Page 97 of A Trade of Blood

Ana stayed frozen as I listed these off to her. “I have heard of…someof these figures,” she said softly. “But only a few of those books you mentioned, Din. By hell! It seems that Burilis Burav’s vault contains not gold and rubies, but a…a veritabletroveof historical and archaeological materials on the Daljen. One so extensive I don’t think even the scholars of the first ring have some of these!” She stuck her hand out. “Give me that one book about hymns, please, Din, as well as a few of those parchments preserved in bindings!”

I moved to do so, creating a stack, and picked them up to carry them to her—and then paused.

“Well?” she demanded.

I ignored her, crouched down, and peered about the floor.

There, all rolled to one side of the vault, were some half-dozen corks. The woman on the floor must have tossed them aside as she drank each pot. I walked to them, stooped, and picked oneup.

There, at its end, a stamped symbol: a small red flower.

My eyes shimmered, and I recalled what Velona had said of Lyimo:I recall he was enormously pleased after being sent a crate of prized sotwine…A Choros Ayak vintage, I believe…It’s a famous winery. Always put a little stamp of a flower on the cork. Some high houses fashion displays of them, showing how many pots have been drunk at their tables…

“Din?” asked Ana. “What is it?”

Tauri, meanwhile, was examining the crates stored at the very back of the vault. “It is not just valuables of the elder days he was sitting on,” he said. He squatted, reached into one crate, and produced a thurible and many small pots. “These are the same tools we use to enter the forest. Just having one of these would have been enough to land Burav in prison—if he hadn’t been cooked to cinders, that is…” He cast an eye at the unconscious woman. “I wonder if she came in here trying to steal a fortune during the fire, and instead found herself locked in with musty tomes, pots of reagents, and…” He sniffed the air. “…some decent vintages.”

I walked over and peered into the crates. There, stuffed into straw along with many Apoth reagents I did not know, were dozens of wine pots, each one stoppered with a cork bearing the stamp of the flower.

I read the label in the dim mai-light:Choros Ayak.

“Din, whatisit?” called Ana.

“There is a great deal of wine here, ma’am,” I said. “And I believe it matches the bottles that were sent to Lyimo Armenta before his apparent suicide.”

Ana sat up. “So…the wine that was sent to Lyimo came fromhere?”

“That is my guess, ma’am.”

“Then that was surely how he was infected,” she said softly. “A crate of wine, claiming to be from some gentry admirer—and each bottle filled with the fungus!” She turned her face to the slumberingwoman. “In that case, this unconscious fool on the floor here surely must know more! And yet we don’t even know her damned name, nor how she came here!”

“Perhaps I can find a Burav servant to identify her. Maybe one of the footmen, for I think we had to leave some of them in quarantine whilew—”

A rasping, hoarse voice came from the vault door: “Madi Istelia! She’salive?”

Tauri and I turned to see the wan figure of Princeps Seriv standing behind us, leaning on a cane. We gazed at him, astonished, but he stared only at the woman on the ground.

“Ah, Seriv,” said Ana. She turned a page, unflappable. “I take it the medikkers patched you up?”

“They have, ma’am,” he said faintly. “Even gave me a cane, though I don’t know why. Issue was my guts, not my leg.” He hobbled forward and peered down at the woman. “By hell…I assumed she’d burned up with all the rest of them!”

“Who is she?” I asked.

“It is Madi Istelia, sir, as I said. She was Burilis Burav’s housekeeper.”

Again, we stared at him, and then all turned our eyes on the unconscious woman on the floor.

“Hishousekeeper?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. I’d know her anywhere. How did she live?”

“With much wine, apparently!” said Ana. “I am more curious as to why she wound up in here!” She snapped her fingers. “Medikker! Someone! Listen to me now!”

“Y-yes?” said the lead medikker.

“Pump this fool full of whatever is necessary to wake her up. I demand we speak to her this minute.”

“We…could give her a stimulant,” he said reluctantly. “But in her condition it would cause a tremendous headac—”