Belladonna at Belstone

Belladonna at Belstone by Michael Jecks Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: Belladonna at Belstone by Michael Jecks Read Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Jecks
Tags: Historical, Deckare
chamber. It was sparsely furnished: only a bed and a chest, within which were her medicines. She dropped to her bed and covered her face in her hands.
    Guilt tore at her, although if she was honest, it wasn’t so much the guilt of the act that terrified her, it was the fear of being discovered. At least Joan could hold her tongue, Constance thought.
    She forced herself to set aside her morbid torpor and lifted the lid of her chest. Carefully she measured the ingredients of her dwale into a jug of wine.
    It wasn’t only for Joan, but for Cecily as well. Cecily was a notorious coward, and although Constance had tried to set and splint her wrist, it had proved impossible. The girl screamed and writhed uncontrollably, swinging her good fist at the novice helping Constance and using quite the foulest language the infirmarer had ever heard. Most of the nuns showed a stoic courage: they were content with a simple charm to grip and a leather strap to chew, but neither would suffice in this case. Constance had checked the makeshift dressing, but it clearly wasn’t working, and she knew she would need to reset the bones properly. For that the woman would have to be compliant, so Constance intended giving her a draught to make her peaceful.
    Dwale was ideal for this. It was a mixture that Constance made up specially, of belladonna, hemlock, henbane and syrup of poppy seed. It tasted foul, very bitter, but it would certainly put the lay sister to sleep. Shaking the mixture, Constance stood near the window and gazed out.
    From here she looked directly north, up towards the vill of Belstone, although it was concealed from view by a hill. Far beneath her, lay sisters worked in the dairy and out in the yard, hanging washing from lines. The wind was tearing at the clothes, pulling the lines taut as bowstrings, snatching clothes from the women’s baskets and whipping them over the mud if given an opportunity.
    Despite her worries, she smiled as one sister reached desperately for a shift as it was caught by a freak puff of wind and flapped dangerously near a pool of ordure. The hapless laundress tripped and pitched into the muck herself. She sat up and screamed to vent her rage and frustration, slapping at the hands of others who came, laughing, to help her up.
    Constance walked slowly back to the chest, intending to go through her bottles and see which draughts needed renewing, but soon she had to set aside her vessels. She felt oh, so lonely, as she went through it all again.
    Moll was dead. She was unable to spread any more of her malicious tales now. She had been a malign little person. Nasty, vicious - cruel. And all concealed beneath that sweet, submissive exterior. It was here, in Constance’s own room, that Moll had come and spoken about the man she had seen. The one who had walked up the steps to this level, as if he was coming to visit a nun. Constance had laughed it off, saying that Moll had dreamed it all, although Moll very definitely asserted that she was awake and had seen the man very clearly. Then she had winked, saying she knew where he was going. And she hoped the nun involved would confess her sin in the chapterhouse, before the whole choir. It had made Constance sick to see her sitting there so smugly.
    Feeling the tears rising, Constance rubbed at her face with the sleeve of her dress, and gazed up at the window once more her vision blurred as she was overcome by the enormity of what she had done.
    Jeanne was supervising the cleaning of Baldwin’s wardrobe when she heard her husband’s horse pounding along the track towards the house. She was relieved, because it was already close to dusk, and she was anxious about him riding so far on treacherous roads.
    Not that she’d had time to indulge herself in fears about her husband. Edgar was in many ways an almost perfect servant, but in some matters of hygiene she thought him hidebound. It had been quite a shock to her when, after only a short time in the hall, she had

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