Through the Lion’s Gate – Chapter 1
London 1352
A slender hooded figure darted through the mist along the waterfront. He quickly slipped into an alley, barely escaping the detection of two king’s soldiers patrolling the streets. Like Merlin’s beard, the fog lay thick, hiding the ends of the wharves. The putrid river was a watery soup of feces, dead fish, garbage, and effluvium from the rain-washed streets of the city.
At sundown, the gates in the old Roman wall surrounding London were locked to protect citizens from wandering thieves. Even so, people weren’t supposed to be outside after dark. Once the soldiers passed, the silent one emerged and checked the precious cargo, a heavy leather pouch against his chest inside his cloak. The London streets and alleyways were his home; he could walk many of them blindfolded. His bare toes automatically searched for a foothold on the rounded cobblestones, moist and slippery in the damp night.
It wasn’t far now. When he got to where the Walbrook emptied into the Tamese, he glanced back to make sure he was not being followed, then turned north on Dowgate Street and went past the Stâlhof wool warehouses. He crossed a bridge and proceeded to a building next to St. Stephen’s that oddly resembled an old church. On one side was a scaffold which he climbed up to a shuttered window. He opened the shutter, revealing a set of bars blocking his way, but one bar was cleverly removable, allowing him to climb inside and perch on a rafter. Below him was the dormant forge and bloomery furnace of a smithy. After replacing the bar, he descended a long ladder, then proceeded to a corner in the front anteroom and opened a trap door in the floor. Another ladder led him about twelve cubits below to a small underground room with a door of rough-hewn timber. He pounded a series of knocks and waited. A few moments later, he heard the sound of a large beam inside being moved. The door groaned stiffly open, and he went in.
“You are late, Tom! Three hours I waited nigh.”
“Your forgiveness, Master. Please you to know that I made great labour to find the Miner. He was drunk and his intention was not to sell.” Tom moved into the room and closed the heavy door. “He gave me great rebuke for not having twice what you gave me. I told him this was all I had, what was agreed on, but he said he was short this time and knew others who would the full price gladly pay.”
“What are you telling me, Boy?” Tom hesitated. “Speak!”
“Please, Master, I would go to the Devil before deceiving you.” Tom pushed the hood off of his head and reached into his cloak to pull out the pouch. “I could only fetch half the amount.”
The older man grabbed the pouch and looked at the contents inside. “You know I cannot work with this!” He quickly turned and stormed across the great room, slumping onto a stool at a large table, mumbling unintelligible epithets. Tom barred the door and followed him. He knew his master didn’t directly blame him, though the best thing to do was sit quietly in a corner until the anger abated.
The large room was a study in orderly chaos. Shelves lining the walls contained a bizarre collection of items: glass jars of multi-colored powders, dried toads, a human skull, crucibles, scrolls, coral, and bits of many different metals. Copper, tin, iron, lead, zinc, and sal ammoniac from Bohemia were all very neatly labeled and categorized. In the center of the room, the table wielded many tools, books, glass jars, earthenware pots, a mortar and pestle, and a large pile of intricately detailed diagrams and notes.
In the far corner behind the master was a copper Bain Marie, a double chamber for boiling liquids, invented by the infamous alchemist, Mary the Jewess. It perched on an iron grate over the fire box of a large brick and stone furnace. The floor of the fire box was another grate which allowed ashes to fall into a bin below. The sides of the furnace sloped up to the chimney which continued through the vaulted ceiling and eventually joined the chimney of the smithy directly above, giving the secret operations below the needed camouflage—for Elias Dorn was reputed by many to be a wizard, one schooled in the Blacks Arts, and a practitioner of necromancy.
In fact, he was an alchemist. The making of gold, nature’s infinite secret, was his quest, though not for the attainment of unlimited material wealth. Gold was believed to be a combination of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—in such perfect proportion that they could not be separated. In unlocking the secret to the “Philosopher’s Stone,” the key that could transmute base metals into gold, some alchemists of Europe believed that they could find perfection, and possibly divinity, elevating mankind to a status equal to God.
It was precisely this divine quest which the Church held to be sacrilegious, for “man was on earth by the grace of God,” not as an equal. Trying to attain divine status violated all precepts of Christianity. In the event of alchemical success, it would render the Church meaningless. Pews would be deserted as earthly subjects of the Divine One no longer felt the need for salvation, hoping they could become the object of their worship.
Turning base metals into gold had been pursued for centuries by alchemists the world over. In China it was believed that the possessor of the “Stone” would have the secret to eternal life. Some, in fact, drank an elixir which contained flecks of powdered gold with the hopes that it would prolong their life. Sometimes the concoction, depending on the various ingredients, proved deadly.
Arab alchemy went to Hispania with the Moors from where it then spread throughout Europe. Because of the cryptic notation of the secret formulae, and treks to Al-Andalus to study in the legendary Black Schools, many alchemists were considered to be wizards possessing occult powers. Some called it magic; many called it the work of the devil.
It was for these reasons that Tom had made his way back to the laboratorium as stealthily as he did. He carried a small amount of “Dragon’s Blood,” or dimāʾu tanīna, the Arabic name for cinnabar, which was essential to the making of hydrargyrum, Greek for “liquid silver.” If he was caught, his mission would be obvious: Quicksilver, or mercury, was an integral alchemical ingredient.
The boy knew that his master’s anger wasn’t directed toward him, but was a reaction from the frustration at being delayed, having to work in hiding, being hunted like a criminal. The name of Elias Dorn was very well known. His insistence on using pure materials was legendary, and his methods, innovative. During his threescore years, having gathered knowledge and skills from the far reaches of the earth, he had made advancements more than anyone else—the news of which did not escape the ears of either the Pope or King Edward III. Both would like to capture Dorn, for if anyone were to discover the secret of making gold, they certainly wanted to control it for themselves. Their appetites for wealth knew no limit. Some alchemists were secretly sanctioned and supervised by the Church, itself interested in the prospect of filling its coffers.
The King also employed three alchemists, working together, whose sole purpose was to search for the Key to the Stone. The war with France had drastically reduced the royal treasury, and Edward wanted to ensure that any alchemical success would be his. The royal alchemists were watched very closely. They were instructed to make all notations in intelligible language lest they be mistaken for sorcery or, worst of all, in case of discovery, the formula remained indecipherable to all but the alchemists.
Tom studied his master. Two intense black eyes stared out of a face framed by a woolly head of fading red hair and a fiery beard. Majestic, chiseled cheekbones and the figure of a warrior suggested a Norse ancestry. In spite of his quick temper, he was a good man, one completely dedicated to his craft, one who would never waiver from his pursuit.
Tom owed his life to him. After his parents died in the plague four years ago, he lived in the streets, stealing anything he could to survive. Dorn fed and housed him since finding him huddled under an empty crate in an alley during the freezing London winter. Once Tom recovered from the ravages of hunger and frostbite, Elias employed him to run errands, assist him in some experiments, and eventually began his education in all things worldly.
•
The laboratorium was originally the crypt under a church that had begun construction in the early 1300’s. It was to replace the Church of St. Stephen next to it that had been built about 500 years earlier; however, before it could be completed, the new church was severely damaged by fire and the project was abandoned for lack of funds. The rector was only too glad to finally rid his hands of the ruin and grant it to Edmund Heydon, who needed a place large enough for a smithy. The one stipulation was that Heydon provided St. Stephen’s with any ironwork they needed.
Heydon and his workers rebuilt the sanctuary, the only part left standing. After removing burnt, rotten timbers and broken roof tiles, they built scaffolds on the inside and outside of the building to install rafters in the high ceiling and a new slate roof. The monks had left a large hole in the front facade, intended for a stained-glass window, which Heydon’s men walled up with stone blocks, leaving one square opening for ventilation.
The only other “windows” were two openings on each side, high in the wall, in which they installed shutters, also for ventilation.
At the back, next to where the altar would have been, they discovered a narrow, stone spiral stairway that had been covered with fallen timbers and half filled with rubble. Once it was cleared out, they found that it led to a crypt twelve cubits below. Heydon had no use for it, but knew a friend who needed a secret laboratory, and the underground chamber could give him a place to work undetected. It was perfect for Dorn, especially when he discovered a shaft that went up into the front of the building, in what would have been the narthex of the old church. If he was to work underground, he’d need more than one means of escape.
Elias found evidence that before the sanctuary was built, while digging the crypt, the builders discovered what appeared to have been an ancient temple, uncovering artifacts, mosaics, and remnants of sculptures, in addition to rows of bases on which Roman columns would have stood. The monks left everything untouched and built an arched stone ceiling over the entire complex before beginning on the church.
It seemed to Elias that the fire must have interrupted the construction, and the crypt had lain untouched as is for decades. He knew that it was common for sanctuaries to be built on top of pagan sites to hallow the ground, rendering heathen gods impotent and empowering their own.
Heydon’s men found a dirt-encrusted marble roundel leaning against the wall at the far end. Cleaning it revealed a relief carving of a man wearing a Phyrgian cap, slaying a bull, and with an inscription in Latin. Elias knew it to mean, Ulpius Silvanus, initiated into a Mithraic grade at Orange, France, paid his vows to Mithras, and realized he was standing in a temple dedicated to the god Mithras, a Persian deity adopted by the Romans. He knew Mithras to be the god of the rising sun, covenants, the seasons, and cosmic order. He also knew that the act of killing the bull represented death and rebirth.
One of the first things Elias did was to install the heavy marble disk of Mithras on the wall, restoring its due prominence in the chamber. He knew that the former temple was the perfect place for his laboratorium. His quest for the Stone would be bestowed with the grace and powers of antiquity. It was meant to be. He could conduct his alchemical pursuit right under the nose of the church and state. He would name it the Mithraeum.
When Heydon was ready to build his forge and chimney, Elias proposed an idea. “If you put your forge over there, I can remove the stairwell and use the stone blocks to build my own, and run the chimney up through the opening, joining it with yours into one common outlet through the roof. That way, no one would suspect that someone other than you was working.”
“Yes, but how will you get down there? With no stairwell, you will have to enter from the shaft in front.”
“I will need two entrances, so I could construct another vertical shaft through that same opening, alongside the chimney, that goes up to a trap door in the floor. That would give me ventilation, a means of escape, and a way to get water, air, supplies, and charcoal below.”
And so it was done. Dorn and Heydon’s men built brick forges encased in stone, one above the other, with dual chimneys merging into one through the ceiling. After a few months of hard work, the smithy became a fully operational workplace, and the crypt, an alchemical laboratory.
Unlike King Edward, who employed a team of blacksmiths making knives, daggers, lances, shields, and armor in the London Tower forge, Edmund Heydon made everyday items such as nails, locks, keys, tools, dinnerware, and door hinges. Using clay mixed with egg whites, hair, and metal filings, he constructed a bloomery furnace which stood next to the forge. It had a conical shape, about the height of a tall man, with a small opening at the bottom and open at the top for filling with charcoal. Lit from below and fanned with bellows, the charcoal soon became completely lit, after which Heydon poured crumbled iron ore into the top. As the melting ore slowly ran to the bottom, the result was carbonized iron and slag, which, when reheated and pounded with a hammer, became steel.
It was a continuous, day-to-day process—melting the iron ore, which demanded an even and uninterrupted control of the bellows for as long as twelve hours, removing the slag, pounding the steel into bars, then heating the steel at the forge to bend and shape it into various products. It was a hot and noisy business with the incessant pounding on an anvil.
Tom worked hard for his keep, and not only for Dorn. For two days each week he also helped Master Heydon in the smithy above. He worked the bellows on the bloomery furnace, did a lot of sweeping, and on the day the collier delivered charcoal, he unloaded the wagon, making two piles: one for Heydon and the other for Elias, which he put into hemp sacks and lowered down the shaft near the chimney. It was then a matter of descending the narthex shaft in front, opening the chimney-shaft door, and transferring the charcoal to a pile near the furnace. It was essential that they always had enough fuel. A steady, unwavering heat was critical for the success of the transmutation, and the entire process would be ruined if they ran out.
Another responsibility of Tom’s was to ensure that the large water barrel in the Mithraeum was always full. Elias needed purer water than what could be had from either the Walbrook or the river. The scaffold still stood on the outside of the building, allowing them to install a cedar gutter at the eaves, which directed rainwater into clay pipes that ran down into an array of large barrels on the side of the smithy. For the Mithraeum, Dorn ran a pipe alongside the ladder down to the bottom of the chimney shaft, then through the wall to empty into the supply barrel. When it got low, Tom opened the trap door next to the smithy furnace and poured buckets of water into the pipe, filling the barrel below. He also made sure the blacksmith’s barrel inside the shop was always full as well. During times of no rain, he drove Heydon’s wagon with two empty casks to fill at the River of Wells, just outside the city gates at Blackfriars.
To bring fresh air below in case the trap doors were closed, Elias came up with an ingenious system, utilizing the forced air from the two pairs of smithy bellows, which were active during most of each day. The bellows that were used for the bloomery furnace and the forge each were fitted with a double-headed nozzle, one for fueling air to the fires, and the other to feed air into a tube that went to a clay air-pipe that ran down the shaft, parallel to the water pipe. For major venting and to cool the room, Tom opened the shaft door in front, which immediately flooded the room with cooler air, pushing the hot vapors up the other shaft, out into the smithy above.
The means to accommodate the daily need for water, air, and charcoal had been constructed while the Black Death ravaged the city, so by the time Tom came along, everything was in place for him to do his chores. But Elias also made time every day to teach the boy what he had to learn. Tom’s education involved more than just the technical knowledge of the Work. Elias demanded that the mind, body, and spirit were nourished to the fullest extent. Tom learned from him the complexities of the English language, in addition to some Latin, Italian, and French. He continued his religious studies, and to increase his physical stamina, he crossed the London Bridge daily and ran toward the forest in Lambeth and back, carrying a brick in each hand. The rigorous demands and the long hours of the Quest demanded that he be strong.
Elias also taught him the art of the sword, and they often spent days at a time, deep in the forest, where Tom learned how to survive in the wild, what plants he could eat, what mushrooms to avoid. Dorn showed him how a certain tree sap could heal a wound. He was being prepared to be a fully self-sufficient man.
•
The fiery beard turned towards him, two eyes gleaming in the candlelight. “You say the Miner was drunk?”
“Yes, Master, and questions he asked. I spoke of you as an artist who used the red cinnabar for pigment. He then said only this amount you would need. Please have pity to see the tribulation I had.”
“You spoke well, my lad. I pray you to forgive my temper.” Dorn opened the leather pouch. It was heavy, and not just from the ore. It was lined with thin sheets of lead to protect one from the toxic cinnabar, known since Roman times to be deadly to those who mined and handled it.
“You did not touch it?” Tom shook his head. “Good. Two days hence, on Dies Lunae you shall go to Lambeth and find a Castilian with a cat. He owes me good will. He will rightly direct you to the purchase of our precious ore of Al-Andalus.”
“How will I know him?”
Elias grinned. “Oh, you can’t miss him. He is most foul to the nose and eye.” He paused and thought for a moment. “We are approaching the time of Aries. The ninth day from Wednes Dei is ruled by Mars and the archangel Michael. It is a time of fire and exploring uncharted lands. Then it is we shall begin.”
©2025 Stuart Balcomb