“Thank you, highness. It’s nice to hear that.”
He focused his regard on her more frankly as the armor came off. “He was not the handsomest of men. In that, you don’t resemble him much.”
Her already dark face darkened a bit more, but her eyes stayed fixed boldly on his. “So, you … think I’m a handsome man?”
“If you were a man you would be, but I don’t see much mannish about you either.”
“I’ve heard the prince is a flatterer.”
“Here’s our drink,” he said as Dario arrived with the beer.
Beer always tasted perfect after a fight, and this time was no different.
“So why do you seek my service instead of my father’s?” he asked her. “I’m sure he would receive you well.”
She shrugged. “Prince Attrebus, your father sits the throne as Emperor. In his service, I think I would see little in the way of action. With you, I expect rather the opposite.”
“Yes,” he said, “that is true. The Empire is still reclaiming territory, both literally and figuratively. There are many battles yet to fight before our full glory is reclaimed. If you ride with me, death will always be near. It’s not always fun, you know, and it’s not a game.”
“I don’t think that it is,” she said.
“Very good,” he said. “I like your attitude.”
“I hope to please you, Prince.”
“You can start pleasing me by calling me simply Attrebus. I do not stand on ceremony with my personal guard.”
Her eyes widened. “Does that mean …?”
“Indeed. Finish this beer and then go see Gulan. He will see you equipped, horsed, and boarded. And then, perhaps, you and I shall speak again.”
Annaïg saw the murder from the corner of her eye.
She was preparing a sauce of clams, butter, and white wine to go on thin sheets of rice noodle. Of course, none of those things were exactly that; the clams were really something called “lampen,” but they tasted much like clams. The butter was actually the fat rendered from something which—given Slyr’s description—was some sort of pupa. The wine was wine, and it was white, but it wasn’t made from any grape she had ever tasted. The noodles were made from a grain a bit like barley and a bit like rice. She was just happy to be doing something more sophisticated than searing meat, and actually enjoying the alien tastes and textures. The possibilities were exciting.
Qijne was at the corner of her vision, and she made a sort of gesture, a quick wave of her arm.
But then something peculiar happened. Oorol, the under-chef whose territory was Ghol Manor, suddenly lost his head. Literally—it fell off, and blood jetted in spurts from the still-standing body.
Qijne stepped away from the corpse as a hush fell over the kitchen. She watched what was left of Oorol fold down to the floor.
“Not good,” Slyr murmured.
Qijne’s voice rose up, a shriek that somehow still carried words in it.
“Lord Ghol was bored by his prandium! For the fourth time in a row!”
She stood there, staring around, her chest heaving and her eyes flickering murderously about the room.
“And now we have a mess to clean up and an underchef to replace.”
Her jittering gaze suddenly focused on Annaïg.
“Oh, sumpslurry,” Slyr faintly breathed. “No.”
“Slyr,” Qijne shouted. “Take this station. Bring her with you.”
“Yes, Chef!” Slyr shouted back. She turned and began gathering her knives and gear.
“Now we’re in it,” Slyr said. “Deep in it.”
“She k-killed him,” Annaïg stuttered.
“Yes, of course.”
“What do you mean, ‘of course’?”
“Look, we cook for three lords, right? Prixon, Oroy, and Ghol. Most of what we make is for their staff and slaves. That’s all you and I have been cooking—that’s all I’ve ever cooked. That’s not too dangerous. But feeding the lords themselves is—it’s not easy. It’s not only that they are feckless in their tastes, but they compete with one another constantly. Fashions in ingredients, flavor, presentation, color—all these can change very quickly. And now we’re cooking for Ghol, who doesn’t know what he likes. Oorol was pretty good—he managed to entertain Ghol for the better part of a year.”
Annaïg tried to do the calculations in her head; from various conversations, she reckoned the Umbrielian year at just over half a year on Tamriel.
“That’s not very long,” she said.
“It’s not. Hurry, now, we’ve got to subdue his staff, find out what they know, and have an acceptable dinner for him.”
“How did she—what did she kill him with?”
“We call it her filet knife, but no one really knows. You can’t see it, can you? And at times it seems longer than others. We’re not quite sure how long it can get. Now come along, unless you have more useless questions to slow us down and speed us toward the sump.”
“I do have a question. I don’t think it’s useless.”
“What?” the chef snapped impatiently.
“When you say we have to subdue his staff—”
“We’ll see. It might mean a fight. Have a knife in your hand, but hold it discreetly.”
Slyr’s previous staff had consisted of six cooks. Their new staff had eight—Annaïg and Slyr made ten.
In this case, “subduing” them simply meant calming them down and getting them to work, which Slyr managed with a minimum of slapping around, so they were soon discussing the lord’s tastes, or at least what little seemed consistent about them. To make things even more fun, it turned out he was having another of the lords—one who used another kitchen entirely—over for dinner, and about him, they knew nothing.
“What was the last thing he liked?” Slyr asked Minn, who had been Oorol’s second.