The Poisons of Caux: The Hollow Bettle (Book I) Read Online Free PDF

punished with death if caught—by the enormous slate chalkboard and since there was no doctoring occurring in Cecil’s absence, there were few visitors to the office for Flux to regard.
    If he were the observant type, he might have sensed the upstairs of the mill house was out of proportion—rather much larger than the downstairs. But that might have been easily dismissed by the suggestion of a large kitchen, for Sorrel Flux not once ever deigned to enter the room. His haunts were few and, as we know, concerned either libation or dormancy.
    Ivy, meanwhile, was intent on getting away from Sorrel Flux, and from his intimidating companion, as quickly as possible. She scrambled through the twisty tunnel that served as a shortcut from the bar to her uncle’s messy den. She was very certain the bearded man could not follow her—at least this way—since he was decidedly larger than most men and she herself fit snugly in the passage. Sorrel Flux was another story. He was about the right size and gave the impression of being able to compress his body into tight spaces if need be. She could see him fitting himself tidily into a shoe box if it could benefit him somehow.
    Either way, it wouldn’t be long before they sounded thealarm: there were at least twenty of the king’s men and one scrawny taster—make that two—and the odds of their discovering the hidden entrance were in their favor.
    She pulled herself out of a cupboard and into the workshop, where she hurriedly searched the tabletop for something in which to stow the brandywine bottle. Small vials of her early failed Aqua Artilla clattered in her wake—several falling to the floor and shattering. The air was suddenly thick and rancid.
    Under Cecil’s desk she finally found a tattered black satchel, the type favored by men of the medical profession, and removing a stack of ledgers, she gently placed the brandy bottle—and the bettle—inside. She swept an area clean atop his writing table. Small dusty notes in Cecil’s elegant script scattered to the floor—the result of years of his medicinal observations—along with bits of string, candle remnants, an odd river stone. An upended bottle of ink puddled to one side of it all.
    She heard a splintering of wood coming from the passage and, with a start, jumped upon the sturdy desk her uncle’s elbows had polished clean.
    “Shoo!” She called for the crow. She looked frantically around, but his usual perch was empty.
    It was then, amid the thudding and vague curses Ivy easily attributed to her taster, that she looked down. Beside her foot, in an area of Cecil’s desk that hadn’t seen the sun in a year, Ivy saw it. A small brown case of soft leather, the one from high upon his shelves. It was unmistakable—she had, after all, foryears tried to get her hands on the delicate ampoules. She scooped up her uncle’s medicines, tossing them into the apotheopath’s satchel, and then, with barely a look behind her, stepped out the small window into the early morning, quite alone.

    With the appearance of the sentries at the only home she knew, Ivy naturally had some concerns about her future. Leaving behind the Hollow Bettle, she would turn to I the help of an old friend. Behind her in the workshop, discarded in her hurry, was Ivy’s own dog-eared copy of the
Field Guide
. It was open to the first page, in which ropy letters and thoughtful curlicues formed the inscription:
    Thanks for all the fine advice!
Your neighbor,
Axlerod “Axle” D. Roux

Chapter Seven
The Worse of Two Tasters
    he Windy Season was not yet upon Caux’s suffering residents, but that morning a young wind was channeling itself down the valley by way of the river Marcel, slapping errant waves and spewing spray in its wake. It angered Cecil’s old mill wheel, which spun dizzyingly in the rapids. It upturned rows of strange and suspicious potted plants on Ivy’s terrace. The old hickory tree, with its dancing balls of mistletoe, creaked and