The Poisons of Caux: The Hollow Bettle (Book I) (12 page)

vy’s normally excellent sense of direction was rendered negligible by the time they arrived at the tunnel’s end, and she had the distinct impression that they had several times doubled back on themselves. Together they now faced a door fashioned like the others they’d passed but with one notable addition: little panels of stained glass twinkled at them welcomingly lit from what could only be a fireplace inside. The glass was old, and in the way that old glass tends to drape and sag, the surface had become quite uneven. It was all variations of one color, many lights and darks and warm mid-tones of amber.

Time, or vandals, had broken a small pane through which Clothilde now inserted her long white-clad arm, and finding the knob on the inside, she opened the door.

The room that lay beyond, this room that King Verdigris called his inner chambers, was small and welcoming—and yet
one of complete and astounding beauty. Immediately Ivy and Rowan felt the warmth of the fire and saw it reflected a thousandfold in the glass tiles that lined the walls and ceiling. It was as if each glossy square held its own miniature flame. The fireplace was straight ahead of them, and on either side were grand wingback chairs, stuffed to the point that the golden velvet that kept the insides tucked away threatened to part at the seams. Rowan was accustomed to the Guild’s stiff and polished luxury, a secretive sort reserved for the subrectors, and the inviting comfort of the Good King’s inner chambers was a welcome relief.

Ivy, closest to the wall, inspected a row of tiles at eye level and discovered what made them twinkle so.

“There’s a golden key inside every one of them!” she gasped.

It was true—each tile held in it a key, each different from the next, as Ivy was determined to prove by examining every one she could see. The keys glittered in the firelight.

“Where do they all go?”

“Nowhere,” Clothilde replied.

In a swift and awful moment, she was at the wall, prying one of the tiles off. As she held it up, Ivy and Rowan gathered around. It was transparent amber, like the door, and the key—a long graceful skeleton key with a bettle-shaped head—looked ancient and mysterious. With barely any effort, Clothilde caused the entire thing to crumble in her long pale
hand—Ivy gasped as a fine sifting of gold dust trickled to the earthen floor.

“The keys are an illusion—they vanish, turn to dust, when the amber is broken.”

Ivy despaired, looking around at all the untouchable keys, and hoped their host wouldn’t break another one.

“These tiles were fashioned from the sap of the great trees above, in Southern Wood, many, many years ago. The locks to these keys are long gone, if they ever existed in the first place. The whole entire room, this room of amber, was moved, in fact. It once resided in the spire of the Library at Rocamadour. It was moved piece by piece shortly before the king’s … illness.”

Rowan thought of the intimidating Library at his former Guild. He knew the spire only too well—it pierced the dark clouds above it, and in the center, there was an odd diamond-shaped window from which he always felt watched. It wasn’t a place of beauty at all—it was cold and austere,
frightening, in fact, having appeared to him many times in his anxious dreams.

Poppy had made her way to the fireplace and was curled up in a comfortable ball, snorting softly with delight at her clever position. She was soon fast asleep, dreaming, as bettle boars do, of icicles and snowflakes.

“Rowan, come join us.” Clothilde smiled brightly. “After all, we need a taster for our meal!”

He inspected the table studiously as Ivy and Clothilde unloaded the food. Axle’s picnic was extensive.

Clothilde arranged on a little tin plate a selection of miniature tea sandwiches—thick with sugar and cinnamon, savory bacon and cucumber, and sweet nut butter and thick jam. A stack of silver olives and simple sliced apple beside crisp, salted crackers. For each, a cup of strong, steaming tea, with a plate of Axle’s famous honey cakes beside the teapot.

“What fortunate diners are we to have at our table a Guild-accredited taster!” Clothilde raised her teacup to Rowan, who flushed with pride.

When Clothilde cast her eyes upon you, like a bright lighthouse, the world seemed clear and purposeful. Rowan began chatting happily with their host about his taster duties. But a lighthouse is able to shine in only one direction at a time, and while Rowan found comfort in Clothilde’s company, Ivy now felt acutely uncomforted—disagreeable, even. She was left with little to do but roll her eyes as he related various
Guild-related capers to the table. Rowan made a showy point of tasting Clothilde’s plate first, followed by Ivy’s.

“Fit to eat.” He flashed a wide smile at Clothilde.

“Thank you, Rowan.” Their host smiled her peculiar smile in return. And then, turning, “Tasters. Such a noble profession, don’t you agree, Ivy? To fine-tune one’s sense to the point where one lives by one’s tongue. Lives or dies.”

“Rowan,” Ivy reminded him. “Didn’t you abandon your charge?”

Rowan merely ignored her.

“Do try these; they look simply marvelous.” Clothilde offered the taster a plump package of Axle’s rosewater taffies. Each lump was dusted with a thick layer of powdered sugar and looked the picture of perfection.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Rowan bowed his head as he placed one carefully in his mouth.

“Here.” She reached across. “Have another.” Clothilde’s long delicate fingers fed the taster several more. Her hand seemed to linger beside his lips, withdrawing only once she was satisfied his mouth was quite full of the candy. Then their host poured another helping of the fragrant tea into Axle’s flowered tin cup.

“You know.” Clothilde turned after reaching over to dust Rowan’s sugared mouth with her own napkin. “I just came from the Hollow Bettle. And it was much changed. Dark.”

She talked in smooth, soft tones—that slight accent of
hers was bewitching, and at first Ivy wasn’t sure if she had heard her. She sat up, electrified.

“You what?”

“Poppy and I, we came from the Bettle—you do call it that, don’t you? But the front door was missing, the inside curiously abandoned. Not a person to be found—just an old, disagreeable crow. Naturally, I came straight here.”

The lady smiled. Clothilde’s charm now turned to shine its bright light upon Ivy, and quite quickly did the young girl’s temper change. Ivy suddenly found that she could look upon this lady without issue, that she was growing quite fond of her—even against her will. In a mere moment, she now struggled to remember her dislike for Clothilde and wondered what she had found so objectionable about her in the first place.

“Whatever for?” Rowan’s jaw hung open in a very un-taster-like fashion.

“But I’ve already told you!” Clothilde reminded him. “I was looking for an apotheopath. We had a long-standing meeting arranged, actually.”

“An apotheopath? You were meeting an apotheopath at the Bettle? You must mean Ivy’s uncle!” Rowan gasped.

“Rowan—” Ivy warned, glowering at her companion. The first chance she got, she planned on taking the taster aside and lecturing him on discretion—but for now Ivy was desperate to hear more.

“What long-standing meeting?”

Rowan grabbed a handful of the rosewater taffies and, disregarding his extensive training, shoved them into his mouth at once, chewing noisily. They tasted deliciously of faint perfume and melted on his tongue.

“Oh, something agreed upon years ago. He was keeping something safe for me, you see.”

“Something of yours? What do you mean?” Ivy’s mind thrashed through the memory of her uncle’s hodgepodge of possessions and couldn’t think of a thing to which she’d assign this regal lady ownership.

“Something of great value.”

“The bettle?” Rowan wondered aloud. He was horrified to receive a cold look from Clothilde.

“Hardly.” She turned to Ivy, who was biting her lip anxiously. “He was keeping you.”

“Me?”

“Ivy?” Rowan gasped.

“Yes, Ivy. You.”

t was Poppy who broke the spell the room seemed to have fallen under. The bettle boar clattered suddenly to her feet, hackles raised and teeth bared. Ivy was reminded of the boar’s true wild identity.

“Trying to redeem yourself?” Clothilde asked the boar. To the children, rising, she excused herself calmly. “Poppy’s heard something.”

She left the room quite quickly, and Ivy wondered uncertainly whether the elegant lady’s white slippers ever really touched the floor. For a stunned moment, they sat in the ensuing silence. Poppy’s alarm was contagious, and each wondered at the potential danger—anyone could have easily tracked them into Underwood, and Ivy was appalled that they’d let their guard down. The pair was frozen before their meal, with ears perked and appetites damaged.

Yet as soon as their host had departed, the strange bewitchment ceased and their annoyance with each other vanished.

“You don’t suppose the Outrider’s found us, do you?” Ivy asked nervously.

Rowan looked around uncomfortably.

“I hope not. All the same, I bet he’d be no match for her,” he added.

“I suppose.” She paused. “Rowan, what do you think Clothilde means, that Cecil was keeping me safe for her?”

“I don’t know. And safe from what?” Rising, the taster pulled from his robes the thick
Guide
. “I’ve been wondering about something since Axle’s.” He inspected the thick volume in the firelight.

Ivy was trying unsuccessfully to imagine her uncle and their host conducting business. What had Cecil not told her?

“Here—look.” Rowan pointed to an innocuous page that detailed the various swamp grasses to be found beside Caux’s rivers and streams. At first Ivy noticed nothing.

“Look, see what happens when you hold it to the light?”

The thin parchment glowed with the firelight, becoming nearly transparent. For a minute there was nothing, and Ivy, exasperated, was about to look away. But it was then that she noticed an odd effect—the print on each side of the page combined into one darker, cohesive scrawl, and together now became a new text. A secret text.

“I think this is what Axle meant!” Rowan exclaimed. The fire was dancing behind the thin paper, and Rowan began
excitedly tracing his finger over it. “Right here he’s embedded the history of Verdigris!”

“What does it say?” Ivy’s eyes were tiring at the effort.

Rowan read, haltingly:

Ivy had been so involved in the story, she hadn’t noticed Rowan’s voice becoming progressively weaker as he read. Finally, after a feeble cough and an odd gargle, he drifted off to silence.

“Rowan?” She stole a concerned look at her companion and was horrified to see that he looked unwell—he was pale, and his forehead was dotted with sweat.

The taster, for his part, was aware of Ivy’s scrutiny, which did little to make him feel better. It was a bit too warm, perhaps from the fire or the effort of reading the hidden passage. He found it hard to think, and he hoped that standing might clear his head. With effort he pushed against the plush chair, weakly trying to disengage from its soft grasp. What Rowan got instead was a sudden sense of dizziness, and dizziness coupled with fatigue is a heady mix.

“I … I don’t feel so good,” Rowan managed, clutching his stomach.

“You don’t look so good, either!”

A terrible thought occurred to him.

“I think … I think it’s something I ate.” Rowan looked at his friend helplessly. He knew how highly irregular it was for a graduate of the Guild to find himself in such a compromising position.

“What? You don’t mean—”

“Ivy, I think I’ve been poisoned!”

“That’s impossible!” Ivy looked around at the table, desperately. “Axle made everything here!”

And then Ivy froze.

“She didn’t eat a thing,” she noticed. “Clothilde. She didn’t eat the food!” She turned back to Rowan.

“Rowan! Didn’t you
taste
anything?”

He shook his head miserably. He had been too entranced by their host. His heart was pounding, and he felt both flushed and weak.

“I am such a wretched taster!” he cried as the amber tones of the room spun about maddeningly and then faded to black.

He tried to call out for Ivy but abruptly found he could not move, and as the darkness closed in around him, his thoughts turned to Turner Taxus—his first and only charge. He had failed him! The Taxus Estate—they would petition for his Epistle, and … His mind lurched. Pages from the
Field Guide
swam in front of his eyes: the small and familiar typeset twisting and curling and somehow transforming itself into a curious, incomprehensible script, the pages growing monstrously, swirling and suddenly becoming an enormous tower of inky print. The black spire of the Library now rose above him perilously, and he quailed in its shadow. The Tasters’ Guild! Their dark henchmen would surely find him and punish him stiffly. The terrible Director’s blind and disfigured eyes swam across his vision—searching,
seeing
him. Verjouce’s blindness, his terrible, all-seeing blindness.

As Ivy leaned over the taster and shook him, she realized Poppy was suddenly at her side and Clothilde behind her. Clothilde was agitated and seemed unaware of any plight the taster might be experiencing. Instead, she abruptly announced they would need to depart.

“We’ve been followed. I was tracked from the tavern.”

“But Rowan is sick!” Ivy indicated, panicked.

Clothilde looked momentarily like she’d tasted something bitter. Her crystal eyes narrowed and blinked.

“Hmm. So he is.” Her tone was unconcerned.

The tall woman dragged the taster to his feet and draped him carelessly over the large boar, motioning Ivy to follow. She crossed the room in two great strides and knelt beside the fireplace. Ignoring the flames, Clothilde reached into the hearth, feeling about on the sooty wall, searching for something. To
Ivy’s great amazement, a small stone door swung open to the side of the massive chimney. But even before she could marvel at this new and exciting development, Ivy was distracted by a noise behind her.

Where the great lady had been standing, in front of the amber-tiled door, something even more miraculous was occurring. The opening was swiftly growing over with new green shoots and tendrils, winding together in a maze of vegetation. Underwood was sealing the door behind them, covering over the amber tiles with a bramble-like blanket.

“Come!” Clothilde called from the fireplace. “There’s no time to lose. The Outrider will be here shortly.”

Running for the small doorway, Ivy suddenly stopped. Turning behind her, she scrambled for the table and managed to retrieve her bottle, the bettle inside, just as the forest was reclaiming their picnic.