Page 313 - The Grotesque Children's Book

But there was a third emotion Bianca experienced when she heard of Joanna's death, and
it was, in face, the strongest of the three, and getting stronger every day. Bianca was getting
paranoid. A part of her didn't believe Joanna fell down a staircase to her death. The premise was
absurd. Bianca felt that her loving husband might have ordered Joanna's death after all. Poison,
probably, for Joanna's neck after death had not looked very broken. True, in life Joanna had
always been a slightly deformed creature, bent over at an odd angle, and something had gone
wrong with her the poor woman's hips during one of her many miscarriages, but in death, in
death Joanna hadn't looked any more deformed than she had in life: no broken neck, or hips, or
arms. In fact, the more Bianca brooded on it, the more certain she became that Joanna had not
died from a fall. Or a blade. Or suffocation. The most likely cause was poison. Whether it was
actually poison or not, the fact it could have been poison began to transform into a possibility for
Joanna's fate into one for Bianca's own.

If Francesco could have Joanna murdered, he could have me murdered, just as
capriciously, she thought, but then immediately followed that up with, No, what am I saying?
Francesco loves me. He always has. There's no doubt. Francesco wouldn't poison me.

But someone else might.
Francesco's brother the Cardinal Ferdinand, for instance. He'd be next in line. After my
two year old son Antonio and me. Any number of other cardinals whom Francesco has spurned.
Or merchants or foreign rulers. There are many, many, many men and women who benefit from
the death of a duke. I myself had benefitted from such a death, with Francesco's father. As
much as the court loves me, I must face the fact that many of them would love me better if I were
dead.
So she secretly, without telling a soul, not even her husband, went to the private offices
of Zaccario the alchemist, to have him conjure up as many antidotes to poisons as he could
muster.

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