The Poisons of Caux: The Hollow Bettle (Book I) (5 page)

owan Truax was indeed a bad taster. But it was no fault of his own. He was born in the north, where the land is very flat and a dark, rich black. His parents, and their parents before them—as well as all his neighbors and friends—were farmers. His father farmed mostly pigs, and as anybody knows, the smells of pigs and perfume are nothing alike.

Poor Rowan’s sense of smell was doomed from birth, for really, the only way to live a happy life on a pig farm is to not be able to smell a pig farm.

Yet he was a boy of adventure, as many are, and he dreamt of seeing lands other than the flat ones he grew up on (in particular, he dreamt of mountains). The life of a taster would offer him that excitement, as well as the only acceptable alternative to the life of a farmer in his father’s eyes.

When he applied to the famed Tasters’ Guild, he
neglected to inform them of the ruinous nature of his father’s profession upon his tasting abilities, and because Rowan was one of those rare people who were gifted with a carefree nature and some sort of inexplicable fortune, he was accepted to study in Rocamadour—the city of the Guild’s headquarters. Indeed an honor for the son of a pig farmer.

Turner Taxus seemed an acceptable employer (Rowan had nothing by which to compare him), and his loss left the young boy despondent at the thought of his flashy career coming to such an abrupt end. He hadn’t yet found his feet upon any mountain! There was more—so much more—to see of Caux (he dared not dream of other lands), and he was not one to sit around waiting for a punishment to be meted out—Oath or not.

Back in the dining room, it had become immediately apparent that the other taster—the oddly yellowish one—had not been interested in holding Rowan accountable for his missteps. This was unusual taster behavior indeed. In fact, the strange man had vanished before Rowan could grasp the situation in which he found himself. Soon his own feet had run out the very same door he’d come in by—as if with a will of their own.

And as luck would have it, the young renegade taster chose for his escape route the path that would soon take him to the top of the highest mountains in Caux and places, too, not found upon any map.

There was a small uninhabited footbridge north from the Hollow Bettle, not worthy of a trestleman. It was the only way to cross the river in relative safety and was, in fact, used by many a tavern regular. But Ivy Manx, bag in hand, had other ideas about safety. She directed Rowan south, to the train trestle. They crept and ran along the river’s edge.

This was the arena of her childhood playground. At any time of day or night, Ivy could make this walk with confidence. The Marcel was quite narrow here and the views pastoral when not under assault by gale-force winds. Across the river, above the white limestone banks cut by the water, began Southern Wood.

Sorrel Flux, having not spent his childhood playing by the riverside, was not as sure-footed on the limestone banks of the Marcel. (His unremarkable youth was spent recovering from a series of fevers.) He was an awkward outdoors-man at best, probably owing to his preference for fireside warmth, and shunned even ice in his drink—preferring everything on the tepid side. Anything damp, besides his cocktail, made the sinuses in his rather large nose act up. He was a man of very definitive likes and dislikes, to say the least.

Trudging against the wind to the footbridge was easily something that fell into the category of dislikes.

The awful wind was howling at him every step of the way,
at times pushing him several steps back. Progress was slow when haste seemed most urgent. Even with the help of his advantageously large associate—who stood behind him anchoring him to the earth—he seemed to not be getting far.

It was his guess that the young girl, and the bettle with her, was headed this way. But at the little bridge, made from plank and rope and whipping altogether dangerously in the strong wind, Sorrel Flux began to have second thoughts. He’d never found himself near such angry water.

Looking at the bridge, he knew the crossing would be treacherous. He thought at first to send his associate across in his stead, but that would leave him right where he was without protection from the elements.

Mr. Sorrel Flux was beginning to tire of the entire situation. The morning had not gone as planned. And as he was a man to quickly find fault—but never with himself—he cast a dark look at his companion.

“You there,” he shouted in as loud a voice as he could. “You need to get the girl or there’ll be serious consequences,” he squawked.

The bearded man agreed with him.

Before Sorrel Flux could add another injurious comment to his first, the shadowy man was gone—leaving the sorry taster nothing to hold on to besides the flimsy rail of the small bridge.

*  *  *

As Ivy Manx ran along with the wind at her back, she took a moment to think about everything that had happened to her this morning. The pit of dread in her stomach grew as she remembered finding her uncle’s medicines. It was completely unlike him to leave them behind. Wouldn’t he need them to cure the king?

Yet she had managed to collect her uncle’s bettle before it was stolen, and she intended to keep it safe and sound until she could proudly return it to him, wherever he might be. She allowed herself a small moment of congratulation as she hurried.

Had she known, as she ran from the thieves, that it was not the bettle they wanted—it had merely been a tempting distraction—she might have picked up the pace a bit. Sorrel Flux hadn’t spent an entire year suffering the whims of Poison Ivy for naught. No, it was not the bettle that he and his associate wanted.

They wanted her.

hich way now?” Rowan yelled to Ivy, who was coming up behind him.

They had reached the embankment where the train tracks rose to cross the river. It was here that the earth dropped off to become the troubled waters of the Marcel below. “Up,” Ivy indicated.

There was a series of footholds where you could boost yourself up onto the tracks—an act at which Ivy was quite accomplished. Rowan, however, was not. It wasn’t that he was lacking in athleticism as much as his robes were getting in his way. Each time he lifted a leg to climb, he managed to catch the inside of the garment, treading up the inner lining—an effect that made his neck jerk down in a way that any other time Ivy might find comical.

Not so now.

The sun still refused to arrive; Southern Wood was a massive looming darkness across the river. But where the Marcel cut its ancient path, a patch of lighter sky broke through. It was there that Ivy had seen something silhouetted, moving quickly in their direction from the footbridge.

“Get up!” Ivy cried to the taster frantically. She stooped to give him a boost, regretting inviting him along.

A taster’s robes are a curious set of things.

Not only are they a statement of status, if you go in for that sort of thing, but there is a bit of superstition that surrounds them. They are given to the new tasters upon graduation by the reclusive and highly intimidating Director of the Guild, Vidal Verjouce. It is a secret ceremony called the Epistle, and since their many years of schooling are left to the subrectors, the Epistle is the only time the new graduates encounter the Director. Which, they all would agree, is a highly fortunate thing, as the Director’s face is one so terrible to behold.

The robes are not meant to be manhandled in the way Ivy was at present; they are to be respected the way one might admire the fine plumage of a peacock or bloom of a morning glory. One is expected to refrain from sullying them and mend or darn any unpreventable rips or tears immediately. The robes represent the office of the Guild and should be treated accordingly.

Although Rowan Truax was finding his robes to be entirely unhelpful at present, he was a graduate of the Guild and
as such was finding himself quite annoyed at their current treatment.

“Get off!” he shouted at her as she practically pushed him up the rocky slope. “I can do it myself!”

Ivy stole another look over her shoulder—there was nothing now but darkness on either side of the river. Rowan took it upon himself in this moment to swing his robes up and over his shoulder, revealing a baggy set of unofficial long underwear. Flushed with indignity, he was up on the tracks in a flash and with his newfound freedom reached down for her hand.

It was at precisely the moment that Rowan’s hand encountered Ivy’s, and she was halfway hiked up the earthen wall, that a second one grabbed her ankle.

This grip was not nearly as friendly as Rowan Truax’s, the hand much larger and ruthless. It belonged to Sorrel Flux’s companion, of course, and Ivy knew at once that in a tug-of-war, he would win. There was something altogether frightening about his touch, but that was tame when compared to his merciless eyes. The wind was blowing his black beard in every direction, and he looked much larger and more unsavory than ever before. From his throat issued a deep and utterly fearsome babble, and a mad froth foamed from his lips, adhering to his whiskers.

This was a real calamity. Ivy looked up at Rowan, unable to move and frozen in fear.

“Kick!” he called down to her. “Kick your legs as hard as you can!”

It was fortunate for Ivy that Rowan’s advice was excellent—and that he’d shouted it before examining their assailant. For as he did so now, peering down past Ivy amid the snarl of untamed hair, Rowan’s courage flickered and then died in his heart. The man’s mouth was black and hollow and missing something of great import. He was without his tongue.

Rowan’s wrist went weak.

And then, from the north, up the tracks across which Rowan was lying, came suddenly a distant yet insistent clanging.

Ivy, having spent eleven years beside a trestle, knew exactly what was coming their way. Even if it were the policy of the Royal Cauvian Rail to avoid pedestrians—it wasn’t, by decree of King Nightshade—the train was much too close to make any sort of emergency stop. If she didn’t somehow manage to free herself—even with all her wriggling, the grip on her leg was increasing—Rowan would soon be hit by the approaching train, and she would fall right into the arms of her pursuer.

But salvation came in the form of a streak of shadowy feathers. Emerging from the murky morning came old Shoo, flapping wildly. The crow flew upon the large man in such a fury that he appeared a coal-black tangle of jagged edges and flashing talons. He sought the man’s eyes with his beak and slashed at his flesh.

“Shoo!” Ivy called to her uncle’s crow. “Watch out—be careful, you brave old thing!
Shoo!”

Ivy felt the dark man’s grip loosen ever so slightly upon her leg, and in no time she was kicking mightily For a brief moment she thought she might be free, but she saw then the thick arm of her assailant thrash out and unkindly swat her old friend. Shoo was brutally flung to the earth—several downy feathers left floating
lazily behind—and to her horror, he remained there quietly, unmoving.

“Shoo!” Ivy called against the din of the approaching train.

She summoned up a year’s worth of frustration—picturing the yellow face of Sorrel Flux—and produced an impressive burst of energy. With her free foot squarely on the stranger’s face, she pushed off and onto the tracks.

Ivy and Rowan stood up as the train from the Northward Corridor—on time, it would please the king—rounded the slight bend and cast its enormous flickering headlamp upon them. Peering about frantically, she finally located the dark creature. Her heart broke to see Shoo lying impossibly far down the embankment. She could never get to him.

“Uh, hello?” Rowan called—the train’s lamplight on his young face getting progressively brighter. “What now?”

At one time in Caux, to travel by train was simply the very best way to see anything and everything at all. Under King Nightshade, things like leisure and holidays were forgotten—or made illegal—and the trains, although still somewhat spectacular, were not what they once were.

So that is how Ivy and Rowan came to face a train once called the Pimcaux Haste, formerly the crown jewel of the RCR’s fleet. But, like an aging showgirl, the train was but a shadow of its former self—and rechristened by the Nightshades as the Hollyhock after an innocuous, if somehow
mildly toxic, garden weed. The Hollyhock was bearing down on them in a determined way.

With few options, and illuminated in an amber lamplight as bright as the rising sun, Ivy and Rowan turned and began running across the trestle—an unfriendly path over tracks and ties with gaping slits of open air between. Slits that Ivy knew were big enough for even Rowan to slip through.

They sprinted as best they could—Ivy was more accustomed to the task and was making better progress against the train. The pathway required that the two take large leaps over each dangerous opening between the ties, and it was better to not look down at the Marcel below. Ivy’s feet found their way on their own, which was fortunate, for her mind was still beside her longtime companion. The last sight of him made her more anxious than ever—the only movement she could see was the wind playing against the feathers of Shoo’s once-proud tail.

They were out now far over the water in the rib cage of the rusty trestle. The sound of the oncoming train was louder, echoing across the river unbearably. The design of the bridge was one with little room for pedestrian passage. It looked unlikely that they’d find a place to safely let the train pass unless they slipped out between one of the giant trusses and held on for dear life—something Rowan preferred to not consider.

Rowan Truax was a taster, albeit an uncollared one now, and was not accustomed to thinking quickly on his feet. Tasting, by
definition, is slow and steady, requiring deliberate contemplation. A morsel in the mouth can reveal an entire symphony of flavor, with some coaxing.

But Rowan was a quick study, and he knew, too, that he was running not only from the steely mouth of the Hollyhock, but from the Tasters’ Guild itself. The Guild would not tolerate his departure from his charge and meted out harsh punishments to tasters who fled.

“Is it far?” Rowan called to her as they ran. There was no hope of any conversation, though, with the rumbling behind them.

He turned at once to look at the light—something not at all wise—and by the time his eyes readjusted to the dimness of his path, he realized Ivy was gone. There was simply no sign of her at all.

He ran blindly for a few more steps until he lost his footing … and felt himself slipping through.