Now she imagined a device of torture, so large and multiform that it could not be real, though itwasreal—Ninian tasted on her tongue the blood this machine would draw. It had a long but narrow blade, rather like a sewing needle, but what it lacked in girth it made up for in sharpness, filed to a point that could pierce flesh with barely a prick. And as the victim lay strapped to a rack, the machine moved on its own, as if manipulated by the hand of God, to scrawl words into the sinner’s skin.
Horribly, she could see her mistress on the rack, and the words on her skin wereLiuprand, Liuprand, Liuprand,and Ninian clapped a hand over her mouth so she would not scream. She screwed her unnatural eyes shut. And then, through their eerie power, she saw the prince strapped to the rack instead, and the words on his skin wereScourgeandRuinandPlague.
Maleagant had taught her how to read and write, and this was its profit.
She could not share these visions with another soul, for how vulgar they would think her. Yet she could not be idle when her mistress was by moments pricked and pricked again. And so Ninian’s feet carried her down the stairs, farther down the stairs, through the twisting halls, past the statue of the youth with broken hands, past two hissing kitchen cats that swiped at her skirts, and to the leeches’ bay, the small, stuffy chamber in the cellar where Truss and Mordaunt sat.
“Good afternoon, Your Scrupulousnesses,” Ninian said. She curtsied.
“Shh,” Truss said. “I am trying to concentrate.”
He was shaking a closed fist; Ninian could not see what he held within it. Mordaunt snorted.
“This creature thinks he can wish a favorable roll into being,” Mordaunt said. “He thinks that his mind is so powerful a thing, it will affect the course of the world.”
“Shh,” Truss said again. Then he opened his hand and let the knucklebones spill out across the table.
Mordaunt peered over at their array. “It appears that your focus was all for naught.”
“Naught?” Truss echoed. “You will play for naught? I shall take those odds.”
“You are an idiot,” Mordaunt said. “Put those away. What are you here for, girl?”
Ninian glanced about the room. All around there were cots with stained linens, for when a servant or a messenger or an attendant or a soldier of Castle Crudele fell ill. There were saws and shears hanging on the walls for surgery, their blades flaking with rust. There were jars of herbs and vials of liquid, in all shades from sanguine to black bile, and rolls and rolls of bandages, which was where she had procured those for her mistress. A shiver ran through her. Had she remained in the Outer Wall, and been apprenticed to Maleagant, she would have known the use of all these materials; perhaps she could have even crafted the potion herself.
“If it please Your Scrupulousnesses,” she said, “I seek a tonic for my mistress.”
Truss was slipping the knucklebones back into their pouch; he did not look up at her. Mordaunt’s wrinkled brow wrinkled further.
“For the princess? What is her affliction?”
Ninian shifted anxiously and drew a breath before speaking. “Her affliction can be seen easily with the naked eye…she wishes to be progressed from this unpleasant state to the next.”
Truss did not appear to understand her, and his brown eyes were cloudy and dim. But Mordaunt did. Slowly, he rose to his feet, his overlarge leech’s robes seeming to hang off his bony frame as if he were an ill-dressed scarecrow. He was not especially tall, but his gauntness gave him a falsely augmented height.
“Such tonics are not easily fashioned, nor easily swallowed,” he said. “The princess is far from the first woman to seek one. I would have her know that it may taste like poison. I would have her know that a woman of weak constitution may not survive its effects.”
Heat rushed to Ninian’s face. “My mistress isnotweak.”
“Of course not.” Mordaunt walked to one of the shelves and began plucking down jars. Ninian wished she could recognize the herbswithin them—if only Maleagant had not been so protective of her ways! She would have no chance to learn such an art now, as women could not be leeches. Yet still she watched intently as Mordaunt began to grind down a purple-leafed herb with a pestle.
“The princess looks prepared to burst already,” Truss said from his seat at the table.
Ninian’s cheeks flushed even more brightly. “My mistress isnota pustule.”
“Of course not,” Mordaunt echoed. “Be quiet, Truss. Fetch me the mandrake.”
Mandrake.Ninian made a note of this herb in her mind. Truss rose at last and, with heavy, plodding footsteps, made his way into some darkened alcove, where Ninian could barely glimpse his sepia robes in the shadows. When he emerged, he was holding a white, maggoty-looking root in his open palm.
Ninian wished she could have asked Mordaunt to describe the process, but the leeches kept the secrets of their art close. Instead she could only look over his shoulder, trying to appear as innocuous as possible, as though this were of no great interest to her. Mordaunt did not seem to notice. He continued on with his duty, grinding and mashing until what remained within the mortar was more liquid than solid. He then managed, with dexterous fingers, to pour this liquid into a minuscule vial. He stoppered it and shook it, and as Ninian watched in both awe and revulsion, it turned a viscous shade of charcoal.
“The taste and scent are like sulfur,” Mordaunt said. “It will be hard, I expect, for the princess to stomach it. It must not be mixed with wine to dilute the flavor. Such an amalgam would be deadly. A true poison. It would turn black the blood in her veins and stop the heart.”
Ninian nodded. “And she must drink it all?”
“A drop will suffice.” Mordaunt held the vial out to her. “It depends on how quickly she wishes for her state to progress. The more she consumes, the faster her labors will come—and the more violent. It is not for a woman of infirmity, as I have said.”
Ninian took the vial. It was warm, burning even, as though theliquid within was exuding an unnatural heat. Could it burst through the glass? As the pads of her thumbs began to prickle painfully, she slipped it into the pocket of her shift. There it still hummed with that perverse warmth, radiating through the fabric and to her flesh.
