“You’re using Andromachus’s version?” Jerome asked, sounding surprised.
“Yes, of course. It has been repeatedly proven to be the most efficacious—”
“And the most expensive.”
“—if properly prepared as Andromachus instructed. He was the Emperor Nero’s personal physician,” the man added, presumably for Mircea’s benefit, since the tone had changed to oiled deference. “Such a learned man.”
“Nero—didn’t he die young?” Jerome asked.
“Of stab wounds! He was never successfully poisoned—”
“Unlike everyone else around him.”
“—because he knew that the value of a good antidote is beyond price,” the shopkeeper said, smiling at Mircea, who had raised his head, blinking.
“He should do, considering how many times he caused others to need one,” Jerome muttered.
“Had they had this,” the apothecary said, proudly patting his potbellied jar, “they would have lived.”
“Hmmph,” Jerome said, unimpressed. “Where do you get all the vipers?”
“Vipers?” Mircea asked, trying to catch up.
“My shop frequently had to substitute lizards,” Jerome added, helping him not at all.
The shopkeeper smirked. “Why am I not surprised?”
Jerome’s eyes narrowed. “As the original recipe allows.”
“The original recipe was flawed,” the apothecary said. “Do you want to save money or your life? Such matters are not the place to economize—”
“Says the man trying to make a sale,” Jerome murmured. “And you didn’t answer the question.”
“The local fishermen bring them to us, of course,” the man snapped. “They often catch them in the shallows. They know we offer the best price, so they give us first choice—”
“When only the finest snakes will do.”
“Yes, because lizards are preferable,” the shopkeeper replied sarcastically. “They may give it the same taste, but they render the mix useless—as do weak or old vipers. The finer the ingredients, the finer the end product. And that includes the poison!”
“What poison?” Mircea asked, since they’d both ignored his previous question.
They did this one, too.
“Weak poison makes a weak antidote,” the apothecary continued. “We take only the best vipers, in their prime, you understand,” he said, glancing at Mircea, who understood exactly nothing. “We slice them small, place them in a solution of sal ammoniac, add the specified herbs, flowers, and wine, cover the pot with clay, and set it on a fire. When the vipers are properly cooked, the roasted remains are taken out and pounded—”
“Always with the pounding,” Jerome sighed.
“—until they are reduced to powder. After ten days, the powder is combined with fifty-five herbs, including myrrh, black and white pepper, turpentine resin, and poppy juice, all at the prescribed intervals—”
“Which is why it takes forever,” Jerome interjected.
“—and then the result of that is added to lemnian earth and roasted copper, bitumen, and castoreum—the secretion of beaver,” he said, seeing Mircea’s frown. “Well-aged, of course—”
“Of course,” Mircea murmured.
“—and finally it is all blended with a good quantity of honey and vetch meal. It takes a minimum of forty days to prepare properly, assuming all the ingredients are to hand.”
“But isn’t it supposed to be aged thereafter?” Jerome asked slyly. “Twelve years, wasn’t it?”
“That is considered optimal,” the man sniffed. “And we recommend as much to those buying it as a precaution. But in emergencies, it can be used sooner. Galen records that the Emperor Marcus Aurelius consumed the preparation within two months of its being prepared without ill effect.”
“It also increases the profit, if it can be shipped right out.”
The apothecary’s eyes narrowed. And a moment later, he was unstoppering his prized jar and summoning one of his boys with a snap of his fingers. “Wine. The Malvasia.”
“Yes, let’s be completely authentic,” Jerome said, but he looked intrigued.
“I’m not using it because it is Greek,” the man retorted. “But due to its naturally sweet taste, which compliments the mixture.”
“What mixture?” Mircea asked, and finally, the two men turned to look at him. Which would have been more gratifying if they hadn’t been staring at him incredulously.
He scowled. He’d like to see how attentive they were after inhaling three or four dozen potent concoctions. And damn it, he still couldn’t smell anything.
Until a diminutive glass of sweet wine was pushed under his nose a moment later. Just the fumes would have been enough to open a dead man’s head. And yes, Mircea recognized the irony, but he didn’t care.
Because the scent was hauntingly familiar.
He looked up and met the apothecary’s proud smile. “You see?” the man said gently. “Quality will out.”
“What is this?” Mircea asked, as Jerome took the cup, sticking out a tongue to taste the mix.
He made a face.
It obviously wasn’t sweet enough.
“That, dòmino, is only the finest Galene in all of Venice.”
“And Galene is another name for . . . ?”
“Why, Theriac Andromachus, of course,” the man said, looking confused. “What have we been talking about?”
Five minutes later, Mircea and Jerome hit the street, where even the late closing shops had now shuttered for the night. “So much for going back there again,” Jerome said, brushing himself off.
“We won’t need him again. We have what we went for.”
“We have nothing, which is why he was annoyed,” Jerome pointed out. “Would you like to tell me why I almost got beaten up over something neither of us can use?”
“If you can answer a question for me first.”
“Such as?”
They stopped and pressed against the building to let a peddler, with a cart full of leftover fish, down the narrow sidewalk. “Such as, where did Sanuito get a pot of outrageously expensive poison antidote when he was totally destitute?”
“Sanuito?”
“And why did he have it on a tray of soaps and cosmetics? And why did he offer it to me a day before he suddenly went mad and killed himself?”
“That’s three questions,” Jerome said, looking troubled.
“Yes. And I don’t have an answer to any of them,” Mircea said grimly. “But I know someone who might.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Is this really necessary?” Mircea asked, as two robust farm girls approached. They were the ones who had fed him a week ago, and he’d seen them a few times since, although wearing rather more than they had on at the moment.
Not that he was about to be doing any better.
“I bathed this morning,” he pointed out, as he was efficiently stripped by a couple of fiends with nimble fingers and laughing brown eyes.
“And now you’ll bathe again,” Auria said, reclining on her bed, examining him as the girls set to work.
He closed his eyes briefly. He didn’t need this right now. He needed to talk to Auria, preferably alone.
And clear-headed.
But neither option appeared to be on offer. “I need to ask you something, about Sanuito,” he said, trying not to react as the girls went to work with warm, wet rags.
“Not now.”
“Yes, now. I need to know if he was acting strangely in the last few days.”
Auria shrugged. “Sanuito always acted—”
“Yes, so I’ve been told. I mean moreso.”
“Not that I noticed. He seemed much the same. Quiet, assiduous, smart—”
“Smart?”
“Yes, why?”
“No one else seemed to notice that about him.”