Deeds of Honor (6 page)

"Five days is enough," her grandson said.

"No. You cannot be sure," Lady Verrakai said. He opened his mouth; Farin tried to watch without being obvious. What would the lady do? What would he do? He shut his mouth again.

"A ladyglass, then," Lady Verrakai said. She glanced at the one on the kitchen shelf; it lifted in the air, turned upside down, and the sand inside began running through it. "Into the oven with those."

"Yes, milady," Farin said, with another curtsey. She slid the peel under the dough, then swung it around as Jaim pulled the oven cover aside.

* * * *

By the time the travel bread came out of the oven, all the cheese and sausage and honeycakes were packed, each in a rolled cloth, and Farin had the wrappings for the bread ready as well. A count of ten after that, the steward arrived, demanding the food; Farin pointed to the loaded table. "Where should we take it?"

"Not you, Cook," he said. He gestured, and two men dressed in the Verrakaien militia uniform strode in, picked up the baskets and walked out. "Clean this up!" the steward said, waving to the kitchen.

"Yes, Steward," Farin said, nodding. To her helpers, she said "They'll be wanting midday meal soon enough, and we need rusks for the children's supper."

The rest of that day she felt always a step behind, as the missed sleep and the bruises wore on her, but she managed to finish the day's work without another beating.

Cooking for the women and children was a much lighter task than for the full household, and in the next hand of days Farin recovered her own strength and made headway on preparing for the men's return. Once a day, sometimes twice, Lady Verrakai or the duke's brother's widow appeared in the kitchen door and stood watching. Farin made sure the kitchen looked busy from dawn to well after dinner. Nothing was out of place longer than it was in use; no spills left unwiped, no dirty dishes left stacked.

When that hand of days passed, and the men had not returned, other servants in the house began to ask Farin if she had heard anything. She shushed them and sent them away. The wives and widows would not tolerate gossiping, she knew. But she wondered. The lad had thought five days' enough...well, in this season, any journey could take an extra day or so.

Then it was two hands of days since the men had left. Then three. One early morning Efla broke down crying; Farin pushed her into the dry pantry next to the ovens, where meal and dry beans and the like were stored. "Will you hush! Do you want a beating like I had? What is wrong?"

"I—I didn't bleed," Efla said.

Farin aimed what she hoped was a potent curse in the direction of the young lord, imagining arrows falling from the sky, spears thrust from the side. "You might lose it," she said.

"I—I want birthbane."

"Hush! You know it's forbidden here!"

"But—"

"No. Do not ask. It is not for us, their servants. You can—" What could she, what would she do? Farin's own child, taken away at birth, supposedly fostered somewhere...might be, she knew, dead. She did not even know if it had been a boy or girl. "You can do nothing," she said. "We must endure."

"I can't...I want to die..."

Farin closed her eyes a moment. She had felt that despair and that terror, but she had known—from early—that she had something of her own, a place, a way to be that was not merely part of the terrifying world of the Verrakai.

She sat down on a barrel of meal. "Efla. Listen to me. Listen well; I can tell you only once, and I must be quick, before the Lady comes down."

Sniffles, no words.

"You know I have a parrion of cooking. That is what makes me able to endure what I endured the other night—what we must all endure. But those of us with a parrion can—can live in that parrion, thinking about it, using it, learning from it. Dying serves them—they can use the dead, with their evil magery. A parrion cannot be corrupted and it holds us in the Lady's peace...Alyanya's peace. "

"You—you can't say that name—"

"Hssh! I just did. Older than any Verrakai, the Lady is. You don't say it; you just know it. And you, Efla, you have the parrion too. I saw it that day you added herbs to the eggs for their breakfast; I've watched you since. The Lady of Peace has given you her gift, your parrion, to feed people. You know by smell, didn't you? It just feels right?"

"Y-yes."

"So there you are. That's your parrion, Efla. You'll make a real cook someday. Think about that, and not what's growing in your belly. Think about that—they cannot take that from you, without taking your breath. No one can. And if you die, the pain's all gone, forever."

"They—they said the Blood Lord would always own me—"

Farin sighed. "They say...and they have powers, no doubt of it, but...I was Lady-blessed at the well near my parents' home, on my name-day. She's no warrior, the Lady isn't, but she's strong and she takes us all when we die. Body to body, she wraps us 'round, and—" A noise from the kitchen stopped her. "Stay here," she said. "Behind the door." Quickly, she reached the measure that hung from the back of the door, and scooped out a measure of beans from the barrel on that side of the pantry.

"Cook! Where are you?" Lady Verrakai.

Farin opened the pantry door. "Here, milady."

"What were you doing in there?"

"Fetching out beans to test, milady." Farin held out the measure. "I test them every three tendays, to be sure none are softening or sprouting. Milady will remember a hand of years ago, when a barrel went bad—"

Lady Verrakai looked hard at her, but Farin held her own expression steady. "I do remember," she said. "And do you dig down into the barrel, or take them from the top?"

"When it's full, milady, I dig down; when it's more empty, from the top."

"And you have not tested these yet?"

"No, milady."

"Show me."

Farin reached down a bowl, poured water into it, and then poured in half the measure of beans. Most sank at once, a few floated. She pushed them down; two rose up again.

"Are they rotten?" Lady Verrakai asked.

"No, milady, but they may have a hole where a weevil was."

"What do you with the rest of that measure?"

"Test each bean for hardness, milady," Farin said. She took the big cleaver and cut one bean neatly in two. "See, milady, the inside shows if it's dry or soft, and if there's a growing bit. This one is a good one."

"And you throw these beans away?"

"No, milady. That would be waste. The ones I cut will be pounded to bean flour, to thicken soups; the bean flour we keep in a jar, in the same pantry. The ones being soaked will be mashed when they're soft, cooked, then mixed with herbs and lard into a paste for roasting meats."

"Very well." Lady Verrakai said nothing more, and went away.

Farin assumed she was still in hearing. "Jaim, bring the pestle over and the mortar; you will pound the beans as I cut them."

Another five days passed, four hands of days since they'd left and the men did not return. The stable workers and the few militia left at the house looked tense every time Farin went outside for something. The next morning, when coming back to the house from the servants' jacks, Farin saw a group coming in the stable yard gate: four militia men herding some peasants roped together, neck to neck to neck. Nausea gripped her. She hurried across the cobbled yard to the kitchen door, looking away from them. She knew what would happen; they would be taken to the tower...and did that mean one of the red priests had come?

What would happen would happen, and nothing a cook could do about it. She could not even protect her own. Efla, later that day, saw someone in Verrakai livery ride in on a lathered horse. Whoever it was did not come through the kitchen, but Lady Verrakai and the other Verrakai women did, striding through without meeting anyone's gaze as Farin and the others flattened themselves against the walls.

"To the dungeons," Farin said quietly to her staff, after she was sure the mageladies had gone far enough. Whatever news had been brought was bad...something had happened to those who had ridden away...but what? She scolded Efla and Jaim and Kolin, pushing them to work harder, faster. Whatever it was, bad news for the lords and ladies meant worse news for the servants.

The ladies were back before the evening meal, and this time Lady Verrakai paused in the kitchen, looking around at the work being done. Her slow cruel smile stopped Farin's hands stirring a sauce, and then her magery stopped them all, until taking a breath was like hauling on a stone.

"That girl," Lady Verrakai said, "does not have her mark, I think?"

Farin could not move, could not speak.

"You do. I remember well how you squealed when it was given. But the girl—the lad was in haste to teach her her faults, and did not take the time then. It is often so, as it was with you. She must be marked." Lady Verrakai went to Efla, stiff as the rest with fear and magery, and stroked her cheek. "Yes, dear, you must have your mark, so all know you belong to Verrakai and to the Bloodlord." Then she stepped back, and looked again at Farin. "After we eat, I think. You will have dinner ready on time." Then she turned and walked to the door, leaving them all caught fast in her magery, unable to move. She glanced back. "Oh...perhaps you do need to move." Farin felt the pressure ease. "But none of you will leave this room until the girl has been marked."

She was gone, and Farin knew the doors were blocked with magery. She said nothing but what a cook should say, urging the others to finish the preparation for dinner, and when it was done, Lady Verrakai stood again in the doorway with the servants who would carry in the food. She had no need to say anything; Farin knew the door was unblocked only to allow the servants entrance, to pick up the food and carry it out...and then they were closed in once more.

Efla's eyes were red; tears overflowed.

"No," Farin said. "Not now."

"They're going to hurt me again!"

"It's only for the mark," Farin said, trying not to remember the pain of that, the hot needle, the burning stuff pushed into her skin, how long the mark burned and then itched as it healed. "Don't cry, Efla. They'll take longer if you cry; they like that. Think of your future; think of your parrion. The kitchen you will have someday and how much more you will know—no pain lasts forever."

"I don't care!" Efla's sobs shook her voice. "I-I'll never—I can't—I'm scared—"

Jaim and Kolin were trembling now, whimpering. It was too much; if Efla screamed, they would all be punished and Efla most likely would die in the cells after many days of torment. Farin cuffed Jaim on the way to Efla, grabbed her shoulders, shook her into silence. She leaned close. "Stop your sniveling, or I will hurt you myself. You will get us all taken to the cells. You will be silent until milady comes, and you will go with her like the obedient servant you are, and you will endure whatever there is to endure. Do. You. Understand?"

Efla stared back at her, eyes swimming with tears. She blinked, then nodded. "Y-y-yes, Cook."

Farin let go her shoulders; the girl did not fall, though she put a hand on the work table to steady herself. Farin looked around at the others. "All of you: this kitchen must be clean before milady returns from dinner. I will wash the bowls—" She did not trust their shaking hands with breakable things. "Kolin and Efla, you will clean the table. Jaim, you clean the floor."

When Lady Verrakai and the others reappeared, the kitchen was clean, the pots and utensils polished, the fire banked for the night, and dough for the morrow's bread safely in the warming oven. The women looked around, ran hands over the table top, called their magelight to look at the floor...but all was in order.

"You will remain here until we return," Lady Verrakai said. "And you will stand where you are."

Once more the mage power held Farin, Jaim, and Kolin, each standing in place, while the mageladies went to Efla, took hold of her, and forced her away, out the kitchen entrance. Whether they silenced her, or Efla had managed to hold her own tongue, Farin could not tell, but the girl made no sound.

Time passed. Farin's legs grew tired; her feet burned. She could not sit; she could not even fall down. Magery held her in place, but not as something to lean against, to be helpful while forced to stand. Instead every pebble of her weight pressed onto her feet, and her feet onto the floor, and she thought she could feel every vein of the stone in the floor.

Finally the women returned, with Efla, senseless, over the shoulder of a groom. At Lady Verrakai's orders, he laid her on the floor, then left. She smiled at them all. "You may return to work now. It is but two glasses until time for breakfast, so I expect breakfast on time."

The magery melted away, as the ladies left the kitchen. Farin staggered, her legs stiff and her feet cramping, on her way to Efla. "Take buckets, use the jacks, fetch water," she said to them as she knelt beside Efla. "Be quick about it; we've scarcely time."

Efla was alive. Farin folded back the shoulder of her dress...there, the horned chain on her shoulder. But it would not only there, not with the time they'd taken. She could not undress the girl; she could not even put her to bed. She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears she dared not shed, blinked hard, and then shook Efla's other shoulder as gently as she could.

"Efla. Wake up. It's over. We need you."

Efla groaned; her eyelids fluttered open and she jerked her head.

"Quiet," Farin said. "It's Farin. You're in the kitchen. The ladies want their breakfast on time. Get up now."

Efla shook her head, biting her lip.

"Now!" Farin said, hardening her voice. She yanked on Efla's arm; the girl cried out, but not loudly, and Farin finally got her upright. Jaim came in with a bucket of water. "Wash your face," Farin said. "And Jaim, fetch two clean aprons."

Kolin came in with her bucket. Farin splashed some water on her own face, and poked up the fire in the ovens. The dough had risen properly overnight; she thumped it down on the table, pounded it a little, and then looked at Efla. Clean-faced now...a clean apron replacing the rumpled mess she'd worn...no time to have her change her dress anyway.