The Curse Giver

by Dora Machado

  “If not Konia, then who is giving landing to Riva on the east bank?”

  “I have a feeling that it could be Tolone.” Bren told Hato about Lusielle’s conversation with Eleanor and Tatyene.

  “I’m not surprised.” Hato told Bren about the seal he had spotted on the envelope on Eleanor’s desk. “But if Tolone has allied with Riva, that would be treason, my lord. You’ve fulfilled your part of the bargain. You’ve supported Tolone and Eleanor as agreed.”

  “But I’ve failed at the rest. Eleanor has waited for a long time, Hato. She has cause to be worried. I’m sure that Riva has been pressuring Tolone to join his league with a fair combination of enticements and threats. Send scouts. Make sure they’re not seen. I want us to look along Tolone’s shores for a concentration of ferries.”

  “Any landing on Tolone could lead to an invasion of Laonia in mere weeks.”

  “That’s why we have to look hard and fast.”

  “Perhaps the Lady of Tolone needs to be reminded of her oaths,” Hato said. “If what the woman said is true, there’s no doubt that Eleanor instigated her escape.”

  “Lusielle doesn’t lie,” Bren said.

  “Then what was the crafty wench doing when you woke, my lord?”

  “Lusielle doesn’t usually lie. She’s not very good at it either.”

  “For someone who’s not very good at lying, she had me going there at the end. She almost tricked me into telling her about our plight.”

  “That’s different,” Bren said. “She’s smart that way. She knows something’s off. She says she wants to help.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “Sometimes, I think I do.”

  “Why would she want to help us?”

  “She doesn’t want Laonia to fall. She doesn’t like Riva’s rule. She thinks I’m a good man.”

  Hato frowned. “She said that?”

  “Is it so difficult to believe that she could actually like me, Hato?”

  Could any woman muster true affection for a cursed lord?

  The answer bode badly for his lord and cast doubts on the woman’s intentions. Was she a plant? Was his lord succumbing to his plight’s loneliness? How could a baseborn chit even begin to understand, let alone appreciate his lord’s better qualities?

  Hato didn’t like the turn that the conversation had taken, so he strove to change it. “There’s something else, my lord, something important. Lambage found a curious script in Bausto’s archives.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Hato fetched the small binder from his bags and handed it to his lord, relating the conversation he’d had with Ernilda.

  Bren inspected the strip. “Remarkable vellum. I’ve never seen anything like it. But if what the Lady Ernilda told you is true, it predates the curse by a full ten years. How can it be useful to us now?”

  “Wait until you read it. The style, the tone—”

  “Let’s command a search for vellum such as this, just in case.”

  “Done,” Hato said. “If it exists anywhere in the Free Territories, our agents will find it.”

  “Well done. I can always count on you.” Bren stared at the first line and frowned. “By the Twins. Doomed and damned are the souls of the wicked. I’ve heard these words before!”

  “What? Where?”

  “At the Temple of the Lesser Gods, in Liliaveth’s shrine. The relic spoke.”

  Hato worried about his lord. Was he perhaps remembering some of his sick man’s hallucinations? Worse, was he going mad?

  “Look at my fingers.” Bren stretched out his digits in the air. “I’m not going mad yet. Whether the relic spoke or the Ascended were running a scam, I can’t say, but I swear, the relic uttered this very line.”

  “Did the relic say something else?”

  “It said to kill her.”

  “Meaning the woman?”

  “Who else?”

  “Have you considered that perhaps that’s what you needed to hear, my lord?”

  “Hato, I’m telling you, I wasn’t hallucinating. It wasn’t me, or my imagination speaking. It was the relic.”

  “All right, my lord. I believe you. I hope the relic was more successful than I’ve been in getting through to you.”

  “I’ve made up my mind,” Bren said. “You bring them to me, and I’ll do it. Bring me five women tomorrow, ten the day after tomorrow, bring me thirty with the Goddess’s mark and I’ll put them through the trial and kill them all.”

  “Numbers always increase the odds,” Hato said. “Are you reverting to Harald’s strategy?”

  “I want to do good for Laonia. When I die, I want it to be known that I tried to defeat the curse.”

  Hato hated the way his lord was talking, coolly, with surety, as if he knew the future, as if he wasn’t going to be sitting across from him tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. “I’ll send word right away, my lord. I know the trial is a great burden on you. I’ll do everything in my power to test the women thoroughly before they get to your trial. Would you like for me to test Lusielle again before you proceed?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Bren said. “I’ll try as many other women as you can find who bear a tested mark, old, young, whoever you decide. But I won’t kill her. I won’t kill Lusielle.”

  “My lord!” Hato gawked. “You can’t afford to disregard any leads at this late stage—”

  “She doesn’t match the riddle in any way,” Bren said. “Her death would be a waste.”

  “But my lord, what if she’s—”

  “I’ve made up my mind. I’m willing to play out my fate all the way to the end, but heed me, Hato: There is one thing I will not do. I will not kill Lusielle.”

  Hato reeled. “Please, my lord. We’re desperate. Time’s short. You can’t risk what could be your only chance to—”

  “I’m a cursed man. She’s alive.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve learned something new in the past few days, something important.”

  “What’s that, my lord?”

  “No matter how desperate, a man—even a cursed man—has to come to terms with his soul and make peace with his heart.”

  Hato beheld his lord’s dark eyes. He was shocked by the strength he saw there, the newfound wisdom, the sheer depth of Bren’s mind and will. Hato had to admit defeat. Regardless of the consequences, he didn’t think he could change his lord’s mind. Not at the moment, anyway.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  LUSIELLE TROMPED ACROSS THE DECK WITH her hands fisted and her nails digging into her palms. She was angry at Hato, who had caught her in the act of trying to manipulate the truth out of him. She was angry at herself too, for feeling this strongly about something she couldn’t understand, for staying in a situation that wasn’t in her best interest. But she was most furious with Bren, because he had not answered any of her questions except for one, the one where he openly admitted to murder. It was as if he wanted her to run from him. It was as if he wanted her gone.

  She made for the foredeck, where beneath the little awning that Carfu and Elfu had rigged, she had set up a makeshift counter to prepare her remedies. A variety of infusions, elixirs, tinctures and extracts were already in the works. She had scoured Aponte’s warehouse for the things she might need, bringing aboard a couple of small braziers, pestles, ladles, measuring spoons, sifters, mortars, tongs and other useful wares, including a variety of earthenware containers and bottles in different sizes. She had loathed the idea of letting the useful implements go to waste in the fire and, with her gone, Aponte wouldn’t have any use for them.

  The Laonian men fired sullen looks in her direction as she passed. They were an intimidating bunch, all towering brutes armed and fit for battle and hostile to boot. They probably blamed her for their lord’s injuries. Lusielle didn’t care. At least Bren had some credible protection now. With a little luck, she would deliver him to do his duty and claim her freedom in the days to come.

  She checked on the strengthen
ing tincture she had been distilling for almost two weeks. It was her mother’s recipe, her most effective remedy to restore a person’s wellness. It entailed several steps and lots of work, since it required preparing several complex mixes of herbal extracts in advance, including a puama bark tincture, a schisandra berry extract and a bitter herb cordial, among other ingredients.

  Once all of the base mixtures were ready, she had added the most important ingredient, the essence of the fruiting body of the dry white toad mushroom. It was one of the rarest and most expensive ingredients in the world, available to the Lord of Laonia courtesy of Aponte Rummins’s warehouse. The combined ingredients had been macerating in wine along with several digestives to sweeten the potion’s flavor. By sight and smell, she could tell it was almost ready. It was the second batch she had prepared, and this time, she had made enough to keep Laonia’s lord supplied for another fortnight.

  Lusielle surveyed the contents of her food basket. She had financed the first half of the journey through a small, discreet sale of ingredients to one of Aponte’s competitors. The coin had served her to hire the laborers and pay an advance to the captain, but there hadn’t been much time or coin left to buy food at the end. She would have to work marvels with just a bunch of wilting turnips.

  She set the water to boil on the open air brazier and rummaged through the ingredients she had added to her much augmented stores. The warehouse had provided ample choice. Not only was her new remedy case recently resupplied, but she had packed a selection of useful ingredients and brought them aboard. Substance may lack, but a good remedy mixer knew that flavor was never a problem when ingredients were at hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  A pair of large boots parked in front of her. A number of other boots came to stand behind the first pair, surrounding Lusielle like a forest. She looked up. The man called Severo towered over her with a frightful frown on his face.

  “I’m cooking,” she said. “For your lord?”

  “We care for our lord,” Severo said. “We make our lord’s meals.”

  The other men grunted in agreement.

  Lusielle was not about to be intimidated by a horde of Laonian thugs. “Well, since you haven’t been around lately, I’ve been doing your lord’s cooking.”

  Severo eyed her ingredients. “How do we know you’re not poisoning him?”

  “He’s alive, isn’t he? By all accounts, he shouldn’t be.”

  “Perhaps your witchery is slowly weakening him.”

  “You’re a charming chap.” Lusielle began to chop the turnips. When the thug refused to go away, she looked up, and keeping up with her chopping, spat out a single word. “None.”

  “None?” Severo said.

  “The number of girls you’ve dated this year. Why, with such a sullen disposition it’ll be a wonder if you ever manage a kiss.”

  Severo scowled, but his friends had a laugh at his expense.

  “There are rumors.” Severo waved an accusatory finger. “That you took away his strength. With your brews.”

  “Rumors are true.” Lusielle added the turnips to the boiling water. “Your lord doesn’t sleep well or often enough. He’s sick. I’m getting very tired of saying this: he needs his rest.”

  “No man wants to be rendered useless by a woman,” Cirillo said.

  “But for their own good, some men need a woman to do just that for them.”

  Severo took a knee next to her. “Are you Greada sworn?”

  “No, I deal in remedies. But I know a little about how to tend to a sick man, and since your lord is a wanted man in the kingdom, I thought it safest to care for him myself.”

  “They said he suffered a hack to the liver.”

  “Close.” She crushed the salt rock in her little mortar. “Your lord is lucky.”

  “Our lord is not lucky.”

  “He could have died and he didn’t. He could’ve been locked in King Riva’s dungeon. Instead, he’s on his way to Teos, tribute in hand. He’s got loyal friends, like you louts. He’s not banished or alone in this world. He’s not forsaken of his own people.”

  She shut up as soon as she realized that her eyes had grown watery. She pitched the crushed salt into the pot. Where had all these treacherous emotions come from?

  “Why don’t you make yourselves useful?” she said. “Since you’re so eager to serve your lord, and since I’ve already started his dinner, why don’t you go help Carfu and Elfu in the cargo hull below? The trade marks on the casks and barrels need to be wiped off and replaced with Laonia’s seal, and the captain and his crew merit some serious watching.”

  There was some hesitation among the planted boots on the floor, but to her surprise, six pairs of boots broke out from the rest and disappeared below deck.

  “Do you intend to feed our lord that green gunk?” Severo said.

  Lusielle had had it with this fool. “Even a thick-skulled bully like you might have noticed that I’m not a wealthy woman. Whatever resources I’ve been able to muster are stowed below deck to pay for Laonia’s tribute. Leave me alone. I’ve given your lord the best I can.”

  She kept her gaze on the pot, but watched from the corner of her eye as two by two, the boots finally went away. She exhaled a long breath. She commended the men for being loyal to their lord, but not when it entailed harassing her.

  What happened next shocked her.

  A salted chunk of bacon landed on her lap, together with a bunch of brown potatoes and a pile of recently picked wild carrots. The boots returned, and more food offerings rained on her, a bag of wild rice, a bucketful of green beans, a fresh lamprey, newly netted from the river.

  Lusielle stole a glance at the men peopling the forward deck. They were rummaging through their bags, pooling their resources, gathering whatever food they had managed to acquire during their journey.

  “Thank you,” she said, holding a skinned rabbit at arms’ length.

  “It’s for our lord,” Severo said.

  “Of course.”

  That’s how she ended trading up to a larger cauldron she hassled from the barge’s greasy cook, and preparing the largest, most diverse stew ever conceived in the kingdom. That’s how she ended up feeding not just Bren and Hato, but his twenty men as well, Carfu and Elfu, and quite a few of the crew who followed the scent to her pot. That’s how her first skirmish with the Twenty ended in a stalemate.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  BREN STROLLED THE LENGTH OF THE deck, if only to get his muscles moving and his cramped joints loose. Even a convalescent man could only take so much rest. He had spent the afternoon talking to Hato, considering the verse on the parchment strip and planning their next steps, including the upcoming visit to Teos. The day had concluded with a surprisingly flavorful and hearty supper, which had restored a good measure of strength to his body.

  He stretched his arm, testing the wound. It was healing remarkably well. Above him, the sail bloomed like a summer lily against the night’s stunning backdrop. The moon and the stars were engaged in a contest of brilliance. It was a close thing. The blue twinkles of a thousand stars echoed on the river’s dark surface, challenging the crescent moon’s silver radiance. A man would have to follow the night’s full journey to declare a winner.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he had paused to enjoy the night like this. He inhaled a rush of cold, refreshing air. He couldn’t recall the last time his mind had been in tune with his heart either. Convoluted as they were, the events of the last few weeks had given him some things he had been sorely lacking—clarity, purpose and peace.

  He checked on the horses, said good night to Hato and the rest of the men camping on the foredeck, and then made the rounds, exchanging a few words with the night watch. There were always pirates on the Nerpes. Tonight the enemies could be coming from inside the barge as well.

  A swirling column of white smoke alerted him to the captain’s presence. The man was waiting for him, leaning against the gunwales, smoking something sh
arp and spicy from a coiled pipe. Bren would have soon ignored the ruffian than talk to him, but the captain didn’t know better.

  “Nice evening, my lord,” the captain said. “I’m glad to make your acquaintance. I’ve dealt with the woman thus far, but I gather you’re the boss around here.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I thought we ought to have a talk, from one entrepreneur to another, man to man.”

  Bren smelled the stench, and it wasn’t only the stink rising from the man’s pipe.

  “In about a half an hour or so,” the captain said, “we’ll have ourselves a most extraordinary opportunity.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Have you heard about the port of Asuari?”

  Bren had heard.

  “It’s right ahead on the kingdom side. The king has quite the thriving business there. His procurers are eager to engage with any seller who brings merchandise to the port, more so if the quality of the goods is high.”

  “And you think we have such products on board?”

  “I do, my lord. We might not have volume, but we certainly offer quality. The two monkey men are ugly and old, but they look strong enough to bring in some coin. The woman, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. She would fetch us an excellent price. She’s of the right age, you know, not a child but not too old either, with many productive years ahead of her, not to mention the additional earnings that breeding fees could add to the sale. She’s got skills. She’s got the face to set a high starting bid and the curves to break the auction house ceiling.”

  “And you think I’d benefit from such transactions?”

  “It’d be no effort to you, my lord, other than providing a small armed escort for me. Asuari is not entirely safe. I’d do all the work and split the proceeds with you. Fifty-fifty.”

  The anger flushing the scar on his face must have warned the captain.

  “Forty-sixty?” the fool stammered. “Thirty-seventy?”

  “You might collect the balance of your fee and your barge at the port of Valenia.”

  “Valenia? That’s at the mouth of the Nerpes!”