The second cup of infusion was darker than the first, steeped until the bitter brown tannins of the willow bark had leached entirely into the boiling water, clouding the liquid with a pine-scented, astringent skim.
Doma sat on the three-legged wooden milking stool she had dragged into the nook, her broad knees parted to brace herself against the side of the pine cot. She held the tin mug with her left hand and a shallow pewter soup spoon with her right, blowing across the steaming surface until the gray vapors parted.
“Another spoonful, Heth,” Doma commanded, her voice softened just enough to remove the parade-ground bark she used on the apprentice cooks. “Take it on the back of the tongue. Don’t let it sit on your teeth. Willow bark will sour the enamel if you wash it around. But it’ll cool the fire in your chest like river water on an overheated anvil.”
Heth leaned forward from the mountain of down pillows, her small, pale throat working as she swallowed.
She made a faint, shuddering face at the intense bitterness—an astringency so sharp it puckered her cracked lips—but she took four spoonfuls without turning away. She was an artisan’s daughter. She had spent her childhood watching her father drink bitter wormwood tea for marsh fever. She knew that in Rookvale, medicine that tasted sweet was either watered down by scriveners or stolen from High court stores.
