“Children, you say? What of it? Children die with great frequency in London. No one has bothered about it before.”
“They have not been murdered and in these numbers before.”
He shook his head. “Look at you. You believe your own tales, Guest. A murderer behind every shadow. I haven’t time for you. Begone, I say!”
He stood fast, fisting his hands. “If I bring you proof, Lord Sheriff, will you close the cistern?”
The sheriff rubbed his eyes wearily. “Oh, for the love of the Holy Ghost. You are a thorn in my side, do you know that? Yes, damn you. Bring me proof and I will consider it. Only consider it, mind.”
Tight-lipped, Crispin bowed and turned on his heel. Proof, eh? What could he do to bring the man proof? He’d have to think of something.
Down the steps he went. He paused near the bottom, looking out for Tom and Wendell. He saw them by the brazier. Wendell was still nursing his hand. He probably broke it. Crispin smiled. He trotted the rest of the way down and passed them by through the arch. They jeered at him but did not approach.
Proof, he thought, striding down Newgate Market. Perhaps the waters could be tested. Perhaps Nicholas Flamel, with all his alchemical craft, could detect a poison if it was present. It would help the man take his mind off his troubles. As for Crispin, Perenelle was no nearer to being saved. But if the key to her freedom lay with those symbols, he would have to get to work on deciphering those with all haste.
Crispin arrived at the Tun early in the afternoon and surveyed the round stone structure. Looking like the lower portion of a castle’s tower, it captured sweet rainwater and quenched a thirsty city. But now it looked to be a tower of disaster, dealing death to the weakest within its shadow. Who was doing it? Had the sheriff stumbled upon the truth in his flippant remarks? Was it French spies? He suddenly thought of the shadow men who had followed him earlier. If these miscreants could get to the water, what else could they poison? Grain? Livestock? While Lancaster and the chivalry of England were off to Spain, was an insidious plot being concocted by England’s enemies in France?
He watched with growing anxiety as maids and young children came to the cistern, filled their buckets and bougets, and trotted away, bringing the befouled water into their homes.
He stopped a boy with a bucket. “Boy, I will give you two pence for your bucket.”
The boy’s openmouthed shock muted him until he came to his senses and tentatively asked, “For the whole bucket?”
Crispin smiled kindly. “Yes, the whole bucket. Along with its water.”
“Aye, sir. As you will.”
Crispin handed over the coins and the boy presented him with the full bucket. But then his small face furrowed with worry. “Shall I carry it for you, sir? Where are you bound?”
“For another farthing, lad, we’re headed to Fleet Ditch.”
“I can do that!” said the boy, brightening. He took the bucket back from Crispin and walked, swaying from side to side with the weight of it, sloshing the water onto the snow.
Enough water remained in the bucket when they finally arrived to Flamel’s shop. Crispin thanked the boy, gave him a farthing, and, before the boy left, stopped him with the lifting of his hand. “And boy, promise me you will not get water from the Tun for some days.”
“Eh? Not the Tun? But it is the closest cistern.”
“I know that. But promise me you will not.” He handed over yet another coin to seal the bargain, kicking himself for the mawkish fool that he was. He couldn’t very well pay all the urchins in London not to take water from the Tun.
The boy whooped as he sprinted away, surely to relate to his family how a strange and foolish man had paid an exorbitant price for their leaky old bucket.
He knocked on the alchemist’s door and Avelyn opened it. She looked as fresh as if she had gotten a full night’s sleep, but he seemed to expect no less from her. She looked puzzled at the bucket he carried inside but didn’t question it when Crispin set it on a table still chalked with sigils.
Flamel, heavy dark bags under his eyes, was slowly climbing down the ladder from his upper loft. He seemed to pay no heed to the whirling planets mere inches from him. “What have you brought, Maître. More clues?”
“Something else, sir. Perhaps it will distract you from your troubles while doing this good deed for others.”
“Eh? What good deed?” He eyed the bucket. He looked smaller dressed as he was in his long shift with a loose unbuttoned gown thrown over it.
“I have reason to believe that this water has been poisoned.”
“Poisoned? But why?”
Crispin shook his head. Avelyn was suddenly there, offering him a chair. A good thing. He was exhausted and fell into it. “I know not why, Master Flamel. But I only hope that you can discover the poison from this sample and tell me what it is and how to counteract it. If poisoned it is.”
“But how do you know it is poisoned?”
“Because many have died from consuming it. I have surmised that much.”
“Died, have they?” It had indeed served as a distraction, for Flamel was hitching up his sleeves and scooping up some of the water into a beaker. He poured it into a retort and set the glass object over a trivet in his fire.
“Yes,” Crispin said wearily. “Young children, mostly. Some old people as well.”
“Weaklings?”
“I suppose.”
“Ah,” he said, and set quietly to work.
Crispin watched him grab different canisters from his shelves, peer inside them, and either use a wooden spoon to remove some of the powdered contents or put the canister back untouched on his shelf, muttering all the while.
After a time, Crispin rose. He could see no sense in spending the day there. He told the man he was leaving, though he doubted he heard. Avelyn’s eyes tracked him as he strode out the door, and she followed. He stopped on the step outside and turned to her.
She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down toward her. Face very close to his, he felt her breath on his lips. It was tempting. She licked her lips, knowing he was looking at them.
“You are a seductress, do you know that?” He reached up to his neck and disengaged her arms, holding them a long time. “I have work to do,” he said.
She made the sign for “kiss,” but he shook his head. She pouted and made the sign again. “No,” he said firmly, and turned away, striding down the lane. But when he looked back, she was stalking right behind him.
He stopped and glared at her. “What do you think you are doing?”
Her lips formed that elfin smile and she licked them yet again, tongue trailing over them slowly. Sighing with just a bit of a quickened heart, he glanced quickly around the street, grabbed her by her cloak, and dragged her forward. “I’m beginning to think that you have bewitched me,” he said to her lips before he kissed them, exploring the shape and fullness of her mouth for a long time. When he finally drew back, it was to the whistles and guffaws of the men passing by.
He smirked at her and walked away. And when he looked over his shoulder, he was satisfied that she had retreated back to her master’s shop.
It took little time to return to the Shambles. Crispin bade good day to the tinker Martin Kemp, who was rearranging his wares on his display table, before Crispin stumped up the stairs to his lodgings. He closed the door once inside. After stoking the dying fire, he lit the candles in their sconces along the walls and kept his cloak on as he sat at the table, eyes traveling over the discarded chessboard.
He picked up a bishop and turned it in his fingers. The carvings had always intrigued him. The design depicted each piece as its model was in life, only fatter and squatter. Easy to put in one’s hand. The abbot had told him it was an old set, possibly had been in his family for a generation. It was an expensive behest. He was certain that Abbot William would have rather sold it or gifted it to some other noble for a favor. But a behest was a behest. Crispin was glad to have it.