A Storm of Swords – Tansy
Catelyn sits by her father, Hoster Tully’s death bed, and listens to his rambling. The word he repeats is “tansy”. Catelyn doesn’t understand what he’s talking about and assumes it’s a woman.
This is one of the first of many puzzle pieces that Mr. Martin drops about some of the darker secrets around Lysa Arryn and Littlefinger. For that matter tansy, specifically, tansy tea will show up as a plot point several times later on. Having only heard of tansy in this book I did look it up and found it’s a very real plant that was used to induce miscarriages during the middle ages. However, the amount required made it very risky. No wonder Lysa kept having miscarriages later.
It still surprises me that Catelyn was so sheltered that she didn’t know this.
I’m afraid I really screwed up the perspective of Lord Hoster’s bed. In hindsight, I should have done this as a medium shot.
Catelyn – pg 38