The Alchemist's Apprentice by Dave Duncan Page A

little cat smile meant that it was time for me to interpret.
    â€œOleander poisoning?”
    He nodded grudgingly. “A not unreasonable hypothesis. Many physicians would make the same mistake. But oleander induces retinal toxicity only in chronic cases.”
    So the blue illusion must be significant, but it was a new symptom to me. I thumped my brain to spill out whatever it knew about diuretics and expectorants. Nothing relevant appeared, but Gerolamo the herbalist had mentioned a laxative that might be appropriate. I made a guess.
    â€œVirgin’s glove?”
    The Maestro’s nod of approval was intended to mask annoyance. His hands withdrew into his lap. “Very good! Continue.”
    â€œAlso known as fairy thimbles or witches’ gloves or foxglove. In his celebrated De Historia Stirpium Commentarii , the learned Leonard Fuchs named it digitalis.” Which was how it was labeled in the Maestro’s collection—so why had he sent me to buy more, and under another name? “As I recall the medical uses of foxglove, the fresh leaves, when bruised, are efficacious in the treatment of wounds and the juice is used to relieve scrofula. Internally it can be taken as a laxative, but is unpredictable and dangerously toxic. What treatment did you advocate?”
    He pouted. “I suggested that his own physician be summoned at once, as he would be more familiar with the procurator’s regimen.”
    The first treatment for suspected poisoning is to induce vomiting, but the patient had been retching spontaneously without ejecting any matter. A rapid pulse would suggest that the patient should be bled, but he was elderly and might have unknown ailments. Even sips of water might have been dangerous. The Maestro had diagnosed murder and seen his own danger; any advice he had given would have been suspect. I could not blame him for taking the path of caution in this instance.
    â€œCan you estimate when the patient ingested the poison?”
    He shrugged. “He had obviously not eaten recently.”
    â€œYou imply that he must have been poisoned after he arrived?”
    â€œAn obvious hypothesis. And whatever the toxin, it must be extremely potent to be concealed in a glass of wine. The learned Paracelsus wrote that anything is poisonous in sufficient dosage.”
    Worse and worse. “So there is no hope of laying the blame on tainted food in his own household?”
    â€œNo, and he had certainly not been munching on a salad of oleander. The dried and powdered leaf of digitalis can be prescribed for internal use, as a laxative, and it is rumored to soothe a raging heart. Possibly he took an accidental overdose, in which case we need not fear a murder charge. The man’s doctor must be interrogated.”
    I said, “He’s probably a Jew, in which case he has likely been arrested already. If I were one of the state inquisitors, I should now be putting Imer’s servants to the question, especially the footmen who served the wine.”
    â€œBut you are not!”
    â€œThen why don’t you offer one of the servants an enormous bribe to run away and take the suspicion with him?”
    He shook his head, still angry. “No, we can ignore the servants, so—”
    â€œWhy?”
    The Maestro matched up his fingertips again for another lecture. “Why should an attorney’s footman want to murder a procurator? Only if bribed to do so by someone of high rank, and if he is fool enough to be still in the city, then the Ten can catch him and torture the truth out of him. The doge would not be warning me away if he expected that to happen. But even the Three will not question the gentry rigorously without good reason to do so, certainly not torture them. The courtesans may not fare quite as well as the nobility, but even they—”
    â€œCourtesans?”
    He pouted. “There were several there. Your friend was one of them. Is she capable of poisoning a