The Poyson Garden by Karen Harper

Harry had told her to take the lantern, she left it for them and hurried through the gate. Her eyes soon became accustomed to the dark, then light from the distant house illumined her way. She clutched the arrow in her gloved hand; she would wrap and place it in her saddle pack. Later she would examine it carefully, perhaps find someone who knew about poisons to look at it.
    Nearing the back door, she saw a girl going in ahead of her. She had not slipped through the back gate, so she must have come around from the front. Elizabeth did not recognize her from her silhouette. It was just after midnight, so why would someone be up but Glenda, who was sitting with her aunt? Elizabeth crept closer. She could tell that the lass looked young and slender. In her hand she had a bunch of flowers or maybe herbs. That reminded her she had meant to tell Harry she must meet Meg Milligrew. Perhaps this was she, but she seemed much shorter than he had described. If she could but glimpse her hair or coloring ...
    Elizabeth watched as the girl first poked her head in the door, then disappeared inside.
    Elizabeth went to the single back kitchen window and peered in. The place was deserted but for this strange girl lighting a rush taper from the single fat tallow candle on the table, opening what looked to be a cellar door, then disappearing down the stairs. All this time Elizabeth had seen only her back.
    She looked around to see if Harry and Jenks were coming yet. Nothing. Silence and darkness, and she dare not shout for them. She went to the kitchen door and in. She removed her gloves with the long wrist guards she had borrowed from her aunt and placed them on both sides of the broken arrow shaft to protect it. She stooped to lay it in the corner of the room behind the hearth spit wheels and chains, where no one would see it and she could retrieve it later.
    Straining again to listen for the men, she heard nothing but muffled noises down the cellar stairs. When in doubt, do nothing. But she had to be sure that the intruder was not lighting a fire or doing something else dire down there.
    From the table Elizabeth lifted the candle impaled in its flat brass holder and started down the uneven stone stairs, trailing her free hand along the dank wall. She could tell the girl must have gone deeper into the vaulted darkness, unless she'd snuffed her taper and was hiding down here behind those barrels.
    When Elizabeth heard her farther in, she left her candle on a step and edged carefully forward, her hand still along the wall. However much the cellar was used, spiders still ruled here. She grimaced and blinked rapidly as she walked through a web that clung to her eyelashes and damp face.
    She came to an arched door and saw the girl just beyond. Positioning her nosegay carefully, she was hanging it up on a string that held many other herbal bouquets. Then she pulled something--a vial--from her bosom and uncorked it to pour a tiny stream of liquid into a wooden firkin. This girl was most certainly not Meg unless everyone was blind: Coal-black hair peeked from her cap, and her nose was pert instead of prominent.
    "What are you doing there?" Elizabeth demanded. Her voice startled even her. The girl jerked around, wide-eyed. She dropped the vial. It shattered between them on the floor stones. Then she lifted the firkin from its wooden cradle and heaved it at Elizabeth.
    She ducked. The girl snuffed her taper. Elizabeth felt her flee past.
    "Hold there!" Elizabeth commanded, spinning to chase her.
    The girl did not stop, but the candle on the steps etched her silhouette quite clear.
    Elizabeth lunged and caught her. She swung the girl around by one arm.
    "Halt, I tell you!"
    Elizabeth felt as astounded as furious. She was used to being obeyed by servants, but not now, not by this wretch. Whoever she was, she fought like a fishwife, trying to kick, punch, and scratch. Rage drowned Elizabeth's control. That this chit would sneak in at night ... that she would