by Sam Hawke
I took a seat by the bed, fumbling in the dark, accidentally knocking something down—some papers, perhaps—but Tain slept on. Kalina must have left for bed. The lamp had run low on oil and flickered unhappily, casting alternate shadows and patches of yellowish glow on Tain’s puffy, sweating cheeks. He breathed easily still. I didn’t trust the swell of relief I felt at that. He might sicken slower than Etan and Caslav, but unless I found the answer, his end would likely be the same.
Watching my friend sleep, suspicions clawed at the corners of my thoughts. Kalina had found Marco and Eliska in seemingly perfect health. The whole jar of figs could not have been poisoned; the poisoner must have been there.
Marco was from Perest-Avana, far to the west. We shared no borders and had no quarrel with that distant country. We’d never identified an interest it could have in this conflict. And Marco had lived here close to two decades; had he been an agent of another power all along? Hard to reconcile with a man who had worked so tirelessly to help defend the city.
And Eliska had no connection to any other country that we knew of. She was born in the city. Though she had seemed broadly unsympathetic to the motives of the rebels, she had no real stakes in the estate business. No reason to hate us, no quarrel with Caslav.
Even all that aside, I had always trusted my instincts when it came to judging people, and neither the Warrior-Guilder nor the Stone-Guilder seemed dishonest or secretive.
Which only told me how flawed my instincts must be.
I shook my head and pulled out the new notes. Half of the compounds listed there I’d never heard of. Apparently a lot of wealthy Silastians now indulged in “black pot,” the steam from a combination of imported dried herbs heated in an iron kettle like tea and inhaled, which Batbayer said was wildly popular in Perest-Avana. “Mist,” the powder we’d caught Varina with, was derived using a combination of complex chemical reactions and then snorted up the nose, which could not sound more revolting. And there were three other ingestible products Batbayer sold that were made from mildly toxic plants and minerals. I made notes on top of notes in the flickering light, marking where further research or duplicating a test or production was required. My head drooped and my concentration lagged. But sleep was an indulgence for which there was no time.
Eventually I snuffed the lamp and moved to Tain’s outer chambers. If he woke or became distressed the sound would reach me, and it had superior light for my work. I’d moved most of our books and supplies to the Manor after we’d taken billets in, unwilling to trust their safety to strangers. Everything we’d saved from the library at the school was piled up in a room down the hall. It didn’t take me long to track down some relevant references, and settling myself down close to the entryway to Tain’s bedroom, surrounded by books and notes, I felt almost calm. This was what I had been born to do.
I worked for hours, through almost all the oil in the lamp, searching for anything that might have been our poison. Though there were plenty of gaps to be filled in with my own experiments, I could look up quite a few ingredients on their own. At some point I considered finding Kalina to help with the research, but quashed the selfish thought. If my sister had managed to find enough peace to get some sleep, I shouldn’t interfere. We’d need all our strength in the coming days.
Turning the next page with a sigh, I leaned back over my notes.
* * *
In the harsh light of morning, my last desperate plan seemed foolish. The chances of finding the poison among narcotics ingredients were beyond remote. I blinked, bleary-eyed, at the pages in front of me. The poison wasn’t here. There were still ingredients to combine and experiments to conduct, but the optimism that had driven me yesterday had seeped out through the night, along with my energy.
And yet I persevered, because what else was there to do?
I startled at a soft cough. Hadrea hovered behind me. She wore yesterday’s dress, though it had slumped and crinkled between the ties; she must have slept in it. Her skin looked brittle and the smattering of freckles stood out across her cheeks and nose.
Still, she was utterly lovely.
“Did you sleep?” she asked.
I shrugged. “No time.”
“Did you find anything?”
I swallowed my disappointment and shame and gestured to the books. “No. There are some poisons here, but nothing like what’s happening to Tain. The things people do voluntarily! This stuff they breathe the smoke of—black pot—even has feverhead in it. It’ll kill them if they keep smoking it.”
“What is feverhead?”
“It’s a toxic water weed.” It resembled a safe cousin often used to wrap fish cakes and ground nut paste, so the city had attempted to eradicate feverhead years ago to prevent accidental poisonings—though, as I knew from my visit to the Manor garden, it still crept up here and there. Batbayer had used a different name for it than the common name by which it was known here, but I’d matched his description. “It’s not the poison, though. The symptoms are totally different, and it’s only fatal through repeated use.”
“What does it do?”
“It causes hallucinations, and it sort of coats your insides, stops you from absorbing the nutrients from food and air. People used to chew it for ‘visions’ and then basically starve.”
Frowning, she pulled one of my open books toward her. “This is it?”
The illustration, in excellent penwork and glossy colored ink, showed the fleshy little plant with its broad leaves.
“I know this,” she said with a nod. “We call it babacash. Some of the elders use it, especially out in the west. It is said to aid in the use of fresken. They use it to connect to the spirits in the land.”
“But it’s definitely not the poison. It almost does the opposite.…”
I trailed off, staring down at the picture. Something nagged at me, a thought caught on a rusty nail.
“What is it?” Hadrea asked, but I barely heard her.
The poison was damaging Tain’s internal organs, corroding his body from the inside. Feverhead slowed absorption. It would overstimulate Tain’s mind, and possibly cause him long-term problems, but would it also slow down and interfere with the absorption of the poison, allowing his body the time he needed to fight it off gradually?
My mouth went dry.
I’d been looking for the poison in these drugs and ingredients. What I might have found was a treatment.
“Shit. Shit.” I scrambled to my feet.
“What is it?” Hadrea asked again, touching my arm.
“The garden.”
I hurtled through the corridors of the Manor, my mind racing. Feverhead growing in the Manor garden—a toxic weed? In an enclosed, glass-walled garden, protected from winds that might carry foreign seeds inside? How had it gotten there?
What if it was there because the poisoner had needed an antidote readily available—or a preventative? Something that blocked absorption could possibly guard against the effects of the poison—and wanted it accessible somewhere that couldn’t be traced back to them? They’d need an antidote if, for example, they had to handle the poison while eating with the Chancellor and might risk getting some in their own food.…
The garden lay dark and quiet behind its glass walls, the morning sun not yet lightening the sky enough to illuminate the garden and the lamps cold and cobwebbed. But I had been here only yesterday—Was it yesterday? The days seemed to blur together—and I knew exactly where the feverhead lay piled with the other weeds I’d removed. I only hoped the plant didn’t need to be fresh to have proper effect.
Feverhead had distinctive, plump leaves I identified by feel. My hands shook as I gathered up as many of the plants as possible. I turned to go, then another thought struck me, and I scooped a few handfuls of rich dirt from a nearby patch and cradled it using the folds of my clothes. If this worked, Tain might need a decent supply of the stuff, and the plants might recover if planted again.
I must have looked an odd sight, running throug
h the Manor with dirt and weeds held in my tunic like a swaddled baby. Optimism surged through me even as the cynical part of my brain catalogued the ways my theory could be wrong. I could just be adding to Tain’s discomfort in his last hours or, worse, sabotaging his body’s ability to fight the poison. Or I could be right, but too slow; perhaps the poison had already done too much damage.
Hadrea looked up as I came into the bedroom. “He breathes still,” she said. “But he has not woken.”
I stuck a few of the plants in the cup of water by the edge of the bed and tipped the dirt and remaining plants in a pile on the dresser. I felt my friend’s forehead. “Tain?” I said. “Tain, you need to wake up now.”
No response.
I shook his shoulder, gently at first and then more insistently as his head lolled around but his eyes remained closed. Panic rose inside me. “Tain, come on!” I couldn’t force an unconscious person to swallow. “Tain!”
His eyelids fluttered, then opened. I squeezed his hand, trying to convey confidence. “There’s something you need to try, all right?”
He stared at me, eyes unfocused. His lips worked, but nothing came out.
I broke a wilted leaf off one of the plants. “You need to chew this,” I told him. “Do you understand?”
He blinked, and my breath caught in my throat. Was he still there? Then, slowly, he opened his mouth. I pushed the leaf in, crouching beside the bed as he chewed. His jaw worked while we watched. Each movement seemed to take an eternity. “Swallow when you can.”
Once he had swallowed the first leaf, I gave him another. Then another. We repeated it with five leaves, until his chewing grew too weak and he fell back asleep—or unconscious. I let him have the break.
The burst of energy that had come over me drained away, and I once again felt like … well, like a man who hadn’t slept. A warm hand slipped into mine. Hadrea, perched on the stool, smiled down at me. Confused but pleased by the sudden gesture, I wound her fingers through mine and rested my head against her hip.
We waited.
* * *
Sitting in silence, I thought of my first poisoning. The fears of a seven-year-old boy played over me. Not knowing what was happening, not knowing when, or if, things would ever improve. Hadrea stayed with me, quiet and oddly calming.
The first sign of change was a cough. The sudden spasm of Tain’s chest made Hadrea and me jump. He spat out some yellowish gunk, then flopped back onto the bed. I wiped up the gunk and checked his pulse. “A little faster than earlier.” I noted it in my book. His breathing hadn’t changed over the course of the morning. It was hard to tell whether the feverhead was having any effect, but at least he hadn’t deteriorated.
I checked his temperature. “Tain?” No response. But increasing movement was apparent behind his eyelids. Etan and Caslav hadn’t appeared to dream during their periods of unconsciousness. I felt his forehead again. Was it my imagination, or did his skin feel a touch cooler? Don’t get your hopes up.
But over the course of the next few hours, they rose all the same. Tain wasn’t getting worse. His color looked fractionally better, and his breathing seemed strong. He didn’t wake, but his eyes raced around behind the lids, and sometimes his body twitched or his lips moved as he dreamed.
When the morning sun had reached the foot of Tain’s bed, Hadrea startled me, breaking our vigil. “If he gets better, what happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
She gestured at Tain. “Last night, every breath seemed shallower than the last. Now he is almost relaxed. Your feverhead seems to have at least stopped the effects of the poison. Would he not be dead by now, otherwise? Or close to?”
I hadn’t wanted to give voice to my hope, but found myself nodding, a smile creeping over my face. “I think so. There may still be too much damage for him to recover. But the poison seems to have stopped attacking him.”
“Well, then. Someone poisoned him, yes? Do you know who?”
My hope froze over with that grim reminder. Knowing about the antidote, it no longer seemed reckless for the traitor to have so boldly risked poisoning food in front of us. Either Marco or Eliska—or even both—had to be our enemy. I felt sick. Both presented loyal faces, and both had been trusted with the city’s safety in their own way. But one of their faces was nothing more than the mask of our enemy.
“Eliska or Marco.” It burned to say it aloud.
“Will you accuse them directly?”
We could arrest both, then sort out later who the traitor was. They couldn’t do any damage from a cell. But could we learn something by letting them continue to think we trusted them? They hadn’t resorted to outright attack on Tain, so they must still believe there was a benefit in poison over something more direct. They must still believe us ignorant of Caslav’s true fate.
“They think Tain’s poisoned.” I glanced over at his prone, twitching form. Was there an advantage we could gain here? If nothing else, could we learn what the traitor had planned to do once Tain was dead? “If days pass and no one sees him, the traitor will think he’s dead and we’re covering it up. Let them believe that.”
A sudden thought sprang up. “Where’s Kalina?” It was past midmorning. I’d have expected my sister here as soon as she woke, but I had been too distracted to wonder at her absence.
“Perhaps she overslept? She was exhausted.”
“Perhaps.” More likely she was staying away, fearing what she’d find when she returned. “I might go find her. Can you stay with Tain?”
I searched the closest rooms, thinking to find her sleeping close by. When that proved fruitless, I stopped by Argo, who told me my sister had left the Manor late yesterday evening.
“How is the Chancellor?” he asked, his words spaced too far apart, like he didn’t want to ask the question.
I gave him a wan smile. “Hanging on.” Best not to impart my possibly false hope on anyone else for now. “We can only hope the fortunes favor us.”
The doorkeep nodded, solemn, and I headed out of the grounds and down to our apartments.
But my sister wasn’t there, either. The bed coverings were cool and the pallet flat. If she’d slept there last night, she’d been up for a while. If she’d decided not to come to the Manor, it was because she had needed the space to come to terms with what she must have thought would be Tain’s death. As her brother it was my responsibility to protect her, but she needed to choose her own way of dealing with things sometimes.
I left a short note on her bed, in case she came back there in the meantime. When she felt strong enough, hopefully she would return to good news.
My own footsteps slowed, though, as I returned. Optimism and realism battled inside my head—one part of my brain constructing images of Tain healthy, the other seeing his lifeless form. No matter how I counted my steps or the clenches of my fists, the overlapping images and ideas swamped me. Pushing down the nausea and trying to suppress my imagination, I nodded to Argo and returned to my friend’s rooms.
“Jov?”
Relief drenched me as I stepped inside. Hadrea beamed at me from the stool by the bed, one hand gently wiping Tain’s forehead. Tain was propped up on pillows, eyes open, looking at me.
“You’re awake!” I raced over, scanning his pallor and the puffiness of his lips.
“Why’re you here?” he asked me, eyes wide. “I thought you were in the mountains.”
I turned, confused, as his dark gaze fixed on a spot behind my left shoulder. Nothing there.
“Tain, there’s…” I caught Hadrea’s glance, and she touched her temple, eyes flicking over to Tain. The hallucinations. “There’s no need to worry,” I said instead. “You need to eat some more of this. It’s helping.”
Hadrea had planted the remaining feverhead plants in a ceramic cup, and Tain let me put another wilted leaf in his mouth, but a few passive chews in he started thrashing about and spat out the leaf. “Get away!” he yelled. “Get them off me!” He swatted at his own body, face tw
isted in terror, but his own weakness defeated him, and he panted and flailed helplessly. We had to restrain him while he sobbed and rolled. When he finally settled, only half-conscious, Hadrea squeezed my hand.
We coaxed him into eating another few leaves, and waited.
The hallucinations presented us with challenges over the next few hours; it was in parts heartbreaking trying to calm his distress and absurd to see him giggle childishly at things that were not there. But even as I worried how the feverhead was affecting his brain, hope built inside me about his body’s recovery. His temperature continued to cool and steady, and though he coughed up phlegm from his lungs, I grew surer that the feverhead had stopped the effects of the poison from spreading.
“I think it’s up to his body now,” I told Hadrea after he had slumped back into sleep following another bout of babbling and thrashing. “There was only limited poison in his system and it’s stopped attacking him. It’ll just depend on if he’s strong enough to recover from the damage already done.”
Hadrea brushed her hand over the leftover stems of feverhead in the cup. “Is this all of it?” There was a strange intensity about her gaze on the wilted plants.
“We shouldn’t need any more. He’ll either make it or…”
She slipped her arm across my shoulder. “He is strong. Young and healthy. He will defeat this.”
I leaned into the warmth of her. “I think you’re right.” I slipped my fingers through Hadrea’s, grinning up at her, and found my own happiness reflected in her face. Though drawn with tiredness and strain, she had never seemed more beautiful.
Seized by the moment, I stretched up and kissed her.
It started out almost platonic, a shared moment of joy. It didn’t stay that way for long.