A slow smile blooms across her lips, both barbed and sweet. “I thought we might begin with arsenic.”
While I was recovering, it seems Elizabeth had been reading of poisons.
“Have you any experience with arsenic, Anna?” she asks breathlessly once we are back inside, ensconced in her solar. She flits between the tables, laden with glass beakers, flasks, and tubes, books splayed open everywhere. From one she plucks a vial of silvery powder, sifting back and forth as she wiggles it in her grip. “See, look, here it is.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” I say. “Is it an herb of sorts?”
“No, it is a metallic substance, quite poisonous,” she replies so cheerfully I almost think I’ve misheard her. “But only in large doses, according to my books. In smaller increments, it can be very healthful as well.”
“Many herbs are such,” I allow, as if my insides do not already quake with trepidation. “Anything powerful enough to benefit can usually wreak harm as well.”
She beams at me approvingly. “Exactly! I’ve read that it can be consumed with chalk and water to improve the complexion. I’ve also heard of ladies at court making it into a cream to rub on their arms and faces. It is meant to induce a very supple rosy glow.”
“And are you thinking of using it for such a purpose?” I ask, alarmed.
“Not exactly. I was thinking that we could tinker with it a bit, you and I. If it brings about such a pleasing flush, I imagine it must have a benign effect on the blood. And perhaps, with some imagination, we could make an alchemy of this pursuit. Fashion it into a vitalizing and beautifying elixir.” She clasps her hands together, peering into my eyes until her gaze bores into mine. “What do you think?”
“If we did this,” I say slowly, “how would we test the efficacy?”
“Hence the experiments!” she proclaims, casting me a dazzling smile. “We shall first rely on your knowledge and mine to craft the tonic. Then we will find a volunteer.”
“Like who?” I press, as delicately as I can, wondering who would be inclined to drink something unknown and likely poisonous.
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of someone,” she says breezily. “After all, what woman does not wish to enhance her beauty and extend her life? So, what do you say, now that you are recovered? Shall we begin today?”
Watching her glowing face, her unbridled eagerness to begin this endeavor, I sense that this is no true question.
“Of course, Elizabeth,” I respond, deferential, though my stomach churns with dread—for myself, and for the future subjects of this experiment. “As soon as you like.”
She throws herself into the pursuit of this elixir with a single-minded resolve and passion unlike anything I’ve seen in her before. We work side by side through the night in the candlelit solar, while the sun swoops away and then alights upon us again. The tonic we produce contains an amount of arsenic that, neither of us having any real familiarity with the recommended dosage, could induce any effect from nothing at all to ghastly death. So I strive to counteract any ill effects with benign herbs, everything from bay leaf, clove, and basil, to nutmeg, foxglove, sage, and thyme. It also contains the most animating plants I could think of, bursting with magnolia berry, beetroot, oregano, and holy basil.
The resulting concoction is a vivid violet, and smells both herbaceous and spiced. As if it should be healthy, at any rate. Still, I myself would not be quick to drink it.
But our combined ignorance does not dissuade Elizabeth.
“We must try it out at once!” she cries, though neither of us has slept nor eaten since the night before. Her eyes are glazed with sleeplessness, but her cheeks blaze with anticipation, as if she has already sampled the tonic herself. “Judit!”
A moment later, the disgraced former chambermaid rushes in. It is unclear what her station currently is, given that she has not been sent away even though she hasn’t tended to Elizabeth in months. Now she is clearly torn between delight at being summoned and apprehension at what is needed. “Yes, my lady?” she says breathlessly, bobbing into a curtsy.
“Fetch me someone from the scullery!” Elizabeth orders, and my heart swoops toward my feet. Does she truly mean to test this unknown substance on one of my former friends?
I rack my mind and can think of no alternative, save for offering to drink it myself. Which I know she would not allow.
“Ah . . .” Judit hems, uncertain. “Who, my lady?”
“It doesn’t really matter, but, someone plain, I suppose. Plain, but with potential. Ah!” She snaps her fingers with epiphany. “Don’t we have a redhead down there? Very green eyes, freckles, a veritable mop of ginger hair?”
So Krisztina was right, I think fearfully. Even now, Elizabeth remembers her hair.
Judit licks her lips, fear flickering in her eyes. Elizabeth clearly does not know that Krisztina is her kin. “Yes, my lady, I—I think I know of whom you speak. But she’s really quite plain, would someone with more classic color not suit better?”
“No, I want her,” Elizabeth demands, adamant. I can see Judit deflate, her shoulders sagging. Though she does not know what’s in store for her cousin, she knows it is unlikely to be good. “She is pale, but her coloring could be made vigorous. Fetch her, Judit.” And, when Judit hesitates, dithering, she adds with a whip crack in her voice, “Do you not know better by now than to make me ask you twice?”
A quarter of an hour later, Krisztina stands in the solar with us, nervously tugging a stray lock of her springy hair. Judit was dismissed immediately after she brought her, which leaves Krisztina all alone, marooned in enemy land. Her gaze keeps flitting to me, and I can almost see the whirling of her mind. She is wondering if this is my doing, if I am intending to exact my vengeance for all her whisperings of “witch,” the slantwise glances and baleful eyes always heavy on my back.
I wish to reassure her of my innocence—but how can I, when this elixir would likely not exist had I not piqued Elizabeth’s interest with what I know of herbs?
“Yes,” Elizabeth muses speculatively, circling Krisztina like a buyer examining the quality of a horse’s flesh. “She will do quite well.”
“Quite well for what, mistress?” Krisztina asks, a quaver in her voice despite her stalwart heart. I am so afraid for her that I can nearly taste my own heart at the base of my throat. It is all I can do to school myself when she looks at me, lest I frighten her further with my own barely restrained terror. “What would you have me do?”
“Drink,” Elizabeth says simply, offering her the flask. “It is a tonic meant to induce vigor, to promote beauty. You would like that, wouldn’t you? Brighter eyes, more color to your cheeks? If Anna and I have done well, it should even make you livelier. Better fit to carry out your duties.”
Krisztina balks, shying away from the flask. “I would rather not, mistress, if it’s all the same to you,” she rejoins, her freckles a dense constellation of cinnamon pinpricks against her sudden pallor. “I was never much for tonics.”
Elizabeth’s face dims, darkening in a fearsomely familiar way. She surveys Krisztina with her lower lip snapped tight between her teeth. “It is not all the same to me,” she spits. “You will drink it, as your mistress orders.”