But an abduction for a ransom alone, and one involving murder, was not oft heard of. Would she be safe? Would the abductor exercise patience? God’s blood! He had been careless and selfish, getting distracted by the likes of Henry and this seductress, who was even now trying desperately to tell him something. He had dismissed her in favor of asking her master the questions he needed to ask, but he had been a fool.
“Avelyn,” he said, sobered, “tell me. Try.”
She looked around the darkening room when her gaze landed on the chess set. She grabbed a knight and showed it to him. He shrugged, taking it from her hand.
With a breath of vexation, she gestured to the corners of the room. But still he did not know her meaning. She ran to the bucket, dipped in her hand, and wrote with her wet finger on the wall. She made one of those symbols he had seen on the streets of London.
He hurried over to her. “Do you know what they mean?”
She gave a tentative nod. Crispin grabbed his cloak, and when he opened the door, he beckoned a sleepy Jack to come along.
13
The muddied snow was tinged blue in the dark. People had retreated to their homes, as they were obligated to do. The curfew was in place and shutters were closed and locked. Horses were stabled and suppers consumed.
And it was cold. Night crept in like a thief in the house, and Crispin, Jack, and Avelyn made their careful way over the streets, keeping an eye skinned for a slippery patch of ice as well as for the Watch.
With her hand clutched around the hem of his cloak, she pulled Crispin to a corner and showed him the symbol. “Yes, I see it, but I don’t know what it means. Master Bartholomew, the other alchemist, seemed afraid of them.”
She nodded but kept pointing to it.
He looked at Jack for help. Jack tapped her shoulder, and keeping his voice low, he enunciated, “HE DON’T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.”
Scowling at him, she winced away from Jack’s touch.
“We must return to Flamel,” said Crispin. It was a long night ahead for all of them, he decided. They needed to decipher once and for all what these symbols might mean.
They hurried as the darkness enveloped them. Only a slice of moon lit their way now. Occasional sparks swirled up from a chimney but quickly died in the cold and gloom. The smell of cooking fires on the wind took them all the way to Fleet Ditch, and Avelyn led the way directly into the alchemist’s shop.
Instead of worrying at a rosary or pacing the floor, the alchemist was busy at his crucibles. A leather-bound book lay open to the side, and on its parchment pages were many of the same symbols Crispin had seen all over London. More symbols, written in chalk, decorated the alchemist’s table, floor, and walls, connected by long straight lines. Strange smells issued from his bubbling retorts, and the fire beneath each beaker lit the man’s determined face with dancing shadows. In fact, more shadows flickered wildly against a far wall in shapes that Crispin dared not look at.
Directly in front of the alchemist was a shallow basin filled with dark water that did not move. He appeared to be staring into it with great concentration, leaning farther and farther toward its unnatural plane.
And above it all came the creak and groan of the metal planets circling endlessly, fire rippling over their brass faces.
Crispin drew back, alarmed. This was sorcery!
“Master Flamel! What are you doing?”
The alchemist startled and jerked up. “Maître Guest!” He cast his glance across his work. “I am doing what I can, what I must, in order to find my dear wife. Alchemy is much more than using the simple elements of the earth.”
“It looks very much like witchcraft to me.”
Flamel scowled. “Oh? And you are very much acquainted with witchcraft, are you?” He raised his hand before Crispin could speak. “As acquainted as you are with alchemy, no doubt. I assure you, Maître, it is not sorcery or witchcraft! It has been a full day and I have received no more messages and no one has ever approached the statue of Saint Paul.”
“We must put our heads together and think on it, Master Flamel. Not delve into these … dubious methods.” He interrupted what were to be the alchemist’s indignant protests. “No more distractions. No more detours.” He sat and settled beside the alchemist. “There are symbols etched on the walls of the city,” Crispin explained. He pointed to the chalked sigils on the table. “And they look like these. What do they mean? A preacher called them the work of the Devil, for indeed, they are mysterious and strange.” He eyed Flamel’s glyphs with suspicion. “But he also seemed to know about your dead apprentice, and he looked directly at me when he said it, thinking that I was an alchemist. I have reason to believe they are connected with these crimes, and I want you, Master Flamel, to come with us.”
“Now? It is the fall of night and my work-”
“Night is better. We will go unnoticed. Fetch a lantern.”
Avelyn fixed a small candle in a conical metal lantern and held it aloft by its ring.
“We must be cautious of the Watch,” he told them.
Quietly, they filtered out of the shop. Under the small glow of Avelyn’s lantern, they moved quickly through the street. She showed the alchemist the signs and he made a small gasp. “Oh! Alchemical symbols.”
“If these are signs an alchemist would recognize, then why would an alchemist fear them?”
“We do not leave our marks for just anyone to see them. They are easily misconstrued as a sorcerer’s writings.” He narrowed his eyes at Crispin.
“Then is it safe to say that the person who made these marks is an alchemist?”
“That very well may be true,” Flamel said reluctantly. “On the other hand, these symbols mean nothing. They are random, as if merely using the symbols, like a child who makes letters but cannot read them.”
“Then what you are saying is that this miscreant may not be an alchemist?”
Flamel shrugged. “They are … very random.”
Crispin pointed to the strange glyphs. “There is Hebrew there. Perhaps a Jew wrote this.”
Flamel gave Crispin a measuring gaze. “How did you know it is Hebrew?”
“Another investigation from some years ago.”
He nodded. “As it happens, I do have an acquaintance with the language of the Old Testament. Alchemy has close ties to the Jewish scriptures and to their magical writings, as well as numerology. Are you familiar with the Kabbalah?”
A shiver passed up his spine. “Intimately.”
“Well … the Hebrew glyphs are used along with the sigils found in the Kabbalah for our special writings on alchemy. Alchemists have used this language since ancient times, even before Christianity. They are considered suspicious by the Church, and so we must be cautious … but why are they here? What does this have to do with Perenelle?”
“Your servant seems to think they are important.”
He looked at Avelyn and she looked back at her master earnestly. “Take us to the next one,” he told her.
By lantern light, they moved deeper into London.
The four of them spent hours traipsing through the icy lanes. On two occasions they nearly ran into the Watch, but Crispin carefully directed them down what looked like a dead end but what he knew better to be merely a narrow close.
Crispin watched the old alchemist squint at the symbols, whether scratched out or not, but each time the man shook his head. They were random, he told him. They made no sense and offered no further clues. Crispin was beginning to think that someone was playing an elaborate prank. But why would they take the time?