Baroness of Blood

TEN

Jorani's house, called Argentine because of its white stone facade, was far smaller than Nimbus Castle, but far more beautiful. As the elixirs Jorani had sent with Ilsabet slowly brought her old strength back and added to it, she roamed the estate gardens where early spring flowers poked their heads through the frost-covered soil. At her request, the marble fountain was turned on during the day. As she stared into its swirling water, she contemplated revenge. At night before she went to bed, she would unwrap her father's clothes. The first time she did so, she shuddered, recalling the terrible vision she'd had before. But there was no repeat of it. The blood on the cloth had all dried, and it would flake off in her hands and dust the thin white cotton of her nightdress.

As the days grew longer, her isolation grated on her. "Is there a library here?" she asked her maid.

"In Lord Jorani's private chambers."

"Take me to it," Ilsabet ordered. When the girl hesitated, Ilsabet added, "I was told to treat this estate as my home. Am I not allowed in every room of it?"

"Of course, Baroness. Come this way."

Ilsabet followed her to a small room, well-lit and warmed by the sun streaming through the windows. The books were not at all the sort to further her education.

As she idly occupied her time with a book of statesmanship, her knee bumped the bottom of the table, and she felt the board move. She knelt and looked up at it, discovering a hidden drawer. Inside it she found a written journal. There, in Jorani's precise hand was a guide to the cultivated plants in the garden, and to the wild ones that grew in the woods around the estate. Some of these were starred, devil's cup among them, she noted with interest. In the back of the book, she found a listing of the starred plants, each followed by a series of letters that she soon understood meant the part of the plant to be used as a drug.

Her body shook with excitement. This was why Jorani had sent her here. Here she could learn without any need for more than the most rudimentary caution.

"Thank you, Jorani," she whispered as she noted the place on the shelves where books on botany were kept.

Soon the sight of the little baroness in knee boots and leggings became familiar to the servants. Ilsabet found the land a marvelous source of poisons and cures. Devil's cup grew in the marshy soil of the forest, along with castor trees, monkshood, poisonous yew, and an assortment of deadly berries much prized for their more mundane use as a bright red dye. Rilca, the cook, would sometimes see her digging in the garden or in the woods beyond it and think with some amusement what an odd hobby it was for a girl of noble birth. Nonetheless, she found herself pleased to be questioned in such depth about every herb and spice on her shelves.

"Why do you keep this dried black nettle in the back of the cupboard?" Ilsabet asked one day.

Rilca, absorbed in thickening a stew, glanced down at the jar. "I wouldn't want anyone to mistake it for a cooking herb."

"What happens if you brew a tea from it?"

"A tea?" Rilca put down her spoon and stared at the girl. "When I was young, I was told to never eat black nettle."

"But why?"

"I asked a healer the same question. He said the power of the nettle is in its sting. You've seen the effect of its poultices often enough, I suppose, since your father was a fighter. The wound reddens and blisters, then begins to seep as the poultice draws out the poisons. But if you drink it, a difficult matter if black nettle tastes half as bad as it smells, your stomach is burned on the inside in much the way your throat was from devil's cup poison. Eating becomes painful, and the food does not nourish. If you drink enough of the tea, you will die in great agony the way a fighter might from a stomach wound."

"Is there an antidote?" Ilsabet asked.

"I don't know. I've only heard how poisonous the plant is from just one person, never anywhere else, so the man may have been wrong. But to be on the safe side, I keep it in the cupboard rather than on the shelf with the other herbs, where someone might use it to season a dish by mistake."

Ilsabet had learned enough. She changed the subject. "What about marjoram? Is it true that the plant causes unhappy marriages?" she asked.

"I don't know, but I wouldn't test it at a wedding feast. There's others you might want to know of." Rilca damped the fire and went to the cupboard, pulling out a number of jars of dried herbs and oils. She opened a jar of amber-colored leaves and handed it to Ilsabet. The smell was sweet, almost like the incense that her father used to import from the east to burn in the hearths during the annual winter feast.

"It is called the constant plant, and its tea has been drunk each night by many a faithless wife to assure that no child will come from a love affair," Rilca explained.

Ilsabet laughed. "Do I look as if I need it?" she asked.

"It has another use as well. Drunk every night, it prevents children. But if a woman stops using it, she will conceive within a week. Many women use it to time their pregnancy. With your breathing problems, it would be better to deliver a child in late autumn before your winter cough sets in. If you marry a warrior who sleeps in his castle one night out of ten, it will assure you a family."

"I'd rather the warrior stayed at home," Ilsabet said. "Do you have an herb for that?"

Rilca laughed and lifted three more jars from her collection. "Mix these together and put them in a small jar filled with flax oil. The scent is said to be an aphrodisiac."

"Rilca!" Ilsabet laughed. "Does it work?"

"I've had four husbands," the old woman confessed.

It occurred to Ilsabet that a simple question had yielded so many marvelous responses. "Can I go with you when you gather herbs?" she asked.

Rilca banked the fire under her pot and pulled the sweetbread from the oven, slicing off a piece for Ilsabet. "Of course you can. I'd be pleased to share what I know. Would you like a cup of tea?" she asked.

"Not now, but I will take a pot of water upstairs and heat it on my fire. I'll brew my own and lie down after I drink it. Jorani says I must rest."

"A good idea." Rilca said. "You look so much better, though."

"I feel better," she replied. "It's all the marvelous care." She slipped the bread into her pocket and carried the pot upstairs.

When the water was boiling, she fixed a cup of tea.

As it was steeping, she poured a bit of water into a little earthen bowl she had found in Jorani's chambers, pulled the jar of nettle leaves from her pocket, dropped a handful into the water, and set both on the coals. By the time she'd finished her second cup of tea, the nettle water had darkened and evaporated by half, leaving a tarry liquid in the bottom of the bowl.

Ilsabet sniffed it. If it tasted half as disgusting as it smelled, she could well understand why no one would accidently swallow it. Nonetheless, she had to know its effect. She dipped the corner of a piece of cloth in the liquid and folded it onto itself, being careful not to touch it. With it in the pocket of her cloak, she pulled on a pair of thick leather gloves and went outside.

The sky had darkened. It would rain soon. She hadn't much time. Rounding the corner of the stable, she spied the lame brown fox that Rilca had taken pity on years ago. Now it was nearly tame and begged with as much persistence as a pampered house cat. It also left its scent on the garden plants. Rilca would hardly miss it. Ilsabet crouched down and held out a piece of the fresh bread. "Come," she called. "Come and take it."

The fox moved close, and as it bit into the piece, Ilsabet grabbed it. Struggling to get loose, it bit through her glove, nearly to the bone. Nonetheless, Ilsabet held on until she smeared a bit of the black nettle infusion onto the bottom of the animal's paw, then let it go.

The fox limped off with as much dignity as it could muster to the sunny side of the stable and stretched out on the ground. She followed at a distance and waited. When the nettle began to pain the animal, it began licking the tarry residue from its paw until, satisfied, it rolled over and went to sleep.

Ilsabet had experienced a number of nettle poul-tices in her life. She knew the drawing quality took time to appear, so she crouched some distance away from the animal and waited.

It paid little attention to her as it dozed off. She began to think that she hadn't given it enough, but then the fox rolled onto its stomach and gagged as if trying to spit up a bad piece of meat. It looked up at her as though it knew she was the source of its pain, and disappeared into the thick brush of the untended field.

Now she would never know the outcome! Furious, she tried to follow the fox, but the brambles stuck to the hem of her cloak, and the animal's coloring blended too perfectly with the golden shoots of meadow grass. Stamping her foot in frustration, Ilsa-bet returned to the house, stealing in a side door and back to her room.

The next day, she went down to the kitchen just as Rilca went outside to pick herbs to season the evening meal. Ilsabet followed her. "Would you like me to rinse the greens for you?" she asked.

"No. It rained this morning. I kept an eye out for that cursed fox, but it seems to have run off." She stood up and rubbed her knees. "I wonder if I'd miss the pains of growing old if they disappeared."

"I wouldn't," Ilsabet said.

"Well, Baroness, you know quite a lot about pain for such a tiny thing, so I suppose you can talk."

Talk, Ilsabet thought, and considered that Rilca knew far too much about black nettles. She followed Rilca inside and watched the woman open a bottle of dark brown tonic-a mixture of honey and water and the concentrated essences of bedstraw and feverfew, along with an ample amount of alcohol, Ilsabet assumed. The woman wrinkled her nose at the taste. "It's a curse to have to drink something as bitter as this," she said with mock exasperation.

"Lord Jorani tells me that people tolerate anything that works," Ilsabet replied. Midway through the comment, she had a marvelous revelation and could not help but smile. "Since I'm getting hungry and you're making goulash, I'll leave you to your work," she said, then went upstairs.

The next day, Rilca's tonic tasted more bitter than usual. She washed it down with a cup of bee balm and tansy tea and followed the evening dose of tonic with tea as well. In spite of the stomach-soothing herbs, she woke in the middle of the night with terrible pains deep inside her, as if someone had poked needles into her stomach and was pushing them deeper inside her.

"The tonic's gone bad," she thought, and sipped the remnants of cold tea in the pot by her bedside. It alleviated the agony somewhat but in the morning Rilca did not have the strength to make breakfast. The other servants waited on her with the same care they would have given their lord; perhaps even better since Lord Jorani was not the one who fixed their meals.

For a week she stopped eating, drinking only the soothing tea when her thirst became unbearable. Gradually, the pain subsided, and she went back to her duties, bearing the stiffness in her joints without tonics.

Rilca never once suspected Ilsabet, for the little baroness sat often at her bedside, reading aloud to her or simply holding her hand, an expression of such intensity on her face that it seemed to Rilca that Ilsabet was trying to take on the agony for her through an act of will.

It also appeared that the child's own health was improving. Though she still had a trace of her cough and had gained no color to her complexion, there was a glow about her that had not been present before, making her pallor seem exotic rather than sickly.

A few days after Rilca was able to resume her duties in the kitchen, Ilsabet received a letter from her sister.

"Peto tells me you are quite recovered," Marishka wrote. "I've told him I will not plan my wedding unless you are here with me. I'm frantic without you. Come soon, Ilsabet. I miss you."

"So will I," Rilca said when Ilsabet told her the news. "I've never had a more pleasant guest, nor one who cared about my well-being as much as you do," she said.

When Ilsabet left for home, Rilca even cried.

When she heard the sentries announce Ilsabet's arrival, Marishka ran through the front door, then shivered in the damp of the courtyard. Ilsabet stepped down from the coach, and Marishka paused. It seemed Ilsabet had changed. She seemed to have matured, becoming self-assured, determined. Uncertain of Ilsabet's mood, Marishka held back until her sister held out her arms. Then she ran into them.

"Come inside," she said. "The damp isn't good for you."

They went upstairs to Marishka's chambers and sat sipping tea by the fire. The number of Marishka's dresses had grown, the old ones moved to the back of their hooks. The dress Marishka wore tonight was also new, but in the same shade of blue as the Obour banner.

It heartened Ilsabet to think of her sister requesting a dress in that color, but she was angry that Peto had allowed it. She could picture her sister wearing it, the far too obedient subject in the colors of her defeated family.

The spring fogs on the river had been thicker than in usual years, and Marishka missed the rides through the sunny meadows. She confessed this to Ilsabet then added her real fear, "I'm doing nothing but worry. I think I'm getting fat, and my face looks terrible. What kind of a bride will I make?"

A perfect one, Ilsabet thought, so beautiful in her wedding splendor that even the rebels would be forced to concede that any of them would have loved her in Peto's place. She wondered if Peto had considered this-and if it were a major part of his choosing Marishka in the first place. She sat beside her sister, taking both her hands. "You must demand what you want, Marishka. Tell Peto that he must make arrangements to protect you."

"I don't want to give him cause to worry. I love him so much!" She saw Ilsabet's frown and hurried on. "I've tried not to care for him, I truly have, but I can't help myself."

"Of course, I understand. But, Marishka, you might be wed to him for half a century. If you let him order you around now, what will your life be like when his first rush of love wears off?" She had worded this last carefully, not surprised by Marishka's reply.

"It isn't like that. He's protecting me because he loves me. I don't think he can help himself either. When you see us together, you'll know."

Ilsabet did not have to wait long for that event. The three of them dined alone that night. Sadly, Marishka had been correct. Everything about the way Peto looked at her, attentive to her every need, made Ilsabet certain he cared deeply about Marishka.

So be it, she thought. Her sister had been warned. Without a pang of conscience, she leaned forward and said to Peto in a conspiratorial tone, "Marishka has a request to make."

"Request?" Peto put down his glass and looked at his fiancee. "What is it?"

"I need… that is, I want to see the sun, Peto. I

want to go riding as I did before."

"At Argentine, I rode every day," Ilsabet said. "My health has never been better. It's this cursed fog that ruined it."

Peto looked from Ilsabet to his fiancee. He'd recently negotiated another truce in a seemingly endless series of truces and hoped it would survive until his wedding day. The sight of Marishka riding through the countryside would hardly pacify anyone. "We're going to visit Sundell after the wedding, dearest. Can you wait?"

"The wedding isn't for another five weeks," Ilsabet reminded him.

"I suppose that if you stayed to little-used paths and varied your route each day…" he began.

"Thank you!" Marishka cried and kissed him. Ilsabet looked away, certain that sight would be more than she could bear.

The next day Marishka and Ilsabet galloped in the highlands above the river. Ten guards accompanied them, and had Ilsabet not demanded that she and her sister lead, they would have been choked by the dust.

On their next afternoon's ride, they crossed the river and took back paths into the mountains, and the day after was a different route yet again. Ilsabet turned toward her sister, smiled happily, and pointed to a pair of deer grazing in the field below their path. "Let's spread our lunch here," she said.

They dined and shared a small bottle of wine. The drink and the heat of the day made Marishka warm. When they returned that evening, they changed into loose robes and stole down a private stairway that opened onto a sheltered ledge beside the river. With Greta and Kashi watching over them, they bathed in the Arvid River. "The water is already getting warmer," Marishka commented.

No doubt she was thinking how soon her wedding would be. The idyllic times were ending, Ilsabet thought, amazed at how little sorrow she felt.

Hours after she was supposed to have retired, Ilsabet moved through the labyrinth of tunnels in Nimbus Castle until she reached Jorani's hidden room. He wasn't there; she'd doubted he would be. What she planned was dangerous, and she wanted him entirely ignorant of what she intended to do. She lit a single candle and examined his stores with new knowledge, deciding finally on something he had revealed to her months before. With what she needed wrapped in a kerchief inside a pocket, she turned to go, then heard his steps in the room above.

The scent of her candle would linger in the room. He'd know someone had been here. Better to face him now.

When he saw her sitting at the table reading one of his books, he climbed down and locked the door behind him. "I hardly expected a visit from you at this hour," he commented as he took a seat across from her.

She closed the book. "I thought it best that we not meet publicly. I'd hoped to find you here tonight."

"Publicly?"

"Should anything else mysterious or tragic happen in Nimbus Castle, I wouldn't want suspicion to fall on you."

"What would possibly happen?" he asked carefully.

She decided on a cautious answer. "Any number of things, especially with poor Marishka nervous enough to have fainting fits. I've been reading about the calming plants like poppy and foxglove and thinking that perhaps I should ask the cook to fix Marishka tea each night to help her sleep. I suspect she'll need an extra strong brew the morning of the wedding."

"Are you resigned to letting the wedding take place?"

Ilsabet laughed. "You act as if I have a choice, Jorani."

He didn't answer directly. Instead he said, "In the months you've been gone, the rebels have attacked us twice. Each time, they've been repulsed with a minimum of losses for our side and theirs. Each time, Baron Peto has sent messages of peace. I think they're finally willing to let the hatred die and allow him to marry whomever he wishes. He's a wise man, child; far wiser than I'd expected."

"And their child will be half Obour," she commented.

"Exactly."

So Jorani had also been won over. She could forgive him the betrayal far more than that of her family, for like her father, he had the affairs of their domain to consider.

"I am resigned," she said in answer to his earlier question. She stood and walked around the table, taking his hands. "I'll not protest the wedding, but once it's over I would like to return to Argentine. I could learn to manage your lands since it seems that Peto will not let you out of his sight to go home."

For the first time he showed some emotion, responding with a bitter smile, and she knew she'd spoken no less than the truth.

When she'd gone, Jorani sat at the table looking at the book she had been reading, thinking how quickly she had closed it when he'd come in. She wouldn't dare try to harm the baron; she'd be suspected, imprisoned, hanged. Nonetheless, he examined the bottles on his shelves, noting the dust that had formed on them in his long absence from the room. The spider, which he risked the discovery of this room in order to feed, was still in its bowl, the web untouched. The sand that housed his ants was smooth, their tunnels undisturbed. But as he held the bowl close to the light, he saw a bit of lampblack on the side of their container. He wiped it off, thinking it was natural for Ilsabet to hold up a lamp to get a good look at them.

She's really just a child, he thought. All children are curious.

Nothing more.

The last was less a thought than a plea to the fates; a prayer.