by Alan Gordon
“True,” I replied. “I have seen many a clever ruse. The crucible with the false bottom, the hollow stone filled with gold, the alloy where the silver is dissolved in aqua fortis to leave only the gold…”
“So that’s how…” he said with chagrin, then got up abruptly, snatched a flask from over a flame, and hurled it through a window. “I must thank you again. You have just saved me a few weeks of futile effort. If only you had come a few days earlier, I might have saved some money as well.” He took a cup from the end table and faced his minions, who cringed. “Whose turn is it?” he asked. Several pointed to Lucius, who looked on the verge of tears.
“Please, Sir Andrew, I only just went,” he whined.
“Nonsense,” replied the skinny knight. “Drink some water, and fill it up, boy.” The miserable lad took the cup and went outside while the other boys suppressed snickers. “Had I thought about it more, I would have realized that this stone could not have been the Stone,” he continued. “For is it not written that the Stone cannot be found by looking but is everywhere around us? That ye shall not find it by direction but may stumble over it on the roadside?”
If that was the case, then the stone I had brought was an excellent candidate.
“That’s one of the reasons I became interested in alchemy,” he continued. “I’m so very good at stumbling. It’s one of my strengths. And I’m always being told that I cannot see what’s obvious to all. But that must mean that what is obscure to others must be obvious to me!” He beamed in triumphant conclusion.
“I certainly can’t argue with that,” I said honestly.
Just then, Lucius returned with a full cup and presented it to Sir Andrew, who promptly gulped it down. He made a face. “What have you been drinking?” he asked the boy. “Haven’t you been taking the melted snow I’ve been giving you?”
“Er, yes, Sir Andrew,” said the boy.
“Hmph,” said the knight dubiously. “It’s very important that you keep as pure as possible, lad. Otherwise, the impurities will find their way in here. Oh, forgive me, I’m being a terrible host. Would you like some?”
“Not today, thank you.”
“It has medicinal qualities, you know. Who knows what kind of shape I’d be in without it? Now, lads, let’s see how our red smoke is coming along.”
This pronouncement met with the first signs of glee I had seen among the boys. Each gathered a small bit of powder from in front of him and hurried outside. Sir Andrew took a taper, lit it from one of the furnaces, and followed them out. The boys were lined up, each holding a plate of powder in front of him as an offering. Sir Andrew went to each in turn and ignited the powders. Flame and smoke shot up from each plate, prompting hoots of laughter from the delighted children. The plate held by Lucius produced a particularly voluminous cloud of red smoke, and he was acclaimed the winner by all.
“Well done, lads,” cried Sir Andrew. “We will use the formula that made Lucius’s powder. I want all of you to make a cupful by New Year’s Day, and we will collect them all together. We’ll make a Hellfire to astonish the Devil himself.”
The boys actually cheered this little speech, and dashed back inside. But as we walked back to the house, I noticed that the sounds of activity dwindled to a halt.
“I was surprised to see you in town so early,” I said as we entered the house, a dismal, ramshackle place that had not seen a housekeeper in some time. The room and everything in it smelled of must and decay. Clothes, bottles, scrolls, dishes, all were heaped in profusion on every available surface. A gray cat skulked about, as scrawny as its master, its fur coming off in patches. “I thought you devoted each morning to your searches.”
“Not when the snow comes,” he said, beating a cushion into submission and placing it on a chair for me. “There’s not much point in it. I’ll wait for the spring and devote myself to my experiments and my fasting.”
“Fasting?”
“Yes. To become worthy of immortality, one must purify oneself. In addition to my experiments, which shall last me until then, I shall be meditating and praying, as well as studying the great treatises. Have you seen the new translation of Morienus?”
“No, but I have read an original copy of the Liber Platonis Quartorum.”
“Really? You read Arabic? That is lucky. I’ve just purchased a translation of Geber, but I wanted to compare one passage to the original. Would you mind?”
He pulled out a chest and opened it, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
The knight found the pages that he wanted and showed them to me. They were each from the Book of Balances, one in Arabic, one in Latin, and the paper gave off an oily smell. I glanced over them briefly. “The Latin is accurate, I would say. Only he’s made a mistake switching to the Roman numbers from the Arabic. Do you see that?”
“Yes, yes. I thought those proportions made no sense.”
They still didn’t, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. He began rummaging around a cupboard, finally producing some very old-looking cheese. “I am afraid my hospitality is sadly lacking,” he said. “Bread and cheese?” I declined graciously. “And how are you getting on with your business?” he asked.
“It’s difficult with the old Duke being dead and all,” I replied. “When do you think they’ll appoint the regent?”
He shrugged. “I really don’t pay much attention to it. I suppose it will be Olivia, but some are holding out for Viola, foreigner or no.”
“Who do you think would be better?”
“Me?” He seemed astonished and flattered that anyone would even want his opinion on anything. “I think they should let the Duke rule without interference. Mark is capable far beyond his years, and if he needed advice, he could always get it from his mother or his aunt.”
“Or from his steward,” I suggested.
Sir Andrew looked puzzled for a moment, then brightened. “Yes, of course. I keep forgetting about him. I don’t bother about stewards. They’re just servants, after all. They puff themselves up until they think they’re as good as us nobility, but they’re still just servants.”
“I was under the opinion that the Duke’s steward leads the most exemplary life, devoting his days to his service and his nights to prayer.”
He looked at me oddly. “That is what they say, isn’t it? Well, let him to his prayers and me to mine. But I would serve the boy with a will, if they would let him rule.” He paced the room, stepping over the things scattered about the floor without even glancing down. “They all think I’m doing this for the gold,” he said suddenly. “That’s what people think the Philosopher’s Stone is for. The transmutation of cheap ore into untold wealth. That’s why no one who wishes to be rich will ever find it. It will remain as out of reach as the water does to Sisyphus.”
“Tantalus,” I corrected him. “Sisyphus was the one who has to push the boulder up the hill. But the metaphor is apt, nevertheless.”
“Tantalus, of course. In any event, it’s not for the gold, it’s for the purity, the immortality, the perfection. Gold is just a base earthly symbol—once we can create gold from dross, then we can do the same to ourselves. And God knows that if ever there was a piece of human dross, I am it.”
“Good Sir Andrew…” I admonished him.
“No, no. I am painfully aware of my shortcomings. I’ve lived with them long enough. My ears stick out, which means I can hear what people say about me, and they are quite right. So my life’s journey has been a search for perfection. I sought it through learning, and I sought it through prowess on the field of battle. I failed miserably at the latter. Orsino himself had to rescue me from the most abject captivity.” He stared out the window towards the eastern ridge and shivered. “I owed him my life,” he said quietly. “And I cannot repay that debt now that he’s gone. But I can repay his son, and I will. Well, I must return to my quest. Any good gossip from town before I go?”
“You’ve heard about the new jester?”
He sighed. “Dear me, that’s
unfortunate. Sometimes I feel that my life’s only purpose is to provide fodder for fools. I wonder how long it will take before he latches on to me.”
I felt vaguely guilty, remembering how Feste waxed satirical at the expense of the skinny knight. I clapped him on the shoulder, staggering him, and bade him farewell.
* * *
I returned to the Elephant in a quest for anything that would blot out the acrid taste in my mouth. Some ale did the trick nicely, and I repaired to my quarters to ponder a bit. The blade at my throat when I entered convinced me to postpone that plan for a moment.
“Now who’s being careless?” Bobo chuckled as he slid his dagger back up his sleeve.
“I’m not the target,” I protested feebly as my heart danced in my chest.
“Funny you should mention that,” he said, suddenly somber. “Today I had the distinct impression that someone was following me.”
“Did you see him?”
“Not quite. Just a glimpse of a head ducking around a corner. Hooded. When I looked down the street, he had vanished, but I measured from the ground to where I saw the head, and it was a tall man.” He grinned. “It could be anyone, you know. Perun could have been checking me out, or one of his men. Or it could be nothing at all.”
“Were you followed here?”
“No, I am certain of that. But Father Gerald’s plan may be having some effect. And there’s something else. I have been nosing about the docks, chatting up the locals, and there was a stranger who came to town in October and took a room in a bawdy house. He kept to himself, but they say he was a tall man with a beard, black but going gray.”
“In a bawdy house?”
“Yes, and the most suspicious thing about him is that he showed no interest in the available revels. He left in mid-November.”
“Which coincides with Orsino’s death.”
“Precisely.”
“We may have flushed our quarry. I should start trailing you. Maybe I could spot him.”
He shook his head vehemently. “Our main advantage is that he doesn’t know about you,” he argued. “If he sees you following me, he’ll suspect something. I can take care of myself. I’ll do better uncovering him without you cluttering the scene.”
“Now, really,” I protested, but he held up his hand.
“Father Gerald chose me for this mission because I’m good,” he said. “You have to start relying on me if we’re going to work together. I know what you’ve accomplished in the past, and I respect it, but you must let me do my job in my own fashion.”
I was furious, partly at the lack of trust Father Gerald had in me to send such an upstart, but mostly, because he was right.
“Very well,” I said, forcing myself to be calm. “Let me at least do you the favor of allowing you to nap here while I guard the door. Even you younger folk need to sleep once in a while.”
He acquiesced. “There’s more news,” he said. “This Fabian fellow has recruited me to entertain at the house of Olivia. He also wants some help staging the play and the other festivities.”
“He certainly could use some. I saw the rehearsal. Good. You seem to be having better luck getting inside than I have. Find out what you can. Now, I have a suggestion for tonight. I want to take a look around the office of the Duke’s steward. I want you to check the place out, see when everyone leaves, and if there’s a back way in.”
“Done. Do we break in immediately?”
“No, let’s do it tomorrow. I want to take another stab at intercepting Viola.”
“You do that. And when I have retired from my command performance before the Countess’s brats to her warm comfortable kitchen, perhaps even the company of a warm comfortable kitchen wench, I’ll think of you perched on those cold slates, shivering in the frigid north wind. And I’ll shed a tear, perhaps two.”
“All I’m worth,” I agreed. “Take your nap, fool, before I change my mind and let Malvolio find you.”
He stretched out on my bed and was out in a moment. More Guild training. We work odd hours and learn to grab our sleep when we can. In repose, his perpetual smile disappeared as his mouth relaxed. The white lead smoothed out his face brilliantly. I admired the effect while wondering at the fatalism that lay behind its use. A slow, white demise, with the death mask already in place. Still, it beat my floured pan for sheer expressiveness.
He awoke refreshed and prepared to leave for his afternoon performance.
“I’ve worked up a routine about this Aguecheek fellow,” he informed me. “Any ideas for it now that you’ve seen his little workshop?”
“Let him be,” I urged him.
“Excuse me?” he said in shock.
“Leave him alone. He complained about being the lifetime butt of our profession. Why not give him a break?”
“Let me get this straight,” said Bobo slowly. “Yesterday, you took me to task because I hesitated to commit a cold-blooded murder. Now, you scruple at mocking that vainglorious popinjay? You actually have some vague sense of compassion towards a worthless parasite who’s done nothing to merit his position in life and wastes his inheritance on black magic? My brother fool, my comrade in motley, my colleague and esteemed elder, if I leave off tormenting such an obvious target, I will bring suspicion on myself and shame to our profession. Even he would expect nothing less.”
“I withdraw the suggestion,” I said. “It was a momentary spasm. It won’t happen again. And call me your elder again and I’ll knock you through that window.”
He grinned. “That’s better. Any more suggestions?”
“Oh, I think I’ll refrain from advising you for now.”
He gave what I deduced was a traditional Toledan gesture with universal meaning and left.
* * *
It was the coldest night yet, and I was out in it, sitting at my observation post without even the company of another fool to distract me. I left the bottle at the inn. I was worried that I might overdo it and end up a frozen, broken corpse in a gutter somewhere. It was an image of myself that popped unbidden into my mind more and more often. I wondered if anyone would bury me, if there would be a marker on my grave. I wondered what name would be on it. My only comfort is that there were people who would pray for me, if they lived to hear about it.
I tried to banish these morose thoughts. I heard laughter blossom forth in the distance, then a shutter closed and it was cut off. I shifted my legs, which were getting numb, and stared at the Duke’s villa. I still couldn’t see inside, just the flickering light through the shutters. I tried to guess where Viola’s rooms would be, which gate she would use to slip out to weep by his sarcophagus, how I could approach her, what I could possibly say. Whether she would listen, or care. Whether I still mattered to her, or any of them.
It was that laughter, and its absence, that depressed me. Here I was, a jester by training and inclination, wasting away on a rooftop instead of putting my skills to their proper use in this most joyous of times. I couldn’t remember a Christmas season when I wasn’t wringing hysterics from families noble and common, with sophisticated wit, many-tongued puns, improvised pageantry, or the silliest of pratfalls. Spending long Teutonic nights regaling long Teutonic knights with shaggy-dog stories of ten thousand lines. Teaching children of Provence the different styles of tumbling, learning new ones from them. Leading the Feast of Fools.
Maybe Father Gerald concocted this plan to bring me back. Withdraw that best part of my existence to remind me it was there. I had been living at the bottom of a cask for too long, and from the cask to the casket is a very short step.
I made my resolution for the New Year, that I would stop pitying myself. Of course, that meant that nobody would, but that was all right. In the meantime, I had a task ahead of me, a very simple one.
I had to stop Death.
NINE
God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.
1 CORINTHIANS 1.27 (KING JAMES VERSION)
“What a magnificent fire the
y keep in that kitchen of theirs,” chirped Bobo with an evil glint in his eye. “They keep it going all night, just so it will be ready to bake the family bread in the morning. Entire forests must have been denuded over the years to keep the Countess and her household toasty.”
“Glad you had a good time,” I muttered, suppressing a yawn. It was early afternoon, and I had just gotten up. Alexander had thoughtfully left a jug of wine by my bed last night to help me vanquish the chill of my evening adventure, and I had thoughtfully finished it, my New Year’s resolution notwithstanding. Hell, the New Year hadn’t started yet, I could do what I damn well pleased. Well, maybe not. The headache I had meant business.
“Did you find out anything?” I asked.
“Not much. None of the household fits Malvolio’s description. None of them is tall enough. That Sebastian’s a surly little fellow. Didn’t crack a smile once during my whole performance, and I assure you he was the only one. The rest were rolling on the floor.”
“Was he drinking?”
“Yes, heavily. Not at all a happy man, and his wife doesn’t seem to care much. She spent more time ogling her oldest son’s friends than she did watching the performance. I guess she still likes younger men. I wonder if it’s only her eye that roves.”
“Think it ever landed on the Duke?”
That caught him up short. He was perched on the end of my bed, chewing on a piece of dried meat, thinking. “I would doubt it,” he said. “She made a few rather unseemly remarks about His Lateness. I flattered her in my performance, dropped some references to the regency which she liked very much. She said she’d manage things a whole lot better than he ever did. I thought that was a little inappropriate given how recently he died.”
“Was murdered,” I corrected him, and he glared at me.
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said. “I just haven’t seen any proof of that yet. In any case, my performance went so well that Fabian offered me a position there, complete with lodging. I have accepted. It’s a safer place to sleep than that hostel, under the circumstances.”
