"Of the green pottage?" Benedict's features wavered, just as the flame did. "Nay. I do not care for the stuff. I know Alice believes it to be very beneficial to the humors, but I dislike it. I usually throw it down the nearest garderobe shaft."

"Alice." Hugh grabbed the edge of his desk as the chamber began to spin slowly around him. "The pottage."

"What is wrong, my lord?"

"Get her. Get Alice. Tell her… tell her… poison."

Benedict leaped to his feet. "Sir, that is impossible. How dare you accuse her of being a poisoner?"

"Not Alice." Hugh could barely manage the words. "This is Rivenhall work. My own fault. Should never have let them into the keep—"

As he crumpled heavily to the floor Hugh was dimly aware of Benedict's footsteps pounding out the door and down the hall. And then the unicorn walked out of the tapestry and came across the chamber to gaze solemnly down at him.

"This is how it was for your father and your mother," the unicorn said gently.

Chapter 18

"My Lord, I am going to stick my fingers down your throat. I pray you will not bite them off." Alice crouched beside Hugh, turned his head, and pried open his mouth.

A moment later Hugh groaned and obligingly discharged the contents of his stomach into the chamber pot that Benedict held for him.

Alice waited until the first spasms began to ease and then she inserted her fingers down his throat a second time.

Hugh convulsed violently. The little that remained in his belly spewed forth.

Benedict looked at her, fear in his eyes. "Will he die?"

"Nay," Alice vowed fiercely. "He will not die if I can help it. Get me water, Benedict. A large flagon of it. And milk. Hurry."

"Aye." Benedict grabbed his staff, lurched to his feet, and rushed from the chamber.

"And Benedict?"

He paused, one hand on the door frame. "Aye?"

"Tell no one about this, do you comprehend me? Say that I have requested the water and milk so that I may wash my face."

"But what if the pottage is poisoned? Everyone will have taken their morning cup."

"The pottage was not poisoned," Alice said quietly. "I drank a full cup of it myself only a short while ago. So did my maid."

"But—"

"Hurry, Benedict."

He hurried from the chamber.

Hugh opened his eyes briefly. His amber eyes burned. "Alice."

"You are a very large man and you did not even drink all of the pottage, my lord. I have got most of what you did consume back out of you. You will live."

"I will kill him," Hugh vowed. He closed his eyes again. "My oath to Erasmus will not protect him after this."

"Who are you talking about?"

"Vincent. He tried to poison me."

"Hugh, you cannot know that for certain."

"Who else?" Another spasm overtook Hugh. His powerful body shuddered but there was nothing left in him. "It must have been him."

Benedict pounded around the edge of the door, breathless from the dash downstairs to the kitchens. He carried two flagons in one hand. "I have both milk and water."

"Excellent." Alice reached for the first flagon. "Help me get this down him."

Hugh slitted his eyes. "No offense, madam, but I do not have much of an appetite at the moment."

"My mother wrote that it is wise to give great quantities of liquids to a victim of poison. It rebalances the bodily humors." Alice cradled Hugh's head in her lap. "Please, my lord. I pray you will drink this."

There was still a sheen of sweat on Hugh's brow but humor glinted briefly in his gaze as he looked up at the curve of her breasts. "You know I am lost when you employ your fine manners. Very well, madam, I shall drink anything you please unless it be green in color."

Alice looked up at Benedict. "I do believe he is already feeling much better. Fetch Sir Dunstan. We will need his help to get my lord to his bedchamber."

"Aye." Benedict made for the door again.

"Devil's teeth," Hugh muttered. "I will not be carried like a child."

In the end he managed the length of the hall on his own two feet but it took Alice, Benedict, and Dunstan to support his weight. When he finally tumbled into his massive ebony bed, Hugh fell asleep instantly.

"Poison?" Dunstan stood at the foot of the bed, his hands bunched into huge fists at his sides. "Sir Hugh was given poison? Are you certain?"

"Aye." Alice frowned at him. "But you must say nothing of this for the moment, Sir Dunstan. Thus far only we four know the truth. I would have it stay that way for a time."

"Say nothing?" Dunstan stared at her as though she were mad. "I shall turn this damned keep upside down. I shall hang every servant in the kitchen one by one until I discover the person who put the brew into Sir Hugh's cup."

"Sir Dunstan—"

"Likely it came from Rivenhall." Dunstan's brow furrowed as he worked the problem out to his satisfaction. "Aye, that would explain it. Before he took his leave yesterday, Sir Vincent no doubt bribed a servant here in Scarcliffe Keep to put the foul herbs in the pottage."

"Sir Dunstan, that is quite enough." Alice rose from the stool beside the bed. "I shall handle this."

"Nay, madam. Sir Hugh would not want you involved in a bloody business such as this."

"I am already involved." Alice gritted her teeth to keep her voice to a whisper. "And I know far more about poison than you do, sir. I shall discover the means by which this deed was done. Then, mayhap, we shall know who to blame."

"Sir Vincent of Rivenhall is to blame," Dunstan stated.

"We cannot be certain of that." Alice began to pace the chamber. "Now, then, we know that only Sir Hugh's pottage was poisoned. That means that the herbs were either placed in his cup while it was carried to his study chamber or—"

"I'll find that traitorous servant," Dunstan interrupted furiously. "I'll have him hung by noon."

"Or," Alice added quickly, "the poison was already in the cup when the pottage was poured into it."

Dunstan's face went blank with incomprehension. "Already in the cup?"

"Aye, sir. The kitchens are a busy place. A few drops of a very strong poison placed in the bottom of the cup would likely go unnoticed when the pottage was poured into the vessel."

"Would a few drops be sufficient to kill a man?"

"There are some brews made from certain herbs that are so virulent that they retain their lethal properties even when distilled. The hot pottage could have activated such a brew."

Some brews, not many, Alice added silently. And the herbs used in such bitter potions were rare, according to her mother's treatise.

Benedict looked at Alice across Hugh's sleeping body. " 'Tis no secret which dishes Sir Hugh uses. 'Twould be easy enough for a poisoner to choose his cup from among the others."

"Aye." Alice continued to stride back and forth, hands clasped behind her back. "Sir Dunstan, I will conduct this investigation, do you comprehend me? Much rides on the outcome. War with Rivenhall will cost many lives. I will not have those deaths on my hands if there is an alternative."

"Rest assured, madam, there will be no alternative when Sir Hugh awakes." Dunstan's expression was savage. "He will have his vengeance as soon as he can sit a horse."

Alice glanced at Hugh. Even in sleep there was an unrelenting implacability about him. No one knew better than she that once Hugh set out upon a course of action, nothing could halt him.

She swung around to face Dunstan and Benedict. "Then I must act quickly."

Alice closed her mother's book, folded her hands on her desk, and regarded the young kitchen lad who stood before her.