She set to work acutely aware of Luap watching her. Had he ever seen her at her own parrion? She couldn’t remember. She chopped, grated, and squeezed, as each ingredient demanded, then put all to simmer on the hearth. Meshi bustled past her one way and then the other, chopping vegetables into bowls, stirring them into a huge kettle of stew, taking Arya’s last batch of bread from the oven and putting the loaves on racks to cool, washing up behind herself as if she had an extra pair of hands. Rahi did not miss the looks Meshi gave Luap, or the occasional sharp glance she herself received. When she had the pot simmering to her satisfaction, Rahi offered to help with whatever Meshi had planned.
“Oh, dear, no—no need.” Meshi hardly paused in her path between pantry and kitchen. “I’m not rushed. Just you sit there and keep an eye on your own pot, so I won’t worry about it.” She came back from the pantry with an apronful of apples, and sat down to peel them. Rahi, rebuffed, ventured a smile at Luap. He nodded and gave her a smile that seemed more forced than natural . . . although after their earlier encounter she had to admit that only a forced smile would be natural.
“Meshi likes to feed people almost as much as I like to eat,” he said, with a nod to the cook. She smiled warmly at him, a curl of apple peel dangling from the knife.
“I like to feed those as know good cooking from bad,” she said. “Luap’s one to know if I change a single spice in my preserves.”
“My parrion was cooking and herblore,” Rahi said, feeling unaccountably shy.
“Was it now?” Meshi looked up, interested. “I thought you looked more deft than most who cook for need and not love. And you gave that up to be a Marshal, eh?” Rahi wondered where Meshi had been during the war. She looked to be Luap’s age, and perhaps, like many city people, she had simply stayed home and hoped the war would not disrupt her life.
“I had no choice,” Rahi said, feeling her face flush. She had assumed that everyone knew her story. “And now—”
“Raheli has no village to return to,” Luap said smoothly. “Surely you knew, Meshi. . . .”
“Oh.” Now it was Meshi’s turn to flush. “I’m sorry. I should have known . . . it’s just these dratted apples . . . all full of core and I wasn’t thinking—” Her hands twitched among the peels.
“It’s all right,” Rahi said. “I must get used to those who don’t know the whole story.”
Meshi turned to her. “As you had a parrion for it, would you want to help with these apples?”
“Of course.” Rahi moved to the table, and picked up an apple. “Sliced or just cored?”
“Sliced, not too thin.” Meshi put an earthenware bowl between them. “If old Gird’s feeling better by suppertime, he’ll have some of it.”
They worked companionably until all the apples were sliced. Rahi got up to sniff her brew, and Meshi continued with her apple dish. Luap had snatched a slice on his way out, and Meshi laughed at him. “That man! There’s not another in this place like him. Those two, Arya and Lia, they don’t like him for being half mageborn, say he puts on airs, but I don’t see that. He likes to eat, but what man doesn’t?”
“He’s been with my—with Gird a long time,” Rahi said, stirring the brew. It smelled about right; she found a cloth to wrap the hot pan, and a mug for Gird to drink from.
Meshi stopped short and looked at her. “It’s hard for me to believe, Gird being your father. Him so fair and balding, and you so dark—”
“My mother,” Rahi said. “She was dark.”
“Ah. And a parrion of cooking, like you? Surely it came from her family, for old Gird, bless him, can hardly boil water.”
Rahi laughed, surprising both of them. “I know. When my mother died, he had to cook—and I learned very quickly.”
“It’s none o’ my affair,” said Meshi in the tone always used by those who say it anyway, “but your Da needs a family. Why not come here to live? You’d be happier in your parrion than off somewhere being a Marshal.”
Rahi smiled at her, but shook her head. “I have to be a Marshal,” she said. “I don’t quite know why, but I know it’s right.” Then she took the brew upstairs, and woke Gird from a restless doze. When he asked her the same question, she was ready with the same answer . . . and he smiled at her and agreed.
Chapter Six
“I want to see the Marshal-General,” Aris said. Seri pressed close behind him.
“Run off, lad, and tell your Marshal your troubles,” said the big guard. The skinny one said nothing, but his eyes laughed. Aris felt his anger glowing, and fought it back. He knew what the Marshal-General thought of boys who lost their tempers. They had not come this far to make fools of themselves.
“The Marshal-General,” he said again. “It’s t-too imp-portant for just our Marshal.”
Brows went up on both guards. “Oh?” said the skinny one. “Would your Marshal agree?”
Aris just stared at them, one after the other. Finally the skinny one flushed, shrugged, and said, “Gran’ther Gird won’t mind young’uns. He never does.” The big guard glowered, but finally shrugged as well.
“All right, but you stop first at Luap’s and ask if the Marshal-General’s got other business right now. Upstairs, second door on the right.” He stepped aside, waving a vast meaty hand. Aris and Seri scampered past. The guard yelled after them, “No running! This isn’t some alley, brats!” Seri giggled. Aris was at the landing before he figured it out: alley brats, just what everyone called them, but the guard hadn’t meant it that way. Exactly.
“We made it,” she whispered. “I didn’t think—”
Aris shushed her. Another flight to a passage . . . paneled walls, a floor of patterned wood, dark and yellow. Once it would have been polished; now it was clean, but scuffed. The first door on the right was closed. The next, open, gave on a sun-barred room lined with shelves. A tall man in Girdish blue sat at a table, facing away from them, looking at someone on a low pallet under the windows. Aris peeked around the door . . . the youth on the bed lay pale as milk, bones tight under the skin of his face, eyes deep-shadowed. Seri, bolder now that they were upstairs, rapped on the doorpost. The tall man swung around, finger to lips, then stared at them, clearly surprised. With a glance at the sleeping youth, he rose and came to the door.
Aris had heard the tales. Gird’s luap, the Marshal-General’s scribe and friend, was supposed to be mageborn on his father’s side. Royal, whispered some. King’s bastard. Uncanny, born with great powers but promised not to use them. Can’t trust that kind, most muttered, making one or another warding sign. Their Marshal said the same, glowering when another leaf of Gird’s Code came down, scribed in the luap’s elegant hand. To Aris, he looked like just another tall, dark-haired adult. An uncle or father, not a grandfather, and no more magical than a post. Seri pinched him. His mouth came unglued, and he said, quietly enough, “Sir, they said downstairs to tell you we’ve come to see the Marshal-General.”
The tall man had graceful brows, but they still rose. “Children, now, they’re letting in to pester the Marshal-General? Or do you bear a message from your Marshal or some judicar who could not come himself?”
“It’s our message, sir!” Seri pushed past Aris; she knew his temper and its limits. Her single braid hung crooked over her shoulder, already fuzzy with escaping hairs, for all that she had rebraided it neatly just before they came into the Upper City. “The Code says, sir, that all come equal before the Code—”