Herb-Wife (Lord Alchemist Duology) (57 page)

"I
don't know. Danger of it . . . The day after I said
yes. The night before. But Rain's justice, that's how it goes. Bit by
bit, washing away. And after, Herbmaster Keli hadn't found anything
that'd work on me." Her words were like a poisoned stream,
flowing past as if it were
normal
. "Did you know Darul's
sister had her second child cut from her? Thin, she is, and said it
laid crosswise . . ."

"It's
early yet," Iathor whispered. "Purgatorie could–"

"No!"
She cringed again, as if he were a danger.

"Chh."
He touched her hair, stroking gingerly.

The
door from the servants' room opened; Bynae peered in. "M'lady?"

Kessa
looked up, her head moving beneath Iathor's hand. "I'm all
right."

That
expression on Bynae's face wasn't revulsion, nor any twitch from
seeing Kessa's eyes. Iathor looked from one woman to the other, and
sudden certainty was like being sucked under, into acid. He turned
and yanked the door fully open; Bynae stumbled forward. He caught
her.

"Ah!"
The girl instinctively tried to pull away. "M'lord?"

"Be
still," he said. "Breathe through your mouth."

"What?
But–"

Kessa,
behind him, stood – grabbing at his back and shoulder more
heavily and awkwardly than he'd expected. He closed his eyes and
concentrated, bracing himself against Kessa's weight and ignoring it.
There was a chance, a slight chance, and he dreaded it.

Bittersweet
honey, on Bynae's breath.

"What
color," he whispered, "was the potion." He couldn't
make it a question. He could only look into Bynae's dark green eyes,
and watch her pupils.

"Red,"
she said. "Like blood."

"Who
gave it to you?" He barely noticed as Kessa's hands left his
back.

Bynae
started to answer, then paused, pupils flaring. She looked past
Iathor's arm. "M'lady?"

Some
steps away, Kessa replied, "Your choice." Her voice was
entirely miserable. "Say what you will."

The
servant girl looked back at Iathor. "It's not m'lady's fault,"
she said. "It's not! It's my fault. I said my sister'd be there.
You mustn't yell at her, it's not her fault."

He
pulled his hands away before he gripped her too tightly. "You've
taken the draught. Blame or fault is washed away. Who gave it to
you?"

She
tried to look away. He put his hand under her chin. She had to blink
away tears as she said, "Viam. M'lady called my name. I looked."

Stole
a dramsman . . .
Iathor's hand drifted to his
side. Kessa'd remembered the months-ago lecture. "When did he
give it to you?"

"Outside
the warehouse. The door opened – I was so scared, I thought it
was one of the men. But it was Viam." Bynae wiped her eyes. "He
said everything'd be all right, I could marry him, but I had to drink
something. But . . ."

"My
brother's man . . . Wait. What color is his hair,
now?" The men were hired by a blond; Iasen's cook was thin,
dark-haired. But if he'd sought some favor, to wed the girl after
all . . .

"Dark,
m'lord." Bynae blinked at him, then looked across his arm again
and moved past.

Two
of them.
One renegade servant, Iathor could perhaps believe. Two?
And Iasen not realize what his words permitted? And the man who'd
hired the attackers in Aeston had been described as dark-haired,
pale-eyed.

Kelen,
Iasen's groom, had greeted the door with his hair bleached from dark
red to strawberry blond. Teck . . . had dark hair. Or
had once had it.

And.
Iasen took the hired buggy, that night Kessa'd been attacked, walking
home. His own, he'd claimed to be damaged, but his men had fixed it
in time for Earl Irilye's harvest ball.

Was
it only that, to make her believe Iasen's orders had her nearly
raped?

Iathor
turned to look at his wife, and her dramsman servant. Kessa drooped,
leaning on Bynae's arm, while the younger girl fretted over her.
Iathor tried to make his voice soft, and neutral. "Kessa. You
once said . . . you'd not spoken to Iasen much.
So . . . he couldn't have known you used your own
maiden's blood to brew dry tea." Iasen's expression of shock,
the way he'd suggested she'd used a healing potion to seem a virgin
on her wedding night – had to be Iasen's biases, nothing more.

Or
not. Kessa's voice was a dead thing. "He came to my shop, him
and his dark-haired man, the day after my moon-flows started and
you'd gotten me hornflower paste for the pain. I can't think he'd not
realize what the reek was, at least in hindsight. He noticed it plain
enough. I told him I'd no interest in you, for all that you fed me,
and he left."

Iathor
ignored how Bynae tried to glare, frightened of offending him but
driven to protect her lady. He asked, "And are there other
times?"

Kessa . . .
didn't glare, even at the floor. "The guild office workrooms.
Nicia was in the water-closet. He wanted to know why I was there.
Thought I was after you. Kept trying to be in arm's reach of me.
Nicia came. He was civil near her, and went away."

Iathor
remembered that; Iasen'd come to shout at Iathor, denying he'd spoken
to Kessa, only seen her. Nicia'd been . . . a poor
liar, but fled before he could find the truth.

He
could even understand why Kessa hadn't spoken, with a clarity as if
he'd tasted mindbright again. She'd
told
him, in her Kellisan
guise. Mere spouses weren't family. But brothers were. And family, to
Kessa . . . Died and killed for each other, he
suspected, if there was need.

"Oh,
my lady wife," he said.
Did you not hear my answers to the
priests? I will be as constant as the trade winds. I will defend. I
will keep my fields.

Or
perhaps she'd forgotten, in the day's confusion and aftermath. The
way she stood showed a long gash in her coat, and she kept her weight
off that leg. Iathor went to the women and knelt. Bynae was too
confused to remain wary, but Kessa's stillness troubled him. He
raised the hem of her torn skirt slowly, up past her knee-tied
stockings, midway to her hips. The slash, as long as his hand,
slanted across the outside of her thigh. It was crusted with blood,
not oozing, but he hissed anyway – regretting it when Kessa
flinched.

He
stood and fixed a stern gaze on Bynae. "That wound needs more
care than it's gotten." As he'd expected, the dramsman girl
cringed, guilt-pained. Iathor reached into his robes for an
appropriate vial. "My lady wife should have a warm bath, and a
healing ointment once the scab has dislodged gently. I'm going to be
very busy."

Bynae
took the vial timidly, and tried to herd Kessa toward the bathroom.
Kessa seemed less balky than oblivious, looking up at Iathor.

This
time, those alien eyes were too wounded to make him flinch.

Once
Bynae'd gotten Kessa into the bathroom, Iathor returned to where
Brague sat on the floor and watched over Dayn's sleep. "M'lord?"
the dramsman asked.

"Viam
gave Bynae the draught," Iathor said. "Kessa had the luck
and timing to turn the girl's attention upon herself at the crucial
instant."

Brague
caught his breath. "Your brother had two draughts . . ."

"I
can hope Viam only sought to please his master, thinking some
careless remark gave him leave or command to act, and wanted to
ensure the bait, Bynae, couldn't betray the plot. Perhaps the second
vial was left unguarded." Iathor bit back the pain in his voice.
"But Kessa finally admitted to speaking to my brother, times
she'd denied before. One, I'd suspected. The other doesn't surprise
me. I need to write to Thioso. Mayhap it will grant him permission
after the fact, to take my . . . To take Iasen into
custody, and question his dramsmen with Tryth."

Brague
stood. "I'll fetch paper at once, m'lord."

"Moreover,
Brague, please tell my cousins I suspect Iasen or his dramsmen were
behind the attack. If any of them appear here, they should be treated
as . . . dangerous." And where had the laughing
younger brother gone, who threw snowballs, who collected leaves, who
brewed potions with Iathor? Where was the gallant youth who bowed to
nobles' daughters and hotly defended their reputations? Iathor even
wondered when he'd lost the man who promised courtesans more coin
than he carried, extravagant with money Iathor later paid to honor
his brother's debts.

When
had his brother become someone who let his dramsmen hear,
This
woman should bear no child
or
This woman should die
?

He
sat beside Dayn, belatedly double-checking that the young man's color
was good, and his pulse and breathing steady. The soldier's elixir he
must've used would cause exhaustion eventually. Usually those effects
could be staved off till the heart's pounding fell to a certain
level, when the danger was over; the longer the combat and stress,
the longer the sleep, though. Too long, and the drinker might die
from the after-effects.

I
will be as constant as the trade winds. I will defend. I will keep my
fields.
But he hadn't been there, to defend his wife. Dayn had
done so in his stead, and likely better than Iathor himself would've
managed, but . . . When Kessa needed him, twice now,
Iathor'd not even known she was in danger.

If
it was indeed his brother's doing, by carelessness or malice . . .
Iathor would see to it the danger was removed, and keep safe his wife
and their child.

When
Brague returned with paper, ink, quill, and wax, Iathor took them to
the sitting room, and wrote grimly. Now and then he wiped his face
upon his sleeve and cursed his failing vision.

Chapter
XXXVI

O
bedient
to direction – even if not Kessa's, so long as she didn't
contradict – Bynae got her into the bath. The water stung on
her wounds, for hasty ointment hadn't entirely mended one, and she'd
not bothered with the other. The healing ointment itself burned as if
boiling; Kessa whined and had to reassure Bynae it was necessary, the
pain just a drawback to immunity.

She
didn't want to go back into the bedroom, and perhaps face Iathor.
Still husband? Still by choice? It made no sense, and between fearing
he planned something truly sadistic, or the desperate trust he wasn't
such a man . . . One was right, and she couldn't tell
which came from the head and which the heart, to be overruled as
foolish and stupid.

But
after Kessa'd soaked a while, Bynae bundled her into a robe and got
her out again. There was no one else around as the girl fussed Kessa
into bed, and fed her broth-heavy soup in a cup. Then Bynae fretted
until Kessa lay down and closed her eyes.

Though
she'd only intended to calm Bynae, when Kessa opened her eyes again,
the room beyond the bed-curtains was dark, the Incandescens Stones
shielded. There was weight on the blankets, against her legs. She she
pushed herself up on an elbow; the lump gave a sleepy, familiar
grumble and tried to burrow against the backs of her knees.

She
lay back down again so she'd not wake him, wondering why he was
there.
"You don't
use
a child! Not if
you care for it!"
he'd said, and she supposed he was right.
Tanas hadn't cared overmuch for the crèche, beyond keeping them
healthy enough to steal for him – or, in Laita's case, to give
him her patrons' coins. So they'd cared for each other. Maila hadn't
treated Kessa as Herbmaster Keli treated her daughter, Nicia.

Perhaps
it's better if I've naught to do with raising a child.
Though she
thought her brother Tag cared for
his
crèche, mayhap even too
much, and
he
surely trained them in thievery or the
courtesan's trade.

When
she slept again, her dreams had her in the cellars Maila'd lived and
worked in, trying to learn potions from books where the letters
blurred and faded if she glanced away.

She
woke to light beyond the bed-curtains, no one else on the bed, and
her belly growling. The murmuring beyond the curtain . . .
Dayn, and Bynae.

"No,"
Iathor's dramsman was saying. "I'm sure she understands. From
what Loria says, it's not like falling in love, but you do want to
stay
near
. It fades a bit, especially if there're others
around."

With
a distant, sad note, Bynae said, "It feels . . .
very close, though. Like with Viam."

Dayn
was quiet for a breath. "There are two potions. One's older,
stronger. Brague's draught was that kind. Mine's the later one that
m'lord devised. Not knowing which Master Iasen makes . . .
I'd thought the newest recipe. But if the feeling doesn't fade, you
may do better talking to Brague than to me."

Bynae
said something muffled, and indistinct. Dayn made reassuring noises,
"No, no, she won't. She's just upset you took the draught
without choosing it."

"I
led her there!" Then Bynae dropped her voice; Kessa heard
killed
, but naught else.