The Book of Fires

26
Small portfires are the hardest, dullest work. Now that I am swift and better skilled at making them, I charge them in bundles of thirty-seven cases at a time, a kind of six-sided honeycomb of tubes, all mouths to the ceiling. The air outside is blue with smoke and a fine, blustery rain. There is a whistling, breathing sound in the chimney, as if the wind were putting its mouth to the pot on the roof, though it cannot come in.
The workshop is filled with the smell of Mr. Blacklock’s experiment, and he is staring fixedly into a jar that is strapped to a glass vessel, connected to a retort over a smoking brazier. “I will have something to show you,” he says, in a strange, choked voice, and I recognize the same powerful smell from the day the color was bleached out of the flower inside the air from aqua regia.
“What is that black powder?” I ask, peering at the opened pot beside the retort, but he does not reply.
“What is inside the jar, Mr. Blacklock?” I can feel a tightening of excitement about my throat that is not just from the yellow fumes leaking out.
“Stand back for the moment, Agnes Trussel, and within the hour I will show you something that I think is going to change our lives forever,” he says hoarsely. “This is the third occasion on which I have been able to produce it, and I am confident that my discovery is not a stone overturned by chance.”


Later, when the smell is gone from the room at last, he brings a pipkin. “See inside here,” he says. “Look here and see these shiny, eager little crystals.” His hand is shaking.
“What are they, sir?” I ask.
“I do not know!” He laughs, and his face is transformed. “I shall call this substance . . .” He considers. “The vital agent.”
“And does it . . . ?”
He looks at me.
“I have begun to experiment with this vital agent. It seems to act as enabler or go-between, coaxing the colors out of substances when they burn.”
“How, sir? ”
“I do not yet know.” He coughs. “The acid has driven out the air from the alkali and then I have captured it in crystal form. It is seemingly charged with the principle of inflammability. Added to powder in the place of niter, it gives astounding fierceness to the burn. It is important. I believe it is the key to my endeavor. I do not know yet if it can be controlled sufficiently to use in pyrotechny, but I intend to find out.”
“Is it safe to use? ” I ask. He shakes his head.
“In my experiments I have found it unstable, dangerous. It can ignite spontaneously upon exposure to friction or to unchecked sunshine. It goes rapidly from lying in a quiet state to sudden violent action.”
“A snake of a thing!” I say, thinking again of the soft brown adders that soak up the hot sun on the Downs. Lying in the grasses, they begrudge disturbance from a trance and, chanced upon, they can rear up with a spiteful poison to their bite. Mrs. Porter’s youngest daughter, Sarah, was bitten by an adder and did not survive a second night, although they put on adder’s fat and the rector prayed for her safekeeping.
“It is capricious,” he stresses. “Once coupled with sulfur, it can spring to life without warning, so that it is no simple task to establish formulations with any accuracy. This agent is highly volatile,” Mr. Blacklock warns. “Never cause a tap or knock about it. Never allow any grit to be introduced inadvertently within the mortar’s cavity when grinding a composition that contains it. Never even expose it to the warmth of the sunshine.” He pulls at his neckcloth to loosen it. I see his neck as he does this; I cannot help it. Again I am surprised at how young it seems: the skin of his neck is smooth and supple beneath the dark stubble on his jaw. I look away quickly. “Of course, most pyrotechnic formulae should be treated with respect,” he is saying. “But any containing this new substance I have created should be treated with something approaching fearfulness.”
We hear the church clock strike.
“And how . . . ?”
“It is noon. Let us eat.”