The Alchemist's Daughter (4 page)

C
HAPTER
5

Bianca sat in a daze as two men peered down at her friend’s corpse. She’d run to Boisvert’s and roused John from the silversmith’s shop, much to the Frenchman’s irritation, but seeing her distraught and with eyes nearly swollen shut from crying, he relented. He sent them on their way, foisting a bottle of wine on them, which for him was a tonic for all matters both good and bad.

John sent her home while he sought out the watch and constable from Southwark, who now stood over Jolyn, taking turns scratching their heads and making obvious comments.

“Well, I would say she’s not with the livin’, that’s for defi-nites,” said the watch. “Should I fetch the coroner, sir?”

Constable Patch looked up after a moment. His costume appeared shabby and worn, befitting an official not of London but of the more battered Southwark, across the river. A poniard hung from his waist, Bianca thought for show, for the man did not seem to possess the wit to use it. “Aye, this time of day ’e’s most likely at the Turn Bull. Look there first.”

The watch scurried out the door, eager to tell the coroner and anyone else the news about a young woman’s death.

The constable crooked his head to look at Jolyn from another angle. “And she just dropped—dead as dung?”

Bianca flinched at the comparison. She hated public officials. She found them less useful than a hangnail and would not have bothered if John hadn’t insisted. “They’ll hang you straight up if word gets out a girl died in your rent,” he had told her. “You can’t conceal her body or that she died here, Bianca. How would you get her out with no one noticing? And then what would you do with her body once you got her out?”

She had caved to John’s appeal, but this shivery ass did little to convince Bianca that this had been a good decision.

“So’s ye say she groused of stomach complaints? Feelin’ squeamish and a bit noxious?”

Bianca did her best to answer the man with an even temper. “Aye, she mentioned she had eaten of rich foods she had not been used to. And she said she was
nauseous
.”

“Rich foods,” repeated Patch, pulling his goatee. “What sorts of rich foods?”

“She mentioned sweetmeats, stuffed figs, exotical fare.”

“Exotical fare,” echoed Patch. He continued to tug at his spotty facial hair. “And how might she ’ave come by that, do ye suppose?”

“She had a suitor, sir. He brought her treats from abroad.”

“Treats from abroad.” Constable Patch considered this. “So ’e’s a sea captain?”

“Nay, he is not.” Bianca had little faith that this public official could make any more sense of Jolyn’s death than she. “He might have been an owner of a ship, or perhaps he worked shoreside. I do not know.”

“And did this suitor possess a name?”

Bianca looked to John. “I don’t believe she mentioned it. Or, if she did, I don’t recall.”

John shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t remember her saying.”

Patch turned his sights on the young silversmith and studied him before speaking. “Ye don’t remember?”

Bianca watched Patch continue to work his chin hair and thought the man would soon have nothing left to pull.

“Perhaps ye don’t remember because ye don’t want to say?”

John clamped shut his mouth, stifling the urge to protest. To a man such as Patch, arguing could be construed as evidence of conniving or, even worse, guilt.

“Sir, she did not say.” Bianca had no qualms setting the man straight.

Patch now turned his stare on Bianca. His eyes drifted to the elaborate copper contraption that loomed behind her. “And what is it ye do here?” Patch’s gaze traveled the length of the room, taking in shelves lined with jars and crockery. A pear-shaped pot with a neck like that of a swan sat neglected in a corner. Bunches of herbs hung from beams, the smells mingling with more unpleasant ones. Not the usual stuff of a young woman. A red cat perched on a joist, its eyes staring back at him, mirrored yellow.

But as Bianca started to explain, a knock came at the door, and into her room of Medicinals and Physickes stepped a man most like a roast beef, dressed in a brown doublet and small ruff choking what would be his neck. With a lift of his chin, he appraised his surroundings.

“Coroner,” said Patch, offering the man a slight bow.

“Patch,” acknowledged the man in a stentorian voice, but he paid no more attention to the constable than he would a gnat. He tolerated the sniveling fool because he had to. No one else in the ward was willing to take on the role of constable of this godforsaken precinct for so little pay and so little respect. He despised coming to Southwark; nothing good ever came of it.

“Coroner, we was jus’ disgusting what ’appened here,” said Patch, drawing himself erect to equal the man’s height. This task Patch could achieve, but girth was a challenge and one not worth striving for.

The coroner arched a brow at Patch and took a breath to correct the man’s verbiage, then thought better of it. “Indeed,” he answered. He looked about and, one eye closed, registered an unpleasant smell. He lifted the pomander hanging around his neck and inhaled. “And where is the body?”

Patch led the coroner to where Jolyn’s body lay. Bianca had not moved her, mostly because she did not have the strength, but partly because she had left in a panic to find John. She now stared at her friend. Disbelief and sadness churned her insides.

The coroner regarded Jolyn before speaking. He looked up and found Bianca, his face revealing nothing. “Perhaps you could tell me exactly what happened?” He directed his question to Bianca but trained his eyes on Jolyn.

“Sir, I was working when my friend came to visit.”

“And the name of the deceased?”

“Jolyn Carmichael.”

“What is it you do here?”

“This is my room of Medicinals and Physickes. I create salves, balms, and ointments for the ailing.”

“And these items,” he said, gesturing to the distillation equipment and furnace, “are required of your . . . vocation?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Why aren’t you in a nunnery?” he asked. “Or married?”

“I prefer this.”

The coroner glanced at John, then looked around at the dank, smelly nest that was Bianca’s room. He lifted an eyebrow.

With effort, he crouched beside the body and put his fingers to her neck. Not finding a pulse, he pushed her scarf away, revealing bruising and a purplish ring about her neck. “Curious.” He leaned in for a closer look. “It appears she has suffered some bruising. Perhaps from a cord.” He lifted his pomander to his nose and closed his eyes, breathing deep.

Bianca thought back to Jolyn sitting at her bench. Was Jolyn wearing her necklace? Bianca had grown so accustomed to seeing the jewelry hanging from her neck that it no longer drew her notice. She hadn’t seen any bruising, nor did Jolyn complain of soreness, but Jolyn’s scarf had been wrapped about her neck, Bianca had thought for warmth. Had she wanted to conceal her wounds, or protect them? Bianca came around the table and knelt beside her friend. The abrasions and discoloration ran on either side of Jolyn’s neck, but Jolyn’s necklace was gone.

“She used to wear a necklace, but I don’t see it.”

The coroner did not answer and continued his examination, lifting each hand, noting their redness and blisters. He peered into Jolyn’s unblinking eyes, then touched the corner of her mouth and studied the blood on his fingers, rubbing it between them. “The blood has a purple tinge.” After a moment he stood and removed a square of linen from a pocket, taking care to thoroughly wipe his fingers. “The appearance is that of poisoning.”

Bianca had considered as much, but to hear him say it still came as a shock. She had dismissed the notion, refusing to believe Jolyn was a victim of ill intentions, preferring instead that her friend had died from a natural cause. The words sounded with such authority that she dreaded where this might lead, and from the look on his face, so did John.

Patch wasn’t so dim that he, too, couldn’t see where this logic was going and immediately spoke up. “So’s this vacation of yours . . . did the deceased come to you for one of your balms?”

Bianca stood to fix the constable with a hard stare. “No, she did not.”

“Well, why ’id she come here? What for?”

“Jolyn is my friend,” said Bianca. “She came to visit.”

“We’ve been friends with Jolyn for a while,” said John. “She’s been doing well as late, and she wanted to talk about her suitor.”

Patch squinted at John. “I says we need to find this
suitor,
” he said, drawing out the word to give it emphasis. “So was there any jealousy between ye’s? She had a suitor, after all.”

“Of course not,” answered Bianca. “I was glad for her.”

“Did she ’ave somethin’ maybe ye wanted?” Patch ticked his head toward Jolyn. “Like maybe that necklace?”

Bianca grew indignant. “She was my friend. I don’t care a spot about jewelry. Search my room if you want.”

Patch considered, but continued to question her. “Well, maybe it was made of gold. Maybe ye could have poisoned her, then took the necklace, needin’ the gold for your . . . alchemy.”

Bianca was riled. The unwitting constable had no idea the dragons he unleashed insinuating she would poison her friend and referring to her work as alchemy.

“Sir,” said Bianca, seething, “what I do is
not
alchemy. I would thank you not to refer to it as such.”

Unperturbed, Patch pressed on. “Aws, wasn’t ye father an alchemist? Albern Goddard? Why, I remember that he was accused of tryin’ to poison the king.” His mouth twitched. “Maybe it’s just what ye do. Maybe it’s just what ye know.”

“That was a false charge, sir. My father has been absolved of that crime.”

“Constable Patch,” said John, “Bianca only makes salves and tinctures to help the sick. The unfortunate business of her father has no bearing on Jolyn. Bianca has severed ties with him. It is a completely separate matter.”

“A separate matter, but worth bearing in mind,” added Patch, looking to the coroner for agreement.

The coroner snorted, enjoying the drama that was playing out between Patch and this alchemist’s daughter. He studied Bianca a moment before speaking. “It is probably of no import,” he said. “However, did you give Jolyn anything to drink or eat?”

Bianca hesitated. Should she admit she had concocted a drink to soothe Jolyn’s flux? A sinking feeling settled in her gut. She knew where this question was leading. Ultimately, the onus would be on her to prove her innocence.

She would have to discover why Jolyn had died. She didn’t trust that these two men could (or would) figure it out. Constable Patch looked ready to lock her away, and the coroner seemed as though he’d lose interest as soon as he walked out the door. She opted to lie, if only to give herself more time. “No, I did not,” she said.

The coroner glanced at John, but John was practiced in deceit and knew when to keep his own counsel. He liked to think Bianca had learned her guile from him.

“So did your friend seem well?” asked the coroner.

“Generally, sir, she did. I thought she looked happier every time she visited. She no longer had to scrounge through the mudflats to survive.” She took a breath to speak of Jolyn’s complaints when the coroner interrupted.

“Did she voice any distress—physical or otherwise?”

“She complained of an unsettled stomach,” said Bianca, relieved she could tell him that Jolyn had not been perfectly healthy when she arrived. “She blamed it on the exotical foods her suitor had given her.”

The coroner studied her with steady eyes. “And would you say she had enemies?”

John broke in, unable to stand by any longer and watch the coroner interrogate Bianca. “Jolyn mentioned a muckraker at the Dim Dragon Inn. He confronted her about stealing something from him.”

“Do you know who this muckraker might be?”

“She did not say.”

“She did not say . . . much,” he noted. His gaze shifted from John to Bianca. “Has she any family?”

“None I know of,” she said.

“Tell him where Jolyn lived,” said Patch, eagerly.

Bianca glared at Patch, knowing full well his intent, but she answered simply, as if it should be of no import, “Jolyn lived at the Barke House.”

Patch cast a knowing glimpse at the public official, a smug smile on his face.

“She was employed there as an errand girl,” Bianca told the coroner. She turned to address Constable Patch. “Nothing more.”

The coroner studied John, the smell of Bianca’s room nettling his nose. He again lifted his pomander and inhaled, as if it might transport him to more pleasant surroundings—smelling of orange and clove, with a tankard of mulled cider in one hand and a woman’s buttocks in the other. Alas, he opened his eyes and found himself back in this den of crockery with a dead girl at his feet. He turned to the constable. “Patch, let the madam at Barke House know she has one less tenant,” he said. “If she should ask, burial will be at Cross Bones.”

“Cross Bones!” exclaimed Bianca. “But that land is unconsecrated.” The insult was too much. Neither she nor her friend observed the king’s religion, but she resented that Jolyn would be condemned for all time. “She may have lived at Barke House, but she was not a woman of disrepute. If she’s buried at Cross Bones, she’ll be labeled for eternity.”

The coroner remained unmoved. “If this suitor, as you say, exists, then I’m sure he will desire otherwise. In which case, he will have to see me to arrange burial elsewhere.” He read Bianca’s long face. “My dear, it is admirable that you should wish better for your . . . friend.” He inhaled his pomander, then dropped it. “But it is of my opinion that where she is buried should be your least concern.”

C
HAPTER
6

His belly full, the ferrier tossed the skeletal remains of his breakfast into the Thames, his catlike tongue licking his chin and nose, savoring the last delectable taste of rat on his skin. He had had an easy time of it. The
Cristofur
had afforded him an abundant supply of vermin eager to escape her moldering hold and swim for better spoils on land. It did not take much effort for him to capture the hapless creatures. As he floated within sight of the moored vessel, happily sated, he was privy to a curious sight, the likes of which he had never seen.

Before the day’s first light, a lonely seaman appeared at the starboard side. As he picked the rat gristle from his teeth, the ferrier saw the seaman raise a lantern, then signal toward shore. All London appeared dark and unaware, content in the slumbering peace of its citizenry. But then a singular light appeared shoreside—a light from an upper window of a warehouse that blinked once, then twice, then was extinguished.

The Rat Man lifted a brow and watched with interest.

Soon, the prow of a long skiff nosed its way silently toward the
Cristofur
. It drew alongside her hull, floating in tandem with the merchant vessel.

The Rat Man turned his wherry for a better look.

A hatch creaked open from the starboard side. After a minute, a shrouded object, resembling the shape and length of a body, was lowered by rope onto the skiff. Perhaps this would not cause much notice to a casual observer, but when the object was followed by another, and then another of similar shape and size, the Rat Man could not bring himself to leave, nor could he drag his eyes from the sight.

By comparison, the heap of shrouded bodies in the skiff was higher than the pile of rats in his. The man put oar to water and, with effort, began to row the teetering skiff. He headed back toward shore, the gunwales dangerously near water level. Apparently, the voyage had not been an easy one for the crew, and the ferrier now looked upon the exodus of vermin with renewed interest.

Something was amiss.