The Blacktongue Thief

28 Practical Experience with Poison

They decided on Malk’s spear versus the Spanth’s bullnutter—you can choose a smaller weapon than whatever the challenged party picks, but not larger—and I truly wondered who would prevail. Coldfoot guards could whip those spears around with blinding speed, now battering with the butt, now sweeping out the legs, now stabbing through the liver. He was larger and stronger in the arm, as well. But against an Ispanthian birder, schooled from girlhood in the art of Calar Bajat? The earliest the duel could be set was tomorrow at dawn, this rule in the charter so combatants would have time to reconsider their profound stupidity, and I was certain none of us would sleep, except maybe Galva.

I was right.

Several of the friendlier crew came up to Galva as she drank on the deck, watching the moon. Some wished her luck. Some confessed their dislike for Malk. The Ispanthian with the badger pelt even sang with her; a song to Dalgatha, the Skinny Woman, the Mistress of Death. Then he joined her in toasts to the health of the infanta Mireya, and, upon reflection, I’m sure it was this treacherous bastard that poisoned her.

Our Spanth soon came down to join Norrigal and me, holding her head in her palms. “Your head hurt?” I asked her. She shrugged, which is Galvese for Yes, a lot. I should have been watching her, not only for her own sake but because my life, and probably Norrigal’s, depended on her.

I knew what had happened immediately, but finding out what was in her and how to help her was another matter. Norrigal had no shortage of potions and herbs but little practical experience with poison. I sat Galva on the floor, myself on one side of her, Norrigal on the other, opening her case to see if there was something to help the Spanth.

Bully sat himself near, past both of them where only I could see him, and tried to look nonchalant while he licked his paw. Norrigal made Galva tell us exactly what she was feeling, which was head-split and drowsy, and I made her tell me who’d been near her. The poison hadn’t been in her long and didn’t seem to be one of the stronger sort, which was to our advantage.

“Do you think we should make her vomit?” I asked Norrigal.

“How the devils should I know?” she said.

Past her, the cat nodded.

“Let’s make her vomit,” I said.

With the help of an evil-smelling herb Norrigal made Galva chew, we got her to sick up in one of the seasick-buckets left from our miserable first days on the water. The winey, tart smell of it filled the close space, and now Galva swooned and slumped deathlike into Norrigal’s arms.

“Shyte, she’s dying. Is she dying?” I said.

“I don’t know!” Norrigal said, fishing wide-eyed in her potion box.

The cat shook his head, as in, She’s not dying.

Probably we’d gotten enough of it out of her.

“What, then?”

The cat put his paws together on the floor, yawned, and put his head on them.

“I think she’s just sleeping,” I said. “I wonder how long.”

“’Til you’re dead, like as not. That’s surely the idea.”

The cat scratched his neck.

I stared at the cat, not getting it.

Norrigal turned to see what I was looking at, and the cat looked in the other direction.

“What’s so interesting about the cat with your friend full of poison?”

“Nothing,” I said.

The cat moved a little closer and scratched his neck again, this time idiot-slow so I realized he was counting.

“Twelve.”

“Twelve what?”

“Hours?”

The cat nodded hard.

“Hours,” I said. “She’ll sleep twelve hours. I heard of this poison.”

“What’s it called?”

I looked at the cat, but he just stared at me like, What am I supposed to do, spell it?

Norrigal laid the Spanth down, giving her a wool wrap for a pillow. The cat wandered over, sniffed Norrigal’s case, then rested his paw on a vial of milky white liquid. He pulled it away fast when she looked back at him.

“Cat,” she said, “get out of that!” She shooed him away, and he hissed at her—I’d never seen him hiss—then retreated. He padded farther off and sat with his back to us, a perfectly catlike gesture.

“Try this one,” I said, picking up the vial he’d indicated.

“Moonweed? You sure? That’s for lady pains.”

“Good. Give her a lot.”

She did, then wiped the corner of Galva’s mouth with her skirt.

“Will it wake her?” she said.

Bully shook his head, still facing away.

“No.”

“What’ll it do?”

The cat licked himself intimately.

“Make her feel better.”

“But it won’t wake her up?”

“No.”

“What’ll you do, then?”

Bully lay down with his paws up in a deathlike posture.

“Exactly what the gods want. I’ll be well and truly fucked.”

The Spanth mumbled, “Chodadu,” in her half sleep and then snored.

“It surely looks that way,” Norrigal said.

An hour later, Malk came down the steps to the hold with a small mob behind him and formally challenged me. He didn’t want to miss his chance. He thought I’d choose dagger, but I chose to face him with both of us stripped to the waist and unarmed.

“Truly?” he said.

“Truly.”

“That’s surprising,” he said, “a little fellow like you. You know we’re not just boxing. You know it’s to the death, right?”

The Ispanthian Badger stood among the small, gloating crowd behind Malk. The Spanth oarsman who’d sung with Galva about Dalgatha. The one who’d surely poisoned her.

“It shouldn’t be surprising,” I said. “A dagger fight would be over too quickly. This way I can bugger you, too.”

He nodded. “That’s it, then. Enjoy your profanities. You haven’t many left.”

He turned away, then he turned back, the way very angry people do when they think of one more awful thing to say or one more bit of harm they might do. Before Bully could react, Malk grabbed the cat by the neck and went upstairs. The cat started to cough, but it had taken a few coughs to get the assassin out of him under my bed, and I didn’t think she’d be able to get free in time. I went to follow Malk, grabbing Palthra, but a dozen men drew their swords and deck-axes and waited for me, many of them smiling. They were hoping I’d do it. Norrigal grabbed my arm.

“Let him go, Kinch! It’s just a cat!”

“No,” I said. “It isn’t.” But I stopped pulling. I had only been half pulling, anyway. It was hopeless. The bastards went upstairs.

A cheer came from the top of the ship.

“Swim, swim!” they started to chant.

I lay down and stared at the boards of the hold’s ceiling, trying to focus on this or that nail, sorry a ship’s hold was to be my last home. Though I could have done worse for company.

Norrigal took my hand and held it as more laughter came from the deck and someone started playing a drum and hornpipe.

“Shyte, you’re ugly,” I said, meaning the opposite.

“Yeah,” she said. “You, too.”

Then she kissed me.