Chapter 16 #2
"Whether they know what they're doing or not," Fenrik added. "Food goes in the pot. Fire goes under the pot. Bellies get filled. That's the extent of it."
Mab's hands stilled on the rabbit. "That's it?"
"That's it." Grald shrugged, settling back onto his heels.
"I think—" Mab stopped. Started again. "It's more than that. Or it can be."
Fenrik's knife paused. "More than filling bellies?"
"Yes." The word came out before she could think better of it. She kept her eyes on the rabbit, on the clean lines of muscle and bone under her hands. "Food is... it's how you know someone thought about you. Someone wanted to take care of you. Wanted you to feel good, not just full."
Hester had taught her that without ever saying it aloud. The way she'd add extra butter to the bread pudding on cold mornings. The way she'd save the crispy bits from the bottom of the roasting pan for Mab, wrapped in a cloth and pressed into her hands when no one was looking.
"Huh," Grald said again.
Fenrik crushed the herbs between his palms the way she'd suggested, and the smell that rose from them was sharp and green and alive. He sprinkled them into the pot.
"You sound like Kira."
"Kira?" she asked. Varek had mentioned her earlier, the grumpy old cook at Northwatch.
"Northwatch cook," Grald said. "Mean as a wet cat and twice as loud. But she makes a stew that'll make you weep."
"She threw a ladle at my head once," Fenrik offered.
"Did you deserve it?"
"Absolutely."
Mab finished the second rabbit and set it aside, wiping her hands on her apron. The motion was automatic, muscle memory from a thousand similar moments. "What's she like? Beyond the ladle-throwing?"
Grald considered the question. "Old. Seventy-something. Been cooking at Northwatch since before any of us were born."
"She's got opinions," Fenrik said. "About everything. How you hold a spoon. How you chew. Whether you're eating fast enough or too fast. She'll tell you either way."
"She'll tell you twice," Grald agreed. "And then she'll feed you until you can't move and tell you that you're too skinny."
Mab thought about Hester. About the way she'd rap your knuckles for sloppy work and then slip you an extra portion when no one was looking. "She sounds..."
"Terrifying," Fenrik supplied.
"I was going to say familiar."
Grald's chuckle came again, lower this time, mostly breath. "You'll either love her or she'll make you cry."
"Sometimes both," Fenrik said. "Same meal."
Mab found herself looking forward to it. To meeting someone who cared about food the way Hester had. The way she did, even if she'd never been allowed to show it.
The stew came together as the light faded. Mab jointed the rabbits and added them to the pot at the right moment, adjusting the heat by shifting the pot's position over the coals. Fenrik watched her do it without comment, then did the same thing when she wasn't looking, like he was practicing.
When the food was ready, warriors gathered around the fires with their bowls. The noise level rose. Laughter, conversation, the scrape of spoons against wood. Mab hung back near the cookfire, uncertain where she belonged in the loose clusters forming around the flames.
Varek appeared at her elbow. He didn't say anything, just handed her a bowl and steered her toward a flat rock near the larger fire with his hand on the small of her back. He sat first and pulled her down onto his lap. The heat of him cut through the mountain cold.
Mab looked down at her bowl. The stew steamed in the firelight, chunks of rabbit and potato visible beneath the surface. The smell rising from it was rich and savory.
She took a bite.
It was good. Not perfect. The rabbit was slightly tough, the potatoes a touch underdone. But the flavors were there, layered and warm, and her stomach unclenched.
She took another bite. Then another.
"You helped with this?" Varek asked.
"Grald and Fenrik did most of the work." She kept her eyes on her bowl.
"Fenrik hasn't made anything edible in three years of rotation." Varek's voice was dry. "Do not sell yourself short."
Across the fire, Grald caught her eye and raised his bowl in a small salute. Fenrik was too busy eating to notice anything, his spoon moving with single-minded focus.
Mab kept her eyes on her bowl. She took another bite she didn't need, just to have a thing to do with her mouth, a thing to do with her hands, somewhere to put her face that wasn't anyone's eyes.
The fire popped. A log broke apart, sending a ribbon of sparks spiraling up into the dark. Somewhere beyond the ring of firelight, a horse stamped and blew.
Around her, the camp was settling. Warriors finished their food and drifted toward their tents, some alone, some in pairs, their voices dropping to low murmurs that blended with the wind in the pines.
Annie had already disappeared into the supply cart, curled up with Brownie and the puppies under a mound of blankets.
Tibbs was nodding off against a saddlebag near the smaller fire, his chin dropping and jerking up in a rhythm that would have been funny if Mab had the energy to laugh.
"Varek."
"Mm."
"The knife Grald lent me." She pulled it from where she'd tucked it into her apron. The firelight caught the blade. "I forgot to give it back."
He looked at it. Looked at her. "Keep it."
"It's his."
"He didn't ask for it back." Varek's voice was quiet, matter-of-fact. "An orc doesn't forget his blade. If he left it with you, it's yours."
Mab turned the knife over in her hands. Too heavy. Wrong shape. The handle was wrapped in leather worn smooth by someone else's grip.
She slid it back into her apron.
The wind picked up, cutting through the gaps in the rock walls.
The fire bent sideways, recovered, bent again.
Above them, the sky was enormous and black and salted with more stars than she had ever seen in her life, as though someone had taken all the ones the lowland haze had hidden from her and hung them out to dry.
Mab leaned back against the warmth behind her and looked up at every single one.