“Trust me.”
“I don’t like it. What if she should be found before you get there?”
“A moment ago you were ready to put her out on the street.” I folded my arms. “If she hides herself well, that won’t happen. Tell her to wait for me, keep silent until I call her by name, and have faith.”
“Faith.” He spat the word out like a bitter fruit. In that moment I contemplated telling him that I had found the body of his nephew, if only to put an end to the pain of uncertainty, but the set of his jaw persuaded me against it; he was young and hotheaded and the boy’s body would be vital evidence, it must not be revealed until I was sure the right person could be punished for it.
“Master? Your horse is ready.” The voice of the stableboy cut through the sounds of gulls and wind, carrying across the yard outside.
“I must go. Do everything as we have said. And take care you don’t get caught. All our lives depend on it.”
Olivier looked at me coldly. “Do not take me for a fool,” he said, retreating back into the shadows as the stableboy called again and I slipped out of the door to the yard, my heart hammering against the vault of my ribs as I tried not to contemplate the enormity of what we were to attempt that night.
THE MARKETPLACE WAS emptying as I led the horse towards the Christ Church gate. Hot gusts of wind snapped at the stallholders’ canvas awnings; some cursed and struggled to tie their ropes tighter, while others— those selling fresh produce—sought to cover their goods with weighted cloths to protect them from the whorls of dust whipped up from the dry earth. A man in the motley of a jongleur crouched on the ground, packing his juggling balls and spent firebrands into a square of canvas. People moved aside for me, staring, as I passed the market cross; to either side I caught the low rumble of murmuring as neighbours turned to one another, though perhaps it was fortunate I could not hear their commentary. Defensive, I glanced around and saw the apothecary’s niece, Rebecca, hovering beside a bread stall, now almost empty. She had hooked a covered basket over one arm and smiled shyly when she caught my eye, looking quickly down and back to me, then glancing over her shoulder at the broad-hipped goodwife who was untying the colourful awning from its posts.
“Do you still tarry, good-for-nothing?” The woman straightened with a scornful look at the girl. “Get you gone, or we shall have rain and those loaves will be spoiled before ever they get there.”
“But Mistress Blunt, I had much rather—”
“Enough of your contrariness—I don’t want to catch sight of your apron strings next time I look up. Get on that road.” So saying, she went back to the dismantling of her stall. When the woman’s back was turned, I mimicked her pompous expression and manner and Rebecca pressed her sleeve to her mouth to stifle a giggle. But her face quickly fell sombre and reluctantly she raised a hand in farewell before turning towards the street that led east out of the marketplace. An idea struck me; instead of continuing to the cathedral, I waited until Rebecca was out of sight around the corner before gently easing the horse in the same direction. This gesture did not pass unnoticed among the observers in the market square, though thankfully the formidable woman on the bread stall was too occupied in her business to pay me any heed.
I caught up with Rebecca a little way along the next street. Her blush and ready smile told me she was pleased by the attention, though she bit her lower lip and looked anxiously past me towards the market we had just left, as if someone would appear at any moment to chide her for talking to me.
“You seemed downcast back there, Rebecca,” I said, keeping my voice light. “I wondered if there was anything I could do to help?”
“I ought not to speak to you, sir,” she whispered. “All the talk in the market is of how you were arrested for the killing of my uncle. Mistress Blunt says it’s no more than can be expected of foreigners who are little better than savages with no respect for God or the queen. Begging your pardon,” she added in a mumble, looking down.
“Mistress Blunt is a fat fool,” I said. Her hand flew to her mouth to cover a delighted gasp at the audacity of this. “You do not believe I killed your uncle, surely?”
Her eyes travelled my face for a moment as if uncertain. She shook her head.
“No. Why would you? Besides, no money was taken, so they said. You are right about Mistress Blunt, but I would not dare say so aloud. Like now, for instance.” She fell into step beside me, her talk more relaxed, as if our shared view of Mistress Blunt eclipsed all previous concerns. “I am to take this basket to old Mother Garth out by the Riding-gate, though her son Tom is gatekeeper at the cathedral only spitting distance from our stall. I don’t see why it can’t be left with him, but no—Mistress Blunt says I must take it in person, though all Canterbury knows Mother Garth is mad as a hare and like as not to scream blue murder at you just for standing on her doorstep. I wouldn’t even be surprised if she was a witch and all.” She nodded a full stop, as if this were the definitive verdict.
I smiled.
“Well, then—how would it be if I were to accompany you to her door, and if she screams at you I shall shout back at her in Italian, see what she makes of that. And if she sees fit to turn me into a cat or a rat, I shall depend on you to use what you learned from your uncle and make a remedy to turn me back.”
Rebecca laughed, looking up at me with all her young untried yearnings transparent on her face. I had no interest in her outside what she might know of her uncle’s business, but I realised again how easy it is to flatter a giddy girl, and how easily a man with fewer scruples might use that to his advantage. I thought of the maidservant Sarah Garth and how Sir Edward must have beckoned her to his bed—and his son’s bed—with a few judicious compliments. A quick stab of anger knotted my gut at the idea; if I could feel outrage at my own sex on behalf of a girl I never knew, how much fury must her own brother still carry in his breast? Perhaps a visit to Mother Garth might yield more than the chance to quiz Rebecca undisturbed.
“It is true that my uncle taught me plenty of remedies when I helped him in the shop,” she was saying, and I brought my attention back to the stream of her chatter. “But my mother will not let me practice them, for fear. She says a woman who knows how to heal is judged a witch.”
“Only by the ignorant. But perhaps your mother is afraid that you would have to work with dangerous ingredients. Your uncle must have kept many in his shop—poisons, even?”
“Only the dose makes the poison,” she said importantly, and the hairs on my arm prickled. “Uncle William always used to say that.”
“Surely not!” I affected to laugh. “A poison is a poison, is it not so? I mean, something like belladonna, for instance—what good remedy could you make from that?”
“You would be surprised,” she said, her face earnest. “People think it dangerous because of the berries, but I’ll wager you did not know that a tincture of belladonna is the only antidote to laudanum poisoning?”
I stopped dead in the street and stared at her. The horse snorted in protest at my sudden halt.
“Laudanum, did you say?”
She nodded, pleased to show off her store of knowledge.
“You can give a person laudanum to dull pain or help them sleep, as everyone knows, but if you give too much by mistake, the person passes into a state almost between life and death, where you cannot even tell that he breathes, and he will never wake unless he be given belladonna. Come—we must talk and walk at the same time, or I shall be in trouble.”
She giggled again and I resumed my pace, fighting to keep my face steady.
“So, you are saying—if you give a man a heavy dose of laudanum, he will pass into a sleep that looks almost like death, but if he is given belladonna, he will wake again?”
“So my uncle claimed, though I never saw it done. But he said the method had been tried.”
“What if you give too great a dose of belladonna by mistake?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know. I suppose the person would die then as well. I will tell you another curious fact about belladonna, though,” she said, brightening. “Children can tolerate a dose of it that would kill a grown man. Is that not strange? You would think, being smaller, they would die quicker. But up to the age of twelve or thirteen it is the opposite, my uncle said.”
“How did he know this?” I asked, too sharply; I saw a flicker of concern cross her face.
“I suppose he read of it somewhere. He had a great curiosity for new ideas in physic, though he would not speak of it when there were customers in the shop. People have no spirit of adventure when it comes to remedies, he used to say. They want you to give them what they have always had, no matter whether it works or not. Try
