The Poisons of Caux: The Hollow Bettle (Book I) (23 page)

“Er.” Ivy cleared her throat. “That must have happened on the trestle, when the book broke.”

After several frustrating attempts, he indeed found a small map of the establishments on the bridge, tucked into the chapter on Cauvian constellations and evening songs. Turning to a storefront beside him, across from the Mortar and Pestle, he looked around for a signpost. He found none, but from an archway above the entrance dangled a particularly lifelike spider. Yet Axle’s map contained no mention of such a store, and peering up again from the page, Rowan stepped back from the window display—unfortunate insects of all shapes and sizes, each speared uncomfortably with a large silver needle.

“I think Axle’s map is slightly outdated,” Rowan admitted.

But with the departure of the undertakers came a new
menace. Rowan straightened up, the
Field Guide
forgotten, and nudged Ivy’s elbow in alarm. Patrolling in front of them, causing the riffraff to give them wide berth, was a pair of Nightshade sentries. They were dressed in the pomp and purple of the regime, and with a jolt, both Ivy and Rowan were reminded of the last time they saw this uniform at the Hollow Bettle, on twenty doomed men.

It was midafternoon, and the two Nightshade sentries were both slightly dull at this time of day from hunger. The pair had no intention of pursuing and punishing the individual behind poor Klaxon’s early demise. Theirs was not the duty of crime-solving; their orders were to intimidate and if at all possible practice a little extortion on the side. They paraded menacingly and reminded the sad citizenry of their miserable lot in life. If Klaxon looked like he might have owned even one minim in his sorry days, they would have claimed it for the king (if he had had two, they would have quietly kept one for themselves).

Rowan hid himself as best he could beneath his hood.

“Split up,” he whispered. Tasters were common enough in Templar, but together they might raise suspicion. Their capture would make for a hearty promotion for these guards and a pleasant change of lifestyle. Maybe a taster of their own.

This particular patrol, as with all Nightshade sentries, had been briefed that day on the missing taster. They strolled slowly, eyeing the crowd with obvious distaste—making their
way right toward the pair. The children’s hearts sank as they watched the men begin to advance on them.

But the bridge was suddenly alive with footsteps, and the sentries were quickly joined—and nearly broadsided—by a large detail of their own kind, trotting across the Knox.

“You two!” the officer ordered. “Fall in! By order of the queen—we need every available hand! We must capture the beast! An escaped beast of enormous proportions!”

And with pointed staffs lowered, the army departed.

“That was close,” Rowan whispered.

“Yes. A little too close.”

“Better get inside somewhere before they return. They don’t seem to be entering any of these stores.”

“No—just menacing the crowds.” The pair turned in time to see a small man wearing a sandwich I board walking up and down in front of an inn. The man turned, and the two could make out what it read.

The End Is Here

As good a place as any, they thought, and together they approached the inn, called the Bitter End and ducked inside the small wooden door.

he Bitter End was never a place of high society. Its clientele could not claim to be in possession of anything remotely resembling good manners. It was, in essence, a flophouse—a place where you slept if you had no other place at all to stay. The rooms for rent were up a ladder that leaned against a far wall and disappeared into a dark hole in the ceiling. Between the door and this ladder was a small dance floor (empty) and a long bar (also for the most part empty). Inhabiting the emptiness were but two visitors that evening, and they huddled together in deep conversation.

As Rowan and Ivy stood uncomfortably in the center of the lonely dance floor, they drew the attention of the regulars at the bar.

One of the more outstanding features of the Taxus clan, which Rowan’s former charge, Turner Taxus, shared, was an extraordinarily long and sausage-like nose. It was unmistakable and marked the family members as Taxus descendants
from afar. On Turner Taxus it wasn’t so bad, but on the women of the family it was a severe source of shame. The Taxus nose jutted from the forehead out into the room and had a weight and mass to itself that made it wiggle with the slightest step.

Once Rowan’s eyes adjusted to the dimness of the Bitter End’s lighting—just a few stubby candles and an old gaslamp—he peered at the strangers at the bar. Rowan froze. The men, and their Taxus noses, had been drinking here rather than at the more popular Mortar and Pestle because they were hoping to find a place where they might talk. The Mortar and Pestle had been overly lively that evening, perhaps with the expectation of the coming Festival, and these two needed a little space for a private discussion. It was Rowan Truax’s extraordinary misfortune that the topic of their conversation was the search for the errant taster who was responsible for their relation’s early demise.

And it was the Estate’s good luck—certainly they were not guilty of any hard work this evening, or any other, for that matter—to have their man walk right into their tavern.

The Estate and the former Taxus taster recognized each other instantaneously. To Rowan’s horror, he watched as one and then the other man pushed himself sloppily to a standing position from the bar. But the drink the Bitter End commonly served, a vicious green syrupy thing, was more potent than the Estate had figured. And they had been working on their third by the time Ivy and Rowan ducked in.

The taster made a split-second decision. He did not want to be caught between the Estate and the Nightshade sentries outside on the bridge.

He ran with Ivy for the ladder on the far wall and, grasping both sides, helped Ivy up it as fast as he could.

They reached the top in short time, and the two stood on the creaky floorboards in the dark—affording them a perfect view of their pursuers.

uickly, Ivy’s eyes adjusted to the dark, and she felt around near her where she thought she perceived a ledge. Indeed, the wall stopped where her hand rested and receded into a small dusty cupboard. Normally, she would have possessed little enthusiasm for sprawling around in the dark—especially since it seemed this section of the flophouse was never cleaned and cared for—but times like these called for desperate measures.

From her days at the Hollow Bettle, she knew occasionally a cupboard was a good way to get somewhere. She found a knotted end of a rope and pulled the cupboard door toward her and then, when it wouldn’t move, pushed it in with all her might. It opened and clattered to the floor of the dark space beyond.

“In we go!” she called to Rowan, who was in complete agreement.

The Estate was settling their disagreement below as to just who should climb the ladder. They were in little hurry since by all outward impressions, there was no place for the children to go. The barkeep, a man of little curiosity, was unacquainted with any places of egress, and affirmed that there were no windows to brighten the misery up there. So there was left between the two Taxus men only the decision as to who should make the capture.

The larger one, Quarles Taxus, felt he was deserving enough (he was directly descended from Turner Taxus, making him a closer relative) that he resolved the argument with one large shove. He climbed the ladder remarkably well for a man dragging a distant cousin on his right leg. But to the complete chagrin of both representatives of the Estate, when they arrived and at last turned on the dim and flickery filament bulb, there was no one to be seen.

The storefront that happened to neighbor the sad Bitter End was the supply shop Mithrodites, wherein anything poison-related could be found for a price. At one time, during the boom of the early Nightshade regime, this store boasted two entire stories of poisoning material—empty capsules, dried herbs, peculiar powders, and early collector’s editions of
The Field Guide to the Poisons of Caux
.

But as the novelty of the world they lived in faded and the sad reality of its dangers emerged, the proprietor of
Mithrodites was forced to shutter up the second floor and carry his wares—still with a healthy clientele, it should be noted—in a more modest way He was satisfied to leave the second floor as an occasional office and storage space for extra inventory.

So it was that through the dusty cupboard at the Bitter End, Poison Ivy and Rowan Truax found themselves emerging into a storehouse of sorts. Everywhere they looked, there were shelves carrying anything and everything that was harmful or fatal if swallowed.

Ivy couldn’t resist a look around.

There were dusty glass canisters of dried herbs, shriveled roots, and knotty flower heads, the labels in a faded chicken scratch.

“Axle always said, ‘Plants—all plants—have secrets,’” Ivy said respectfully. “‘To unlock them is power, as the apotheopaths knew.’”

Rowan thought of the Mildew Sisters and scowled.

“The day will come when all the plants will awaken to their true natures,” she said thoughtfully.

“Is that a good thing?” Rowan was reminded again of his encounter with bindweed in Southern Wood.

“Yes.” Ivy laughed. “Because it’s how it should be. How it once was. But it’s up to the apotheopaths to harness that power—for the good.”

“What’s this?” Rowan eyed a jar of deep-green dried foliage suspiciously.

“Snakeweed. You—well—don’t want to touch that one.”

Rowan pulled his hand back from the jar’s opening, but not before he thought he heard what sounded like a hiss.

“Look—bittersweet,” Ivy noticed. “It makes everything taste the opposite of how it should. And boneset—I bet you can figure out what it’s good for. Eyebright and feverfew, for illness. Lungwort, snoring. And, oh! The blights—if you boil their leaves in lye, they release an awful choking smoke.”

Ivy was now occupied with the displays of glassine capsules and a collection of eyedroppers. Charcoal, tins of exotic incense, poisonous puffballs. Corks of all sizes and silver pins. There was a cask of hollow rings in flashy colors, and Ivy stopped to try one on. A gaudy red one caught her eye—it
reminded her of her lost bettle. After a moment’s thought, she slipped it into her pocket.

A bottle distracted Rowan, and he examined a fine brown powder labeled
Poison Ivy, Minced
.

“Look here! It’s your namesake.” Reaching for it, he quickly thought better, and his eyes arrived upon another tin. “Hey,” Rowan said excitedly, “this one here’s called King’s Cure-all!”

“If only it were that easy.”

She turned, half examining the dark leaf. Her thoughts returned to the lost elixir, and any excitement at their current surroundings was extinguished.

Rowan was suddenly thoughtful.

“I think I see why you like apotheopathy so much,” he said. “I never knew how helpful plants could be—at the Guild, we really only learn about the harmful ones.” It was occurring to Rowan that Ivy might be able to help him with a lifelong problem. “Um, Ivy?” His face, as if on cue, began to redden, and he was thankful that Ivy was otherwise distracted. “Got anything for blushing?”

She looked up, quickly surveying the room.

“There—” She pointed at what appeared to be a lifeless potted plant. “Bloodroot. In small doses, it will help your blushing.”

“What about large doses?” Rowan asked hesitantly, taking a step away from it. If his experience in Southern Wood was
any guide, he expected red ooze to pour out of the withered thing.

“Too much of anything—even water—is poisonous.” Ivy shrugged.

Bloodroot, he thought. While tempted, he was determined to avoid any more disastrous encounters with the plant world.

Ivy was now in front of a display of small bottles labeled
Nightman’s Skullcap
. Before Rowan could ask her about it—indeed, before he saw anything at all—she had pocketed one. She continued down the row.

“I’d love to stay here longer,” she said wistfully.

But the two remembered the reason behind their haste.

“We’d better find a way out.”

The exit turned out to be a respectable one, considering.

Around the last row of tall shelves was a set of stairs, at the bottom of which stood the door to the reduced Mithrodites storefront. And Mithrodites was throwing a sale. No one, during the rush to purchase supplies for the Festival, seemed to notice the double doors at the rear swing open and produce a pair of children—who quickly blended into the crowd.