The Alchemist's Daughter

136 Pages·2014·0.78 MB·English

by  Kernaghan Eileen

The Alchemist’s Daughter
The Alchemist’s Daughter
EILEEN KERNAGHAN
© 2004 by Eileen Kernaghan
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Kernaghan, Eileen
The alchemist’s daughter / written by Eileen Kernaghan.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-89434579-8 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-77187-040-5 (html).—
ISBN 978-1-77187-041-2 (pdf)
I. Title.
PS8571.E695A64 2004 C813'.54 C2004-904338-2
Cover painting: The Alchemist, by Lori Koefoed
Author photo: Diane Jarvis Jones
Cover and book design by Jackie Forrie
Printed and bound in Canada
Thistledown Press Ltd.
410 2nd Avenue North
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7K 2C3
www.thistledownpress.com
Thistledown Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the
Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing
program.
The Alchemist’s Daughter
This one is for Christopher
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
Charing Cross, 1587
Post mille exactos a partu virginis annos
Et post quingentos rursus ab orbe datos
Octavagesimus octavus mirabilis annus
Ingruet et secum tristitia satis trahet.
Sidonie put down her father’s battered copy of Regiomontanus, by all accounts
the greatest mathematician-astronomer of his time. Octavagesimus octavus
mirabilis annus: “the extraordinary eighty-eighth year”. Regiomontanus spoke
of fifteen hundred and eighty-eight years after Christ’s birth — a year when ill-
omen was written in the stars.
There would be eclipses of both sun and moon, while Saturn, Jupiter and Mars
would hang in conjunction with the moon’s house. All this to Regiomontanus,
writing in the previous century, had signalled catastrophe. Other scholars,
examining his findings, could find no error in them. And then there was the
rumoured marble slab, discovered in the ruins of Glastonbury, on which,
inexplicably, Regiomontanus’s words were carved. His prophecy had ended
thus: Cuncta tamen mundi sursum ibunt atque decrescent/Imperia et luctus
undique grandis erit: “yet will the whole world suffer upheavals, empires will
dwindle and everywhere will be great lamentations.”
Though her father had spoken often enough of that dire prognostication, until
now Sidonie had not thought much about it. With thieves and beggars wandering
the roads, talk of conspiracies in every inn and ale-house, and the constant threat
of pox and plague, there was reason enough for lamentation in the land. And yet,
while wars raged across Europe, England remained withal a blessed haven of
peace.
But now this year was halfway done, and 1588 was all too near at hand.
CHAPTER ONE
Magic has power to experience and fathom things which are
inaccessible to human reason. For magic is a great secret wisdom, just
as reason is a great public folly.
— Paracelsus
As Sidonie came through the gate she met their maid-of-all-work Alys stumbling
out of the house with her apron clutched across her face.
“Alys, whatever ails you?”
Alys glared accusingly at Sidonie over her apron hem.
“’Struth, mistress, the reek in that house is more than any mortal can abide.”
“Oh dear,” said Sidonie. “Another of Father’s experiments?”
“Experiment, indeed. Wizardry, more like. And if he wants any dinner
tonight, he can cook it himself.”
In the shuttered laboratory, the usual odours of sulphur and charred wood,
candle-wax and musty books were overwhelmed by the stench of something
moistly rotting.
“Merciful heavens, Father,” said Sidonie, clapping her hand over her nose,
“what is making such a stink?”
“Stink, my child?” Her father glanced up abstractedly from his worktable.
“Perhaps it is that basket of herbs that Alys brought in from the garden.”
Sidonie looked over his shoulder at the clutter of flasks and crucibles strewn
across the table. She had no trouble finding the source of the smell. “Oh, Father,
surely not again?”
Her father gazed sadly at the black, slimy mess clinging to the bottom and
sides of an alembic.
“’Tis a great pity, daughter,” he said. “This time, I was as close as that to