Characters:Dun Barethsol:Padrig
Padrig "the Apothecary" is disheartened and disappointed when Marcella runs away from her apprenticeship. He understands, distantly, why she disappeared, but wishes she had understood enough about alchemy and her teacher to be patient. He would have taken her back willingly had she returned. She showed promise even before she ran off. To return would have shown that she understood her mistake and was willing to make amends.
Padrig is an alchemist whose business as an apothecary is more than a front. He is interested in the workings of the world, the workings of the body, and plants. He has some small control over magic, but this control is largely unconscious. Mostly, he knows that the right ingredients in the right proportions often have pleasing results. He also knows a great deal about growing things. He has as much a reputation for his flower garden and the quality of his carrots as for his herbal cures.
He began to train Marcella as he has always trained apprentices. As a firm believer in the maxim "faithful with a little, faithful with a lot" and the alchemist's need to keep a low profile, he begins every apprentice with cleaning the shop, weeding the garden, and doing the laundry. Alchemy is work, just as smithing is work. He would waste his time if he tried to train someone who was unwilling to work. Thus, he began to train her as he has always trained apprentices. He had her do the simple things where she would be able to watch the working of the complicated things he could do. He had her work in the garden, where she would have contact with the plants she would later use. To his disappointment, she did not see it that way.
Padrig was discreet about his alchemy, using it mostly in research or difficult cases. More often than not, he was succesful. For him, his distance from the great cities was both a blessing and hindrance. The distance was fortunate in that there were few, if any, others to provide ready-made solutions to crises. He was left free to explore and research. However, the same lack of peers which left him free to research left him without any partners in research, other test subjects, or like thinkers with whom to compare notes. His relationship with his next-door neighbor, a woman named Merigan approximately his age, developed partly because he lacked another alchemist in whom to confide. Gossip in Erinsford regarding the exact nature of this relationship ranges from the vicious and salacious to the gentle but overly nosy. His 'neighbor,' Merigan, was his childhood friend and his partner in love, work, and gardening. By the time Marcella came to know the pair, the two houses, situated side-by-side had long since become one residence, despite the two roofs.
Padrig pursued his alchemy and medicine with a basically Elvish motivation. He sought knowledge of the human body, knowledge of its ailments and their cures, and ways of truly preventing diseases. He and Merigan were both slightly disfigured by their experimentation into preventing sickness by deliberately making themselves mildly ill. They shared these disabilities and deformities as they shared everything else.
The one secret that Padrig kept was what he suspected about Albrecht. He did this partly because he was an honest man. Having been stung by gossip about his relationship to his beloved, he became unwilling to slander Albrecht. As alchemists, each knew the other was practicing the art in some way. Albrecht, as the local Duke, knew Padrig's general activities. Albrecht also feared the other's years of training and the possibility that the herbalist might discover the lord's dark designs. The apothecary suspected Albrecht of corruption and of gathering the wrong sorts of lore. Albrecht, not above subtlely poisoning rivals, occasionally created the very illnesses which the apothecary treated. From these cases, the apothecary suspected that Albrecht was a Blighter, or an alchemist who chose to practice the fell art of poison. The sicknesses, however, were always too subtle for anything beyond suspicion and feelings of uneasiness. A lesser physician might have written the cases off as no more than untimely death.
As Albrecht's plan came to fruition and unrest grew in Erinsford, Padrig wrote a letter, dictated to and by his beloved, to Marcella, warning her about Albrecht. Then they burned the letter and decided that if anything were to happen to either, the other would explicitly warn Marcella. A few days later, Marcella ran away and Padrig was murdered and burglarized while Merigan was out to market. When the news came of Marcella's capture, Merigan moved at once, driven by a strong mixture of fear, grief, anger, love, duty, and disappointment.