The Tasters Guild

by Susannah Appelbaum

  As Ivy wondered at this, she came upon a small picture. This one was somewhat different, she noticed at once—the trestle was of a very simple design, and the photographer seemed to feel the need to enliven the shot. The camera had been placed further away; the woods beside the small arched bridge were more wild, the stream (for it was not a river here but a shallow, rock-studded waterway) more frothy beneath the camera, as if the presence of so much nature would deliver the tiny trestle from its own coarseness. Ivy inspected it closely.

  To her great surprise, of the two figures depicted upon the trestle, one was not a trestleman. It was a lady—a striking and refined lady, who complemented the trestleman in size quite accordingly. Although she was dressed in a fashion from long ago, she seemed to be well acquainted with good shoes and impressive tailoring, possessing, Ivy noted, a distinct proclivity for pearl buttons. From a ribbon around her neck, Ivy noticed, hung a small, glinting charm. Her hair was a blur in the old print, as if it were made of the same stuff as the stream below.

  “Rowan!” Ivy whispered, standing still before the small photo.

  The taster turned to investigate.

  “I think that’s an alewife!” She pointed, feeling for her own alewife charm around her neck.

  “Where?” Rowan peered in.

  “There—she’s a bit blurry, but I’d swear it’s so!”

  It was then that Crump made what for him was a speedy return. The concierge addressed Axle, completely disregarding Peps. “Rhustaphustian will see you now.”

  The group followed him into the adjoining hallway and eventually to a low, squat door.

  “Everyone is gathered,” Crump informed them.

  Axle stole a look at his brother, who, for once, was silent—his hand frozen on the threshold. Over the years, Peps had made no secret of his disappointment in nearly all his fellow trestlemen—while profiting from their absence. It would be an uncomfortable reunion.

  They entered what at one time was the Toad’s grand ballroom. Currently it was populated with rocking chairs, the preferred seating of the trestlemen of the Toad. The chairs were everywhere, willy-nilly upon the scuffed wood floor. The room’s walls were a dim, mushroomy beige, that is, until they were not—when dramatic red polka dots prevailed. And atop the red-spotted walls was a ceiling of finely carved balsa wood—like a folded fan. Or gills. In fact, Ivy and Rowan were now realizing, the entire room was made to evoke an enormous toadstool.

  “Axlerod D. Roux,” spoke a barrel-chested trestleman who sat in the middle of the room on a high-back rocker. “It must be dark days indeed that have made you abandon the comfort and solitude of your own trestle.”

  “It’s been some time, Rhustaphustian,” Axle acknowledged uncomfortably.

  Ivy stole a glance at the rest of the room. Many of the weathered chairs sat empty, but those that were full were occupied by ancient-looking trestlemen of similar temperament and discouraging expressions. Their only audible contribution to the conversation was a ceaseless creaking of each rocker. Behind them on one wall, the round windows revealed that the fog had lifted.

  There was a pained silence punctuated with the elder trestleman clearing his throat.

  “To what, then, do we owe this … honor?” He held Axle’s card uncomfortably by its corner.

  “Surely news of our travels has reached you here?” Axle smiled ingratiatingly.

  “It has.” Rhustaphustian turned to look now at Ivy Manx.

  “Ah. Allow me to introduce—” Axle began excitedly.

  “Poison Ivy,” Rhustaphustian interrupted. “We have heard of Poison Ivy, yes.” He nodded, appraising the girl. “Particularly, of late, some incredible feats of healing.”

  Ivy blushed heartily under his gaze. She wished again that Mrs. Pulch had tamed her penchant for exaggeration.

  “Um …” She stepped forward and found herself falling into a curtsey. “Sir, if I may. Don’t believe everything you hear.” Ivy was about to launch into a pithy explanation of her tutor’s gossiping habits but stopped abruptly. The old trestleman’s cold gaze froze her in place.

  “We don’t.” The elder trestleman looked her up and down. “How well the child looks,” he added, turning to Axle.

  Ivy wondered at this.

  A worried look flitted across Axle’s face. “Yes. No—but—”

  “To truly heal, one must know grave illness,” Rhustaphustian quoted, eyes narrow. “Or are we picking and choosing our ancient wisdoms?”

  Rowan shot Ivy a worried look.

  “The actions of Ivy Manx—one girl—ended the torturous regime of the Deadly Nightshades,” Axle reminded the room defensively.

  “Perhaps. But in that we see no reason to celebrate.”

  Axle could not disguise his surprise. His eyes opened so wide they evicted the spectacles from his nose.

  “The Deadly Nightshades were villainous,” the elder trestleman allowed. “But the Tasters’ Guild is worse—much worse! Was it not Vidal Verjouce who whispered poison into the Good King’s ear, spreading his awful brand of betrayal from behind the dark curtain of the Tasters’ Guild? For so long, Verjouce was preoccupied with his puppet king, but now he casts about in search of his enemies. The Snodgrass Toad exists in the shadow of Rocamadour—we cannot risk attracting the Tasters’ Guild’s attention.”

  “I assure you, we have not been followed,” Axle insisted.

  “Verjouce employs a new breed of spies.” Rhustaphustian’s voice was scornful. “They are his Watchmen. Literally—his eyes. You would know them, for they wear the robes of the Tasters’ Guild, only scarlet.”

  With a lurch in his stomach, Rowan remembered the red-hooded figure from the riverside. “Um …”

  But Axle’s surprise had turned to anger, his face now fierce and flushed.

  “Do you refuse us, then?” he demanded.

  “You should not have come. You have endangered us all,” Rhustaphustian said softly.

  From his place of relative hiding behind Rowan, Peps burst forth.

  “You cowards!” Peps squeaked. “The lot of you! How dare you speak to him that way! If Axlerod D. Roux desires your aid, you will provide it. Do you forget the debt you owe him? And do you dismiss so easily the ancient Prophecy and, in turn, the girl—the Prophesied One?”

  This colorful outburst, while causing Ivy some embarrassment, was oddly received. There was no reaction at all—it was as if the entire roomful of trestlemen did not hear Peps’s tirade, in fact did not see him, either.

  “What did I tell you, Axle? They are just tired, feeble old men,” Peps muttered.

  When, after a moment’s time, it became clear that their hosts were not going to respond, Ivy looked around the room, catching Rowan’s eye. The taster seemed just as confused as she was. Peps had begun to sulk and had resumed an angry silence. Axle finally spoke, and when he did, he began with two things dear to all trestlemen’s hearts. “I am afraid the time for sitting idly by has passed. Beneath us the river flows dark and sickly. If you cannot muster the needed courage for yourselves, then you must find it for the alewives.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Tribunal

  Deep in the misery of the Nightshade regime, at a deadly time in Caux’s recent history, a secret trestleman tribunal was called to order. Such were the times when Caux’s elders were in hiding, and this tribunal, unfairly or not, was made up of former residents of the Knox and various injured parties that Peps had amassed over the long years. These were all old men, from an ancient race, but the majority of the trestlemen who gathered undercover at the Toad had never been a part of such an assembly. Axlerod D. Roux was not alerted, for the topic of the arcane assembly was none other than his flamboyant brother, Peps. For many years, Peps had been impersonating Axle for his personal gain, but this was not the reason for the hearing. Actually, hearing was the reason for the hearing—for this was a secret trestleman selective-hearing tribunal.

  There it was decided that Peps D. Roux, having appropriated th
eir living quarters as he stayed behind enriching himself on the Knox, tearing down walls and hiring expensive decorators, was to no longer be heard from again. Various documents were produced and signed, and some ancient words spoken in turn, and then, indeed, Peps—the small, enthusiastic, slightly high-pitched voice of Peps—was to be heard by them no more.

  At the Toad, once it became clear that Peps had been the victim of a selective-hearing tribunal, he actually perked up. The role of persona non grata agreed with him. He began taking pleasure in shouting loudly, even into Rhustaphustian’s polished ear horn. He placed spiders in the trestlemen’s boots as they dozed. He took to shrilly complaining at the state of the grand hotel. At other times, he practiced stealth and would sneak up behind napping residents of the Toad and attempt to startle them from sleep. He stomped his feet; he abandoned all dignity and sneezed without covering his nose.

  Yet none of this attracted any attention, and he quite soon tired of the game. The magic that the trestlemen had spoken at the conclusion of their tribunal was of a potent sort—one from the earliest times of their collective memories, from the times when enchanted manuscripts were being composed into scrolls with the aid of powerful ink, and the first threads of the seven panels of the ancient tapestries were being woven into a pictorial.

  Axle offered to approach the tribunal in Peps’s defense, claiming there was no precedent for such a decree against one of their own kind, but Peps merely scoffed.

  “The sooner Trindle and I are off, the better.” Peps scowled. “You’re as close to the Guild as we can get you by boat. The rest is up to you.”

  He instructed Trindle to be ready to depart come morning and satisfied himself by creating mischief until then.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The Gallery

  There was, Ivy and Rowan noticed, a fairly starkly lit room off the hallway in which they currently found themselves. While Axle saw to preparations for their departure, they had been left alone for the remainder of the afternoon—a happy event in such a seemingly endless structure as the Toad. The pair wandered the maze of halls with distraction as their only real goal. Most doors had numbers and were guest rooms of various designs. Some had fireplaces.

  A few of the doors opened to broom or linen closets. There was a reading room with plush couches and a crackling fire. A game room with shelves of all manner of entertainment, a selection of contemplative games with which the men whiled away their time in exile. Ivy saw a puzzle or two and an abandoned card game. A table held an intricate board upon which stood carved stone pieces with an air of royalty and intrigue, of war making.

  But it was the room off of the game room before which the pair now stood. Two glass-paneled doors opened inward, revealing a selection of display cases of assorted sizes, some freestanding, some mounted, museum-style, upon the walls.

  In fact, it was an exhibit of sorts.

  It was apparently devoted to the innumerable trestlemen contributions to Cauvian society throughout their long years, but as trestlemen were not an ostentatious race, it was assembled and displayed without any fanfare in simple glass boxes. Rowan was enthralled and began walking the center aisle eagerly. Ivy, however, was distracted by an open book upon a podium at the entrance. Peering at the ruled pages, it took her but a moment to realize what it was.

  “A guest book!” she called to Rowan as she began paging through.

  There were columns for the date and the visitors’ names and a small space for comments, and the last entry was some time ago.

  “No one’s been here in ages!” she called.

  Rowan was standing before a weather-themed display, reading the small cards beside each object.

  “Snowtwirlers,” he exclaimed. “Sleetbeaters. Rainmakers. Windticklers. Ivy, this is amazing!”

  Ivy nodded, holding the registry now, paging through quickly to the middle.

  “And here”—Rowan had moved on—“charting tools of some sort. I think I’ve seen Axle with something similar. ‘Constellation Calibrator,’ it says. ‘Starwhistles.’ A ‘Nightharness,’ whatever that is.”

  The next display box was an impressive collection of knots and an unlikely array of twisted barbed wire, but Rowan glossed over it in favor of the last exhibit in the row. This one, he was realizing, was devoted to air travel.

  “Windwhipper,” the first card read.

  Indeed, the umbrella-like flying machine was behind a dusty glass door, with several other mysterious oddities. Rowan was unimpressed. His memories of flying the thing over the waters of the Lake District were poor ones at best—less about flying and more about swimming.

  Beside the windwhipper there was some sort of wheeled cart with a large sail and a canvas balloon; a faded card beside it implied the device worked in tandem with the rails of a train track. But the next contraption—now that looked like something interesting. It was a thing of beauty, and Rowan stopped to examine it fully.

  It was a set of wings, and the curator had chosen to show it off with one appendage folded neatly, as if in rest, and the other extended in flight—broad and proud. They were of masterful construction, millions of scalloped petals—scalelike—sewn out of some sort of lightweight linen. The fabric had a sheen to it, and Rowan longed to be able to feel it. The label read, “Springform Wings.”

  Ivy was reading something of her own.

  She had thumbed to the middle of the guest book, reviewing the last entries, some more legible than others. Turning the page, she came to an entry so surprising—and horrifying—it rendered her speechless.

  In jagged letters, many times the size of other signatures, was a name.

  Vidal Verjouce

  And if that weren’t enough, beneath it, smaller, but just as lavish and seemingly from the same pen, was another. Her mother’s.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The Cafeteria

  They are untested.” Ivy realized a creaky voice was speaking beside her. She slammed the book closed in surprise but soon saw that Crump was looking in Rowan’s direction.

  “The wings,” the concierge explained. “They have never been tested. Who knows if they work.”

  Rowan looked at Crump as if in a daze. He had been miles away, floating on the rim of a sunset in his mind.

  “It’s all speculation. Grig could never find anyone who wanted to risk life and limb to fly them.”

  “Grig?” Rowan asked dumbly, and Ivy scowled. She was not fond of being interrupted, especially by stealth concierges. They should put a bell on him, she thought darkly.

  “The inventor. He could make anything out of wire and canvas. Didn’t always work as he intended, though.” Crump reverted to an uncomfortable silence but after a moment seemed to remember the reason behind his errand. “Master Axle is awaiting you in the cafeteria,” he announced.

  This was good news indeed, as the pair now realized their hunger, and they set off at an idle pace behind Crump. This gave Ivy the opportunity to discuss her findings.

  “They were here together!” She was appalled.

  “Who?”

  “My mother and Verjouce!”

  “When?”

  “Twelve years ago.”

  “Ugh. Ivy, I don’t know.”

  “Rowan, you don’t think—” She had been avoiding an awful thought for a while now, ever since Sorrel Flux had taunted her in Templar.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. Ivy, you need to take this up with Axle. Or Clothilde. Or both.”

  They joined the trestleman in the brightly lit cafeteria. The room was alive with the usual buzzes and clinks, but Ivy and Rowan had never before seen a cafeteria such as this.

  First, the food came to you.

  Crump stopped abruptly beside a counter lined with metal stools and, after pressing a big red button, departed.

  A shiny conveyor belt came alive before the diners as the counter buzzed with activity. Little oiled wheels turned and metal links worked in consort to meander about the entire room. Soon a feast of c
hoices paraded by slowly, rambling from the kitchen through the serpentine path the conveyor belt followed. Small plates at first: a jiggling glass of cider, a slice of hot buttered toast, a tin of plum jam, rumbling puddings with clouds of thick cream.

  Separated from Six, Rowan’s sinuses were clearing, and with it, his appetite returned. Rowan thought of his only other experience with institutional food: the Tasters’ Guild had many classrooms set for meal consumption—courses such as Edibility and the dreaded Irresistible Meals—and then there was the vast student dining hall. There, the apprentice tasters waited in long lines and were served palate-cleansing broth alongside plain, uninspired fare.

  The threesome sat down as a selection of fresh, plump doughnuts clinked by—bursting with jam and dusted with cheery powdered sugar.

  Outside, a storm was settling in, and the joy of the meal would be short-lived. Just as Ivy was preparing to ask Axle (with a mouth full of apricot scone) about the guest register, Rowan sheepishly remembered a confession. He had something of great, newfound import to disclose.

  Chapter Thirty

  Farewell

  Watchmen!” Axle was muttering to himself, contemplating this new and potent danger. “As if Outriders were not enough …”

  “Don’t forget the vultures,” Ivy chimed in, happy to point out that the Guild’s surplus of deadly obstacles was staggering.

  In the icy light of the storage closet, Axle was frantic to depart. He had abruptly ended their supper at the mention of Rowan’s Watchman sighting.

  “Here,” he said as he tore into his satchel. “Put these on.” He hastily threw a mass of dark wool at Ivy and Rowan.

  “Tasters’ robes?” Ivy asked, holding hers up first one way, then another. They smelled nice. “Why aren’t they black?”

  But Rowan knew. The boiled wool and myriad pockets were once a source of great pride for him. The robes of the Tasters’ Guild, students’ robes. A strict olive drab, they were eventually to be exchanged for the true black tasters’ attire after the Epistle ceremony.