Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince (8 page)

And I realize that all of my doubt in him has gone. That he has my trust again. Even if he and his mother are lunatics.

“What will you do once the evacuation happens?” I ask.

“Nothing. I have to stay.” I get the strangest feeling that there’s more to come, so I keep still and quiet, silently urging him to speak. “I’m here to wait for something else that is likely to end up here, sooner or later. Something not from the temple.”

“Like what?”

Silas shrugs elaborately. “Nothing that would mean anything to you. It’s a religious thing. There’s no point trying to explain.”

There’s a pinch in my stomach, alien and unwelcome, and I don’t understand it. “But surely it’s unlikely this
thing
will get here now: the borders are closed, and the woods are full of soldiers and Lormerian raiders.”

He nods again. “I know. But that doesn’t change the fact I have to stay here, for now. Until we’re sure.”

We’re both quiet, thinking. “When you came here, to wait for this something, did you know the Sleeping Prince was coming?”

He looks at me. “Yes,” he says.

I open my mouth to ask another question but he holds up a hand to hush me.

“My turn. When you thought I was him, you stopped fighting. You were going hell for leather and then you stopped. I thought you’d fainted. Did you want me – him – to?”

My skin colours. “I was trying to trick you.”

His golden eyes flash. “I haven’t lied to you, Errin. Don’t lie to me.”

I can’t look at him as I speak. “She sat there, Silas. I ran into the room to defend her. I would have died trying to save her but she didn’t do anything. She stared at the wall while her daughter, her only living child, was struggling before her. I didn’t want to die. But I couldn’t fight. Not after that.”

Silas’s face is deadpan; he blinks at me and then gives a short nod. Suddenly he gets to his feet, unfolding his tall frame and standing over me.

“Here,” he says as he rummages in his pocket and holds out a small brown glass bottle with a dropper in the cap. The kind of bottle an apothecary would prescribe medicine in.

I stand up and take it, opening the top and squeezing to draw a tiny amount of liquid into the dropper. It’s milky looking, delicate, and I take a cautious sniff. It smells of roses. There are maybe seven drops in the bottle, and I replace the lid.

“What is it?”

“It’s for your mother.” He looks into my eyes, holding my gaze. “It’ll help her with her problem, I think.”

My blood runs ice cold. “What do you mean?” I whisper. Does he know what she is? Does he recognize it?

His face, still so new to me, is carefully blank. “Put it in her tea tonight, instead of the poppy. One drop only. Do you understand? One dose, of one drop, per day. No more.”

“What is it? What does it do? What is it for?” I want to grip him by the front of his cloak and shake him, my fists tightening with the desire to do it.

“I have to go. I’ll come back when I can. And I’ll knock.” He smiles.

“Silas—”

“Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies.” Then he’s gone, the door clicking neatly closed behind him.

I look down at the vial in my hand.

The rest of the day is mercifully uneventful, though that doesn’t stop the low-level panic that rises in me when I think of everything Kirin told me. But when I manage to push images of arrows and blood and hearts from my mind, it turns to Silas. White haired, golden eyed. More mysterious now than when he was hooded.

When dusk falls I make my mother some tea, and add one drop of Silas’s potion to it. I half-expect it to smoke as it lands in the tea, or to make it change colour, but nothing happens. When I sniff it, I can’t detect it, and my mother doesn’t seem to notice the taste as I feed it to her, her red eyes on me the whole time. Once she’s locked in for the night, I pull the chest in front of the door, and with the shadows on my side, I sneak to the well and bring back as much water as I can carry, using half of it to make a vat of soup large enough to last us through the next day.

When it’s done, I return to my blankets, pulling Mama’s book with me. I flick straight to the story of the Sleeping Prince, my eyes seeking out a drawing of him. Though I know it’s a book, and the illustration might not be accurate, I can’t help comparing it to Silas’s face. They’re so similar. I look back at the pictures, staring into the golden eyes on the page. They stare right back at me as I fall asleep.

The man is holding my hands in his, turning them over, entwining our fingers so we’re linked, pressed palm to palm. He takes my right hand and opens it out, rubbing his thumb over the base of mine, then traces the lines, my lifeline, my heart line. He draws along the length of my fingers with his, his touch delicate as he makes circles on my fingertips. My chest feels tight, my skin tingling under his attention, and I feel dizzy. Despite that, I can’t help notice his hands are smoother than mine. Mine are covered in nicks and scratches, webbed with scars like fine lacework where I’ve slipped cutting up plants, or sliced myself on barbs and thorns. My nails are short and jagged, and when I see the contrast with his I pull my hand away.

“Are you ashamed?” he asks, and I keep my head bent as I shake it. “You shouldn’t be,” he adds, gently taking my hand again. “You hold life and death here in these hands. Kill or cure, that’s your gift. These are your weapons.”

I look down at my hands, and as I do he takes both of them, raising them to his face. The tip of his hood brushes the back of my wrists, and I’m about to ask him why he wears it, when his lips press against my skin and my stomach lurches inside me. It feels as though I’m falling. Then it’s over, and he’s letting go, and my hands feel cold without his touch.

“What are you working on?” he says finally, standing up, and as he walks away the room comes into focus around me. Not my old apothecary chambers but the hut in Almwyk. In the dream it looks even worse: there are cobwebs covering the ceiling, and I can hear scurrying along the edges of the room. The rushes are rotting, stinking sweet and slimy under my feet, and I stand, horrified.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, as though he can read my thoughts. He picks up the vial from the table and looks at it briefly. “You’ll have a proper apothecary again soon.”

“Home?” I say without thinking, and his lips curve into a familiar smile.

“Home.”

“But…” I turn to the door to my mother’s room. It’s dark, black in the dream; everything about it screams danger and forbiddance.

“She’s quiet tonight,” he says. “Why? Your work?”

I smile in reply. Something stops me telling him I gave her a potion I didn’t make.

The man shrugs lightly and walks to me. He folds me gently into his arms, pulling me into his lean body, and my heart swells. I think of what Kirin said and I smile. Home.

The dream ends abruptly, though the feelings linger, and I lie still, listening for whatever pulled me from it. With the windows covered I have no idea how close it is to dawn, but a glance at the fireplace shows me long enough has passed for the fire to go out. I strain for sound from my mother’s room; surely that’s what’s woken me? When I hear nothing, I move, silent as the grave, to the window and pull the cloth back. Greyish, lavender light seeps in around the edges of the slats and my mouth falls open. Dawn. It’s dawn.

I’m astonished that I slept through the night – that my mother slept through the night – but astonishment turns rapidly to fear, and then I’m flying across the few steps to her door and grabbing the key, fumbling in my haste to unlock it. What if she’s – what if … I don’t know what was in Silas’s potion. How could I be so stupid? I didn’t even ask if it was safe, if it had anything dangerous in it. Oh Gods, the dream, it was a warning, it was a warning to me that she…

I fling open the door, forgetting to be careful, not thinking it might be a trick, or a trap. She’s in the bed, her mouth open, head tipped slightly back, and I run to her, my stomach roiling.

“Mama!” I choke out the word and grasp her bird-thin shoulders, shaking her. “Mama!”

There is a sickening, sickening moment when she doesn’t respond and I forget how to breathe. Then her eyes open and she looks up at me and the relief is so great that I crumple on to the bed, still clutching her shoulders as I slump beside her. She blinks slowly and I look at her eyes. They’re clearer than they’ve been for moons, barely pink at all, and her pupils aren’t dilated or contracted. Moreover there’s no malice in her gaze, and I gently lower her back to the pillow.

“I’ll get you some breakfast,” I say shakily, and for the first time in three moons, she nods. It’s faint, and it might not have been deliberate, but I see it. I back out of the room, unable to take my eyes off her. What is in the mixture Silas gave me?

It’s a lie if I pretend that I always wanted to be an apothecary. My earliest ambition was to be an alchemist. I knew all about the three branches of alchemy from Mama’s books: the aurumsmiths, who could create gold from base metal and so would never be poor; the philtresmiths, who could concoct the Elixir of Life and so would never be ill; and the vitasmiths, who could animate a homunculus, or – more terribly – a golem, and so would never be alone.

I never pretended to be a vitasmith – it would have been a fantasy too far, even for me. The lines between the Sleeping Prince, the children’s storybook figure, and the actual Crown Prince of Tallith, have blurred over the last half millennium, but both versions of his story say that he was the first and only alchemist to be able to give life to the not-living. But I never wanted that power; even as a child, something scared me about things being alive that were never meant to live. Sometimes I pretended to be an aurumsmith – usually when I wanted something and was told no – but the kind of alchemist I most played at being was a philtresmith.

To be able to create the Elixir was much rarer than the ability to create gold – in fact, Master Pendie later told me that the last known philtresmith died more than seventy harvests ago in the Conclave, and that the Council held a state funeral for her. As a matter of fact, that was the last time the alchemists left the Conclave en masse, and the last time the Tregellian army was active, drafted in to protect the alchemists from kidnap attempts by Lormerians.

But I didn’t know that when I played at it, and I spent hours mixing ingredients together – mud, milk, whey, berries – and declaring it the Elixir of Life. I fed my mixtures to Mama when she had a headache, to Papa when his back hurt, and even tried in vain with Lief, when he fell into nettles, or tumbled from the roof of the barn.

Eventually poor Papa explained to me that it was impossible to
become
an alchemist, that you had to be
born
one. Alchemy born, descended from the Royal Twins of Tallith, the ability passed down the bloodlines. But then he told me that, although being an alchemist was beyond my reach, there were potions and mixtures I could learn that would also heal, albeit without the miraculous effects of the Elixir of Life. So I switched my attentions to medicine, and it turned out I was a natural with plants, and a gifted apothecary.

When you train to be an apothecary, you learn about composition and creation, construction and deconstruction. You learn to isolate elements and how to put them together, how to balance them to make the perfect cure. One tiny leaf too many, one drop too much of something, can make the difference between medicine and murder weapon. I spent moons being given whole potions and deconstructing them, testing them by scent and colour, for acid and alkali and their reactions to the humours. I broke down the elements of the entire one hundred cures listed in the Materia Medica and listed every single ingredient in each one precisely. In the dream, the man asked what I was working on, and it’s this. My mind was clearly telling me to do it. If Silas knew anything about apothecary he’d know I’d be able to do the same to the vial he gave me. I might not be able to make it, but I’ll be able to tell what’s in it. And that might be enough to point me in the direction of a recipe.

I decant one precious drop into a glass dish and put the rest of the bottle aside for my mother, depending on what I find. Then I cross to the unlit fireplace and sweep out the ashes, before lifting up the bottom of it. When we first came here there was no bottom to it; it was a pit in a dirt floor. I begged Lief to find a tray and grate for it, saying I didn’t think it was safe to light a fire without it. But I wanted the space beneath it to hide some of my apothecary kit, things that were useful to a fully fledged licensed apothecary, not an amateur potion peddler. I was supposed to sell them to raise money for rent, my beautiful Materia Medica, all of my glass dishes and pipettes, notepads and measuring glasses, but I couldn’t do it. I knew my father wouldn’t have wanted me to. So I hid them. And now I need them.

I smell the contents of the bowl and pull a notepad towards me. I write down “rose” as my base point; my nose is good and I know I smelt it. I leave the bowl and pull my old charts out from my chest, searching for “rose”. I find it in thirty-eight of the known cures. Thirty-eight is too high; I need to narrow it down to be able to do my work properly. Salt is bound to be part of it – it’s the great purifier – but that doesn’t narrow it down either. There’s something else, something like the smell after a taper has been blown out, a hint of smoke, but not so sharp. Looking back at the charts, nothing springs out at me, and I frown, sniffing again. Roses, salt, something smoky. I pull the Materia Medica towards me. I can do this.

But it turns out that I can’t, at least not as quickly as I’d thought. At lunchtime I take bread and soup to Mama, my eyes roaming over her, looking for signs of further improvement, or relapse. If it weren’t for the pink tinge to her eyes and her cobweb hair, you’d think she was healthy, recovering from a fever or injury. She looks like the lie I told to Unwin and Kirin. She sighs as I plump the pillows around her and I pause, turning sharply to her, but she closes her eyes, dismissing me. I leave a mug of water by the side of the bed and I’m about to lock the door when I stop and stare at her hands. Her fingers flutter on top of the blankets, one-two-three-four tapped over and over again on her stomach, like Silas when he’s agitated, and an old memory flashes across my mind.

All four of us sitting at the table, my mother’s fingers silently marking a tattoo on the tabletop while Lief and my father droned on and on about the pros and cons of a particular seeding method. I see it again, her drumming lightly on the counter, staring out of the window at the rain that lashed down and prevented her from going to have tea with a neighbour. She does it when she’s bored. Like Silas’s tapping, it’s involuntary; I suspect neither of them know they do it.

My mother is bored.

I don’t stop to wonder what it might mean. I race into the main room and scoop up the book of stories from the bed. I take it to her and place it in her lap, not daring to breathe in case I ruin whatever this is. Her eyes open and she looks down at the book, and then up at me. There’s no recognition in her gaze, and I feel my cheeks start to redden, embarrassed by my sentimentality. How is it possible I can still think—

A cold hand closes over mine and I gasp. But before I can snatch it away and run, her fingers curl around mine, as light as the petals on a rose. For three seconds she holds my hand, and then she drops it, her eyes falling shut again.

My skin tingles and my eyes burn as I leave the room, turning the key with finality. I lean against the door and breathe, in and out, until I’m sure I’m calm. Then I make myself a cup of tea and sit back at the bench staring at my experiments, too many thoughts in my head, a small seed inside me beginning to grow. And try as I might to ignore it, I can’t.

It’s too early to say that what Silas gave her is what caused this change, even though I know, somehow, in my blood and bones, that it is. That it has to be. Whatever miracle his potion is, it’s reaching her, and bringing her back. And if I can figure out what it is, and make more of it, keep making more of it, we might … We really might be able to go home.

If she’s conscious again, she’ll be able to help me manage her condition. There’s a chance we could return to Tremayne, not to the farm but…

I could pick up my apprenticeship again. I could go back to the apothecary, Master Pendie might still make me a partner, and then we’d have enough money to rent somewhere, on the outskirts. With a cellar. Forget Unwin, forget refugee camps, forget trying to find somewhere far from other people to hide her. Home. Even if war comes, we’ll be safer there, behind the city walls.

I will crack this, so help me, Gods from every pantheon, I will crack this.

It’s my mantra throughout the afternoon: if the beast can be controlled, then maybe we can go home. I only stop working to check on my mother and the book, but that’s as far as I go with chores. Dirty dishes stay dirty, the windows stay covered, and I’m still wearing my blood-covered smock from yesterday. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but this. I will find out what is in this potion and then I will copy it and everything will be all right. I sacrifice another drop to this goal.

Every time I think of going home, back to the apothecary, to my real life, the same thrill I felt when Kirin first mentioned it runs through me. Back with our people, surely it will get better. Surely if anything can heal the wounds left by Papa, it would be going home. And Lief would know to look there if he … when he…

I squeeze the glass pipette I’m holding so tightly that I crush it, tiny cuts peppering my hand. I barely notice them though, the knot in my chest tightening again. I freeze, blood welling up on my palm, but I don’t care, disgusted with myself. Guilt holds me in its claws and pins me down and I stare at the vial, at the work I’ve done.

And then I remember Kirin saying we could have stayed in Tremayne all along; the bewildered pain in his voice that we turned down his help and left without saying goodbye. For the first time I feel a stab of anger towards Lief. He put us through the move here, put me through Chanse Unwin’s leering, through countless sleepless nights for his pride. He went to work in a hostile country, leaving me alone with a grief-stricken mother who couldn’t bring herself to eat, because he didn’t want charity.

We’re here because he had too much of an ego to rely on his friends,
our
friends. Mama’s illness, my making poisons, all of it, none of it needed to be. Stupid, stupid Lief. How could he? And now he’s…
No. He’s fine. He’s Lief. He’ll find us.
And when he does I will make him sorry for everything. He can take care of Mama while I go back to work. See how he manages.

I find myself shaking and close my eyes, breathing deeply. When I open them I look again at the vial. Half of the mixture is gone. The table is strewn with abandoned efforts and tainted liquid. Back to work, I tell myself.

I spend the rest of the day and long into the evening trying to isolate the remaining components but can find nothing I recognize. I test for alkali and acid, and I distil the tiniest amount and try to separate it that way but get no real result. I pause to heat some more of the soup and take it through to my mother with her tea. She eats it with relish, leaning towards the spoon as I lift it to her mouth, and again that thrill of hope blazes in me. I add the fourth drop of Silas’s remedy to her tea, studying her as she sips it docilely. I leave her laying peacefully, her face relaxed, and I take the book of tales back out with me before I lock her in. After a moment I drag the chest in front of the door, just in case. It doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Then I return to the table, to my charts and my vials. I’ve missed this.

I cover the windows and work by candlelight, trying to find lilies and anise and common rue and every single other plant I can think of, or find in my books, until I’ve soaked up all of the remedy from that fourth drop. I’ve tested against the humours strips, both phlegmatic and melancholic, but there’s no reaction to either. I still don’t know what is in Silas’s elixir. The only unusual ingredient that elicited any kind of reaction at all was lady’s mantle, and even that might be an anomaly, the result was so low. I’ve been working it so long I’m sure I can smell a hint of sulphur in it, and something metallic. What is it?

I scan the tabletop, the mess of paper and droppers and charts and dishes sprawled across it. I take the bottle Silas gave me and look at it. Two drops left. Tomorrow is the last night of the full moon, so for now I just need one drop for her… And I know I’m getting closer. I must be.

I take the gamble, squeezing out another drop. I test again for lady’s mantle, allowing the elements strip to leach away some of the miracle liquid. Again the strip darkens, barely, not conclusive, not at all, and I throw it to the floor. Useless.

I push away from the table, forgetting to be quiet, and freeze when the scrape of the bench splits the silence open. But the hut stays mercifully still. I force myself to take a break, eating the last of the soup straight from the pipkin without bothering to heat it, then washing it up and hanging it back over the fire. I need to step back, that’s all. I’m too close to it. The question is, do I keep trying here, or do I try begging Silas to tell me what it is?

Making up my mind, I stand and reach for my cloak. I’ll have to be so careful not to be seen, by either soldiers or Unwin, but if Silas can do it then there’s no reason I can’t.

When I open the door, Silas is standing there, hand raised to knock.

He looks me up and down and then edges past me, into the hut, and I close the door, hearing him suck his breath through his teeth as I do. He pushes his hood back and turns to look at me, his eyes sending a punch of shock through me. I’d forgotten, already, how they burned.

“You’ve been busy,” he says, his voice flat. “You’re wasting your time. And the potion.”