There was a corner of Berwick where the strange and unusual gathered, with shops run by men who would forage on the Scottish Marches for the ingredients to their mystical potions and health incantations. Or, they would rush to meet the ragged cogs that would enter the mouth of the river and weigh anchor out in the cold, sandy waters. Ragged cogs that had been to London or Calais or Lisbon or Algiers. Cogs that endured the turbulent waters of the Mediterranean to bring both peculiar and mystifying items that demanding consumers would pay good money for.
Like her mother and aunt.
Lady Lista Rose de la Mere could hear them even now. They were just inside the door of a stall on Silver Street, one of the stalls on the very end of the avenue because it was the only place where the apothecaries were tolerated. In Berwick, they were bizarre men with bizarre habits that were considered just short of witchcraft, so they were not particularly welcome even if they were sought after.
Plenty of people wanted what they had.
Lista could hear her mother, Lady Meadow de la Mere and her loud-mouthed sister, Lady Flora d’Orbec, as they demanded a sample before purchasing. What they demanded was, in fact, a carefully cultivated product that the apothecary was unwilling to simply give away. But in the end, he handed over a small sample. He knew Lady Meadow and Lady Flora and he’d never won an argument yet. Besides… he’d made a good deal of money from them in the past so he was willing to go on a little faith. The house of de la Mere had money to spend and they did– often. Lista watched as her mother and aunt shoved the product into their mouths, chewing slowly.
“It tastes like dirt,” Meadow said.
“Itisdirt,” Flora replied, her expression laced with dissatisfaction. “It is more than likely poisonous. The man is poisoning us.”
This is where the situation could turn into a brawl because Flora was quite opinionated and she didn’t care who she insulted. Her husband had been a wealthy French knight, dead these past nine years, but he had defended his brassy wife quite staunchly. He had also been a knight for King John and even if the man was dead, no one had the courage to stand up to Flora or one might get a dagger rammed into one’s eyeball.
A little something her husband had taught her.
“I am sure no one is poisoning you, Flora,” Lista said, stepping forward to calm the situation before it veered out of control. “Make your purchase and let us move along. There is much to see this day.”
Flora looked at her niece. “I will not purchase anything until I know the results,” she said. “We come here weekly. He knows what our expectations are formousseron.”
Lista struggled not to roll her eyes. Flora was referring to a type of growth, an edible fungus that grew in the fields and the crags that she and her mother indulged in quite regularly. Thetype they liked produced a sense of calm and tranquility, but it also produced “visions”, as both her mother and aunt declared, and they swore they had visions of the past, present, and future. Worse still, they had visions from far-off places where the land and the people were foreign. They sometimes claimed to speak the language. They even claimed to be in communication with an emperor known as The Wu. All sorts of odd claims from a pair of sisters everyone in Berwick knew to be simply…
Odd.
Lista was well aware. With her mother and aunt, sometimes it was like trying to herd cats. They went every which way and tended to become agitated easily. It was always an exercise in patience any time they traveled into town.
The trick was getting them out of town in one piece.
“Let us continue with our shopping and return when you are satisfied with your results,” Lista said, indicating the street next to the river where there were rows upon rows of fish drying on racks. “We still have some provisions to purchase, so let us get about our business and return when we are finished.”
While Flora seemed to be moderately agreeable to moving on, Meadow had other ideas. Just as she took her aunt by the arm and directed her towards the exit, Meadow was bent over a table, licking something from the tabletop. Releasing Flora, Lista rushed over to her mother and grabbed her by the wrist.
“Mama,” she hissed. “What on earth are you doing?”
Meadow pointed to the table, now with a wet streak on it. “Themousseronwas here,” she said. “It should not go to waste.”
Lista didn’t argue with her. She simply pulled the woman out of the stall with her, out to the street where Flora had moved to stand with their escort. She had a rather dazed expression and Lista knew it was because she was waiting for the reaction from the hallucinogenic fungi she had partaken of. She hated that her mother and aunt insisted on visiting the apothecary first, butthat was usual with the pair. Now, it would only be a matter of time before she had two intoxicated women on her hands so it was best to take care of the rest of their business quickly.
Lista motioned to the soldier in charge of the six-man escort and men moved to help Meadow and Flora mount their small palfreys, but the women didn’t want to ride. They wanted to walk. Lista also ended up walking, leading the group as it plodded along behind her.
She could hear her mother and aunt bickering.
But that was normal. All of this, in her experience, was normal, at least over the past few years. She was a young woman born into a good family with an older brother, a father, and a mother, only her father had died of a heart ailment a little over two years ago and her brother had managed to get himself killed two years ago in a gambling establishment in London known as Gomorrah.
Discovering what, exactly, had happened had been difficult because Gomorrah was one of those establishments that ran just outside of the legalities of both the church and proper society. It was secretive– they hadn’t even been able to discover where it was located– and all they knew was that Simon de la Mere had been murdered because he’d cheated in a game. His body had been dragged out and dumped on the door of the nearest church.
Lista’s mother had been somewhat strange before that, but not nearly as out of control as she was these days. The death of her husband was difficult to bear but the death of her son was impossible. Lista tried to be tolerant, but her mother found comfort in anything that could change her mental status– alcohol would do, but mostly she found diversion with any number of strange potions, herbs, and toadstools that the apothecaries in Berwick and elsewhere could supply. She burned strange-smelling weeds, ate fungus, and ingested potions. Anything to take away the pain.
But it had only turned her into a caricature of her former self.
“Mama?” Lista said, turning her head slightly to address Meadow. “Should we stop at the fish stall? You know, the man who brines the fish in wine and garlic? We could take a barrel of that back home with us.”
“Home to Fuckington, you mean?”
Flora had spouted off, now giggling at her vulgar comment. Lista cast a withering look at her uncouth aunt.
“It’s Felkington, as if you did not know that,” she said with limited patience. “Felkington Castle.”
