Mire

Chapter 10

When I was sixteen, Dahra cut off an apprentice's hand.

My Mistress had arranged to meet me in the courtyard. She never arrived. I wondered if she was testing me for a full hour before the sun grew fierce. I ducked back into the cool stone building and asked the old women where my Mistress was. Most of them shrugged and looked away. Nara scowled at them and gave me a biscuit.

"She isn't coming." she told me. "Just go to your classes."

"But she told me to wait for her." I insisted. I was confused. I was used to Dahra disappearing, but she never did it without warning. And why was everyone being so secretive?

I trudged back to the school and suffered the teasing of my classmates for the rest of the day. My mind wandered too much for me to concentrate on the song I was supposed to be learning. My fingers were too slow and clumsy to play my lyre. It was the first time that I knew for sure that I loved my Mistress. I hated her, of course, but I was so stricken with concern that it hurt.

My mistress did not appear for two days. She had lost weight, and her skin was waxen and unadorned. She summoned me and I ran into her arms. Dahra shoved me away with a hiss. Her breath hitched in her throat, and I saw that her linen dress was stained with blood.

"I'm sorry," I whimpered. She yanked my head back by the hair and threw me down into the dirt.

"You fool! They will have to stitch it closed again."

"What happened?" I clutched at her skirt. I think I was more upset than she was. She shrugged and told me a vague story about an accident. She had tripped and fallen onto a broken branch. It hadn't been bad, she said, just ugly.

I did not believe her.

It took Dahra weeks to recover. While she healed she threw herself into teaching. I thought she had been strict before, but when she had twenty girls to command she ruled with an iron fist.

Dahra was an expert herbalist. The art was the backbone of our island. The potions which we traded with the Mainland were not magical, but the result of long hours cultivating thousands of stubborn plants. The Siren could rouse a man from sleeping sickness or cure colic, but if the Mainlanders knew our recipes they could have done exactly the same thing.

First, Dahra taught us how to care for the plants. We would fetch water, crumble up chicken manure and pull out weeds. We had to wear stiff grey gloves to protect our soft hands from the thorns. Dahra didn't bother, but I never saw her get pricked. Some of the girls burst into helpless sneezing fits when they leaned too close to the pollen.

Anyone could grow a seed; few could learn how to pick and prepare it properly. Every night we spent an hour tasting and discussing whatever we had gathered that day.

It rained heavily that autumn. We spent our time draining and piercing the soil, and had little time to collect new herbs. We were cold and miserable, and we all hoped our classes might stop, but the Mistresses took jars out of storage for us to study. Matured moulds, dried leaves and liquors abounded, but the one I remember most clearly was Dust.

Dust was made from dried fungus. It was so rare that a single gram took several weeks to refine. It relaxed the inhibitions - a simple effect that even alcohol could manage, but Dust was a thousand times more potent than wine. A single dose could make a spymaster part with every secret he knew.

Mistress Herry made us try it. We dabbed our little fingers into the brown powder. It tasted of malt, but there was a sharp aftertaste that made my mouth pucker up.

Even that small amount was enough to loosen our tongues. Mistress Herry asked us if we knew what Dust was. Many girls lied in their lessons, pretending that their Mistresses had told them