Herb-Wife (Lord Alchemist Duology) (10 page)

His
hands . . . should've been warmer. Or colder.
Kessa sat and looked at her hand, that he'd inexplicably taken in
his.
More
something
.

She
curled her hand into a fist. (She should've still felt his touch.)
Stop wasting time, half-breed.
She pulled a book into her lap.

When
Iathor'd discovered her doubled over with moon-flow agony in her
shop, he'd insisted on sending to Herbmaster Keli, asking for a
painkiller that'd work on an immune woman, but
not
make her
moon-flow blood useless for dry tea. Keli'd sent back several
preparations, and four books. One'd been
Pregnancy and Moon-flows,
A Compilation by Keli Greenhands
. While they'd waited for the
hornflower paste to take effect, Iathor'd brought it out as a
distraction.

The
second chapter had discussed dry tea and preparations to cause
miscarriages.

If
Iasen wanted to prevent any quarter-barbarian heir, without risking
the scrutiny that would've descended upon her murder, he'd have
needed a potion. If he hadn't wanted to buy it from someone who might
remember selling it, he'd have had to brew it himself, on short
notice.

Iathor's
library didn't have a copy of the Herbmaster's book. But such an
herb-focused book wouldn't be in Iasen's library, either.

She
could ask Keli for her book again if she found nothing here. She
could ask Nicia to let her search the guild hospice's books. She
could look in the guild's library.

She
felt like a rat, snared in an eagle's claws and told that if she hung
on long enough, there'd be a saddle made for her. She turned a page.
The wings are his, not mine.
She'd never dreamed of anything
but a small life: keeping her head down, keeping her family safe.

She
turned another page, past a minor poison she already knew. Of course,
if she'd known her Guild Master was inclined to be helpful, she'd
have gone to him long ago. If she'd known how valuable her immunity
was . . .

There
were too many what-ifs. She might've arrived on his doorstep, even
before her moon-flows had started, that cold winter when she'd been
sure Laita'd die, and grown up betrothed, running through the
servants' halls with her crèche-siblings. She might've been caught
as a Shadow alchemist's apprentice, justly accused of helping brew
the joy-powders that'd claimed lives and fortunes. She might've
stayed with the Shadow Guild after her teacher was poisoned, a veiled
queen in charcoal, with influence and power to meet the Lord
Alchemist's sun-lit status.

Nothing
in this book but a variation on men's tea. She set it aside and took
the next.

She'd
finished it and gotten half-way through another, when one of the
young servants (the lot of them as pale and straw-haired as Tania and
Loria) knocked on the door. "M-miss?"

That'll
be
m'lady
soon enough.
But she didn't feel
anticipation of confidence or power. She looked up enough to see the
child was wearing a dress. "Yes?"

"Miss
Nicia Greenhands, to see you, miss."

"Oh,
good." Having a better-trained apprentice, whose reading was
more confident, would help. "Do I come to her, or . . . ?"

"Either,
miss."

Kessa
set the book aside. "Could you show me where guests are usually
put?"

"Of
course, miss!" The girl led the way.

"And . . .
tea's appropriate, isn't it? I'd like to talk to her in the library.
Can she stay for dinner, if she wants?" Kessa quietly pressed
her teeth together, to stop babbling. Her sister might've known how
to fake
belonging
in a place like this, but Kessa would've
been more confident pretending to be a servant.

"That
should all be fine, miss. I'll tell Tania."

"Thank
you."

The
usual place for guests, apparently, was the sitting room to the left
of the front door. Nicia was warming herself at its fireplace.
Someone'd taken her cloak, and she wore a gray and green dress, with
brown and green boots. Her hair was a shade lighter than her mother's
medium-chestnut, and her skin just as pale.

Her
mother's charisma and drive, however, wasn't so focused within Nicia;
the girl cried, "Oh, Kessa!" and flung herself into a hug,
babbling worry on Kessa's shoulder.

"Ah . . ."
Kessa patted Nicia's back. "Can you stay for dinner?"

"Yes!
Mother dropped me off, I can stay as long as you'll have me, she'll
come check after dinner, I was so worried when I heard!"

Kessa
untangled the sentence. "That . . . that's good.
That you can stay. I'm sorry you were worried."

"I
should've invited you harder! I feared it might be awkward with just
my family there and no one you knew but me and Mother and I didn't
want you uncomfortable but if I'd insisted . . ."

"Shhh."
She patted the sheltered girl's back. "I'm . . .
well enough. Wouldn't have stopped my shop being burned down anyway.
Here, I've asked . . ." She looked around, but
the maidservant'd vanished. "Well, I asked for tea, in the
library. Would that be all right?"

"Of
course." Nicia pulled away to wipe at her face, elbow moving in
Kessa's downcast vision. "You're really not hurt?"

"I
just have to run to the water closet sometimes. Purgatorie effects."
Kessa offered her hand.

Nicia
let herself be led through the hallway. "Are you all right?
Wait, you already said. Can I do anything?"

"Yes.
I need your help."

"Really?!"

"Really.
I'll tell you in the library."

Once
they got there, Kessa looked around, saw no servants, and closed the
door. She drew Nicia to the farthest wall and dropped her voice. "I
need help finding a potion."

Nicia
clasped her hands in front of her chest. "All right. What is
it?"

"A . . ."
. . . barrenness potion.
Nicia wouldn't let
that go without question. "Blight. I need to explain. Let me
think."

The
alchemy of a lie was in how much truth one used. This recipe . . .
might require a great deal of truth. "Nicia, can you keep a
secret?"

The
girl held her breath, nodded with her hair bobbing on her shoulders,
then apparently realized Kessa wasn't watching her face and
whispered, "I promise."

It
was a hard thing, to trust someone besides her crèche-siblings.
Kessa had to take a few breaths herself, pushing back flashes of
darkness, of the hands around her ankle, pulling her down a moment
before she'd have been on the roof and away. "I was attacked.
Some four men. They . . . had an ointment."

Nicia
wasn't breathing. Kessa wrapped her darker hands around Nicia's cold
ones. "I can think of three likely things they'd . . .
put on themselves, and be uncertain of it. Two . . .
Inappropriate
, Kymus – Iathor might say." Nicia
made a soft, unhappy noise. Kessa squeezed her hands. "But
one . . . a blight, to poison the field so no seed
could ever grow."

"
Kessa
."

"Shh.
I got away."

"But–"

There
was a tapping at the door. Kessa lifted her head a bit. "Come
in, please."

It
was the servant girl with a tray of tea. "You'll be having this
in here, miss?"

"Please,"
Kessa said.

The
girl set the tray on the central table. "Should I stay, miss?"

"No,
this is fine." Cups, teapot, spoons, honey, napkins . . .
"This is wonderful. Thank you."

The
girl curtseyed. "I'll come back when Tania has dinner."

"Thank
you." Kessa flashed her a close-eyed smile, and sat on the couch
to pour. It felt awkwardly civilized.

Nicia
went to check the door, then curled up next to Kessa. "You think
it was . . ." she whispered.

"Some
smeared on my dress. I tasted it. It was . . . bitter.
Poison-like. I think someone wanted no part-barbarian heir." Her
voice was steady. Her hands shook, for no good reason; she set the
pot down with one cup half-poured. "True alchemy, with
metal-salts. I want . . . to brew it. Taste it, find
if it matches."

"But,
if it's a potion to make someone barren . . ."
Nicia took finished filling their cups.

"Just
tasting wouldn't likely affect me." Something like the green
poison she'd used to escape . . . That would've
destroyed her, yes. "And it wasn't one to be
tasted
. They
didn't try to pour it down my throat."

"You
mean . . ." Now Nicia set the pot down quickly.

Kessa
sat very straight. "They were putting it on . . .
themselves.

"But . . .
why put it on . . . themselves? Why not . . .
a finger. Or a spoon." The apprentice sounded queasy.

Kessa
felt queasy, and told herself it was just needing the hornflower
paste soon. "Something to salt the fields permanently . . .
It'd have to sear and scar. And touch more than just . . .
It'd have to get inside more." Another of the books Keli'd
loaned had been an anatomy text, with drawings. And Laita'd told her,
long ago . . . "Men don't drip their seed. It's
spat out, fast. It must get spat into the womb, to grow. Perhaps if
it's carrying poison-salt, wherever it lands . . . it
blights."

Nicia
made another tiny, upset noise.

Kessa
tried not to think about the rest of the recipe; how much
poison-salt, how thoroughly spread . . . She drank her
tea too fast, though it burned her tongue. "Do you want honey?"

"Kessa!"
Nicia managed to keep her voice to a squeak. "How can you
think
about . . . !"

She
looked into her cup. "I'm trying to keep busy. But I want to
know for certain what that stuff was. Because . . ."
She took a breath, and mixed in the lie. "I'm all but sitting on
the records for every alchemist in the city. The men had to've been
given it. If I know what it is, then it all depends on who had access
to the recipe and ingredients."

There
were other reasons she'd thought of in the carriage, before Iathor
arrived. Blackmail, for one. If she could assemble the pieces for a
plausible accusation, package it up for her brothers to hold, that
might be a shield – or at least a vengeance. Whether the elder
brother'd believe it of the younger, whether believing would break
blood-ties . . .
Thioso
seemed willing to kick
anthills and look under rocks.

Besides,
if she was going to be sickly furious and trembling every time she
thought of the mess, she wanted to know exactly what she was furious
about.

Nicia's
mind worked perhaps too well. "Why not tell Master Kymus?"

"He's
upset enough." Kessa wondered if that were truth, lie, or
something blended. "Perhaps in a few fivedays."

"I
suppose." Nicia blew on her cup of tea and sipped carefully.
"Mother says he told the guild officers . . ."

"About
me. And the," she spoke, as if it were just a word, "betrothal."

"Yes."
From the way the younger girl was turning her cup in her hands, she
was probably looking at it more than at Kessa. "I thought you
didn't really like him."

I
don't.
But she'd let him hold her, in the carriage. She drank her
slightly-cooled tea. "I suppose I've not really decided,"
she said, which was more truth than she'd given even Laita. Kessa
scowled, and said nearly all truth, low and growling. "But if
someone had me attacked, to keep him from getting his heir . . .
I'll not reward that."

"Oh."

She
slanted a look through her hair, to see Nicia looking into her
uplifted cup as if there'd be some miraculous brew within. Kessa
added, "That's secret, too. I'm not even telling my sister. Her
health's bad enough without fretting over me."

"So
why are you telling me?"

Kessa
leaned against the couch, shifting to keep the cotton padding from
bunching too uncomfortably. "I'm just a spottily trained
herb-witch. You're a well-trained apprentice alchemist with
herb-witch grounding. Nicia . . . I need you. You'll
know where to look, when all I can do is start at one side of a shelf
and turn pages." Too much truth, but truth was the only coin she
had.

"All
right, but if Mother catches me looking, I'll need something to tell
her."

Kessa
tipped her head back and smiled, eyes closed. "Tell her I'm
researching something to avoid, mayhap? It is . . .
obvious, if someone disapproves of little black-haired boys running
around."

"She
may figure it out."

"If
she doesn't catch you, she won't."

"True."
Nicia sounded doubtful.

"If
I vanish somehow, tell her. Tell Ky . . . Iathor. Tell
the whole blighted bunch of them, and the city watch as well."

"All
right." Nicia set down her cup and stood, moving to see which
books Kessa'd gotten. "We'll have to put these back before
anyone notices what's out."