The Princess Curse by Merrie Haskell Read Free Book Online

You’ll need it. I . . . just don’t want to be an orphan anymore.”
    I hadn’t known she was an orphan. I blurted out the obvious question: “What happened to your pa?”
    “He was a soldier.”
    I bit my lip and nodded. I knew too well what that meant; it was all she had to say.
    I left the herbary a little before sunset and went to gather some of Pa’s yew.
    Herbalists do not grow yew, but if assassins had gardens, they would cultivate it. Yew is a deadly poison, but it also makes a good hedge. Pa wouldn’t care if I pruned his yew out of season—he was always arguing that gardens needed fewer tall plants for enemies to hide behind, not more, and would go on for hours about the dangers of overgrown hedges, and how ivy is just as good as a ladder for a soldier.
    Yew branches in hand, along with some santolina from the herbary, I climbed the western tower to see Mistress Adina.
    Nothing had changed. The sleepers lay still, and Adina rocked in her chair and netted her socks. “Herb-husband’s apprentice!” she cried, more pleased to see me now than she had been on the day we met.
    “ Stăpână ,” I said, dropping the plain curtsy that indicated respect for an elder. That was an easy curtsy, and I didn’t bobble like I did with the deeper gestures. But then, because I can spare only so many good manners in one day, I asked, “Why do you call Brother Cosmin ‘herb-husband’?”
    “Before Brother Cosmin arrived, I was the castle herb-wife,” she said, stretching out her half-netted sock and checking it against a finished one. “I retired to take care of these folks here. I’ve nothing against Cosmin. I just think that calling him ‘herb-husband’ keeps him honest. He puts on airs, and uses fancy titles like ‘herbalist,’ because he has books.”
    I considered that and decided it might be safer to have no opinion on this subject, even though I took my future as a master herbalist very seriously. I would be annoyed if people referred to me as an herb-wife, someone who knew her receipts by rote instead of being able to read and write.
    But I didn’t want to annoy Mistress Adina, and I had great respect for her age, so I kept my mouth shut about all that.
    Pa and the Abbess both would have been proud.
    “Mistress Adina,” I said, “have you considered yew?”
    “Yew!” She rocked back in her chair, sucking one tooth thoughtfully. “What for? It’s poison.”
    “It’s been . . . it’s been known to raise the dead.”
    She laughed. “I never heard that!”
    I flushed. “I read it! In a book!” I had, though it was about a year before, in Moldavia.
    And she laughed again. “Who taught you herb lore, Reveka?”
    “Well, before Brother Cosmin, I learned from Sister Anica. . . .”
    “Brother Cosmin aside—and I know you’re lying there, because I’ve heard you’ve taught him more herb lore than he’s taught you—Sister Anica probably never mentioned yew, did she?”
    I didn’t see her point, but she was correct. “No, Sister Anica didn’t mention yew—except that it’s a poison, as you said. What does that matter?”
    “Don’t believe everything you read in books,” Mistress Adina said. Her needle darted in and out of the sock slowly taking shape beneath her hand.
    “But—”
    “Did your book tell you how to prepare the yew?”
    I had to admit the truth. “No.” Or if it had, I didn’t remember.
    “So what would you do with it?”
    “Um. A tincture, to, um, drip down their throats?”
    Mistress Adina shook her head. “I’m afraid not, dear. Too dangerous. Do you have anything else to try?”
    “I have santolina,” I said. Its scent was similar to rosemary, though folk sometimes called it cotton lavender.
    “Santolina!” She set aside her needle and reached out, and I placed the packet of herbs in her hands. She opened the packet and sniffed. “What’ll you do with it?”
    I felt more confident with this herb. “Rub it on their foreheads and beneath their