“Mistress Roydon?” a familiar voice called. “What brings you here?”
George Chapman’s ruddy face poked out between the shoulders of two dour-looking gentlemen who were listening to the preacher blame the ills of the world on an unholy cabal of Catholics and merchant adventurers.
There was no witch to be found, but the members of the School of Night were, as usual, everywhere.
“I’m looking for ink. And sealing wax.” The more I repeated this, the more inane it sounded.
“You’ll need an apothecary, then. Come, I’ll take you to my own man.” George held out his elbow. “He is quite reasonable, as well as skilled.”
“It is getting late, Master Chapman,” Pierre said, materializing from nowhere.
“Mistress Roydon should take the air while she has the opportunity. The watermen say the rain will return soon, and they are seldom wrong. Besides, John Chandler’s shop is just outside the walls, on Red Cross Street. It’s not half a mile.”
Meeting up with George now seemed fortuitous rather than exasperating. Surely we would pass a witch on our stroll.
“Matthew would not object to my walking with Master Chapman— especially not with you accompanying me, too,” I told Pierre, taking George’s arm. “Is your apothecary anywhere near Paul’s Wharf?”
“Quite the opposite,” George said. “But you don’t want to shop on Paul’s Wharf. John Hester is the only apothecary there, and his prices are beyond the bounds of good sense. Master Chandler will do you a better service, at half the cost.”
I put John Hester on my to-do list for another day and took George’s arm. We strolled out of St. Paul’s Churchyard to the north, passing grand houses and gardens.
“That’s where Henry’s mother lives,” George said, gesturing at a particularly imposing set of buildings to our left. “He hates the place and lived around the corner from Matt until Mary convinced him that his lodgings were beneath an earl’s dignity. Now he’s moved into a house on the Strand. Mary is pleased, but Henry finds it gloomy, and the damp disagrees with his bones.”
The city walls were just beyond the Percy family house. Built by the Romans to defend Londinium from invaders, they still marked its official boundaries. Once we’d passed through Aldersgate and over a low bridge, there were open fields and houses clustered around churches. My gloved hand rose to my nose at the smell that accompanied this pastoral view.
“The city ditch,” George said apologetically, gesturing at a river of sludge beneath our feet. “It is, alas, the most direct route. We will be in better air soon.” I wiped at my watering eyes and sincerely hoped so.
George steered me along the street, which was broad enough to accommodate passing coaches, wagons full of food, and even a team of oxen. While we walked, he chatted about his visit with his publisher, William Ponsonby. Chapman was crushed that I didn’t recognize the name. I knew little about the nuances of the Elizabethan book trade and so drew him out about the subject. George was happy to gossip about the many playwrights Ponsonby snubbed, including Kit. Ponsonby preferred to work with the serious literary set, and his stable of authors was illustrious indeed: Edmund Spenser, the Countess of Pembroke, Philip Sidney.
“Ponsonby would publish Matt’s poetry as well, but he has refused.” George shook his head, perplexed.
“His poetry?” That brought me to a sudden halt. I knew that Matthew admired poetry, but not that he wrote it.
“Yes. Matt insists his verses are fit only for the eyes of friends. We are all fond of his elegy for Mary’s brother, Philip Sidney. ‘But eies and eares and ev’ry thought / Were with his sweete perfections caught.’” George smiled. “It is marvelous work. But Matthew has little use for the press and complains that it has only resulted in discord and ill-considered opinions.”
In spite of his modern laboratory, Matthew was an old fuddy-duddy with his fondness for antique watches and vintage automobiles. I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling at this latest evidence of his traditionalism. “What are his poems about?”
“Love and friendship for the most part, though recently he and Walter have been exchanging verses about . . . darker subjects. They seem to think out of a single mind these days.”
“Darker?” I frowned.
“He and Walter do not always approve of what happens around them,” George said in a low voice, his eyes darting over the faces of passersby. “They can be prone to impatience—Walter especially—and often give the lie to those in positions of power. It is a dangerous tendency.”
“Give the lie,” I said slowly. There was a famous poem called “The Lie.” It was anonymous, but attributed to Walter Raleigh. “‘Say to the court, it glows / And shines like rotten wood’?”
“So Matt has shared his verses with you.” George sighed once more. “He manages to convey in a few words a full range of feeling and meaning. It is a talent I envy.”
Though the poem was familiar, Matthew’s relationship to it was not. But there would be plenty of time in the evenings ahead to pursue my husband’s literary efforts. I dropped the subject and listened while George offered his opinions on whether writers were now required to publish too much in order to survive, and the need for decent copy editors to keep errors from creeping into printed books.
“There is Chandler’s shop,” George said, pointing to the intersection where an off-kilter cross sat on a raised platform. A gang of boys was busy chipping one of the rough cobbles out of the base. It didn’t take a witch to foresee that the stone might soon be launched through a shop window.
The closer we got to the apothecary’s place of business, the colder the air felt. Just as at St. Paul’s, there was another surge of power, but an oppressive atmosphere of poverty and desperation hung over the neighborhood. An ancient tower crumbled on the northern side of the street, and the houses around it looked as though a gust of wind might carry them away. Two youths shuffled closer, eyeing us with interest, until a low hiss from Pierre stopped them in their tracks.
John Chandler’s shop suited the neighborhood’s Gothic atmosphere perfectly. It was dark, pungent, and unsettling. A stuffed owl hung from the ceiling, and the toothy jaws of some unfortunate creature were tacked above a diagram of a body with severed and broken limbs, pierced through with weapons. A carpenter’s awl entered the poor fellow’s left eye at a jaunty angle.
A stooped man emerged from behind a curtain, wiping his hands on the sleeves of his rusty black bombazine coat. It bore a resemblance to the academic gowns worn by Oxford and Cambridge undergraduates and was just as rumpled. Bright hazel eyes met mine without a trace of hesitation, and my skin tingled with recognition. Chandler was a witch. After crossing most of London, I’d finally located one of my own people.
“The streets around you grow more dangerous with every passing week, Master Chandler.” George peered out the door at the gang hovering nearby.
“That pack of boys runs wild,” Chandler said. “What can I do for you today, Master Chapman? Are you in need of more tonic? Have your headaches returned?”
George made a detailed accounting of his many aches and pains. Chandler murmured sympathetically every now and then and drew a ledger closer. The men pored over it, giving me a chance to examine my surroundings.
Elizabethan apothecary shops were evidently the general stores of the period, and the small space was stuffed to the rafters with merchandise. There were piles of vividly illustrated broadsides, like the one of the wounded man tacked up on the wall, and jars of candied fruit. Used books sat on one table, along with a few newer titles. A set of pottery crocks offered a splash of brightness in the otherwise dim room, all of them labeled with the names of medicinal spices and herbs. Specimens from the animal kingdom on display included not only the stuffed owl and jawbone but also some wizened rodents tied up by their tails. I spotted pots of ink, quill pens, and spools of string, too.
The shop was organized in loose thematic groupings. The ink was near the quills and the used books, under the wise old owl. The mice hung above a crock labeled “Ratbane,” which sat next to a book promising not only to help you catch fish but to build “sundrie Engines and trappes to take Polcats, Buzzards, rattes, mice, and all other kindes of Vermin and beasts.” I had been wondering how to get rid of the unwanted guests in Matthew’s attic. The detailed plans in the pamphlet exceeded my handywoman skills, but I’d find someone who could execute them. If the brace of mice in Chandler’s shop was any indication, the traps certainly worked.
“Excuse me, mistress,” Chandler murmured, reaching past me. Fascinated, I watched as he took the mice to his workbench and sliced the ears off with delicate precision.
“What are they for?” I asked George.
“Powdered mouse ears are effective against warts,” he explained earnestly while Chandler wielded his pestle.
Relieved that I did not suffer from this particular complaint, I drifted over to the owl guarding the stationery department. I found a pot of red ink, deep and rich.
Your wearh friend will not appreciate having to carry that bottle home, mistress. It is made from hawk’s blood and is used for writing out love spells.
So Chandler had the power of silent speech. I returned the ink to its place and picked up a dog-eared pamphlet. The images on the first sheet showed a wolf attacking a small child and a man being horribly tortured and then executed. It reminded me of the tabloids at the cash registers in modern grocery stores. When I flipped the page over, I was startled to read about someone named Stubbe Peter, who appeared in the shape of a wolf and fed off the blood of men, women, and children until they were dead. It was not only Scottish witches who were in the public eye. So were vampires.
My eyes raced across the page. I noted with relief that Stubbe lived in far-off Germany. The anxiety returned when I saw that the uncle of one of his victims ran the brewery between our house and Baynard’s Castle. I was aghast at the gruesome details of the killings, as well as the lengths humans would go to in order to cope with the creatures in their midst. Here Stubbe Peter was depicted as a witch, and his strange behavior was attributed to a pact with the devil that made it possible for him to change shape and satisfy his unnatural taste for blood. But it was far more likely that the man was a vampire. I slid the pamphlet underneath my other book and made my way to the counter.
“Mistress Roydon requires some supplies,” George explained to the apothecary as I drew near.
Chandler’s mind went carefully blank at the mention of my name.
“Yes,” I said slowly. “Red ink, if you have it. And some scented soap, for washing.”
“Aye.” The wizard searched through some small pewter vessels. When he found the right one, he put it on the counter. “And do you require sealing wax to match the ink?”
“Whatever you have will be fine, Master Chandler.”
“I see you have one of Master Hester’s books,” George said, picking up a nearby volume. “I told Mistress Roydon that your ink is as good as Hester’s and half the price.”
The apothecary smiled weakly at George’s compliment and put several sticks of carnation-colored wax and two balls of sweet-smelling soap on the table next to my ink. I dropped the pest-control manual and the pamphlet about the German vampire onto the surface. Chandler’s eyes rose to mine. They were wary.
“Yes,” Chandler said, “the printer across the way left a few copies with me, as it dealt with a medical subject.”
“That will be of interest to Mistress Roydon, too,” George said, plunking it onto my pile. I wondered, not for the first time, how humans could be so oblivious to what happened around them.
“But I am not sure this treatise is appropriate for a lady. . . .” Chandler trailed off, looking meaningfully at my wedding ring.
George’s quick response drowned out my own silent retort. “Oh, her husband will not mind. She is a student of alchemy.”
“I’ll take it,” I said decidedly.
As Chandler wrapped our purchases, George asked him if he could recommend a spectacle maker.
“My publisher, Master Ponsonby, is worried my eyes will fail me before my translation of Homer is complete,” he explained self-importantly. “I have a receipt from my mother’s servant, but it has not resulted in a cure.”
The apothecary shrugged. “These old wives’ remedies sometimes help, but mine is more reliable. I will send around a poultice made from egg whites and rose water. Soak flax pads in it and apply them to the eyes.”
While George and Chandler bargained over the price of the medicine and made arrangements for its delivery, Pierre gathered the packages and stood by the door.
“Farewell, Mistress Roydon,” Chandler said with a bow.
“Thank you for your assistance, Master Chandler,” I replied. I am new in town and looking for a witch to help me.
“You are welcome,” he said smoothly, “though there are excellent apothecaries in the Blackfriars.” London is a dangerous place. Have care from whom you request assistance.
Before I could ask the apothecary how he knew where I lived, George was shepherding me out onto the street with a cheerful good-bye. Pierre was so close behind that I could feel his occasional cool breaths.
The touch of eyes was unmistakable as we made our progress back to town. An alert had been issued while I was in Chandler’s shop, and word that a strange witch was near had spread throughout the neighborhood. At last I had achieved my objective for the afternoon. Two witches came out onto their front step, arms linked at the elbows, and scrutinized me with tingling hostility. They were so similar in face and body that I wondered if they were twins.
“Wearh,” one mumbled, spitting at Pierre and forking her fingers in a sign against the devil.
“Come, mistress. It is late,” Pierre said, his fingers gripping my forearm.
Pierre’s desire to get me away from St. Giles as quickly as possible and George’s desire for a cup of wine made our return to the Blackfriars far quicker than the journey out. Once we were safely back in the Hart and Crown, there was still no sign of Matthew, and Pierre disappeared in search of him. Soon thereafter Fran?oise made pointed remarks about the lateness of the hour and my need for rest. Chapman took the hint and said his farewells.
Fran?oise sat by the fireplace, her sewing at her side, and watched the door. I tried out my new ink by ticking items off my shopping list and adding “rat trappe.” I turned next to John Hester’s book. The blank sheet of paper folded discreetly around it masked the salacious contents. It enumerated cures for venereal diseases, most of them involving toxic concentrations of mercury. No wonder Chandler had objected to selling a copy to a married woman. I had just started the second fascinating chapter when I heard murmurs coming from Matthew’s study. Fran?oise’s mouth tightened, and she shook her head.
“He will need more wine tonight than we have in the house,” she observed, heading for the stairs with one of the empty jugs that sat by the door.
I followed the sound of my husband’s voice. Matthew was still in his study, peeling his clothes off and flinging them into the fire.
“He is an evil man, milord,” Pierre said grimly, unbuckling Matthew’s sword.