“I can divine that simply by looking at your face,” she replied, raising her eyebrows. “You wear a very troubled look.”
“Ah. Well…” He nodded. “I am troubled, ‘tis true. Very much troubled. Something has happened… something both unfortunate and terrible. There has been a murder… or at the very least, it seems very like a murder. A young woman is dead and it appears as if there may have been foul play. Indeed, we very much suspect so.”
“We?” she asked.
“The esteemed Sir William Worley, Tuck Smythe, and my humble self,” Shakespeare replied.
She nodded. “I have heard much of Sir William, and I remember Tuck, of course. Go on.”
“Well…” He paused a moment, collecting his thoughts. “The poor, unfortunate girl… ‘twas to be her wedding day, you see, and her father had prepared a most elaborate and lavish celebration at his estate outside the city. We players were to participate, which is why Tuck and I were there, of course, and Sir William was one of the illustrious invited guests. There was to be a fair, and a grand progress on the river with the bride in costume as Queen Cleopatra arriving on her royal barge. All went well, as had been planned, until the arrival of the bride, who tragically turned up dead upon her throne. And beside her body, I found this…” He took out the flask. “ ‘Twould appear that she was drinking from this flask to ward off the chill upon the river. Tis brand, burnt wine, but ‘twas mixed with something else, methinks, some foreign matter. There is a curious sort of odor, one the girl no doubt could not discern, which would be no great surprise if she were not accustomed to the drink. I believe it may contain a deadly poison.”
“And so you seek to have me confirm what you believe,” Granny Meg said.
“Aye, ‘twould prove that murder had been done,” said Shakespeare, grimly. “And perhaps, if we knew the nature of the poison and where it might have been obtained, then ‘tis possible we might learn who had obtained it. Sir William will see to it, of course, that your efforts in this matter are rewarded.”
Granny Meg nodded. “Let me see the flask.”
Shakespeare passed it to her across the table, but the moment her hand came in contact with the flask, Granny Meg stiffened and a frown crossed her features. Her grasp tightened on the flask. She closed her eyes and shook her head, as if to dispel whatever perception or sensation she had just experienced, or else deny it, then she unstoppered the flask and brought it up close to her lips, as if she were about to drink, only instead her nostrils flared delicately as she sniffed its contents once, and once only, whereupon she set the flask down and abruptly got up from the table.
Shakespeare could no longer contain himself. She knew what it was, that much seemed certain from her reaction. She had turned away from him and was staring intently into the flames upon the hearth. Clearly, she was greatly troubled.
“I can see that you recognized the odor,” he said, softly. “I was right, was I not?”
Granny Meg kept staring into the flames as she slowly shook her head. “No. You were not.”
He was completely taken aback by her reply. It did not seem possible. He had been so certain. “ ‘Tis not poison?” he said. “Are you certain?”
“I should think I ought to know,” Granny Meg replied. “I had prepared it myself.”
“What?” He stared at her, eyes wide with astonishment. “You prepared this flask?”
“Not the flask,” she replied, “but ‘twas I who mixed the potion that went into it. ‘Tis an ancient blend of certain rare herbs and distillations, comingled with some common plants that can be found simply growing wild by the roadside. But the effect that it produces is not common at all.”
“But… you just said ‘twas not a poison,” Shakespeare said. “And yet Catherine Middleton is dead!”
Granny Meg turned back towards him and shook her head. “ ‘Twas not the name she gave me, though I had a feeling that the name she gave was false. That alone might have dissuaded me from helping her, yet she came well recommended. If she was the bride of whom you speak, the one who drank this potion, then most assuredly it did not kill her.”
Shakespeare pushed back his chair and stood. “Granny Meg, I was there! With my own eyes, I saw her lifeless body! She neither moved nor took a breath! Tuck listened at her chest and said her heart had ceased to beat! Odd’s blood, if she came to you for some sort of tonic and by mishap you had made some dreadful error in the concoction that resulted in her death, why then… this terrible tragedy is your responsibility!”
“There has been no error, Master Shakespeare, I assure you,” Granny Meg said calmly. “Hear me out before you rush to judgement of me. The potion I had mixed at the woman’s own request has, by your own report, produced precisely the result that was desired.”
“Good God!” he said. “Are you saying that Catherine Middleton wanted to kill herself?”
“No. Far from it. She had the best reason in the world to want to live. But she wanted to produce the illusion that she did not. She asked me if I could prepare a potion that could, for a certain length of time, produce the appearance of death, and yet not bring it about. I hesitated to perform the task she asked of me, and warned her that such a ruse was not without its dangers, but she and your friend who brought her to me both beseeched me, and said it was the only chance she had to avoid a life of hopeless misery.”
“You said that a friend of mine had brought her to you?” Shakespeare said. “What do you mean? Which friend?”
“Why, the one you brought to see me once before,” Granny Meg replied. “Young Mistress Darcie.”
“ Elizabeth?”
“Aye, she is the one who brought her to me.”
“Then you mean to say that Catherine Middleton is not truly dead, but merely in a sort of morbid slumber?”
“Her heart still beats, but so weakly that one may not easily discern it,” Granny Meg replied. “And she still breathes, but only barely, and to all outward appearances seems not to breathe at all. She will lie thus for at least a day or more, and then she will awake as if from an ordi
nary slumber, and should be no worse for wear.”