by Jenna Rhodes
It was not until hours later when he dropped off to sleep after oiling and caring for the weapons they allowed him and his shackles had been refastened with the weapons put out of reach that he knew he had passed the trial, for his stomach settled untroubled. As he closed his eyes, thinking of Narskap and Rivergrace, he realized that he would have to take care with everything he ate. He would be a fool to think the trial need be passed just once.
He would search their ranks until he found the damned king as they required of him, and then he would find Rivergrace.
VERDAYNE HAD NO TROUBLE matching his steps to Nutmeg’s, but he felt unsure about the entire exercise. He had, however, felt even more uncertain about her going off alone. Although she wouldn’t be alone; at least one of Lariel’s guards trailed behind them. “Are you certain you should be out here walking? Maybe Keldan could give me the tour.”
Nutmeg shot him a look that said she thought he was daft, but she smiled as well. “I cannot think of a single woman with child I’ve ever heard about whose legs fell off because she took a walk.”
Now he could only hope the guard could not hear them. “I did not mean—”
She took her straw hat off and shook her head about like a recalcitrant mountain pony before jamming it back on. “Not that I expect you would have experience with another woman, but you worked a farm. There must be some idea in that pretty head of yours how to treat a brood mare.”
He wasn’t sure which insulted him more: his implied lack of knowledge of animal husbandry or the fact she called him pretty. Verdayne felt the tips of his ears grow hot. He wanted to correct her and say that she was the pretty one, but that struck him as even more inappropriate. He cursed himself for deciding to accompany her. It couldn’t possibly end up well. “I merely wish to be considerate.”
“Aye, a-course you do.” She trailed her fingers through the thick growth of grape leaves as they passed. “And Dad thought I should take you through our grapes where you can see what he has had to spray and the results.”
He decided from the way she tackled the sloping vineyard that she was not only Dweller but part goat. He found himself catching his breath from time to time when she slowed to show him a particular vine and the new grapes hanging downward from it, with the frosted sheen already developing over its globes that would impart a great deal of the wine’s personality to it even though they were scarcely bigger than peas now. He didn’t know if she stopped just to educate him or catch her breath herself, but he certainly appreciated it. By the time they reached the far quarter against the infamous cliffs of Calcort, the tips of his ears burned again from the sun’s touch, and he wished he had brought his hat.
She took him among the rows. “’Twasn’t black thread, but it was a mold that hit these five rows. We took a chance on spraying, rather than cutting them back and burning the cuttings. You can see the leaves have stains on them, but the mold is gone and the grapes forming seem to be all right.”
“Will you harvest and press them then?”
“Perhaps. Dad would rather be safe than sorry, and I would agree with him. We might work this part of the vineyard separate. We have three varieties of grape here a-purpose, and it wouldn’t hurt to treat this acreage as a fourth. Suppose the grapes held an unseen poison that we in our greediness turned into wine?” She shook her head. “We do well enough here, we can afford to lose a bit of the crop for sale. It’s a risk all farmers and growers take, aye? Wind and sun and hail, not enough rain and too much rain . . . all risks.” Meg paused. “Dad thinks that his spray, concentrated and more potent, will kill that black thread of yours. He’s not certain, mind you, but it’s the place he wants to start.”
Verdayne turned a leaf over in his hands. He could feel the health and vigor in it. “I agree,” he said. “It’s a good place to start.”
She nodded. “He’s making the concentrate now.” She turned away. “Take care, there are some nasty wasps gathering nectar and pollen hereabouts—”
She hadn’t finished the sentence when he heard a shrill buzz and felt sharp jabs along his forearm as he let the grape leaves fall back into place. She looked back abruptly at his stifled curse. “I should have spoken sooner.”
“No mind. I’ve worked groves, I’m used to stings . . .” His voice trailed off. Hot agony lanced through his arm, sending jabs of pain that didn’t stop till they rammed the base of his skull. She grabbed his shoulder.
“Back to the house. As quickly as you can make it.”
His vision blurred slightly as he turned to look down at her, and then it cleared. Then it blurred again. “At least,” he managed, “it’s mostly downhill from here.”
“Indeed it is. The guard and I can roll you if need be.” She glanced around but saw no sign of their escort. “Or not.”
“I can make it,” Verdayne grumbled and then his head swam again.
Nutmeg gave a little snort. “Lean on me. As you remarked, it is downhill.”
She sat him in the kitchen, after hailing the house and finding it empty. Her forehead furrowed, and then she tossed her hat on the counter and rolled up her sleeves, then his.
Nutmeg looked in dismay at his arm. “I’ve got to draw the stinger out or it’ll keep swelling.” Her glance moved to his face. “Can you swallow? Is your throat closing?”
“No,” he answered wryly. “I think I can rule out death by sting.”
“For the moment, anyway.” She poked her finger at his wound, rewarded by his hiss and flinch. “It can build. Let me run over to the herbalist. She’ll have something.”
“Nothing in your overstocked Dweller cabinets that will do?”
“Sorry, no. None of us ever got stung like that.” She could feel his intent gaze on her as she wrung out the cloth and soaked it in cold water again, before wringing it and applying it to his forearm.
“You shouldn’t have to fuss over me.”
“Any Dweller knows that red markings on an insect is the world’s way of telling us to be careful. Even birds think twice before they snap up a crimson stinger.”
“But first,” Verdayne said through gritted teeth as the heat and pain of the stinger worsened, “one has to see them to avoid them. We don’t have them up north, or I’d have known to look for them.”
“Ah, so that’s your excuse! Ignorance!” Nutmeg shot to her feet. “I’m off to the herbalist. Stay off your feet . . .”
“I know, so the poison doesn’t circulate.” He put his other hand up to wipe away the beads of sweat dotting his forehead. “I’ll wait. But, please, don’t run.”
“Not long!” Nutmeg threw the door open and dashed out of the kitchen. Her guards startled, spears and swords coming up. “And there you are. Just me,” she yelled over her shoulder at them before pelting across the street and down a few house estates. She halted long before she got there, the baby kicking hard in complaint as she paused to hike up the straps of her belly sling and catch her breath.
The herbalist was working in her front garden, her head down, her curly hair bouncing about her shoulders in unruly waves. As much gray as auburn, Nutmeg didn’t think of her as a true redhead until the Kernan woman lifted her face to look at her, and the fair, fair skin decorated with a bounty of freckles faced her. She must have, Meg realized, been a flaming beauty of a redhead once in her past. Now, time and weather had tracked her face and taken the color from her hair, leaving her merely handsome.
“Mrs. Simples,” Nutmeg started and then halted, knowing this not to be her name but unable to think of it no matter how she grasped for it. The neighborhood children called her Mrs. Simples, but she had grown far beyond that, she’d thought.
“Nutmeg! Whatever are you doing racing around? You’ll stretch your skin and sprain your back. That’s quite a burden you’re carrying.” The herbalist straightened with a basket hanging on her wrist. “Or do you need me?”
“Oh, no
t that, at least not yet. Our guest has been attacked by crimson stingers. Have you a paste or ointment for that?”
“Drawn the stinger out yet?”
“No, his wound swelled over almost immediately.”
“Hmmm. That guest of yours would be the Vaelinar breed of Lord Bistel?”
“Yes’m.”
“It’s the high elven in him. All right, then, you’ll need a hot poultice to draw the stinger out, and then a mint drink to cool the poison fever. Get him to drink chilled water as well, if you can, when you give him these. He should stay quiet the rest of the day and let that stout Dweller heart beat the poison out of his body.” Shucking her gloves, the herbalist led the way into her home, its very walls saturated with the fragrance of the herbs and flowers dried within them since the day it had been built. Nutmeg looked at the low-hanging beams which served as drying racks indoors, although she knew the woman’s backyard flourished with similar racks. Still, in a spring where rain and mist sprang up unexpectedly, the safest place for drying seemed to be inside. The various scents woke memories in her, but not pleasant ones. The healing tents on the battlefield smelled like this, when not overwhelmed by the smell of blood and gore. Nutmeg paused on the threshold.
“Come in, child, come in. I need to show you how to mix this.” The herbalist’s hands fairly flew over the shelves, picking covered jars down and ladling a spoonful of this and a pinch of that into a small, common clay bowl. Nutmeg neared the rickety wooden table slowly, trying to identify some of the powders but only having success with one, a common enough kitchen powder used in some batters as a dough riser. When she was finished with her mixture, the herbalist tied a cloth over it and pushed it aside. “Hot water, hot as you can stand to the touch. Mix it well, and then paint it over the wound, as much of it on the stinger site as you can. Lay the cloth over it and let it dry. Takes a short while, not as long as clay but about the same. Peel it off, it should draw the stinger with it. Along with a patch or two of skin, no doubt.” She smiled, showing that she had lost some lovely white teeth in that wide smile of hers. “Then clean the wound with plain water and put some of this ointment on it.” She set down a different pot in front of Nutmeg.
“Oh, that smells wonderful.” The aroma tickled her nose delightfully.
“Keep it. Use it on those stretch marks of yours. I’ve been meaning to send some down, but those guards of yours are a bit off-putting.”
Nutmeg chuckled. “They’re supposed to be.”
“Aye, well I know.” The herbalist pushed both clay pots across the table at her. “Settle with me later when your victim is resting comfortably.”
“I will.” Nutmeg put the pots into her apron pockets. Both felt heavier than they had in her hands. She had begun to turn away when the herbalist caught her elbow.
“How do you feel?”
Nutmeg looked into concerned hazel eyes. “I feel very pregnant,” she answered softly.
“Of course! You seem to be carrying it well, for a Vaelinar child.” The herbalist tapped her chin. “They carry longer than Dwellers, some as long as a year and a third.”
A chill rippled down Nutmeg’s spine. Did that mean that Tressandre might possibly actually be carrying a child by Jeredon? The herbalist misread Meg’s reaction. She put her hand out. “Oh, you won’t be that long, child, no worries! But you’re closer than you think, yet not as close as you hope. I know you’re tired of this burden in some ways.” Her hand went to the sling strap and hiked it yet a little tighter. “Nice harness, this. Does it help?”
“Yes. I’ve even begun wearing it to bed.”
“Good. Good.” The herbalist stepped back. “Best get back to your patient. That high elven blood of his is not as tolerant to the stinger as ours are.”
“Oh!” Nutmeg had almost forgotten Verdayne for a moment, although she didn’t know how she could. Perhaps it had been something about the herbalist’s manner. She turned toward home and went to Verdayne as quickly as she could manage, her thoughts still wrapped about the fact that the herbalist seemed to have an idea when this heavy stomach of hers might finally yield.
Dayne’s eyes misted as she put the plaster on, his forearm nearly twice its normal size and a patchy red in color. She smoothed the cloth over the clay-like mixture and saw the pain fade from his face, a fine wrinkle at a time, until he sat quiet, pale, but without the deep lines etched into his face.
He looked up at her. “What now?”
“We wait for that to dry and then pull it off you.”
“It’ll bring the stingers.”
“It should.”
“Good. For a moment when you first opened the jar, I thought you’d come back just to bake bread.”
Nutmeg laughed. “It did smell like it, didn’t it? The rest of the ingredients aren’t nearly as common, though.”
They sat in silence for long moments, waiting for the clay upon his arm to dry. He looked up to find her watching.
“What is it?”
Nutmeg almost did not respond before answering, “She said you had a strong Dweller heart in you.”
“Ahhhh. As compared to you, who have no heart.” Verdayne shot to his feet. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that. Not at all.” He swayed.
“Of course you did, in a way. We’re nothing if not direct. Now off your feet.” She sat very still for a heartbeat or two in his silence. She swallowed. “It’s a’right. I might deserve it, a bit. I don’t wear black for him. You cannot hear me cry, so it’s no wonder you doubt my feelings.”
“I could never doubt your love for that child or your family.” He stood rigidly, waiting until she took a deep sigh of a breath before he sat back down abruptly.
“Dweller tact,” he repeated.
“It’s why we have such thick heads. Or maybe because we have such thick heads, it’s necessary that we have no tact. It’s a matter of getting the attention.”
The corner of Verdayne’s mouth quirked. “There must be kinder ways of bludgeoning someone.”
“Ah, but time is always of the essence.” Nutmeg put her hand out and tested the poultice. Drying but not dry. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that we’re nowhere near as long-lived as the Vaelinar.”
“I could never forget that. I’ve seen my mother and brothers and sisters pass. Nieces and nephew. Great-grand nieces and nephews draw near their prime.” Verdayne’s brows knotted a bit. “My mother not so quickly as the others. It’s an old wives’ tale, I suppose, but the lovers of Vaelinars do seem to inherit a certain longevity.”
“Really.”
He nodded. “My mother lived to be almost a hundred. Long enough to see me from my childhood into my youth. Not that I expect to ever approach my father’s age, his years far longer than even most Vaelinars, but I’m just shy of a hundred and fifty years now and, barring accidents or war, should make two hundred or so.”
Nutmeg breathed out, as if suddenly aware she’d been holding her breath. “So my child will live a span.”
“Did you think he wouldn’t?”
“I didn’t know. I’ve thought upon it, but it’s not the sort of question you can ask just anyone. It borders on rude.”
“I suppose not. Asking, that is. There are more Vaelinars than you think who have a Dweller hidden away in their cupboards, though.”
A thought flickered through Nutmeg. “It must have been hard on you, watching your family pass.”
“Bistel kept me closer to him. I never quite understood why, but I’ve been thinking on it a lot since he died, and I think it was to protect me from my mortality. That and the fact that he had loved my mother, and wanted to give her the respect he felt she deserved. He would not marry her, but he intended to honor her in other ways. He tried to give her land when she married, but she’d have none of it.”
“Oh?”
Verdayne shook his head. “No. She asked for a mill.
She said with Bistel bringing winter wheat to the north that there would be a great need for a good mill, and she was right. She and her eventual husband and sons expanded it three times over, and now it’s a grand old mill, still grinding away, and the family is a prosperous one.”
Nutmeg eyed him. Finally, she gave a slight shrug. “I can’t see you as a miller.”
“No?” He gave a soft laugh. “Me neither. Though my father gathered a few of my kind at the manor to help raise me, no one was a tradesman. I grew closest to the gardener . . . though that title was not enough to describe all that he did for Lord Bistel . . . but he taught me much about the groves and fields. And he a Vaelinar.”
“He’s gone?”
“Yes. Murdered a few seasons ago.” Dayne picked at the edge of his poultice.
“Murdered?”
“I saw the body.”
“So it wasn’t all honey growing up as Bistel’s son? Privileges and honor, a secure place in his graces.”
“What? Why would you think that? Or think of it at all?”
“He kept you close. Gave you friends and family that were like you. Made sure your own family didn’t grow bitter against you. He didn’t push you off to find out for yourself what the world thinks of half-blood.”
“I know what Kerith thinks of us.”
“Ah,” said Nutmeg. “You’ve not had the delight of women cross the street to spit on you, then. From all races. Or had assassins set upon you. Or had a House decide that you were nothing more than a smudge of dirt that needed to be wiped off the face of Kerith.”
He frowned sharply. “I would not have let any of them happen to you! Assassins, we had. Bistane and I handled most of them, though my father took out a few. It’s part of being a successor. Perhaps you hadn’t thought of that when you decided to carry Jeredon’s baby.”
“If anything.” Nutmeg reached out and ripped the poultice off Verdayne’s arm. He let out a smothered noise as it tore arm hair and four fat stingers and a bit of blood and skin from him. “Sometimes we fall in love without thinking at all, and that’s the real tragedy. That and losing the—the wonder of it and the desire to ever do it again.” She pushed the ointment at him. “That,” she added, “should take the bitterness away.”
