What Mrs. Trengrouse had not told me was that each of the gardens was set upon its own terrace, divided by stout stone walls and accessed by staircases hewn into the living rock of the island. Once I had descended to the bottom of the orchard, I turned back to look at the castle. It stood proudly upon its clifftop, the stone burnished to dark gold in the strong morning light. Banished was the forbidding black fortress that had loomed above us in the darkening night. It was as if a faery had cast a spell of enchantment over the place, gilding it to splendor. Set within the lush gardens, it harmonized perfectly with the landscape that had borne it. Overhead, gulls wheeled and screamed, reminding me that this place was set within a sparkling sea.
A bench had been placed within the orchard—no doubt for just such meditations—but I carried on, descending around the walled poison garden towards a lower terrace. Through the forbidding gates, I had just seen the bobbing figure of Mertensia Romilly, heavily gloved, with a protective hat and veil, her clothes covered by a sturdy canvas apron as she worked amongst her perilous plants. I waved a greeting to her and she slipped out of the gate, throwing back her veil and pulling her hands free of the stout leather gauntlets, which covered her to the elbow. She carried a trug looped in the crook of her elbow, the ruffled crimson petticoats of cut poppies just peeping over the edge.
“Good morning, Miss Speedwell,” she said, giving me a short nod. Most young ladies who made a pretense of gardening were content to do no more than cut roses and carry around a pretty basket in a picturesque pose. Not Mertensia. She had a spade in her other hand and her sleeves were rolled up to bare forearms scratched from thorns and nettles. Her skirts were streaked with mud, and perspiration pearled her hairline, but she looked entirely happy.
I took in the long view down towards the village nestled at the foot of the mount. “The gardens are extensive,” I observed. “Surely you don’t manage them entirely on your own.”
“Old Trevellan is still about to advise. He was gardener in my grandfather’s day. His grandsons help with some of the pruning and digging, particularly the vegetables, but I like to manage the flowers and herbs myself. And no one touches the poison garden but me,” she said with a nod towards the tall iron gates behind her. They rose some ten feet in the air, fastened with a stout iron chain and a notice strictly forbidding entry.
“I suppose that is to keep out the curious,” I remarked.
“It is to protect people from themselves,” she said sternly. “Even breathing the wrong plants in there is dangerous.”
I regarded her thoughtfully. “I wonder at your keeping them then if they are so perilous.”
She shrugged. “Plants develop poison as a protection against predation. Should I keep one out simply because it has learnt better than its brothers how to defend itself? Roses have thorns and yet no one ever thinks to ban them from a garden for being prickly.”
“A simple thorn has never killed a man,” I pointed out.
“That one has,” she told me, guiding my gaze towards a tall plant that reared up against the gates. Through its lacy leaves, I could just make out the thorns, each one as long as my finger and sharp as a needle.
“Senegalia greggii. A catclaw acacia from Mexico,” she told me. “Capable of holding a man in its grasp until he dies of inanition. When it flowers, the blossoms appear on yellow spikes that are a warning to give it a wide berth.”
“It is magnificent,” I told her truthfully. “It reminds me of a certain butterfly—Battus philenor, the Pipevine Swallowtail. It will poison a bird that eats it. The bright blue of its hind wings is a warning to birds to leave it or suffer the consequences.”
“Exactly,” she said with obvious satisfaction. “Nature knows how to take care of itself.”
I glanced at her gauntlets and veil. “I see you take a number of precautions for working in your garden.”
She nodded. “One cannot be too careful in a poison garden. The Medici had one, you know. It was where they grew the plants they used to dispatch their enemies.”
“And that inspired you to create one of your own?” I ventured.
She shrugged. “Why not? It is far more interesting than monkey puzzle trees and herbaceous borders. Proper gardening is dreadfully dull. This adds a bit of discomfort to the mix. And things are more enjoyable when there is just a little discomfort to sharpen the edge.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Of course. And so do you, if you only stop to consider it. Isn’t a meal more pleasurable when the appetite is strongest? Isn’t sleep sweetest when the fatigue is greatest?”
I blinked at her. “My dear Miss Romilly, you are a philosopher!”
“Mertensia, please. We do not stand on ceremony here. And do not look so surprised that I bend towards philosophy,” she said with a touch of asperity. “There is nothing to do on this island but read and think. I have done much of both.”
“And what have you concluded?”
“That poison is no different from medicine,” came the prompt reply. She gestured towards the silken scarlet flowers heaped in the trug. “Take my poppies, for instance. In small doses, a preparation of the milk soothes the fiercest pain and gives sleep and respite. Too much, and death follows.”
“Do you make many medicines from your plants?” I asked.
“As many as I can.” She pulled a face. “Malcolm would prefer if I spent my time making bramble jam and weaving lavender bottles, but even he has had cause to thank me for a digestive tisane from time to time. We’ve
