Grave Mercy: The Poison Workshop

We are all in the poisons workshop. Sister Serafina sets the youngest girls to pluck the flowers, leaves, and berries from the nightshade I collected yesterday. She gives them careful instructions not to crush the stem, for it will fill the room with a foul odour. Margot and Mateline are outside collecting honey from bees fed on laurel and rhododendron, for even what we use to sweeten our potions is poisonous. Annith is sorting through a bag of rye, plucking the grains covered in black mold, for that highly prized black fungus is used in a poison called Martyr’s Embrace.

“Here,” Sister Serafina hands me a plate of goose livers and a mortar filled with grayish white powder. “Prepare this for the toads, then have Florette and Aveline feed them. After that, I’ll need your help with the mushrooms.”

I take the supplies from her and set them down on the table closest to the toad’s cage. They croak loudly and crowd close, eager for their meal. The two younger girls play with them while I quickly mash the arsenic into the goose liver, then form the mixture into small, pebble-sized balls. “Gloves,” I remind the girls, and they hurry over to the shelf. When they return, I set the platter of pellets on the floor and watch them feed the first few to the eager toads. Once I am certain they know what to do, I hurry over to assist Sister Serafina.

I have just begun to help her place the crop of wild mushrooms on a drying rack when Sister Thomine appears in the doorway. Sybella is with her.

“Our new novitiate is ready to join the others in their lessons,” Sister Thomine announces.

Sybella’s eyes seek mine out, and she gives the tiniest of nods. I smile back. “Sybella can work with me. I will begin showing her how to identify these mushrooms.”

“Very well.” Sister Serafina waves her over to my table.

When Sybella is close enough to see, I hold up a mushroom. “This is a fool’s webcap. See how it is purple, but these are redder?”

Sybella leans in close to study the mushroom. “Yes.”

“The redder they are, the more poisonous.”

She points to a brown one lying on the table. “And that one there?”

“That is the deadliest of them all.”

“And yet it looks the most harmless.”

I look up and meet her gaze. “Ingenious, no? A man would pick that one, thinking he was safe.”

Sister Serafina leans across the table. “Then the man would be a fool. Just like he will be a fool to look at either of you and think he was safe.”

Sybella and I exchange a glance and, for the first time since she’s arrived, she smiles.