Alchemy of Glass

by Barbara Barnett

  CHAPTER 14

  Simon Bell arrived at precisely eleven o’clock in the morning, looking less frantic than he had only hours earlier. “Do have a seat. The kettle is on, and I hope I might interest you in a cup. My special blend.”

  “Of course.”

  “Forgive my appearance and that of the shop. As you know, I have only just relocated to Smithfield, and business has been perhaps brisker than I would have thought. You were saying when you visited earlier you wished to consult on a medical matter. I am both surprised and admittedly a bit flattered. And I assure you, I am quite prepared to provide for all you might require—”

  “You have somewhat of a reputation, I must say, for saving the necks of my brother physicians, who are at once slightly in awe of your uncanny abilities and at the same time resentful that you are . . . forgive me, I mean no disrespect, Mr. Erceldoune . . . merely an apothecary.”

  Gaelan had to credit Bell for the admission, couched as it was in the usual slight. At least Bell appeared to be less the dandified gent than many of his colleagues.

  “Bell,” Gaelan said after a moment, ignoring the affront. “The name means something to me. Might you be a relation of the famed Scottish surgeon Benjamin Bell of Edinburgh?”

  “My grandfather, sir. He is, naturally, long since departed from this earth.”

  “Of course. He was a singular talent, was he not?” Gaelan would need to take care and not reveal anything of the brief time he’d apprenticed to the legendary surgeon. “I have studied his writings so thoroughly, I feel I know his techniques as if I’d learned at his elbow. It would be my great honor to serve the grandson of such a giant.”

  “Indeed! It is said, sir, you have experience with diseases few physicians have met in Britain. Might I enquire how that might be? Certainly not from the study of my grandfather’s writings. Have you traveled the world? The army, perchance? Or a ship’s surgeon?”

  “No.” Gaelan was not keen to reveal he’d spent a year at sea. Surgeon on a privateer a century and a half ago. If Bell had any experience at all with modern seafaring, Gaelan would be ill prepared to discuss the subject.

  He’d not been to sea since that difficult voyage. Slashed by a cutlass breaking up a row, Gaelan’s wounds would surely have been a mortal blow for a normal man, and several shipmates had witnessed the extent of it. He’d hid away in his quarters for days afterwards, waiting for the wounds to heal, and then he denied the entire business as a drunken tale.

  “I confess, I read quite a bit. Practice technique when I’m able. Cats, usually. The occasional rat . . .”

  “You’ve no taste for dissecting human corpses, then?”

  “I’ve little opportunity to do so, nor the funds to pay the resurrection men. No, I have done quite well with cats and rats to understand physiology. Humans are not so very different.”

  “The resurrection men would disagree with you on this point—”

  Gaelan laughed. “Right you are! And there are ideas more important than one might discover in a corpse. I endeavor to make my horizons as far-reaching as possible. Indeed, there are times when a modern cure proves less effective than something ancient and long forgotten. Dismissed and derided, even outlawed as magic in less enlightened times.”

  “Very few such resources remain anywhere on these shores, I understand.”

  “Not all are vanished, destroyed, and I have found it useful time to time to reconsider these old ways, but with modern eyes. What baffled us in ages past, viewed through the prism of modern understanding and the gift of hindsight . . . Ah, Dr. Bell, we have before us the rich and too-often untapped vein of history to plunge.”

  Bell slapped his hand on the table between them, a smile ear to ear. “Quite right you are. And it is exactly something my grandfather would suggest. I do hope you will forgive me my behavior last night . . . or should I say . . . earlier this morn. The family were frantic with worry, and I must admit when the young lady’s brother prattled on about his sister last night, her rumored whereabouts in Smithfield of all places, I had to wonder if she came to you seeking help.”

  “They have located her, then?”

  “No. Not as far as I know.”

  “Why would the brother not seek for her on his own? And why the presumption about me?”

  “As I said, you’ve a reputation as a gifted practitioner, and especially kind to those in the greatest of need. Perhaps you’d been recommended by a friend of hers. I admit it was more wishfulness than anything. That the young lady found herself at your door rather than . . . As for the brother, he is a preening fop, more interested in his social status than the well-being of his own sister. I doubt she would have come home with him, in any event, which is why I’d set out on my own, you see. And in her situation, she is better off to cut the tie entirely, find help elsewhere. Therefore, Mr. Erceldoune, I must ask again . . .”

  Gaelan needed to tread carefully. Admit to nothing. “And I repeat to you. I have treated not one young lady in the past day. Nor do I have knowledge—”

  “Please, Mr. Erceldoune, I have no wish to antagonize you. As I said, she is better off on her own than—”

  Gaelan could not contain vehemence of his anger, which crept up on him unawares. He stood, hands balled into tight fists, and stalked to the far end of the shop. “You would wish her alone and friendless here? In Smithfield? I assure you it is safe enough by day if you’ve a notion how to handle yourself, but it is a place of ruffians and cutthroats at night, after the markets close shop. There lurks about the district a band of body snatchers who would not hesitate to kidnap a young woman, slit her throat and turn her over to the anatomists and surgeons for study. Or, if she is more the fortunate sort, might find herself in a bordello.” A young, genteel lady would be easy prey. “Be that what you’d want for her, Dr. Bell?” Gaelan turned back, hoping his glare fixed a saber-sharp point on Bell. “For a young lady you call a friend?”

  He had to stop, lest he give away even the smallest clue about the girl being under his roof. He turned to stare out into the market until he might continue on calmer footing. “Forgive me my outburst, Dr. Bell,” he said before returning to sit opposite his visitor. “It has been a taxing sort of day already.”

  Now, Bell stood and paced the length of the long room. “Of course it is not what I would want for her . . . for anyone. I would hope . . .” He stopped, coming to rest again at his chair. He took up his cup and sat. “What does it matter what you or I might hope?” Bell blew out an exasperated breath before continuing. “Perhaps . . . Perhaps she will find sanctuary with some kindly family. That is what I pray. She is a free spirit, that one; she knows her own mind. But a girl on her own? She is barely nineteen years, and despite a fierce independent streak, she is naive as any young lady of her station.”

  “Then let that be an end to the matter, and hope she finds refuge, eh? As for the other thing you wished to discuss? Despite whatever reputation others may accredit me, would you not be better off to seek the services of an apothecary in a more convenient part of town?”

  “The local apothecary is adequate, but somewhat a fool with his strange concoctions at steep prices—and, I might add, to dubious effect.”

  “There are those who discredit the trade . . .” Too many, and they lent to all apothecaries the stink of fraud.

  Bell sipped the tea. “This is quite a wonderful brew!”

  “Orange peel, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, clove—and cayenne, which I infuse with bergamot and black leaves.” Gaelan waited for Bell to come to the point of his call.

  “Mr. Erceldoune. I have in these past several days been confronted by a rather perplexing illness I have never before seen in my many years of practice.”

  “Indeed. Please go on.” Gaelan’s curiosity was piqued by the whiff of a thorny medical riddle.

  “Chills—tremors head to toe. Poor wretch’s teeth were chattering so, I thought he might bite right through his tongue.”

  “There are, sir, a great ma
ny illnesses that commence thus. A high fever no doubt followed suit—and a weakness more than any fatigue the patient has known? You would know all this, surely. And this patient, I would assume, is no pauper living in filth and ten to a room, but a man of some means?” Undoubtedly, Bell saw few patients suffering the ailments Gaelan treated daily in the years he had practiced his trade in rat-infested slums, teeming with people crowded into impossible living conditions. He had at his disposal no magic potions—only the benefit of several centuries treating the worst disease had to offer, a keen eye, and a gift for making connections others too often refused to see. “Indeed, your patient must suffer from other, more peculiar, symptoms—else why search beyond your own experience and insight?”

  “This is no ordinary influenza or at least nothing of its like I have seen. The rapidity of the onset . . . I tell you. He is in extremis, and only over the course of hours, his condition has deteriorated from a state of good health to near death.”

  “Have you a complete reckoning of the illness’s course over the past day?”

  “His wife says it commenced with a mild headache. No more than that. Breathing difficulty followed within two hours, she says, and then chills, fever, shortly thereafter. By the time I came round to examine him, his chest rattled with every breath. And as I said, all in the course of mere hours.”

  Gaelan roved about the shop, his gaze darting from Bell to the open crate of books and back again, evaluating the order of symptoms, discarding possible diagnoses one after the next as either highly unlikely or so obvious Bell would have already considered it himself. “To speak true, Dr. Bell—”

  Bell shrugged. “You see, I am at a loss. I even fear bleeding him in his present state. The practice does little good in any case, and I am afraid I might make his condition worse for the tampering with him. I can scarce manage a sip of elderberry tea down his throat. He coughs it up and cannot catch his breath. Oh yes, the delirium. His wife says it is the drink, but I cannot say for certain.”

  Few physicians would be so circumspect as to balk at bloodletting. Gaelan was impressed. “You made no mention of digestive—”

  “None I’ve observed.”

  “Sweating. Not simply the expulsion of fever, as might be expected, but so extreme—”

  “Yes! Yes, so profuse his bedclothes were sodden. I have not considered it as a symptom so much as an effect of the fever—”

  Gaelan dismissed a niggling in the periphery of his mind. A most improbable idea. Yet, it fit this particular set of symptoms. He thrust the notion aside, but it buzzed about his head, in his ear like a troublesome gnat.

  No, not improbable. Impossible.

  “The disease, Dr. Bell, sounds like nothing I’ve encountered personally; however, I’ve a notion about the symptoms you describe. I would ask that you return later today, after I’ve had the opportunity to think upon it.”

  “Well, then, what is it? Time is of the essence. By afternoon, it may indeed be too late.”

  Yes, Bell was right. Perhaps it already was. “I quite understand, and your patient may be beyond helping at this late . . . You must forgive my reluctance, but if it is what I think . . .” He could not further travel this path with Bell. Not until he was certain.

  “If you’ve a notion, I insist you say it!”

  “Still. If I am wrong, we will have wasted . . . You see, what I am thinking . . . it is quite obscure and . . .” Gaelan needed more clues to summarily dismiss this prickling feeling, move on to a more conventional diagnosis. “Let me ask you this. You’ve not mentioned a rash—”

  “Dear Lord. I nearly forgot. He developed a rash soon after the sweating began. I’d forgotten to mention. Forgive me, but I have been up all this night.”

  “Indeed. And the husband is the only one thus far to—”

  “Yes. It has not spread. It seems not necessarily contagious.”

  Gaelan nodded. “The wife, children, servants—any of them? No matter how mild the symptoms? Complaint of a mild headache? The rash? Especially that.”

  “Not any of which I’m aware. The symptoms are an odd mix, are they not? Of course, I am worried for his wife. Their three children have been sent off to the country.”

  One in a family falls ill, then the rest. Little to do but listen, observe, and measure against one’s own base of knowledge of ailments and treatments, medicines and procedures. Leaches and bleeding, laudanum, the standard fare, and pray the patient made it through the night. Few practitioners possessed the imagination to do more. “Dr. Bell, please. If you allow me to spend some few hours at least thinking upon it, say, until two this afternoon. Perhaps, by then—”

  “ . . . my patient will be gone. Is there nothing—?”

  “I am no magician, sir. And it is not in my nature to offer elixirs of false hope. I can, however, send you off with a tonic. Something of my own invention. It will mitigate the worst effects of the sweating, if nothing else. It will assure that the loss of fluids from the body will not rob his physiology of essential elements. Give me but a moment and I shall prepare a bottle for you.”

  “Essential elements? Whatever do you mean?”

  Gaelan had no desire to elaborate, only to have the idea discarded as fakery and fraud. “Only know, sir, it works. That it will prevent him from growing yet weaker than he is already. A simple combination of certain salt compounds, a bit of vinegar and molasses to make it more palatable, all dissolved in fresh water.”

  Gaelan removed a large amber bottle from a cabinet behind the counter, filling it with water and powders from several small bottles. When he turned around Bell was scrutinizing Gaelan’s inlaid chess table. “This should help, at least. Until mid-afternoon, then?”

  “This is quite a remarkable board. Ebony?”

  “Agate and onyx. It is quite old.” Gaelan was inexplicably drawn to the young physician. Was it the resemblance to Benjamin? That, and the fact Bell did not appear to sneer, a priori, at the apothecary’s craft. “Do you play?”

  “What? Not . . . I really must be going—”

  “No, not now, of course. There are far more urgent matters at hand, for us both, I daresay. I do like a good game; I seem to think best with my mind occupied by chess. Oftentimes, in my experience, the answer to the most perplexing question presents itself in the guise of a clever move. My own, or an opponent’s.”

  “I do play, and quite well.”

  “Perhaps once this crisis of yours has passed—”

  “Indeed, I would like that quite a lot.”

  “Go then, and I shall think upon the illness and pray stumble upon . . . something. For this affliction seems a feral thing, and should it spread . . .”

  “Until two o’clock, then.” Bell gathered up his belongings and tonic and took his leave with a slight bow.

  Gaelan’s first priority was to mix more of the salts tonic, especially with no other treatment at hand. He did not completely understand the mechanism whereby it worked, but work it did, and far better than water alone. A discovery he’d fallen upon quite by accident some years earlier.

  A chance draught from his freshwater barrel after a hard ride on a blazing hot July day revived Gaelan much more swiftly than expected. The water possessed a strange taste, and he noticed only later the spilled tin of potassium chloride salts beside the barrel. Perhaps some of it had gotten into the water, explaining the odd taste. But what of its reviving properties?

  Curious, Gaelan searched through the ouroboros book. True wizardry in the skilled hands of his father. But he was not his father. Would he somehow manage to find the secret of the salt water somewhere within its strange illuminations?

  An obscure reference to several chemical compounds—salts—and their relationship to physiology, tucked away beneath the tentacles of an octopus that blazed in metallic hues of orange and red, taking up an entire corner of a page on treating fevers. He’d stared at the page for hours, until, with a flash of clarity, he understood.

  Symbols hidden within its tent
acles pointed the way to the bottom of the image, a deep, almost black-blue sea bed, which spewed forth sprays possessed of a phosphorescent glow amidst easily identifiable alchemical elemental symbols for sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Enough to guide Gaelan’s hand in creating his remarkably effective reviving tonic.

  To use the ouroboros book was always to play with wildfire. As Gaelan knew too well. Yes, he would consult it to help make sense of one of his own discoveries, but only that. Yet, to follow even one of its healing recipes equipped with only his limited knowledge and experience would always risk consequences far beyond the realm of anyone’s control.

  The symptoms of Bell’s patient were unique in his experience but fit too well an ancient pattern he could not quite dismiss. But would he once again need to dive within the treacherous waters of the ouroboros book to quench the fires of this deadly illness? Or was Bell overreacting? That was the question.

  CHICAGO, PRESENT DAY

  CHAPTER 15

  The sharp edges of a migraine, fringed in a frustrating rainbow of auras, invaded Anne’s already fitful sleep, waking her to a groggy blur that would soon enough blossom into a full-blown throbbing if she didn’t get to her meds ASAP. Digging her thumbs hard into her forehead, she hoped to delay it at least until she found her bag, which was hopefully up in the bedroom, twenty-five long, head-lacerating steps up.

  She stretched, nearly tumbling from Simon’s drawing room sofa. Dragging herself to an upright position, she realized she’d never removed her shoes. Or turned off the reading lamp before conking out sometime late last night.

  Pinching the bridge of her nose, Anne failed to will away the tightening vise circling her head. Gaelan’s karyotype images were scattered everywhere: the floor, the coffee table, the sofa. Her bag was hiding out beneath an empty folder. She dove for it, if a bit too quickly, retrieving the small pharmacy bottle. Choking back the two small pills dry, she switched off the lamp, closed her eyes, and waited for the medical magic to kick in.