Of Love and Evil - By Anne Rice Page 0,28

from another human being as I felt coming from him now.

What did Malchiah expect of me here? What was I to do for this man? In vain, I tried to remember Malchiah’s advice to me about the difficulties I would encounter here, about the very nature of this assignment, but I couldn’t recover either the words or the intent.

The fact was, I wanted to kill this man. Horrified by my own feelings, I sought to hide them. But I wanted to kill him. I wanted to grab up a handful of those lethal black seeds and force them into his mouth before he could stop me. I must have burned with the shame of it, that far from being someone’s answer to a prayer, I was thinking like a very dybbuk myself. I took a deep slow breath, and made my voice as calm as I could.

“It’s not too late for your brother,” I said. “He might begin to mend from this very day.”

There was a flash of something unnamable in his eyes, and then the rigid stillness again, the deep hostility unmasked.

“You’re a fool if you remain here another moment,” he whispered.

I looked down for a moment, and uttered a small wordless prayer, and when I spoke I made it as soft and gentle as I could:

“I pray your brother recovers,” I said.

And then I went out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I DREW VITALE WITH ME OUT OF THE SICKROOM AND into the passage.

“Your friend is being poisoned and the poison is deadly. You feed that caviar to a mongrel dog and you’ll see him die before your eyes.”

“But who would do this?”

“I fear to tell you: the man’s own brother. But you cannot confront him. It won’t be believed. This is what you must do. Instantly insist that the patient be given milk and plenty of it. Say that only white food will restore his spirits. Nothing but white food in which nothing dark has been intermixed.”

“You think this will work?”

“I know it will work. The poison comes from a tree in the orangery below. It’s black. It stains everything it touches black. It’s the black seed of a purple flower.”

“Oooh, I know this poison!” he said. “It comes from Brazil. They call it the Purple Death. I’ve only read of it in my manuals, and in Hebrew. I don’t think it’s known to the Latin doctors. I’ve never seen it.”

“Well, I’ve seen it and I tell you that there is a great quantity of it growing on the tree downstairs. It’s so poisonous I can’t collect it without these gloves and I need a leather pouch in which to put it.”

Quickly he removed a pouch from one of the pockets of his tunic, took the gold out, put this in his purse and gave me the pouch. “Here, can you safely collect it now? Will the guilty person know it when you do it?”

“Not if you keep him very busy. Call Signore Antonio. Call Lodovico. Insist they both hear you out. Say that you suspect the caviar has not helped the patient. Say that he must take milk. Say that the milk will line the stomach and absorb what evil elements are tormenting Niccolò. Say that a woman’s milk is the best of all. But cow’s milk will do, and goat’s milk, and cheese, pure white cheese of the finest quality. The more of this you get into the patient the better. And meantime I shall take care of the poison.”

“But how shall I say I came by this knowledge?”

“Say you have prayed, and you have pondered, and you have considered what has happened since the caviar was first given.”

“That I have, there’s no lie in that.”

“Insist that the milk be tried. The loving father will see no harm in milk. No one will see harm in it. Meanwhile, I’ll return to the orangery and I’ll harvest as much of the poison as I can. But there’s no telling how much the poisoner has already harvested himself for his purposes. I suspect not much. It’s too lethal. He’s been taking only the smallest doses as he needs them.”

Vitale’s face darkened. He shook his head. “You’re telling me Lodovico has done this thing.”

“I believe that he has. But what’s important now is that you get the milk to your patient.”

I hurried down to the small courtyard. The gates were locked. I tried to force them very gently, but it was impossible. Nothing would have done for it but smashing the lock altogether