The Poisons of Caux: The Hollow Bettle (Book I) (16 page)

vy folded her windwhipper into a satisfyingly small bundle and immediately checked her cargo. To her relief, the bottle was quite safe and snug. She turned to help Rowan, who was battling his own contraption even on the ground; it was refusing to retract, and enraged, the taster had resorted to kicking it about the rocky beach where Clothilde had deposited him in an ungraceful heap. Clothilde stood fierce in the oncoming wind, beside several bracken-covered boulders made to guard a structure seemingly of shadow-brick and weed-mortar.

“Who could possibly live
here?”
Ivy wondered.

The taster stopped, with an anxious look upon his face, and pawed at his robes. Finally, with a sigh of relief, he pulled Axle’s
Field Guide
from an inside pocket, swollen and damp from his swim.

The children huddled around it, Ivy happy to see the familiar cover on such unfamiliar turf.

“It’s soaked,” Rowan despaired.

“It’ll dry. What’re you looking up?”

Rowan had begun busily combing through pages clumped together with lake water, coming finally to a section detailing the Eath.

“‘A visit to the Eath was once a visit of privilege for Caux’s few. Now, however, you will notice that the retreat has seen better days,’” Rowan read, pages flapping in the wind.

“No kidding,” Ivy agreed.

“‘Those who remain await the day when the forests return to their true nature. Their attempts to summon plant spirits have merely resulted in the castle’s overgrowth and decay’” Rowan scanned the remainder of the entry silently for word on their hosts.

“Great,” he began morosely. “Listen to this. ‘Should you find yourself upon the Eath, you would be well advised to wear the cloak of neither a taster nor a taxman—for it is hard to tell which is more unwelcome.’”

“But we’ve nowhere else to go,” Ivy reminded him.

Rowan thought of the set of menacing eyes he had glimpsed from the air as they’d rounded the island with the old towers.

“We’ve got to get inside, and away from the Winds,” Ivy added.

The Winds of Caux—they blow from the north and funnel through the Craggy Burls, where they pick up speed and force as they have always done each year, at the same time. Strange and harrowing, the Winds will blow a chill into the bones and, it is written, an evil purpose into those of feeble hearts.

Above the weed-strewn shore, in the distance, Clothilde’s white dress shone against a series of battered buildings. She greeted their hosts, indifferent to the children’s whereabouts, and—without a backward glance—disappeared inside.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Rowan replied dully. His trip had been exhausting, and he was cold and wet and unaccustomed to what he felt were such poor manners. He was overcome with regret. Were he still under the employ of Turner Taxus, he would be taking precious refuge against the notorious Winds in Templar—like
civilized
people. He knew his place, and this was not it.

Slowly, against the wind, the two trudged toward the retreat.

The Eath, once a desired destination, was now in ruins and shadow. Its great wooden turrets and fine arbored pathways were rotted and crumbling. Inside the main entrance, weed and dusk were taking over. A substantial dogwood tree grew through a hole in the floor, and scrappy saplings sprouted from between the wooden planks and ruined carpet. Dark
water dripped from the ceiling and sky—the room could barely be considered indoors. This was no refuge, Ivy realized: the Winds could find it quite easy to sneak in through the floorboards, the wall joints—anyplace, really, that conspired to have in itself some sort of opening.

They found Clothilde quietly conversing with an odd threesome. If there was any beauty about these landladies, it had long ago been lost to the damp. They stood beside a tall pile of moss-covered bones and a small fire, which fizzled dispiritedly, threatening to extinguish at any moment. Upon the face of the first sprouted small pale mushrooms, so much so that her skin was entirely lumpish with the fungus. The next was wrapped in a cloak of moss and bracken, which grew about her in a manner that indicated it was unlikely she might ever remove it. A family of snails had taken up home upon her shoulders. The last of the Mildew Sisters, for this was their name, had about her pale skin a marbled pattern of blue mold, and her flesh threatened to crumble away—very much like a well-aged cheese. They shared between them a large fetid cup of tea, dark and vicious, which they passed from one to the other intently.

With Ivy’s appearance, all conversation stopped. The taller, more treelike of the three poked a bony elbow into the gut of her neighbor and nodded at the doorway where the children stood. It had been her turn with the teacup, and she suddenly flung the dark brew out before her upon the ruined carpet, and the sisters hurried to decipher the mess. They peered down at the soaked leaves and scratched their chins.

“The forests will awaken,” croaked the ivy-cloaked one.

“Ah, but dark plants stir along with those from the light,” warned the mushroomed sister.

“A king,” divined the moldy-veined sister, “will be cured by a child.” The Mildew Sisters looked up.

“That’s the one.” She pointed. “Beside the taster.”

Ivy’s mouth opened in astonishment but quickly snapped shut when she heard the following words.

“The girl is welcome. But he is not.” They continued in a chorus of protest at the presence of a member of the Guild for several minutes, at which point Clothilde, very much annoyed, interrupted.

“Ladies,” Clothilde explained, somewhat less than patiently, “Rowan Truax is a guest of mine and therefore yours. Although indeed he is a scholar of the Guild, he’s to be treated justly. And,” she added after a moment’s reflection, “he has renounced his official position by his own failure to perform his required duties.”

It was an impressive accomplishment that when the conversation was over, Clothilde had indeed secured an invitation for the taster, but upon viewing his ruined room, Rowan found himself wondering if he would not be safer outside in the elements. He picked his way across an outcropping of what he was sure was ryegrass, in between broken gaps in the floorboards, and found eventually a small weedy bed and night-stand.

He ran a tepid bath of cloudy water, and after a disappointing time of emptying his damp pockets, he lined up his
various instruments and utensils with care and set his beloved
Guide
out, open, so that it might dry. The robes would need to be cleaned and tended to, in the fashion that was instilled in the taster by his years of training, and Rowan happily found his small sewing kit still in working order in one of the tinier pockets.

Yet when he emerged from his bath, his heart sank as he looked about the room for his taster’s attire. It was nowhere to be found. Instead, in its place upon the bed was a slightly musty green robe. The thought of someone else handling his taster’s robes was a terrible one to him, and he set out in search of Ivy to complain.

Her room was just down the creaky hall, and as he navigated the rotting carpet, from somewhere he heard a lonesome piano—apparently their hosts had other interests besides tea leaves. The peeling walls, the sagging ceilings, everywhere was splashed with the dark stains and disintegrating plant matter of their thick brews. Apparently, the Mildew Sisters, in their attempts at divination, flung their tea about with great disregard.

Rowan was surprised to find the door ajar. It creaked in protest, the hinges heavy with rust. Clearing his throat to announce his visit and peering into the room, he could hardly imagine what awaited him. There, beside Ivy’s sleeping figure, was Clothilde. In her hand, the delicate bottle.

“Hey—” he cried, all thoughts of his missing robes gone for now. “That’s Ivy’s!”

Clothilde turned to him, swirling the bottle, the amber liquid a vortex inside. “What did it taste like, taster?” she whispered. “Or could you not say?”

Rowan noticed, unhappily, that Ivy had not woken up—and a dark thought passed through his mind. What if Clothilde had poisoned her, too?

“What have you done to Ivy?” He glared. A pounding rhythm distracted him, and he recognized it as his own heartbeat.
“Ivy?”
Rowan called loudly. He stole a glance at her, but she was not moving.

At first he was unsure as to whether it was a trick of the small lantern in the room, for an unusual brightness was issuing forth steadily from the bottle in Clothilde’s pale hand. The bettle light flared eerily. It exaggerated Clothilde’s arched brows, making her appear at once old and greedy, while Rowan swiftly became peevish and spiteful. Ivy, however, shone with the peaceful glow of a child. (She even let out a small, sleepy sigh.)

Rowan was relieved to see that Ivy seemed to be simply asleep—in breath, in color, she had all the appearance of one enjoying a hard-earned slumber. Still, she hadn’t woken up. He called to her again.

“All these years!” Clothilde was saying. “For this! From a mere child!”

As if powered by the force of her passion, the brightness grew steadily as she talked. “Such responsibility for one so young!”

The light issuing forth from Clothilde’s hand had become almost unbearably bright. Still, Rowan was forced to look. The bettle glinted brilliantly, the amber liquid rolling about thick and viscously. He felt almost as if he were aboard a ship, rocking and swaying along with the elixir; his stomach lurched violently. With a crash, the window blew open; the winds beat against Clothilde’s skirts, which billowed about like sails.

“Do you know, could
you fathom
, the value of such a thing? If it was to fall into the wrong hands …”

Rowan wondered horribly if it just had.

He took a deep breath and tried desperately to remember his disarming classes from the Guild.

There was a moment in time where it seemed almost possible to procure the bottle. But the taster moved too slowly, just as the bettle flashed with its own potent power—a swift and sharp glinting light. Clothilde’s long fingers, once so delicate, now displayed a clawlike grip, and the white brilliance flared from between them. Suddenly she shrieked as if burned, and her hand withdrew in pain—leaving the bottle there, suspended in the air for a split second, impossibly hovering.

And then, as it must do, the small bottle crashed to the floor.

A familiar cloying scent overpowered the room, and to Rowan’s great relief, it finally awoke young Ivy.

“What have you done?!” Ivy’s voice was hoarse.

With horror, Rowan found Ivy staring at him. Looking
down, he was surprised to find he was cradling her uncle’s bettle. All around him, the amber liquid of her panacea was departing quickly through the thirsty dry floor.

“I never did like the smell of that perfume,” Clothilde sniffed.

Now, although Rowan had renounced the Guild, he was still, after all, a product of its making, and deep within him he held a great deal of respect for the priceless bettle—the ultimate charm against poison and atrocities of all sorts. But he had never held one until this very moment. In his palm it felt surprisingly heavy, and the grooves of its natural shaping, as he ran his thumb over them, lent to the stone a character of being carved by someone’s own hand, carved as if to represent the vague shape of a winged creature, the wings folded flightlessly around its body. Somehow cocoonish. And it was warmer than he thought it might be. In short, Rowan quickly decided that it felt quite good in the palm of his hand, that it added a natural suggestion of another appendage.

“The bottle! You’ve broken it—and
the elixir’s lost
!
”
Ivy was staring fiercely at him, mad with rage.

“No! She was trying to steal it!” Rowan remembered. “I came in and caught her red-handed.”

“Nonsense.” Clothilde dismissed his accusations with a wave. “I came in to check on Ivy. And what, may I ask, were you doing here, taster?”

Rowan was nearly shaking with anger.

“I came to find my robes.” He glared. “Someone took them.”

He held up the bettle, with the intent of returning it to its owner right away—but something caught his eye. The stone’s central flaw was even more pronounced since its release from the bottle. Inside, the bettle was nearly cracked in half, the hollow within now much more evident. It seemed to flash like fire.