CHAPTER
8
I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO do.
After cleaning up the spill, I’d made a new batch of Blackthorn’s Soothing Burn Cream as promised. Then Tom and I went up to the roof, where we sat, legs dangling over the edge, with fistfuls of corn. Half of it we fed to Bridget, who hopped between our shoulders. The rest we dropped over the side, trying to catch the kernels in the wigs of gentlemen passing below. When Tom finally had to go home, I curled up by the fire in the shop with Master Galileo’s book, waiting for my own master to return.
I must have drifted off, because I awoke with the cry of six, still in the chair. The fire long dead, the chill had settled into my bones, and my back ached like I’d spent the night shackled to the Tower of London’s least comfortable rack.
I prepared the shop for opening, sweeping the floors of yesterday’s now-dried mud. I checked the stocks and made a note of what we needed from Monday’s market. Then I went up to the roof to feed the pigeons. While coming back down, it struck me: With all of London outside for yesterday’s holiday, the cobblestone streets had been thick with mud. But there were no new tracks on the stairs.
The door to Master Benedict’s quarters was closed. “Master?” I called.
No answer.
I knocked, lightly. “Master? It’s morning.”
Still no answer.
Normally, I would have left him alone. But there was nothing normal about Master Benedict sleeping in on a workday. I went inside. His room was empty, his bed still made.
He hadn’t returned.
I knocked next door, at Sinclair the confectioner’s, and on the other side, at Grobham the tailor’s, but neither master nor apprentice had seen him. The servers in the Missing Finger, the tavern across the street, where we sometimes ate supper, hadn’t seen him either.
Worry fluttered in my stomach. I thought about the body Tom and I had seen yesterday, burned and buried beneath the angel in the private garden, and it wasn’t until I got hold of myself that I remembered I’d seen my master well after that poor man had been murdered.
A voice pulled me from terrible thoughts. “Boy. Boy!”
Outside our shuttered shop, a pudgy woman in a faded green dress waved a ceramic jar at me. I recognized her: Margaret Wills, one of Baron Cobley’s servants.
“I need a refill,” she hollered.
Syrup of ipecac, an emetic. I crossed the street, grumbling inside. I had bigger worries than Baron Cobley’s vomit.
I let her into the shop, then donned my blue apron and refilled her jar. I made a note of it in the ledger, adding the cost to the baron’s tab, which was already the size of a whale. I’d planned to lock up and go look for my master again, but as Margaret left, Francis the publican came in with a nasty bottom rash. I took care of him—the prescription, anyway; he’d have to put the ointment on himself—and then Jonathan Tanner arrived, and before I knew it the shop was packed.
And then finally, finally, finally, Master Benedict stepped in from the workshop.
I felt like a sack of lead had been lifted from my back. He was all right. In fact, other than the bags under his eyes, he looked very pleased indeed. I didn’t get the chance to speak to him; he barely got a pace inside before he was swarmed. He sent a weary smile in my direction and got to work.
By lunchtime, we’d whittled the horde down to five; me with William Fitz and his seeping earlobe, Master Benedict with Lady Brent’s swollen hand, and three more waiting before we could break. I’d just finished writing up Mr. Fitz’s account in the ledger when Lady Brent said, “Are you listening to me, Mr. Blackthorn?”
My master, standing behind the counter, stared past her out the front of the shop. I tried to see what he was looking at, but there was a customer blocking the window: a stocky boy of around sixteen, wearing his own blue apron, smirking at the still-unrepaired bear in the corner.
“Mr. Blackthorn?” she said again.
He blinked. “One moment, madam. I need to check our stock.”
When he returned, a minute later, he looked pale.
“Well?” Lady Brent said. “Can you make it?”
Master Benedict wiped his forehead. “Yes. Yes, of course. It will be ready Monday.”
He really didn’t look well. I tried to catch his eye, but he barely glanced at me. He turned away, scanning the shelves, then went to the ledger on the counter.
“Christopher!” he barked.
I jumped.
“Come here,” he said.
I went around the counter. My master no longer looked ill. He looked furious.
He stabbed a bony finger at the ledger. “Did you serve Baron Cobley this morning?”
“Yes, Master,” I stammered. “His maidservant.”
“And did I not ask you—twice—to collect his account the next time she came?”
Had he? “I . . . I’m sorry, Master, I don’t remember—”
He hit me.
He smacked me on the side of my jaw, an open-handed blow that cracked like a thunderclap. I stumbled into the shelf hard enough to make the jars rattle.
“You are useless,” he said.
I stayed there, hunched against the wood. My cheek burned. It hurt worse inside. I felt all the customers’ eyes on me, Lady Brent watching curiously, the boy by the door freshly entertained by the show behind the counter.
“Do something right,” Master Benedict said. “For once.” He snatched a handful of pennies and a few worn shillings from the strongbox. “Go to the Exchange and purchase all the natron they carry. And don’t return until you have.”
“But—” His narrowing eyes stopped me. I bowed my head. “Yes, Master.”
“And get Lady Brent her electuary. And the lemon juice.”
I brought him the jars. He huffed. “I apologize for my apprentice, Lady Brent,” he said.
“Not necessary, Mr. Blackthorn,” she said. “Servants need firm correction. My husband purchased a bamboo whip from the Orient for just this purpose.”
“Did he buy an elephant as well? It would take a kick from one to fix this boy.”
She laughed. So did he.
I fled.
• • •
I barely saw where I was going. I was so blind, I almost walked straight into an older boy twice Tom’s size throwing dice with a long-haired friend in the alley behind our house. I mumbled an apology and went around them, each step echoing the pounding in my head.
He’d hit me.
My cheek still stung. My hand hurt, too. It wasn’t until I looked down that I realized it was because I was clenching the coins he’d given me so tightly, they’d cut into my skin.
I didn’t understand. I’d swear on my life he hadn’t asked me to collect Baron Cobley’s account. And sending me for natron . . . natron came to market on Wednesdays. They’d be out of stock by now.
Something had to be wrong. I’d seen Master Benedict angry before, made him angry before, but never like this. I wanted to go back, talk to him, plead with him to tell me what I’d done. But he’d ordered me not to return.
And he’d hit me.
I wiped my eyes on my sleeve.
• • •
The Royal Exchange was packed. Traders, jammed shoulder to shoulder, hawked their wares, shouting, haggling, arguing. I went to every stall and each time got the same answer.
“Nothing today, lad. Try next Wednesday.”
I hunted for hours. I even considered going to another apothecary, but they’d mark the cost high, and Master Benedict wouldn’t be pleased. In the end, I gave up and went home while it was still light. I was afraid of what my master would say. But I needed to know what was wrong. And I wanted to speak to him, say I was sorry, go back to the way things were.
• • •
I came in through the workshop, too scared to show up in the store empty handed. Strangely, the back door wasn’t locked, and the shutters on the back windows were closed. In the furnace, dying embers gave off just enough light to see. I frowned when I saw the tongs left in the ashes. I moved to pull them out, then jerked my hand away with a curse.
I sucked my fingers. The tongs burned. They must have been sitting in the fire for ages.
A small glass jar sat open next to the oven, its lid on the floor. Scattered nearby were a handful of tiny, black, kidney-shaped seeds. I picked one up, rolled it between my fingers. It smelled faintly of rotten tomatoes.
Madapple. The first remedy Master Benedict had ever taught me. In small doses, it helped asthma patients breathe. Any more than that, it became a deadly poison. What was the jar doing left open?
I couldn’t hear any conversation from the shop. The light in the open doorway was as dim as in here. I frowned again. Sunset was still a few hours away. The shop shouldn’t be quiet.
I moved toward the door. My shoes squelched. I lifted a foot and saw a pool of liquid underneath. Streaks led away from it, long dark tracks, as if something heavy had been dragged, leaking.
I followed them. The shop’s shutters were closed, the fire dead in here, too. The front door was locked, the bolt thrown. The sodden trail smeared across the floorboards, turning crimson. A smell, hot, metallic, filled the room. And there, in the middle of it all, was my master.
They’d left him slumped against the front of the counter, his wrists and ankles bound with rope. His shirt was ripped apart. His stomach, too. His eyes were open, and he stared back at me, but he couldn’t see me, and he wouldn’t, never, ever again.