Mathilde 02 - The Poison Maiden Read Free

he pretended to be. Prior Stephen was different. From the occasional sharp glance at our sanctimonious toad’s pious gestures, Father Prior was not convinced. I certainly wasn’t. Now and again I drew Rahomer into conversation. I acted the witless old woman who wandered the friary eager to talk to anyone. I asked if he had ever read the Anciente Rewle , a spiritual reflection on the life of an anchorite. He replied that he had, but he stumbled over the words and his shifty eyes never met mine.
    Now my chamber at Grey Friars is a cavernous, stark cell with crumbling stone walls, a stained raftered ceiling and a dusty floor covered with rushes. It stands off the small cloisters overlooking some wasteland, a deserted, quiet place. I would often sit near the cloister garth studying the grotesque faces of the gargoyles and wondering who they reminded me of. The good brothers were ever courteous. They left me alone. Master Rahomer did not. On occasions I’d return to find my papers had been disturbed. Someone had entered my chamber secretly, carefully sifting my belongings. I suspected, by mere logic, our self-proclaimed holy anchorite, so I brought him under closer scrutiny.
    Rahomer was accustomed to receive visitors at the anker-hold window overlooking God’s Acre, men and women desperate for spiritual advice. They must have been, to consult that reed shaking in the wind. Ecclesiasticus is correct – pride and arrogance lie at the root of all sin. In my experience they are also the cause of many a spy being hanged. Master Rahomer concluded I was what I looked, a grey-haired, stooped old crone. Isn’t it strange how people dismiss the old as if they don’t even exist? He never reflected about me. I did about him. He had one constant visitor, a man garbed in brown fustian, obviously a royal clerk despite this clumsy disguise. Such intrusion I expected; murder I did not.
    The anchorite arrived around the Feast of St Peter ad Vincula; by Michaelmas he was trying to kill me. Rahomer was a malicious soul, biding his time and striking silently. I eat in my own chamber; the refectorian leaves my food on a stone ledge outside. On that particular day I had attended solemn high mass. Afterwards I waited until the sanctuary was empty so I could approach Isabella’s tomb and talk to her, as is my custom, so I was delayed in my returning. When I did, I picked up the tray and studied the platter carefully. I have a horror of rats, a relic of the Great Pestilence as well as hideous imprisonment in a French dungeon. I recognised traces of my old enemy: the splayed five-clawed toes, the slight gnaw marks, the hard black pellets; my tray had certainly been visited by vermin. I was surprised: the refectorian always covered the platters with wooden lids, but on that occasion two of these were missing. I decided not to eat and left the food to be collected. I was about to enter my chamber when I heard a scuffling, a scrabbling in the far corner of the hollow-stone gallery leading down to the small cloisters. I plucked a walking cane from my chamber and went over to investigate. I poked and prodded. The scrabbling was repeated, followed by a hideous squealing, and a brown rat, thickset and furred, sped out of the shadows only to roll on its side, paws thrashing the air. It had been poisoned.
    I returned to the tray. The bread and cheese had been left covered. I examined both but could detect no taint. The potage of meat and diced vegetables was cold. I sniffed the bowl, and immediately recognised an old acquaintance: the magnificent glistening purple monkshood. Its red berry smell conceals the most deadly poison, particularly the juice crushed from the roots and seeds. If consumed, monkshood scours the organs of the belly like a sharpened steel rasp. Master Rahomer, and I was sure it was he, had chosen well. What could I do? I am no pug-nosed brawler in a London runnel. My opponent had a soul as narrow as a coffin, hard black with malice, and a