The Alchemist's Daughter

Book 1: Bianca Goddard Mystery

by Mary Lawrence

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Thrillers

Synopsis

“Unique characters, a twisty plot and a bold, bright heroine . . . Mystery and Tudor fans alike will raise a glass to this new series.”—Karen Harper, New York Times bestselling author

In the year 1543 of King Henry VIII’s turbulent reign, the daughter of a notorious alchemist finds herself suspected of cold-blooded murder . . .

Bianca Goddard employs her knowledge of herbs and medicinal plants to concoct remedies for the disease-riddled poor in London’s squalid Southwark slum. But when her friend Jolyn comes to her complaining of severe stomach pains, Bianca’s prescription seems to kill her on the spot. Recovering from her shock, Bianca suspects Jolyn may have been poisoned before coming to her—but the local constable is not so easily convinced.

To clear her name and keep her neck free of the gallows, Bianca must apply her knowledge of the healing arts to deduce exactly how her friend was murdered and by whom—before she herself falls victim to a similar fate . . .

A Suspense Magazine Best Historical Mystery of the Year

“A realistic evocation of 16th century London’s underside. The various strands of the plot are so skillfully plaited together.”—Fiona Buckley, author of the Ursula Blanchard Mysteries

“The writing is terrific . . . will keep readers engaged until the very last page . . . a real page-turner.”—San Francisco Book Review

“Whereas some historical fiction bristles with self-importance, this novel eschews it to excellent effect.”—Library Journal

Release date: May 1, 2015

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

London, March 1543

Imagine a time when the good king’s ship the Mary Rose moors within sight of His Majesty’s Whitehall residence, its four masts reaching skyward like trees sprouting on the river Thames. Her sails are furled, waiting for the sun and wind to call them open. But it is night, and plying the waters beneath the galleon floats a humble wherry steered by one not of the stuff of man but of something else.

His wherry skirts the hull of the king’s mistress, and the ferryman looks up to admire her rows of cannon, the iron threatening even in silence. He chuckles at this king’s indulgence—man does love his guns. A watchman stands guard near the gunwale, leaning hard on his longbow, having mastered the appearance of duty while sleeping standing up. He does not notice the odd spectacle floating just beneath him.

This suits the ferrier, for there is little fog this night, and he is not one to work without its cloak. He must soon make his way toward Romeland, where a merchant ship will dock, laden with sacks of grain and goods from a trip abroad.

The ferrier lifts his nose into the air, catching a scent beyond London’s usual fare. Her streets of stagnant puddles and ditch latrines—the stench of the Thames with its dumped offal from market—can’t mask what this ferrier wants.

He touches his pole to the water and sails past a flotilla of moored wherries. No humans, not even those reeking of drink, would need a ride at this hour. So they sleep in their hulls beneath their woolen blankets, oblivious to their comrade floating past.

The steeple of St. Paul’s peeps over the city wall as he nears the mouth of the Fleet, flanked by massive Bridewell—abandoned by Henry for his preferred palace to the west. Giving wide berth to the discharge of river, the ferrier relishes the silence of man’s creation, London—its jumble of brick and mortar housing a warren of crowded, slumbering souls. He’s seen more than one king, more than one merchant ship, more than one plague mark this town. He’s plied these waters for . . . years? More like eons, he thinks.

A rat treads water beyond his skiff, and he descends quickly upon it, snatching it out of its watery grave only to give it a new one. He digs his long fingernails into the rodent’s back and sharply smacks its head against the gunwale, then tosses it over his shoulder to land squarely atop a pile of others.

This night has not been fruitful. He’s harvested less than half his usual take. But he has a chance to salvage what remains of the dark. A merchant ship is lumbering up the Thames, headed for Wool’s Key. It is rife with rats. He can smell them.

Ahead, London Bridge spans the river, its twenty starlings taunting the fainthearted with its rapids, swirling and churning the drink into a raging torrent. Most passengers prefer to disembark and portage the hazard by foot. But he is untroubled. He’s shot the bridge so many times before.

He points his skiff into the curling tongue of river without touching his pole to water. After all, he mostly commands his boat by thought. The sluice accepts him, and it is as if he has entered a dragon’s mouth, the water gurgling and rushing about like saliva all around him. The rapid grabs hold of his vessel, spins it around. It scrapes the stone cavern of the bridge’s underbelly, bucking and rocking. His head barely clears the massive supporting timbers. All the while, he never loses his nerve.

Then, as if the dragon has tasted him and is repulsed, he is spewed out the other side into the slowing current. He blinks up at the Queen Moon winking at him from behind a veil of gossamer clouds, and he blows her a kiss.

In the distance, the dim outline of the merchant vessel noses its way up the Thames, closer but still a long way off. On the opposite bank, the bear-baiting rings are quiet as the lights of Southwark flicker and fade in spent tallow. Its rogues, cutpurses, theaters, and bawdy houses are exhausted from a full night of vice. He is contemplating a sated belly when his attention is drawn to an argument on the mudflats, where two muckrakers are the only visible proof that the town is inhabited.

Poor muckrakers, he thinks. Such a demeaning existence, scrounging through the slime for scraps of leather, rope, maybe a lost buckle or piece of jewelry, anything with which to barter a meal or sell for coin.

Their voices carry across the water, and he slows to watch them shove and sling each other about. It won’t be long before one of them stumbles and lands in the slop. He cannot make out their words, but he can see that one is a man and the other is a woman, for her skirt grows visibly weighted by the heavy muck.

Could it be a lover’s spat? He watches with interest, distracted from his course down river. No, he senses little affection between these two. Their words grow louder, and he wonders why no one comes to investigate. But it is Southwark, home to London’s most depraved and criminal, and this quarrel would not earn much notice.

The man grabs hold of something around the girl’s neck and pulls so that she reaches up and cries out in pain. He flings her sideways, and she loses her footing, falling into the mud with a splat. The man laughs, and the girl curses. She struggles to her feet and outruns her aggressor in the viscid sucking muck. The ferryman moves on.

He directs his skiff toward the opposite shore, where quays and pulleys line the waterfront. Bales of wool and barrels of molasses are lashed to the piers, waiting to be stored in warehouses or shipped to ports elsewhere. Beyond the wharves, massive walls encircle the Tower and its grounds, where queens and traitors have met the executioner’s axe. He floats clear of the moored ships rocking gently in the current. He’s careful to maintain his distance and watches as the Cristofur comes into sight.

Like an old woman weary from life, the ship creeps up the river, worn from her voyage at sea. A few men post the yardarms and prow, seeing that she sails true without causing injury to herself or others. Her hull creaks as if complaining about this final demand, but she hasn’t much farther and then she can rest.

The piers are not manned. No one expects the Cristofur to arrive at such an unholy hour. No one will come to her aid by rowing tenders out to pull her into moor, so the captain orders the sails wrapped and the anchor dropped.

The shrill pipe of the boatswain pierces the quiet, and the iron weight speedily pulls a line of rope through the hawsehole. The anchor hits the water with a satisfying splash, then disappears beneath the surface on its journey to the river’s bottom. He admires man’s ability to maneuver these cumbersome beasts. It still fascinates him.

Soon this sleeping maiden of a city will stretch her toes and yawn. But there is still enough dark that he may only be seen as a hooded figure standing in his wherry. Just another ferryman waiting for business. No one can see his arms as thin as bones or his skin as gray and pale as the moon. The heap of dead rats is not obvious, but it is about to grow taller.

As the Cristofur settles, it is as if a signal has spread among the vermin that land is within sight. Rats escape from portholes and over the sides, leaping into the river to make for better spoils on shore. The water teems with them, their ratty noses protruding just above the waterline, smelling their way to a new home.

If anyone had noticed, they would have seen his eyes glow green like a cat’s. He moved swift upon the hapless rodents.

Breakfast.

Jolyn Carmichael had one hour to live.

She clasped her new cloak at the neck as she trudged down the lanes of Southwark toward her friend’s room of alchemy. The morning still held winter’s chill, though they’d had several days of warmth and even sun the past couple of weeks. But spring seemed a long way off, as did Bianca’s quarters. The air was laden with a consumptive damp. A pain gripped her side, and she stopped to let it pass before walking on.

The waves of nausea had grown in number over the past two weeks. At times they were so severe she couldn’t stand straight. She had tried to determine the cause. Was it that time of month or the candied figs she’d eaten? It could have been the sherried chestnuts—she wasn’t accustomed to the rich food he’d heaped on her. She wiped the end of her nose with a gloved finger and paused to admire her doeskin gloves, another gift.

Jolyn smiled at her good fortune. Just over a month ago, she’d left the mudflats to live at Barke House. Her previous life raking mud had been a hard one. She had never slept in the same place twice, nor had she known what it was like to eat more than one meal a day.

To what did she owe this good fortune? It began with a find. A ring poking up from the muck near Winchester House. Its gold caught the morning light and Jolyn’s eye. She could have sold it, but she liked its weight in her hand, and the etching on its surface intrigued her. The next day and then every day after, she found something of value to sell at market that could assure her a decent meal. The ring had brought her luck. If necessary, she could sell it, but she was not keen to part with her find.

While selling scavenged jewelry near the bear-baiting venue, Jolyn met Mrs. Beldam of Barke House. The old matron fingered the odd pieces, biting them and holding them up to squint at their stones. Finally, she bought a small brooch with a garnet center. As she handed Jolyn the money, her gaze fell to the signet ring hanging around the young woman’s neck.

“How lovely,” she said, her gray eyes growing round. She reached to touch the piece of jewelry. “Where did ye get this?”

“I found it,” said Jolyn.

“How much would ye take for it?” asked Beldam, turning it over.

“Oh, I will never sell it. It has brought me luck—something money cannot buy.”

Mrs. Beldam drew back. “Indeed.” Her eyes flicked up at Jolyn’s, then returned to the ring. “No amount of money?”

“No amount of money.”

Mrs. Beldam dragged her eyes from the necklace and tipped her chin. “Do ye live near?”

“In Southwark.”

“Ye is a scavenger, then?”

Jolyn nodded.

“Can’ts be easy, that life,” said Mrs. Beldam. “Ye have a place to lay your head at night?”

Sleeping in doorways and under bridges might be disgraceful to those who only knew soft pallets and pillows, but Jolyn was not embarrassed to admit her circumstance. To Jolyn, not much separated most from a similar fate. “I make do,” she said.

Mrs. Beldam studied her. She patted her purse distractedly as she thought. Eventually she stirred from her contemplation. “Ye knows, I run a home for young womens, Barke House,” she said. “I takes in girls who needs a help in life. I could use an errand girl. Ye might keep to your muckraking if ye so like it. But ye’d have a place to stays.”

Jolyn perked to hear this. Here was a woman offering a step up in life. She would be cautious, though; wary that she could be taken advantage of and end worse off.

So Jolyn visited the home for women and left satisfied that Mrs. Beldam did have a charitable heart. Jolyn moved in. She never regretted her decision, and in fact, her life got even better because of it. She cheerfully fetched goods from market and delivered sealed letters to London addresses. Even though her hands grew raw from washing laundry and scrubbing floors, she was content. Compared to muckraking, this was a life of easy meals and shelter from the cold.

It didn’t matter that Barke House was once a stew with a reputation as questionable as the king’s taste in wives. All Jolyn cared about was that Mrs. Beldam had saved her from scraping out a meager existence in the mudflats. And for that kindness, she was eternally grateful.

Once the layers of river clay were scrubbed from her skin and hair, Jolyn emerged something of a swan. The coat of grime had preserved her skin and left it pale so that her blue eyes appeared a startling contrast. Beneath her coif was a head of daffodil-colored hair.

At Barke House she caught the notice of a rich merchant. A man who doted on her. Mrs. Beldam tried to discourage her from seeing him, but Jolyn believed soon she’d step into an even better life.

Another wave of nausea gripped Jolyn, and this time she couldn’t control an urge to lose her stomach’s contents behind a hedge off Bankside. No one stopped to ask if she needed help. She wiped her mouth discreetly on the inside of her cloak and hurried on. This current dyspepsia was probably caused by her new lifestyle, to which she was still unaccustomed. Like so many other obstacles in her life, Jolyn figured this, too, was only temporary and once she had gotten a remedy from Bianca, she’d be as good as new. What she didn’t know was soon she’d be dead.

No sign marked her door. Only the odor of a simmering concoction hinted at what lay on the other side. Passing pedestrians would scrunch up their noses and hurry on, being sure to detour her rent on their return. Sometimes even she couldn’t bear the smells and she’d run out into the lane, gasping for air, preferring the stink of Southwark to those of her own making.

Bianca Goddard observed the lethargic drip of a distillation as it collected in a vesicle. A labyrinth of coiled copper spanned the length of a table. She studied the remnants of crushed herbs, mashed frog bones, and pulverized chalk; her blue eyes were tinged nearly purple with fatigue. An idea had roused her out of sleep, and she could not rest until she had begun to pursue it. She was nothing if not obsessed.

Wedges of apple and a hunk of cheese from Eastcheap market lay untouched on the plate while John licked his fingers from his portion. He eyed the browning fruit. “The fruit is going off, Bianca,” he said. “You should take the time and eat.” He looked at Bianca, annoyed she had ignored his offering. “Because if you aren’t going to have it . . .” Then, rueful for wanting the food for himself, he said, “Can I at least steep you some tea?”

Bianca shrugged and, with eyes still fixed on her latest experiment, pointed toward a shelf lined with crockery. “It’s next to the jars of herbs.”

John retied the leather strip gathering his hair into a wheaten tail that reached between his shoulder blades. He crammed several wedges of fruit in his mouth, then wandered over to the shelves of Bianca’s room of Medicinals and Physickes, as she preferred to call it. She was riled if anyone called it a room of alchemy. She’d been here for less than a year, having spent her childhood running errands for her father in his quest to discover the philosopher’s stone. Eventually Bianca had come to reject her father’s line of inquiry for one of her own. She combined the parts of alchemy she found useful with the knowledge of herbs she’d gleaned from her mother. To this combination she added a healthy dose of curiosity, and the result was a salve to tame the French pox. Its popularity afforded her this room off Gull Hole in the undesirable but, for her, affordable area of Southwark.

John squinted at the array of jars and cracked bowls, some labeled with torn bits of precious paper scribbled on in charcoal and stuck on with snail ooze. But the mucilage had dried and several labels had floated to the floor, though some had been rescued and hurriedly stuffed inside the jars. He found a container labeled “ceylon,” but he couldn’t be sure if it wasn’t cayenne. Either way, they’d soon find out.

“So, what is this latest madness?” he asked, gesturing to Bianca’s experiment. He set a pan of water to boil on top of a cal-cinating stove. The stove belched a steady plume of blue smoke, to which Bianca had provided an escape through a cracked window. Despite her effort, John’s eyes still watered, and he thought he’d never get used to the smells and fumes that accompanied Bianca’s dabbling.

Bianca brushed the hair from her eyes. The linen cap that usually hid her mussed locks hung on a hook by the door. She didn’t wear the troublesome coif in the privacy of her rent, and John appreciated seeing her hair—as black as the knocker at Newgate—frame her pale face.

“I’m distilling,” she said, running her hand along the expanse of coils. “I’m trying to separate this mash of barley and throatwort into a liquid.” She pointed to the mixture boiling on a tripod, then swirled a flask at the end of a tube that was shaped like a pig’s snout. “I’ll combine its purified essence with my salves.”

John stirred the leaves in his own experiment and watched them bleed brown into the water. “Seems like a mountain of effort for a pebble of worth.” He stood back, then looked around the room for two mugs, or anything clean that could hold their drink.

“These will do,” said Bianca, emptying the ground powders from a couple of bowls, then wiping the insides with a corner of her woolen kirtle. Her skirt was a record of ingredients and chemistries. Hopefully none were combustible—as they certainly were potent, both in staining and devouring the fabric. The smell alone was enough to stop a boar at twenty feet. But Bianca didn’t seem to notice, much less care. She handed over the bowls.

“People depend on me for remedies to ease their boils and ague. I’m not so quick of hand as when I picked pockets.” She spied a mouse beneath a pile of rush covering the floor and, with some effort, cornered it with her foot, then snatched it up by the tail. “Perhaps I’m more conspicuous than when I was twelve. I haven’t a license to beg. How else am I to survive?” She carried the creature to the door and flung it into the alley.

John set the bowls on the table and found a thick cloth to handle the pan. “I can think of a way,” he said, simply.

Bianca’s ears pinked. Her affection for John rivaled her irritation. She knew he wanted to marry her or at least become a greater part of her life. Marriage, with all its demands—not least of which were children—would put an end to her chemistries. To Bianca, it was not a desirable offer. She could no more abandon her love of experimenting than move back home with her parents. So for now she avoided the subject and, instead, posed a matter for John to consider.

“John, first you must finish your apprenticeship with Boisvert. Then you face years as a journeyman in silversmithing. After that, you must set up shop somewhere, and you know Boisvert will not take kindly to competition. I expect you’ll have to move.”

“I could move here,” offered John, handing Bianca her bowl of brew.

“John, this is not a home.”

“But you live here.”

Bianca set her tea down, exasperated. “I have no choice. I’ll not move back with my parents. Besides, you could never bear living here. I’d rather not listen to you complain about the smell.”

John couldn’t argue. The smells did bother him. It would never do for them to live where she practiced her art. As for moving back with her parents, Bianca’s father, Albern Goddard, was an alchemist with a dubious past. He’d been accused of plotting to poison the king in an attempt to subvert Henry’s religious “Reformation.” A devout Catholic, Goddard still ascribed to the authority of the pope even though it was dangerous to do so. Bianca had risked her own life to prove he had been wrongly accused, and for that peril, she had yet to forgive him.

Though, to be honest, Bianca owed much of her success and present circumstance to what she had learned from her father. From the time she had been able to fetch water without spilling it, she had assisted him in his “noble art.” He was disciplined, if not a bit disorganized, and she followed his methods, having never witnessed a more orderly approach. And, like her father, she was devoted to her science. Sometimes excessively so. Especially to John’s eyes.

Bianca took a sip and suddenly blew it out, spraying her new still. “Phaa! What is this?”

John leapt back, patting her spittle from his front. He stuck his finger in his bowl and tasted. “So it was pepper after all.”

Bianca stalked to the door and threw it open. She cocked her arm to catapult the offensive liquid into the lane, where standing opposite, with her fist poised to knock, stood her friend Jolyn.

“Another fouled concoction?” she asked, eyeing the bowl in Bianca’s hand.

“This one is of John’s making.” Bianca tossed the contents.

“John, I didn’t know anything but metals amused you,” said Jolyn, cautiously stepping into Bianca’s room. One never knew what one might find there. Once, she’d nearly been trampled by a goat wishing to escape. “Boisvert would be disappointed if you switched allegiance and joined the brotherhood of puffers.”

“I think he was trying to poison me,” said Bianca, shutting the door. She hated to be compared with alchemists, but she ignored her friend’s tease. Instead, she noted Jolyn’s new cloak and doeskin gloves. “What’s this?” she said, touching her friend’s garb. “I should quit my experiments and sweep floors at Barke House.”

Jolyn smiled. “My wages consist of a roof over my head and board for my belly.”

John dispensed of his pepper tea more discreetly. He set it by a stack of crockery and covered it with a plate. “More gifts from your suitor then?” he asked.

“Aye.” Jolyn shrugged off her cloak and draped it on a chair, well away from Bianca’s chemistries, then pulled off her gloves and set them by.

“For such gloves I can’t say your hands have benefitted.” John added another dung patty to the furnace to ward off the chill. “They look raw and red from the cold.”

Jolyn stood next to the furnace, stretching her fingers over the heat. “It’s not the cold. Mrs. Beldam has me sweep out the rush and scrub the floors with lye. But my hands look better than when I was picking through the flats.” She examined her blisters, turning her fingers over. “Mrs. Beldam believes in spring cleaning. She doesn’t want the neighbors thinkin’ we’s a clutch of clapperdudgeons.”

“But you are a bunch of beggar-born,” said John, poking the fire.

“I’ll have you not speak poor of Barke House. It used to be a stew of ill repute, but not anymore. Women come to Barke House hoping to escape the streets and start a better life.”

“It’s hard to shake a spider out of its web.” John leaned the poke against the furnace, observing Jolyn’s cheeks beginning to flush. Her skin had been protected by river clay for so long that now, with it scrubbed, her complexion was usually as pale as a baby’s bottom. “I’m simply saying, reputations are difficult to lose,” he said.

“True, but we must put a good face forward, eh?” said Jolyn. She sat at a bench opposite Bianca and the contraption of copper. “Last week I spent the only warm day toting bed linens to the fields of Horsleydown to wash and spread dry. My hands have yet to recover from the cold and soap.”

“Mrs. Beldam is getting her use of you,” said Bianca.

“I earn my keep. But if Mrs. Beldam hadn’t been so caring, I’d still be sloshing through sewage.”

Bianca checked her mash and gave it a stir. “I don’t know how she affords to run such a place. She must have a charitable heart—or a patron with a bigger one.”

“Or a bigger purse,” added John.

“The girls and I give her what we can. You don’t run a place like Barke House hoping to grow wealthy.”

Bianca agreed, then, settling on her stool, traced the course of a trickle of fluid and tightened a juncture in her apparatus. “So, what does Mrs. Beldam say of your suitor?”

“She doesn’t like him. But if I should marry him, it is one less mouth for her to feed.” Jolyn sniffed a bowl of rendered suet and rubbed a dab on her cracked hands. “One of the girls suggested that he probably reminds Mrs. Beldam of someone she once loved. The rumor is she was abandoned in her youth and had to raise a daughter alone.”

“Is it true?”

Jolyn worked the oil into her skin. “She’s never spoken of a daughter.”

“So, when will you see him?” asked Bianca.

“Soon. His ship is in. He has matters to attend.”

“He’s a captain?” John pricked up his ears.

“John should join a crew,” said Bianca. “All those years living in a barrel behind the Tern’s Tempest and being seduced by sailors’ wild stories of adventure and swag.”

“He’s not a captain,” said Jolyn. “But his business involves ships. He does well by it. He brings me sweetmeats and oranges, stuffed figs . . . . . .