The herbwitch shrugs. “I thought about faking something, but he stood there and watched me mix the brew himself, asking after each thing I put in. I soon realized that if I gave him a false potion, he’d be back again, like as not. Best for everyone to get it over with as soon as possible.
“But in spite of my best efforts, it didn’t work. That’s when I knew you were god sired. Two weeks later, he was back pounding at my door, demanding another dose. But Matrona’s curse is harsh and had already sickened your mother almost to the point of death. I told him I would not have the killing of her laid at my feet and that considering who her lover had been, he should think twice about inviting Him back.” She turns her watery eyes from me to the fire, and I can see the flames reflected in them. “Your mother did all she could to protect you from that man’s wrath. Reminded him often of who your true sire was. But even with that, you did not have a smooth time of it.”
We are both quiet and stare into the flames, but we see very different things, no doubt. I struggle to adjust to the world reformed. The knowledge that my mother had not hated me shifts everything. It is as if all my life I have been looking at the world through a pane of thick, distorted glass, and now that glass has shattered, and I can see clearly. “How did you come to find me the day” — I cannot bring myself to say the day of my wedding— “the day my father sold me to Guillo?”
“I had promised your mother I would try to keep an eye on you. Although it was unfair of her to ask, me being the only herbwitch for miles around and too busy besides. But I did what I could.”
“It was you who had me sent to the convent.”
“Aye.”
"What is the convent to you?”
She turns her head sharply to me. “You think those nuns are the only ones who know Death? what do you think I do all day besides dance with Him, bartering for a life here, a few extra months there? Chasing Him from this old man’s lungs or that young boy’s fevered brain? No, the convent is not the only one to partner with Death.”
That the dance goes two ways is not something I have ever considered. “So you are Death’s handmaiden too,” I murmur.
She looks surprised, then cackles in delight. “Aye,” she says, sitting up somewhat straighter. “I guess I am at that.” “But you do not serve the convent?” I ask, just to be certain. “No, but it was the only place I thought you’d be safe.” I weigh the risk carefully, but I do not have any choice. wanting to avoid her sharp gaze, I study the back of my hands. “Do you have a bezoar stone?”
The herbwitch gives me a sly look. “Surely the convent has antidotes for their poisons.”
"We spent our energies creating poisons, not antidotes, and while we did have bezoar stones in case any of the girls ingested some, I do not have one with me now.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her frown. “So now you step outside the circle of the convent and begin your own dance with Death,” she says, and I curse her old eyes that see too much. She rocks back in her chair. “Alas, I have no such stone. Never seen one of them, truth be told.”
I ask her if she knows an antidote for Arduinna’s snare, but she has never heard of it. Furthermore, she has no antidotes at all for poisons absorbed through the skin, as purgatives do not work in those cases. My shoulders sag as my last hope crumbles to ash. Seeing my distress, the old woman pats me on the arm as she bids me goodbye. “It is a dark god you serve, daughter, but remember, He is not without mercy.”
*
As I travel back to Guérande, the herbwitch’s words roll around in my head like loose pebbles, clattering and bumping, shaping and smoothing. I walked into that cottage as one person but left as another. There is now a thin blanket between me and the harsh, cold abandonment I have felt ever since I was old enough to understand what my mother did to me in her belly.
My mind flows over old memories. with this new bit of knowledge, many of my mother’s small gestures and comforts are suddenly clear. They were expressions of the very love I thought she had denied me. They were not simply duties borne but small rebellions of her own as she thwarted her husband in the only way she could.
Even though one burden has been lifted, I return to the palace exhausted and defeated and out of ideas. I pray that I will not meet anyone on the way to my chambers, and I do not. Once I am in my room, I see a crow sitting outside the window. My heart clutches in my chest. My message of that morning cannot have reached the convent yet. Is it new orders from the abbess? A reprieve?
When I open the shutter, the crow flies in. He is a large fellow with a crooked left wing. Sybella’s crow. He is tame only for her, so it takes me a moment to wrest the message from his leg. when I do, I see that it is indeed Sybella’s writing, and I am filled with foreboding.
I tear the message open and read the words scrawled within.