Chapter 4

  Headsman Arms and Alchemy Shop, Talerno

  Loren sat in his new laboratory, grinding sage leaves with his old master’s mortar and pestle. He hadn’t even stepped foot in the shop’s doorway yet and the Grand Master of the Executioner-Knights already sent him an order for a batch of sage elixir. Knowing the proper time to approach someone for an assignment was never Sir Piers’s strong suit, but Loren didn’t mind the work. According to the Grand Master, a transmutant had gone rogue out near the village of Lavandra and reports had come in that the creature possessed a powerful venom. Elixir of sage would keep the knights sent to undertake the transmutant’s execution safe in case they were bitten or stung, the elixir being a general cure for poisons and venomous bites.

  The recipe was simple enough; grind up some sage leaves to boil in wine for a few hours, then sprinkle in mineral essence when the mixture was near done. No longer an apprentice alchemist, Loren heard “powerful venom” and decided to boost the elixir with a bit of pomegranate juice as well. Despite it just being something he personally enjoyed, he knew the juice of pomegranate to have properties that could fortify a person’s good health, something potentially vital to a knight bitten by a seriously venomous creature.

  It also reminded him of Isabeau, who would certainly be arriving at Castle Baultain right about now. Her sweet kiss had put him in a much more pleasant mood than usual, and it hadn’t taken Constansia any time at all to comment on it as soon as Loren arrived at the shop. Of all people to correctly guess why he was in such a good mood tonight, she was not the first on his list yet it still didn’t surprise him. Sulpice knew of Loren’s feelings towards Isabeau and still wrote to his daughter while she was away, which Loren knew of because he was often the one to personally deliver his old teacher’s letters to the Emirati merchants in the city who would take them to her on their way back home. Though Loren would never have dared to break the senior alchemist’s seals and read the letters’ contents for himself, it wouldn’t surprise him to know that his and Isabeau’s closeness was something Sulpice occasionally commented upon in his writings.

  Thinking about that made Loren realize how alone he was, sitting in this laboratory and crafting elixirs while Constansia and the other armorsmiths worked the forge. The only sound in this dimly candlelit room was the faint, rhythmic sound of a hammer on an anvil next door. On one hand, Loren could work peacefully like this; on the other, he sorely missed having dinner at the vineyard and the merry company of Isabeau and Sir Tancred.

  There was a knock at his door. Loren set his mortar and pestle down and sat more upright in his seat, not expecting company at this time.

  “Come in,” he called, an invitation he’d soon come to regret.

  His father, Sir Grygor, shuffled into the room with a big, toothy smile nestled in his dark, graying goatee. He had a parcel of some sort held under his arm. Loren’s smile immediately dropped when he smelled the wine that came with his father’s entrance. The knight only second to Sir Piers and Sir Tancred in seniority in the Order had almost certainly stopped at the Leaky Cleaver on his way in.

  “Look at you, Son,” Sir Grygor exclaimed with pride, “a real alchemist, now, with your very own lab. Shame old Sir Sulpice had to bite it for this, but I could never be more proud to be your father.”

  “How was it at the Cleaver?” Loren asked, looking to the side. He felt a little bit bad about it, but he wished Sir Grygor would give a quick response and just go back and stay there. Instead, Sir Grygor set the parcel he’d brought with him onto Loren’s desk.

  “Your mother wanted me to give you this.”

  Loren nodded, absentmindedly returning to grinding up the sage. “Oh, that’s nice of her to—Mother?” He dropped the mortar onto the table, which, to his misfortune, fell face-down. “Ah, son of a bitch.”

  “There’s plenty more sage in your mother’s package,” Sir Grygor reassured him. “I’ll grab a mortar and pestle, and we’ll grind it together.”

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  “Fine,” Loren gave a reluctant sigh. “Thank you.”

  Loren carefully unwrapped the bundle of colorfully patterned cloth to find many bundles of dried herbs. He separated out the sage from the other herbs and flowers and passed some to his father.

  “So you went to see my mother?” asked Loren. “Why did you go see her, of all people?” He half-expected to hear some nonsense about his father “missing her”.

  “She’d set up camp near the Peruza Hills,” Sir Grygor replied as he began to grind his half of the sage, “and one of your cousins came by to tell me she wanted to see me. It wasn’t about getting back together or anything, but…sometimes I think about what might have happened if—”

  “—It’s fine, Father, the past is in the past.” Loren plucked a few sage leaves and set them in his mortar.

  “Anyway,” Sir Grygor continued, resting his right leg over his left knee as he worked, “Your mother’s clan is in mourning. Your uncle Danior’s dead.”

  His father’s announcement sent a jolt of strange feelings through Loren. He thought he would have celebrated and danced at the announcement that his horrible uncle finally got what was coming to him, but instead, he mostly felt hollow.

  “I see,” Loren muttered. “Good riddance.” He continued to prepare the leaves in silence.

  “There’s nothing else you want to say?” Loren’s father asked after a few moments of tense silence.

  “He cut up my face when I was just a kid,” Loren replied, “all because I didn’t want to go thieving with him. He was scum and he probably died like scum.”

  “You’re not wrong.” Sir Grygor emptied his ground sage leaves into the cauldron for the elixir and got started on the next batch. “But do you want to know who got him?”

  “I don’t think it matters,” Loren huffed, taking the rest of the leaves that needed grinding. He continued to work at them while his father spoke.

  “Oh, but it does. Might fuck you up a bit, though, it sure hit me hard.”

  Loren set his mortar and pestle down, to avoid repeating his prior accident.

  “Who, then?”

  “Cyran. Apparently he got a nice, cozy job doing mercenary work for the Duchess of Urgonde. He and his ‘White Lions’, or so they call ‘em, have been cleaning the Wagon Folk out of her lands.”

  Loren felt a bubble of anxiety rising up his throat. A scumbag and a known defiler was working for one of the most powerful nobles in the whole kingdom. He began to sweat; for the first time in his entire life, he wanted to throw his chair in a rage. He briefly considered heading off to retrieve his sword and asking his father to come with him to Castle Baultain, but he knew it was far too late by now. Not only was Cyran a hired sword for the Duchess and likely living a great life right now, but Blaise was also being wed to the old noblewoman’s granddaughter!

  “So that’s it, then,” Loren sighed, his voice weak from the wide range of conflicting emotions surging through him. “Isabeau was right.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Sir Grygor, his face full of concern for his son.

  “Isabeau told me” —Loren clenched his fists— “what he did to her. She said that she felt he was probably living a privileged life somewhere, with not a single consequence for what he’d done.”

  Sir Grygor poured another mound of ground leaves into the cauldron and began to add wine. “So she did tell you.”

  Loren rose from his chair, his legs feeling heavy. He gave his last leaves a quick final grind, added them to the cauldron, and prepared the fire underneath. He stoked the emerging fire with a small pair of bellows by the fireplace to increase its heat and encourage the sage to boil. He pulled his thoughts together, then spoke.

  “He could be at the wedding right now,” Loren lamented. “Isabeau was unsure enough about having to go there, so imagine what she’s feeling right now if he’s there and she’s had to talk to him or something.”

  “It makes me sick,” said Sir Grygor, “but she’s got Blaise and Sir Tancred with her, right? She should be fine.”

  “I know,” Loren replied, taking a seat by the bellows. “Even then, though, I know she never wanted to see that bastard again. One of these days I’m going to find a way to get rid of Cyran for good, even if Sir Piers won’t sign off on it.”

  As the mixture started to boil, Loren watched as his father took the nearby hourglass and set it upright to count the time. Four turns, and the elixir would be ready.

  “You’re a good man, Son,” Sir Grygor remarked. “Better than me. Just…don’t get too caught up in finding and killing Cyran, alright? Even if you do, it won’t feel good once it’s done.”

  Loren took a moment to answer, somewhat startled by his father’s rare words of wisdom. Deep down, he knew that if he killed Cyran, it probably wouldn’t give him much joy. Sure, he’d be doing something out of love for Isabeau, but in a way, he would be avenging the death of the very man who gave him the two scars that crossed his lip and his right cheek. He reached for them as he thought.

  “You’re pretty wise, sometimes,” —Loren gave a small laugh— “even if you’ve got a few drinks in you.”

  “I’m your old man,” Sir Grygor replied with a crooked smile. “It’s my job. Don’t worry about it, one way or another Isabeau is going to be fine. I know she’ll be.”

  The alchemist and his father spent the next four hourglass cycles sitting together, telling stories to pass the time. Even though he would be hard-pressed to admit it, Loren always enjoyed these moments he shared with Sir Grygor.