Page 20 of Hemlock & Silver

“Ah…” Lady Sorrel said, spooning honey into her tea and stirring.

“A fine question. Supposedly a king a century or two back—I’ve forgotten which.

A Bartimaeus maybe, but don’t ask me what number, they had such a lot of them.

You’d think they’d start to crave some variety after a few generations… Sorry, what was I saying?”

“One of the Bartimaeuses,” I said. “Bartimaeusi?”

Sorrel giggled, sounding suddenly much younger.

“Oh, I like that. At any rate, he had married a woman who, by all accounts, was far too much for him, and he eventually exiled her here, saying, ‘Let her wither and die out there in the desert!’” She drew herself up and declaimed the words, holding the spoon like a scepter.

I caught a glimpse of the king’s face, looking fondly amused, as one might well look at an elderly relative, much beloved.

“At any rate,” Sorrel said, dropping the spoon back onto the saucer with a ping, “this became the estate where kings sent divorced queens and estranged mistresses, and the name stuck.”

Estranged… mistresses…

And then I heard the voice ringing in my ear, sour with gossip: Kings have had plain mistresses before, too. Remember Lady Sorrel?

Yes, but King Bastian was mad, dear.

“Saints!” I blurted. “You’re the old king’s—”

My brain caught up to my mouth then and snapped it shut, but it was too late. King Randolph glared at me. It was the first time he’d glared in my direction, and it felt as if it might sear all the way through me and burn my family by proxy.

“Um,” I said. “I’m sorry, that— I didn’t mean to—”

I was interrupted by Lady Sorrel’s peal of laughter. “Oh, please, don’t worry. It’s hardly a secret. Randolph, quit glaring at the child like that. It’s your fault for not warning her.”

The king, to my astonishment, flushed and looked away. “Sorry, Aunt Sorrel.”

Aunt. Of course. His uncle’s mistress was the closest thing he had to an aunt. It was clear that they were very close.

“I was indeed poor Bastian’s mistress,” Lady Sorrel said to me. “He wasn’t a bad man before his mind went. And after that… well.” She took a sip of tea. “I did what I could to temper some of his excesses.”

“And you were my only friend at court for many years,” King Randolph said warmly. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

“I was the only one in a position to risk it,” Sorrel said. She gazed past both of us, over the gardens, into the desert. “He never forgot he loved me, even when so much else was taken from him.”

The long-term effects of mercury poisoning are cruel, and madness is foremost among them.

I wondered if Lady Sorrel had not been a target, or if she had simply been less affected.

She set her teacup down with barely a tremor.

“At any rate,” she said, “no one quite knew what to do with me after Bastian died, and Randolph here flatly refused to let them turn me out into the streets, so I came to Witherleaf.” She smiled at me, and I could see some of what a young, doomed king might have loved.

“Now you must look at my collection of agaves, young lady. I am dreadfully vain about them, and when winter comes, I insist on having the tender ones brought inside where the servants constantly trip over them and wish me to perdition.” She rose to her feet, and both the king and I followed suit.

Sorrel was a substantial weight on my arm, and she used her cane to point at the various potted plants that lined the edge of the veranda.

“Now, this one is a variety called Silverheart… look closely, you can see the white markings at the base of the leaves… and this one here is called Whale’s Tear, and I was given it by the oddest little man… ”

I spent an enjoyable morning with Lady Sorrel.

The gardens around the villa were quite small, because there was only so much water to spare for them, but they were elegantly designed and shaded into the surrounding desert so gradually that, at first, you hardly realized you had stepped outside them.

There were spirit houses in the desert, but not many, and each one was beautifully made.

Witherleaf clearly cared for its own, in death as well as life.

I was still recovering from the long ride, but Sorrel moved at a slow amble, which was just about the speed I was capable of.

When I complimented Lady Sorrel on the garden, she laughed.

“I’ve done nothing but enjoy them. The gardeners do all the real work, and they were originally laid out by Randolph’s great-grandmother.

Her husband sent her here in hopes that she would have the grace to die after it seemed like she’d only have the one child.

She outlived him by forty years and had plenty of time to lay out the gardens. ”

Sorrel pointed out various plants, and I told her which ones could be used to poison someone.

(Normally I would have thought this was tactless, given her history, but she asked .) The king trailed after us with his hands in his pockets.

I wondered if he was bored, then thought that maybe if you were a king, boredom was a novelty, or at least the sort of boredom you’d get following two women meandering slowly through a garden was.

Perhaps it was pleasant, if you were a king, to spend a little time when no one wanted anything from you and you didn’t have to worry about anything more pressing than avoiding a cactus spine.

At last Sorrel declared that it was time for her afternoon nap. “But you must join us for dinner tonight,” she said, pointing her cane at me like a lance. “And come to tea whenever you feel like entertaining a lonely old lady, if you’re not too busy saving my god-niece.”

“I would be delighted,” I said, and meant it. At least about the tea.

There were six of us at dinner that night, and the sole reason that it wasn’t awful was because of Lady Sorrel.

We were arranged with women on one side of the table and men on the other, so the king was flanked by two male advisors (apparently he was not allowed to stop being king for more than a few hours), and Snow and I sat on opposite sides of Sorrel.

She turned to me as soon as the soup was served and said, “We spent all morning talking of poisons. Now tell me about antidotes .”

I coughed into my napkin. “That’s a much more complicated subject, I’m afraid.”

One of the king’s advisors stopped talking and leaned forward on his elbows.

He was a small, energetic man who gave the impression of having just come in from a vigorous run.

I’d seen him at the table the past two days on the road, usually gesturing so vigorously that the lace on his sleeves trailed through the sauce.

“I’ve heard that if you are bitten by an adder, you should suck the poison from the wound at once,” he said.

“Far be it from me to stop you,” I said, “but all that will get you is a mouthful of blood. Better you should wash out the wound.”

He laughed and clutched at his heart. “Ack! One of my favorite tales, shot down. I’d always hoped that if I was out riding and one of my companions was bitten, I would leap heroically into action and save their life.”

“ Is there a cure for snakebites?” the king’s other advisor asked.

He was tall and broad and, compared to his colleague, looked half asleep.

There was no lace on his cuffs, and except for the exceptional quality of the fabric, his clothes looked like the sort that any moderately prosperous merchant might wear.

“Not as such. Not something you can take and be perfectly fine afterward.” I took a sip of wine. “A great deal depends on the snake and how much venom they secrete. They’re as different as humans in a way.”

“Healer Anja has a chime-adder in her workshop,” the king said.

Everyone was looking at me now. I felt the urge to shrink back in my chair and squelched it.

“Chime-adder venom speeds the heart,” I explained.

“And also hurts like the devil. But distilled, I have managed to make a drug that makes the heart beat harder. I am hoping to expand it into a medicine for people with weak hearts.” So much attention was a trifle embarrassing, so I took a rather larger swallow of wine.

“As for snakebites, it depends on the type. For a rattleviper, take off any rings you’ve got on or boots or stockings, if it hit the leg.

The swelling is the worst of it. The bite’s survivable, but the gangrene won’t be, if the blood gets cut off by a ring.

For chime-adders, I’d suggest taking laudanum immediately.

Slowing the heart may stave off the worst of the effects. ”

“And if it doesn’t, at least it’ll hurt less,” Lady Sorrel said, and everyone laughed, even Snow.

The conversation circled for a few moments about snakes, as it tended to when the topic came up, and then the king said, “I have read that Emperor Hadrach drank snake venom in wine to build up an immunity.”

I shrugged. “It wouldn’t help. Anyone can drink snake venom, provided they don’t have any ulcers in their mouth or stomach.” It’s a street performer’s trick that you see sometimes, where the performer milks a snake’s fangs into a cup, then drinks it while the crowd gasps.

“And what of scorpions, drowned in oil?” the king asked, his lips quirking. “I’ve heard he ate that, too.”

“I cannot swear that it does not work,” I said with some asperity. “It is always possible that the emperor had access to a better class of scorpion. But in my experience, it does no good.”

“Saints bless us!” Lady Sorrel said. “You tried that?”

“When I first began studying, I tried almost every antidote that had ever been written down. Bezoars, amethysts, a dozen different recipes for theriac…”

“And?” asked the energetic advisor.

“And the vast majority were…” I tried to find a tactful way to phrase it. “A triumph of enthusiasm over medical knowledge.”

The tall advisor laughed so hard at that that the king had to pound him on the back. “You should hire this one as a diplomat,” he said, wheezing.

See, Isobel? I can be tactful.

“I’ve heard that unicorn horns can cure poison,” Snow piped up, her high voice carrying over the conversation.

“Many classical writers say so,” I said.

“I’d very much like to test it. Unfortunately I’ve never been able to find an actual unicorn horn, so I’ve never been able to find out for myself.

” (This was also tactful. What usually gets sold as a unicorn horn is taken from scimitar oryx.

Oryx are beautiful antelope, but they’re no more immune to poison than any ruminant.

Actual unicorns seem to be as rare as honest men.)

“So what does work, then?” the energetic advisor asked.

I took a moment to admire Lady Sorrel’s skill at managing dinner conversation. She had successfully pulled the most reclusive member of the table into talking and gotten everyone else involved, regardless of social status. Sadly, it meant that I had to actually answer the question.

“Every time? Nothing. It depends on how the poison is taken, how strong the patient is, how long the poison has had to work…” I spread my hands helplessly.

“What would you take if you were poisoned?” the king asked.

“Clay.”

“Clay?” His eyebrows slammed together like castle doors.

“ Terra sigillata, ” I said. “The ancients knew it well. I’d also try charcoal—or ground-up toadstones, if I could get them.”

“Why those?”

I was beginning to feel as if I were being interrogated for crimes against the crown. “Because most of the roosters survive.”

The main course arrived and saved me from having to admit that curing poison is actually mostly guesswork. “Enough of poisons,” said Lady Sorrel. “I want to eat my dinner without worrying.”

As I bent my head over my food, I caught a glimpse of Snow at the other end of the table, and I wondered what she thought about the adults so blithely discussing a topic that might be killing her.