Of Pride and Power - 21. Chapter 21: “Never outshine the master.”

No peace can be created without sacrifice as the bloody reign of Mary truly began with the death of Thomas Howard, one of the last tethers to the old guard of Henry VIII’s court. Immediately following Thomas Howard’s death, Mary elevated his “grandson” Thomas to his grandfather’s position as 4th Duke of Norfolk, which was a boon for the young man at only eighteen to gain such a high position. In my history, he would conspire against Elizabeth and be put to death for his role in a coup attempt, so I wasn’t too shocked to learn of his elevation to match my own. Due to gratitude for his position, the young Thomas Howard took on one of Queen Mary’s major policies with his new authority, enforcing the heresy laws of 1554 and redemption of Church lands, seized during Henry VIII and Edward VI’s reigns. Unlike the compromise with the papacy that would have occurred in history to maintain English noble support, where confiscated lands were not seized if the English accepted Catholicism, the nobles were forcibly stripped of titles and lands. However, Mary instead of allowing nobles to seek revenge on her or create plots to overthrow her, she denounced these nobles as heretics and executed them under the Heresy laws. These were shocking moves by Queen Mary, centuries of English tradition dating back to Magna Carta had established a balance of power between monarchs and nobility. Even in the future when English kings attempted to override the nobility through force, the nobles had enough power to rebel and wreak havoc against monarchs. However, such concepts about the balance of power and terror are only possible if the parties are close to the strength of their forces. Through her connection to the papacy through Reginald Pole, Mary had access to modern arms. No matter how many men you can muster from your lands, they cannot defeat a spray of machine gun bullets and shrapnel rounds.

Additionally, Mary’s advisors did not ignore the realm of information warfare against opposing nobles by spreading claims against them. From murder to rape, the nobles of England were guilty of many sins, so it was not difficult for commoners to believe in these tales and remove their loyalties to the lords.

In exchange for submission to the military power of faith and loyalty to Queen Mary, the peasant farmers were granted the right to use the papal lands as “common land” for grazing sheep and get a share of the crops they farmed. From my modern sensibilities, Mary’s reforms resembled something akin to communist land reforms in the 20^th century, but for the standards of medieval society, it was a return to commune practices of the early Middle Ages, which allowed the papacy and its agents to take the role of noble lords. In many ways, the common peasant and tenant farmers benefited from this arrangement, along with benefits from religious institutions acting as community centers providing health care and job opportunities. The peasants would have likely gravitated toward Mary’s reforms and her rejuvenated Catholic allies, but I interceded and disrupted their reforms.

At first, I only acted against them out of survival. I wasn’t immune to the disinformation and claims against me, including the fact that I murdered countless people including Amy Robsart’s family for my perverse pleasures in taking young men to my bed chambers. Technically, these claims were true, and I doubted anyone during this era outside my community would sympathize with my actions. In the face of those accusations, I took a page from a scandal-ridden American President of the 21^st century and obfuscated the claims with rumors of my own against my opponent, like Mary’s cruel nature. I referenced scenes such as her witnessing the cutting of tongues, eyes, and ears of Protestant leaders, the debacle of Thomas Crammer’s execution, and the publication of my version of the Book of Martyrs demonized her in the eyes of Protestant believers. Her relationship with a Roman Catholic cardinal and now her king consort was even more salacious and hypocritical than my sexuality. Her role in the death of Edward, who was safely hidden away under a new identity in my lands, made her guilty of regicide, a fundamental breach of the cosmic order that Catholics argued was the basis for their beliefs. As such, very few commoners were swayed in my territory and the promulgation of mimeograph machines that were used by my agents kept the anti-Mary information campaign going. We expanded operations to raise suspicions against medical supplies, farming tools, and even grazing lands due to sheep poisoning from eating Rhododendron flower plants.

By creating confusing narratives, real and false conspiracies, and ugly characterizations of leaders, a common person without detailed knowledge will become an agnostic believer of facts and circumstances. People place more value on the real material elements in their lives as a result, rather than moral arguments from the leaders who may or may not embody what they speak. Morality is meant to be a guidepost for social behavior, but when society is corrupt and the moral standards of the time are suspect, you can get away with a lot of things. However, such tactics should only be used in times of chaos and insufficient authority, I would warn my descendants to not use such measures in times of stability, otherwise, you will end up with anarchy.

Of course, when Mary sent the 4th Duke of Norfolk to my lands with an army of 5,000 men, nominally to purge heretics, my agents were able to cut them off in Warwickshire. With Robert’s ability, we produced hallucinogenic substances and eliminated the threat of her army without firing a shot on our side. However, this move had unintended consequences as Mary’s army began to rampage across the countryside, killing innocent people and wiping out villages in this rural county bordering my territory for the next three days in a zealous search for imaginary heretics. I had merely wanted to limit the damage to my population and territory, so a rural county with a smaller population and no urban settlements made a good choice to use the material in our possession. When a census of the casualties from the attack was done after the 4^th Duke of Norfolk returned to London, I was shocked at a major mistake I had made in choosing Warwickshire. One of the casualties among the hundreds that were killed in the small county was a glove maker by the name of John Shakespeare, father of the famous playwright William Shakespeare. No one, except Robert and me knew the problem his death would cause later in history. We debated about creating the plays that Shakespeare would have been famous for creating in later decades for many years afterward, including hiring several theater groups to act in some famous Shakespearean plays to find a stand-in for the famous bard. As my descendants probably know, it turned out that history has an odd self-correcting mechanism for these kinds of things, our efforts were unnecessary in the end.

After returning to London, the 4^th Duke of Norfolk was berated by Mary for his actions in Warwickshire, which my agents had spread information through pamphlets across England and Wales. Attacking sinful nobles, protestant believers, and wealthy merchants were met with a warm reception by most commoners, who were happy about the return of communal lands and central church authority in their lives. However, attacks on peasant farmers, small villages, and local craftsmen had resulted in the opposite reaction, especially when I embellished the actions of the Duke of Norfolk as being a new policy of Mary. Fear and discontent spread with those rumors. Furthermore, the 4^th Duke of Norfolk and Mary needed to reinforce their actions, double downing as people in my era would say, to reinforce the perception that their actions taken against heretics and seizing noble lands were justified. The Warwickshire massacre was considered a legitimate purge, but it was due to this legitimacy that fear among commoners began to rise. These issues simmered throughout 1555 among the populace as Mary announced her first pregnancy.

On April 10^th, 1555, I was summoned to the court of Mary I to bear witness to the birth of her child and heir to the throne. In history, Elizabeth I was also summoned to Mary’s court with an additional reason, since childbirth could result in the deaths of both mother and child, it was meant to keep the designated successor nearby and prevent a succession crisis like John Dudley’s attempted coup. Modern technology and medical knowledge would make childbirth much safer, so I doubted the latter consideration was a primary rationale. However, I still went to London, this time without Robert as I needed him to prepare for a confrontation with Mary’s forces. I arrived in London on April 17^th, 1555, and was escorted to Court under heavy guard. When I saw Mary in the audience chamber, it was empty except for papal troops, Reginald Pole, and Stephen Gardiner. I was shocked by her appearance with a noticeable round belly, even before my ability had confirmed the pregnancy. She was pregnant with a child and appeared to be nearing full-term.

I ran through various analyses of her womb, her child’s chances of surviving birth, and various probabilities of using emergency contraceptives at this late stage in the process without notice. My analysis concluded that she was going to give birth to a healthy baby boy, something that defied all the efforts I had put in place.

Archbishop and Chancellor Stephen Gardiner smirked at me and lifted his hand to signal his men.

“Duke Eli, I believe you will find this quite interesting,” he said as the sound of boots could be heard against the stone floors of the audience chamber.

They dragged a beaten and mutilated teenage boy into the audience chamber. It was Puck, who did not glance at me as he hung his head low. I checked his wounds and health, noticing his vocal cords were damaged by alkaline, probably by ingesting one of his herbs. One of his ears had been cut off, along with one of his hands and feet. There was also evidence that they had sexually violated him as I detected rectal scarring in his anus, along with damage to his genitalia and inner thigh. I wanted to kill everyone in that room upon seeing what they did to him, but I could not allow my emotions to get the better of me. My anger though was seething, and I imagined the most horrific ways to take revenge on these people for the torture against Puck.

“Do you know this boy, Duke Eli? He joined the palace staff under false references. We know that he provided services for you. His real name is Percival of Uxbridge, he was born in a town northwest of London,” Stephen Gardiner addressed me with a cold tone.

I nodded and spoke, trying desperately to hide my anger at what they had done to my friend, “I knew him. He was my former valet and servant, who left me and came to find work in London. As he hailed from a lower station, it is not odd that he would seek to improve himself through a false reference. Did he displease Her Majesty that warrants such actions against his body?”

“Oh, Duke Eli, do you think we are fools? We know of your plans to poison the queen's womb through this boy’s machinations. Increasing the number of carcinogenic agents innocently in common food items and using Mary’s genetic disposition to ovarian cancer. Your ploy was discovered by doctors tracking her pregnancy. That alone may not have been enough, but we discovered a collection of his records and various containers of preserved meats with higher sodium and high alcohol content, confirming the plot and knowledge of advanced medical knowledge. Before we can question him about our discovery, he damaged his vocal cords through ingestion of an alkaline-rich compound, he claimed came from an apothecary. Your servant covered his tracks well, but a former servant of King Edward identified seeing him. Along with other anachronisms, I suspected you were behind the intoxication of the Duke of Norfolk along with his army in Warwickshire due to the presence of the byproduct from chemical compounds. Future knowledge use cannot be hidden. You are at the center of all these events. Now tell me, who you are and who do you serve? China, India, Russia, or the Corporate Consortium,” King consort Reginald Pole spoke up, breaking his usual façade to confront me and pushing me to reveal my origins. I had suspected him of being a high-ranking cardinal of the church with historic connections to the throne of England. He would not be employed as King consort by the Pope without a similar consciousness from my era.

This situation was incredibly dangerous, but I did not allow them to frighten me, “I do not know what meanings King Reginald’s words hold. If my former servant has done wrong to the Queen, I would not know as I have not been in contact with him for several years. I do not understand what you speak of concerning a plot against my sister Mary, I have always been a faithful and loyal subject.”

Stephen Gardiner grabbed a familiar-looking blue orb and approached me, “Your servant would not divulge your plot to us, but you cannot hide your true identity from one of the holy cores,” Stephen Gardiner acting in a high and mighty manner asked, “Oh holy core, tell us, who is this individual? What year was this person born? Where did this person come from?”

The orb lit up and covered me in blue light, I spoke in my mind “Use only my current identity and birthdate rather than my true identity and history.”

It was an unproven attempt to manipulate one of the orbs that I did not possess, but I had very few options then. An interesting discovery we had made during the research of the orb in our possession was that I had direct command over the orb through both verbal communication and telepathy directed towards it. Other people appear to only be able to make commands through direct voice inputs. Additionally, when attempting to override authority from one user to another, Robert and I appear to have some level of administrative privilege over the orb’s artificial intelligence. For instance, when Prospero ordered an incorrect energy output of the orb into an experimental lithium-battery-powered motor beyond the battery’s capacity, I overrode his command with a non-verbal thought. I knew I possessed some form of telepathy based on my ability to transfer my memories, experiences, and knowledge to others, but I had not considered that the ability was active to machines. I knew that brain-computer interface technology was commercially available by using brainwaves and Electroencephalography, or EEG, interfaces to bridge the commands with machines. Several high-end virtual reality gaming companies and wearable electronic firms had marketed the technology in the 21^st century. Robert could achieve feats, but he had a much harder time transmitting his commands through thoughts than I did toward the orb.

The orb answered, “Elias Tudor, born in London, England September 7^th, 1533, at Greenwich Palace. Parents are Henry VIII also known as Henry Tudor and Anne Boleyn. Consciousness originated in the current timeline, no interactions with cores of Chinese, Russian, Indian, or Consortium factions.”

Reginald Pole and Stephen Gardiner were shocked at the lack of new information. I wasn’t shocked that this orb did not detect my alternate timeline origins, but I did not reveal it. There were several important pieces of information that I just received from this conversation, including the existence of rival factions from the future, nation-states, and a corporate consortium engaged in similar activities. However, I did not have time to unwrap the ramifications of this exchange. My most pressing concerns were protecting myself and Puck, and then figuring out a way to get rid of Mary’s child before it could be born.

I wished I had Robert’s additional abilities to interact with molecules and materials, I could see every cell in Mary’s unborn child. If I had his ability and could be closer to Mary, I could cause the infant brain death or heart failure by manipulating a few molecules or decreasing oxygen flow. Alas, I was too far away from Mary and did not have such abilities, despite various attempts between Robert and me to see if I could alter molecular bonds since I was able to mimic other Fair Folk knowledge-based abilities. I was once so frustrated at the attempts that I threw away a copper coin I was trying to rust. Robert said it disappeared in mid-air, but I didn’t believe him as I found the copper coin on the ground. After the copper coin, Robert did not want to practice molecular manipulation with me, he said I gave him a “spooky” feeling. At that moment in Mary’s audience chamber, I wanted to believe that I could make something vanish out of existence with my will as I focused on the image of Mary’s unborn child. I was angry at her and wanted to punish her for harming Puck.

At some point in my frantic thoughts, I began to unconsciously focus on different parts of the unborn child, starting with its limbs as Puck’s injuries were weighing heavily on me. The image of Mary’s unborn child began to blur, its hands and feet disappeared for a few seconds. Like a child playing with fire, I wanted to test this potential ability after a brief glimmer of success, so I shifted my vision to its head with a fully formed brain causing the same phenomenon. The baby’s body parts reappeared separated from the torso and the probability of a healthy birth dropped to zero when the head reappeared. Before I could confirm that I had personally killed Mary’s child through this macabre method of dismemberment, Mary roared in anguish as the various functions in her body were disrupted by the sudden death of the baby.

She screamed, “Reginald and Stephen, call Balthasar Guersye and the papal physicians, there is something wrong. I need them.”

In a few moments, I was rushed out of the audience room along with the injured Puck by the guards, who were just told to put us in the Tower. We were both taken to the Tower of London, where I argued with the guards that I be allowed to return to my former quarters and take Puck with me as my servant. As I was not found to be guilty of any crimes, nor proven to be a time traveler, there was no reason to deny the request of a Duke and the sibling of the reigning Queen.

After settling Puck, I spent the next several hours in deep thought about what had happened and what I might have done to Mary’s child. It should be impossible to destroy matter or energy under the law of conservation of matter or energy, which states you can destroy neither, you can just transform them. It’s a fundamental rule of physics and something that no one has seen observable breaking of the law. The only exceptions existed in quantum mechanics for subatomic particles, where Heisenberg uncertainty and quantum entanglement can play roles by borrowing energy to break the law while returning energy at a specified point in future time. This ability I knew was similar to Rimuru Tempest, from the manga That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, who could manipulate information to transcend the physical limitations of matter. If I possessed the ability to influence information flows, it would explain why Robert had a “spooky” feeling, since his ability is sensitive to existing energy and matter. Like feeling someone is standing behind you, but then turning around to see no one is there.

Several days passed with no words from Mary or other court officials, but my spy network was still running efficiently within the court due to the assistance of Thomas Tallis. The musical genius was able to convey several key pieces of information to me through musical arrangements that doubled as coded words. Mary’s pregnancy was rumored to have failed without reason, the court was in an uproar and had begun questioning everyone with any associations with me or had close contact with Princess Mary that day. Despite his perfect cover, Thomas was unable to escape from Mary’s suspicions after the failed pregnancy. All the kitchen staff, serving boys and girls, the guards at various stations, musicians, painters, and even priests were held for questioning. I was also asked questions, along with Puck, but as I was nowhere near the Queen and Puck had been tortured for several weeks away from the Queen’s presence except for that day, we were cleared of immediate suspicions. I spent most of my stay in London at the Tower as a guest of the Queen instead of a prisoner. It took Thomas and my other agents several days and even weeks to escape all suspicion.

Reginald Pole and Stephen Gardiner appeared to have stopped suspecting me after the big show with their holy core, which I also possessed through an excavation with Robert three years ago in Cornwall. The Fair Folk and I researched our orb at Cadbury Hill base, where 20th-century equipment was available. It not only emits energy, but it can also absorb energy either directed towards it through wires an electric current, or its surroundings in the form of thermal, kinetic, or even solar energy. The amount of energy that is emitted does not decrease due to entropy either, rather it increases with more energy that is absorbed, violating the laws of thermodynamics. In terms of interface, it had functions like modern smart devices with interactive artificial intelligence. It was a piece of advanced technology, but I suspected it was not human in origin, Robert also agreed with me. Growing up with 21^st-century Science Fiction through any medium, we thought extreme caution was needed with the orb, so limited studies and experiments were carried out. It never occurred to me that my opponents had similar tools or what they would use them for. With time to consider these things, it was obvious. The power source I feared in the Sky Fortress was one of these blue orbs.

Weeks passed as I spent the time nursing Puck, musing about the application of my ability, and considering the blue orbs as power sources. Thomas was able to re-establish contact with me after three days, but we kept the messages brief due to the high alert within the palace. The message was simple, “Do I need the Golden Fleece?” and I replied to him, not yet. Operation Golden Fleece was a massive undertaking that would reveal the strength of our forces, so it could not be unleashed without my orders. I had planned on launching it later as I had presumed would be the case for many historic years of Mary’s reign. It has only been two years since Mary took the throne and the commoners of England were merely unhappy about some policy choices. I wanted them to despise Mary, the poor harvests and harsh weather conditions will lead to massive famine from 1555-1556. News of the failed pregnancy will spread, along with the rumors of a dismembered child’s corpse that Mary would be expelling for her health. Common people of this era were by nature superstitious and simple-minded, so they attributed the disharmony in nature and malformation of the Queen’s unborn child to an act of God due to her wicked deeds.

Of course, Mary would never accept that kind of denouncement. On July 12^th, 1555, Mary sent Thomas Howard, 4^th Duke of Norfolk, to the Tower of London, where his tongue was removed, then sent the following day to Traitor’s Hill for execution. He was a loyal servant of Queen Mary, but his reputation was tarnished after the massacre of Warwickshire. Before those actions, the Duke of Norfolk had done many heinous things to protestants and landed nobles. Along with the fact of her unborn child’s unexplained death, Mary needed someone to blame, a scapegoat for the commoners. Killing him was an opportunistic political move. However, it did not end the information campaign or the weather-related famines that were rampaging across England.

Over the months of my stay, I had several visitors, such as High Treasurer William Paulet, who discussed tax policy issues with me openly. He was one of the most capable financial minds in England and historically served Mary and Elizabeth in this role. His role was not critical to military or political matters, so he could discuss financial policy with Gardiner and Pole’s guards acting as supervision. I advised him on reforming tariff rates for English trade, tax collection practices, and dues payment schedules for urban craftsmen licenses. A few days after William Paulet’s first visit, a new face began visiting me, whom I had only heard by reputation alone.

Levina Teerlinc was a noteworthy female painter of miniature portraits, who served in Henry VIII and Edward’s court. Female artists were uncommon in this era, and being elevated to a royal painter as well made her a rarity in English history during the Tudor era. One salacious rumor from a competing court artist accused her of being a lover of Henry VIII, while he was married to Catherine Parr. While possible, her ability as an artist based on my historical knowledge indicated that she was more than a pretty face. She spent an hour with me, discussing portraits, and my likenesses to King Henry. We talked at length about her experiences at court and her upbringing in Flanders, which was under the control of the Habsburg family. She was a woman of great creativity and clever wit, I can see why in history she remained a royal painter under Henry, Edward, and Mary.

I was at ease with her, but I could detect something more than her simple appearance. Elizabeth I in my history sent her away to Spain, immediately after taking over the throne for a reason. It was also known that she exchanged gifts with Mary in the form of a locket. My inner sense could not read minds, at least not at that point, but I could see she had an elevated heart rate, and parts of her brain dealing with complex analytical work were being done when she met me. I was not surprised that a level of deceit was in play with a courtier like her, who had survived various regimes. However, unlike William Paulet or other careful courtiers I encountered, her dulcet words did not appear to shine in areas of her brain that related to survival instinct, rather they concentrated on goal orientation. There was a strategic element to her sweet words, and I kept a watchful eye on her actions. On the fifth visit, my inner sense detected a small vile embedded in one of the jewels on a bracelet she wore. It contained 16 milligrams of pure aconitine, probably derived from wolfsbane, a well-known poison plant in Medieval Europe. Considering 2 milligrams was enough to kill a human being, it was a bit overkill to have that much poison on hand for a single target. However, cross-referencing the respiratory distress Barnaby Fitzpatrick had before his death, I can already guess that she had used this poison on more than one occasion. I had never considered that a famous female royal painter, one of the few in the Tudor era, would be so insidious. However, it made sense for some women with high standing and access to various nobles to act as assassins during this era as they would not be suspected easily, just as Thomas Tallis, a high-ranking royal musician, was not suspected of being my spy. If it weren’t for my ability to analyze objects and identify compounds, I would have died without ever knowing who or how. I suspected she was a highly ranked agent from the Habsburg Court of Charles V.

During that visit, I made a show of spilling the poisoned tea kettle by accident, but I knew that trick would only work once.

As it was not easy to keep my distance from her, nor prevent her attempts at poisoning me, I had to make an impression on her to back off. I asked her to play a gambling game with me. I got the idea from a manga series called Kakegurui and its main bisexual female character Yumeko Jabami. Unlike the protagonists of Isekai or Shonen’s adventures, the main character was a pure hedonist, who derived pleasure from games of risk and chance, including games of life and death. One of the many games they played was a card game that set conditions for survival and death by poison. I asked Puck, who had recovered enough, to join me, so we could set a trap against Levina.

On the next occasion when she visited a week later, I waited for her to inject poison into my tea kettle, then I offered to play a game with a deck of cards I had brought from Bristol. It was a playing card deck of 58 cards since the cards of this era had knave and knight ranks that had not merge into what my modern playing cards would call “jacks”. Thus they had a 14-ranking deck with 4-suits and actively played the two jokers or fools. However, I would be using the core 40 number-based and two fool cards for this game.

“Lady Teerlinc, I would be grateful if you would join me and Puck in a game of chance,” I asked her.

She stared at me in puzzlement, “Duke Eli, I could not hope to intrude any further than I have already. Perhaps, I can summon another member of the court.”

I laughed, “Oh no, it’s a childish game that I devised, and I do not wish to introduce it to others in case there are flaws in the game. Please humor me and try this game alongside us.”

I explained the rules to Levina, every player in the game is dealt 3 cards with a possible face value from 1 to 10, along with two fools that have 0 face value. The player order would begin with Levina, then Puck, then me, and go back to Levina. On each player’s turn, you will discard one of your cards face-up, adding to the total pot value. The objective of the game is to force your opponent to reach a 15-point pot value, which means they will lose the round. When the player loses a round, they must drink a cup of dinner wine, which is a heavily water-diluted alcoholic beverage. There was enough in the bottle to last for 3 rounds of the game. In effect, I invented the first card-based drinking game in history.

As Puck only had one arm, he was unable to hide his hand from view, so Puck displayed his hand for both me and Levina’s view. However, neither Levina nor I showed our hands, so the game’s probabilistic risk and strategy remained in play.

For the first round:

I drew the hand: 5, 8, and 2.

Puck drew the hand: 4, 6, and 3.

Levina placed 7 into the pot.

Puck place 6 into the pot.

I laid my cards down and showed my lowest card was 2, which would mean the pot totaled 15 points.

I poured a cup of wine, which I had used my ability to remove the alcohol content.

In the second round:

I drew the hand: 1, 3, and 9

Puck drew the hand: 4, 7, and 9

Levina placed 3 into the pot.

I placed 9 into the pot.

Puck lost that round as his lowest card 4 would result in a value over 15 points, so I poured him a cup of wine, which I again removed the alcohol content.

For Round 3:

I drew the cards: 3, 2, and 6.

Puck drew the cards: 4, 7, and 1.

Levina placed 9 into the pot.

Puck placed 1 into the pot.

I placed 3 into the pot.

Levina revealed her remaining two cards: 5 and 7.

For her drink, all the alcoholic content that I had diluted for Puck and my drinks was concentrated into hers due to how my ability worked by delaying the appearance of materials. Essentially, I turned a relatively low alcoholic beverage into a high-proof alcohol.

After Levina drank the alcohol, I began to deal the final round of the game, meaning 36 of the 42 cards had gone into play.

For the Fourth round:

I drew the cards: 5, 0, and 0.

Puck drew the cards: 1, 4, and 1.

Levina placed 8 into the pot.

Puck added 1 into the pot.

I placed 5 into the pot.

Levina laid down her cards: 5 and 6.

Since we ran out of wine, I apologized and offered Levina a cup of the poison tea from the kettle which she had inserted 10 milligrams of pure aconitine poison into at some point. Levina was suffering the effects of intoxication from the highly concentrated alcohol that she had drank in round 3, so her inhibitions and perceptions were greatly impaired. Upon hearing that she would have to drink the poisoned tea, she jumped back in alarm.

“No…I…can’t…it’s poisoned,” she shook her head vehemently.

I calmly replied to her, “My dear the tea leaves were imported from Somerset and the water has been boiled twice over my fire. It is quite safe to drink. I am sorry if I cannot offer you more wine as a hospitable host, but I hope you will bear this inconvenience with me and accept my humble beverage.”

As I attempted to hand lift the cup and press it to her hands, she struck the cup out of my hand and ran out of the room in a panic, screaming “No…stay away.”

Several versions of this tale have made their rounds in recent years since it’s such a sensational story. The card game known as “the poisoned pot” has become a fashionable pastime for many noblemen and noblewomen, some have even taken it upon themselves to incorporate recreational drugs and highly alcoholic beverages in their games. I admit to enjoying a few of these games, especially when it’s among my friends. However, for my descendants, I would caution you to make sure that it is out of the hands of youths, who do not have the body chemistry to handle such things. At the end of the day, this event should be a cautionary tale on excess and ill-intentioned guests. Celebrate it and joke about it, but remember it was a dangerous move that I needed to make to push away a dangerous assassin.