Alchemist's Apprentice (3 page)

The other cart was moving off, the young horse striding jauntily, delighted to be moving again. Dobbs sighed in the lop-sided traces. The carpenter rubbed his dusty neck kindly and began to untack him.

‘You can ride him home, lad,' he said. ‘I'll keep an eye on the cart until your master gets here.'

But he was talking to no one. Jack was gone.

H
E WAS RUNNING AS
fast as his bowed legs would carry him, going nowhere except away from his own disaster. He ran down lanes which grew narrower and darker until they turned into the stinking pig-alleys of the poorest parts of the city, where the truffled-up refuse was churned into a black slime which oozed between his toes. His body was stiff from shovelling, and his lungs didn't seem deep enough to contain the air that he needed, but still he kept running. Tom seemed to be at his shoulder no matter where he turned, and the abandoned Dobbs, who he loved better than anyone, would never look at him again.

At last he had to stop. His body was trembling from over-exertion and he was panting like a dog. Light spangled his vision, but it was only a trick of his racing blood. When it cleared, he was in darkness. Around him the small decrepit houses were slowly crumbling into decay. Their mud and straw faces were scarred and pock-marked. They gazed blandly at Jack from shutterless windows and he stood mesmerised until a child somewhere coughed and cried, reminding him that he was still alive.

He walked on, half dreaming. His knees shook and buckled with exhaustion, but he kept moving until, to his surprise, he found himself at the river again. It wasn't the docks where he had been earlier in the day, but he knew the place all the same. To his left was the ruin of an ancient monastery, its halls and cells and cloisters open to the stars above. Long before Jack's time it had been plundered and left abandoned. As he looked at it now, he wasn't sure what its original purpose had been, though he remembered that someone had once explained it to him. He was in no doubt, however, about its present use. The beggars from the whole of the eastern side of the city had colonised it. No one knew how many. Inside, he had been told, the beggars erected lean-tos against the solid stone walls and thatched them with rushes and straw. They cooked beneath the open skies and slept huddled together to keep warm. The monastery was a law unto itself, a miniature state within the confines of the city. It had its own rules and customs, and the inhabitants had divided the surrounding parishes among themselves. Any stranger discovered intruding upon their territory was quickly repelled. The monastery beggars did not readily admit newcomers.

Jack crept past the old cloister walls and looked down into the water. The tide was receding again. The river slithered along on its bed, slow in the darkness, slimy as a slug. There was no sound from the monastery, but Jack felt exposed and walked cautiously along the coping stones until he came to a flight of deep steps which led down to the river bed. In days gone by, boats had moored there to unload provisions for the monks, but not recently; not since the beggars had taken over. Jack walked down four steps and sat on the fifth with his back against the wall. He was hidden there, as safe as he could be in the circumstances. His race through the alleys had warmed him, but the cold stone against his back reminded him of the shirt still clutched in his hand. As he put it on, he became aware of how tattered it was. He had seen better-dressed beggars. Perhaps it was no coincidence that his feet had brought him here, to their door. All that separated him from them was his apprenticeship; the hope that it offered of some future security. Now even that was gone.

Jack dreamt that he was at home in his bed beside the hearth. He woke in the first light of dawn, explaining to his mother that the cock hadn't crowed yet; it still wasn't time to get up. She didn't answer him. He opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a sheep's heart bobbing on the rising tide at the foot of the steps. It was nothing unusual. The river was always full of offal. It was his being there at all that surprised him. He looked round. He was bitterly cold. His body was locked at an awkward angle. He turned over, trying to get back to the warm ashes of his mother's fire, his hand groping for the horse-hair blanket that smelled of himself and home and comfort. It wasn't there.

He rubbed his eyes and sat up, his body stiff and sore. The sky was blue-grey and the stars were dissolving, taking the darkness with them. In the water below, the sheep's heart was still lolling on the gentle waves which washed against the steps. There was something strange about the way it was floating. From the beggar colony came a whiff of wood smoke and the bleat of a goat. Jack wondered what it lived on. Above him, a single gull was circling, assessing him with a hostile eye. As he glared back at it, the realisation came, as if from nowhere, that the thing in the water was not a sheep's heart. He looked back quickly. It was still there, inching its way downstream.

Jack jumped up and ran down to catch it before it could be tempted out into the current. As he put a hand to it, he knew that he was right. It was not flesh at all but hard as bone and about the same weight. He turned it over in his hands. The cool water dripped between his fingers on to the threadbare knees of his trousers. He searched through his memory for clues, but nothing came. He had never seen anything remotely like this before.

It was hollow and roughly spherical, of some hard material like pottery or pewter, but not exactly either of them. A tube branched out of the top, which was why Jack had first thought that it was a sheep's heart. As he looked more closely, he saw that the tube, or spout, had been sealed with some sort of black, resinous material. Whatever the thing was, someone had made it.

‘What you got?'

Jack whipped round, instinctively keeping the object hidden behind his body. Above him, on the river wall, a man was standing. He was barefoot and bare legged. If he was wearing any clothes above his knees Jack couldn't tell, since he was wrapped in a torn and grimy blanket tucked up around his chin. His hair was long and matted and a thick beard covered his face almost entirely. But his eyes shone through and made Jack's blood run cold.

‘You got something. What is it?'

‘Nothing,' said Jack, turning his back again. ‘Just an old sheep's heart.' He was pressing his new find so hard against his waist that it was hurting him. Nothing would induce him to part with it.

‘Give it here.'

‘It's rotten. What do you want it for?'

There was a long silence. The hairs on the back of Jack's neck stood up as he imagined the terrifying figure slipping down the steps behind him. He dared not turn round. Somehow he knew that if his fear showed in his face, he was lost. When the man finally spoke again, Jack let out his breath in a flood of relief. He was still standing on the river wall.

‘For my dog,' he said.

Jack squatted down on the step, his back still turned. The last high tide had washed some pieces of driftwood up on to the lower steps. Surreptitiously, he picked one up. It was small, but soggy, the perfect weight. Without being sure why he was doing it, he tossed it out into the current, where it sent up a satisfying splash.

There was another long silence before the man spoke again.

‘What you do that for?'

‘It was rotten.'

‘Little swine. I'll teach you.'

Jack's knees were trembling. He bent down and began to toss the other pieces of driftwood into the river, his blood roaring so loud in his ears that he couldn't hear the splashes they made. His only chance, he knew, was the expression of absolute calm and disdain. When all the wood was gone there was no sound from the river wall above him. At any moment he expected to feel the clutch of a clammy hand on the back of his neck, but he couldn't turn to look. His senses seemed to be frozen behind him, but to turn would be to betray himself. Then suddenly, without knowing why, he was certain that the danger had passed.

He turned round. The wall above him was empty.

Jack was triumphant. The ordeal was over and he had emerged victorious. He swaggered around on the step and sneered at the suspicious seagull. The first rays of the sun broke over the ruined walls behind him, and in their brighter light he bent again to examine the object he had found and defended. As he did so, his spirits sank. He had no idea what it was or whether it had any value. Perhaps his possessiveness had been about nothing. Far from being over, his ordeal was only just beginning.

There was more smoke from the monastery. Jack could see it now, tumbling out over the broken walls, searching for direction in the motionless air. Soon the beggars would be emerging and spreading out over the city. Jack had no wish to meet with them. Stealthily he climbed up the steps and, seeing that the road was clear, set off along it. He didn't run, since running would be sure to arouse curiosity, but he walked as fast as he could. His rickety legs caused him to roll along on the outsides of his feet, which had developed hard skin like a second sole. There were times when it embarrassed him and he wished he was like other, stronger boys, but as he bowled along beside the river he had no awareness of it at all. All his attention was on the little pot that he still held clutched against his belly. He was unsure how to hold it. As it was, held openly in his hand, someone who knew what it was might recognise it and demand it from him or accuse him of theft. But if he tried to conceal it beneath his shirt he was likely to draw even more attention to himself. After long deliberation he decided to hold it by its tube. His hand concealed it, and the earth-coloured bulb that protruded was unlikely to arouse much curiosity.

By the time he had adjusted it to his satisfaction and assumed a carefully innocent expression, the city was well awake. A milkman passed, leading two mules loaded with cans. Jack remembered the taste of sweet milk and briefly considered trying to swap the pot for a dipper of it. But before he could decide, the milkman and his lop-eared followers had gone past him. They didn't seem to notice him at all. It was only then that Jack began to think about where he was going.

His feet had been carrying him towards his own part of town; where his mother used to live, within a few streets of Tom Bradley's forge. There was no future for him there; no one could afford to take him in and feed him, but he needed to find someone who could tell him what to do. The pot looked common and worthless, a drab old thing, growing slippery with sweat in his grip, and yet there was something about it that excited him. He had to find out whether or not it had any value before he could decide on his next step, and he could think of no one to turn to apart from his old neighbours. At least one of them would be sure to know.

The street pumps were busy as the town began the new day. Queues formed beside them as people washed themselves, sloshed out chamber pots, filled buckets for their animals. Sleepy tradesmen pushed handcarts loaded with bread, onions, fish. Goats were milked, dogs were kicked, horses were tackled and chickens were fed on the cobbles, among the feet of children playing in the morning sun. If anyone noticed Jack and his unusual possession they didn't see fit to challenge him, and as he drew near to his own neighbourhood he was both relieved and a little disappointed.

He began to meet with people that knew him.

‘Where you going, Jack?'

‘What's that you have there?'

He answered all the questions the same way, with a smile and a shrug. No one bothered to press him. But as he was approaching the lane where he had once lived, a hand reached out and grabbed him by the forearm. A small girl, rickety as himself, was making fearsome faces at him.

‘Stop! Watch yourself, Jack!'

‘Why? What's up, Sally?'

‘You're in big trouble. Didn't you know that?'

He did know, of course he did. How had he managed to forget?

Sally led him cautiously to the corner of the lane. The house there had been built of uncut stone, and the walls bulged and receded in a parody of symmetry. Jack and Sally crouched behind the huge, jutting cornerstone, a boulder which had probably stood just where it was long before the city had grown up around it.

‘What you got?' the girl asked.

‘Shh!' said Jack, peering out. A few doors down the lane, his mother's neighbour, Peg, was standing in her doorway. Beside her, his back turned towards Jack, was the brawny figure of Tom Bradley. He had rolled his sleeves up above his elbows, as he always did when there was some particularly heavy work about to be done. In one hand he held a broken spoke. The other arm was raised and planted against the lime-washed wall above Peg's head.

‘What is it?' Sally was saying, tugging at the object in Jack's hand.

‘Leave it, will you?' Jack snatched it away.

‘Did you steal it or what?'

Down the lane, Peg was shaking her head gravely. Her neighbours were standing around at a discreet distance, but all within earshot.

‘What you going to do with it, Jack?'

‘Shh!'

‘You going to sell it?'

Peg and Tom were nodding together and, with a sudden sense of horror, Jack understood that they were allies. Peg wasn't defending him against the blacksmith's wrath, she was in agreement with him. There was no one now, no one in the world who would shelter him. He felt suddenly, desperately alone.

Tom shifted his weight and turned to look up the lane. Jack ducked rapidly behind the cornerstone, but Sally had lost all awareness of the danger.

‘You going to bring it to Nancy?' she said. ‘Can I come with you?'

Jack didn't answer. Shaking free of the girl, he got up and ran back the way he had come. But this time he didn't go far. Despite her irritating curiosity, Sally had been useful. Not only had she saved Jack from walking straight into a trap, she had also given him an idea that he might not have come up with himself.

Nancy.