Margaret of Ashbury 03 - The Water Devil Read online

CHAPTER FOUR

  THE UPPER WINDOW OF THE LITTLE house on the crowded alley called St. Katherine's Street was open, and Mother Hilde was leaning out of it watering the marigolds in her window box. She was looking even rounder and more cheerful than I saw her last, for spring brings babies, and babies make prosperity for Mother Hilde, who is the cleverest midwife in the whole of London, if not the entire realm. Her sleeves were rolled up, and as she poured the water onto the green leaves and around the roots, I could hear her humming and talking, and though I couldn't make it out, I knew it was for the plants. Mother Hilde talks to cabbages, too, and they are always grand and big, and her roses and beans always prosper like burgesses.

  “Why, it's Margaret!” she said, looking down at the street when I called. “And the girls, too! Go right in—the door's unlatched, but Malachi's in back. Don't make a sound. He's got a new process he's been working on for days.”

  How like the old days, I thought, when Brother Malachi was always sure that next week, next month, next year, the secret of the Philosopher's Stone would be his. There was a time, when I was a poor girl fresh from the country, that I lived with them and was Mother Hilde's apprentice in midwifery, though it isn't respectable to mention these days now that I travel in more elevated circles. It was Master Kendall who lifted me into wealth by marrying me to cure his gout, and also as a joke on his greedy family who were just sitting around waiting to inherit. As for Brother Malachi, whenever he was a real friar, I'll never know, because ever since I've known him he's been the most celebrated alchemist, the most ingenious mind, and the greatest fraud in five kingdoms.

  “Mother Hilde,” I said, as she joined us in the brightly painted little room that made their “hall,” “hasn't Malachi got discouraged yet? The Stone seems very hard to find.”

  “Discouraged? Oh, no, he's more enthusiastic than ever. He says he's found a new way to cause the black crow to fly from Sol and Luna in a cucurbit. Not that it isn't all beyond me, mind you. Such a mind, such a brilliant mind! Why, it's a gift just to hear him speaking of it—all that wisdom and those long foreign words. So tell me, Alison, I see you looking about the room. Were you thinking of the honey cakes I just might have baked yesterday, and just might have saved, thinking you'd be by?”Alison beamed expectantly, and Cecily looked at her toes. “Both girls shall have one, while I ask your mother about this awful lump right here on my left hand.”

  “Mother Hilde, really, you should have sent for me sooner,” I said as I looked at the stiff, swollen joint.

  “Do close the shutters, will you, girls?” called Mother Hilde to my greedy offspring. In the darkened room, the glow always shows, and there's no use exciting the neighbors. I fixed my mind on the Nothing that is greater than nothing, and then the light began to glimmer around the edges of the Nothing. I felt the crackle of powerful light rising in my spine and hands. Taking Mother Hilde's old, gnarled hand between mine, I could feel the heat moving into it, and the knotted joint start to shrink. Orangish pink light filled the room, gilding the faces of the children and transforming ordinary pots and clay jugs into shining, ruddy gold. It glinted on the gaudily painted figures of the zodiac that peered down from between the bright red and green painted ceiling beams of the Malachi the alchemist's curious little hall. It flowed like liquid into the empty spaces, healing and changing. The hand felt softer, now, and the heat that flowed from it was even. I let the light linger a bit, then watched with regret as it faded and the room transformed itself back into an ordinary place. I felt limp with the weakness that follows healing. But this was a little healing, and the weakness would pass in moments. A big one can put me in bed for days. And when I'm pregnant, the light goes inside to aid the child, and I can't do any healing at all, so you see what I mean about God being whimsical.

  “Now, how is that hand? Let me see you move it.” “Why, quite as good as new, Margaret,” said Mother Hilde, wiggling her gnarled old fingers happily. “There's many a pretty baby I'll yet bring into the world with that hand.” She tipped her head on one side and inspected me with her shrewd, old eyes. “Margaret, you're worn down. Too many worries. Here, put your feet on this stool and try some of this. No girls, it's not right for you. It's a tonic I've made, just like currant wine but with a few little inventions of my own. When you are grown-up ladies, then—”The girls looked at each other. “Now, why are you looking at each other like that?”

  “They've been having a problem being ladies, lately, Mother Hilde. They think you mean never.”

  “Nonsense. You shall soon be ladies. Twelve, thirteen, ready to be engaged and wed to some worthy gentleman. You are fortunate to have a fine dowry from your good old father, and a stepfather with connections. Being a lady isn't so bad at all, once you get used to it. And I assure you, it's far better than the alternatives.”

  The tonic was strange tasting, warming, and made my blood run faster.“Mother Hilde, why didn't you call me? You know that day or night I would come.”

  “Times seemed different, somehow.”

  “Different? Nothing's different. Oh—oh, my goodness, did you think it was because—”

  “Well, you do have a lot of grand friends since we returned to the City from our trip over the waters.”

  “Mother Hilde! Those are money-friends and fair-weather friends and downright false friends. Not true friends like you. Oh, the trouble that purchased knighthood has made! Who'd have thought it would tangle things up so?”

  “Then you are still the same Margaret after all!”

  “Always, always, Mother Hilde,” I said as we fell into each other's arms.

  “But, Mother Hilde, when is Brother Malachi coming out? I had something important to ask,” said Cecily, breaking into our sentimental moment. Mother Hilde went and put her eye to a crack in the door of the back room, Brother Malachi's laboratorium.

  “With company here, it's high time he came out, process or no process. Let's see. Cecily, hand me the towel there, I'll take the lid off the pottage kettle and see if the smell will lure him out. He and Sim haven't had a bite since the middle of last night, when they consumed an entire loaf of bread and a couple of salted herrings.” But at the very moment the lid was lifted, there was a sudden cry from the back room, and a loud noise, like, “whump!” Mother Hilde and I leapt with the shock of it, and she slammed the lid back on the kettle as if the act of removing it had caused the commotion, and it could all be fixed by putting it back again. The door to the laboratorium burst open, and a dense, stinking cloud billowed into the room. In the midst of the cloud, a round, shortish figure appeared, his pink face blackened with soot, bellowing curses and slapping at sparks on his robe. Behind him, another even shorter figure, an equally sooty, big headed, lopsided youth in a russet tunic, was trying to blow away the smoke by waving his cap at it.

  “Sim! Stop that! You'll just stir up the smell,” cried Brother Malachi. “Ah, Margaret! Back again! You have just witnessed an historic moment! I've got—” But Mother Hilde was opening the shutters with newfound agility. Wind and smoke battled at the windowsill, and cold gusts of air made the fire under the kettle sway and leap.

  “Oh, Malachi, my love, must historic moments always smell bad?” said Mother Hilde, choking and waving her hands in front of her face as if to disperse the stinking cloud. But Malachi, his eyes running, was almost dancing with excitement.

  “The black crow! It flew! This latest method has done it! From here it's only a step to the White Stone! When the smoke clears and the crucible cools, we ought to see it lying there. I tell you, this process of Arnold of Villanova is the most lucid, the most clear I have ever worked with—” Suddenly he spied us in the room. Just as in the old days, I had thrown open the door to help disperse the smoke. Cecily, her hands over her nose and mouth, was turning purple in an attempt to keep the smell out by holding her breath, and Alison, her nose pinched between thumb and forefinger, was taking advantage of the confusion to rummage about in search of another honey cake. “Stop that,” I whispered
fiercely, abandoning the door to grab her by the back of the neck.

  “Ah, what's this I see? A party? Margaret, I haven't seen you for ages. Ah, I see the tonic bottle's out.” He picked up the earthenware bottle and peered into it. “And this kettle on the fire?” He stooped into the fireplace and lifted the lid. “Why, soup, too. If my olfactory faculties were not entirely drowned by the smell of my experiment, I imagine it might smell good. Food! How could I have forgotten it? My brain needs renewal—I imagine Sim might crave a little something, too, ah, excellent, Hilde, my jewel, how did I ever live without you?” As the smell thinned and vanished, Mother Hilde, her eyes still winking back tears from the acrid smoke, had laid two great wooden bowls of pottage on the little table in the hall, and was engaged in cutting thick slabs from a loaf of heavy brown bread. Malachi poured water in a basin and washed his hands and face, leaving soot on his ears and in a ring beneath his multiple chins, while Sim, his apprentice, contented himself with washing his hands only. Then he settled himself, announcing at intervals, “Splendid, splendid!” while food vanished from the table at an astonishing rate.

  “A masterwork, this soup,” announced Malachi from his seat on the bench, as a second large bowlful disappeared down his capacious middle. “Hilde, you have surpassed yourself. It must be the garlic. No one but you has a true understanding of garlic. And that bit of pepper from the sausage—outstanding. Yes, what is it, Cecily?” Cecily, having waited until Malachi looked mellow and sated, was now twisting in embarrassment as she tried to make words come out of her. Very softly, hoping I would not overhear, she said:

  “Brother Malachi, you can change things into other things, can't you?”

  “Why of course,” answered Malachi, “that's an alchemist's business.”

  “Mother said the Philosopher's Stone changes ordinary things into better things, like lead into gold.”

  “Well, that it does. But I must admit, little Cecily, I haven't quite got it yet.” Cecily's face fell in disappointment.

  “Then the White Stone isn't the Stone?”

  “Not yet, not yet, child. The White Stone is just a step required in the process. Not that it isn't wonderful, mind you, but it's not the all-transforming Stone.” Mother Hilde, her face wise and silent, cast me a glance. We pretended to be busy, but our ears were tuned for the next question.

  “Then when will you get the real Stone? I need you to turn something.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “Brother Malachi, when you get the Philosopher's Stone, can you turn me into a boy?” Brother Malachi sputtered and set down his soup spoon.

  “Whatever do you want that for? I always thought you were a perfectly nice girl,” he answered tactfully.

  “Boys get everything,” said Cecily, her voice serious. “They get to ride any horse they want, and travel where they like, and carry a sword to smite down enemies. And—and—they don't have to sit still and embroider for just simply hours, and never talk and have ideas, and look at their feet when they're in the street instead of up at things happening, and—and—be ladies. I hate it, and I want to be a boy, because it's better.” Malachi's round, pink face looked troubled.

  “Well, admittedly, being a boy in general is essentially better,” he said, thoughtfully, “but in specific, not all boys get to do the things you say—and yet, yet—this is a point entirely unconsidered in the texts—how odd that you should bring it up. If being a boy is better, as holy writ assures us, and if the Philosopher's Stone changes all things into their higher forms, then all women could change themselves into men, and there would be no more human race. Now, if God Himself commanded mankind to be fruitful and multiply—to say nothing of other species—and if they all went and turned themselves into males and couldn't, then God's true will would be countermanded. Hmm. So then God would consider men and women equally valuable, although, let us say, different. Strange. Let's think this through another way. I have never seen it written that the Stone can change a woman into a man, and since the Stone is created by God to change lower things into higher things, then that means, goodness—but surely, it's far better to be a man—”

  “You mean you can't make me into a boy, even if you get the Stone?”At this, Malachi's face cleared.

  “Ha, Cecily. Let's consider it an experiment. When I get the Stone, and if you still want to be a boy, then we'll try it. If it works, you get your wish, and if it doesn't—”

  “Then boys and girls count the same to God, and the whole world is wrong, but I still have to embroider,” said Cecily.

  “Cecily, you are a sage child. The man who marries you will be terrified,” said Brother Malachi.

  “Hurry and get that Stone,” said Cecily, sighing, “I know I'm going to get very tired of pretending to be a lady until then.”

  “Well,” said Brother Malachi, setting down his soup spoon,“we'll just go in and see if we've got our White Stone. Things ought to be cooled down enough now. I think I've just lost another philosopher's egg, but the precipitate inside ought to be what we're looking for if the ever-wise Arnoldus is right.”We watched as he took a deep breath, plunged back into his laboratorium and opened the window into the back garden, then donned his heavy leather gloves. Sim ran in behind him to hand him his rod and touchstone. Despite the fast fading smell, we all crowded round to watch him reach into the heart of the athanor. There in the sandbath sat a blackened, cracked glass vessel made in the shape of an immense egg. “As I thought,” said Malachi. “It's ruined. Margaret, you have no idea of the cost of these things. And there's only one glass blower in the entire realm that can make them properly. Ugh. I'm making his fortune. Now—let's see—well, at any rate, it shines—” he prodded the blackened metallic stuff inside the broken egg with his rod. By this time, Cecily was quivering with excitement, and even Mother Hilde and I, hardened by his many previous attempts, held our breaths.

  “Everything's smoked up—let's see—” he poked off ash and blackened, crumbly stuff to reveal the metal beneath.

  “Looks all ashy and black, like silver tarnish,” said Cecily, her voice sad.

  “Child, must you be so blunt?” said Malachi. Frowning, he tapped the ash off his rod. “The mercury hasn't vanished the way it was supposed to; it's created some sort of compound. A—blackish, silvery—compound. I wonder if it's good for anything? Let's see, if I reversed the process before the three-headed dragon and calcinated the—”

  “Smoke is everywhere. Looks like making hams id here. Whad are those bones on the string? They look like muddon bones.” Alison, ever fastidious, was holding her nose, making her voice sound as if she had a bad cold.

  “Mutton indeed, they're—”

  “Malachi, must you?” I asked. “They're still so innocent.”

  “Saints' backbones,” announced Sim, Malachi's apprentice, in a cheerfully malicious voice. No one knew how old Sim was, including him, except that he didn't seem to grow much and his head was too big for his body. More than twelve, less than twenty, and cynical enough for three old men. “They're all nice and old looking now,” he added.

  “Margaret, you must understand that there's a world of difference between innocence and gullibility,” rumbled Malachi. “Now these, girls, are my stock in trade for my summer business…”

  “Saint Ursula's martyrs—hundreds of 'em—they'll fetch a pretty penny this summer when we go travelin'.” Sim's voice had a froggy sound. Was it due to change sometime? Then he had to be more than twelve. Let's see, would that make him about eight when Malachi found him in the street—but then he could have been ten, so if you add on…

  “They look more like pig's backbones, not mutton,” said Cecily in her sharp little voice, peering closely at the strung-up vertebrae. “Will you wrap them up fancy, like the ones in church?”

  “—my stock in trade, which is, in truth, faith and hope, without which the human race could not carry on, which these—ah— artifacts—allow people to attain through contemplation—”

  �
�You'll need the money for a new glass egg,” observed Cecily. “It's good you can make more of these whenever you like.”

  “Child, more and more I begin to understand you are your father's daughter—ah, yes, old Master Kendall was a shrewd one, that he was.”

  “Yes, it's better to make things the way you do to get money. Mama had to sell her ray-robe, the fancy one with the gold embroidery that I liked to try on, and the money stepfather left in the box in the chest is all gone anyway,” announced Alison.

  “Alison, you stop!” I cried, my calculations of Sim's age rudely interrupted.

  “Margaret, if you wish to keep household secrets, you'll need to lock these children in the wardrobe.”

  “Step-grandfather already did that,” said Alison, her face smug. “I'm not surprised about that, not in the least,”said Malachi.“Margaret, I am lamentably short of ready cash in this season, but—”

  “I didn't come for a loan, Brother Malachi. I came for this,” I said. Reaching into the bosom of my gown, I took out his letter, all crumpled and covered with seals, folded and refolded, and stained with its far traveling.“It's a letter from Gregory that he said to bring to you.” Malachi sat down on the tall stool before the athanor, unfolded the letter and peered at it closely.

  “Wanna see my skulls?” Sim asked Cecily. “They're killed Frenchmen.”

  “Me, too,” said Alison. “Do Frenchmen skulls look like English? Mother Sarah says they've got horns.”

  “Sim, have you got a mother?” I could hear Cecily ask as the girls followed him to the chest in the corner.

  “Never did,” he said. “I just came, that's all.”

  “You're lucky, our mother wants us to be ladies—” but the voices faded as they dove into the trunk.

  Malachi squinted at the letter. He held it several different ways, then sighed, then scratched his head in thought. “Impossible,” he muttered, “as usual, Gilbert's out of his mind.” Clearly, this would take time. I sat down on the window seat with Mother Hilde, where clean air poured through the open shutters. Birds were at work in the garden, nesting in Mother Hilde's crabapple tree, no doubt. It always was a favorite spot with them.