Post by Master Jean-Claude d'Aquitaine on May 22, 2009 9:01:18 GMT -6
Ada: The evening had come to a close, and all the shutters were drawn on the bottom floor of the apothecary, lines of light proving someone was still downstairs. Ada lit the last candle and blew out the taper, waving the stick so that the glowing embers died, and smoke puffed into the air, sharp against the milder, herbal aromas that usually overwhelmed the store. The cat twined between her feet, mewing plaintively for attention, but Ada had a few things she wanted to get done, and dear Morpheus would have to take a backseat as Ada placed the taper down on a tray on the counter, and began pulling out books from her work room, stacking them on the well-lit counter for perusal. For once, her activities were far from devious. With the hunter gone for the night, it was time to get in some serious study, and so she pulled up a stool and began going through the tomes. Each seemed to have been written in vastly different languages, and not all text went in the orderly left-to-right. She absently worried her teeth on a goose feather quill, and it was difficult to tell if she was more annoyed at the fact that it would not write as she need needed* it to when something piqued her interest, or the fact that the soot-colored kitten was watching Ada with the same intensity he reserved for the butterfly-toy she'd constructed out of colored linen, string, and a stick. Ada eventually stood up and went to open the door for fresh air, breathing in the cool night, and ignoring her pesky feline companion as he jumped down from the counter and went to observe the market's passersby. *
Jean-Claude: Memories faded with time, washed away upon the shores of thought, and kept well in little dark places inside a mind. Yet it had been here he had always found himself infinite. The man's boots clicked with the fine Italian leather sole passing over the now vacant stone streets, and very few eyes dared to raise knowing well of the mysterious second hand of the pirate, and his whispers of lunacy. He was a mad man, a mind of minds bent upon the dark and twisted . All of their conclusions came from closed minds, ones that turned only upon the idea a man who walked only the nights, and kept only the company of a once crazed wolf could only be evil. Yet like the ideas they started in a quiet place, a place of thought--a place that was his serenity, and this would be what had him upon the doorstep of the sage's keep. She had just closed the shutters for this he was certain as the air was still fragrant with the scents of her trade. The radiant scent of pine..the lush full crisp scent of the moon shinning through it, all within the air captured by dried herbs. What a fine luxury, indeed. A gentle tapping, with a gentleman's rapping, came a knock-- knock--knock at her chamber door. It is a visitor..the wind wished her speechless breath a hushed gasp through the cracks, Only this, and nothing more. (d
Ada: Ada did not hear the knock, but she noticed him immediately as she opened the door. In the candlelight, with the feline guarding her, she looked every bit what rumor painted her to be. That is, until she smiled, and waved him inside. "It is good to see you, Jean-Claude. Do, come in, I will make us some tea." If she was ever uncertain about someone, she rarely let it show, choosing instead to base her opinions upon experience, and with Jean-Claude, she only had enough experience to make her very curious about this fellow. The pirate had been very generous in defending this Frenchman's honor, and Maahes was making her life very interesting indeed with his accusations. Thank whatever deity she prayed to that none had overheard his theories, for she rather liked Skye, and hoped to live here a bit longer, if she could help it. The kitten turned his wide-eyed attention to the man of so many strange smells himself, his whiskers twitching. But he merely turned and followed his lady, hopping up onto the counter and curling up atop one of the open books, one eye cracked open in observation, lest any think he let his duties slide after hours. *
Jean-Claude: If they were to live in rumors, what was a witch compared to a warlock who lived in the water ways..with a wolf? "Good Evening Madame de Sauveterre..Do forgive my late hour, I would have not come had I known it to be true..the moon she is bright, and I have mistaken her for the sun." So spoke the man whose yesterday spent in the sun had colored his cheeks a fine pale pink, as if he wore blush upon his marble carved skin. "And I regret to decline your offer, " He spoke with a slow raise of his gloved had to refuse the tea, "But I cannot stay long. I have simply come upon a very selfish matter, one that has not sat well with me ever since our nights adventure..or so Peregrine would call it." Jean-Claude had stepped in enough to not make himself seem to linger in the door, but went only as far as any suitor would. Though he knew very little of the woman before him, this was just as much a private chamber to a woman as was her bedroom. Here he could live in the release of her mind, a great poet in action with her work, but in place of pen:ink would be containers filled with secret contents, and all of natures finest--a sonnet of fungus! "I have heard you were wrongly accused of craft, that you took the blunt of my actions, and now have the militia breathing air down your back. For this all I can offer you is my apologies, and hope that you will trust me enough to set everything right." He spoke from his heart, standing there with his entire tall frame filling the space from floor to ceiling, and his slender hands folded behind his back. "It was never my intention" (d
Ada: Ada paused on her way to the still room, where she kept a fire burning low just for the purpose of keeping a kettle warm, or so it seemed. The still she operated required quite a bit of heat to keep the large kettle drum at a roiling boil. She leaned against the counter, folding her arms under her chest, and canted her head slightly. He was very polite, but perhaps it was her lack of manners that gave Ada her secondary reputation -- one that put even the hussies at the docks to shame. "They're rather a deterrent to business," she said dryly, but smiled anyway. "But I have dealt with worse, and I accept your apology. Will you allow me one question?" Ada had the sort of forceful without necessarily trying attitude that often left men squinting, scratching their heads, and wondering what had just hit them. Whether he assented or not, she asked her question, stretching out her fingers to stroke the spine of the kitten. "You do not seem the sort to keep such company as pirates, and you'll forgive me for asking, as I think I am a very good judge of personality?" The corners of her mouth twitched briefly. "Your friend was kind enough not to ask questions of my motives, so I will not ask questions of yours, but I do wonder, what is the draw? Why him?" *
Jean-Claude: "No please ask anything that you wish." Perhaps this would come as shock, but Jean never minded to give his voice of reason, or opinion upon anything; even if it was his own life. The line had been crossed many times, as many tried to weave the web of why. Why would such a man of such lavish finery, and peaceful manners answer to the call of one man. "Friendship." He answered aloud, from the question both of his thought and her own. "One question will lead you to another, and perhaps I will save us both the time?" He smiled warmly. "I owe him my life..you see, people will never welcome what they can not understand, and because I answer questions they simply can not understand I too was of craft when all they would need to do was look into the world around them." He would raise a gloved hand to motion to her own work, as he knew she would have a deep understanding. "It is not only the will of God that cures our illness, but the fine study of the earth; and the fruits she offers. Just the same as it is not only the spirit of our souls that keeps us moving, but inside us all there is a marvelous system of vessels that control our movements,and heat our flesh. It is simply science..and nothing more." Dark eyes never once left her own as he spoke, for that would show rudeness or add falsehood to his story, and Jean-Claude only spoke the truth. "I was to be burned with all the following I had gathered, of truth seekers who stood behind my theory. Peregrine had been in the square that evening, no doubt robbing the rich blind as they watched us burn. For an act of God he showed me mercy, and I dare say that is well enough to stand by him to my death." (d
Ada: "It is as good a reason as any, my friend. Look, come here. Do not worry, I do not possess sharks and the books will not bite." The cat might. She laughed quietly as she lifted the kitten up and set him on the floor, nudging him into the still room and closing the door. She turned one of the books around and pointed to it. "I am studying how to introduce medicines to the body in a more direct fashion. Not in teas or poultices, but in distilled quantities, measured and implemented in a more scientific fashion. It is a continuation of my late Master's work, and I am honored he gifted me with these books." She had never before seen anything like the vascular system, though as a healer of physical maladies, she of course knew where blood came from. But she had never seen a dissected heart before, never knew the network of veins to be so extensive, and knew so little about the physiology of her patients, she even doubted her own knowledge, extensive as it was. "He was not as luck as you," she said softly. "When spring came last year, many of our greatest minds left us forever. It is a loss...." beyond words. She cleared her throat. "Would you be interested," she started again, her tone brighter than her townturned mouth suggested, "in an exchange of ideas? A collaboration? Oh, I do not mean tonight or any time soon, for that matter; I had rather cross words with the General and his wife recently and ... well." She waved her hand absently. "But I think we might have much to learn from one another, even if it is the sharing of texts." Most of these texts, after all, had not started in her Master's hands, but had slowly shifted from owner to owner to avoid detection. True ownership was unknown, but here they were in Ada's keeping. *
Jean-Claude: His hand fell over the book gently, and a warm smile crept over his lips..an action that made him look all the more odd and out of place. However it was then a light lit the backs of endless night eyes, and if a star was born with every idea. Jean-Claude drew a map then in the sky with the realization. "A great mind indeed.." Returning his gaze to the woman, he fell silent as his eyes started again to follow over the text, and the long well kept, jet black strands of his hair swept forward. For a good long moment he was silent, pondering..weighing his rights from his wrongs as everything he was afraid of came flying forward, but he could not help the words that fell from his lips then ..."The best I have found is a hallowed sewing needle.." He extended his hand asking for her own, and turning it up right to expose the underside of her arm. "Just here." He would motion then over the thick vein of silken blue under the flesh. "It is the fastest, should your patient be in dire need." His voice of course did not hold shame, nor fear..but a reluctant hold. He did not wish to return to those years, nor let it fall upon another. Many called it his sickness, but where the rest of the world dreamed of fae, and lives they could live; Jean-Claude dreamed in blood, bones, and a cure. His notebooks were full of equations well beyond their years, and formulas that came to him as he slept. "Your master..Did he study in Paris as well?" A prelude of the idea he had perhaps known the man, or perhaps even the woman who stood before him. However, like in all tragedies a master mind had lost his mind, and the memories that went along with it. So, here was the window to his mind, a subconscious slipping into the waking day. (d
Ada: She touched the book's pages thoughtfully. A sewing needle was delicate enough. A hot thread could be passed through the bone to hollow the tool. But what must the apparatus that fed the drug into the blood look like? Bone, the Medieval plastic, could be molded into a canister, she supposed. It was clear his thoughts had sparked an entire tome's worth of ideas, and her fingers ached to pick up a stick of coal and begin drawing. She glanced down at the vein he indicated. The only fear she felt was that odd power of death over life, and the reverse, that ability to confront invisible battles head on, armed with knowledge that was awesome in its depth. The lines drawn of the vascular system, etched on the pages before her, blurred and re-focused. "He did, indeed. His name was Benoit." It was a common family name, but if he knew this much, and hailed from France, he would know immediately of whom she spoke. Benoit had consulted with kings, worked in Paris's first university, and was a premier apothecary. Others, like him, knowledgeable in fields of study, had met his same fate. Ada still had nightmares about that night she watched Paris burn, and with it, knowledge that would have catapulted France into a new age. She sighed. "I was his unofficial apprentice. The man you met, that night, he was Benoit's first apprentice. I earned my place bymerit. Gauthier's father paid his fees." She shrugged lightly, connecting the dots for him. *
Jean-Claude: "Ah, but Jeune étudiant de Benoit..You see where you are today in comparison. A shop of your own, surviving off none, and he a washed mess in the arms of one of our finest whores." A curl of his lips then seemed to crack at his face like breaking glass it seemed to shatter away all the dark and dismal views of the man, who often held more dead things within his hands then alive. "You will surpass him, his knowledge will not end here. Name your day, and I will bring you one of my manuscripts. Though..I do fear the rapture of this Isle..and all the text is in French some even in Italian as I still learn it myself." His own hand though covered in the silk glove still lovingly massaged the kitten's neck lightly. "He would have been afraid to take you, with you being a woman..I beg you not to judge, but it was an odd unable to beat. That more bitter scorned women used craft over the men. Perhaps you would have been killed that night as well. So let us thank fate yes?" (d[/color]
Ada: She laughed. "That, my friend, was never in doubt. He has no feel for the herbs. They do not talk to him." Perhaps only an herbalist could understand what she meant. But they did have voices -- they told you how much to use, that a small dose was to put to sleep and a larger for sleep eternal. They told you which aroma blended with the next, which were harmonious and which were disaster. They all has voices -- the spice of ginger, the flirtatiousness of rosehips, the mellow musk of calamus. (have* voices) "But he is with a whore, you say? Now that is something I did not know." She tapped her lower lip thoughtfully. "She must be very good." Then she grinned, unable to repress her bemusement at this information. "Gauthier does not like women. He thinks we smell." The least of her sex's crimes, apparently, but that was neither here nor there. "He would not have been capable of harming me that night. Let me tell you a secret. He greeted me at the docks by calling me the foulest things in French, and while the words were not understood by Ren, the sentiment was, and things went rather badly... quickly. Gauthier was stabbed in the stomach, here," she touched her own stomach, indicating a place where a blade could slide in without damaging any organs. "I took him back to the shop, sewed him up, and kept him drugged while he healed. But I could not let him wander out of the shop with such a wound, and so angry with me and Ren, so I thought .... best to take him to the Underdark. I let the drugs wear off a little, so that he could walk; the body was awake, but the mind was dulled. I was in no danger, until he was knocked over and I could not get him up. But you see, better I move him than the Hunter." And now he was with a whore. Ah, Gauthier would never forgive her for this, not in a million years. *
Jean-Claude: "Ah..yes..bullish men and their temper, in all my years I have not been able to find it's source of power." It was clearly written across his face he held little respect for such men, though the words would never leave his lips. Though Jean-Claude was in fact armed to the teeth, he did well to conceal each weapon as he was not a man to carry his sword on his hip, like his heart on his sleeve. Reflexes went well with those who knew how to keep themselves hidden, and with those who did not mind the wait. A true hunter would know this, having sometimes waited hours in a tree waiting for the kill. Though he had his doubts about even the rangers here. His medication cured the wolves faster then they were killed. Though this was as close to a real conversation this man had held for almost a year, he felt himself staying too late, and wished not to bring the General's men down upon her. "If ever you have a problem you need help with, or questions again..please do not hesitate to ask. My door is not far from where you dumped Benoit's apprentice. By the sea is the entrance, all you need do is stand and call out my name. The sound travels clear to my lab, even if you whisper...but for now I must return." Turning then he gave a fine sweep of his body in a perfectly poised bow of respect and manner. "Thank you for hearing me out, and for accepting my apology. I trust you feel now even more so then before, all will be done to correct it." (d
Ada: "He does have a temper, but it is a symptom of a greater illness. I hope you do not judge him too harshly," Ada offered quietly. Ren was in pain. And through it, he had acted brashly, but rightly; Ada had told him all that needed to be said, and offered to do what she could, even if it meant merely holding his hand. We all have our demons. "Of course, with the books, I am sure we can find a way that will not arouse too much suspicion. The Masters in Paris had a system of signals. But, while I think there are many suspicious minds on Skye, I am not certain we need go to that length. I have one or two books that I think you would be interested in, mostly in anatomy, though they are in Arabic. Benoit wrote notes, for he spoke and read the language, but they are not very extensive.... Ah, well, we shall see, no?" She nodded to his offers, memorized his instructions, and smiled. "I fear we have both come of age in a time that relying upon others to remedy their mistakes is painfully naive, but I am not blind to recognizing another scholar, and admiring his work. You may always come to me, Jean-Claude; maybe you will have that cup of tea some time." She walked him to the door, the candles flickering in their passing. "Good night." *
Jean-Claude: Memories faded with time, washed away upon the shores of thought, and kept well in little dark places inside a mind. Yet it had been here he had always found himself infinite. The man's boots clicked with the fine Italian leather sole passing over the now vacant stone streets, and very few eyes dared to raise knowing well of the mysterious second hand of the pirate, and his whispers of lunacy. He was a mad man, a mind of minds bent upon the dark and twisted . All of their conclusions came from closed minds, ones that turned only upon the idea a man who walked only the nights, and kept only the company of a once crazed wolf could only be evil. Yet like the ideas they started in a quiet place, a place of thought--a place that was his serenity, and this would be what had him upon the doorstep of the sage's keep. She had just closed the shutters for this he was certain as the air was still fragrant with the scents of her trade. The radiant scent of pine..the lush full crisp scent of the moon shinning through it, all within the air captured by dried herbs. What a fine luxury, indeed. A gentle tapping, with a gentleman's rapping, came a knock-- knock--knock at her chamber door. It is a visitor..the wind wished her speechless breath a hushed gasp through the cracks, Only this, and nothing more. (d
Ada: Ada did not hear the knock, but she noticed him immediately as she opened the door. In the candlelight, with the feline guarding her, she looked every bit what rumor painted her to be. That is, until she smiled, and waved him inside. "It is good to see you, Jean-Claude. Do, come in, I will make us some tea." If she was ever uncertain about someone, she rarely let it show, choosing instead to base her opinions upon experience, and with Jean-Claude, she only had enough experience to make her very curious about this fellow. The pirate had been very generous in defending this Frenchman's honor, and Maahes was making her life very interesting indeed with his accusations. Thank whatever deity she prayed to that none had overheard his theories, for she rather liked Skye, and hoped to live here a bit longer, if she could help it. The kitten turned his wide-eyed attention to the man of so many strange smells himself, his whiskers twitching. But he merely turned and followed his lady, hopping up onto the counter and curling up atop one of the open books, one eye cracked open in observation, lest any think he let his duties slide after hours. *
Jean-Claude: If they were to live in rumors, what was a witch compared to a warlock who lived in the water ways..with a wolf? "Good Evening Madame de Sauveterre..Do forgive my late hour, I would have not come had I known it to be true..the moon she is bright, and I have mistaken her for the sun." So spoke the man whose yesterday spent in the sun had colored his cheeks a fine pale pink, as if he wore blush upon his marble carved skin. "And I regret to decline your offer, " He spoke with a slow raise of his gloved had to refuse the tea, "But I cannot stay long. I have simply come upon a very selfish matter, one that has not sat well with me ever since our nights adventure..or so Peregrine would call it." Jean-Claude had stepped in enough to not make himself seem to linger in the door, but went only as far as any suitor would. Though he knew very little of the woman before him, this was just as much a private chamber to a woman as was her bedroom. Here he could live in the release of her mind, a great poet in action with her work, but in place of pen:ink would be containers filled with secret contents, and all of natures finest--a sonnet of fungus! "I have heard you were wrongly accused of craft, that you took the blunt of my actions, and now have the militia breathing air down your back. For this all I can offer you is my apologies, and hope that you will trust me enough to set everything right." He spoke from his heart, standing there with his entire tall frame filling the space from floor to ceiling, and his slender hands folded behind his back. "It was never my intention" (d
Ada: Ada paused on her way to the still room, where she kept a fire burning low just for the purpose of keeping a kettle warm, or so it seemed. The still she operated required quite a bit of heat to keep the large kettle drum at a roiling boil. She leaned against the counter, folding her arms under her chest, and canted her head slightly. He was very polite, but perhaps it was her lack of manners that gave Ada her secondary reputation -- one that put even the hussies at the docks to shame. "They're rather a deterrent to business," she said dryly, but smiled anyway. "But I have dealt with worse, and I accept your apology. Will you allow me one question?" Ada had the sort of forceful without necessarily trying attitude that often left men squinting, scratching their heads, and wondering what had just hit them. Whether he assented or not, she asked her question, stretching out her fingers to stroke the spine of the kitten. "You do not seem the sort to keep such company as pirates, and you'll forgive me for asking, as I think I am a very good judge of personality?" The corners of her mouth twitched briefly. "Your friend was kind enough not to ask questions of my motives, so I will not ask questions of yours, but I do wonder, what is the draw? Why him?" *
Jean-Claude: "No please ask anything that you wish." Perhaps this would come as shock, but Jean never minded to give his voice of reason, or opinion upon anything; even if it was his own life. The line had been crossed many times, as many tried to weave the web of why. Why would such a man of such lavish finery, and peaceful manners answer to the call of one man. "Friendship." He answered aloud, from the question both of his thought and her own. "One question will lead you to another, and perhaps I will save us both the time?" He smiled warmly. "I owe him my life..you see, people will never welcome what they can not understand, and because I answer questions they simply can not understand I too was of craft when all they would need to do was look into the world around them." He would raise a gloved hand to motion to her own work, as he knew she would have a deep understanding. "It is not only the will of God that cures our illness, but the fine study of the earth; and the fruits she offers. Just the same as it is not only the spirit of our souls that keeps us moving, but inside us all there is a marvelous system of vessels that control our movements,and heat our flesh. It is simply science..and nothing more." Dark eyes never once left her own as he spoke, for that would show rudeness or add falsehood to his story, and Jean-Claude only spoke the truth. "I was to be burned with all the following I had gathered, of truth seekers who stood behind my theory. Peregrine had been in the square that evening, no doubt robbing the rich blind as they watched us burn. For an act of God he showed me mercy, and I dare say that is well enough to stand by him to my death." (d
Ada: "It is as good a reason as any, my friend. Look, come here. Do not worry, I do not possess sharks and the books will not bite." The cat might. She laughed quietly as she lifted the kitten up and set him on the floor, nudging him into the still room and closing the door. She turned one of the books around and pointed to it. "I am studying how to introduce medicines to the body in a more direct fashion. Not in teas or poultices, but in distilled quantities, measured and implemented in a more scientific fashion. It is a continuation of my late Master's work, and I am honored he gifted me with these books." She had never before seen anything like the vascular system, though as a healer of physical maladies, she of course knew where blood came from. But she had never seen a dissected heart before, never knew the network of veins to be so extensive, and knew so little about the physiology of her patients, she even doubted her own knowledge, extensive as it was. "He was not as luck as you," she said softly. "When spring came last year, many of our greatest minds left us forever. It is a loss...." beyond words. She cleared her throat. "Would you be interested," she started again, her tone brighter than her townturned mouth suggested, "in an exchange of ideas? A collaboration? Oh, I do not mean tonight or any time soon, for that matter; I had rather cross words with the General and his wife recently and ... well." She waved her hand absently. "But I think we might have much to learn from one another, even if it is the sharing of texts." Most of these texts, after all, had not started in her Master's hands, but had slowly shifted from owner to owner to avoid detection. True ownership was unknown, but here they were in Ada's keeping. *
Jean-Claude: His hand fell over the book gently, and a warm smile crept over his lips..an action that made him look all the more odd and out of place. However it was then a light lit the backs of endless night eyes, and if a star was born with every idea. Jean-Claude drew a map then in the sky with the realization. "A great mind indeed.." Returning his gaze to the woman, he fell silent as his eyes started again to follow over the text, and the long well kept, jet black strands of his hair swept forward. For a good long moment he was silent, pondering..weighing his rights from his wrongs as everything he was afraid of came flying forward, but he could not help the words that fell from his lips then ..."The best I have found is a hallowed sewing needle.." He extended his hand asking for her own, and turning it up right to expose the underside of her arm. "Just here." He would motion then over the thick vein of silken blue under the flesh. "It is the fastest, should your patient be in dire need." His voice of course did not hold shame, nor fear..but a reluctant hold. He did not wish to return to those years, nor let it fall upon another. Many called it his sickness, but where the rest of the world dreamed of fae, and lives they could live; Jean-Claude dreamed in blood, bones, and a cure. His notebooks were full of equations well beyond their years, and formulas that came to him as he slept. "Your master..Did he study in Paris as well?" A prelude of the idea he had perhaps known the man, or perhaps even the woman who stood before him. However, like in all tragedies a master mind had lost his mind, and the memories that went along with it. So, here was the window to his mind, a subconscious slipping into the waking day. (d
Ada: She touched the book's pages thoughtfully. A sewing needle was delicate enough. A hot thread could be passed through the bone to hollow the tool. But what must the apparatus that fed the drug into the blood look like? Bone, the Medieval plastic, could be molded into a canister, she supposed. It was clear his thoughts had sparked an entire tome's worth of ideas, and her fingers ached to pick up a stick of coal and begin drawing. She glanced down at the vein he indicated. The only fear she felt was that odd power of death over life, and the reverse, that ability to confront invisible battles head on, armed with knowledge that was awesome in its depth. The lines drawn of the vascular system, etched on the pages before her, blurred and re-focused. "He did, indeed. His name was Benoit." It was a common family name, but if he knew this much, and hailed from France, he would know immediately of whom she spoke. Benoit had consulted with kings, worked in Paris's first university, and was a premier apothecary. Others, like him, knowledgeable in fields of study, had met his same fate. Ada still had nightmares about that night she watched Paris burn, and with it, knowledge that would have catapulted France into a new age. She sighed. "I was his unofficial apprentice. The man you met, that night, he was Benoit's first apprentice. I earned my place bymerit. Gauthier's father paid his fees." She shrugged lightly, connecting the dots for him. *
Jean-Claude: "Ah, but Jeune étudiant de Benoit..You see where you are today in comparison. A shop of your own, surviving off none, and he a washed mess in the arms of one of our finest whores." A curl of his lips then seemed to crack at his face like breaking glass it seemed to shatter away all the dark and dismal views of the man, who often held more dead things within his hands then alive. "You will surpass him, his knowledge will not end here. Name your day, and I will bring you one of my manuscripts. Though..I do fear the rapture of this Isle..and all the text is in French some even in Italian as I still learn it myself." His own hand though covered in the silk glove still lovingly massaged the kitten's neck lightly. "He would have been afraid to take you, with you being a woman..I beg you not to judge, but it was an odd unable to beat. That more bitter scorned women used craft over the men. Perhaps you would have been killed that night as well. So let us thank fate yes?" (d[/color]
Ada: She laughed. "That, my friend, was never in doubt. He has no feel for the herbs. They do not talk to him." Perhaps only an herbalist could understand what she meant. But they did have voices -- they told you how much to use, that a small dose was to put to sleep and a larger for sleep eternal. They told you which aroma blended with the next, which were harmonious and which were disaster. They all has voices -- the spice of ginger, the flirtatiousness of rosehips, the mellow musk of calamus. (have* voices) "But he is with a whore, you say? Now that is something I did not know." She tapped her lower lip thoughtfully. "She must be very good." Then she grinned, unable to repress her bemusement at this information. "Gauthier does not like women. He thinks we smell." The least of her sex's crimes, apparently, but that was neither here nor there. "He would not have been capable of harming me that night. Let me tell you a secret. He greeted me at the docks by calling me the foulest things in French, and while the words were not understood by Ren, the sentiment was, and things went rather badly... quickly. Gauthier was stabbed in the stomach, here," she touched her own stomach, indicating a place where a blade could slide in without damaging any organs. "I took him back to the shop, sewed him up, and kept him drugged while he healed. But I could not let him wander out of the shop with such a wound, and so angry with me and Ren, so I thought .... best to take him to the Underdark. I let the drugs wear off a little, so that he could walk; the body was awake, but the mind was dulled. I was in no danger, until he was knocked over and I could not get him up. But you see, better I move him than the Hunter." And now he was with a whore. Ah, Gauthier would never forgive her for this, not in a million years. *
Jean-Claude: "Ah..yes..bullish men and their temper, in all my years I have not been able to find it's source of power." It was clearly written across his face he held little respect for such men, though the words would never leave his lips. Though Jean-Claude was in fact armed to the teeth, he did well to conceal each weapon as he was not a man to carry his sword on his hip, like his heart on his sleeve. Reflexes went well with those who knew how to keep themselves hidden, and with those who did not mind the wait. A true hunter would know this, having sometimes waited hours in a tree waiting for the kill. Though he had his doubts about even the rangers here. His medication cured the wolves faster then they were killed. Though this was as close to a real conversation this man had held for almost a year, he felt himself staying too late, and wished not to bring the General's men down upon her. "If ever you have a problem you need help with, or questions again..please do not hesitate to ask. My door is not far from where you dumped Benoit's apprentice. By the sea is the entrance, all you need do is stand and call out my name. The sound travels clear to my lab, even if you whisper...but for now I must return." Turning then he gave a fine sweep of his body in a perfectly poised bow of respect and manner. "Thank you for hearing me out, and for accepting my apology. I trust you feel now even more so then before, all will be done to correct it." (d
Ada: "He does have a temper, but it is a symptom of a greater illness. I hope you do not judge him too harshly," Ada offered quietly. Ren was in pain. And through it, he had acted brashly, but rightly; Ada had told him all that needed to be said, and offered to do what she could, even if it meant merely holding his hand. We all have our demons. "Of course, with the books, I am sure we can find a way that will not arouse too much suspicion. The Masters in Paris had a system of signals. But, while I think there are many suspicious minds on Skye, I am not certain we need go to that length. I have one or two books that I think you would be interested in, mostly in anatomy, though they are in Arabic. Benoit wrote notes, for he spoke and read the language, but they are not very extensive.... Ah, well, we shall see, no?" She nodded to his offers, memorized his instructions, and smiled. "I fear we have both come of age in a time that relying upon others to remedy their mistakes is painfully naive, but I am not blind to recognizing another scholar, and admiring his work. You may always come to me, Jean-Claude; maybe you will have that cup of tea some time." She walked him to the door, the candles flickering in their passing. "Good night." *