The Wise Man's Fear

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“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.