annin came downstairs briskly and looked around the kitchen. “Where’s Corson?
Isn’t she up yet? It’s time she was off to market.”
“She left at first light and came back an hour ago with our supplies,” Walden said without looking up from his bread-dough. “Then she went off on some business of her own. She brought in wood and water enough, though. First time we’ve had everything we need since Lambkin’s been abed.”
Trask wandered in, tousled and yawning, “Poor Corson! She came all this way to get Steifann into bed, and instead she can’t get him out of it. I’m surprised she stayed this long.”
“Wash your hands and get to work on this kneading. Corson’s just gone on an errand, a letter to deliver, or some such thing. She said she’d be back before anyone in the taproom had time to get too drunk.”
Annin shook her head in wonder. “That one’s earning her keep, and no mistake.
I’ve never known her so hard-working. She’s been doing all Steifann’s work, and everything else she can lay her hand to.”
“And waiting on him hand and foot like a nursemaid,” Trask put in. “He’d be a fool to get better. I wouldn’t, in his place.”
“She brought him his breakfast this morning too,” Giniver reported, with a smirk.
“I’ll tell you what’s even stranger than all that,” said Walden. “She’s hardly been complaining lately.”
Trask gave an exaggerated gasp. “By the Hlann, you’re right-and she hasn’t been drunk even once, or started a fight.” He pounded both fists into the mass of dough on the table. “It must be love!”
There was plenty of sickness in the town, as there always was at the turning of the seasons, and Maegor the herbalist was busy. She was not pleased when a tall, armed stranger entered the apothecary and asked for her by name.
She thought at once of Nyctasia. ’Tasia’s allies from Rhostshyl had come already, asking for news of her, but were her enemies still seeking her as well?
Had they learned that Maegor still heard from her, from time to time? If so, this visit could mean danger. The others had accepted her word that she did not know where Nyctasia could be found, but the minions of the ruthless Lady Mhairestri would not be so easily satisfied…
Maegor was fairly tall herself, but she had to look up to meet the eyes of the unknown swordswoman. “I am Maegor,” she said calmly. “How may I serve you? You don’t look to be in need of healing herbs.”
But the woman smiled disarmingly. “Not for myself, to be sure, but my man’s down with a hard cough, and a fever. I was told you might have some remedy.” Corson had little use for potions and medicaments, for she was rarely ill, and wouldn’t admit to it when she was. But since the commission from Nyctasia brought her here, she might as well see about some cure for Steifann.
“I can prepare an effective cordial for that,” said Maegor, somewhat reassured,
“but there are others before you, as you see,”.
“Oh, I can come back later,” Corson said pleasantly. With her back to Maegor’s other customers, she drew Nyctasia’s letter partway from her shirt, far enough for Maegor to see.
“Yes, that will be best. I’ve no doubt I can help you. I’ll be ready for you, then-just after sunset,” Maegor suggested.
Corson had recognized Maegor at once from Nyctasia’s description. “A woman of polished walnut wood,” Nyctasia had called her, and so she was. Her hair and eyes and skin were all of a deep, burnished brown, and she had something of the vital, unyielding nature of living wood as well. There were few people Nyctasia trusted so unreservedly.
As Corson expected, Maegor was alone in the shop when she returned. She handed her the letter without explanation, and Maegor quickly broke the seal, assuring herself that the writing was in Nyctasia’s hand, She glanced through it hastily while Corson walked about the apothecary peering into the clay jars that lined the shelves.
“She doesn’t know…?” Maegor said, frowning.
“About Rhostshyl? Not when I left her. She may have heard something by now.”
Maegor sighed. “I hope not. She’ll think, she should come back, if she learns how things stand in the city. And there are those who… well, no matter.” She seemed sorry to have said even so much as that. “I once tried to persuade her to stay, but now I’m glad she’s clear of the place.”
“I promised to let her have news of the city.”
So you know where she is, Maegor thought, but she said only, “If she returns, she may very well be assassinated.”
“She knows that,” Corson said evenly. “I’ve no right to make such a decision for her.” She did not add, “and neither have you,” but Maegor understood her well enough, and she turned back to Nyctasia’s letter, silent.
“Is it true that ground hartshorn excites the passions?” Corson asked, examining a small pot of grayish powder.
Maegor looked up, startled, then laughed, “’Tasia told you to ask me that, as a sign, didn’t she? Those were the first words she ever spoke to me. Are you satisfied?”
Corson shrugged. “I was sure of you. But I thought perhaps you weren’t so sure of me.”
“I wasn’t, at first-but it’s not likely that anyone else would match ’Tasia’s description of her courier. Listen: ‘She who delivers this to you should be a veritable giantess, a magnificent creature a furlong high and as beautiful as a dream, with great blue eyes, skin like dark honey, and a long bronze braid crowning her proud head.’” Maegor paused to look Corson up and down, nodded, and continued, “‘If some lesser being stands before you, then this message has been intercepted, but I have no fear of that. My messenger is as deadly as she is comely, and her equal with a sword has not been born.’ You seem to have made quite an impression on the Lady Nyctasia, friend.”
Corson blushed and said stiffly, “That one wallows in words like a sow in muck.
I don’t pay any heed to her nonsense. And I can’t wait about here all night, for that matter-I’ve work to do. If you want to send her an answer, you can find me at The Jugged Hare. But what of that remedy you promised me, eh? That wasn’t a ruse, I do need it. Do you know Steifann brenn Azhes at the Hare?”
“I know him by reputation,” said Maegor, discreetly, without mentioning what Steifann’s reputation was like. “Is he the one taken sick?”
Corson nodded, “First time since I’ve known him. He’s coughed himself hoarse.
His throat’s swollen up and he wheezes like a bellows. Can you really heal that?”
“Well, I can ease it a good bit. Keep water on the boil in his room day and night. The steam will soothe his breathing. Is he sneezing too?”
“Constantly.”
“Mmmm, with a fever, you said?”
“I think so. He has the chills.”
Maegor disappeared into the back of the shop and returned with her hands full of fragrant dried fruit rinds, which she tied up in a square of cloth. “Boil these in water or wine till the mixture’s thick, then have him drink all of it at once, as hot as he can bear it. That’s for the cough. But these”-she measured out a selection of herbs-“are for fever and catarrh. Steep them in a tea and give him a cupful at night and in the morning, with plenty of honey, Honey’s good for the throat.”
Maegor gave Corson further instructions on caring for a chill and cough, and sent her away laden with admonitions and medicinal preparations. Only when Corson was gone did she give her full attention to Nyctasia’s letter.
As usual, Nyctasia did not say where she was. Raised among the schemes and intrigues of the court at Rhostshyl, she considered such information a weapon that might fall into the wrong hands and be used against her. The feuds and rivalries of the nobility of the city had often taken a deadly turn, and Nyctasia ar’n Edonaris had made more enemies than most. Her attempts to settle the ancient enmity between the Houses of Edonaris and Teiryn had not been welcomed by either party. Powerful factions of each family were determined that the feud should end only with the destruction of the other. Nyctasia had been forced to flee the city, and with Corson as bodyguard she had escaped the coast with her life. But even safe in exile she found it hard to abandon the caution bred by a lifetime of secrecy. The letter said that she was among friends, but gave no clue to her whereabouts.
When Maegor had last seen her, Nyctasia had revealed that she meant to join her lover, Erystalben ar’n Shiastred, but where he had settled after leaving Rhostshyl, Maegor had no idea. The Edonaris had driven him from the city years before, to end his influence over Nyctasia. He had not only threatened their plans to marry her to her kinsman Thierran, but had also abetted her in the study of magic-a study which had won her an undesirable (and largely undeserved) reputation as a dangerous sorceress.
Maegor had met Lord Erystalben, and found him overly proud and ambitious. Not a man, she thought, who ought to study magic. But his love for Nyctasia she could not doubt, and it had been comforting to know that her friend would not be alone in exile.
Yet Maegor was not truly sorry to learn that Nyctasia was not with him after all. Perhaps now she would turn from her pursuit of the magic arts. “He is lost to me,” Nyctasia had written, “through a spell of Perilous Threshold, which he used in desperation to defend his stronghold against a more powerful mage. Such a spell exacts its own price, and I know not where it has taken ’Ben, nor what it has taken from him. I have ‘sought in spirit, that the flesh might find,’”-a quote Maegor recognized from the Isperian Precepts-“but I have learned little.
That he lives is certain, but he might be anywhere in this world, or in another.
He may be so changed that my spirit can no longer reach out to his. I have dreamed dreams that do not lead me to hope.”
Though Maegor was no magician, she knew how dangerous and unpredictable a spell of Perilous Threshold was said to be. Surely even Shiastred, with all his hunger for power, would not take such a mad risk. There was much, she realized, that Nyctasia had not chosen to tell her.
“But I have found a family who treat me as one of their own,” the letter continued, “and I shall try to be content with that for the present. I have work to console me as well, for a great collection of books has recently been discovered in these parts-an entire library of rare and precious works, which are all that remain of a sect of scholars known as the Cymvelan Circle. All seven volumes of The Manifold Ills of the Flesh are here in full, and Rosander’s treatise On the Curative Properties of Wildroots. I shall send you the latter as soon as I have taken a fair copy.”
Maegor smiled. Nyctasia had not changed. However grave her plight, she never lost her passion for learning of all kinds-nor her readiness to display her erudition. If anything could reconcile her to exile from Rhostshyl and separation from Lord Erystalben, it would be the lost lore of an obscure lot of scholars somewhere in the hinterlands.
“No one hereabouts takes an interest in the books, and I have them altogether at my will,” Nyctasia exulted. “I ought to summon scholars from the university in Liruvath to share in this discovery, but I mean to take its measure myself, first. There are certain works here on the secrets of the spirit, which may be of some use to me.”
Nyctasia was unchanged indeed. Sighing, Maegor read on, but what followed was even less to her liking.
“I rely on you to let me know how matters fare in the city”-to Nyctasia there was no city but Rhostshyl-“for travelers from the coast are rarely met with here. You may safety entrust any message to my fair courier, Corson brenn Torisk by name, who can be found betimes at the ale-house called The Jugged Hare.”
Nyctasia concluded her missive formally, with a traditional Vahnite blessing.
“May the Indwelling Spirit guide you in all things, my dear Maeg,” she had written in closing, with a characteristic flourish, “and for the vahn’s sake, don’t forget to burn this!”