“Fine. Come in, then. The sooner we do this, the sooner you leave.”
She drew the purse from her blouse before climbing up the steps and entering after him.
He led her to his workroom and bid her to stand by the table at its center. Cloth sacks lined the corners of the room. Small stoppered bottles—innumerable salves and tinctures and herbs harvested from the forest itself—sat in tidy rows on shelves. The air smelled of earth and damp.
He took her entire purse from her, opened the drawstring, and adjusted its weight in his palm. Then he clucked, tongue against teeth, and dropped it onto the table.
“This isn’t enough.”
“You—of course it’s enough,” Priya said. “That’s all the money I have.”
“That doesn’t magically make it enough.”
“That’s what it cost me at the bazaar last time—”
“But you couldn’t get anything at the bazaar,” said Gautam. “And had you been able to, he would have charged you more. Supply is low, demand is high.” He frowned at her sourly. “You think it’s easy harvesting sacred wood?”
“Not at all,” Priya said. Be pleasant, she reminded herself. You need his help.
“Last month I sent in four woodcutters. They came out after two days, thinking they’d been in there two hours. Between—that,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the forest, “and the regent flinging his thugs all over the fucking city for who knows what reason, you think it’s easy work?”
“No,” Priya said. “I’m sorry.”
But he wasn’t done quite yet.
“I’m still waiting for the men I sent this week to come back,” he went on. His fingers were tapping on the table’s surface—a fast, irritated rhythm. “Who knows when that will be? I have plenty of reason to get the best price for the supplies I have. So I’ll have a proper payment from you, girl, or you’ll get nothing.”
Before he could continue, she lifted her hand. She had a few bracelets on her wrists. Two were good-quality metal. She slipped them off, placing them on the table before him, alongside the purse.
“The money and these,” she said. “That’s all I have.”
She thought he’d refuse her, just out of spite. But instead, he scooped up the bangles and the coin and pocketed them.
“That’ll do. Now watch,” he said. “I’ll show you a trick.”
He threw a cloth package down on the table. It was tied with a rope. He drew it open with one swift tug, letting the cloth fall to the sides.
Priya flinched back.
Inside lay the severed branch of a young tree. The bark had split, pale wood opening up into a red-brown wound. The sap that oozed from its surface was the color and consistency of blood.
“This came from the path leading to the grove my men usually harvest,” he said. “They wanted to show me why they couldn’t fulfill the regular quota. Rot as far as the eye could see, they told me.” His own eyes were hooded. “You can look closer if you want.”
“No, thank you,” Priya said tightly.
“Sure?”
“You should burn it,” she said. She was doing her best not to breathe the scent of it in too deeply. It had a stench like meat.
He snorted. “It has its uses.” He walked away from her, rooting through his shelves. After a moment, he returned with another cloth-wrapped item, this one only as large as a fingertip. He unwrapped it, careful to keep from touching what it held. Priya could feel the heat rising from the wood within: a strange, pulsing warmth that rolled off its surface with the steadiness of a sunbeam.
Sacred wood.
She watched as Gautam held the shard close to the rot-struck branch, as the lesion on the branch paled, the redness fading. The stench of it eased a little, and Priya breathed gratefully.
“There,” he said. “Now you know it is fresh. You’ll get plenty of use from it.”
“Thank you. That was a useful demonstration.” She tried not to let her impatience show. What did he want—awe? Tears of gratitude? She had no time for any of it. “You should still burn the branch. If you touch it by mistake…”
“I know how to handle the rot. I send men into the forest every day,” he said dismissively. “And what do you do? Sweep floors? I don’t need your advice.”
He thrust the shard of sacred wood out to her. “Take this. And leave.”
She bit her tongue and held out her hand, the long end of her sari drawn over her palm. She rewrapped the sliver of wood up carefully, once, twice, tightening the fabric, tying it off with a neat knot. Gautam watched her.