Quintessence

by David Walton

  Sinclair sat and clasped twitching fingers. "The king is dead."

  "What? Was it announced? When?"

  "No announcement. Nor will there be."

  "I don't understand."

  "You know of the king's design for the succession? How he names the Lady Jane as the next queen?"

  Parris fell into a chair across from him. "I do. How is it that you know?"

  "I had it from Bishop Marcheford. Northumberland plans to suppress the king's death as long as possible. In the meantime, he'll bully the peers and bishops in London to sign their support of the device, and arrest the Princess Mary before she knows her brother is dead."

  The door creaked, and both men jumped to their feet. Parris realized they'd been whispering, their heads together like a pair of conspirators. They turned to see Catherine peeking into the room.

  "I thought it was you," she said. She limped into the room, favoring her bandaged ankle.

  Sinclair swept her a bow. "Always a delight, mademoiselle."

  "Won't you stay and break your fast with us?" she said.

  "I couldn't impose on your mother."

  "It was Mother's idea. She said I should ask you."

  Parris raised his eyebrows at this. Joan, asking Sinclair to stay?

  "I'm sorry, I must take my leave," Sinclair said. "Our ship departs, and there is much to do."

  "Departs?" Catherine said. "When?"

  "As soon as possible."

  Parris heard the sound of galloping in the courtyard. He looked out the window and saw Henshawe riding away hard. What errand was he off on with such haste?

  "Catherine?" Parris approached her, suspicious. "Did your mother send you in here to talk with us?"

  "She said I should make Master Sinclair feel welcome until she was ready to—"

  "Joan!" Parris charged through the door and nearly ran into Joan in the hallway.

  She curtseyed. "My lord."

  "Where is Henshawe going?"

  "I sent him on an errand." Her voice was calm, matter- of- fact.

  "To whom?"

  "Your cousin, Francis Vaughan."

  "With what message?"

  She smiled sweetly. "That the king is dead."

  Parris stared at her, feeling like he'd just found a snake in his bed. "What have you done?"

  "Probably saved the princess's life. Don't tell me they're not sending someone to kill her."

  "Kill her? No. Capture her, yes. But they wouldn't kill a royal princess."

  Joan raised an eyebrow. "You're a bigger fool than I thought."

  "I'm your husband. Fool or not, you're to obey me."

  She curtseyed again. "Forgive me, lord. I didn't realize you'd forbidden me to speak to your own cousin."

  "Do you even understand what you've done? With Mary captured, the Protestant monarchy would have continued in peace. With her free, it will be civil war. She'll run to Suffolk, raise an army. We'll be back to our grandfathers' time, family against family, north against south. Thousands will die."

  "I doubt it. Mary is the rightful queen. The country will support her."

  "You've ruined us. Haven't I told you what Mary will do to us if she takes the throne? Now we'll have to sail before we're ready."

  "You will."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Maybe you still have to go on this lunatic voyage. But Catherine and I don't."

  "Of course you do. You'll be just as . . ." He trailed off , comprehension dawning. "You bought your safety."

  "Thanks to my warning, Mary will escape and rally the people behind her. When she takes her rightful place as queen, it will be in part because of me."

  Parris's fists clenched, and he towered over her. "But it may be at the cost of my life! Did you consider that?"

  "Not if you sail soon."

  "You betrayed me."

  She shrugged. "This was more important. You should know all about that, seeing how important your work is."

  "I can't believe you did this."

  "You started it, Stephen. I'm just trying to protect Catherine. That's all I care about."

  THERE wasn't enough time. Parris's lands were quickly sold at bargain prices, his family houses and possessions scattered to strangers. But there was too much work to be done to mourn the class. The Western Star was already in dry dock at the Deptford shipyards with a crew hired to refit her, but she was badly damaged from her journey. Besides the repairs, supplies needed to be purchased, and a crew of eighty men had to be hired to sail her— a difficult task, giving the looming possibility of war and the ship's reputation.

  Princess Mary escaped capture and fled to Suffolk, where thousands flocked to her banner. Queen Jane's authority was sanctioned by the privy councillors, the lord mayor, the judges, and the nobility in London, but no one knew how long it would last. The city prepared for war.

  Sinclair worked on the ship with the crew, overseeing the work with seemingly limitless energy, ducking under ropes and around bales of sailcloth, checking lists, and employing terms like "mizzenmast" and "lateen rigging," the meaning of which Parris had only the vaguest idea. Some of the refitting instructions were eccentric enough to cause rumor. The ship was to have not one, but two cook houses on its main deck, the second designed as an alchemical distillery. It was also to have an expanded brig, with multiple metal- caged cells of varying sizes that could only be intended for captured animals. This last caused some wag to christen it Christopher's Ark, and the name could be heard about London society gatherings.

  The sheer scale of the enterprise was breathtaking. Men dangled like spiders over the sides of the ship, swinging from ropes as they pounded planking onto the hull. Shirtless and barefoot, they swarmed the rigging, raising lines, fastening, hammering, some so high it made Parris dizzy to look at them.

  As the workmen were leaving for the night, Sinclair appeared behind Parris and said, "I'm curious."

  "About what?"

  "When you opened up the corpse, what did you find?"

  Parris hesitated, fearing a trap. "What are you talking about?"

  "Your black sorcery— what else?" Sinclair grinned like a predator. "Come, you know by now I'm not squeamish. The men on this ship died for a reason. I want to know what you found."

  "His stomach was full of stones. His intestines were laden with salt. As if he'd been so starved he'd resorted to eating rocks and drinking seawater— though his flesh showed no sign of malnutrition."

  Sinclair nodded, unsurprised. "Less than most sailors after a long voyage, in fact."

  It was true. Parris hadn't thought about it, but most sailors returning home from long sea voyages were sickly, diseased, half starved. The man he'd dissected, besides being dead, looked like a man who'd been enjoying rich fare in the comfort of his home.

  "It's not the only place we found rocks when we expected something else," Sinclair said.

  "You mean the treasure? You think these men ate food that transformed into rocks?"

  Sinclair nodded. "And fresh water that turned to salt water. They stocked their store houses with food and water from Horizon, but when they sailed too far, it transformed, just like the gold and diamonds."

  Parris grew still, thinking of the grit that had permeated everything in the man's body. He had presumably eaten Horizon food not just on the journey, but the entire time that he was on the island. It had passed into his blood, insinuated into his very flesh.

  So this was a one- way journey after all. If what Sinclair had said was true, there was no coming back alive.

  NINE days after Edward's death, Queen Jane's monarchy collapsed. When Princess Mary arrived at the city gates accompanied by an army of peasants thousands strong, the councillors opened the gates to her and tore up the oaths they'd signed to Jane. Northumberland was thrown in the Tower, and Mary I took the throne, loved by the people, proud, regal, and every inch a queen. In a day, the Roman Church was restored and Protestantism declared a dangerous heresy, worthy of imprisonment or death. Parris's las
t meal with his family was rushed and tense. The dry dock

  had been dug out, floating the ship again with water from the Thames. They would sail in the morning— ready or not— and finish provisioning in the Azores.

  "She imprisoned Bishop Ridley," Parris said when he arrived, slamming the door behind him.

  Joan took his cloak. "Sit and eat your supper."

  "He went to ask Mary's pardon. Can you believe it? Ridley, who vowed never to recant. And Cranmer signed a letter acknowledging the Pope as God's representative on earth."

  "As I wish you would do," Joan said. "A piece of paper is a worthy trade for a man's life. Now sit."

  "Much good it did them. Mary won't accept their confessions. They're both in the Tower, awaiting her plea sure."

  Joan steered him into his chair and ladled beef broth into his trencher. Parris sat reluctantly, still seething.

  Catherine arrived at the table and sat in her place, pretty in a blue gown, with little froths of lace around her neatly folded hands. "Who is in the Tower, Father?"

  "Practically everyone. Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Bradford, Coverdale— who isn't in the Tower?"

  "You are not," Joan said, "and if you leave tomorrow as you plan, you'll keep it that way. Now give the blessing while the food is hot."

  Parris prayed, begging for succor for those unjustly imprisoned and for the overthrow of the Papist Queen, ". . . to the sovereign God be all glory forever, Amen and Amen." He wondered what the morning would bring, now that Marcheford was trying to turn the expedition into a Protestant lifeboat.

  Catherine took a bite from a broth- soaked chunk of bread, elegantly dabbed her napkin on her beautiful lips, and cleared her throat. "Father?"

  "Yes, child."

  "I want to go to Horizon with you."

  "No," Joan said. "I secured your safety. You are not going to that place."

  "I have no prospects here," Catherine said. "Without our fortune, no one will want to marry me."

  "You think there will be prospects on a desert island?"

  "It's not a desert. There are towering trees and birds and pools and the biggest flowers you've ever seen . . ."

  "We don't know that," Parris said.

  "I've seen it in my dreams."

  Parris grew concerned. "Have the servants been watching you, as I asked? Staying up with you at night?"

  "Yes. None of us have seen the tamarin again."

  Joan looked from one to the other of them. "What ever are you talking about?"

  Catherine's expression was unreadable. "I've been having strange dreams."

  "What kind of dreams?"

  "Of a faraway country. A green place overlooking the ocean from a beautiful forest."

  "You're dreaming of Derbyshire," Joan said, raising an eyebrow at Parris as if daring him to disagree. "Memories from your childhood."

  Catherine shook her head. "It's not Derbyshire. The forest is tall and strange and old, and there are creatures that definitely don't live in England. I think it's . . ." She looked at Joan's hard eyes, then turned to Parris instead, who tried to smile encouragingly. "I think it's Horizon."

  Joan glared at Parris, and he wondered if she was holding him responsible for his daughter's dreams. Joan took one of Catherine's hands and spoke gently. "Perhaps you're not well."

  "There are beautiful cliff s with waves throwing spray into the air, and stars like fireballs at night, so big you can see like it's day, and the tamarins—"

  "Enough," Joan said. "Don't let your imagination run wild, girl. Wake up. What could you do in a colony? Chop wood? Build houses? Hunt?"

  "I could study the animals. I could learn how they live. I could find the secrets of things, like Father does."

  Parris was touched by her loyalty, but he had to put a stop to this. She was only setting herself up for disappointment. "It won't work, Catherine. It takes a lot of education to understand things like—"

  Catherine stood suddenly, the scrape of her chair against the stone floor cutting him off . Her eyes were wet.

  "Never mind," she said.

  "Catherine—"

  "I'll be in my room." She stormed up the stairs.

  "See what you've done," Joan said.

  CATHERINE stood at the window, looking out toward the west. She would not be left behind, even if Father didn't want her. Master Sinclair had invited her on the expedition, and she was going to go.

  She remembered the feeling of setting down his walking stick and seeing it slide into life under her hand. Simultaneous attraction and repugnance, exhilaration and terror, but what secrets such a creature must hold! It meant anything was possible. If a living snake could change its very nature and cheat death, surely a young woman could escape the trap of her life and make herself into something new.

  Mother would do anything to prevent her from going, but she couldn't stop her, could she? Catherine was, after all, sixteen. A woman grown.

  Chapter Nine

  EARLY the next morning, Henshawe carried Parris's cases down to a growing mound in the front parlor. Parris had already given the servants notice that he wouldn't be able to employ them any longer. Once Parris was on the boat, Henshawe would return to Derbyshire and seek work from the new owners of Parris's lands.

  "Stephen!" Joan's panicked voice called his name from another room. He rushed to find her, alerted by her tone of voice that there was some emergency. He found her in Catherine's room.

  "Where is she?" Joan asked.

  "I don't know. Did you check downstairs?"

  "Use your eyes!"

  He looked around and saw what Joan had seen. The drawers were open and had been picked through in a hurry. Clothes were missing. The top of the dressing table had been cleared.

  Henshawe appeared breathless in the doorway. "My lady, her horse is gone."

  "It's all those ideas you've been putting in her head," Joan said.

  Parris raised his hands in protest. "I told her no."

  "Your friend Sinclair, then, with his impossible stories and magic tricks. You heard her at supper last night, going on about wild creatures and green forests. I swear, Stephen, if you've—"

  "Stop," Parris said. "Stop blaming me, and let's find her."

  CATHERINE rode toward Deptford, reasoning that Master Sinclair would be at the dockyards making final preparations. She had tried to sneak out unseen, but Blanca had spotted her. Instead of telling her parents, Blanca insisted on coming along. Catherine explained that she wasn't planning to come back, but Blanca said that didn't matter. The family no longer had the funds to employ her, and she had no family and nowhere else to go. If Catherine was going to join this expedition, well then, Blanca would, too.

  Blanca rode next to her on a nag assigned to the servants for errands, but she rode with more grace and style than Catherine did on her young mare. Spain was known for its horses, and Catherine wondered what breeds Blanca had ridden as a child. She imagined her galloping through the Spanish hills with her sisters in the innocent days before the Inquisition, laughing as they glimpsed the distant ocean and smelled salt on the breeze.

  Catherine had never visited the dockyards before. The commotion thrilled her: men with odd clothes and strange appearances, crates and boxes and barrels with mysterious contents being hauled to and fro. She saw mussulmen with bright cloths wrapped about their heads and even two Cathayans with their black hair in long, braided queues.

  A hundred ships sailed up the Thames each day, carrying cloves from the Moluccas; camphor and tortoiseshells from Borneo; ivory and dark- skinned slaves from Africa; porcelain from Cathay; damask from Persia. The ships' masts bristled over the tops of the buildings. Catherine had never been far from home, not even as far as Wales. She wondered when she would return again, or if she ever would.

  She turned a corner, and there it was: the Western Star, its marvelous lines drifting with the current and her masts scraping the sky. The ship was so enormous, its stacked sails as big as houses, that she could hardly look at it i
n its entirety, but flitted her gaze from gleaming hull to the triple crow's nests barely visible in the sun's glare. At the very pinnacle, sailors in loose calf- length trousers and knit caps climbed the riggings, tying off sails with elbows hooked around the ropes, heedless of the drop. The air was crisp. Gulls screamed and dove.

  She felt exhilarated. Her parents would be after her; she knew that. They would guess exactly where she'd gone. She had to persuade Master Sinclair to let her stay. If he agreed, then surely she could convince Father as well. She didn't want to marry a poor farmer from Derbyshire and spend her life churning butter and hanging laundry out to dry. She wanted to discover the world. Mother didn't need to understand, as long as she didn't stop her.