Poisoned

Poisoned - Ch. 17 [Heirs]

            Ch. 17 – Heirs

          “Now that the King has seen that he is not as safe as he once thought, it has become an even more urgent matter for you to master your poison lessons as quickly as possible.”

          I looked up at the sound of Sir Daelin’s voice as he came striding into my bedchambers where I sat, still in the middle of my morning preparations. Faye had been chattering to me as she brushed my hair but her hand had frozen still, the brush tangled in a knot of my hair as she gazed open-mouthed at the King’s right hand.

          Gently shrugging her away, I arose and covered myself in a white robe draped nearby, hiding my nightgown as courtesy demanded. Yesterday had been a gruelling day, and I had sat up late, studying poisons and etiquette faux pas until I had gone cross-eyed, all the while trying to keep my mind from wondering where Julian was in that instant.

          Altogether, I didn’t give a rat’s fart as to what was socially proper this morning, and I had the keen suspicion that I didn’t have anything that Sir Daelin hadn’t seen before. However, I deemed it unwise to further shock poor Faye by sitting in front of a man in only my nightgown, so I obliged his presence by putting it on and standing.

          “Good morning to you, Sir,” I said irritably, and curtsied.

          He regarded me with distracted surprise. “Yes, yes, thank you,” he waved it away. “But did you hear what I said?”

          “Yes, yes, thank you,” I muttered under my breath, turning away to tie up the front. Louder so he could hear me, I said – “I’m studying as much as I can. I go through nearly two hundred pages per evening. Sir Ernest is not at all lenient with me.”

          “Is that a complaint?” Sir Daelin raised an eyebrow at me, and I scowled.

          “No, merely a passing observation.”

          “Well at least I see Lord Clarence has taught you well,” Sir Daelin returned. “Excellent avoidance of the snare in my question. But moving on from verbal banter which Lord Clarence no doubt fancies more than me, I think you are ready to truly begin your work.”

          Shocked, I forgot my bad mood and turned to stare at the King’s advisor. “You can’t be serious!” I exclaimed. “Why, I only just started biology and Sir Ernest insists I must have a deep understanding of our bodies’ functions in order to know how to treat and prevent most poisons. And there are still about forty of the more obscure ones that he has yet to teach me, and we have not even begun chemistry and the mixing of certain elements to produce gases,” I fretted. “I am only three-quarters finished in my apprenticeship!”

          Sir Daelin listened to me patiently. “I happen to know that these obscure poisons are obscure for a reason – they’re devilishly tricky to find, cleanse, use, and hide. The rarer the poison, the easier it is to trace and find the murderer responsible. And the more difficult for the murderer to mask his trail. So if the King’s food will contain any poison, Arianna, you will not need to know the ones he hasn’t taught you yet. I can promise you that they won’t be the ones an assassin will use.”

          “And if they are used in the King’s food, and I don’t recognize them because I haven’t learned them?” I challenged.

          Sir Daelin gave me a grim look. “That’s why you’re here. You’ll die before the King can taste it, and your duty as Poison Tester will be fulfilled. We didn’t always train our Poison Testers; it’s something we only recently started because it’s useful if the Tester can identify a poison for us before they die.”