The inner medicine room smelled of dried elderberries, boiling alcohol, and cold turpentine.
Nessa Vale stood in the center of the flagstoned lab. She held her ten-foot land-mapper’s staff like a club, while Old Marta used an iron pry-bar to break open the padlocked doors of Master Marrow’s private test chemical cabinet.
The lock gave way with a sharp, splintering screech of seasoned pine.
Inside, arranged in neat, labeled rows upon three tiers of cedar shelving, sat the heavy-duty rig of a quarter-century of extortion.
“Look at the labels, Nessa,” Marta said. Her voice shook with righteous fury as she hauled out a heavy clay jar.
She uncorked the vessel and set it upon the lab table.
Inside, packed in dry saw-dust, were dozens of small, dried oval shells that looked like wrinkled dark red currants. Dried female cochineal insects, imported from the cactus plantations of the far southern provinces. Beside them sat two dozen glass carboys filled with a thick, syrupy spirit-extract that smelled intensely of alum and boiled vinegar.
Nessa took her brass instrument magnifying glass from her coat, examining the manufacturer’s stamp on the lead seals: Dyers’ Guild of Oakhaven — Grade I Superfine Carmine Extract.
