Brother Basil and Tomaso of Padua sat in the glass-house crypt, with an
oaken chest heavily bound with iron between them. It had been brought
in, and the ropes about it loosened, by sweating varlets who looked with
awe at the crucibles, retorts, mortars, braziers, furnaces, beakers and
other paraphernalia of what they believed to be alchemy. They had not
agreed about the contents of that coffer. Samkin held that it was too
heavy to be anything but gold. Hob maintained that if these wise men
could make gold there was no point in sending them a chest full. Tom
Dowgate ended the argument by inquiring which of them had ever handled
gold enough to judge its weight, and reminding them of the weight of
a millstone when tugged up hill.
It was gold, however. When doors were bolted and windows shuttered the
two philosophers remained silent for a few moments, Tomaso stroking his
white beard, Brother Basil fingering his rosary. Then the Paduan reached
forward and tilted back the lid. Under a layer of parchment, leather and
tow scraps used for packing, the bezants lay snug and orderly beneath,
shining significantly in the light of the bronze lamp. There was coin
enough in that chest to turn the scale, perhaps, in the next war in
Christendom,--so the Chancellor had said when he saw it go.
Brother Basil weighed one of the bright new-minted pieces on his
finger-end, thoughtfully.
"I wonder what this bit of metal will do in England," he mused.
"Strange--that a thing so easily destroyed should have such power over
the hearts of men."
"It is like a Devil," said the unperturbed physician. "He does not come
inside a man's heart unless he is invited. Gold as you will employ it
means the upbuilding of those crafts that make men--not serfs. We shall
make our treasure instead of hiring troopers to steal it, if your
schools prosper."
Brother Basil sighed. "I hope so. It is hard to see pages of priceless
wisdom, scribed and illumined by loving and patient labor, scattered to
the winds in the sack of a town. It made my soul ache to hear the monks
of Ireland speak of the past. I believe that the King means to protect
the Irish Abbeys, but this is a hard age for a peacemaker."
"The Plantagenets were never scantly supplied with brains," observed
Tomaso dryly. "I think, myself, that the King will use the sword only to
enforce the law, and that the robber barons are going to have a sad time
of it henceforth. Perhaps Henry is more in tune with the age than you
think. Frederick Barbarossa is coming to grips with the Lombard cities,
and it will be mailed knight against Commune this time. Meanwhile, let
us get to work."
The gold was unpacked and hidden safely in the hollow of the wall behind
the turning stone. When the younger men arrived the chest was carried
up the narrow stair and refilled with various precious or fragile things
which it was well to have out of the way. The furnaces were set alight
and the working day began.
A fairy spell seemed to possess the fires and the crucibles. Brother
Basil, working at a medallion of enamel, gave a delighted exclamation as
he held up the finished work. The red roses of Saint Dorothea were like
elfin blossoms.
"The saint herself might have come from Alexandria to help us," he said.
Guy, who never spared trouble, had been finishing a chalice begun before
his recent journey to the south. Even the critical eye of the Abbot
found no flaw in its beauty. The little group of artists had worked free
from the Oriental stiffness and unreality of their first models. Their
designs were conventional, but the working out was like the quaintly
formal primness of wild flowers in garlands. The traditional shape might
be much the same, but there was a living freshness and grace, a richness
of color and strength of line, which were an improvement on the model.
Alan, who seldom talked of an idea until he had tried it out, betook
himself to a corner and began doing odd things with his blowpipe. The
others went to work on a reliquary, and paid no attention to him until
their work was well under way. Then there was a chorus of admiration.
The sheet of glass just ready for the annealing was of the true heavenly
azure that Brother Basil had tried in vain to get.
"You kept the rule, I hope?" inquired the monk with some anxiety. "We
cannot lose that glass now that we have it."
Alan shifted from one foot to the other. "It wasn't my rule,--that is,
not all of it," he answered bluntly. "I read a part on this torn page
here, and it seemed to me that I might work out the rest by this," he
showed a chalked formula on the wall. "I tried it, and it came right."
Tomaso caught up the scrap of parchment. "What?" he said sharply. "Where
did this come from?"
It was a piece that had been used for the packing of the gold. Parchment
was not cheap, and all the bits had been swept into a basket. Although
covered with writing, they could be scraped clean and used again. The
Paduan bent over the rubbish and picked out fragment after fragment,
comparing them with keen interest.
"No harm is done," he said as he met Alan's troubled gaze, "there may be
something else worth keeping here. At any rate you shall make more blue
glass. Keep the formula safe and secret."
There are days in all men's work which are remembered while memory
endures--hours when the inspiration of a new thought is like a song of
gladness, and the mind forgets the drag of past failure. The little
group in the Abbey glass-house and the adjoining rooms where the
goldsmiths worked, were possessed by this mood of delight. The
chalice that Guy had finished, the deep azure glass and the reliquary
represented more real achievement than they had to show for any day in
the past six months. There was just the difference that separates the
perfect from the not quite perfect. Their dreams were coming true.
The young men walked over the fields to supper at the Abbey farm, as
usual, and Dame Cicely, as usual, stood in the door to greet them.
[Illustration: "'AND THERE GOES WHAT WOULD SEAT THE KING OF ENGLAND ON
THE THRONE OF THE CAESARS,' QUOTH TOMASO"--_Page 291_]
"How goes the work, lads?" she asked, and then caught Alan by the
shoulder, crying, "No need to answer. I know by the face on thee. What
hast been doing to make it shine so?"
"Only finished a piece o' work, mother," said Padraig with a grin. "It
takes some men a long time to do that. If they would bide just this side
of a masterpiece they'd save 'emselves trouble. But they will spend all
their force on the last step."
"Aye," said Alan, "better leap clean over the Strid while you're about
it."
And for once Padraig had no more to say.
Oddly enough Brother Basil also thought of the Strid that night--the
deep and dangerous whirlpool in the grim North Country had haunted him
ever since he saw it. He and Tomaso came back, after dark, to the crypt,
and spread out the torn manuscripts by the light of two flambeaux in the
wall. None of the pages were whole, and the script was in Latin, Arabic,
Greek and Italian, and not all in the same handwriting. Both believed
that in searching the heap for secrets of their arts they had stumbled
on something dangerous.
"I believe I know where these came from," Tomaso said, when they had
patched together three or four pages. "They are part of the scripts of
Archiater of Byzantium, who was taken for a wizard in Goslar ten years
ago. I thought that all his books were burned. There was talk enough
about it."
"But what are these prescriptions?" asked the monk, puzzled.
"You would know by this time," said the Paduan grimly, "if that
flame-crested imp of yours, Padraig, had been the one to experiment. By
following the directions on this bit of vellum he might have blown us
all into the other world. Luckily only three of these formulae are of
that nature. The others are quite safe for your young disciples to play
with. But these we will keep to ourselves." He laid a stained brownish
piece of sheepskin apart from the others and two smaller ones beside it.
"These are directions for the manufacture of aqua regia, Spanish gold,
and something which Archiater called Apples of Sodom. Of a certainty
they are fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, those apples."
Brother Basil had lost color. This really was a trifle too near
necromancy to be pleasant. Spanish gold was a Saracen invention, said
to be made of most unholy materials, and he had heard of a wizard being
carried bodily off on the wind after dealing in the others.
"We will carry on our experiments," Tomaso continued, "in the cellars
of my tower, if you please. The young ones will be only too glad to be
rid of us. If any one meddled here we should risk all we have done
and the lives of our pupils. If we make any blunders working by
ourselves--well--I sometimes think that I have lived a long time
already."
The disciples were too well trained to ask any questions, but they were
somewhat mystified by the proceedings which ensued. An underground
chamber straitly walled in with masonry was fitted up, and the smells
that clung to the garments of Brother Basil when he emerged were more
like brimstone than anything else. Tomaso was never seen at all.
Meanwhile the newly discovered formulae for glass and enamel work had
been turned over to the workers in the glass-house, with permission to
buy whatever material was needed. Padraig and Guy went to London, and
came back with precious packets of rare gums, dyes, minerals, oils and
salts, not to be found or made at the Abbey.
Meanwhile the monk and the physician worked with absorbed intentness at
their crucibles and stills. There was a slight explosion one evening,
and a country lout of the neighborhood told of it. Next day a
neighboring farmer ventured to ask Padraig what was going on in the
ruined tower.
"Why," said Padraig soberly, "we are raising a brood of hobgoblins for
the King. Did ye not know?"
The making of sulphuric acid, nitric acid and their compounds would have
been risky business in any age, with the primitive apparatus that the
two investigators had. They were furthermore made cautious by the fact
that they did not know what might happen if they made the least error.
It was midnight after a long and nerve-racking day when they became
satisfied that they had the secrets of at least three perilous mixtures
in the hollow of their hands.
"I think the King would give seven such chests as the one he sent, if he
knew what we know," said Brother Basil musingly.
"He has the value of that chest already, in the rose window and the
great window, the monstrance, the chalice and the cups," Tomaso
answered, his sense of money values undimmed. "They are as good in their
way as Limoges itself can do."
"I wish that we had tidings from London," said the monk thoughtfully.
"If Lombardy loses in this war the Emperor will not stop there. He has
said that he will obey no Pope on earth, only Saint Peter and the
others in heaven. He is neither to hold nor to bind, that man."
"Henry does not want to fight--that is certain," said Tomaso. "He
desires only to keep for his children what he has already--Anjou,
Normandy, Aquitaine; and most of all England. It would take a greater
than the Conqueror to rob the Plantagenets of this kingdom."
"What do you think will happen in Lombardy?" asked the other.
"The League of Lombard cities will fight to the death," said Tomaso
quietly. "The Communes are fighting for their lives, and cornered wolves
are fierce. Neither Sicily nor France is on Frederick's side, although
they may be, if he wins. If he can get Henry the Lion of Saxony to fight
under his banner, it may turn the scale."
"And Henry the Lion married our Henry's daughter Matilda," said Brother
Basil. Tomaso nodded.
"Without Saxony," the Paduan added, "I know that not more than two
thousand men will follow Barbarossa into Italy, and not more than half
are mailed knights. The Lombard army is more or less light cavalry
and infantry. Here in this cellar we have such weapons as no King
has dreamed of--blazing leaping serpents, metal-devouring and
poison-breathing spirits, pomegranates full of the seeds of destruction.
These--in the hands of the Communes----"
"Would turn Christendom into the kingdom of Satan," said Brother Basil
as the physician paused. "If we were to give the secret to Henry's
clerks, or even if we ourselves handled the work in London Tower, how
long would it be before treachery or thievery carried it overseas? Are
we to spread ruin over the world?"
"I thought you would see it as I did," said Tomaso smiling.
The ground vibrated to the tread of hoofs, and a horn sounded outside
the window.
"That is Ranulph," said Tomaso. "I thought he might come to-night. He
will have news."
As Ranulph came up the path, travel-dusty and weary, lights twinkled out
in the Abbey and the Abbey Farm.
"The Emperor has lost," said the troubadour. "There was a battle at
Legnano, and the German knights scattered the Italian cavalry at the
first onset, but when they met the infantry massed about the Carocchio
they broke. The Emperor was wounded and fled. Without Henry of Saxony
the battle was lost before it began. They say that there will be a
treaty at Venice. The Communes have won."
"Come here, my son," said Tomaso, turning back into the tower. "We have
found an armory of new and deadly weapons. You have heard of Archiater's
apples? We can make them. Shall we give the Plantagenets to eat of the
Tree of Knowledge?"
Ranulph's eyes darkened and narrowed. His quick mind leaped forward to
the consequences of such a revelation.
"No," he answered. "Too much evil ambition lives among Normans. It might
be safe with the King--and maybe with Richard, for he loves chivalry and
knightly honor--but John loves nothing but his own will. Let us have
peace in Christendom while we can."
"Shall we burn the parchment then?" asked Brother Basil.
"Nay--keep it in cipher. Let a few trusted men know the key."
"We will trust our lads," Brother Basil said. "Let us ask them."
Alan and Padraig, Wilfrid, Guy, and David, came up the path. Brother
Basil explained the discovery. They had already heard the news of the
Lombard victory from Giovanni, who had ridden with the troubadour and
stopped at the Abbey Farm.
"What shall we do with these mysteries?" Tomaso asked, holding out one
of the deadly little grenades. "You must remember that some one else may
find out the secret without our help. It is true that the man who did
would risk being burned for a wizard in some places; still, there is
little that men will not dare in the search for knowledge."
"Let them find it out then," spoke Padraig in sudden heat. "We have had
enough of war in our time. Let us kill this cockatrice in the egg."
"These would pay some debts,"--Alan's hard young North-country face grew
stern. He was thinking of tales which Angelo had told him in his
boyhood.
"God can pay debts without money," said Brother Basil gently.
"We are not ready," Guy averred. "We need time to train men and to let
the land breathe. After that it may be safe to use the secret--not now."
"That cat's best in a sack," David commented shrewdly.
"Padraig is right," said Wilfrid. "We have had enough of war in our
time. We will keep this monster prisoned."
They came to an agreement. Padraig was to make copies in cipher of the
formulae. After ten years, or on his deathbed should he die within that
time, each might give the master-words and the rules to some comrade who
could be trusted. They were all to swear never to use their knowledge
for gain, or ambition, or vanity, but for the good of their craft, the
glory of God and the honor of the land.
"Before we destroy that which we have made," said Brother Basil, "we
will show you in part what it can do."
Metals dissolved like wet salt. Wood and leather were bitten through as
by gnawing rats. A fire was kindled on the old tower, and a cone-like
swarm of giant wasps of fire went spluttering and boiling up into the
darkness. The apples of Sodom were planted under a troublesome ledge of
rock, and reduced it to rubble.
"And there goes what would seat the King of England on the throne of the
Caesars," quoth Tomaso. The last wavering flare was dying into the night,
and he stood with Ranulph and Padraig on the top of the tower, under the
stars.
"He might have sat there before, if he had chosen," mused Ranulph.
Padraig was silent. Matteo had fallen beside the Carocchio, and his
heart was sad.
Tomaso laid a hand on Ranulph's shoulder.
"An empire is a forest of slow nurture, beloved of my soul," he said
gently, "and it does--not--grow--by--conflagrations."
Transcriber's Notes:
The following corrections have been made:
On page 46/47 two paragraphs were joined together. (He answered,
a trifle defiantly, "Perhaps I do.)
On page 239 the quotation marks were moved from the end of the stanza
to the beginning of the next, (Take a chance for Belphoebe's fame!)
("They live in Valhalla).
Spelling and pagenumbers in the Tables of Contents and Illustrations,
and in the captions, have been corrected to match the rest of the
book.
Otherwise the original has been preserved, including archaic, unusual
and inconsistent spelling, especially in the poems, and inconsistent
hyphenation.