A LOLjournal history of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch Day.

Oh, hai, once there wuz Luddite Writor, him named Howard V. Hendrix, an he sayed: I don't like the "the downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch."

An then there wuz Awesome Writor, her named Jo Walton, an she sayed: "On this day, everyone who wants to should give away professional quality work online. It doesn't matter if it's a novel, a story or a poem, it doesn't matter if it's already been published or if it hasn't, the point is it should be disseminated online to celebrate our technopeasanthood."

An teh forcez of Awesome triumpherated over teh forcez of Luddite, and there wuz free fictions for all.

Today i bequeathz unto you "Teh Herbalist's Apprentice" by Merrie Haskell. Happiest Technopeasantry to alls.

---

The Herbalist's Apprentice
by Merrie Haskell

"It was for the lust," I blurted out.

I was standing in Princess Daciana's solarium, flanked by my father and my master. No one had asked me any questions yet, and I felt like a dead fish--mouth open, eyes blank, while fighting an instinct that urged me to deny, apologize, and deny again. Not that I was even certain what I was accused of, but I suspected it had to do with cabbage.


"The lust," said Princess Daciana, folding her hands deep in their extra-long sleeves. "Please, apprentice herbalist, do explain why exactly lust caused you, and now I quote Princess Lacrimioara, to make my stepdaughters smell like hill cottagers at their sup?"

I'd guessed right about the cabbage. I looked nervously at Brother Cosmin, the herb master, but he was no help. If he knew anything about lust, it was all from excess, and not prevention. And he was none too pleased about being dragged out of bed before noon, I could tell. I glanced at my father next, but Pa--his hands and face dirty from his labor in the gardens--also looked none too pleased, him for being dragged away from his ditching to explain his daughter to The Princess.

There were many princesses in the palace, but only one The Princess: she was Princess Daciana, Prince Vasile's current wife. I had never spoken with her before. Even though I prepared the bath-herbs for all twelve of her stepdaughters every morning, it was a task sufficiently unimportant to escape The Princess's personal attention. Until now.

"Well," I said, "wild cabbage is a sure cure for lusts of all sorts, because it calms the swellings in a woman's womb, which is where lust arises." I darted another glance at Pa, but decided not to mention cabbage works just as well on a man's peep.

Brother Cosmin muttered something about nuns. I ignored this insult to my early training and continued. "It works best if applied directly to the body, but water steeped in it will do. It seemed like a sensible precaution. If lust is what causes the princesses to wear out their slippers every night, then mayhap a little cabbage will help?" I ended on a questioning note, but before anyone could answer, I added, "I threw in green oats, too, in case it's just madness instead."

Princess Daciana pursed her lips in a strange way, and I wondered if she was about to order me a beating. But The Princess said, "I'm glad to have someone working on the princesses' plight, Reveka, but please do refrain from making their bathwater smell like soup in the future." I curtseyed poorly and nodded. The Princess dismissed me and Brother Cosmin then.

She didn't dismiss Pa though, and I was confused. Brother Cosmin departed with the merest scrap of a bow, and I trailed slowly after. Why wasn't she sending Pa away too? A kind of fear gripped my belly. I wondered if I had aimed the cabbage at the wrong princess today--maybe The Princess was a fornicatress on the sly! My pa is a handsome man, having lots of teeth and hair and other things women are interested in, and Prince Vasile is not.

I walked out of the solarium in a normal sort of way, and watched Brother Cosmin disappear around the corner ahead. As soon as I was out of everyone's sight, I slipped sideways between a tapestry and the wall, and held still while I strained my ears, listening worriedly for the groans of fornication.

Instead, snips of a dull conversation slipped off the walls and fell into my ears. They spoke about Pa's ditching project.

"--nothing as of yet," Pa said, his voice very clear. "And we're almost done with the southern earthwork."

"Keep digging," The Princess said tightly. If Pa answered that, it was with a nod or some gesture. Then she said, "And Reveka?"

Pa's reply was flat. "No."

No?

The Princess's sigh came wended around the corner like a dying breeze. "I cannot ask you to sacrifice your daughter," she said. "But the incident with the cabbage tells me something about her. She wishes to help."

"Highness, I beg you: do not confuse her childish impulse with a calling."

"Konstantin... Please consider it. I can't give up any opportunity."

"It's not our only opportunity, though."

She made a disgruntled noise and dismissed him. I panicked. Pa was going to find me! While the tapestry blocked me from the view of the hallway, he was going to see me in the gap between tapestry and wall, and then there would be a beating.

I squinched my eyes up real tight, and hoped that maybe if I held still and didn't breathe, he wouldn't notice me. Of course, his hand on my arm jerking me out from behind the tapestry put an end to that notion very quickly. He dragged me down the hallway, outside into the rain, past the herb garden, and into the apple orchard before he stopped to scold me.

"Reveka!" he cried, shaking me a little. I stared at him with wide eyes, waiting for the verdict. Pa and I had only been scraping along together for a year, since he retrieved me from the convent where Ma left me when she died. Oft-times, he didn't seem to know what to do with me. I didn't know what to do with him, either, though I liked him much better than I had the nuns. Altogether, he beat me less than the abbess, and only for breaking the eighth commandment.

"I told the Princess the truth, Pa," I said.

"I know," he said, which surprised me a little.

"And I'm sorry I made the princesses smell like hill cottagers."

"I'm sure you are."

"It's just, there's a lot of talking about The Curse, and very little doing."

"Well, that's how curses are," Pa said. "Because doing involves calling in the Inquisition, and nobody wants the Inquisition here."

I frowned. "Because they'll come in and burn people?"

"If the Inquisition got started here, they might even burn the princesses. At least, the base-born ones."

I didn't like the sound of that. If any of the princesses were to be burned at the stake, it was the two legitimate daughters of Prince Vasile that would bother me least. But not kind Otilia, merry Viorica, gentle Stefania, pedantic Nadia--well, I rethought that. They could burn Nadia, too.

I don't know how The Curse started, exactly. It had something to do with the fact that Prince Vasile never had a son, and if his line didn't produce a male heir before he died, the principality would revert to the rule of some king that nobody liked. The prince had gone through four or six wives, or maybe it was only three, but had never managed to have a son. But he did produce a couple of daughters with one of his wives, the princesses Maricara and Mihaela; technically, they were the only real princesses in the palace, besides Prince Vasile's wife.

Prince Vasile had managed to have ten other daughters by eight other women outside of consecrated wedlock, which was very shocking to me when I first learned of it, because I thought that God would not so bless women who had not received the sacrament of marriage, but Brother Cosmin said, No, what did those nuns teach you?--and at some point many years ago, Prince Vasile made all his daughters come to live with him in the palace so that he could marry them off and get grandsons to keep the principality safe. He even ennobled the illegitimate daughters, no matter how common their mothers, including the now-princesses Ruxandra and Rada, who were born to a tavern-wench, and Otilia, who'd grown up in a mill.

But shortly after the princesses all started living together in the palace, The Curse came on. And nobody seemed to want to marry women, even princesses, who were under the effects of a curse, even a trivial one.

Every morning, the princesses woke exhausted, as though they hadn't slept at all, and their shoes were worn to tatters, as though they had danced them through. I didn't see why this would stop anyone from marrying the girls, but apparently, it scared off all the nobles and aristocrats and royals and knights and squires--in short, everyone of gentle birth who would even be a tiny bit worthy of marrying a princess. And the whole thing had vexed Prince Vasile so much that he'd sworn that the first man who could figure out How the Devil Those Shoes Got Worn to Ribbons Every Night would be allowed to marry the princess of his choice, no matter what his birth, age or rank.

This, I felt, was a terrible precedent. First, Prince Vasile had ennobled all his bastard peasant daughters, and now he was willing to marry even his truly royal and legitimate daughters to any hapless sheepherder who could figure out The Curse?

"But Pa, it's just the stupidest curse in existence!" I said. "It's basically just a curse about shoes. And naps."

Pa shook his head. "No, Reveka. The princesses aren't just sleeping through the night and waking up tired and with mysterious holes in their shoes. Something compels them to dance."

"Marjit the Bathwoman says that whenever people have listened outside their door at night, no one has ever heard anything. And Marjit also says that whenever people have spent the night in the princesses' chamber, they just fall asleep and never waken."

"Marjit is correct," Pa said.

"I wouldn't fall asleep," I said stoutly. "If you left me in there overnight, I'd figure it out, and put a stop to it."

Pa seized me by the shoulders and gave me a little shake. "Did you not understand what Marjit said?" he cried. "They never waken."

"They never waken through the night, she meant. Right?"

"No," Pa said. "Come." Pa marched me up to the western tower of the palace, the one that stood in opposition of the princesses' eastern tower, and showed me a room with rows and rows of pallets bearing sleeping men and women. An old woman sat in a rockered chair by the narrow window, netting socks. She looked up when we entered and did not smile.

I stared at the bodies lying on the pallets. They lay ever so still, and not sleeping like people do, with snoring and snorting and scratching and farting. They just lay there, silent like nuns at prayer.

Pa put his hand on my shoulder to guide me out of the room, but I shrugged off his grip and went to the old woman. She still didn't smile, but she did set aside her netting.

"The herb-husband's apprentice, who is also the gardener's daughter," she croaked. Her voice was as aged and cracked as her face. "Come to see the dead-alive?"

"They never waken?" I asked. "No matter what?"

"Stick them with pins and they don't jump. Thunder and handclaps alike never disturb their dreams. Neither does fire or water wake them."

"Have you tried rubbing their limbs with oil of rosemary?" I asked. "And what effect has pepper blown into their nostrils?"

"I try the rosemary every week, and ground black pepper makes them sneeze, yes, but rouses them not at all." She was looking expectantly at me, which should have gratified me that someone at last took me seriously, but mostly that just worried me. Things were in a dreadful state indeed if anyone was taking me seriously. I wasn't even thirteen yet!

I looked away from her eager eyes and examined the girl--a girl my own age--lying on the pallet closest to the old woman's chair. "Do they die?" I whispered.

"I feed them nourishing soups," the old woman said. "Drip, drip, drip it down their throats and then massage their necks until they swallow. I swaddle them like babies and change their wrappings regularly. That is all I can manage, and it is enough."

I shivered. The girl's sleeping face was composed, and her breath so faint I could not make out the rise of her chest. The perfect clarity of her skin and the stillness of her repose made her look like a saint's corpse--dead but incorrupt. She would never rot. She would exist, always, just like this.

Tears sprang to my eyes, but I dashed them away with angry fingers. I asked the old woman her name. "I am Adina," she told me. "And that is my grand-daughter, Didina." She pointed to the girl on the pallet.

"Reveka," Pa said. "Brother Cosmin will be wanting you."

"Yes, Pa," I said. But before I followed him back to the world, I said to Adina, "Would it be all right if I brought some herbs and tried to waken them?"

"Try your best," Adina said, and took up her netting again.

I slogged after Pa, and he let me catch up with him.

"Do you see, Reva?" he asked. "Do you see why it is a curse, and why it is not to be taken lightly?"

"Yes, Pa," I said, and I did see. I saw exactly why it was that I had to try to break it.

#

I worked hard the rest of the day. I took dried rose petals to the laundresses to layer in with all the clean clothing. I made up hair rinse of rosemary and nettles for half the palace. I powdered wormwood to deter mice and pennyroyal to repel flees. I made up sachets of southernwood and tansy to keep the moths at bay. I gathered daisies, lemon balm, and santolina for the footmen to mix with the rushes for the floor of the great hall. And I made up the evening's posies of savory, rosemary, rue and roses, and delivered them to the princesses' door.

I arrived at the same time as Florin, the youngest of the cobbler boys, who was always gifted with the task of delivering the day's newly-crafted shoes to the princesses before dinner. I looked at him over the fragrant tray of flowers and herbs that I held; he looked at me over his box of slippers.

"Do you ever think that maybe if we didn't replace their nosegays and slippers every night, they wouldn't do whatever it is that they do?" I asked.

Florin, who was about my age but had been at the palace since he was born, shook his head. "It was tried," he said. "For a week, Prince Vasile refused them any slippers. They danced the holes into their feet instead of their shoes. It was a week of blood and blisters and hobbling about..."

I knocked on the door. A chambermaid opened up to take Florin's box of shoes. He escaped without a second glance at me. Usually, a second chambermaid would have taken my flowers, but tonight, she didn't seem to be in attendance. I made a move as if to put the tray of flowers on top of Florin's box, but the chambermaid wrinkled her nose. "Bring in the tray--I haven't got six hands, you know!" she snapped.

I followed her into the eastern tower.

The princesses stood about in various states of undress, preparing for the evening's meal and entertainment in their father's hall. I think in any other boudoir of twelve princesses, they would have been chatting and laughing. But all here was silence and strain.

I set down the tray of flowers and turned to leave, but the chambermaid asked, "Can't you stay?"

"What for?"

"Help them with their flowers? You know all about flowers, right?"

I sighed as though I had no desire in the least to do this, but nodded. The chambermaid flashed me what was probably meant to be a smile, and dashed off to help Princess Viorica with her corselet.

What luck!

I approached Princess Otilia with a posie, as she was the princess who always remembered my name and had a gentle word for me.

"Reveka, the posies look lovely," Otilia said, burying her nose in a spray. "And smell even better."

"Thanks. And, uhm, is there anything I can do to help you dress?"

Otilia showed me how to smooth back all of her hair as tightly as possible off of her plucked forehead, and cover the knot of hair with a small round cap. After this, the veil had to be attached to the hat with wire antennae, so that it fluttered about her head like a butterfly's wings. Myself, I'd never worn anything grander than an undyed woolen cowl, and while I'd seen gentlewomen with their pointed and not-so-pointed hats and enormous veils, I'd never understood the workings of them. It didn't seem comfortable, but it did look splendid.

I stood back to admire my work--the fine linen of the veil glowed in contrast to Otilia's dark hair--and Otilia smiled at me. It didn't seem a real smile, and it made fine lines crinkle around her eyes. I had not thought of it before, but even the youngest princess, Lacrimioara, was easily twice my age. The eldest princesses, Suzana and Maricara, were older than my Pa.

"How long have you been at the castle, Highness?" I asked quietly.

"Twelve years this autumn," she said, an expression of longing and regret in her eyes.

"Are you done hoarding the herb-girl's help, Otilia?" Princess Mihaela asked.

"I'm done, sister," Otilia said tranquilly, and I scurried to help Mihaela with her pointed slippers.

After a flurry of posies, slippers and veils, the princesses were ready for dinner. They exited the eastern tower in a long line, gowns held high to compensate for their long hems, metal belts gleaming around hips and bellies, veils flying like their namesake butterflies. It was a wonder to me that they had not all accidentally died long ago, tripping over either the padded, extra-long toes of their slippers or the two extra feet of material in their skirts.

The chambermaid sighed in relief when the princesses left, and moved listlessly about the chamber to clear up the flotsam that came from dressing twelve women. I had a clever idea just then, and did not hesitate to break the eighth commandment, though my buttocks itched at the thought of willow switches.

"You look so tired," I said. "And I never have to do much cleaning work, so it is quite refreshing to me to make up beds and sweep floors. Why don't you find your own bed, and let me take care of the princesses' room tonight?"

It was that easy. She took one look at my earnest face, reminded me to bar the door when the princesses returned, and fled.

Of course, once she was gone, I regretted the impulse. I should have let her clean three-quarters of the room and then offered to finish up.

Once she was gone, I did set myself to the tasks I promised to do, and when the room was as tidy as I knew how to make it, I curled up on the small rug next to the fire and pretended to sleep. But really, I was lying in wait. Tonight I would find out the secrets of the princesses' curse.

#

Pa likes to say that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and in my case, the enemy was me. In pretending to fall asleep, I fell asleep indeed. The next thing I knew, Otilia was shaking my shoulder and shouting my name in a whisper. "Reveka! Get up! My sisters are coming, and you must go!"

"Huhm?" I asked.

She yanked me up so hard we both staggered. "Go. Go! If you stay here tonight..." She trailed off, staring at the door as though she'd heard a sound. "Go! Now!" And when I did not go, she got behind me and pushed.

I found myself next in the hallway, and the train of princesses was moving past me. Princess Lacrimioara was the last. "Oh, herb-girl? Are you coming to spend the night?" she asked. Her tone was strange, somewhat mocking.

"N-no--" I stuttered, and then immediately wished I had answered differently.

"Good," Lacrimioara said and shut the door in my face. From inside the tower came the clear sound of a bolt being thrown home.

I barred the door, letting the bar drop into the slots loudly. Good, indeed.

#

Over the next few days, I copied passages from Brother Cosmin's herb book into my own. It was still raining, and there was no work in the garden, and working with drying herbs in wet weather is an invitation to rot.

Copying passages is dull work. The only thing of interest I uncovered was a a potion to cure folly. I wondered if I should make some for myself, but I didn't have any lupines or holy water. I couldn't see the point of copying the recipe, either, since anyone bent on folly wouldn't pause for a cup of this potion.

I turned the page, and a scrap of vellum fluttered out. I stooped for it. PLANTES WHICH CONFER VPON THE WEARER THE INVISIBILITIE was the title, written in shaky majuscule.

Invisibility? I frowned and continued reading:

GATHER, W. GOLDEN KNIFE & IN VTTER SILENCE, AT MID-DAY OR MID-NIGHT, ON MIDSVMMER OR MIDWINTER DAY, THE SUKKORY PLANT. CAREFUL TO COLLECT W. LEFT HAND ONLIE.

CARRY W. THEE A TINY HORN FILLED WITH TVRNSOLE.

WEAR MISTLETOE AROUND THY NECK.

PIG-WEED, WORN AS A WREATH.

WALK WITH FERN SEED IN THY POCKET.

FOR FIFTEEN DAYS, SOAK POPPY-SEED IN WINE; DRINK THE WINE FIVE DAYS RVNNING WHILST FASTING. AFTERWARD, THOU SHALT BECOME INVISIBLE AT WILL.

WRAP WOLF'S BANE SEED IN LIZARD SKIN & CARRY IN THY POCKETS.

My heart speeded in my chest. If I were invisible, I could watch the princesses all night, provided I didn't burst out in a sneeze or something. I could watch them dance, ascertain the reason for it all, perhaps even stop them, or at the very least, report back to Princess Daciana and reveal the mystery of the worn-through shoes.

I read over the list once more, then rolled it into a tight scroll and tucked it behind my left ear, up under my cowl. I scurried out into the rain to find pig-weed in the garden. I cut an armful, brought it back to the still-room and twined it into a wreath, which I placed on my head.

I didn't think I'd turned invisible since I could still see my limbs and body, but to be sure, I'd have to test it on someone else. I strolled outside. One of the gardeners greeted me by name.

So much for pig's weed.

#

Over the next weeks, I tested everything I could on the list of PLANTES WHICH CONFER INVSIBILITIE. I climbed a mighty oak to find mistletoe, but the mistletoe didn't work. Drinking poppy wine on a five day fast seemed like a sure method of believing one was invisible without actually becoming so, and I decided to leave that 'til last. I asked Brother Cosmin about fern seed, at which point he laughed and said that ferns did not have seeds, or if they did, the seeds were invisible. That made sense--invisible seeds must confer invisibility. I spent a good week shaking ferns over my gathering basket and feeling inside for the invisible fern seeds, but I never found any.

A few methods were outside of my ability to test. I had an herb-knife, but it was steel, not gold, and I didn't know how to get a golden knife. I also did not know how to find a tiny horn to fill with turnsole.

I began to plot the acquisition of a lizard skin.

Neither Brother Cosmin nor the local midwives messed about with animal skins. The town was short on witches, but had a staid apothecary and a couple of surgeons, all men of science who did not truck with eye of newt and toe of frog. Leeches, though--they all thought the sun rose and set on leeches.

The rain finally stopped and we had a spell of fine dry weather. I roamed the gardens looking for lizards. I ran across a number of salamanders (not the fire-breathing kind) and newts, but wasn't certain if they counted as lizards or not. Not that I'd be able to bring myself to kill a lizard if I found one. I'd never worked in the poultry yard at the convent, and the beefs and venisons and porks tithed to us were already dressed. I'd never even wrung a pigeon's neck, though pigeon pie was a particular favorite of mine.

Summer waned, and I had gotten to the point of collecting enough poppy seeds to soak in wine. But I decided to attempt another frontal assault first.

One night, after I'd delivered the posies to the princesses' tower, I lingered in that corner of the palace until they all trooped down to dinner with their father and stepmother. I stole into the eastern tower and greeted the chambermaids. I perched on a tiny velvet footstool and made foolish conversation, answering their questions as to the purpose, application, side-effects and complications of love philters. The time passed quickly, and when they were three-quarters done with the room, I suggested that they retire early and let me plump the pillows and sweep the floor.

It was easy enough. There wasn't a lick of suspicion in either of the chambermaids' faces. Of course, they couldn't even begin to guess what I wanted in the princesses' tower, for to want what I wanted was madness.

"Don't forget to bar the door," they reminded me before they left. There was no point in it, but it was Prince Vasile's order, dating from the first time the shoes had been danced to ribbons and the girls had slept, pale and listless all day. But no barred door had ever stopped The Curse so far.

I swept and plumped. Then, planning to be more vigilant than the last time, I sat before the fire in a high-backed chair facing away from the door, and chewed on a stick of sweet wood from my herb pouch to keep me awake. My plan was to slump down and feign sleep when I heard the princesses' approach.

The creak of the door hinges alerted me, and I slouched down. I heard footsteps, words. "This is an utter disaster," someone said in a low voice.

"Iron shoes!" another voice said. "And when our feet are bleeding raw from these iron shoes, what will happen then?"

"Papa will have them struck off--just like the last time three times his meddling caused us to bleed."

"Wait--he'll strike off the shoes, or our feet?" someone asked, but it was clear she was being annoying, so everyone ignored her.

"Ooooh, but what if I fall out of my boat?" another voice asked. "I'll sink directly to the bottom of the river and that'll be the end of us all! I can't dance on the riverbottom!"

"I'd be more worried about swimming in iron shoes, myself."

"We will do what we have to do," a voice said, and finally I recognized this one. It was Lacrimioara. "We will wear the shoes Papa demands, and we will dance the dances that our lord demands, and there's an end of it. Try not to fall out of your boats."

"Lacrimioara is entirely right," someone else said.

"Lacrimioara is always right," someone answered snidely. I suspected it was one of the high-born princesses, either Maricara or Mihaela.

"We should just confess," a smaller, quieter voice said. "We should just tell Papa everything."

"And what? Papa will buy us out of our bargain?"

"It's not my bargain," a dark voice muttered, quite close to me.

"It's thinking like that that's going to get us stuck in Lord Bogdan's court for eternity. If one of us fails, we all fail."

Then, all at once, everyone fell silent.

"Who is that?" a sharp voice asked.

"It's the herbalist's apprentice," Otilia's voice answered, and footsteps rushing towards me. They pulled me to my feet, two stout farmgirl-princesses holding my arms behind my back, and there was no pretending I was asleep anymore.

Angry faces stared at me. Princess Lacrimioara said, "What did you hear, little herb-girl?"

"N-nothing," I said.

"I don't believe you," Princess Maricara said.

"She wouldn't lie," Otilia said, which I thought was a rather ridiculous statement, but then, I supposed she'd never conversed with my pa on the subject of the eighth commandment. No one believed Otilia anyway.

"No matter," Princess Mihaela said. "Lacrimioara, fetch the wine."

Lacrimioara approached the hearth then, and put her hand into the fire. I gasped--but the flames died away. Then she removed a thick stone from the chimney-piece, and reached deep inside the hole that was revealed. She fished up a jug, which she passed to Rada, who poured a draught of wine the color of old blood.

"No!" Otilia cried, but no one listened to her.

"Plug her nose," Rada said, and one of her sisters obliged. Another poured wine into my mouth. I tried not to swallow, but the desire to breathe won. I swallowed just to reach the air again. She poured more wine, spilling it over the edges of my mouth so that it dripped down my neck onto my worn gown, and I was gulping and gasping and nearly crying. The wine tasted oversweet and oh so bitter, and I didn't know which flavor was worse. I recognized a few flavors--poppy, for certain, and I thought narcissus.

"That will make her sleep," Lacrimioara said with grim satisfaction. She stared at me, some emotion in her glittering eyes that I didn't recognize.

"Hurry! We're going to be late!" Ruxandra, and the princesses who were holding my arms released me. I fell to my hands and knees--my legs didn't want to work.

Lacrimioara had turned away, corking the jug. She waved a hand at the fire and it sprang back to life. I heard the noise of stone grinding on stone, and when I tried to look around for the noise, my head swam and my eyes crawled with shadows.

A hand touched my shoulder, and someone helped me to my feet. Otilia. She helped me to a bed, helped me to lie down. "Otilia!" Lacrimioara's vicious whisper came. "Leave her."

Otilia's hand cooled my cheeks, my neck, my brow. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "But it's better this way. You don't want to become like us."

"Otilia!" Lacrimioara's voice again. Otilia's hand slipped from my forehead. And then she was gone.

They were all gone. I tried to sit up and scan the room more closely, but couldn't.

I groaned, leaned over the bed, and forced myself to vomit.

My head didn't immediately clear, but my vision didn't degrade further in the next few moments, so I considered that a victory. I lay back and looked around. No princesses anywhere--they were truly gone. But the bolt was still shot on the door, and the tower room's windows were only narrow arrow slits. Where had they gone?

Another wave of dizziness swept over me. I felt stupid, huge-tongued, shut-throated. My gaze landed on the jug of wine left on a small table by the fire. Depending on what drugs were in that wine, I might well die or fall into the dead-alive sleep of Adina's granddaughter. If I could figure out what was in the wine, and find an herb to counteract it...

I rolled off the bed and fell hard to the flagstone floor. Ouch. I saw the stick of sweet wood that I'd dropped when I was seized. I crawled--well, crawl is too elegant a word to describe the way I moved across the floor, really--towards the stick. I stuck it in my mouth and chewed vigorously. I didn't feel more awake, but for all I know, it kept me from lapsing into unconsciousness immediately.

The table and the wine jug weren't far, but I was already exhausted from pulling myself along on my belly just a few feet. I didn't think I could go any further. I rested my face on the flagstones, warming my cheek.

Warming my cheek? How odd. Usually flagstones were cold.

Someone groaned. I lifted my head to look and see who it was, and then realized it was me.

I had forgotten to keep chewing sweet wood. I began to chew again, though I was so tired, it was hard to remember what I was doing. When I blinked my eyes, the time between openings grew longer and longer...

I woke with a start, and could not guess how long I'd slept. A few seconds, maybe even a minute--the fire had not died down any.

A surge of energy--faint, tiny, barely noticeable, but recognizably the effect of the sweet wood--pulsed in me. If I ignored it, it would slip away. I pushed forward on my stomach. It was harder than it should have been, I felt. My belly was white like a frog's, and I rather thought I should slip forward just as easily as a frog would.

"No slime," I said aloud, and startled, I looked around to see who spoke. Ah. Me again. "Not a frog," I reminded myself.

"Not yet," said the chimney-piece said. "You don't know what's in that potion." I nodded, and crawled forward another few inches, but something still impeded my journey!

"Saint Hildegard!" I muttered. Rolling half onto my side, I examined my belly for any impediment. My herb-pouch, secured at my hip! I grabbed for the pouch and overbalanced hard onto my belly. I scrabbled at the pouch for an eternity before the chimney piece suggested that I turn over onto my back.

"You're a lovely chimney piece," I said.

"Thank you," he returned.

I got my herb-pouch loose and tossed it toward the table, then inched forward again. Standing up seemed an ever more remote possibility all the time, and when I reached the table, I nearly lay my head down on the warm flagstones and wept. But I grasped a leg of the table and shook it, trying to knock it over. That didn't work so well, but one leg was slightly short, so I managed to rock the wine jug onto the floor. But instead of falling neatly into my hand, it shattered in two. Now I did weep. How would I find out what was in the wine now?

"You could lick the floor," the chimney piece said.

That seemed eminently sensible. I'd already recognized poppy and perhaps narcissus. I licked the floor for a while, and tasted sticklewort and thornapple. The wine drained away, and I was left with the dregs, but I sniffed them closely, and picked out valerian, which is sometimes called "bloody butcher." Quite a potent, poisonous brew. It was lucky that I'd vomited right away.

There was really no hope for anything other than fox bells. I scrabbled with my herb bag for an unending moment, and dosed myself with dry, bitter herbs. Then I lay down on one of the princesses' beds, and closed my eyes. If I recovered, I recovered. If I died, I died. I was too tired to try anything else.

#

The sky through the tower's arrow slits was graying when I woke, and the fire had burned down to embers.

I had escaped death. Or sleep, anyway.

I sat up. My head, though muzzy, did not spin. And there were no princesses in the tower with me. Outside, birds began to sing. Dawn was coming.

I spied my herb pouch lying on the floor near the shattered jug. I got to my feet--more slowly than I would have liked--and grabbed the herb pouch, and ran for the door. At the door I paused, and bowed to the chimney-piece.

The chimney-piece did not respond.

I slid open the bolt and ran away from the tower as quickly as I could.

Dawn was very close--the sun was all but here. Soon, a pile of worn dancing slippers would be heaped just outside the eastern tower.

#

On to Part II