The Alchemist's Daughter. Elaine Knighton

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      Deogal raised one shaggy gray brow. “And what makes you think I have the means to guide you? Why should I be anything other than a bad-tempered old fool puttering with substances better left alone?”

      “I have heard talk…but beyond that, I felt it, from the moment I stepped over your threshold. This is the place I belong. And you are the one to teach me.”

      Isidora had to hide her amazement. This cool, aloof young man had such eloquence, such passion? Only for the Work, she reminded herself.

      Deogal let a smile spread across his face like the slow rising of the sun. “Then so be it, Lucien de Griswold. You will take the oath revealed to Isis and swear by Tartarus and Anubis and Cerebus and Charon and the Fates and Furies. You will do as I instruct you, and you will go to your grave with the secrets I reveal—”

      A numbing cold spread through Isidora, freezing her lungs, her heart… To see her father smile like that—to hear him offer his trust, his sacred knowledge, to this stranger who had only waited a fortnight for what she had waited her whole life—it was beyond bearing.

      After all that had happened, how could he trust someone who might turn out to be another Kalle—perhaps even worse than Kalle? Then the numbness gave way to a fury she did not know she possessed. To a shameful jealousy, unworthy of her.

      It took her off guard, like a blow from behind. Kalle’s apprenticeship had never produced such a reaction. He had never won her father’s love.

      Isidora’s body shook, she could barely breathe, and she was possessed by a sudden, dreadful hope that Lucien would collapse in fits from the glare she bestowed upon him, before leaving this house for good.

      Did he not deserve it, for reducing her to such a wretched, despicable state? But he never saw her daggered look. His eyes were shining with joy and his full attention remained on her father, waiting for him to finish.

      Deogal frowned at Isidora. “You, child, should not be here listening! Go to the scriptorium and find something to copy!”

      “Father…” she whispered before her throat tightened beyond words. She refused to look any longer at Lucien. The hateful usurper! Her face burned as if she had scrubbed it with nettles. Yet again she was banished from all that was important to her.

      But she loved her father, no matter what, and would serve and protect him as long as he needed her. Whether he wanted her to or not.

      “Excuse me.” She stood and forced herself to walk slowly, with decorum. But once out of sight, she grabbed her skirts and ran through the house, up the stone stairs and into her haven. In the tiny scriptorium, a sense of calm gradually enveloped her. Here was her Work.

      Isidora blinked, sniffed, swallowed, and as her heart slowed its wild beating, she regained the control that had long stood her so well. She looked at the scrolls and piles of parchment on the shelves, the bowls and bottles of colored inks that she mixed herself, from oxgall and ground lapis and all sorts of ingredients, both rare and common.

      She had produced ornate manuscripts and painted portraits that had been purchased by princes and bishops and satraps. She wrote letters for those who could not do so themselves. It was how she best helped her father, for ingots of silver and vials of mercury did not come cheaply. Nor did the gold leaf or vellum she used in her finest scribing.

      Isidora slipped onto the wooden seat behind the slanted table and reached down to open the small cupboard behind it. She felt for the folio inside and brought it out into the light of day. Carefully she opened the heavy leaves.

      A painting of an exquisite face smiled at her from the calfskin surface. Luminous brown eyes, skin like the petals of a dusky rose, jet hair peeking from beneath a silken veil.

      Here was her treasure…an image she had created, of Ayshka Binte Amir. Of her mother, as she had once looked. Before Kalle FitzMalheury had begun her death… Before her father had completed it…. Isidora swallowed the tears that threatened.

      Unlike the fabled Elixir, her art was real. People could see it and feel it. It had meaning and value. Creating it was a solitary occupation, by its very nature, but such was her lot in life. Like Marylas, who had lost everything, to hope for more, for a loving father, much less for a loving husband, or children, was to ask too much.

      She had seen the suffering of the truly unfortunate. What she had should be enough. Aye, she should be grateful for the bounty she possessed. Her sight, her limbs, her very life. Enough to eat and a place to sleep…even alone. It was best that way.

      Why think twice about a man like Lucien? So what if Deogal wanted him to stay? So what if he brought Deogal some companionship in his labors—was that not a good thing?

      Nay, not if it is at my expense!

      But it was wrong to think thus.

      She had her path and Lucien had his. They would be parallel for but a short time. The inevitable divergence would come, no doubt when al-Kond Herri called the knight back into service, and she would be rid of his enviable presence.

      Isidora rested her cheek on the cool surface of the table and gazed out the window. Just beyond the walls of the city, the sea glistened as the afternoon waned. The sail of a returning fishing boat slid by, gilded and backlit by the sun.

      Isidora gave thanks for the beautiful sight and made up her mind to banish all selfish thoughts. Her father was getting old; he needed help with the Work. God had sent him Lucien, and whether she liked it or not, she had to accept it. Just as most women had to accept so many things.

      She thought of her once-beautiful mother, Ayshka, ravaged by disease and now dead. The unwelcome tears stung her eyes at last. She knew passion was possible, that true love existed. Even after banishing Ayshka, Deogal had loved her with an unseemly desperation, and that was what had fueled his love of the Work. That was what still fueled his guilt.

      The Work had been his lady-wife’s last hope for a cure, short of a miracle or the touch of a saintly king…. The Work could provide the Elixir, and the Elixir could cure all ills. Even the worst—that which had afflicted her mother.

      A dread disease that carried with it a terrible stigma of implied dishonor, which tainted the whole family. Indeed, it might be the real reason no man had ever asked for Isidora’s hand.

      For her mother, shamed by one man and turned out of her home by another, had been visited by God’s cruelest wrath of all…leprosy.

       Chapter Three

      Acre

       The palace of Henry, al-Kond Herri, King of Jerusalem

       High summer, 1197

       “M y lord Henry…can you be serious? To ally yourself—a bastion of Christianity—with Sinn, the heathen Grand Master of the Assassins? It is unthinkable!” Kalle’s fist thumped the table.

      The company of Henry’s knights and noble advisors stirred, murmuring their disapproval of this outburst. Lucien remained silent, as he had throughout the meeting, but narrowed his eyes as FitzMalheury took a visible grip on his temper. “Surely it is not necessary for you, appointed as regent here by Richard himself, to make a pact with such a one?” Kalle asked.

      Henry СКАЧАТЬ