Alchemy

by Maureen Duffy

  ‘Anyway Dr Raval is leaving. I think she may know something or at least be sufficiently disturbed by the atmosphere to want to get away.’

  ‘Strange, I hadn’t put her down as particularly empathetic.’

  ‘Is there anything further you haven’t told me? Any scrap of information that might conceivably be useful?’

  ‘If I think of anything after you’ve left I’ll telephone. But at the moment I believe I’ve been as much help as I can.’ In other words I won’t get any more out of him. I’m being dismissed.

  Well, perhaps there’s something he knows that he doesn’t know he knows, I’m thinking as I ride back. Or it may be just an aspect of his arrogance to always seem to be withholding some vital bit of the jigsaw that would bring the whole picture into focus.

  Why did he give the students extracts from Amyntas Boston’s memoir to read? To show how seriously other times treated witches or how old the craft is? He said he wanted to stretch their minds, to shock them a bit, to suggest even that what we see as hard drugs were just truly for medicinal purposes at one time, that even the demon tobacco was thought to have a curative use. It was all another aspect of that arrogance. He thought he was fireproof, that he could say anything he liked and get away with it. And he probably did under the old dispensation, until the Temple took over Wessex and turned it into a fake uni so they could attract young people and work on them, like Charlie’s cousin, and Hester Ado, and the nameless young guy who killed himself in the holidays but under the influence of Wessex I’m sure.

  Galton doesn’t see it in terms of young lives lost or blighted. He sees it as some kind of personal crusade, him against them, or simply as revenge for what they did to him. He wants me to find out what’s going on just to destroy them and when he talks of evil it’s almost an abstraction. He believes in its separate existence as a force as they do or pretend to do. Whereas I see it as ‘the evil that men do’ out of stupidity or genetics, upbringing, a culture of greed, a lust for power not because of what you can do with it but to massage your own depleted ego.

  I stow the Crusader downstairs and climb up to my eyrie. The office life of phone messages, faxes, emails all busily humming away has been going on in my absence and now demands my attention like clamorous mouths asking to be fed. But not tonight. I’m knackered and low. How do you keep going without love in a world turned upside down? ‘With how sad steps O moon thou climb’st the skies! Is constant love deemed there but want of wit? Are lovers there as false as here they be?’

  No, that’s not quite right but I’m too tired to look it up. It was what he meant, my lady’s ‘dear brother’ who died a hero, passing down a legend of gentlemanly compassion. ‘Thy need is greater than mine.’

  The phone rings but I don’t answer. I hear my own voice saying ‘Hallo. You have reached Lost Causes. There’s nobody here at the moment to take your call…’ Then the line goes dead.

  ‘Of what is he accused?’

  ‘That he did go about to poison the Lady Anne Herbert, sister to the Earl of Pembroke by feigning to be a physician.’

  ‘How came he to physick her?’

  ‘By insinuating himself into the favour of Mary, Dowager Countess of Pembroke, her mother, on a pretence of knowledge of diseases and their treatment, he being unlicensed of any authority. As a result the lady is sick near to death.’

  ‘But not dead sir?’

  ‘Nevertheless poisoned by this arrogant boy who thinks himself equal to the finest doctors in the land.’

  ‘Since the lady is not dead her body cannot be opened to prove whether she is poisoned or not. What is your name young master?’

  ‘Amyntas Boston sir.’

  ‘And what do you say to the charge laid against you?’

  ‘That I am innocent of any evil intention sir. It is true the Lady Anne is very sick but she is so by natural causes of a consumption. I have only tried to give her strength and treat her lungs which have every symptom of the ulcers which the disease causes.’

  ‘And where did you learn such skills?’

  ‘From my father sir, who was a physician in Salisbury. One that the countess would have had in her service for the esteem in which he was held but he preferred to remain in his own house.’

  ‘He was a noted necromancer, an alchemist whose chief pursuit was to find the philosopher’s stone. This boy is known himself among the people, my lady’s servants, as the young wizard.’

  ‘Then he treats others than the Lady Anne?’

  ‘I help the countess with her works of charity among the sick and needy, such as have little money to pay a physician.’

  ‘And how do you treat them?’

  ‘By bathing their wounds and dressing them sir, and administering such medicines as are fit for the case.’

  ‘And where do you procure these medicines?’

  ‘My lady has a laboratory in all her mansions where we make up our receipts from herbs and minerals.’

  ‘And such you gave the Lady Anne, her mother consenting, perhaps even assisting?’

  ‘He has wormed his way into the countess’ affections by his pretended innocence and skill.’

  ‘You are too choleric sir. Give me leave to conduct the inquisition without interruption. So far I do not find cause to charge Master Boston. It is true he practises without authority but not in public, only in the household of a noble lady who may be allowed to employ whom she will.’

  ‘The lady’s friends believe she is cozened, even perhaps bewitched.’

  ‘Then the accusation is now not poisoning which could it be shown, as it cannot for the reason I have given, would have caused him to be hanged. As for practising without authority in this town you would have to arrest half the inhabitants of Alsatia who are a commonwealth to themselves of thieves, quacks and mountebanks beyond the city jurisdiction. Therefore a thing impossible to the law to meddle in. Now you would accuse him of witchcraft since you cannot succeed with your first charges. Does he look like a witch, who are mostly old ill-favoured women? Are you a witch Master Boston? Remember you can be put to the trial.’

  ‘Sir many times when I have been treating the common people of the village on my lady’s behalf they have asked me for charms and spells, incantations that they believe will make the medicine cure faster. Always I said no: that the disease is of Nature and so must the cure be too.’

  ‘You are of the new school of thought then. Take care that you do not find you have thrown out God and the devil with the trappings of superstition that still linger from the old ways. Have you read Mr Bacon his Advancement of Learning?’

  ‘Yes sir. And found in it much of my father’s way of thinking.’ ‘Then you would be a natural philosopher? Take care of hubris that cometh before a fall as scripture tells us. If nothing else it will make you more enemies. I find nothing in this young man why I should charge him. Let him be bound over to keep the peace and keep him from the Lady Anne. You are free to go young sir but do not come before me again.’

  So I escaped my first trial and made my way back to my lodging. Yet as I was leaving Dr Gilbert came up to me and with great menace said: ‘I will have you still. Do not attempt to throw yourself on the countess her mercy. That gate is stopped for you.’

  Now all had fallen out according to my worst fears for I was alone in the world with no way to make my bread. Remembering the words of the magistrate I left my lodging and set out to find that Alsatia he had spoken of. But first I asked my landlady where it might be.

  ‘Goodness, it is no place for a young gentleman.’

  ‘Nevertheless madam I must find it. I have business there.’

  ‘Well sir from here you must go towards the city of Westminster and along the Fleet until you come to Whitefriars gate where you turn down towards the Thames. Do have a care Master Boston for there are some thereabouts that would murder you for your hanger let alone your sword which although as my good man says is not of the first fashion, is no doubt serviceable enough to be worth the steal
ing and you are but slight and easily to be overcome if several rogues should set upon you together.’

  As soon as I left the main highway I saw only too clearly what she might mean for here there were nothing but stews where the largest dwellings were the many taverns and those between little bigger than stalls for cattle. Yet some had signs that suggested the physician or astrologer within as the symbols of the zodiac or of the cabbala. Among the throng in the streets were also some that suggested their trades by their antique caps and cloaks and their chests of God knows what bottles and jars. One had his wares displayed at a little booth by the pavement and was hawking a cure-all for love and lost goods that was also, he cried, sovereign against the pestilence.

  I saw many signs hung out of fencing masters who when they were not teaching might be hired for more deadly work so my landlady’s husband had told me, especially by gentlemen who had a score to settle with someone not worthy to risk their lives against in a duel. There were also cook shops selling meats and sweetmeats and pawn shops where anything might be bought or sold, especially anything unlawfully come by as I understood from their signs, for the law had no jurisdiction here.

  But that which most troubled me were the many women in the streets, some in doorways, some passing through the throng their faces painted as if for the theatre that showed harshly in the light of day, their silks as if slept in, and they just risen from their straw pallets, stained with the mire of the stews, and with wine and the grease of many days.

  I knew they must stink yet they laughed and called out to passing men with a cheap easefulness, as if they had not a care in the world. They were also of all ages from ripe matrons, as they seemed, to green girls. Those who stood in the doorways beckoned men in, some of whom I saw entered but did not linger to see them come out again for my purpose might have been mistaken. As it was, here and there a woman called to me in passing offering the young master a clean girl fresh from the country with no touch of the pox upon her. Then I understood another way to make my living and shuddered that I might be forced to assume woman’s dress and the customs of Alsatia.

  So I turned back again towards the Fleet but losing my way among the alleys and stinking courts I found myself to come out at last further to the west among the fair buildings of the Temple where men could safely breathe again without benefit of a nosegay and where indeed the lawyers strolled in their gardens conversing, their gowns flapping like so many crows. Continuing north I found myself in a lane called Mitre Court where there were many shops that waited upon the members of the Inns of Court, including those of scriveners for making fair copies of all manner of bills, and at last among them the name of that friend to my landlady who had brought me his gnarled hand.

  Then upon my knocking the door was opened by a servant. ‘My master is not at home,’ he said, ‘but my mistress is here. Please to wait in the shop until I fetch her.’

  When he returned he brought with him a girl who I judged to be but little older than me, dressed neatly but not finely and of a fair countenance. ‘My father has gone to buy paper and ink sir but I will help you if I can.’

  ‘I came to enquire how his hand does and if he continues with that cure I taught him.’

  ‘You are the physician who lodges at Mistress Elder her house? If so we are indeed grateful to you for he is now able to hold a knife to cut up his meat and we have hopes that in time he may be able to copy again.’

  ‘I am indeed glad of your good news. You will need more of the oil of Exeter to continue the cure. If you or your father will come to my lodging I will give you another bottle but I fear it must be soon for I may be suddenly called away.’

  ‘I will come tomorrow sir or send our man Harry who opened the door for you.’

  ‘Your father said that if he regained his skill he would make me a copy of a book of receipts of mine in payment. I have it with me and would leave it with you in case any misfortune should befall me. Here I will know there is a copy safe and another in the making.’

  ‘Indeed sir it will be safe here for we are used to handle and keep such originals as part of our trade. I will begin to copy it myself and not wait for my father’s hand to be fully healed for already the benefit to us both from the oil is great. That my father can feed himself and begin to perform other tasks is such a joy for him that makes him kinder to all the world beside. Tell me sir the nature of your book.’

  ‘It is a book of receipts for use in common households, such as Dr Turner his herbal of many years ago or newer Mr Gerard, but with more of the physician to it than the herbalist. Therefore because the receipts may lead to life or death it must be most carefully transcribed. Are you trained in the scrivener’s skill mistress?’

  ‘Yes sir and used to take pains in the work. No one must know how much I help my father or they might wish to pay less for a maid’s work. Yet if they cannot tell between my hand and his where is the harm?’

  ‘None that I can see. I intend that my book shall be ready for a printer…’

  ‘Have no care Master Boston it shall be so neat you will think it already set. John Davies of Hereford himself once praised my father’s calligraphy and mine is the child of his.’

  ‘You have the advantage of me. You know my name but I do not know yours.’

  ‘I am called Katherine Palmer. Kate among my friends.’

  ‘Then may I call you Mistress Kate?’

  She dropped me a curtsy of assent and I longed to linger in the shop where I felt strangely safe and content with our conversation as one dreaming with all my cares laid aside or as if I walked in Eden before man’s fall or in that Arcadia of my lady’s brother. Yet I knew that I could not stay there longer but must return to my lodging and my quest for a way of life to support me.

  I could not believe, in spite of Dr Gilbert’s words, that the countess had turned her back on me for ever and abandoned me after so many months in her service and close to her person. But I remembered the words of the duenna so long ago of the fickleness of great ones. Some lines of Sir Philip her brother found an echo in my thoughts: ‘Are beauties there as proud as here they be?’ And though they did not exactly mirror my state yet they were near enough to resound in my head again and again like an often repeated prayer. There came to me too the lines of another poet:

  And wilt thou leave me thus

  Say nay, say nay for shame…

  Yet no poet could rehearse my case exactly for where was the shame to my lady? The shame was mine that had endangered her repute among her friends. Unjustly as I believed for I did not accept that I had encompassed or even endangered the Lady Anne’s life and so I thought any impartial judge must decide as indeed he had. Nevertheless I felt no safety in his opinion. I knew that Dr Gilbert was determined to drive me from my lady’s service or do me a worse injury if he could.

  When I reached my lodging again my landlady had news for me. ‘Here was one enquiring for you Master Boston. He asked me if you practised as a physician from this house. I said not; only that you treated such friends of mine as come here but the wonder was that you would take no payment. And that for us you might lodge here as long as it liked you. And so I would say to all Master Boston. But if he was a friend to you I am sorry, for to speak truth I did not like the fellow and think you should have a care of trusting any such.’

  ‘How was the look of this fellow?’

  ‘Like one scraped out of the Marshalsea, a brawling rogue I would not like to meet in a dark alley.’

  Her words suggested no one to me that I knew. They were unsuited to Dr Gilbert who in spite of his choler was of the gentry as befitted the brother of Sir Walter Raleigh. His stoutness and greying hair in no manner suggested a brawling rogue. Perhaps he had hired someone to seek me out and murder me or at least gather such damning evidence as my landlady had in part supplied out of the kindness she had for me. Had there been anywhere for me to go I would have fled further but what I had witnessed in Alsatia did not dispose me to return there where I had no friend
s, even if I could hang out my sign for a physician without prosecution. That night I ate a supper of bread and broth with the landlady and her husband.

  The next day I set out for Mr Short his printer’s shop at the Star in Bread Street hoping to have back the copy of my book I had left with him but again the shutters were closed against me. As I stood there hesitating before the door a woman came out of the opposing house and sharply enquired of my business and what I did there.

  ‘I have come to see Mr Short who has in the press a book in which I have an interest.’

  ‘Then your interest is sunk and your capital too as much as if it had been in the hold of a ship lost at sea. Mr Short has been dead these two weeks and all his goods taken to pay his debts, type and press, paper and ink, even the thread to stitch the pages. Swept clean as if a hurricane has borne all away before it. The shop is to be let if you should have a mind to set up in business.’

  My fears for Mr Short his health had been all too true. Now I was doubly glad of the copy at the scrivener’s. I did not even know whether Mr Short had printed any copies before he died or into whose hands it might have fallen and whether they might consider it worth the selling for their own profit. Had Mr Short even had time to register it at Stationers’ Hall or was it gone for ever without trace? I returned to my lodging saddened at Mr Short his death and the loss of my hopes.

  Again my landlady had news but this time of another colour. ‘Here was young Mistress Palmer, Master Boston, who says that you promised her some more of that oil that has done such marvels with her father’s hand. I thought her very sad not to find you.’

  ‘I will take her some myself.’

  ‘Perhaps you will catch her on the way for she is not long parted from here.’

  Suddenly I felt my life given a new purpose. I climbed upstairs to my attic for the remaining bottle of oil in my chest and set off after Mistress Kate. I found my thoughts running ahead of me as when I should catch up with her what I might say. Of what sweet friends we might be and how I should find employment as a calligrapher and then perhaps as a printer of my own book or issue it to friends in manuscript. With all these ideas shaping themselves in my head into an illusion of hope I hurried along Fleet Street to avoid the way through Alsatia and turned into Bride Lane leaving the press of people, horses, carts and coaches going towards Westminster.