A Mankind Witch by Dave Freer Read Free Book Online Page A

known and used to revive ladies who felt faint. Cair also knew that there were other, less savory possibilities for the substance. Apparently a similar substance had once been distilled from camel dung in the temple of Jupiter Ammon, in Libya.

    Queen Albruna came walking across the yard area, with Signy a few steps behind her. As usual, when in the presence of her stepmother, the princess's shoulders were hunched, and her eyes were downcast. As usual, too, although there were several ladies and serving women accompanying the queen, it was Signy who was carrying the fine porcelain bowl full of rose hips. The bowl was none of the coarse local work or even stoneware from the Empire. By the looks of it, it came from far further east. The queen was apparently on her way to make rose-hip cordial. Working with food would have been considered beneath most noblewomen, but medicines were different. Albruna was talking loudly and cheerfully. Cair stepped respectfully aside. The queen was not someone that anyone would dare to annoy.

    Signy stumbled. She caught her toe on a cobble, and merely spilled two or three of the rose hips. The queen rounded on her. "You clumsy girl! Can't you do anything right? You nearly dropped my bowl! I told you how precious it was."

    Cair saw how Signy cringed. And the queen turned on him "You. Thrall. Take the bowl from her. Even a dirty stable-thrall can do the job better than you, Signy."

    So Cair dropped his birch-twig broom and ran to take the bowl. Carefully.

    It was blue and white, patterned with dragons, but not in the usual serpentlike Norse tradition. He carried it as if it were made of thinnest Venetian blown glass—and indeed that would have been cheaper. Something this fragile, that had traveled this far was rare indeed. He carried it across to the stillroom—where such medicines as the Norse had, were made. Bundles of herbs hung from the roof, drying. The shelves had various bottles on them. Cair peered curiously—he'd never been allowed in here. Unfortunately, all the labeling was in Futhark. He set the bowl down with care, his eyes taking in details. Cair had become an adept thief since he found himself here. Most of the things he stole, true, were ill guarded. They were not things that any thrall might want. This place—other than some of the glassware, and that was poor stuff, too—had little to tempt him.

    The women had all crowded into the small room. The queen was famed for her simples, and they'd come to watch. Cair found that his way out was blocked by several Norse matrons who would have made fine pier bollards or bulwarks against any Atlantic storm. Short of pushing through them, he was trapped in this corner. The only clear space was around Signy and, of course, the queen.

    The queen handed her stepdaughter a glass beaker with finely chopped herbs in it. "Signy, pour the walnut oil in there—up to the first mark on the glass. Now, obviously the magical healing essence . . ."

    Cair watched the princess hold the beaker out at full arm-stretch and squint at it, and then pour carefully. Still peering intently.

    The queen exhaled angrily, breath hissing between her square teeth. "You foolish girl! That's far too much oil! And now both the oil and the herbs are spoiled! You infuriate me! Can't you do anything right? I do my duty by you, trying to teach you what a princess of the blood should know. And do you even try?" She tore into Signy, who just stood there, biting her lower lip, her face white, bowed beneath the onslaught. Was this the same young woman who fearlessly mounted warhorses in the stable, and who would kill an old dog, herself, to give it the best surcease from pain that she could?

    Cair decided that it was time to intervene. Quietly—and the women were all watching Signy being shredded, so none would notice—he pulled the adder from his ragged pouch and dropped it to the floor, just to the Signy-side of the plump apple-cheeked matrons. It lay there, the