The Tasters Guild (9 page)

“What is it?” Ivy leaned in, curious despite herself.

It was thin and delicate, with a dark oval hole through one side.

“A hatpin?” she asked.

“An embroidery needle?” Rowan suggested.

“Hardly! What are they teaching you these days? It’s a birdcall. A silver birdcall. A charm, of sorts. It, er, belonged to
someone quite dear to me. It will bring you good fortune.” Peps smiled, looking remarkably like his marble bust and treating the room to his gold tooth.

Axle grabbed his brother’s hand and peered into it, a look of surprise and then fury flashing across his bearded face. “Peps!”

Peps looked momentarily sheepish.

“You never told me you had an alewife’s charm!”

“You never asked.”

“What do you do with it?” Ivy asked, examining it.

“You mean, besides wear it?” Peps shrugged. He took the thing, which was threaded upon a silken ribbon, and tied it around Ivy’s neck.

“Well, thank you, Peps. I suppose I could use all the good fortune I can get.”

“It’s a potent charm,” Axle warned. “I should like very much to study it—”

Rowan cleared his scratchy throat. “Um, could someone tell me what an alewife is?”

T
he Field Guide to the Poisons of Caux
was the preeminent reference book of the land, containing in its vast pages the antidotes to poisons, the secret meanings of flowers, and even a few magical, hidden passages. But in some ways it was maddeningly incomplete.

The book was written by Axlerod D. Roux in response to the poisonous regime of the Deadly Nightshades and the rise of the Tasters’ Guild, and it was used as a tool by those wishing to remain alive in the treacherous land of Caux.

It was also the favorite book of the truly wicked Queen Nightshade. Because it was so widely read by friend and foe alike, Axle wisely chose not to include anything controversial—favoring instead the purely factual—lest he be labeled a heretic and imprisoned in the dungeons for treason. Still, some things were too important to Caux’s history to omit, and these he secretly buried within the text. Rowan had discovered such a passage detailing the sad history of King Verdigris.

But the alewives eluded him for a different reason.

Axle did not write of them because there was simply too much heartbreak surrounding their disappearance.

The trestleman cleared his throat and nodded slightly.

“Alewives,” Axle began, “rule over troubled water.” He appeared to be gathering his thoughts. “They were inhabitants of Caux, and when the Doorway to Pimcaux stood open, they were invited in. But it was an unspeakable trick—and Vidal Verjouce slammed the Doorway shut behind them.…” His voice trailed off.

Peps took over.

“They were our wives,” he explained simply.

Ivy was wide-eyed. Here was another reason to get to Pimcaux, and she said so. They must hurry to Rocamadour.

But the taster scowled. Rowan somehow could not muster the same urgency to get to Rocamadour as the others did. He was miserable beside Six, who he was sure was menacing him when Ivy wasn’t looking. And he missed the bettle boar Poppy greatly—traveling anywhere without her seemed somehow wrong.

In fact, the bleak city of the Tasters’ Guild was the last place he wished to find himself. He was a wanted man—an uncollared taster—and his future was grim if he was captured. His head swam and his eyes teared and another fit of sneezing loomed. As Rowan regretted the swift departure, Six was
snaking his way around Ivy’s shins, coming nearly as high as her waist, leaving clumps of hair and stalky whiskers behind. He was sure the thing was eyeing him as he did so—the large pads of his feet weaving silently along the wooden deck boards.

His misery grew. Here he was, being forced to return to the very place he so feared. The Tasters’ Guild severely punished its renegade tasters with a truly awful fate. One meted out by the Guild’s own fearsome leader, Vidal Verjouce—the ultimate tragedy for a taster, and one that ensures he might never taste again: the surgical removal of the tongue.

Between Six and Rocamadour, he wanted nothing more than to be alone.

T
here is little enjoyment in feeling ill. Surely one can forgive, then, the distasteful temper that now settled upon Rowan Truax. He was certain in his gloom that Ivy was
encouraging
the cat—for Six was never far from her side, and he was almost certain the beastly pile of knots and tangles was stalking him.

But moods are just that, moods—often irrational and overpowering. He took no joy in the delicate little filament bulbs that clinked a fine tune, aflame along every available surface of the houseboat. He took no joy in anything, except perhaps solitude, wherein his mood roiled as they began their way along the ancient river, in the fading light, bound for lonesome ruins and low-lying cliffs.

Although the daylight was frail and anemic, Ivy’s mood was one of confidence and cheer. Seeing the taster alone, she occasioned to remark upon their method of transport.

“Didn’t Axle always say that to travel by houseboat is
simply the very best way to see anything and everything at all?” she enthused.

Rowan, however, was not to be engaged on this topic—or any other, for that matter—and responded in his usual manner of late, with stony silence. Ivy stole a sidelong glance at her friend, noting that he had been uncharacteristically withdrawn since boarding the houseboat, but attributed it to the weight of the approaching Rocamadour.

“Barberry?” Ivy tried, speaking of the flower that symbolizes sourness of temper. “Garden marigold?”

Unfortunately for Ivy, Rowan was not agreeable to having his pout pointed out, and she received a curt reply.

“Lichen,” he sniffed, indicating his desire to be left alone.

“Fine.” Ivy turned on her heel. But she couldn’t resist a parting word. “Orange lily,” which she really didn’t mean, and “Larkspur,” which she did.

The next day was uneventful, considering the circumstances of their departure, with one notable exception.

Rowan had been staring glumly over the railing when the boat slowed its progress somewhat and the river widened into a placid pool. The trees at the edge of the clearing were mostly the leftover yellows of birch and ash—the autumn rarely had much showiness after the ravaging Winds of Caux. Still, this was a small spark of hue, and one made doubly luscious as it was reflected in the mirror-like surface of the Marcel.

Rowan stared, unthinking, at the water. A muskrat was swimming dejectedly through the glassine reflection, a wave of ripples behind him. He headed toward the mud banks of the shore, creeping along a path until he found some safety in the tall grasses. The taster grew tired of waiting for the thing to make a reappearance, and he was just about to rise up from his slump and perhaps search out another form of entertainment when something caught his eye.

A swath of brush grew up from nearby, and it was there that Rowan saw some movement. With only dull yellows and browns in this wood, the patch of brilliant scarlet was conspicuous.

Rowan squinted, just to be sure.

Yes—there. A red-hooded figure retreated into the dusk.

T
he weather had now become a factor, and with the loss of light, a great chill was in the air. Axle was preoccupied with the low-lying clouds—he wanted urgently to consult some of his brass instruments against Caux’s night sky. He was forced instead to spend his time muttering and examining old tomes or pulling on his beard and cursing the swollen river.

Ivy found herself happy for her thick woolens—she had discovered them when rummaging in her steamer trunk. She put them on at once. Her
Field Guide
lay open where she had tossed it on her bed. Inspired, she proceeded to dump the entire contents of the trunk onto the floor, taking inventory. Small notebooks—good for cataloging one’s experiments with herbs—and lead pencils. Many more of her books. Seed packets. (Whoever packed her trunk must have known her quite well.) A waxen bag of violet-infused gumdrops. At the
bottom she found it—a small leather satchel containing her poison kit.

Upon it, there was a letter.

She realized she had been holding her breath as she read, and, exhaling sharply, she donned her stiff apron.

And set about tinkering.

Interestingly, Ivy knew a few recipes for the alleviation of allergy symptoms, but many more for causing them. Her old ways—the ways of Poison Ivy—had produced for her an impressive profit from the sale of itching powders, and dreary potions and tonics that could mimic Rowan’s current state—or worse (much worse!). But she set to work now—with a sprinkle of pussy willow and a soupçon of ragweed—to help Rowan return to the sunny side of health. And temperament.

She normally felt very much at home with the poufs of odd smoke and choking wafts of powdered charcoal, but today she found there was a new thought intruding upon her concentration. She was unusually distracted, forgetting to turn
over the small hourglass that timed her distillations. Annoyed, she blew a stray hair from her face and began again.

Her mind was not on her work. If only Shoo were here, he might gently guide her in the right direction.

She thought of the dark, mysterious garden she had seen. What lay beyond the gates? Whose garden was it—and why had Dumbcane drawn it, rendering it quite expertly with his strange inks alongside the image of her own face?

And, most of all, she wondered what grew there.

Her own potion needed something, she realized, and walking over to her messy bed, she plucked a few hairs from Six’s backside and added them to the brew before her. The cat eyed her uncivilly and then, with a swish of his tail, turned away.

Scourge bracken.

She found herself fascinated with the potent plant.

At her uncle’s tavern, with Shoo by her side, she had concocted a true panacea for poisons, a helpful cure-all for anything. But she could not duplicate the recipe no matter how hard she tried. It was the greatest disappointment. With scourge bracken, she found herself thinking, what other potions were possible? Surely she, Poison Ivy, would be knowledgeable enough to use it with the proper restraint—to overcome its domination? Queen Ivy, she found herself thinking. Princess of Potions.

With a shudder, she realized her error in thought. Surely this type of reasoning was what got Hemsen Dumbcane in
trouble to begin with! And, worse, she found that it reminded her of someone. Someone quite close to her.

Her mother.

Hadn’t Clothilde wished for herself the very glory of curing the King? Wasn’t she quite troubled that this was not her destiny?

Ivy stood up in disgust, disturbing the vials and scales before her, her experiment upended.

It was a fine thing that Ivy abandoned her tinkering then, for Rowan would not have been persuaded to ingest it. Rowan would not be persuaded to do much of anything—especially reveal the mysterious scarlet figure he had glimpsed that day. Such was his misery that he was determined to keep the incident to himself.

T
he last thing they saw before the thick, rolling fog set in was a small iron trestle some ways above them, spanning the cliffs that now drew high on either side. It was a comforting sight. Even from below, Ivy could see the amber light of a fire dancing on the ceiling, and she thought of Axle’s lovely trestle beside her childhood home. And then, quite suddenly, there was only gray.

This was a fog of some proportion. It had heft and body to its billowing wisps—and a smell of damp basements. It was, in fact, emanating from the Marcel, as the early cold snap pressed against the warmer river. It made Ivy tired, and finally, she went to bed.

Stretching out upon the cot, and fighting Six for space, she opened the
Guide
. She found herself at a page at the rear of the reference work—a densely annotated section entitled “Appendix IVb: Dictionary of Symbols.” Upon it, the image of a snake consuming its own tail.

Ivy read, thinking of the strange imagery from Dumbcane’s shop, the fantastical creatures. The golden door with this very same symbol.