Chapter 19 Pie
Luc swept his cloak around himself like a shell, as if to protect against the daggers of Evaine’s eyes. He wasn’t going to wait for Rolan to sort his thoughts out. He seemed intent on fleeing the shop as quickly as possible, with or without his apprentice.
“Are you coming?” he asked again.
It was all happening so suddenly.
“I—” Rolan’s eyes darted to Anaya, to Luc. “I don’t—”
“A pity you have to leave so soon,” said Evaine coolly. “I was about to take a leek and potato pie out of the oven.”
Rolan gave a soft moan. He’d always tried to turn down Evaine’s offers of free food out of pride, or out of respect for his pa’s opinions on her charity, or to make a point to Anaya.
But not once had he successfully turned down her leek and potato pie.
It was decadence on a plate. His mouth was already beginning to water.
Luc paused in the doorway, which he’d opened a crack. A warm wind curled in, curious and lazy, to ruffle the hem of his cloak, as if to tug him back inside.
“Is that an invitation to lunch?” Luc asked, as if “lunch” were a fight to the death, not a meal of delicious, delectable leek and potato pie.
“Is that a request to join us?” returned Evaine, her voice equally cold, grinding her mortar. Whatever was in there had to be dust by now.
Rolan and Anaya glanced between the pair, eyes wide. They moved slightly closer to each other, like two mice seeking warmth in a winter gust.
“I am not the barbarian you people think I am,” Luc replied, his back still to the apothecary, his fist a knot around the door handle. “I do know how to hold a knife and fork.”
“We people hardly spare a thought for reclusive, arrogant Arcanists at all,” Evaine retorted. “But poor Rolan looks half starved. He clearly needs a good meal.”
“I am pretty hungry,” Rolan announced. He regretted speaking at all when both Arcanist and apothecary turned their withering glares on him.
Anaya gripped his arm. “Then come on! There’s plenty of food. And I made an apple tart. Well. I tried to make an apple tart. It’s sort of… wet, but I think it’ll taste all right.”
“Apple tart?” Rolan grinned. “I love apple tart! That settles it. C’mon, Luc, stop glaring and come eat.”
He followed Anaya through the beaded curtain to the kitchen, where the mouthwatering, knee-buckling aroma of leek and potato pie wafted from the stove.
He threw himself onto a stool at the table and grabbed a wooden fork while Anaya tended the fire under the stove, adding another log and prodding it gently into place with a poker.
A moment later, the beads parted and Evaine glided in, her chin high. She didn’t say a word, she only went to the stove and took out the pie, gripping the hot pan with her apron.
“Your hair’s looking better,” Anaya said to Rolan.
He scraped a hand over his choppy hair which had grown an inch or two since Luc had shorn it off.
“I’ve started brushing it every day!” he said proudly. “Well. Not every day. More like… every other day. Well. Once a week, at least. But still.”
“That’s a new shirt,” Anaya said.
He nodded. “Luc made it. He’s an all right tailor, turns out. Probably comes from having to stitch up so many Cryptic bites.”
At the stove, Evaine tensed, just as the curtain of beads rustled again.
Luc stepped into the kitchen, his tall, broad form filling the room.
“Take off the cloak if you’re going to eat,” Evaine said curtly, not looking at him. “That thing casts such shadows, you’ll hatch a Cryptic under my dining table.”
“I did not say I was going to eat,” Luc grunted, but he removed the cloak.
Anaya put down four plates. “Do you often get bitten by Cryptics?” she asked Luc.
“He does,” said Rolan. “All the time. They chew him up and spit him out, and he gets up and just keeps fighting. It’s the power he carries in his blades, y’see.”
“Boy.” Luc shot him a narrow look of warning.
Rolan swallowed. The Arcanists’ ways weren’t exactly secret, but he knew from the history books he’d read that most of them didn’t like to talk about how they wielded Arcana.
It made other people feel uncomfortable or something.
Rolan didn’t see why. He just thought it was awesome.
Maybe if everybody saw Luc fight a massive Cryptic, they’d be more awed than scared of him.
“Anyway,” said Rolan, “I killed my first Cryptic last night.”
Evaine turned around, drawing in a sharp breath. “You let him do what?”
The question was clearly meant for Luc, who drew himself up. “The boy needed to know.”
“He’s a child.”
Oh, here they went again. Fighting over him like two dogs with one bone. Rolan sighed. If they carried on like this, the pie would get cold. Besides, as much as Rolan enjoyed being the center of attention, there were better ways to go about it.
“The duty of the healer is to tend both the mind and the body,” said Rolan.
The room went still as Luc, Evaine, and Anaya all turned to stare at him.
“What?” Luc grunted.
Rolan sighed and continued, “To neglect one is to im—imp—imperil the other.”
Anaya followed his gaze to the embroidery framed on the wall over the stove, the tiny words stitched in blue thread.
“Did you just read that, Rolan?” Anaya asked.
Rolan leaned back in his chair, knitting his fingers behind his head. “Was I reading? Huh. Reckon I was. Just one of my many skills.”
“You taught him to read?” Evaine asked the Arcanist.
“Taught is putting it generously,” said Luc, giving Rolan a baleful look. “One cannot teach a sack of rocks to roll up a mountain, but with a great amount of effort, one might drag the sack to the top, even if it kicks and complains the whole way.”
“I’ve been trying to get that boy to set foot in a schoolroom for years,” murmured Evaine.
“He is as stubborn as a…” Luc paused, as if searching for the right analogy.
“As a mule with a grudge,” finished Evaine.
“A mule with a grudge…,” Luc replied, stroking his beard. “Quite so. And his audacity.”
“Yes!” Evaine waved a hand high. “The boy is as brazen as the sun! You know, he once stole a sack of potatoes from my kitchen, after I’d just fed him a lovely hot dinner. The nerve!”
Rolan winced. He hadn’t thought she’d known about that. He had felt bad, but he’d also eaten all the potatoes. They’d kept his belly full for a whole week.
The air in the room relaxed, tension filtering away with the smoke up the chimney. The furrows in Evaine’s brow eased, and Luc’s shoulders lowered from their broody hunch.
Even so, Rolan frowned. He hadn’t liked it when the two were at each other’s throats. He wasn’t sure he liked them bonding over his supposed faults any better, though.
“Don’t forget he’ll lie as easy as breathing,” added Anaya, giving Rolan an amused look.
He was about to deliver an insult of his own, but then she said softly, “And he’s loyal to a fault.
He’ll cover for you in a tight spot, as sure as snow in winter, even if it costs him a few nights in a cold cell. ”
Rolan felt his cheeks grow hot again. He looked down at his empty plate.
“Well, if anyone bothered to ask the boy,” he grumbled, “he’d tell you all he really is, is hungry.”
To his relief, Evaine began to cut the pie, and Luc sat down, and Anaya poured everyone cups of apple cordial. The rich smell of cooked onions and potato and leeks filled Rolan’s nose, and for the first time in a long time, he couldn’t find a single thing to complain about.
“Tell me about these reading lessons,” Evaine said.
Rolan smiled. “There were lots of knives involved.”
Luc coughed around his mouthful of pie.
“Well, now I really want to hear more.” Evaine’s eyes glinted, but not quite as sharply as they had before.
Luc was no talker, though, and the story of Rolan’s unconventional education had to be dragged out of him word by word from a suspicious Evaine, with Anaya tossing in a question of her own now and again.
Rolan, for once, was content to let everyone else do the talking, leaving him in peace to shovel pie down his throat.
He managed to snag two more pieces while Evaine and Anaya were occupied with interrogating the cornered Arcanist. They’d moved on to discussing Rolan’s gains in mathematics, which were unfortunately less impressive than his reading.
But still, he secretly savored their surprise at how much he’d accomplished over the last few weeks.
Stubborn. Cheeky. Occasionally untruthful. He could admit to being all these things. But he was not stupid.
Still, he wished Luc would say a bit more about his ability to fling knives at stuff. Maybe after lunch he’d take Anaya into the alley behind the apothecary for a demonstration. If she thought reading was impressive, wait until she saw him stick a dagger through a knot in a fencepost a block away.
When they were done eating, Evaine began assigning chores. A shockingly docile Luc stood at the wash basin and scrubbed pots, while Rolan hauled a bucket of scraps out back for Evaine’s small flock of chickens. It was afternoon now, the rain a slight drizzle that misted Rolan’s hair and shoulders.
He made his way down the alley behind the apothecary.
It was a narrow space that Evaine had somehow made beautiful, with potted herbs and a small hen yard at the end.
He headed for the chickens, his belly full and warm.
He was so focused on remembering the way Luc had commended his quickness with spelling that he didn’t notice the man standing at the end of the alley until Rolan ran smack into him, nearly spilling the scraps all over his shoes.
He stepped back with a gasp as the man’s teeth flashed in a wide, crooked smile. He had a bald head and a scraggly beard and a low, paunchy belly that swayed over his belt.
“There you are, my boy,” he said, spreading his arms. “What? Haven’t you got a ‘hello’ for your dear old pa?”