window would be best, I think, right in the light and fresh air.’
While Nevyn laid out packets of dried herbs, tree-barks, and sliced dried roots, Grodyn fetched his apprentice, Caudyr, a sandy-haired young man with narrow blue eyes and a jaw so sharply modelled it looked as if it could cut cheese. He also had a club foot, which gave him the rolling walk of a sailor. Between them the two chirurgeons sorted through his wares and for starters set aside his entire stock of valerian, elecampe, and comfrey root.
‘I don’t suppose you ever get down to the sea-coast,’ Grodyn said in a carefully casual tone of voice.
‘Well, this summer I’m thinking of trying to slip through the battle-lines. Usually the armies don’t much care about one old man. Is there somewhat you need from the sea?’
‘Red kelp, if you can get it, and some sea-moss.’
‘They work wonders to soothe an ulcerated stomach or bad bowels.’ Nevyn hesitated briefly. ‘Here, I’ve heard rumours about this peculiar so-called wound of our liege the King.’
‘So-called?’ Grodyn paid busy attention to the packet of beech-bark in his hand.
‘A wound in the chest that requires him to eat only soft food.’
Grodyn looked up with a twisted little smile.
‘It was poison, of course. The wound healed splendidly. While he was still weak, someone put poison into his mead. We saved him after a long fight of it, but his stomach is ulcerated and bleeding, just as you guessed, and there’s blood in his stool, too. But we’re trying to keep the news from the common people.’
‘Oh, I won’t go bruiting it about, I assure you. Do you have any idea of what this poison was?’
‘None. Now here, you know herbs. What do you think this might be? When he vomited, there was a sweetish smell hanging about the basin, rather like roses mixed with vinegar. It was grotesque to find a poison that smelled of perfume, but the strangest thing was this: the King’s page had tasted the mead and suffered not the slightest ill-effect. Yet I know it was in the mead, because the dregs in the goblet had an odd, rosy colour.’
Nevyn thought for a while, running over the long chains of lore in his memory.
‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t name the herbs out, but I’ll wager they came originally from Bardek. I’ve heard that poisoners there often use two different evil essences, each harmless in themselves. The page at table doubtless got a dose of the first one when he tasted the King’s mead, and the page of the chamber got the other. The King, alas, got both, and they combined into venom in his stomach.’
As he nodded his understanding, Grodyn looked half-sick with such an honest rage that Nevyn mentally acquitted him of any part in the crime. Caudyr too looked deeply troubled.
‘I’ve made special studies of the old herbals we have,’ the young chirurgeon said, ‘and never found this beastly poison. If it came from Bardek, that would explain it.’
‘So it would,’ Nevyn said. ‘Well, good sirs, I’ll do my best to get you the red kelp and what other emollients I can, but it’ll be autumn before I return. Will our liege live that long?’
‘If no one poisons him again.’ Grodyn tossed the packet of beech-bark on to the table. ‘Ah ye gods, can you imagine how helpless I feel? Here I am, fighting to undo the effects of one poison while someone is doubtless scheming out a way to slip him a second!’
‘Wasn’t there any inquiry into this poisoning?’
‘Of course.’ Abruptly Grodyn turned guarded. ‘It found out naught, though. We suspect a Cerrmor spy.’
Oh, I’ll just wager you do! Nevyn thought to himself; that is, if there are Boars in Cerrmor, anyway.
Their business over, Nevyn put on a good show of expressing the gossipy interest that any visitor to the palace would have on seeing the place where the King lived. Caudyr, who seemed to be a good-hearted lad, took him on a tour of the semipublic gardens and outbuildings. It took only the slightest touch of Nevyn’s dweomer to sense that the palace was filled with corruption. The omen came to him as the smell of rotting meat and the sight of maggots, crawling between the stones. He banished the vision as quickly as he could; the point was well-made.
As they were walking to the front gate, they saw a noble hunting party returning: Gwerbret Tibryn of the Boar, with a retinue of servants and huntsmen behind him and his widowed sister at his side. As Nevyn led his mule off to the side out of the way of the noble-born, he noticed Caudyr watching the Lady Merodda wistfully. Just twenty, the lady had long blonde hair, bound up in soft twists under the black headscarf of a widow, wide green eyes, and features that were perfect without being cold. She was truly beautiful, but as he watched her, Nevyn loathed her. Although he couldn’t pinpoint his reasons, he’d never seen a woman he found so repellent. Caudyr was obviously of the opposite opinion. Much to Nevyn’s surprise, when Merodda rode past, she favoured Caudyr with a brilliant smile and a wave of her delicately gloved hand. Caudyr bowed deeply in return.
‘Now here, lad,’ Nevyn said with a chuckle. ‘You’re nocking an arrow for rather high-born game.’
‘And don’t I just know it? I could be as noble as she is, but I’d still be deformed.’
‘Oh, my apologies! I meant naught of that sort.’
‘I know, good sir, I know. I fear me that years of being mocked have made me touchy.’
Caudyr bowed and hurried away with his rolling, dragging limp. Nevyn was heartsick over his lapse; it was a hard thing to be handicapped in a world where women and men both worshipped warriors. Later that day, however, he found out that Caudyr bore him no ill will. Just after sunset Caudyr came to Nevyn’s inn, insisted on buying him a tankard, and sat them both down at a table in a corner, far from the door.
‘I was wondering about your stock of herbs, good Nevyn. You wouldn’t happen to have any northern elm bark, would you?’
‘Now here! I don’t traffic in abortifacients, lad.’
Caudyr winced and began studying the interior of his tankard.
‘Ah well,’ the lad said at last. ‘The bark’s a blasted sight safer than henbane.’
‘No doubt, but the question is why you’re doing abortions at all. I should think that every babe these days would be precious.’
‘Not if it’s not sired by your husband. Here, please don’t despise me. There’s a lot of noblewomen who spend all summer at court, and well, their husbands are off on campaign for months at a time, and well, you know how things happen, and well, they come to me in tears, and –’
‘Shower you with silver, no doubt.’
‘It’s not the coin!’
‘Indeed? What is it, then? The only time in your life that women have come begging you for somewhat?’
When tears welled in Caudyr’s eyes, Nevyn regretted his harsh accuracy. He looked away to give the young chirurgeon a chance to wipe his face. It was the infidelities more than the abortions that bothered Nevyn. The thought of noblewomen, whose restricted life gave them nothing but their honour to take pride in, turning first to
