Herb-Wife (Lord Alchemist Duology) Read Free Page B

and valet, sat at the servant's general table with a mug in
his hand. Dayn, footman and apprentice bodyguard, was across from
him, legs on the side of the bench that allowed him to stand at a
moment's notice. The steward, Loria, sat next to the door, making
alterations to a dress pulled from storage. Mother's gardening
dress, he thought, and had to shake his head slightly. "If
someone could provide a towel? Kessa worries for the couches."
    Loria
snorted. "Some of them could use re-covering, m'lord." She
pointed at one of the children. "Zeth, fetch one of the shabby
towels. A good, thick one."
    "Aye!"
The boy darted to the pantry-like door that housed a servants'
hallway beyond the shelves.
    Iathor
added, "When you've a moment, Loria, if you could have a lesser
healing elixir brought up? I'm worried for Kessa's voice."
Healing elixirs should work on her, but if not . . .
Well, the Herbmaster would visit.
    "Yes,
that did sound bad." Loria laid the dress on her vacated chair.
"I wasn't sure it was safe to offer one, m'lord."
    "The
tea's not helped as much as I'd like. This far after the Purgatorie,
there should be no threat." He nodded to her before returning to
hover beside Kessa's chair.
    The
herb-witch'd refilled her tea cup, and was dripping honey into it.
Once she'd stirred it in, she slanted a look at Iathor through her
hair.
    Far
too meek and polite for the usually temperamental young woman. He
hoped it was to save her voice and not because she'd been hurt too
badly. (He shied from thinking of how bad it might have been.)
    After
he pulled her chair back, she picked up her tea with both hands and
stood, passively waiting for him to steer her into the other room. It
made his skin prickle at his shoulder blades, and awoke old
nightmares of dramswives. She's immune, he told himself,
guiding Kessa with a light touch on her shoulder. This isn't . . .
permanent.
    She
stood by the hearth and its glowing coals until the servant boy,
Zeth, arrived with the towel. Iathor spread it on the end-seat of the
most comfortable couch, and was relieved when she sat without urging.
Too restless to sit, he leaned against the mantle above the
fireplace. "Can you answer some questions?" he asked,
trying to make it gentle.
    Kessa
sipped her tea. "Mayhap."
    Better
than the stubborn silence he'd half-expected, or an outright no .
"I've written to the watch, and set some of the guild's
sponsored men to earn their stipend by asking questions and keeping
your shop from being looted." It was fortunate much of Aeston
was built with brick. There actually was something left of the
building. "I hear the family upstairs escaped entirely, though
they lost most of their belongings, of course."
    "My
fault," Kessa rasped, staring into her mug. "Thought Wolf'd
realize . . . not my door, in back. Just take a club
to everything. Not burn it."
    "You
think it was him?" The extortionist had bullied herb-witchery
from Kessa, even in the street. His two minions had fallen to an
alchemical sleep-bomb, but Wolf had escaped.
    "Leaving
that stupid mouse skull on my door. Rat skull. Part-barbarian
himself. Probably thought they'd scare me." Kessa drank again.
    Guilt
was bitter. Iathor'd forgotten to warn her of the plans to catch
them; if she'd known, she might've avoided being linked to the trap.
"I'm sorry."
    She
shrugged.
    "It
doesn't make sense, though," he continued. "Unless . . .
Was he . . . with the men who attacked you?"
    She
shook her head.
    Iathor
looked down into the hearth, and back again. "I fear it's the
Shadow Guild."
    "What?"
She nearly looked up at him, head jerking partway around, before she
dropped her gaze. "They'd have no interest in me."
    He
took a breath. "Kessa, you know too many brews that I can't
believe you learned at the knee of that senile herb-witch in the
country." Hele's ointment, an alchemical wound-mending paste;
something she'd called Tagget's Tonic, that she'd used on a
moneylender and inadvertently mixed with alchemy that