Weed: The Poison Diaries Read online

  Weed

  Jane Northumberland

  with

  Hugh Sington

  Dedicated To:

  Salicin, Codeine, Pinitol, Hyoscyamine, Adoniside, Protoveratrine, Demecolcine, Gitalin, Camphor, Tetrandine, Vinblastine, Atropine, Taxol, L-Dopa, Topotecan, Quinine, Rutin, Etoposide, Kheltin, Catechin, Betulinic Acid, Glaucarubin, Pseudoephedrine, Lapachol, Digitoxin, Theobromine, Hydrastin, Papavarine, Rhomitoxin, Silymarin, Morphine, Vasicine, Quinidine, Neoandrographolide, Bromelain, Monocrotaline, Glasiovine and all the other poisons that save us daily.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 April, First Quarter Moon

  Chapter 2 April, Waxing Gibbous Moon

  Chapter 3 April, Full Moon

  Chapter 4 Hulne Abbey Ruins

  Chapter 5 Hulne Abbey Ruins

  Chapter 6 Soutra Aisle, The Feast of St George

  Chapter 7 April, Beltane Eve

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20 May, Feast of the Ascension

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26 June, New Moon

  Chapter 27 June, Waxing Quarter Moon

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29 June, First Quarter Moon

  Chapter 30 June, Waxing Gibbous Moon

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32 June, Feast of the Ascension

  Chapter 33 June, Full Moon

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35 June, Waning Gibbous Moon

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  A Note on the Author

  Chapter 1

  April, First Quarter Moon

  My name is Weed and I was conceived of the good, good earth. But I am not good. The season of winter has been long in Europe this year and harsh. I have traversed the continent in search of vengeance for one I held to be my love. Passing through the Alpine mountains from Rome to Strasbourg I beheld horrors which words fail to paint. War and terror have gripped the men of Europe and been the harbingers of pestilence and famine. The frozen plains of France are desolate and in my weeks of tramping I have seen men degraded in cannibalism and women made brittle and desperate. Few animals or children did I discern. And yet I felt no cold nor did eat no meat for the fire of hatred burned strong within me.

  The domestics who remain at Alnwick Castle skitter away like several-legged insects at my approach and are all the better for it. My persuasions on the Duke have had their effect, therefore he remains confined to the Upper Keep of this ancient pile of brick and mortar. By turns he raves, by turns he praises the wonders of what I reveal to him in a tincture, in a distilled vapour, in unguent, powder or liquid. Under my hypnotic direction the Duke’s servants, groundskeepers and cooks have been sent away. Only a bare skeleton of degenerate scullery maids and slavish footmen remain to spy my tramping in the Castle grounds as they do now. The cold and cloying dampness of the morning air means nothing to me, yet still I wear the Duke’s delicate raiment slung clumsily about my burgeoning trunk. Vanity is not my purpose but ownership. This castle and everything in it belong to me now.

  Skirting the eastern curtain wall of this ancient bailey, I repair to a wild, unruly growth of Angel’s Trumpet. It has insinuated itself from outside the castle, forcing its stem and leaf through cracks in the rough-hewn wall. It is a beautiful intruder to these untended gardens, whose delicate pink and purple flowers give the plant its name. I pull a just-opened trumpet bloom from the stem and eat it, savouring the seeds as they crunch between my teeth.

  ‘Master Weed. Well met in springtime. Why not eat me, sniff my poisons and touch me? My petals are fine but there is more than sap in me. My seeds will make you float on the wings of a butterfly, addle you like drunk wasps gorged on rotting Autumn-time fruits. Have caution, Land Walker.’

  ‘I do not feel poisons like other men, Angel, but I thank you for your counsel.’ The plants of the field are my dear companions and solace in my solitude. I cannot be killed by the poisons dwelling within the herbs and flowers but their properties still work their magic on my system. Pausing for a moment, I feel my head begin to swim deliciously and I comprehend once more the power of the Solanaceae: Angel’s Trumpet, Belladonna, Mandrake, Henbane. All used since the most ancient times to bring visions and strange trances. ‘Thank you, Angel.’

  ‘It is our pleasure to be used after our nature. You are looking well, Weed. And you have grown since last we saw you, strange Fruit.’

  It is true that as spring issues forth I grow rapidly tall and strong after the privations of winter. My emerald green eyes shine with vigour as I contemplate the ancient woods that surround the castle. I would have seemed nothing but a dull-eyed brat to the Duke when I first crossed his threshold weeks ago. Before I spread my roots and commenced my infiltration of his home and hearth. I have grown by a head at least under the bright sun and surrounded by nature; indeed I grow still.

  The soil of the castle is good but other than the kitchen garden the grounds are uncultivated. I wander towards the vegetable patch to see what needs tending, but as I go hear a scornful voice calling to me.

  ‘What are you? Meat ears! You are Meat!’ Not every plant in nature is as sociable as Angel’s Trumpet. This one in particular reserves a deep well of venom for the red blood that pumps in living veins; it vexes me daily with an evil aspect. Yet my true disquiet lies not with its hostility but rather because its name and nature are unknown to me. I have come to understand that I am not like other men. All growing things are given to me for my use; they speak to me and their qualities are in my ken. They sprout, flower and die at my command. All except this one. ‘Wall Stander! Minute Counter!’

  ‘What are you to me?’ I charge the creature.

  ‘I am that for which men have no name. I do not often grow abroad like the common shrub. Be privileged, Rootless! Born to die. Meat!’ It talks with a haughty air. I found it lying exposed to the elements at the castle gates last month. It intrigued me because its roots grow in such an eccentric manner: three thick tendrils plaited and braided around each other like legs crossing and re-crossing themselves. When I saw it I transported and planted it here in the heart of the outer Bailey. The unnamed sprout grows a lone white stalk, curiously feathered. In root and leaf, I have never seen its like before.

  ‘I could stamp you out of existence.’

  ‘Do your worst with your stamping. I am Green. Snuff out the sun and make barren the earth if you can. From those generous hands do we take our licence for living. We don’t die like you in wasteful red wetness.’ I can feel its sap sizzle and spit with anger and indignation.

  ‘It was I that found you and planted you.’

  ‘And how do you know it was not I that found you, Meat? I choose this soil to grow in.’ To commune with nature is a pleasure to me because growing things are honest and simple. But this one speaks in veiled riddles. It is almost as bad as speaking with people; almost but not quite.

  I care less than a fig for my fellow man, so filled to bursting with his jealousy, passion and hate. As I walk, I revive the memory of last year’s spring, when I was confined in the coal cellar of a dead apothecary. And before that I was kept prisoner in the cellars of another fat abuser, now also dead and ashes. Months and months without sunlight and sustenance. And before then I dimly recall the drunken Friar who kept me chained and bound
for I know not how many seasons. Being deprived and excluded from the air and earth for so long weakened my body and damaged my mind.

  The Friar fed me lies, whole cloth, concerning my origins and parentage. A worthless orphan boy he told me I was, unwanted and unloved and bequeathed to his care in a woven basket. So sickly and sun-starved was I then, it’s a marvel I had the strength in my hands to kill him. The friar learned too late that summer vines that drip vitality can in winter parch to tough, sinewy garrottes. I take a deep breath of bracing fresh air and smile. I have some more lessons for treacherous man. But first I have an adversary that must be dealt with.

  Chapter 2

  April, Waxing Gibbous Moon

  So many weeks ago, when I arrived back here in Northumberland, I found Jessamine dead and firmly planted in the poison garden of Hulne Abbey. My beautiful love buried next to her treacherous father, the apothecary Thomas Luxton. Although I was still weak and diminished from my long winter’s tramp across Europe the spirit of revenge drove me to London. There I encountered the secret society that had so unnaturally debased innocent Jessamine. It was they who had indoctrinated her to the pleasures of laudanum, assassination and whoring. It appeared to me that she had fallen so far, yet now I know that mankind’s virtue is a leaf’s thickness from his darkest vice. I cut a swathe through the Hashishim as they styled themselves with their absurd mummery. Aping the great assassin cult of Persia didn’t stop them being bested by a seeming child with a butcher’s cleaver. Although I hold some small regard for their leader: their Old One. For it was he that kept in reserve about him a healthy weight of soft black Oriental Hashish. It called out to me as all plant and plant matter does, speaking in its own tongue and yet I understood. ‘Eat me and taste the mind of God.’

  Today I’m visiting with the Duke. I come to his chambers bearing his lunch as I do every day at noontide. I must prepare all of his fodder since the first domestics to leave our service were the kitchen staff.

  ‘Weed! My good fellow! And what do you bring me today from your Cornucopia? Am I to taste the birdsong this afternoon? Or smell again the scent of happiness? What’s in the broth, ay, man? Speak!’ I must confess that I have grown fond of the old Duke. He has a strong mind and the ministrations that I expected to render him a delirious ninnyhammer have awoken in him a thirst for the chthonic treasures that are mine to give.

  ‘This is only a leek soup brewed up using the best specimens left in our root cellar. It is made by my own hand and rather fine if you would believe me. And the bread is fresh.’ The Duke grabs the bowl out of my hand and commences with his dinner.

  ‘Alright, Weed! Alright!’ He splutters through the stew. ‘Spring is coming on and we shall have everything fresh all over again. Tell the cook to be on the lookout!’

  ‘We have dismissed the cook along with the rest of the waiting staff, if you remember.’

  ‘Ay?’ The Duke looks momentarily confounded before tucking back into his lunch. ‘Very well then. Very well! Oh but, Weed, I wish you would bring me something. Blast your green eyes! Sometimes I think you must be a monster to torture me so. Do you know that last night between the hours of 7 o’clock and 9 o’clock I relived the French wars in their entirety? Every detail! We were on campaign for two years. We won, you know! Bastard French. Well you’ve been there. You know.’

  ‘Actually, sir, I might have something for you.’ The Duke’s eyes light up as I fish a leaf-bound parcel from a belt around my waist; this belt contains many pockets and each pocket holds its own pleasant surprises harvested from the good earth. I never remove it.

  ‘What is it, ay? What, what?’ Quick as lightning the old man grasps the package bound in twine and lifts it to his nose before inhaling. ‘Something new! I don’t know this one.’ He brings it to his mouth but I interrupt.

  ‘No. Don’t eat the parcel. And leave the twine as well. Just chew what’s inside. In the Andes mountains they call it Salvia Divinorum and I procured it from a merchant in London. I’ve saved the seeds so if it meets with your approval then I can grow you some more directly.’ It always puts me in a good mood to talk to a kindred spirit.

  ‘Salvia – salvation is it? Divinorum – divining the truth will I be? I tell you last night I relived the women we had when we beat the French. In every detail. Such a celebration. The French! Ha! They’re not all bad! Well you’ve been there. You know. Here!’ The Duke thrusts his empty bowl into my hands.

  ‘Indeed, sir.’

  He peers at me with shocking intensity. ‘Now, Weed! I know what you’re doing! That’s my coat you’ve got on there. Are you playing at being the Duke? I used to do that too. That was before I was the Duke, mind you. When I was just a boy.’ His look softens and he cocks his head to the side, remembering. ‘My father. My father was a terribly cruel man. He didn’t mean to be, I suppose. I think perhaps I have been terribly cruel to my own children. You haven’t heard from them, I suppose?’

  Unhappily, the Duke’s sons have been in contact by letter since my arrival. And that’s not something to be thankful for. They may have heard of the changes I have wrought to their ancestral home and be of a mind to set things back. It is unlikely that they will be as affable to my tender mercies as the good Duke. I know I cannot live here forever but it may yet be possible to complete my task. In the meantime I lie: ‘No sir! They have not.’

  ‘Well, if they do. Tell them … tell them that I’m sorry if I was ever inattentive.’ A melancholia descends momently and then the duke quickly brightens. ‘Still they’re young. Tell them to come and visit soon! I think you should go now Weed. I’ve had enough of you.’

  ‘Goodbye, sir.’ I close the door behind me and proceed down the great staircase and back into the bailey of Alnwick Castle, thence cross to my rooms in the Southern Tower. I could easily reach my suite under the vaulted roofs of the Great Library and Chapel, but I do love the fresh air.

  Chapter 3

  April, Full Moon

  I was on the brink of my great revelation. Before I left the meeting house of the Hashishim I made sure to be presentable for the streets of London. I left my butcher’s cleaver buried deep in the thigh of one of my enemies and exchanged my blood-soused garb for another’s. Stepping into that great city’s winding alleyways, I ingested the Hashish and allowed the beating of my heart to lace the narcotic through my system. A moment in time stretched before me to the distant horizon and from without my body I was able to order my thoughts as they rose to the surface of my mind. This notion was dismissed as trivial or treacherous. That notion was recognised as bearing a facet of truth and so I delved deeper. I saw myself dressed in the clothes of a bygone age running from cruel rabble intent on my destruction. I saw myself in a garden surrounded by strange trees growing unfamiliar fruit in a land without men. I heard them all harking to me. I glimpsed a thousand years in the blink of an eye. I felt my soul bisected and beheld the rings of an ancient tree. I felt the truth of my nature within my fingers’ reach and then I heard a voice: ‘I am Oleander, Prince of Poisons, and you’ve been dancing for me in your forgetfulness.’ I saw the apparition of a winged man standing behind my poor Jessamine, drawing her to him and finally delivering her death and all my woes engendered. My vision abandoned me and I collapsed cold and alone on the muddy track. I have returned here to Northumberland to face my enemy. I am Weed. And I will be beholden to no-one.

  I pop another tightly rolled ball of Hashish into my mouth as I stare into the fire at Alnwick Castle. I am not cold but I find that if I stare for long enough at the whirls of flaming ember, I begin to see him. I perceive first his laugh. It is entirely unpleasant. And then I feel the beating of his wings. Oleander, my old enemy and the final murderer of my love. He is ephemeral in this world. If I am to finally close the chapter on the embarrassing, painful past then I must conjure him into the here and now and fight him and beat him.

  ‘Tut! Tut! Tut! Weed. Now you know better than to go looking for trouble, don’t you?’ It’s the Duke making a rare
foray from his bed chambers. He’s dressed in only his linen undergarments but a sheathed sword hangs loosely fastened to a belt around his waist. ‘Oleander! He’s only a fool playing at villainy. A wispy waifish wil o’the wisp. There are enough good spirits at play in the shadows between life and death, and real terrors too. Why focus on him? Why conjure him?’

  ‘Because he humiliated me, Duke. He killed my old love Jessamine and sent me on a fool’s errand half way around Europe.’

  ‘Well, injured pride has started wars for good or ill. He’ll not come here, Weed! I’ll have his balls if he does.’ The Duke whips his sword from its sheath and thrusts and parries with an invisible enemy dancing in front of him. He lowers his weapon, looks at me, and smiles. ‘You know where Oleander can be found. He’s out by Hulne Abbey at the poison garden, near where that little girl is buried. That’s what he’s good for. Scaring little girls and making little boys piss the bed.’

  ‘I only half understand his nature, old Duke. How can I kill a ghost?’

  ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts you know. Oleander’s a spirit, a Genius Loci. There are plenty of them about if you know where to look. You’re no ordinary ignorant man; you ought to know all about this, Weed.’

  ‘I was imprisoned in cold dark cellars for too long, Duke. In my dreams I see shadows of my past appear but then Oleander emerges with his shrill laugh and I’m lost once more. I’m fifty times the Weed I was when I emerged blinking from darkness last year but still, I only half-understand my own nature.’

  ‘Oleander’s a fay upstart, a nymph of hedgerows and kitchen gardens, but he seems to have got your goat. Cut his wings off and he’ll not be able to fade away nor fly away neither.’

  ‘You’re having a rare moment of clarity, Duke.’

  ‘Well they happen, and I’d rather they didn’t, honestly. That Salvia Divinorum’s not just a panacea to keep an old man quiet, you bloody fool. Oleander says he’s the Prince of Poisons. Prince of nonces, more like. If you eat that Hashish and head back to where he buried your old lover he’ll be there. Tonight’s the full moon, Weed. Theatrical little prig probably can’t wait to show himself. Here, you can have my sword if you like.’ I take the proffered hilt of the sword and attach it to my belt. ‘Well? What are you waiting for?’