“I’m glad you’re better,” she said.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Thanks to Tod.”
Philo came forward and held out a hand almost as big as the centaur’s, but not as warm when Zillah grasped it. He seemed shy. But when Zillah smiled, he smiled too, and his smile was big and sly and confiding. “We should add that Tod’s full name is Roderick Halstatten Everenzi Pla—”
“No, don’t!” Tod said, wincing. “Tod will do.”
“He’s heir to a Pentarchy,” Josh explained. “It bothers him.”
Since it evidently did bother Tod, Zillah said to him, “How come you’re the only person in this place who understands what Marcus says?”
“I have six elder sisters,” Tod said wryly. “My parents kept grimly on until they got the required boy-child. Apart from being brought up in a houseful of hysteria and general henpecking, this means I have nephews. And nieces. Dozens of them. Some of my earliest memories are of having to understand baby talk so that I could tell the little bleeders that I was their uncle and they couldn’t have my toys.”
They began to walk as Tod talked, to another of the archways, all in a group in the most natural way. It was clear all three young men assumed Zillah was one of their number. And she was too, in some strange way, she thought, looking up at Josh’s laughing face and over at the prattling Tod. Something eased within her. She had friends. This was something she had seldom found possible before. She had never been able to fall easily into a relationship, the way other people could — yet here she was, chatting away as if she had known all three of them for years. She felt as if she had known them for years. Each of them felt familiar: Josh’s awkward strength, Philo’s slyness and sweetness, Tod’s insouciance. She smiled at Philo, and in the most natural manner, he came around Josh to lean against her.
6
Roz halted in a large unveiled archway and struck an attitude, feet apart, hands on hips. She felt good. Every line of her said Woman! And it worked. Without her needing to project her presence at all, the heads of the blue-clothed mages bending over their work in the room beyond were turning toward her, one and one, then hurriedly and guiltily turning away. She could almost see the flickers of lust playing across them. Good. This was doing what she had come to do.
After a moment one of the higher brothers hastened across to her, selfconsciously adjusting his short-horned headdress.
“Am I somewhere I shouldn’t be?” Roz asked as he opened his mouth to speak.
He shook his horned head and looked flustered. “Not at all. This is Observer Horn. Where did you wish to be?”
She knew this was not what he had been going to say. He had meant to turn her out. Good. “Mind if I look round then?”
“Not at all, not at all. Let me show you around.” He led the way toward the rows of busy mages. Roz followed, stalking high, knowing he was conscious of every movement she made behind him. She felt like the cat that had the cream.
7
Sandra and Helen, bearing the large platter toward where they thought the kitchens were, were intercepted by two mutually chaperoning young mages. Politely, deferentially, they told Sandra her presence was required in Calculus Horn.
Sandra popped her eyes at Helen. “Okay. Sure you can manage this plate-thing on your own?”
“Of course,” Helen said quietly. “I’m far stronger than I look. Which way are the kitchens?”
The way was pointed out. Helen arrived there to find the place in that afternoon lull that occurs in all kitchens. She set the platter of half-eaten food carefully on the nearest table and surveyed the long, vaulted chain of rooms. Ovens she located, pans, work surfaces. The business of cooking varied very little from world to world, evidently. This place reminded her of a monastery kitchen she had once visited.
Having acquainted herself with the various arrangements, she walked quietly to the far end, where dishes were being washed by two weary-looking young mages. “Do you two do the cooking here?” she asked them.
“We’re only cadets, ma’am,” they told her, “on scullion duty. Brother Milo’s in charge. Do you want him?”
“Not yet,” Helen said, thoughtfully. “What’s being planned for supper? Do you know?”
Passet casseroled with lamb, she was told, with baked passet on the side. When she inquired how it should be made and for how many, they looked somewhat blank. They were only cadets. The mysteries of cooking had been withheld from them. But they were ready enough to talk. There were, after all, two of them and they felt they were chaperoned. And Helen’s looks had a cool angularity that amounted almost to gawkiness, and almost but not quite to unattractiveness. People always assumed she was a virgin. She carefully accentuated this quality for the benefit of the cadets. They felt she was safe, even if she was a woman. Besides, she was kind enough to help with the dishes. While she did so, they explained, more and more eagerly, that cadets with less than average ability were sent to work in the kitchens and that this made them feel slighted, the more so in that almost none of the mageworks — such as those were — that were used in the kitchens had yet been shown to them.
“It’s not so much magework,” Helen said carefully, “as artistry that one uses in cooking. Would you like me to show you what I mean?”
Would they! But what on?
“We could always make a start on that casserole.”
They liked that idea. Brother Milo would doubtless commend their zeal.
Shortly they were scurrying about fetching ingredients from great cupboards primed with stasis spells. Helen learnt that the magecraft which prevented food from decaying was simple and easy to operate. It had to be, she was told, because so many people handled the food. In one cool corner of her mind she toyed with the idea of simply breaking those spells and then putting blocks on against anyone renewing them. A suicidal act — like this whole foray was, she suspected. Soon everyone in the citadel would be down with dysentery or starving. She dismissed the notion. It was not creative, it was too easily detected and, besides, she liked to cook.
Meanwhile the two boys had heaped the long tables with daunting quantities of provisions, very short on the meat, despite the quantity, and as usual high on the passet. Helen surveyed it, stretching and flexing her thin fingers. When she had talked of artistry, she had been quite sincere. What she had in mind was very artistic indeed, not exactly a weaving, more an insidious campaign to bend the inhabitants of the citadel to the ways of Earth. It would not be as swift as virus-magic, but it ought, in the long run, to be just as effective. And it suited her better, as one whose gift for witchcraft had always been bound up with practical things. In the meantime, the food itself should divert attention from what she was doing—surely someone in this citadel would appreciate better food!
“The first art lies in the choice of herbs,” she told the cadets. “What herbs are there?”
There were gratifying ranks of them, under stasis in glass jars. Clearly the cooking in Arth had not always been so plain. Not all the herbs had names Helen was used to, but touch and smell told her which was which of the ones she knew, and which of the unknown ones might prove useful as well. And, thank goodness, there were masses of garlic.
As she worked, the older kitchen staff began to filter back from their rest period. With quiet, cool requests for this or that, she soon had them busy too. When Brother Milo came back on duty, he was outraged to find his entire staff hard at work and supper well under way, all at the command of this long, calm, gawky young woman — who smiled coolly at him.