Chapter Four The Benefits of Patronage #3
“How good is that?”
Wisdom smiled at him. “I can turn you into a toad.”
“He can’t!” Verity yelled. “He just says that to scare people.”
“I’ll turn you into a toad.” Wisdom chased Verity across the kitchen while she screeched in delight.
Lorzok laughed. “Be kind to Saer Wisdom, Kell. I can catch those trout, if you’ll point out where the best spot is.”
He grinned and gave Lorzok a hand-knotted net. “Deal.”
Lorzok followed Wisdom out to the trout pond.
Jubilee beckoned Kell to follow with the baskets and started putting away everything she’d foraged.
The tiefling who stood at a gleaming marble counter stretched a blob of bread dough by one corner and folded it in.
She smiled at Kell and gave a single sharp upward nod of greeting.
Kell echoed it before he could think, and when she winked, Kell felt the base of his throat quiver like he’d told a lie.
“Kell Redsong,” he said. “But I—I’m not in the game anymore. I just have the habits.”
“Serenity Righthoof,” the middle-aged tiefling replied. “I was a Harper-trained infiltration specialist before Bastion and I retired from the Golden Guardians.”
Kell swiveled to stare at Jubilee. “Your mother is Serenity Surefingers? Your father is the Bastion of Light? And you—”
“Stop,” Jubilee said. “Please, it’s not a big deal.”
Serenity Surefingers! “I know a song about you, ma’am.”
“Lord of light, don’t ma’am me. Which song?”
“ ‘Pickled Garlic and True Love.’ ”
“I like that one,” Serenity said. “The chorus is a mug-thumper.”
“The one about you saving Pa from a vampire?” Jubilee asked incredulously. “What about ‘Undermountain Light’?”
“It’s weepy,” Serenity and Kell said, and smiled at each other. He’d paid the night’s rent singing about Serenity Surefingers, and here she was, making bread.
Jubilee groaned and put an egg in a wire rack. “The melody is beautiful.”
“You didn’t tell me you were adventurer royalty, Jubilee.”
“Jubilee is a proud girl.” Serenity gave Jubilee a fond smile.
“She thinks letting people know that she’s a child of the Golden Guardians will raise expectations of her own skills too high.
As if her mother would send her into the world without teaching her everything she knows.
She can pick a seven-pin quickened barrel tumbler faster than I ever could, did she tell you that? ”
“Mum!”
Serenity slapped the now-shaped loaf into a cloth-lined basket and took up another. “And now I’m embarrassing her, as if she were a lass of fifteen. You can’t be proud of your children at that age.” She leaned closer and stage-whispered, “It’s mortifying.”
Kell couldn’t help chuckling. “Everything is mortifying when you’re young.”
Jubilee made a face. “I’m not fifteen anymore. You’re just embarrassing me on purpose.”
“I remember too well.” She turned her attention back to Kell, and if she hadn’t spotted every hidden blade and dart in his attire, he’d eat his boots. “Kell, hm? You’re obviously a specialist of some experience. Have you joined my daughter and her partner, Saeldian, for a new venture?”
Her eyes gleamed with vicarious anticipation. Behind her, Jubilee drew her thumb across her throat and tapped her fingers against her thumb. Don’t tell her. Quack about something else.
“I knew Saeldian from a long time ago,” Kell said. “I was shocked to my bones to see them.”
“How long ago?”
“Ten years.”
Serenity Righthoof’s eyes softened. “In the hard times.”
What?
“They’re different now, I think you’ll find. Took me two years to get that one calm enough to stay the night without bolting, but by Lathander’s beams, they’re settled.”
Two years? They must have run out of gold. “Where were they staying before?”
Serenity’s smile was like a drawbridge raising. “That’s not my story to tell. Ten years. So you knew them when they were in Baldur’s Gate, before it all went sour.”
“When it all went sour?” Kell managed to keep his tone curious rather than disbelieving.
But Serenity backed away from the bait. “I suppose the two of you haven’t had a chance to catch up yet. Maybe they’ll want to talk to you about their trouble, seeing as you knew each other back then. Did you know their partner?”
Jubilee’s shoulders came up. “Mum, that’s him. He’s Saeldian’s old partner.”
Serenity looked at him again, and the dough landed on the counter with a loud thump. That look made him fight to keep from explaining that he was the injured party, not Saeldian. He tried to hold still while she decided what to do about him. Him!
He didn’t have time to try to talk this entire household out of the mistake they’d made, trusting Saeldian. “It’s a long story, and too complicated to sum up. I think we both hurt each other.”
He used to lie like that all the time, and it never used to make him feel like he’d just swallowed a moldy egg.
“I don’t know exactly what happened. He’s really mad at Saeldian for whatever.”
Kell kept his teeth together. Serenity nudged the dough into a tidy ball, concentrating on making it perfect. “And how does Saeldian feel?”
“Hurt,” Jubilee said. “Spiky. Mean. Angry. Guilty.”
“Poor lamb,” Serenity said with a sigh.
Poor what?
She snapped a stern look back at Kell. “You secured an invitation to this house. My daughter is not a poor judge of people. But I’m watching you, young man.”
Serenity probably wasn’t even ten years older than him, but Kell ducked his head and said, “Yes, Mrs. Righthoof.”
The second loaf landed in the other basket. “That’s done. Do you know how to clean water lily buds? We eat them until we’re too sick to see another, but they’re best this early in the year.”
An escape. “I could use some instruction, Mrs. Righthoof.”
“You’ve nimble fingers. You’ll need them,” Mrs. Righthoof said. “Come along to the pump.”