The Demon of Darkling Reach (The Black Prince Book 1) (16 page)

“You’d better come inside,” the witch counseled. She sounded resigned.

“Who was that?” Isla asked, gesturing vaguely toward the direction where the last visitor had gone.

The witch held open the door. If she’d had a name at some point, nobody knew it now and the witch had certainly never told; so Isla called her Cariad, which meant
friend
in the old tongue.

She’d known the witch for a long time, since she’d been small and had come across the hut by accident during a storm. She’d been cold and frightened and had skinned her knee and Cariad, who looked exactly the same then as she did this instant, had taken her in and given her something to eat. Isla still remembered sitting on the bench by the window and watching in fascination as the rain drove against the glass. By the time the skies had cleared, Isla and Cariad had become friends.

Cariad was easily twice her age, perhaps thrice. Isla wasn’t sure and, once again, Cariad had never told. She moved silently about the single large room, beckoning Isla in and then seemingly forgetting about her as she busied herself with various domestic tasks like putting on a kettle and laying out some bread and cheese. “My patients won’t eat my food,” she said caustically, “for fear that it’s poisoned. But it’s the same cheese they buy from Goodman Johnson, or from your estate.” She wrinkled her nose. “Which is terrible cheese.”

“I know,” Isla agreed, settling herself at one of the stools by the table.

Patients
was an apt term for the men and women who visited Cariad. What few doctors there were in Enzie charged the earth and did more harm than good. Trepanning and bleeding and rubbing bacon grease on everything in sight had brought more than one reasonably healthy man to the brink of death—or beyond. They lived in terror of Cariad, but they went to her anyway. Because there was no other option. As far as Isla knew, she was the only one of Cariad’s patients—she wasn’t sure that Cariad had
friends
, precisely, or wanted them—who’d given her a name. The others just called her
the witch
, or Crafter, as was the respectful honorific for same. Isla suspected that Cariad herself did a good bit to encourage the mystery.

A witch was an herbalist. She understood the uses, both for good and evil, of the thousands of plants that made up the forest. Many of the same plants that cured could also kill—like foxglove. Cariad had taught Isla something of her art, in a casual sense, enough for Isla to fully appreciate just how little she knew. Willow bark, Cariad had told her once, when boiled, could be chewed for relief from headache or muscle pain or, in some cases, the shortness of breath that accompanied mild pains of the heart.

But strong pains, the killing kind, were often incurable. The only thing that might help was foxglove and administered quickly. Cariad believed, as the church taught was heretical, that the source of intellect was the brain and not the heart and that when air—another heretical concept—was cut off, the brain began to die. Women, equally as innocent of consorting with the Dark One as Cariad, had been burned alive for speaking less.

The church taught, rather, that the brain was a vestigial appendage dating from before the fall of man and served no purpose. Which, as Cariad had been known to remark darkly, explained why men seemed to think more with the other head. Isla had wondered before how the church explained that decapitation was a sure recipe for death on the battlefield. She’d never asked, however, being too afraid of incurring her own priest’s wrath. She both disliked and mistrusted the man, an effeminate little ogre who believed that there was no purpose in women being taught how to read.

Isla helped herself to some bread while Cariad, taking the stool opposite her, tied handfuls of freshly cut herbs into little bunches with twine. After she’d finished, she’d hang them all upside down to dry. Dozens of bunches of herbs already hung from the rafters, filling the cottage with a heavenly scent.

But for all that earthenware jars and books and all manner of other implements of the trade crowded every surface, Cariad kept the place scrupulously clean. Isla frowned at a shallow bowl sitting on a tall sort of pedestal near the window. About an inch of clear water covered the bottom, as motionless as glass. A talented potter had made the vessel, glazing it with a salt and copper glaze that seemed to glow from within. The color was rich, and as red as blood.

“They make good cheese in the North,” Cariad said conversationally.

Cariad served good cheese, too. And Isla, despite having rushed here as fast as Piper could take her, was in no rush to broach the topic that had been on her mind these past few hours. Days. Indeed, now that she’d managed to reach what she at least thought of as a safe harbor, all she wanted to do was relax. “What was that woman here for?” she asked again.

Cariad looked up briefly before resuming her work. Her fingers were deft with the twine as bunch after bunch appeared in a rising pile. Isla tried to speculate again on her age. Her skin was smooth, but thin. Her eyes were old. Her hair was white, but still soft.

“She doesn’t want more children,” the witch said bluntly. “She’s got ten already. But her husband, who can’t afford to support half that number as it is, refuses to take precautions.”

“What…are those?” Isla hadn’t been aware that there were precautions available.

The witch put down her bundle, half tied. Her eyes met Isla’s. Where Isla’s were green, Cariad’s were a watery blue. “What are they teaching girls these days?”

Isla blushed. She knew…generally what happened between men and women. No lady ever learned about such things directly, unless an enterprising suitor took it upon himself to teach her. Isla had seen a stallion mount a mare once, in one of the paddocks, but she knew that things weren’t…quite like that between human beings.

Cariad, who didn’t like the fact that—to her mind—women lived at the mercy of men, made a face. “I suppose,” she said dryly, “the idea is that if you marry the right man he’ll teach you. Whatever it is
he
thinks you need to know, at any rate.”

She helped herself to a piece of cheese. Isla waited.

“He can pull out,” the witch said matter of factly, “before the end of the act. Or the couple can pleasure each other…other ways.”

“Other ways?”

“With the mouth,” Cariad clarified. “Or the other passage.”

“But that’s—gross!”

“If done correctly, it can be quite pleasurable for both parties.”

Isla wondered how Cariad knew. “Which?” she asked, unable to help herself.

“Both.” Cariad finished her cheese, licking her fingertips delicately one at a time. “What about your duke?”

“He’s not
my
duke and—and I’m sure I don’t know!” Isla’s face felt so hot that it might have been on fire.

“As to the latter, that’s not what I meant. As to the former….” Cariad arched her eyebrow. “You should know these things, if you’re going to get married.”

“I’m not—how do you know?” Isla glanced at the bowl on the pedestal. “Wait,” she said hurriedly, “I don’t want to know. Just…finish what you were saying?”

And, blessedly, Cariad did. Isla was safe for the moment. “There are herbs that the woman can take, to keep the man’s seed from quickening. Or,” she added, “end the process if it has.” She returned to bundling her herbs, and Isla gave a sigh of relief as the witch’s limpid gaze released her.

“Men like to think with their cocks and women too, really,” Cariad mused after a moment. “Then they each blame the other for the consequences of their pleasure.” She snorted.

Isla was still back on the notion of
the other passage
. That didn’t sound like very much fun. At all. Still, neither did the other, but Rose raved about it enough. Feeling a bit perverse, Isla wondered if Rose had…with her mouth. Or the other! She wished she had the courage to ask. Apple would probably be all too willing to talk about sex, but that meant hearing about sex with her brother—or, worse yet, her father!

Cariad, who remained unmoved, was an enigma. She knew things that she had no right to know—like that Isla was engaged. Despite her unladylike snorting and tendency to swear, she spoke with the cultured accents of an aristocrat. There were rumors in the village that Cariad, or whoever she’d once been, had begun life as a glamorous maiden for whom many men vied. Somehow, she’d ended up living in a cottage in the woods and, as far as Isla knew, eschewing the company of
all
men.

Her tone seemed to evidence a grudging respect for the duke, but while Cariad had nothing but compassion for even the lowliest woman she’d cheerfully kill the first man she came across regardless of who he was, and Gods damn the consequences.

“I know,” Cariad said slowly, without looking up, “because I Saw it in my scrying mirror.” Isla heard the capital in Cariad’s words.

“I need to know who he is,” Isla found herself explaining. She hadn’t meant to be so blunt but…she was afraid. She could admit that to herself now. She was believing things she’d never have thought she’d believe, ever, because she was seeing things she thought she’d never see.

Or See.

“Your lover,” Cariad replied calmly, “is a demon.”

T
he bread turned to sand in Isla’s mouth as Cariad’s words sank in.

“What?” The word was barely a whisper. And then, almost as an afterthought, “and he’s not my lover.”

“That’s all you can think about?” Cariad sounded disgusted. “Really?”

“But….” Isla trailed off, miserable.

Cariad stood up. “Come on. You’re going to come outside, little girl, and you’re going to help me gather some herbs that I need, and you’re going to learn a few things you need to know—that
I
think you need to know. Because soon you’ll be gone from here and we’ll never see each other again.”

“Never—what?” Isla repeated, aghast.

“What, you thought you’d be home every weekend for a visit?” Beneath Cariad’s derision was real pity, which was what upset Isla most of all. This crotchety old hag who never had a kind word for anyone and who’d made certain highwaymen disappear
felt sorry for her
.

She stood up, because she had to—no one said no to Cariad—but she was shaking all over and her legs felt like they’d been transformed into twin lumps of a particularly unappetizing gelatin. A
demon?
But there were no such things as demons. And demons couldn’t stand the sunlight and had glowing red orbs for eyeballs and—

She sank back down again.

“Demons,” Cariad said, not reading Isla’s thoughts but guessing them, “don’t tend to follow the rules set forth in storybooks.” Her tone was dry. For all her normally high opinion of Isla, this time she clearly thought the younger woman was being stupid.

She gestured toward the door, this time more impatiently. “Come on.”

Reluctantly, Isla followed her out.

As they moved deeper into the forest, leaving the little house behind, Cariad gave Isla a lecture on demons. She laid out what she knew, pausing now and again to examine a seemingly innocuous plant or rub her fingers over some moss. A few times, she bent to pluck a toadstool. Soon the brightly colored, spotted caps lined the bottom of her basket. Isla didn’t know much, but she knew them to be poisonous. She asked about this.

Cariad bent down to finger the leaves of a medium-sized shrub. They looked a bit like bay leaves, thick and with a slight sheen. Clusters of tiny orange fruit, three together in each cluster like oddly-colored holly berries, clung to the tips of the branches.

“This,” she said, “is
nux vomica
. In small doses, and when prepared properly, it can elevate the heart rate and help reestablish circulation. In large doses it can kill—and painfully.”

“Oh.” Isla swallowed.

“And hemlock,” the witch said, pointing to a pretty fern-like plant, “paralyzes the body while preserving the mind. A tingling begins at the extremities, spreading inward until the heart stops and breath ceases. Death comes from waking asphyxiation.”

“Gods above.” Isla stepped back.

“Hemlock also aids in the control, if not the cure, of acute mania.”

“But….” Isla turned, staring at the forest around her. Everything took on a new and fearsome aspect, in light of the witch’s tutelage. She was surrounded by death—in the form of poison, in the form of natural selection. Nature was a harsh mistress. Were there no happy endings? Was a
happy ending
only a convenient stopping point in a story that always ended in tragedy?

“Monkshood,” Cariad continued, evidently forgetting her promise to tell Isla what she knew about demons—and about one demon in particular—“causes vomiting. And, I hear, a highly acute distress of the bowels.” She smiled unpleasantly, her eyes glittering in the gloom. “One woman, a long time ago, poisoned her abusive husband by serving him monkshood in a plate of stewed mushrooms. His favorite.” She turned and walked up the path.

After a moment, Isla followed her.

They passed a belladonna bush, a towering thing that curled over the path forming an arch of sorts and had gotten tangled in the sumac on the opposite side.
Belladonna
got its name from its use as a cosmetic: girls who couldn’t afford expensive cosmetics but who were nonetheless vain rubbed it in their eyes to make their pupils appear wider or on their cheeks to give the skin a rosy flush.