Chapter 13 #2
The small, underground stone room was cool and pleasant.
It would be a welcome refuge to prepare food here on a hot day, he thought, even with the hanging carcasses and smell of raw, fresh meat.
He soon found what he was looking for. A huge boar carcass hung at the back of the room, skinned and preserved with salt.
It had been brought in by Ashe, who had taken it down in the forest south of the inn.
Ainsworth would still need to do the work of removing the leg and cutting the meat from the bone.
He took a deep breath, then instantly regretted it.
As he felt the wave of nausea subside, he cursed himself.
What would his father think? He grew up by his father’s side, knife in hand, preparing chickens, small game, and other fowl for their meals, either raised or caught by the pair of them.
But after he left his village he had, he reflected, become the kind of person who cared only for the food in front of them and spared little thought to how it got there, deeming the process unworthy of thought and even unpleasant.
As he got to work, the motions of the old slicing rhythm catching up with him, he wondered what Enach would say. Such work is beneath the hands of scholars—something like that. And Ainsworth would have believed him.
Would Ainsworth still believe him when he said things like that?
Difficult job done and sweat beading on his brow despite the cool space, Ainsworth pondered this as he took the meat to the cutting slab and procured a large pot from the overhead storage.
He was doing this as a means to an end, he supposed.
He did not relish it the way he had as a lad, and yet…
there was something satisfying about it.
He respected Alvea and other chefs for their fine spices, their artfully arranged plates, their rich flavors and textures.
But he should have respected the stages beforehand as well.
The butchering, the hunting. The growing, the harvesting.
It all led to the same outcome, so why should only the final result be the thing that gathered the most renown and respect?
He put rikspice, beautifully grown by Spin, into the huge pot now full of diced red meat. He then added wine and placed the lid on. It would marinate for a good while, then he’d cook it at length over a low heat and hopefully earn that coveted smile from Alvea as a result.
But before that, he had one last task to accomplish if he wanted to do a proper job of the meal.
“Are you seriously going out in this weather?” Honey asked half an hour later as Ainsworth stood with his hand on the front door and his hooded cloak pulled tightly against him.
The rain pelted the door and windows, and although the wind had died down from its earlier, violent gusts, it was still very much making itself known.
Ainsworth steeled himself but still could not quite muster the courage to open the door.
“Yes. No. I— Yes! Spin said that spritshrooms grow in clusters in the forest at this time of year. They would go perfectly with what I’m making for dinner tonight.
” The tender, soft ’shrooms would soak up the red-wine sauce and melt deliciously with the meat.
He intended to serve up a dish similar to one Alvea had made a specialty at her tavern.
Surely she must have favored it to feature it on the menu so frequently!
And he hoped his attention to detail, his remembering of such a thing, would work in his favor.
“We have heart of the wood mushrooms, though. Won’t they work?
” Honey asked, leaning against her counter.
So often she stood there, staring out the window, as though waiting for guests to arrive.
Ainsworth had caught her doing it after he had finished in the kitchen: standing with her hands clasped lightly to her chest, tail swaying behind her lightly as she looked toward the mountain, a lost look in her eyes.
The thought of it sent a pang of…something he could not quite name through his chest, and it finally hardened his resolve to do his task.
He had to win the challenge. He had to get Alvea on his side and bring more people to the inn.
If Honey could not go to the world, then he would bring the world to her.
“Those are tougher, and I’d rather have spritshrooms for the meal.” He took a deep breath, then pushed open the door. “All right, I’ll see you when I return—”
“Wait!” Honey cried, grabbing her own cloak from a hook behind the desk. “I’m coming with you.”
He was aghast. “What! No, Honey, you’ll get—”
“Hush!” she said, pressing a finger to his lips. The gesture shocked him into silence, and he feared she would feel the heat from his face. “You are paying for the privilege to stay here, and now you intend to forage us dinner? I can at least help you out.”
“Or you could knock a little off my next bill…” he murmured beneath her hand.
She snatched it back quickly and grinned sheepishly at him. “Right. Well, I was going to ask you about that. You plan to stay longer, then?”
He frowned. “Of course! I’ve suggested all these plans to get you more guests. You don’t think I’d leave in the midst of this, do you?”
“Well, I know how eager you are to get back to your precious Skarrow Library…” she said, staring somewhere beyond him.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said, his heart beating very quickly indeed. “I know you were hoping to get rid of me.”
“Oh, Ashe was perhaps hoping to, yes. But—” She took his hand and pulled him toward the open door. “—I suppose I can tolerate you for a bit longer. Now, let’s get foraging!”
By all accounts, it should have been an unpleasant experience.
The sky, covered in ferocious clouds of deep gray, did its best to squash the daylight.
Searching among the stumps, fallen logs, and thickets was a mushy, soaking-wet, and chilly affair, made all the more difficult by the fact that the steel-colored mushrooms were almost impossible to see.
They should have brought a lantern, or Ainsworth should have tried to muster up a basic lighting spell, but it never crossed their minds as they bounded through the forest and splashed across sodden ground that tried to steal their shoes with every squelch of mud.
Yet when the mud-splattered pair returned a few handfuls of mushrooms later, it was not the thought of his success that made Ainsworth feel triumphant.
No, instead it was the memory of Honey’s eruption of laughter when he had fallen, face-first, into a tremendous puddle, with leaves and forest litter strewn throughout.
A frog had leapt from the disaster to land on his antlers just as Ainsworth shot to his feet.
It clung there for some time, and Honey doubled over in laughter at the sight.
He felt even more triumphant when she burst through the inn door, rain and mud splattering to the ground (much to Ruraidh’s dismay), and beckoned them all to come hear what had befallen them on their stormy adventure.