Love's Alchemy

by Bryan Crockett

  LOVE’S ALCHEMY

  A JOHN DONNE MYSTERY

  LOVE’S ALCHEMY

  BRYAN CROCKETT

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  Copyright © 2015 by Bryan Crockett

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the Seventeenth-Century Bishops’ Bible.

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Crockett, Bryan.

  Love’s alchemy : A John Donne mystery / Bryan Crockett. — First Edition.

  pages cm. — (A John Donne mystery ; 1)

  ISBN 978-1-4328-3025-0 (hardcover) — ISBN 1-4328-3025-2 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4328-3020-5 (ebook) — ISBN 1-4328-3020-1 (ebook)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3020-5 eISBN-10: 1-4328-3020-1

  1. Donne, John, 1572–1631—Fiction. 2. James I, King of England, 1566–1625—Fiction. 3. Espionage—England—History—17th century.—Fiction. 4. Conspiracies—England—History—17th century—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3603.R6353L68 2015

  813'.6—dc23 2014038497

  First Edition. First Printing: March 2015

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3020-5 ISBN-10: 1-4328-3020-1

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  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at FiveStar@cengage.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 19 18 17 16 15

  To my mother, Karleen Burch Crockett, and to the memory of my father, Dale Rees Crockett

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Several good friends have read this novel with a critical eye and have offered valuable suggestions, many of which are incorporated into the story. While any faults in the result are entirely my own, the novel has been much improved by thoughtful, often challenging readings by Mark Osteen, Robert Miola, Barbara Braun, Richard Lee, Tom McCoog, John Bonn, Deni Dietz, Diane Piron-Gelman, and especially those harshest and most helpful critics of all: members of my own family. These readers include my brother Gary Crockett, my sister-in-law Marla Crockett, my brother-in-law Randy Scholfield, and the critic at once most supportive and most likely to provide that sort of challenging but spot-on advice the novel has needed: my wife, Pamela Crockett. In her many suggestions, Pamela has always been right. Well, almost always.

  CHAPTER 1

  1604

  In the London air musty with smoke and ancient piss on cobblestone, Timothy Burr considered the groat in his hand. “A plague upon this for a beggarly sum.”

  Jack feigned his surprise. “A plague, do you say? Then it will die, Tim, and I would not have you in danger. No, give it me again, and I will see it buried in my pocket.” As Jack reached for the coin, Burr pulled it back and held it against his ear.

  “Wait. It speaks to me.” The slack-jointed old man doled out his words without hurry, without urgency. “There is life in it yet, if only a little. Yes, its thin and dying voice, most faint, whispers that a fellow would revive it. It pines toward the grave but for want of a friend. Have you another?”

  “Let it die, Tim. ’Twere mercy not to infect another of its kind.”

  Unfazed, Burr said, “Then a stronger. Have you gold about you?” The old knave’s gray-peppered beard hung like a bedraggled willow. The folds on his face tapered to a peak in the middle of his forehead, half-shielding the eyes and giving him a perpetually funereal look. Even the man’s voice drooped. “Gold is restorative; gold is stout; gold is incorruptible.”

  “Ah, Tim.” Jack placed a hand on Burr’s shoulder. “Though incorruptible, gold has corrupted the hearts of many men. I would not for a golden world have you among them.”

  “Your compassion, Master Donne, knows no bounds. Your compassion”—here Burr cleared his throat and rolled his eyes as he held the coin close to him in one hand and extended the other—“is legendary.”

  Well, the performance was worth a reward. Jack fished for another groat but could not find one. Blast the old scoundrel, it would have to be a shilling.

  Burr took the coin and said with evident appreciation, “This may prove restorative. No golden angel, this, but it will serve.”

  Jack removed his black velvet hat, the one Anne had told him that morning sat so handsomely on his head—she must have noticed it was getting threadbare but said nothing about that—and swept it in an exaggerated courtly bow.

  One would hardly know the day was yet full, with hours to go before sunset. A darkling mist hung about the air, or some internal vapor clouded the mind. It was only the plashing of a pack-horse along the streetside puddles that brought Jack to his senses long enough to avert a wetting. He dodged nimbly to the other side of the street, only to be met a minute later by four hounds: two younger ones frisking about, sniffing here and there, and two older ones moving straight ahead. Behind the dogs came three horsemen riding abreast, one of them trotting directly at him. He darted back toward the wetter side of the street, snuffled at along the way by one of the younger hounds. Jack recognized the rider in the middle: it was the Earl of Bedford, husband of the alluring young countess he had just visited.

  The three men were on their way home from a hunt: a gutted wild boar was tied behind the saddle of one of the Earl’s companions. The other had a deer similarly fastened. Slung across the withers of the Earl’s horse hung two rabbits, bound together by the hind legs. The Earl stared dully ahead while the two other men talked across him.

  How, Jack wondered, could young Lucy Harrington have consented to be matched with such a dullard? Well, no doubt she had not been given a choice: she had been only thirteen at the time. A decade ago, it must be. Probably her father—or maybe Queen Elizabeth herself—had arranged the marriage. Even at thirteen Lucy had a reputation for her learning and wit. Captivated by her cleverness and dark-eyed beauty, wealthy young blades had courted her. Then, still young, she had been married to this oaf.

  The man’s short, fat legs ended in heavy boots with thick heels—no doubt, Jack thought, to elevate him when he stood beside his lithe-bodied wife, who would nevertheless rise some three inches taller than her squat husband. The man’s sparse, lank hair, rheumy eyes, lumpy nose, and foolish-hanging nether lip did nothing to improve his appearance. As the horse trotted, the Earl’s lip joggled and bobbed as if attempting to free itself from the dreary face.

  Jack moved on. His mind played half on the verses he would write for the Countess and half on what Anne might think of such doings. How could she object to flattering lines when Lady Bedford stood as near as he had come to patronage since his fal
l from grace? Maybe something like this: Some that have dipped love’s quill. . . . No, too obvious. Some that have dipped love’s well. . . . Not that either; something about alchemy, or mining treasure: Some that have deeper digged love’s mine than I. . . . After all, Anne knew as well as he how much the family needed money. Say where his—something—happiness doth lie. . . . Centric: that was it. Say where his centric happiness doth lie. Yes, Anne knew well enough they needed money. Why then had he not told her about the bracelet? With all he had confided to her over the years, why this? Lady Bedford was nothing to him. Surely he was nothing to her. Those flirtations of hers were doubtless no more than that. Doubtless. She was a countess, far above his station. And married. While Jack was a seeker after patronage, a man with a troublesome past and a wife of his own. More than a wife: his life’s love, bone of his bones. Lady Lucy—yes, she had let him call her that—liked verbal sparring, and her husband the thick-booted Earl of Bedford was not her intellectual equal. Surely that was all. She liked Jack for his poems, liked the verses well enough to give him gold for them.

  I have loved, and got, and told.

  But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,

  I should not find her hidden mystery.

  Yes, that would do for a start. Anne would understand. Flattery in a poem to a patroness was mere convention, nothing more. Yet he had not told her. . . .

  As he walked down Highgate Street, with its mossy, teetering alehouses and its clumps of raucous apprentices on half-holiday jostling their way to the theaters and bear-baiting pits, he recollected this latest visit with the Countess. As usual, Timothy Burr had stood playing the impassive servant, looking like a favorite hound. His face said to the world, I am sad but trusty as a latched casket, faithful to the end. Secrets are safe with me. But Jack was not taken in.

  He recalled how Lady Bedford tilted her head to one side, saying with a pout, “But how could you lose it, Jack?” This young countess, now, was a puzzle: artless and childlike at times, shrewd and forbidding at others. Those deep brown eyes sometimes welcomed the world, sometimes sharpened enough to dissect it. The proud, narrow hook of a nose gave her a falconish look. Still without turning to her servant she added in half-coy surprise, “Do you hear, Timothy? Jack has lost my gift to him.”

  Burr did not respond.

  “It was most ungrateful of him to lose it, were it not, Timothy?”

  Still no answer; had it been Burr’s cue to speak, he would have known it.

  “No. He has not lost it,” Lady Bedford went on. “Jack would never lose it, for when I gave it him he pledged to keep it always by him, and ennobled the giving of it with the prettiest terms of thanks that ever I heard. He has not lost it. No, I think he has given it to his wife. She must be a great beauty to command such a gift from such a man as Jack. Is she a great beauty?” Jack held her gaze. “Or perhaps he has given it to some minx to wear as his token. That is what he has done. Some wanton minx has it, some strumpet. Perhaps I shall tell his beautiful wife. Shall I tell his wife, Timothy?”

  Nothing.

  “Timothy.” This time her voice was crisp.

  “My lady,” Burr said dryly, “Master Donne’s ways are ever unfathomable. Mere mortals cannot plumb the depths of them.”

  With a musical lilt Lady Bedford said, “Oh, I can fathom them. What is the name of this minx, Jack? Is she raven-haired, like you? Or is she fair? Has she waves of hair as fine as yours?” Lady Bedford moved up close to him, very close, and lifted a hand to touch one of his locks. Almost he could hear her heart beating; almost he could feel it. If he lowered his eyes, no doubt he would see the rhythmic tremor in her breast. “Has she lashes like yours? Has she lashes long enough to make . . . one . . . weep?” A beating heart; iambics of the flesh. She moved her hand to lay it softly on his cheek, and he held her gaze as she asked again, “Is she fair, Jack?”

  He spoke evenly. “My lady, I have said: your bracelet is lost.”

  She turned away, exasperated—or putting on a good show of it. “Well, then. You must find it. You simply must—” She whipped back to him and asked again, “But how could you lose it? You knew it was most dear to me.” When Jack nodded gravely, she added, “And most dear to buy. The gold in those seven chains was pure, more pure than the twelve gold angels the piece cost.”

  Twelve! The goldsmith had given him only five angel-nobles for it, and four of the coins were gone already to his creditors. The other he had spared to buy meat, flour, and eggs for his family. Surely Lady Bedford did not mean him to make restitution. The bracelet had been a gift, and he was here to get another, not to be charged twelve angels for the one already sold. He spoke softly, letting the velvet of his voice drape about her: “My lady, I kept it ever near my heart, for in color it was like unto your golden locks.” No; too easy, and she knew it. Besides, her hair was hardly gold; it was a fierce, dark auburn-red setting off a pale face. Squint one eye and it seemed an unpromising aspect. Yet somehow she had a striking way about her: a strangely haunted beauty.

  “Color like my locks? Then my next armlet for you shall be woven not of seven fine gold chains but as many thin strands of ruddy-brown hair.”

  “Nay, do more: knit me up a shirt of your rich, ferruginous hair that I might better do my penance for the loss.” Ugh, too grotesque, and she knew that too.

  “Ferruginous! Listen to that, Timothy. He would snatch me bald. He would have me wear some rusty syphilitic French crown, and not a good angelic English one. And for what? A hair shirt for his penance. No, Master Jack-a-napes, I would have my twelve coins again, to melt them into what you have lost, and give it to one more faithful.”

  Well: no more underestimating her. “My lady, that were too cruel. Though I have strayed, melt not twelve angels from their first creation. Heaven appointed them at your hand to provide all things for me, and serve as my faithful guides. Shall these twelve innocents bear mine own great sins? Dread judge, shall they be both martyred and damned, punished in the furnace for offenses not their own? Burn them not in hellish flames; cast them not in seven-fold chains.”

  She smiled: at last he was winning her. “How your twelve golden martyrs found themselves in hell is more than I can say.” He smiled too, and she paused before adding, “Burn but a candle for me then, to write some verses by. Pen me a poem. And if I like it well enough, may hap, may hap I will forgive you.”

  “I think my heart shall serve for candle wax, for you have melted it.” Hm. Not so good, that, but not bad. And almost true: he could well grow fond of this woman. . . .

  Enough. Beside that road lay the dragon.

  A slight inclination of her head, the gesture of one used to having her subtle commands obeyed, declared the interview over. With a graceful, understated bow of his own he said, “You shall have the verses, Lady Lucy.” Ah, she did not flinch at the familiar address. It was a good sign.

  Back in the parlor, Burr found that Lady Bedford had set down the book he had fetched for her. She had taken out her needlework but had not started on it; instead she sat staring at the space where Jack had stood half an hour before. Burr waited. After a while she narrowed her eyes and asked, “What do you think, Tim? Can we trust him?” He waited. “Can such a man be trusted?” Outside, a carriage creaked by. Then, “Tim.”

  “Trusted to do what, my lady?”

  “Why, to do what we ask. To aid us, in whatever way, in our dealings with that canker-hearted little crook-back in Ivy Lane.”

  “I know not, my lady. What might this Jack have to do with Lord Cecil?”

  “Oh, come, Timothy. You know all things; your ignorance is false as a pledge of love. This man Jack Donne is resourceful, and we are resourceful. Can we trust him?”

  “My lady, I think we can trust him no farther than he can be thrust—with his pockets full of gold.”

  “My gold.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Hm. I would like to trust him.” She absently bit her lower lip, then shook her head and began t
o ply her needle. “It may be you are right. But did you note that he did not bend to my flattery?”

  Burr shifted his weight slightly. He paused before saying, “I did note it, my lady.”

  “He was unmoved, was he not?”

  “He was, my lady, except—”

  “Except what, Tim?”

  “Just this, my lady: I noted . . . some expansion of his codpiece.”

  Lady Bedford laughed. “Well, his heart perhaps he keeps to himself. But. . . .” She worked a few stitches. “Still, I do wish we could trust him, head, heart, and all.”

  “Madam—”

  “No.” She cut him off; Burr’s tone was enough. She needed his observations, not his sympathy. “No, I think you are wrong. Man though you may be, you do not know men as I do. There is something about this John Donne, this Jack, as he would have it.”

  “Something. But my lady, search not too deeply for what it is. Before he married, he left many a maid wishing they had not been so curious. For it was they whose depths were plumbed, and not the other way.”

  “I see.” She moved as if to stand but then settled back into her chair and returned to her needlework. “But I am no such silly wench.” Burr watched cautiously as she stitched away: her movements were too quick, too nervous. “His wife,” she said, “must be no fool, to get such a man as this Donne to marry her.”

  Burr spoke softly, carefully. “Assure yourself she is a fool indeed, Lady Lucy, for she gave up a great fortune to marry the man.”

  “Did she? Who is this wife?”

  Burr waited a moment before saying, “Madam, I know not.”

  “Come, Timothy. Something of her you know, and something of the man. This much I know of him already: he thinks my flirtations make me but one more empty-headed, shallow-hearted woman, and now you behave as though you thought the same. But even if you misjudge me after all our years of acquaintance, you seem to have acquired some knowledge of Master Donne. How did you come by it?”