The Echidna's Scale (Alchemy's Apprentice)

by Quyle, Jeffrey

  Cassius walked quickly towards her, with Marco following as he led Pesino.

  “Are all these servants to the marquis?” the desk clerk asked as the quartet walked past him.

  “Servants, friends, it’s hard to tell the difference with these southerners. The marquis is very egalitarian,” Kate said breezily as she walked by.

  “What about the blind girl? She’s no servant,” the clerk challenged.

  “She’s the marquis’s strumpet. She can’t see his pock marks or his scar or tell that his ears stick out so far,” Kate quickly improvised while they continued on.

  “We’re at the stairs now,” Marco warned Pesino. He paused as she cautiously edged forward, then resumed a slower pace as they climbed the stairs.

  “Here’s your key,” Kate told Marco as they reached the top of the stairs, standing on a balcony that overlooked the lobby. “Your room is down that way. Our room is right here,” she said as she handed over the key, and Cassius handed Pesino’s backpack over to Marco.

  Marco led Pesino to the door of their room, then put things down so that he could insert the key in the lock.

  “Are we in the room now?” Pesino asked a moment later as she heard the door close behind her.

  “We are,” Marco affirmed. “And there’s a great big bed that looks very soft,” he narrated what he saw. “Over here,” he took her hand as he placed their packs on the floor then led her about the room, “is a door to another room, and inside,” he paused as he crossed the threshold,

  “Oh Pesino!” he murmured.

  “What? What is it?” she demanded.

  “Just stand there and hold still for a few moments,” Marco directed. He released her hand and stepped away. Seconds later she heard the sound of running water, splashing very close by.

  “What is it? What’s happening?” she asked impatiently.

  “What are you doing?” she asked in a shriller tone after two more seconds, as she felt Marco’s hands start to undress her.

  “Just be patient,” Marco said gently as he loosened the belt on her trousers and pulled her blouse up.

  “Patient? Why be patient? Just tell me what’s happening,” Pesino said insistently.

  “Here, come with me,” Marco stopped fussing with her clothes and led her back into the bedroom, where he sat her on the bed, then knelt and started to remove her boots.

  “This room does have a fireplace. I’ll have to start a fire for Gawail. Is he with you?” Marco asked.

  “No, he’s with Kate for now, and stop undressing me! Tell me what this is all about! Have I suddenly become more entrancing to you because I’m blind? That’s a first!” she spoke with humor as well as impatience.

  “Here,” Marco said as he pulled her second boot off. “Stand up and let’s go,” he held both her hands and pulled her to her feet, then led her back to the bathroom.

  “This hotel has a tub with piped hot water!” he told as he stopped her at the edge of the tub. He reached her hand down and dipped it into the hot water that he had been running to fill the tub.

  “Oh Marco!” the former mermaid gushed as she felt the relaxing warmth. She swept her arms up and around Marco’s neck, hugging him tightly.

  “Undress me! Undress me right now!” she said insistently as she removed her arms from him and held them straight above her head. “I want to soak in that tub for hours. I’ll eat dinner here, and I’d like some seafood; we haven’t had any fish in months!”

  Marco pulled her shirt up over her head, and pulled her pants down around her legs, no longer conscious of any embarrassment – they had traveled together for so long they had become intimately acquainted and comfortable with one another.

  “Now, step here, slowly,” he guided her first foot into the warm tub, then turned the flow of water off.

  “Oh, oh, oh!” she shot the words out in staccato fashion. “This is hot, hot, hot! I need this so badly.” She lifted her other foot, and then stood in the tub, holding onto Marco, as she lowered herself slowly into the tub, then carefully sat back, giving heavy sighs and moans of ecstasy as she relaxed.

  “Oh Marco, this is good. Go get my supper now, and fix my eyes, and treat me like a marquis’s wife. What do you call the wife of a marquis?” Pesino rattled on.

  “A marchioness,” Marco said promptly, having studied the topic with Mirra.

  They paused in their conversation as they faintly heard a knock at the hotel room door.

  “Were you expecting guests, my marquis?” Pesino asked languidly.

  “Only Gawail, and he doesn’t knock,” Marco replied, just before the knock was repeated. He stood and walked into the bedroom, then cautiously opened the door.

  A maid stood at the threshold, with a paper note in her hand. “This message is for the Marquis of Sant Jeroni,” she said demurely as she thrust the note at Marco. As soon as Marco accepted the note the maid dropped a curtsey and stepped away.

  Marco looked at the paper in his hand, then cocked his head in curiosity before he closed the door and walked back to the bathroom.

  “Who was it, my lord?” Pesino asked. She was lying back in the water, her head wet from having been dunked beneath the surface of the bath. She looked relaxed and at ease, Marco thought.

  “A maid delivered a note,” Marco said, turning the envelope over and opening the seal. He didn’t recognize the ornate symbol that was pressed into the wax.

  “A note?” Pesino asked pertly. “Who’s it from? What does it say? There can’t be anyone in this city who knows you to write a note.

  “The Grand Duke of the Northern Shore,” Marco answered.

  “This note is from the Grand Duke of the Northern Shore. It’s addressed to the Marquis of Sant Jeroni, and it’s an invitation to a soiree at his palace this evening. His messenger awaits the pleasure of a reply!” Marco read the note with increasing astonishment.

  “You stay here; I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Marco told Pesino as he walked towards the door. “I’m going to go talk to Kate about this.”

  “Don’t think you’re not taking me to the palace! Remember, I’m your wife!” Pesino called as Marco left the bath and walked at a quick pace to the hallway door. He went down the hall to Kate and Cassius’s room, then knocked rapidly, and repeatedly.

  Cassius opened the door seconds later. “Marco, what’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Is Kate available? I need to talk to her,” Marco asked.

  “She’s in the bath tub,” Cassius answered.

  “So is Pesino,” Marco responded. “I need to talk to Kate. Kate!” he called loudly.

  “What is it Cassius? Is that you Marco?” the girl’s voice came from the bathroom, and moments later her head stuck out the door.

  “Kate,” Marco surprised Cassius by ducking into the room and approaching Kate. “I got this note from the Grand Duke of the Northern Shore, inviting us to a soiree at his palace tonight. What do you think?”

  “Let me see that,” Kate demanded, leaning into the room, one arm modestly pressed across her chest as her other hand was extended towards Marco.

  Marco held the note just an inch beyond Kate’s reach, and as she leaned further towards him, he slowly pulled the note back, so that after several seconds she started to topple forward, shrieking as she fell to the floor.

  “Marco!” she growled, and reached up, heedless of modesty to snatch the note from his hand as he laughed until tears started to run down his cheeks.

  She disappeared into the bathroom, still holding the note, and returned within seconds, wrapped in a towel, reading the note intently.

  “I’ve heard of this Grand Duke,” she said, looking up at Marco. “He’s actually related – distantly – to someone you know.”

  “Who?” Marco asked, puzzled by the improbably reference.

  “Duke Siplin of Barcelon is a cousin of his, by marriage,” Kate answered.

  “How would you even know that?” Cassius asked, crowding in with the other two to look over the
note.

  “Angelina’s family found few things as pleasurable as looking at family trees of the aristocracy, imagining ways they could increase their own prestige,” Kate answered.

  “So we’re going to the palace? We can’t go to the palace! Look at how we’re dressed,” she complained.

  “Or not dressed, in your case,” Cassius grinned.

  “There’s a messenger waiting downstairs. You can’t keep him waiting,” Kate said. “Oh, but I want to go!”

  “Will they kick us out if we dress poorly?” Marco asked.

  “Well no, of course not. They’ll be too polite,” Kate sputtered.

  “Then I’ll go tell the messenger we’ll come when we get dressed and cleaned,” Marco replied.

  “Marco, no! We’ll be so improper!” Kate protested as Marco headed towards the door.

  “We’ll be gone in a day or two anyway, so there’s no reason to be shy,” Cassius spoke up in support of Marco, who left the room on his way to find the messenger.

  Downstairs Marco found a man dressed in elegant livery, standing by the desk exchanging pleasantries with the clerk and the maid who had delivered the note to Marco.

  “Are you the messenger from the palace?” Marco asked, holding the note before him.

  “I am,” the messenger agreed pleasantly. “Are you bringing the marquis’s reply?”

  “I am,” Marco affirmed. “I am the marquis.” He noted the startled expression in the messenger’s face. “We have traveled over the Glacial Mountains and through the Nightshade Mountains to get here, and we have no wardrobe better than this. If my party is not suitably dressed to attend a visit with the Grand Duke, I understand,” Marco apologized.

  “You’re the marquis?” the messenger repeated.

  “Did the Grand Duke tell you anything about me?” Marco asked, sensing skepticism. “Did his cousin Duke Siplin pass along any information about me that I can confirm my identity with?

  “How about my hand?” Marco held up the golden appendage. “This is the hand that I cut off during a dance at the Duke’s palace. There was an evil sorcerer’s energy within it, trying to possess my soul,” he said conversationally, looking at the expressions of disbelief on the faces of his audience.

  “The ladies at the Apex Temple of Asclepius on the Isle of Ophiuchus re-attached it and look, it works,” Marco told them. “Did the Grand Duke mention my hand at all?”

  “I shall take your message back to the palace,” the messenger said. He glanced at the clerk and the maid, with a slight roll of his eyes, then bowed respectfully to Marco, and left the lobby.

  “I’ll be up in my room when he comes back to fetch us,” Marco told the two at the desk, then turned and ran back up the stairs. He went first to Kate and Cassius’s room, where he reported that his identity as the Marquis was doubted. “I don’t expect we’ll find a ride waiting for us to go to the palace after all, so don’t worry about your wardrobe. You can go back to enjoying your bath,” he told Kate, then left to return to Pesino.

  “Where have you been all this time?” she asked as she heard him close the door. He entered the bathroom and found her standing in the tub. “I’ve been in here forever.”

  “Here, give me your hand,” Marco said, as he helped her step out of the tub.

  “What’s happening? Are we going to the palace?” she asked.

  “My identity as the Marquis of Sant Jeroni was doubted,” Marco answered. “I don’t think we’ll actually go,” he explained as he took a towel and wrapped it around her, then started rubbing her dry.

  “Let me take you to bed,” Marco said.

  “I’ve waited to hear you say that,” Pesino said drily.

  “So that I can fix a poultice to put on your eyes,” he finished his sentence.

  He tucked her into the bed, then opened his pack and began to pull out alchemy items that he could use to make a healing poultice for the injured eyes of his companion. Within five minutes he had the compound nearly complete.

  “I’m missing one ingredient,” he told Pesino, though he was really muttering to himself.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I don’t have any dried fish eggs. I have dried salamander eggs, but no fish eggs. I’ve got the other things I need – ground pumpkin seeds, amethyst crystals, copper salts, and all the rest.”

  “Can’t you just substitute the egg types?” Pesino asked.

  “I’m trying to decide,” he answered pensively. There seemed to be no harm that could come to the girl from the change in the ingredient, and the two items had many similarities, but his intuition didn’t tell him the decision was clearcut.

  “Okay, we’ll try it,” he decided, then mixed the pinch of dried salamander eggs in and crushed the dry items all together. He had to make do as best he could with the limited items he had available, he told himself, then he sat on the mattress next to Pesino to apply it.

  “We’ll need to keep it applied to your eyes for a few hours at least,” Marco told the lovely girl as he dabbed the mixture upon her eyelids. “I’m going to wrap a blindfold around your eyes to hold it in place,” he explained, then he removed his extra shirt from his pack and ripped a band of cloth off the bottom.

  Marco had just finished tying the blindfold in place when there was another knock at the door.

  “Who is it now?” Pesino asked in exasperation. “Is it my dinner?’ she suddenly asked in a happier tone. “Did you order our meal to be delivered to us, my lord?” she asked, as Marco headed to the door.

  “My lord, are you Marco the Alchemist, Marquis of Sant Jeroni?” a man in elegant livery, the same livery the earlier messenger had worn, asked upon Marco opening the door.

  Marco blinked in surprise. “I am,” he acknowledged after two seconds.

  “There is a palace carriage awaiting you and any companions you wish to accompany you to the palace. My lord, the Grand Duke wishes you to know that the wardrobes of the palace are at your disposal upon your arrival. He understands the travails of your journey in the winter must have been severe,” the messenger said.

  “Thank you,” Marco stuttered. “I’ll alert my friends and we’ll be down shortly,” he told the man, then gently shut the door.

  “You need to get out of bed and get dressed,” he told Pesino as he returned to the bed and pulled the covers back. “Our carriage to take us to the palace awaits!”

  Marco quickly helped Pesino into her clothes, promising her that she would be able to change into elegant clothes at the palace. “But I won’t be able to see myself!” she moaned.

  Together, the pair of them walked down to Cassius and Kate’s room.

  “What?” Kate exploded, as she lay on her bed, covered by a blanket, snacking on food from her pack. “The palace sent a carriage for us?”

  “And their wardrobes are at our disposal,” Marco repeated for her.

  Minutes later the four of them went down the stairs, and past the desk clerk and two maids. The clerk bowed deeply, as the maids curtsied while the travelers looked at the carriage that was parked in the street immediately outside the inn.

  Ten minutes later, the carriage rolled through the elegant, guarded gates of the palace, and pulled up at a porte cochere, where a doorman immediately opened the door and helped them disembark from their vehicle.

  “Does your lady need medical attention for her eyes?” the butler inside the doors of the palace asked first, when they stepped into a large entry hall.

  “No thank you,” Marco replied. “She has a poultice on them right now. Just let me take her to the wardrobes where she can change into something suitable for the palace.”

  They all were led to rooms on the ground floor. “What should I wear, Marco?” Pesino asked.

  “You’ll look lovely in anything,” Marco said reassuringly. She had sounded nervous to his ears. He bent to kiss her cheek, both to comfort her, and to keep up appearances, since he wore the golden torq from his marriage ceremony to her.

  His fing
ers absently touched his torq as he watched a seamstress lead Pesino into a room. He hadn’t noticed the metal ring around his neck in a long time, but as he thought about it now, he was conscious of the weight of the cold metal.

  “This way, my lord,” the butler was leading Marco and Cassius together to a room further down the hall. Inside they found racks of clothes and a tailor who stood ready to help. Cassius went first and selected a bright yellow jacket and trousers, with a shirt of deepest black. He added shiny brown boots, and asked Marco what he thought of the outfit.

  Marco was looking at a long green robe, reminiscent of the garments he had seen Master Algornia wear on formal occasions. “I don’t know the local fashions,” Marco told his friend, “but you’ll stand out noticeably in that outfit.” He looked at the tailor who was with them, who shook his head discreetly. “Perhaps something less bright would be better,” he suggested.

  Cassius momentarily drew a woeful face, then stripped off the bright jacket, and selected a calm shade of blue. “It reminds me of the sea, a little,” he told his friend. “How does it look?”

  Both Marco and the tailor praised the new outfit, and the two men walked back out to the hallway. The women had not emerged from their rooms, leaving Marco and Cassius to stand and wait for several minutes, before Kate came out, wearing a blue gown that nearly matched Cassius’s suit perfectly.

  The two men were admiring Kate’s appearance, looking tall and slender and sophisticated in the simple gown, when the door to Pesino’s room opened, and a seamstress came through the door, her arm extended behind her as she led Pesino out into the hallway.

  “I had to trust Brielle’s judgment,” Pesino said as they all looked at her. “Do you like it?”

  Marco stood, speechless. Even without her alluring siren abilities in play, and even with a blindfold across her face, Pesino looked spectacular. She wore a gown that exposed her shoulders, a shimmering material that was sea green in color, and she wore a new blindfold that matched the gown in color. To Marco she nearly looked like a mermaid again in some fashion. And she had added a thin leather strap around her neck.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a siren, able to lure any man to his fate,” Cassius said appreciatively.