The fire worm, p.16
The Fire Worm, page 16
Over in Tunis, in December 1315, Ramon dedicated his latest production, theLiber de majori fine intellectus amoris et honoris to the infidel Mufti, proving that there were no ill feelings despite previous episodes of stoning and imprisonment and expulsion, and Ramon’s advocacy of a bloody crusade.
“Which leaves us to explain all those alchemy books which poured forth under his name, eh John? Such as, to name but one, theEpistola accurtationis lapidis philosophorum Raymundi Lullii ad Regem Robertum, an epistle concerning the philosophers’ stone addressed to Roberto Anglorum Regi, King Robert of England.”
“Kingwho ?”
“You may well ask! England never had a King Robert. Those were very lucid alchemy books, by the way. None of your usual cryptic fog. Lullian method applied logically and rationally. And signed Lully.”
“Though not written by Llull … ”
In those days, if you admired somebody you put their name on your book. If you thought Aristotle was the bee’s knees you signed your book Aristotle. Besides, people would pay more attention to it. Now, the real Ramon Llull hung around courts and princes a lot, hoping to raise funds for his schemes. So if youcalled yourself Raymond Lully … ”
“What does your novelist’s instinct tell us, Jack?”
“That the Raymond Lully whom Ranulph locked up at Raby in 1312 — was an imposter! He had already conned some men of influence in the London area; hence Bishop Bek’s eager invitation. That would be a fairly easy scam in the early thirteenth century, don’t you think, passing yourself off as someone else? No passports. No newspapers. The real Llull probably never had visited England.”
“But what sort of imposter was our pseudo-Llull, Jack? Was he just a charlatan? Or was he fully familiar with the work of Llull, and saw himself as an intellectual equal?”
“Even as someone carrying the work of Llull one vital step further — by applying it to the Great Work, alchemy, the key to the secret of creation? Aha!”
“So how does Tony Smith know about Raymond Lully, either real or pseudo? Is it those lore and legend books again?”
“Connexions, John. Patterns. Ramon, and Harriet. An alchemist’s quest for gold — and Shanky Elwes scenting the yellow metal inside Jingling Geordie’s Hole. The jingle of coins. The cave on Mount Randa.Patterns .”
“So what has Llull got to do with worms?”
“Which Llull, John? Which Llull?”
“Oh, I see. The pseudo-Llull. We’d better call him Lully, as distinct from Llull. Maybe Lully wormed Robert de Neville, to cure him.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Raby, fifteen miles to the south-west of Durham City, originally was a monastic shrine to St. Cuthbert. When King Canute made a pilgrimage to that shrine, to mark the occasion he gave into the ownership of the monks Raby itself and the village of Staindrop to the south and the shire surrounding.
In 1131 the monks rented out their possessions to the Northumbrian princeling Dolphin, son of Ughtred, for four pounds per annum plus one dead stag. Some castle building commenced. Dolphin’s son was Maldred fitz Dolphin. Maldred’s son married Isabel Neville, who was sole heiress of a great Saxon family.Their son adopted the Neville name, in preference to Fitzdolphin. Who could blame him?
And now the man who called himself Raymond Lully was riding his palfrey reluctantly toward Raby, in company with chainmail-clad Nevilles and half a dozen lancers.
Fences of close-woven stakes protected what arable fields there were. Much of the land was stony sheep pasture, rising to hilly moors. Few trees were visible. Drizzle fell.
Presently a square, stub-towered church loomed. It stood beyond a collection of low thatched cottages, mostly built from the stones with which the countryside was littered. As they rode by the church, the burly knight who had introduced himself as Ranulph de Neville gazed piercingly at it, prompting Lully to enquire in French, “Do you have a quarrel withthat church, as well as with Durham?”
The knight shook his head.
“Staindrop Church is the burial place of our family. At home my eldest son lies mysteriously sick. He may soon be joining his ancestors underneath the church floor.”
“So that is your secondary reason for abducting me, Dominus?”
Ranulph looked blank. “How do you mean?”
“You have abducted a mediciner. If I can assist your son, may I be allowed to continue my journey?”
The Lord of Raby stared at Lully. “You have studied leech-craft?”
“Indeed, it is part and parcel of my search into the body of nature.” Lully stroked his long white beard. “The true philosopher never seeks gold for its own sake, you know. Transmutation of base metal into gold is simply atest — to confirm that the philosopher has indeed made the true Stone, which principally functions as the elixir of life. That elixir is the aim — it transforms the mortal mind and body. So before the philosopher even begins, he must understand themortality andmorbidity of body and mind.”
“And you have achieved this stone? You have this elixir?”
“Ah, it is a lengthy process, costly in both time and material,” Lully replied evasively.
“But do you carry any elixir with you?”
“What I do have at the moment is some of the impure quintessence, known as aqua vitae. Its effect on an ailing body is remarkable.”
Ranulph scrutinized his captive. The philospher wore a beaver hat in the style of the Flemings — under which he might be as bald as a coot — and a high-collared cloak which was crumpled from sleeping in, and muddy leather boots. His face was lined, and his beard was white. Subtracting the effects of travel, did not Master Lully appear somewhat decrepit and time-worn for a person who had drunk an elixir of life?
Alternatively, this philosopher might be as old as Methuselah; in which case he was not in bad repair, all things considered.
“You should drink some of that aqua vitae yourself,” said Ranulph, “before you pour any down my son’s throat, eh?”
Lully smiled thinly. “I should be delighted.”
Ranulph fell silent, and spurred ahead.
Lully was well aware that he resembled the real Ramon Llull. He had attended the marvelous old man’s lectures on his Art, and had observed him closely. Lully had long since studied many of Llull’s books with admiring attention, memorizing whole passages and mastering the method which was so eminently applicable to the science of alchemy. Llull could have been an intellectual uncle to Lully.
Not an elder brother, though! That position belonged to Lully’s alchemical master, Arnold of Villanova, with whom he had studied for years. Arnold had quit France to distance himself from the arm of the Holy Inquisition, which was furious at the man’s questioning of papal infallibility.
To heighten a physical resemblance which he aimed to exploit, Lully had grown his own beard almost to the length of Llull’s; and had recently bleached it.
The true adept, such as Lully, was well advised to steer clear of powerful men and princes. Princes had a habit of imprisoning you, even of threatening pain in their greed for gold. The temper of princes, if disappointed, was unreliable.
Massive difficulties attended the course of true science! Disregarding the foibles of princes, there were still explosions to contend with, and accidental fires, impurity of the raw material, failure to maintain the exact furnace heat perfectly for a month and more, the cracking of badly-made glass vessels, a servant nodding off over the bellows, bad stars in the sky: any of these could wreck an experiment which had been years in preparation. This was well known.
Thus hoaxers and puffers could get away with conning gullible patrons out of large sums of money. First they would demonstrate their “skill”. They would hide some real gold, fixed by wax, inside their apparatus. They would introduce it by sleight of hand, and then go through the motions of transmutation resulting in the wondrous production of the selfsame gold. Later, they would let accidents abort their work — and call for more and more money.
Yet large sums of moneywere needed. Lully knew that he was very close to his goal. First he must find the funds to buy time, raw material, and equipment. He had decided to travel to England impersonating the excellent Llull who did approach princes, to gain backing for all sorts of missionary work. Crusades were a popular cause, God knows why. To manufacture gold for a crusade: that must seem entirely praiseworthy.
So far as Lully knew, Llull had never visited England; and he would be unlikely to do so in the near future. Llull would be fully occupied in Vienne on the Rhône, lobbying the papal Council. A church council could easily spin out to a year or two years. If any deep philosophical discussion should occur in England, why, Lully could acquit himself as well as Llull.
On the stormy and dangerous journey over to England, he had induced a trance in himself and had become Lully. He put his own boyhood in Languedoc behind him. He submerged his youth spent in Montpellier. He drowned his middle years when he had wandered Europe in search of the true science … Why, he had even picked up a smattering of Catalan from a student friend in … where was it? His ignorance of Arabic would hardly be challenged by the English.
Now, en route to patronage by a powerful prince-bishop, he had been kidnapped as if by Saracen corsairs.
Ahead rose the walls and towers of Raby Castle. He noted that they weren’t crenellated with battlements, yet they still looked unbreachably strong. The moat lay about the castle like a great pool of liquid pewter. Horns hooted as lookouts spotted the approach of the party.
“Master Lully cured me,” said Robert in wonder. “Right quickly, too!”
“He was lodged high in Bulmer’s Tower, the five-sided one. I believe that number appealed to him as an omen. The very next day my father brought him to my chamber. Master Lully turned up my eyelids, and held my wrist. Then he sniffed the urine in my chamber pot, and extracted some in a glass which he took to the embrasure to hold to the daylight. I remember the rustle of his feet in the rushes and alder leaves on the flagstones as he gyrated, agitating my piss, counting the bubbles or motes that rose — and noting the time it took those to rise, by which he could determine the density of my piss and its vivacity.
“ ‘So what did the leeches give him so far by way of medicine?’ he asked our seneschal in French. We all spoke French, of course.
“The seneschal answered scrupulously. ‘The monk from Staindrop took one handful of wormwood, one of horehound, and one of sheep’s dung which he boiled in a quart of water till there was only one pint left. This he strained, and boiled in ale, and gave to Master Robert to drink when it cooled.’
“ ‘Hmm, that makes some sense. Horehound and wormwood are both stimulant tonics. Additionally, horehound purges sluggish piss from the body; while wormwood will stun any worms in the entrails. However, there is no jaundice evident in this young man.’
“ ‘Whereas the Lord Balliol’s leech ordered snails and earthworms bruised and boiled in milk with hyssop and wood betony.’
“ ‘Yes indeed.’
“ ‘He also added precious mummy powder.’
“ ‘That would most likely be from a bird stuffed with spices and pulverized, in which case it could hardly prove efficacious.’
“ ‘That, to be followed by infusions of white poplar bark daily.’
“ ‘Highly renovating for debility! But we behold the young man still laid low.’
“From his scrip Master Lully produced his bottle of nostrum, a clear thin liquid with a golden hue. He poured some of this into a spoon, careful not to spill a drop, and let my father see him swallow this liquid. Master Lully’s skin flushed immediately, and he sighed.
“He refilled the spoon and held it to my lips. The vapour from the nostrum stung my eyes. It was as if I drank fire — delicious fire. My belly glowed. My heart thumped. Warmth perfused my cold limbs.
“ ‘This is the quintessence distilled from wine,’ explained Master Lully. ‘The heavenly component of wine. Only this substance will extract the aromatic quintessence of plants, which mere boiling in milk or water cannot achieve. I have only a small supply; but it is at the noble Robert’s disposal.’
“ ‘I am grateful,’ my father said gruffly. He did not wish to appear too grateful to a prisoner. ‘I can witness the effect. And to produce more of this aqua vitae?’
“ ‘Requires good apparatus, Dominus, and some time. I know another secret I can employ at once, which requires no nostrum, only some privacy.’
“Thus it was that my chamber was cleared of onlookers. including my father. As soon as Master Lully and I were alone together, he took from his scrip a tiny shining silver mirror on a chain. This, he breathed upon and buffed and polished, then dangled before my eyes …”
“Another sodding mesmerist, Jack.”
“Connexions, John!”
Chapter Twenty-two
Within weeks Robert de Neville was his old self again. Glowing and strong, he was working out with sword and axe, and riding at the quintain pole with a lance. Of an evening in the torchlit Barons’ Hall, he wore his most peacocky clothes.
Other members of the family and retainers consulted Lully about their ailments, and in most cases he thoroughly banished or at least alleviated assorted agues, colicks, gripes, wind, surfeits, scabs, and headaches. He treated with crushed frogs’ eggs an injured man-at-arms whose wound was festering. The wound stopped producing foul pus, and healed.
Soon Lully was not so much a prisoner as an honoured guest. Ranulph gave orders for the fitting up of a room at the top of Bulmer’s Tower as a laboratory to Lully’s specifications, as well as for the manufacture or purchase of all the necessary apparatus: the alembics for distilling, the special pelican alembics with their beaks tucked back into the glass body, the long-necked matrass flasks, the retorts and lamp-furnaces and stills, and not least the principal athanor-furnace of Lully’s own devising. The athanor would require a stone tower to be attached laterally, filled with fuel, thus ensuring a constant supply as new fuel dropped down to fill the space vacated by fuel already consumed.
Masons were busy, and carpenters, and iron-workers. Guarded wagons rolled in, with thick glassware and glazed pottery packed in straw.
As to thefuel itself … here Master Lully appeared to be nursing a secret.
By now Antony Bek had sent a monk with armed escort to deliver a haughty message demanding the surrender of Raymond Lully into his custody. However, Lully had no wish to leave Raby — and said so of his own free will.
The evening after his declaration of full commitment to the Nevilles, Ranulph ordered a special banquet to expresshis commitment to the alchemist; and there the subject of fuel arose — amidst the roast venison and sugared suckling pig, the poached salmon in wine sauce, ducklings, cinnamon pastries and ginger wafers, and the hot spiced hippocras wine which loosened tongues.
“In the past,” said Ranulph, “we bought some coal from St Andres Akeland. It is just five miles from here. The monks there at Bishop’s Akeland dig coal when it suits them. Coal is hotter than wood, and denser.”
“Coalis condensed wood,” commented Lully.
“Here’s a problem!” said younger brother Ralph. “Suppose Bishop Bek hears that we want to buy coal, he may guess why. Out of peevishness he’d forbid his monks to trade with us.”
“The best and most reliable source of coal,” Robert chipped in, “is from the monks at Tynemouth. They used to dig coal only to fuel the salt pans. Now they regularly ship their coal to the London brewers and dyers.”
“Do the salt pans need much heat?” asked Lully, ever interested in stout equipment.
“Oh, they boil the brine in such giant iron pans you can see the billowing steam from a day’s ride away! I inspected them after we chased the Scots back into Northumberland.”
“And after boiling? Can you describe the process?”
“Well, while the water’s lukewarm they clarify it with white of egg and sheep blood. Then they boil, boil, boil till no liquid is left. When the pans cool, they rake the crystals out to dry. And start again.”
“So there’s a hive of industry at this place Tynemouth?”
Robert laughed. “Not at all! Except for the monks, that is. Otherwise there’s only a wretched huddle of fishermen’s shelters, or shiels as they call ’em. The local folk feed on some stinking black seaweed they callslauk , which they tear off the rocks. Oh, the place was prosperous formerly. It unloaded and victualled the sea traffic which had no wish to risk seven more miles of winding river and sandy shoals just to berth at Newcastle. But the burgesses and mayor of Newcastle raged against this drain on their monopoly. Fully twenty years ago they petitioned the Crown for exclusive jurisdiction all the way to the river mouth; and gained it. The wharfs of Tynemouth were all torn down. Even Tynemouth coal is carted to Newcastle to be shipped back down the river and out to sea.”
The boys’ mother, Lady Euphemia — formerly de Clavering — spoke up. She was a singularly handsome woman with a mass of lustrous natural chestnut hair framing a sensual face enlarged by the plucking of her hair-line to broaden her forehead, and by the plucking of her eyebrows too. Her red-striped gown was embroidered in silver.
“Well then,” she said, “so the monks at Bishop Akeland must not learn that they are selling coals to us. What if they believe its destination to be elsewhere? Now let me see. Bowes Castle is too tumbledown to be believed as a destination … but perhapsBarnard Castle? The wagons would have to pass through Staindrop. They simply unload here, wait a decent interval, then return for more. By the time the monks learn the truth and the news reaches Bishop Bek’s ears, we ought to have laid in a fine stock.”
“Admirable!” Ranulph raised his hippocras in a toast, and swigged. A server refilled the glass with hot, fumy wine.
Lully chuckled. “If, I repeat if, I can maintain an intense, constant heat in my athanor for a sufficient length of time, then we shall witness a marvel in the heart of my furnace which will save us from worrying unduly about fuel and heat.”
