Nightshade Read online

  I would not have survived without Oleander. He guided me from one town to the next. When I ran out of money, he taught me how to get more, so that I might buy what I needed to live – clothes, food, lodging, transportation.

  From Oleander I learned that when one is skilled in the use of poisons, there is always someone willing to pay for the quiet disappearance of a rival, the death of a brutal husband, or the tragic, fatal illness of a sibling whose inheritance one covets.

  I had no idea how easy it would be, to earn money this way. But once one is without hope or scruple, many things become possible.

  Yes, once one has ripped all mercy from one’s heart, as if mercy were no more than a weed – a straggly weed, to be pulled up by the roots and thrown away with the rubbish! – so many utterly dreadful things become possible.

  And truly, it is so difficult to obtain justice in this world. There are days I feel like a healer, still, when I am able to achieve what the law cannot. So I would not call myself unhappy, far from it. After seeing much of England, I have finally arrived in London. I have made many new acquaintances here, and they in turn have introduced me to all manner of pleasures.

  Laudanum, for example. The formula is simple. It is made from opium, harvested from the seed case of the poppy flower and then mixed with alcohol. At first I was reluctant to drink it, but Oleander bid me do so, and I soon understood why. It creates the most delicious feeling in the brain. It sharpens my senses like an arrow, until the world and its wonders are made vivid beyond words.

  Laudanum makes the bright, clean scent of the night into an intoxicating perfume. It reveals the impossible nearness of the sky. After taking laudanum, there are times when I know, if I just stretched up a bit more, I could brush my fingertips against the stars.

  And yet there are other senses that laudanum seems to extinguish altogether. The sense of memory, for one. The sense of guilt, the sense of honour; it erases all of these rather well.

  I am glad, for to be without memory, guilt, or honour is an advantage in my line of work. I take laudanum to fall asleep when sleep refuses to come, and also when being awake has become too… complicated.

  Mostly I take it when a phantom voice rises stubbornly to the surface of my mind, claiming to be a messenger from the ruins of long ago. It calls that familiar name:

  Jessamine!

  Jessamine!

  It even uses that word, the one that is no longer mine to speak, or think: love –

  This is all very interesting, lovely. But really, what is the point of dwelling on the past? It is the future that counts. Our future.

  His name is Weed! I remember now. Oh, how I loved him! You promised to bring me to him, Oleander. Will you keep your promise?

  Of course, lovely. Very soon, I will. Although I cannot guarantee what kind of reception you will get. As I recall, he could be somewhat priggish, and you are quite a bit changed from the simple country girl he once knew.

  I suppose I am… I had not thought of that.

  He may even be repelled by you. You are a murderer, after all. Your wits are addled by opium, and you can hardly claim to have been faithful. You have the sweaty horse trader to thank for that.

  He will revile me for a monster – do not take me to him, Oleander, I beg you! I would not have him see what I have become –

  Silly girl. Of course I will take you to him. It is always pleasant to pay a call on an old friend, and a promise is a promise. But first we have work to do. I wish you to meet some acquaintances of mine. They are men of ambition and vision, who can appreciate your true worth… not like that sanctimonious what’s-his-name…

  He is right, I know.

  Oleander is always right. I see that now.

  Strange that I did not see it before.

  13

  1st November

  Every day I learn fresh wonders from this wise garden of Padua, and from my brave and generous teacher, the signora.

  I dare not record it all here lest this book fall into the wrong hands. But there are some things I cannot keep locked in my heart. Just as the Orto botanico serves as a better angel to the poison garden at Hulne Abbey, perhaps my own diary will in some way make up for Thomas Luxton’s diary of wickedness, now safely locked away. I hope it will, at least.

  The autumn weather in Padua is fair – cool, sunny days mixed with days of soft rain – but the people are uneasy. There is talk of revolution everywhere I go.

  Not a day goes by but I think of the preacher at the crossroads. “The end is near,” he bleated as he died at my hands.

  It is too late to trade my life for his, and for that I will always mourn. But I would surely give my life to prove the preacher wrong.

  SIGNORA BAGLIONI BEGINS EVERY lesson the same way: “What does Oleander want?”

  “Power.”

  “How does he gain power?”

  “Through Jessamine.”

  “And what is his weapon?”

  “Poison.”

  “Correct. He will use poison, somehow, to draw Jessamine into his web of evil. Therefore you must learn to combat poison. You will master as many cures as you can. The knowledge the plants give you is priceless, Weed, but you cannot rely on them to save you.” She piles the table high with books, with diagrams, with measuring spoons and vials of dried leaves and ground root powders.

  I do as she instructs, but it hardly seems enough, for who knows when or where Oleander will choose to strike? Signora Baglioni says it does not matter: We must do something, and the longer Oleander waits to reveal himself, the more time we have to arm ourselves with the skills to defeat him.

  So I study, and learn: about poisons, remedies, and the old lore from the collection that the signora thinks might help us understand Oleander’s strength and weakness. We find many tales of the underworld and demons that live in realms below the earth. One story among them haunts my dreams: the one in which Hades, king of the dead, steals a human girl to be his bride. Her name is Persephone, and all of nature mourns her loss, for her mother is goddess of the harvest. As long as Hades keeps her in the underworld, the crops stop growing. The spring will not come.

  Is this is how the earth grieves? It will be nothing compared to my grief, if some harm comes to Jessamine.

  When my lessons are done, it is my turn to teach, as the signora and I agreed. I tell her all I know of the plants: the way they think about death, the flowers’ vanity about their beauty, and the healing plants’ pride in their powers. I tell her how the potted herbs on her windowsill chatter excitedly when she enters the room. I even tell her the way the trees sometimes speak in pompous riddles, and the ancient stories they like to tell. She writes it all down with a shaking hand.

  “Such treasures to add to the collection!” She replaces the stopper in the ink and gently blots the paper. “How I wish my father and grandfather were alive to hear these.”

  “Why does your hand tremble so?”

  She looks away and flexes her fingers. “It is one thing to spend one’s life believing that plants have souls. It is quite another to have someone sit and dictate the words of the trees to you. You have seen the world in full your whole life long, but for the rest of us…”

  Her voice trails off, but later I see her standing motionless by her potted herbs. Listening, perhaps. And then shaking her head in wonder.

  I stay in her small spare room and earn my keep by working in the garden. I have become adept at throwing out the drunken medical students at daybreak. And I think – I hope – I have begun to earn the trust of the plants of the Orto botanico.

  Daily, on my knees, I beg for news of Jessamine’s whereabouts. The meadowsweet praises my courage, the creeping rosemary weeps for my loneliness, the yarrow urges me to obey Signora Baglioni – but they will not tell me where to find Jessamine.

  “She has been touched by evil, but I know her heart is pure,” I say to them. “Can you give me any news? You will know her easily. She has the fresh beauty of a blushing pink rose. Her hair
is the colour of sunshine on wheat.”

  Every day their answer is the same. We cannot find the girl you seek.

  “Why? Is she dead?”

  If she were dead, her form would have returned to the earth, and the plants would know of this. They curl their leaves in apology. We cannot find the girl you seek.

  Even these noble plants talk in riddles. Why can they not find her? Is she sailing across some lifeless sea? Wandering the great polar icecaps? Even in the depths of the driest desert, mesquite trees and cactus grow. Surely there is some plant on this Earth that has caught a glimpse of her, somewhere.

  It is as if Jessamine no longer exists.

  The signora begins today’s lesson by ordering me to put on my coat and go with her. I know better than to question her instructions. I leap to obey and together we begin walking at a brisk pace.

  I note that she is not wearing her usual gardening trousers, but a long skirt and a pair of sturdy heeled shoes. “We are going to see a colleague of mine at the university,” she explains. “Dr. Marco Carburi is his name. He is a famous chemist. I believe we need his help.”

  “But I have learned every remedy and antidote you have taught me.”

  “You have done very well. There are many poisons with known antidotes. The university library documents them all, and thanks to the Orto botanico, we have access to virtually every plant called for in their preparation. However – this way, please, keep up! – we do not know what poison Oleander will use. Or what combination of poisons.” She stops. “Weed, have you ever heard of a substance called mithridatum?”

  “No.”

  She resumes walking, even faster than before. “It is named after King Mithridates. He was the ruler of Pontus, on the Black Sea, almost two millennia ago. Every king fears assassination, but Mithridates feared poison above all, for it was believed his own mother had poisoned his father to secure power for herself. Every day of his life starting in childhood, he took small quantities of the most powerful poisons, so that gradually he would develop a tolerance for them.”

  The thought of wilfully ingesting poison nearly makes me gag.

  “But that was not enough for the worried king,” the signora continues as we cross the narrow cobblestone streets. “He also developed what he claimed was a universal antidote, a complex mixture of dozens of healing herbs that could nullify any poison. This antidote came to be called mithridatum.”

  “It would be a substance of great value,” I say, thinking once more of Thomas Luxton.

  “Indeed. After the king’s death, the great Roman general Pompey stole the notebooks containing the instructions for making mithridatum, so that his own physicians might try to copy it. Many versions of the formula have come down through the centuries. Some of the ‘improvements’ are not what I would call scientific. The flesh of vipers. Powdered unicorn horn.” She shakes her head in contempt. “I have learned that Dr. Carburi has been trying to re-create the true formula. If he has succeeded, and can be persuaded to share what he knows, I believe that preparing a supply of mithridatum will be to our great advantage.”

  Her eyes light up. “Weed, if Dr. Carburi does have such a formula, perhaps you might ask the healing plants of the Orto botanico if it could be improved upon. Would they be able to determine that?”

  “They might,” I say, suddenly uneasy. I know Signora Baglioni’s intentions are good. The Orto botanico seeks only to heal. Yet the task she proposes is the same one Thomas Luxton once gave me – to go to the garden and bring back the plants’ knowledge for the use of humans.

  Is the line between good and evil only this? Some slight difference in intention?

  The plant that kills is the plant that cures; all that matters is the dose. I know this to be true. What of me, then? And Oleander? Are we, too, made of the same substance, somehow?

  “Here we are,” Signora Baglioni says, gazing up at the grand university building. “The Palazzo Bo.”

  I stop her before she can open the door. “Did King Mithridates’s scheme work? Did taking small doses of poison really make him immune to its power?”

  “It worked all too well,” she says. “At the end of his life, defeated and besieged by his enemies, King Mithridates refused to be taken alive. He slaughtered his wives and children and then tried to kill himself. But his resistance to poison was so strong he could not die. In the end, he had to order one of his soldiers to slay him with a sword.”

  She lifts her hand to knock. “Ironic, isn’t it? A man who spent his whole life avoiding poisonous plots dies at the simple thrust of a blade. A common pick-pocket could have done as much. But death is death, I suppose, no matter how it comes.” She raps three times, and we wait. “I must warn you: Dr. Carburi is a brilliant man, but prone to theatrics. We shall see what he has in store today.”

  We arrive at his classroom just as Dr. Carburi is on his way out. “Did you forget about our appointment?” Signora Baglioni says, sounding cross, as the doctor grabs his coat and bag.

  “Not at all, signora,” he says airily, locking the door behind him. “I intend for you and your young companion – Weed, is it? Curious name – to join me; we will talk on the way. But hurry, we only have a few minutes.”

  “Where are we going?” I ask as he leads us deeper into the university building.

  “To the anatomy theatre,” he answers with satisfaction, turning down yet another maze of hallways. “Professor Scarpa is dissecting today. Not to be missed!” Signora Baglioni looks impatient, but Dr. Carburi either fails to notice or purposely ignores her. “Is it your first time to the anatomy theatre?” he asks me. “How marvellous for you. I prefer to watch the proceedings from the topmost tier, but you ought to see the auditorium from this level as well. From the corpse’s point of view, you might say.”

  He leads us inside. It is a theatre, to be sure, in the shape of an oval, with six tiers of seats stacked one upon the next. At the centre of the lowest level is an empty table.

  As I gaze up and around, a trio of musicians enters from behind us. Dr. Carburi nods a greeting. To me he whispers, “Scarpa always insists that music be played during his dissections. He says it keeps his hand steady.”

  “There was a reason for our meeting today,” Signora Baglioni interjects. “It is a matter of some importance.”

  “Mithridatum, yes,” Dr. Carburi replies smoothly, as if he had been about to mention it himself. “I have developed three versions that seem promising. The difficulty, of course, is testing them, for I am not so unscrupulous as to poison a man simply to find out if I can cure him. Therefore I cannot guarantee they will work. It seems we are blocking the musicians. Signora Baglioni, Signor Weed, let us ascend.” With a grand gesture, he herds us back to the stairs.

  “Even untested, the formulas would still be of academic interest to us.” Signora glances meaningfully at me. I can guess what her look means: she will expect me to ask the Orto botanico to reveal if any of the antidotes will work. “We have no wish to gain profit from your work – but as one scholar to another, would you be willing to share your discoveries?”

  “You may have the formulas, of course.” We follow Dr. Carburi up the wooden stairs with carved balustrades that lead from one tier of seats to the next. “But as curiosities only, not as a prescription! And speaking of cures: there is something else I meant to tell you, Signora. A bit of gossip that may interest you.”

  He pauses on the landing, and lowers his voice. “I have received word that a party of revellers, drawn from the highest ranks of English nobility, will be descending on Padua for Martinmas. They will be housed in the great villas along the Brenta Canal, between Venice and Padua. They will be travelling in secret.”

  “Why?”

  “For privacy, perhaps. As part of their itinerary, they are coming to see me.”

  “Not your infamous treatments, Marco!”

  Amusement plays over his features. He turns to me. “You seem like a young man of the world, Signor Weed. In England they call it
the French pox. In France they call it the Neapolitan pox.”

  Signora Baglioni snorts. “Yes, and in Naples they call it the English plague. What Professor Carburi refers to is the disease doctors call syphilis.”

  “Ignore the signora’s scorn, young man, for it is undeserved. The truth is, I am considered an expert in treating this terrible illness. My patients come from all over Europe, from the highest ranks of society. They seek me out for my discretion, as well as for the ingenuity of my methods.”

  “Your methods are painful and of little help.”

  “Correction, Signora: My methods are excruciating and completely ineffective. They are also highly profitable.”

  “It is disgraceful.”

  “But my patients insist! Really, they have no other options.”

  “They might try keeping away from whores.”

  He shrugs and turns to me. “The signora’s remedy is quite impractical. We are speaking of wealthy, powerful men on holiday abroad. Take away their whores, and the enterprise loses all meaning.”

  He smiles charmingly at Signora Baglioni, but her scowl deepens. “Moneyed Englishmen debauching their way through the Veneto is nothing new,” she says. “What does this gossip signify?”

  “My sources tell me King George himself will be among the party.”

  The signora’s eyes widen. “The King of England? But why would he travel to Italy when half of Europe is at war? It is madness.”

  “Agreed. Whoever has convinced the king to leave the safety of England is a traitor. I fear a trap is being laid even now.”

  He lays a hand on my shoulder. “I am sure the signora has told you, if you don’t already know: This region has a long and gruesome history of political assassination by poison. In Venice there was an official committee, the Council of Ten, which met to vote on whom to poison next. The French would find it admirably democratic.”

  By now we have reached the uppermost tier. Dr. Carburi pauses to catch his breath. “That they bring the English king here bodes very ill indeed, and all but guarantees that we will be blamed for whatever happens to him. It will bring war to our city. A royal assassination would be the end of Padua, the university, everything.”