I realised, in the tone of that "when you're ready", that I had spent too long getting clean.
"Lad's helped me finish the apple pie." The old man shepherded Lad before him, and left me alone.
With little choice, I stood and stepped carefully from the water. As I wrapped a large, pine-smelling towel around me, something gurgled in my gut. I was ravenous.
I did as the old man had instructed. I smeared the gunk – I couldn't bring myself to think of it as golden – on my stitches. Kichlan and Lad had no mirror, so I couldn't be entirely sure I had got all of them, but I had cleaned the wounds enough times to do it mostly from memory. It stung at first, before easing the aching skin into a warm kind of numbness. Despite myself, I couldn't help a surge of affection for the old man as I tied the fresh bandages. For bits of an old towel they worked surprisingly well.
For a moment I considered leaving my uniform in its heap on the floor. Then I imagined Kichlan's reaction. I collected the dark cloth from the floorboards. It was dry. I lifted it close to my face and sniffed. Again it surprised me, giving off not so much of a hint of the sewer. I dragged it on.
The silver hand on the dresser caught my eye. I picked it up. It was heavy, and clinked on the inside as I weighed it in my palm. Where the wrist should be was a jagged hole, metal ending in burns and rust. I peered inside. Dimly, I could see thick wires coiled in on each other. They reminded me too keenly of the fibres in their metal tube, those that had become my suit. What was this hand, that it resembled the suit so closely? And why was it on Kichlan's dresser? Something told me it did not belong to Lad.
"Tanyana?" Kichlan called from the floor below. "Are you coming?"
I dropped the hand. It fell with a crash that sounded louder to my ears than it should have. I stood, stone still, waiting for Kichlan to run up the stairs. No one came. Heart knocking against my chest I collected the hand, placed it back on the dresser. It hadn't bent, or scratched, although it seemed to rattle more than before. I gave it a last pat, and hoped Kichlan didn't move it often.
Kichlan had left me a long woollen shirt and a pair of pants that were so baggy I had to tuck them into my uniform to keep them up. But I enjoyed the looseness of the material, and its warmth, and it had a fresh, woodsy smell that made me think they probably came from the same cupboard as the towel.
As dressed as I could be, I ran my fingers through my hair. It had grown longer than I usually allowed it, so it puffed out around my ears and curled lightly near the top of my neck. I replaced the lid on the jar, and descended.
I found Kichlan, Lad and Eugeny waiting by a crackling fire in a room I realised was the kitchen. It had a low fireplace built of dark stone, above which were suspended great metal plates. A round, flat tin container sat on one of them, and I guessed that was where a rich cinnamon smell was wafting from. My stomach growled again.
"Tanyana?" Kichlan spoke as I entered the room. I think he must have heard my stomach before my feet.
I found it strangely easy to smile as I met his concerned brown eyes. "I didn't know what you do with the water."
"Lad will fix it later," Kichlan said. His face was guarded, not entirely reassured. "How are you feeling?"
I nodded, and noticed I could no longer feel stiffness or pain in my neck. "Better. Thanks, I'm sure, to you all." I handed Eugeny his yellow gunk. "Thank you."
The old man nodded; Kichlan shrugged as though it didn't matter and turned his face away. Lad, however, beamed. "I helped Geny with his pie," he said, reaching for the tin above the fireplace. "From apples Geny got from the old woman who has a cellar and keeps them in there even when they're not the best." He barely breathed. "Geny says it doesn't help, keeping them cold like that, they still go brown but she won't listen to him, she won't." He tried to lift the metal lid, fingers dancing around the hot handle. His silver suit, where it wrapped around his wrist, reflected warm embers from the fire below. "So Geny made them into a pie, and I helped him finish it. You can eat them like that. Can we have some?"
Kichlan, exasperated, gripped his brother's hand before he could make another try for the handle. "It's hot, Lad. And no, supper comes first, pie comes last."
"Oh." Lad's face fell, but only stayed down a moment. "I can help, Geny. We need plates." He shook his brother off and buzzed to the sagging wooden cabinets in one corner of the room.
"You rile him up," Kichlan snapped at me.
The calm of a bath cracked at his tone. I bristled. "This was your idea."
"Not one of my best."
"And I'm not doing anything, he didn't give me the chance to say anything either. How could I possibly rile him up?"
"Your presence alone, Tan."
I clipped any possible retort when Lad, arms laden with plates, hurried between us. "You gotta sit down to eat," he told me, as he passed.
The dining table filled the second half of the kitchen. It was strange to eat in the same room as the cooking fire and cutlery cupboards, and it reminded me of home. The home of my childhood, the one I had shared with my mother before my binding skill earned me enough kopacks to afford a apartment close to the city centre. I sat on a wooden chair with a faded patchwork cushion. Kichlan set two thick candles in the centre of the table and lit them with a flame borrowed from the fire. The warmth and light made the pale beech table seem deeper. I knew that colour, remembered the scent of smoke and food. I had worked so hard to leave that life behind, a world of few pions, fewer kopacks, of hungry nights and my mother's aged, worn face. Why, when Eugeny's home reminded me of it so clearly, did I actually like the feeling? I had never reminisced about the past before, I knew I had moved on to better things. Why start now?
Then Eugeny placed a thick-edged saucepan in the middle of the table, filled with a bubbling concoction of vegetables and meat. He spooned the thick stew onto rough clay plates with a wide silver spoon that had tarnished with age. The dancing bear designs on the handle gave it an heirloom air, and I wondered if anything else in his house was as precious as this piece of silverware undoubtedly once was.
Neither Kichlan nor Lad waited on any ceremony, but began eating as soon as Eugeny had served them. I hesitated. What had my mother done, before each meal? Said thanks to the Keeper, or something similar…
"Eat," Eugeny said. He gave me a sad little smile. "You'll be hungry."
I took his advice, and the moment the food touched my tongue I was lost in hunger and wrapped in thick gravy. The meat might have been beef, or something more common, even deer. I didn't care. It was tender, it was tangy. Potatoes dissolved in my mouth; turnips were rich with flavour and still a little crunchy. I had no idea what Eugeny could have done to make something so very basic taste so amazing. A hint of spice also, what was that? Not heat like Hon Ji noodles, not quite. It was like he had waved the chilli over it instead, only touched the stew with flavour.
The plate was empty before I knew it, and I was acutely aware that there was no more in the pot. Had I eaten into their meal and forced Lad, or Kichlan perhaps, to settle with that bit less?
Kichlan and Eugeny ate at a far more sedate, polite pace.
Eugeny took his time spooning the contents from his plate into his mouth, and chewed each bite extensively. Did he have all his teeth left, and were they whole? Could they be, without a well-paid healer to keep the bone sure? "Finished already?" he asked me between chews.
"It was lovely."
He concentrated on his spoon.
Lad, who seemed to be shovelling as hard as I had but obviously had more on his plate, grinned widely. Gravy dribbled down his chin. "You were hungry," he observed.
Kichlan leaned over and wiped his brother's face with a small, pale blue towel he had folded and placed beside his plate. Perhaps put there in anticipation of this very need.