Free The Fall of Ventaris by Neil McGarry, Daniel Ravipinto, Amy Houser Page A

lost. “But how could that be?”
    Minette produced a fan and fluttered it before her powdered face. “How, indeed? Half the nobility in Rodaas had eaten that yaggat , even Jadis himself, and none of them wound up dead, and of course Malachar never even tasted the stuff. It was quite the mystery, and finally even the most suspicious had to allow that perhaps Malachar had simply succumbed to some mysterious illness.” She smiled enigmatically and examined her nails. “You know, I had a conversation with Midwife Marna about that, later, and she knew of any number of poisons that could have caused Malachar’s illness. She really is a wonder when it comes to that sort of thing, and it’s a pity the keepers hadn’t called her to attend Malachar, because she might have saved him. Not only had she heard of such poisons but of their remedies as well. Some, she claimed, were often mixed with milk before they are administered to the patient. It helps the body absorb the remedy more quickly.” She left off her fanning and looked at Duchess, her face a mask.
    Duchess felt a dawning realization. “So Jadis put the remedy in the yaggat , and the poison was in...great gods. He poisoned everyone at that table, including himself, and then put the remedy in the one dish he knew Malachar wouldn’t eat.”
    “Did he?” Minette said, all innocence. “That would be quite a risk. Still,” she mused, draining her cup and setting it on the bench between them, “very few would ever suspect a man would risk killing forty-odd nobles and other noteworthies, himself among them, just to get at one enemy. After all, remedies don’t always work as promised, and someone might have turned up a nose at a Domae dish, tradition be damned.”
    This gossip, juicier than most, was disturbing, and Duchess wondered why Minette had chosen this moment to share it. Since the day Minette had revealed what she knew about that mysterious P coin, Duchess had been well aware the wily madam was playing a long game against an unknown opponent. Minette had hinted that Duchess was a piece in that game, and was investing early. “So you’re saying Jadis is dangerous?” she asked at last.
    Minette sighed. “Jadis plays two games of tiles at once, and knows how to use an enemy’s expectations against him...or her.” She rose, clearly done with her story. “But I will arrange your meeting. Jadis will turn up at the Vermillion within a day or two, no doubt, and when he does I’ll send for you. I assume you’ll make yourself easy to find. Not too easy, though. You should probably wait until the good keeper is finished with his recreations. I should think you wouldn’t want to interrupt. I find men are at their most pliable immediately after their appetites have been sated.” She tucked her fan away and plucked a flower from the basket Duchess held. “Besides,” she said turning the blossom in her hands, “Daphne does so love her work.”
    *   *   *
    “Shedding,” Duchess muttered, “is something a dog does.”
    Jana nodded. “The word is different in my tongue, but here it is the same as when an animal loses fur. That is confusing, but...” She shrugged.
    “When in Rodaas, do as the edunae do?” Duchess smiled. In truth, she was feeling a bit out of her element. When she’d asked Jana to show her the basics of weaving, she had done so assuming that it was something she herself could quickly pick up. She had gone from being a scholar’s daughter to a baker’s assistant easily enough, hadn’t she? Surely moving to a weaver’s apprentice would be no more difficult.
    She could not have been more wrong. There were several different types of loom, she learned, although Jana possessed only two. The back-strap loom was a four-foot-long network of strings, called heddles, which ran between two horizontal bars, one of which had to be strapped to the body. The weaver used her body weight to pull the straps taught, leaning back as she drew the raw wool