Herb-Wife (Lord Alchemist Duology) (5 page)

Herbmaster
Keli took the mug and set it on the table. "He's got youngsters
to tidy up. Let them earn their keep."

On
their way out, Iathor said, "Kessa." She turned her head;
he'd his hand slightly raised.

If
he'd been one of her foster-brothers, she'd have stepped against him
and held him tightly, biting her lip to keep from seeming too upset
lest they go off and do something stupid. If she'd not agreed to wed
him, she'd have walked past, the gesture unmatched. Unsure what she
should be feeling, she brushed the backs of her fingers against his
knuckles. Then she turned and followed Dayn.

Dayn
fit the surroundings, as Kessa didn't. Indoor ankle-boots, soft on
the wood floors or carpets. Hose of a browner gray than alchemists
used. A gray tabard, belted over his buff-colored tunic, with the
Kymus family's designs (some alchemical form she should recognize by
now, perhaps). Blond, and tanned from riding on the back of Iathor's
carriage, but still paler than she. She'd seen his eyes once. She
supposed they were a good blue, and his face attractive.

Herbmaster
Keli fit the house, too, though her thick braids were as dark as hair
got without barbarian blood: the color of a chestnut horse and
streaked with gray. Pale skin. Blue eyes with a touch of green to
them. Her dress was more formal than befit Kessa's back room, though.

Kessa
was about to apologize for the open basin with the morning's bloody
cotton, but the scent was too faint . . . The clean
bowl was on the lower shelf of the washing basin's stand. Someone'd
tidied. It was between gratifying and an eerie invasion, reminding
her she'd lost everything she'd considered hers.

"Do
you need to change the padding, dear?" Keli asked, gently. "I
can wait. It's good to check, see if it's too heavy a flow.
Purgatorie should make a lighter one than usual."

"There's . . .
There's a water-closet just back a bit. I'll go there." She put
the clean pads, still on the chair, into the basin. Somehow making
her voice firm, she said, "I'll be right back, Herbmaster."

The
water-closet room was big, as she'd vaguely remembered. The floor was
wood, but tiles in alternating blue and gold went halfway up the
cream-plaster wall. There was a pump to bring up water, a bucket to
pour it into the tub or the face basin, and a drain beneath the tub.
One wall had a small, high window of thick, greenish glass, that
could be swung out when the room needed airing. The nightsoil chair
was in its own little nook, with a chilly, underground dankness; it
was shielded from the rest of the room by curtains. Shelves inside
the nook held saucers of clae to catch noisome odors.

She
left the basin and used padding in a corner of the water-closet room,
and gave Dayn a helpless look through her hair as she passed him in
the hall. Hopefully he'd tell whoever was sentenced to . . .
tidying.

Inside
the bedroom, Keli looked out the window, holding the curtains open
thoughtfully. It let Kessa see her dress from more than the waist
down: a rich, festival-quality green, with pale embroidery at the
sleeves and hem, and a light brown belt. Kessa dropped her gaze as
the woman turned around.
She must've stayed the night with her
relatives, at that harvest-time party.

"Kessa,
dear. Sit. You look like a lost spirit."

She
felt like one. She sat on the bed. "I'm sorry, Herbmaster. I
hope . . . I didn't make things harder."

"
What
?"
Keli paused in checking Kessa's forehead for fever.

"I
used an herbal poison. It will mark them." She wasn't sure how
badly. She'd never actually used it for defense before.

"And
well it should!" The older woman sat beside her. "Is it one
I should teach everyone?"

Kessa
shook her head. "No. Anyone else'd die in minutes, I think."
The blanket was gently rough under her hand, the robe softer where
she held it shut. "I broke guild rules to make it."

"You
used it in self-defense. Forgiven."

"Will . . ."
. . . Master Kymus . . . Kymus . . .
Iathor . . .
". . . that
suffice for the guild, too?"

"If
it doesn't, I'll have words. So'd Iathor. If you'd not had it, you
might've been killed."

"It
nearly killed me itself," Kessa said, with a puff of dry
laughter. "I lost the Purgatorie from my pouch. And then, my
shop . . ."
Burning, burning, a sun-forge
behind the window.

"Shh."
Keli put her arms around Kessa's shoulders. "You're alive.
Anything else, we can try to mend."

She
shivered, pushing away darkness and wet hands on her skin, and
realized what Keli was likely edging towards. "I got away
before . . . Before one had done more than paw."
She puffed a laugh again. "Their good fortune, with the poison
in me. Blood, spit . . . They'd not've liked to lose
those bits, if they'd done what they wanted."

"Thank
Earth and Rain," Keli sighed in relief, hugging Kessa tightly.
After a moment, she added, more briskly, "Though you should
know, Iathor wouldn't cast you out, even if you answered
differently."

"I'm
immune. He wouldn't care if I were a thrice-married courtesan,
grandmother of fifty, so long as he could pour enough youth potions
down my throat."

It
startled a laugh from Keli. "Well, he cares that he'd not upset
you in
some
matters, at least."

"I
suppose it'd be hard to get an heir, if things were too . . .
upsetting." She felt even more numb. "Herbmaster?"

"You
get to call me 'Keli,' child, in private at the least."

"Keli."
Kessa managed a wan smile, though still looking at their knees. "You
remember, that night in your carriage, after dinner here?" Only
two evenings ago, and yet another lifetime.

"After
you took all those metal-salts, to learn their tastes. Of course,
dear."

Kessa
closed her eyes. "I'm too skinny, for easy children. I'm likely
to die of even one, aren't I." She wanted to make that a
question, and couldn't.

The
older woman took a breath. "Well. That's a hard one to predict."

"I
don't know where to look, for recipes of the deepest sleep that might
work on me." Let the bonesetters take their sharp knives of
metal or glass and cut into the body without killing.

"I'll
research the matter."

Yes,
that's what I meant to ask.
"Thank you. I'm all . . .
apart. I feel like a pool, that someone's thrown a stone into.
Ripples."

"I'm
not surprised, dear. Ah . . . Have you sent any
messenger to your sister yet?"

Kessa
shook her head, pained. "I've not even reported you'd offered to
hire her as a counter-girl." With room, board, and a portion of
the coin for the preparations she sold, the sickly Laita could leave
her job as a freelance courtesan. There were still complications,
such as a brother they'd not yet mentioned, but that brother, Jontho,
could find warm attics or other places to spend the winter without
catching a deathly chill or cough.

"She'll
be worried sick, won't she?"

Probably.
"She'd know to ask here." Kessa summoned up a smile.
"She'll likely show up any minute now."

There
was a tap on the door.

"Yes?"
Kessa called, wondering if she'd developed a gift for prophecy.

Apparently
not; it was Loria. "Kessa, dear heart. In an hour or so, would
you be up to going, well, to your shop? The clouds look to be
carrying snow, and if there's anything to salvage . . ."

Kessa
supposed there'd be clothes by then, or at least a sufficiently
covering cloak. "I suppose. Thank you."

Keli
asked, "Would you like to nap first? You seem tired."

"That's . . .
Yes. I guess I am." So strange. But she'd never left the green
poison in her body so long before, nor followed it the next day with
a healing draught.

"Then
I'll let you." Keli stood, with a final squeeze around Kessa's
shoulders. "Can Nicia visit you tomorrow, or tonight?"

"Probably?"
Kessa closed her eyes to smile up at the Herbmaster. "It's . . .
not my house."

From
the doorway, Loria muttered, "
Will
be, at least half."

Leaving,
Keli said, "She's a point, child. But I'll make sure it won't
inconvenience the
prior
majority owner."

It
was almost comforting. Kessa slipped from robe to blankets, towel
under her, and let her thoughts slide away.

Chapter
IV

A
s
the two women left, Thioso parked himself on the arm of the couch and
looked thoughtful. "And who do
you
think did for her
shop, and attacked her, Sir Kymus?"

Iathor
paced. "Wolf's the obvious candidate, though I'd not've thought
he'd spend such effort on hiring men – and he wasn't anywhere
gloating. I suppose there might be some quiet guild officer who
doesn't
want me having a son. I'm more concerned that the
Shadow Guild would prefer a weaker Lord Alchemist, and seek to drive
Kessa from the city."

"Not
pay her to . . . get close enough?" It was the
sort of look, the sort of tone, that should've been in a half-lit
room, not this noon-lit one.

"If
they were trying that, burning her shop and attacking her is hardly
likely to win her cooperation."

"Well,"
Thioso said, looking out the window, "there's two paths there.
The first that she wasn't cooperating, and they wanted to make a
point. The second . . . it's only her word, thus far,
that she was attacked at all. Burning her shop does leave her nowhere
else to go."

The
thought was appalling. Iathor was speechless, though . . .
there seemed something vastly wrong with that suggestion, which he'd
realize after a moment.

"Does
she have any family? Friends?"

Unknown
crèche brothers. Her foster sister, Laita, whom she apparently loved
as she did no one else . . . would risk her life for,
from what little Iathor'd seen. He frowned.

"Ah,
she does." Thioso nodded to himself. "I'd worry, with holds
on her like that. And . . . immune to the dramsman's
draught, she says?"

She
did?
She'd been desperate to protect that secret before. "I
believe so. She's not been fully tested yet."

The
watchman pushed himself upright. "I'd keep an eye on the girl;
see who she visits and who visits her. Could be deep conspiracies.
Or . . ." He shrugged. "Could just be
someone trying to scare her off, 'cause she threatens how things've
been. Could just be that extortionist. Who took her buggy?"

For
an honest watchman, Thioso had a dark, disturbing mind. "She
didn't say."

"Well,
I've questions to ask and places to search. Have you names of . . .
conservative guild officials? Ones who don't much care for
barbarians? Besides your brother, that is; you've told me he doesn't
like the girl."

Understatement.
Iathor sighed. "Might as well question them all, save the
Herbmaster. Alchemists are frequently conservative. It keeps us from
being blown up by trying new things. I'd not expect such vile
behavior from any of them, though." And the only alchemy
involved had been Kessa's poison.

"If
I could have another note, might make the questioning easier."

Iathor
waved for the man to follow him. "I'll draft one in my office."

Thioso
was gratifyingly quiet as Iathor phrased the letter that granted the
watchman the right to poke around the Alchemists' Guild, asking nosy
questions. As he waited for the ink to dry, Iathor remarked, "I'll
have to schedule a meeting – the officers, some selected
nobles – to witness her taking the draught. Some might oppose
the marriage, fearing she falsified her immunity." His brother,
for one.

"Now
that might be worth seeing." Thioso took the letter, scanning
the words.

Iathor
snagged it back, so he could affix a wax seal. Normally, his
signature should be enough, but more formality might make a point.
"If it goes as I expect, it will be boring. Any drinking of the
dramsman's draught is boring for the audience. They witness I've
broken that vial's seal, the subject drank, and I was the first being
the subject laid eyes upon. I avow that the physical signs were
shown. If binding some poor criminal, I'd give a command to prove I
could likewise command him to keep to the law. A parchment to this
effect is signed, and everyone goes to dinner."

Thioso
reclaimed the letter, grinning. "I'd still appreciate an
invitation, Sir Kymus." He dangled the paper. "I've
authority to investigate matters, after all, and I'd hate to use this
on its writer."

"If
you think it important." Iathor rolled his eyes.

"Mayhap.
My thanks for this." He flourished the paper again before
carefully tucking it into his belt-pouch.

Iathor
stood. "I want to find who harmed her, Thioso. Harmed her,
blackmailing her . . . I want those responsible, and
when I find them, I may well request leave of the city-prince, to
brew the draught for each and every one involved."