The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [36]
The last guard called a servant lad, who ran off to the royal infirmary with the news that an herbman waited outside. After a wait of some five minutes, he ran back and led Nevyn to a big round stone building behind the broch complex. There they were met by a burly man with dark eyes that glared under bushy brows as if their owner were in a state of constant fury, but when he introduced himself as Grodyn, the head chirurgeon, he was soft-spoken enough.
“An herbman’s always welcome. Come spread out your wares, good sir. That table by the 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 modeled 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, elecampane, and comfrey root.
“I don’t suppose you ever get down to the seacoast,” 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 rumors 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 color.”
Nevyn thought for a long moment, 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