by David Walton
Parris knew what Vaughan was after, and he didn't want to haggle. He pulled a purse out of a drawer and tossed it to him. Vaughan caught it out of the air and peered inside. He grinned and disappeared back down the steps.
Joan glared at Parris, at the room, at the body. "Clean it up," she hissed. "And for love of your life and mine, don't miss anything." The stairs thundered with her retreat.
But Parris had no intention of stopping. Not now, not when he was learning so much. He could deal with Vaughan. He'd have to give him more money, but Vaughan came by every few weeks or so asking for money anyway. He wasn't ambitious enough to cause him real problems.
There were risks, yes. People were ever ready to attack and destroy what they didn't understand, and young King Edward, devout as he was, would conclude the worst if he found out. But how would that ever change if no one was willing to try? He had a responsibility. Few doctors were as experienced as he was, few as well read or well connected with colleagues on the Continent. He'd even communicated with a few mussulman doctors from Istanbul and Africas who had an extraordinary understanding of the human body.
And that was the key— communication. Alchemists claimed to have vast knowledge, but it was hard to tell for sure, since they spent most of their time hiding what they knew or recording it in arcane ciphers. As a result, alchemical tomes were inscrutable puzzles that always hinted at knowledge without actually revealing it. Parris believed those with knowledge should publish it freely, so that others could make it grow.
But Joan didn't understand any of this. All she cared about his profession was that it brought the king's favor, particularly if it might lead to a good marriage for Catherine. And by "good," she meant someone rich, with lands and prospects and a title. Someone who could raise their family a little bit higher. She was constantly pestering him to ask the king or the Duke of Northumberland for help in this regard, which was ludicrous. He was the king's physic, the third son of a minor lord who had only inherited any land at all because his older two brothers had died. His contact with His Majesty was limited to poultices and bloodletting, not begging for the son of an earl for his only daughter.
He continued cutting and cataloging, amazed at how easily he could separate the organs and see their connections. Nearly finished, a thought occurred to him: What if, instead of being consumed by the flesh, the blood transported some essential mineral to it through the arteries, and then returned to the heart through the veins? Or instead of a mineral, perhaps it was heat the blood brought, since it began a hot red in the heart and returned to it blue as ice. He would write a letter to Vesalius.
When he was finished, he wrapped what was left of the body in a canvas bag and began to sew it shut. In the morning, his manservant would take it to a pauper's grave, where no one would ask any questions, and bury it. As he sewed, unwanted images flashed through his mind. A blood- soaked sheet. A young hand grasped tightly in his. A brow beaded with sweat. A dark mound of earth.
He must not think on it. Peter's death was not his fault. There was no way he could have known.
His conscience mocked him. He was physic to the King of England! A master of the healing arts! And yet he couldn't preserve the life of his own son, the one life more precious to him than any other?
No. He must not think on it.
Parris gritted his teeth and kept the bone needle moving up and down, up and down. Why had God given him this calling, and yet not given him enough knowledge to truly heal? There were answers to be found in the body; he knew there were, but they were too slow in coming. Too slow by far.
Chapter Two
CHRISTOPHER Sinclair needed money, and he needed it fast. Once Lady Chelsey discovered he couldn't really pay her what he'd promised, he would lose the Western Star and his chance along with it. He made a modest living thrilling the rich with exotic stories of foreign lands, and he could always sell off trinkets from his journeys if business was slow, but it wasn't nearly enough to buy a ship.
He stood motionless in the cabin that used to be Lord Chelsey's, listening to the brackish water of the Thames slapping softly against the ship. Outside, the night was black. The only illumination came from a brazier on the weathered table, over which a clear liquid slowly came to a boil. Sinclair's back and legs ached from standing, but he had long ago realized he could ignore any pain or discomfort that didn't suit his purposes.
He refused to consider the possibility of failure. All those years of wandering through Africa and Asia, all of the dead ends and wild- goose chases after clues buried in ancient texts: it all led him to this moment and the Western Star. She had traveled farther, explored more ocean, seen more wonders than any other ship in the world. Only the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria might have seen as much, but their mariners had never returned to tell the tale. If man could truly unlock the secrets of the universe, transform base metals to gold and conquer death, then the answers would be found in the places where this ship had been.
The liquid began to bubble violently. It was the "seawater" that had been discovered in barrels on the ship, though no one besides him had bothered to test the claim. It smelled and tasted of salt, true, but it wasn't like any seawater Sinclair had ever seen. For instance, it burned as well as any lamp oil when soaked into a wick. No salt water could do that. Which made it a substance beyond his knowledge, and there was no substance from England to Cathay that was beyond the knowledge of Christopher Sinclair. This was something new.
It bubbled in a retort with a long spout that led to a coiled glass tube. After the liquid boiled into vapor, it would condense in the tube and then drip into a trough as a liquid again. Through this process, it would leave its impurities behind in the flask and reappear again purer than before.
Distillation was the heart of what he loved about alchemy: this slow, silent ritual, ripe with philosophical musings, in which a gross material vanished into its spiritual form and returned again, better than before. This was true religion. The subtle spirit liberated from gross matter. He could stand motionless for hours, performing occasional repetitive motions with his hands, alone with his thoughts.
But not to night. He paced, unable to concentrate. The cost of this ship was more gold than he had ever owned in his life, never mind the thousands of crowns it would take to make her seaworthy again, hire a crew, and provision her for a journey of months. He would have to do something drastic. Something desperate.
Because he would sail on this ship no matter what it cost. No more searching vainly through ancient books. He'd wasted years of his life poring over the tomes of alchemical symbols and codes in which so much knowledge seemed to be buried, but his reading had just led to deeper and deeper mysteries. He refused to be consumed by them anymore. Obviously, none of their authors had discovered the secret of immortality. They were all dead.
Drops of liquid dribbled slowly along the coiled tube, stretched, and dropped into the trough. It was the oldest tool of the alchemist, this purifying of baser substances. Distill wine, and you produced alcohol, which could invigorate the human body and prevent meat from rotting. Distill vitriol, and you made it strong enough to dissolve just about anything. But what if you could purify the right essence, and keep purifying, and purifying, and purifying some more, until you found the very purest, most fundamental substance of the universe? Could not that substance be used to transmute any base substance to its purer form? Lead to gold? Death to life?
The substance had many names: the aqua vitae, the elixir of life, the philosopher's stone, the aether of the heavens, the fifth essence. Quintessence. Sinclair knew it must exist. He had spent his life trying to find it. Aristotle said it was found in the moon and the stars; the medieval alchemists said it came from distillations of the three elemental ingredients: salt, sulfur, and mercury.
Before Lord Chelsey and his sailors died, Sinclair had spoken with each of them. They were in obvious pain and fading quickly, but he didn't dismiss their words as raving, the way most people did. Sinclair had see
n more of the world than most, and he had heard sailors' tales before. These men were telling the truth, or what they thought was the truth. And where better to find quintessence than at the horizon of the world, where the heavens curved down to meet the earth?
From somewhere on the ship a thud sounded, and then a louder clattering sound. It was still before dawn. There would be few people on the docks at this time, and certainly no one was expected aboard the Western Star.
Sinclair stepped quietly out of the captain's cabin, through the officers' cabins, and out onto the main deck. The sky was growing lighter, but the fog was thick. He stood in the shadow of the mast with his cloak drawn close about him, all but invisible in the gloom. He liked being unseen. He liked to watch people go about their business, unaware of his presence. It gave him power.
There it was— a dim shape heaving itself over the rail. The moon made his features plain: a sturdy laborer with a coarse face and thick beard, well muscled but not strong enough for a smith. An ironmonger, perhaps, or an armourer. Maybe just a brute who made a living staving in heads. Sinclair didn't know what he was doing here, but he could guess. Last night a corpse had disappeared from its place on the forecastle. A thief, then. Back to steal something from his ship again.
It was not technically Sinclair's ship yet, not by law, but it would be soon. He was the only one who saw its value, the only one not turned aside by foolish tales of haunting. Dead men there were in abundance, but no ghosts. Sinclair had never believed in ghosts.
The trespasser lit a tallow candle and sneaked toward the forecastle. Sinclair followed him, a soundless phantom.
His quarry reached the ladder. Sinclair, a step behind him, snatched the candle from his hand. The man spun, and Sinclair thrust both the candle and his dagger into the intruder's face, forcing him back against the wall and eliciting a shout of surprise and fear.
Sinclair was no fighter, and this man probably had twice his strength, so he spoke fast and in lordly tones, trying to maintain the advantages of surprise and fear.
"What's your name? Answer me!"
The man's eyes were wide, but he stammered, "Felbrigg."
"What is your business on my boat?"
"Your boat, my lord? I thought it belonged to—"
"Never mind what you thought. Account for your trespass."
"Just a little treasure hunting. A man's got to put bread in his poor children's hungry mouths."
"Is that why you took a body yesterday? To feed your children?"
Felbrigg gaped and stammered all the more. "I never—"
"Don't lie to me." Sinclair pressed the edge of his dagger against Felbrigg's lips. "This smells of devil worship. You brought it to a witch, no doubt. You seek a potion for love, or wealth, or to sire a son."
"Nothing like that! I swear it!"
"I promise you, the Lord Protector shall hear of this."
"No, my lord, I beg of you."
"You'll burn, I guarantee it. You and all your wicked cabal."
"It's for a man— a physic. He likes to . . . I don't know what he does with them. He pays me to get them. That's all I know."
"What's his name?"
"I don't know his name. He meets me in darkness; I give him the body, and he—"
Sinclair turned the point of the dagger and pressed it hard into Felbrigg's throat, drawing blood. "There are many corpses on this boat already. I don't suppose one more will cause much comment."
Felbrigg gasped and sputtered. "Parris. Parris, as God is my witness, but he's no devil worshipper. He's a physic. He cuts 'em open to see how they work."
Sinclair raised his eyebrows. "Stephen Parris?"
"That's him. Nice as you please. A real gentleman."
"Stephen Parris, who holds the king's life in his hands?"
"I told you, didn't I?" Felbrigg twisted his body, trying to work his neck away from the blade.
Sinclair thought fast. A rich man with something to hide could solve all his problems. Parris had more than enough money to refit the Western Star and supply it for a voyage.
He released Felbrigg. "It's Parris I want. I'll keep your name out of it. But if I find out he's been warned . . ."
"Yes, my lord. I understand." Felbrigg felt his neck and backed away.
Sinclair tossed a gold half sovereign to the deck, where Felbrigg picked it up. "I suggest you leave London."
"Right away, my lord. You won't see me again."
After Felbrigg had gone, Sinclair walked his ship again, making sure everything was as it should be. His past explorations had revealed several remarkable items, and he was afraid trespassers would find and steal them. Besides Felbrigg, he'd never seen anyone else on the ship, but he was constantly feeling like someone was standing right behind him. Many times he'd seen movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned, nothing was there. Perhaps it was simply the creepiness of being on board ship with sixty corpses.
He thought of Stephen Parris: intelligent, well educated, and apparently interested in discovering truth. Perhaps he would prove useful in ways other than his money. Sinclair had no qualms about manipulating someone for a necessary purpose. His aims were higher than the benefit of just one man. The cause was just, greater than any in history. Parris would thank him eventually. If he survived.
Sinclair chuckled at this small irony and blew out the candle, leaving the ship wrapped in gray fog. He returned to the captain's cabin, following the light from the brazier.
The distillation was complete. All of the liquid had boiled up into the tube, leaving a dull white sludge behind. Sinclair tipped the condensation trough, pouring the newly purified liquid into another flask. He turned it, letting the light of the fire refract through it. Curious.
He turned his back on the brazier, which was the only source of illumination save for a faint shimmer of moonlight in the fog outside. In the darkest corner of the cabin, he hunched his body over the flask and studied it in the blackness. The liquid glowed faintly, a clear white light that illuminated his hands and face. His heart beat faster. Several of Chelsey's men had said the very water on the island could heal injury and disease. Could it be that he had found it already? That Lord Chelsey had brought quintessence home with him on this very ship?
Tentatively at first, then with growing confidence, Sinclair lifted the flask to his lips and drank.
Chapter Three
PARRIS tiptoed downstairs, expecting his wife and daughter to be long asleep. It was almost dawn. Instead, he found Catherine sitting erect by the window in her dressing gown, every angle of her face and arms accentuating her delicate beauty. He hadn't seen much of her lately. When had she grown from a grubby, romping child into this fragile flower? He remembered her rolling on the floor in this very room, wrestling with a puppy.
He was tempted to walk right past, but he steeled himself to approach her. He couldn't go on forever not speaking to his daughter. His only child now, though the admission still made his throat feel tight. He reached her chair and stood behind it, looking with her out the window at the brightening sky.
"Good morning, Father."
"And to you, daughter. Why up so early?"
"Lady Hungate says a girl must always rise to greet the dawn. She says it is slothful to stay abed." Her tone was light, but Parris noticed the bitter edge.
"And what is Lady Hungate to you?"
"Oh, she's a great woman, as you well know. Her son is heir to a baronetcy. If I am to make a good match, I must behave as a lady, must I not?"
Parris walked around the chair to face her and saw that her eyes were red. "What happened? Why are you home so soon?"
"Mother was tired."
That was nonsense. Joan never tired of opportunities to pair Catherine up with promising young men. Parris felt the familiar panic rising in his stomach, as it had every time he'd tried to speak with Catherine in the last year.
"Did you enjoy the ball?" he tried.
She laughed in the false manner of society women, a
s if he'd just uttered a witticism. "Everyone enjoys a ball," she said. "How could I not enjoy it?"
There was something wrong. "What happened, Catherine?"
She looked at him frankly, and for a moment he thought she might confide in him. Then she looked away. "There was a splendid masque. Music and dancing. And that magician, Christopher Sinclair."
Sinclair again. "A magician?"
"Oh, yes. Haven't you heard of him? He's a dashing gentleman, and confounds us all with the most amazing tricks. Do you know he turned a walking stick into a snake and then back into a stick again, like Moses? I was so terrified!"
She didn't look at all terrified; she looked excited at the memory. She was such an innocent. Too naive to be thrown to the rapacious wolves that filled a royal court, greedy for power and wealth and all too willing to use a trusting young girl. The way Felbrigg had described him, Parris had imagined Sinclair as an ugly man, a dwarf perhaps, his face mutilated. It seemed he was just another fancy courtier, with a repertoire of flattery and legerdemain to amaze an impressionable young girl. Parris prayed God would keep his daughter out of the path of fortune hunters. He couldn't bear to see Catherine swept away by such a man.
