Death of an Alchemist Read Free Page B

temper. She, too, had reached her limit.
    â€œAll this and to no purpose. It has been an epic waste of time. A stinking failure worse than a bucket of rotten eggs.” John stalked to the door and threw it open.
    â€œIt is no worse than living in a barrel behind the Tern’s Tempest. Remember your humble beginnings?” Bianca gripped the flask’s neck with the tongs and pushed past her husband, who was standing on the threshold. She walked to the drainage ditch and poured out the contents.
    â€œYou will kill every carp in the Thames if it makes it there.”
    â€œAll the better,” said Bianca. “I’ve never liked carp.”
    â€œBut others do,” said John, trying to snatch her by the waist.
    Bianca skirted past.
    â€œWhy are you so resistant?” John followed her back inside, unable to let the matter drop. “It would be better for both of us if we moved to a place that had more windows. Even one more window would be an improvement. You could crack it open and let some of these vapors escape so it wouldn’t be so overwhelming.”
    â€œThe air is not as foul as you say.” Bianca removed the bain-marie from the furnace and closed the damper.
    â€œYou’re immune to it,” said John. “Between your father’s alchemy and your mother’s herbal remedies, your sense of smell is ruined. You don’t seem to notice how rank it is.”
    On the contrary, Bianca’s sense of smell was so acute, she could pick out individual scents and name them from nearly any combination of herbs. Her ability extended even to the strange amalgamations alchemists conjured. What she was able to do, and what John could not, was ignore less than pleasing odors—for the most part.
    John buttoned his shirt, still standing near the door. “Besides, we hardly get a breeze in here. What little we get either smells of chicken manure or the river. There is a reason this area is called Gull Hole.”
    â€œWe can afford living here. Until you finish your apprenticeship it makes little sense to move.”
    â€œWe could move into London,” said John. “It would be closer to Boisvert’s and . . . your parents.”
    Bianca tossed the iron tongs onto the table, rattling the crockery. “Thank you, but I shall keep my distance.”
    More than a year had passed and Bianca still had not mended her relationship with her father. At sixteen, she had uncovered his dangerous liaison with Sir George Howard, member of King Henry’s privy chamber and older brother of the now beheaded Catherine Howard. Sir George had witnessed Albern Goddard’s humiliation and expulsion as a favored alchemist to the king. Granted, Goddard’s favored status was short-lived, but when a younger, more cunning alchemist replaced him and he lost his royal stipend, Albern Goddard grew indignant. Sir George capitalized on her father’s bruised ego and easily enlisted his help to prevent Catherine’s ruin. The whole convoluted imbroglio resulted in his being accused of trying to poison the king, which resulted in Bianca risking her life to prove his innocence. For that not so small gesture, Albern Goddard had dismissed her bravery as simply a daughter’s duty. He had resumed his life with nary another thought about it. Furthermore, Bianca’s marriage to John had met with an icy reception.
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    A few months ago, John and Bianca had signed a marriage bond, swearing that there were no precontracts preventing them from matrimony. John had no living relatives that he knew of, except a brother he rarely saw. Because she was the daughter of an alchemist, there was no money for a dowry and, in Bianca’s mind, no reason for her parents to have a say in the matter one way or the other.
    The two had waited for a warm spring day when the field beyond the Paris Garden Manor was blooming with white clover. Bianca had washed her finest, a pale blue linen kirtle with a