Half a King

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A seeking wind, the Gettlanders called it, for it found out every chink and keyhole, moaning Mother Sea’s dead chill into every dwelling, no matter how high the fires were banked or how close the folk were huddled.

It tore at the shutters in the narrow windows of Mother Gundring’s chambers and rattled even the iron-bound door in its frame. It taunted the flames in the firepit and they spat and crackled in their anger, casting clawing shadows from the dried herbs hanging, throwing flickering light upon the root that Mother Gundring held up in her knobbled fingers.

“And this?”

It looked like nothing so much as a clod of dirt, but Yarvi had learned better. “Black-tongue root.”

“And why might a minister reach for it, my prince?”

“A minister hopes they won’t have to. Boiled in water it can’t be seen or tasted, but is a most deadly poison.”

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