Herb-Wife (Lord Alchemist Duology) (34 page)

"Perhaps
not. But I didn't intend that to happen, either."

Saydra
sucked in her breath. "You did poison him. You admit it."

Kessa
shook her head. "It wasn't poison. Do you want to listen? Or
would you rather go to a judge now?"

"I
don't know what you think you can say . . ." The
woman's voice trailed off, uncertainly. "You're all out here,
where your husband's man can't hear you?"

She
smoothed her hands on her skirt. "Yes. I suppose I am."

"So
he can't contradict whatever lies you tell?"

"Mistress
Glasswife, I'm immune to truth potions, but you're not. You may
testify on your own behalf and be believed."

"Fine
words for a savage who can't even look me in the eye!"

"My
eyes are blighted and ugly, Mistress Glasswife. I look at no one
during a civil conversation." Save on night patrol . . .
She put that out of her mind.

"So
you say!"

Kessa
sighed and lifted her head, holding back her hair. The piercing wire
brushed her hand. She fixed her gaze on a tree some steps away, even
when Saydra moved into the corner of her vision.

After
a moment, she let her hair fall back into place and looked down
again. "Do you wish to listen? Or do you trust an anonymous note
to tell you fullest truth?"

"It
seems I shan't know who to believe."

"That's
true. Will you listen?" She waited, then took Saydra's silence
for agreement. "Your brother, I fear, would sometimes request
interest payments in trade. Healing potions from me, that would've
been worth more than the interest – save I'd not time to sell
them."

"No
reason to poison him!"

"I
didn't. If I had, would it not've been foolish of me to leave my name
in his books, recorded as still owing him?" Kessa shook her
head. "I did visit him. I . . . was concerned,
over a matter of someone else's debt. He'd asked for . . .
inappropriate things."

"He . . .
he'd a liking to flirt. I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it."
But her voice had shifted from outrage to uncertainty, and she'd
taken Kessa's meaning instantly.

"I
brewed something to make him sleep heavily, so I could find what that
other person owed, and perhaps transfer it to my debt." A lie,
that. She'd meant to whisper in his suggestible ear that a freelance
courtesan, no matter how pretty, was of no interest to him.

She
continued, "There was something else in his tea. A youth potion
of sorts, my husband said. I didn't know it'd be there. Potions,
combined . . . I didn't know what it'd do. I didn't
know the effects would
last
." All truth, and she wasn't
acting when she let her voice shake. "He was breathing well
enough, sleeping when I left him. It should've lasted only a few
hours. He should've woken up normally."

"It's
still against the law to give someone a potion to defraud him!"
That had the outrage back.

"True.
And against the law to threaten a woman with debtor's work-gangs if
she'll not pay with her body." Kessa paused again, and continued
into the silence with her voice lower. "Judges needn't enter
into the matter. Rain's own justice claims us all."

"You
say it was justice–"

"Mistress
Glasswife," Kessa broke in. "Have you children?"

"What?
Why do you want to know?" That tinge in Saydra's voice was . . .
alarm, Kessa thought.

"Not
to threaten. There's naught I could do anyway, without my husband
finding it, but I've no reason to threaten. It's merely that you're a
thin woman. As I am."

"What
does–?"

"Was
it easy, having your children?" She locked her hands together at
her waist, rather than a demure clasping below her naval. When Saydra
didn't answer, Kessa let the silence stretch.

Finally,
the woman said, "No. It wasn't. The first was long and hard. The
second . . . He laid crosswise. The bonesetters cut
him out and told me to have no more."

"The
potions that dull pain for others . . . Work poorly on
me. Most do nothing." A few of Keli's ointments had promise. The
one derived from an aphrodisiac, that Keli's dead husband had made
for her, had the most numbing effect on her skin. "And those
that cause sleep so the bonesetters can do their job? They affect me
not at all."

Saydra
didn't speak, but Kessa thought the other woman was seeing past the
color of hair and skin, and to the small, thin bones beneath. Kessa
continued, "It's Rain's own justice, you see. If I'd not used a
potion, your brother'd not've been mind-fogged. I'd not've been
arrested. Master Kymus would not've fed me truth potion and found me
immune, for I didn't fever. And from his pursuit of me as his bride?
My shop was burned. I was attacked. And now, the child I carry may be
my death."

"You . . .
already? He made you–?"

"No.
I brewed the conception potion. He neither suggested nor forced me."

Drawn
in, Saydra asked, as quietly as Kessa'd spoken, "Why?"

"The
guild needs a proper heir. The title must be held by one who'll not
abuse it. A son . . . ensures the younger Kymus won't
inherit."

"Your
husband's younger brother, he's the current heir."

"Yes.
He doesn't approve of me."

"You
must hate him. It could be your life. It'll be your blood, at the
least."

"Rain's
justice washes us all away. It was Master Iasen's student who gave
your brother the alchemical teas – both the youth one, and the
lust potion."

Saydra
sucked in air. "
Was
it . . ."

"Ask
Thioso, the watchman. He's no reason to aid me." She turned her
head to look at Saydra's dress hem. "Wait three seasons, and
mayhap no judges nor scandal will be required at all, Mistress
Glasswife."

"Mayhap . . .
And mayhap I'll speak then."

"I
suppose I cannot blame you. I'd do the same and more, for a brother."

Saydra
drew in her breath, and Kessa wondered if she'd realized the hint, or
simply needed to think. "I'll be taking this letter to that
watchman now."

Kessa
curtseyed. "My thanks." She turned and walked towards Dayn.
When she got to him, she said, "If we could cover the expense
Mistress Glasswife went to, coming here and having the driver wait?
She'll need to take something to the watch as well."

"I'll
see to it, m'lady." Dayn bowed to Saydra and led the way back.

Kessa
didn't offer tea as Dayn fetched coin. Saydra likewise made no
comment, until Dayn was out paying the driver. Then, low and quiet,
she said, "You've made an ill choice for marriage, girl. No good
will come of it."

"None
to me," Kessa agreed. "But then, it's not likely to last,
is it?"

"Rain's
justice. We'll see." Saydra sniffed again and swept out the
door.

Kessa
went to the kitchen, leaving Dayn to close the door and follow, and
carried the ready tea-tray up to her room. Perhaps she could enjoy
the sun through her windows without wondering how long she'd have it.

Chapter
XX

I
athor
didn't know if Kessa'd been awake when he left. He suspected not –
hoped not – but fretted she was avoiding him. It was easier to
lure feral cats into domesticity than to lure his own wife into
anything approaching trust.

With
luck, though, he could push through work at the offices and return
early enough that she'd not be in bed. And then he could talk to her.

Perhaps
talk her into having her back rubbed. She'd let him, once, her body
turned traitor with moon-blood cramps, bad enough she'd been vomiting
from pain.

He'd
nearly cleared his desk of important matters before the mail arrived.

One
missive was thick, formal paper – from his brother. Iathor
muttered direly and opened it. Once, Iathor'd sent word about
bringing his students, Nicia and Kessa, to Iasen's house . . .
using the paper and style of yet another overdue dues letter. It'd be
only logical for Iasen to do something similar. "Not going to be
in the offices . . . not welcome to visit him . . .
not going to answer any letters save abject apologies . . .
ha." It was one of Iasen's usual run-on letters, saying
relatively little but at great and slightly tangled length.

He
set it aside and picked through the rest. Talien Irilye'd sent an
invitation to a "quiet evening of conversation and wine,"
with a postscript that she was sure his wife would be uncomfortable,
and thus he should kindly leave her home.

That
one, he nearly crumpled for kindling. But he'd have to answer it, so
it went into the pile to take home. Afterward, he'd lift the ink so
the paper could be re-used. Perhaps Kessa'd enjoy learning that
mixture's recipe, if she didn't already know it.

A
smudged letter from Thioso, sealed with equally grubby candle wax and
a thumbprint, caught his eye.

Iathor
put the letter down and rubbed his forehead.
Why couldn't we've
had fistfights as boys? Gotten it out of the way . . .
But they'd not, though they'd shouted and shoved in childish
arguments.

He
bundled together Thioso's letter, Iasen's missive, and Talien's
invitation. Then he went to the outer office. "Brague, Deocris,
I need to be at the palace cells around lunch, to meet with Thioso,
the watchman. Deocris, please arrange anything urgent to be dealt
with before then. Brague, have Jeck informed, if you would?"

"Yes,
m'lord." His dramsman left to find an apprentice to run the
message.

His
secretary pulled out some papers. "If you'd just skim these two
requests for funds, Master Kymus?"

"Street
repairs . . . If my brother's not careful, I'll
volunteer him as the main ingredient to old Lord Nico Iontele's
mud-stone preparation. Bleed him enough to keep him in bed . . ."
He scribbled assents and grumbled back to his desk.

With
as much focus as if brewing explosives, he managed to get through
enough pressing matters that Deocris wasn't entirely glum when Iathor
left for an unknown amount of time.

Iathor
re-read his brother's missive several times in the carriage, and
wondered why Iasen'd go to such pains to keep Iathor away from his
house if he wasn't even there. Did he think Iathor'd bother getting
into the place, without the key?

Should
Iathor bother? Was Iasen hiding something?

Kessa
and Brague had discussed the logistics of breaking into Iasen's
house, when they'd all been there to investigate the stench-potion
Lairn'd left. Ironic, if Iathor asked them to put their theories to
the test.

The
memory dredged up another: Iasen, come to supervise his dramsmen's
futile attempts to purge the odor and discovering Iathor and his
students already present.
"I'm not going back to Cym until
you've gotten over your mad fixation on that half-breed of yours,"
Iasen'd said, before he realized Iathor's students were present. That
memory flowed to yet another, earlier.
"If you try to
pollute
the Kymus bloodline with that dog-eyed vixen, I'll take it to the
Princeps and have it annulled."

Aloud,
Iathor hissed, "That's why he wants me believing he's in
Aeston." The more time Iasen had to arrange political support,
the more chance the Princeps would hear Iasen's petition – and
perhaps agree. After all, a bastard could be legitimized. Assuming
Iasen'd not overcome his idealistic insistence on a love-match,
providing an immune heir himself . . .

Which
might well be considered his duty . . .

Iathor
barely noticed the surroundings or stray guards in the palace cells,
where prisoners stayed in more comfort than the underground rooms
where Iathor'd discovered Kessa. He stalked through the halls with as
much geniality as a gray stormcloud, curtly informed a watchman he
was there to see Thioso, and was shown the way.

When
Thioso came to the door, Iathor held out Iasen's note. "My
brother's wants me to think he's still in residence. If he's truly
gone, I suspect he's traveling to Cym to have the Princeps annul my
marriage and name my unborn son a bastard."

"That's
a shame." Thioso took the note and scanned it. The man read
better than Kessa did, lips not even twitching. "Come in and
hear what Lairn said just now, would you?"

Iathor
did, Brague following. The small, clean room was perhaps twice the
size of the storeroom closet Kessa'd once slept in. Another door led
to a privy; presumably they'd some method of collecting chamberpots
without being assaulted by prisoners, or else the seat led to pipes
and a cistern with clae mixed in to keep the smell down.