The Blackthorn Key Read Online Free Page A

days.”
    Finally, he handed me the last cup. “This will kill you. Drink it, and in five minutes you’ll be dead.”
    I stared at the mug. I’d just made poison . Stunned, I looked up at Master Benedict to find him watching me intently.
    â€œTell me,” he said. “What have you just learned?”
    I shook off my surprise and tried to think. The obvious answer was the properties of the madapple, and the recipes I could make from the seeds. But the way Master Benedict was watching me made me feel like he was looking for something more.
    â€œI’m the one who’s responsible,” I said.
    Master Benedict’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes,” he said, sounding pleased. He waved at the herbs, oils, and minerals that surrounded us. “These ingredients are the gifts the Lord has given us. They are the tools of our trade. What you must always remember is that they are only that: tools. They can heal, or they can kill. It’s never the tool itself that decides. It’s the hands—and the heart—of the one who wields it. Of all the things I’ll teach you, Christopher, there’s no lesson more important than this. Do you understand?”
    I nodded, a little awed—and scared—of the trust he’d just placed in me.
    â€œGood,” he’d said. “Then let’s go for a walk, and you’ll get your final lesson for the day.”
    Master Benedict thrust a heavy leather satchel into myhands and tied his sash with all the glass vials in it around his waist. I kept looking at the sash, fascinated, as he led me back into the streets, the satchel’s strap digging into my shoulder.
    He took me to a mansion at the north end of the city. To a boy from Cripplegate, it may as well have been the king’s own palace. A liveried servant let us into its vast entryway and asked us to wait. I tried not to gawk at the riches that surrounded us: the satin damask on the walls, edged with golden trim; the chandelier overhead, cut glass glittering in sunlight from crystal windows; the ceiling above it, where painted horses galloped through trees under a cloudless, azure sky.
    Eventually, a round-faced chambermaid led us up a curved marble staircase to the parlor. A middle-aged woman waited for us there, wearing a low-cut yellow bodice over a bright orange lutestring dress brocaded with flowers. Her dress opened at the bottom to reveal a frilled, emerald petticoat. She lay draped over a purple velvet daybed, eating cherries from a silver bowl.
    The woman’s high forehead furrowed as she spat out a cherry pit. “Mr. Blackthorn, you are cruel. I have waited for you in torment.”
    Master Benedict bowed slightly. Then he made me jump as he shouted at her, as if she was hard of hearing. “I apologize for the delay, Lady Lucy. Allow me to introduce Christopher.”
    He stepped aside. Lady Lucy assessed me with a critical eye. “Bit young to be an apothecary, aren’t you?” she said.
    â€œUh, no, my lady. I mean, yes, my lady,” I stammered. “I’m the apprentice.”
    She frowned. “Find me a necklace? What in the world do you mean, boy?”
    I glanced over at Master Benedict, but his face was blank. I tried again, shouting this time, as Master Benedict had. “I’m the apprentice .”
    â€œWell, why didn’t you just say that? Get to it, then. My back is the Devil’s torture.” The chambermaid began to untie the laces of Lady Lucy’s bodice. Shocked, I looked away.
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous,” Lady Lucy said. She turned away from me, holding the silk to her chest as her maid pulled open her bodice in the back. The skin all along her spine was red and raw. It looked unbearably itchy.
    I glanced over at Master Benedict again, unsure of what I was supposed to do. This time, he motioned toward the satchel I carried. I looked inside to find a thick ceramic jar,its wide mouth stopped with