Chapter 30 Small Comforts
Small Comforts
Aweek later, the Kettalist continued to hurl storms their way, as though the Maker was determined to blanket all the northland in quilts of white.
She had the kitchen to herself.
Since the servants left, the soldiers had been working hard to keep the castle running and protected.
She’d asked Niel and Kerr to let her contribute, and had been turned soundly away from sentry duty.
The kitchen, though: that, they had agreed to let her help with, even if Niel had made another comment about not poisoning him “again.” She’d ignored it.
Ayla hummed to herself as she rolled out a length of dough, though her arms ached pleasantly from all the unfamiliar exertion.
She’d braided her hair up on her head and put one of Sarella’s aprons over her fine dress.
She couldn’t entirely forget her anxiety over how the siege would end, for it would end, in one way or another.
But despite the constant tension in her shoulders, it was peaceful in the kitchen.
The oven fire crackled as Ayla cut the dough into squares and stuffed each with a scoop of the spiced chestnut and lentil filling from the bowl beside her.
The apron was streaked and dirty from how often she had to wipe her hands on it, filling spilling out as she tried to seal the dough.
But she was beginning to get the feel for it.
Again. She was beginning to get the feel for it again. Memories lingered just beneath the surface of her mind, like fish beneath the frozen surface of a lake. Winter days in her family home, standing beside her mother and their maid, her hands repeating this same familiar task.
The new hand pies went on a pair of flat metal sheets.
Ayla brushed her hands clean again, then grabbed a rag and reached for the metal handle of the oven door.
The kitchen was by far the warmest room of the castle, but it was still cool if you were more than a few feet from the fire, and she welcomed the heat of the door on her palm.
It was better still when she pried the door open and a flood of dry heat washed over her skin.
Ayla sighed happily in the blast of warmth and dragged the first two trays of finished pastries out, then slid in the one she’d just prepared.
The cooked pies were golden-brown and smelled just like she remembered.
Twenty finished and fire-hot, plenty for her purposes, and she’d be back before the next trays needed to come out.
Moving fast, not giving them a chance to cool, she began to free the pastries with a knife and dump them into the set of cloth bundles she’d set out on the counter.
Ayla hissed and shook her fingers out as she worked, scattering her soft skin with a hundred tiny, instantly forgotten burns.
She tied the bundles tightly, put them in a basket with a heavy cloth over top, and settled her cloak back over her shoulders.
The wind was strong. When she pushed at the door to the castle wall, it resisted for a moment, then tore out of her hands, the gale swinging it open to bang against the wall. It was dark outside already, the torches sputtering.
The sentry standing nearest the door spun at the noise.
She ignored him, trying to get the door closed against the wind one-handedly.
With the ferocious wind, the door was acting like it was nailed to the castle’s wall.
It wasn’t snowing anymore, but the wind made it seem as though it was, kicking up the light drifts that had fallen earlier that day to make them dance through the black air.
A gloved hand came into view over hers, and she could feel a warrior at her back.
“Move,” Niel’s voice said in her ear. She hadn’t realized it was him. Something in her gut relaxed, warmth pooling through her at Niel’s presence. Clutching the basket, Ayla quickly backed away. Niel yanked the door and shouldered it smoothly closed, like it weighed nothing. Ayla’s cheeks burned.
“What are you doing out here?” the knight said, turning to face her.
He was bundled up well. No plate armor tonight, not in cold like this. She couldn’t tell just how many layers of padded cloth and leather armor he wore beneath his fur-lined cloak, but he’d managed to fix his cloak’s hood up against the wind.
In answer, Ayla reached under the basket’s covering and removed one of the cloth bundles, still hot to the touch. She offered it to him.
“I thought something warm might do you and the men well.”
Niel frowned at her, then reached forward to accept it. He brought it up to his nose to sniff, then pressed the warmth to his cheeks.
“You didn’t need to do that. We ate before we came out.”
“Well, it’s cold. And you wouldn’t let me stand sentry.” Ayla held the basket in one hand as she rearranged the covering with her other. The wind tugged at the edges of her cloak, making it flutter behind her instead of trapping her warmth. She shuddered involuntarily.
“You’re not a soldier,” he reminded her.
“I have eyes, though, don’t I?”
He gave her a weak smile. Niel reached forward with his free hand to yank the cloak back around her shoulders. The move brought him closer to her. For a moment Ayla didn’t dare breathe. His dark eyes searched hers.
For the briefest moment she wondered what it would feel like if he bent his head down and pressed his lips to hers. But she was being utterly ridiculous. It would never happen. Nor should she wish it to.
“Nobody should be out this night if they don’t have need to be,” Niel said. “Get back inside, my lady.”
“I’ll deliver the others first,” she said, her voice coming out a little high. “Did you want me to take a bite for you?”
He hesitated for a moment, tension on his face. She'd only been joking—he seemed past the fear of poisoning—but she waited quietly for him to find his own answer.
“...No. I trust you.”
Why did that make warmth spread through her chest?
“Mind you enjoy them hot. They’re not as good once they cool off.”
Before he could answer she set off down the castle wall, her boots squeaking in the thin layer of snow that seemed to perpetually dust the castle’s walls.
She could make out the dim shapes of the other sentries through the blackness, illuminated by the caged torches set at intervals along the wall.
She didn’t let her eyes roam down to the fires of the town and the army camp beyond.
How cold the Queen’s soldiers must have been below, without snug walls and hearths and mattresses.
But they were there to get Ditmar’s castle back, Ayla reminded herself when she began to feel guilt pinching at her heart.
She had said her piece, and if they were cold on her account, it was outside her control.
She reached the next soldier, and then the one after, chatting briefly with each.
It took her nearly an hour in the kitchen to feel warm again, once she’d left the bundles with the other sentries.
Ayla stood as close to the oven she could bear, churning out trays of the pastries to accompany a pot of root vegetable soup for the other men.
The other soldiers came into the kitchen to get their food.
Some two-dozen ate in there, too, instead of taking the food to the hall like she wished they would.
Ayla didn’t have the nerve to ask them to leave.
They deserved the kitchen’s warmth as much as she did, but having a squadron of armed men pressed tight into the confines, blocking the route to each door, made the room significantly less comfortable.
They ignored her for the most part, not even meeting her eyes when they accepted the food with mumbled thanks.
A few stared outright, their eyes narrowed and their chins high in a look that seemed to silently threaten her not to step out of line.
As she scraped the next batch of pastries free from their tray, one hand pinning the metal sheet in place with a rag, she listened to the noise of their laughter and chatter.
Ayla found herself relaxing for a moment, until another soldier drew close, his shoulder nearly brushing hers as he reached for one of the finished pastries.
Ayla flinched down and away, bursting to the side.
The soldier raised an eyebrow and turned away.
He’d been the man guarding the laundry when Isalde was locked in there, and she had never quite liked to be in the same room as him.
“Show some decorum, Adren,” a voice on her other side said.
She turned, wooden scraper raised, and met captain Kerr’s eyes with a trembling expression.
The man who’d nearly bumped into her, Adren, stepped slowly back, hands raised and eyebrow arched sardonically.
“Lady Ayla. You’re safe with these men,” Kerr told her.
“I know,” Ayla squeaked. She also knew that was the sort of promise every man made but few men kept.
“Lord Mount Eyron made it known that anyone who gave you trouble would be skinned alive. By him, personally.” Kerr’s eyes were on Adren as he said this, not on Ayla.
“He did?” she asked, and suddenly found it even harder to meet the men’s eyes.
What did they think of her, flinching away from them at their every move?
Surely they knew she didn’t think herself better than they were.
She couldn’t help but be nervous around so many strange men.
But she could hardly begrudge them warmth or food right from the oven when they were partially responsible for her newfound freedoms.
The men were quiet now, a few muttered conversations but no laughter or loud noises.
“Well, I… I should hope that wasn’t necessary,” she said awkwardly. “I would not like that done on my behalf.”
She could feel eyes on her. Drat it all.
She smoothed her face as best as she could and pulled the final tray of pastries out of the oven.
There was some jostling among the men to get the last pastries as she scraped these from the tray onto the empty platter on the kitchen table.
Rationed as they were, she’d been unable to make an excess amount.
Kerr set three of the men to cleaning. By the time they were done, the captain had gone off to bed, but the kitchen was no less full of men, who now played dice at the center table and shared a keg of Blackfell’s ale.
Ayla set a pot of water on the stove for tea.
Water was the one thing they had plenty of.
She filled a tray with empty cups, honeyed a thick iron pot thoroughly, and looked for her cloak.
It was on the back of one of the chairs, presently occupied by a one-eyed, gap-toothed soldier.
“My cloak?” she asked, nearly squeaking. The man glanced her way, then back to the soldier he was conversing with, shifting his body away from the chair’s back so that Ayla could take the cloak herself. She tugged it off.
“Isn’t that for us?” another man asked as she settled the tray into her hands.
“There’s more water on the stove if you want it,” she answered. “This is for the men out in the cold.”