The Mice in the Kitchen

Chapter 28

Before breakfast, Flora went outside the inn where they were staying to see if her two friends, now married, were coming as they had said they would. From the beginning, she had thought it rather unlikely ─and absurd─ that they would keep their promise ─which nobody had asked them to make─ of not extending their wedding night beyond the usual time when they all got together in Adalberht and Detlef's room (now, to everyone's joy, awake) to have breakfast. But she was wrong. She saw them walking towards her. Herta was holding her husband's arm, having left the other inn they had found to spend their first night as a married couple by themselves.

Flora shook her head when she saw them. They smiled.

'You two are impossible.'

'What? You thought we wouldn't come?' Herta said, unable to stop smiling.

'How's the patient doing?' Adalberht asked before Flora could answer the previous question.

'He's much better. He slept well and he says he feels strong enough to set out again. Nevertheless, I think we ought to wait, at least until tomorrow.'

Flora had remained in the room with Detlef all night. Without Adalberht there, she would not have been able to relax being so many hours without knowing about his progress. His almost miraculous recovery should not make her forget how fragile his condition still was. He had been dead. Despite the strength he was showing, his body needed to rest.

After breakfast, Adalberht, still excited and exultant after his wedding, took up the matters that still worried and affected all of them.

'When... when you said that she had used a poison similar to yours... were you referring to Oda?'

Flora knew perfectly well what Adalberht was talking about.

'I'm not sure. I think I had both her and my mother in mind, as well as any other person with the ability to make that kind of potions. But I'm sorry if I offended you.'

'I'm not looking for an apology. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I understand why you found the apple offering suspicious. And, as a matter of fact, your remedy, based on that supposition, worked.'

'You said her father was a doctor. That would explain her knowledge of chemistry.'

'But why would she do it? I mean, why would she be interested in hurting Detlef?'

'Maybe not just him. How do you know the other apples were not poisoned too? You picked one from the basket, right?' she asked Detlef.

He nodded.

'Therefore, he could have picked any other. She offered them to you too.'

Both Adalberht and Herta nodded. Herta hadn't been exactly offered any apples, but she remembered how she had almost picked one anyway.

'Any of us could have eaten it,' Flora continued. 'So I'm pretty convinced they were all poisoned.'

'I still can't figure out her reasons,' Adalberht insisted.

'I'm afraid, dear friend,' Detlef said from his bed, 'that you must have been her real target.'

Adalberht could not feign surprise. The thought had been tormenting him since the apples had been mentioned.

'Sent by the duchess?' His eyes immediately turned to Flora. He knew that, despite everything, he could still hurt her with that accusation. But all the cards were now being laid on the table. It was necessary.

'I don't know if Oda collaborated with her,' the latter explained. She wanted to help, even if putting her mother's wickedness into words did actually cause her pain. 'I never saw them together.'