The Traitor's Blade by Kevin Sands (fiction books to read .TXT) 📕

was just dismissive, blaming our fears on overactive imaginations. My holding a pigeon probably didn’t help him take us seriously.

“But—” Sally said.

“It simply cannot happen, young lady,” Dencourt said. “Our precautions are beyond reproach.”

“All it takes is one mistake,” I said.

“Which is why we shall make none.”

“It’s not like it’s never happened before.”

He was beginning to lose his patience. “If you are referring to the events in Oxford last autumn, that is exactly why it won’t happen again. Come with me.”

He led us into the wine cellar. Four racks stretched into the musty damp, holding hundreds of bottles. He motioned to the rack on the left. A guard, leaning against the wall, snapped to attention as we approached.

“This is the wine for the party,” Dencourt said. “As you can see, I have set a man to watch over it. What’s more, after the poisoning at Oxford, I have implemented an entirely new system.”

He pulled a bottle from the nearest rack and handed it to me.

“First, each bottle is inspected—by me, and me alone—for tampering or defect. If I find none, I stop the cork with wax, and seal it.”

He showed me his ring. It was silver, its face engraved with a scrolled D—for Dencourt, I assumed. The D was pressed into the seal atop the bottle.

“When the party begins,” he continued, “I will again inspect the bottle and the seal. If there are no indications of tampering, only then will I pour the wine.”

“Couldn’t someone put poison in after that?” Sally said.

“Or in the glasses, even,” Tom said.

“That still wouldn’t harm the king. Because, you see, His Majesty shall drink only from the first glass poured from a bottle. And I will be the only one to serve him. If a blackguard could somehow intrude on the party—which he could not—then whomever he poisons, I assure you, it will not be the king.”

Patience finally spent, he shooed us from the cellar. Alone again in the parlor, I had to admit, they’d learned a lot from their mistakes last November. Dencourt’s system was as safe as any I could think of.

“Unless Dencourt himself is the assassin,” Tom said.

That was possible. But now we were jumping at shadows. “So that’s it?” Sally said. “The Templars’ warning was false?”

“Well… we haven’t checked the food yet,” I said.

Tom was always up for a trip to a kitchen. “What are they serving?”

I shrugged. “Let’s find out.”

I shut Bridget in Sally’s room—I didn’t like the idea of leaving a plump little bird around cooks with large knives—before heading off to the kitchens. The cook we spoke to was a lot nicer than the steward. Sally made things even easier by not mentioning poison. Instead, she pretended His Majesty had sent her to ask what there’d be to eat.

“Here you go, miss,” he said, and he handed her a long and detailed list.

The kitchens had planned a spread on several tables. The list looked like the usual: meat, cheese, bread, sweets, and pastry.

“Can these be cooked with poison?” Sally asked quietly.

“Master Benedict said arsenic works best fresh,” I said. “I think you’d want to sprinkle it on after it was finished.”

“Wouldn’t that be noticed?”

Probably. Master Benedict’s notes explained that, in France, where arsenic was popular, a poisoner would usually mix it into someone’s plate. But from the looks of the menu, there wouldn’t be individual servings. Just finished dishes on the table, from which the patrons could take what they liked. Tom studied the list as Sally spoke.

“Would you be able to taste the poison?” Sally asked.

“No,” I said. “Arsenic has no taste. No smell, either. It’s why it’s used so much. If you can find some way of hiding it, your victim will never even know they were poisoned. The effects look the same as cholera. A lot of people have probably died thinking it was just an illness.”

“It has no taste?” Tom said, frowning at the list.

“None.”

“So if you mixed it in with something else?”

“It would taste like whatever it was mixed with. Why?”

He looked up, still frowning. “You called it white arsenic before. But is it actually white?”

“Yes, it’s a white powder. What are you getting at?”

“Here.” He showed us the list, pointing to the desserts and pastries at the bottom. “The cream puffs.”

“What about them?”

Tom, the baker’s son, had spotted what we’d missed. “You finish them off by dusting them with powdered sugar.”

Powdered sugar. White—just like arsenic. The assassin could mix it in at any time. And then…

Death by cream puff. Tom took that personally.

“What do we do?” Sally said.

“Warn the king,” Tom insisted. “And cancel the party.”

We’d warn the king, certainly. But as for canceling the party, Isaac’s point still stood. “Maybe we can catch the traitors in the act.”

“You think they’ll slip the poison in tomorrow?” Sally said. “If the cook watches the food as closely as Mr. Dencourt watches the wine, I don’t see how they wouldn’t be caught.”

That was a good point. Which made me wonder something else.

“How did the Templars know the king would be poisoned with arsenic?” I said.

“I thought the Templars knew everything,” Tom said.

“They can’t know everything. They might have agents in high places, but they’re still just people.”

“What are you thinking?” Sally said.

“The servant at Whitehall who was murdered, Mary Brickenham. She worked in the kitchens. What if she was killed because she saw someone doing something strange?”

“Like putting something in the food!”

“Maybe. Either way, Whitehall’s on edge now. So what if the Covenanters had planned to poison the king at the palace, but had to move their plot here, to Berkshire House, instead?”

“All right,” Tom said. “And?”

“Well… what if they don’t plan to poison the food the night of the party? What if the poison’s already here? In the pantry, in the powdered sugar, say. Then it wouldn’t matter who’s watching for danger. The sugar’s already poisoned. The cook will do the assassin’s work for him, without even knowing it.”

We stood there, struck by the deviousness.

“Come on,” I said. “We need to