CHAPTER
4
I REACHED UNDER THE STRAW, groping for my knife. My heart hammered at my ribs. A plan. I needed a plan.
I thought of several. I could jump out and surprise them. I could run and call for help. Or I could stay where I was and wet myself.
I gave option number three serious consideration. But if this was a burglar, he’d come around the counter. The most valuable remedies we had were here, on the shelves a few feet above my head. And if it was an assassin . . . I gripped my knife as if it were Excalibur. In reality, it was a two-inch blade, loose in the handle and dull as a millstone. The thing had a hard time slicing apples.
I pushed myself to my knees and peeked over the counter. The coals in the fireplace still glowed softly. I couldn’t see the intruder, but the dull red light cast a shadow of him on the wall.
A huge shadow.
He was a giant. Incredibly, impossibly tall.
All right, then. Fighting was right out. And wetting myself was not a plan. So: option number two. Sneak to the front, unbolt the door, run outside, scream like a girl.
But—Master Benedict! I thought. What if he’s come home? I couldn’t just leave him.
The giant moved away from the shelves. He was carrying a ceramic jar, and not doing a good job of it. He struggled, grunting, and lowered it with a thunk on the table near the fireplace. Now that he was closer to the auburn glow of the coals, I could see the intruder better. He wasn’t a giant at all. The man was tall, yes, but still human size. And while the shadow made him look broad, he was actually quite skinny. In fact, he looked exactly the same shape as my—
“Master?” I said.
Master Benedict leaned against the table. “Yes. Go to sleep.”
Not likely. My heart still whumped like His Majesty’s cannons. What was he doing with that jar in the middle of the night?
“Are you all right?” I said.
“Yes, Christopher. I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”
I went to the fireplace, using the coals to light the wick on the lamp. When the lantern flared, I nearly dropped it.
Master Benedict looked like he’d just come back from a war. His wig was gone, his short gray hair revealed, spiked and dirty. His clothes were so caked with mud, the blue underneath was only a memory. There was something black smeared all over the right side of his face. It looked like soot.
“Did someone attack you?” I said. “Was it Stubb?” I shrank back. “Was it the killers?”
“No.” He tried to turn away, but his movements were clumsy, twitching.
I took his arm. “Let me help you.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Please, Master. Let me take you to your room.”
After a moment, he nodded. I lifted his right arm to wrap around me. He cried out in pain. It was then that I saw his coat was torn at the shoulder.
I took him through the back and upstairs, the lantern lighting our way. His weight, resting on me, seemed to grow with every creaking step. At the top, I nudged the door open with my hip and brought him inside.
Master Benedict’s bedroom smelled faintly of Egyptian incense. Against one wall, next to the fireplace, was a narrow bed with plain brown cotton sheets and a single pillow. A simple table stood beside it, one short leg steadied underneath with folded sheepskin. A chamber pot rested on the rose-carved elm chair near the desk at the open window; the desk was covered with papers and ash dust from the incense holder, blown off by the night’s breeze. The rest of the space was piled with books, stacks and stacks and more stacks, each one at least a dozen high. Isaac the bookseller, I thought, must be swimming in gold.
I weaved my master through the books to the bed and laid him down as gently as I could. I looked at him for a moment, unsure of what to do.
Master Benedict trained you, I told myself. You are ready for this. It calmed me.
I lit the lantern on the table using my own, closed the window shutters, and poked at the coals dying in the fireplace to give him some warmth. Then I looked him over. Downstairs, I’d thought his coat was torn, but in better light, the charred, crumbling wool and blackened skin underneath gave the truth away. He’d been burned. My heart burned, too, toward whoever had hurt him.
“Rest a moment, Master,” I said.
I ran down to the workshop, trying to remember everything my master had taught me about treating burns. I hauled two buckets of water up to his room. Then I went back and searched the shelves for the remedies I needed. One of them, a cream of powdered silver, was already out, the one my master had pulled down when I was asleep. I balanced the jars in my arms, added a small tin pot full of water and a mug on top, then went upstairs.
Master Benedict lay on the pillow, breathing slowly. He watched me place the pot on the fire and line up the jars on the table beside him. I started to pull off his coat, but he flinched when I lifted his arms, so I used my knife to cut it away at the seams. It was ruined anyway, its future value only as rags.
I was relieved to see that while the skin of his shoulder was blistered, he wasn’t badly burned. I washed away the soot, and that from his face, too. I scooped dried poppies from one of the jars into the water boiling in the pot on the fire and, after a minute, poured it into the mug beside the bed. The poppy was the best pain reliever God had gifted the world with, and the infusion would relax him as well.
Master Benedict sipped at it as I worked. I smeared the silver cream on his burn, to prevent the flesh from rotting. Then I wrapped a cloth around it, tying it under his arm, and removed what was left of his filthy clothes.
He looked so frail. He’d never seemed old to me, but tonight I saw every year in him, all aged skin and bones. Still, otherwise, he appeared unharmed, except for his palms, which were cracked and raw. The wounds didn’t look like burns, so I slathered his hands with aloe sap and wrapped them as I did his shoulder.
“You’ve learned so much,” he said softly.
I flushed, embarrassed, but proud. “Thank you, Master.”
He began to speak again, but his voice choked. His eyes were wet, ringed with red. My heart ached. I’d never seen him cry before.
“Can I do anything more?” I said.
He reached out and touched my cheek with his fingertips.
“You’re a good boy,” he said.
I couldn’t find any words. I just bowed my head and leaned into the warmth of his hand.
His eyelids began to droop. The poppy tea was working. I helped him lie down again, and pulled the covers over him. “Sleep well, Master.”
I extinguished the lantern on the table. I carried the other one to the door before he spoke.
“Wait.”
He stared into the flame of the lantern. It flickered, tendrils of smoke dancing over the glass.
“It’s Oak Apple Day tomorrow,” he said.
“It . . . yes. The king’s birthday.”
“And your own.”
He remembered.
“Did you and Tom collect your oak sprigs?” he said.
“This morning.”
I was wondering why he’d stopped me for that, and then he said, his voice nearly a whisper, “Do I ask too much of you?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. “Master?”
“No one ever gave you the choice,” he said. “The orphanage made you study. The Guild gave you the test. I brought you here. No one ever gave you the choice.” He looked into my eyes. “If I sent you away, to walk a different path,” he said, “somewhere you’d be safe, somewhere you couldn’t be hurt . . . would you choose it?”
His question stunned me. Had any master ever allowed his apprentice to choose? I remembered his secret conversation with Hugh.
We have to make a choice, and soon.
When the killings had started four months ago, Tom and I had teased each other that assassins were coming to get us. It didn’t take long for our jokes to stop, as the reality of what was happening to our city began to weigh on us. Tonight, alone in the dark, I’d been more scared than I ever had before. I still was. Part of me wanted to go: go somewhere safe, no Stubb, no killers, nothing more to fear. But that was us, together. Leave Master Benedict behind? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
I said it with conviction, so he’d know it, too. “No, Master. I’m grateful for the life you’ve given me. Whatever happens, I want to stay with you.”
He didn’t say anything. I waited at the door, not sure if he wanted me to go. I got the sense that he wasn’t sure, either. Finally, he spoke.
“I have something for you.”
He pointed to a small package, wrapped in linen, resting on top of one of the book stacks.
“What is it?” I said.
“A present.”
I was stunned. The last two Oak Apple Days, Master Benedict had brought home my favorite, fresh roast pig, for supper. He’d eaten sparingly, mostly watching with amusement as I stuffed my face with the sweet white meat, slurping grease from my fingers. I’d always thought the pigs were special for the holiday. Now I wondered if he’d really bought them for me.
But this . . . I’d never got an actual present before. “Can I . . . can I open it?”
“I suppose it must be past midnight by now. So tomorrow is officially today.” He nodded. “Go on, then.”
I pulled at the cloth. It fell away.
I lost my breath.
Underneath was a polished silvery cube, slightly bigger than my palm. On the top, engraved in the metal in fine, smooth grooves, was a series of circles.
With trembling fingers, I turned it around. On each of the other faces, a single symbol was engraved, five in all:
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“Do you recognize the metal?”
I tapped one side with a fingernail. It wasn’t silver. It didn’t feel quite like tin, either. I bounced it in my hand. It weighed a little more than a plum. “Antimony?”
“Good. Otherwise known as?”
“The Black Dragon. Some say it has mystical properties. But it makes you throw up if you eat it.”
“Excellent.”
I hugged the cube to my chest. “Thank you so much.”
“Don’t get too excited.” His eyes twinkled. “That’s only half your present.”
My jaw dropped. “There’s more?”
“You get the rest if you can open it.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure what he meant. Then I realized he was talking about the cube. “It opens?”
I held it close to the lantern. A quarter of an inch below the top, a line traced around it, almost too fine to see. I tried to pry it off, but the top wouldn’t budge. “How do I . . . ?”
He smiled. “I told you. You get the rest . . . if you can open it.”
I shook the cube. Inside, something rattled. “What is it?”
“That would spoil the surprise, wouldn’t it? But I do think you might need a little help on this one.” He was nearly asleep now, his voice beginning to slur. “I’ll tell you this. The key is downstairs, somewhere in the shop. And that”—he pointed to the book the cube had been resting on—“will help you find it.”