Chapter 5 - The Dead Physician
Mathurin drew a small knife.
I dropped to my knees beside the altar.
"Blanche," the voice came again. "Move the prayer stool."
Together we dragged it aside. Beneath it was a square iron ring I had never seen. I pulled.
A trapdoor opened.
A thin face looked up from the darkness.
Dr. Severin.
He had aged twenty years and lost most of his hair, but I knew those frightened eyes.
"Get down," he said.
The chapel door shook under another blow.
We climbed into the crypt and pulled the trapdoor shut above us.
Severin led us through a low tunnel lit by one oil lamp.
"You let the kingdom believe you were dead," I said.
"Vautrin tried to make it true."
"You signed Aveline's death as fever."
He flinched. "Because my son was twelve and Vautrin had him in a locked room. I have hated myself every morning since."
I wanted to strike him.
Instead I asked the only question that mattered.
"Was she poisoned?"
Severin stopped.
"Yes."
The word echoed through the tunnel.
Mathurin closed his eyes.
I felt no shock. I had spent sixteen years living inside that answer.
"What did he use?"
"Foxglove in her tonic. Small doses for weeks. The last dose was larger."
"Can you prove it?"
Severin reached inside his coat and removed a narrow leather book.
"I kept my original notes. Her pulse. Her symptoms. The bottle number. And the name of the servant who carried the tonic."
Hope rose so fast it hurt.
Then Severin grabbed my wrist.
"But that's not the worst of it."
"What could be worse?"
He opened the book to the final page.
At the bottom was an order authorizing my arrest.
May you like
The signature was unmistakable.
King Edouard's.
