The Alchemist's Daughter by Eileen Kernaghan Page B

miraculous recovery, for which we may all be grateful.” With a sweeping bow first to Sidonie, and then to Lady Mary, he strode out in obvious high spirits.
    â€œMy lady, do sit down.”
    â€œYes,” said the Countess, vaguely. She gathered up her skirts and sank into the bedside chair. “I have prayed for you, Sidonie. We have all prayed. Thank heaven those prayers were answered.” She held one of Sidonie’s hands in her cool, dry grasp. “But how quickly the young heal. You look almost your old self.”
    â€œMaster Gilbert has been cossetting me with his potions, my lady.”
    â€œYes,” said Mary Herbert, with a faint smile. “They work magic, those concoctions of his. Would he could mend hearts as easily.”
    â€œMy lady?”
    The Countess’s fingers tightened on Sidonie’s. “You were there. You saw.”
    â€œMy lady, I know not where I was, or what I saw. Dr. Moffett says I wandered in my sleep, and that I had a fever-dream . . . ”
    â€œYou know that what you saw was no dream, Sidonie — though it might have been for all the comfort it brought me. Though my arms ache to embrace him, he is nothing but shadow and smoke, that vanishes at my touch.”
    Poor lady , thought Sidonie. In her grief, she can no longer tell what is a dream, and what is real . And yet, she thought in lingering confusion, how strange that she and the Countess should have shared the self-same vision.
    â€œYou must let him go,” said Sidonie, with a wisdom she hadn’t known she possessed.
    â€œGod knows I have tried,” said Lady Mary. “But each night I cast the spells anew, hoping for the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand — for consolation.” She leaned forward. Her green eyes had a hectic, feverish look. “My child, you must promise you will not betray me. What I did was against the laws of both God and man.”
    Sidonie said softly, “Surely God will forgive you, knowing you acted out of love.”
    â€œGod perhaps, if He is as merciful as you imagine. But if I am found out, will the courts forgive me?”
    â€œAccording to the statute, my lady, it is only a felony if the spirits you invoke are evil ones.”
    The Countess gave her a wry smile. “So not to be hung, then, but only gaoled and pilloried? But Sidonie Quince, you seem uncommonly well acquainted with the law.”
    â€œSo would you be, my lady, if you were the daughter of Simon Quince.” And then, with a pang of conscience, Sidonie remembered the task she had left undone. “Forgive me, Lady Mary, I promised to scry for you, but the images would not come. And then I fell ill.”
    â€œBut soon you will be well again. Are you good at solving conundrums, Sidonie Quince?”
    â€œMy lady?”
    â€œMy brother brought me a message. But he spoke in riddles, as they say the dead do.”
    â€œHe spoke, my lady?”
    â€œNay, rather, he wrote.” Mary Gilbert took something out of her pocket and held it out to Sidonie. It was a velvet-bound journal, richly decorated with pearls. A cold fist squeezed Sidonie’s heart. She seen that journal before, in her fever-dream. And in that dream she had watched the shade of Sir Philip Sidney take up a pen, and write.
    But , thought Sidonie, with a chill prickling along her spine, the spirits who come to us in dreams leave no mark upon the waking world .
    â€œRead for yourself,” said the Countess.
    Sidonie opened the book, flipped through pages covered with Lady Mary’s small neat script, and then stared at the words scrawled hastily across an empty sheet.
    Quaere ubi pisces silentia servant.

C HAPTER F IFTEEN
    Your answer, sir, is enigmatical.
    â€” William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
    Sidonie had managed this morning to eat a little stewed fruit and a morsel of manchet bread. When Kit looked in after an early ramble, she was sitting up in a fur-trimmed