it made a thin paste. She brought the bowl to the child’s mouth and tipped the entire contents into it. As she had hoped, he began to retch at once, his small frame racked with convulsions. Then he lurched forward and voided. Frances watched in horror as the dark bile soaked into his already stained linen shift. Exhausted, he sank back into his father’s arms, gasping for breath.
‘Did he eat or drink anything, other than the tincture?’ she asked, as she placed her hand gently on his forehead. He was not feverish and there was no sign of any contagion.
‘Nothing,’ Kate replied between sobs.
Frances tried to order her thoughts. She had prepared the tincture two days before, in her own apartment, and had brought it last night. It was the same one that she had administered to Lord Rutland’s son every day since the King had agreed she might attend him. It could not have caused this reaction unless something else had been added to it.
‘Has anyone visited your son or had access to your apartment?’ she asked Lord Rutland.
‘Only one of the countess’s ladies.’ He kept his eyes fixed on his son as he spoke. ‘She brought some sweetmeats for my son last night, but I didn’t give him any in case they would prove too rich for his stomach.’
Frances felt suddenly cold. ‘How long did she stay?’
‘A few minutes only. She waited in the parlour while I brought the gift in here. But he was sleeping so I did not trouble him for a message of thanks.’
‘And my tincture was there also?’
Lord Rutland thought for a moment. ‘Yes – yes, I think so. There was still enough in here for his nightly draught, so I saved the new tincture for the morning.’ He smoothed his son’s hair back from his forehead. ‘Is it poison?’ he whispered.
She heard a sharp intake of breath from Kate. ‘I can see no other cause,’ Frances replied. ‘Even the sweating sickness would not come on so quickly.’
The boy’s chest was rising and falling in quick, jerking movements now. She knew he was not strong enough to void again. Besides, it was too late. The poison would already have seeped into his blood by the time she arrived. All of a sudden he gave a deep shudder, then fell still. A long, low rattle sounded in his throat, then all was silence.
Frances watched his chest for any sign of movement, but he lay as limp as a ragdoll. Willing this to be some terrible dream, she reached forward and placed her fingers lightly at the base of his neck and waited. There was no flicker of a pulse. At last, she raised her eyes to Lord Rutland, who looked up from his son’s lifeless face as if stupefied.
‘I am sorry,’ she whispered.
A high-pitched wail sounded across the room as Kate sank to the floor.
CHAPTER 43
7 March
The flames of the torches guttered and hissed as the rain fell more heavily. Frances was impervious to the cold night air as she shuffled slowly along in the procession, her hand resting on Thomas’s arm. Ahead, she could see Lord Rutland’s tall frame as he followed the pallbearers towards the abbey. She could not bear to look at the small black coffin that was set atop the carriage rumbling along the cobbles between them.
She should have saved him. The thought had run over and over in her mind for the past two days and nights, tormenting her waking hours and depriving her of all but the most fitful sleep. If she had attended the boy earlier that morning, taken the stopper off the tincture herself, she might have smelt the sharp tang of foxgloves before the tainted liquid had reached his lips. The scent had still clung to the small glass phial when she had examined it later that day. That girl must have slipped it into the tincture while Lord Rutland delivered the countess’s gift to his son. From the few details that he could remember about her, Frances was sure it was the same girl she had seen begging in the doorway that morning and, later, among the countess’s entourage as they played cards; the same girl who had betrayed her and thwarted Lord Rutland’s escape.
The slow tolling of the abbey bells sounded along the dark street as they approached. A few people emerged from their houses as the procession passed – more from curiosity than respect, Frances guessed. The death of Lord Rutland’s son and