Under Avandra's Eyes II: Exile's Path Chapter LXIII: Clever Trick
Neith gets a look at the prince, and deals with a clever opponent. Incidentally, this was a real trick that happened in history. Chinese court intrigue is wild. beta read by @writing-with-olive.
Neith
It was mostly a matter of convincing people to give her access to the prince. It wasn't an easy sell, her being from a foreign land and that being quite literally the heir to the throne. But she decided to give it her best attempt, presuming that Thomas could just sneak her in if worst came to worst. A Meloran priestess, and a trained herbalist, she could probably get in.
There was a courtier there, blocking her access to the Prince's room. "Can I see him? I'm a trained apothecary, and a Meloran priestess." She spoke in Common - she did not speak Hansean.
The courtier refused her. "I can't let anyone in without permission. It was the Emperor's own order."
Neith sighed. "I was trained in the finest schools of medicine in Tamila, as well as herbal traditions of Yndran. they taught us there that when one doctor is failing, another should take a look, just to see if any options remain that the first may have overlooked."
The courtier thought about it. "And how do I know you're not an assassin?"
She shook her head. Honesty? Honesty might indict her, she'd come with a princess who had every reason to want the heir to the throne dead since it would mean that the emperor had need for a new heir. However, the princess would probably prefer to marry the prince rather than an old man if given the choice, if the prince could be salvaged. The honest answer was that she was here for her own reason, hunting an old enemy who had every reason to want the Emperor desperate, and healing the prince might root the man out.
The courtier turned her away. "I'm sorry, miss. I have orders."
She paused, and he continued. "The Emperor is not well liked by the people. But I have seen what he has given up. I have worked with him since we were boys. He is a lonely man, and the weight of what he has to do for his nation is slowly killing him. I do not envy him. But I can lighten the weight with loyal service. I will not go against his word. If you can convince him to let you in, I will allow you to look at his son. But not without his order."
Neith took a breath. Perhaps this man would hear her, if he was worried for his friend. The whispy bearded man reminded her of Baldor, in a way. The same ironclad sense of duty. "Can you tell him, then, that a doctor and Meloran priestess from a foreign place, who has studied all over the world, wants to try to save his son? I won't…I won't pretend I'm here for your emperor. I'm here because one of my enemies is here. An evil man from far away, known for finding good people in desperate situations and taking advantage of them. I fear what he'd do if he got any kind of hooks into the Emperor of Hansea, and a sickly prince is exactly the kind of lever he'd use."
The courtier took a breath. "This enemy of yours. What does he look like?"
"Acid burned. Up along his arms. Some splattered on his neck and shoulders, though he wears a cowl by custom so I don't know that you'd see that. Speaks with a voice that buzzes, like there's wasps in his throat."
The courtier sighed. "I know him. He arrived eight days before you did. Pleads with his majesty to become the Imperial physician. Swears he has an immortality elixir. Swears that he uses forbidden knowledge, acknowledges its desperate. But…My lord…he becomes more desperate by the day. Surrounded by enemies, some open, some otherwise. I will plead your case to my lord, I did not trust this man you name enemy when he appeared, and I hope that you will be able to make his offer less appealing." The man reached out a hand. "I give you my word. I will plead your case as the emperor's oldest, longest-serving man. He will listen."
Neith nodded. "And how long might that take?"
"A matter of hours. He is in his chambers. I'll…I'll go." the man rang a bell, and two guards appeared, standing before the Prince's door. "Do not let anyone in until I've returned, for any reason."
Neith stood there, waiting. She began to pray, quietly, that what she had come to do would succeed. When she had spoken all she could to Melora, she sat on one of the divans and began to meditate, allowing herself to make peace until some time later.
"Miss? My lord says you can see his son. But only under guard."
Neith stood, slowly. She felt her knees pop, which meant she'd been there for a while. "As you will."
She was finally allowed into the sickroom. As she entered, she took a breath.
Stale blood, mixed with ancient sweat. Vomit, incense, to cover it. There was the sickly sweet scent of rot, but…not from him. The prince was covered in sores as she moved the blankets, but most of them had been expertly cauterized, cleansed. He was cleaned, regularly, apparently, and washed with what was obvoiusly strongwine. The air hung heavy with smoke, the kind used in this part of the world for cleansing, but it smelled slightly off.
"What symptoms does he have, aside from vomiting?" She laid a hand on his head. "And fever. Did these sores form before or after his time laying here?"
The courtier paused, then answered. "Before. Though they were slow. And they've closed and opened, gone away and reappeared several times since."
Neith paused. That sounded like a hint. "And…how rapidly?"
"Cycles of days, ma'am."
She looked him over. Several places, his skin was clammy, others, particularly has hands, it was alarmingly dry. She checked his eyes - they were bloodshot. "Interesting. And the smoke…"
"Keeps any miasma from his coughing from spreading." So he was also coughing. Interesting. The room was ventilated. The boy had pox-scars, but they were old, not current. "How does he take his food?"
"Regularly. Sometimes more than others."
"Does the emergence of the sores track with his eating, and are the servants on a regular schedule for who feeds him when?"
The courtier snorted. "One of the first things we thought of. They were, but no change happened. And we've observed what happens when they're randomized. It's not them, if it's poison."
Neith sighed. "Right then. That opens some possibilities, and closes others." She examined him. Pupils dialated, breath ragged. He had been turned on his side, presumably to prevent him suffocating on his own vomit when his stomach blew its contents out his mouth. "What is he currently using?"
"Lavender and Ginseng, for the seizures he was having. Keeps him relaxed. Ginger, to limit the vomiting, lots of it in his tea. The apothecary also began putting marigold paste on the sores."
Okay so the apothecary was at least theoretically competent, but was also mostly treating symptoms. "Have you tried burning the fever out?"
"He almost died before the fever broke, so not since."
She walked around the prince again. "Right. Okay. Can he keep food down for a long time?"
"It's inconsistent. Some days he has no difficulty with it. Others he suffers immensely in the attempt."
Neith pondered that. It ruled out most serious stomach ailments, which should only have gotten worse with time. "And…has he gotten worse?"
The other man thought. "He's gotten weaker because of hunger. But his actual sickness hasn't changed in almost a year."
Unchanging. Now that was strange.
Neith carefully unlaced the prince's robes, and carefully undressed him. She checked over his body, dispassionately. Even as she felt parts of the young man that any of her companions - save maybe Liza - would have flushed to touch, she felt nothing but cold detachment. No odd growths, consuming him. "And…no sign of blood when he…" She searched her mind for the polite term, then unfortunately realized that Common, trader argot that it was, had no polite term for either of the things she was about to say, "pisses and shits."
"No." That tore another theory - if he'd had any of the harder to find growths, there should have been evidence of it there.
"Does he do those things often? Or…often enough, commiserate with how often he eats and drinks?"
"I believe so? I'll ask his doctor, but I think so."
"And…what happens when the doctor goes away for a while?"
"He gets worse. He gets much, much worse. Shaking, throwing up. All of that."
Nieth paused. That did narrow it down. Supposedly, the boy was sick, but stably so, near incapacitated, but not getting worse. No blood in the bowels or bladder, none in the vomit, nor coming from the lungs. Fever, though… It shouldn't be poison, she supposed, if it was he should be damn near immune by now, if he'd been getting poisoned the same way for nearly a year. But there were things about that description that keyed her off.
She waved a hand in front of her face - the smoke from the braziers was making it hard to think. it could be a series of poisons, delivered in scattered doses, or something that didn't require much, and could be built up easily, just slightly faster than one could gain immunity, with the idea of finally finishing him off with something else entirely when the person was ready to act.
But how? How would you deliver that if the food and drink weren't spiked? His medicines couldn't be, that would be too obvious. Or…could they? Just not with poison. Something else. Something to make it look like the treatment was working. What if…what if the boy wasn't sick at all? Or even, really, poisoned?
"I need to talk to his doctor, compare notes." She said, slowly. "in the meantime, we should let him rest." They stepped out of the room, and gently closed the door.
As she took in the cool, clean air, Neith thought about it again. The sores might have just been the results of being bedridden and hungry - that could easily happen. The courtier was already running off to get the apothecary, and Neith's thoughts swirled around her head. There was no point in maintaining those braziers, either, not at this point. If the boy was truly sick with anything catchy, and he had been for almost a year, it should either have killed him outright or he should have made a recovery by now, most virulent miasmas acted much faster than that. Which meant the braziers were part of it, in all likelyhood.
Which meant…
No, shouldn't jump to conclusions. There was one more thing to rule out.
The other possibility was plague magic, which would have, should have, been discovered by now. There must have been someone with a Sense Khym around here to check. but just to check, Neith went back to their quarters and grabbed Iris. "I need your help, just really quickly." Iris didn't argue, just followed her calmly.
"What do you need?"
"Just confirming a suspicion." They rounded a corner and found the door to the sickroom. "Iris. Can you direct your Chaos Sense into that room, and tell me if the man there is under any kind of curse? I just…I just need to find out if that's a thing I need to deal with."
Iris reached out, her gold-flecked eyes rolling back as she did. She wobbled for a moment, and Neith caught her breath. "No. I don't think so. There is magic there, something that feels more like a lock than anything. I don't know what to do with that - that feels like an Itene question. But he's not cursed. What are you asking me?"
"Thank you." Neith rubbed her temples. "I wanted to make sure that it wasn't a curse making him ill. If it isn't, I have a fairly good idea of what it must be."
Iris nodded and returned to the companions' quarters.
Neith opened the door to the sickroom and took a breath of the smoke, feeling it dizzy her, very slightly. That was enough to convince her. The smoke was a censor, which could be medicinal, but if it was meant as a treatment, it would have lost its potency. And if it was meant as a means of containing the spread of a sicknes, that sickness should either have killed the prince or run its course by now.
The courtier returned, and Neith looked at the man he'd brought with him. Pale, of high-caste Tamilian extraction. Neith had known men like that when she'd gone to Tamilia. She sat down and gestured at the apothecary. "Arrest him for trying to assassinate the prince."
The courtier froze and the Tamil laughed. "What?"
"You helped keep the prince sick for almost a year. I don't doubt he was sick when it started. But I can walk this man through exactly how it happened. My lord, do you have parchment and paper? I don't want to explain this twice. Wait, first, do you speak his tongue?"
The courtier nodded. Neith answered, in Tamili, "Good. I do as well. I learned from their doctors as well. So. Allow me to explain. The prince. He was almost certainly sick at some point, with something real. However, if it was a real miasmic sickness, he should be dead by now, or recovered. If he was being poisoned by food, changing the servants should have let you identify the culprit, unless the chef was doing it, but I am equally certain that the chef was watched."
The courtier nodded. Neith smiled. "Right, so obviously, it can't be that. It isn't any of the longer, slower burning ailments that consume a man from the inside, those leave traces. Change how a man eats. Leave blood in the bladder, the bowels. Leave lumps that can be seen on the body. Leave blood in the lungs when a man coughs, or make a man cough up enough phlegm to change the balance of his humors." Humors weren't real, but even here most people still believed in them, so she might as well explain it that way.
"Right, right. But there are others that could go undetected without…"
"Not while making a man this sick. So it couldn't be any of those. Now, we get to this part. Behold, our doctor. A man with access to the prince, constant, who has the kind of knowledge that would keep anyone from catching him in the act of poisoning."
"But if I were poisoning, O knowledgeable Yndrani witch doctor," the Tamili responded, with a slight sneer, "Should he not have developed an immunity by now?"
Neith grinned. "Absolutely. He should have. But you aren't poisoning him, not in the conventional sense. In fact, he's not even conventionally sick, not anymore. No, he's drugged. The braziers aren't keeping him from spreading any kind of sickness - and you know that. If he had something that spread, it should have killed him or passed by now. If the braziers were supposed to create a smoke censor to flush his lungs, they've either done that or totally lost potency. So why still use them this far in? Unless…you're using them to keep him dizzy. The herbs in them - it's not all medicines and incense, is it?"
"Conjecture. And you're wrong."
"No, but I think it's a conjecture that holds up very well. The bedsores track well with simply going hungry and malnourished from vomiting while being bedridden, so that tells me little. The coughing intermittently might just be from the smoke if that is what I think it is. But what was really telling to me was that…when you weren't treating him, or didn't give him his medicine for more than a day or so, he would immediately get sick again. With shakes. And vomiting. And fevers. A set of symptoms that look very familiar to anyone who goes to the docks in this part of the world. And the thing about poppy is that it doesn't take a lot to get addicted - or to keep someone addicted."
The courtier froze, then slowly looked at the apothecary.
"I…I thought those shakes looked familiar when the Prince didn't get his medicine. But I…I trusted you. I trusted you with my friend's son. And you…this whole time, you were keeping him sick. Guards!" Soldiers ran at the voice, and the apothecary tried to run.
He didn't get far. As he was dragged off, the courtier looked at Neith and bowed. "Apologies for doubting you, Lady. My name is Shen Feng, and I am glad to make your acquaintance. Is there anything I can do to serve you?"
"Get me that man's equipment, please. Or have it brought to me. I'm going to need to work on the prince a while longer. Getting over what was just done to him will take time. And…among my companions there is a child mystic named Itene. I may want her help as well to help me flush his system more fully. Could you have a messenger sent to our quarters?"
Shen Feng bowed deeply. "It would be an honor."
