Herb-Wife (Lord Alchemist Duology) (13 page)

It
was wonderfully warm inside the hospice. Sponsored by the Alchemists'
Guild, it didn't need huge fireplaces; instead, low metal stands held
Fervefax Stones, and the basement workroom's large hearths kept the
floors from being chill. Brick walls were covered with plaster and
whitewash inside, and little windowsill pots held green, growing
things. It smelled mostly of soap.

Nicia
hugged Kessa, babbled something about duties and Master Peran, and
darted off, leaving Dayn and Kessa in the entry room, along with a
bored apprentice boy who ignored them in favor of a forearm-length
chalkboard of notes.

Kessa
eyed the room's chairs.
If I sit, I'll take far too long to get to
the hospice library.
A trove of books, focused on the information
she'd want: alchemy that affected the body, rather than potions to
make plants grow better, or set fires, or make stone from mud.

Dayn
asked, quietly, "Will you be visiting Darul Reus while you're
here?"

She
almost glared at him, but he'd somehow managed to ask without a pinch
of blame, or sarcasm, or anything but . . . wanting to
know, she supposed. "I don't know," she said, wrapping her
arms around herself. Her brew'd been half his blighting, dropped into
the tea they'd shared. The moment she'd tasted it, she'd known
potions had mixed.

She
could've reached across the table and knocked it from his hand.

But
that would've left him with more of a hold over her, and the hold
he'd had on her sister, and still trying to claim "interest"
on the loan in "trade." So Kessa'd hoped the brew's mixed
effect would last only the evening.

Instead,
he'd been a babbling idiot when his hired cook came, and Kessa'd been
arrested near dawn.

Rain's
own justice, flowing down,
she thought. "Perhaps . . .
after I've done research here."

"Of
course. Shall we walk to the guild offices after? We'll likely catch
up with m'lord if we go before dinner."

Two,
three hours.
It might be enough. And while she'd not've set foot
onto darkening streets alone, she supposed Dayn'd be sufficient
escort for anything but a true assassination attempt. And that? She'd
overheard enough of what the Lord Alchemist'd said, in his Lord
Alchemist voice, to believe she'd be avenged with all the vial-held
wrath within his skill. She nodded. "That's a good idea. Thank
you. Will – will you tell me, some quarter hour before we
should go?"

"Of
course, miss."

"Thank
you." It'd nearly be a relief, to have him say
m'lady
honestly, instead of hearing it behind his polite words. "I'll
just be in the library, so . . ."

Dayn
broke from perfect politeness to interrupt. "I'll enjoy the
comfortable chairs in the meeting room outside it."

"Mm."
She started down the hall, still ignored by the apprentice in the
entry room. "I've seen you wander all around the guild offices."

"M'lord's
not been in danger there. I doubt Brague'll let him alone now, in
case the recent incidents heralded some threat to him."

"Ah."
Kessa wondered if she felt protected, smothered, or both.

Dayn
did let her go into the library on her own – after he looked
into the single, book-lined room and found it empty. To her mild
surprise, he even let hospice apprentices and journeymen venture in
for reference tomes. They didn't linger; she wondered they were
avoiding the half-savage, or Dayn's bodyguard stare.

Whichever,
it helped. She could stand and flip through the thick pages –
or carefully turn cracking ones with faded ink, not quite decrepit
enough for whatever fate old books suffered after wooden copies of
their pages were carved so they could be re-made. Perhaps they'd cut
out the pages and carefully glue new ones into the binding.

Most
of the books were concerned with healing, not blighting.
Strengthening a conception was more studied than uprooting one, but
even that had more variations than permanently salting a woman's
womb.

Still,
by the time Nicia showed up, she'd one book out and open on the
table, and another – small, with crackling yellow pages and
stormcloud ink – in her lap.

Nicia
put her elbows on the table, squinting at the first. "Assured
conception?"

"It's
probably a good idea." Kessa held up the little book. "And
this may answer that other matter."

The
apprentice came to lean over Kessa's chair and shoulder, their ears
nearly touching. Kessa held the book so they could both read the
cover and Nicia whispered, "Men's maladies, in the old empire."

"Except,
it seems, not all imperial men . . . started out as
men."

"
Shape-changing
?"

"No.
But a woman who can't bear babes is hardly a
woman
, mm? This
book's half history. The old empire's tangled laws that only men
could be body-guards, but no man could guard an empress?" Kessa
opened the book again, and tapped the paragraph she'd found.

Nicia
ran her finger just above the paper, not quite touching, reading
silently.

"Earth
and Rain," Nicia breathed. "You were exactly right."

"May've
seen something like this, in passing, once." Kessa slowly turned
the fragile pages. "Look to be recipes here."

Nicia
put a finger at one, skimming down the words faster than Kessa could
manage. "Yes. That one." She swallowed, audible next to
Kessa's ear. "Which of us brews it?"

Kessa
mouthed a few of the ingredients' names. A bitter brew. "I could
try. I've no shop, though."

"How
much do we need?"

"A
spoonful would do. Could it be brewed that small?"

"I'm
not sure. Some things won't combine in less – or more –
than a certain amount. Some will."

"Even
if not . . . I might be able to taste if it's the
right sort of thing."

Nicia
ran her fingertip down the edge of the page again. "I can do it
here, or at home. We've all of these. If I cut the recipe down
enough, nothing should be missed."

A
strange thing for the girl to say, but it took a heartbeat before
Kessa realized she'd somehow corrupted the apprentice into such
habits. She murmured, "Don't do anything that'll get you in
trouble."

"If
anyone catches me . . . I'll explain it's so you can
know what to avoid, right?"

Kessa
nodded, slowly. "Right." She handed that book to Nicia,
then reached for the open one, with the conception recipe. "If
there's paper, I'd like to copy this down. It's true alchemy, not
just herb-witchery. It looks interesting."

Chapter
IX

T
he
next fiveday was a whirl of activity – most passing Kessa by
as if she were some lost spirit. Laita and Nicia came for dinner
together, which let Kessa ask her sister about her new job and
entirely avoid questions about attackers and mysterious brews. (Nicia
said her project was going well; that was enough.) The cobbler came,
taking measurements and drawing shapes on thin leather, and left with
a promise to deliver presentable slippers for the immunity testing,
and a proper set of outdoor and indoor boots later.

She
rarely saw Iathor. He'd been sucked into the guild offices. Brague
only said, "Lots of people'll report odd things, for a gold
flower."

For
speed's sake, Kessa'd agreed she didn't need a new dress yet; all she
had to do was stand while Loria and the young maidservants pinned and
fitted dresses that'd been Iathor's mother's. Partly as a concession
to how wretched Kessa looked in grays, Loria made a pale cream,
elbow-length cloak. The other part was Nicia's idea:
"To
prove you've really taken the draught . . . Something
that'd show stains?"

The
dramsman's draught was as red as fresh blood, vivid as a wound if she
attempted to spill the vial while seeming to drink it . . .

She
didn't intend to spill it. A part of her was even curious. The
rest . . . numb, or some cowardly creeping thought at
night that they were wrong, and the draught would steal her will
after all.

It
was good to be in the amber basement workroom, brick and stone and
polished fixtures casting a warm glow over everything. She could do
the precise measuring and mixing the conception brew required, and
set it steeping or simmering as needed. It didn't let her mind drift
to other things.

And
then it wasn't a fiveday to the testing anymore. Loria woke her from
tangled dreams of carriage rides and alchemy lessons. Wrapped in her
robe, Kessa was put in the breakfast nook and given tea, hot bread
rolls, and a promise of egg-crepes filled with shaved cheese and
slivers of ham. Iathor wasn't there yet, but she'd only buttered her
roll when she heard him in the hallway. ". . . watch
over me, of course, and Dayn will ensure Kessa's safety. Blight, she
needs a bodyguard."

Dayn's
voice murmured. Iathor replied, "Good. I'll let you see to
that."

Brague's
quiet rumble was close enough to make out. "She's got a
crèche-brother . . ."

"Earth
and Rain!" Iathor swore, just outside the archway into the nook.
"Dare to suggest that to her face, Brague?"

Brague
chuckled. "Perhaps not, m'lord."

Iathor
and his dramsmen had seen Kessa's crèche-brother, Burk – and
she knew they suspected she'd at least one other, though Laita, Burk,
and Kessa'd kept Tag and Jontho (fagin and thief) out of sight. When
Iathor appeared, dramsmen in tow, Kessa asked, "What's this
about Burk?"

"
Not
my idea," Iathor said, sitting. Brague's expression, Kessa saw
through her hair, was as bland as if he were playing cards.

Kessa
decided not to hide that she'd overheard. "Why do I need a
bodyguard?"

As
if by silent signal, Dayn and Brague both slipped into the kitchen.
Iathor glanced after them, but looked back too quickly for her to
examine his expression. She focused on the gray sleeves of his tunic
and his pale, interlaced fingers. "If you were attacked to keep
me from having an heir, you need
two
bodyguards, and perhaps
one of us take a third, for more overlap." He took a roll and
juggled it in his hands when he found it hot. "I'm nearly
tempted to ask Prince Tegar the cost of importing a 'made-man' guard
from the old empire. He's got one for his wife, and will have one for
his daughter for her spring blossoming."

"Why
import someone?" Kessa took a bite in anticipation of an
informative lecture.

She
wasn't disappointed. "The old empire is so crowded, they
routinely make women barren and treat them as men in their armies,
and as women's bodyguards. According to my history classes in Cym,
younger daughters might be given to the army once a poor family had
heir and spare for their land. Bastard girls and other foundlings
left at Earth priest doorsteps . . . Servants,
courtesans, priests themselves, or soldiers. The army pays for
upbringing and training, when they take such a foundling. They make
up the bulk of the spies and scouts, and entire crossbow squads may
be womb-blighted women. Of course, that's illegal in Cymelia, without
permission of the Princeps."

Kessa
didn't choke on her second bite. "What's illegal? Women in the
army, or making barren 'men' of them?"

"The
latter, which renders the former impractical. There's still a vast
frontier, so it's not
necessary
to find places for childless
people. Further, there were attempts, early on, to pressure lesser
nobility into blighting their bloodlines so someone with tenuous
connections could claim their land. Or outright attempts to poison
someone's wife. Old history; there's not been such a case for
centuries."

Almost,
she asked
Why not?
But keeping him on that trail . . .
Too risky. Instead, she said, "Why not ask the Princeps for
permission, then? A maid and bodyguard would be . . .
fewer people to take the draught."

"True,
but training a maidservant in weapons – even presuming one
could be found who'd the stomach for it – would take years.
Importing a trained bodyguard takes a year or less. Expensive,
though, and sometimes ships go missing . . ."

They
ate in silence for a bit, till Kessa said, "You know . . .
you might be looking at the wrong side of it. I don't need a
military-trained bodyguard, do I? Was Dayn army-trained?"

"Mmmm,
no . . ."