Best Served Cold

Faithful gave him a long look. “Did they pick a new captain general while I was away, and are you it?”

“Well, no, ’course not, just-”

“Creeping up ain’t my style, Swolle. Knowing how often you wash, more than likely Murcatto’d fucking smell you before we got within a hundred strides, and be ready. No, we’ll ride down there and spare my knees the wear. We can always get down once we’ve given the place the check over. And if she’s got any surprises for us, well, I’d rather be in my saddle.” He frowned sideways at Shivers. “You see a problem with that, boy?”

“Not me.” From what Shivers had seen he reckoned Faithful was one o’ those men make a good second and a poor chief. Lots of bones but no imagination. Looked like he’d got stuck to one way of doing things over the years and had to do it now whether it fit the job or not. But he weren’t about to say so. Strong leaders might like it when someone brings ’em a better idea, but weak ones never do. “You reckon I could get my axe back, though?”

Faithful grinned. “’Course you can. Just as soon as I see Murcatto’s dead body. Let’s go.” He nearly tripped on his cloak as he turned for the horses, angrily dragged it up and tossed it over his shoulder. “Bloody thing. Knew I should’ve got a shorter one.”

Shivers took one last look at the farm before he followed, shaking his head. There’s nothing worse’n too much plan, that’s true. But too little comes in close behind.

– 

M orveer blinked. “But…” He took a slow step towards Day. His ankle wobbled and he slumped sideways against the table, knocking over a flask and making the fizzing contents spill across the wood. He clutched one hand to his throat, his skin flushing, burning. He knew already what she must have done, the realisation spreading out frigid through his veins. He knew already what the consequences would have to be. “The King…” he rasped, “of Poisons?”

“What else? Caution first, always.”

He grimaced, at the meagre pain of the tiny prick in his arm, and at the far deeper wound of bitter betrayal besides. He coughed, fell forwards onto his knees, one hand stretching, trembling upwards. “But-”

Day kicked his hand away with the toe of one shoe. “Doomed to be misunderstood?” Her face was twisted with contempt. With hatred, even. The pleasing mask of obedience, of admiration, of innocence too, finally dropped. “What do you think there is to understand about you, you swollen-headed parasite? You’re thin as tissue paper!” There was the deepest cut of all-ingratitude, after all he had given her! His knowledge, his money, his… fatherly affection! “The personality of a baby in the body of a murderer! Bully and coward in one. Castor Morveer, greatest poisoner in the world? Greatest bore in the world, maybe, you-”

He sprang forwards with consummate nimbleness, nicked her ankle with his scalpel as he passed, rolled under the table and came up on the other side, grinning at her through the complexity of apparatus, the flickering flames of the burners, the distorting shapes of twisted tubes, the glinting surfaces of glass and metal.

“Ha ha!” He shouted, entirely alert and not dying in the least. “ You, poison me? The great Castor Morveer, undone by his assistant? I think not!” She stared down at her bleeding ankle, and then up at him, eyes wide. “There is no King of Poisons, fool!” he cackled. “The method I showed you, that produces a liquid that smells, tastes and looks like water? It makes water! Entirely harmless! Unlike the concoction with which I just now pricked you, which was enough to kill a dozen horses!”

He slipped his hand inside his shirt, deft fingertips unerringly selecting the correct vial and sliding it out into the light. Clear fluid gleamed inside. “The antidote.” She winced as she saw it, made to dive one way around the table then came the other, but her feet were clumsy and he evaded her with negligible effort. “ Most undignified, my dear! Chasing each other around our apparatus, in a barn, in the middle of rural Styria! Most terribly undignified!”

“Please,” she hissed at him. “Please, I’ll… I’ll-”

“Don’t embarrass us both! You have displayed your true nature now, you… you ingrate harpy! You are unmasked, you treacherous cuckoo!”

“I didn’t want to take the blame is all! Murcatto said sooner or later you’d go over to Orso! That you’d want to use me as the scapegoat! Murcatto said-”

“ Murcatto? You listen to Murcatto over me? That degenerate, husk-addled and notorious butcher of the bloody battlefield? Oh, commendable guiding light! Curse me for an imbecile to trust either one of you! It seems you were correct, at least, that I am like to a baby. All unspoiled innocence! All undeserved mercy!” He flicked the vial through the air at Day. “Let it never again be said,” as he watched her fumbling through the straw for it, “that I am not,” as she clawed it up and ripped out the cork, “as generous, merciful and forgiving as any poisoner,” as she sucked down the contents, “within the entire Circle of the World.”