Herb-Witch (Lord Alchemist Duology) (40 page)

Burk
continued the keep-away. "So I asked Isera to have that night
free. When one of Tag's brats saw the night patrol go in, she went
a'knocking."

"He's
been on every night patrol I've heard 'bout. I'd roof-rats watching
both the Birch and Cat."

"Isera
was glad it was the Cat," Burk added. "But now she wants to
talk to the Birch's owner. Said it was
interesting
."

"Anyway,
she talked
to
him, not just
about
the night patrol."
Tag slouched on the floor behind the counter. "
He
said
he'd no taste for the one side, and looked foolish in the costumes of
t'other. The Cat's Mistress Zeli backed it up, no teasing about him
denyin' it. Seems he's no wind-spirit come to earth without fleshy
urges – but he doesn't want to risk picking some lass his
brother'd
already picked."

Kessa
just gaped. They grinned at her, as smug as if they'd stolen Kymus
from his dramsmen and presented him wrapped in an imperial carpet.
Finally, she managed, "At least he's
some
taste. Burk,
how could . . . Why'd she . . . Augh!"
She waved her hands in the air and went to swat Tag's out of her
jelly-pot. "Give me that. It only just arrived."

"We
know!" Tag smirked. "Waited till the servant rode off!"

"Oh!
You two . . . You're impossible!" Kessa sat on
her stool, as Burk was perched on the edge of the counter, and buried
her face in her hands, laughing through confused tears. She should be
relieved, like they were, with no good reason to stay worried.

"Hey,"
Burk said, concerned. He slid off and wrapped his arms around her
shoulders. "Hey, Kessa, hey."

"It's
all right, I'm all right." She patted awkwardly at him. "It's
just . ..  You two . . ."

"We're
being careful," Tag said. "Besides, not like he's the
Shadow-master. What's he gonna do, poison us? Put us on work-gangs?
Can't catch all of us anyway. We could keep folk well enough on the
work-gangs, worst case."

"Work-gang
folk aren't so bad," Burk said thoughtfully. "I bring 'em
extra bread when they're on dock repair. Aeston's prince doesn't put
people on ship-crews, not like Portguard, so it'd be over after a
month or two."

Kessa
protested, "But . . . Laita . . ."

Tag
waved a drumstick. "Laita's done nothing wrong. Jontho's as hard
to catch as me, and healthy as Burk if he got caught after all.
Kessa, we're not little brats and you the only grown up."

"No!
But I don't want to bring you trouble!"

"Put
baskets out at night?" Tag suggested. "I can keep the
roof-rats from getting too fat . . ."

"He's
got dogs," Kessa said.

"So
I feed the dogs first, make friends with 'em."

"Tag!"
She tried to glare at him, but he'd closed his eyes.

Burk
petted her hair. "Anyway, you don't have to worry about that
part anymore. Just worry about whether you
like
him or not."

"But . . ."
Blight it, brothers were supposed to help her be sensible, not
stupid. "But how'll we get good dry tea for Laita?" It
sounded weak and plaintive even to her.

"You
know the taste of the good stuff, right?" Tag said. "He's
no snob if he'll chat with Isera and Mistress Zeli in a brothel's
kitchen. Why would he balk at you buying the stuff for your sister?"

"He–
he might just want the beds for his night patrol. He'd be polite for
that, right?" She tried to think that he might be civil to
someone he paid, and vile to someone who couldn't fight back. Except
then he'd have done more in the cell than dose her with Tryth Elixir.

Tag
snorted. "Kessa, if you don't like him, just tell him
no
."

"I
don't know if I like him or not! He's annoying." She slumped.
"Blight. That doesn't even make sense to
me
."

Burk
laughed, the sound booming from his chest. "Take him to a Kelp
Street tavern. I can be there, Tag can be there, Jontho and Laita can
be there. You can talk, all safe."

"And,"
Tag said, "mayhap he'll not be so high-handed somewhere besides
his
place. Save up a few coins and drag
him
to dinner."

"So
Tych can pick his pockets?" Kessa asked.

"Nah,
Tych's no good at picking pockets. Kel, he's the pocket-boy. I should
bring him?"

"No,
no, don't make extra work for the man's poor bodyguard. He's got
enough troubles." And, unless Kessa mis-read Tania's hints and
Brague himself . . . Brague's heart was too full of
Iathor Kymus
to let anyone try to mend the scars he couldn't
even feel.

"All
right, just Tych to keep watch, then. Mayhap one of the others."

"How
many brats've you got now?" Burk asked.

Promptly
and proudly, Tag said, "Ten! And a line on a baby come spring,
if the mother don't lose it."

"
Ten
?"
Kessa gawped at him again. "How do you take care of them all?"

Tag
beamed at them. "I work all our tails off. Hey, you gonna need a
wet-nurse?"

Burk
was hanging onto her, or she'd have lunged over to smack Tag's
shoulder. "I've not agreed to marry him yet! I mightn't! His
brother hates me, remember?"

"Now
that's a problem," Tag said. "Tell you what. Promise me two
silver flowers if you start getting along with your Guild Master.
I'll find where the brother keeps skeletons."

"What
if I decide I don't want to get married?"

Tag
shrugged. "So blackmail the brother if I find anything good.
Tell him you want a silver tree and help
escaping
his tyrant
brother."

"Tag . . .
You're making this too simple. Give me the food."

Tag
handed up rolls and jam-jar. "You're making this too fancy,
Kessa. What'd you said back when? Boil it down to the essence?"

"Aye . . ."
Kessa wiggled loose from Burk's hug and gave him a roll before
slathering jam on hers.

"So
what's the essence here?" Burk asked.

"I
want to keep helping my
family
," Kessa said, staring into
the abstract smears of fruit. "And . . . the man
proposed in a
prison cell
."

"Isera's
sister married the fellow who did that," Burk said.

Kessa
managed a strangled, "What?"

"Debtor's
work-gangs. Her sister'd been scrubbing the palace floors. The guy'd
a broken arm, so he was stuck with the same. They got to talking.
Night before she was due out, as they were taken back to the cells,
he shouted out, 'Marry me! Wait for me! Just two more fivedays!' So
she shouted back, 'Yes! And if you're already married, I'll break
your other arm!'" Burk flung his arms wide. "So he wasn't,
she didn't, and they did. Get married."

Through
giggles, Kessa said, "You're
not helping
."

"Sure
I am!"

"But
I don't even
like
him! I argue with him!"

Burk
grinned. "Arguing with me, too. So?"

She
had a counter. She knew she did. Somewhere.

For
a change, Tag took her side. "She's only known him, what, a
month? Give her time to tell if it's good arguing or bad arguing,
Burk."

"Aye,
that's a point." Burk shoved the rest of his roll in his mouth.

"'Course
it is. I made it." Tag smugly helped himself to a roll, and gave
Burk the other drumstick.

Kessa
quietly ate and listened to them banter: smart brother and dumb, both
knowing Burk was smarter than that, and Tag not always so clever, but
wearing roles like comfortable clothes. If Jontho'd been there, he'd
have been the vain one. She intercepted a third drumstick for
herself, and kept thinking.

By
the time she was down to the bone, she said, "All right. Two
silver flowers on promise, and you dig for skeletons. Here's a
skeleton's name for you: Lairn Ronan. I suspect there's at least a
silver leaf for him alone, if you find him before Iasen Kymus does.
The Guild Master wants him."

"Lairn
Ronan." Tag nodded. "Any description?"

"Nothing.
Supposedly a genius alchemist, but sloppy. May be making lust-potions
and youth ones. Owes money. Where he is? Not even his purported
teacher knows – or admits to knowing, anyway. There's a guard,
Thioso, perhaps poking around, who overheard the same shouting I did.
Bearded, blond. Didn't see which badge on his tabard, though."

"Ha,
racing the watch to the prize!" Tag rubbed his hands together.

"Thanks.
Who knows? Mayhap if we find him first, Master Kymus'll be convinced
he needs his own roof-rat spy network." She smiled wryly.

"Don't
get me paying dues to two guilds, Kessa! I'm no straight spymaster."

"Keep
your head down. You live longer."

Tag
smirked. "I know that. 'Less you're highest up, and no one knows
it. Blight and blossom, mayhap
I'm
the Shadow-master, eh?"

"True
or false, don't even joke!" Kessa yelped. "Oh, you're both
impossible and I'll have customers and then I'll go to the market and
get
more
preparations sold, so . . . Out! Both
of you!"

Laughing,
Burk and Tag fled her shooing hands.

She
caught and hugged them both before they escaped, though.

Chapter
XLII

C
oached
by Loria, Iathor let Kessa be for over a fiveday, save for a lesson.
In truth, he'd enough to occupy him: his usual work; soothing
inadvertently ruffled feathers of the Weavers' Guild; appearing
before a judge to testify an importer had taken gold flowers without
delivering promised ingredients; visiting Darul Reus at the guild's
hospice to gauge his progress and sniff his breath . . .

The
madman had made great strides, according to the senior apprentice
Hoch, and Master Peran. Darul could feed himself, dress himself in a
simple tunic or robe (hose still defeated him), and most importantly
from Hoch's point of view, use the chamberpot by himself. His speech
still lagged, but he was beginning to recognize people, and
obligingly blew in Iathor's face when coached by Hoch.

The
most hopeful sign came when Darul's bony, gray-haired sister, Saydra
Glasswife, visited near the end of an examination. Hoch coached
Darul, "It's your sister, Darul! Remember your sister?"

Darul's
blank look turned to brow-furrowed pondering, then lightened into a
smile as he hugged his sister as children might. Amid Hoch's praise
and Master Peran's murmured approval, Saydra dabbed at her eyes with
her sleeve. "He's not done that since I was eight. It was my
birthday."

The
day after, it made a good story to tell during class (with additions
from Nicia). It was hard to read Kessa's face, of course, but her
shoulders seemed to relax slightly.

The
rest of the day, he grilled them on the uses of three different
salts, alone and in combination, and urged them to find the common
thread: encouraging the body to do what it intended normally, only
faster and more-so.

Nicia
got it first. Kessa frowned, suggesting she was memorizing this by
rote, but began suggesting hypothetical examples to be confirmed or
corrected. Iathor handed them chalk and boards to write down
keywords, and sent them to the guild library to research those
examples Nicia couldn't evaluate. He sent Dayn to keep an eye on
matters. (His brother'd been in and out of the offices for the last
fiveday, nodding coolly when they happened to meet; he'd not yet
found Lairn and claimed concern for the journeyman's life.)

When
Iathor went looking for his students and dramsman for lunch, Dayn
reported they'd already gone (bringing Dayn at Kessa's suggestion),
wolfed their food while discussing recipe nuances, and vanished back
into the library.

Dayn
added that one of his brother's dramsmen had been in the library, and
might've seen the pair.

Iathor's
lunch was solitary and brooding.

At
the end of the day, Kessa and Nicia appeared in his office. The older
herb-witch slapped down a piece of paper with each hand, one slightly
forward. "These are the potions we found which matched the ideas
we had." She shoved the other toward him. "And
this
doesn't have any alchemical match, though there's a similar recipe in
the herbal section."

He
looked up at her; she slitted her eyes to hide their color and stared
at his hands. He skimmed the first paper before reading the second
more carefully.

The
first list, symptoms paired with individual potions, was in both
Kessa's crude hand, varying from awkwardly neat to a vague scrawl,
and Nicia's tidy graphite lettering. It was Nicia's handwriting on
the second:
A general restorative, to strengthen the sickly and
weak.
The herb-witch version was
Elkin Mixture
or just
protective potion.

"I'm
not sure you'll find any
general
protectives," Iathor
said. "Metal-salts tend to be specific. Blending them quickly
becomes unpredictable."