Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance - By Sara Poole Page 0,2

logic, a man who would never be ruled by his emotions. All down to this single moment.

“How did you do it?”

He was testing me; that was good. I took a breath and answered more calmly.

“I knew he would be hot and thirsty when he arrived, but that he would also be cautious of what he drank. The flagon I left for him contained only iced water, pure enough to pass any inspection. The poison was on the outside, coating the glass. He was sweating, which meant that the pores of his skin were wide open. From the moment he touched the flagon, it would have been over very quickly.”

“Your father never mentioned such a poison to me, one that could be used in that way.”

I saw no reason to tell Il Cardinale that I, not my father, had developed that particular poison. Likely, he would not have believed me anyway. Not then.

“No craftsman gives away all his secrets,” I said.

He did not reply at once but came closer yet, so close that I could feel the heat pouring off him, see the great swathe of his bull-like shoulders blocking out the light. The glint of gold from the cross dangling against his barrel chest caught my gaze and I could not look away.

Cristo en extremis.

Save me.

“By God, girl,” the Cardinal said, “you have surprised me.”

A momentous admission from this man who, it was said, knew before any other which swallow would alight first on any tree in Rome and whether the branch could hold its weight.

I took a breath against the tightness of my chest, looked away from the cross, away from him, out through the open window toward the great river and the vast land beyond.

Breathe.

“I would serve you, signore.” I turned my head, just enough to meet his gaze and hold it. “But first, you must let me live.”

2

The servants came and went, removing all trace of the Spaniard. They carried in my chests, brought food and drink, and even turned down the covers of the bed framed in wooden posts of carved acanthus where once my father had slept and now I would.

Tasks completed, they filed out silently, all except the last of them, an old woman close enough to Heaven to have little to lose. Skittering away, she hissed:

Strega!

Witch.

A cold shiver ran through me, though I was careful to give no sign of it. Such a word would never have been applied to my father or to the Spaniard or to any man possessed of the fearsome but respected skills of a professional poisoner. But it would be applied to me now and forever, and I was helpless to prevent it.

They burn witches. The terrifying auto-de-fé is not limited to its point of origin in Spain. It has spread to the Lowlands, the Italian Peninsula, all of Europe. For the most part, the flames consume those accused of heresy, but how easy it is to indict a man or a woman—almost always a woman—or even a child accused of the even graver sin of trafficking with Satan. Anyone too conversant with ancient healing, too knowledgeable about plants, or simply too different from others may end as fuel for the fires that char human skin, sizzle human fat, crack human bones, and reduce to ashes all that is hope and dream.

I turned, intending to distract myself by unpacking the chests, then turned again suddenly, a hand clamped over my mouth. On my knees, I yanked the piss pot from beneath the bed and crouched over it as the contents of my stomach spewed out, a bitter stream that all but choked me.

Disgustoso!

Do not think I am prone to such infirmity, but the events of the day, the desperate gamble I had been forced to take, and the terror of mortal sin it brought overwhelmed me. I lay where I was, unmoving. Exhaustion bore me away as on a fast-running tide flowing swiftly beyond any sight of shore.

The nightmare came almost at once. The same dream that has tormented me all my life. I am in a very small space behind a wall. There is a tiny hole through which I can see into a room filled with shadows, some of them moving. The darkness is broken by a shard of light that flashes again and again. Blood pours from it, a giant wave of blood lapping against the walls of the room and threatening to drown me. I wake to my own screams, which I have learned