Page 16 of Hemlock & Silver

The problem, as I tried to explain, started when we began getting opium imported from across the southern sea, and while opium is a godsend when dealing with things like leg amputations, some bastard eventually realized that you could mix opium with white thorn apple seeds, and you’d be happy and weightless and watching pretty pictures in the smoke.

Unless, of course, you relaxed too much and your heart stopped, and then, if you were very lucky and I wasn’t three days away, I might be able to yank you back to the land of the living.

The king sighed. “Lotus dens are one of those intractable problems that we face. For some reason, the guard seems ill-equipped to stop them.”

Aaron cleared his throat. “Majesty? If I may?”

“You were a city guard once, weren’t you?” The king gestured to him. “Speak, by all means.”

“They are hard to find, Your Majesty. Compared to drunks, lotus smokers do hardly any property damage, and the dens are much quieter neighbors, but owned by dangerous people. People find it easier to look the other way, if they notice at all. So they can operate on the edges of much better neighborhoods. The guard only hears of them if smokers turn to theft to support their habit.”

“One would think that a clever owner would hire guards to prevent that,” said the king thoughtfully.

“Some do, Majesty. Which makes neighbors even less likely to report it. And even if they do…” Aaron trailed off, suddenly ill at ease.

“And if they do, they find that perhaps the guard in their neighborhood has been paid to look the other way,” the king finished. “Who wouldn’t want crime to go down on their patch?”

“As you say, Majesty.”

I wondered why Aaron was no longer a city guard, and if it was related.

The king grunted. He was quiet for a little while, and I went back to classifying plants.

We were passing through an area mostly given over to cactus.

Cactus rarely bother being poisonous, though there are occasional exceptions.

I eyed a barrel cactus by the side of the road, which had grown large enough to slump sideways.

(People always say you can get water from a barrel cactus.

This is true enough, but since it gives you diarrhea, it’s something of a wash in the hydration department.)

“But you can cure these people?” the king asked abruptly.

“Eh?” I’d lost my place in the conversation and briefly thought he was expecting me to cure a cactus. Lotus smoke. Right, right.

“Well…” I said, fussing with the reins to buy time, even though Ironwood hadn’t so much as twitched. “Sometimes. Not always. And it’s not a cure, exactly. I save them, but they’re still addicted to the smoke.”

He nodded. “Is there a cure for that?”

“Time.” Opium is another thing we haven’t found a cure for. The effects, fortunately, are cumulative rather than instantaneous, so we can still use it to blunt the pain when someone’s arm gets sawn off, provided we stop soon enough.

The king sighed. “Time is the thing that Snow may not have,” he said.

“Though she’s lasted this long.” It was his turn to stare between his horse’s ears.

“One of my advisors suggested that if it is poison, I should lock her in a windowless room and guard the door so that no one has access to it. Have a cook prepare her food with his own hands and feed half that food to his youngest child.”

“It sounds like a good way to give her rickets,” I said, before I remembered that I was being tactful.

But the king looked at me with sudden hope in his eyes and said, “Yes! Exactly! And I could not bear the thought of locking my daughter up in a guarded cell for the rest of her days. If she is truly dying, regardless of what we do, then it would be monstrous to deny her the sun and the wind and the stars.”

“It might work for a little while if it’s actually poison,” I admitted. “But I’d want to be sure it was first. And if she’s lived this long, it seems unlikely that it will suddenly grow worse, unless the poisoner… err…”

“Sees that we have discovered their work. I know. And I cannot decide if someone is dragging her death out to torment me or if this is simply the best they can do.”

“It may be that there is no malice here at all, Your Majesty,” I said.

“A nurse could be giving her an herbal tonic—oh yes, you would not believe the tonics that I’ve seen!

Made with wolfsbane or sweetened with lead, with the best intentions in the world.

Or it may be something she is taking herself, all unknowing. ”

The king frowned. “How do you mean?”

I made a helpless gesture with my free hand. “Perhaps Snow got hold of some old cosmetics. There are foundations made with white lead, and others made with mercury, to whiten the skin, or cinnabar to provide a blush.”

“Cosmetics?” His frown deepened. “Snow is a child .”

“Young girls are often eager to play at being grown-up,” I said. “Did her… did the queen use cosmetics?”

The king had to stop and think. “I suppose she could have,” he said slowly. “I never thought about it.”

No, I thought wearily, no, you probably didn’t. Noblemen notice beauty mostly by its lack. Women know that they are only as powerful as their face, and so they will slather poisons into every wrinkle, merely to keep what little power they have.

Aloud I said only, “It’s possible that Snow acquired some but, being unskilled in the usage, has managed to poison herself in small doses.

I would suggest that we search through her belongings, just in case.

” I grimaced at the thought. It seemed cruel to dig through a sick child’s private treasures, particularly if one of them was a reminder of a lost mother.

A mother who tried to cut out her sister’s heart. And anyway, it would be much crueler to let her die.

“And this is why I came to you,” the king said, smiling wryly. “I would never have thought of cosmetics, and I will wager that the physicians did not either.”

Then your physicians were fools. I did not say that, though, because I had the sneaking suspicion that I would prove the biggest fool of all.