The Curse Giver

by Dora Machado

  “Of course not.” Vestor’s whisper betrayed a hint of panic. “She’s going to spread the rumor.”

  “Oh.” Lusielle had to think quickly. “Meet me at sunset,” she said to the woman, “I’ll have a cure ready for you.”

  “You promise?”

  “She does,” Vestor said. “Now be off with you. Come back later.”

  Loaded with the necessary ingredients, Lusielle and Vestor left the store, mounted the stairs and returned to the Ascended living quarters, where Vestor kept a chamber dedicated to his healing arts.

  A quick look and Lusielle knew that although a bit untidy, he was a well-accomplished healer. Instruments, journals, scrolls and books crammed his shelves. A small but effective garden of medicinal herbs grew in the pots lining his window sill. A strapping healing chair was bolted to the floor in the middle of the chamber across from the hearth.

  “Help yourself to anything you need,” Vestor said.

  Lusielle set down her basket and began inspecting the shelves, picking out a pair of tongs, a couple of measuring spoons, a sifter, a wide iron mortar, a pestle, a kettle and three copper pots, which she filled with water from Vestor’s basin and hung on the hooks over the fire. She crumbled three handfuls of dry elephant bark in one of the pots and added a spoonful of turmeric and a pinch of Pyrigian dust.

  Vestor sniffed the brew’s caustic scent. “What is it?”

  “My favorite cleansing decoction,” Lusielle said. “It keeps away the festering.”

  “I didn’t know Pyrigian dust had cleansing properties.”

  “The bark has astringent qualities.” Lusielle organized her wares on Vestor’s counter. “The Pyrigian dust doubles the solution’s potency.”

  “I’ve been using Pyrigian dust all my life and I never knew it to have such an effect.”

  “The property is only released when the dust is boiled for a minimum of twenty minutes. Since the dust is most commonly used in infusions and not in decoctions, most healers and remedy mixers never realize its true capabilities.”

  “You’re right.” Vestor hurried to his crowded desk and snatched his quill from where it had been abandoned by the inkpot. “Do you mind if I write this down?”

  “Write away.”

  “You don’t care?”

  “The knowledge belongs with anyone who’ll use it for the good of the needy.”

  Working quickly, she chopped up the fresh herbs and set them aside in little piles, peeling the bulbs and quartering the sweet roots she had selected, before returning to the pots beginning to boil over the fire.

  She tossed three fresh bundles of fiery tempers into the second pot, adding a fistful of crushed calendula petals and grating a chunk of curled lanelas into the mix. She dropped an entire sweet milk nut into the last pot. The nut, as big as a baby’s head, sank right to the pot’s bottom, a good sign to Lusielle’s watchful eye.

  “Do you have some sort of a calming brew?” she asked.

  “Right here.” Vestor set a jug on the counter.

  Lusielle swiped a finger on the spout and tasted the brew. “Not bad. A tincture of purple laudanum with a touch of mint and lavender.”

  “It’s my secret recipe. How did you know?”

  “I’ve got some active taste buds and a trained sense of smell,” she said, smiling. “The tiger’s ear comes out at the end. I bet your brew works well.”

  Vestor hovered over her preparations like an eager kid. She didn’t think he got credit for his work frequently. She doubted he spoke to other healers or humor workers often, let alone remedy mixers. Out of fear or caution, they were all likely to stay away from the temples. Aponte had rarely allowed her to confer with her peers. In many ways, Vestor’s life had been as isolated as hers.

  She took advantage of the moment when Vestor was writing down his notes to add a touch of snakewort powders to his calming brew. Snakewort was known to loosen the tongue and she might yet need an advantage. She retrieved the first kettle from the fire and, dividing the mixture, poured the hot water into a narrow-neck bottle, added a bundle of berberine and three spoonfuls of crushed dry sobar petals, then corked the bottle.

  “That’s for Nelia,” she said. “The woman with the infected eye.”

  “I’d forgotten about her,” Vestor said. “I’m really sorry, but you know how it is once a rumor begins.”

  “Rumors are to people like festering is to healing.” Lusielle added some stinky eye bulbs, along with some celery seeds and dry ocamia stems to her next preparation. “I usually like to take my time with my remedies, but I doubt the Pious wants to wait.”

  “You won’t get a second chance,” Vestor said. “The Pious needs his ailment cured before Teos calls. He’s eager to become a Chosen. He can’t risk the brethren or the worshippers learning that he’s sick. He’s due out on the courtyard the day after tomorrow.”

  Lusielle heard the warning in Vestor’s voice. The consequences of delay or failure would only aggravate matters. She lit the little brazier she scooted beneath the three-legged mortar.

  “I’m not bad at mixing my own remedies,” Vestor said, “but none of the conventional cures have worked for the Pious.”

  “For each illness there’s a brew,” Lusielle recited Izar’s rules, “and for each brew there’s a crucial ingredient. It’s just a matter of finding it.”

  Steam gushed from the second pot as she poured the contents over a basin, catching the boiled ingredients in the sifter, which she then added to the mixture on the mortar. Pounding everything together, she crushed until the mix thickened.

  “You’re by far the most efficient remedy mixer I’ve ever watched,” Vestor said.

  “I’m even faster when I have my annotations at hand.” She fished out the nut and, setting it on a platter, chiseled it open, adding the congealed milk to the mixture bubbling on the mortar.

  “I bet your book is a treasure.”

  “For someone like me or you, maybe. The rest wouldn’t know what to make of it.” As she waited for the mixtures to settle, she filled a smaller bottle with some of her cleansing tonic and began to pack some of her favorite ingredients in fabric folds.

  “What are you doing?” Vestor asked.

  “I used to always carry a few useful ingredients around.” Lusielle knotted the strings. “They’re always helpful. I miss not having them around. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” Vestor selected a case from a pile cramming a high shelf and gave it to her. “It’ll serve you much better than it could ever serve me.”

  Lusielle examined the beautifully crafted remedy case. She had never seen anything quite like it. It was no bigger than a regular satchel, but it was different from any remedy case she had ever owned. On the outside, layers of tightly stitched corrugated leather wrapped a sturdily built, light-weight, hard inner shell. Rows of small, orderly pockets lined the case’s interior. A thick sturdy strap could be strung over the shoulder. Clamping hinges snapped shut when she closed the case, stretching yet an additional layer over the case.

  Lusielle caressed the bristled surface. “What’s this?”

  “Seal fur,” Vestor said, “and doubly wound hinges. You know, for waterproofing.”

  “Who by the gods would try swimming with their wares?”

  “You’d be amazed how many times a traveling healer has gotten caught in a downpour.”

  “Very ingenious.”

  “It also has a spot for valuable ingredients.” Vestor pushed aside the liner and pressed on a tiny decorative bracket. A small compartment clicked open to reveal a discreet pocket built into the case.

  “Whoever crafted this case thought of everything.”

  “Teos’s gifts are always of the greatest quality.”

  “I can’t take it from you.” Lusielle gave the case back. “It’s too fine and fancy for the likes of me and I can’t afford it.”

  “I’m not selling it to you,” he said. “It’s a gift.”

  “You may need it.”
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  “Me? Nay. I don’t travel much, and even if I did, look at the shelves. It seems fancy cases must be the healer’s fashionable gift. Please, take it. You’ll give it far more use than I ever will. Consider it as fitting payment for your work here today.”

  Lusielle didn’t think Vestor was going to take no for an answer and she was doing a lot of work for the Pious. “Thank you.”

  She was about done packing her new remedy case, engrossed in a discussion about the benefits of wild gentian to alleviate indigestion, when the door crashed opened. The Pious limped into the chamber and tapped his cane on the floor.

  “How much longer is this going to take?” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you to summon me while you two have been babbling the day away.”

  “We had to fetch her ingredients,” Vestor said. “She had to prepare the cure.”

  “I hope you’ve chosen your ingredients well.” The Pious eased into the healing chair. “I’m neither patient nor forgiving and, unlike you fools, I don’t have time to waste.”

  Lusielle willed her heartbeat to slow down. The Pious was no ordinary client and this mixing was unlike any other. Men like the Pious were highborn by birth and powerful by the will of the temples, a formidable, not to mention dangerous combination. The gods only knew what would happen if she blundered or failed. Suddenly the Dismal Bog—sucking ivies and all—seemed almost appealing.

  The man wrapped Vestor’s knuckles with his cane. “If this goes wrong, if she cripples me in any way, you’ll bear the consequences as surely as she will.”

  Vestor blanched, but to his credit, he didn’t flinch or cow in fear. He nodded to Lusielle as if to infuse her with confidence, teaching her with his courage that not all the Ascended were bad-tempered fools.

  The Pious did nothing to redeem himself. On the contrary, he flung out his robe and, spreading apart his scrawny knees, exposed himself like a vulgar lecher.

  If the Pious thought she would flinch at the sight of his flaccid privates or shirk at the swell of a boil, he was wrong. She had seen her fill of injuries, ailments and body parts during her time at Aponte’s stores. She had mixed potions, elixirs and poultices for men, women and children of all ages. The human body didn’t intimidate her, and neither would the Pious.

  She rinsed her hands before pouring some of the cooled cleansing solution over the Pious’s groin. The boil was a swollen bulge dangling like a third testicle at the fold of the leg. It was hot to her fingers and heavy to her palm. The Pious cringed every time she touched it.

  “How long have you had it?” she asked.

  “Weeks,” the Pious said. “I told Vestor to lance it, but he refused.”

  “I feared the festering would spread if I cut open the boil without a clear draining channel,” Vestor explained. “There’s not even a hint of one as of yet.”

  Vestor had been wise to refrain from using the scalpel. Lusielle had seen the carnage that such course could bring. It wasn’t anything that someone like her could remedy. She scooped a ladle full of the poultice and smeared it over the Pious’s groin.

  When the Pious hissed, Lusielle motioned to Vestor. “I think the Pious might appreciate some of your calming brew.”

  “Certainly.” Vestor poured from the jug and handed the Pious a goblet full.

  The Pious chucked it all in one gulp then gestured for more. “It’s the only thing this idiot does well.”

  Lusielle stole a glance at Vestor, but he refilled the goblet without comment, encouraging her with his silence to keep hers. She added a hot compress on top of the mixture.

  “Now what?” the Pious said.

  “Now we wait for the poultice to do its job.”

  The point of the Pious’s cane landed beneath Lusielle’s chin, tilting her face up. “You’re not bad looking for a baseborn,” Eligious said. “I bet you’re disappointed.”

  Lusielle dodged the cane. “Disappointed?”

  “To find the highest of the pure afflicted with such a common blight.”

  “Even the pure are human.”

  “You don’t think disease is the will of the gods?”

  “Of the gods, you know better.”

  “You’re being coy, woman,” the Pious said. “I asked you a question and I demand a response!”

  “She believes what the temples teach, my lord,” Vestor said.

  “Oh, shut up, you imbecile.” The Pious grabbed another full goblet and drank. “Let her answer for herself.”

  Lusielle had no wish to engage in a debate with the Pious, but the man insisted, and the poultice needed time to do its work.

  “I’ve often wondered,” she said. “Why would a god or a goddess care about a sore or a boil? How are the gods’ doings related to a careless scrape? Why would they strike down an innocent baby, or like in your case, one of their servants?”

  “Why indeed.” The Pious raised his cup in the air and drank again.

  Lusielle selected a set of crystal cups nestled within each other from Vestor’s shelves. She chose one of the larger ones and, holding it with a pair of tongs, heated the cup’s domed end over the brazier. When it was warm enough, she fitted it carefully over the Pious’s inflamed boil.

  The heat increased the poultice’s effectiveness. As the air inside the sealed glass cooled, the suction inside the cup increased, clinging to the man’s body, drawing on the stubborn boil, distending the swollen lesion into a gruesome pink and purple mass.

  Lusielle whispered Izar’s little prayer, an old habit she had learned from her mother. “May healing rule over sickness, strength over weakness, health over pain, light over dark. For all in nature seeks balance and all in balance fares well.”

  The Pious eyed her suspiciously. “What are you doing?”

  “I just said a quick prayer, to speed up the healing.”

  “What if it wasn’t a prayer?”

  “My lord?” Vestor said.

  “What if she was conjuring something else?”

  “Something like what, my lord?”

  “Maybe she was summoning an evil spirit on me. Maybe she was invoking a spell, a charm or something even worse. Maybe she’s not who she says she is.”

  “Please, my lord, the woman is just a remedy mixer doing her job—”

  “Go fetch my cloak.”

  “My lord?”

  “I left my cloak in my chamber. Go!”

  Vestor hesitated then scurried out the door, leaving Lusielle alone with the Pious.

  The Pious smiled a chilling grimace.

  Gulping dryly, Lusielle realized her suspicions had been warranted. The boil had been the Pious’s excuse to summon Lusielle. Sure, he wanted a cure, but he also wanted more.

  “Who are you?” he asked, sipping from his cup.

  “I told you,” Lusielle said. “I’m the Lord Brennus’s remedy mixer—”

  “I mean to find out who you really are, why you stick with the Laonian whelp, and who commands you to do so.”

  Lusielle was shocked. “Why would you think someone commands me?”

  “‘Cause that’s the way of the world and you’ve survived much longer than it would appear necessary.”

  “It’s not like that—”

  “It’s exactly like that,” the man said. “Now disrobe.”

  “What? No!”

  “I want to see it.”

  “See what?”

  “Your mark, of course.”

  Lusielle refused to allow her fears to prevail over her wits. She too had an alternative reason to meet with the Pious and this was not the time to give up on it. She knew what she was about to attempt was dangerous, but until this moment, she hadn’t had anything else to bargain with. Now Eligious himself was giving her an opportunity she may never get again.

  “Do you want to see my birthmark?” She backed away until she was out of his arms’ reach. “I’ll show it to you, but only if you tell me why you want to see it.”

  The Pious smirked. “You want to bargain with me?”

/>   “It seems fair.”

  “Let me look at it first,” the Pious said. “Then I’ll know if it interests me or not.”

  The snakewort powders she had slipped into Vestor’s calming brew were bound to start working just about now. The Pious would be in a talkative mood.

  Lusielle loosened her laces. “You said something earlier.”

  “What was that?”

  “Something about the gods not owing favors to the wicked—”

  “Right now, you’re looking pretty wicked to me.”

  She held up her dress with one hand and bared one shoulder first, then the other. “You were referring to the Lord Brennus. Why do you loathe him so?”

  “Those who wallow in evil’s clutch deserve nothing but loathing.”

  She turned around and, brushing aside her shift, gave him a glimpse of her back. “Why did you call him wicked?”

  “Because he is,” the Pious said. “And so are you.”

  He lunged. Lusielle never saw it, but the cane straddled her around her waist, smashing into her belly and sweeping her back-first into the Pious’s lap. She tried to free herself, but the Pious was incredibly strong, well trained, and proficient in the use of his cane.

  “Much better,” he said, as he shoved her face down over his knees and secured her on his lap with his cane. He tossed her shift aside and found the small butterfly wings etched midway up her spine. She didn’t like the forced contact, but she liked the leer she spotted on the Pious’s face even less. A cold blade traced her mark’s uneven edges.

  She kicked. “Let me go!”

  “You’re a feisty one.” The Pious’s voice was full of greed. “This is the best I’ve found yet. Very good work indeed. Now, tell me. Who’s your master? Or should I ask, who’s your mistress? Who are you working for?”

  “You can’t do this.”

  “My temple,” Eligious said, “my rules.”

  “The Lord of Laonia will—”

  “Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Eligious said. “When you disappear, I’ll tell the Laonian whelp that you begged me to let you go. He’ll believe me, because it makes perfect sense that you should try to flee him. You’re nothing but expendable. To him. To us. You don’t matter.”

  The Pious was right. If she disappeared, if the Pious imprisoned or killed her or sold her to the king’s whorehouses, nobody would ever know.