Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant #1)(74)

Today the table held an assortment of their herbal offerings. She supposed to some the sight of jars, bottles, and dried bundles would’ve seemed ominous. Most of their concoctions wouldn’t be touched unless someone’s health was in question. But to her, it brought a deep, quiet sense of joy. She’d needed comfort after last night, and so she came here.

A whisper of movement made her turn. Rufus Fortner knocked on the doorframe. Behind him Rook waited, impassive, next to Johanna.

“Good morning,” Elara said.

“Good morning,” Rufus answered. “May I come in?”

“Of course.”

The big man walked into the sunroom. Behind him Rook slipped in and parked himself by the wall, a silent shadow. Johanna glanced at her, a question in her eyes. Elara barely shook her head. She could handle the Commander of the Red Guard on her own. Rook was more than enough backup. The blond witch retreated into the hallway.

“Nice selection,” Rufus said, looking at the collections of jars and bottles on the table. “It’s like a pharmacy in here.”

“Not like. We are a pharmacy, one of the best in the area.”

“Herbal pharmacy. Natural cures.”

“Do you know what they call natural cures that work, Commander?” Elara’s lips curled into a soft smile. “They call it medicine. For two and a half thousand years people extracted salicin from the leaves of white willow trees and used it to soothe headaches and inflammation. A French chemist, Henri Leroux, extracted salicin in a crystalline form in 1829. An Italian, Piria, produced salicylic acid from it. Then in 1853 another Frenchman synthesized acetylsalicylic acid. Finally, in 1899 Bayer packaged it into pills and put it on the store shelves. They called it aspirin.”

“How about that?” Rufus said. He picked up a jar of wolfsbane and looked at it. “Good color on the wolfsbane.” He set the jar down and picked up a small green bottle. “What is this one?”

“An all-purpose antibiotic,” she said. “Excellent against urinary tract infections.”

Rufus rocked his head side to side, nodding in appreciation, set the bottle down, and pointed to a red heart-shaped jar filled with chick pea-sized pills. “Love potion?”

“Hardly. The heart symbol comes from the seed of a once extinct plant, silphium, used by the Romans and Greeks as a cure all for many ills. Also, as a contraceptive for women, just like the contents of that jar.” She reached over and picked out a tall vial of pale green liquid with a dropper at the end. “But we do offer a love potion of sorts. They don’t make Viagra anymore. This is the next best thing.”

Rufus’s eyebrows crept up.

“Three drops in a glass of water half an hour before the date. Don’t mix with alcohol. It tastes vile, and the drops are hard to get out, and that’s on purpose.”

“Why?”

“Because there hasn’t been a man alive who doesn’t subscribe to the philosophy that six drops surely must be better than three. Three does the job. Six will leave you in an uncomfortable situation and possibly warrant a trip to the hospital.”

Rufus pondered the bottle. “There was a commotion last night.”

She met his gaze. “We live in the middle of a magical wood, Commander. Once in a while something scales the wall in the deep of night and tries to eat the children. The Iron Dogs took care of it. And then Hugh insisted they bring the hounds on patrols. I’m sorry the barking was distracting.”

Rufus nodded, his face thoughtful, and set the jar back on the table.

“Is something bothering you, Commander?” Elara asked.

The big man leaned back. Last night at dinner – which felt like a month ago – he’d played the brawler so well. Just a good old boy, not too bright, easily pacified with good food and beer. Today his eyes were shrewd. Rufus Fortner was a lot sharper than he wanted people to believe.

“I get him,” he said. “This is a great place. Defensible, well-supplied, and isolated. No law enforcement to get in the way. No troublesome politics. Nobody tells him what to do. His men are fed and housed. He’s got everything a man could want: a castle, of which he’s lord and master, an army, and a beautiful wife. But what do you get out of it?”

There it was. Loving spouse, she reminded herself. I don’t want to kill Hugh on a daily basis. He is my favorite. I adore him, and he makes my toes curl. “He’s my husband,” she said.

Rufus grimaced. “You’ve got to know the man is a butcher. People call me a rough man. I’ve got a rough reputation, and I’ve earned it. I’ve done things that keep good folks up at night. Hugh d’Ambray scares me. He is the monster rough men like me fear. I’ve got blood on my hands. Hugh is up to his neck in it.”

The memory of thick blood spreading on the surface of the water came to her and she glimpsed Hugh again, standing with his feet in her pool, a twisting fiery maelstrom of raw pain and guilt burning behind him.

“He’s not that anymore,” Elara said.

“A tiger doesn’t change its stripes,” Rufus said.

“You misunderstand. I don’t want him to change his stripes. You said it yourself, he is the monster rough men fear.” She smiled at him, sharp, pinning him with her gaze. “He puts himself between evil creatures and small children. He protects us. He is my monster, Commander. Should any rough men come here and try to take what is ours, he will remind them of that.”