Oleander

XXI. Valerian (part four)

The line of patients shuffled in and proved her factitious estimate false. Though the hours swelled with people eager for remedies and cures, the crowd dwindled with the sun.

"Fifty-eight patients," Theodis said incredulously, just as the last touches of sunlight escaped behind the thatched roofs of the slums and their final patient left with a clay jar brimming with a salve for burns. He brandished his scrawled notes.

Back aches, itching rashes, lacerations in need of repair. Chest pangs and colicky children and stiff bones. They dotted the never-slowing flux of patients with the emerging signs of the purging sickness: nausea, belly pains, voluminous diarrhea. Yalira, and the young assistant, had seen them all. She had even recruited Gallus to help: his strength proved a valuable tool in setting a broken arm.

Only two patients of that fifty-eight, carried by family members, bore traces of the late disease—confusion and a creeping weakness that would become unresponsiveness, convulsions, and death.

"More new cases," Theodis said, voicing her thoughts. "But fewer patient with severe symptoms."

Yalira sighed as she dipped her hands in the washing basin. "The opposite of last week."

"But a good sign, do you think?"

"That I cannot say." She dried her fingers carefully as she read through the treatments they'd provided. An arm curled protectively around his work, Theodis wrote additional notes of his own. She glanced at the day's new teachings for him. His diligence flattered her. "It worries me we cannot predict the nature of this disease. Ah, you misheard me here." She pointed to a preparation for common urinary complaints. "It is an infusion of boiled meum roots, not anethum."

Face flooded with embarrassment, Theodis scratched out the error to rewrite the correction in a careful hand.

"What will you do with all these notes, Theodis?" she asked, turning to tidy their workbench.

"In all my studies, I have yet to find a complete recording of medicinal herbs," he said. A certain hesitancy wavered: quiet passion against expected rejection. "I was thinking I might start one."

In the brief silence, Yalira wondered if he had mentioned the project to his mentor. And if that mentor scoffed at the idea.

"An ambitious endeavor," she said. "But a worthy one."

Her gentle encouragement sparked the wildfire of his tongue. In enthusiasm to explain his progress, Theodis stood to retrieve his notes and, in his haste, nudged his satchel the finger's width it needed to fall. In the echoing shatter, his frantic realization, he scrambled to rescue his pages from broken vials and spilled medicinals.

Yalira joined his effort, carefully retrieving the intact bottles and jars. She pulled a vial from his satchel. In the dim light, it glowed dark ruby. The bloody elixir that Sasha relied on to temper her delirium, the one she'd praised for sleep.

"Theodis," she said. "What is this?"

The young assistant, fanning one of his pages in the air, was eager to prove his knowledge. He said, "It's a sort of sedating mixture. A remarkable blend. I try to always keep some at hand."

On the slopes of Antalis, calming drafts were heavy with chamomile, or else with harvested lupulus from the priests of Imris. Fresh and colorless, their draughts had never left oily trails of scarlet.

Yalira uncorked the small bottle and wafted its scent towards her. Overpowering sweetness dominated and drowned out the aroma of any medicinal herbs.

"Pomegranate?" she asked.

"To hide the taste of the hypericum, I think."

The answer was benign—perfectly acceptable—but Yalira's suspicion sparked into flames. Syrupy pomegranate was too heady, too thick to disguise such an unobtrusive herb. Her eyes narrowed. "Hypericum inspires happiness, but it is hardly a sedative in single doses."

At the sudden firmness in her tone, Theodis shrugged and returned to his notes. Yalira was not deterred.

"What else is in this?"

"I don't know all of its contents. I have to beg for these small bottles."

Each moment she'd seen the red vial or heard of its effects cycled in her head. The former queen, Vahelys, took the tonic for headaches. Sasha, for insomnia and nerves. It was forced into the hands of agitated queens. There were few medicinals that had such range of effect. Fewer still safe for the delicate balance between pregnant women and developing fetus.

Yalira closed her eyes, brought the vial closer to her face, and breathed deep. The fruity richness of pomegranate overpowered, but something milder, earthy and soft called. The sudden of an image of a child beneath a tree, teeth stained bloody, overcame her, drowned out all else. Glass shattered and a chorus of battle cries, the cries of women, followed.

"Priestess?" Theodis asked softly, from a world far away. Gallus, too, moved forward.

She waved off their hands and clutched the rough edge of the table. Yalira clenched her teeth and focused on the dark reflection of the potion against the packed-earth floor. Eheia, Antala, whichever cursed goddess fought to enter her body be damned. She did not need them to reveal mysteries to her, did not need them to gloat with heavy-handed calls to prophecies long passed. Yalira found the truth on her own—

"Valerian," she breathed.

Dried roots could be used for the bowels, decoctions for abdominal troubles, distillations for the eye. In large doses of the crude root, it had a sedating effect. That much was truth. But the pomegranate was not to hide hypericum, but the potent valerian who could cause tremor and stupor in full-formed adults. And likely worse in unborn babes.

Theodis's brows furrowed. He did not understand the significance: no one else had chased each twisted thread. Stillborns and misshapen children. The infant with the flayed back. Xaisha's mute, disabled child. Yalira knew that if she examined the girl, that telltale dimpling of skin, the deformity to her small spine would be there.

Beneath a pomegranate tree, a child sits with a mouth full of blood.

Her words. Antala's words.

Yalira's stomach coiled into knots and bile rose in her throat. She had searched for the link between the mutilated children, the common thread that twisted its toxic shadow through the high city. This was the piece shared by all of Andar's wives, the answer to his broken legacy. Coincidence or divine insight, she no longer had care, for the truth was certain.

Someone was poisoning Semyra's queens.

A/N

I've been waiting MONTHS for this reveal. 

For those of you who guessed neural tube defects (like spina bifida and anencephaly) as the issue with Andar's children, you're correct! For the scientific explanation, valerian root contains valeric acid. Valproic acid, a common anticonvulsant, is a derivate of this chemical. While valproic acid is a powerful medication, it is a teratogen that can cause a range of birth defects. While Yalira has yet to live through a time with retrospective studies that will uncover the specific associations, she's finally found the reason. 

The only question now? But who?