. She had a quick impression of piercing blue eyes, a full-lipped, smiling mouth, a modishly trimmed beard.
The man dismounted, leading his horse. He moved with a courtier's confident grace.
“Indeed we could, sir. I stopped to help a man who seemed in dire distress, and this is how we were rewarded.”
“What manner of distress?” Though the question was seriously enough posed, there was a glint of humour as well as concern in the young man's eyes.
“His woman said he had the Falling Sickness, and indeed, he had every symptom, with a wild look in his eye, and frothing at the mouth.”
“'Struth, mistress, you're not the first traveller to be taken in by that trick. That was a Counterfeit Crank, and it was no sickness he had, only a mouthful of soapsuds. It's your purse he wanted, not your help.”
“And that he got,” said Sidonie glumly. “All the money I had left, and other valuables besides.”
“What valuables were those?”
But Sidonie had already revealed more than she had intended. “I fear, sir, I am not at liberty to say.” Her reply, meant to be courteous, sounded in her own ears pompous and self-important.
The man raised a quizzical eyebrow; and crouched down to examine Kit's head.
“He's taken a bad thump from a stick, but with luck he should live. Come, lend me a hand. I'll take him with me on my mount.” Between them they got Kit to his feet. Still only half-conscious, he was a dead, uncooperative weight.
The young man hoisted Kit astride the mare, then sprang lithely into the saddle behind him. Kit slumped against the man's shoulder, looking pale and dazed.
Their rescuer gathered up the reins. “My apologies, mistress, that I must make you walk. But it is no great distance to Wilton House.”
“Is that where you are taking him? He needs a physician.”
“And he shall have one, mistress. The finest in England. But I forget my manners entirely. I am Adrian Gilbert. And what may I call you, mistress?”
“I am called Sidonie. Sidonie Quince. And this is my brother Kit.” She added hastily, “Kit Aubrey. My fosterbrother, who was raised in my father's house.”
“Quince. I know that name. Simon Quince the astrologer, is it not, who has been called to court while Dr. Dee remains abroad? He looked down at her. “A relative, perchance?”
“My father,” Sidonie told him.
“Is he indeed, mistress? Then you must be the young woman who is to become the Queen's prognosticator.”
“Then you know a great deal more than I,” said Sidonie, taken aback.
“But you were at Hampton Court, and scried for Her Majesty, did you not?”
“Yes but, how did you . . . ?”
Gilbert grinned down at her. “Did you imagine because we are simple country folk, we are not privy to court gossip?”
Simple country folk indeed
, thought Sidonie, observing his doublet of embroidered velvet, his fashionably padded breeches, the scarlet silk lining of his cloak. All the same he had a hale, robust look, as though he spent much of his time outdoors.
Ambling along at Sidonie's pace, he turned onto a bridle-path winding its way across the greensward. Presently the path widened and joined a tree-lined carriageway. Ahead lay a stone manor house surrounded by a high wall, with trees and gardens stretching down to the river beyond.
“Welcome to Wilton House, Sidonie Quince,” said Gilbert, as she followed him though the tall arched gateway into the inner courtyard. Dismounting, he tossed the reins to a groom.
With the porter's assistance Gilbert helped Kit to the ground. “Can you walk, sir?” Kit nodded uncertainly.
By now two liveried servants had appeared. “Take him to one of the guest chambers,” Gilbert told them. “And send for Lady Mary's physician to attend him.” He beckoned to Sidonie, who was hanging back uncertainly. “Mistress Quince, if you please, do you come this way.”
He led her along a cobbled passageway and up a spiral staircase to a pleasant, sunlit sitting room. There was a fireplace, elaborately carved with birds and fruits and classical scenes. The walls were lined with tapestries, the floor carpeted, the high plastered ceiling decorated with an exuberant pattern of vines and flowers.
“If you will excuse me,” said Gilbert, “I will tell Lady Mary you are here.”
Left to her own devices, Sidonie sank down on a cushioned settle. She was bone-weary, aching from head to foot, and on the edge of tears. Through misguided pity, she had lost the treasure they had risked so much to find. Must they now retrace their steps to Glastonbury, with neither food nor money to sustain them, her father soon back from London, and Kit half-killed besides?
Tired as she was, it was too much to contemplate. Kit would be cared for, his wound dressed, by more expert hands than hers; she should rest while she could. After a moment a serving maid came in with a goblet of wine and a plate of currant tarts. Sidonie drank the wine in one thirsty draught, and devoured the tarts. The unwatered wine rushed to her head and she felt her tired limbs relax. Through drooping lids she contemplated a carved scene of the goddess Diana bathing. What must it be like, she wondered, half-asleep, to live in such a grand house as this?
“Mistress Quince, your brother is awake, and asking after you.” Sidonie came to herself with a start as a tall, slender woman entered the room. She was dressed all in black, with neither jewels nor ornaments, but there was an air of rank and authority about her.
Sidonie rose hastily to her feet and managed a curtsey. “My lady?”
“You guess rightly,” the woman said with a smile.” I am Mary Herbert. And you, I am told, are Sidonie Quince of Charing Cross, who has had a long journey and many adventures.”
Above the woman's black velvet bodice and lace-trimmed ruff, red-gold hair shone like a new-minted coin. Sidonie could see the sharp intelligence in that oval face with its sombre, wide-set eyes and broad, pale brow, already faintly etched with lines. Mary Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney's sister: after the Queen, the second cleverest woman in England, Sidonie's father had said. Sidonie remembered those words, because he had added, only half in jest, that if Sidonie kept on with her studies she might one day be the third.
I lief would have this lady's good opinion
, Sidonie thought. But her tongue felt thick and unmanageable. She regretted that large goblet of wine, so hastily quaffed.
“Come, I will take you to your brother,” said the Countess. “And afterwards, you shall have a good supper, and mayhap we will talk.”
She set off at a lively pace, Sidonie following a little unsteadily, through galleries and passageways and up a flight of stairs. At length the Countess paused at a half-open doorway and glanced in.
“Ah, I see you are expected,” she said with a faint smile. “Go you in, Sidonie. I will send my maid to fetch you by and by.”
Kit was lying propped up on silk pillows in an immense bed with gold-embroidered curtains and fluted posts. His head was wrapped in bandages, but a healthy colour had returned to his face, and as Sidonie tiptoed into the room, he gave her a faintly sheepish grin. He sat up, pushing back the velvet coverlet, and she saw that he was wearing a splendid white linen nightshirt lavishly embellished with lace. A black damask dressing gown lay across the foot of the bed. “See what a popinjay I have become,” he said. “Methinks, Mistress Sidonie, I could become well accustomed to this life.”
“Oh, Kit, don't jest, I have been beside myself. What says the physician? Will you mend?”
Kit laughed. “He says it's God's mercy my skull is so thick. It's naught but a scalp wound, quickly healed, and such a headache as I never wish to have again.”
“And all for my sake, who brought you on this ill-fated journey,” lamented Sidonie. She sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed. Kit reached out and seized one of her hands in his.
“Grieve not on my account, fair lady. Have a sugar-plum instead.” He nodded towards the bedside chest, where candied fruits and flower petals were arranged on a silver tray.
“You would comfort me with comfits,” observed Sidonie, reaching for a slice of pomegranate.
“Exactly so.”
“But Kit, it is worse than you know, all our money is gone, and the red powder besides.”
“The money I expected, but the powder? It would seem to a beggar no more than common dirt.”
“Did you not wonder if it was chance meeting with that beggar? Why should he waste his rogue's tricks on travellers as poor and footsore as us?”
“What mean you, Sidonie? That we were singled out?”
She said, “Do you remember at the inn in Salisbury, I had a fancy we were being watched? Suppose it were no fancy?”
“That is a weighty supposition, for a man with his brains already curdled.”
She leaned forward impatiently, as the notion caught hold of her. “Kit, you must be serious. You know nothing of plots and palace intrigues, they have not concerned you. But the day my father was summoned to court and made promises he could not keep, he and I were drawn willy-nilly into that world.”
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't.
â William Shakespeare,
The Tempest.
A little dark-haired maid-servant, clad as sombrely as her mistress, came to fetch Sidonie from Kit's room. No more than twelve or so, with wide, guileless eyes, she announced all in a rush, “I am called Alice, and Lady Mary has directed that I take you to your bedchamber, where I have prepared a bath, and after that I am to bring your supper, because you will wish to rest after such a misadventure.”
“Name of mercy, Alice,” exclaimed Sidonie. “Is my misadventure common knowledge, then?”
A grin, tugging at the edges of Alice's mouth, was quickly suppressed. “The cook did speak of it to the head gardener,” she admitted, “and I couldn't help but overhear.”
“Indeed,” said Sidonie. “Well, no doubt I will soon be the subject of merriment for three counties round.”
The little servant gave her a puzzled glance.
“I meant,” said Sidonie, “for being so foolish, as to be taken in by a rogue's trick.”