The Printer's Devil (9 page)

-It speaketh to thee, he said again. And there must be some signification in that. Dost remember my homunculus, that thou didst see at my lodging?
₄₃

I was surprised at the seeming change of topic, but I answered -Ay.

-I failed that time, said Roger, it did not quicken; but now I do have the art to succeed. Dost thou know, did I but have these skills when Ann died, I could have breathed life back into her corpse as easily as twas taken from her? But I did not know, Fabian, I knew not; and so she was taken from me.

I said naught, but I’d thought on the matter, that an Catherine were lost to me I should go mad from grief.

-But now, quoth Roger, I mean to make such an homunculus as the world has not seen. Dost remember what I told thee of his making?

-Spittle and semen, I replied.

-In part, said he. And so being made of such bodily fluids, how should it then turn out, thinkst thou?

And I suggested, -Like unto that one from whom the fluids did emanate;
ex ungue leonem
²

Roger smiled, -Ay, Fabian, you do not disappoint me. And what is the primary characteristic of one to whom such substances are appurtenant? Dost thou look confused? Why, that he be a man, Fabian, a man like unto thee and me.

I did doubt I knew what his drift did portend, most strange though it did seem: -You mean to make a
woman
-homunculus? I asked.

-Ah, Fabian, quoth he, thou art a clever fellow indeed, with wit enough for three men. Precisely hast thou guessed it, that I mean to do, with fluids from the body of a woman, her spittle, mensone, and the moisture that comes to her when she doth lye with a man.

-What woman? I asked, though I was sore afeard of his reply.

The which was, as I had expected, -Why, thy pretty Catherine, Fabian. Do not rise; he put his hand on my arm; Tis but a little thing I ask. Thou hast not got her with child, dos she take birth-bane?

She has some potion off an hedge-witch, I replied with some reluctance.

-Then this shall be her child out of her body.

-That is not a persuasive argument, I said.

Roger looked at me and said, -Yet I know what shall be: how much of that unguent which I gave to you doth remain? And I think my face betrayed me. Then he said again, though with a gentleness which surprised me, Tis only a little thing, Fabian. And thou dost enjoy a woman, as I have not since Ann died. Wouldst thou begrudge me the possibility of happiness?

And I saw again the cleverness of this Roger Southwell, which I had known these many months, and never considered he would use it against me.

-This is not a small thing which you ask of me, I said, nor do I consider a phial of potion, however efficacious, is just reward. Why do you desire Catherine’s sweats?
Fiat experimentum in corpore vili
;
³
do you lie with a common piece, you may have all of those emanations of the body as you desire, and more besides.

Roger replied, -I would not have my creation a whore, but an honest woman; dost thou not think that what I should receive from a drab would engender a drab?

-Then you owe me a thing, said I. And whence the thought came I know not, but whole-formed like unto an homunculus it slipped into my mind: An you may aid me to shed the blood of Hawkin Kemp, on whose hands was the blood of Ann Pakeman, you will do so. I did not know truly whether or no he was the assassin, but I determined that his death was mine to deal him and he should know it.

²
know the lion by his claws  

³
Make your experiments on a worthless body

-Thou art become a most bloody man, remarked Roger.

-Blood calls to blood, I replied.

-Then I will give thee that aid, and here’s my hand on’t, said Roger;

I took his hand some whit reluctantly. -One thing more, he said; you must make sure that Catherine has taken no potions when that you take those things I need.

-How may I convince her to do that, I asked. I must not get a child on her, for how can I take a woman to wife until that I have my own trade?

-I’ll give you a specific that will render your seed impotent for a night, he said.

-For one night only? I asked, being concerned that such a specific might do harm.

-Certes, quoth he, do you not trust my word?

And when later I came to consider all this, and to ponder its implications, I could not but conclude that Roger had planned for a long time before. I reflected without amusement that
beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere.
⁴
And it came on to rain, and’s not ceased all this day.

Within a sennight I had collected all that which Roger did require, and he did show me the makings of this creature, how that the fluids were prepared and mixed, and the whole put in its bottle.

-And, he said, Though Paracelsus did say the bottle should be buried in a dung-heap for forty days, yet I have discovered a better place. And had he said the womb of a woman I’d not have been surprised; but he drew out from beneath his narrow pallet a box made from green wood, and quite filled with straw or hay.

-So, he saith, deep within this grass is heat generated, nor do I know by what agency, but I have measured it by secret means and tis warmer and kinder nor a pile of shit. And he placed the bottle tenderly into the midst of the straw.

-How will we know an it has quickened? I asked, and he said, Not until the forty days are gone by.

-And when they are past? I said.

-Then I must work for to make it grow, replied Roger, but he would not tell me how. And that forty days did seem a very long time to me, for I was half afeard and half eager to see what would come to pass.

I do not know how I expected this homunculus (or mayhap we should term it
Feminuncula)
should grow; like unto the horse-hairs which grow into eels, maybe; where out of the inanimate on a sudden one begins to move amongst a crowd in a space of water; an you have good fortune you may see this transformation from the unmoving to the animate when that it begins to lash about; this I have not seen, nor have I seen a salamander in the fire, although Nate Mundy said he did see one once: It was as long as his thumb and lay quite content in the flames, he said.

Though I have now seen wonders and miracles and will surrely witness more before my life is done. For I do believe the world be full of prodigies, nor yet that they do not exist because that I have not yet witnessed them

So mayhap when I bore witness to Roger’s bottle after forty days I expected to see more than that which there was to see; but it was merely like something incorporeal moved within the bottle; I could not see it and yet twas plain that it was there. I must needs mention that this bottle was of very great bigness, and laid on its side in the straw (the which as Roger had said had made within it a heat like unto a stove), in spite of the cold weather and December snows.

⁴
To accept a favour is to sell one’s liberty (Syrus)    
45

-Dost thou see her, Fabian? asks Roger. This that was made from the person of thy pretty Catherine, thy Kitling, verily, yet will turn into another person entirely.

-I see but a shimmering within the bottle, I replied.

-That is all that there is to see, quoth Roger. Now I must needs feed her through her growth and nurture her until that she be ready to show her form.

-And what shall you feed her on? I asked. Dos she eat the air, promise-crammed, as they say in the play?

But he would not divulge the recipe, this being too great a secret of his art or so I do imagine.

And it came to pass that it was not at all due to Roger and his art that I encountered again mine enemy Hawkin Kemp but through purest blind chance. I had happened to go an errand for my master to Richmond upon Thames, the which is a goodly distance to travel and I must needs take a boat thither; the which was a new experience for me and being a bright day for the season was most pleasant although I was nigh starved with cold and did wonder how the watermen stopped them selves from freezing.

After which I did seek the house of the man I must visit, when by the side of the river I beheld walking a man very familiar to me, one whom I last beheld his countenance white as cheese and pissing his breeches, in the face of one whom he had sought himself to slay. In one word, Kemp. And how brave and gallant he seemed in a suit of clothes all new
a capite ad calcem
,
⁵
a new sword by his side (at which my hand fell to mine, which one time had been his); my errand forgot I essayed to follow him, but without success. I do not believe that he saw me at all, but in some fashion he did contrive to elude me.

When that I had concluded mine errand I did not at once hie me back to London, but did stray around the streets of Richmond-town in hopes that I might encounter Kemp once more; but to no avail. Then must I needs get me to the boat once more ere the waterman made his last trip of the day, for it would go hard with me to remain in Richmond.

I did tell Roger of this when I next encountered him, but he seemed in no wise to care, being so involved with his creation that he rarely rang neither did he visit the inns as he was wont to do; much like any attentive father, I durst say, save only that twas no woman that was the mother of his offspring.

I reminded him of his promise but he merely answered that he’d see to it an he had the time; I was not well pleased with this reply, and spake so, but twas like I spoke unto a Wall.

This alchemy to which Roger is adherent, some times it me seems not to be that same chemical ccience as studied by other men; not that I have great knowledge on it; but Roger’s experimentations led not to the transmutation of metals, neither to the stone of the philosophers.

What I had seen of his powers was more akin to that of the hedge-witches (although more powerful by far) with his potions and unguents. That he did study alchemy as well I do know, for he hath shown me his books: They go by such names as
Atalanta fugiens,
and
Ars Chemica, Theatrum chemicum brittanicum,
& 
Lexicon alchemiae,
⁶
and are filled with obscure symbols and arcane prose; Nor do I read the Latin tongue so well that I can decipher very much in those books, an Roger were to permit me to do so.

⁵
from head to foot

⁶
The titles of Roger’s books are:
Atalanta Flying, The Chemical Art, The British Theatre of Chemistry,
and
The Lexicon of Alchemy.

But one thing I do notice about these books, and that is that not an one of them is printed here in England; and this I do regret; for do you look at them it is easy to see that the printing is finer than any I have seen of London, or Cambridge, or Oxford.

With us in England there are restrictions enough, yet even books printed these forty years past seem better in their type and engravings than the work my own master produces. An I were to go (supposing such a thing were possible) to Basel or Frankfurt, should I learn those things which we in England seem to have forgot, or that have been suppressed by the stifling regime under which we all labour, that doth not permit of lightness?

My head is full of whirling thoughts; this day in the press I beheld the ink upon my hands and was visited by a strange conceit;
Viz
. that the ink that made an U around each of my fingernails also was worked into the tips of my fingers where it did look in its whorls and loops like unto an engraver’s pattern, and each finger-end was different to his neighbour; and I did conceive the pleasant conceit that mayhap every man’s ten fingers hold ten entirely different patterns to those of other men.

Except, I consider, in the case of an homunculus, for such is made entire from the body of one Magus, surely he should resemble his creator in every single way, having no other influences save that of sun and moon and wandering planets and fixed stars. Or, in the instance of Roger Southwell’s creation, did she but come to term, should it be then that she would bear the Fingertip-patterns of Catherine Allsop.

Now as I have said I was not made privy to the secrets of nurturing Roger his creature; and I did see very little of him through the time which followed; nor did I encounter Kemp again, although I would have given coin to find the whelp. But then, thus it goeth with us, that what wedesire is all the better for the waiting; and ’tis said truly that revenge is a dish better eaten cold.
Dum spiro, spero.
¹

There comes in my mind a strange thought, that I do but fill this page with conjectures because that I am reluctant to write of that which passed in connection with the creature of Roger Southwell; an this be the case I will presently exorcise this reluctance. For that day when Roger sent me word that I should attend to view the
homunculus muliebre.
He bid me attend not his lodging but another house hard by that place wherein he dwelt; and I presented myself thence at the appointed hour.

Roger attended me very pale in the face and excited as with lust; but if ’twere such then ’twere like unto a cold lust, one which giveth no heat, neither to loins nor to thoughts; on his front pearls of sweat, though the air was bitter cold. He seized me by the arm and bore me within doors, and hurried to an upper chamber, saying not a word the while.

And I must confess that his humour affected me also, that I was most apprehensive anent that which I should see, whether it be succubus or chaste maid; and it came to me madly that the unicorn cannot come but to the chaste maid, but
she
cannot be ignored; what chimera then would this creature bring to her?

And it was then that Roger opened the door of a chamber and I beheld, beside the casement and shadowed, the form of a woman, but scarce the bigness of a child; robed like unto a nun, save that a veil covered her countenance also. All in black was she clad, and did not speak or move; not when we entered the room, nor when Roger bespoke her, calling her maiden; nor when that we approached her.