by M K Hutchins
I spotted Nisaat on her stone bench, patiently spinning, waiting for anyone who might need an escort. As soon as she saw me, she wound the thread and stuck it in a pouch laying next to her. She clasped her hands, cold and business-like, over her emerald green skirt. “Dami. How may I help you?”
I strode to her side and whispered, “Listen. Do you know anything about Violet?” I paused. “I don’t even know what her birthgift is.”
That might give me a hint as to what Fir wanted her to do.
“They’re already married,” Nisaat growled.
I flinched. Of course she’d be upset for Bane’s sake. “It’s not like that. Do you know anything about Violet or don’t you? Please? I need help.”
“If Bane weren’t so keen on helping you, I’d slap you and leave you to your misery.”
I hadn’t expected so much anger from her. “I’m about to die, Nisaat. In the long run, he’s better off without me.”
She pursed her lips. “Fine. Violet’s perceptive-of-taste-and-smell, like her father, former Master Chef Palaw. Did you want to hear about him, too?”
Sorrel already told me about him — how he’d retired to see the exiled Red Lord Ospren settled in his mountain prison and let Sorrel’s father pick the next Master Chef. But her birthgift... my mouth still tasted bitter. Fir couldn’t be the poisoner; he didn’t have the skills. But Violet, perceptive-of-taste-and-smell... Violet, who Fir got into the palace...
Sorrel mentioned that she had no love of cooking; I’d thought she possessed some other gift, not that she wanted others to dismiss her gift to keep suspicions low. How could she use her life-giving skills to attack and kill?
I chewed my lip. Violet couldn’t be the poisoner. Sorrel didn’t arrive until after Lady Sulat gave birth. Fir needed her here for a different task.
“Something wrong?” Nisaat demanded. “Or does your provincial bumpkin brain just work that slow?”
Part of me admired her familial loyalty. I didn’t rise to the insult. “I thought I’d figured something out... but Violet and Sorrel came from Westbank too late for that.”
“They didn’t both come from Westbank.”
I peered at her.
“Sorrel came down from Westbank. Violet came up from Napil, where she’s been living with her grandmother. She arrived some time before him. I remember escorting her to Lady Egal’s, then showing her to a guest apartment.”
My pulse thudded so loud, I worried Violet could hear it wherever she was. “When? What day?”
Nisaat frowned and smoothed her skirt. “I think... yes, it had to be. Bane’s errands were delayed, so we played springball together that evening. Violet arrived the day before Lady Sulat gave birth.”
Violet was the poisoner.
I returned to Lady Sulat’s apartments, desperate to tell her what I’d learned. But the previous night and the letter had left her drained; she’d retired to her bed, with instructions not to be bothered.
“It’s urgent,” I pleaded with the door guard.
He glowered at me, one hand steady on his spear. Scrubbing crocks had strengthened my arms, but I couldn’t knock a guard down. I doubted Lady Sulat would sleep long.
I tried to help Poppy with her current task—stitching more doll-sized diapers for the infant—but after my twitching hands marred a length of fabric, she sent me outside. I sat on the front step of the porch, leg bouncing, unable to sit still.
The poisoner. At last. I knew. I could bring an important prisoner to my trial, then beg the Council for lenience.
Moss relieved Resin of his watch. He tilted his head to the side, examining me. “Trying to break the step?”
“I need to report to Lady Sulat.”
“You managed something useful, didn’t you?” Astonishment dripped from his words.
“Yes, Moss. That is possible.” I folded my hands over my knees, trying to sit still. “I know who Fir wanted to bring into the palace. She’s our poisoner.”
Moss frowned and sat by me. “If she was on the servant waiting list, someone’s been planning this for a long time. Before Lady Sulat was pregnant.”
“She tailored the poison to fit the situation. I don’t know if they want Lady Sulat grieving and distracted, or if they hoped she’d die in a complicated, early birth. But it was subtle, Moss. If I hadn’t been there, no one would know to suspect a poison. No crime means no criminal.”
“That’s... a good point.”
“Would you stop sounding so surprised about that?” I snapped.
He shrugged. “Old habits.”
“Can you talk to the guard? Convince him to let us in?” My stomach felt like a crock about to over boil. Finally, finally I’d figured something out. Lady Sulat would know how to proceed.
Moss shrugged. “It can probably wait until she wakes up. Lady Sulat can’t think if she never sleeps. Besides, it looks like you have company.”
He nodded down the gravel path. Bane strode toward us, buttercups and pink shooting stars clenched in his hand. His uniform seemed extra-clean and he must have gotten someone else to tie his armband for him. Instead of a lopsided, one-handed knot, it looked elegant. Perfect.
He cleared his throat. His voice sounded unusually deep. “Yellow-ranked Dami of Clamsriver. Could you spare a moment to speak with me?”
Were those flowers... for me? He shifted nervously on his feet. Ancestors above, the flowers were for me.
The tang of my sweat mixed with the perfume of Bane’s flowers. Why was he making me turn him down again? This time, he’d have an audience in Moss. No. I wouldn’t do that to him. I’d have to keep the conversation away from us. Thankfully, I had big news. “I figured out who Fir brought in.”
“That’s great!” He came closer and lowered his voice. “Who is it? Has she been arrested?”
“Not yet. I’m waiting to see Lady Sulat. It’s Violet. She’s the poisoner.”
Bane jerked back from me. He didn’t bother whispering. “Violet? I can’t believe you’re that desperate... to accuse his wife?”
“What?”
“You’re jealous. So jealous and mad about losing Sorrel, you’d resort to false accusations.” Bane gawked at me with hurt, hollow eyes. “Are you going mad, or are you not who I thought you were?”
Of course I wasn’t who he thought I was. He didn’t even know my name. But the look on his face still made me feel like I’d drunk a whole jar of vinegar.
“Resin heard everything.” I turned, but of course Resin left long ago. “Listen. Fir arranged for her and Sorrel to come here. Violet arrived the day Lady Sulat was poisoned. She’s perceptive-of-taste-and-smell, too.”
Bane’s amputated arm twinged, like it suddenly itched. “You’re in the palace. You were in the kitchens when Lady Sulat was poisoned. You have the same gift! That’s not evidence. That’s coincidence.”
Moss leaned back on the stairs, thoughtful. “An awful lot of coincidence.”
“You too?” Bane glared at him. “Dami. I don’t understand why you cared so much about Sorrel in the first place, but if you can’t forget him, you won’t survive your trial.”
“I’m trying to survive my trial! This isn’t about him. I heard Sorrel say that Fir invited them here. It’s her. Violet.”
Bane barked a dry, bitter laugh. “So you saw him. Morning of his wedding and you still can’t step away.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I said, standing. “Osem—”
Bane threw his flowers at my feet. “Stop making excuses and just say you’ll never have me. I’ve heard it before.”
He stormed away.
The flowers lay in the gravel, their delicate yellow and pink petals already marred by the dust. I glanced up at Bane’s receding back, then down again. “I don’t understand him, Moss.”
“I noticed. Quite entertaining.”
I sighed and I tried to salvage the flowers, but most of their petals fell to the ground. “Flowers. Flowers right after I told him not to court me.”
I
felt daft for only seeing what I’d wanted to in Bane—a friend and an ally.
“He wasn’t just courting. He was proposing.”
“Ha ha,” I said dryly, not in the mood for teasing. But Moss wasn’t smiling. My stomach dropped. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Lady Sulat spoke to him of it two days ago, after she noticed his interest. As a soldier’s wife, you’d get a military trial as soon as Lady Sulat named Bane complicit. Instead of facing the Purple-Blue Council, you’d both face a military tribunal. King Alder could choose to preside, but a military tribunal would pardon both of you, denying the King a chance to pass punishment.”
“W-why didn’t anyone said so?” I spluttered. After I made an idiot of myself in the Hall of Records, Bane had been oddly insistent that I’d live. Now it made sense. He thought he could save me.
“Bane’s a romantic. He wanted to formally propose. Lady Sulat agreed.” Moss nodded at the bruised flowers. “Too bad he wasted his time picking those.”
Marriage to Bane. My chest twisted. No kitchen. No recipe manuscripts. Just Bane. If we married, would he learn my secrets? Would he have me and my family hanged? If I managed to keep all my secrets, would I ever hear him say my real name?
“He’s a good young man,” Moss said.
All the more reason to reject him. Bane deserved a wife as genuine as himself. If I married him to use him, I was no better than Violet. “That doesn’t mean I should wed him.”
“Of course not. It means there’s a decent way to save your neck.” Moss picked something out of his teeth. “Except you stomped the boy’s heart all over the ground. Don’t think he still wants you.”
He shouldn’t want me. He knew a pale imitation of Dami, not Plum. Not the chef.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him—I didn’t know he was proposing.”
“Obviously.”
I shook my head. “Moss, I know what I saw. Violet is behind this.” I sat back down on the porch next to him. “I... I didn’t really sound crazy-jealous, did I?”
“If I answer that honestly, you’re going to glare at me.”
I spread the remnants of Bane’s flowers around the ferns and bleeding hearts planted outside Lady Sulat’s apartments. It felt like scattering someone’s ashes. Bane’s offering would have looked better next to the blooms Lady Sulat’s brave sons gathered for her. My mouth tasted as bitter as it had when she dismissed me.
I glanced at the door guard. He glowered at me. So I waited outside in the clean, spring air. Part of me wanted to curl up in my closet and sleep until Lady Sulat called me. My thoughts moved sluggishly. Violet, Bane... I had too much to think about. My hands felt clammy.
Was I that jealous? Had I imagined Sorrel’s words?
No. No, I’d heard it. Just because I didn’t like Violet didn’t mean she couldn’t be guilty. Whatever Bane thought, this wasn’t about Sorrel.
Thinking of Bane made me nauseous. Would he ever talk to me again after this? It probably wasn’t fair to ask him to. If I’d known he wanted to propose, I could have gently told him no. Written a letter. Or—my head throbbed—said yes? Was the risk to my family worth saving myself from a civil trial?
I could imagine Bane marrying the real Dami, the two of them wandering the woods together or playing springball. I’d be proud to call him my brother-in-law. But this proposal seemed like one more ill product of all my lies. If we’d met as just Plum and Bane, as chef and soldier, I couldn’t imagine him offering to tie his life to mine. I wasn’t the adventurous young woman he thought I was.
I yawned, the exhaustion growling in my skull getting the better of me. “Moss. You’re married, right?”
“For twenty-eight years now.”
“Do you have any idea why Bane would want to marry me?”
Moss grinned. “I bet he’s asking himself that right about now.”
“That’s not a real answer,” I grumbled. I blinked the cobwebs from my eyes, trying to stay awake.
How could we play springball now? Or skip rocks together? I’d miss that terribly. And some small, bitter part of me blamed him for ruining it.
“Is it so hard to believe that he admired you? That he liked the idea of marrying you?”
What was there to admire? I was only good at—only passionate about—one thing. Over a letter, I could believe Sorrel wanted me. Could love me. He already knew everything I loved about myself.
But Bane? To him, I was some strong-of-arm girl caught in a tight place. I didn’t want to be that girl. Why would he want to marry her?
“I suppose it is.” My eyelids felt as heavy as granite. I rubbed them, trying to stay awake. Sometime soon, I should find Bane. Apologize. Explain to him all the reasons he should be happy I wasn’t his.
“He told Lady Sulat that he wanted to meet you as soon as he heard the story of how you traveled alone to Askan-Wod,” Moss said. “He thought a woman with such strength and courage might look at a man with one arm and see him—not just the difficulties such a union would bring you. He’s only grown fonder of you since.”
Bane saw all that in me? I let my head rest against the porch railing. I wasn’t strong. Or brave. I just did what was necessary.
“Dami? Are you feeling well?”
“Just tired.” The bitterness, that nervous bitterness, stained my throat.
“You need to take better care of yourself or you won’t make it to your trial. Are you not sleeping well, or is running around on that injured ankle catching up to you?”
He sounded like my father. “Probably both, Moss.”
But I didn’t have time to rest or baby my foot. If I’d hurried a little faster to taste Lady Sulat’s breakfast this morning, maybe I could have spoken with her already. My ears felt full of water and my mind blurred toward sleep. Bitter blossomed in my mouth.
Why had I been late? That question nagged me. Important.
Violet. Violet had been in the kitchens. She’d walked with Poppy. Then delayed me. I’d tested Lady Sulat’s food late. A less cautious person, maybe, would have eaten without waiting?
Violet was the poisoner. Bitter had been in my mouth before I tasted the food. I hadn’t been paying attention. Hadn’t thought it strange that the cloying honey didn’t wash it away.
Bittersleep leaf. It was toxic, avoided even by deer. It had no odor. Just a faint bitter aftertaste, easily concealed from the average tongue with an ample helping of sweetness. Children sometimes mistook it for cress. I’d helped Father treat such carelessness before. But this bittersleep hadn’t hit me with instant, nauseating weakness like it should have.
What flavor had the tea been? Yarrow. Yarrow would direct the toxin to the veins. And the sweet, the endurance—that ensured a gradual decline. The kind of weariness that felt like mere exhaustion, not sudden poison. That encouraged a morning nap.
In a sufficient dose, the bittersleep paralyzed the veins, until the victim’s pulse stopped entirely.
I jerked to my feet. My brain swirled in my skull. I clutched the railing so I didn’t pitch over. Dizziness screamed in my ears, pressing down on my knees.
“Moss!” I barked, blinking hard, trying to focus. “Lady Sulat’s been poisoned.”
Moss tore past me. The door guard must have heard my cry, because he stepped out of the way. I stumbled after, each step like swimming through over-thickened sauce. Accidentally, I kicked a vase. Water, petals, and broken pottery swam around my sandals.
Inside the bedroom, Moss spoke to Lady Sulat’s still form. Then took her hand. Then tried to sit her up. Her eyes stayed closed, her arms hung limp at her sides. Poppy followed Moss, eyes wide, horrified.
I shuffled forward, past all of them, to press a finger to her throat. A pulse, sluggish and faint. She’d ingested much more than me, but she wasn’t dead.
Her veins had already been targeted by the yarrow. Targeting them directly might result in complications. I had to target her heart.
A sweet-and-sour rabbit’s heart would give her the stren
gth she needed to live. Or strawberries macerated in tangy blackberry molasses—surely the greenhouses had strawberries by now. But I didn’t have time to butcher a rabbit or macerate strawberries. And she couldn’t chew.
Tea could be ready quickly. “I need hot water. And celeriac. And parsley.” Celeriac for the heart; parsley for sour. Strength, to rise out of the danger. We’d worry about full recovery later.
Soldiers sprinted from the room. Moss steadied me with an arm. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes.” I’d practiced my whole life.
The door guard scowled at me. He opened his mouth to protest or suggest some other course of action, but a soldier brought me a glazed, ceramic bowl of water from the bedroom—one meant for washing, but the vessel looked as clean and sturdy as any kitchen crock. I restarted the fire in Lady Sulat’s brazier and nestled the bowl in the coals.
Then two other soldiers burst in, one of them holding a half-grown celeriac ripped right out of some palace garden. Black dirt trickled from it onto the rugs.
“Take that outside,” I ordered, words slurring. Raising my eyelids after a blink felt harder than hefting fifty-pound sacks of beans. “Peel it. With your spears, if need be. No dirt!”
They nodded, military-sharp, and sprinted outside. Someone brought a handful of baby parsley next. I tossed it in. The guards returned with the celeriac—now a clean, cream-colored cube—and handed it to me. I used one of their spears to shave bits off. Oh, it would have been better as a soup. Tastier. More helpful. But she needed something now.
I dribbled the crude tea into her mouth, then checked her pulse again. No discernable improvement. But no decline, either.
“She needs a spoonful of this. Every half-minute. Meanwhile, someone should—” I set the bowl on the end table as the world swirled about me. “Should fetch—”
The floor swayed under my feet and I fell, striking my head against something hard. Pain bloomed at my temple, but I couldn’t open my eyes. My arms felt heavy as fallen logs, unmovable.
“—fetch a chef,” I mumbled.
