He wriggled, flustered. “Absurd. I have heard how impetuous you are. It is why you are in your present circumstances, no?”
Crispin straightened. “My history is not important. You hired me to help you. Do you want it or not?”
“Yes,” he breathed. “Yes.”
“Then tell me what she said.”
The old man pressed his fingers to his eyes. “You mean well. But you must forget what you think you know. Beware of what you find.”
Crispin snapped his head up and stared at the man. “What did you say?” He grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. “What did you say?”
“I … I…”
“Master Crispin!” cried Jack. “What are you doing?”
Flamel’s eyes were wide and frightened. There didn’t appear to be any deception there, but his words had sent a chill down Crispin’s spine. Were those not the exact words, the last words, that his old friend Abbot Nicholas uttered to him as he lay dying a year ago? The words that he used, trying to explain why relics and venerated objects came into Crispin’s hands?
Crispin spared a glance at Jack, poised between rising and sitting, hands outstretched, a stunned look upon his face.
Crispin looked down at himself, at his hands on Flamel’s gown. What was he doing?
Slowly, he unwound his fingers. He released Flamel and stepped back, breath gusting from his heaving chest. The alchemist surely meant no harm. He was fairly certain of that. But those words …
“Forgive me,” said Crispin, still breathless. “I … it is just…” He shook his head. “Perhaps … perhaps that is why your servant brought us to another alchemist, for you only wish to speak in riddles where I need facts.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. Was he going mad? Had he heard what he thought he’d heard?
Flamel seemed to have forgotten Crispin’s outburst and straightened from this new revelation. “She took you to another alchemist?” He leapt forward and grabbed the girl’s arm. “You fool! Why did you do that? You know how dangerous it is!” He backed her against a table. She collided with it, knocking over retorts and horn beakers. “You must never do that again, Avelyn. Promise me! Ne me décevez pas!”
Crispin stepped closer and closed his hand over Flamel’s. It was foolish getting between a man and his servant, but Crispin was helpless to resist, helpless under the repentant eyes of Avelyn. “Master Flamel, I’m certain she meant well.”
“And you!” He turned his anger on Crispin, releasing his servant from his grasp. He pointed at Avelyn. “Why do you defile her? Surely she is beneath your notice. You, who were once a nobleman. Leave her alone!”
But Avelyn, obviously reading the movements of their mouths, pushed forward, hanging on Flamel’s arm and gesturing toward Crispin. Flamel shook her off and postured before her. “You are a servant, not a whore. Try to remember that!”
“Why are you afraid of another alchemist, Master Flamel? She obviously wanted to convey something to me that you would not.”
Flamel clenched his hands into fists and pulled at the disarrayed hair hanging below his cap. “My business is secret. Why do you think I traveled all the way from France to be in England? Do you think I want to be in England? It is very dangerous here for a Français. You toy with me, Maître, when I trusted you. I asked for your help, I paid for it, and so far you have failed me, you have dallied with my servant, and you threaten me when I cannot answer your questions. There is a very good reason I cannot answer as you wish. I am not paying you to wrest this information from me. I am paying you to accomplish your task!”
Opening his mouth to protest, Crispin decided otherwise and closed it again, pressing his lips tight. He bowed. “You are right, of course. I apologize for my rudeness, Master Flamel. My methods may seem unusual, but they get results.”
Flamel drew himself up, clutching his gown. “So do mine.”
They studied each other for some time before Flamel sighed, resigned. “We must try again, Maître. We must leave the ransom again. The false one. Please. Don’t ask why. Trust me that it must be done.” From the pouch at his side, he pulled out the velvet bag. “I will take it again to Saint Paul’s and leave it at the feet of the statue. He will come. He wants it. I can only hope he wants it more than he wants to harm Perenelle.”
Flamel seemed to sense Crispin’s unease with this tactic, but he raised his hand to silence any arguments. “I cannot be certain of the wisdom of this course, but let us try this little ruse to see, eh? To see if I am not completely mad.”
I already think you’re completely mad, thought Crispin, but he did not say it aloud.
Flamel shuffled to his feet, took the cloak Avelyn offered him, and, with one backward glance at Crispin, slouched out the door.
Crispin and Jack reluctantly returned to the Shambles and did not hear from Flamel for the remainder of the day.
Pacing restlessly, Crispin went from window to hearth over and over again, peering out the slightly open shutters to the street below. He saw nothing of the French alchemist. No word from Avelyn, nothing from Flamel. He had made himself into the biggest fool. Flamel was right. He had no business forgetting his task to play paramour to the man’s servant. It was base, even for him. His loneliness was not an excuse. Perhaps it might be best to practice some humility. Or celibacy, at the very least. Though the thought made him grimace.
Jack lay with his head on his arms, sitting at the table. Crispin thought he heard him snore.
Finally, Crispin could take it no more. He stalked to the door and pulled down his cloak, whipping it over his shoulders.
Jack jerked up, sputtering, “Master Crispin? Where are you going?”
“I’m going to talk to that alchemist.”
“What? Flamel?”
“No, the other. Avelyn took us there for a reason.”
Jack lumbered up from his chair and shuffled toward his cloak. He shrugged it on and buttoned it up. “But you heard Flamel, Master. He said she was mad.”
“There is far more to this than meets the eye, Jack. I will make that man talk to me.” He yanked open the door and stalked onto the landing.
“Now, Master Crispin. There’s no need to be getting into any trouble. Them sheriffs are none too fond of you.”
He trotted down the stairs with Jack behind him. “And I am none too fond of them.”
Crispin looked both ways down the lane. At least it had stopped snowing. The sky extended its pale wash of blue down to a blushing horizon. The naked trees in back courtyards stretched their spindly arms into the heavens, looking more like cracks against the dense flatness of the sky.
Crispin walked briskly, satisfied that he was at least doing something. He inhaled deeply of the heavy, cold air and warmed himself by swinging his limbs freely.
Jack’s long strides kept pace. The boy might argue, but he always complied. He knew in the end that he would at least learn something of value.
“What do you make of this Nicholas Flamel, Jack?”
The boy ran his sleeve under his reddened nose and exhaled a long white cloud. “He’s strange, sir. I reckon it’s all them compounds he works with. But why is he lying, you mean?”
Crispin nodded, kept moving.
“Why does a man lie?” said Jack, throwing back his head and blinking into the fading sunshine. He ticked it off on his fingers. “Well, he lies because he is dishonest; because he is hiding something he’d rather not anyone else know; he’s protecting someone else who is guilty … and … er … he’s just a whoreson and likes to lie?”
“Close. He may also lie to misdirect.”
“Oh, aye.”
“Or it could be a combination of many of those reasons.”
“Then what is his game, eh? Don’t he want his wife back?”