with the time that had elapsed since he’d arrived at the keep, he wouldn’t be able to find his family, and without a family to return to, there was no point in leaving. Here he had food and shelter. If he ran away, he’d have nothing and would be a fugitive for the time he still owed the physic. After a long moment looking at any road that led away from his prison, he would reluctantly turn the horse around and ride back to the keep.
Over time, Adair thought the physic was beginning to warm to him. At night as they worked on a potion, he’d catch the old man staring at him less harshly than usual. The physic started to tell Adair a little bit about the things in the jars as he crushed dried seeds or separated the herbs for storage, such as the names of the more obscure plants and how they might be put to use. There was to be a second visit to the castle over which the old man was practically ebullient, rubbing his hands as he paced around the keep.
“We have a new order from the count, for which we shall start preparations tonight,” he chortled, as Adair hung up the old man’s cloak on a peg by the door.
“Start what, master?” Adair asked.
“A special request from the count. A very difficult task, but one I have performed before.” He scurried back and forth across the timber floor, gathering jars of ingredients on the worktable. “Fetch the large cauldron, and build up the fire-it has almost gone out.”
Adair watched from the hearth. First, the physic selected a sheet from his handwritten recipes and read it over quickly before propping it against a jar to consult. He glanced at the paper from time to time as he measured ingredients into the warming pot. He took down things from the shelves that he’d never troubled with before: mysterious bits of animals-snouts, leathery pieces of skin, mummified nubs of flesh. Powders, shiny crystals of white and copper. He poured in an exact amount of water, and then had Adair hang the heavy pot from the spit. As the water began to boil, the physic took a handful of yellow powder from a vial and threw it on the fire: it flamed in a puff of smoke, emitting the unmistakable stench of brimstone.
“I’ve never seen this mixture before, have I, master?” Adair asked.
“No, you have not.” He paused. “It is a potion that makes anyone who drinks it invisible.” He searched Adair’s face for a reaction. “What do you think of that, boy? Do you believe that can truly happen?”
“I have never heard of such a thing.” He knew better than to disagree with the old man.
“Perhaps you will get to see it with your own eyes. The count will have some of his best men drink this potion, and they will become invisible for one night. Can you imagine what an army can do when it cannot be seen?”
“Yes, master,” Adair replied, and from that moment, he began to think of the physic’s spells and potions in a different way.
“Now, you must watch this cauldron, and let the water boil down, as you have done before. When it has boiled down, you must take it off the fire and let it cool. When you’ve done that, you may go to sleep, but not before. These ingredients are rare, and that is the last of a few of them, so we cannot afford to ruin this batch. Watch the pot carefully,” he said over his shoulder as he descended the staircase. “I will see how well you’ve done at dusk tonight.”
Adair had no trouble staying awake that night. He sat bolt upright against the hard stone wall, realizing that the old man had lied to him and his father. The old man was not a physic, but an alchemist, maybe a necromancer. No wonder the people in the village avoided him. It wasn’t just because of the turncoat noble. They were frightened of the old man, and with good reason: he was very likely in league with the devil. God knew what they suspected of Adair.
This potion was not like the previous ones and took forever to shed its moisture. Dawn started to break before an appreciable amount had evaporated. But through the last hours of the night, as he watched a slow vapor rise from the cauldron’s depths, Adair’s gaze kept wandering back to the stack of handwritten papers on the desk. Surely there were formulas in that pile more intriguing-and more profitable-than the ability to turn men invisible for one night. The old man probably knew how to make fail-safe love potions and talismans to bring great wealth and power to the owner. And surely any alchemist should know how to turn base metal into gold. Even though Adair couldn’t read the recipes, he didn’t doubt that he could find someone who would, for a piece of the profits.
The longer he thought about it, the more restless he became. He could hide the papers in the sleeve of his tunic and sneak past Marguerite, who would rise at any minute. Then he’d walk all day and get as far from the keep as he could. He thought fleetingly about taking the horse, but there his courage failed. To steal property as valuable as a horse was a death offense. The old man could justifiably seek Adair’s life. But the recipes… even if the old man could track his servant down, he probably wouldn’t dare take Adair before the count. The physic wouldn’t want the villagers to know how powerful he really was, or that his mystical knowledge was written down where it could be stolen or destroyed.
Adair’s heart pounded, until he could no longer ignore its wild exhortation. It was almost a relief, giving in to this desire.
Adair tightly rolled as many papers as he dared take at once and slid them up his sleeve just as Marguerite began stirring. Before leaving, he hoisted the cauldron off the spit and left it to cool on the hearth. Once outside, he chose a path he knew, one that would take him to Hungarian territory, to a stronghold where Romanian sympathizers would hesitate to go. He walked for hours, cursing his impetuousness, for he hadn’t thought to bring provisions. When he started to get light-headed, and the sun had started to slip on the horizon, Adair figured he’d traveled far enough and took refuge in a barn in the middle of a hayfield. It was a desolate place with nothing about, not even livestock, so Adair felt he’d traveled a safe distance and no one would search for him here. He fell asleep in the hay a free man.
He was jarred awake by a hand at his throat, jerking him to his feet and then, inexplicably, off the ground. Adair couldn’t see at first who had him, the air thick with night, but as his eyes adjusted, he refused to believe them. The figure holding him was slight… wizened… but in less than a minute Adair knew it was the old man by the smell of him, the stink of brimstone and decay.
“Thief! This is how you reward my patronage and trust?” the physic roared with outrage, and threw Adair to the ground with such force that he skidded all the way to the back of the barn. Before he could regain his breath, the old man was on him again, clutching him by the shoulder and again lifting him off the ground. Adair was aflame with pain and confusion: the physic was ancient, how could a weak old man lift him so easily? It had to be an illusion, or a fantasy induced by a blow to the head. Adair had only a minute to ponder this before the old man threw him to the ground a second time, then began hitting and kicking him. The blows were tremendously powerful. Adair’s head chattered in pain, and he was sure he would black out. He felt himself carried, felt the movement of air all around. They were traveling at a great rate of speed, by horseback, but it seemed unlikely that the old charger would be capable of such speed. Surely it must all be a delusion, he told himself, produced by some elixir the old man had forced on him in his sleep. It was too magical and frightening to be real.
Still in a stupor, Adair felt the air slow, their bodies again take on a human weight. Then the smells came to him: the musty dankness of the keep, the residue of burning herbs and brimstone hanging in the air. He felt curdled with fear. Dropping to the floor, he opened his eyes a crack and was crushed to see that he was indeed back in the keep, returned to his prison.
The old man walked toward him. He had changed: perhaps it was a trick of angle and perception, but he seemed tall and foreboding, not the old physic at all. The physic’s hand snaked out for the poker, and then he leaned over to fish the ratty blanket from Adair’s straw pallet. Slowly, deliberately, he wound the blanket around the poker as he advanced on Adair.
Adair watched the arm rise, but averted his gaze as the poker came down. The blanket cushioned the blow, kept the iron from breaking the boy’s bones outright. But the blows were like nothing he’d felt before, not the punches and slaps he’d endured from his father, not like willow switches or the lash of a leather strap. The iron bar compressed muscle, smashed the flesh until the bar came in contact with bone. It came down again and again, across his back, shoulders, and spine. He rolled to escape the blows, but the weapon caught him anyway, striking his ribs, his stomach, his legs. Soon Adair was beyond pain, no longer able to move or even to flinch as the poker continued to rain down. It hurt to breathe; white-hot lashings of flame laced his sides with every breath, his insides awash in runny, hot liquid. He was dying. The old man was going to beat him to death.
“I could cut off your hand, you know, that is the punishment for thieves. But what good would you be to me then, with only one hand?” The physic stood upright stiffly, throwing the poker to the floor. “Maybe I’ll chop off your hand when your service is over, so that everyone will know what you are. Or perhaps I won’t release you, when your seven years are over. Perhaps I’ll take another seven years, as punishment for your crime. How could
