Briar's Book (15 page)

When he fetched the next tray, he again put his body between it and the light sources. He
thought
he may have seen a glimmer, but it was gone on second look. What he needed was Niko, or more likely, Tris. Niko was busy in the city. While Briar, Daja, and Sandry had caught the ability to see magic from Tris, back when their powers were seeping into each other, Tris was still the best at it. She claimed it was because Niko had bespelled her eyeglasses to help her to see power. Briar suspected that Niko had just taken the easy way to teach her the skill.

Whatever the reason, Briar was sure that if magic were part of the blue pox, Tris would see it. But how was she to get the chance? People did not come and go in these workrooms. Anyone who entered had business here, and they had to scrub coming and going. He couldn’t just ask Tris to ramble by and peer in.

Glass shattered noisily in the outer workroom. Immediately Osprey shouted, “Don’t worry, it’s not the pox – just some clean glassware. Not a problem!”

Crane floated through the door like a god of swans, red flags of rage riding high on his sallow cheeks. Stiff-necked old piece of codfish bait, thought Briar, carrying his newest tray to his counter.

“You, and you.” Crane’s voice was almost gentle. “Out. Tell them to send more workers, and quickly.”

“Write the words you have trouble with on a scrap of paper and keep it nearby,” Rosethorn whispered to Peachleaf.

“I do,” sniffed the Water dedicate, “but they fall off the table!”

“Put them where your sleeves won’t knock them off,” Rosethorn hissed. “Honestly, Peachleaf, you’re the best midwife at Winding Circle – try to be more confident. Stand up to him.”

Briar shook his head, writing his labels neatly. Some people might stand up to Crane, he guessed, but Peachleaf wasn’t one of them.

Collecting a new tray, Briar checked it as he had the other two. This time he was almost certain magic was there. He might fare better if he looked into the jars where the essence of the disease was brewed, but the thought of doing so made his scalp creep. He wasn’t sick yet – he’d checked his reflection in the glass wall after lunch – and he planned not to be, ever.

Crane returned. Briar had the chance to work up three trays before he heard Crane say, “That – is – it.”

Briar looked around. Peachleaf had spilled a bottle of ink.

The lordly forefinger pointed. “Out,” Crane ordered.

Peachleaf sighed.
“Thank
you,” she said, gripping the pointing hand and giving it two hearty shakes. “I won’t take a moment more of your time. Come see me if you ever want a baby delivered.” She trotted out of the room with a wave to Briar.

The Hub clock chimed the half hour. Drat, thought the boy glumly. I lost the bet. He risked a peek at Crane.

The man surveyed Peachleaf’s notes. “Now what am I to do?” he demanded, forgetting perhaps that he was not alone. “Today has been virtually a complete waste.”

Rosethorn faced him, leaning against her counter. “You could always take your own notes,” she said mockingly.

Crane sighed. “Have you forgotten I need my hands free to work?”

“You just like having someone to order around.” Crane glared at Rosethorn. When he didn’t speak she continued, “Why not Osprey? She’s sharp enough,
and
she puts up with you.”

“I require her where she is,” replied Crane, sagging against his own counter. “I can trust her to watch those flibbertigibbets out there and make sure they do nothing to kill us all. I told you, I will not risk those who show an aptitude for this in a mad scramble for a cure. She must learn to take each step carefully before moving on to the next – such lessons are impossible under these conditions.”

“You may have to make allowances,” Rosethorn pointed out. “You may have to take a risk.”

“I have put five years’ training into Osprey alone – ” Crane began.

Briar croaked, “Tris.”

Crane’s head swiveled in his direction. “I beg your pardon?” he asked coolly.

Rosethorn silently adjusted the strings of her mask.

“My – my mate, Tris,” Briar said. “The redhead.”

“You are too young to have a mate,” drawled Crane.

“It’s street slang for best friend,” Rosethorn explained scornfully. “As you’d know if you ever dropped out of your alabaster tower and dealt with real people in real places.”

Crane sighed. “Had I wished to do so, I never would have taken vows.” He turned back to Briar. “Recording notes is more demanding than preparing trays.”

“She reads and writes good,” returned Briar, thickening his street accent out of perversity.
“And
she remembers the first time you tell her how a thing’s spelt, because she hates bein’ ignorant. She reads books, thick ones, all the time.”

“She also has nothing to do,” added Rosethorn thoughtfully, “and she hates that.”

Briar stared at her, amazed. He’d never thought Rosethorn had noticed.

“She is a
child,”
Crane replied stiffly, turning away.

Silence fell once more as Rosethorn got back to work. Crane muttered to himself as he tried both to do his spells and to write out what he’d done. Briar shut his ears to the distraction. Half an hour passed before Crane went to the doorway. “Osprey.”

Osprey walked over. “Sir?”

“Tell the runners I want the girl Trisana from Discipline called over here – ”

“Tsk, tsk,” Rosethorn said mockingly from her station. “I can’t imagine
you
would have forgotten that our four charges speak mind-to-mind without physical contact.”

“I think the tea’s boiling over,” muttered Osprey, darting away.

“Rosethorn,” Crane said ominously.

Tris?
Briar mind-called.
Would you come to the greenhouse? We’ve something for you to do
–
taking notes for Old Picklepuss Crane.

Finally,
was her elated response.
Just let me tell Lark. Thank you.

Don’t thank me,
Briar thought.
Crane rides folk hard.

1 don’t care if he rides me with a bit and spurs. At least I’ll be
doing
something! Now, how do I get in there?

He explained about the washroom, then let her go. He had thought to mention his suspicions, but in the end he chose to keep quiet. If there was magic to be seen, Tris would notice without prompting. If he mentioned it beforehand, it might plant the idea in her head, making her see its flicker if it was there or not.

It was half an hour before Osprey came to the workroom door. “Sir, the girl Trisana from Discipline is here.” Tris walked in, robed, masked, gloved, capped, and shod as they all were. Her wiry hair fought the cap, forcing red curls out from under the cloth. In one hand she carried her wooden writing-case.

Crane gestured to it. “You should not have fetched that. We have writing materials enough, and you won’t be able to take it out of here until we have a cure for the disease – if we find one.”

Tris looked at her case, then shrugged. “I still would have brought this,” she told Crane. “Everything’s how I like it.” She squared her shoulders. “Where do I sit?”

Crane pointed to Peachleaf’s chair and even managed to wait until Tris was settled before he began to explain how he wanted things done. Briar returned to work, trying not to feel restless. Had she seen it? Or had the other magics in these rooms blinded her to any ghostly shimmer in the trays?

There was no more time to think. First Rosethorn, then Crane made changes to the additives for the trays. Putting old blends away and making up new ones kept Briar occupied for some time. Once that was done, he started a new tray.

“I asked, could you wait a moment, please?” That was Tris, ominously patient.

“My dear young woman, if you cannot keep up with me – ” Crane began.

“You just gave me a list of numbers, Dedicate. Which would you prefer, that I get them down as you gave them to me, or that I hurry and make mistakes?”

Briar waited, but Crane did not reply. Risking a glance, Briar saw that Crane drummed his worktable with his fingers as he glared at Tris. The girl wrote something carefully, then said, “All right.”

Crane resumed his dictation. Briar worked on as tension ebbed from the air. That’s one, he thought, dripping mullein oil into three wells. Just let her keep him happy till she sees the magic in the pox, that’s all I ask. He wasn’t sure who he asked it of. Lakik the Trickster was a bad god to ask for anything but ill luck to enemies, and Onini had no interest in medicine things. Urda, perhaps. She was the goddess with a stake in all this.

Crane and Rosethorn continued to change the ingredients Briar used, marking some trays to be kept overnight, telling him to get rid of others. That job alone was scary: the trays had to be carried into the outer workroom to be emptied and boiled. He did
not
want to spill anything.

The clock struck, though Briar wasn’t sure of the hour, just before he heard Tris say, “Just a moment – you said three drops of
elecampane
essence?”

“Rather clearly, as I recall,” Crane replied.

“But you added three drops not so long ago.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did, around two o’clock,” replied Tris. She flipped through a sheaf of notes. “Right here. See?”

Crane looked over Tris’s shoulder. “Those are not your notes.”

“They’re your last scribe’s. I looked through while you were getting supplies.”

“You just happened to remember.” Briar couldn’t tell if Crane was sarcastic or thoughtful.

“I
remembered,”
drawled Tris, much like Crane, “because I memorized the spelling of elecampane, in case you needed it again.”

Crane looked up and saw that not only was Briar watching, but Rosethorn as well. “Do I afford you amusement?” he wanted to know.

“Yes,” Rosethorn told him immediately.

Briar ducked his head and acted busy.

There had been no fresh changes to his slate for over an hour when he stopped for a stretch. Looking up, he was startled to find the sky overhead was turning dark. Rosethorn had chosen this moment to rest too: she watched Crane and Tris as she leaned against her table.

As if Crane felt the change in the air, he straightened and braced his hands against the small of his back, twisting to loosen it. “Put your brush down,” he advised Tris. “Move a little.”

Tris slid off the chair, making a face when her stiff legs hit the floor. Slowly she walked over to examine Briar’s work area. He waited until she squinted at the tray he was about to start, then said quietly, “That yellow stuff, that’s the blue pox. They render it in there – ” He pointed to the outer workroom. “Then they put it in these rock trays, and I drip things in each pocket with the blue pox.”

Tris frowned. Silently she asked,
What did you put in this tray?
She looked at the racks of containers from which Briar made his additions to the pox essence.
None of this is magicked, but I keep glimpsing it.

Briar felt the back of his neck tingle. Did she see it!
There’s only blue pox in that tray. I ain’t done nothing to it yet.

Tris gripped Briar’s arm.
Just the disease? Are the trays magicked?

Briar shook his head.

Can
I see the blue pox?
she asked.
Just the blue pox?

Briar led Tris into the outer workroom. Osprey was lifting crystal trays from the boiling vat and setting them to dry. “Tris, here’s Osprey – she’s Crane’s apprentice.”

Osprey nodded cheerfully at Tris. “He must like you. I haven’t heard him deliver a lordly denunciation yet.”

Tris shrugged. “He’ll get to it soon enough.”

“I wanted to show Tris the blue pox,” explained Briar. “She ought to see how it’s brewed up, since she’s to be a scholar one day.”

Osprey shed the special mitts that led her handle the hot crystal slabs without burning herself and donned treated gloves again. As she led Tris to the counter where workers handled the blue pox essence, she explained how it was made.

As carefully as if she handled feather-thin glass, Osprey opened the metal catches that locked a jar and raised the lid. Tris leaned close to look; Briar did the same. Inside the jar was glazed white. It was half full of the yellowish, oily-looking blue pox essence.

Briar saw an assortment of silver glints, a shimmer that faded. Slipping through their magical connection, he gazed at the essence through Tris’s eyes. To her the silver was no rapidly fading glimpse, but a steady, pale gleam.

“The stuff used to make the essence, it’s magicked, isn’t it?” Tris asked Osprey.

“Well, yes,” replied the young woman, “but the clarifying wash – that’s what it’s called – the wash is made to evaporate once the disease is pulled from the samples. There can’t be any magic left in the essence. If it is, all our results will be wrong. The cures won’t work, or they’ll go
really
awry. May I close the jar?”

“I did not mean for you go on holiday,” announced Crane meaningfully from the inner workroom.

“One moment,” Tris said to Osprey. She leaned over the jar, squinting at its contents. Briar, looking again through her eyes, saw the wash of silver.

This is why you suggested me, isn’t it?
demanded Tris.
You weren’t sure, and you thought if you told me what you thought you saw, you might make me see it.

That’s about right,
Briar acknowledged, and braced himself for her wrath.

Smart thinking,
she told him instead.

Briar drew out of her magic, startled. He could have sworn she’d be vexed.

Tris returned to Crane without a word to Osprey. “She gets distracted,” Briar said apologetically to the apprentice. “Thanks for showing it to her.”

“It’s all right,” Osprey assured Briar. “Working for Crane, you get used to people who forget the niceties when they’re caught up.”

Briar snorted. “I guess you would.” He followed Tris.

“If we are ready?” Crane asked Tris. “Now that playtime is over?”

Tris took a deep breath. “You should send for Niko. There’s magic in the pox.”

Crane stared at her, unmoving. Fascinated, Briar counted as the man blinked – once. Twice. Three times.