The Alchemist's Daughter (15 page)

The queasiness in his gut took a turn for the worse.

“Aw. I sees someone
is
home at the ignoble Barke House.” Constable Patch peered in at him. “If you woulds be so kind as to summon Mrs. Beldam.”

C
HAPTER
25

If a shadow could be cast on a foggy night, her silhouette would have resembled a hunchback’s. Bianca gripped a bulging satchel slung over her shoulder and solemnly crossed London Bridge toward Wool’s Key.

Despite the threat of arrest, she had spent the day in her room of Medicinals and Physickes fashioning traps made of woven reeds and vines. She had secured her doors and worked by the light of a wheezing tallow, mindful to appear “not at home” to any who called. Twice she had escaped through the alley and circled back in a wide arc, spying her door from a safe distance. Two women had separately knocked, and she recognized each of them as customers but did not chance engaging them for fear that Constable Patch might suddenly appear.

Her fingers expertly wound the strips into pliable but sturdy cylinders, each the perfect size to contain and subdue her prey without them snarling and biting their neighbors. She’d made seven cages, a sufficient number. Any more, and the serrated blades of sedge would have sliced her fingers raw.

Was this the best way to proceed? A mental picture of Pandy kept her company while she weaved the cages, as did the red cat sleeping on an overhead beam. Questions whirled in a jumble of unanswered theories. At least testing the purgative might be a start and an end she could finish. If the purgative tinged blood purple, she would have cause to believe someone at Barke House had slipped Jolyn enough of it to have killed her.

She kept a wary eye out for loobies and miscreants, difficult since the smoke from chimneys hung low about her, trapped in the dense fog off the Thames. The two blended into a thick, putrid brew difficult to breathe and see through.

Emerging from the bridge, she cut through a short alley onto Thames Street and skulked toward the Tower. She disliked going near its walls and did her best to avoid looking at the sinister edifice even when safely on the other side of the river in Southwark. The Tower was the scene of Anne Boleyn’s and Catherine Howard’s executions and nearly that of her own. But that was over a year ago, and she was better served to focus on what lay ahead.

The water stretched before her, and as she neared its banks, the prows of moored merchant ships appeared, then disappeared in the gloaming mist. She was at Wool’s Key, with its winches and abandoned pulleys. The damp had coated the steps of the pier, making them slippery, so she gingerly descended to the river’s edge.

Still bearing the unwieldy satchel, she paused to peer into the murk. This was as good a place as any for catching her prey.

She dropped the satchel and withdrew a net she’d filched from behind a fisherman’s rent. She spread it out and worked the tangles loose, picking out clumps of mussels and mud until it lay smooth. Bianca sat back on her heels and slipped her fingers beneath her scarf to warm them against her neck. They felt drained of blood, cold as twigs in November, but against the heat of her skin, they burned like she had just plunged them into a stove.

Soon the noses of curious rats poked from under the steps, catching a whiff of rank mussels piled next to her. Bianca hadn’t expected such a quick response. She slowly gathered up the net and crouched, waiting motionless for the rats to move closer.

They seemed to come from everywhere. Before long, a dozen swarmed over the mussels. They fought and rasped, and she nearly lost her nerve. Bianca almost abandoned the idea, but with a clipped yelp, she threw the net over the feeding rats.

Cursing and muttering, she gathered its ends, sweeping the vermin into a neat bundle and cinching it closed. She held them up, a teeming, roiling mass of fur and teeth. The thought of reaching in and pulling them out to drop in their respective cages seemed a delicate matter, not to mention wildly disagreeable. Then she noticed a bollard of dense wood. She wound her arm like a windmill, then whacked the bundle hard against it.

Unfortunately, one whack was not enough. She had neither stunned nor silenced the awful brood, so she smacked them again.

Improvement.

Bianca repeatedly beat the rats against the bollard and pier, anything that offered resistance. At last she rendered them senseless and dropped the sack on the pier to catch her breath.

Not a single rat stirred. However, they would soon rouse, and when they did, she wanted them secured in their individual cages. Bianca opened the satchel and dumped the reed cylinders out on the pier. Working quickly, she pulled a rat out by its tail and dropped it in a cage. She tied the opening closed with a length of jute, then poked the rat with her finger to be sure it was alive. The rat bared its teeth, and she dropped it in her sack.

She grabbed a second cage and a second rat, and it wasn’t long before she had all the rats she needed secured in the makeshift cages. The remaining rats she kicked into the water. Bianca pulled the satchel closed, pausing to blow into her fists to warm them. A dog barked in the distance, and at her feet the river sloshed against the wood pier. She thought how cold she was and rewound her scarf about her neck, tucking the ends into her bodice to keep her chest warm. With a grunt, Bianca hefted the satchel onto her back. Soon she would be back in front of her stove. She was taking a step toward the stairs when an orb of yellow light caught her eye.

The light moved along the riverbank in an easy arcing swing of someone walking. On closer inspection she saw three men, one carrying a lantern and a pair of oars and another dragging two cumbersome sacks. The third followed, lagging behind the others as he stepped carefully through the muck. Bianca crouched, fearing they might see her, but the men were intent on locating a particular skiff, one dragged to shore and guarded by a lock and chain.

The man with the sacks hefted them into the boat, then lifted the heavy padlock and asked for the key. The man holding the lantern tossed the oars into the skiff. He held the lamp aloft, illuminating all their faces as he fumbled through a pocket then withdrew a key. Bianca sucked in her breath.

Wynders.

Anticipation shot through her veins.

“Row to starboard,” Wynders said, handing him the key. “The captain is expecting you, though I suspect you will have to rouse them. If they are any less sotted than the other day, I’d be smacked. These mates are long on drink and short of temper. Quarantine does that to a crew.” Wynders glanced at the third man catching up to them, then continued his instructions. “They’ll set down the bodies, and you lay them on the oil rags. Use the rush lights to set it ablaze. And don’t set the
Cristofur
on fire in the wake of it.”

The man grumbled something inaudible, and Wynders answered, “I’ll meet you when she’s out of quarantine and pay you then.” He stepped back as the man dropped the chain on the mudflat and dragged the boat into the water.

Bianca stayed as still as stone, watching the rowboat fold into the fog. How he’d find his way to the
Cristofur
in this thick she couldn’t imagine.

Wynders led the other man to a wall next to the quay, where they sat atop their perch, with the lamp in between. If it weren’t for the glow of light, Bianca would have had a difficult time locating them. She could see they kept their attention on the river and spoke little, but how long would it be before they noticed her?

Bianca glanced about anxiously. A coil of rope nearly as high as her shoulders was her only chance of staying hidden. She crouched behind it and worried the rats might start to hiss and the sound would give her away. She lowered her head at an unnatural angle, trying to hide. Her neck cramped, but she would not leave without her traps, nor could she chance Wynders spying her.

A rat nosed her foot. She pushed it away with the toe of her boot, but it came back, threatening to climb into her lap. She jammed a fist in her mouth, smothering a shriek that inched up her throat. Glancing at Wynders, she quickly plucked the thing by its tail and hurled it in the water. The men looked toward the splash, and Bianca quickly ducked and held her breath.

In a moment, she dared a peek and saw that they hadn’t moved. Her neck ached from hunching, and she forced herself to resist the urge to stretch. Instead, she concentrated on the sound of the river lapping at the pilings. She waited.

The persistent rat found its way back on the pier. Bianca was about to snatch it up again when an eruption sounded across the water. An orange-red burst of flames scorched the night, cutting through the miasma, revealing the hull of a merchant ship. The blaze flickered and reached skyward, a hot searing fire bellowing smoke that raked her nose with the smell of charred wood and something abominably foul. Bianca buried her nose under her arm and watched until the churning inferno was eventually subdued by fog.

Wynders and the man saw it, too. They stayed until the fire died, then hopped off the wall. Wynders took up the lantern.

A gut feeling told her to follow.

Bianca blew into her hands to warm them, then lifted the satchel of rats. She was settling her foot on the first step of the quay when unexpectedly the whole structure shuddered. Bianca froze until the rumbling stopped, but three words came to her. Had she remembered them carved in stone on a building or etched on a grave? Peculiar how they suddenly came to mind, or were they whispered in the vaporous night? She spun around and scanned the water, but all was silent and dark, shrouded in mist.

“Fortes fortuna iuvat.”
She couldn’t say from where the words had come or why she had thought of them. But she knew what they meant. Fortune favors the brave.

C
HAPTER
26

Bianca followed inconspicuously—or as discreetly as a girl could toting a satchel full of hissing rats. She followed the men from the wharf up to Botolph Lane, where it appeared Wynders handed the man a pouch. She saw them part ways and decided to follow Wynders toward Wool’s Key. Warehouses lined the waterfront, and he entered one of them. She sneaked as close as she dared, then flattened herself against a wall where she could peek around the corner from a safe distance. She wasn’t sure what she’d learn about Wynders, and certainly, as the night wore on, she was no closer to discovering what killed her friend. But perhaps if she knew more of this man’s business and his habits, she could piece together his intention.

The massive oak door muffled the sound of his movements, and Bianca wondered if she should even stay. She didn’t know how long he would be, or whether he’d come out anytime soon. There were no windows or openings to peep through. She set the bundle of restless vermin next to her and kicked it once to silence them.

The night air needled through to her bones, and her nose ran from the cold. She rubbed her hands together to thaw them, wishing she had remembered her gloves. Mercifully, she did not have to wait long before Wynders emerged.

He drew the door shut, securing it with a length of chain and a lock. Testing it for security, he reworked the chain and lock, then took up his lantern.

Bianca plastered herself against the wall as he walked past, unaware. She held her breath until he turned and was out of sight.

She hurried after to gauge his direction, assuming he probably headed home for bed. She watched until he turned a corner where wealthy merchants and tradesmen lived, then returned to the warehouse. The door had been secured with a chain that allowed barely more than a hand’s width of opening, enough for Bianca’s thin frame to slip through. She sucked in her breath and squeezed inside.

No light penetrated the interior. She hesitated, allowing her eyes to adjust, when she whiffed a putrid odor permeating the air. An undercurrent of musty sacks of grain merged with a caustic stench. She buried her nose in her scarf, trying to smother it.

She was able to sense wooden chests stacked before her and touched them lightly as she stepped past. Along the walls, the barely visible outlines of crates towered above. She moved warily through aisles jammed with containers and barrels, wishing she could see well enough to know what their labels read. Her nose clogged from dust as thick as smoke. More than once she removed her scarf and took a mouthful of the odious air, then rewrapped her mask of rough woven wool.

An odor that would have repelled the fainter of heart did not deter Bianca, who long ago had grown accustomed to noxious fumes. However, this smell was not one with which she was familiar. Her eyes burned and her throat seized, but she had to know its source.

The smell grew stronger as she made her way into the cavernous expanse of warehouse. Her surroundings grew darker still, and she tripped, stumbling into a crate, jostling it loose. It gave way, jarring the surrounding crates. She lost her balance but managed to land on her rump while throwing her arms over her head to protect it. An object rolled from the top of a disturbed crate, landing square in her lap. She shrieked, frantically brushing it off, imagining the worst. It rolled to a stop, and she eased her breathing when it didn’t move. Tentatively she reached out and felt a long bundle of twigs. A rushlight.

Where there was a torch, there must be a flint, but without a light how could she find it? She snickered at the irony. “Oh for a flint to chase away the black.” She was about to toss aside the useless torch when she remembered she might have one. She was forever misplacing her flint when she was lighting her dung fires, only to find she’d dropped it in her skirt pocket. She reached in her pocket and smiled.

The dark receded from the smoky flame, and Bianca now had the means by which to navigate. She pushed ahead in the direction of the foul odor, grateful the smell of the burning rush managed to help mask it.

She wove her way through an aisle of crates labeled with ports of origin and destination. She stopped to read one label written partly in foreign tongue. Familiar with the look of French, she knew it was not that. She’d seen plenty of the script at Boisvert’s, and John was practiced in it. No, this looked more floral, more Latin. Italian. She searched the end of the crate and read,
“Porto di origine, Genova.”

The rushlight would only allow her so much time, and she chided herself for her curiosity. Sometimes it did little to advance her cause and much to delay it. She pushed herself forward to the back of the warehouse.

As she neared a platform of barrels, she heard a strange sibilation—a hissing noise, a skirmish. She stopped cold. The rasping grew. She took a cautious step forward. If her skin had not been attached, she would have jumped out of it when she heard a scratching, then a thump.

She held the torch aloft but saw nothing. It was then that she heard a noise come from behind, and she whirled around, sweeping the rushlight in a wide arc.

But for her chest heaving, she stood still as stone. Her imagination was not making this easy. She wondered if Wynders had returned. She held the scarf over her nose and gulped a mouth of putrid air.

Eventually she convinced herself the sounds were coming from in front of her. She crept forward between the walls of grain sacks towering overhead. The stores of grain made a formidable barrier, and she stepped toward an opening, focusing on the dark gap. But a sudden scurry and weight on her boot made her jump. She swept up her kirtle and swung the light, searching for its source. A rat ran along the bottom of the sacks of grain and disappeared into the dark. She paused to catch her breath, then continued forward, inching closer to the opening, the torch lighting her way. Now a whisker’s length from the gap, she jabbed the torch around the corner and followed, peering past its orb of light.

For a second she couldn’t fathom what she was seeing. It was surreal, like a night fright brought to life. She threw her hand over her mouth.

There, in various stages of decay, lay more than a dozen corpses. Strewn in sinister repose, some lounged as if sleeping off too much drink, some lay with limbs askew, and some were rump side up. If their poses were not macabre enough, even more disturbing were the rats feasting on them.

Hundreds of vermin hissed and ripped off skin, crawled and sated themselves. Some yanked while others pulled. The bodies jerked and their limbs moved as the vermin tore them apart, feeding like maggots.

Bianca’s stomach heaved. She turned and ran for the door to the warehouse, running like a madwoman through the aisles of crates and barrels.

She tripped—narrowly avoiding setting the place on fire with her torch. But even that didn’t slow her down. She stopped to vomit, not caring she soiled the hem of her kirtle in her haste to keep moving.

Was this what Wynders had come to check? For what purpose did he warehouse the dead? If Bianca had had more nerve, she might have stayed long enough to see that the bodies were all men. If she had had a stronger stomach, she might have stayed long enough to note their dress. But as it was, she had seen enough to realize Wynders did not want these bodies found. And for Bianca, that was plenty.

She reached the entrance and pushed against its massive oak frame.

It wouldn’t budge.

Frustrated, she drove her shoulder into it, trying to force open a thin gap so she could squeeze back out. Still, the door remained secure.

The chain had been secured more tightly since she had gotten in. Wynders must have returned. Did he know she was there?

Bianca let loose a scream that shook the gibbets at Aldersgate. Stealth and covert snooping be damned, she wanted out.