====================== A Dish of Poison by Lillian Stewart Carl ====================== Copyright (c)2002 by Lillian Stewart Carl First published in Much Ado About Murder, December 2002 Fictionwise www.Fictionwise.com Mystery/Crime/Alternate History --------------------------------- NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. --------------------------------- When Viola caught a glimpse of herself in the tall mirrors lining the drawing room she had to look twice. That slender youth in the blue and gold uniform of the Duke's household was truly her. She squared her shoulders and lengthened her stride toward the far end of the room. Duke Orsino stood there, the focus of his retainers as a planet was the focus of its moons. Unlike some of the tasks that had already fallen her way in the Duke's employ, those involving tobacco, guns, or dice, waiting upon Orsino was effortless. Viola could've stood all day at his elbow, feasting her eyes on his profile, clean as that on a Roman coin, or listening to his firm but melodious voice. The gold braid on his collar set off his tanned complexion. His crisp black hair was cut short in the new fashion that rejected the elaborate powdered wigs of an earlier generation. When his guest Captain Bassanio bowed deeply, Orsino inclined his head in a nod so gracious, so polite, it was hard for Viola to envision him leading his ships into the fire and storm of battle. Warriors of old, though, were known for their courtesy as well as for their prowess on the battlefield. "My thanks, Captain," said Orsino, "for allowing your nephew Cesario to join my household." Bassanio's eyes twinkled in his weathered face, but his gesture toward Viola was carefully neutral. "So young a lad needs a protector, my lord. My thanks are due to you." "I'm sure," said Orsino, "we'll get on famously." She almost ducked, sure that intelligent gaze would see through her disguise. But his blue eyes touched hers, light as a feather, and returned to Bassanio's guileless smile without changing their expression. Viola didn't dare present herself in this strange land in her true female form. Her respectable name, her blameless ancestry, would count for nothing without the income to shore them up. Making her way as a man, no matter how young, was infinitely preferable to the life she'd have as a woman lacking friends, family, and dowry. She and her brother Sebastian had planned to make a new life after their father's death in Messaline. Even though many of their father's former patients conveniently forgot how he'd treated their ailments for promises rather than payment, still they'd managed to put together a meager purse. But that purse, and, much more importantly, Sebastian himself, had been lost in the shipwreck which cast Viola, Bassanio, and handful of crew members onto the shores of Illyria. She tightened her lips. No, she wouldn't cry for her brother, not here, not now. He was gone. She had to make her own way in the world, without a father, without a brother, without a husband.... Not that she had any objection to taking a husband when the world held men like Orsino. Bassanio was leaving. He patted Viola roughly on the shoulder. She knotted her fist and punched his arm. "Thank you, Captain." "You take care, young man," he returned with another twinkle, and was gone. Orsino turned in the opposite direction. "Gentlemen, attend me." Viola fell in with the others at his back. It was time for the afternoon ride. What a good thing it was that she and Sebastian had been born in the same hour, that sad hour which had seen their mother's death. They'd grown to be friends as well as siblings. Viola had scandalized the neighbors by climbing trees and riding astride just as her brother did. And she'd unsexed herself even further by helping her father at his surgery. No wonder she'd chosen to shed the garments of womanhood, when in many ways they clung so indifferently to her. Orsino led his retainers into the stable yard. It was as redolent of horses and hay and sunshine this afternoon as it had been the day before. A groom was waiting with the Duke's horse, a tall, muscular bay. Viola turned toward the small horse, little more than a pony, which had been assigned to her. A genuine youth might've complained, asking for a larger and more assertive beast. But while she might be devious, she wasn't stupid. A ragtag figure skulked in the shadows of the tack room. On this warm day he wore an old army greatcoat, its bits of braid tarnished, its pockets sagging. His coat was gray, his hair was gray, his face was gray. His eyes were bits of flint. A lute hung like a sword across his back. "Who is that?" Viola asked her colleagues Curio and Valentine. Curio shrugged. "His name is Feste, a poor madman. The Countess Olivia provides him with a hut beside her wall and food in her kitchen. She finds his songs and pranks amusing, I suppose. So does Orsino, asking him to sing and play when the melancholy falls upon him." "Or perhaps the songs Orsino hopes to hear from Feste are those of Olivia herself." Valentine reached for the reins of his own horse. Orsino stepped into the tack room and bent his head close to Feste's wizened form. Feste spoke. Orsino nodded, his eyes straying more than once to the road leading south. "Olivia?" Viola asked. This wasn't the first time she'd heard that name. "Countess Olivia's estate is to the south of the city," answered Valentine. "Orsino courts her but she'll have none of him, says she'll consider no man's suit while she mourns her brother's death some six weeks past." Orsino's heart was pledged? Viola pretended her own heart didn't sink at bit at the news. "Her brother was killed in the war?" "Not exactly," Curio replied. "Count Leonardo returned wounded, yes, but was well on his way to regaining his health when he sickened suddenly and died. Some lingering contagion of his wound, no doubt." "No doubt," repeated Valentine, a slight edge to his voice. "His death left his sister an heiress with a large household and a title in her own right. I daresay Orsino presses his suit because he wishes to recoup the expense of equipping a company for war." No, surely he loved her for herself, and pitied her brother's death.... Viola looked down at her boots, a bit too big for her feet, mottled with dust and dung. So Olivia was a solitary woman, too, without father, without brother, but with a very tidy dowry indeed. Some are born fortunate, some achieve fortune, and some have fortune thrust upon them. Orsino plucked a coin from his pocket and pressed it into Feste's hand. The madman turned to go, but not without shooting a shrewd glance around the stable yard. Something glinted in his eye, a subtle sardonic understanding. But if Curio or Valentine or Orsino himself couldn't penetrate her disguise, Viola told herself, why should this poor fool be able to? Orsino leaped onto his horse and without looking around to see if anyone was behind him rode off to the south. Their horses jostling in the gateway, the others followed. None of them sat their saddles as elegantly as Orsino, Viola thought. His lithe body swayed so perfectly to the rhythm of the hoof beats he and the horse might have been a centaur. Gaining the crest of a hill, Orsino turned aside from the road and led his small troop along a cliff overlooking the sea. Viola lagged behind, her pony ambling through tall grass that bent double in a cool breeze with a premonitory taste of winter to it. Below her the sea heaved and shuddered and spilled in a white froth onto the rocky beach. Sebastian had been carried away by waves much fiercer, beaten into foam by a shrieking wind. At least his soul hadn't entered Elysium alone -- with him disappeared the French officer, Antonio, who'd enlivened their table with stories of Austerlitz and Waterloo, and who'd worried about sailing so close to the coast of his enemy Illyria. Death, thought Viola, was capricious indeed. Look at Count Leonardo, surviving battle only to fall ill and die in his own household. Or so Curio had said, although Valentine's tone seemed to imply something else. Orsino's voice broke into her reverie. "Cesario!" After a long silent moment, Viola thought suddenly, _That's me_. "Cesario, attend me." Viola tightened her knees and her horse strolled forward. She looked up at Orsino. He didn't seem annoyed with her -- if anything, the slightest of smiles played at the corners of his mouth. But then, he wasn't looking down at her but inland. She followed the direction of his gaze. Below them a church nestled into a fold of green land. The spreading fronds of an ancient yew tree sheltered several ancient tombstones and one fresh new one. The grave before it was still mounded, covered in new-grown grass and flowers. Three people stood there, two of them deferring to a woman clothed head to toe in black. Only the handkerchief she pressed to her eyes was white, little brighter than her pale skin. "The Countess Olivia?" Viola asked, remembering in the nick of time to speak in her deepest voice. "The very same." Orsino shifted in his saddle. "I'm sure Curio and Valentine, as given to gossip as any woman, told you of my thwarted love her." "Well -- yes, they have." "Ah, an honest lad. Good. And did they tell you of her brother's death?" "Only that he died." "He died. He died indeed." The group in the churchyard walked slowly toward the gate. The brim of Olivia's bonnet caught the wind and tugged her face upward, so that she saw the group of horsemen on the ridge above her. Shaking her head, she turned away and rested her hand on the arm of the fastidiously frock-coated man beside her. Another, more plainly-dressed, woman acknowledged Orsino's presence with a subtle wave and then followed Olivia and the man into a waiting carriage. As far as Viola could tell from this distance, Olivia was beautiful enough to warrant Orsino's attentions. And worldly enough to enjoy them -- no, that was unkind. The woman had probably commanded that stylish straight skirt, the short jacket with its puffed sleeves, and the feathered bonnet in anticipation of her brother's homecoming, only to find herself dying them black soon after. "He died," Viola prompted Orsino. "The manner of his death, there's the rub. The Countess announced that he died honorably from his wound. And yet the madman tells me he died from a gastric fever." "Ah," Viola returned noncommittally, but she told herself, a suppurating wound wouldn't cause violent distress to the digestive tract, not at all. The carriage disappeared around a bend in the road. With an extravagant sigh, Orsino turned to Viola. For just a moment his eyes held the image of the black-clad woman. Then they cleared and brightened, and Viola knew he saw -- a stripling youth, not her. "I find myself in a difficult position, Cesario. If I ask for your discretion, you'll not deny it me, will you?" "Of course not, my lord." "Today I heard an evil rumor concerning Count Leonardo's death." "From the madman?" "From him, yes, although I doubt he's the only rumormonger about. Feste told me Leonardo may have died by his own hand. That would explain much. If Olivia thought such a terrible secret needed concealing, she could well withdraw herself from the world and from me." A thrill of horror gathered Viola's shoulder blades like cloth. "To lose a brother in such a way would explain much." "But Feste asks, as much as the fool asks anything in his roundabout way, why a soldier like Leonardo would take his life by poison when his weapons, sword, dirk, and gun, are ready to hand." "Perhaps to make his death appear an accident," Viola suggested, "so as not to lay the burden of the truth upon his sister." "Honest, and clever as well." Again that hint of a smile curved Orsino's lips. "His death might genuinely have been an accident, don't you think?" Viola did think that. And her mind reached further, to another, more sinister possibility. Should she voice that sudden suspicion? No, not just yet. Not unless Orsino himself spoke it first. One of the waiting gentlemen laughed. A horse whickered softly. Black birds circled the tower of the church. Orsino leaned forward over his saddlebow, his look so intent Viola had to keep herself not from shrinking away but from bending closer. "If I could find the truth of the matter, the means and manner of Leonardo's death, I could ease the Countess's mind. Then she might be pleased to hear my suit." "Or might reject it utterly, if the truth is the harshest of all possible truths." "I'll make that gamble," Orsino said. "I knew Leonardo, he was under my command. If he took his own life then I'll -- I'll assume Feste's rags and wander the roads of my own dukedom, unheralded and unknown." Those keen blue eyes, that noble stance, unrecognized? But Viola allowed him his rhetoric, for his heart followed close behind. "You yourself couldn't find such a truth. Better to place someone in the Countess's household, there to make discreet inquiries.... Oh." Her face grew hot. She hoped Orsino thought it was the wind that colored her cheeks so prettily. "Yes, I should place some trustworthy retainer in the Countess's household. You, Cesario? You could play a gardener or a footman." "Or," Viola responded somewhat giddily, "like the boys of old who played the female parts upon the stage, I could profit by my as-yet smooth cheeks and present myself as a maid. Then I could gain access to the innermost recesses of house and so uncover its secrets." "Brilliant!" Orsino's smile at last broke free of constraint and illuminated his face, like the sun dispelling a storm's murk. Viola basked in the glow. Answering the mystery of Leonardo's death seemed little enough, if she could earn another such smile. "If you would stoop to such a ruse for me," Orsino murmured, "if you could acquit such an important task for me, why, I would be so deeply in your debt it would take my greatest galley to hold your reward. Will you do it?" _Yes_, Viola wanted to cry, but instead she bowed stiffly and said in her gruffest voice, "As you wish, my lord. What you will." * * * * Fire leaped upon the vast hearth, its orange gleam playing across the polished copper and pewter of the kitchen implements. The scents of smoke and baking bread teased Viola's nostrils. She settled her cap over the cropped ends of her hair, smoothed her apron, and sat down at the table. Knees together, she reminded herself. Eyes downcast demurely. Armed with a letter of reference from the Duke's palace, she'd quickly secured a position as scullery maid in the Countess's mansion -- her role within a role, she thought with a smile. Within a day she'd grasped Olivia's cast of characters, from the servants downstairs to the Countess and her guests upstairs. Now she had to learn the lines of Leonardo's death. Viola reached into her basket of peas. She stripped one pod, and the next, and the next, pouring the green pellets into an iron pot. Across the table Bianca, Olivia's maid, sewed tiny stitches into a shimmering fall of silk -- a nightdress, probably. Viola said, "What a lovely gown. But then, the Countess owns many lovely gowns, I expect." "Oh yes, that she does. Has her dresses made up in Vienna." "If I owned such fine clothes I'd hate to dye them all black." Bianca's long nose and lashless eyes twitched nervously as a rabbit's. "No help for it, a death in the family's a death in the family, isn't it?" "And decorum must be observed," said a stern male voice behind Viola's back, "in life as well as in death." She looked up. As the Countess's steward, Malvolio had interviewed her, hired her, and then lectured her on behaving herself and keeping her place in the household. He was the model of frock-coated propriety, his manner as starched as his white neckcloth and the pointed wings of his collar. He walked on by, not expecting Viola to answer his pronouncement. Bianca's narrow cheeks flushed crimson. At the other end of the table Helen thumped a cleaver down on a joint of meat. She was as hearty as Bianca was frail -- but then, Viola never trusted a thin, pale, cook. "Did you send for a cat?" Malvolio asked her. "Yes, I did." He waited. "Sir." "There will be no more poisons in this house, will there?" "No, sir." Helen's cleaver rose and fell emphatically, as though she was imagining the bloody joint beneath her hands to be one of his. Malvolio tasted the soup steaming over the fire. "Too much coriander deranges the mind. Next time use parsley." He marched out of the room Viola asked quickly but quietly, "Poisons?" "Arsenicum. To kill the rats and mice. It was Maria who bid me purchase a packet of it and sprinkle it about the cellars. It was no doing of mine that the Count..." Biting off her sentence, Helen piled the bits of meat in a pan. Bianca leaned toward Viola, whispering, "Count Leonardo drank the arsenicum with his posset one Sunday afternoon after dinner and was dead before Monday's dawn." Yes, Viola thought, a fatal dose of arsenicum would produce a great upheaval in the stomach and bowels, and kill within hours. "We don't know that he took the arsenicum," Helen insisted. "The Count wasn't at all despondent, was he? No, he'd been out riding that very day, and told Ferdinand before dinner he was tired and achy, but still recovering well from his wound." "Could he have taken the arsenicum by accident?" asked Viola. "I used only half the packet, not wanting to be over-generous with a poison. The rest I hid away. I noticed the morning the Count died that it had gone." Her knife flashing, Helen sliced a carrot over the meat. "And you never found it?" "No. Vanished like the snow in spring, it did." The back door opened and Ferdinand himself stepped inside, carrying a pair of large, freshly polished shoes. Like Curio and Valentine, his face was fresh if callow. He walked with the loose-limbed gait of a colt. Bianca turned to him. "Ferdinand found traces of the arsenicum, though -- in the Count's chamber." "That I did," said Ferdinand. "A fine powder on the tray beside the empty posset cup." "You're sure that was arsenicum?" Viola asked. "Who'd be bold enough to taste it?" retorted Ferdinand. "Not I." "The Count drank the arsenicum of a purpose," Bianca concluded. "There's no other explanation." Yes there was, Viola told herself. Murder. Leonardo showed no signs of despair. He might have destroyed the paper packet that had held the arsenicum, meaning to spare his sister the certainty of his suicide. And yet why should he have known there was arsenicum in the house, let alone where it was kept? Olivia, Viola thought. She could've dosed Leonardo with the poison. But why? She was already wealthy. She was already titled. Perhaps instead of taking her dowry to a husband's household she wished to draw a husband to hers.... No. Olivia was rejecting Orsino, the most suitable, the most desirable of husbands. And there was no reason to think she knew about the arsenicum any more than Leonardo did. Orsino would laugh Viola out of his presence if she cast a crime upon Olivia. The Countess had been sinned against, she was no sinner herself. Orsino's love for her was not misplaced. For a moment Viola envisioned returning to Orsino with her verdict, that Leonardo had indeed taken his own life, that Olivia's shame would keep her forever from his embrace and he should look elsewhere for a wife. But no. While she, like Olivia, would have compromised her honor to protect her brother's, in this there could be no compromise. Helen clanged the pan of meat down on the hearth. "After the Count lay dead, Malvolio called us together and told us the Countess's will, that it be known her brother died of his wound. And may God forgive her her lie, he said, and for burying her brother in consecrated ground, but she was our mistress and we owed her our obedience. And we owe Malvolio, too, I'm thinking." "If he tried to smile he would break his face," said Ferdinand. "Who are you to criticize him?" Bianca demanded. "Who is the steward here, and who the footman, eh?" Ferdinand opened his mouth to retort. Maria, the housekeeper, walked into the kitchen carrying an armful of autumn flowers. "Fetch me a vase, Ferdinand, if you can tear yourself away from idle talk." Ferdinand disappeared out the door into the front of the house. Bianca turned her attention to her mending. Viola split the last pod and let the peas fall into the pot. Helen whisked it away and hung it jangling from a hook above the flames. She reached for a basket. "Viola..." _That's me_. "...go into the garden and collect rosemary for the lamb, savory for the peas, sorrel to make a sauce for the fish. Leeks and lettuces, too. The Countess may be in mourning, but still Sir Toby and Sir Andrew will have their cakes and ale. Came for the funeral, they did, and stayed like a plague of locusts upon Egypt." Bianca gasped. "How can you speak that way of quality folk?" "Peace, Helen. Such talk helps nothing." Maria's buxom body, clad in a plain dark dress, reminded Viola of a pigeon. As did her eyes, black beads of perception. "While my lady's uncle and his friend worry her with their antics, at the same time those antics distract her from her melancholy." Viola took the basket and a small knife and turned toward the door. "Savory. Sorrel. Leeks, lettuce. Rosemary." "Rosemary flourishes where there's been a death." Bianca bit off the thread and shook out the gown. "No," Helen corrected, "it flourishes when the house is ruled by a woman." "Rosemary makes a fine hair and scalp lotion," added Maria, "although my lady prefers the scent of rose petals in her cosmetics." Unlike Malvolio, Maria probably approved of Olivia's decision to give her brother a proper burial. Viola herself would've allowed Sebastian the benefit of the doubt, that he'd not intended the sin of suicide. But Sebastian's death wasn't at all mysterious. With a sigh, she stepped out into the bright if cool afternoon. The trees beyond the garden wall were touched very lightly with gold and russet. Still the roses bloomed. Marigolds and Michaelmas daisies lined the path where the Countess and her guests were walking. Fabian, the gardener, waved a pair of shears over a hedge and leaned forward. Viola could almost see his ears quivering. No, a bit of eavesdropping wouldn't go amiss. She took the long way round to the kitchen garden, curtseying to the Countess, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew as she passed. Olivia nodded, but didn't really see her. The Countess was hardly older than Viola herself. Her face was fair as pearl, set against her black clothing like a jewel in a velvet box. She was so beautiful even Viola would've run a marathon to fan the bloom only hinted at in those pallid cheeks. She could imagine how Orsino felt. Olivia's uncle, Sir Toby Belch, had the red face, big belly, and booming voice of the habitual drinker. His companion Sir Andrew Aguecheek strutted like a bantam rooster. Producing a small enameled box from his pocket, he said, "My thanks, dear lady, for doing me the honor of presenting me with your late brother's snuffbox." "A fine appetite he had, for all the pleasures of the senses. Never to excess, of course -- like some I could name." Olivia looked reprovingly at the two men. Their smiles ranged between sheepish and belligerent. "Even so, it could well be divine justice that he died purged and purified and so entered heaven without delay." Sir Andrew sneezed so mightily the daisies waved in the breeze. Viola thought, Count Leonardo took snuff? What if the powder on the tray beside the fatal glass was snuff and not arsenicum at all? So where, then, was the arsenicum? Accidentally misplaced? Or deliberately destroyed by someone who wished to profit from the ambiguous circumstances of Leonardo's death? Behind her she heard Malvolio's voice, his tone no longer peremptory but unctuous. "My lady, it's a bit chilly today, perhaps you'd prefer taking tea in the Chinese gallery rather than the summerhouse." The clang of the garden gate covered Olivia's reply. Viola set about her task, taking care to cut only the tender ends of the rosemary and choosing a variety of green lettuces. She pinched a bit from the magnificent clary sage bush with its pinky-purple blooms, even though Helen hadn't asked for it, just to inhale its tangy scent. A shame the kitchen garden with its vegetables and herbs was hidden away behind the stable yard as present fashion dictated. The household refuse pile filled the far corner of the yard. Viola walked by it, then doubled back. The noisome mound glinted with myriad bits of glass, some small, some large enough to show the curve of their original shape. A couple of champagne bottles lay unbroken amid the trash. Were Sir Toby and Sir Andrew responsible for emptying all those bottles? What about Count Leonardo? Viola went on her way wondering if he'd indeed drunk himself to death, on alcohol, not arsenicum. But no. His symptoms were of a much faster-acting poison. She found the madman, Feste, lounging beside the fire in the kitchen, holding a bowl of soup to his lips. Beside him sat a sleek calico cat, looking round the room with a professional air and all but polishing its claws. _Mice, rats, what you will_.... Its ears flicking forward, it disappeared beneath the sideboard. Over the rim of the bowl, Feste's flint-gray eyes took in Maria's flowers, Helen's kettle, Bianca's needle, Viola's basket. "A cat's a cat for all that," he murmured. Viola had the uneasy feeling not that he recognized her from Orsino's palace, but that he recognized her true nature. No help for that. She sat down and started peeling the potatoes Helen handed her. "I met the Countess and her guests in the garden. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew must be famous drinkers, judging by the vast number of broken bottles on the refuse pile." "She sees well," crooned Feste, "who looks well." Helen arranged the tea dishes on a tray and lifted the kettle from the fire. "Yes, Sir Andrew and Sir Toby enjoy their cups. And it was Sir Andrew who sent many of those bottles to the Countess. But they contained not liquor but food." "Food? Oh." Viola answered her own question. "I've heard of M. Appert's new method of preserving food. He became a wealthy man, didn't he, provisioning the French emperor's armies?" "Very much so," said Maria, jamming a larkspur into the midst of the other stalks. "A fact that has not escaped Sir Andrew. He's built a manufactory here in Illyria, and began sending along samples of his product some months ago, wishing first the Count and now the Countess to join him in his enterprise." "By marriage," Bianca commented, "if by no other way." "Her knightly guests wait upon her night and day," sang Feste, "and seek to set the date of nuptials long denied." So Sir Andrew was also a suitor? If Olivia rejected Orsino, Viola told herself, she wouldn't give Andrew Aguecheek the back of her hand. "There," Helen said, and set the tea tray so emphatically on the end of the table the porcelain dishes clattered. She turned to the sideboard and threw open its doors. "Look -- meat stew, milk, beans, cherries, raspberries, apricots, asparagus, peas, artichokes. I wasn't sure about these foods at first, to tell you the truth, but the Countess ordered me to serve them. And with herbs and spices to correct the seasonings they're not too bad, although I wouldn't give the milk to that cat, let alone the Countess." Viola considered the ranks of champagne bottles, their corks held on as carefully by twisted metal hoods as though they contained the finest vintage. But the lumpy shapes of fruits, meats, and vegetables showed through the tinted glass. Each bottle bore a neatly written label. The damp potato peels wrapped her fingers. The peas she'd shelled boiled merrily away. When either peas or potatoes came to the Countess's table they'd be nestled in porcelain, lapped with butter and fresh herbs. The bottled foods, too, were decanted, heated and flavored. Dinner. Leonardo had been taken ill after dinner. Could she make a case for him dying of food poisoning? Was it Sir Andrew who'd hidden the arsenicum, not wanting it to be known that his food was tainted? And yet Sir Andrew had only come here for the funeral. Feste shrank back into his corner. Malvolio walked in the door like Alexander entering Persepolis, followed closely by Ferdinand in the guise of pack animal. The steward looked over the tea tray, repositioned an item or two, and then gestured to Ferdinand to pick it up and carry it away. Malvolio's beaked nose turned toward the sideboard. "Bottled, preserved, food. What's the world coming to? No good comes from interfering with nature. We've all suffered from this novelty, haven't we? But the Countess -- well, she's young and unmarried, without guidance now." "Sir Andrew," Maria commented, "would hardly have invested his fortune if he didn't think preserved food was the way of the future." "And his fortune is squandered, I daresay. I overheard him telling Sir Toby he's desperately in need of funds to support this mad enterprise of his. Gluttony and greed are two of the seven deadly sins, but sinners seldom recognize the error of their ways." Malvolio stalked out the door. Bianca looked after him. "He's right. That food isn't fit to eat." "Why not?" asked Viola. "Has it made anyone sick?" "Hard to say," Helen answered. "We all have upsets from time to time." Feste put aside his bowl and picked up his lute. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, both the flesh you eat and the flesh that is eaten." Viola persevered. "Were any of these bottled foods served the night Count Leonardo died?" "Oh yes," said Maria. "I know what you're thinking. It was the first thought on my mind, too, and on Malvolio's -- he was adamant, at first -- but only the Count was taken ill that night." "If the food were tainted, we would all have suffered," Bianca added. "No, it was poison that did for him, I'm sure of it." "Tainted food is a poison," Viola told her. "Almost anything can make a poison, whether intended or not. The leaves and stems of these potatoes. The seeds and leaves of that larkspur. Gastric fever is always a symptom of food poisoning, but there are other signs..." She caught herself, but it was too late. Every eye in the room was on her now. Flower stem, ladle, needle, lute -- every implement was held aloft in its owner's hand. "Out with it, girl," Maria commanded. Viola laid down the knife. "I have some experience as a nurse. And I can tell you this: arsenicum strikes within the hour. Food poisoning takes several to manifest itself." "Well then," Bianca said. "It was arsenicum." "Was it? In his extremity, did the Count suffer from cold, clammy skin?" "No." Ferdinand walked into the room and shut the door behind him. "I helped the Countess as she labored over him, I was there when he took his last breath in her arms. He moaned that his limbs were numb, but his skin was flushed as though with a fever." "Did he have vertigo or double vision?" "Not so's I could tell, no." "He fell unconscious before he died?" "No, he suffered a seizure and then was gone." "What are you thinking?" Helen asked. Viola frowned. "That he died neither of arsenicum nor of tainted food, but of some other poison. Ferdinand, did you notice anything else?" "He could take no food or drink," the youth offered. Maria scoffed, "Of course not, with his bowels in revolt." "Well yes, that, but also his mouth and tongue were horribly blistered, as though his posset cup had been boiling hot." "It was lukewarm," said Helen. "And cooled further before you bestirred yourself to take it to him." "A cup, a stirrup cup, let the cup pass from me," Feste muttered. _Blisters_. Viola smelled the aroma of the clary sage on her fingertips, faint beneath the pasty scent of the potatoes. The sage bush filled an entire garden plot, and yet there'd been something else.... "I'll return in a moment," she said, and hurried out the door. Fabian stood in the kitchen garden maneuvering his hoe between the lush tiers of plants. Several fragrances mingled into one, overcoming the stink of the refuse pile. Viola walked briskly the clary sage and thrust her arms into the it, pushing its limber branches aside. Yes, there, its sparse, shiny leaves thrusting up into the lower shoots of the bush, was a black hellebore. "Fabian," Viola called. "Did you know this was here?" He looked over her shoulder. "There were several plants in the woods, bloomed prettily at Christmas, they did. I warned the Countess off picking them, though. I don't know how this one got here." Covering her hand with her apron, Viola reached out and with one good tug pulled the hellebore up by its roots. Yes, its stem was scarred where several shoots had been recently stripped away. "And who would know, Fabian? Who comes here, to this enclosed spot behind the stableyard?" "Helen gathers herbs for her cooking, Maria to make lotions. Bianca, too. Malvolio misses nothing, not one tarnished horse-brass, not one beetle-ridden rose. And the madman, well, the madman is everywhere." "Thank you." Leaving him scratching his head, Viola carried the plant back into the kitchen. Every eye followed her as she walked across the room and cast the limp stem onto the hearth. "This may be odorless," she announced, "but it stinks of death and deception even so." "Black hellebore!" exclaimed Helen. "How did that get into the garden?" Maria shook her head. "Not by Fabian's hand, he knows better." "Someone's hand put hellebore in the Count's dinner," Viola stated. The room fell so silent the bubbling of the cooking food sounded like rain. When the cat popped out from beneath the sideboard, each person jumped and shot a wary glance at someone else. Triumphantly, the cat laid a dead mouse at Feste's feet. "Hell bore his soul, and bore it well indeed," the madman said. "Poisoned with hellebore?" Maria demanded. "How can that be? Thanks to the Countess's generosity everyone in the house eats of the same dishes. No one else suffered the least twinge that night." "What was served?" asked Viola. Helen thought for a moment. "The usual soup, fish, meat. I made a sauce from the bottled raspberries, and a small dish of the apricots for the Count -- he was very fond of my apricots dusted with cinnamon, although the Countess doesn't care for them at all." "He ate that entire dish himself, with good appetite," offered Ferdinand, "as he'd been out all day." "But he killed hims ... Ow!" Bianca stabbed her own finger. She dropped needle and silk and watched as a ruby drop of blood welled from her skin. Maria, Helen, and Ferdinand looked around at her, but no more closely than Viola did. She was Olivia's maid. Of all the people Fabian had seen in the garden, Bianca had the least excuse. Unless.... "You are interested in herb lore, Bianca?" "Asks enough questions," said Helen, "though she gets half of it wrong." "No harm in that," Bianca replied hastily. "If I learn to cook or make cosmetics I could better myself, couldn't I? Malvolio tells me I have many skills and can in time rise above my station." Maria set her hands on her hips. "I've seen you loitering in the pantry, where you have no business, simply to drop Malvolio a courtesy. I thought him too haughty to take notice, and yet you tell me now he's had private conversation with you?" "And why not?" retorted Bianca, her voice shrill. "You were hanging about the pantry before dinner, beside the serving dishes, the night of the Count's death," Ferdinand said. "And later, when the Count rang for me and bid me alarm the Countess, I found you here in the kitchen shaking and weeping, and Helen going on about the missing arsenicum." "It was you pointed out the arsenicum was missing, now that I think about it." Helen waved her ladle. "It was you rinsed off the serving tray, saying the powder on it was arsenicum." "It was, it had to have been..." Bianca thrust her injured finger into her mouth. Viola looked down at her apron, at the faint yellowish-green stain left by the hellebore plant. She knew what would happen next, and for just a moment she rued her place in it. But if Orsino had been willing to gamble on the truth, she could do no less. Maria asked, very quietly, "What have you done, Bianca?" Bianca's colorless eyes seemed too large for her face. Her complexion wasn't the appealing pallor of Olivia's but the flat white of a fish's belly. She slumped down in the chair and spoke around her finger, thickly and reluctantly. "Malvolio praised me for learning herb lore. He told me the plant behind the sage was a restorative. When Count Leonardo complained of being tired and achy after his ride, Malvolio said a restorative would be just the thing. So I stripped off a bit of the plant and brewed a tisane." "But since it wasn't your place to carry food and drink to the Count," Ferdinand said, "you poured the tisane in his favored dish, the apricots." "Thinking," Maria said with a scowl, "to go to Malvolio later on, when Count Leonardo recovered, and earn even more praise. Foolish girl." Bianca looked desperately from face to face but saw nothing to help her. "She meant for the masquerade with the arsenicum to cover her horrible mistake." Viola picked up the sewing basket and poured it out. Colorful loops of thread spilled across the tabletop. Among them was a square of brown paper studded with pins and needles. Creases showed where it had once been folded into an envelope. "Is this the packet that held the poison?" "It was made of such paper," said Helen. "What did you do with the arsenicum itself, Bianca, pour it down the necessary?" With the short wail of a trapped animal, Bianca began to cry. "She is indeed guilty of foolishness," Viola said sadly. "The question is whether she's guilty of murder. She didn't mean to kill Count Leonardo. His death was as much an accident as if he'd died of tainted food." "A court of law would find her culpable." Maria's look crossed Viola's. "Helen, Ferdinand, take Bianca to the shed and lock her in." Feste strummed his lute. "The Count is counted among the dead, died a glorious death for his country and for the Duke's honor, for honor cannot be tainted even if apricots can." He, too, looked at Viola. She offered him a thin smile, sure now he knew of her mission here. "No court would find Malvolio culpable. And yet, if only he had a motive to dispose of the Count, I would think he directed the entire plot." "I can guess at his motive. Come with me." Gathering her skirts, Maria led the way into the back hall. Around a corner, at the corridor's far end, she threw open a door. "This is Malvolio's chamber." The room was comfortably but plainly appointed. One window looked out over the front drive and another into the gardens, as though the room were a sentry post. Just inside the door stood a writing desk, papers and books arranged in their individual slots. Viola inspected the spines of several books and picked up one. "An herbal." "Is one of the pages marked, by any chance?" Viola leafed quickly through the book. "No. Not a one. But here's an etching of the black hellebore, with its fatal properties clearly set out. And yet he told Bianca it was a healing plant." She glanced at a couple of chapbooks containing popular romances, not the sort of thing she'd expect Malvolio to be reading. "Here's the story of the Lady of Strachey, who married a yeoman of the wardrobe. And here's another, similar tale. Surely he can't dream of..." "He can, yes." Maria pulled a piece of paper from a stack of inventories and receipts. On it was written several times, with flourishes, "Count Malvolio." "Infamous!" Suddenly Viola saw the entire play, act and scene. Her stomach turned. Maria slapped the paper back into its pile. "Malvolio has the Countess's favor, having been appointed by her late father. If I tell her of our suspicions she'll have none of them...." A step in the door. Viola and Maria spun around. There was Malvolio himself, his eyes slitted with rage, his chin so stiff above the wings of his starched collar Viola could imagine pulling his head off like a cork from a bottle. "How dare you trespass in my chamber! Leave this house at once, you impertinent wench, and in the future remember your station! As for you, Maria...." Maria drew herself up. "The Countess might hear nothing against you, Malvolio, but she'll hear nothing against me either." Malvolio snorted indignantly. "Bianca told us of your attentions to her." "Bianca? That ignorant baggage? She claims I've paid her attentions? Who would take her word over mine?" Gritting her teeth, Viola answered silently, _no one_. Even if a court did believe Bianca's testimony, there was no real case against Malvolio. With an abrupt curtsey, she walked out of the room. Behind her she heard Maria say, "The girl Bianca poured a tisane of hellebore into the Count's dish of apricots, thinking it was a restorative. The same dish of apricots you commanded Helen make for him." "As was my duty, to please my employer by serving a favorite dish. A shame Bianca's stupidity and Leonardo's taste for contrived food led to his death." "Oh yes," said Maria, stamping out of the room, "it is indeed a shame." In the distance Sir Toby and Sir Andrew exchanged bray for bray, with Olivia's quiet but steady voice as counterpoint. Viola waited until she and Maria were around the corner, away from Malvolio's baleful glare, before she asked, "What will you tell the Countess?" "I'll tell her the truth, that her brother died accidentally of apricots tainted by mistake." "Bianca must face a court of law even so." "I'll plead her case with the Countess and with Sir Toby, who has a good heart beneath his bluster, and suggest they do the same with Duke Orsino." "As I've been ordered to leave this house," Viola said dryly, "I'll take a letter to the Duke and resume my place in his household." Maria stopped outside the kitchen door and turned her most penetrating look on Viola. "Did Duke Orsino send you here to spy upon the Countess?" "Not at all. He sent me here to learn the truth of her brother's death and so ease her mind." "You've done that," said Maria, even more dryly. "While the Countess will be grateful, gratitude won't necessarily further the Duke's suit." "He knows that." _As do I_, Viola admitted to herself, and went on, "The Countess won't be grateful to Sir Andrew, who introduced the bottled food into the house. I daresay that was Malvolio's plot to begin with, to leave the Countess a wealthy spinster and rid himself of a rival suitor with one blow. He intended for at least one other person to eat of the apricots and sicken as well, to support his argument against the food. When that didn't happen and Bianca told the tale of the arsenicum, then sly Malvolio played along." "If others of us had sickened then we -- you -- would never have discovered the truth." "If the Count hadn't eaten the entire dish he might not have taken enough of the poison to kill him...." Viola shook her head. "If, if, if." "Death is certain," said Maria. "Life is ambiguous." _So is love_. "Surely the Countess wouldn't hear Malvolio's suit, even if he dared press it." "I don't know what manner of man would tickle her fancy. Neither does Malvolio, I warrant." Maria grimaced. "Perhaps I can use his ambitions against him, and dress him a dish of poison appropriate to his nature, thereby toppling him from his high horse. Bianca was most notoriously abused. Malvolio deserves no less." Viola followed Maria into the kitchen. Malvolio had said that sinners seldom recognize the errors of their ways. True enough. He was himself corrupt, his righteousness bearing poisoned fruit. Feste sat beside the fireplace, the cat curled next to him, strumming his lute. The fool, thought Viola, had the most reason of them all. He winked at her, and his cracked voice sang softly, "Journeys end in lovers meeting." Do they? Viola asked herself. Do they? * * * * Orsino gazed thoughtfully at the parchment marked with Olivia's seal. His brows were drawn down, his mouth a straight line. "So that was the way of Leonardo's death. And the Countess and Sir Toby have already been acquainted with the particulars, leaving me little role to play." "Oh no, my lord. As magistrate your role is the greatest of all, the disposition of the criminal." Viola refilled his wineglass and set the bottle down. Legs apart, she reminded herself. Shoulders back. Voice rough. "Mercy is as a gentle rain from heaven upon the parched earth beneath." "Mercy, yes." Orsino's lips softened. "I'll set out a decree of banishment and send the poor foolish girl beyond Illyria's borders." Viola thought of Bianca far from her native land, lacking friends, family, and dowry. She would live, but she would suffer for her crime even so. As for Malvolio -- well, vengeance might more properly belong to God, but just now Viola was rooting for Maria. "Surely this tragedy," Orsino went on, "will lead Olivia to reject that coxcomb Andrew Aguecheek's suit." "It may well do so, my lord." "Isn't it nobler to love the woman herself rather than her wealth, as he does?" "Oh yes," Viola said. "That it is." Orsino lay back in the corner of the settee and stretched out his legs. He smiled. "Well then, Cesario. You have done my will admirably. What reward would you have of me?" "The honor of attending upon you." She couldn't keep the irony from her voice. For a long moment Orsino considered Viola -- Cesario -- standing before him. His bright blue eyes reflected something between puzzlement and recognition, as though he heard a distant strain of music but couldn't identify the instrument. Then, with a slight shrug, he threw his confusion away. Indicating the harpsichord in the corner, he said, "Then play for me. Something by Herr Mozart. Your touch is much more delicate than Curio or Valentine's blunderings about the keyboard." Her smile repeating his, Viola sat down and stroked a light arpeggio. Orsino lifted his glass to his lips. "I'll try my suit with Olivia once again, sending a new ambassador this time. After Leonardo's tragedy, perhaps she'll now share my taste for romance." Romance, Viola thought, which can just as well become comedy. She began to play. Orsino closed his eyes. "If music be the food of love, play on." _As you wish, my lord. What you will._ ----------------------- Visit www.Fictionwise.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.