Raisins and Almonds

evening, my gracious God did put into my head the Secret of extracting Oyle of Halcali, which I had once, accidently, found at Pinner in Wakefield in the dayes of my deare wife. But it was againe taken from me by wonderful judgement of God for I could never remember how I did it, but made an hundred attempts in vaine. And now my Glorious God (whose name be praysed forever) hath brought it again into my mind and on the same day as my deare wife sickened; and on the Saturday following, which was the daye she dyed on, I extracted it by former practice.

And how his wife felt about it, left to die without her husband, was another matter of course. Phryne resisted the urge to fling the books out of the window and began again.

What was alchemy? An attempt, the difficult rabbi had said, to raise matter to its perfect state. Good. That meant base metal into gold and men into immortal bodies. And how did one go about this task?

One first acquired a patron with a lot of money, and purchased or made a lot of equipment. Phryne wondered whether to tell Mrs Butler that her bain marie which kept the soup warm was an alchemical vessel invented by Miriam, sister of Moses—later called Maria Prophetissa in case Miriam seemed too Jewish—who had founded alchimia practica. Previously it had been a theory. Miriam seems to have actually tried to do it, thought Phryne, wondering if she had succeeded. The first principle was solve et coagula, that is, to dissolve and to recombine. Thomas Vaughan told her 'in this matter is all the essentiall principles, or ingredients of the elixir, are already shut up in Nature and wee must not presume to add anything to this matter ... for the stone excludes all extractions, but what distill immediately from their own chrystalline universal Minera'. Keeping that in mind, one began to make the first mixture, the so- called gold yeast. Everyone was vague on what else went into it except for gold in fine powder and a lot of mercury metal. Then, knowing that there are three elements— salt, sulphur and mercury—one cooked this gold yeast with some other ingredient, called Terra Adamae— Adam's earth, the material of the first creation. Phryne noted that since one could not just send down to the grocer's for half a pound of Adam's earth, that there must be a recipe for that also, but could not find one.

The first stage was reached when the material turned black. The illumination from Simon Michaels' books showed it: the head of a crow, beak open. This melanosis was also, in the Emerald Tablet, called Adam's earth. Phryne stopped trying to reconcile the varying accounts and continued with her list.

Adding some other liquid, variously described as 'womanseed' or more bluntly 'monthly blood', to the black mixture and heating it again with orpiment and borax made it turn white: the leukosis or albedo stage, the purifying or purgation of the mixture. The picture fluttered onto the satin bedspread: a white dove.

Distilled in an alembic, the funnel-shaped vessel, the matter was sublimated by high heat and the gas trapped in a coil of pipe. This was conjunction the mystic marriage where the red king lay with the white queen. The two entwined crowned figures joined the other pictures and Phryne scribbled busily.

Then, if one was really lucky, xanthosis or yellowing would take place with the addition of unslaked lime, ground bones and more mercury. It occurred to Phryne that with the amount of mercury vapour that these wise men were breathing, it was no wonder that they saw visions of Hermes Thrice Great. In due course they would also have seen rhinoceroses on scaling ladders.

Finally, after the work of years, the mixture buried in fresh horse dung to be heated to just the right temperature, the watcher would see the span of colours called the peacock's tail and would achieve rubedo and 10515, completion. The red king would be enthroned and the lapis philosophorum would elevate the alchemist to heights of knowledge such as other men would never share.

Thou shalt see ... a shining carbuncle most temperate splendour, whose most subtile and depurated parts are inseparably united into one with a concordial mixture, exceedingly equal, transparent like crystal, compact and most ponderous, easily fusible in fire, like resin or wax yet flowing like smoke; entering into solid bodies and penetrating them like oil through paper; friable like glass, in powder like saffron, but in whole Mass shining like a ruby His life would be crowned. He would be untouchable, immortal. He would not seek riches, as Elias Ashmole said, And certaynly he to whom the whole of nature lies open, rejoyceth not so much that he can make Gold and Silver, or the Divells to become Subject to him, as that he sees the Heavens open, the Angells of God Ascending and Descending, and that his own name is fairely written in the Book of Life.' He would live forever in his dark robes, wrapped in his ecstatic visions, and his lamp would never go out, for it would be fuelled by Oil of Eternity.

Phryne closed her books and glanced out the window. It was darkening towards dusk. She heard the tree branches scrape the glass. The wind must have changed. I am getting uncommonly jumpy, she told herself.

Surely no one was really trying to make a philosopher's stone in 1928? It sounded both ridiculous and impossible. The instructions and recipes were all vague and where, exceptionally, they weren't vague, they were all different. If Ashmole said that one used mercury, bole ammoniack and saltpeter and Robert Fludd said that the same operation was achieved using slaked lime, verdigris and oil of tartare, then how could the chemical result be the same?

Phryne, in common with all girls at her school, had learned a little chemistry, known with a jolly laugh as 'stinks'. She recalled watching as the teacher poured mercury into a chamber and heated it. Phryne had seen it oxidize into a red powder, then she had watched in amazement as the powder had been heated again and little beads of silvery metal had popped up out of the oxide. That was alchemy, Phryne thought.

She got up and washed her face. She was losing her sense of proportion.

But if he wasn't trying to make a philosopher's stone, why did Simon Michaels have those parchments in his pocket, and why did an honest shoemaker like Yossi Liebermann burn his landlady's table with chemical experiments?

It promised to be an interesting evening.

Nine

Air: this is no Element, but a certain Hermaphrodite, the Gaement of two worlds, and a Medley of Extremes ... in this are innumerable magicall Forms of Men and Beasts, Fish an Fowle, Trees, Herbs, and all creeping things.

Thomas Vaughan, Euphrates

Dot was not enjoying her attempts to extract information from Miss Lee's neighbours.

She had started at the nearest poulterers, and had waked what was clearly a long-standing feud.

'I'm investigating the murder in the bookshop,' she said to the boy behind the counter. He stared at her, momentarily forgetting the large chicken which he had under his arm. It also stared at Dot, and clucked.

'You know, two days ago. A young man was poisoned,' she encouraged. The boy gaped. Dot, who was nervous and shy, reflected crossly that she might get more answers out of the chook, and tried again. 'Is Mr Lane in?'

For answer, the poultry-bearer shuffled to the door and yelled 'Boss!' Then he seemed to feel that he had fulfilled his obligations and returned to his duties, which appeared to consist of staring out the window at passing girls and sucking his teeth. Mr Lane was stout and worried. He wore a bloodstained apron.

'This is too much,' he exclaimed before Dot could open her mouth. 'That bloke has gone too far this time. I'll have the law on him. I'll call the cops if he says one more word! It's slander, that's what it is. And libel,' he added, hedging his bets.

'Sorry?' said Dot, utterly fogged and a little taken aback by his vehemence.

'Don't I work hard?' demanded Mr Lane. 'Don't I put in all the hours God gave to support my wife and little ones and run my business?'

'Mr Lane,' Dot began.

'If he's sent you here about the chicken, I tell you, it was all right and if anyone says any different I'll do something, I tell you, starting with going round and knocking Gunn's block off!'

'Hello?' said Dot loudly. 'Mr Lane? I don't know what you're talking about. I came from Miss Lee and I'm trying to find out about the dead man in her shop.'

'Oh.' The red face lost a little of its pre-apopleptic colour. 'Miss Lee, eh? Nice lady. Sorry, Miss. It's just that