Free Assassin by Lady Grace Cavendish Page B

behind me. “I found ’em hanging about waiting for his lordship to finish supping with the Queen, so I took their flasks down to the buttery for ’em. Aqua vitae and laudanum. Wasn’t that kind and serviceable of me?” She grinned.
    Masou crept back, his white teeth shining in the moonlight. “Sleeping like babes.”
    We picked our way past them—they were rather sweetly propped up against each other on a bench inside the church porch—and carefully, carefully opened the heavy wooden door into the chapel.
    There were six black corpse candles around the body, which had been wrapped in a shroud and was laid on a trestle table covered with damask. No doubt a very special elaborate coffin was on order but it hadn’t arrived yet.
    It was very cold and very frightening. The moon was shining through the old Papist stained-glass windows, making pale blues and yellows on the shroud, and there was a nasty smell. Ellie shivered and crossed herself, while Masou clutched a little amulet he wears round his neck and muttered in his own language.
    I gulped, stepped forward, and nearly tripped on a step. Heart beating fast, I then went right up to the body. Up close, the smell was truly awful, a bit likean unemptied close-stool. But there was something else as well: another, much fainter odour—dusty and bitter, it caught inside my nose. Curiously, it made me want to cry. Why? I didn’t understand it. Although it’s sad when someone dies, I certainly hadn’t loved Sir Gerald.
    He was lying on his back—they’d taken the knife out of the wound, of course. I held my breath and slowly drew the shroud back from his face.
    There were pennies on the eyes to hold them shut. I took them off. The lids were half opened. His eyes were like jelly. I held a candle close, but I could see no reflection of a murderer in Sir Gerald’s eyes. I wanted to look at the dagger wound again, but I didn’t want to actually touch the corpse in case I was cursed. I reasoned with myself that Sir Gerald’s ghost should be pleased we were trying to discover his murderer. But then I remembered that Sir Gerald wasn’t a very nice man in life, so you could hardly expect his ghost to be. And then I noticed a slight yellow crusting at the corners of his mouth.
    I blinked in surprise. My heart began to thud. That same yellow crusting had been on my mother’s lips when she died. Now I knew where I’d smelled the dusty bitter odour on Sir Gerald. I had smelledit at my mother’s deathbed. The smell of darkwort poisoning.
    I stood for a moment, trying to understand. It seemed lunatic, but what if Sir Gerald had already been killed by darkwort poison when he was stabbed with the dagger? That would account for his not bleeding when stabbed, would it not? For if he was already dead, the tides in his blood would have stopped, and thus no blood would have streamed from the dagger wound.
    Suddenly there was the sound of voices and heavy footsteps. Masou and Ellie and I froze, staring at each other. There was a scrape at the church porch, an angry shout. The door latch rattled. They were coming in.
    I felt so sick I thought I was actually going to vomit, and my legs felt as if they would bend sideways like a rag doll’s. Ellie had her hands to her mouth. Masou looked grey. Both of them would get really badly beaten if anybody saw them—especially Masou. Lord save us, they might even flog him properly! Both of them might be dismissed from the Queen’s service, they would probably starve—whatever Masou said about making his fortune in Paris Garden. Whereas if I got caught …
    “Hide,” I whispered. “I’ll manage this.”
    They hesitated, then slipped into one of the box pews. I could hear scraping as they hid under the bench.
    I stayed exactly where I was near the body of Sir Gerald and started to cry. I don’t find it easy to cry when I want (though Lady Sarah and Mary Shelton seem to find it so. They often grizzle to win sympathy and favour). But as soon