Chapter 25 #2
A couple of peacekeepers roamed the area, and two more golems had arrived near the main entrance.
Rylana wondered if they would react to anything that wasn’t on the law books as a crime.
Of course, if someone tried to set Jildarin's station on fire, that would qualify, but, with so many people present, she expected any sabotage would be subtler.
Vormalt arrived with a group of people, and Rylana groaned, wondering why he kept showing up in Yerin’s wake. Had they become best friends over the years?
Rylana watched intently as the group entered the arena. Maybe too intently, because Vormalt seemed to sense her gaze. He looked toward the benches and spotted her. After lifting a hand toward Yerin, who was three stations down from Jildarin and setting up, Vormalt headed toward Rylana.
She groaned again, wishing she could have found a seat with goose droppings on both sides.
More people had arrived, some standing while others settled onto the benches, and she couldn’t see through them to find a place she could move to where Vormalt couldn’t sit near her.
A group of dwarves was maneuvering to try to find seats high enough so they could see over the heads of the taller audience members.
Rylana called softly, “There’s room up here.”
She smiled at them and pointed toward the seats to her left. When they looked up at her, she realized she recognized one of the faces, Mya, the baker. The grandmotherly dwarf waved for her comrades to follow her to the top row, and they sat on the empty bench beside Rylana.
“Hello,” Mya said. “Are you here to support Chef Jildarin?”
“I’m here because he ordered me to come,” Rylana said but smiled to make it a joke.
He had told her to come, but she would have come to watch out for him, regardless. Even if he was a powerful dragon, he was so focused on his craft when he cooked that he might not notice an enemy sneaking close.
Vormalt had stopped to talk to a couple of well-dressed humans, including one wearing wizard’s robes. Maybe he wouldn’t come up to speak with Rylana, after all.
“It’s wise to obey the orders of a dragon,” Mya said. “We are here to support the dwarven chef, Mesacor, but I will also wish well to Jildarin. After all, you two gave me a deal on a gnomish oven.” She winked.
“That’s how friendships are formed, I believe.”
“Yes. You should visit the bakery one day. We have many delicious items.”
“I’ve had the scones recommended to me.”
The chaste scones.
“They are wonderful. As the seasons progress, I add freshly harvested fruit to them.” Mya spoke more about her food, but Rylana returned to perusing the venue and only murmured a few responses, so the baker shifted to chatting with her comrades.
All of the judges’ chairs were now taken, and a chef manned each station on the stage. The benches were almost full, and fewer people were trickling in, so Rylana guessed the competition would start soon.
The number of vendors had proliferated, dwarves and gnomes hawking everything from popcorn to skewers of roasted meat to bags of rock candy.
The dwarf hefting those around promised his treats were sweet, sour, and hard enough to break teeth if one tried to bite them instead of sucking on them.
A girl with her parents waved, apparently delighted by the description.
A pair of goblins in overalls showed tickets at the entrance and were allowed in.
Rylana's gaze sharpened. Was that the goblin who’d started the fire in the pantry?
With an accomplice? They wore overalls, as if they’d just come from work, and were carrying lunchboxes, but who knew what tools for sabotage might be contained within?
Rylana rose, thinking to confront the familiar goblin, even though they were heading for the benches instead of anywhere near the chefs, but Vormalt had left the people he’d been speaking with and was maneuvering up an aisle toward her. Straight toward her.
It crossed her mind to leap off the back of the benches, escape him, and run up to the goblins, but they sat down in the front row, as if they were merely there to enjoy the competition.
Further, a golem lumbered past behind the benches and stopped not far from Rylana.
She might end up in its arms if she departed that way.
Vormalt smiled easily at her as he climbed, lifting a hand. He sat beside her, not noticing the besmirched spot, and her only satisfaction was that he was sitting in goose poo.
“You’re here to support the dragon chef, I assume?” he asked.
“Yes. What are you here to do?”
“Enjoy the entertainment, and I suppose I’ll root for Yerin, though he’s a bit of a self-absorbed twit.”
“Which naturally explains why you spend time with him.”
“Self-absorbed twit describes a lot of people in the upper echelons of society. Though I wouldn’t say you fall into that category.” Vormalt smiled at her.
Rylana did not return the smile. “I’m not upper anything. I’m a retired mercenary.”
“Of course.” His smile didn’t falter. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
What was he up to now? Rylana didn’t want to be distracted. She wanted to make sure those goblins didn’t wander off to cause trouble.
“I’m busy right now,” she said.
“You’re sitting on a bench at a competition that hasn’t started yet.”
“I’m making sure nobody is scheming against my employer while he’s chopping vegetables and mincing meat.”
Actually, Jildarin had acquired two rags and a spray bottle of water or some other substance and was assiduously cleaning his station.
Rylana smiled at the juxtaposition between tidy chef and the fearsome dragon who’d bitten and clawed two other dragons into defeat.
Fortunately, the small wounds Jildarin had received during the battle didn’t seem to bother him.
What had been a puncture wound in his maw when he’d been in dragon form now looked like the kind of cut one might receive while shaving in a hurry.
“Who would scheme at a cooking contest?” Vormalt asked.
She couldn’t tell if he was serious or feigning innocence.
“The rivalry can be fierce, I understand.”
“Well, a dragon surely doesn’t need anyone watching his back.”
“I think a dragon may need back-watching more than anyone else here.” Rylana had caught a few veiled glares toward Jildarin, not only from his rivals but from the judges. She had a feeling the culinary community as a whole did not want to see a dragon win the Golden Whisk.
“Nobody is going to attack him here with golems on all sides of the arena,” Vormalt said. “Anyway, what I wanted to talk to you about is… an apology. That’s what I’ve been trying to get up the courage to do since I first saw you’d arrived back in town.”
“Is that so?” Rylana watched one of the goblins opening his lunchbox and leaned forward, but he only drew a couple of coins and waved the rock-candy-selling dwarf over. A half-elven vendor followed with skewers of meat, and the goblins purchased from both merchants.
“Yes. I’ve long felt distressed about the past—about our past. Did I put too much pressure on you to marry? Is that why you ran away from home?”
Yes, she thought but didn’t say it, not wanting him to think he’d had that much power to affect her life. “I was an adult by then. I didn’t run away. I departed of my own mature volition.”
“You left a letter decrying the evils of expectations and how smothered you were. Your father didn’t understand it.”
“Dear gods, he didn’t let you read it, did he?”
“No, but that was the impression I got when he admitted you were gone and told me not to come around anymore, that there was no point. He was distant toward me at work after that, which is why I eventually left his business. I think he blamed me for you leaving. Was I the reason? Or did you feel pressured by him? You never seemed that delighted by all those tutors hounding you.”
“I wasn’t delighted by much of anything that last year at home.” Rylana lifted a hand to try to halt the conversation. A silver-haired woman in a chef’s uniform had climbed onto the stage with a megaphone.
“All of the contestants are here,” she called. “Please take your seats. I will introduce the chefs, and then the first of three rounds of cooking will commence.”
As she started the introductions, telling the judges and audience about a human chef at the first station, Vormalt tapped Rylana’s shoulder and pointed behind them. She looked, thinking the golem might be doing something, but he was gesturing across the lake. Toward her family’s estate?
“I heard that you ran into your father the other day,” Vormalt said.
“Yes, so?” Rylana eyed him warily, wondering if he’d also heard that she’d been in the Molingvar family manor when he and Yerin had been chatting in the kitchen. She didn’t think he’d ever seen her, but others had and might have identified her later.
“Did you go inside? See your old room?”
See whatever rooms he was interested in having access to? The library, perhaps?
She only said, “No.”
The announcer finished the introductions, asked the chefs if they were ready, then said, “The first round shall commence. Timer, set the hourglass. The ingredients that will be required for the first dish are mutton, mushrooms, and grapes. Chefs, you may begin… now.”
None of the cooks looked stumped by the ingredients. They went straight to work, pulling items out of the iceboxes and mobile pantries. Jildarin wore a determined expression and nodded to himself as he extracted everything he planned to use in his dish.
“Are you going to make amends with your father?” Vormalt asked. “Return to living on the estate?”
“Not likely.”
“Where are you living now?”
“Nowhere you’d want to visit. I assume you’re not looking for a hook-up after all this time.”
Vormalt snorted, his gaze drifting to the hair he’d called too short. “I am not.”
“Good.” Trying to think of a way to get Vormalt to go away, Rylana almost missed noticing that one of the goblins had disappeared. The arsonist goblin. “Damn it.”