Chapter 19 #2
Semras clicked her tongue. If he wanted to spare her from collecting the samples herself, she’d gleefully make him regret it.
“Fine. If you insist,” she mocked. “Grab my bag and lay out its contents on the desk over there. Use one of the empty vials to gather a sample from his mouth, then bring it to me.”
Seeing the inquisitor execute her orders without arguing felt particularly satisfying. He set out her tools on a wooden table, brought her the requested vial, and then stood by, waiting for more orders.
“Did he—” Semras cleared her throat of the putrid air.
“Did he take any medication? Any known wound or chronic affliction? I recall you suggesting that he was taking a witch’s remedy.
” Grimacing at the difficulty, she got her fingers to wrap around her magnifying lens, then looked at the fluids after spreading some on a piece of glass.
“Yes, he did. Willow bark concoctions and some ointment for his joints,” he replied.
“The tribunal had suffered from stiffness in his hands for the past few years now. It had worsened so much, he could write no longer, so he consulted a witch for a cure. I searched the place and found no traces of these medicines within the house, but I know he had some with him. They may have been taken away by the culprit, or—”
Her glare silenced him. “Do not give me preconceptions,” Semras said. Dropping the magnifying glass, she worked on fitting a pen into her hand. “Do you know exactly what kind of ointment it was? And where it came from?”
The inquisitor stared at her hands. “Do you want me to write for you?”
Semras shook her head. Once her fingers managed to stay bent around the quill, she looked around the desk. “Where’s the ink?”
Estevan pushed a small inkpot toward her. Its label announced ‘Iron Gall ink’ in an elegant script.
She whistled. “Fancy. I could never afford that. I’ve always used homemade carbon black.
Does it spread like …?” She tipped the pen over a blank paper and watched a tiny, purplish-black dot drop onto it.
“Oh, it’s very sharp! My ink always spreads into a mess.
Is that what you all use in the cities?”
The inquisitor shrugged. “I do not.” At her raised eyebrow, he added, “I have too much carbon black ink to use before buying anything new.”
Realizing he wouldn’t elaborate further, Semras took her time to write all he’d told her about Torqedan’s remedies, along with her own observations. If he didn’t want to remove the shackles, he’d suffer the delay she needed to work around them.
“So? The ointment?” she prompted him, half-distracted by the thin lines of ink on the paper. They amazed her. Her own ink never wrote so precisely, no matter how much she sharpened her quill pen.
“… I know nothing more about it,” he replied. “Maraz’Miri’s initial discovery did not link it to any of Castereina’s apothecaries. It came from outside the city.”
Semras hummed. There was something peaceful in the jotting down of notes and the quiet solving of a mystery. There was, however, none in the way the inquisitor hovered around her as she worked down her list of identification. Trying to block out his presence, she focused on her methodology.
Colour. Odour. Density.
Either her work intensely interested him, or he suspected that she might sabotage it. She knew inquisitors were deeply distrustful by nature, but she had proven her skills earlier. It just felt insulting at this point.
Or maybe it wasn’t work he had in mind?
New Maiden help her; she was acting like a youngling in love for the first time. But she wasn’t in love; she just found Estevan attractive. That was all.
Besides, a dead body lay in the room. Chastising herself, the witch shook her head.
Symptoms.
Of these, there were many. Holding her breath, Semras walked to the body and examined it.
Jaundice, dropsy, hematemesis, emaciation …
Estevan had spoken of some joints troubling the old man …
Looking at his hands, she found no swelling and no traces of any ointment on them, but she was no gravewitch.
It had been a while since the old man had died; there could be no visible signs left of either after his death.
After returning to her notes, Semras scribbled all of her reflections down, brow furrowing increasingly. His saliva had contained traces of willow bark, and of—
Oh.
Oh, no.
Her quill pen quivered over the paper. “Inquisitor,” she said, voice calmer than she felt, “were there … were there any dosage instructions among the victim’s papers? For his remedy?”
“No, he had no correspondence regarding his health. All I know is what he told me himself—which was that his medicine came from a witch of the Yore Coven. Are you done?”
“Not yet,” Semras lied. Shuffling her papers around, the witch took the time to reflect. She couldn’t jump to conclusions. She had to consider other possibilities—like a simple, tragic accident.
Scribbled words spread before her. She’d have liked to separate each of the lines on its own little piece of paper, but with shackled hands, it would take her an eternity.
And she couldn’t risk the inquisitor glancing at her analysis too closely.
‘Jaundice. Dropsy. Hematemesis. Emaciation.’
‘Willow bark. Unidentified ointment.’
‘Trace amounts of oil in the mouth. And of blood, bile, and stomach acid.’
‘Light yellow mixed with pale green. Oil-based. Thickened with beeswax.’
‘Soft brown. Water-based. Extracted with heat.’
‘Hand joint inflammation. Elderly man. Old inquisitor, retired, and now a tribunal.’
And the final, damning evidence, still fresh in her mind … Ingestion of comfrey ointment.
Ice ran through her veins. Her method had uncovered no other possibilities. There was no other possibility.
The salve the tribunal used to treat his pain couldn’t have been made in any of the peninsula’s city-states: their apothecaries could only sell common comfrey, not prickly comfrey.
Because of its lethal potency in unskilled hands, the trade of that variant had been outlawed in all of Vandalesia …
except where the princes couldn’t regulate it. Like on coven grounds.
And while the plant was dangerous in the long term, transforming a remedy made from it into a virulent, deadly poison required an intentional act: a concentration of comfrey strong enough to shock the body into organ failure.
Old Crone take her; a witch had killed the old man.
Semras tore her eyes away from the table. Estevan was standing with his back turned to her, engrossed in examining the corpse once more. He hadn’t seen her reaction.
He had not seen it.
She could hide the truth. Say she found nothing conclusive, or that old age took the tribunal, or that an accident did. She could tell him a witch hadn’t been involved in his death.
She could lie … and prove him right. Inquisitor Velten had dragged her away from her home, already convinced she would conceal the truth.
“It’s over,” she said. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded wrong. Strained.
Estevan crouched to slide his finger over the floor. “And?”
Semras had never lied before—at least, never about something so big, so important. Blood thundered in her ears. She never had a reason, a proper reason to.
Until now.
The inquisitor stood again, still facing the wall away from her. He seemed so relaxed.
All witches were liars, he had said. He expected her to lie. She told him she’d prove him wrong, that she’d do it for her coven sisters. That they were innocent.
But one of them wasn’t.
Semras took a deep breath. “A witch poisoned him.”
Her breath shuddered out. It was over. She looked at her hands, expecting … something. Blood drenching them, perhaps. But nothing stained them.
The inquisitor turned slowly. He stared at her, his face cast in an unreadable expression.
Semras wrung her hands. “It was indeed poison. Or, more exactly, medicine turned into poison. It’s … sloppy.”
“Sloppy?”
“Yes, sloppy. Had the witch been patient and made her victim use his ointment for long enough, the poison would have seeped through his skin and afflicted his liver eventually. That would have killed him much more subtly than making him digest it. It’s meant to be spread on the skin, not taken orally. ”
“What took his life exactly?”
Her eyes dropped to her notes. “Acute comfrey poisoning. It’s a potent analgesic.
Toxic too, but deadly only if used for too long.
I …” She paused, guts twisting. “I-I found traces of the ointment in the samples you brought me. Some remnants of willow bark tea too; he may have drunk it in a panic to lessen the pain of dying. Comfrey overdoses can induce confusion and lead to erratic behaviour. That would be why you didn’t find any of his medicine.
He took it all at once, and it killed him. ”
“I see.”
From a man of so many words, this uncharacteristic sobriety caught her off guard. Semras turned her attention to him.
“Good. Very … good.” The inquisitor stalked toward her.
Something in the finality of his steps and in the gravity of his expression sent her heart beating wildly. “What do you mean, ‘good’? That’s not—” Semras bumped into the table. Behind her, glass hit wood, and she glanced behind to see her tools rolling off the table.
When she brought her attention back toward Estevan, Inquisitor Velten loomed over her. He was close, too close, trapping her against the table.
A sinister light lurked in his eyes. “I suppose I was sloppy. I have never been a patient man, after all. But I am glad to hear my little feat could fool a genuine witch.”
Semras felt her blood drain from her face. Her limbs grew numb. “What … did you say?” she breathed.
It was a trap. The witch could see it now as it fell around her. It had been a trap all along. Everything. Every word. Every touch.
He laughed. The sound—so cold, so unlike him—hurt her ears. “You lovely, delightfully naive little witch.”