The Poisons of Caux: The Hollow Bettle (Book I) (30 page)

fter the Festival, plans fell quickly into place.

There was an enormous and well-fed gathering at Trindlesniffter’s, and amid the frothy beers and vintage brandies much was decided upon. At both Trindle’s and Peps’s boisterous urging, a vote was taken, and it was decided that Cecil Manx—Master Apotheopath and servant to Verdigris—would stay on in Templar as Steward of Caux. News spread from the restaurant to the crowded square beside it and from there to the dinner tables of the long-oppressed Templar families. Soon, upon the lips of all Cauvians were new, lighthearted words, words such as
apotheopath
and
Prophecy
, rather than whispers of torment and tyranny.

But mostly news spread of the king, the Good King Verdigris, and of his possible return.

Ivy returned to the palace with her uncle to see Shoo. As they stood in the shadow of the masterworks, Ivy regarded the final panel. Cecil reached for her hand, and she leaned against his long cloak.

“You see, he seems quite happy,” he observed.

“Still”—Ivy turned, not wanting her uncle to see the tears beginning to come—“I’d rather he was here with us.”

“He is. In a way.”

Ivy reached forward and touched the crow, the firm weave of the tapestry returning nothing to her fingers but a cool, slightly scratchy texture.

“If I know Shoo, this is not the last of him we’ll see,” Cecil counseled.

In the basement, Cecil and Ivy met the few remaining long-suffering staff of the castle. Still secreted away in the corridor were vast quantities of Verdigris treasures, the antiques so despised by King Nightshade. Amid it all, and surely to his great horror, slept the deposed king and his small entourage.

“The cart is ready, sir,” a stable boy informed Cecil. “And, as you requested, the most stubborn of mules to pull it.”

“Well done. May their trip be long and bumpy.”

Cecil and Ivy went about the task of reviving the Nightshades. Arsenious was made so uncomfortable by being roused in a room full of antiques that he agreed most instantly to his punishment and exile. But the queen, after feeling for her crown and finding it missing, shrieked and hissed.

“What is this treason? This insolence? How dare you hold us!” Further investigation led her to the realization that her hollow ring was also absent, and, stripped of her poisons, her complexion settled into a fiery flush.

Cecil had brought fistfuls of parsley into the cellar, but it had no effect upon the Royal Diarist, who was, in fact, it was soon determined, not asleep.

“What’s wrong with him?” the queen asked, poking the man’s arm several times with a sharp finger.

“He’s dead,” Cecil replied somberly.

“You killed him!” Queen Nightshade turned on Ivy.

“Nonsense!” Cecil admonished. “It’s quite obvious it was something he ate.”

At this, the former king looked crestfallen. This was even worse than losing his favorite jester.

“I was quite fond of him, you know, Artilla.” He delivered a look of disappointment at his wife. The Royal Diarist had kept him company for his years on the throne and had always had a kind or encouraging word for him. The queen, looking first from Ivy and Cecil and then to her husband, sagged imperceptibly. She bit her lip.

“You will be given safe passage to Kruxt and from there to the Outpost Islands. More, I assure you, than you gave your predecessor.”

“After the many kindnesses we’ve shown you, apotheopath,” she whispered.

“Apotheopath? Is that the fellow?” Arsenious scratched his chin, peering at Cecil. He seemed cleaner. The former king sighed resolutely, staring down at his clubfoot. There was a strong sense of poetic irony, he felt, in this situation. And being a poet, he thought of a poem. Luckily for all in attendance, however, several burly townsfolk arrived just in time, prepared to escort the royals on their way.

“Do not touch me,” the queen ordered, head held high. All were in agreement, since the years of Aqua Artilla had infused her very skin with the scent of poison.

Proudly, and with only a mere falter to her step, Queen Artilla walked before her husband and out of Templar, a town she always despised.

The Deadly Nightshades eventually alighted upon Brax, a small island off of Kruxt, with little by way of luxurious accompaniments. There the cruel former ruler of Caux found an appreciation for the simple life—his feet were happiest when walking barefoot in the white sand. When not on the beach, the former king spent most of his time fruitlessly chasing flying bettles with a butterfly net, hoping to enjoy them in a tonic as he once did.

One odd remnant and reminder of the potent Verdigris magic they endured was this: Artilla Nightshade could never really stop the occasional weed growth on the top of her head. Frequently, she would call for her husband’s help in plucking
persistent and unsightly common dandelions from her scalp—a process that she found as painful as it was unpleasant.

But what of the Guild?

Axle, the undisputed expert on the land of Caux, knew this: the Tasters’ Guild was strong, very strong, and the city of Rocamadour was impenetrable.

Vidal Verjouce had escaped easily during the confusion and celebration that the coming of the bettles brought.

Back in Rocamadour, beneath the shadow of the black spire, he sat in his dark study (for a blind man does not need light). He felt for the pages in his desk. Finding them in their secret drawer, he sat with them, trancelike. The magical papers of the old king were his alone. From them, a faint scent of smoke and fire.

Verjouce replaced the papers in their hiding place and summoned his sub-rectors.

There was another way.

Susannah Appelbaum comes from a family of doctors and philosophers, which instilled in her both an early fascination and a great deal of caution with bottles marked “Poison.” The idea for the Poisons of Caux trilogy was born when she lived in an old woodcutter’s cottage in the French apple country as a child: “Out the door were ancient forests, wild boars, and new and inviting foods to taste.”

Susannah worked in magazine publishing for many years and now lives with her family in New York’s Hudson Valley and in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where her garden prefers to grow weeds.

The Hollow Bettle
is her first novel. To learn more about the author, please visit
www.susannahappelbaum.com
.

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2009 by Susannah Appelbaum
Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Taylor

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Visit us on the Web!
www.randomhouse.com/kids

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Appelbaum, Susannah.
The Hollow Bettle / Susannah Appelbaum. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Poisons of Caux ; bk. 1)
Summary: Eleven-year-old Ivy Manx sets out with her new friend, a young “taster,” to find her missing uncle, an outlawed healer, in the dangerous kingdom of Caux, where magic, herbs, and poisons rule.
eISBN: 978-0-375-85354-8
[1. Poisons—Fiction. 2. Uncles—Fiction. 3. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.A6445Ho 2009
[Fic]—dc22         
2008022626

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.0