Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [240]
There was no yellow flare. The sightless nightmare engulfed them and the seconds passed, and then minutes, of black choler, livid and briefly guttering with the surge of the furnace. Light came reluctantly, clearing the blackness in misty circles, like clean water running white and graining over the blackened face of a drawing.
The floor became visible to them; then the stools; the lower part of the bench, and the five persons in the laboratory, three of them in much altered positions. Instead of commanding the furnace, Johnnie Bullo was standing hard by the door, looking out of the corners of his eyes at Sybilla. The Dowager had reseated herself and with Janet peering beside her, was poking energetically inside a large crucible, the twin of the one which stood shattered on the iron plate still in front of her.
“Such a useful thing, smoke,” said Sybilla. “Now what have we here? Yes. I thought so.”
She plunged her arm inside the jar and lifted something out, displaying it to them all. “One pound of lead, untouched. From the first crucible, stealthily hidden beneath the bench. Leading us to the second crucible, now broken, and containing one block of lead (at a guess) thinly coated with gold. Leading us to the further matter of my chains and coins which were supposed to be in the first jar but are (at a guess) inside the bench drawer instead. Yes, here they are.
“Dear me. Having supplied me with my coated brick and my Stone, Mr. Bullo meant I suppose to pocket the gold intended for the experiment and to stimulate a small regular income of gold with which to repeat his initial success. I do call that a little grasping, when I seemed to have housed and fed and paid him practically all winter.… I shouldn’t try it, my dear man. The door wouldn’t open for a very good reason: half my servants are outside with pikestaffs. Didn’t you know that Dame Janet dabbled in alchemy too? She has been a most valued adviser.”
Standing against the door, Johnnie Bullo showed his teeth; and there was something of the occult still about his smile, although he was unarmed and rather dirty, as they all were, and his hair was curling over his eyes. “At least, as you say, I had a winter’s lodging for it,” he said impudently. The brown eyes were limpid. “Have I made an error? I was under the impression you were buying my services.”
The blue eyes were equally seraphic. “Your services proved a little expensive.”
He shrugged a little. “I did all I could be expected to do, barring manufacture fresh time. You feel,” and he jerked his head toward the door, “you have no further need of me?”
“On the contrary,” said Sybilla, and gathering her stained clothes carefully, she sat down again on her blackened stool. “On the contrary: I wished it to be very clear to you that you need my good offices much more than I need yours. If these men outside take you to a sheriff with this tale, you’ll hang.”
Romanies, having no use for confessions and excuses, likewise prefer to reach a crooked point quickly. Johnnie Bullo moved away from the door, strolled to the bench, turned, and regarded the Dowager with resignation and some misgiving.
“All right. What must I do?” he inquired.
* * *
On that same evening, as the small, gusty wind blew heather off the fuel stacks and straw from the roofs and goffered the gutter mud in the High Street, Lord Culter left Edinburgh for home.
It was five months since he had seen Midculter; five months since he had ridden around the estate, or seen to his fishings and his warrens and his peats. He had watched his stock coming to market outside the city walls; had met and corresponded with Gilbert over the shipments of wool and hides and the ordering of the farms and the affairs of his dependents; his wright and his mason, his tailor and amourer and falconer and carpenter and smith and gardeners; the men who supplied his oats, meal and barley, herded his pigs and sheep and cattle, grew his peas and