The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands (5)

CHAPTER

5

THE POUNDING ON THE FRONT door made me jump. For a moment, I thought my master’s attackers had come to finish the job. Though I doubted they’d be the type to knock.

I twisted in my chair, my fingers on the pages of the book my master had given me. The shutters were still barred, the door was still bolted. I waited.

More thumping. Then: “Christopher! Are you there? Let me in.”

I opened the door. Tom stood on the doorstep, hunched over in his coat, trying to shield a package wrapped in wool from the rain. I’d been so caught up in reading that I’d lost all sense of time. The sky was heavily overcast, the clouds a dusky gray, but it was clearly no longer night.

Tom edged past me into the warmth of the shop. “Finally.”

“What time is it?” I said.

“I don’t know. Eight? Nine, maybe? The cry of six was ages ago.” He shivered. “Ugh. I hate the cold.” He shook his coat, and ice pellets skittered across the floor.

“Is that hail?” I said. “It’s almost June.”

“It’s an omen.” Tom went to the fireplace, where a solitary log burned low. He placed the package he was carrying on the table and stuck his hands near the flame to warm them. “There was another murder yesterday.”

“I know.” I told Tom about the visit from Stubb and my wounded master’s return in the night.

Tom’s eyes went wide. “Who attacked him?”

“He wouldn’t tell me,” I said. “But I don’t think it was ordinary robbers. They burned him.”

“It could have been the killers,” Tom said. “My mother says they’re part of a cult.”

I stared at him. “A cult? Where did she hear that?”

“Mistress Mullens. Her husband’s a clerk, and she says he says there are whisperings about it at court. She says the murders might be human sacrifices.” Tom shuddered and crossed his fingers. “There are reports of plague in the western parishes now, too. I’m telling you, this weather’s an omen. The city’s turning bad.”

Maybe Tom was right. Hail in almost-June did sound like an omen. Although I wished God’s warnings would be a little clearer. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard for the Almighty to write STOP STEALING STICKY BUNS in the clouds or something.

I poked at the package Tom had brought. “What’s in here?”

He smiled, ill winds forgotten. “Open it.”

I unwrapped the wool. The folds fell away, and I was enveloped by the smell of warm apple and cinnamon. Inside was a freshly baked pie, its crust crimped and lightly browned, steam still rising from the flower-petal holes in the center.

“Happy birthday,” Tom said.

This day was getting better and better. I hugged him. I think I got drool on his shirt. Then I had a thought. “Did you steal this pie from your father’s bakery?”

Tom managed to look offended. “Of course not.”

“Really?”

“Well . . . I might have borrowed it.”

“Borrowed it? Are we going to return it?”

He thought about it. “In a sense.”

“What if your father finds out? He’ll hit you.”

Tom shrugged. “He hits me anyway. May as well get pie out of it.”

“Tom!”

He grinned. “I’m kidding. My mother let me make it for you. Come on, let’s eat.”

We did, shoveling the sweetness into our mouths by the fistful. I saved a piece for my master, who liked a good pie almost as much as I did; the rest we devoured. I think it was the best I’d ever tasted, and not just because Tom had made it specially for me. He really had the magic touch. When Tom took over his family’s bakery, he’d outshine even his father.

As I licked the last of the goop from my fingers, Tom let out an earthshaking belch. I tried to match him, and failed badly.

“A shameful effort,” he said. He spotted the book I’d left open on the chair beside the fire, and his expression grew even more disapproving. “Satan’s woolly socks. Were you studying? On your own birthday?”

“It’s not for work,” I said. “It goes with Master Benedict’s present.” Proudly, I showed him the antimony cube.

Tom was impressed. “He gave you this? It must be worth a fortune.” He shook it, listening to the rattle. “What’s inside?”

“That’s what I was working on. Look.” I turned the cube so the top was facing us.

“What is it?” he said.

“Our universe. The Sun, and the Earth, and the other five planets. Each big circle represents an orbit.”

“Oh. Oh, I see, they go around.” He traced a finger over the figure in the center. “Why does the Earth have these peaks? Are they mountains?”

“That’s not the Earth,” I said. “That’s the Sun.”

“Why is the Sun in the center?”

“Because that’s where the Sun is.”

“It is?” Tom frowned. “Says who?”

“This man.” I handed him the book.

He squinted at the cover. “Sys . . . System . . . What is this?”

“Systema cosmicum,” I said. “It’s Latin. It means ‘cosmic system.’ It says the Sun is at the center of the universe and all the planets go around it.”

Tom flipped through it, a skeptical expression on his face, until he got to the title page. “By Galileo Galilei. Sounds Catholic to me,” he said disapprovingly.

“Just . . . that’s what the figure is, all right? The Sun is at the center, and the six planets go around it. Mercury’s the closest, then Venus, then Earth—see, this circle on the third ring is us—then Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. That’s all of them.”

He turned the cube over. “So what are the rest of these symbols?”

“They’re the planets.” I pulled out a sheet of parchment that had been slipped inside the back cover of the book, inked with Master Benedict’s smooth, familiar handwriting.

Planetary Symbols

Tom looked from the parchment to the cube.

“But there’s only five symbols here,” he said. “There’s Jupiter, and Venus, Saturn, Earth . . . Mars. Mercury’s missing.”

“Right,” I said. “Now look at the top again. The first circle, closest to the Sun. The black dot on it, where Mercury’s supposed to be.”

He peered at it. “Oh! It’s a hole.”

“I think that’s where the key goes. And the missing symbol is the clue.” I pointed at the shelf behind us. On it was a ceramic jar, smaller than its neighbors. “Can you bring that down?”

Tom rose obligingly and grabbed the jar one handed. He looked surprised. “It’s heavy.”

I took an empty cup from the rack behind the counter, then unstoppered the jar. “This,” I said, “is quicksilver.”

I tipped the jar over the cup, draining it carefully. A shiny silver liquid poured out.

Tom was amazed. “How did you melt that?”

“It’s already melted. It’s not hot.” I dipped my finger in it. “Look, you can touch it.”

Cautiously, Tom held out a finger. He barely grazed the surface, then pulled away, leaving jittering waves that stilled almost immediately. He tried again, going deeper. “Strange. It doesn’t really feel like anything. It’s almost like it’s not even there. What’s it for?”

“Treating diseases. Really bad ones, that you get on your . . . you know. But what we want it for is . . . the key!” I turned the jar over.

Nothing happened.

“Do I applaud now?” Tom said.

I looked into the jar, frowning. “There’s nothing in here.”

“Why did you think there would be?”

“Because mercury is supposed to be the key.” I jiggled the cup, trying to see if anything had slipped out with the liquid. “That’s what quicksilver’s real name is. It’s called mercury. And that hole is where the planet Mercury would be.”

“That’s clever,” Tom said, looking at the cube, “but I don’t see how you’re going to get a key in here. The hole is too small. And it’s round. There’s no such thing as a round key.”

He was right. A round key didn’t make sense; it wouldn’t have any teeth. But Master Benedict had promised there was a key, and it was in this room.

That’s when it struck me. “Tom! You’re a genius.”

“I am?”

I pointed at the hole. “How would you get a key in there?”

“I told you, you can’t. It’s too small. You’d need something that could slip inside . . .” His eyes widened as I swirled the cup, sloshing the mercury around. “A liquid key? How is that even possible?”

“Let’s find out.”

He held the cube steady. Carefully, I tipped the cup. Three drips of liquid metal splashed onto the surface, running along the engraved circles like little silver beads. They drained toward the hole and slipped inside. Still, nothing happened.

“Maybe you need more,” Tom said.

I poured again, and a third time.

Click.

The seam around the top opened. Just a crack.

Slowly, I lifted the lid. I looked inside.

I gasped.