Alchemist's Apprentice (8 page)

‘Yes, he did.'

‘What did he tell you?'

‘That they … that you make gold.'

‘Yes.' Barnstable nodded. ‘And if someone could make gold, they might turn out to be rich and powerful, mightn't they?'

‘I suppose they might, yes.'

‘As powerful as the king, perhaps?'

As the alchemist was speaking his tone become hushed and conspiratorial. His eyes shone with a fierce light, and Jack could imagine nothing more powerful on earth than what he saw in them. But before he could catch it, it was gone, replaced by humour again and kindness.

‘Do you believe it, Jack?'

‘Believe what?'

‘That alchemists make gold?'

Jack didn't hesitate. ‘Yes,' he said.

‘Why?' said Barnstable. ‘Why do you believe it?'

‘Because Master Gregory told me so.'

‘Then you believe everything that your elders tell you?'

Jack thought hard. He wasn't sure whether he did or he didn't.

‘Do you believe, for instance,' Barnstable went on, ‘that all the boys in this parish are called Billy?'

A red blush crept into Jack's cheeks. ‘I did, sir, because you told me so.'

‘And do you believe that alchemists can make gold?'

Jack's mind got stuck. The honesty that had compelled him to tell the truth seemed to have vanished from Barnstable's eyes. They were vacant now, revealing nothing, hard and clear as ice.

‘Do you or don't you?'

The alchemist stood up and held the pot above his head, high over the stone floor. Still Jack couldn't answer. He had wanted to know for so long that he could hardly bear it, but still the thought of the precious vessel smashing into pieces on the floor filled him with terror.

‘Well?'

It could all have been over, then; the truth revealed on the hard flagstones of Barnstable's floor. But Jack's hopes might have smashed along with the vessel. The smell of rotten eggs began to invade his mind.

‘Do you believe there is gold in it, Jack?'

For one more moment Barnstable held the pot above the ground. Jack watched as his fingers relaxed their grip, and let go.

‘Yes!' he yelled, at the top of his voice, and at the same instant the alchemist, with astonishing agility, plucked the falling vessel from the air with his left hand, just inches above the ground. He smiled delightedly at Jack, as childlike as ever. ‘So do I,' he said.

Jack dropped his head between his knees and retched. Barnstable knelt beside him and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

‘Here,' he said, putting the vessel on the ground between Jack's feet. ‘It's yours. I'm giving it to you.'

Jack shook his head and pushed it away with a trembling hand. It was too late for that now. He knew that even if it was his, even if he believed, as he had said, that it was full of gold, he could never, never bring himself to make that final gesture and break it. The thing was useless; worthless. If he took it, it would burden his soul for the rest of his life.

‘You don't want it?' said Barnstable.

‘No!' Jack was surprised by his own certainty. ‘I'm sick of the sight of it. I never want to see it again.'

The alchemist regarded him with a bemused smile. ‘Won't take it, eh? Then what can I offer you instead? More cherries?'

Jack looked interested, but Barnstable shook his head. ‘Cherries come and cherries go. They have a short season. But a man needs a trade, and any trade needs an apprenticeship, doesn't it? Can you go back to your blacksmith?'

Jack shuddered and shook his head.

‘Then you need another apprenticeship, don't you? Since you won't accept the finished work that I offered you, how would you like to learn how to do it yourself?'

‘Learn alchemy?' said Jack.

‘Yes. I'll take you on as my apprentice. You can learn how to make gold for yourself.'

T
HERE WERE NO INDENTURES
to be signed upon Jack's acceptance of his new apprenticeship, nor any agreement about the length of time to be served. The only formality was that Jack swore himself to absolute silence with regard to the secret art. Neither the practice of alchemy, nor anything connected with it was ever to be mentioned to anyone, no matter what the circumstances.

When that was over, Barnstable sent Jack to the scullery for a bowl of water while he went out to the garden. He returned shortly with a carrot, a parsnip and a pair of green onions. The carrot was as long as Jack's forearm, and the parsnip rather longer. The bruised stems of the onions filled the air with their scent. Barnstable brought a knife and a chopping board from the scullery and set them on the floor beside the bowl of water.

‘The art of alchemy,' he said, ‘is not so very different from cooking. To begin with, it makes use of the same elements. The first one is earth, represented by these.' He picked up the vegetables and handed them to Jack. ‘The next is water, in which you may now wash them and in which we will later cook them. The third is air, which we will trap between the water and the lid of the pot, compelling it to swirl around as vapour and accelerate the process. But none of this can happen without the fourth element, can it?'

He paused, and Jack had the uncomfortable feeling that he was expected to say something. He hadn't been listening very closely to what the alchemist was saying, partly because the big words made him feel sleepy and partly because the sight of those magnificent vegetables had made him feel extremely hungry.

‘What else do we need, Jack, before we can cook our meal?'

Jack searched through his mind but found it so full of strange new images and concepts that he wasn't sure he knew his way around it any more.

‘Salt?' he said, at last.

Barnstable smiled gently. ‘Salt is a useful ingredient, yes,' he said. ‘But even salt won't cook our supper for us. Only fire will do that.'

He proceeded to light one in the wide fireplace while Jack, embarrassed by his own stupidity, tried to make up for it by washing the vegetables and chopping them into neat pieces. Soon the flames were crackling up through the kindling, making the room feel cosy, despite the rain rattling against the window behind them. Barnstable threw a handful of barley and peas on top of the vegetables in the pot, added water and salt, and sealed them all in beneath the heavy lid. Jack hefted it up on to the sooty hook which hung above the hearth and for a while they both sat in the afternoon gloom and watched the fire take hold. The alchemist's face was soft and kind beneath his silvering hair and Jack, for the first time in his life, felt welcome and safe.

The river slapped and sloshed against its banks. The wind gusted at the chimney, causing the fire to wuffle and roar, then collapse into quiescence again. Gradually the pot began to hum, then to hiss, and finally to bubble.

Barnstable sighed, and Jack heard his bones crackle like the kindling as he stretched himself out and then recoiled again. He stood up, walked over to the fireside and, with exaggerated care, added two more logs.

‘The fire cannot be treated with too much respect,' he said. ‘That is your second lesson on the alchemical process.'

Jack nodded gravely, hoping to conceal the fact that he had no recollection whatsoever of any first lesson.

‘The world is full of puffers,' Barnstable went on. ‘Men and women who make the mistake of trying to speed up a process which must take place in its own good time. They fan the flames, like this.' He picked up a pair of bellows which leant against the wall and aimed them at the fire. ‘Puff, puff, puff, you see? That's why we call them puffers.'

Jack watched as the fire began to glow angrily at the centre, then send flames leaping around the black pot. He wondered whether he should confess, explain about the bellows in the forge and how he was a puffer already. Perhaps there was a cure for it?

The alchemist laid the bellows down. ‘And what happens if the fire is too hot?' he asked.

‘The fuel gets wasted?' The only time that the fire in the forge was ever too hot was when there was no work to be done. The usual problem was that it wasn't hot enough.

Barnstable nodded, thoughtfully. ‘That's true, I suppose. But I was thinking more of what happens to the pottage.'

‘It gets burned?'

‘Exactly. Our meal is ruined. But when we are dealing with the volatile elements in our other sort of cookery, the alchemical sort, the results can be far worse. I have heard of puffers, Jack, who exploded themselves and their workshops in their desperate hurry to get rich. Fools. Even if they hadn't, they would not have succeeded. Their experiments would never have worked.' He walked over to a box in the corner of the fireplace. ‘Come and look at this.'

Jack joined him. He had assumed that the box was for firewood, but now he noticed that the top was drilled with round holes. The alchemist lifted the lid. Inside was a hen, her feathers fluffed up for brooding and spread wide over her clutch of eggs. She gave Jack a hard stare and crooned a warning at him. Barnstable chuckled fondly and carefully closed the lid again.

‘The great work is just like that,' he said. ‘Like a hen hatching an egg. Too much or too little heat will kill the life within. The temperature must remain constant, and for that, the fire must be closely attended. This requires great patience. The philosopher who has no patience will not acquire the stone. Alchemy is simple, Jack, but it is not easy. Do you understand what I mean by that?'

‘Not really,' said Jack.

‘Good. You will, given time. Let's take a look at the laboratory, shall we?'

Beneath the pot, the flames had returned to their former size. The fire burned sweetly on.

Jack followed the alchemist through the scullery and into the workshop which lay beyond. As the door closed behind him, the mystery that he had sensed in the house seemed to fold in around him like a dense mist. The room was rectangular, the long walls twice the length of the short ones, and everywhere he looked there were pictures. There were snakes and dragons and blue eagles, there were lions and warriors, suns, moons and stars. The Red King and the White Queen were represented several times, in different forms, and it seemed to Jack that everywhere he looked they were gazing down at him from the walls. He stayed near the door and scrutinized them all surreptitiously.

One of the pictures in particular caught Jack's attention. In most of them, the royal pair were odd-looking caricatures, but in this one they were so realistic that they gave Jack the impression of being real people, standing in the room. They were young, and they stood an arm's length apart, turning slightly towards each other. The queen was standing on a globe, her hair tucked up beneath her crown; her long, white gown hanging in elegant folds from her shoulders. The king stood in a small bonfire, which licked around his feet, yet he seemed to be in no discomfort. He was handsome and, Jack decided, infinitely strong and brave.

Barnstable returned to Jack's side and stood with him, regarding the royal pair. ‘You like them?' he said.

Jack nodded. He did like them. They captured his imagination in a way no other pictures ever had.

‘The Red King and the White Queen,' said Barnstable. Red sulphur and white lead.'

‘Uh?' said Jack.

‘The two most crucial elements in the alchemical mixture. Without them there is no beginning, and with no beginning, how can there be an end?'

Jack knew about sulphur and lead. He had come across them both at various times in London's markets. ‘What's an element?' he said. ‘They look like people to me.'

‘Hmm,' said the alchemist. ‘These are difficult areas, Jack, and not easy to understand. Elements are easy enough to explain, but in time you will come to see that the business of making gold isn't confined to what happens inside the philosopher's egg. It's about something that takes place inside the philosopher as well.'

The words made no sense to Jack, and, as he usually did on such occasions, he chose to ignore them. He turned his attention to another picture. In this one the king and queen were standing on either side of a small, radiant child, with a winged helmet and a staff with a snake wound around it.

‘The divine child,' said Barnstable. ‘The result of their union. The desired end of all our efforts.'

Jack drew his eyes from the picture. ‘I thought the desired end was gold?'

‘Of course,' said the alchemist. ‘But which matters more? Gold in the hand or gold in the spirit?'

It was not a matter which had ever troubled Jack. If gold in the hand was an option, any alternative was of no consequence. His response to the question was to move away from the door and begin to look around the workshop.

In the centre of it was a long range of brick ovens and hobs. Jack had somehow formed the impression that the process of making gold never stopped, and he was disappointed to find that not a single fire was burning. A fine film of ash and dust covered the cold surface, as though it were some time since the workshop had been used.

‘I no longer practice the art,' said the alchemist, ‘though it is not so long since I did.'

‘Why?' said Jack.

‘Because I no longer need to.'

‘You have enough gold?'

‘More than enough.'

Jack looked around hopefully but there was still no evidence of it. Against one wall stood a row of high tables covered with bottles and jars and jugs, boxes and canisters, vessels of all shapes and sizes. There was an acrid smell that reminded Jack uncomfortably of his rotten egg, and he wondered if it was the result of experiments gone wrong.

Barnstable was standing beside the window which, like the one in the room they had just left, looked out over the river. At the opposite end, a heavy curtain covered what Jack took to be another window, looking out to the front.

‘Is this so that people can't see in?' he asked.