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As though he was an object that could be made to work with a few tweaks. He took the glass, sat up, and paused. The greenish-yellow juice appeared normal, and the tincture was clear anyway, but he looked at the clear bottle sitting on the sideboard. Asara went to the sideboard and corked it.
Aspen remembered the physician’s room back at King Leneer’s home. When he first got there, he had to get checked out to be safe, and he remembered the cupboards with glass doors. All of the bottles had been labeled so that the physician could tell what was what. He hadn't been to the room of the physician here, but he imagined it was pretty similar.
Where was this bottle’s label? The one he saw every other morning always said “uplift” in curly letters.
Asara pocketed it as she turned to him with a smile. “Drink it.”
Aspen stared at her innocent face, and the words tumbled out before he could further doubt himself. “I don’t think I can.”
“Why not?”
His mind tripped as he tried to come up with a reasonable excuse. “It’ll make me shit.”
Dear Elira, why on this realm did he say that? Then again, it wasn't a bad excuse.
She knitted her eyebrows together. “Pin juice is pretty gentle unless you drink too much with the pulp in it. That's strained, and you’ve been having it every morning, right?”
Aspen’s mouth went dry. “My stomach still hurts from breakfast. The eggs were spicier than I’d normally eat.”
He had rather enjoyed the spicy eggs, and he hadn’t thought he’d like something so hot, but they weren't bad.
“Well, drink the juice. You need the medicine, and you shouldn't waste it.”
“But I tried to drink some water, and I was practically pissing from my ass.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I took some of the peppermint tincture in the privy room, but I don't think it's working. There’s not much else for the shits.”
She drew nearer and made another face as if her queenly sensibilities were deeply offended by the mention of shit. “If you make liquid when you sit, then you still need to drink something or you’ll get dehydrated.”
“I don’t want this now.” He straightened up a bit. “I can already feel it again. My stomach's cramping.”
“Then hurry up and drink your medicine before you go back to the privy. You need it in you.”
“I don’t want it!” He leaned forward with an arm around his midsection and hoped his pain expression was believable. The glass might as well as have had teeth considering how desperate he was to put it down. He reached to set it on the table in front of the couch, but he purposely placed it too near the edge. “I can’t.”
The glass slipped to the floor. The rug wasn’t thick enough to cushion it, and it cracked. Pin juice went everywhere as he stood and raced for the privy room.
“Fuck!” He slammed the privy room door and locked it. Breathing heavily, he backed up and stared at the door. For a moment, he almost expected Asara to bust in, pin him to the floor, and force the contents of the bottle in his mouth.
Of course, she didn’t do that.
“Aspen, what are you doing in there?” she called.
“What do you think I’m doing on the privy?!” he shouted. “Writing a tune?”
He heard her faint huff as he leaned on the wall that stuck out from near the privy seat. What if he was crazy and overreacting? Why on Ymir’s dirt would she ever want to kill him for? He hadn’t done a thing unless sleeping and sitting around was a crime in the Windswept Isles. They had no quarrel, and while he had treated Oriel like shit, he hadn’t harmed her cousin.
Roth and Oriel viewed him as important, and Asara had agreed to make sure he was cared for. Even if he was eating her household’s food and taking up space, it wasn’t that much.
She had no reason to kill him.
But why did the bottle have no label? The physician’s bottle had been labeled and half-full yesterday. Even if he made a new batch for some reason, he’d make sure to paste on a new piece of parchment and write on it so it was never mixed up with anything else. He couldn't risk giving patients the wrong medicines.
She had to be trying to poison him, and he wasn’t drinking anything from her.
He opened the window for air and listened. Servants came to clear up the mess he’d made. He pretended to be taking ages and finally decided that was enough. From the basin, he dabbed water on his forehead and neck as if he’d the sort of shits that made a person sweat. The peppermint tincture bottle sat on the cupboard which held things like drying sheets and cakes of soap, and he poured a little into the privy. If she checked that bottle, it would look like he’d used some. The liquid disappeared into the dark chute.
