Gene of Isis (26 page)

‘Please, your grace, the most unbelievable circumstances have led me to your door during this grave time. Perhaps it was fated that I see your child? I am very knowledgeable in both the black arts and the sciences.’

The duke seemed ready to try anything, and I ascertained from his light-body that he was not an evil man by nature—or at least he did not think of
himself as such. ‘If you restore my boy’s health I will release the gypsies. But if he dies,’ he fixed me with steely blue eyes ablaze with fear and hatred just waiting to vent itself on someone, ‘I shall have them all shot and you shall give the order.’

Albray?
In my mind I began to panic.

You’re doing fine, there’s nothing to worry about.

That’s easy for you to say, you’re dead already!

De Guise dismissed me and instructed me to follow his steward. ‘The gypsy witch must wait under guard for you. I shall not have her near my son.’

I didn’t feel comfortable about that, considering the duke’s low regard for Rumer’s race. ‘This girl is in my care. Do I have your assurance that she will not be harmed?’ I had no clue whether the word of Gasgon de Guise was worth anything anyway.

‘No harm will come to her,’ the duke assured me, ‘provided you cure my son.’

This deal just gets worse and worse.
I decided to retreat quickly before the stakes became any higher.

The chief steward led me to the head maidservant, who we met at the main staircase. The middle-aged woman looked pale and drawn, as did the steward—as had the duke for that matter. I assumed it was just the stress of the little master’s illness that was causing the muddy patches in the head centres of all these people’s light-bodies, for their dis-ease was plain to me.

I asked the maidservant to outline the boy’s symptoms.

‘At first it was just a headache,’ she explained, nursing her own head which was obviously ailing her. ‘His condition degenerated rapidly into spasms of nausea and extreme general prostration. He
complains of a burning throat…his hands and feet are icy cold. I fear we shall lose him to dehydration before long.’

In the young master’s withdrawing room we found the manservant of Master de Guise keeled over and vomiting into a woodbin. He too had muddy patches superimposing the higher centres of his light-body, but his disease had extended down through his stomach as well.

The true cause of the illness was soon clear to me. I smelt it as soon as I entered the young master’s chambers. ‘Fresh paint,’ I eyed the deadly walls, ‘of lethal green.’

‘The curse is spreading!’ The maidservant panicked.

‘This is not the work of a curse.’ I gripped both her shoulders to calm her. ‘The illness stems from the paint on these walls. Find me some liquid ammonia and I shall verify that,’ I instructed. ‘Tie a scarf over your nose and mouth, so that you do not breathe in any more of the paint fumes.’ I found my handkerchief and used it for that purpose. ‘Have that man taken to another room. He needs to be in darkness and silence…that will slow the poison.’

‘Poison!’ The maid was shocked.

‘Do as I tell you, quickly, for I suspect arsenic poisoning. Ammonia will turn this paint blue if it contains copper arsenate.’

‘But the master’s chambers…’ The maid began to weep and I made haste to the bedroom door. ‘Get some help up here to move these people!’ I ordered, shocking the maidservant into action. ‘No one comes into these rooms.’

There wasn’t much left of the six-year-old boy. The duke’s physicians had obviously used all their
remedies on him, as the room reeked of the smell of medicine regurgitated.

‘Dear gods, what am I going to do?’ I knew what had caused the illness but I had no idea how to heal it, or if in fact it could be healed.

The answer is between your breasts.

I was startled by Albray’s brazen claim only as long as it took me to fathom his meaning. ‘The Star!’ I’d been carrying it for so long I’d forgotten it was even there. ‘The powder will cure him?’ I asked.

Completely,
Albray assured.
So, if you don’t want this to look like some sort of miracle, you’d better come up with some feasible explanation for his speedy recovery.

‘Chiara might know an antidote for arsenic poisoning,’ I suggested.

I shall return.
Albray vanished.

I discarded the bedclothes, as everything in these rooms was likely to be permeated with the poison. ‘Hold on, little one.’ I bundled the child into my arms and went in search of another room, in any colour but green.

Albray returned with a list of ingredients to make an infusion, and I relayed the potion’s preparation to the head maidservant. It was only after much scientific study, later in life, that I realised the ingredients of Chiara’s brew were very high in iron, and that, by modern standards, was a perfect arsenic antidote.

It seemed to take an age for the servants to return with the broth, but in the interim the head steward reported he’d confirmed my suspicions—the ammonia had reacted on the paint as I had described and the findings were being reported to the duke.

‘Good old Nanny.’ I sat alone in the darkened room with the young master. It was only due to her suspicion of green that I’d known about the ammonia reaction to copper arsenate, for Nanny always carried a small vial of ammonia when shopping for fabric.

The young Master de Guise was fading fast. ‘Albray, perhaps we should not wait for the alibi?’

If you expose your talents, or that you carry the Star vial on your person, this situation is going to become much more complicated.

The boy’s breathing stopped altogether.

‘Please, not yet…’ I reached down into the neck of my gown to retrieve the Star vial.

Someone approaches,
Albray warned me to refrain.

‘He’s dead, Albray!’ I was panicking. I needed time to form a strategy. How could I save any of us now? ‘We hesitated too long.’

Our plan is still sound,
Albray assured me.
Just make sure the maid does not learn of the boy’s passing.

To buy us time, I assumed, but when the door to the room opened and the maidservant entered I was forced to quickly address the situation. ‘Put it down over there. Thank you, and leave quietly,’ I instructed in a whisper, trying not to sound too desperate.

‘My duke requested that I look over the master and report on his condition.’ The weighty maid strode toward the bed.

‘Your report to the duke shall be far more positive if you give the infusion a half hour to do its work,’ I said.

The maid turned back to me. ‘I must say I feel much better for having had a cup of your brew, Miss Winston.’

‘It is an old gypsy remedy,’ I confessed.

The maid stared at me, horrified, but then shrugged and smiled. ‘Today has been a most enlightening day, miss.’ She curtseyed to me, which she was certainly not required to do. ‘I shall speak with you in half an hour.’ She waddled to the door. ‘Can I fetch you some tea and something to eat?’

‘I’d greatly appreciate that.’ Despite my panic, I was starving.

‘A Last Supper perhaps?’ I said to Albray once we were alone. He stood out in the darkness, his spirit glistening like an angel. ‘Now what do you suggest we do?’

Give
the child the powder,
he prompted, as if that went without saying.

‘Surely it can do no good now…’ but I fished out the vial, eager to try anything at this point.

Just a small amount will do the trick, washed down with some of Chiara’s brew.

‘All right.’ I was doubtful, but I fetched a cup of broth.

I sprinkled about a tenth of the vial’s contents on the boy’s tongue and closed his mouth. I replaced my vial for safekeeping, and then raised the head of the deceased lad to trickle Chiara’s brew into his mouth. The next thing I knew the child was coughing and spluttering all over me.

‘Mademoiselle?’ The blue-eyed boy with dark angelic curls looked at me, wide-eyed and energetic, like he’d just woken from a sleep, rather than a fatal illness. The child looked over my shoulder.
‘Monsieur?’
Albray was the only other being present. ‘Is the sickness gone?’ He was amazed to feel so well after days of torture.

‘Oui,
the sickness is gone.’ I placed the broth in his hands. ‘But I think you had best choose another
colour for your chambers, or better still, choose new chambers altogether.’

‘Oui,’
the lad agreed, ‘the new paint smelt rather bad.’

Albray and I got a chuckle out of that observation.

Even having achieved a miracle, my problems in Orleans were far from over.

Gasgon de Guise was, of course, extremely grateful for his son’s return to health. He proclaimed, with his duchess in attendance, that I had undone the curse of the gypsies and he would set them free.

At this stage I wanted to point out that I had also proved that the illness was not the work of a gypsy curse. I refrained, however. The duke had been informed of my findings and if I made him out to be the fool, I would lose what favour I had gained by my service to his house. Instead, I decided it wiser to focus on and clarify our arrangement. I felt there was some sort of catch to what was being said by the duke. ‘So all the gypsies, including Cingar and Rumer Choron, are now free to leave with me.’

The duke’s gaze of approval turned chilly.

‘The girl may go, but the fiddle player stays,’ he informed me. ‘I have plans for him on my plantation in Louisiana.’

‘No, my lord, please. There is nothing to punish this man for,’ his duchess appealed. ‘His music invoked my passion,’ she admitted willingly, ‘my passion for you, my love…why won’t you believe me?’

The duke would not look at his wife; clearly he felt her words stemmed from love and not justice.

‘The only curse on this house is your jealousy!’ said the duchess bitterly.

‘Perhaps I shall hang the gypsy instead,’ the duke replied coldly, whereby his wife reached her wit’s end and stood. ‘I love you, Gasgon de Guise, but I shall never forgive you if you condemn this man’s genius simply because you envy his talent.’ The duchess stormed toward me on her way out of the room. ‘I would grant you anything for the service you have done this house today, Mademoiselle Winston, but I fear my husband is a stubborn fool.’

‘You shall not speak ill of me in front of a guest.’ The duke attempted to reprimand his feisty lady.

‘You have no honour,’ she spat back at him as she left the room.

Any angles on this negotiation would be very welcome right now,
I said to my knight on the quiet.

Just say exactly what I tell you to say and we ought to fare well,
Albray told me and I opened myself to his suggestion.

‘If I release Cingar, what compensation have I for the upheaval he has caused in this house?’ The duke was sounding a little emotionally unstable. He could easily snap and decide to have me beheaded for defending his purported heretic.

‘If I might suggest a different perspective, your grace,’ I ventured humbly and he gave me his attention. ‘If you had never invited Cingar to play in your house, he would never have offended you, that is true.
However
…he would not have been arrested and I would have had no reason to come to Orleans. Your son would have fallen sick to the poison on his walls in any case, and the entire household, including your grace, may have perished before the true cause of the illness was ascertained.’

The duke was grave as he mulled over my words, but to my great relief he eventually smiled. ‘You are a very clever young woman, Mademoiselle Winston. And as you are so clever, I shall allow you to give me one good reason why I should release this gypsy. Are you in love with him?’ The duke was clearly intrigued as to why I would risk my neck for such a man as Cingar.

‘I am sorry to disappoint, your grace,’ I blushed at his implication, for it was very romantic, ‘but in truth I have never met the man.’

Tell the duke that you have a very good reason to release Cingar, but that it is for his ears alone. His guards must leave.

I’m not too sure that I want to be alone with his man, Albray,
I inwardly protested as I repeated Albray’s instruction to de Guise.

The duke appeared wary of my request, but curiosity got the better of him and he dismissed his guards.

Excellent,
Albray confirmed.
Now undo your gown at the back.

Forget it!
I wasn’t going to seduce a duke to get Cingar out of prison.

Show the duke your birthmark.
Albray insisted I stop protesting and trust him.
The House of Guise is allied to the Grail kings.
Do
it, please.

‘Your grace, I must beg your leave one moment. This is not what it seems.’

The duke appeared pleasantly surprised as he watched me unbutton my heavy velvet frock. ‘Perfect timing, mademoiselle,’ he commented, well disposed toward such a bargaining strategy. ‘My wife is lost to me for the present, so I…’

When I approached him and turned, the sight of
my birthmark brought his banter to a stop. I began refastening my dress as I turned back to face the duke.

He was too awed to speak for a moment. ‘The mark of the House of du Lac,’ he uttered aghast. ‘Who are you really, Mademoiselle Winston?’

There was a knock at the door and the house steward entered. Thankfully I had rebuttoned my gown by the time he did. ‘There is a Monsieur Devere requesting an audience with your grace.’

My gasp just slipped out; that man had to be part bloodhound.

The duke clearly saw my distress. ‘Tell him to come back tomorrow.’

‘Beg your pardon, your grace, but Monsieur Devere is somewhat distressed. It seems he has lost a very pretty wife…an English woman,’ the steward looked at me, ‘of about twenty years, fair complexion, long auburn ringlets and green eyes.’ He looked back at the duke. ‘Have we seen anyone that fits that description, your grace?’

The duke raised his eyebrows in question at me.

‘No.’ I stated my preference. ‘I can explain everything,’ I added at Albray’s prompting.

‘No,’ the duke advised the steward, who seemed unimpressed by the lie he had to tell.