“Poison on the dish? So that if you touch it and then put your hands to your mouth…” She pantomimed the action, getting a glowing look from the man. He actually clapped his hands.

“Indeed. Exactly right Patricia. I would say your device is a ringing success. I'd like to test it further, if I could borrow it? Or… do you have more than one again?” The man seemed excited for some reason.

“Oh, yeah, ten right now, five on me, so here, take this one.” He handed over the one tested, and the man got the girls to help him open a large wooden case that had glass jars inside, powders and liquids. Were they all poisons? The answer came pretty quickly, when one after the other, they all were all opened, corks popped and stoppers breached, only to make the new device cause the air to glow with what looked like very bright sunlight.

The old man suggested that Tor get something to eat. That sounded like a wonderful idea, since his stomach growled at him a little. Not so loud as to be embarrassing though, thankfully. After testing one of the plates of food in front of him again, just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything, a fish dish with a white cream sauce that came with braised asparagus, he did. That, even more than the testing itself, seemed to get attention. Was the fish not good here? It tasted fine. Better than that, really good in fact. They used slivered almonds in the sauce, Tor thought, which gave it a little texture. Trice looked at him wide eyed and then smiled. She held the device that the old man was testing and Sara put the poisons back in the case carefully, making sure she didn't touch anything else with her hands.

Tor got that; a simple sneeze could spread deadly poison around the room. I occurred to him that playing with poisons in the dining hall might be just a little dangerous, but no one blinked overly at it. Whatever else these people were, they weren't cowards at least.