Poisoned: The Book of Maladies Page 2

  Though had she thought about it, she would have thought it was related to losing her mother and thinking that the trauma of that time had kept her from remembering it.

  “I remember… Bastan.”

  “Bastan?”

  Sam nodded. “He’s a tavern owner. He allowed Trayson and me to stay with him. He gave me safety and asked that I do some odd jobs for him.”

  That seemed as open an explanation as to Bastan’s work as she was willing to give. She wasn’t about to bring him to the attention of the palace.

  The physicker had pulled out a slim journal and smoothed it open on her lap. She jotted down notes on the page. Sam smiled to herself, thinking of how Alec did the same. He claimed it was the expectation of his father, but in reality, Sam suspected that his documentation of symptoms had helped hone his mind.

  “This man, Bastan, is one of your earliest memories?” The physicker leaned forward, tapping the feathered end of her quill pen against her lips. With each tap, her jowls jiggled slightly, forcing Sam to suppress a smile as she watched.

  “He’s one of the first,” Sam said.

  She didn’t know if he was only one of the first, or if he was her first memory. Bastan had been a part of all of her memories, always seemingly there, watching over her. Using her. He could be hard, but then again, many in Caster were hard, and Bastan was no harder than any others.

  “I remember him taking me in and giving me a room to stay in.”

  She frowned with the memory. Maybe that was the first memory she had. Bastan had been intimidating then, but in spite of his intimidation, she hadn’t feared him. Maybe because he had laughed easily. He’d jump to anger almost as easily, but often had reasons for that. He had a difficult position, one that required him to maintain control so that others didn’t attempt to usurp him.

  It was that way throughout much of Caster. Power was held until it was not. Often, it was best that he be the one to hold it, mostly because he had never abused his power, at least not that Sam had ever seen.

  “Why do you think he took you in?”

  Sam shrugged. She had asked Bastan that at one point, and he had answered that he felt sorry for her. And then she became useful to him.

  “Several reasons, but probably mostly because he thought he could get cheap labor.”

  “Cheap labor? You would have been a child. From what the princess and Elaine say, you would have been no more than eight or nine.”

  “I think I was ten,” Sam said.

  The physicker nodded. “Still young. At that age, you wouldn’t even be allowed an apprenticeship yet.”

  Sam stared at her, thinking that she’d made a joke, and started laughing. The physicker frowned back at her, and Sam realized that it hadn’t been a joke.

  “How much time have you spent in Caster?” The wide-eyed look of horror answered that more quickly than the physicker could have spoken her response. “That’s what I thought. Things are different in Caster.”

  “Things are much the same throughout the city,” the physicker said.

  “Are they? In Caster, I don’t think we necessarily have the same form of apprenticeships as are found in other sections. Employment regulations aren’t nearly so enforced.”

  “And you didn’t have a problem with this?”

  Sam laughed and leaned back in her chair. It really was a comfortable chair. She should be thankful that the princess gave her such a nice place to work with the physicker. She could have forced her to go to the university and suffer through this assessment in one of their more sterile environments. Alec had told her all about the types of rooms that were used there. Sam didn’t think there would be anything therapeutic about that.

  “I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?”

  “No choice? You could have demanded that he follow the rules set forth by the king.”

  In her time within the palace, Sam had yet to come across the king. She had met the princess several times, but the king had remained something of a mystery, as did the queen.

  “Had I forced him to follow the regulations of the king, I would have been kicked out of the tavern and forced to sleep on the streets.”

  “Children never have to sleep on the streets. Not in the city.”

  “The alternative isn’t any better. Children may not have to sleep on the streets, but the orphanages aren’t kind to children. It’s actually been a blessing that I never had to end up in one.” Sam thought of the people that she’d known who had spent time in orphanages. Most were traumatized in some way, and at least Sam hadn’t had experiences quite like that. Bastan allowing her to stay truly had been a blessing, though she did wonder why he had been so willing to allow a ten-year-old girl and her supposed brother to stay with him. She might have been inexpensive labor, but Bastan didn’t struggle with finding cheap labor.

  Maybe there was more to it than what she had known. When she had free time, she needed to go to Bastan and see what memories he had of those first days when she’d come to him.

  “Let’s simply agree that we have differing viewpoints,” the physicker said.

  Sam shrugged. “Fine. Differing viewpoints, it is.”

  “What other memories do you have?”

  “Most of the memories I have are tied to events, rather than people or feelings. I remember slipping near the canal at one point, terrified that I would fall in.”

  “Terrified? Why would you be terrified of the canal?”

  “Have you ever swum in the canals?”

  “I have not.”

  Sam grinned. “Well I have. It is… not pleasant.”

  “It’s only water. Why is it not pleasant?” The physicker asked.

  “Water with damn eels swimming in it. You know those eels are thirsty for blood.” She shuddered at the thought. Feeling the eels in the water had unnerved her. She’d already had a close call and wasn’t willing to risk it again. She remembered all too well how they had swum near her, far too close for her comfort level.

  The physicker only shook her head. “The eels are little more than a legend.”

  “Legend? I felt one swimming alongside me. The damn thing wanted to get my blood.”

  The physicker frowned. “Honestly, I’ve heard some people believe there are eels throughout the canals, but they have never been seen. Perhaps what you experienced was something else.”

  Sam shivered at the thought that there might be something else like the eels in the canal. There were fish, of course. Enough men stood along the canals with their long, bamboo rods hanging in the water that she knew there had to be fish, but what fish was as large as the thing that had swum alongside her?

  Nothing but a nightmare.

  “When did you fall into the canal?” the physicker asked.

  “I was traveling between sections of the city. I slipped—”

  “Slipped? As in you slipped off one of the bridges and into the canal?”

  Sam met the woman’s gaze. “There are other ways of crossing the canals.”

  “That is forbidden. Crossing by jumping over has been outlawed by the throne.”

  “When you live in Caster, you don’t have the same respect for the throne.”

  The physicker pursed her lips together, tapping the feather quill against the side of her cheek as she considered Sam for long moments. “And now you reside in the palace. You have led quite the interesting life in your brief years.”

  “Interesting. Dangerous. I suppose all describe me equally well.”

  “Yes. Equally well, and likely why the princess has asked me to help understand you.”

  “I thought the intent was for me to regain my memories.”

  The physicker nodded. “You are to regain your memories, but to do so, I must understand you first. I think there is much about what you’ve been through that we need to talk through.”

  “Will talking through it help me understand what happened to me?”

  “It is not uncommon for trauma to suppress memories. It certainly
seems as if you have experienced significant trauma.”

  “I thought the only real trauma I had experienced was losing my mother. I remember that she had been a part of my life, and then knowing that she was not.”

  “Yes. Your mother. You speak only of her, but you have not yet told me anything about your father.”

  “What’s to say?” Sam asked with a shrug. “I don’t have any memories of my father. I was told he died when I was young.”

  “And you trust the memory of being told this?”

  Sam frowned. Should she trust that memory any more than the others? Was that why Elaine seemed annoyed with her most of the time? Was she angry that Sam had not gone in search of her father?

  But Sam remembered being told when she was no more than five years old—and believed—that her father had died when she was very young. Marin couldn’t have implanted that memory as well, could she?

  “I see that you don’t know. Perhaps we should meet again in a few days and see if you’ve been able to recall anything else.”

  As the physicker stood, Sam could only nod. Why couldn’t she remember her father? Why couldn’t she remember anything else?

  Her frustration was enough to push her to the edge of sanity.

  She needed to find Elaine and ask those questions. Maybe her mother would be able to give Sam more background that might help her remember the person she had been and the person she was supposed to be. If she didn’t, there was another way she could find those answers, but it involved learning where Marin had gone.

  With all the training she’d been undertaking, she hadn’t been able to look. Perhaps it was time to change that.

  3

  Making a Visit

  Caster had a dreary look about it, especially compared to where Sam had been spending the majority of her time. The days that she’d been gone had changed her. Sam didn’t know whether to be happy about such change or to hate it.

  She had grown accustomed to the finer things around her, from the expensive and plush fabrics to the cleanliness of the streets. Was she becoming what she had hated all those years? Was she somehow becoming highborn?

  There was a time when she would have scoffed at the idea. Had she longed to escape the life of the lowborn? Yes. But one simply didn’t go from lowborn status to highborn status, even though that seemed to be what she had done. How else could she classify herself? She lived and trained in the palace, ate in the palace kitchen, and had access to all sections of the city with paperwork prepared by the princess herself.

  Sam was no longer lowborn.

  She worried she’d betrayed the person she had been, and all of the people she had known and cared for growing up. At the same time, she didn’t have the same worries that she’d once had. She no longer had to fear finding her next meal or being asked to sneak into various places on Bastan’s behalf. She no longer had to steal.

  Why, then, did she miss it?

  She reached Bastan’s tavern and paused at the door. His first tavern had been destroyed by the Thelns, and she had feared they would easily reach other places throughout the city, but the more she learned of the Thelns, and their relationship to the Kavers and Scribes, the more she understood that there were reasons the Thelns weren’t allowed into the city. They shouldn’t have managed to reach as far as they had.

  The door to the tavern banged open, and a man stumbled out, heavily intoxicated for this early in the evening. Sam smiled to herself. She rarely saw men quite so intoxicated near the palace or even the surrounding sections of the city.

  She slipped inside and surveyed the tavern. Tables were fairly full for the time of day, and the food being served smelled delicious, making her mouth water. It was simpler fare in Caster, not any of the formality that she had in the palace, and certainly none of the fine wines that were often served. Sam didn’t have a taste for wine and preferred ale, something that was considered uncouth in the palace.

  She saw a familiar face and nodded to Kevin. He was a youngish man and had always been friendly to her. He dropped off a few mugs at one table before weaving toward her. “Sam? Where have you been? Bastan won’t tell us, and it’s had the rest of us worried.”

  She grinned. “You were worried about me?”

  Kevin shrugged. “Well, we got used to seeing you every couple of days. Everyone knows you’re Bastan’s favorite, so when you didn’t show, we…”

  “You thought the worst?”

  A relieved expression swept over his face. He stepped toward her and slipped an arm around her shoulders, giving her a tight squeeze. “I am glad you’re well. I’m sure that wherever you went was on some job for Bastan. The great gods know that he probably has more jobs than he could ever accomplish. Even now, he’s making a place for more of his art.”

  “What is it this time? Some sculpture by a famous artist?”

  Kevin chuckled. “I don’t know where he would put another sculpture. His office is filled with them, and that’s nothing compared to his warehouse.”

  Sam had never seen Bastan’s warehouse, but there were rumors that he stored enormous amounts of art, stockpiling it. She’d never understood his fascination with it, but all who worked for Bastan knew about it, and most were simply amused by his interest. So many of the jobs that Bastan hired people for involved acquiring another item for his collection.

  “Not a sculpture then?”

  Kevin shook his head. “Not a sculpture. This is some sort of art supply, from what I’ve heard. I think Bastan intends to move up in the world. He’s probably thinking that he’s learned enough to create his own art.”

  Someone hollered, and he glanced over, giving Sam a chagrined expression. “Back to work. The boss is in his back room. I suspect he wouldn’t mind if you stopped by to see him. Anyone else he’d tell us to chase away.”

  Kevin hurried off, leaving Sam standing in the entrance to the tavern, looking around at the activity. It was busy, and she suspected that many of the patrons were people under Bastan’s employ. Most of the time, that was how he maintained his business and his safety. He kept the tavern full of people who could watch over him. For the most part, Bastan’s employees did so willingly. He was a reasonable man and a fair employer. Certainly, fairer than most found within Caster. And he was well connected. Many men worked for Bastan hoping to learn enough from him, and make connections of their own, that they could move on—and upward.

  She noted a few familiar faces in the tavern, but not men that she knew personally. The rest were likely actual patrons.

  Sam debated whether to sit and have a drink, maybe even get something to eat, but she had questions. That was the reason that she’d come here, hoping to learn something about what Bastan knew of her past and what he recalled of when she’d first come to him.

  She made her way through the tavern, listening to the conversations at tables around her. Most were men making boastful comments, and others were little more than casual conversations, but a few were details about jobs. She heard a reference to slipping past the guards and into some of the different sections of the city, and Sam knew that likely meant smugglers. Even here, they should be careful speaking about jobs they’d taken on for Bastan where others could listen.

  Once, she would have probably been sitting here having a similar conversation. It was not uncommon for her to spend time at Bastan’s tavern as she learned details of the task he had for her. Tray didn’t hang around nearly as often as she did, something he’d once explained was because he felt less than comfortable around Bastan. It was a sentiment that she understood and had not pressed.

  At the door, she paused and knocked briskly. She waited, listening for the sound of Bastan’s annoyance, a familiar sound to her, but it didn’t come. Instead, the door opened a crack, and his flint-gray eyes peered out from that crack. He hesitated, then pulled the door open, and drew Sam inside.

  “It’s nice to see you, too, Bastan,” she said as he closed the door.

  “That’s what you have for me? You�
�ve been gone for, what… months? The last time you were with me, you had nearly died from a fall and were about to make a run at the university for your brother.”

  His gaze skimmed over her, seeming to take in her clothes. They were new and well-made. Sam had never had fabric quite so soft and had never worn anything that fit her nearly as well as the clothes she had been given during her time at the palace.

  Bastan arched a brow, his appraising eye taking that in quickly. “Well. It seems as if you made a friend.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “No? Tell me, Samara, what is it like? It seems to me that you have moved on in the world.”

  “I found…” She caught herself before sharing that she had found her mother. That needed to come out differently. “I found out that Marin is working against the city.”

  Bastan took a seat behind his enormous desk, stacks of books covering the surface, and a few rolled parchments that she imagined were art that he’d acquired. “How is she working against the city?”

  Sam stood across the desk and resisted the urge to look around at all the art. It would only remind Bastan of the time she had broken into his office. She suspected that still angered him. “Do you remember the men who destroyed your tavern?”

  “I remember my tavern burning, Samara. I have spent much energy trying to learn more about who was responsible. It is not easy to discover that secret.”

  “They’re not from within the city.”

  “No. Were they from the city, I would have learned by now.”

  Sam took a seat, shifting on the hard surface. It was nothing like the comfortable and plush chairs that she had in the palace. Maybe she had grown too soft in the time that she’d been away. There would have been a time when the hard, smooth wooden surface of Bastan’s chairs wouldn’t have bothered her. They were all she had known.

  “I’m trying to understand them better,” Sam said.