I turned, shaking my head. “Not particularly,” I said. “Do you know anything about the Chandrian?”
Caudicus looked at me blankly for a moment, then burst out laughing. “I know they’re not going to come into your room at night and steal you out of your bed,” he said, wiggling his fingers at me, the way you’d tease a child.
“You don’t study mythology then?” I asked, fighting down a wave of disappointment at his reaction. I tried to console myself with the fact that this would firmly solidify me as a half-wit lordling in his mind.
Caudicus sniffed. “That’s hardly mythology,” he said dismissively. “One could barely even stoop to calling it folklore. It’s superstitious bunk, and I don’t waste my time with it. No serious scholar would.”
He began to putter around the room, restoppering bottles and tucking them into cabinets, straightening up stacks of papers, and returning books to their shelves. “Speaking of serious scholarship, if I remember correctly, you were curious about the Lackless family?”
I simply stared at him for a moment. With everything that had happened since, I’d all but forgotten the pretense of the anecdotal genealogy I’d invented yesterday.
“If it wouldn’t be any trouble,” I said quickly. “As I’ve said, I know practically nothing of them.”
Caudicus nodded seriously. “In that case you might be well-served in considering their name.” He adjusted an alcohol lamp underneath a simmering glass alembic in the midst of an impressive array of copper tubing. Whatever he was distilling, I guessed it wasn’t peach brandy. “You see, names can tell you a great deal about a thing.”
I grinned at that, then fought to smother the expression. “You don’t say?”
He turned back to face me just as I got my mouth under control. “Oh yes,” he said. “You see, names are sometimes based on other, older names. The older the name, the closer it lies to the truth. Lackless is a relatively new name for the family, not much more than six hundred years old.”
For once I didn’t have to feign amazement. “Six hundred years is new?”
“The Lackless family is old.” He stopped his pacing and settled down into a threadbare armchair. “Much older than the house of Alveron. A thousand years ago the Lackless family enjoyed a power at least as great as Alveron’s. Pieces of what are now Vintas, Modeg, and a large portion of the small kingdoms were all Lackless lands at one point.”
“What was their name before that?” I asked.
He pulled down a thick book and flipped its pages impatiently. “Here it is. The family was called Loeclos or Loklos, or Loeloes. They all translate the same, Lockless. Spelling was rather less important in those days.”
“What days were those?” I asked.
He consulted the book again. “About nine hundred years ago, but I’ve seen other histories that mention the Loeclos a thousand years before the fall of Atur.”
I boggled at the thought of a family older than empires. “So the Lockless family became the Lackless family? What reason could a family have for changing its name?”
“There are historians who would cut off their own right hands to answer that,” Caudicus said. “It’s generally accepted that there was some sort of falling out that splintered the family. Each piece took on a separate name. In Atur they became the Lack-key family.They were numerous, but fell on hard times. That’s where the word ‘lackey’ comes from, you know. All those paupered nobility forced to scrape and bow to make ends meet.
“In the south they became the Lacliths, who slowly spiraled into obscurity. The same with the Kaepcaen in Modeg. The largest piece of the family was here in Vintas, except Vintas didn’t exist back then.” He closed the book and held it out to me. “You can borrow this if you’d like.”
“Thank you.” I took the book. “You’re too kind.”
There was the distant sound of a belling tower. “I’m too long-winded,” he said. “I’ve talked away our time and haven’t given you anything of use.”
“Just the history makes a great difference,” I said gratefully.
“Are you sure I can’t interest you in a few stories from other families?” he asked, walking over to a worktable. “I wintered with the Jakis family not long ago. The baron is a widower you know. Quite wealthy and somewhat eccentric.” He raised both eyebrows at me, his eyes wide with implied scandal. “I’m sure I could remember a few interesting things if I were assured of my anonymity.”
I was tempted to break character for that, but instead I shook my head. “Perhaps when I’m done working on the Lackless section,” I said with all the self-importance of someone devoted to a truly useless project. “My research is quite delicate. I don’t want to get tangled up in my head.”
Caudicus frowned a bit, then shrugged it away as he rolled up his sleeves and began to make the Maer’s medicine.
I watched him go through his preparations again. It wasn’t alchemy. I knew that from watching Simmon work. This was barely even chemistry. Mixing a medicine like this was closer to following a recipe than anything. But what were the ingredients?
I watched him move through it step by step. The dried leaf was probably bitefew. The liquid from the stoppered jar was no doubt muratum or aqua fortis, some sort of acid at any rate. When it bubbled and steamed in the lead bowl it dissolved a small amount of lead, maybe only a quarter-scruple. The white powder was probably the ophalum.
He added a pinch of the final ingredient. I couldn’t even guess what that was. It looked like salt, but then again, most everything looks like salt.
As he went through the motions, Caudicus nattered on about court gossip. DeFerre’s eldest son had broken his leg jumping out a brothel window. Lady Hesua’s most recent lover was Yllish and didn’t speak a word of Aturan. There was a rumor of highwaymen on the king’s road to the north, but there are always rumors of bandits, so that was nothing new.
I don’t care one whit for gossip, but I can fake interest when I must. All the while I watched Caudicus for some telltale sign. Some whisper of nervousness, a bead of sweat, a moment’s hesitation. But there was nothing. Not the slightest indication he was preparing a poison for the Maer. He was perfectly comfortable, utterly at ease.
Was it possible he was poisoning the Maer by accident? Impossible. Any arcanist worth his guilder knew enough chemistry to . . .
Then it dawned on me. Maybe Caudicus wasn’t an arcanist at all. Maybe he was simply a man in a dark robe who didn’t know the difference between an alligator and a crocodile. Maybe he was just a clever pretender who happened to be poisoning the Maer out of simple ignorance.
Maybe that was peach brandy in his distillery.
He tamped the cork into the vial of amber liquid and handed it to me. “There you are,” he said. “Make sure you take it to him straightaway. It’ll be best if he gets it while it’s still warm.”
The temperature of a medicine doesn’t make one whit of difference. Any physicker knows that.
I took the vial and pointed to his chest as if I’d just noticed something. “My word, is that an amulet?”
He seemed confused at first, then and drew out the leather cord from underneath his robes. “Of sorts,” he said with a tolerant smile. At a casual glance, the piece of lead he wore around his neck looked very much like an Arcanum guilder.
“Does it protect you from spirits?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“Oh yes,” he said flippantly. “All sorts.”
I swallowed nervously. “May I touch it?”
He shrugged and leaned forward, holding it out to me.
I took it timidly with my thumb and forefinger, then jumped back a step. “It bit me!” I said, pitching my voice somewhere between indignation and anxiety as I wrung my hand.
I saw him fighting down a smile. “Ah, yes. I need to feed it, I suspect.” He tucked it back inside his robes. “Go on now.” He made a shooing motion toward the door.
I made my way back to the Maer’s rooms, trying to massage some feeling back into my
numb fingers. It was a genuine Arcanum guilder. He was a real arcanist. He knew exactly what he was doing.
I returned to the Maer’s rooms and engaged in five minutes of painfully formal small talk while I refilled the flit’s feeders with the still-warm medicine. The birds were unnervingly energetic, humming and chirruping sweetly.
The Maer sipped a cup of tea as we talked, his eyes following me quietly from the bed. When my work with the birds was finished I made my good-byes and left as quickly as propriety allowed.
Though our conversation hadn’t touched on anything more serious than the weather, I could read his underlying message as plainly as if he’d written it for me to read. He was in control. He was keeping his options open. He didn’t trust me.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
The Gilded Cage
AFTER MY BRIEF TASTE of freedom, I was trapped in my rooms again. Though I hoped the Maer was through the worst of his recovery, I still needed to be at hand should his condition worsen and he call on me. I couldn’t justify even a brief trip to Severen-Low, no matter how desperately I wanted to head back to Tinnery Street with the hope of meeting up with Denna.
So I called on Bredon and spent a pleasant afternoon playing tak. We played game after game, and I lost each one in new and exciting ways. This time when we parted ways, he left the game table with me, claiming his servants were tired of carrying it back and forth between our rooms.
In addition to tak with Bredon and my music, I had a new distraction, albeit an irritating one. Caudicus was every bit the gossip he seemed to be, and word had spread about my story genealogy. So now in addition to courtiers trying to pry information out of me, I was deluged with a steady flow of people eager to air everyone else’s dirty laundry.
I dissuaded those I could, and encouraged the especially rabid to write their stories down and send them to me. A surprising number of them took time to do this, and a stack of slanderous stories began to accumulate on a desk in one of my unused rooms.
The next day when the Maer summoned me, I arrived to find Alveron sitting in a chair near his bed, reading a copy of Fyoren’s Claim of Kings in the original Eld Vintic. His color was remarkably good and I saw no trembling in his hands as he turned a page. He didn’t look up as I entered the room.
Without speaking, I prepared a new pot of tea with the hot water waiting at the Maer’s bedside table. I poured a cup and set it at the table by his elbow.
I checked the gilded cage in his sitting room. The flits darted back and forth to the feeders, playing dizzying aerial games which made them difficult to count. Still, I was reasonably certain there were twelve of them. They seemed none the worse despite three days of poisonous diet. I resisted an urge to knock the cage about a bit.
Finally I replaced the Maer’s flask of cod liver oil and found it was still three-quarters full. Yet another sign of my fading credibility.
Wordlessly I gathered up my things and prepared to leave, but before I made it to the door, the Maer turned his eyes up from his book. “Kvothe?”
“Yes, your grace?”
“It seems I am not as thirsty as I thought. Would you mind finishing this for me?” He gestured to the untasted cup of tea that sat on the table.
“To your grace’s health,” I said, and drank a sip. I made a face and added a spoon of sugar, stirred, and drained the rest of it with the Maer watching me. His eyes were calm, clever, and too knowing to be wholly good.
Caudicus let me in and ushered me into the same seat as before. “You’ll excuse me for a moment,” he said. “I have an experiment I must attend to, or I fear it will be ruined.” He hurried up a set of steps that led to a different part of the tower.
With nothing else to occupy my attention, I eyed his display of rings again, realizing that a person could make a fair guess at his position in the court by using the rings themselves as triangulation points.
Caudicus returned just as I was idly considering stealing one of his gold rings.
“I was not sure if you wanted your rings back,” Caudicus said, gesturing.
I looked back at the table and saw them resting on a tray. It seemed odd I hadn’t noticed them before. I picked them up and slid them into an inner pocket of my cloak. “Thank you kindly,” I said.
“And will you be taking the Maer his medicine again today?” he asked.
I nodded, puffing myself up proudly.
When I nodded, the motion of my head made me dizzy. It was only then I realized the trouble: I’d drunk a full cup of the Maer’s tea. There hadn’t been much laudanum in it. Or rather, not much laudanum if you were in pain and being slowly weaned away from a budding addiction to ophalum.
However, it was quite a bit of laudanum for someone like myself. I could feel the effects of it slowly creeping over me, a warm lassitude running through my bones. Everything seemed to be moving a little more slowly than normal.
“The Maer seemed eager for his medicine today,” I said, taking extra care to speak clearly. “I’m afraid I don’t have much time to chat.” I was in no condition to play the half-wit gentry for any length of time.
Caudicus nodded seriously and retreated to his worktable. I followed him as I always did, wearing my best curious expression.
I watched with half an eye as Caudicus mixed the medicine. But my wits were fuddled by the laudanum, and what remained were focused on other matters. The Maer was hardly speaking to me. Stapes hadn’t trusted me from the beginning, and the flits were healthy as ever. Worst of all, I was trapped in my rooms while Denna waited down on Tinnery Street, no doubt wondering why I hadn’t come to visit.
I looked up, aware that Caudicus had asked me a question. “Beg your pardon?”
“Could you pass me the acid?” Caudicus repeated as he finished measuring out a portion of leaf into his mortar and pestle.
I picked up the glass decanter and began to hand it to him before I remembered I was just an ignorant lordling. I couldn’t tell salt from sulfur. I didn’t even know what an acid was.
I did not flush or stumble. I didn’t sweat or stutter. I am Edema Ruh born, and even drugged and fuddled I am a performer down to the marrow of my bones. I met his eyes and asked, “This one, right? The clear bottle comes next.”
Caudicus gave me a long, speculative look.
I flashed him a brilliant grin. “I’ve got a good eye for detail,” I said smugly. “I’ve watched you go through this twice now. I bet I could mix the Maer’s medicine myself if I wanted to.”
I pitched my voice with all the ignorant self-confidence I could muster. This is the true mark of nobility. The unshakable belief that they can do anything: tan leather, shoe a horse, spin pottery, plow a field . . . if they really wanted to.
Caudicus looked at me a moment longer, then began to measure out the acid. “I daresay you could, young sir.”
Three minutes later I was walking down the hall with the warm vial of medicine in my sweaty palm. It almost didn’t matter whether I’d fooled him or not. What mattered was that for some reason, Caudicus was suspicious of me.
Stapes stared daggers into my back as he let me into the Maer’s rooms, and Alveron ignored me as I poured the new dose of poison into the flit’s feeders. The pretty things hummed about their cage with infuriating energy.
I took the long way back to my rooms, trying to get a better feel for the layout of the Maer’s estate. I already had my escape route half planned, but Caudicus’ suspicion encouraged me to put the finishing touches on it. If the flits didn’t start dying tomorrow, it would probably be in my best interest to disappear from Severen as quickly and quietly as possible.
Late that night, when I was reasonably sure the Maer wouldn’t call on me, I slipped out the window of my room and made a thorough exploration of the gardens. There were no guards this late at night, but I did have to avoid a half-dozen couples taking moonlight strolls. There were two others sitting in close, romantic conversation, one in a bower, the other in a gazebo. The last couple I nearly trod on while
cutting through a hedgerow. They were neither strolling nor conversing in any conventional sense, but their activities were romantic. They didn’t notice me.
Eventually I found my way onto the roof. From there I could see the grounds surrounding the estate. The western edge was out of the question, of course, as it was pressed up against the edge of the Sheer, but I knew there had to be other opportunities for escape.
While exploring the southern end of the estate, I saw lights burning brightly in one of the towers. What’s more, they had the distinctive, red tint of sympathy lamps. Caudicus was still awake.
I made my way over and risked a look inside, peering down into the tower. Caudicus was not simply working late. He was talking to someone. I craned my neck, but I couldn’t see who he was speaking to. What’s more, the window was leaded shut and I couldn’t hear anything.
I was about to move to a different window when Caudicus stood and began to walk to the door. The other person came into view, and even from this steep angle I could recognize the portly, unassuming figure of Stapes.
Stapes was clearly worked up about something. He made an emphatic gesture with one hand, his face deathly serious. Caudicus nodded several times in agreement before opening the door to let the manservant out.
I noted Stapes wasn’t carrying anything when he left. He hadn’t stopped by for medicine. He hadn’t stopped by to borrow a book. Stapes had stopped by in the middle of the night to have a private conversation with the man who was trying to kill the Maer.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Flight
Though no family can boast a truly peaceful past, the Lacklesses have been especially ripe with misfortune. Some from without: assassination, invasion, peasant revolt, and theft. More telling is misfortune that comes from within: how can a family thrive when the eldest heir forsakes all family duty? Small wonder they are often called the “Luckless” by their detractors.