Sister Oda lifted the heavy stoneware mug from the iron trivet beside the bakehouse oven, wrapping a folded linen cloth around the handle so the hot clay would not scorch her fingers. The dark liquid inside steamed with the pungent, earthy reek of shredded white-willow bark, crushed valerian root, and the thickest black winter porter from the bottom tier of the River Lantern’s cellar racks—boiled down together until the decoction was nearly as viscous as pine tar.
“We spent the last three drams of poppy syrup on the tanner’s boy and the two watchmen whose legs were burned when the west palisade took the oil-jars,” Oda said quietly as she carried the mug to the head of the maple kneading table. “And Alden Bram refused his share of the tincture an hour ago so we would have the valerian root left for the night triage. This will not put him to sleep, Jon, and it will not take the tooth out of the saw, but it will slow his heart enough that the shock does not stop his chest when the bone parts.”
Jon Hale slipped his broad left forearm beneath Sir Cael Ardent’s neck and uninjured left shoulder, lifting the maimed knight’s head four inches off the folded flour-sack pillow while his right hand took the warm stoneware mug from the priestess.
