It's Teaser Tuesday! Here's an excerpt from a book I'm really looking forward to: POISON by Sara Poole (will be here any day now because I resisted the temptation of a Kindle download but caved to having it for myself) :
The Spaniard died in agony. That much was evident from the contortions of his once handsome face and limbs and the black foam caking his lips. A horrible death to be sure, oneonly possible from that most feared of weapons: “Poison.”Having pronounced his verdict, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, prince of Holy Mother Church, looked up, his dark eyes heavy-lidded with suspicion, and surveyed the assembled members of his household.“He was poisoned.”A tremor ran through guards, retainers, and servants all, as though a great wind blew across the gilded reception room shaded by the columned loggia beyond and cooled in this blazing Roman summerof Anno Domini 1492 by breezes from the gardens filled with the scents of exotic jasmine and tamarind.
“In my house, this man I called to serve me was poisoned in my house!”
Pigeons in the cotes beneath the palazzo eaves fluttered as the great booming voice washed over them. Roused to anger, Il Cardinale was a marvel to behold, a true force of nature.
“I will find who did this. Whoever dared will pay! Captain, you will—”
About to issue his orders to the commander of his condotierri, Borgia paused. I had stepped forward in that moment, squeezing between a house priest and a secretary, to put myself at the front ofthe crowd that watched him with terrifi ed fascination. The movement distracted him. He stared at me, scowling.
I inclined my head slightly in the direction of the body.
“Out!”
They fled, all of them, from the old veterans to the youn gest servant, tumbling over one another to be gone from his presence, away from his terrifying rage that turned the blood to ice, freed to whisperamong themselves about what had happened, what it meant, and, above all, who had dared to do it.
Only I remained.
“Giordano’s daughter?” Borgia stared at me across the width of the reception room. It was a vast space carpeted in the Moorish fashion as so few can afford to do, furnished with the rarest woods, themost precious fabrics, the grandest silver and gold plate, all to proclaim the power and glory of the man whose will I dared to challenge.
A drop of sweat ran down between my shoulder blades. I had worn my best day clothes for what I feared might be the final hour of my life. The underdress of dark brown velvet, pleated across thebodice and with a wide skirt that trailed slightly behind me pressed down heavily on my shoulders. A pale yellow overdress was clinched loosely under my breasts, a reminder of the weight I had lost sincemy father’s death.
By contrast, the Cardinal was the picture of comfort in a loose, billowing shirt and pantaloons of the sort he favored when he was at home and relaxing, as he had been when word was brought to himof the Spaniard’s death.
I nodded. “I am, Eminence, Francesca Giordano, your servant.”
The Cardinal paced in one direction, back again, a restless animal filled with power, ambition, appetites. He gazed at me and I knew what he must see: a slim woman of not yet twenty, unremarkable in looks except for overly large brown eyes, auburn hair, and, thanks to my fear, very pale skin.
He gestured at the Spaniard, who in the heat of the day had already begun to stink.
“What do you know of this?”
“I killed him.”Even to my own ears, my voice sounded harsh against the tapestry covered walls. The Cardinal paced closer, his expression that of mingled shock and disbelief.
“You killed him?”
I had prepared a speech that I hoped would explain my actions while concealing my true intent. It came in such a rush I feared I might garble it.
“I am my father’s daughter. I learned at his side, yet when he was killed, you did not consider for a moment that I should take his place. You would have for a son but not for me. Instead, you hired this . . .other—” I caught my breath and pointed at the dead man. “Hired him to protect you and your family. Yet he could not even protect himself, not from me.”
I could have said more. That Borgia had done nothing to avenge my father’s murder. That he had allowed him to be beaten in the street like a dog, left in the filth with his skull crushed, and not lifteda hand to seek vengeance. That such a lapse on his part was unparalleled. . . and unforgivable.
He had left it to me, the poisoner’s daughter, to exact justice. But to do so, I needed power, paid for in the coin of one dead Spaniard.
The Cardinal’s great brow wrinkled prodigiously, leaving his eyes mere slits. Yet he appeared calm enough with no sign of the rage he had shown minutes before.
A flicker of hope stirred within me. Ten years living under his roof, watching him, hearing my father speak of him. Ten years convinced that he was a man of true intelligence, of reason and logic, aman who would never be ruled by his emotions. All down to this single moment.
“How did you do it?”
He was testing me; that was good. I took a breath and answered more calmly.
“I knew he would be hot and thirsty when he arrived, but that he would also be cautious of what he drank. The flagon I left for him contained only iced water, pure enough to pass any inspection. Thepoison was on the outside, coating the glass. He was sweating, which meant that the pores of his skin were wide open. From the moment he touched the flagon, it would have been over very quickly.”
“Your father never mentioned such a poison to me, one that could be used in that way.”
I saw no reason to tell Il Cardinale that I, not my father, had developed that particular poison. Likely, he would not have believed me anyway. Not then.
“No craftsman gives away all his secrets,” I said.
He did not reply at once but came closer yet, so close that I could feel the heat pouring off him, see the great swathe of his bull-like shoulders blocking out the light. The glint of gold from the crossdangling against his barrel chest caught my gaze and I could not look away.
Cristo en extremis.
Save me.
“By God, girl,” the Cardinal said, “you have surprised me.”
A momentous admission from this man who, it was said, knew before any other which swallow would alight first on any tree in Rome and whether the branch could hold its weight.
I took a breath against the tightness of my chest, looked away from the cross, away from him, out through the open window toward the great river and the vast land beyond.
Breathe.
“I would serve you, signore.” I turned my head, just enough to meet his gaze and hold it. “But first, you must let me live.”
2The servants came and went, removing all trace of the Spaniard.They carried in my chests, brought food and drink, and even turned down the covers of the bed framed in wooden posts of carved acanthus where once my father had slept and now Iwould.
Tasks completed, they filed out silently, all except the last of them, an old woman close enough to Heaven to have little to lose. Skittering away, she hissed: Strega!
Witch.
A cold shiver ran through me, though I was careful to give no sign of it. Such a word would never have been applied to my father or to the Spaniard or to any man possessed of the fearsome but respected skills of a professional poisoner. But it would be applied to me now and forever, and I was helpless to prevent it.
They burn witches. The terrifying auto-de-fé is not limited to its point of origin in Spain. It has spread to the Lowlands, the Italian Peninsula, all of Europe. For the most part, the flames consume thoseaccused of heresy, but how easy it is to indict a man or woman—almost always a woman— or even a child accused of the even graver sin of trafficking with Satan. Anyone too conversant with ancienthealing, too knowledgeable about plants, or simply too different from others may end as fuel for the fires that char human skin, sizzle human fat, crack human bones, and reduce to ashes all that is hopeand dream.
I turned, intending to distract myself by unpacking the chests, then turned again suddenly, a hand clamped over my mouth. On my knees, I yanked the piss pot from beneath the bed and crouched over it as the contents of my stomach spewed out, a bitter stream that all but choked me.
Disgustoso!
Do not think I am prone to such infirmity, but the events of the day, the desperate gamble I had been forced to take and the terror of mortal sin it brought, overwhelmed me. I lay where I was, unmoving.Exhaustion bore me away as on a fast-running tide flowing swiftly beyond any sight of shore.
“In my house, this man I called to serve me was poisoned in my house!”
Pigeons in the cotes beneath the palazzo eaves fluttered as the great booming voice washed over them. Roused to anger, Il Cardinale was a marvel to behold, a true force of nature.
“I will find who did this. Whoever dared will pay! Captain, you will—”
About to issue his orders to the commander of his condotierri, Borgia paused. I had stepped forward in that moment, squeezing between a house priest and a secretary, to put myself at the front ofthe crowd that watched him with terrifi ed fascination. The movement distracted him. He stared at me, scowling.
I inclined my head slightly in the direction of the body.
“Out!”
They fled, all of them, from the old veterans to the youn gest servant, tumbling over one another to be gone from his presence, away from his terrifying rage that turned the blood to ice, freed to whisperamong themselves about what had happened, what it meant, and, above all, who had dared to do it.
Only I remained.
“Giordano’s daughter?” Borgia stared at me across the width of the reception room. It was a vast space carpeted in the Moorish fashion as so few can afford to do, furnished with the rarest woods, themost precious fabrics, the grandest silver and gold plate, all to proclaim the power and glory of the man whose will I dared to challenge.
A drop of sweat ran down between my shoulder blades. I had worn my best day clothes for what I feared might be the final hour of my life. The underdress of dark brown velvet, pleated across thebodice and with a wide skirt that trailed slightly behind me pressed down heavily on my shoulders. A pale yellow overdress was clinched loosely under my breasts, a reminder of the weight I had lost sincemy father’s death.
By contrast, the Cardinal was the picture of comfort in a loose, billowing shirt and pantaloons of the sort he favored when he was at home and relaxing, as he had been when word was brought to himof the Spaniard’s death.
I nodded. “I am, Eminence, Francesca Giordano, your servant.”
The Cardinal paced in one direction, back again, a restless animal filled with power, ambition, appetites. He gazed at me and I knew what he must see: a slim woman of not yet twenty, unremarkable in looks except for overly large brown eyes, auburn hair, and, thanks to my fear, very pale skin.
He gestured at the Spaniard, who in the heat of the day had already begun to stink.
“What do you know of this?”
“I killed him.”Even to my own ears, my voice sounded harsh against the tapestry covered walls. The Cardinal paced closer, his expression that of mingled shock and disbelief.
“You killed him?”
I had prepared a speech that I hoped would explain my actions while concealing my true intent. It came in such a rush I feared I might garble it.
“I am my father’s daughter. I learned at his side, yet when he was killed, you did not consider for a moment that I should take his place. You would have for a son but not for me. Instead, you hired this . . .other—” I caught my breath and pointed at the dead man. “Hired him to protect you and your family. Yet he could not even protect himself, not from me.”
I could have said more. That Borgia had done nothing to avenge my father’s murder. That he had allowed him to be beaten in the street like a dog, left in the filth with his skull crushed, and not lifteda hand to seek vengeance. That such a lapse on his part was unparalleled. . . and unforgivable.
He had left it to me, the poisoner’s daughter, to exact justice. But to do so, I needed power, paid for in the coin of one dead Spaniard.
The Cardinal’s great brow wrinkled prodigiously, leaving his eyes mere slits. Yet he appeared calm enough with no sign of the rage he had shown minutes before.
A flicker of hope stirred within me. Ten years living under his roof, watching him, hearing my father speak of him. Ten years convinced that he was a man of true intelligence, of reason and logic, aman who would never be ruled by his emotions. All down to this single moment.
“How did you do it?”
He was testing me; that was good. I took a breath and answered more calmly.
“I knew he would be hot and thirsty when he arrived, but that he would also be cautious of what he drank. The flagon I left for him contained only iced water, pure enough to pass any inspection. Thepoison was on the outside, coating the glass. He was sweating, which meant that the pores of his skin were wide open. From the moment he touched the flagon, it would have been over very quickly.”
“Your father never mentioned such a poison to me, one that could be used in that way.”
I saw no reason to tell Il Cardinale that I, not my father, had developed that particular poison. Likely, he would not have believed me anyway. Not then.
“No craftsman gives away all his secrets,” I said.
He did not reply at once but came closer yet, so close that I could feel the heat pouring off him, see the great swathe of his bull-like shoulders blocking out the light. The glint of gold from the crossdangling against his barrel chest caught my gaze and I could not look away.
Cristo en extremis.
Save me.
“By God, girl,” the Cardinal said, “you have surprised me.”
A momentous admission from this man who, it was said, knew before any other which swallow would alight first on any tree in Rome and whether the branch could hold its weight.
I took a breath against the tightness of my chest, looked away from the cross, away from him, out through the open window toward the great river and the vast land beyond.
Breathe.
“I would serve you, signore.” I turned my head, just enough to meet his gaze and hold it. “But first, you must let me live.”
2The servants came and went, removing all trace of the Spaniard.They carried in my chests, brought food and drink, and even turned down the covers of the bed framed in wooden posts of carved acanthus where once my father had slept and now Iwould.
Tasks completed, they filed out silently, all except the last of them, an old woman close enough to Heaven to have little to lose. Skittering away, she hissed: Strega!
Witch.
A cold shiver ran through me, though I was careful to give no sign of it. Such a word would never have been applied to my father or to the Spaniard or to any man possessed of the fearsome but respected skills of a professional poisoner. But it would be applied to me now and forever, and I was helpless to prevent it.
They burn witches. The terrifying auto-de-fé is not limited to its point of origin in Spain. It has spread to the Lowlands, the Italian Peninsula, all of Europe. For the most part, the flames consume thoseaccused of heresy, but how easy it is to indict a man or woman—almost always a woman— or even a child accused of the even graver sin of trafficking with Satan. Anyone too conversant with ancienthealing, too knowledgeable about plants, or simply too different from others may end as fuel for the fires that char human skin, sizzle human fat, crack human bones, and reduce to ashes all that is hopeand dream.
I turned, intending to distract myself by unpacking the chests, then turned again suddenly, a hand clamped over my mouth. On my knees, I yanked the piss pot from beneath the bed and crouched over it as the contents of my stomach spewed out, a bitter stream that all but choked me.
Disgustoso!
Do not think I am prone to such infirmity, but the events of the day, the desperate gamble I had been forced to take and the terror of mortal sin it brought, overwhelmed me. I lay where I was, unmoving.Exhaustion bore me away as on a fast-running tide flowing swiftly beyond any sight of shore.
*************************************************
Much love,
PK the Bookeemonster
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