The Blackthorn Key (14 page)

But it was looking at Tom that gave me the idea.

I held Bridget out to him. Fingers trembling, he gathered her in massive, gentle hands and held her close. His eyes widened as I slipped away.

I moved around the table, keeping the wood between me and the intruders. There was a gap in the middle of the room I'd need to cross, but I hoped if I stayed in the shadows, they wouldn't notice me.

I crawled slowly to the other table, close to the fireplace. My heart thumped all the way there. Huddled behind the display, I searched through my master's sash. Fortunately, Wat hadn't broken the vials inside when he'd dumped it. I had to pull half of them out to read the labels before I found the three I was looking for.

Sulfur. Charcoal. And saltpeter.

Wat's ransacking of my master's books had left torn
paper everywhere. I could use that. Quietly, I worked the cork stoppers out and emptied the vials on one of the pages. My fingers mixed the gunpowder as best as I could. Without the pestle, it wasn't going to be as good as our cannon. I prayed that it would still do.

This close to the fire, I'd have only a few seconds to get it right. I put the paper with the gunpowder on it next to the fireplace. I took a second page and laid it on top, one corner on the gunpowder, its opposite in the blaze.

It caught instantly. The fire curled the paper faster than I'd expected. I scrambled into the open and dived behind the table that hid Tom and Bridget.

Stubb spun around, eyes narrowed. “What was th—”

Suddenly, the fireplace flared. There was a terrifying hiss. Then flame burst outward from the stone, burning pages shooting upward in its draft.

“Fire!” Stubb screamed. “Put it out! Put it out!” Frantic, he scanned the shelf behind the counter for water. Wat ran through the smoke to the fireplace and stamped at it, trying desperately to stop the smoldering paper from catching anything else.

I grabbed Tom by the collar. I pulled. We ran.

•  •  •

Tom sprinted through the London night, clutching the panicked Bridget. I ran behind him, twisting at every corner to see if we were followed.

Either we lost them or they hadn't seen us, because we made it to the alley behind Tom's house without sight of Wat or Nathaniel Stubb. We nearly crushed ourselves at the back door—or, more accurately, Tom nearly crushed me—trying to scramble inside at the same time. I slammed the bolt shut and bent over the table, panting. Tom leaned back against the plaster and slid down, gasping for air.

Poor Bridget struggled in his hands. I had to coax her from him, and hold her to my face until she quieted. She was made of sturdy stuff, that pigeon, because she calmed down well before either of us did.

I went to the window. I looked for a glow, for smoke, for something to announce that the gunpowder I'd set off had flared out of control, that I'd burned my own home to the ground. But I saw nothing, and I knew that by now, if the fire had caught, the alarm would have been raised. Still, I watched, waiting.

Tom looked out next to me, his arm pressed against my shoulder. “Are we safe?” he said.

I didn't know how to answer that.

I COULDN'T SLEEP.

It wasn't just that the floor of Tom's bedroom was a forest of splinters. It wasn't the fear lingering in my guts, either. Tom had been as scared as I was, yet ten minutes after his head hit his pillow, he was snoring louder than carriage wheels on cobbles.

I couldn't sleep because I knew who'd murdered my master. I couldn't sleep because his killers were now coming after me.

And I didn't know what to do about it.

I wanted to run to Lord Ashcombe, tell him what I'd seen. I couldn't. Even if he believed me—and the King's
Warden didn't really seem like the trusting type—I had no actual evidence that Stubb and Wat had killed my master. It would be my word against Stubb's, and I wasn't stupid enough to not know how that would turn out. He was a master, I was an apprentice. No one would listen to me.

Tom could back me up, of course, but he wouldn't be taken any more seriously than I would. Plus, we'd committed a serious crime. Breaking into a house—even if it
was
my own—was bad enough. Taking the cube and the sash, both now hidden under Tom's bed with the page from the ledger, was theft. The penalty for stealing either was death. We'd both end up swinging from the gallows, murdering cult or not.

Tom's bedroom door creaked open. His youngest sister, Molly, padded in on bare feet, curled up on the floor, and snuggled into me, clutching a well-loved blanket to her chest. I listened to her breathe as I lay awake and thought. To see Stubb and his apprentice hanged for their crimes, I'd need to go to Lord Ashcombe with hard evidence, or the support of someone with higher standing than Stubb. Someone respected, whose position placed him above ordinary men. I didn't know how to get the first. But the second, maybe I could do.

•  •  •

I slipped out from under Molly's arms and crept out of the house with the dawn. Most days, the streets would already be jammed with traffic: tradesmen on their way to work, merchants hauling goods to market, coachmen swearing at pedestrians. But today was Sunday, the Lord's day of rest. Though there were a few souls out to greet me with a pleasant morning, the city felt empty.

I still didn't feel safe. On the one hand, empty streets made it easier to keep an eye out for Stubb or Wat, either of whom might be hunting me. On the other hand, there were fewer witnesses to scare off potential kidnappers. The best I could do was stay far away from any streets near Stubb's apothecary. I hoped that spending all night ransacking our shop meant they would need the morning to get some sleep.

I took my master's sash with me, tied underneath my shirt so no one could see it. I also took the ledger page, and my puzzle cube, which made a bulge in my pocket. What I really wished I could take was Tom. Bridget, too. I'd had to let her go before we'd gone to bed, since if Tom's father found a bird in his house, he'd bake her in a pie. She'd flapped away into the night, toward the shining moon, before disappearing behind a distant roof. I scanned the
skies for her as I walked, wishing she'd come back.

It took some time to get where I was going. I knew the house I was looking for was on Cornhill, but I wasn't sure which one it was. I asked directions from a passing rag-and-bone man with a greasy sack slung over his shoulder. He sent me to the corner, where I called on the home of Grand Master Apothecary Sir Edward Thorpe.

“He's not available,” said the gangly servant girl who answered the door.

“When can I speak to him?” I said.

She looked me up and down.
Never
, her eyes said. I hadn't had the chance to clean up after last night. I must have looked like a beggar.

“Please, miss. It's urgent Guild business. I'm an apprentice.”

She pinched her lips but gave me an answer. “He's gone to the Hall.”

I was surprised. “On a Sunday?”

She shrugged. “Not my place to ask.” I stepped back before she introduced the door to my nose.

•  •  •

I hadn't returned to Apothecaries' Hall in three years. After passing my entrance exam, Master Benedict had taken
me to my new home, and neither one of us had ever gone back. That wasn't unusual for someone like me. Technically, apprentices weren't yet Guild members, so unless facing discipline or assigned to the Guild laboratory, there wasn't anything for an apprentice at the Hall. Sometimes, though, I'd wondered about my master. He hadn't had many friends. Only Hugh ever came to the house. There was Isaac the bookseller, of course, but I'd never met him. I wouldn't even have known he existed if it wasn't for the book stacks growing like cornstalks in my home. Once, I'd asked Master Benedict why he never went to the Hall. “Politics bore me,” was all he said.

As I walked there, I wondered if it was actually the stench that kept him away. The Hall was near the Thames, down on Blackfriars Lane. The river stank something awful, especially during low tide, when the mud on the banks smelled like rotting . . . well,
everything
. The streets were no better, choked as they were by the patrons of the nearby Playhouse, where actors, writers, and other low persons spilled drunkenly from shadowed doorways to relieve themselves, clogging the gutters with filth.

But the Hall itself was impressive. It had once been a monastery—the home of the Black Friars, which gave its
name to the street—and it showed, with dark brick walls three stories high. The first time I'd come here, I'd stood outside, peering into the tall, narrow windows. I'd watched the men coming and going, imagining what their life—soon to be mine, I'd hoped—was like. I'd studied their faces, wondering who would be my new master, hoping for this one, hoping against that one, for no real reason other than whether I liked the look of them. I remembered meeting Master Benedict for the first time, still flushed from passing my test. He'd held out his hand and said, “Pleased to meet you, Christopher Rowe.” As if I were a real person.

And that front door. Back then, the entrance to the Hall had made me nervous. It was a grand thing of oak, twice my height, flanked by two pillars with an arch at the top.
THE WORSHIPFUL SOCIETY OF APOTHECARIES
, it said, with the blue shield of the Guild's emblem above it. On it was Apollo, the Greek god of healing, standing over the black wyvern of disease, supported by two golden unicorns. A scroll unfurled beneath, bearing the Apothecaries' motto:
OPIFERQUE PER ORBEM DICOR
.
I am called throughout the world the bringer of aid.

Today, the massive door was barred. I thumped a fist against it.

A minute passed before it creaked open. A young man with slate-gray eyes stuck his head around the crack and said, “Guild Hall's closed Sundays. Candidates for apprenticeship apply to the clerk during the week.” He began to close the door.

“Wait,” I said. “I'm already an apprentice. I need to speak with Grand Master Thorpe.”

“Either way. Come back tomorrow. He'll address business then.”

“It's about Benedict Blackthorn's murder.”

The man looked me up and down. I wished again that I looked a little cleaner. “One moment,” he said, and he shut the door.

It was several minutes before he returned. “Come with me.”

He took me through the arched passageway into the courtyard, which was paved with stone. In the center was the well, which supplied water for the Guild laboratories and workshops. Around the sides, set against walls freshly painted with yellow ocher, sat riveted iron benches. Windows from the upper offices looked down on the space. They all appeared empty, which was to be expected on a Sunday.

A set of stairs led up from the courtyard on the south side, to the right. Those went to the masters' offices, and to the Great Hall, where I'd been tested. The door to the labs was in front of us.

For a moment, I thought that's where the man was taking me. Instead, he turned left at the end of the courtyard. We went northward into a chamber with a door to the clerks' offices and a pair of simple chairs.

He waved at one. “Someone will be with you shortly.”

I waited.

•  •  •

A hand shook me awake.

I blinked. Through bleary eyes, I saw the bald head of Oswyn Colthurst gazing down at me.

“You're drooling,” he said.

“Sorry.” I wiped my mouth with my sleeve. My shirt still smelled of gunpowder.

Oswyn folded his arms. “If I recall, Christopher, you were asked to show up on Monday. You do know your days of the week?”

I stood. “I apologize, Master Colthurst. I need to speak to the Grand Master right away.”

Oswyn managed to look both annoyed and amused
at my presumption. “You must have driven poor Benedict mad,” he said. He ran his hand over his scalp. “Sir Edward isn't here.”

“I was told he came to the Hall.”

“He left an hour ago for Sunday services. I expect him to return this afternoon. I expect
you
to return tomorrow.” He put a gentle but firm hand on my shoulder and began to steer me out.

“Wait, Master, please,” I said. “It's about Master Benedict's murder. I know who killed him.”

“Everyone knows who killed him,” Oswyn said. “The Cult of the Archangel.”

“Yes, Master, but I meant, I know
who
it was.”

He stopped, surprised. “Go on.”

“It was Nathaniel Stubb.”

Oswyn's jaw dropped. Then he grabbed my ear, twisted it, and opened the door to the clerk's offices with my head.

OSWYN APPARENTLY THOUGHT MY
skull did such a good job on the first door that he used it to open the next one, too. He dragged me down a narrow hall and rammed me into an empty office. I fell against the desk, toppling a paperweight ceramic goose.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” Oswyn said. “Stubb is a
master
. If he heard what you said, he'd have you thrown out of the Guild. Then he'd have you flogged. By rights, I should do it myself.”

I put my hand to my forehead. Oak really hurts. “But it's true.”

I worried that, this time, Oswyn might use my head to
open the window. But he just snorted and said, “Ridiculous. Nathaniel Stubb may be a weasel, but he's no killer. He doesn't have the stones for it.”

“He didn't do it himself,” I said. “It was his apprentice.”

Oswyn was taken aback. “His apprentice?”

“He was in the shop, right before Master Benedict's murder. His name is Wat.” I described him.