Herb-Witch (Lord Alchemist Duology) (48 page)

"
Farchen's
salt?"

"That's
how Nicia said it. Stuff's expensive?"

"Two
gold leaves for a pot this big." He outlined a head-sized form.

"That'd
explain why the jars were the height of my thumb."

"Who's
been
using
it? Most of those recipes are restricted."

"Not
me. For one thing, I've not
been
there enough to have the
chance."

"Paranoid.
I don't suspect you."

She
nearly asked
Why not?
but Brague arrived with bowls of soup,
and Dayn with tea and bread. Then (with meaningful looks exchanged,
from the pause) the dramsmen went to one of the tables in the middle
of the room, that the apprentices and journeymen used.

Banging
her head onto the table would get soup in her hair. Instead, she took
a spoon and reached for bread. Perhaps nothing would qualify as
suitably polite mealtime conversation.

For
a while, Kymus was equally quiet. Then he muttered, "Blight.
I'll have to check the library and see what recipes they're used in."

"Don't
let me keep you," Kessa murmured back.

He
snorted. "And afterward, I'd check to see which masters,
journeymen, and apprentices might've been making
what
down
there, and then I'd have been in the offices till past my usual
dinner, and exhausted on the subsequent patrol."

"Just
don't make
me
do it."

"No,
I'll not delegate that task . . . to
you
."
He lifted his voice. "Dayn, when you've a moment and not before,
I've an errand, please."

"Aye,
m'lord."

Kessa
sopped up the last of the soup with the bread. "Am I invited?"

Kymus
hesitated. "Invited to?"

"Patrol."
She'd liked him, on patrol. It was stupid to go.

It
was possibly inevitable.

A
longer pause. "If you want. Should Jeck detour by your shop?"

"No.
If I can show up, I know where you keep the equipment. I can wait
there again, if it's not too bitter." It might be. The fading
light through the windows seemed fuzzed by clouds moving in. The
clouds might keep it from being crystal-cold, but the wind would be
nasty.

"All
right." He held his own mostly empty bowl briefly, before taking
up a last bit of bread.

Kessa
set her bowl out of danger and folded her arms on the table. "Now.
What'll I be upset about." It came out flatter than questions
should, and far less respectfully than students should address
teachers, or an herb-witch her Guild Master.

He
didn't chastise her, though he was quiet for a long moment. "I
believe her name was on the missing page."

She
went cold in her belly and bones. "What? Why?"

"I
saw it, I think."

It'd
been burned, Jontho'd said. "But it's
missing
 . . ."

"There's
a potion that raises faint ink to something legible. Have you heard
of it?"

"Yes,
Nicia showed me . . ."

Kymus
tapped his fingertips together. "Thioso wanted to darken the ink
where it pressed against the other page, closed when not quite dry.
He had some success, and showed me. One of the names could've been
Lairn's, and another . . ."

"You
think . . . my sister's?"

"Yes.
I'd like to talk to her."

"She'd
nothing to do with the matter." Kessa swallowed. "I took
the wrong page. That's all."

"Kessa . . ."
That was a frowning tone. "I've seen you lie to protect her.
That you'd take the wrong page is less plausible than that you'd
remove a page bearing
her
name."

Her
voice was a soft, numb monotone. "I was startled by what
happened. I wasn't careful. I took the wrong page."

"I
don't believe you. I've
seen
you with her."

"Thioso
hasn't." Though
Kymus
could betray Laita . . .

"Rot
it, this is why I want to ask
her
."

"She's
blameless," Kessa whispered.

"I'm
not trying to
blame
her!" Kymus pressed his half-fisted
palms together in front of him. "I'm trying to solve a mystery,
for my own satisfaction if nothing else."

"It's
not her name. It can't be." Blight, she was usually a better
liar. She should've said that first, not foundered on the rocks of
his certainty and truth. It didn't matter. Her word. His word. Either
she could fool a watchman . . . or buy off Kymus.

He
snorted at her. "You're being paranoid again. I'd hardly
blackmail
her
, either."

The
very thought – and realization that she'd not seen it
herself – closed her throat.

"I'll
pay for truth, if required," he added sourly.

And
Laita might confess, just as she'd walked into his house and trusted
she'd find a way out if it went bad. Kessa disliked
spur-of-the-moment plans; trusting without good reason, or trusting
one could slip away, led to trouble.

Kymus
said, into her silence, "I'll not hunt her down, if you deliver
the message. How she answers it,
if
she answers it –
that's
her
decision."

And
not mine. Nor even mine to withhold the message.
Kessa wrapped
her hands together, squeezing away the impulse to grab hold to
something and dig in her nails. "All right. Delivering it . . .
may take time."

"
If
it'd be useful . . . We'll end at the Emerald Cat,
tonight. If someone waited in the kitchen, where it's warm . . ."

"You
meet freelance courtesans in the Cat's kitchens often?"

"No,"
he said, voice flat and mildly irked. "You may, of course, be
present."

Carefully
and precisely, Kessa said, "If you come to certain agreements
with her, it's no more my business than it'd be to ask why that . . .
worker, at the Birch, plastered herself against you. Which is none of
my business indeed."

If
he winced, it didn't show in his hands, each fingertip carefully
pressed against its opposite. "Should it become your business,"
he murmured, "I'd prefer to tell you the truth. Such lies only
work with mutual cooperation."

That
was . . . a place in the conversation Kessa didn't
want to go.

At
the other side of the table, Dayn cleared his throat. "M'lord?
You've an errand?"

"Ah,
yes." Kymus shifted, straightening. "I need– wait. Kessa,
did you give that list to someone?"

"Master
Iste."

"Good."
He returned his attention to his dramsman. "I need someone to
assemble a list of recipes which use the materials the guild
workroom's short of. I also need someone to look into who might've
been making anything in the workroom, and get me
that
list.
The Farchen's salt should've lasted
months
longer."

"Will
you be staying to go over the information, m'lord?"

Kymus
drummed his fingers on the table. "I should. And should mention
the other matters. In my office." Now he was looking at Kessa
again.

"Matters,
Master Kymus?" she asked, trying to remember proper manners.
Addressing him snippily where others could hear . . .
would be even more a confirmation than letting him offer a
gentlemanly arm.

"Lairn
Ronan's questioning."

This
time she sighed. "It seems I'll not be soon home."

Kymus
offered her a hand out of the booth; she took it politely. He
acquired her cloak from Brague, and put it around her shoulders. She
thought he would've fastened it if she'd not done so herself.

Outside,
in the swiftly darkening chill, she growled, "You're so . . .
helpful
to every woman you dine with?"

"Hm?"
He sounded startled. Then he chuckled. "Frequently. Either I'm
unable to escape social obligations involving a noble's daughter, or
I'm with a woman from the establishments you know about – and
it does no harm to treat them well."

"Oh."
She wasn't sure if she should resent being classed with inescapable
obligations and courtesans, or be relieved he wasn't ostentatiously
courting her.

Once
back indoors, she dropped back to a more deferential journeyman's
position. It won an exasperated sound from the back of his throat,
but with her cloak around her, Kymus could hardly use any polite
tactics to gather her in.

He
left Brague in his outer office and held the door for Kessa. Then he
hung up his coat and perched on his desk's near edge.

There
was enough space, beside him, that Kessa supposed she might fit.
There was also a chair. She sat in it, and primly folded her hands
where the cloak's drape revealed them.

"You're
doing that deliberately, aren't you?"

She
angled a glance at him through her hair. He snorted. "Very well.
Lairn Ronan denied owing anything to Darul Reus in the blighted hours
of the morning, after he tried to flee my house. But under truth
potion . . . He said he knew the moneylender."

"And
makes lust and youth teas. Dayn told me."

"Good.
Now, after Lairn dragged himself from the privy, Thioso questioned
him again. After a brief claim he'd misunderstood the question, he
admitted he'd owed Darul, but settled with coin borrowed from one
Rayard the Green. Upon my revelation that we'd found alchemical teas,
he
finally
admitted he'd enlisted Darul's help in testing
them. At least he'd denied making joy-powder, under Tryth . . ."

"So . . .
it was him." It felt hollow. Pale. "Why Darul?"

"I'm
not sure. However, Lairn owes at least two other lenders, and
possibly more I've not discovered. I'm reviewing letters from his
room. They're still slightly toxic."

"Then
it could be . . . chance? Because he was looking for
lenders who didn't know what he already owed?"

"I'm
afraid so. Although . . . I think he knew Darul'd been
stricken, and someone
else
arrested. When Thioso mentioned
Darul's state, Lairn denied his brews, even mixed, could've had done
that. He seemed oddly vehement, and not surprised enough."

Her
hands went from a prim clasp to a pale-knuckled one. She didn't try
to relax. "You've my confession. I never hoped it'd turn
out . . . that someone else poisoned him
deliberately." Such a fantastic dream, like many other things,
was too much to hope for.

"I
believe you never intended to dis-mind him. You'd not've been so
clumsy. The potion you gave him was forbidden. The purpose, to
protect your sister . . ."

"She's
no part in this," Kessa hissed. "None. There's no reason to
show her to a judge."

"Not
all judges are corrupt!"

"And
not all are pure!" She gave up on dignity and wrapped her arms
around herself under the cloak. "Laita'd not endure a
work-gang . . . And she's no herb-witch that
you'd
have claim to help her."

"Kessa,
she's your sister. Of course I'd–"

"And
if I weren't immune?" She lifted her eyes to his. "Would
you even care?"

He
flinched, and his gaze slid away. "I–"

Someone
spoke loudly in the outer office. Kessa half-stood before telling
herself that hiding under Kymus' desk wouldn't likely help.

Kymus
slid off his perch. "
Blight.
I'm not
done
 . . ."

"It's
your brother." She recognized that tone, even muffled. Dramsmen,
such as Brague and Dayn, merited little more politeness than
half-breeds, apparently. "I should go."

"Brague
needs rest before tonight's patrol. Take him with you, so he can take
the buggy home. Dayn will be with me."

Kessa
was disgusted by her relief at an escort. "All right."
Perhaps she could huddle close enough to Brague to suggest it was
Kymus'
dramsman
she favored.

With
a sharp sigh through his nose, the Guild Master settled his robe
across his shoulders, tugged his tunic-sleeves straight beneath the
robe's sleeves, and opened the door. "Iasen, are you harassing
my dramsmen again?"

From
the outer office, Kessa heard Iasen say, "He refused to let me
in, or even knock!"

"He
knew I didn't wish to be disturbed. Brague, a moment, if you will?"

"Aye,
m'lord."

"What?
Iathor, you're
not
closing the door on me!"

The
elder Kymus did, briefly, to say quietly, "Brague, please escort
Kessa out. She'll tell you."

Kessa
attached herself to Brague's left arm, forcing herself not to cling.

Kymus
sounded amused as he muttered, "Vixen." Then he opened the
door and strode out, robe's hem fluttering. "Now, Iasen, what do
you want?"

"
My
student
has not been permitted to return to me! You said you'd
let me have him!"