Dr Hedwith thrashes in his sleep, deep in the dream, sweating, the blankets twisting tightly around him like a burial shroud. He whimpers and moans, pleading through his clenched teeth, asking for more time. It’s behind him as it ever is, the same dream, always. A nameless, formless thing, stalking him. Death; it didn’t take an alienist to realize that. He begins to shout, which wakes him from the dream into a nighttime terror as he struggles to get out of the tangled bedding, feeling trapped and terrified in his confusion until reason sinks in a few rapid heartbeats later. His chest pounds and, for a moment, he thinks he’s pissed the bed, but it’s only the sweat of his body, soaked through the sheets.
Hedwith sits up, breathing shakily. With trembling fingers he tries to light the candle by the bed, snapping two matches before managing to get the thing going. His ribs ache and there is a cramp building in his calf; he leans forward to massage his leg and a spot of blood drips down onto the sheet, in the candlelight looking almost black against the sweaty linen. Morrison rubs his fingers against his upper lip, smearing the blood leaking from his nose. Stupidly, he looks at his bloodied fingers, having to squint one eye; the other he can barely see out of. There is a faint tap at the door, startling him.
“Come in,” he whispers, repeating it after a moment in a stronger voice. “Yes, come in,” expecting Annabelle.
The door opens and Castle peers in. “Are you all right, Doctor? I thought I heard shouting.”
Of course it’s Castle, Hedwith realizes. Of course. The man always seems to know when these things happen. It’s one of the many talents he has, one of the many reasons he is such an excellent servant and companion, even if he looks like a dockside thug. Castle’s presence is soothing, almost fatherly in a way, even though Morrison is of course the much older man. Is Castle getting more grey, though, he thinks, the hair thinner? Are the seams and wrinkles in his face more pronounced, among the various lumps and scars? He realizes, with mild shock, that Castle is getting old.
“It was just a dream, my friend,” he says now, trying to smile. “A nightmare, you know. I’m fine, thank you. I’m fine. I didn’t wake Annabelle, did I? Her door is shut?”
“Yes, sir. I don’t believe Mrs Hedwith is awake, no. Her room was quiet when I passed.” Castle looks at his employer, lying there disheveled and sweaty in the twisted-apart bedding, the back of a finger pressed to his nose to stop the bleeding. Hedwith looks pitiful: old, small, and weak, trembling in the dark like a frightened child. “I’ll bring you a damp towel, sir, and something for your nose. Would you like anything else?”
For a hot, scared second, Hedwith doesn’t want Castle to leave the room, doesn’t want to be alone in the dim light again, with the memories of the dream. Just having him there seems to push the dark and the fear and the memories away. With an effort of will, he gets himself under control. “Thank you, Castle. That would be lovely. Perhaps a bit of warm milk.”
Castle leaves, returning several minutes later with a towel, some gauze pads, and a small basin of warm water. While Hedwith busies himself with wiping the sweat and blood off of himself, Castle fetches the milk from the kitchen stove. “I’m sorry, sir,” he says, when he returns, “the milk is only lukewarm. The coals were almost dead. If you like I can stoke the stove up and get it warmer, but it may take some time. I’ll speak to Mrs Connor about leaving the firebox better prepared at night.”
Morrison waves his hand. “No, no, that’s fine, Mr Castle. There’s no need to go to the extra trouble. The milk will be fine.” He takes a sip of the stuff, fighting down a grimace. He hates warm milk, milk in general, really; he doesn’t know why he’d asked for it, aside from some vague memory that the stuff is supposed to be soothing. He looks down at the thin china cup, squinting his bad eye to see better. “Are these laurel leaves?” he asks.
“Pardon me, sir?” Castle looks up from gathering the towel and basin.
“The pattern. Here on the rim of the mug. Are those laurel leaves, do you think?”
Castle leans closer. “I’m not rightly sure, sir. They very well could be.” He returns to tidying up.
Dr Hedwith has a sudden image of Price. It’s the laurel that brought the memory, he assumes, although he also recalls that James had been overly fond of warm milk. “Do you know what happens when you distill the leaves of the cherry laurel, Castle?” he says, “What you can create? Prussic acid, sir. A deadly poison, although not without its medicinal qualities, used in moderation. Fearful stuff to gauge, though. Dreadfully difficult.”
“Laurel water was used by the Romans to poison the wells of their enemies,” Castle says. He is a student of history, enjoying nothing more than to sit down at night with a heavy book, in his little rooms under the stairs.
“That’s right, Mr Castle. Suetonius?”
“I don’t rightly recall, offhand, sir. Tacitus, perhaps.” He stands up to go, wanting to return to his bed and salvage some of the night’s sleep. “Will there be anything else, Doctor?”
Again Morrison feels the fear, not wanting to be alone. “Did I ever tell you about my friend Price, Castle? James Price? He drank laurel water, you know. Please, please, sit for a moment.” He points to the chair near the bed, hoping he doesn’t seem too eager. Leaning over the nightstand, he reaches back into a drawer and removes a small silver flask from behind the Bible.
Castle checks a sigh, placing the tray on the dresser by the door, seating himself in the spindly wooden chair, which creaks under his weight. “Thank you, sir,” he says, accepting the flask from Hedwith, taking the smallest sip. It’s fine, expensive brandy, but Castle isn’t a drinking man. He hands the flask back to his employer, watching Hedwith’s Adam’s apple bob in his bony neck as he drinks greedily.
Morrison can feel the liquor spreading warm in his chest, strengthening him, the excellent brandy and Castle’s reassuring presence combining to further drive away the dark. He takes another sip from the flask, nodding at his valet. “Yes, Mr Castle, laurel water is what my poor friend drank, just swallowed it down as we looked on, fell over dead right in front of us. It was quite the shock.” James had been a good man, but a fool. He had lacked the internal substance and fortitude for the great work, the strength of character to see it through, and it had finally killed him.
“Why did he do that, sir?” Castle asks.
“Well, he thought himself ruined. Not financially, you understand, James was disgustingly wealthy right up until the end. His reputation, rather. You see, James, like myself, was a scientist and, somewhat earlier in his career, had made some quite astounding discoveries.” Astounding indeed, Morrison remembers. For a time Price had been the toast of Oxford and London, the man who had successfully transmuted baser metals into silver and gold. He’d been feted and garlanded at Oriel and lauded by the king himself, even though his process to change the metals was four times as expensive as simply buying gold on the market would have been. But, for months, James Price had been the darling of the chemical world, inducted into the Royal Society and regarded as one of the most distinguished young men of the sciences.
“But there was a problem, you see,” Morrison continues, shrugging. “He was a fake. His results were uncertain. Oh, it wasn’t deliberate fakery, or even self-deception, really, but poor James couldn’t replicate his earlier results when called on to do so.”
“I can’t do it again, Morrison,” Price says to him. “There has to be a way to do it without that.” They are in James’s lavish Guildford laboratory, poring over the latest results. The experiment has been a failure, as Morrison had known it would be. The earlier success had been predicated on an ingredient that is now lacking.
“I’m telling you, James,” he says, “it’s not going to work without the vital spirit. You know that.”
“Maybe a dog…”
“Don’t fool yourself, man. How much time are you going to waste with this nonsense?” Morrison waves a hand at the retorts and burners, at the sludgy mess of metal in the bottom of the glass, the latest failed attempt at the Stone. “It was only one poor wretch, before.”
“It was a child.”
“An unwanted orphan. Oxford is swimming with them. She is far better off with the Lord in Heaven than she would have been here in the gutter, lifting her skirts for bread in a few years, if she hadn’t already.” He raises a hand, forestalling his friend’s objection. “Yes, James, I know it’s distasteful, but it is in the name of science. If we can finally perfect the Salt, think of the things we can do to better this world.” It’s an old argument, but Morrison feels himself getting worked up again, as always. “No more sickness, no more death. Metal into gold? Simply a curious and venal side-effect of the great work.” He has to pause to cough, long and hard, hacking bloody phlegm into his handkerchief, sagging into a chair.
James waits until the coughing subsides. “The cough sounds worse, my friend. You need to get out of England, leave this damp. Go to the colonies, somewhere warm, dry your lungs. Maybe by then we can divine another way.”
Morrison shakes his head. “There is no other way.” He looks up. “I’m running out of time, James.”
They argue again, parting that evening in foul tempers. Morrison will only see James a few more times in the coming months, as Price removes himself to his laboratory, rarely leaving, admitting no visitors, not even his friends and colleagues. Not even Morrison Hedwith, his co-conspirator in the great work. Morrison knows, now, that James lacks the discipline to push the process forward. The child had been regrettable, but the great work is not for the squeamish, the weak in spirit. James is convinced that the new chemical sciences will divine an alternate way to produce the Stone, but Morrison knows differently. Perhaps if James had only accepted that, things would have gone other than they had.
Without access to Price’s well-stocked laboratory, Morrison’s own experiments are put on hold. His own income is small, too small to afford him what he requires. He studies and ponders as best he can but, lacking the tools and chemicals for his research, he is forced to wait, trying again and again to gain access to Price, to make him see reason. He resigns himself to reconciling with Price’s ineffective approaches, biding the time it will require before James sees reason and returns to the proper path, time he could little spare. But, alas, things passed as they had. Poor man.
“It was pride, then, sir? Being thought a fraud?” Castle is asking now. “That’s why he took the poison?”
Morrison nods, smiling sadly. “Pride, yes; I suppose. He’d gone from a lauded scientist to scoundrel, in the eyes of some. Some merely thought him a fool, a man who had prematurely released results that he didn’t yet understand.”
“And you, sir?”
“I, what?”
“What did you think of him, your friend?”
Morrison pauses, taking another sip from the almost-empty flask. He’d thought James was a fool, yes, of course, but not for the same reasons as everyone else. He’d thought him weak, selfish, lacking the true vision. But it was more than that. At the end, he’d understood poor James. It had become a lesson to him. “I thought him sad, Castle. That is it. Sad. He had been a great man, James, for a time, and could have become so again, but he lost hope.” He shakes his head. “Hope is the most precious thing in this world, Castle. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Wealth, love, good health: they are all less than worthless if hope is taken from you. You must never let go of that precious thing. You must hold hope tight to yourself, Mr Castle. You must hold it tight.”
Both men are quiet for a minute, listening to the rain pattering on the roof.
“When was all this, sir? Your friend dying?” Castle asks, looking at his hands.
Not for the first time, Morrison wonders if Castle has any inkling of his, Morrison’s, true age. The man is something of a historian, a student of the past, after all; it’s entirely possible that, over the years, Morrison has dropped one piece of information too many. There’s something in Castle’s tone now that makes him wary.
For now, though, he can’t explain that his friend James Price took his fateful draught in 1783, almost a hundred years ago now. That Morrison himself had been nearly seventy at that time, nearing the end of his first body.
He is on his third, now, one that is rapidly wearing out as he seeks the Salt of Life, the Stone, the substance that will bring him health and immortality, fixing him in one perfect body for all of eternity, or for as long as he cares to stay alive. Near the end of his first life, he’d learned the secret of transferring the vital spirit, the anima, from one vessel to another, but it is a dangerous and imprecise process. Twice he’s been successful, but he knows that he’d teetered on the edge of luck each time.
Even with his prior failures isolating the Stone, Dr Hedwith feels now that he is close, that the substances hidden in the Sagwa will finally bear fruit, after so many years, and that this vessel will be his last. Perhaps the latest variant of the elixir has already succeeded. Yes, perhaps Lyman will have that very news for him upon his return from the latest circuit, where he tests the formulae and gathers data on behalf of his employer.
Without hope, a man has nothing, just as he’d told Castle.
“Oh, it was a long time ago, Mr Castle.” Morrison smiles. “Now, you must forgive an old man’s rambling. I think I’ll try to get some sleep. Why don’t you do the same?”
Castle looks at Dr Hedwith for a long moment, his questions hidden behind an impassive face. “Very good, sir. Sleep well.”
He leaves the room, closing the door softly behind him.