“The physicians’ notes described both forcing the king and deceiving the king to take this poisonous medication. Wickedly fascinating, isn’t it? Now, his medical condition at the time disrupted heme synthesis. And what does arsenic do?” She rolls up on her toes and back down again. “It also disrupts heme synthesis, making his condition worse and ultimately making the king more dependent on the royal physicians who were poisoning him.” She looks at all of us to make sure she has our attention. “Now, this is a curious situation because what outwardly appeared to be a caregiving tactic was slowly killing the king. And with the effects of the poison mimicking his preexisting condition, some might say it was a perfect crime.”
Hisakawa smiles. “This is an example of a larger idea I want you all to mull over. But let’s talk about arsenic for a moment. It was wildly popular in the Middle Ages; everyone fell in love with the agony and romance of it all. Who knows why?”
I’ve never seen anyone so delighted by poison before and I really don’t know what to make of it. She’s like a Tim Burton version of my kindergarten teacher.
“The Borgias were the stars of arsenic poisoning,” Aarya says from her seat next to Felix. “It’s said that arsenic improves the taste of wine, and the Borgias hosted a great number of dinner parties. Lucrezia Borgia carried the poison around in a secret compartment in her ring.”
“Oh yes, the wine bit is one of my favorites,” says Hisakawa. “And I’ve always liked that Lucrezia. What a name. Anyone else?”
“Arsenic was widely available in the Victorian era and was even sold in grocery stores. Women used to eat it or mix it with vinegar or chalk and rub it on their faces because they thought it would improve their complexions and reduce wrinkles,” Felix says, and I notice he has a cut on his hand that wasn’t there yesterday in fencing when Nyx attacked me.
“Absolutely. Arsenic has been used for any number of things—in cosmetics, to preserve food, as a pesticide, to dye fabrics. Still, there’s something specific I’m thinking of,” Hisakawa says.
“Arsenic poisoning resembles cholera,” Layla says. “Oftentimes people would be pronounced dead of natural causes.”
“Ding ding ding!” Hisakawa says, and Aarya rolls her eyes, clearly annoyed that Layla got the right answer. “A poison is truly great when it leaves no evidence behind, when its effects pass for an illness or when it’s already present in someone’s life and you only need encourage the interaction with it.” She looks around the room. “The sixteenth-century philosopher and toxicologist Paracelsus famously said: ‘All things are poison, and nothing is without poison. Only the dose permits something not to be poisonous.’ What we learn from that profound statement is that there’s poison in every environment. While something can be helpful in a small dose, it can be lethal in a large one. I’m not only talking about substances here—medications someone might be taking or cleaning products they use. I’m asking you to look beyond what is obvious to the more subtle and, if you can master them, the best of the poisons: emotional and psychological. If you can dose someone strongly enough with either one, death is likely to follow with no physical evidence left behind. The tactics with these are hard to detect, and it’s only in the subtle changes that any real pattern can be discerned.”