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their party, he had been brought in unconscious and when he stirred, he swiftly denied being one of their “gang.” He had denied everything: who he was, where he was, and what he was doing in woods close to West Sarum. His fine dress had attracted Thomas’s greed and interest and the bishop had ordered him brought up here, to be kept safe with the other “special” prisoners.
    Since then, Mercury had rapidly recovered his appetite while at the same time he continued to assert that he had no idea who he was. If that was true, Joanna wondered how he could be so carefree. But Mercury was clearly of a sanguine humor.
    “Do you ever wonder what will happen if you never remember?” David asked, but Mercury merely shrugged.
    “Someone will know who I am.”
    “Suppose no one comes?” David persisted.
    “Like your order?” Mercury replied, with that quickness—slipperiness—that Joanna had named him for.
    “That is enough,” one of the guards warned, with uncanny timing, saving the young Frenchman the trouble of adding more. “The prisoners have eaten now and Joanna must go back to her studies.” The guard spoke gently: Joanna had given him a tincture last summer that had eased the aches and pains of his grandmother.
    There was nothing else for Joanna to say or do but gather up the baskets and leave. This guard at least allowed her to embrace her father, and as she did so Solomon whispered the ancient alchemical wisdom: “One becomes two, two becomes three. Mark it well, my daughter!”
    “Out of the egg comes gold,” Joanna replied, speaking this secret of “red work” to give him heart and to encourage herself.
    But how would she find gold in less than a month? And if she did not, what would happen to Solomon?
    Leaving the baskets with the spit boy, she climbed the stairs back to her chamber workshop with an uneasy mind and an aching heart.

Chapter 3
     
    She lost herself in work, spending hours refining an elixir that Bishop Thomas had demanded of her to give him more “manly vigor.” Joanna dared not suggest that such potions were unseemly for a man of God. She could only pray that if her lord was thinking of using the mixture with someone, that the person he desired also wanted him.
    Calling it a love elixir made her hands more nimble as she pounded together dill, thyme, garlic, and yarrow for vigor, adding mint for good digestion and marigold for the couple’s hearts. Simmering and distilling what remained, drawing off impurities, testing its color by candle flame, Joanna tried to focus on excellence.
    Toward midnight, opening the narrow door to her chamber and allowing the moonlight from the arrow slits to clothe her workshop all in silver, she found herself thinking not of the work, or gold, but of love. When would she know love? When would her essence mingle with another’s?
    She remained standing at an arrow slit for so long that she fell into a curious dreaming state: a daydream at night. She was walking beside a shallow, sparkling river with a long-stemmed red rose in her hand. A man strolled with her, his arm threaded through hers, his face in shadow from the overarching trees. He pointed to an alaunt, splashing in the water, and they both laughed at the dog’s play. Then he turned to ask her something and she saw his face.
    It was Hugh Manhill.
     
     
    It means nothing, Joanna told herself for the hundredth time the following morning. A daydream of Hugh Manhill is just that, a dream.
    Still, she could not shake off feelings of excitement and anticipation. Her heart kept racing and her breath shortened each time she thought she heard horses outside. The very palms of her hands tingled as she sped about her workbench, endlessly checking, endlessly devising reasons why she had to leave the corbel-roofed chamber and peer out through the arrow slits into the yard.
    If I am looking out for him, she told herself, it is only as a favor to David. I can call out to David when Hugh returns.
    She did